[SUGGESTION] Add some end-game content

[Zojha]

I'm assuming by your post that you mean gear = relevance.

I was trying to use your implied definition of relevancy (hence the quotation marks) since, well...to mount/minion collectors, it actually IS still relevant. Hunting hawks go for a bunch! And for quite a long while, it was also relevant for the crafting materials. But that, too, was made obsolete eventually, at least as far as the Anima is concerned.

That said...even if they "did" expand upon Diadem in some way, it would still fall to the wayside whenever the local rewards are either attained or better stuff is out, because that's just how controlling behavior with rewards works. People who are interested in stat progression will need stronger gear to be interested and people interested in glamour will need an appearance option they don't yet have to be interested, with crafting mats being turned into either or. Collectors in turn need either minions or mounts. The lack of new additions in that regard is what turned Diadem "irrelevant" to many.

And thus, PotD will indeed always be "somewhat" relevant, but that's because as long as new characters are made, experience points will be needed and PotD is a massive source of these experience points. And what are experience points? Stat progression, the same thing as item level at the cap, except below the cap i.e. not as "endgame" activity. And because the developers were afraid that alone wouldn't suffice, they put a giant loot pinata on top via hoards. That's what's keeping PotD up and running. And it's already a lot less active than it used to be.

It's pretty hard to make a content "last" when the only reason people run it are rewards. All you can do is to make it increasingly harder to attain the rewards while keeping the rewards relevant to the people's respective goals, i.e. new looks, higher stats a new collection piece etc.

[MomomiMomi]

And thus, PotD will indeed always be "somewhat" relevant, but that's because as long as new characters are made, experience points will be needed and PotD is a massive source of these experience points. And what are experience points? Stat progression, the same thing as item level at the cap, except below the cap i.e. not as "endgame" activity. And because the developers were afraid that alone wouldn't suffice, they put a giant loot pinata on top via hoards. That's what's keeping PotD up and running. And it's already a lot less active than it used to be.

PotD will always be relevant because even if nobody needs anything at all from it, it will always be there to be challenged. It's content for content's sake. It is basically a game within a game. We play games outside of MMO's without thinking about character progression. We can do the same within an MMO as well.

Its always add end-game content, never what you want to see for end game content. Every time SE has tried adding something new, everyone complains its not what they wanted. We want to grind for gear with a low drop rate that gives us horizontal progression - diadem. thats not what we wanted, its too grindy and the gear is too good pr too bad.

Diadem was in no way horizontal progression. It was for a patch the best gear in the game. Then the gear was obsolete the next patch. That's not horizontal. It's the same cycle we've been going through for 3 years.

People really don't need to explain what they want to see when what they want to see is "anything but what we currently have."

[Zojha]

PotD will always be relevant because even if nobody needs anything at all from it, it will always be there to be challenged.

The same technically goes for old raids, no? Going in min iLvL synced for the challenge and all that. Except nobody (hyperbole for: Only a few crazy people) does that. Oh, and you can also name chocobo racing - also a game within a game. Lord of Verminion! You can also mention PvP in that line. Triple Triad! All suuuper popular and relevant. Right?

Yeah no. I totally agree that it works in games that are not MMORPG. A great many things work flawlessly in such games, such as having your save file deleted upon defeating the final boss with the only option being new game, getting the same rewards for something on very easy as on very hard, cheating to your heart's content, undoing your progress after every match, killing vital NPCs and preventing the MSQ from proceeding and a great many more, the list is pretty long and far from everything on it is going to be relevant for this case.

MMORPG work different and while I cannot provide you an exhaustive study on how they work, it's pretty clear that a lot of content that is "there to be challenged" is simply ignored by large masses of the community. And that has something to do with human behaviour.

When people come to play a game, they are seeking enjoyment. That's an ambiguous term, because it includes not just the genuine fun from being engaged by the content, it also includes enjoyment from pretty lights and characters, satisfaction from overcoming their own flaws, satisfaction from becoming more powerful, compensation for their small ego via social acknowledgement, satisfaction of greed and many other things. That's the driver, what makes people do stuff.
And just about every content in this game is going to appeal to one or more of these components, which the player will internally weigh against each other (preferences come into play here) and pick the activity he/she gets the most use out of. All fine and dandy so far.

And this is where the issue comes in: Rewards. Rewards are there to appeal to these components as well and thus, control people's behavior. Even if you would get more genuine enjoyment through engagement out of a certain piece of content, say, Triple Triad, you'll be lured away with appeals to other components of enjoyment somewhere else, like Dun Scaith. And how? By giving Dun Scaith better rewards than Triple Triad, for example by appealing to your enjoyment of stat progression and giving Dun Scaith progression relevant gear but not Triple Triad. And this is something that SE uses a helluva lot.

Lo and behold, content without rewards or where rewards have been attained dies quickly. No surprise there. And the worst of it, in the process, they are killing your original intrinsic motivation to do the content. That's something rewards simply do - interest in the actual activity goes down, replaced by interest in the reward. See also: Why speedrunning is popular, even in PotD.

As such: I'm sorry, but I do disagree PotD will remain relevant "just because". The rewards are all that keep it alive IMO.

[MomomiMomi]

When people come to play a game, they are seeking enjoyment. That's an ambiguous term

I'm going to stop you right there. This is the core of what I'm saying. They are only providing one form of enjoyment. What about the rest of the people who are looking for something else?

inb4 "play a different game". That's probably what's going to happen. It's what I'm already doing.

EDIT: posting limit

"one form of enjoyment"

Lets ignore 24mans, primals, anima quests, dungeons, hunts, PvP etc because it inconvenient to your argument? Fair enough if you choose not to participate in raids but there are other things to do. Asing for fresh content when people get bored after a couple of weeks is something alot of naysayers bring upon themselves imo.

"Something else" is far to vauge when you are being provided with things to do... Hell even crafter/gatherer mains are provided for in this game...

Endgame. We're talking about endgame. Primals, raids, and 24-raids are all essentially the same type of content.

Primals: Boss.
Raids: Corridor, boss.
24-man: Corridor, boss, corridor, boss, repeat.

Yes, one type of enjoyment in endgame. Even dungeons are the same, but I'd be hard pressed to fit them into endgame.

[Underdog2204]

I'm going to stop you right there. This is the core of what I'm saying. They are only providing one form of enjoyment. What about the rest of the people who are looking for something else?

inb4 "play a different game". That's probably what's going to happen. It's what I'm already doing.

"one form of enjoyment"

Lets ignore 24mans, primals, anima quests, dungeons, hunts, PvP etc because it inconvenient to your argument? Fair enough if you choose not to participate in raids but there are other things to do. Asing for fresh content when people get bored after a couple of weeks is something alot of naysayers bring upon themselves imo.

"Something else" is far to vauge when you are being provided with things to do... Hell even crafter/gatherer mains are provided for in this game...

[Underdog2204]

Endgame. We're talking about endgame. Primals, raids, and 24-raids are all essentially the same type of content.

Primals: Boss.
Raids: Corridor, boss.
24-man: Corridor, boss, corridor, boss, repeat.

Yes, one type of enjoyment in endgame. Even dungeons are the same, but I'd be hard pressed to fit them into endgame.

Ohh one type of content sure if you disregard the most defining factor between them... Their difficulty and rewards.

So what kind of endgame would you like then? You can't cop out and say you don't have to specify what you want because yes you do, nothing seems to please. If you want a city building simulator you actually do need to play a different game... You are in the totally wrong genre.