Will Relics create the same problems that they did in FFXI?

[Yolteotl]

If you pay any attention to the patterns in the progress of the game, and Yoshi-Ps design choices, he isn't focused on casual play. That is by no means a selling point for A Realm Reborn either. The idea he has in mind is casual accessibility - which is quite different than focus on casual play.

So, your arguments failed before they started.

Inorite? Like the removal of TA loot mandates, the implementation of quest based leveling, the fact that you all are still searching for something that will make u feel Elite, etc...

[TheFatHousecat]

I'm not gonna waste my time citing all the times SE has stated that the game is focused on casual play, because it has been stated repeatedly since before the 1st alpha had even been released over 2 1/2 years ago.

Oh, you're talking about Tanaka, then. Well, you know, back then the game was also advertised as being designed around play casual enough that players could complete the entire storyline as a DoH/L. Obviously, things have changed, and there's a new producer in charge.

Matching Casual and Heavy Players

Online games have a hierarchy to them, or at least that’s what I like to call it. It’s often described using a pyramid, the width of the pyramid being representative of the number of players. At the peak are the hard-cores—the minority of players who completely immerse themselves in the game, playing day and night and often forgetting their biological imperatives. As you work your way down the pyramid, players become increasingly casual. It bears mentioning that this model illustrates the quantity of players only, not quality.

In the first generation of MMORPGs, the pyramids were skinny and tall. In the current generation, while I think the peak should still stay way up there, the slopes projecting down from it should be less extreme. What I want to make is a theme park where both casuals and hard-cores can exist and play together. That’s the minimum requirement I think a modern MMORPG should fulfill.

I hope you heavy gamers out there will hurry to clear the game’s latest contents. I hope you beat Ifrit before anyone else and get those new weapons. I hope other players will see you and want to do the same. I hope you try and clear the beastman strongholds with less than the maximum number of players. And I hope you post on the forums about all your accomplishments.

I hope you more casual players will enjoy traveling around Eorzea by chocobo and airship with your in-game and real-life friends while working your way up to end-game content like the Ifrit fight. By then, the battle strats will be worked out, and you’ll be able to fight at your own pace. There’s no need to rush. Both play styles have their place. Should the need arise, we’ll look into adjusting the level of difficulty, or introducing a system that lets you set it yourself.

For any given content, the difference in the amount of time players need to figure it out and get the loot will unavoidably vary.

Hard-core gamers are hard-core gamers because they are always leading the charge. Following close behind their trailblazing are the “mid-cores.” And then there’s the casual gamers making progress at their own pace.

To realize the ideal we have in place, we need a powerful matching system capable of connecting all of these players, whatever their rates of progression might be. We plan to study what other MMORPGs have achieved here, and make it one of our main tasks as we move forward, together with add-ons and the UI.

Speaking of the UI, we are well aware that there are still difficulties with the mouse/keyboard interface. I’m a mouse/keyboard man myself, so believe me when I say I plan to continue making both little and big improvements with global standards in mind.

The ideal we’ve put in place may be a bit up there, but we have every intention of achieving it, and will do everything in our power to do so.

The point was, it's a game. And if you feel the dev's are completely ignoring a sector of the player base who want things even more challenging, you're probably right but doesn't mean they are going to stop ignoring it anytime soon as they still desire to build a strong casual base for ARR than to put in old-school oriented content that the casuals would never touch.

But they aren't ignoring the hardcore players. The slow, upward slope of difficulty from Ifrit (Hard) to Rivenroad (Hard) is evidence that they care and they're listening. As broken as 1.0's engine is, the battle designer still tried to challenge himself to release content that was ever harder (and even posted to his defeat when it was cleared sooner than he thought).

My point is, they have to cater to both sides. They can't just release content too hard for 80% of the playerbase to complete or there simply won't be enough subscriptions to stay afloat; yet they also can't just make the game faceroll easy, lest the game become devoid of any real sense of accomplishment.

I see people who consider themselves hardcore players posting on the forums asking for equal parts of difficulty; we ask for content that's really fucking hard, that forces us to pull longer nights, and tests our strategy-forming abilities, but we also acknowledge that the game needs to have low level dungeons/drops/nms for casual players, and that's fine. I only ever see casual players posting threads whining and begging for primal weapons/DL/relic/White Ravens/etc to be handed to them, and demanding that the game cater to their needs and only their needs, whilst they mock hardcore players as sadists with no lives who overestimate their accomplishments.

