Trends in content types and faux difficulty

[Sol_Aureus]

With each update I've become increasingly worried about the direction that FFXIV's content is headed in.

First there was Darkhold: a spamable dungeon with a 100% chance to get loot at the end from each chest. Everyone had full sets of everything from that dungeon within a month easily, then sat around twiddling their thumbs waiting for new content again.

Next there was Ifrit: a spamable fight with instanced chests so everyone got a chance to get an item. Problem is, it's a random item so you might not even be able to use it. It was incredibly frustrating when within our first 10 runs our tank got the staff and I got the sword. We'd love to have traded, but the items drop directly into our inventories so we can't even help our friends. So you have a low chance of getting a drop (let's be generous and say 10%) with a 1/7 (14%) chance on top of that that it's the drop you want. That's a 1.4% chance of getting the item you want. Later on they added Inferno Totems so you could save up for an item you actually wanted or pass the totem to your friend to help them get something they wanted. Good idea, but the problem again is that it's a random chance drop with a lower end drop rate and you need 10 of them.

Next was Moogle, another spamable fight whose loot system was a carbon copy of Ifrit's and has the same problems because of it.

Followed by Aurum Vale and Cutter's Cry: spamable dungeons with abysmally low drop rates. One of the absolute worst types of content in any MMO in my opinion. It's a cheap and lazy way to prolong content and create faux difficulty. The sad part about this is I loved Aurum Vale and liked Cutter's Cry (except for Chimera because of the fact that melee are practically worthless during the fight, but that's a different discussion). The dungeons were cool and had interesting mechanics in them that made them stand out. But then they were ruined by the fact that they were spamable. Darklight has such an abysmally low drop rate that players have to spam the dungeon for a chance at it. This is not fun. This is tedious and burns players out on these dungeons really really quickly.

Next of course came Garuda: Another spamable fight with practically the same loot mechanics as Ifrit and Moogle and has the same problem of the instanced chests dropping items directly to your inventory. But Garuda had one major difference: 100% totem drop rate. This was a step in the right direction. Viable progress every run towards your goal item. I would have preferred if they just had the weapons drop to your loot list so you can pass them, but it was at least something.

Finally we have Hamlet Defense: more spamable content with abysmally low drop rates. The militia gear isn't even all that great for battle classes. There are a few nice pieces, but it's hardly Darklight tier.

Then in 1.22a we got the first part of the AF weapon quests: where you need a key item from your GC that costs 25,000 seals and 3 seals: one from each hamlet defense. When I first heard about this, I was very happy with it. Finally, something that rewarded effort over luck. But alas, it was not so. After buying the GC key item I started doing level 2 Hamlet Defenses and found out to get the seals it was once again spamable content with abysmally low drop rates on top of the fact that chances are you're only going to get one to drop at a time if you do manage to get lucky, and you need one from all 3 hamlets. So once again it's mostly luck based: You have to wait so once every 3 days you can try for a specific hamlet, hope that the server has turned in enough supplies to turn it over to level 2, hope that when you clear that the seal drops from the chest then hope it drops to your inventory or to the inventory of someone who's willing to pass it to you. Then you have to do this 3 times.

And this is what worries me. Every single bit of endgame content we have right now is spamable. Because it's spamable, if they want to make the items you obtain by doing this content be "rare," it must have low drop rates. If it didn't, everyone would have full sets of everything again and there would be no sense of pride for getting gear because it's common. The problem is, this content does not reward skillful play or effort. The content instead rewards people who are lucky. That is it.

I want content that rewards skillful play and effort more than luck. Enough with the spamable content with abysmally low drop rates. Implement 1-3 day lockouts on content and dramatically increase drop rates. For something like Cutter's and Aurum Vale, I would have loved to see it be a 2 day lockout with each chest at the end having about a 35% drop rate on Darklight gear. If you do a 5 chest speed run, you have a pretty high chance of seeing at least one piece which keeps people motivated to keep doing the dungeon. The dungeon doesn't get stale because you're locked out for 2 days so you're not spamming it 8 times a night. The content stays viable for just as long as it is now, it's just much less tedious and frustrating.

