White Raven earring given out at The Rising event 2018

[Darrcyphfeid]

If you're only doing the content because of the rewards and you don't enjoy the content itself, then I think that's something I'd step back and look at. I wouldn't want to play a game that I didn't have fun playing.

And therein lies the rub, eh? The game doesn't put out a large quantity of any one content type, it puts out tiny amounts of multiple content types. If you don't find enjoyment in raiding, for example, there's a large segment of an even patch that means nothing to you - and what you do get has been downsized in two consecutive expansions. They counter this, somewhat, with the non-Savage mode giving you the story and some gear that isn't dyeable. They leave things in Savage, beyond the BiS gear such as the mounts and dyeable options, to try to incentive more people to still go in.

Think about how many mounts/minions/glamours come from things that don't make a lot of logical sense. Look at how many things in the game don't give rewards whatsoever, and then consider how few people are doing that content. If we want to talk about minorities, there's your most noticeable one: People that do things in this game because they enjoy them, instead of doing them because they have a reward they want. Hell look at how many rewards they've thrown into PvP to try to incentivize people to do that; they even simplified everything and threw in PvE EXP.

My FC is currently farming all of the wolves, because it's fun to clear current content and succeed at it.

Anecdotally, I would question how much of this is having fun clearing and farming content versus how much it is enjoying time with friends. Because I notice you say FC and not that you're joining PUGs, which is something I do as well. For me, while there are a couple of exceptions, I don't find the EX Primals fun once I've cleared them and I know I would have next to no enjoyment dealing with random people while farming on top of that.

Undersized party is great for grabbing a couple friends, some of who invariably get drunk while on healer and "accidentally" kill people in hilarious ways, and just cheesing everything for an hour or two. But that's not really us enjoying the game or the thing we're doing, which for the most part is interchangeable, and does fuel our collective apathy towards bothering with stuff while relevant. Some are better players than others which also detracts/encourages, but it's also things "well we have 99 Tokens now, may as well stop with this one" and "well this is taking ~10 minutes per clear, let's do something else and come back next expansion." That's all I'm saying.

We spent 3h last night on Ifrit without one mount; Susano usually gives his out faster than that.

Hours don't really mean much in this context, to be fair. I get the sentiment that RNG is RNG, but the number of clears is the only worthwhile metric here. If you've got people afking or being slow, or people trying to push him and causing wipes, that skews things.

And if we're taking the "things should never get easier route"

I'm choosing to ignore all of the hyperbole:

1) There's a distinct lack of the "certain" qualifier here. That is, "certain things should [be respected]"
2) There's a stark contrast between becoming easier and what undersized party toggle does.

[Dzian]

If you're only doing the content because of the rewards and you don't enjoy the content itself, then I think that's something I'd step back and look at. I wouldn't want to play a game that I didn't have fun playing.

The rewards are the main reason most people do content even on the lowest levels

if you took tome stones and the daily bonus exp reward away from all the roulettes what would queue times be like for players needing to get a particular content done done..

all you really need do is look at raid queue times before the respective roulettes were added. 24 man queues could literally last all day same with some of the older raids... look at them now though and the queues are generally pretty quick even for people like me being in the uk on a na server queuing at quieter hours.

if rewards didnt matter savage raiding wouldnt even need loot drops because apparantly "people only do it for fun" the rewards are there to entice players in which generally means the rewards are the reason most players do the content.

Edit:
cut the rest the guy above already said it

[Darrcyphfeid]

if you took tome stones and the daily bonus exp reward away from all the roulettes what would queue times be like for players needing to get a particular content done done..

Exactly. This is actually why we have the duty finder/roulette to begin with. While I have not played 1.X - I started just before 2.55 for the sake of full transparency - I've heard that, originally, you had to be at the physical location of the dungeon and LFG/PF to get in. This sentiment was mirrored earlier in the thread with regards to Rivenroad HM as well, with someone chiming in "the hardest thing about Rivenroad HM was getting a party together."

