The content should be enjoyed by all players?

[Valence]

In light of the recent events, I naturally got to revisit this interesting post, and the fact that the devs have the memory of a goldfish on certain things put aside, I'm inevitably being called to consider the specific bit about "making content that should be enjoyed by all players".

Casual players being denied significant content until the two recent releases (CE and OC)? I'm sure that Forked Tower is being enjoyed by all players as well. Do we plan to also remove the storymodes of raids in the future to stay in line with the new direction? As we all know, challenging XIV content is enjoyed by all the players.

Everything being streamlined so much that everything always boils down to the same bosses with the same mechanics in the middle of the same nonsensical arenas? We can't have fun with our jobs this expansion either, so I'm sure every type of player will feel represented in this game because the current pve model is universally enjoyed by all the players.

Introducing new pve content like Variant dungeons, yet not even bothering trying something else with said pve? Hell, even Orthos has was already being streamlined to bog standard XIV pve, because again, the current pve model is enjoyed by all the players.

What are we complaining about? Casuals strive when it's about fates. Fates are enjoyed by all the players, after all, as well.

If FFXIV's content is very important to the devs so that as many players do enjoy themselves, what even are you doing? Why are you doubling down on the exact same formula for literally everything that you design?

[AvoSturmfaust]

Content cant be enjoyed by all players ever, so sooner or later someone has to take the L, take EW as example, the whole Expansion was so easy that even Yoshi P said, they were going to easy and increse now the difficulity, so how would you balance that every player is happy?

And i dont know what your issue with Variant was, yea the Rewards were garbage but i enjoyed it, it was for me when it comes down to dungeons a step in the right direction, if they now improve on the rewards so thats worth it to grind, i would be more then happy

[Jeeqbit]

Yoshi-P recently said that after trying to get the balance right and get the game to a perfect state, he had finally accepted that it's not possible because no matter what he does, a section of the playerbase will be upset about it, so all he can do is keep trying.

Interestingly, the WoW director recently did a presentation where they had concluded the same thing. There are subjects where the playerbase is diametrically opposed to eachother and it's impossible to satisfy all of them.

[Hallarem]

Yoshi-P recently said that after trying to get the balance right and get the game to a perfect state, he had finally accepted that it's not possible because no matter what he does, a section of the playerbase will be upset about it, so all he can do is keep trying.

Interestingly, the WoW director recently did a presentation where they had concluded the same thing. There are subjects where the playerbase is diametrically opposed to eachother and it's impossible to satisfy all of them.

Sounds like more P.R chocobo-dung explaining to me. A defeatist attitude too,they are HARDLY trying any new angles or innovations and he's saying "Its not possible to please everyone" OH PLEASE, he's hardly TRIED anything with his team to deviate from their formula. THis is actually laughable.

They haven't TRIED anything properly that deviates from the formula yet, and are trying to GASLIGHT the community to think that they have. WoW actually TRIES new stuff, they got dragonriding, we got what... a mount tilt?

[Jeeqbit]

Sounds like more P.R chocobo-dung explaining to me. A defeatist attitude too,they are HARDLY trying any new angles or innovations and he's saying "Its not possible to please everyone" OH PLEASE, he's hardly TRIED anything with his team to deviate from their formula.

They have genuinely gone in a full circle trying to please everyone:
- Wait times between NMs = complaints
- No wait times between them = complaints

- Big relic grind = complaints
- Big relic grind, but not as big = complaints
- Relic grind but new content = complaints
- Relic grind both new and old content = complaints
- Tomestone handouts = complaints
- Full circle repeat = complaints

I do believe that in many cases it's possible to satisfy both sides of the playerbase when they are opposed by giving them an option/choice. But there are going to be situations where you actually just have to choose one or the other as a game designer.

[Hallarem]

They have genuinely gone in a full circle trying to please everyone:
- Wait times between NMs = complaints
- No wait times between them = complaints

- Big relic grind = complaints
- Big relic grind, but not as big = complaints
- Relic grind but new content = complaints
- Relic grind both new and old content = complaints
- Tomestone handouts = complaints
- Full circle repeat = complaints

I do believe that in many cases it's possible to satisfy both sides of the playerbase when they are opposed by giving them an option/choice. But there are going to be situations where you actually just have to choose one or the other as a game designer.

That is still nothing NEW, your examples there are literally the same thing with small tweaks. Its legit become so bad and lazy they are giving out OLD RARE REWARDS like candy, because they can't even design new rewards for their content.

[Jeeqbit]

That is still nothing NEW, your examples there are literally the same thing with small tweaks. Its legit become so bad and lazy they are giving out OLD RARE REWARDS like candy, because they can't even design new rewards for their content.

It may not be new, but my point wasn't that they were all that new. My point was that the technical nuances of the content will never please all players, even if they try to, because of players being on opposing sides generally. They could make brand new content that is way different but once again the technical nuances may upset half the players whatever they do.

There are actually new rewards from this though: the relic weapons, petalodus mount, probably other stuff I didn't get yet.

