Grinding in FFXIV vs Other MMOs

[Supersnow845]

Or make that progress matter more, but you'd have gatekeeping either way.

I just don't see much of a future in it with these developers. All we really have to look forward to as casuals is content that people hated. I know now people who jump to defend it, but people hated Eureka. People hated Bozja. They will hate the new one. Islands launched as this hyper casual content. People hated it. Could we expand on it and fix it? Nope, just make a new one.

I just can't see this development team being that competent. I'm sorry, I just can't. Exploratory zone 3.0 is just going to be the same boring grindy convaluted mess that it always is. Please look forward to it!

Your personal opinion on field content doesn’t remotely translate to statistically how popular Bozja was

The only truly unpopular field content was diadem

[CuteBucket]

I'm going to advocate for Bozja here. During ShB, that place was PACKED and was genuinely some of the most fun I've ever had in this game. I didn't play Eureka when it was current so it didn't have that same energy when I went back to try it, but I came to enjoy it more as I played it (except Pagos, hate that map). It's just a shame that when it's over, it's over, and it's hard to get people in there to run stuff again without finding Discord groups and actively making time for it, rather than just hopping in whenever to run it organically. Both of those felt like a good level of grind to me: Enough grind to keep me there doing the content, but not so much grind that I wanted to pull my hair out and quit. But as popular as Bozja was during its heyday, I also CONSTANTLY saw people who hated it and complained about how hard it was, how annoying it was to have to grind levels in it, how it was too hard, how it was punishing...

And all I could think was...then don't play it?? It's purely optional side content, but for a player like me, who wanted something challenging but not Savage level difficulty and time commitment at that point in time, it was perfect and exactly what I wanted. I have very fond memories of it.

I haven't played hardly any other MMOs besides this one, but I do think they need a better balance for time gating and grinding content. A little time gating is fine. Too much is frustrating and makes it hard to gear an alt job. A little bit of grinding is fine. I don't want to just be given a prize for showing up, that's boring, I want to work for and earn it. But doing something insane like 5000 FATEs (or whatever the actual number is, it's a lot is the point) is not a fun grind, that's ridiculous. I've played for years, cleared out FATEs in each zone, and I'm nowhere near that. I'm not doing that, that's way too much.

[Carin-Eri]

50/50 on this.

I mean, the Grind can be grating. But on the flipside I prefer it over the F2P business model which allows you to buy your way (R/L cash) to getting what you want immediately.... but then leaves you staring into the Endgame forest of "Whatnow?".

[coreydies]

I'm going to advocate for Bozja here. During ShB, that place was PACKED and was genuinely some of the most fun I've ever had in this game. I didn't play Eureka when it was current so it didn't have that same energy when I went back to try it, but I came to enjoy it more as I played it (except Pagos, hate that map). It's just a shame that when it's over, it's over, and it's hard to get people in there to run stuff again without finding Discord groups and actively making time for it, rather than just hopping in whenever to run it organically. Both of those felt like a good level of grind to me: Enough grind to keep me there doing the content, but not so much grind that I wanted to pull my hair out and quit. But as popular as Bozja was during its heyday, I also CONSTANTLY saw people who hated it and complained about how hard it was, how annoying it was to have to grind levels in it, how it was too hard, how it was punishing...

And all I could think was...then don't play it?? It's purely optional side content, but for a player like me, who wanted something challenging but not Savage level difficulty and time commitment at that point in time, it was perfect and exactly what I wanted. I have very fond memories of it.

I haven't played hardly any other MMOs besides this one, but I do think they need a better balance for time gating and grinding content. A little time gating is fine. Too much is frustrating and makes it hard to gear an alt job. A little bit of grinding is fine. I don't want to just be given a prize for showing up, that's boring, I want to work for and earn it. But doing something insane like 5000 FATEs (or whatever the actual number is, it's a lot is the point) is not a fun grind, that's ridiculous. I've played for years, cleared out FATEs in each zone, and I'm nowhere near that. I'm not doing that, that's way too much.

Even now Bozja is pretty packed. I didn't even touch Bozja until I came back to FF14 during Dawntrail and finished the main story around late July. BSF during peak times when people get off work, at least on American Data Centers, is filled to the brim with people. Critical Engagements get 20+ people every single time and even CLL starts to fill. I had the most fun playing this game during Bozja... meeting a party and riding around farming with them and the chaos of Critical Engagements was awesome and makes me excited to try Dawntrail's field operations. I just hope people complaining about it don't negatively affect the new content and they focus on making it similar to Bozja because it felt just right with the grind and how long it took to finish, etc. My only hope is they don't make Delibrum Reginae a thing again to progress because you have to go out of your way out of the zone to do it. Make it focused only on large Critical Engagements designed like CLL and Dalriada, but also allow people to do raids outside the game for the relic so there's paths for both types of people.

[Eastwall]

They can add whatever grind they want. Just don't let vertical progression infect pvp