Lack of End Game Content

[AuraAstra]

As someone who plays both FFXIV and WoW, I don't find that there is any less "endgame" content in XIV than in WoW. If anything, I would say that once reaching the "endgame", FFXIV's systems actually make for a more flexible "endgame" experience.

In WoW, on a single character at max level I am restricted to farming the same content (M+ dungeons, ONE raid with anywhere from 7-14 bosses depending on the tier, daily world quests, island expeditions) daily or weekly depending on lockouts for around 7-8 months. With no new content added until the next major content patch and raid tier. I can farm mounts/pets/achievements from old content raids... once per week if I am so inclined. Other than that, though? There's not actually that much to do. I could go back and clear low level quests that I missed when I was low level, I suppose but what would be the point? There's no intrinsic benefit to doing so.

In FFXIV once I reach the end of the story and max level I can subsequently go back and level every other job in the game on the same character, or turn to crafting and gathering. I can farm mounts/minions/orchestrion rolls from any content I choose, for as many or as few hours as I choose without being locked out of the relevant instance for a whole week after a single run. I can do FATEs or run Trust dungeons or roulette instances. I can expect new content in the form of new story, new dungeons, new single boss raids or new alliance raids about every 2-3 months (or less). Frequently enough to ensure that I don't feel bored or conversely feel like I *have* to log in and farm specific max-level content every day in order to be able to keep up with the content being released.

I don't buy the argument that "only max-level content counts as endgame". Endgame is "what a player does when they reach the end of the game". In FFXIV, that leaves a huge array of endgame content for players to dig into.

[Aldora]

We all know that Yoshida wanted to make an MMO which was accessible for everyone. From Hardcore Raiders to casual players who can only play every once and a while. The game was to be story driven, with a rich story and job system that would give that Final Fantasy feel to it. This resulted in the Themepark MMO we have right now.

Sure, the game is far from perfect, with it's quirks and "system limitations", but also players who want more casual, midcore and hardcore content (aside from more glamour options, minions, mounts, collaborations, races, jobs, etc, etc). There's nothing wrong with players wanting more content, tailored to their taste. Personally, the more content to play, the better.

However, there are limits to what a company can produce for their product while retaining the highest quality possible. But, we cannot say where these limits lie and if they can be "easily solved" by simply adding more developers to their staff. That is something the team itself and the upper management has to decide. You can't always slap more developers on the case in order to make something bigger and better at the same time.

Yoshida gave a good explanation on it during the interview with MizzTeq:

Q: Are there thoughts of ever creating ever-increasing difficulty mode for those past dungeons, similar to Mythic+ System in World of Warcraft?
A: It's something that could possibly be considered but that means it would take away efforts on creating new content. Or the patch cycles may get delayed. It's actually been brought up a few times with regards to WoW and end content like that, and if we were allowed to take as much time as WoW does, we might be able to accomplish something very similar but we would like to keep our major patch update schedule as we currently have it. It would be difficult to juggle both keeping that consistent schedule and also including more difficult content. But, we are definitely impressed by the system that WoW does employ in their dungeons where they are ever-increasing levels and the systems that they have for the gear sets and what not. it's really well-made. Maybe if we had double the number of people in the battle system team, the battle content team, our QA team, oh and, one more Yoshida...

Source: Question Six (MizzTeq NA Media Tour Interview)

It doesn't mean that they won't increase their team over time. It just not like they can open a can of developers and tada! New challenging raid content! \(^_^ )/

Not all content is for everyone and we should respect their opinions on it, because that's how they see it.

I've been here since the Alpha version of 1.0 and I love to see people enjoy playing the (current) game as much as i do. If you feel like the game could use more content, just let them know through the forums. It might inspire them to create just that or maybe something similiar (which would match their vision of the game).

I would only ask not to berate others from making these types of suggestions (calling them elitst, toxic, trolls or tell them to find another game), but also refrain from berating the developers if something doesn't turn out the way you want to (calling the game "crap" because it "only has x bosses"). At the end of the day, we are all just people who want to enjoy ourselves and invest time into something love to do. This applies to everyone, even the developers who are working hours on end to make stuff which we can as players can enjoy.

There's still more content to come. For everyone. I for one am dying to get my hands on Eden Savage and the Yohra Raid (which will be introduced in 5.1).

[Deusteele]

So many arguments taken verbatim from WoW.

Hardcore Tryhard players trying to hold developers hostage with their subscriptions. We can see how that worked out in WoW. Going back and hind-sighting the change from Challenge Modes only being for transmog gear(MoP)-Challenge dungeons dropping a raid gear coffer(WoD)-Mythic Modes dropping better gear and an heirloom piece(WoD)-Mythic+ becoming part of the gearing cycle(Legion/BFA). Thunderforged becoming Warforged becoming Titanforged all for the illusion of a never ending BiS chase.

