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

[hynaku]

I loved Eureka and was hoping for a new one in 5.0.

[Gemina]

Alternatively, from the player perspective alone, what content would you find fun in Relic grinds? Where does the border between "satisfying" and "overly grindy" lie? What can the devs learn from prior iterations of Relic grinds? What novel approaches might they take? To what extent would you forgive delays for greater efficiency or enjoyability in such content later?

I think they learned that a lot of players don't enjoy and complain to no end making the first step a battle with RNG and slapping it into a nefarious FATE grind. They learned that turning in an old relic that you worked your arse off for to skip that step entirely also was not the way to go about implementing a new relic quest.

I haven't done this quest yet, but I do know what it entails. Those of you asking for something more grindy are basically asking for a date with RNG. Is that what you really want? Because I hope most of you are aware that this is the path the SE typically uses.

I've done relics in every expansion thus far except SB, and I never really minded any of it, but I also come from a time when it was the intention of the devs that not all players would possess a relic in an mmo. That's not the case anymore. Now it's "everyone get's a relic!" And here we are. Granted, relics in MMOs that progress horizontally were kind of intended to be the last weapon you would ever own, and I think they mean a lot more in that type of game. In FFXIV though, your relic is destined to be your next glamour item. How hard do you think players really want to work for that before they bring out the tar and feathers?

The "grind" or lack thereof is a result of today's mmos. Player's don't want resistance. They want something that will at most take up an hour of their time and they can get on with business as normal. If that is the impression I get from the playerbase; it's not too tough to think that might have sunk in with the devs as well; especially when we look at how the game has progressed throughout the years. The old relic still tossed in a chance of failure at the very last step. It was low, but those are the kind of things this team cooks up. So be careful what you as for.

[Shurrikhan]

Those of you asking for something more grindy are basically asking for a date with RNG.

Out of curiosity, why do you assume this? RNG is far from the only way to achieve artificial longevity. We've seen plenty of examples of that at this point.

[Rufalus]

I don't understand the sudden love for Eureka. Pagos was active punishment to the players.

There's some minority remaining in this game who wish they had something like Eureka a lot sooner. A lot of the old-school farm mobs type of players gave up on XIV before it provided the type of content they wanted. Setting up spots to grind mobs, saying how much xp to next level in chat, moving on to another grind spot when the group is ready; it brought back good memories to the kind of players it was designed for. Unfortunately a lot of toxic players with no interest in the content flooded in there to leech the rewards while harassing people and complaining about things over the shout chat. On the occassions that people didn't ruin the experience it was quite fun sometimes just hanging with the same friends for long sessions and holding out hope of getting rare item drops such as the speed earrings and things to upgrade the magia board. I don't care for the xp loss punishment on respawn, but the rest of the design could be considered more rewarding than punishing depending on who you ask.

[Xtrasweettea]

I don't understand the sudden love for Eureka. Pagos was active punishment to the players.

There are more people who have enjoyed Eureka than what you will see on the forums. Back when Eureka was current content, if you said anything positive about Eureka on the forums the best outcome would be that your post would get ignored. More often than not, you would get the vitriol of the hate from people who didn't like the content. There's nothing like being called "part of the problem" for liking content that others do not like.

Since the hate for the content was so bad on these forums, most of us stayed quiet.

You're now seeing the "sudden love" for Eureka because we don't feel like we have to be silent.

I am one of those people who have enjoyed Eureka. I even got my first Relic before the Pagos nerf. The content, to me, isn't as bad as people described. Yes, the initial Elemental leveling is a chore, though if you could manage it, you could start getting required items for relics while leveling. Once you hit cap, getting the needed items seemed quick to me.

Though, I have a bit of a bias for me liking Eureka. To me, Eureka is a simplified and easier version of FFXI's Dynamis with FFXI's Abyssea elements tied into it. FFXI's Dynamis 1.0 was brutal and required multiple hours of post and prep work to do it. You only did Dynamis two to three times a week, at 2.5 hours a pop, but you spent 4-8 hours outside of each even to get back EXP/levels (there's a chance you would die at least once per run... four to five times if you were a RDM and/or BRD), craft or make gil to get food and items such as Re-raise hairpins, etc.

Of course, just because I liked Eureka, doesn't mean I think it is perfect. There's multiple QoL that should have been added, but were not: like adding Sneak Oils and Prism Powders to allow you to move silent and make yourself invisible so you wouldn't get agro from mobs going from place to place and adding in an EXP cap buffer in case you die, you didn't de-level immediately, etc.