The problem with lockouts of course is the fact that once you're waiting on your lockout, you don't have much to do. The thing is though, if everything we had right now had lockouts, there would be plenty to do. Aurum Vale on cooldown? Do Cutter's. That too? Garuda. Moogle. Ifrit. Hamlet Defense, hell, even Darkhold and Toto-rak for seals! If they had lockouts as well then perhaps people would do leves and chocobo escorts more! (I think they need a buff in rewarded seals for sure though, but that's another topic). By the time you finish all of that content, it'll be close to 2 days so you'll be able to start again soon.

So please SE, I'm begging you, move away from the "spamable content + abysmally low drop rate" model for everything. IT IS NOT FUN.

[darkstarpoet1]

i hate to disagree, but at this point until 2.0 there's not much choice besides adding spammable content. with the fact people are so starved for content because of the pathetic amount of endgame content in the game right now. when only adding 1 piece of content every few months it's not enough to keep people interested if it had a long lockout. people run that one piece over and over because it's the only new piece. when the next piece comes out people are sick of the previous content.

i'm hoping once 2.0 releases it will come with massive amounts of content so they would be able to add a lockout. the problem right now though is if it had a 3 day lockout on new content i know myself and alot of others that would only sign in once every 3 days to run it and then sign out for the next 3 days. we've already completed what's in game repeatedly so there's nothing else to sign in, for the most part.

the biggest issue they have with long lockouts on content is that this game has been out over 18 months and in that time we've only had a small amount of content developed for the capped level players. there's actually a higher amount of mid level content than there is for end game as far as pure numbers go.

[Sol_Aureus]

i hate to disagree, but at this point until 2.0 there's not much choice besides adding spammable content. with the fact people are so starved for content because of the pathetic amount of endgame content in the game right now. when only adding 1 piece of content every few months it's not enough to keep people interested if it had a long lockout. people run that one piece over and over because it's the only new piece. when the next piece comes out people are sick of the previous content.

i'm hoping once 2.0 releases it will come with massive amounts of content so they would be able to add a lockout. the problem right now though is if it had a 3 day lockout on new content i know myself and alot of others that would only sign in once every 3 days to run it and then sign out for the next 3 days. we've already completed what's in game repeatedly so there's nothing else to sign in, for the most part.

the biggest issue they have with long lockouts on content is that this game has been out over 18 months and in that time we've only had a small amount of content developed for the capped level players. there's actually a higher amount of mid level content than there is for end game as far as pure numbers go.

And I do understand that that might be their mentality, and that this might just be a temporary thing until 2.0 hits.

But I'm still worried that the trend will continue into 2.0, and if it does I know a lot of people who will be very disappointed. I'll probably be quitting if the trend continues into 2.0.

[viion]

SE's solution to everything = random numbers. They're completely uncreative at making nice progression, i've lost hope, but it can be done, Eg's GW2 Karma system is a great example. Garuda was kind of there...

I agree with everything you said, but i dont think it will change because they just continue to make bad design choices over and over again.

People like grinding if it means its "rare".... But then you alienate all your casual folks.

[Myrhn]

Are you even sure that the item for hamlet defense is from the lvl 2 and is not from the lvl 5 that is not out yet?

[Sol_Aureus]

Are you even sure that the item for hamlet defense is from the lvl 2 and is not from the lvl 5 that is not out yet?

yes, it's been a confirmed drop.

[darkstarpoet1]

And I do understand that that might be their mentality, and that this might just be a temporary thing until 2.0 hits.

But I'm still worried that the trend will continue into 2.0, and if it does I know a lot of people who will be very disappointed. I'll probably be quitting if the trend continues into 2.0.

that i can understand and agree with completely. hopefully come 2.0 they have some of each type of content imo. i want some spammable to do in my free time, some with lockouts that you need to coordinate for a good party, and some long term stuff like collecting pop items to be able to progress into.