And all that for a small section of the playerbase that ended up leaving anyway. All the changes made that trickled down into the rest of game. All so that a smaller selection of classes could see the "new" style of endgame. All for a gameplay mode that encourages "GOGOGO" and cheese strategies. All for a section of gamers that never were going to stay. There is not, never was, and never will be a viable design strategy that is worth catering to Hardcore Tryhards. All Blizzard did was show the casual playerbase that they were willing to throw then under a bus, and then the casuals left as well.

We know the taste of what you want, and its taste is shite. So, no, don't try to turn our game into your shite-filled tail chase.

[Zabuza]

We know the taste of what you want, and its taste is shite. So, no, don't try to turn our game into your shite-filled tail chase.

Meanwhile you invaded and destroyed the entire genre we used to love, but that's fine, right? My FFXI was ruined thanks to the casual conversion. You invaded it and now want us to have nothing.

[Saidosha]

Meanwhile you invaded and destroyed the entire genre we used to love, but that's fine, right? My FFXI was ruined thanks to the casual conversion. You invaded it and now want us to have nothing.

Yeeeeeeah, I'm gonna have to cut you off there.

Casuals did not ruin FFXI. Abyssea or the level cap increases didn't "ruin" FFXI, either, despite the frequent claim of such.

It was evident near the tail end of ToAU that something was up in content development. Things were getting rushed or scrapped entirely. Eventually we learned that SE was making XIV as yet another MMO, helmed by the same guy who lead XI, the questionably infamous Hiromichi Tanaka. This presented a quite evident drain on FFXI resources, and the attention the game needed to continue to properly flourish in its own ways. Instead, when we finally learned about WotG, it stretched on and on and on and on to the point it took years for them to actually finish the main story content with it. 1.0 here also bombs pretty hard despite no shortage of beta feedback, which sends SE into panic mode because now they pretty much have to remake a game, and not just an RPG, but MMORPG. FFXI further suffers content release drought because all hands on deck are primarily trying to salvage XIV. Abyssea runs its plotted course, but there's still no real future in sight. Voidwatch tries to be that sort of old school HNM with a pop system style, but feels horribly received between the proc system, lights, and utterly craptastic reward scheme. Such also began the creep of the mandatory RME, particularly for melee jobs, which very much screamed anti-casual gating by people who favored short-term success over longer-term community health.

I'm sure this assertion may sound strange, but people do like having things to do. For players like myself who pretty much exhausted the entirety of the endgame content they cared for, camping Fafhogg yet again was not something we looked forward to, yet another night of Dynamis was just hours of blah, I had no reason to run Nyzul, Salvage, or whatever else because I had all the gear I wanted, and in some cases, wound up with just because no one else wanted it. Sandworm and Ixion, as they came with WotG, weren't really anymore engaging despite the obvious "counterbot" logic of their spawning mechanics that people just got around with POS hacking anyway. And in some cases people would deliberately spook the latter so another shell couldn't claim. They tried some niche things like Wanted NMs or the earlier and very poorly received etched gear NMs, but there was still ultimately a point where they could no longer really fit sidegrades into the equation. Further so with how restrictive XI's inventory system was, and to some degree, still is. Imagine getting an Adaman Hauberk in 2005 and it still being BiS in 2009. Sure, you get your mileage out of it for the jobs that could equip it, but that also said there were literally 4 years of play where there was no improvement for the slot for its purpose. It didn't matter, however, if SE released a statistical equivalent of an Adaberk+2 or went the route they did with the cap increase, though. People were going to complain because their Adaberks were no longer BiS or just try to skip it entirely for the new version. Just as people complained about RMEs being briefly antiquated earlier in Adoulin due to absent ilvl upgrades. For whatever nonsensical reason, in games that literally thrive on the concept of continuously evolving with new content, some people think that when they're "done" that that should be it an anything that threatens that sentiment is bad.

No, what "ruined" FFXI for some was that they could no longer rest on their laurels. Content was no longer so stringently bottlenecked to timed spawns, insane gil costs, or in the case of Abyssea, not needing 6+ people, many of which you may not have liked but still had to tolerate. The way people leveled up changed, regardless of how some may have felt about key leeches, by effectively tripling EXP party sizes and minimizing the competitive aspect that far too often made things like Mamools or Colibri camps a chore. You didn't need a BRD. You didn't a RDM. Heck, you didn't even really need a tank. People were simply free to actually play their jobs, and with certain atma combinations, in quirky ways the rest of the game would dare not allow. And sure, some mobs were optimal sources of certain things, but there were also alternatives. Were Brews silly? Sure. Needed? Nope. Regardless of how this shook up how people played, there was still the inevitable lack of new content once people leveled all they wanted to, merited them out, +2'd their Empyrean sets, and picked up other odds and ends. At least until Adoulin, and even then some would call that spotty with a not-very-intuitive weakness system or the balance that went into the final tier Delve NMs.