[MariaArvana]

I also made a pie chart long ago about the ratio of likes to dislike per player on a Pagos thread:

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.

[Alleo]

There are more people who have enjoyed Eureka than what you will see on the forums. Back when Eureka was current content, if you said anything positive about Eureka on the forums the best outcome would be that your post would get ignored. More often than not, you would get the vitriol of the hate from people who didn't like the content. There's nothing like being called "part of the problem" for liking content that others do not like.

And yet the clear rates in the lucky bancho survey shows that you are still a minority. (And these numbers also included the people who only did it because they always do relic, who do it for the huge amount of items you get as a rewards and more.)

You can also say that not everyone that disliked it went to the forum to vent. The forum will always be a minority of the playerbase but it had been a good indicator..a lot of the content that was more disliked on the forum also was death quite fast ingame. The only saving grace for Eureka was that you could go there all alone and theoretically solo it. But it was still nerfed quite fast.

So yes the forum will never 100% give the view of everyone but if something is greatly disliked or greatly loved then its probably that way in the game itself.

[Gemina]

Out of curiosity, why do you assume this? RNG is far from the only way to achieve artificial longevity. We've seen plenty of examples of that at this point.

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. If you want to Goldilocks this content to where the grind is 'just right', good luck. Our playerbase is far too diverse for that. The abundance of examples you refer to can all be categorized into three different ways I can think of that SE instills longevity into their content: Loot lockout; tome weekly limit; and the random number generator. One or more of these three have to be implemented or players will devour the content whole.

You ask the question of what's a feasible grind for us; but how about the devs? How much time should they poor into new content that does not use any of the aforementioned methods? Knowing that whether it's two months or six that this content is developed, it will be consumed in a matter of days? This resource time and management is also a grind, and the demand that the devs face never lets up.

There's another alternative: No relic at all. Kind of like Deep Dungeon. Vastly popular, huge repeatable factor, lots of rewards... Gone. When things like this happen, I am quick to remind players about the demand for Viera, housing, new game+, making new and old outfits compatible for both genders, among other things that directly affect the new content we get from this team. Basically what I am saying, is you - the playerbase, asked for this.

[Dyvid]

And yet the clear rates in the lucky bancho survey shows that you are still a minority. (And these numbers also included the people who only did it because they always do relic, who do it for the huge amount of items you get as a rewards and more.)

You can also say that not everyone that disliked it went to the forum to vent. The forum will always be a minority of the playerbase but it had been a good indicator..a lot of the content that was more disliked on the forum also was death quite fast ingame. The only saving grace for Eureka was that you could go there all alone and theoretically solo it. But it was still nerfed quite fast.

So yes the forum will never 100% give the view of everyone but if something is greatly disliked or greatly loved then its probably that way in the game itself.

I'll be honest. I disliked then quit Eureka after if first came out. It remind me too much of the bad things that FFXI offered like sitting in Jeuno shouting for a party... Didn't complain on the board much either because I figured that is what people said they wanted and that is what they got. I heard they fixed something but I fall in that group that when I hate some, I never complain, just leave and never come back.

[Xtrasweettea]

And yet the clear rates in the lucky bancho survey shows that you are still a minority. (And these numbers also included the people who only did it because they always do relic, who do it for the huge amount of items you get as a rewards and more.)

You can also say that not everyone that disliked it went to the forum to vent. The forum will always be a minority of the playerbase but it had been a good indicator..a lot of the content that was more disliked on the forum also was death quite fast ingame. The only saving grace for Eureka was that you could go there all alone and theoretically solo it. But it was still nerfed quite fast.

So yes the forum will never 100% give the view of everyone but if someone is greatly disliked or greatly loved then its probably that way in the game itself.

I am going to assume Lucky Bancho pulls the achievement information from Lodestone, as it is the only way to get proper metrics. Though, I don't remember getting achievement for just getting an item from boxes...

Anyway, my post wasn't about the number of people who did the content versus not. My post was in response to a reason why all-of-a-sudden people started posting they liked Eureka. I wasn't talking about number of Eurekan Relic clears and item earning versus population.

It was more along the line of "we didn't say anything because the environment didn't allow to say anything without getting mobbed on." It was better for us socially to not defend or say anything positive about Eureka in public forums.

I am not denying minority status here. Though, getting the relics in FF14 is a minority event anyway. There's just different preferences on how to get those relics. I am just hoping that this time around, there's something everyone can sink their teeth into: Eurekan styled and ARR/HW styled.