[Airget]

SE's solution to everything = random numbers. They're completely uncreative at making nice progression, i've lost hope, but it can be done, Eg's GW2 Karma system is a great example. Garuda was kind of there...

I agree with everything you said, but i dont think it will change because they just continue to make bad design choices over and over again.

People like grinding if it means its "rare".... But then you alienate all your casual folks.

Reading over the Karma system it seems easily exploitable and a means to convince competitive players to buy two versions of the game so that they can easily maximize themselves.
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To the OP you say the content doesn't take skill, then you're saying that when any of this content is released it's always 100% success rate, people never fail these dungeons at all? You're complaint seems to be tailored to the fact that people understand the dungeon and thus can get by with little issues which is the point that it becomes spammable. It's honestly no different from what you see in XI's events aside from the fact that they can only be done once a day.

When it comes to being able to spam certain events it comes down to the casual player. The majority of players who complain about content going by to fast or obtaining things to quickly are usually the hardcore players or those who have time on their hands to get through the event and spam it.

For a casual player however perhaps they only have 1 day in which they can do dungeons, so the ability to spam said dungeon for the whole day is a godsend for them if they just don't have the time to do it later in the week. Unlike in XI when Dynamis use to be on a 3 day cooldown people would have to dedicate 2 days to doing dynamis on a set schedule and such.

At the start all content is difficult when you don't understand what's going on but once you learn all the tricks behind it it's easy to get through. Honestly speaking the "speedrun" is only a natural order in which this type of content evolves into to. You've learned everything there is to know about it, now you attempt to run through the dungeon in the quickest manner possible.

People tend to forget that things in this game are designed to allow casual players to maximize the time they have. It's just that the hardcore have the same tools so they can get even greater use out of it. Especially now since anima is pretty much limitless. Anime, leves, dungeon cooldowns.

In a sense it comes down to this, would you rather have content with a 15% drop rate that you can only do every three days, or content in which the drop rate is 5% but you can do it as much as you like? 3 days equates to only being able to enter the dungeon twice a week, and if you fail you have to wait for the cooldown.. wouldn't that be quite discouraging if perhaps you made a mistake at the start or an unfortunate d/c occured.

The system set up in 14 is one which allows players to make mistakes since they do happen at times, but rather then all their progress be lost or waste a chance to obtain loot, they are free to try again right away which is why things become easier much quicker. People have more time to play around in the dungeon and can build up strategies for it quicker. With something like dynamis the reason why it may seem like it took a while to understand is because of it's cooldown, if people can only enter it 3 times a day, then you want to win, you don't always think of trying to understand it, but you try and balance both understanding the strategy behind it and winning. If dynamis was set to 1 day strategies would prolly have been set in place 10 times faster, and if people could spam it then it would've been figured out in 5 days lol.

There's nothing wrong with the content now, it's designed for casuals, it's designed so that even people with little time on their hand can actually enjoy all the content in the game.

[fusional]

There's nothing wrong with the content now, it's designed for casuals, it's designed so that even people with little time on their hand can actually enjoy all the content in the game.

which is fine in theory- but in practice when it takes a hardcore player 500-600 runs to get a piece of darklight that a casual player gets in 20... there's a problem. basing everything on luck is just a slap in the face to anyone who puts in more than enough effort, but simply doesn't get lucky.

[Keres]

I've been feeling this way for a while. The model of having short dungeons with extremely low drop rates that are supposed to be run over and over and over and over and over in quick succession is extremely tedious and not at all interesting. I would also be in favor of moderate lockouts (a couple days for most things) with much higher loot drop rates. Extremely low drop rates are not a substitute for interesting content.

Hopefully this dungeon/loot model is just a result of having a small development staff dedicated to adding content to the existing game, and things will change will 2.0. If not, I fear for the future of the game.