Lack of End Game Content

[Nora_of_Mira]

I don't know if you noticed but its a MMO not Burger King.

but theres an entire race of french fries running around...

[Nariel]

but theres an entire race of french fries running around...

Probably poisonous and rotten, those popotos are alway prepared to be the worst.

[ForteNightshade]

It's not just that. I would argue that even the current endgame content becomes outdated way too fast these days. Almost everything becomes roulette fodder one month after it gets released. Why not have the current extreme trials have drop higher gear when they release the third one (ShB end boss Ex trial)? Maybe increase the damage a bit or add a new mechanic. Why isn't this a thing instead of the constant tombstone, roulette treadmill?
As brilliant as ShB is, give me something to look forward to when I am max level with the job I main and love. They need to freshen up the end-game progression and also keep the current content alive way longer.

Because doing so would pull people away from the newer Extreme. Not to mention, a lot of people don't necessarily want to go back to Innocence and Titania for weapons a second time. While, in theory, they could do something to improve stat progress. A lot of it becomes an illusion. Lets face it, if they added a bunch of bonuses like 5% increase to whomever you tether using Dragon Sight or Geirskogul is reduced to 20 seconds. Theorycrafters will work out whichever is mathematically superior and the rest will be considered fodder. Horizontal progression "worked" in older games like FFXI because they weren't trying to balance anything. FFXIV, on the other hand, wants each job to feel both viable and balanced within its role. This tends to result in less interesting gear progression.

Could they balance bonuses enough that the differences were negligible? Maybe. I wouldn't envy the enormous workload that would put on the dev team though. Imagine having to make say, three full sets of gear for each job all within a hair of one another damage wise.

[Hawklaser]

-Snip-

Horizontal progression works not because they were not balancing things, but because of a different balance perspective. In a horizontal system, a much bigger emphasis is placed on incomparables and a state of perfect imbalance. Perfect imbalance is understanding and designing around unique traits. Lets take the prior Drg/brd/mch piercing meta for example, it worked because people were taking advantage of the synergy between the classes. The response we got to that was one of lets make everything equal by removing the piercing dmg buff. The perfect imbalance response would be create other synergies(maybe give mnk a reliable source of magic dmg and a magic resist debuff for example) or introduce some more meaningful enemy resistances to break it up in addition to finding ways to improve the other synergies.

Incomparables would be things more like giving Drg a choice between +70 yalms on dragon sight so they can use it on the ranged dps that love being in the boonies and also not as likely to have it broke early due to an aoe placement, or giving their jumps a temporary immunity periord at the expense of the relocation effects which in a sense could allow for a skilled Drg to handle a sizeable number of Titania EX's lighting tether hits for example, much like how a skilled XI Drg could use Super Jump to avoid things like enemy Astral Flows. That is a choice that is not easily mathed out, and those are the bulk of the choices Horizontal systems thrived on.

If you really think about it, its the gutting of several of Sch's incomparables that got a number of them upset with the changes to the class. Much like if you took elusive jump and I can't recall if its spineshatter dive or dragonfire dive relocation effects away for no real reason, you would likely have a lot of ticked off Drgs. I'd touch on other classes as well but don't know their kits well enough to off handedly state theirs.

As long as you only think of damage as what a job brings for balance, you move more and more to everything being the same and even more at the mercy of the theory crafters number crunching.

[kartana]

The lack of max level end game content is extremely apparent right now. If you don't do savage or even just pug it here and there, there is nothing else to do except doing roulettes which I don't really count as "end game content activity" and maybe eden normal if you don't have a full set already. But maybe we should accept that this game is just like that. They always say "play the new content, unsub and come back when the new patch drops".

[RoyalBeef]

If you don't do savage or even just pug it here and there, there is nothing else to do except doing roulettes which I don't really count as "end game content activity" and maybe eden normal if you don't have a full set already.

Personally I have zero incentive to do Savage. There is nothing I would need the 470 gear for that I cannot do just fine with the 460 gear I get for zero effort. I work on Savage once a week with a semi static from my FC because I have nothing better to do and it's more fun than standing around in GC waiting for GATEs to pop. The whole reward and incentive structure just feels weird. So on Tuesday I'll finally get my i460 weapon... I was hyped thinking about it 7 weeks ago, but now, after 7 weeks of "ah ah ah, only one drop per week!", it's just "meh, whatever". I'll only be doing the same stuff with it that I was already doing before anyway.

