PAX EAST: I was the person that asked the "Challenging content" question at the end.

[RoninDarkchild]

A few things..

I've been a hardcore gamer (and comic reader) all my life. Yet never had i ever attended any kind of game con, or any such event. (Though I always wanted to go to E3 because that seems to be where the good stuff happens) I LIVE in Boston, and literally not far from the convention center where PAX is held. I always wanted to go, but never paid attention to the dates, and by the time I would find out about it, it was always sold out. I never made much effort to find the after market tickets, and just said to myself, I'll get to it one day.

For some reason I always remember PAX being here during warm weather. And did not even think it would be in winter. 1 1/2 weeks before PAX a facebook friend announced he was selling some tickets. I told him I would buy a Sat pass. I really wanted to attend the SE FFXIV panel, especially because of the Expansion coming out. I've played this game since 1.0, and have never gotten to meet or see the team in person. Always via streaming. Anyways, I still did not pay attention to the date of PAX, thinking, it must be this spring, and made not rush to meet up with my Facebook friend to get the ticket. Then he sends me a message Sat Morning "I'll meet you outside with the pass". Me: "OMG, that's TODAY!!???" Rush to get the pass. Line up. My buddy who does not play FFXIV but loves PAX comes to the panel with me. As he is interested in the game.

Now... I will say... I hate, Hate, HATE public speaking. I'm terrified of it! I listened to the questions being asked hoping someone would ask the question i wanted to hear. But no one did. I was a bit frustrated, because while people are free to ask whatever it is they want, I felt a live Q&A could have used a bit more juicy questions. But hey.... everyone has different interests. My good buddy, kept telling me to raise my hand. I kept refusing. He then starts telling me... well, you know what? You cannot complain if you're not willing to stand up and ask the question you want to hear.

I practice in my head over and over what I will say, how I will say it, and how to keep it short but convey all I wanted. I knew there was a translator, and I know sometimes they paraphrase long questions. I don't remember if I was the final question, or if I was the 2nd to final. But I braved up, and raised my hand. My buddy began frantically waving his arms trying to get the guy with the mics attention and pointing at me. The guy walks by me, thinks for a second, and turns and hands me the mic. All that mental prep work went out the window, and I was SO nervous. My voice cracked the second I spoke, and I stuttered. I tried to ask the question the way I practiced as best could, yet it still all went out the window. I was scared, nervous, hand shaking. I HATE talking in front of a crowd. Even giving class presentations in college.

Anyways, I'm writing this post because there seemed to be confusion over what I was actually asking. I never thought "I" would attend a game con, let alone get to ask Yoshi P a direct question on my very FIRST time attending. Unfortunately from the answer it sounded like he answered something I was not asking. Maybe I stumbled too much in asking. Maybe I did not make it clear enough. Maybe the translator did not understand me well, and translated it differently than I intended.
____________________________________________________

[RoninDarkchild]

When I asked about "More challenging content" I was NOT speaking of "difficulty". Meaning I was not asking for something "more challenging" than the hardest raid in the game. I personally was 100% fine with the difficulty of The Coils of Bahamut!!. I was not among the group of players that were asking for something more challenging than that.

My biggest gripe (as well as most raiders that I knew) was that there was only "1" endgame level raid event at any given time. High lvl endgame in a MMO should be more than just ONE thing. It is bound to get boring if that is the case.

My FC is called RAGE and we are on Excalibur. Back before heavensward our FC was large. And we had 7 different Raid groups clearing Coil. We also had many many casual players in our FC too. And even would help more casual players set up their own raid groups to help them along if they were interested. (ie: asign 8 compatible casual members into a static and try to guide them from the outside) By the time the 3 Coil came around, many members had begun expressing how the game had become stale. Most were on a day one clear of all turns. So after you went in, spent a few hours doing all 4 turns, you were done for the week. And anyone in the groups that wanted "more" content that was JUST as fun and challenging had nothing to do!!!! Slowly over time, one by one would quit the game, and go play a new MMO. Till eventually our 7 raid groups became 4, then 2, then 1, and then when Heavenwards came out, it was pretty much the same thing, and then our Raid groups completely stopped as many were just gone.

