Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Cakekizyy]

Just a correction here, FFXIV is actually a themepark MMO.
Just because it has non raid activities doesn't mean it's a sandbox, or not a themepark.


A themepark MMO is one that takes you on developer designed experiences, MSQ, raids, etc.

A sandbox MMO, at its core, is a game designed in a way that the devs do not provide game experiences, they just provide tools and systems that allow the players to create the game experiences with their interactions.

Would you consider EQ a sandbox or themepark?

[Tolmos]

Would you consider EQ a sandbox or themepark?

Everquest is THE themepark MMO. It basically defined the entire sub-genre. While there were other online multiplayer games before these two, Everquest (Themepark) and Ultima (Sandbox) are basically the parentage that pretty much every MMO for the next decade followed the footsteps of.

I, personally, was an ultima/sandbox fan. I didn't really start enjoying Themeparks until Vanilla WoW and Final Fantasy XI released.

[Archaell]

Savage is a lot of hard work with low rewards, no wonder people aren't eager to do it.

I would like to see a little social experiment. How much would the raiding population change were all the weekly restrictions removed? Making the savage the only place where you could gear up in the best ilvl for several patches, and allowing players the freedom of movement between the groups.

Right now the amount of raid time we have depends on other 7 people in the static - if someone clears it with a different group the static gets punished and you probably kicked. I don't think this is helping the clear rates and overall appeal of the hard content. There are times when I have nothing better to do, I could be helping people with clears, but nope, the raid day is the next day so you can't touch it today... this is seriously annoying, because it discourages the raiding community to help the newbies.

[Duelle]

I would like to see a little social experiment. How much would the raiding population change were all the weekly restrictions removed? Making the savage the only place where you could gear up in the best ilvl for several patches, and allowing players the freedom of movement between the groups.

I'd suggest the opposite. Create normal modes tuned for 8-man groups and 24-man groups. Even if tuned similarly, a 24-man group has a higher chance of recovery (thus allowing more room for error) and allows for more people in a guild to run content. Back when I raided our 25-man groups always rotated people who weren't cutting edge but could follow directions. It also allowed our guild to befriend other guilds because we sometimes needed extra bodies, and our leaders would sometimes talk to friendlies and ask if anyone hadn't been able to raid that week.

[Reinha]

Savage is a lot of hard work with low rewards, no wonder people aren't eager to do it.

I would like to see a little social experiment. How much would the raiding population change were all the weekly restrictions removed? Making the savage the only place where you could gear up in the best ilvl for several patches, and allowing players the freedom of movement between the groups.

Right now the amount of raid time we have depends on other 7 people in the static - if someone clears it with a different group the static gets punished and you probably kicked. I don't think this is helping the clear rates and overall appeal of the hard content. There are times when I have nothing better to do, I could be helping people with clears, but nope, the raid day is the next day so you can't touch it today... this is seriously annoying, because it discourages the raiding community to help the newbies.

Flexible rewards could help. Flexible group sizes would also help, I believe. I don't think that would be an easy thing to code in this game though. But it's pretty clear to me that when the average player becomes older he/she gets more responsibilities and the raiding having a strict schedule and depending on every team member showing up just doesn't fit the picture. If people were allowed any number between 8 and 16 to participate in the scaling boss fight, teams would not need to have a "bench" and could continue to recruit past 8 raiders to ensure progress even when someone has IRL business. The rewards could scale like they do in WoW; every light party (4 people) ensures a chest and extra people would bring an additive 25% chance to get another chest. An 11 person team would mean two chests and a 75% chance for a 3rd one.

Another issue with a small static group size is that compositions become very strict. You need 2 tanks, 2 healers, 1 support, and other dps for good ST and good AoE. What if your fc is building a static and they already have SCH, AST, BRD, SMN? Good luck joining as anything other than a tank or melee. Some players do not enjoy more than 1 or 2 jobs or roles and this might deter a lot of people from playing with people they are familiar with in game, like their fc. I can only speak for myself but if it comes down to raiding with strangers or not raiding at all, I'll choose the latter every time.

[Brian_]

Normal mode is a massive mistake. Level 5's CEO was right in pointing it out to Yoshida.

First off, it kills off a lot of the hype and anticipation behind the story and big reveals. I can only imagine how anticlimactic it would've been to defeat Nael van Darnus, Louisoix, or Bahamut if all it took was 10 minutes with maybe a single wipe. These enemies are supposed to be a threat to the realm. They should feel more substantial to defeat.