Because people had no incentive, no reward, for doing older dungeons the wait was horrible. And even worse all the way back, and again this is something else I heard from friends more invested than myself, when FATEs provided better EXP than dungeons, but dungeons were what locked the MSQ.

if rewards didnt matter savage raiding wouldnt even need loot drops because apparantly "people only do it for fun" the rewards are there to entice players in which generally means the rewards are the reason most players do the content.

And I believe this is the exact scenario that befell SCoB Savage: Progression in standard SCoB locked you out of Savage and vice versa, because back in those days you didn't have the varying chest amounts and could simply not re-enter floors you had already cleared.

So you either did SCoB Savage for the fun/challenge, or you stuck with SCoB Standard for the gear.

[Tint]

Because people had no incentive, no reward, for doing older dungeons the wait was horrible. And even worse all the way back, and again this is something else I heard from friends more invested than myself, when FATEs provided better EXP than dungeons, but dungeons were what locked the MSQ.

Uh, that's also the reason why WHM gets the unicorn mount at lvl 30. ARR started with only one healer class at lvl 1, SCH started at lvl 30 and was a dps class before. So they had to incentivice people to queue as a healer into the low level dungeons.

[Rogatum]

Leaving the earrings aside or any exclusive reward for that matter at the door. I cannot be the only person that feel it is slightly worrying that SE has to provide incentives via rewards to get people to take part in content. I do not know it just seems that SE has a lack of faith in their content / class design if they need to use carrot on a stick to get players to become engaged. Do not get me wrong rewards are awesome, but I cannot say that I have ever engaged in a content simply for a reward. Probably the only person that feels this way since I guess that is the bases of game design.

[polyphonica]

Leaving the earrings aside or any exclusive reward for that matter at the door. I cannot be the only person that feel it is slightly worrying that SE has to provide incentives via rewards to get people to take part in content. I do not know it just seems that SE has a lack of faith in their content / class design if they need to use carrot on a stick to get players to become engaged. Do not get me wrong rewards are awesome, but I cannot say that I have ever engaged in a content simply for a reward. Probably the only person that feels this way since I guess that is the bases of game design.

I would say, from conversations about a lot of other MMOs these days as well, rewards are now an important incentivizing factor for many players. In fact, if you check social media whenever an FFXIV event is announced, many of the initial comments/complaints revolve around the rewards. This is also why the promotional material feature the rewards prominently. I guess people have been sort of reprogrammed to not just play videogames for the inherent fun, but to chase the carrot. (Perhaps part of this is because the MMO genre in general relies on repetition/grinding as a time sink, so people will do things that become less fun over time as long as there's light at the end of the tunnel.)

[KisaiTenshi]

I guess people have been sort of reprogrammed to not just play videogames for the inherent fun, but to chase the carrot.

Almost. Rather games have been sliding towards casino-slot-machine skinner boxes, and players have been conditioned to do the least amount of work for the greatest reward, even if it means breaking the rules.

[Ruf]

Almost. Rather games have been sliding towards casino-slot-machine skinner boxes, and players have been conditioned to do the least amount of work for the greatest reward, even if it means breaking the rules.

Wooooooowooooow

[Tint]

I would say, from conversations about a lot of other MMOs these days as well, rewards are now an important incentivizing factor for many players.

It already was this way when I startetd playing my first MMO in 2003. You were always grinding towards some goal, or at least you were helping other people towards their goal.

Almost. Rather games have been sliding towards casino-slot-machine skinner boxes, and players have been conditioned to do the least amount of work for the greatest reward, even if it means breaking the rules.

You mean like getting these earrings for doing 3 easy fates instead for beating a super hard bossfight?

[ko_]

It already was this way when I startetd playing my first MMO in 2003. You were always grinding towards some goal, or at least you were helping other people towards their goal.



You mean like getting these earrings for doing 3 easy fates instead for beating a super hard bossfight?

You say that, but I bet there's a large group of people who can't even do THAT. - yes I know you're just being sarcastic to the person you qouted.. but I seen too many people fail things in this game. I bet there's a large group who want the fates nerfed lol.