[PyurBlue]

Island Paradise was just an example, but take as example, they do something completly new, never seen before, then they make the combat in it easy, what would happen? people which actually like even a small challenge start to complain, if they make it a bit harder what happens then? People will complain because its to hard, you see so or so someone has to take the L

What if the content has more than one level of difficulty? The monsters on the perimeter are simple while the ones deeper inside are more difficult. This would provide options for players and let them choose how they want to engage with the content.

i mean the Monster will always do the same, they will always cast the same, the Bosses will always cast and do the same, there is no randomness, if you learn what A does you will always know how to react to A which is a form of DDR, the only Randomness there is if a other monster joins in or not

The defining factor for me is being able to memorize an encounter. Learning a monster's patterns is fine, it can even be fun to do. When those patterns come out in an unpredictable way I find that much more fun than knowing that A will happen at 30 seconds and B will happen at 60 seconds.

You know what goes against the DDR in MMOs? i saw a few days ago a video about a new game where you fight a monster and with every fight the monster learns through KI your movements, your attackpatterns etc etc etc and trys to counter it and improve on it, so every fight is something new and every fight will be harder because the monster learns from you, THAT is randomness THAT is against DDR and that is something you will never see in FFXIV

FF14 seems to have some kind of if-then logic. Some roles are prioritized for mechanics, but if those roles are not present, a different role can be selected. This could be used make fights a little more dynamic by adding different inputs. Instead of looking only a roles, look at HP or MP and change things up based on that. FF14 is as static as it is by choice. It doesn't have to remain that way.

The MMO holy trinity is an absurd concept in and off itself, as the tank can uphold the illusion of being the biggest threat even against the most intelligent enemies.
Imagine being the dragon. There is this one guy in full body armor who scratches you a bit with his sword, and that other guy who hurls fireballs at you that really REALLY hurt. How dumb would you be to ignore the fireball guy, and keep hitting the armored guy - for the entire fight?

The trinity itself isn't so bad. What makes it feel out of place is that the roles that comprise it don't naturally fall into their intended niches. The roles have to be hardcoded into the game because of examples like yours.

If tanks were crowd control masters and were constantly interfering with the dragon's ability to use powerful attacks then suddenly it would make sense for the dragon to focus on them.

[Gurgeh]

They have genuinely gone in a full circle trying to please everyone:
- Wait times between NMs = complaints
- No wait times between them = complaints

- Big relic grind = complaints
- Big relic grind, but not as big = complaints
- Relic grind but new content = complaints
- Relic grind both new and old content = complaints
- Tomestone handouts = complaints
- Full circle repeat = complaints

I do believe that in many cases it's possible to satisfy both sides of the playerbase when they are opposed by giving them an option/choice. But there are going to be situations where you actually just have to choose one or the other as a game designer.

They haven't tried to please everyone. What utter coolaid BS.

- After the Endwalker COVID draught, and then the DT MSW disaster, CHAOTIC should never have been allowed to happen. The designer of that fight should have been told on no uncertain terms that those body checks for example just need to go.
- Criterion (read Savage not Extreme) should never have been allowed to happen more than once. It's happened three times.
- Forked tower, without an accessible challenging instance like Castrum, should never have been allowed to happen.
- It's taken them a decade to still screw up and fail to deliver FATEs that scale fast and properly, scaling that works.
- I asked them to give me lots of Extreme difficulty in OC, and not 'just' lots of one hit tank and spank hunt content. Instead they did give me lots of great Extreme difficulty CE, but then took away 'nearly' all the mob farming, and amplified the worst aspects of hunt farming with bad scaling and having so few.
- No one asked for a small grind that involved a low RNG drop rate. It should have been big grind with a high drop rate it's basic maths. It's basic pavlovian reward psychology that every dog owner knows. They basically turned it into grind into the Extreme mount grind, but without the totems. No one asked for that as the replacement to tomes. We just don't want a huge ARR grind that is ALSO ground on boring FATEs again.
- No one asked for rubbish MSQ, rubbish role quests rubbish event quests and finally... a frankly rubbish OC quest story.
- no one wanted to be starved of something to do with their sub, and then hammered in the crotch by stupid tome caps.

The point is, for certain very large player populations they are getting 'everything' wrong all at once.

All of their efforts to please, that you talk about Jeeqbit, frankly are coming across as 'malicious compliance'
They do what's asked for, 'nominally', then they find some way to really 'thoroughly' screw it up that takes it all away for another reason.

No this isn't "damned if they do, and damned if they don't"
This is "damned if they don't, and then damned for trolling is about it again and again"
That is the reality.

When people say they don't want a big grind, most mean they don't want a big grind that is also 'supremely' boring.
Or they mean "we'd rather not have a big grind at all, but if you're otherwise going to give us nothing instead, like a petulant control freak with bad parenting skills, well well take an ok grind instead. But just not a supremely shit grind.

Your oversimplifying Jeeqbit, and your argument is approaching pedantry.

[CidHeiral]

Yoshi-P recently said that after trying to get the balance right and get the game to a perfect state, he had finally accepted that it's not possible because no matter what he does, a section of the playerbase will be upset about it, so all he can do is keep trying.

Interestingly, the WoW director recently did a presentation where they had concluded the same thing. There are subjects where the playerbase is diametrically opposed to eachother and it's impossible to satisfy all of them.

Pretty much this. There's always room for improvement and the devs certainly make some objectively bad mistakes, but you're never going to please everyone. Trying to please everyone is exactly how we've gotten some of the more maligned decisions in this game, like the current job design.