Request for HC characters

[Johners]

You legit just suggested perma death in an mmo? No, the end. This is such a bad idea on so many surface level obvious ways it isn't even worth responding to almost. There are mmo's that have this, and they are beyond niche with extremely tiny player bases. There is a lot of reasons for that.

If SE wants "harder content" all they need to do is add optional modes for some content that force the minimum I level while maybe also adding extra or harder mechanics. Which they wont, because they tried harder content in Endwalker and no one played it.

The idea of an optional game mode with a hardcore feature set is perfectly fine for an MMORPG. It's an option within World of Warcraft Classic and is hugely popular. Especially right now with the recent fresh base game servers Blizzard launched as part of WoW's 20th anniversary event.

With this being said, FFXIV's game design doesn't suit a hardcore ruleset. The levelling experience is driven by a cinematic MSQ, not the grinding mobs and kill/loot 10 boars you find in WoW. Now we have softcore options, so to speak, in content such as Eureka and Bozja but I don't see a death penalty being applicable outside of those bubbles.

[Reimmi]

You legit just suggested perma death in an mmo? No, the end. This is such a bad idea on so many surface level obvious ways it isn't even worth responding to almost. There are mmo's that have this, and they are beyond niche with extremely tiny player bases. There is a lot of reasons for that.

If SE wants "harder content" all they need to do is add optional modes for some content that force the minimum I level while maybe also adding extra or harder mechanics. Which they wont, because they tried harder content in Endwalker and no one played it.

It would be optional lol
i don't think it'd fit this game though because the game is piss easy unless you're doing savage raids and stuff. you will never die in the open world unless a hunt mob decides to kill you

[TheMightyMollusk]

That reminds me, I keep planning to do a Nuzlocke on Pokemon Scarlet and never got around to it.

[Commander_Justitia]

There are dungeons where you die as part of the mechanic, the game treats it as a real death as you unlock the tutorial text for death then as some solo no death attempt players found out.

But yeah, this game isn't made for it. You know why? Because you have to pull like 5 mobs 8 level above you to actually die after a minute. There is barely any danger in open world FF14. WoW is much more fun in that regard.

[ArchlordPie]

tl;dr: Just go back to WoW.

For some context, "HC" or "hardcore" characters in other games, such as WoW and Diablo, are characters with permanent death enabled. If they die at any time, for any reason, whether that reason is the player's fault or not, the character is lost forever. Some games let you change the character into a non-hardcore version after they die. Others just delete them outright.

The operative phrase there is "for any reason, whether that reason is the player's fault or not". If you disconnect while fighting something and die before you reconnect, too bad. If another player pulls a zillion mobs, you happen to wind up on their aggro table, and that player themself dies, and then all the mobs run over to you and delete you next? Too bad. If you're running instanced content and happen to mess up a boss mechanic and die to it? That's it for that character, go next.

There's a reason WoW has entirely separate servers dedicated to hardcore characters. The mode at its core is too easy to troll unless the guy considering trolling it has as much to lose as their potential victim(s). MPK is against ToS but "plausible deniability" is very easy to establish if you know what you're doing. There's nothing stopping someone from ending a HC character by popping into a random dungeon as tank, wall-to-wall pulling, not popping anything, dropping dead, and going "oops mb" as the SAM dies and screams their head off over having to start over again.

So you wouldn't just need separate servers in 14's case. You'd need a dedicated data center for it that has cross-DC travel disabled both ways. And that's a hard sell for a mode that's likely to appeal to less than 1% of FF14's total playerbase.

But let's assume that's not an issue. What do you do about the MSQ? Because that's a huge pile of effectively free experience players can get just from walking places and skipping cutscenes. What do you do about MSQ solo duties if you do away with the MSQ? Force them to be done on Normal? What happens to a character if they time out of a duty but don't actually run out of health? Does that still end a HC run? What's stopping someone from starting a MSQ solo duty, doing the bare minimum to not get AFK kicked, letting the duty time out so it's considered failed, then restarting it on Very Easy, which is now available because the duty was failed once?

Now the flip side of the coin: would you want to lose your character for messing up In From The Cold, or one of the several duties where you aren't actually playing as your character?

Say you're in a dungeon and realize you've messed up a one-shot mechanic. What's stopping you from abandoning the duty before the mechanic actually kills you? Basically everyone's willing to sit through a 30 minute penalty in order to save a HC character. Is that considered MPK if you do that as the tank and the boss winds up killing all your teammates?

Long story short, there are both IRL logistics and game design hurdles to overcome in potentially adding a hardcore mode to FF14, to the point where it's better off for SE to just not invest in it at all, and for people who desire it to just go play a game that offers it.

[Connor]

I mean they could maybe do like a Palace of the Dead style content where your progress is wiped and your level is reset on death. So like permadeath content-wise but not for the character could work I guess?

Do the Deep Dungeons work like that? I genuinely don’t know lol. Deep dungeon savage?

I can’t imagine they’d ever add a way to have the player character end up ‘deleted’ in any way. I mean, the game is very much designed for the player character to be the ‘special chosen one’, so it’d kinda fly in the face of literally the entire game’s design since its’ (2.0) inception

[CVXIV]

I mean they could maybe do like a Palace of the Dead style content where your progress is wiped and your level is reset on death. So like permadeath content-wise but not for the character could work I guess?

Do the Deep Dungeons work like that? I genuinely don’t know lol. Deep dungeon savage?

I can’t imagine they’d ever add a way to have the player character end up ‘deleted’ in any way. I mean, the game is very much designed for the player character to be the ‘special chosen one’, so it’d kinda fly in the face of literally the entire game’s design since its’ (2.0) inception

Your Aetherpool level isn't reset upon death, you only lose anything you obtained during a run before you completed it

So if you obtain 4+ Aetherpool and die before or on the last boss then that +4 is gone, but you'd still have whatever you went in with
The only way to lose that is to turn it into the weapons

I could be wrong in some places, but the point remains
I agree on it being hard to implement with lore, and honestly I don't see them adding it either way for other reasons
It would make things pretty difficult for other players not participating if one of their party members couldn't be revived

[Vedauwoo]

If someone wants to play their game like that.....why not just delete your own char when you die....don't force it on everyone else....

[EddardStark]

Aside from the 'they would never because of...' branch of thinking - I'm more curious to know if people would actually like the option itself, which is what I think would actually garner attention.

[TaleraRistain]

Why would SE put development time into officially sanctioning something like that? Someone who wants to play that way can just delete their character when they die.