Future proofing and community funneling

[frostmagemari]

Playing the game after expansion feels... not bad, but perpetually empty. If you're not part of the rush to get things done, you'll never have a chance to do it; Places like the moon and occult crescent are becoming ghost towns. Previous areas of those nature already are, but doing anything in them requires a massive amount of people.
You (the developers) need to make plans for when this content isn't new.

Along those lines, stop making fifteen different end-of-expansion islands. There is no reason why the moon and occult crescent couldn't be the same island and having an integrated story. All this separation does is splinter the people playing into tiny subsets instead of being immersed in a world with people.

It's not hard to fix, but the people making this game need to burn the instruction manual they follow every expansion (and post expansion)

Thank you for coming to my rant.

[Underscore]

All of this stuff should just exist in the regular open-world. That way those zones would serve a purpose beyond the MSQ, much more efficient use of dev resources.

[frostmagemari]

Or that, yeah.
I acknowledge that expansion islands are a thing in every mmo; but with how little our zones are utilized as is, there would definitely be room to plop these things down in a zone and build into it.

[Shistar]

All of this stuff should just exist in the regular open-world. That way those zones would serve a purpose beyond the MSQ, much more efficient use of dev resources.

I'm really into this idea. I'd like to see it happen once so we can test it out.
Being able to funnel those resources used in OC, CE, etc. straight into making the overworld itself a place to do many things in, make it feel lived in and detailed would be amazing imo. I think you'd bump into a lot more players that way too, since many of us are scattered in different corners of the world, each doing our thing in a secluded instance.

[Raikai]

IDK how it is nowadays, but funny how Bozja and Eureka were fairly well populated in busy hours back in Endwalker.

They just dropped the ball with OC when it comes to shelf life. IDK what happened, since they had a great foundation to follow up. I'd understand if OC was a completely fresh and innovative feature, and the trial is not successful, but it's not the case.

[frostmagemari]

IDK how it is nowadays, but funny how Bozja and Eureka were fairly well populated in busy hours back in Endwalker.

They just dropped the ball with OC when it comes to shelf life. IDK what happened, since they had a great foundation to follow up. I'd understand if OC was a completely fresh and innovative feature, and the trial is not successful, but it's not the case.

I think the biggest thing is they need to build a fun game feature, then build stuff around it.
When the only reason to do the content is to get to the end for the sake of getting to the end... then it'll drop off quick as soon as people get what they want.
They don't need eternal grinds or gameplay loops.. just something <fun>; and that doesn't come from reading from the same manual everytime they make an end-game area.

[Jeeqbit]

Most content is future proofed.

But the future proofing is in the sense of very few people will be doing it. Because content is FOMO. That's how gamers play games, and SE can't change it.

Now, let's say they made every single piece of content require you to return and do it once per week. We'd have a colossal list of weeklies to do by now, and it wouldn't be fun to still be doing the same content 10 years later.

You just have to accept that either you're here for the FOMO and the associated memories it creates doing it with other players, or you're just subscribing and playing catchup and having whatever limited experience you can scrape up from it. Usually content is still enjoyable solo due to all the cutscenes anyway.

[Shurrikhan]

Most content is future proofed.

But the future proofing is in the sense of very few people will be doing it. Because content is FOMO. That's how gamers play games, and SE can't change it.

This is like saying that every limited time event is always accessible because anyone who wants it will get it in the brief time its accessible. Calling such "future-proofing" is not in keeping with how sensible language works outside of mental gymnastic Olympics.

And no, that's not particularly, let alone universally, how gamers play games, either. Putting aside the obvious fact that I can pick up any old SP game and go through it at my own pace, there's still lively activity through older content in many other MMOs via different incentive structures.

Now, let's say they made every single piece of content require you to return and do it once per week. We'd have a colossal list of weeklies to do by now, and it wouldn't be fun to still be doing the same content 10 years later.

This is comedically fallacious. Making it so content can be run without needing a party of friends and/or a queue of 20+ minutes even when fed by roulettes... does not require making each and every piece of content to ever exist mandatory to complete weekly.

You just have to accept that either you're here for the FOMO and the associated memories it creates doing it with other players, or you're just subscribing and playing catchup and having whatever limited experience you can scrape up from it..

No, that's not "required"; it's simply the bare and wasteful minimum of an ever-expanding experience that doesn't care about retaining accessibility or enjoyability for new players nor about making better long-term use of the development time put into each iteration of the game.
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EDIT:
Moreover, in no way would making a piece of content more playable, such as by making it variably scaled to a lower minimum player count, remove any of the enjoyment to be had 'specifically from' playing the content at its peak. You can lower the barrier of entry to be more appropriate for the player counts likely to tackle it at that time without losing any of the entertainment potential the content itself had. And you can introduce reward structures and funnels by which to increase the player count available to a given piece of content without sacrificing the enjoyability of that content; that is precisely what the likes of Wonderous Tails and roulettes already seek to do, for good reason. And more within the same vein would not be a waste for the game.