Each time SE added a new event, I would have hopes that there would be a mode in it that produced challenge and fun. Not face roll easy things you can do with no effort. They always add this new fun content for casual but the raiders are kinda left wanting.

I know Yoshi expressed that they would need to DOUBLE the staff to get more raid content out. But I'm not sure that is necessary. Content already exists, where a simple tweak would make it challenging to raiders.

_____________ suggestions on improvements using EXISTING content ____________

1) I think one of FFXIV's greatest problems is that sometimes the devs underestimate the players. For example Pre heavenswards the open world had NO danger what so ever. Yoshi said himself they felt comfortable trying to make Heavensward more openly dangerous. That danger did not last long. As we become overgeared the world has no more danger. So one of the biggest problem is that the Ilvl for content is too often set so low. That when content comes out, so many are already over geared for it. Everything doesn't need extremely low Ilvl. Can't "some" areas in the game have more dangerous enemy in it? Maybe there could be some high end quests that require you to go to this area? Where it's safer to go with a small party?

2) Even Expert Dungeons. All new dungeons don't have half the difficulty Amdapor Keep had when we first gained access to it. I don't think this is due to mob placement, or mechanics, I think it's due to gear. When ARR first came out, things were challenging and fun. We were not over geared and things like Odin, Chimera, Hydra, and even Demon wall were challenging and fun. Mostly due to gear. Most of us simply did not have the gear to faceroll the content. Can't "some" content that is not the top tier raid, be like that again?

3) Hunts - When Hunts were announced I was so excited. I had memories of FFXII and taking on some fun hunts that ranged from easy to very difficult. Between:

Rank 1
Rank 2
Rank B
Rank A
Rank S

I had envisioned something for EVERYONE here. Casual, Mid tier, and Hard tier content for all. But then Hunt came out and it was just a mindless Zerg fest. Even the hardest Monsters did not live long, you didn't have to do menchanics for most of them, and you just all jump on a hate generating job, and go to down, as it's HP melts in seconds.
This did not improve even when Heavensward came out and second set of Hunts were added.

Hunts would have been more enjoyable imo if there was also a tier of them that was simply single party only. Similar to Leve quests. You have a weekly allowance, that, just like Leve, you go get the Hunt request from a NPC. And up to 8 players can go hunt it down. Maybe examine a location while in possession of the quest and the hunt pops. And just like in a Leve, outside people cannot assist you. This could be content that is easily for EVERYONE no matter their style of play.

Casuals - Rank 1, Rank 2, Rank B
Midcore- Rank B, Rank A
Hardcore - Rank A Rank S

There are some really awesome Hunt mob models, and you don't get to ENJOY them. I guess you could go back to irrelevant content "now" that rarely anyone does now, but that was not my point. With a system like the tweak i suggested, it could stay relevant content forever. Just keep the loot pool relevant. Maybe more rare drops come form the higher tier difficulty.

4) Palace of the Dead- Deep Dungeon - I think this was a good start. Floor 1-100 casual friendly. Floors 100-200 Mid tier friendly. But You can still add maybe a "hard" mode. You have content here, that seemingly all you have to do is turn on a mode that had high lvl monsters. (Just require jobs roles for solo que.) This could be more endgame content. Even if everything was identical and only the monsters were set to have higher lvl, more def, more attack. The content is there. Just change some options require a higher i lvl to win, increase the ilvl of the rewards, and bam, hardcore content. Once again, everyone is happy.

5) Treasure Maps - Again.... there could be "some" map tiers that have extremely hard monsters. There are so many map tiers 1-8. Why can't there be content here for casual, midcore, and hardcore? Again, all you have to do is have a higher tier map that has a higher leveled monsters that require higher Ilvl to take on. Drops can be rare mats, or appropriate Ilvl gear.

6) Aquapolis - Again (you see the pattern here), The highest tier most difficult treasure map could open the path to "Aquapolis Extreme". Literally nothing in the mobs here has to change. You don't have to redesign the level layout. You don't have to spend a lot of time on extra development here. Release the same as normal Aquapolis, but set the monsters to be stronger. You don't have to tweak their attack patterns or moves. Same exact monster that is lvl 55 could be lvl 65 or 70 in Extreme mode. Needs 8 party members to take on. Whatever additions you add to regular Aquapolis would carry over to Extreme Aquapolis. Just harder enemies.