Second, putting the gear, even if it can't be dyed, into normal mode does two things. It takes away unique glamours from raiders that they could show as a badge of honor. And, it's horrible for gear progression. They already have catch-up gear in odd patches. They don't need an additional gear reset on an even patch. As is, unlocking WCoM / downgrading lore / putting Midas Savage into DF in 3.4 will be pointless because you can just get higher ilevel gear from Alex normal. This led to complaints about needing to farm normal for gear needed for Savage progression. In response, SE added crafted DoW/M gear on par or better than normal gear which further invalidated old gear. Before, the gear you had from an older patch mattered. As such, doing that content mattered. Now, after you clear A8S, nothing matters. If early prog is your goal, you're just going to buy a full set of crafted gear and pick up a few pieces of normal gear that might be better. All that gear from Midas Savage? worthless. Weeks and sometimes months of prog for nothing. That's what normal took away from savage.

Next, normal killed the mid-core difficulty. When you can just toss your investment on the story, aesthetics, and fight design into a casual mode, you no longer have to care about keeping your hardest content reasonably accessible. You can make it all about the challenge just like SCoB Savage. If normal didn't exist, they would be forced to tune Savage for a lower bar or risk having their investment of resources wasted when only a tiny portion of their player-base can experience it.

So, when you combine a sharp spike in difficulty with irrelevant rewards (no story, no unique fights, no relevant gear), of course you're going to see a big decline in your raiding population. And, when you kill off a person's desire to do content with a higher skill-cap, you also make it more common and acceptable for people to not care about their skill. When the skill cap of the content you do is Alexander NM and maybe an EX trial, is it surprising that so many people don't know how to play their roles? It should be expected.

But, what's the most damning loss with the decline of raiding is the loss of its social aspect. The friends I made raiding are the people who keep me playing this game. I don't play this game for the effectively nameless DF randoms I met during Alexander NM. I play the game because of the bonds formed during weeks of progression, the moments of laughter and levity amidst the frustration and disappointment, the outburst of triumph after finally overcoming an obstacle, and the calm after the storm when we can bask in our reward together.

[Ceasaria]

First off, it kills off a lot of the hype and anticipation behind the story and big reveals. I can only imagine how anticlimactic it would've been to defeat Nael van Darnus, Louisoix, or Bahamut if all it took was 10 minutes with maybe a single wipe. These enemies are supposed to be a threat to the realm. They should feel more substantial to defeat.

For me, it's really the problem for our trials right now. I beat Thordan and Nidhogg so easily, this is ridiculous.
When I did the extreme version, mostly Thordan Ex, I said myself : "This is the true fight. This is what I should have had the first time I fought Thordan." which get the power of the eye of Nidhogg, and 1000 years of prayers."
I know we're talking about raiding, but trials suffer the same problem : the story for normal mode...
We should have the possibility to select which difficulty mode we want to have for the content we want to do.

[Vantol]

Other people getting something easier doesn't impact you.

Yes, it does. That's the whole point of this and many many other threads. It's the 2nd biggest problem of this game (1st being stats).

[Zojha]

Yes, it does.

Objectively...no it doesn't, unless the thing in question has limited supply and thus, taking something away on one end means it's missing on the other. That's not the case for digital items.

Subjectively...some people consider it sexual oppression when words have a grammatical gender assigned. I suppose yes, it does impact people subjectively.

[Sanghelios]

I agree that the normal difficulty raid we have now actually destroys the atmosphere. Actually i would it do like this:

3.0 Raid A (Savage) i210 dyeable
3.1 Raid A (Normal) i200 non-dyeable
3.2 Raid B (Savage) i240 dyable
3.3 Raid B (Normal) i230 non-dyeable
3.4 Raid C (Savage) i270 dyeable
3.5 Raid C (Normal) i260 non-dyeable

This would be, in my opinion, the optimal way for raiding without major changes. The reason for normal mode was that casuals can enjoy the storyline ect, and following this way, they still can do it, just a bit later and raiders would still have their savage raid without destroying the atmosphere beforehand. Rewards for normal mode would have to be adjusted. I think 10 ilvls lower than the savage counterpart and non-dyeable should be fine since its 3 months later.