The problem with Tripling Down on Shadowbringers Job Design

[Zadood]

None of this is contradicting anything I said. In fact, it makes the dev team look worse, because it means they're willingly alienating a portion of the playerbase to cater entirely to another portion that's already happy with the game.

Also, not every casual player is entirely happy with just socialising, flashy animations and engaging story either. There's been quite a few players who say that they're casual and never touch extreme/savage but also hate the job simplifications.

The design philosophy of "A game for everyone" is inherently flawed, I can attest that as a former R18 doujin game developer.

While the said design philosophy is certain flawed one, but by no means is a bad one especially depending on priorities of a game developers.

If a game developer prioritize making money over players' gameplay experience, then the game design philosophy of "A game for everyone" is the best for the game devs.

If a game developer prioritize players' gameplay experience over making money, then the said game design is the worst for the game devs.

The thing is, majority of players lack strong preference when come to gameplay experience, since they only want games that is "good enough" for them have fun, and will ditch the game when the game are no longer have fun for them. After that, they will jump to the next shinies.

In Vtuber circles, we call these kind of players as "tourists".

[HyperiusUltima]

In Vtuber circles, we call these kind of players as "tourists".

Yeah, and XIV has been a tourist attraction for people who play other Final Fantasy games.

You can see the references pretty well if you've played the different gaves, and XIV does love to give nods - some rather forced than others.

However, we must not forget that XIV is a live service compared to a single player game. As a live service, you want your net cast wide so you can profit while maintaining the game(which they've done particularly well with new players). One of the issues however is that they're focusing on new player addition than player retention - an issue that you can't ignore as a live service.

In the MMO Genre, you of course have your highs and lows in the development cycle due to patch lulls where you lose some of your playerbase, but a patch makes them come back for more because of the quality. That patch quality has been lackluster after 6.2 in regards to story and job design. One thing I've noticed among casuals is they are not always inclined to do new thing. More often than not, if new thing is too grindy to get? They won't do it unless they really want it. While it's a subsection of the playerbase, this spoonfed philosophy from ShB to EW is harming the game in the name of "accessibility", even if that was already achieved in Shadowbringers. They need to remind people what an MMO is in Dawntrail, or the game is going to slump into a state that will be hard to recover from due to all the issues it has. Because once that new coat of paint falls off? It's back to the drawing board.

[ty_taurus]

I know this is a lot of questions, but I'm quite puzzled with the direction this game is going, combat-wise. I can't take another 2 years of this...

I think I myself am going to give Dawntrail a shot and see just how “surprising” this new approach to encounter design actually is, but I’m also feeling like maybe beyond that I just skip the rest of DT. It would be nice if I didn’t have to wait 2.5 years to enjoy FFXIV (assuming this return to job identity actually turns out), but I’m just tired of wanting to play a game where the devs clearly don’t want me to play it.

[Zadood]

It is super fine to alieanate customers, video games are not hospitality service. We don't ask the performer to turn down the volume at the metal concert.
Overall this is how they see FFXIV at its best.

This argument only hold true if FFXIV is a single player game, since single player games in general don't really "service" customer, so long the the said game is bug/glitch free on fundamental level.

Single player game make moneys by making players want to play to game, so they go and and buy the game.

However, whether the players continue play the games after bought the game, is only matter if they like the games enough to warrant a sequels of the said games.



Massive Multiplayer Online games a.k.a MMOs, however is different stories, as MMOs make moneys by making players playing MMOs as long as they can afford to. But, the revenue potential is significantly higher than a single players which is why there is a period of time where the "Single Player Games are dead" sentiment have been echo'ed by many AAA game studios, because they want that MMOs moneys.

But here's the thing, every players only have 24 hour per day, and every players can only play 2 MMOs at best due to MMOs time consiming game design. Now because of these, MMOs market in general is a zero-sums market, hence MMOs market get saturated quickly. Which is why MMOs game devs will try to design MMOs gameplay engaging enough to hook and retent players, therefore MMOs with best "service" or more accurately best "live service" will make the most moneys, especially look at Mihoyo games in general.

Alienating customer base is somewhat tolerated in single player game, but definitely not acceptable in MMOs unless the new customer base has wrought more revenue compared to old customer base.

