Recognizing parasistic game design decision

[Akiudo]

ok then. When is the last time they added new features to Palace of the dead. It can be parasitic design but also not be abusive because it is optional. Do you think they are ever going to add new content to Eureka? Bodzja?

Palace of the dead is not a core or supporting design feature of Final Fantasy 14. It falls under optional content but without a doubt it has been abandoned with no hope of any changes.

considering that this year alone i cleared both palace of the dead and heaven on high more than once in different groups simply because it a) still is fun to me and b) people in my fc/friendlist wanted to experience it pray tell why they should change it ? it still has use (going in solo for the challenge, farming it for mounts/to make money, leveling characters/just doing it because i can to waste some time because i feel like it), some of my fc mates are actually currently going through eureka for glamor so again, why does it need change ?

when i said "making it optional is NOT a fine line" i meant it. the fact that it is optional, absolutely not required but does in fact offer rewards people may or may not want makes it perfectly fine for the system not to evolve or you might aswell start complaining they don't evolve riichi mahjong even though its in the game.

[TheRealQuah]

The difference is, there are systems in WoW that you spend the whole expansion grinding, just to be relevant at endgame, and then have all that progress taken away when the new expansion releases.

Palace, BLU and Diadem are nothing like this in any way.

Palace is relevant to everyone and can be done today - to level. You never lose that experience once you have it. Palace hasn't been "abandoned". It's finished. It's level 1-60 content. The comparison here would be if they removed palace after a new expansion came out and everything you got from it just disappeared.
BLU is side content that is still relevant for fun - it's completely seperate to the main game and you don't have to do it to be relevant.

Relic weapons are somewhat closer to this system, but even then, they are designed for the casuals with other ways of getting weapons. Savage = hard but quick. Relic = slow but easy. That's the point.

You could compare Eureka or Bozja if that was the only way to get an endgame weapon, but it's not.

I don't know why OP is deliberately being disingenuous to push some narrative, but tbh I have seen a lot more of these sorts of threads recently since the WoW exodus. It feels like former WoW players are trying to pick apart anything at all to try and justify their previous "wasted" time and affection for WoW. The peak of this was the person who said dungeons were bad for new players because there isn't a pop up window telling you all the boss mechanics.

[Rosenstrauch]

In Legion, the player wasgiven a short questline early in the story in which they are rewarded with an Artifact Weapon. This weapon came equipped with slots to upgrade it and a skill tree, meaning the weapon remained relevant to your progression for the entire expansion. You spent a little less than two years developing this weapon. Growing its power through the acquisition of new items to slot into it and more artifact power to unlock more of the skill tree. It is not an exaggeration to say that this weapon had a bigger impact on your damage output and survivability than your class/specialization's own natural abilities.

And at the end of the expansion, the skill tree was completely removed. All of the power you had come to rely on, that completely redefined how you played your class, was stripped from the game. That is what "borrowed power" means. The Artifact Weapons were not the first time WoW has done this, and they wouldn't be the last time, but they are the most egregious (or so I'm aware—I haven't bothered with BFA or Shadowlands).

I can't think of anything comparable to that in FFXIV. The closest might be those infinitesimally rare equipment drops from the old Diadem, which were made unavailable when it was reworked into a gathering zone for Ishgard Restoration.

[dreamfisher]

I enjoyed the video!

That said, I wanted to say that I think deep dungeons and limited jobs should be classified as something more like mini-games. They don't really interact with the game's systems inasmuch as they consist of interactions between self-contained simulacra of the game's systems. Beyond being optional, they're deliberately kept separate from the core gameplay.

Now, however, I'm imagining a world in which the pomanders you found in deep dungeons were designed to be used outside of them, such that you had to spend time in deep dungeons farming pomanders in order to keep up with other players in endgame content for that expansion. Scary!

EDIT: I see that since I typed this, others have made similar (and more eloquent) points about side content.

[Vahlnir]

None of the systems you listed are borrowed power systems in this game. At all. You clearly don't know what borrowed power means if this is what you see. Sure, they have their own issues, but you are incorrect here. We have a bunch of side systems that, while not as active as they once were, are still completed and grinded to this day. If they were borrowed power, they would have been deleted from the game after their respective expansions were over. I played WoW for about 11 years. I know what borrowed power is. Do you?

