Lack of End Game Content

[Insertcoins]

I get both sides, on one hand you have the hardcore endgamer. He/she wants to have a good amount of stuff at the endgoal. they reached the cap and now want to jump face first into it.. but they find out that there's only so much to do at 80. Not talking about leveling another job cause more likely then not they got the job they want to feel awesome in. The issue is we only have ultimate, expert, extremes and raids. While that may seem like a decent amount you can do those all in one day really. And once you get the gears unless you like the fights you tend to have nothing to use the gear on. least not until the next tier comes out. On the OTHER hand you have the side of like, you only got one or two jobs to cap. You can craft, lay the tons of mini games we have, hunts and really everything else we have.

While I do understand the statement this expac just came out wait a little bit and more endgame will come, I also understand that most people simply feel like they are being held up at the starting line in endgame and it can get blarghed for them. Yeah they can do ultimate which is still the hardest thing in the game. Personally I say people need to do Rath extreme too cause that is still hard. But I will also say we need MORE of it. I think we got just 2 more 4 man extremes like Rath the hardcores would be happy. Cause they would have something more to sink their teeth into. And there's nothing wrong with that. I want more rath like fights, but again I have to stress this. If you're complaining about a lack of content for you, make sure you're atleast doing the current stuff we have, cause we've all seen those posters who only do the 24 mans and nothing higher making the same complaint And that's why people get so up in arms about it. But asking for more isn't bad, we shouldn't shun more endgame stuff. tho we also need to make sure we're putting our money where our mouth is.

Noone is going to agree if you're not even doing the current stuff. I'm kindof rambing but yeah.. adding atleast 2 more rath like fights would solve the issue I think.. but I don't see that happening cause all people did with rath was bitch about how it was unfair. And sadly SE listens to them more anyone else.

[Nixxe]

Everything only doable at level cap... of which there is 25 level caps per character. 26 if you include Blue Mage... of which I'm not, but there is a whole chunk of Endgame BLU content that requires it to be 50.
Yet a lot of the sentiment here... "I'm only playing 4% of my character, but the amount of content for 4% of a character is too little, make more content of 4% of my character and sacrifice part of the other 96% of that characters content to do it."

As of the current the only content based things that we're reduced or moved to other content was, the casual expert dungeon count dropping by one, to make experimental content. And last cycles Ultimate count dropping by one due to them being of the understanding that players felt burnt out of the first one, and by the time of the 2nd they got the hang of it, but the content for the 3rd was already pulled from the production plan.

Want 4 or 5 Raid tiers an expansion, sacrifice your Ultimates for it, might be possible. I think it's a dumb idea, even if I don't partake of either content when it's current.

4% is roughly the amount of extra endgame content you'll unlock by leveling every job to cap. The overwhelming bulk of it is accessible from whatever battle job you get to cap first, as it's accessed via the MSQ or a prominent side quest, both of which just require you be some sort of DoW/M. All you're going to get by getting every other job to cap is a handful of 5 min job quests and the Masked Carnival, which many people probably finished during Stormblood. Even if they haven't, the notion that people should need to exhaust literally all content available before expressing any sort of dissatisfaction with the amount or variety available is exceedingly unreasonable.

Besides, this isn't just about raids. I don't even do progression raiding and I constantly run out of things to do that are relevant to my jobs as level 80s. I have to settle for going back and cleaning up old content I missed during ARR (and that's a very shallow well I've almost dried up) or doing endlessly repeatable activities, like gil making. I unsub for around half of each expansion and haven't actually missed out on anything because of it.

[ksuyen]

Because the end of the game has never existed, there is nothing could be said to be lack of.
As the game itself is a journey, every ending is a new beginning.
Sit, relax and enjoy the journey because every moment is new content.
It is only the end of game when the dev abandon it and move on to the new title.

[Elleia]

I would really like to see some more challenging light party content added to the game, weather it's just harder dungeons/trials or something new. My friends and I often go back and unsync/undersize raids and trials from previous expansions and figure out ways to complete them with only 3-4 people. It's lots of fun, but it would be great to have some endgame stuff we could do as a group as well.

I think a harder 24 man difficulty would be interesting as well. Maybe just make the rewards the same as the normal version, but dyeable like they do for the 8 mans.