7)Extreme Dungeons - I know you spend a lot of time taking a normal dungeon, and changing the graphics, the layout, the monsters and such when you create the Hard mode. But you could ad an Extreme mode at the same time, and change "nothing" but the strength of the monsters and the DPS checks. Same layout, same graphics, same enemies, same patterns Just maybe increase the amount of Tomes you get. Hardcore players could cap their tomes a bit faster in the week. While getting a fun challenge. People could aim for this mode if they want to farm a relic faster or something. You could add rare mats to the chests for crafting endgame gear. So many possibilities. And once again, you have catered to more people at once.

8) Diadem Extreme - In the original Diadem. You had Normal mode, and Hard mode. Literally nothing was different between the two except the enemies were set to a higher rank in Hard mode. Same map. Same monsters. Just different rank. And hard mode has an increased drop rate for higher tier chest for the higher Ilvl gear. You could do the same exact thing again. Make Extreme mode "single party" battles. (Except for the Emergency mission where you team up)

Diadem Fury Normal
Diadem Fury Hard
Diadem Fury Extreme

The biggest difference being the Rank of the monsters within.

Casual players still get to have fun. Casual players still get a shot at the highest possible i lvl items at a lower drop rate. At the top at Extreme, you could have a much higher chance of getting the more powerful high Ilvl gear with the best stats. Make Emergency Missions pop more often.

Look at the new Diadem. You have 2 different modes available you. Fury and Matron. Everything in the both modes is the same!!! Surely this difference did not require you to double the staff? Fury is simply set to clear fates to increase progress. Matron is gather items to increase progress. So here you have the same content used for different things. Normal, Hard and Extreme could be the same.

I had a recent fun experience in Diadem Fury. We were the only party who cleared the zone, 3 members left after we were done. And the rest of us tried taking on the boss fate with the giant Mastodon with the AoE paralyze, and extreme knock back. It was a FUN fight. And was challenging for a lower man group who were unprepared for the monster. I thought to myself, WHAT IF, there was an extreme mode, and the objectives popped Boss monsters that were tough like that Matsadon we tried to low man? What if in this mode you could not have outside assistance for the battles? Another objective popped 3 Westeryly Sanwe on us. Who all 3 spammed a hard hitting AoE and then hit each party member with an individual water ball. That was a tough fun fight. More of that please.

9) All the Extreme mode I mentioned do not have to be more difficulty to End game raid. They could all be similar in difficulty. This would keep raiders busy for the week if they wanted. Take the extreme versions out of Duty Finder if you have to. Put them in Raid Finder.

10) All endgame gear doesn't have to come from a single content. You currently have:

All Weapons
All Equipment
All Accessories
All Tome Gear Upgrade items

all coming from the SAME content. It doesn't have to be this way! Equipment could come from one content like Omega. Weapons could come from something like Aquapolis Extreme. Accessories could come from Palace of the Dead Extreme. Time gear upgrades could come from Extreme Dungeon currency or something. I don't know... just throwing ideas out there. Endgame should not be a single event.

But my suggestion takes nothing away from casuals, nothing away from midcores, and adds to hardcore. And I currently don't see a logical objections to using existing content and adding Hard and extreme modes TO that same content that way All players are catered to.

[ananda]

_____________ suggestions on improvements using EXISTING content ____________
snip

Regarding treasure maps, aquapolis, and diadem, I disagree that creating a more difficult version is a good idea or that it will have no impact on the people who don't want to play it. At least for me, these are casual content that I do with fc mates and friends, just for fun. Splitting the difficulty would also split the player base, making it more difficult to get everyone to happily pick one difficulty. Some would want to do the higher difficulty, others would only do the easy one. In a very large fc or if all your friends are at the same level as you, this would not be such a problem, but in a small fc consisting of both casual and hardcore players, this would be. So, I believe for such casual content, it should not be touched.

