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

One thing I don't like about 3.X is the equipment design is going downhill big time. Alex gears are ugly. Void Ark gears are ugly. Some of the new Anima weapons are ugly.

I have almost zero passion to do these raids. Compared to the Coil and CT/ST/WoD gears, these raid gears look so terrible.

Things are not going to dramatically change since they have all this content lined up and planned up to 4.0. Some aspects can change, but expect them to do things like dumb down 3.2's Savage mode for midcore players and keep easy mode for people who like not putting effort.

A couple things would put them on the right track but unrealistic because it is SE and they do not know how to balance content:

-3.2 raids should be Normal(Final Coil difficulty) and Savage. Make Savage extremely hard to beat and only the best of the best can endure. Cut out easy mode if your budget/team only allows for two difficulties. Put echo buff/make mechanics easier on Normal mode on next vertical patch to catch up more casual players. Don't ever dumb down Savage mode and if anything, place a strict ilvl lock on it so the challenge remains the same even in later patches. This caters to both midcore and hardcore players and eventually giving casuals access to it. Make gear in Savage about 5-10 ilvl higher than the armor in Normal and dyable. Also add achievements in for people who have the fight on farm mode. Unique ways to beat a boss and earn a title/achievement/mount/minion. Example: Beat Rafflesia with 5+ stacks on him. It adds more to the fights you have already beaten and stuff to show off that you have done it. WoW does it and they make groups with specific intent to get the achievements.

-Diadem should of -never- given the highest ilvl gear. At best it should of been ilvl200 and been content to catch up other job's ilvl's. Not be able to give BiS to your main. Since 3.2 is giving materia slots to raid gear, it should be the ideal place to spirit bind and get materia without paying. SE should of come up with better ways to influence us to go in here besides dangling BiS gear at us. It was a cheap strategy because they could not figure out how to make people do something that is not fun after doing it 1-2 times.

-Anima quest line is cheap, lazy, and took way too much time to release. There is nothing special about it. It is recycled content (even ARR content) to the worst degree and brings nothing interesting to the table and this quest is way late to the game. They couldn't of at least added in a fight like Chimera and Hydra, or at least make you fight some primals in between the grind for a breather. Heaven forbid you can actually attempt to make it somewhat remotely fun. No, it is basically slam your head on your keyboard till you receive relic.


Whenever SE brings in new content, there are always more problems than things to have fun with out the door. End game wise, the only well built content has been AS1/2 and Thordan EX. AS3/4, all they are is just stacking mechanics on top of mechanics. That doesn't make things more fun and challenging, just more frustrating and it made a lot of people quit. The difficulty level is fine, but they are just poorly built fights. I still need to see the rest of AS4 to get a clear judgement on that, but so far it seems to suffer from things that showed itself in AS3.

There is no doubt this game is not in a good place right now and the team really needs to do a restructure on whatever content they can. The end game scene is just dying out more whenever I log on every day.

Most of the new content are recycled content. It's the same things with different names/appearances.

and when we get something new, it's a useless mini-game like Lord of Verminion. They should've put that much effort on the main content.

Originally Posted by Yukiko

but not in making content grind artificial longer!

Who said anything about making something longer? She said people would grind everything as fast as possible and then leave. RNG is a way to prevent that. Even though I personally don't think anyone would grind anything out in a few days and then leave. Look at people complaining about the new relic grind.

Originally Posted by Evangela

Most of the new content are recycled content. It's the same things with different names/appearances.

and when we get something new, it's a useless mini-game like Lord of Verminion. They should've put that much effort on the main content.

Except that this MMORPG is like a smorgasbord of content. A smorgasbord isn't a great option if you only eat Steak and potatoes because you're only partaking in a small slice of what is available. The same is true in this game. There is so much to do, and a wide variety in the type, style and difficulty of the content. But, for people who think that MMORPGs are about end-game raiding, the game appears to lack content.

If you join the game now, there is a near literal mountain of content to climb, from that perspective there is absolutely no lack of content. But from the point of view of those at the top of that mountain, there is no where to go because you're at the peak. Do you know what mountaineers do once they've climbed the mountain? They try a different route, or they help others up the mountain, or they head back to the hotel, relax with a drink and tell all the wannabe climbers the stories of the peaks that they have visited. What they don't do is sit atop the peak and look down at the new resort that was just built halfway up the mountain and complain that the in-door rock climbing experience is a pointless distraction from actually climbing the mountain.

I dare say some of those expert mountaineers reach the top, and then head back down to the resort, then play on the rock climbing experience for fun while they plan the next assent to the peak, or perhaps even an alternate climb on another mountain. Either way, they don't sit around in the bar complaining that what was spent on the resort should have been used to build a better base camp on the next mountain.

Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

snip

The "why not level everything to 60" excuse...

To your smorgasbord example: It's like all the sandwiches are boring bologna sandwiches, with a few chicken or steak ones here and there. You ate the good stuff, and all that is left is bologna. Sure there are many different types of bologna sandwiches but they are all bland and boring.

What do "new players" have in terms of content? The main dungeons they do once or twice to get to 60 and the MSQ. All of which are either one-offs, or have no reason to go back to again. Then they are back to where everyone else is. SE should stop trying to cater to "new" players, and work on keeping their current players in. That was the supposed point of Heavensward but it seems it isn't the case. Sooner or later, new players become old.

Originally Posted by Magis

The "why not level everything to 60" excuse...

No, not at all.

Yes, you could level other classes, play an Alt or whatever you want to define "level everything at 60". Or, you could run the side quests, see the sights, craft, gather, fish, fly, work on your glamours, work on your house, help your Free Company, talk to your friends, make new friends, help newbies, etc...

With this quote;

What do "new players" have in terms of content? The main dungeons they do once or twice to get to 60 and the MSQ.

You are effectively defining the game content as MSQ plus dungeons and raids. What about all the other things that you can do in the game? I mean, I'm sorry if you're bored, but just because you don't want to do anything else in the game it doesn't make the game bad or light on content, it simply means you've run out of things that interest you.

If the answer for you is not to broaden your interests in the game, then as in any game where there is a finite amount of content (*every* game), once you have done what interests you, you will gradually become bored.