Stop making Ultimate, Savage and Unreal content

[VerdeLuck]

Because, what's the point? The general player population already has trouble with the 1 or 2 gimmicks that bosses have in normal raids (see the regular wipes in Eden raids, and certain Alexander fights, with knowledge about Pandaemonium fights also diminishing). The whole point of these fights are the difficult mechanics. So what do you want these "story mode" fights to be? Boss will do their mechanic, but people have godmode and don't really need to do anything? Which of course means that there will be no rewards. At which point just go and watch a clear on your favorite video web page.

What I'm saying is the style of "Council Fights", I think WoW calls them, are not explored yet in FFXIV as any content that's not hardcore. There is room for innovation and difference styles of mechanics and fights, the developers are just terrified of doing anything new.
The Ultimate format where it's a fight that has an overarching story, and bosses come and go while the arena stays the same is a concept entirely unexplored in casual content in this game, we go between boss arenas instead.

[Heavenchild]

I wouldn't say they should 'stop' to make this type of content. But they should focus on the majority of the playerbase more than on the small percentage of hardcore lovers.

It's sad how long the majority of the playerbase got nothing, while they are releasing more and more extreme content. 7.0 had nothing beyond msq that can hook people.
EW had a huge contentdrought, too. And now 7.1 again is just extreme content. In my opinion their focus is very wrong.

I start to have thoughts like:
"... okay maybe let the m plot go and stop being held hostage for a digital house and a game that is not willing to deliver me an actual gaming experience, over years..., while taking my money".

I never thought that such things someday would come to my mind. Maybe the wait and the frustration gets too much at some point. A little hope is still left. But it's really little. And there is other interesting stuff we can spend our money for, where we really get some fun content. : )

Honestly I am also tiered of all the 'arena with boss' designed stuff. For me personally that feels really boring.

[AllenThyl]

What I'm saying is the style of "Council Fights", I think WoW calls them, are not explored yet in FFXIV as any content that's not hardcore. There is room for innovation and difference styles of mechanics and fights, the developers are just terrified of doing anything new.
The Ultimate format where it's a fight that has an overarching story, and bosses come and go while the arena stays the same is a concept entirely unexplored in casual content in this game, we go between boss arenas instead.

Again, what's the point? For whom? The whole idea was initially for an "easy version of ultimates". I argue such a thing is utterly pointless. If you just want to see the fight, go watch a clear. The game is deliberately designed in such small chunks so that the majority of the playerbase, whose money props up this game, can do one small fight for about 5-8 mins and then leave. For a majority of the playerbase, this small chunk is already a struggle, especially in the Western part of the community. The clear rate is only so high because the content has no hard enrage, mechanics can often be resolved if just one or two people out of 8 know what to do, and there are unlimited rezzes during the fight. You can see the general incompetence whenever you go to Bozja and all the "midcore" players, who spend hundreds even thousands of hours there, with full 30 rays, cannot do a single mechanic from Red Chocobo correctly (and it only has 3 different mechanics). At best, they might survive thanks to overgearing and healing output. But this single encounter with only 3 completely telegraphed attacks, regularly wipes whole of Bozja.

The content you wish for isn't in the game because the developers are unable to design such a thing, it's because there is no point to it. If a "story" fight is either too difficult or too long, a large amount of the community will simply fill this forum with complaints until it gets nerfed. Variant and Criterion dungeons were added, which did provide a challenge, but the community at large wasn't interested, because there were no rewards that enticed them to do it. And everywhere there are interesting rewards, a significant part of the community will go to great lengths to get these rewards while doing as little as possible, see all the afkers / leechers in PvP, or people just outright buying Ultimate clears.

[VerdeLuck]

Again, what's the point? For whom? The whole idea was initially for an "easy version of ultimates". I argue such a thing is utterly pointless. If you just want to see the fight, go watch a clear. The game is deliberately designed in such small chunks so that the majority of the playerbase, whose money props up this game, can do one small fight for about 5-8 mins and then leave. For a majority of the playerbase, this small chunk is already a struggle, especially in the Western part of the community. The clear rate is only so high because the content has no hard enrage, mechanics can often be resolved if just one or two people out of 8 know what to do, and there are unlimited rezzes during the fight. You can see the general incompetence whenever you go to Bozja and all the "midcore" players, who spend hundreds even thousands of hours there, with full 30 rays, cannot do a single mechanic from Red Chocobo correctly (and it only has 3 different mechanics). At best, they might survive thanks to overgearing and healing output. But this single encounter with only 3 completely telegraphed attacks, regularly wipes whole of Bozja.

