Game Design Concepts that the Devs and Playerbase has Forgotten

[TheOperator3712]

So we've had very little combat outside of trials and dungeons for ~8 years. Why is this being brought up all the time now? Are a bunch of new people joining who don't know how it works?

Cutscene size and density has been significantly increased over the last two expansions. Combined with the generally perceived lessening of quality in DT, people are going to of course complain.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus..._endwalker_in/

[hydralus]

It's a lot easier to forgive when the story is at least good.

And while I haven't exactly done a hard numerical analysis... I'm pretty sure at least SB had so many more memorable solo duties. Naadam, the Zenos fights, the goofy roe Garlean encounters come to mind immediately.

Garlean Roe, Zenos 1, Zenos 2, Naadam, Infiltrating the city... That's 5 fights. 5 fights in, what, 12 hours of cutscenes? This is not my idea of action-oriented game design. It was, what, an hours worth of gameplay? The rest of the time is spent sitting back, reading, watching cutscenes, and walking from one place to another. I guess it doesn't come as a surprise to me that expansions are just more of the same - plot in lieu of gameplay.

[ThorneDynasty]

Garlean Roe, Zenos 1, Zenos 2, Naadam, Infiltrating the city... That's 5 fights. 5 fights in, what, 12 hours of cutscenes? This is not my idea of action-oriented game design. It was, what, an hours worth of gameplay? The rest of the time is spent sitting back, reading, watching cutscenes, and walking from one place to another. I guess it doesn't come as a surprise to me that expansions are just more of the same - plot in lieu of gameplay.

Those are just the ones that immediately come to mind, jesus. We fought the roe multiple times too. And I'm fairly certain we had solo duties in Kugane and the back half of Ala Mhigo too, and a lot more combat in general in the non-instanced quests.

This is an expac I played years ago and I can still remember more than I can from the one I just finished.

EDIT: Oh and as I think on it a bit more, yeah, we had the Namazu-napping in Kugane, Fordola bossfight, the wolfman fight before the battle for Ala Mhigo. Again, just from memory and only counting solo duties specifically.

[hydralus]

Cutscene size and density has been significantly increased over the last two expansions. Combined with the generally perceived lessening of quality in DT, people are going to of course complain.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus..._endwalker_in/

See that's what's weird to me. I didn't hear about any of this complaining in Endwalker despite it being the same thing. Hell arguably Shadowbringers barely had any combat either. What was there, 3 fights with Ran'jit and then two larger field battles? It's like complaining you got 1 crumb instead of 2 I'd think people would be used to there being barely any combat by now.

[Magikazam]

See that's what's weird to me. I didn't hear about any of this complaining in Endwalker despite it being the same thing.

More like you choosed to ignore it back then. I remember complaining about it but people keep using the excuse of ''It the finale of our 10 years adventure, they got no time for this kind of stuff''. Just go do HW on NG+ and trust me, you will feel the difference after the game spawn 3 monster + on you each 3 quests or so.

[hydralus]

Those are just the ones that immediately come to mind, jesus. We fought the roe multiple times too. And I'm fairly certain we had solo duties in Kugane and the back half of Ala Mhigo too, and a lot more combat in general in the non-instanced quests.

This is an expac I played years ago and I can still remember more than I can from the one I just finished.

The roe is fought twice outside of a dungeon. And one is immediately after the Nadaam which I'd consider the same fight anyway, similar to the fight in Solution 9 + Otis + lightning lizard dog thing (unless we want to count those all as separate fights because they're split up by cutscenes, but I don't think that's fair). The Kugane duty didn't have combat that was a stealth mission. Ala Mhigo you're probably talking about the infiltration which did have combat but I already mentioned it. If you'd like to bring up any others feel free to jog my memory. I will admit it has more moments where you kill fauna for quests but I didn't think anyone was really missing "Kill this fat walrus x 3", especially since they largely did away with such objectives in further expansions. I mean let's not forget SB was made 7 years ago. In ShB I'm pretty sure you only kill 2 things before the very first dungeon.

[hydralus]

More like you choosed to ignore it back then. I remember complaining about it but people keep using the excuse of ''It the finale of our 10 years adventure, they got no time for this kind of stuff''. Just go do HW on NG+ and trust me, you will feel the difference after the game spawn 3 monster + on you each 3 quests or so.

I won't, because I don't consider 3 monsters that have no mechanics to be anything worthwhile in terms of content. There's dozens of FATEs I can go do if I want to mindlessly click my AoEs until things die. But you are right that they sprinkled banal combat like that in a lot more in the past. I can really do without that.

[ThorneDynasty]

Okay, just move the goalpost then. Having the same basic "fight a two headed lizardman three times" be the bulk of gameplay action in DT is not a step down at all.

[hydralus]

Okay, just move the goalpost then. Having the same basic "fight a two headed lizardman three times" be the bulk of gameplay action in DT is not a step down at all.

Hey, you were the one talking about solo instances and then started bringing up non-instanced combat. I had no idea people consider killing 3 random monsters that die in less than 30 seconds compelling combat gameplay. Especially since if you add it all up it might account for 5 extra minutes of combat compared to the 20 hours of walking, talking, reading and cutscenes that make up the 70% of the game.

[ThorneDynasty]

Okay, and I already proved SB at least has more solo instances, so..?

First you claim there's just as much combat/action, now you are arguing that actually having more combat quests doesn't matter?