Forcing NA Duty Finder to be better, we need a grading system.

[Brian_]

The design of the content goes in hand with the system (or lack of). If the content allows below-minimal play to be passable, it falls onto the system and community to address it.

No, it doesn't. What you look for in content is something that looks nice, plays well, and is polished.

Just look at any RTS game. The content is the actual RTS aspect of it. If you just released a game like SC2 with nothing more than the basic game-modes, it'd be a fine game. It's a pretty game, the combat system functions well (aside from complaints stemming from complicated issues like MBS, unit collision and pathing, etc.), and it's pretty bug free. But, it's systems like ladder that utilize the content and changes our approach to it. Suddenly, because winning or losing has a real impact on our ranking, some people will start to care a lot more.

FFXIV's content is fine. It's a sufficient sand-box. We're just not given much of a directive. Take the DF system for example. 90 minutes to clear some crappy dungeon for some loot and monetary rewards (gil, tomestones). That system is incredibly bland when it could be so much more. You say the content is hand-holding and allows for bad play. No, the content doesn't do that. Take that same content, and change the DF system to only give you 10 minutes to complete Sohr Khai. The content didn't change. But, using the system, you've changed our experience with said content completely.

You could easily put in more dungeon objectives. And, best of all, you can release more of them over time to keep people interested in old content. Of course, the content itself needs to leave room for those objectives but like I said earlier, the content is generally a sufficient sand-box. You can have basic objectives like "clear with no deaths," "clear in under 15-minutes," "kill all enemies." Then you could have content specific objectives like "defeat Moglin without allowing any moogles to be revived," "defeat the horse boss with all borders broken," "defeat Hraesvelgr with 7 platforms remaining." The system can easily dictate how we interact with the content.

But, as with what you constantly do, this is getting caught up in the unimportant. The important thing is actually making people care about and want those objectives to begin with. You could lock the rare minion drop, the TT card drop, and the orchestrion roll behind the completion of a certain number of objectives. You could give scaling monetary rewards based on objective completion (more objectives more gil and tomestones). You could give achievements and titles. But, I think there will still be people who just don't care.

[RiceisNice]

No, it doesn't. What you look for in content is something that looks nice, plays well, and is polished.

Now I feel like we're playing a game of semantics so let me clarify; when I say content, I mean anything the game that the player is given and it's functionality and interaction, and the system being something that supplements the content. Even taking your example (where you go to the extreme of lowering it to 10 minutes to significantly change it, again this is something I need to keep pointing out because it really doesn't help bridge anything and just create more rift). The time limit I see it is associated with the dungeon (the content). It's not specific to the dungeon, unless you want to do something like a time attack(which is the aforementioned content under a different mechanic). Or introduce a harder difficulty to dungeons with higher tuned bosses and mechanics(which would then be content utilizing the same system of getting from point A to point B and eliminating bosses).

I'd consider something like dungeon objectives to be the content thats associated with the dungeon, and the functionality of it in general a system. If you can understand that's how I see it, then it's both the system and content that needs addressing, which is what I'm trying to say; We have the system of objectives (even randomized if diadem is anything to look at), but it's incredibly underutilized into a form of content (what kind of objectives do we have, or if we have objectives at all)

You could give scaling monetary rewards based on objective completion (more objectives more gil and tomestones). You could give achievements and titles. But, I think there will still be people who just don't care.

There's the thing; if people don't care for things like achievements, glamour then they should not be placing themselves in that content, espesically if said content is party-play. However despite being a sandbox-design, the gme is still fairly lineiar to how you get to that point in the first place, all of which still requires some form of party play and interaction (which honestly is a given in any mmo). If you wanted to make some sort of progression toward anything (whether it be glamour a clear), you have to be able to make that approach to it, even for something like glamour or minion drops in regards to a dungeon.

[Brian_]

There's the thing; if people don't care for things like achievements, glamour then they should not be placing themselves in that content, espesically if said content is party-play. However despite being a sandbox-design, the gme is still fairly lineiar to how you get to that point in the first place, all of which still requires some form of party play and interaction (which honestly is a given in any mmo). If you wanted to make some sort of progression toward anything (whether it be glamour a clear), you have to be able to make that approach to it, even for something like glamour or minion drops in regards to a dungeon.

So what? We just kick out all the people who are just there to experience the dungeon or progress their MSQ? Sohr Khai is part of the MSQ. A person could easily be doing it and not really be that interested in the glamour or the orchestrion roll.

What I've said time and time again is that people will have their different motivations. The real problem is not the variance in player skill within the content, it's that the system puts people with different motivations into the same content. That's where this conflict comes from. That's why we have this proposal to separate players into tiers.

Someone else said in response to my business analogy that at the end of the day, you can get them on the same page by paying them but this game has no such universally relevant currency. It has nothing that everyone will care about and aim for regardless of if they're a casual or hard-core player. Some players just don't care about gil, tomestones, gear, etc.

So, look at the JP servers. They actually do have that universally relevant "currency." For them, it's the aspect of community that serves as the universal motivator. Nobody wants to be a burden on their group. Everyone wants to do their part. People have pride and a mutual respect. That's enough to push them to research the content, their job and perform at a decent standard.

[Tolmos]

So what? We just kick out all the people who are just there to experience the dungeon or progress their MSQ? Sohr Khai is part of the MSQ. A person could easily be doing it and not really be that interested in the glamour or the orchestrion roll.

I'm not sure what it's like now, but during most of 2.0 I had always wished that MSQ players who were doing the dungeons the first time were always grouped together without anyone else in the dungeon. It used to be TERRIBLE back then for those poor players, with people in the groups being absolute POSs about cutscenes. "Watch them in your inn room later!". Their entitlement was astounding. It got to the point that if a group had a new player, votes to kick would start happening and the poor person running it for the first time would get the boot.