Is FFXIV viable as an MMORPG without doing end-game & raiding?

[Kosmos992k]

It's a simple question, and I invite you to think about it before answering.


If you were to start now is Final Fantasy 14 viable without even looking at end-game raiding content during it's current patch cycle?

In other words, if you started a new account today and started leveling from 1 on CNJ (for example) if you did not take part in any Savage or EX content from the 3.X patch cycle at all until 4.0 arrives, would FFXIV be a viable game?

The short version of my answer is this; yes, it's very much viable in my opinion. If you start ARR now and take your time playing a broad range of content there are many hundreds of hours of enjoyable play just to complete the MSQ and whatever else you do along the way, without ever touching End-game content.

That leaves me with another question, are you better off marketing the game based on the vast and sprawling world and story, or do you target traditional MMORPG players who want end-game to be good and care less about the rest of the game?

I'll post the TL;DR long version of my answer later.

[Kosmos992k]

If you were to start now is Final Fantasy 14 viable without even looking at end-game raiding content during it's current patch cycle?

In other words, if you started a new account today and started leveling from 1 on CNJ (for example) if you did not take part in any Savage or EX content from the 3.X patch cycle at all until 4.0 arrives, would FFXIV be a viable game?

...and now, the long version of my answer.


If you play through from the very start, there is a lot of MSQ to be run. Assuming you stay clear of story spoilers, you have a long, sprawling path through class and job quests, story quests and trials all the way to the end of the 3.2 story. If this were a traditional Solo RPG, the amount of content we're talking about would be well beyond the scope of a single game.

I'll list it out for the heck of it.

• Main Story Quests
• Level primary class & secondary and main Job to 60
• Level alternate classes and jobs as desired
• Level all crafts to be an omni crafter
• Level Desynthasis skills
• Level gatherers in parallel with your crafters
• Side quests
• Relic quests
• Levequests - daily
• Beast Tribe quests - daily
• GC Supply/Provisioning missions - daily
• GC Levequests - daily
• Hildebrand quests for comic relief
• Moogle Mail quests
• Seasonal events/quests
• Guildhests - Duty Finder, Duty Roulette
• Dungeons - Duty Finder, Duty Roulette
• Trials - Duty Finder, Duty Roulette
• Solo PvP
• Group PvP
• Retainer metagame
• Tripler Triad - Gold Saucer
• Chocobo racing - Gold Saucer
• Lord of Verminion - Gold Saucer
• GATEs - Gold Saucer
• Mini games - Gold Saucer
• Cactopt lotterys - Gold Saucer
• Hunts
• FATE
• Treasure hunts
• Exploratory missions
• Housing
• Training Companion Chocobo
• Gardening
• Casual end-game (Alex Normal, Normal Primal Trials, raids from ARR, EX primals from ARR
• Glamour - the REAL end game.

Assuming you have 2-3 hours a day to play,and can play 5 out of 7 nights a week, you'll have about 750 hours of playing time in the course of a year. If you specifically level only your primary combat job and any related cross classes for skills and ignore all but the MSQ, you will of course easily complete HW, adn be ready for Endgame in a matter of weeks. But that's still weeks of solid gameplay for the cost of the FFXIV ARR&HW bundle.

On the other hand what if you are a player who dips into things here and there, but doesn't just focus like a laser and take the quickest bath from A to B? If you were to try your hand at everything in the above list and found even a third of it interesting enough to do consistently, I can't begin to estimate the number of hours needed to 'complete' the game in that manner. In essense though, it's open ended.

All of this without touching the current end-game in any way at all. If a player found the majority of the game engaging enough to actuall play it all, I don't honestly think that even 2 years of moderate game time would allow players to reach the limits of the game. And I didn't even mention things like the sightseeing log, or Fishing logs.

The original question was id the game viable without touching current end-game. I have to unequivically say yes, yes it is. Very much so.

However, I think the answer also depends very much on your current bias and/or point of view. For example, I don't expect that a current end-game raider will agree that the game is viable without the end-game content because that is what they play. However, it's undeniable that as the game ages, there is an increasingly large spread of players from just starting to end-game. It's like there is a great content divide out there, with players on either side of the divide content to do their thing.

Thinking about that though, how does a game that has been established for 3+ years attarct new subscribers? You see, for me, when I get a new RPG, I am not looking for a quick path to the hardest content, I'm looking for the story, and the journey. So personally, I love the idea of so much to do and explore, and I am sure that there are players that share this point of view out there. But I was thinking about that as well, and realized that many (perhaps most?) people, when they look at an MMORPG are measurng the game by how long it takes them to get to what many players consider the real game - end-game.

