Thread: The game is more dead than it was pre-3.1

Originally Posted by zosia

If you just wait long enough, all the carrots in this game are given away for no effort at all. I just did a zeta from anima phase in less than four days.

That's normal for past expansion material in a vertical MMO. Your prize for being on the bleeding edge of content is really just the challenge of it. Where things went pear-shaped here is how fast the ilvl leapt forward and where they put the rewards. Top tier PVE gear should be in your endgame raids. It gives the endgame players something to push for.

The quick clears of past expansion's content though? That's not a bug, it's a feature.

Tomorrow will be the death of thordan, there will be no reason to run it when people can just derp their way to a 210 relic killing caterpillars in the forelands or something.

I remember a very different relic experience than you do. It was a painful grind

Why even bothering putting the ilvl 200 gear in void ark when we have derpadem and weekly twines/coats?

Yeah, that was not a bright move on their part. Here's hoping that won't be repeated.

That's also on top of the fact that not everyone enjoys playing all the classes. I personally only gear up two. My point being that gear proliferation only benefits people who want to play 3+ classes. I was full 208 on both of my jobs before void ark even came out. Outside of vanity, the rewards for doing content in this game suck and if there is anything you truly want, you just have to wait a few months and nab the "reward" with ease.

The alliance raid wasn't meant for people doing the current top tier raid to gear up. It's meant for more casual players to gear up and endgame players to get some filler gear for alts. Other than vanity, you're not the audience for it.

This is why risk vs reward is so important. It keeps you coming back. How special does 210 gear feel when it is so easy to get and will be invalidated so soon? Either casual or raiders, none of this content is compelling or has staying power, especially with this hyper vertical progression. Gear is invalidated even before the next raid tier is released. Why bother sticking around now when you can just come back in 12 months, be ilvl240+ within a week and grind up all the rewards in a fraction of the time it takes now?

I completely agree that they messed up with the ilvl they gave and where they put it.

But hey, this game is being relaunched from 1.0, they will change stuff in the next expansion, this expansion is only six months old, the dev team is small, ps3 limitations, casual vs hardcore rabble, blah blah blah ,[insert what ever excuse you like]... This game is careening down the pipes and anyone trying to defend the current end game at this point is just some white knight with their helm on backwards, because they are having a very hard time seeing the truth, this game is an inch deep and miles wide and nobody seems to like it.

I like parts of it. Nothing white-knighty about it either. They made mistakes, but they are fixable mistakes. Maybe it's burn-out or something else, but 3.1 left me cold as well....actually for me, I think it's disappointment over LoV. That and seeing the law tome gear get eclipsed by the first patches dungeons. Seemed a bit quick to me.

Originally Posted by Teryaani

That's normal for past expansion material in a vertical MMO. Your prize for being on the bleeding edge of content is really just the challenge of it. Where things went pear-shaped here is how fast the ilvl leapt forward and where they put the rewards. Top tier PVE gear should be in your endgame raids. It gives theendgame players something to push for.

Vertical progression concepts don't escape me. I am just tired of posting exhaustive explanations on these forums for the sake of nothing. The vertical progression in this game is absurd. Rewards are invalidated at an absurd pace regardless if you're on the bleeding edge or not.

The quick clears of past expansion's content though? That's not a bug, it's a feature.

What about current expansion content? Did you ever play 2.0 at launch? Stone vigil was more challenging than the end game dungeons and we can still see that same toothless content that has no bite repeating itself in every development choice. There is no "just right" porridge, we only have a smidgen of too hot porridge and an ocean of ice cold porridge as it relates to content difficulty.

I remember a very different relic experience than you do. It was a painful grind

The only painful experience was the atma grind. The rest was only painful if you made it that way for yourself. Most of the "grind" could be done on the back burner of your daily activities.

Yeah, that was not a bright move on their part. Here's hoping that won't be repeated.

It will be, look forward to it.

