Half baked, it has to be said.

[Lersayil]

I mean, even the "1%" deserves to be thrown a bone.

Completely true, but priorities should be in place I think. We are sort of missing any new combat oriented long-term format content (a damn mouthful, but basically things akin to deep dungeons, Eureka-esque areas or relic quests).

Personal biases aside, I think its safe to say, that at least one such content should be introduced early to keep more subscriptions active before introducing bite sized hardcore and side content.

[YellowCrystarium]

I mean, even the "1%" deserves to be thrown a bone.

The 1% have received Ultimate raids with shiny weapons as goodies, as well as blue mage being allowed to participate in savage raiding completion, though not many people do that either. It is about time the majority got something of equal value, with equal time investment.

[Bright-Flower]

The 1% have received Ultimate raids with shiny weapons as goodies, as well as blue mage being allowed to participate in savage raiding completion, though not many people do that either. It is about time the majority got something of equal value, with equal time investment.

Casual players do get stuff. Deep dungeons, relic weapons/Eureka, normal dungeons, msq, pvp stuff, crafting and gathering have been made easier and Ishgard stuff doesn't even require high level in that does it? Gold saucer minigames/gates, hildebrand quests, story trials.

Casual players are not being left with nothing to do because of savage raids and ultimate fights.

[YellowCrystarium]

Casual players do get stuff. Deep dungeons, relic weapons/Eureka, normal dungeons, msq, pvp stuff, crafting and gathering have been made easier and Ishgard stuff doesn't even require high level in that does it? Gold saucer minigames/gates, hildebrand quests, story trials.

Casual players are not being left with nothing to do because of savage raids and ultimate fights.

And after all of that is done, then what? There needs to be long-lasting content that extends beyond expansion of the current year.

[HyoMinPark]

The 1% have received Ultimate raids with shiny weapons as goodies, as well as blue mage being allowed to participate in savage raiding completion, though not many people do that either. It is about time the majority got something of equal value, with equal time investment.

The raiders receive Ultimate every other patch cycle while the majority of the rest of the content added is geared towards other facets of the playerbase. And yes, a lot of it is overwhelmingly geared towards the majority of subscribers. Ultimate is what we got after our content (Savage) was made easier so that it would be more accessible to the general playerbase. It’s hardly content that takes away from majority content because it’s typically been reused assets, and only two battle designers can actually make an Ultimate fight.

This is a theme park MMO. There are tons of tiny little factions here that deserve content catered towards them as well.

The majority content you want will likely come with the release of ShB’s relic weapons. Those are typically geared towards the majority and not just the 1%. I personally think it should have already been released. They haven’t even mentioned anything about it, and I wonder what is taking them so long because I would like some relics to work on.

And after all of that is done, then what? There needs to be long-lasting content that extends beyond expansion of the current year.

No content lasts beyond the expansion its introduced aside from the things in roulettes, which become easy EXP gains. They still feel the test of time, though, through passive nerfs like overgearing and very lenient level syncs. That’s always been the design of the game since it was re-released in 2013.

I would like content to last longer than it does. But asking for it to last beyond two years is a very steep thing to ask.

[Vidu]

I dont really have the energy to properly reply to such a topic again (seriously, if you're that unhappy about minor things like hairstyles and headgear... maybe just look for a different game at this point?), but I wanted to at least comment on the whole "flashy animation"-thing by saying how thankful and happy I am that dancer doesnt have flashy, glowly, screen shaking stuff - because that flashy, glowly, screen shaking stuff is giving me headaches. So bad infact that I've turned the effects of other people down and only leaving my own on, while avoiding playing certain jobs (outside of leveling them to max-level) like WHM (Holy) and BLM (Flare).

I love the elegant, flowing animations of the dancer and I dont feel that it would be much in the "spirit" of this elegant class to blow stuff up in a huge explosion. Its an elegant flow, a dance - not blowing stuff up... I dont need a big finishing move that lets my screen explode in sparkles and leaves me with a dizzy head and the urge to lie down, drop the job or turn off even the animations for my character.
If you want to play a job with flashy animations: Take your pick from BLM, SMN... basically the jobs that have them.

[SenorPatty]

Overall, the game is half baked. There are high point of excellence like the msq and several aesthetics, including job animation, sounds and looks but as usual, a lot of the side content is very thin, not generally well received or not updated (looking at you GC). When looking globally at the jobs ( we're up to 17 now), the impression that I get is of one where it feels like the department overseeing them had a deadline they could not meet and they could simply not come up with fresh ideas to implement in time to keep the jobs distinct. These uninspired job changes naturally gave way to more job homogeneity though, somewhere in the cracks, they somehow succeeded at making some jobs work better than ever ( like MCH) and others tweak them just right enough so they feel wholesome (like SAM and DRG). And then, there are the healer jobs, which enough has already been said about them.

As a theme park mmo, if anything I'm just simply more disappointed that although it's clear at how barebones things are overall, nothing in the schedule regarding how content is distributed has changed. It's one thing to keep the schedule the same because things generally work well, it's another when things aren't. I don't have the metrics regarding BLU activity, other than the actual census regarding it, the chatter ingame about it and reddit/forums but from perspective, it wasn't such a big hit pre-shb and still isn't up to now. Imo, it wouldn't such a big, glaring problem if other, more significant content had been released alongside of it. The new pvp map was released alongside it but it is universally agreed that pvp is not content that carries such depth to say that it overshadowed the new BLU content. Hence, BLU's scrutiny and disappointment rises ever more as people just can't help but shrug and take their "scheduled" break because SE has unintentionally groomed them to recognize content lull when they feel it.

Perhaps before, aside from hitting its few but very important highs, there was lot of average mids and very few lows but now it's the reverse: all the average stuff has become low, either because the passage of time has rendered them that way or because the team changed them into that.

[YellowCrystarium]

Another problem I have is content that is popular with a large burst of activity at its release then dies in a few weeks time. There needs to be incentives in place to carry this content through for months at a time. People rush through content all the time, this is to be expected.

[Vidu]

Another problem I have is content that is popular with a large burst of activity at its release then dies in a few weeks time. There needs to be incentives in place to carry this content through for months at a time. People rush through content all the time, this is to be expected.

I'd be curious to know what you'd suggest as an incentive that makes people come back and re-do old content over and over again even a year later? - and that without turning it into an obligatory grind for everyone!
Or, in other words: What would make you come back to this "casual content"?

I'm mainly asking because dungeons already offer quite a bit of rewards: By now each dungeons drops music, minions, (potential) glamour/gear, tomestones or exp. What else could you put in there that would make people come back even after several weeks - assuming you dont want to have a very low droprate on a rare item (thus turning it into an RNG-grind) or ramping up the prices of tomestone-items (thus turning it into a regular grind).

[YellowCrystarium]

I'd be curious to know what you'd suggest as an incentive that makes people come back and re-do old content over and over again even a year later? - and that without turning it into an obligatory grind for everyone!
Or, in other words: What would make you come back to this "casual content"?

I'm mainly asking because dungeons already offer quite a bit of rewards: By now each dungeons drops music, minions, (potential) glamour/gear, tomestones or exp. What else could you put in there that would make people come back even after several weeks - assuming you dont want to have a very low droprate on a rare item (thus turning it into an RNG-grind) or ramping up the prices of tomestone-items (thus turning it into a regular grind).

For example the relic weapons that are currently in the game, provide a quest that offers rewards such as different skin colours and effects. Gather a certain amount of items from FATEs or monster kill drops and turn them in for your desired effect/skin. It would lend some diversity to the monotony of the relic types.