In a sense it's like there are two games to play now. There is one FFXIV where you have a narrow band of content available because the game itself is huge, but at any time the amount of true end-game content is relitively small. The other FFXIV is the game where you have a massive list of things to do at your own pace.

What I am not sure about is how you market the same game to people on either side of the content divide. There was talk with HW about allowing players to just jump in at lvl 50. In the end though, we allowed the new jobs to start at 30 and accelerated the leveling speed if you start from scratch. But, as the game grows older more content is added and it becomes deeper and broader in scope. Is it time to start leaning on that vastness in the game? Is that a viable way of selling the game? In contrast, could you sell a game like FFXIV based on end-game?

[DarkDedede]

I'd imagine many will answer your question with a resounding "well duh..."

Indulge me, while I attempt to point out the obvious.

The reason why this game has so much content is because it's three years old. The reason why it's three years old is they obviously have done well enough to keep enough players engaged to earn a sufficient return on their investments. We are all paying a subscription. This game is not a one time purchase. It would be in their best interest to keep enough players engaged to generate enough revenue through subscriptions.

I would speculate that one way they keep enough players engaged is they provide their audience with enough fresh content, that they happen to be interested in, to keep these types of players subscribed. Their customer base is comprised of players with a wide variety of interests, so they provide them with a wide enough variety of content.

End game content is just a fraction of the content they develop, because only a fraction of the customer base is interested in this type of content. For those players that do not have any interest in that type of content, the developers provide them with other types of content, in the hopes it will keep them engaged enough to remain subscribed. They obviously have the resources to develop content for multiple audiences, and they have apparently been successful in doing so, thus far.

They also do a great job keeping us informed as to the different types of people they have employed to keep all this content managed in a cohesive composition. These include: directors, producers, PR, music, gameplay, music, graphics, UI, writers, localization, and so on. This is not their first "rodeo." They obviously employed this wide variety of talents in the hopes of keeping this game alive for as long as they can afford to.

I see no big mystery. They are a business. They charge money to entertain us. We pay them money to keep us entertained. They provide us with new things so we stay entertained. If we stay entertained, we pay them more money. If they make more money, their investors make more money. If their investors make more money, they stay employed. If they stay employed, they can afford to develop more content to keep us entertained.

Thus the cycle continues.

[Jynx]

I could pick apart your list if you really want but the crux of why I would say "No it's no viable as a MMORPG in the long term" is that the majority of your points are single time things.

You only do the main story once ect.

There is very little in the game itself that is going to drive a person who wants to keep playing once they hit their personal end-goals. I have a feeling many people with their Relics finished for example see a dramatic downspike in their in game activity now that they have accomplished their goal, they have nothing else to strive for.

I can expand upon my point further is so desired.

[Mirili]

People don't stick around for the card games and gardening once the quests run out.

[DarkDedede]

People don't stick around for the card games and gardening once the quests run out.

I think that has more to do with there not being enough housing available. People can't garden, even if they wanted to.

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

It's hard to say, MMOs generally live or die based on endgame content. Its a subscription based MMO after all. If the endgame is lacking people are just going to stop playing shortly after hitting level cap. Which is what we have seen a lot of during Heavensward. The Heavensward box cost roughly $40, a year's subscription costs a little over $150. It is in SE's best interest to keep people interested and plugging away at the game even after hitting level cap. Not only for the money but just so the game itself is active, and queue times aren't 1hour+

[EnoraTaqa]

My BF's been playing since beta, and although he's been into coils, out of time he never got past Titan EX (his former gf was lagging too much) and so he never did savage, nor did he intend to. so yeah you can say you don't need the endgame to enjoy it. And no, glamour sucks so it's not the endgame for some. They should allow us to copy paste everything the make, no gender blocks or any blockers.

He's waiting for 4.0 to see if it's gonna be still the same list as you mentionned in your tl;dr.

He'll try new classes hoping to find the right job for him (now he's PLD/DRK/NIN/BRD/SMN/SCH) but if there was a magic user that would give him more oomph than the ice-fire BLM (he was expecting soo much, to be disappointed that it sucks for him, always the same spells)

But yeah, he's still hyped to see what's coming more than doing the usual with his playtime: login, gold saucer, beast tribes, trial roulette.. if hes got more time, leveling and 50 roulette (he wants all of his jobs to be 60)

So yeah he'll be doing the same for 4.0 if lvl 70 is there.

The rest is very bland to be honest.

What worked for 2.0, needs to change in 4.0 cause 3.0 was just a copy mostly, except, we fly..

