This game is in desperate need of persistent progression content for main jobs...

[xbahax92]

Last time they tried to do lasting content people put out their forks and wished eureka to be gone.
Even Ishgard Restoration met some unnecessary discussions cause people just want the "easy way". No matter what you create, people will always cry for many things.
Every relic step, be it ARR or eureka got nerfed because people either cry or just stopped doing them. Actually relics are the only lasting content you could do, even if for glam only.

[Liam_Harper]

I feel the same.

Max level content below Savage just feels like it has no lifespan after a certain point. It's designed so the casual player doesn't have to spend time on it. This patch, I had the 3 star craft rotation figured out, two full penta-melded sets of 480 crafted, Eden 5-8 beaten first try on each boss, the MSQ done and Ruby EX beaten on week one. I was fairly busy IRL too, just nothing took more than a few hours max.

There are other older things to do, ofc. Gold Saucer, PvP, Hunts, side stories, fishing, PotD, HoH and so on. These kept me pretty well occupied for the first year or two ingame. But you can't keep turning to old content forever without it turning stale.

In WoW at least you had Mythic+ and a raid difficulty in-between Normal and Savage. That game's a mess now, so I won't hold it up as a shining example, but I do feel endgame could keep you occupied more than just a week or two.

[Jojoya]

In WoW at least you had Mythic+ and a raid difficulty in-between Normal and Savage. That game's a mess now, so I won't hold it up as a shining example, but I do feel endgame could keep you occupied more than just a week or two.

The only reason for doing Mythic+ and lower raid difficulties than that for your skill level was Artifact Power farming and the remote chance RNG might give you a gear upgrade through Titanforging or having a random socket appear. Remove those 2 things and there was no reason to be doing any of that content on your main character. You'd switch to playing an alt character there because they needed gear just as players switch to alt jobs that need gear here. For those who weren't interested in an RNG gear grind or had other content for Artifact Power, it became dead content on arrival because it offered nothing the player hadn't already done before.

If you have something to do, it doesn't matter whether it's main or alt. You, the player, are still occupied.

[linay]

But that's the thing. There's no reason to DO the current content, once you have the gear from it.

There's being social, like helping FC/LS/Fellowship/static/friends to clear/farm things, or just doing it on another job, or fun with strangers on PF/DF.

But yes, if you're done with the content, then you're done, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's also why rewards are time gated, so people don't run out of content sooner, but there really shouldn't be any reason to prolong the content more than that other than if you just enjoy running the content, which is fine too. Otherwise, find something else to do in the game or play other games or do something else. Extending the gearing treadmill is not the answer, at least with relic existing.

As for any kind of "prestige" system, if it offers any reward other than gear upgrade or any kind of combat progression, then that's fine.

[ForteNightshade]

There's being social, like helping FC/LS/Fellowship/static/friends to clear/farm things, or just doing it on another job, or fun with strangers on PF/DF.

But yes, if you're done with the content, then you're done, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's also why rewards are time gated, so people don't run out of content sooner, but there really shouldn't be any reason to prolong the content more than that other than if you just enjoy running the content, which is fine too. Otherwise, find something else to do in the game or play other games or do something else. Extending the gearing treadmill is not the answer, at least with relic existing.

As for any kind of "prestige" system, if it offers any reward other than gear upgrade or any kind of combat progression, then that's fine.

You do realize having to lock everything behind a time gate suggests the content releases themselves aren't offering enough, thus they're intentionally staggered to keep people subbed, yes?

Being social isn't an argument because it still boils down to you running the same handful of things over and over again. If there is one area FFXIV severely lacks in, it's end game content below Savage. In fact, even Savage itself is more or less dependent on a third party site because people like leaderboards. The fact we're almost a year into Shadowbringers and the relic is only just now coming out in a month or so certainly hasn't helped that feeling there is very little to do.

Ironically, I've had this discussion with my best friend who has been playing far more sporadically these days. She usually does everything, including clearing out the entire map of side quests. To quote her, "If I wasn't raiding. What's even the point of logging in?" The aforementioned delay on the relic is a big complaint of hers.

[DrWho2010]

having the relic start too early means there would be pointless small steps for a less than useful weapon. plus this time the content is being written by the Ivalice 24 man series guy (Matsuno?) so extra preparation is needed - plus having an EX type trial involved also requires more dev time to create.

[Lersayil]

Heavy agree. While I wouldn't equate progression with ilvl progression, we are severely lacking in long lasting combat content (main class or otherwise).

It feels wrong to even think so, but I almost miss Eureka at this point.

[yukiiyuki]

As people say here - better just go play another MMO, come back twice per expansion. Maybe you can play 2 hours in a day, I think it's designed like this for your typical office mob who don't have much time to play games, like most of Japanese people.

[linay]

You do realize having to lock everything behind a time gate suggests the content releases themselves aren't offering enough, thus they're intentionally staggered to keep people subbed, yes?

First, not everything is locked behind time gate. Second, of course it's not enough. There is no MMORPG content that would be enough unless it just becomes a grind. And I'd rather not have to grind too much. If I'm done with the content, then I want the freedom to do something else rather than having it be extended via a grind, especially if it's multiplayer content.

[MistakeNot]

You do realize having to lock everything behind a time gate suggests the content releases themselves aren't offering enough, thus they're intentionally staggered to keep people subbed, yes?

No developers can create content as quickly as players can play through it.
Options are:
a) Create a horribly time-consuming grind that everyone has to go through - which will often leave the more casual players behind, and will make some people leave the game because they don't like grinding.
b) Accept that some players will burn through any new content in a matter of days. Most players will take longer than that though, and this way even casual players will be able to keep up.

FFXIV is very clearly designed such that you are not really supposed to spend all your time playing it. Hardcore players will run out of content halfway through each patch (or sooner) - and the developers don't have a problem with that.
If you run out of things to do here - do something else for a while.