The alliance raid wasn't meant for people doing the current top tier raid to gear up. It's meant for more casual players to gear up and endgame players to get some filler gear for alts. Other than vanity, you're not the audience for it.

Then why not just put 210 gear in void ark so we can actually have some reason to run it? 210 gear is meaningless and is handed out like gum balls at a candy store, might as well make the gear options attractive to all players.

Originally Posted by zosia

...this game is an inch deep and miles wide and nobody seems to like it.

But then you have:

- people complaining when someone proposes for multiple path/random encounters dungeons because they "don't like it".
- people complaining when someone proposes more challenging single player content because "a MMO needs to be social".
- people complaining about GARUDA NORMAL difficulty. I'm a 'casual scrub', someone that can't even think about touching savage because I don't have skills for it, but c'mon, Garuda NORMAL?
- people complaining about grinding altogether (I wonder if they ever played MMOs)
- people complaining about more focus on crafting gear and making crafting relevant
- people complaining about any time-sinks
- people complaining about MSQ gating (seriously, why are you playing a Final Fantasy?)

I could go on infinitely with this list... You can't make a game deeper with this type of heterogeneous playerbase. At all. Too much interests converging: from long term FF players like me to veteran MMO players that want to be challenged by savage content. It's hard to have a middle ground that can please both sides and the average player.

Originally Posted by Fevelle

But then you have:

- people complaining when someone proposes for multiple path/random encounters dungeons because they "don't like it".- people complaining when someone proposes more challenging single player content because "a MMO needs to be social".
- people complaining about GARUDA NORMAL difficulty. I'm a 'casual scrub', someone that can't even think about touching savage because I don't have skills for it, but c'mon, Garuda NORMAL?
- people complaining about grinding altogether (I wonder if they ever played MMOs)
- people complaining about more focus on crafting gear and making crafting relevant
- people complaining about any time-sinks
- people complaining about MSQ gating (seriously, why are you playing a Final Fantasy?)

I could go on infinitely with this list... You can't make a game deeper with this type of heterogeneous playerbase. At all. Too much interests converging: from long term FF players like me to veteran MMO players that want to be challenged by savage content. It's hard to have a middle ground that can please both sides and the average player.

Wow does it fine and I don't know why SE can't find the same balances wow has. I would love to play wow, but they treat their players like garbage with their cash shop.

SE needs to figure out what wow did in pleasing so many players and try to replicate some of those aspects in this game.

Originally Posted by Teryaani

WoW bleeds players badly in the months that follow the release of new content just like we see here. Also, Draenor wasn't exactly a roaring success for them.

Again, I gloss over a lot for the sake of brevity. Just look at what wow did right in WotLK and MoP, SE needs to do that. Obviously wow has it problems, but one problem wow has addressed very well is keeping multiple types of players satisfied.

Originally Posted by Magis

Edit: You know what? For all the sniffing up his own ass and grindfests Tanaka did, he did one thing right: innovation. All those interesting mechanics both FFXI and FFXIV 1.0 had were under him. A lot of stuff that was attributed to Yoshi in 1.0 were planned things not released yet due to the game being unfinished. Heck, putting in Crystal Tower might have been Tanaka's invention as well... why? HE PRODUCED FINAL FANTASY III. Course that is just my guessing and could be a coincidence.

A friend of mine recently said something to me which I am somewhat believing might be the case. It was a comparison to the coach from The Waterboy, Beaulieu who takes the sole credit from Klein, if you're familiar then the playbook was taken, or handed to Yoshi (Beaulieu) which had a lot of Tanaka's (Klein) future ideas, plans and so on, though this playbook (unlike Kleins) was incomplete and full of holes it had enough to turn it around and the holes were filled in as a team. My friend believed that Tanaka never got to carry out HIS play, and it was taken and handed to another before he could.

While it's not completely likely... I do have some belief in parts of it being the case.

Now the playbook has been done, the coach has to do 100% new plays... and, well, we have HW. I cannot be, and am not, the only person that noticed a drop in quality and direction, originality and output or what have you from ARR to HW.