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

[LaylaTsarra]

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

No you don't need to be a raider (Coil or Alex Savage) to play this game. It's not a litmus test for whether or not the game is fun for those who elect not to do so.

[RiceisNice]

As a modern-day MMO, I would not say it's viable to not have some sort of end/post end game content, or raids that encourage party play. A big aspect of an mmo is being able to interact with other players in an online setting, and having an active, live end game is a big part of that. It's also into the line of keeping some sort of content available for a wide range of players (those who are interested in end game, and those otherwise). For specifically FFXIV, I definitely would not say so, but the reason why is not solely exclusive to the raid/endgame itself.

Myself, I personally couldn't care less to level up my last 3 jobs to 60 because I've already burnt out the leveling content (which has remained largely unchanged since the 2.0 days, aside from the obligatory change in area). My means of leveling was through the vanu beast tribes and nothing else. Although this is diving into the quality/type of content we have (you could list all the "non-raid" content that OP has, but you honestly can't say they're all "fun" content to yourself, or some of them even being considered a "success" even in the eyes of the developers) and obviously what I'm saying won't be applicable to all circumstances in regards to the topic discussion at hand.

Being at only one expansion and having a lineiar story progression (as well as the countless sales), the game is attracting more new players, though the numbers are debatable (is it causing a stable number or an increase?), but retention becomes another thing when you start looking at the player interests and what's actually available.

[Voltron_HD]

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.

I agree 100% with this

[Callback]

I'm going to say no. If you want to play an MMO purely for the main story and some sidequests, pick up The Secret World.

That's one I can ONLY recommend for the story (endgame dungeons and PvP are pretty dull), but it's a must-play for its story and quest design. It's the only MMO (to my knowledge) that has Google built into the game so you can research actual real-world history to find the solutions to puzzles.

[DBthaONE]

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?

Absolutely. There are plenty of players who play without even attempting any of the end-game raids.

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?

Would I? Maybe... I enjoy raiding, it's not my end goal, but I do enjoy it. Would I be fine without it? I've went a fair amount of time NOT raiding while continuing to play the game.

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?

They're better off marketing to both.

[Derio]

Absolutely. I have not done AS at all. Yet I have done the extreme primals though. But even without those the game is pure fun. There are several other aspects of the game outside of end game raids.

To me endgame raids are just added fluff to an already great game.

I know several players who enjoy the game and have not stepped a foot in any of the coils or AS or extreme primals.

[SpookyGhost]

The biggest problem with end game is that if you're mainly interested in the battle part of the game, then you have 2 options:

1. Grind a bunch for no real reason or
2. Raid

If you can't do the latter for various reasons then there's really no reason to play the game as someone who isn't interested in the other aspects it offers.

You also have to consider what else is available to do with your time and decide whether this is worth it or not. There are other games out there, other MMOs even, so it really comes down to whether or not you find XIV fun enough to spend X hours of the day on it, and feel that you're still getting your money worth.

Personally, I'm not... entirely happy with XIV. The development team is small, so I don't necessarily blame them - they're clearly afforded very little and that makes it difficult to maintain subs. They make a lot of poor decisions and I personally feel like Tanaka at least had a better vision for the game than Yoshi-P does, but really it all comes down to how little of my sub money is being put back into the game. I'd love an actual, fun, exciting, adventure of an FF MMO to pay for every month and feel like I'm actually getting out what I put into it. Hopefully whenever they do an FF MMO again they'll invest a bit more into it's upkeep and not just ride on the coat tails of it having Final Fantasy in the title.

[Taika]

For me personally, no. Learning and clearing (or trying) the current hardest content is my main reason to play this game in the first place, and if I didn't have a nice group of people to do that with, I wouldn't play.

[Sensual]

I'd definitely say yes, very enjoyable game. I see the end-game raiding and what not as a juicy bonus to it.
Even if you have a job, not that much time to play and so on, you can get far and enjoy the game a lot.
I have amassed over 2k hours on this game and not until 2 weeks ago i had ever done raids, savage being the first.
But it all comes down to your personal objectives, as with any game.

[Kosmos992k]

Thanks for the discussion, I see some replies are also talking about how to retain players, where the original post was talking about whether the game is viable as is without end game, and whether you can successfully market on the vastness and depth of the game, rather than end-game.

I agree with you that keeping players happy, player retention are important issues, and are as important as adding new subscribers.

What can be done to retain players? The common answer seems to be more content, which results in an every higher mountain to climb and effectively locks new players out of the latest content, unless they are provided with shortcuts. Those shortcuts make much of the older content essentially irrelevant, which I think would be a crying shame. In fact I don't want to see short cuts to jump start people at level 50 or 60. What I think might work would be making certain MSQ quests 'key' quests, and allow players to skip the MSQ quests in between and play out the early parts of the MSQ by only running the 'key' quests.. All the fetch, runaround and chat to this person quests could be made optional for players in order to speed up progression for new players, without sacrificing the original content to the gods of progression and speed.

With regards to retention of players. I don't think that the only mechanism to retain players is new content. Part of the problem I have with this is that as you add more and more at the top of a pile, eventually the thing becomes top heavy, unstable and falls. So I think there also needs to be a widening of the base of the pile of content to prevent that. Anyone who's played and replayed typical JRPGs or western RPGs, knows that part of the replayability of those games is the 'newgame+' kind of replay; where you replay the main scenario using the gear you already obtained. To some extent they have already started to do this, running the early dungeons unsync'd with an undersized party is fun, running them with a group of friends wearing no armor should be fun as well. Just opening up that out armor.

But, what about an opportunity to literally reset the MSQ and start it in a city of your choice, but with your gear and levels intact. A feature that I found ion another game that was great for replayability was character rebirthing. Essentially you could reset your character back to level 1, but by re-leveling all the way to the level cap, the level cap extended by 5 levels and you gained extra attribute/skill points. You could boost your characters power by rebirthing multiple times. Something analogous to that would be helpful because it gives a form of progression and is therefore something to aim for.

Something else that I think would help in terms of retaining players is the ability to take one or more retainers with you in a party, including into Dungeons. It might require a bit more AI programming so retainers are not completely brain dead in battle, but it would allow you to develop your retainer interactively. I know they've talked about a party of GC members, and that would be a nice addition too.

Oh, and I'm absolutely not saying that end-game doesn't matter, it very clearly does matter to a lot of players. But if we are being fair and honest, there are an awful lot of players for whom end-game and raiding is irrelevant. Since FFXIV is a vertical progression game, there is a risk of alienating the players who are not as interested in end-game and raiding because as more content is added driving progression forwards, there is an increasing amount of content that they see as being less relevant to them, and perhaps (depending on their level) unreachable. I think that it's better to add content at multiple levels in the game to ensure that everyone at whatever stage they are at has something to do, or something that is within reach of their current status in the game.

Going back to my original post, As I said there, I think the game is very viable without even touching end-game content in the current patch cycle. The question about marketing, I think you could market the game on the basis of the vastness and so forth. But I agree with those who said you can't/should not cut off the end-game. It should be the cherry on the cake.

Do you think it's important for SE to openly recognize that the game's population has stratified broadly into people who's primary focus is in end-game & raiding, and people for whom end-game & raiding is of a much lower priority? I think it's important for SE to handle the end-game & raiding community with care, but to avoid making decisions about the game based on that one group's opinion that negatively affects non-raiders. The reverse is true also. Can they tailor content to each part of the community without hurting the other?