[Zabuza]

Even then, the pacing is nearly twice as fast here. To get HC or any content for that matter at a pace of the people who burned through all of their desired SHB content in 2 weeks, the man-hours and financial costs would probably require our subs to go up by a significant margin.

If I knew more HC content was in the pipeline beyond the normal formula that we have gotten, I would not be making my posts with such fervor. Alas, I can already see the same formula has already been set in place again with the way they set up the expert dungeons, tomes, and extremes. This is the same precursor to 4 savage trials that we have always been given. The same exact meal that we have been fed for 6 years, and it is not only stale, but does not satisfy the hunger for very long.

[OcieKo]

I would really like to see some more challenging light party content added to the game, weather it's just harder dungeons/trials or something new. My friends and I often go back and unsync/undersize raids and trials from previous expansions and figure out ways to complete them with only 3-4 people. It's lots of fun, but it would be great to have some endgame stuff we could do as a group as well.

I think a harder 24 man difficulty would be interesting as well. Maybe just make the rewards the same as the normal version, but dyeable like they do for the 8 mans.

Making harder versions of 4 man content, is currently off the table due to it requiring the same developers who make savage and ultimate 8 man content, which the team feels is a better use of their time, as it reaches more people while being more possible to work and learn through mistakes. If I remember correctly, Yoshi likes the idea of it, but the reality of actually doing it stops it pretty early.
I believe harder 24 man wasn't as plainly refuted, but I think Yoshi mentioned wanting to focus on larger group harder content like Baldesion Aresenal instead of it.
Questions of this variety were asked during the Media Events in April/May.

If I knew more HC content was in the pipeline beyond the normal formula that we have gotten, I would not be making my posts with such fervor. Alas, I can already see the same formula has already been set in place again with the way they set up the expert dungeons, tomes, and extremes. This is the same precursor to 4 savage trials that we have always been given. The same exact meal that we have been fed for 6 years, and it is not only stale, but does not satisfy the hunger for very long.

If you're referring to the reduction of the 8man "raid" being reduced down from Coils to Alexander to Omega/Eden that we have now, ya that's a bit sad even on the normal difficulty.
Pretty sure the original SB plan of 3 Ultimates is planned for SHB since the initial reception changed with the 2nd one. So HC should be at least a little bigger this expansion than it ended up being last one. Even if the plan is the same, the need to revise the plan early on shouldn't be there this time. Unless the developers that create the fights burn out of making them.

Keep in mind, changing too much of the formula would most likely result in a lot less content overall. I.E. 4 Ultimates, but raid tiers are 3 fights instead of 4. Personally I'm rather fond of the 2.5-3.5 month major patch cycle, and with the amount of content in the X.X5 patches nowadays its almost 1.5-2 month patch cycle.

[Krotoan]

You'll find very quickly, that the amount specifically intended for max level is almost non existent.

which many have conceded but retorted that this game isn't designed very heavily for the "race to cap, now what?" crowd.

But it's incredibly limited. In NO other MMORPG's expansion that I've played, have I be been able to beat the story, reach max level and acquire the best in slot gear for MULTIPLE jobs, in less than two weeks.

There is a lot to do in this game, but there's just very very limited amounts of content that is both challenging and rewarding to do at max level.

Again, this has been stated to be by design. Your definitions of challenging and rewarding are very strict , FFXIV tends to cater to the largest playerbase possible with the majority of content, this means challenges have to be average, we've hit a certain plateau of difficulty that the Dev team is happy with and most players can manage. They've acknowledged people want challenges above that and tried to provide but they also know that the gimme challenge crowd is very small.

Why is it so absurd, that reaching your characters full power potential in such a short amount of time is a problem?
Why is it so absurd, that perhaps after the 3rd expansion, that still getting the same formulaic content has grown lacking?
Why is it so absurd, that there is so much for casual players to do, but so little for raiders.

Because as advertised this is a Themepark Game and that entails a holistic approach, if taken for face value at only one aspect it will always be lacking. The forumula has been working and continues to work for the last 6 years, it's showing a little strain now that we have 2 more races to provide for though so who knows if we'll even get the same amount of content now. It is NOT only a casual game unless "casual" means "not endgame" content. The crafting and marketboard scene is a daily madhouse for some. The completionists hunt their achievements constantly (not to mention the huntmarks and their 24 hour linkshells). People have alts, people run RP, people even use it as the backdrop for just social gatherings and events. This isn't casual VS Raiders. Some people likely play more than you do and feel just as fulfilled by the things you consider "unrewarding" as you do by a fresh raid.