[Supersnow845]

At this point it’s honestly debatable if post rework PLD is harder than WAR given PLD’s rotation has absolutely no nuance to it anymore. It neatly fits into a 60 second bow without you even trying and your 4 relevant oGCD’s all are designed to be double weaved together. I can’t even think of a point of optimisation for new PLD. Not that WAR is any better but neither have anything going for them in the optimisation department

[Zadood]

I just think that is a very naive way of framing the issue. It is never about whether gaming or games are or were ever "harmful" to casuals.

It is just the reality that gaming expanded from a niche technical interest into mass consumption entertainment media. Yes, you could side with the casuals that they are somehow "harmed" by challenge, or even take the opposite approach and villify them for being lazy and unskilled.

But the relationship between accessibility/popularity and lack of challenge will always exist in all forms of media. Consumers (in this case gamers) don't like to admit it, but entertainment is still a leisure activity. What that ultimately means is that:

1. Most people in reality do not have the time or interest to spend their free time being mentally taxed. Life is taxing enough. So profitability of ANY media will always trend toward being unchallenging and placative. A game (or film, or music, or whatever) can either be deeply designed, or it can be massively commercially popular, but it really cannot aspire to be both. Exceptions occur (and usually in spite of complexity, not because of it), but they are extremely rare and FFXIV is not one of them.

2. This romanticized notion that "gaming" consumption-as-identity requires gaming to be "challenging" is a bit of a delusional sham. It is maintaining at best a compartmentalized notion that challenge and accessibility even can reasonably be co-prioritized. And at worst maintaining a nostalgic fantasy of gamers = niche nerds = hard games that simply doesn't describe the industry and communities anymore. "Gaming" is not the unique thing it used to be that I think people act like it still is; it is massively popular/populist and now caters to a lower common denominator.

In another words, beating or complete a video game back in the "old days" is something players can brag for in front of their friend, and if players failed to go do, they will rage and rant about game being hard for them, but there were very few of them genuinely question the fairness as well as accessibilty of game design in general.

Nowadays? If players can't beat a game, they would just assume game developers hate players by making game hard for players, some of the player go as far as sending death threat to game developers as well.

Nowadays video game become so much accessible which make beating or complete a video game became something expected from any "functional" players, therefore the joy of finish a game kind of diminishes over time.

"Back in the old days" players are just simply being nostalgic about the halcyon days of completing a video game is something they can brag about.

[ty_taurus]

Back in the old days" players are just simply being nostalgic about the halcyon days of completing a video game is something they can brag about.

Claiming that the only reason someone would want to beat a video game would be to shove it in their friends’ faces sounds like a really cynical—almost misanthropic way to look people.

There’s more to undertaking challenges than doing it for the purpose of being better than others. I would argue that most people like winning games because they like challenging themselves and finding satisfaction in the journey that got you there.

[HyperiusUltima]

Rebooting this for a hot minute since we're essentially 26 days from Early Access, and a Month from Full Release.

Since we have the site up now, I'm more hyped for the story along with just The Arcadion. Given that we don't have a huge world threat to deal with in the Arcadion, I'm more curious than ever how they're going to spice up the raiding formula, especially since they had ran into the WAR problem since the beginning of time(2:30 or 3:00 on Holmgang). So, here's hoping they shake it up to where we're not all doing jump ropes because BOY HOWDY we did a lot of that this set of raids in Endwalker.

[Supersnow845]

Rebooting this for a hot minute since we're essentially 26 days from Early Access, and a Month from Full Release.

Since we have the site up now, I'm more hyped for the story along with just The Arcadion. Given that we don't have a huge world threat to deal with in the Arcadion, I'm more curious than ever how they're going to spice up the raiding formula, especially since they had ran into the WAR problem since the beginning of time(2:30 or 3:00 on Holmgang). So, here's hoping they shake it up to where we're not all doing jump ropes because BOY HOWDY we did a lot of that this set of raids in Endwalker.

Nerfing WAR would be a start

Given it’s broken in nearly every facet of its gameplay to a hilarious degree

[HyperiusUltima]

Nerfing WAR would be a start

Given it’s broken in nearly every facet of its gameplay to a hilarious degree

Pretty sure I went into detail about that and sparked a big discussion with WAR Here for a good minute before that train stopped.