Nonetheless, there were still all the reasons why FFXI never went on to "beat" WoW and wound up more the niche MMO. It was pretty much all but impossible to converse with SE until the OF, certainly to mixed success. Tanaka had his vision, with balance the memed scapegoat for some weird decisions over time. We had bonehead mobs like AV and PW. A lot of people hated paying to play a game they couldn't actually play because solo self-sufficiency was a highly limited thing (BSTs, SMNs, BLMs, and other things that waxed and waned over time). Some people being adamant XI didn't "count" as a FF game because it was online and locked behind the sub. People got chased out by CoP thanks to all the level caps and zero incentive for strangers to backtrack for help. And on and on and on. While it's super easy to just scoff a retort of some equivalent "It's just not their game, then!" line, I'd be more apt to assert that FFXI would be in an even worse state than it is now if they stayed the 75 cap course, never implemented Trusts, removed things like the CoP caps, and basically realized that maybe players being able to do all these things that exist without being shackled to an endgame shell might not be the end of the world. Pine about the good ol' days some other vets might, but the conditions that went behind that era no longer exist. XI found out what it's like to have more than just WoW to compete against. People learned things could be different, better, and to be blunt, accommodating. Lessons learned for 2.0 here, even if painful.

[Xatsh]

Yeeeeeeah, I'm gonna have to cut you off there.

Casuals did not ruin FFXI. Abyssea or the level cap increases didn't "ruin" FFXI, either, despite the frequent claim of such.

I am going to hardcore disagree with you there. At least on the abysea part.

The game was in steady decline before abysea. It dropped from its peak of ~600k active players to around 390-420k over a 8yr period.

After abysea launched within a year it dropped by an additional 60% of that number... and this was at 1.0 not a game that actually was stellar. There was a reason why when XIV 1.0 failed hardcore and people never did go back to XI.

The Game shift away from guild focused content, negating ~25,000 hrs of content that existed in the game before it, Destorying the whole leveling process, ruined crafting, ruined jobs entirely, Literally made you a god ingame by using a stupid abysea potion thing. Abysea is when what FFXI was officially died. FFXI now and what it was Pre abysea is as night and day as 1.25 and ARR. I love how people say other wise. Look at the sub count, look at the reason why people quit. It is not that hard to see.

FFXI was not a nitche game it was mainstream mmo at its launch, and it was one of the most success mmo launched in that era one of the few to ever pass EQ. WoW redefined the genre, shifted it from midcore to hardcore only to allow the casual gaming audience to play. There is no way for a hardcore only game to ever compete with a casual game. Example which game is better Pokemon or Darksouls for example. I would say Darksouls but I bet nearly 10,000x as many ppl play pokemon.

The masses of FFXI did not leave and go to WoW when it was gaining millions apon millions of subs because they wanted that hardcore game, not an easy mode mmo. When SE tried to shift it to a casual game. Well WoW and all those other games were simply a better casual mmo then it so they all left and never came back.


I had a guild of 74 ppl pre abysea doing ~60hrs of guild events a week. Once abysea launched all but 7 ended quitting the game due to how bs the changes were and how little there was to do.

[Saidosha]

I had a guild of 74 ppl pre abysea doing ~60hrs of guild events a week. Once abysea launched all but 7 ended quitting the game due to how bs the changes were and how little there was to do.

Again, Abyssea wasn't the problem. It was the lack of follow through on SE. It'd be like if we were stuck with pre-Eden here in current content cycle with no real clue if anything is in the pipe. But by this point, the more general damage to XI was done with XIV's production being a resource vampire. If you think those same 74 people would do the same 60 hours of stuff indefinitely, you'd be wrong, and more likely look at a revolving door of players.

More principally, I look to the following reasons for people to do content:
1) It improves their character.
2) It improves a someone else's character, usually a friend or guildmate.
3) To kill some time or a change of pace.

I don't shame people for being selfishly motivated in their play choices. If they see no value in a piece of content, that's fine. If the question of what could change that can be answered by a means other than throwing must-have gear into it, great, but I think most of us know things like that isn't magically going to turn PvEers into PvPers, or casuals into hardcore raiders. With these games being so combat-oriented, however, character growth is always the premier option. Lord knows I poked my head into an RP related thread earlier this morning to see people still mock and deride the hobby, so such tells me we still have a long way to go when it comes to some aspects of community receptivity.