[ForteNightshade]

Horizontal progression works not because they were not balancing things, but because of a different balance perspective. In a horizontal system, a much bigger emphasis is placed on incomparables and a state of perfect imbalance. Perfect imbalance is understanding and designing around unique traits. Lets take the prior Drg/brd/mch piercing meta for example, it worked because people were taking advantage of the synergy between the classes. The response we got to that was one of lets make everything equal by removing the piercing dmg buff. The perfect imbalance response would be create other synergies(maybe give mnk a reliable source of magic dmg and a magic resist debuff for example) or introduce some more meaningful enemy resistances to break it up in addition to finding ways to improve the other synergies.

The issue then becomes you lock specific jobs. They actually tried this before when Foe's increased spell damage and Hypercharge increased physical. What happened? Machinist wound up the "preferred" choice due to physical damage being higher in a raid. With regards to piercing, it didn't work nor was it balanced in any sense of the word. Bard and Machinist became so strong, Casters were essentially worthless in Creator. And Bard's synergy with Dragoon led to its utter dominance of the range role throughout all of Stormblood. Now lets say they made Machinist blunt damage in an attempt to create a second synergy. If we assume neither oust the Casters a second time, people will default to the better duo. Or you'll have scenarios where players feel obligated or forced to play jobs they otherwise dislike because of job synergy. A lot of Dragoons, for example, hated piercing since it meant they were locked onto the job lest they make their Bard suffer.

Incomparables would be things more like giving Drg a choice between +70 yalms on dragon sight so they can use it on the ranged dps that love being in the boonies and also not as likely to have it broke early due to an aoe placement, or giving their jumps a temporary immunity periord at the expense of the relocation effects which in a sense could allow for a skilled Drg to handle a sizeable number of Titania EX's lighting tether hits for example, much like how a skilled XI Drg could use Super Jump to avoid things like enemy Astral Flows. That is a choice that is not easily mathed out, and those are the bulk of the choices Horizontal systems thrived on.

If you really think about it, its the gutting of several of Sch's incomparables that got a number of them upset with the changes to the class. Much like if you took elusive jump and I can't recall if its spineshatter dive or dragonfire dive relocation effects away for no real reason, you would likely have a lot of ticked off Drgs. I'd touch on other classes as well but don't know their kits well enough to off handedly state theirs.

As long as you only think of damage as what a job brings for balance, you move more and more to everything being the same and even more at the mercy of the theory crafters number crunching.

The thing is, if someone becomes a tangible advantage, it also becomes mandatory. Per your example, if water elemental gear made E3S easier. There is no longer a decision. You either get that gear or you aren't going to be invited. FFXI didn't have "perfect imbalance." It had no balance whatsoever. Certain jobs were straight better in every capacity than others.

[Acesfool]

I definitely feel like this game never really has enough content, especially if progression raiding doesn't interest you. That's why I unsub for roughly half of every expansion. Never really had that issue with WoW. If I unsubbed from WoW, it's because I was bored of WoW, not because I ran out of things I could do. It would be nice if there were more things to do, but I'm not going to hold my breath. They seem pretty content with their formula. All of the random nonsense that got added in ARR seems to have been a fluke.

Interesting. I left WoW for the exact opposite reason. In FFXIV I have crafting, gathering, treasure maps, beast tribes, relic weapons, hunts, a decent variety of things to do. In WoW the crafting is garbage. I could do world quests over and over and over. And when those get boring they give you more world quests to do. Unless you're into pvp and raiding, WoW endgame gets stale extremely fast. In FFXIV there is rarely a time when I can't find something to do and I don't do any raiding except the normal 8-man stuff.

[MonteCristo]

Bump #fortheculture

[Zabuza]

Bump #fortheculture

Eh... I thought about it weeks ago but, I realized after clearing E1-E3s week 1, and E4S at the beginning of week 3, that trying to convince these forums is like yelling into a windstorm. I know somehow they think it's okay that the second hardest content in the game is that easy. I've got no fight in me left to fight against them, no life left to live...