It's that bare minimum you here treat as an inevitability that would be wasteful; we've already moved past it intentionally and would benefit from similar featural and system-based improvements alongside whatever other tweaks may increase content accessibility and enjoyability even for later times and lesser population counts.

[Jeeqbit]

This is like saying that every limited time event is always accessible

No it's not, because it's still available. It's just that it will be a quieter experience because the community has stopped doing it. Because that is how gamers play games. They login, do new DLC, then leave. Just watch any friend/user list on Steam, Discord. A new game or its DLC releases, they play it for maybe a week, then they move on. Games are just FOMO. SE knows this, and designs the patches accordingly.

Putting aside the obvious fact that I can pick up any old SP game and go through it at my own pace

You can, but it's FOMO in the sense that while you're playing it at your own pace, everyone else probably isn't playing it. Similarly this is the case in FFXIV. If you do Ishgard Restoration 6 years later, probably most others aren't doing it and the "fun" crowd that was there no longer is.

there's still lively activity through older content in many other MMOs via different incentive structures.

There is, but it's specific content, such as a starting open world area. You are talking about making 12 years worth of content and zones still getting bustling with hundreds of players no matter which content you pickup. This just isn't how people play computer games. Games (or game DLC) get old, and people move onto the next, regardless of how good they are, leaving it as a "ghost town".

Making it so content can be run without needing a party of friends and/or a queue of 20+ minutes even when fed by roulettes... does not require making each and every piece of content to ever exist mandatory to complete weekly.

My point is that you need to give people a reason to go back to any of this 12+ year old content. Otherwise, why would they, when they did it already? You also can't necessarily make a roulette for a Field Operation or Cosmic Exploration. They're just not gonna be crowded eventually. As for needing others, it depends on the content type, since some are actually designed at their core for multiple players, but most things in this game end up being soloable, including Savage, dungeons, DD, variants and relics.

it's simply the bare and wasteful minimum of an ever-expanding experience that doesn't care about retaining accessibility or enjoyability for new players

Again most things can be done by players in the future still. I was just saying that it's mostly going to be a quiet experience (ie. 1-8 players) because players did the day1 rush thing that they do with all games.

There are mechanics you can build into the content to make up for the lack of PC's taking part in the content

Yes, but it won't replicate 144 people in Eureka or 72 people in Occult or Cosmic. Unless you'd be happy with 144 NPCs pretending to be players.

there are incentives that can be added in to make people go back, etc...

Like weeklies the way mogpendium is doing it? But again, it will still feel like a "ghost town" when you go back for whatever made you go back. Because the FOMO has gone.

[frostmagemari]

No it's not, because it's still available. It's just that it will be a quieter experience because the community has stopped doing it. Because that is how gamers play games. They login, do new DLC, then leave. Just watch any friend/user list on Steam, Discord. A new game or its DLC releases, they play it for maybe a week, then they move on. Games are just FOMO. SE knows this, and designs the patches accordingly.

I see... A "SQEX can do no wrong" player. I love this game as much as any other player, i've played since 1.0, played the beta and have played since. That doesn't mean that SQEX is doing the right moves across the board. All of their competitors are actually starting to improve themselves, they have to too.

Yes, but it won't replicate 144 people in Eureka or 72 people in Occult or Cosmic. Unless you'd be happy with 144 NPCs pretending to be players.

You're right, it won't; but by actually having plans for the future of your content, you can alleviate issues.
A few examples...
Combine all the post-expansion "islands" into one zone, to allow us to swap between what content we're actively doing if we decide to help out with the events from the other content (ie. Have crafting/gathering/combat stuff happen on the south horn of Occult crescent instead of splitting off into the moon and the island)
Allow contributions you make to events in these areas to impact the completion based on how many people are participating.
Allow for zone wide buffs that increase your battle power based on how many people are in the instance
Allow for the dungeon content that is accessible in these areas to be completed with lower numbers of people
Give REGULAR incentives to go back and do content on a regular basis instead of it being a possible weekly part of the mogpendium
- And not make it 15 poetics. If WoW can make the trading post work, so can SQEX. Make something like that, but you gain it by doing content that is from past patches/expansions. Swap out the rewards every month so people can get something new. Maybe have one less store outfit and put it on the post. (And don't slap them on the store after you cycle them, put them back in a month or two later)
And maybe most simple.. stop making so many instances that fracture the people who are trying to play with the content. There were SIX people on the moon last night, and two instances were created, shunting three into each.

And you know what, yes. Getting assistance from NPC fill-ins WOULD be preferable. As the content ramps down, allow for zone appropriate NPC companions or at least our g'dyam chocobo to assist us.