The Game shift away from guild focused content, negating ~25,000 hrs of content that existed in the game before it, Destorying the whole leveling process, ruined crafting, ruined jobs entirely

I'm not going to be convince that a shift from alliance-based content was a bad thing. People come with numerous play styles and schedules, which you can't really expect strangers to accommodate if long term investment in a singular piece of content is forced. The very fact so many endgame shells has to have outside point systems to justify who deserved what further hammers home my belief that content rarely favored the individual or those who couldn't legitimately fit in for reasons beyond not being a jerk.

As for the old content, I'll just nod back to my 3 points. The longer someone's character exists and the more they partake, the more #1 and #2 are likely to wane, with #3 being a wildcard. It's safe to say there was a point where things like farming mannequin parts or doing certain BCs died on their own and it was by no means Abyssea's fault. It just mean certain rewards fell out of favor.

I'm not sure I'd call the leveling process much of a loss, either. It shifted over time, sure, from the IT++ grind with a balanced party early on with SCs and MBs be favored. You had MNK burns. RNG burns. Manaburns. Colibri hit and then you get double BRDs, a RDM, a COR, and two heavy DDs. People cheesed Astralburns for a bit. Level sync extended the lifespan of some camps. Basically, whatever the community deemed the most effective, they flocked to. I've never bought into the presumption that leveling the "right way" actually taught people how to play the game, when the endgame content usually had its own niche quirks that went beyond dispelling a crab's buffs or healing a middling ST TP move. Otherwise, I stick to my assertion that the Abyssea process being more inclusive was better for the game than hoping that maybe the players found the next iteration of Colibri in one of the revised zones.

Maybe I'm a salty Alchemist, but XI also never really handled crafting well. (H)NM drops often outshined a lot of gear, with something like the Peacock Charm/Amulet being BiS in the neck slot from the 30s to 75. Profits rarely existed in NQs. The durables market was super grossly saturated. Not all abjuration gear was good, or HQs didn't really change a stat that counted like Dalmatica not getting +2 Refresh. RMT did their number on the economy, while progression further pushed to R/Ex things and the rise of the mercenary market. XIV's crafting may not be perfect, either, but I'm inclined to call it more interesting at the very least.

I don't buy jobs being ruined by the level cap increase, either. BST, for example, gained a fair bit of viability with the increases. However, SE did have to later adjust the range at which you could trigger pet moves because players were treating them like disposable DPS sponges from safe distances. Otherwise, pretty much everyone gained new abilities, and in some cases, new subjob choices. You could argue that maybe not all jobs got it as good, sure, but that was always kind of XI's curse.

[Klb600]

Honestly Mr "Forever_learning." You are misconstruing everything we have been saying. Yes you have your right to disagree, just like we have every right to criticize portion of the game. Make of that what you will, honestly I further no need to try to convince you of anything.

Quite frankly you seem distraught for next to no real reason.

Practically foaming at the mouth.

Listen, I don't care what you or how you define endgame.

In truth we are all Forever learning, but that title seems to be most appropriate to you, since you refuse to educate yourself on the set and defined meaning of words and terminology. I have no further interest of arguing semantics with you.

[Forever_Learning]

In truth we are all Forever learning, but that title seems to be most appropriate to you, since you refuse to educate yourself on the set and defined meaning of words and terminology. I have no further interest of arguing semantics with you.

That's exactly my point. You want to define things in a certain way that serve your argument, and when I point out you are hiding behind self-made definitions and semantics, you turn to making an entire post only about me.

Why? Because you know you have lost the argument, and because I refuse to agree that the only content worth doing is the content you deem 'end-game content'

Since page 1, people have basically told you they are ok with the your perceived lack of end-game content because they do various other pieces of content, and the rebuttle is always "that doesn't count'

Sorry, it does count. Crafting, gathering, mount collecting, housing, all that content counts, especially when people in WoW are salivating for housing as something to do which would also help professions in that game.

It's funny how over on the WoW forums there are often threads requesting more casual content to do, while people in FF14 over here are asking for the dungeons and raids from WoW.

Why don't the people who prefer casual style content go spend more time in FF14, while the hardcore of FF14 goes over to WoW.

In truth, I know the answer. The amount of people doing so-called casual content is much larger than those seeking something like ultimate.

Thus, you need up hearing about all these WoW refugees going over to FF14 or ESO - very little refugees going from those games to WoW however.

[Klb600]

That's exactly my point. You want to define things in a certain way that serve your argument, and when I point out you are hiding behind self-made definitions and semantics, you turn to making an entire post only about me.

Why? Because you know you have lost the argument, and because I refuse to agree that the only content worth doing is the content you deem 'end-game content'

No because there is no point in convincing a man whose blind to his own delusions.