For the open world, I don't know how they could have made it stay relevant for long, given the fast pace of gear progression. Even if the enemy is hard at launch, will it still be hard in 3 months, after getting fully geared from raid? Or do you make the area essentially invincible at first, and you can only get in there once you have geared up? What about the next raid tier? Do you want the enemy to scale automatically or something, because they can't remake the area every patch to keep up. And what exactly do you do there? Quests that you only do once? In any case, I doubt this will occupy anyone for long, I don't know anyone who simply enjoy fighting trash mobs. I would enjoy exploring such a dangerous area, but only exactly once, so it wouldn't be a long term content.

For extreme dungeons, the downside is again split player base. I would not want this before cross world df, because this would just kill dps queue even more. But now, I think the game can handle 2 different modes of the same dungeon. I do think it is boring if they just have the same layout and mechanics, just more damage, but I don't really mind them. However, if the only intent is for the challenge, you can already do these dungeons with minimum ilvl option ticked, so in that sense this is already in game (you do less damage and have less hp is equivalent to enemy having more hp and doing more damage).

I really hate hunts, and I any change that means it is not a zerg rush anymore is a good change. Don't really care if it involves challenge or not.

Now, in my opinion your point about expert dungeon is the crux of the issue. Firstly gear. Take the lastest expert roulette dungeons, they need i230 gears minimum, while most active players would have 260 if not 270 by that point. So of course it is going to feel easy for those players. But they cannot just tune it to a higher ilvl, because they also need to cater to, for example, returning players. They really would only have easy access to i230/i235 gears, and so would start their scripture farming at that ilvl.

Secondly, and I think more importantly, is the current wide gap in player skill. Good player can do double the dps of mediocre player, while the top can do 50% more than the good and the bad half again of the mediocre. There is just no way to design a content that would hit the sweet spot of any large portion of the player base with such a wide disparity. Splitting the content into multiple levels of difficulty is just a stop gap measure. I think if SE managed to achieve their goal of closing this gap with the 4.0 changes they have promised, it would be a much better way to address the overall issue. They won't have to make faceroll contents anymore to cater to the vast majority, and so even the casual contents could be made moderately challenging and sufficiently fun.

[RoninDarkchild]

Quick disclaimer. I was hardcore in ARR. I did coil, yet I did and enjoyed casual content too. In Heavenward I took a huge step back from hardcore, and became more casual. After all my friends quit the game from boredom, i just kinda dialed it back, took it easy and enjoyed the game, and waited to see what SE would do to breath new life in it. I even took a break from the game all together. I never did build a Alexander static. So I did not do much of that content at all. I came back recently to prepare my account for the expansion. Take care of loose ends, and things I put off. I'm hoping things change up for StormBlood. I hope it's not just more of the EXACT same. There is so much potential here.

I see one repeated argument. "The playerbase is mostly casual, only 4% beat Alex Savage (or whatever number they just throw out). Why should they be catered to?"
"Go do xyz if you want something to do"

A) A heck of a lot more people cleared coil. Ever think less people cleared Alex now, because lots of raiders have quit the game??? We used to have SEVEN raid statics, literally everyone is gone except 2 of us.

B) They pay a sub just like anyone else. Why "shouldn't" they get content too? I highly doubt 98% of the player base is doing ALL casual content to the max anyway. But the content still exists.

C) The rebuttal for someone who wants more of something is NOT to demand they go do something completely UNRELATED!!!!
- If a group of players want PVP expansion, and say it needs more content. The reply to them is not "Go level your Chocobo". What does that have to do with PVP?
- If someone wants SE to expand the housing for more decorating fun, the reply to them is not "Go make more relic weapons"
- If groups of players want more endgame content, the reply to them is not to demand they "go do content that is nowhere near the lvl of play of the current content they are doing" ie: "You have nothing to do after clearing 4 turns on Tues? Now go farm Aquapolis or go make a relic weapon". That's irrelevant to what they are asking for.

