(Relics) What is the lowest-development-cost content we'd still find fun?

[Edax]

Generally, the people most disappointed with something tend to be the most vocal about it - there's basically no reason to make a bunch of posts/topics saying 'I love <x>' as there's really not much to discuss about it, whereas discussion happens much easier from criticism. Also as someone else said, most people who enjoy the content tend to be actively doing it.

By nature, data gathered from the forums is going to swing in a negative direction due to it; I wouldn't be surprised that if SE were to do a full-game survey the results would look MUCH different from your pie chart, considering the forums is a tiny subset of the playerbase that heavily favors a constructive criticism environment to promote discussion. Almost everyone in my friend group loved Eureka (even Pagos) because it was great content for all eleven of us to hang out in VC and have fun together without being limited to 4/8 party sizes of people of dungeons/trials/maps, but none of them are going to take the time to visit the forums since they just enjoy the game casually. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a vast amount of people who enjoyed Pagos/Eureka and just remained silent.

There's plenty of reason to defend Pagos if you loved it. If you let criticism run unchecked, then that's going to affect the future of the game.

[AnimaAnimus]

This thread derailed faster than Doom Train after catching wind there was a Phoenix Down ahead

[BasicBlake]

There's plenty of reason to defend Pagos if you loved it. If you let criticism run unchecked, then that's going to affect the future of the game.

I agree 100% with this.
I am one of the few that is very vocal about how much I enjoyed Eureka.

[RitsukoSonoda]

I enjoyed Eureka for the most part. The only parts I didn't care for were fairly minor.

1. Map design for Pagos and Pyros. Pagos my issue was that narrow canyon that served as the only way to get to any of the upper areas by foot. Pyros was just the way the map was mostly narrow pathways.
2. The planning for turn ins on the Pagos step of weapons. The way they'd inserted the light grind felt like it was tacked on after someone had planned out the other resources resulting in the light grind being the stalling point for everyone building the weapons. It wasn't as bad in Pyros.
3. Drop rates for the items that upgraded the boards and rare item drops from specific fate enemies felt excessively low.

I'm actually hoping for new content similar to Eureka in the future. My issues with Baldeson's Arsenal weren't about the content itself but more with the player community in regards to their approach on it as tended towards them saying "all of this stuff must be present or we aren't going to try" rather than "ok we have all of this so lets see how we can make it work"

[Shurrikhan]

I'm not assuming. I am also not saying that is what players want; but by virtue of SEs history, players are 'asking' for a run-in with RNG.

Again, though, unless you're calling even 'which content will get the light bonus' RNG, despite being very able to swap over and thereafter getting a guaranteed amount per run, Relics have actually had very little RNG thus far.

You get X amount of Y for a Gold, Silver, or Bronze in the only NM fates pertinent to relics. This step takes 40 A, 40 B, 40 C, and 40 D. This step takes 2000 Light. Etc., etc.

Our playerbase is far too diverse for that.

This would only be an issue if the means of progression were not also diverse. Oddly enough, we've rarely seen diversity of choice (instead only perhaps diversity of content) in progression systems in XIV, as either the steps (Zodiac seals, Anima book tasks, Eureka, etc.) have left the choices unalterable (no alternatives or requiring full completion with no substitutions), or the rewards-per-minute among certain choices have been so much greater on some choices than others that they have effectively devolved into non-choices.

This is worsened when the choices aren't even different enough in the first place to attract different sets of players differently, where the diversity of the playerbase could otherwise have been a boon for the game's active population. If you're given the choice between (to you) mediocre trial A and mediocre trial B to grind, you're just going to grind whatever's most efficient. But give someone the choice between a ton of difficult crafting and about the same time spent in running dungeons, and suddenly player preferences allow for different outcomes.

Perhaps there will always be three groups among some grinding and liking it, others doing grinding reluctantly, and still others just giving up preemptively, but you can do a lot to siphon the 2nd and 3rd group into that 1st one.

[MrThinker]

I'm actually hoping for new content similar to Eureka in the future. My issues with Baldeson's Arsenal weren't about the content itself but more with the player community in regards to their approach on it as tended towards them saying "all of this stuff must be present or we aren't going to try" rather than "ok we have all of this so lets see how we can make it work"

A reminder just in case you did not know/forgot. There will be a new field-type instanced zone, similar to Eureka, as part of the StQ storyline, slated to be released in 5.35, alongside with another public dungeon, similar to BA.

These instances will, hopefully, take the liked parts of Eureka and BA and change the less liked parts for a better experience for everyone.

[Shurrikhan]

Generally, the people most disappointed with something tend to be the most vocal about it - there's basically no reason to make a bunch of posts/topics saying 'I love <x>' as there's really not much to discuss about it, whereas discussion happens much easier from criticism. Also as someone else said, most people who enjoy the content tend to be actively doing it.

There's also the group which may on the whole like something but be very critical about certain parts of it, largely because they believe what they enjoy, or would otherwise have enjoyed, could be improved upon far more at relatively little development cost.

That was largely my reaction to the concepts of both Deep Dungeons and Eureka. I loved the concepts of each, and even what Eureka ultimately provided as a player outlet, but not their execution. In Deep Dungeon's case, my critics amounted to additions I thought necessary to make the content more worthwhile. For Eureka it amounted to small (even if "fundamental") changes, such as a level squish to allow for broader player interaction (small table change), further changes to level-span penalties in parties (small rule change), adjustments to how NMs were spawned (small rule change), and further mid-level units to spawn and triggerable content around which NM spawns might interact (additions, more costly).

[Jirah]

To make content one must learn from the past. ARR had a mix of trials, material farming, Books, fates, ect. HW has fates and massive amounts of poetics farming for materials. SB has the most wasteful use of content I’ve ever seen with Eureka and it’s 4 phases from Hell.

What people hated from HW was it was just a massive poetics farm & the light farming. So it was monotonous

What People hated in Erueka is significantly more complex and mixed opinions. For one it was heavily reliant on others while ARR & HW were solo. Aswell as being strictly timed instance and chaining proving effective it was a drain to forcibly grind mobs with no breaks as the other 7 had to agree. It was more or less a prison a 180 from the “go your on pace” of ARR and HW resulting in the worst content I’ve ever played in a MMO

Let me start by saying RELICS DONT NEED THIER OWN INSTANCE. Save that energy for the more malnourished content like Raids and Dungeons. People still do ARR and HW relics for the Glam but since you need to do these annoying 4 instance hell holes, and no flexibility due to the timed nature of them, SB Relics are rare. (Also the opinion of “they aren’t very good looking”)

I Say relic quests should take advantage of their worlds and past content. Ie the book phase or fate farming. But it’s hard thinking if content that can never be fun

[TwiibieTwuu]

Anything that's too much of a grind or RNG based. Hated collecting anima shards.

I prefer stuff being unlocked from unique dungeons or fates. Nothing too rare or hard to obtain.

Also nice if there's alternative ways to obtain items needed for relics.

[RitsukoSonoda]

A reminder just in case you did not know/forgot. There will be a new field-type instanced zone, similar to Eureka, as part of the StQ storyline, slated to be released in 5.35, alongside with another public dungeon, similar to BA.

These instances will, hopefully, take the liked parts of Eureka and BA and change the less liked parts for a better experience for everyone.

They could also throwback further to FFXI and the Relic/Mythic weapons there that involved acquiring special currency that could be sold between players to create a giant potential gil sink that could take a lot of the abundant gil out of circulation and slow economy inflation. Or deflate it in a best case scenario. Just a random thought. Building those things was actually super easy in that game when you played the game long enough farming HNMs that you had more gil than the RMT.