[CaptainLagbeard]

Blue Mage, which you listed as an example, is quite literally just side content, a mini-game. It's main function is The Masked Carnivale.
It's about as parasitic as the Golden Saucer.

Deep Dungeon, also a mini-game... Complete with leaderboards too.

Now, places like Eureka and Bozja are closer to parasitic content. As stated by others, it is still completely optional.


The biggest problem with the parasitic content in games like WoW is that it is 100% necessary to participate in said content as they lock in certain bits of gear into the systems.

[RyuDragnier]

I don't know why OP is deliberately being disingenuous to push some narrative, but tbh I have seen a lot more of these sorts of threads recently since the WoW exodus. It feels like former WoW players are trying to pick apart anything at all to try and justify their previous "wasted" time and affection for WoW. The peak of this was the person who said dungeons were bad for new players because there isn't a pop up window telling you all the boss mechanics.

It's low quality bait and an attempt to troll I'd guess. We do get some pretty low quality trolls here from time to time.

[Gabadabs]

In Legion, the player wasgiven a short questline early in the story in which they are rewarded with an Artifact Weapon. This weapon came equipped with slots to upgrade it and a skill tree, meaning the weapon remained relevant to your progression for the entire expansion. You spent a little less than two years developing this weapon. Growing its power through the acquisition of new items to slot into it and more artifact power to unlock more of the skill tree. It is not an exaggeration to say that this weapon had a bigger impact on your damage output and survivability than your class/specialization's own natural abilities.

And at the end of the expansion, the skill tree was completely removed. All of the power you had come to rely on, that completely redefined how you played your class, was stripped from the game. That is what "borrowed power" means. The Artifact Weapons were not the first time WoW has done this, and they wouldn't be the last time, but they are the most egregious (or so I'm aware—I haven't bothered with BFA or Shadowlands).

I can't think of anything comparable to that in FFXIV. The closest might be those infinitesimally rare equipment drops from the old Diadem, which were made unavailable when it was reworked into a gathering zone for Ishgard Restoration.

Exactly this. As a WoW player at the time, always struggling to keep up with what was going on, constantly having these super grindy elements thrown at me was super frustrating.
I'm glad I don't experience anything that I see as comparable in xiv.

[DontReadThis]

No, FF14 doesn't seem to have any kind of borrowed power systems.
PotD, HoH, Eureka, and Bozja are the "closest" it has. However the major difference is that the power gains are permanent (not removed once the next patch or expansion comes out), and they only apply to optional content which you can completely ignore. For instance, I have barely touched HoH, yet my character is no worse off than someone who spends every waking moment in there.

A true borrowed power system would have been if they made PotD's aetherpool levels apply in all content, thereby forcing you to do PotD, and if the power boost was taken away once the next expansion dropped, nullifying all your work (this is the "borrowed" part). Basically, WoW's artifact weapon system, heart of azeroth levels, and now covenant ranks. Players are forced to engage with those systems to keep their characters viable, and all their hard work advancing those systems will be completely wiped away once WoW's next expansion drops.

[SeverianLyonesse]

Some prime examples for FF14 are Diadem, Deep Dungeons and Blue Mage. Now Square Enix has walked a fine line here of making all of these things optional but it is worth it to be educated about this topic.

I think the nature of an MMO is that a lot of previous expansion content will be "parasitic", if all you are expecting is that they maintain current relevancy.

However, I am of the opinion that the examples you point out are not *that* parasitic. Diadem attempts to make gathering and crafting--literally half the core gameplay--more engaging, and is still useful for leveling crafting classes for all the benefits those provide. And Deep Dungeon and Blue Mage provide differently playstyles outside of the core gameplay, similar to the Feast, Frontline, and Rival Wings. Given that the glamours, emotes, mounts, etc., many of which are highly appealing, maintain their value in a very visual/social game, it's clear why players still engage with them. And as for whether they are still "relevant", I would argue that at least Deep Dungeons and Blue Mage got expansions on their respective content. Perhaps the concepts were too limited to sustain larger, longer-term design, but they *were* fleshed out.