How can you expect more Raiders to exist if the Raid content in the game is only 1 thing and unchanging after 4 years? How does additional Raid content take away from Casual players? When a casual player asks for Swimming logs, I don't poo poo on their parade and act like they have no right to ask for that. Endgame raid doesn't "have" to be exclusive content like the original Coil was. I LIKE that there is a Normal mode for the raid, so casuals can experience the story, and fun of that content and get the same gear model but with lower stats. I'm fine with that. The game should HAVE different tiers in difficulty to the same content. And each tier doesn't always need to be completely reworked and overhauled. Just change stats and settings. I don't care that only like 12% cleared endgame or whatever. Those 12% pay a sub and support the game just like everyone else.

I'm casual AND Hardcore. And in StormBlood I hope to be more hardcore again. And I hope my friends will come back to the game (some are planning on giving it a try again, but won't stick around if it's the same thing once again). I like BOTH kinds of content.

I decorate the hell out of my personal house.
I spent a crap load of time in the Gold Saucer.
I have a Fenrir mount
I'm working on the Chair mount.
I'm working on a Rank 9 Chocobo racer with max stats.
I Craft
I Gather
I still farm red and blue scripts
I do the Zoe log
I do the expert delivery
All my battle jobs are 60 except WHM and SCH (And no... "go level those" is not an acceptable answer to "can we have more raid content, there is nothing for raiders to do after tues")
I'm highest rank in GC
I have max level Squadron
I'm 1 challenge log away from a lvl 20 Chocobo
I run dungeons
I do Roulette's
Do Aquapolis
Do lots of Diadem
Working on PoTD (though the hard part if ending up in a party that HAS a healer and tank..........)
Primals.
collect mounts
collect minions

Hope to go back and do Alex for fun, some missing gear, and the mounts.

But my voice is just as important as anyone else. Which is why I was a bit annoyed seeing charges of "elitism" in response to my question. Wanting challenging and rewarding content is not elitism. I am not bent out of shape because a 280 ilvl weapon exists in Diadem. i do not care that when it's close to the new raid being dropped, the old gear is made easier to get so the gap in gear between casual and raiders remains small. I don't care that people want more content that I'm not that interested in. I'm not a huge PVP player, but who am I to stand in the way of people who want more PVP options?

Having more raid options does NOT force casual players to do things they do not want to do.

In closing. I was WELL aware that Yoshi said they wanted to to add content that unlocks after players clear the hardest content. So those that want more challenge can have it, but not to come crying if it's too hard. I was aware of this before I even went to Pax. That was not the question I was or wanted to ask. I wanted more raid content that coexists beside the main raid.

And even though I dialed raiding back for Heavenward, this does not change what I was talking about or asking for. I wanted to ask about something that was about MORE than just me!

I wanted to find Yoshi on the floor around the SE booth, so I could elaborate on what I meant. Because there was obvious miscommunication. But i never saw him. And I was at Pax for just that one day. I didn't even get to try for the T shirt. The line was 3-4 hours long. And I didn't want to spend my entire time in that line for my first event.

I know this post is long as hell. But based on comments I saw about my question It just seemed obvious I did not make my question clear enough. I really hope this clarification makes it to Yoshi's ears. I was really grateful I got to ask the lead man, of my favorite MMO a direct question for the first time.

Take care everyone.

[Laerad3993]

So you want WoW basically? That's what it sounds like to me.

More power to you in your pursuits for a more diverse end game( I honestly liked the token/multi raid system with a conplete gear set coming from 4-5 raids) but don't they have a small team developing content for this game?

I mean unless they get/got more people, I feel they'd have to make cuts to other things in game, and I'd rather things be left as is if that's the case.

Though I then worry that I would burn out like I did in WoW and just look for a different game(like how I came here).

[RoninDarkchild]

So you want WoW basically? That's what it sounds like to me.