We enjoy the content we get, but we shouldn't be condemned for pointing out how little raid content there is despite the growing player base and increase in raiders.

Condemned? You shouldn't be, but expect that when you propose focusing on "endgame" content only that there will be pushback because more of something means less of something else with this development team. The established userbase tends to like the way things are and expects certain things at certain times along with a game they can play casually and still be on par with someone who focuses solely on endgame dungeon runs.

This is how it has been for 6 years and while some may say change is good, why are you surprised people react negatively to a represented community going "OK but all the other stuff is fluff, gimme more of that one thing I love" which implies the other part is worthless. You may not truly feel that, you probably understand that everyone has that thing they like about the game they play, but while you feel you're simply asking for more of what YOU want, you are indirectly asking for the less raid oriented community to sacrifice a different part for that.

[Evergrey]

Because the end of the game has never existed, there is nothing could be said to be lack of.
As the game itself is a journey, every ending is a new beginning.
Sit, relax and enjoy the journey because every moment is new content.
It is only the end of game when the dev abandon it and move on to the new title.

I would say Yes and No on that.
As an MMO there's no real end to it. As you decide how you want to play the game once you reach max level and the end of the current story.
But once the story is done for the current version and you've done all the latest dungeons/trials/raids. What is there to do besides older repeatable content?

This is something I find myself in each update. I do the story, the latest dungeons/trials/raids, I get the best current gear. And since I don't really care for mount farming, glamour farming etc. (Except when it's something I really like visually)
I don't care about leveling other jobs and don't care about achivements. There's not much to do honestly then to sit and wait for the next update.
Which is why I jump between games to fill my time.
Nothing sais I have to stay in one game and dedicate my whole interest into it.
So I can't really say that I am complaining.
Just adding my voice that endgame is fairly short lived unless people do older content.
But to be honest, all MMOs are like that.
So FFXIV isn't an exception.
It's just how appealing that older content is to people that makes it worth it.

[Avraym]

Condemned? You shouldn't be, but expect that when you propose focusing on "endgame" content only that there will be pushback because more of something means less of something else with this development team. The established userbase tends to like the way things are and expects certain things at certain times along with a game they can play casually and still be on par with someone who focuses solely on endgame dungeon runs.

This is how it has been for 6 years and while some may say change is good, why are you surprised people react negatively to a represented community going "OK but all the other stuff is fluff, gimme more of that one thing I love" which implies the other part is worthless. You may not truly feel that, you probably understand that everyone has that thing they like about the game they play, but while you feel you're simply asking for more of what YOU want, you are indirectly asking for the less raid oriented community to sacrifice a different part for that.

The game isn't the same as it was 6 years ago. It has grown. It has more revenue, more support and a bigger team. It has more resources it can recycle to create new content which all other games rightfully do.
So why are we fed the same amount of content and why does it mean resources need to necessarily be taken away from something? Would it be so difficult to invest a little more into something we can all agree doesn't have a lot currently invested into?

Nobody is implying casual content is worthless. We'd just like OUR side to be a little more sated.

[Tint]

The game isn't the same as it was 6 years ago. It has grown. It has more revenue, more support and a bigger team. It has more resources it can recycle to create new content which all other games rightfully do.
So why are we fed the same amount of content and why does it mean resources need to necessarily be taken away from something? Would it be so difficult to invest a little more into something we can all agree doesn't have a lot currently invested into?

Nobody is implying casual content is worthless. We'd just like OUR side to be a little more sated.

It's because they pump their ressources into stuff like Blue Mage, Bard Performance, Combat Replay, GATEs (okay, I am not against new gates, but that rollercoster was maybe a bit over the top for what it is), adding systems like Trusts when we already have Squadron, a half baked Glamour Dresser... And honestly removing the relic from dungeons made dungeons kind of obsolete after leveling. So we maybe can add Dungeons to the list too. Then solo inctance story content where you play as another character...

I would not even say that these things are casual content. I hardly would call these things content at all.

Well and treasure map dungeons, wich are content but kind of niche...