FFXIV is reliable and consistent

[Lium]

Great article over on Massively today about how FFXIV is one of the few MMOs currently on the market that is totally predictable with each new update. And that's a GREAT thing.

From the article:

"Some of this, I think, is just a matter of perspective. A lot of the time, this comes from people who are playing FFXIV and nothing else and don’t realize that five years of content on a clockwork schedule is actually really spectacular."

As an American, I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to have an MMO that is on a reliable schedule of routine and consistency. So many games in the West feel the need to reinvent themselves all the time for fear of becoming stagnant and losing players. But FFXIV does not. What you see is what you get.

I know this type of predictability has its detractors, but I for one absolutely LOVE it, and I hope it never changes.

Super frustrating having to relearn my class and my rotations in other games, or have the lore retconned because of the new flavor of the month content or whatever. The way SE does it, while not perfect is, as the article states, pretty damn spectacular.

Just look at how unpredictable the market is today. Some of you who have never played other MMOs truly do not how good you have it here.

[SenorPatty]

Why can't I have clockwork scheduled patches AND different, engaging fun content once in a while?


I guess that's the privilege you can afford to have when you win by default /shrug

[Vespar]

I love that we get periodic predictable content patches. My gripe however isnt with the predictability. It's with the "gates" on that content.
I want to PLAY the game, not be restricted because I PLAYED the game.

If someone has the time and energy to play, they should be able to play without being gated at 450 tomes/week, or 1 item per week in raids, weekly crafting turn in caps, etc.
They shouldnt be restricted because someone ELSE doesnt necessarily have a similar amount of time to play.

This actually has driven me from the game a lot. With the exception of Eureka for the moment, I rarely play unless its Tuesday and caps are reset. Don't get me wrong I WANT TO PLAY, but I am forced not to because not all content is relevant to me and/or Im capped on the content I do find appealing...
I'd love to gear up and play MORE jobs than the 3 I do, but honestly keeping those 3 geared with the caps in place is hard enough. (again Eureka being general exception to the rule for the moment...) Can I have more Eureka-like content where progression is uncapped??

[Bourne_Endeavor]

If someone has the time and energy to play, they should be able to play without being gated at 450 tomes/week, or 1 item per week in raids, weekly crafting turn in caps, etc.
They shouldnt be restricted because someone ELSE doesnt necessarily have a similar amount of time to play.

They do this out of necessity. Remove these restrictions and players will have full i390 within a week. Some will have i400. At which point, what purpose does normal mode, crafted, Primals and the 24 serve? All that gear is rendered 100% DoA since you can simply spam dungeons or Eureka and buy better gear.

As for the topic in question. I feel FFXIV has already stagnated to an extent. While I can appreciate some predictability, I shouldn't be able to predict an entire expansion's worth of content with 90% reliability. Stormblood is literally Heavensward with a red coat of paint. If Shadowbringers simply dips its brush into the purple can, it'll have an uphill battle keeping me engaged. Granted, I wouldn't mind the repetition so much if I had stuff to do. In many ways, Stormblood has boiled down to either raid, do Eureka or play a different game after a month or so. At least this is a common criticism I see—one I cannot fault people for. It didn't help content was spread out far too thin. Look at 4.3. There was nothing to do outside Namazu, Tsukiyomi and Ridorona once you finished the story... for six weeks. Unless, of course, you jumped into Ultimate.

[Vespar]

They do this out of necessity. Remove these restrictions and players will have full i390 within a week. Some will have i400. At which point, what purpose does normal mode, crafted, Primals and the 24 serve? All that gear is rendered 100% DoA since you can simply spam dungeons or Eureka and buy better gear.

It's not a necessity though... It is only this way because they MADE it that way. Removing restrictions sees people ACTUALLY PLAYING the game...look at Eureka, the instance is pretty much full every time I go in there and folks keep coming back for more to gear out multiple jobs and not just 1 or 2. This doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.
If they removed restrictions on everything, they can still keep crafting relevant by making it so that gear is on par with raided gear or you need items from the raid content (or other types of content) to make said gear. There are myriad ways around this issue... Crafting doesnt have to suffer just because there arent locks on content. The new Farming thing in 5.X for DOL/DOH could easily be a method for getting high end materials that produce materials for gear on par with raid gear...

[Bourne_Endeavor]

It's not a necessity though... It is only this way because they MADE it that way. Removing restrictions sees people ACTUALLY PLAYING the game...look at Eureka, the instance is pretty much full every time I go in there and folks keep coming back for more to gear out multiple jobs and not just 1 or 2. This doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.
If they removed restrictions on everything, they can still keep crafting relevant by making it so that gear is on par with raided gear or you need items from the raid content (or other types of content) to make said gear. There are myriad ways around this issue... Crafting doesnt have to suffer just because there arent locks on content. The new Farming thing in 5.X for DOL/DOH could easily be a method for getting high end materials that produce materials for gear on par with raid gear...

What's the point of i400 crafted gear if I need to raid to obtain materials to make it yet the raids themselves also drop i400 gear? How about normal mode, EX Primals or 24 mans? Are they all going to drop i400 gear too? Congratulations. Now raid gear as a whole is meaningless since everything drops the same ilvl. You have made it so I have less reason to keep playing. After all, why bother running half the content when I'll have full BiS in less than a month? Come January, I would have precisely zero reason to even log in. All my jobs will have been fully geared from farming Savage months ago. The whole purpose behind restrictions to assure people won't get everything quickly, thus they have to maintain a monthly sub.

People are playing Eureka because gear is made irrelevant and RNG forces them to continuously grind. Take out the RNG aspects and people would have bailed on Eureka ages ago since there wouldn't be a reason to farm.

[Vespar]

RNG is only on the weapon, not the armor. Heck I'd play Eureka more if I could RNG my stats on the gear too! That would keep me playing!
That right there could be a way to keep things fresh while not maintaining a gate.
I'd say more but my 9mo old is having a fit so it will have to wait.

[Izanagi_Fiaresu]

They do this out of necessity. Remove these restrictions and players will have full i390 within a week. Some will have i400. At which point, what purpose does normal mode, crafted, Primals and the 24 serve? All that gear is rendered 100% DoA since you can simply spam dungeons or Eureka and buy better gear.

As for the topic in question. I feel FFXIV has already stagnated to an extent. While I can appreciate some predictability, I shouldn't be able to predict an entire expansion's worth of content with 90% reliability. Stormblood is literally Heavensward with a red coat of paint. If Shadowbringers simply dips its brush into the purple can, it'll have an uphill battle keeping me engaged. Granted, I wouldn't mind the repetition so much if I had stuff to do. In many ways, Stormblood has boiled down to either raid, do Eureka or play a different game after a month or so. At least this is a common criticism I see—one I cannot fault people for. It didn't help content was spread out far too thin. Look at 4.3. There was nothing to do outside Namazu, Tsukiyomi and Ridorona once you finished the story... for six weeks. Unless, of course, you jumped into Ultimate.

Have you leveled all the jobs? Done all of Hildebrand? Done your hunts. Raised your chocobos? FFXIV has a lot of content, in fact it can be too over whelming with content. It might not be content you wanna do, but its there.

[Ilan]

Have you leveled all the jobs? Done all of Hildebrand? Done your hunts. Raised your chocobos? FFXIV has a lot of content, in fact it can be too over whelming with content. It might not be content you wanna do, but its there.

You forget one thing: Not everyone is interested in all of this.

[Izanagi_Fiaresu]

You forget one thing: Not everyone is interested in all of this.

100% Right, but to say there isn't content to do in stormblood or FFXIV outside of dungeons and raiding is false. It just isn't content they wanna do.