No not at all. Because WOW is not the only mmo or online rpg with multiple tiers of the same exact content, so people of various skill levels get enjoyment out of it.
SE's problem is that they often want to "change" the other tier to make it more different than the lower tier. That's what they did with Hard dungeons. Before we had them, they said it was easy to make a hard mode, but that the the idea sounded boring to them. That they would rather spend the time and resources changing everything about the dungeon to make it feel like a new experience.My suggestion was that, if they do not have the manpower to built new content from the ground up, use existing content. I see no reason why a small team That is capable of creating content, then using the same exact content and just changing the settings (ie: instead of a Rank II monster it will be a Rank V) and small parameters. Does such a change need a new dev team to create? Or a much larger team? Why would it? The content is already built. How many people would it take raise the monster levels on something that already exists? It's a serious question btw. The only reason Hard Dungeons take so long to make is because they change SO much in them. They already said it would have been easy to just make the same dungeon with hard mode, but that they "wanted" to do more. If they don't have the manpower I'm sure many would be "fine" with Hard and Extreme being nearly identical except for stat tweaks on the monsters, and higher tomes or whatever.

There should be challenging content for high-end raiders but they cannot forget about the people who don't want to do that.

I want to stress, nowhere did I suggest they forget about casuals. I like Casual content. I don't want FFXI part 2. I don't want the game to feel like a "Job". Extreme tiers of existing content would just be an option for the raiders, where else they have none. It would still not be a majority of the game. Right now it feels like it's 98% casual, and 2% Raider. That slant is too much. No wonder the raiders do not stay. Even if the game was 80% Casual, and 20% Raider Casual would still not be forgotten. Nor should they be. My suggestion is use existing content to please raiders.

If they created Diadem Normal and Diadem Hard mode previously, having a Diadem Extreme mode would take nothing away from anyone. Hell enable the options, tweak it later when you have the time for all I care. lol

[Pintsized]

So you want WoW basically? That's what it sounds like to me.

XIV NEEDS something like WOW's tiered content if it's to survive, right now it's either hard-core-mode or the high-road and many are taking the latter.

[bounddreamer]

Yeah, sounds like they misunderstood the question. Probably could have honed it more specifically, too. What I remember hearing was "more challenging content" and Yoshida definitely took it to mean "make the content you are putting out, more difficult."

Making it more difficult led to Gordias which killed Heavensward raiding.

Might have been better to ask "can we get additional, varying levels of difficulty to all of the content?"

But people have already asked for a third level, like Savage Extreme, and I believe dev team has already said no, it will remain normal and savage.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Yeah, sounds like they misunderstood the question. Probably could have honed it more specifically, too. What I remember hearing was "more challenging content" and Yoshida definitely took it to mean "make the content you are putting out, more difficult."

Making it more difficult led to Gordias which killed Heavensward raiding.

Might have been better to ask "can we get additional, varying levels of difficulty to all of the content?"

But people have already asked for a third level, like Savage Extreme, and I believe dev team has already said no, it will remain normal and savage.

Actually, I think it's more they took it as an extreme. Asking for more challenging content doesn't mean Gordias and it's absurd DPS checks. You could take dungeons and scale them up slightly so we aren't widely over geared. As for a third difficulty, they said the opposite and have specifically mentioned looking at developing an Extreme Savage. That being said, they stressed it wouldn't be for anything except a title and maybe a mount. No gear as it's meant to be a challenge.

[Duelle]

@OP: So what you're asking for is a greater amount of endgame content during the week.

Personally, this could be solved with bigger raids. Compare your 4 corridors leading to a boss that we have here to something like a big raid instance with 13 bosses. Chances are you'd be busy all week and set aside several raid nights to clear the content. Loot tables could be varied, with the highest ilevel stuff coming from the last 4 or 5 bosses in the instance, but designed so that you need to gear yourself up via the earlier bosses to even make it that far.

Back when I raided, we used to set 2 or 3 raid nights per week, not counting time to get mats for flasks/potions and such. On top of running daily heroics and doing daily quests. I never saw this whole "we're done raiding for the week on maintenance day" thing until this game launched.

-----------------------

I sort of agree that the approach they've taken to hard mode dungeons is convoluted. Instead of increasing HP and damage dealt by mobs (the way WoW does heroics), SE got it into their heads that every hard mode needs to be completely different from the normal mode, which does indeed require development time. I'll admit, even I expected ARR's expert roulette to be Heroic Sastasha, Heroic Totorak, Heroic Brayflox's Longstop, and so on. At this point, I think we've been spoiled, and if SE were to take this approach they'd likely be accused of being cheap or something.