4.0 we'll swim it seems with that stone, sky and sea dummy thingy.. so yeah.. time will tell.

so I'd say: we checked it, and.. it's stable.. not viable cause the fun is not there.. but hope will stick with us!!!

SE, be warned and read appropriately, and.. adjust yourself if you want to keep this game and not make a fool of yourself like 1.0
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Since I'm new to this game, I'll mention so far for him in here instead:

Main Story Quests (yes we go through it and watch cutscenes, the only thing hooking us to FF so far.. )
Level primary class & secondary and main Job to 60 (he's doing it, the only thing he likes pretty much) (I'm doing the same, healers almost done, Tanks next! )
Level alternate classes and jobs as desired (he's doing it see primary)
Level all crafts to be an omni crafter (hes done it to lvl 50)
Level Desynthasis skills (a bit, not anymore)
Level gatherers in parallel with your crafters (soon for my BF after his battle classes, but he prefer the longer route, gatherers - crafters)
Side quests (we rush through them, to get xp, not reading)
Relic quests (BF did his first, working slowly on 2nd, hes not rushing as it will be adjusted in difficulty anyway for mats and the likes)
Levequests - daily (once per week, BF does 20 of them)
Beast Tribe quests - daily (vanu and gnath only, and its super boring, plus the mounts are sooo ugly I don't show my friend this game lol)
GC Supply/Provisioning missions - daily (BF did)
GC Levequests - daily (nope, he's soo waiting for SE to unlock mercenaries and new ranks! - hyped a lot about it!)
Hildebrand quests for comic relief (BF don't find it funny, still he'll do them cause > fates)
Moogle Mail quests (BF did it)
Seasonal events/quests (BF do them)
Guildhests - Duty Finder, Duty Roulette (I do, my BF doesn't)
Dungeons - Duty Finder, Duty Roulette (if we have time)
Trials - Duty Finder, Duty Roulette (once per day, praying it will be hydra, cape westwind, ifrit to get done with it, boring but gives xp, and.. no one ever commend!! take a sec, come on guys)
Solo PvP (same as group)
Group PvP (did once, queue times too long, and it's chaos so doing roulette to get the marks)
Retainer metagame (? I'll have to check it out)
Tripler Triad - Gold Saucer (tried, not our thing)
Chocobo racing - Gold Saucer (tried, didnt get hooked)
Lord of Verminion - Gold Saucer (hell no)
GATEs - Gold Saucer (nope
Mini games - Gold Saucer (nope)
Cactopt lotterys - Gold Saucer (once per day)
Hunts (hell no!)
FATE (another question please? that's soooo 2014..)
Treasure hunts (so-so)
Exploratory missions (never done, not inclined yet)
Housing (not giving anything much, so once he put stuff, he doesnt do anything with it)
Training Companion Chocobo (his choco's lvl 16, he wants to max it)
Gardening (been there when first started, now it's dead)
Casual end-game (Alex Normal, Normal Primal Trials, raids from ARR, EX primals from ARR (not complete yet, no rush or.. excitement for them)
Glamour - the REAL end game. (see up, not for us ^^)

[Kaurie]

if you started a new account today and started leveling from 1 on CNJ (for example) if you did not take part in any Savage or EX content from the 3.X patch cycle at all until 4.0 arrives, would FFXIV be a viable game?

For me, no. IMO the area where FFXIV excels is it's end-game, and the only reason I play it over other games. If I preferred other content, I would go and play Guild Wars 2 which has better pvp, open world content, non-combat content, gathering, crafting, equipment, traits, glamours, job balance, combat, leveling experience, glamour system, wallet, inventory space, cash shop and so on. However, end-game content is very important to me, and something that Guild Wars 2 severely lacks (that and trinity), and so I quit Guild Wars 2 to come here.

That leaves me with another question, are you better off marketing the game based on the vast and sprawling world and story, or do you target traditional MMORPG players who want end-game to be good and care less about the rest of the game?

I do not find that Square markets FFXIV towards a raiding crowd. Granted, I've never seen an advertisement outside of expansion/patch trailers, which I feel focus more on the main story than anything else.

[Kaiser-Ace]

I don't play for raids and end game now. And I've been here since patch 1.22a back before relaunch. (I started litterally weeks after Yoshida was made the new director) and it's been the world its self I've stayed for.

Most can't do the same, but I'm perfectly capable of doing nothing and still enjoying the world. A lot of times Eorzea feels like a second home.

The content is added excitement, but I spend countless hours stoping by a lake or streem to fish or just taking walks through the areas. (The Dravanian Forelands have a lot of wierd stuff if you take the time to look)

So yea, to me its viable because Raids mean very little to me. If raids and pvp are a you want in a game then it likly is already falling short for you.