Trends in content types and faux difficulty

[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.

[Zizzefex]

I agree loot/content that gives that loot should be skill based.... not luck based or time based. When you beat something... you should get a guaranteed drop (by drop I mean a token... not a actual item... so you need 10/20/30/whatever tokens for a item of your choice)... and perhaps a random shot at a item. Nothing is worse than beating something hard and getting nothing.

Garuda was a step in the right direction. It was hard, and you are guaranteed a token. This is how every boss (and it's loot) should be. Ifrit/Moogle should give 1 token a kill... guaranteed. Every AV/CC run should give 1 Darklight Ore/token at the end... which you can turn 50 or whatever in for a Darklight piece of your choice. With Garuda I hope it is a sign they are moving away from easy crap with low drop rates to hard awesome with a guaranteed drop.

The only thing wrong with hamlet defense is the reward.... it does not give Company Seals. You should be guaranteed a certain amount of seals depending on your score (and the supply rating).... especially if you are running the hamlet of your faction. They just came out with hamlet defense... after chocobo escort... yet I am running Totorak/Darkhold for seals.... why? I mean really. Hamlet Defense should give Totorak equivalent seals/hour if not better. Militia items should be buyable with seals... and those rare 'seal' things you need for the AF weapons should be a guaranteed drop if you raise the Supply rating to level 5.

I am absolutely dead set against any time lockouts. Implementing time lockouts (1 day/2 day/1 week/whatever) is a absolute no and a artificial way to stall someone's progress... it is no better than luck based lockouts (the way stuff is now).

Sure some people will blow through the game and have everything... that always happens. Most people don't though... and they want to see progress when they log in for a hour or 2 or 5.

Edit: I guess what I'm saying is I see Garuda is a big big step forward.... and Hamlet defense as a small step back (which can be fixed if they just gave Company Seals as a reward).

[Kazimir]

I agree that the spammable content is a horrible MMO design. The content gets very boring way too quickly, which is why most (more successful MMO's) put timers on how often you can enter a dungeon. The drop rates don't have to be greatly improved, just improved enough to match the timers.

Problem is there's always going to be people complaining that they have to wait before doing the dungeon again. People want their gear asap but when everyone in the game gets it within the first few weeks they then start complaining about it.

For the end-game content they should really follow the model of some dungeons having 24-hour timers and the biggest raids with the best gear having a week long reset timer. Of course they need more content to make up for it, but even a lack of content isn't a reason for following a very bad model of spamming.