The content you wish for isn't in the game because the developers are unable to design such a thing, it's because there is no point to it. If a "story" fight is either too difficult or too long, a large amount of the community will simply fill this forum with complaints until it gets nerfed. Variant and Criterion dungeons were added, which did provide a challenge, but the community at large wasn't interested, because there were no rewards that enticed them to do it. And everywhere there are interesting rewards, a significant part of the community will go to great lengths to get these rewards while doing as little as possible, see all the afkers / leechers in PvP, or people just outright buying Ultimate clears.

Okay you read none of my posts and it's clear you're just trying to use me as a springboard to give your opinion on an unrelated subject

[Turtledeluxe]

Too bad, unsubbed if you dont like it. That what I did on Endwalker. Plus you get a new eureka. Thats already better than what EW give us.

Isn't that like a full year away? That's exactly the problem. There is either not enough funding, talent, or desire to give out content a majority of players can do often enough.

[Kaurhz]

They shouldn't stop making this content, but they're focusing far too much on this content, where they are not really giving the majority of their players something to actually do, and are unironically designing the game in the least MMO-way possible.

Need to wait an absurd amount of time to actually do something fairly repeatable, and that isn't just an instance of 4, 8 or 24 people. Lol

[AllenThyl]

Okay you read none of my posts and it's clear you're just trying to use me as a springboard to give your opinion on an unrelated subject

I read your post, and I understood them. Understanding something doesn't mean that I have to then agree with what is being understood. I asked you twice now for whom YOU think this type of content you asked for ("a story mode version of Ultimate fights") is supposed to be, and you simply didn't answer. Here, your own words:

People are going to say that the easy mode is the raid story

And yes, that is the whole argument. The "story mode version of Ultimate fights" already exists, it's the raid story. An Ultimate fight with stripped down mechanics, just for people to "see" the phase changes would be an utterly pointless waste of development effort. Content for this game isn't added in a vacuum, it is made for a consumer base, the current and expected playerbase, aka "the community". It will at best be a one-and-done deal for most people, but that wouldn't justify the development time. Also:

the developers are just terrified of doing anything new.

They aren't. Criterion dungeons were added because "the community" wanted harder dungeons, and then was utterly uninterested in doing them because of the weak rewards. So it turns out, "the community" isn't actually interested in interesting fights or activities, "the community" largely only wants rewards, if possible for doing absolutely nothing.

[Kohashi]

Criterion dungeons were added because "the community" wanted harder dungeons, and then was utterly uninterested in doing them because of the weak rewards. So it turns out, "the community" isn't actually interested in interesting fights or activities, "the community" largely only wants rewards, if possible for doing absolutely nothing.

An accurate summary of what's actually going on..

But then again, they said they will implement more rewards and I am not seeing any of it beyond the events that are on rotation now . God forbid they re-design or add more meaningful rewards to the existing content.

[ForteNightshade]

They aren't. Criterion dungeons were added because "the community" wanted harder dungeons, and then was utterly uninterested in doing them because of the weak rewards. So it turns out, "the community" isn't actually interested in interesting fights or activities, "the community" largely only wants rewards, if possible for doing absolutely nothing.

This applies to literally everything. Nobody is going to content repeatedly, especially with the difficulty of Criterion Savage, for basically nothing. If the 24 man dropping next week only gave lvl 12 Materia, it'd be dead by the end of the week for the exact same reason. Wanting an interesting fight and good rewards for completing it aren't mutually exclusive.

That all being said, an equally prevalent complaint from hardcore players is that Criterion Savage wasn't interested because it was literally the same thing but with a "can't die" gimmick tacked on and some number scaling. A good amount of them wanted actual new mechanics to prog and the whole "no dying" aspect could just be moved to an achievement.

[Turtledeluxe]

They aren't. Criterion dungeons were added because "the community" wanted harder dungeons, and then was utterly uninterested in doing them because of the weak rewards. So it turns out, "the community" isn't actually interested in interesting fights or activities, "the community" largely only wants rewards, if possible for doing absolutely nothing.

It's a longer conversation but the game could have more rewards if the devs used their multiple expansions to, you know, develop the game and open up potential for more varied rewards.

Heck you don't even need new systems. Maybe if we had a proper relic that xpac and you had to do Criterion as a step, it would have seen more participation. That's just one random example.

But it was more important to force people into story content that they absolutely didn't ask for.