[GreyJorildyn]

That elitist-attacking post pretty much came out of nowhere lol. Thanks for fixing the problem fusional!

[Dzian]

Personally I'm fairly middle ground. Not a hard core player. Most definitely not the type to rota events. Monday 7pm event 1, Tuesday 7pm event 2 and so forth. On an adlib basis it's fine, Who's around Monday if there's enough let's do event 1. But I personally draw the line where it becomes every week like clockwork. Anyway all of that isn't to relevent but you can use it to judge if I'm a casual or hardcore somewhere in the middle type player.

I do think though that all content should be designed in a way that makes it accessible to everyone. Whether you play 1 hour a day or 10. This doesn't mean make it easy (easy is boring.) By all means make stuff hard. But being hard doesn't mean innaccessible.

I suppose by way of example I could say Crystal Tower or whatever it is. Give that place 100 floors or something huge like that but design it in such a way that it may take your more casual group of gamers 2-3 days to clear a floor playing for a hour or 2 a day. If they make it to the next floor progress is saved so next time they go in they can begin on that floor. In that end you can slowly climb to the top even being the most casual of players it may take you a year but it's doable and accessible.

For the more hardcore though they could find themselves going up 5-6 even more floors a week and could find themselves at the top floor mega boss in a couple of months. Admittedly I've just remembered Nyzul Isle but I'm thinking something a lot harder than trying to clear 5 floors in 30 minutes.

Point really is that making every piece of content available to every player doesn't in any way mean it has to be easy. Like above if I pull my party together and go in to Crystal Tower. Even if we only manage to get up one floor that night it's saved and next time we go in we can start on that floor. It may be difficult but it's also accessible.

I think thats the key. Having a piece of content that takes 5 or 6 hours of your day makes it inaccessible to most not in any part due to difficulty but simply due to time constraints. I'm all for hard content and long as the difficulty is in actually clearing it and not how many hours are in my day.

[Nero]

i think thats the key. having a piece of content that takes 5 or 6 hours of your day makes it inaccessible to most not in any part due to difficulty but simply due to time constraints.

What kind of Content requires 5-6 Hours in FFXIV a day? To make it even easier, which Content even requires 2 hours a day in FFXVI? No Content/Instance in FFXIV is forcing you to stay even 2 hours in the Game.

[Dzian]

What kind of Content requires 5-6 Hours in FFXIV a day? To make it even easier, which Content even requires 2 hours a day in FFXVI? No Content/Instance in FFXIV is forcing you to stay even 2 hours in the Game.

True enough, yet to make any form of progress in content you often have (technically "had" now) to spam it several times. Thus you do (did) infact end up spending several hours in one piece of content. Wasn't to often you'd see a shout for anything, be it primal hamlet or dungeon where a group was formed to only go once. Hamlet especially. I don't think anyone would take time to provision and only do one hamlet that day...

My point was regarding regarding difficulty more than time. It seems "hard core" players want content designed for them to be difficult. That's really cool. However that difficulty should be in clearing the content and not the amount of hours you have to play. If structured right that difficult content can be accessible to everyone not just the hard core. I'm not particulalry "hard core" but i love difficulty. Easy is dull and boring.

[Defmetal]

Relics should always be the best weapon for their level range, and if the level cap is raised there should be quests to increase the power of the relics. Although with this, to prevent everyone from eventually having the same weapon, I think there should be graphical changes to them or even replacing the relic with stronger relics of a new name. Like Curtana going +1 and +2 and +3 and the at level 70 turning into Excalibur or something. Just an example.

Maybe add some particle effects to the relics after they are upgraded to 55 or 60 and weaponskills. I hated in FF11 seeing the same graphic for 7 years.

[Yolteotl]

Maybe add some particle effects to the relics after they are upgraded to 55 or 60 and weaponskills. I hated in FF11 seeing the same graphic for 7 years.

Lol there is afterglow now in FFXI... fairly irrelevant in utility, but a major time-sink as some people are supposedly desiring out of FFXIV

[Dzian]

I want stuff in game that I will never get,

I have no objection to items I'll never own from difficult contents, but in XI things I never had included a dalmatica now over time my shell had on occassion got lucky and found kings unclaimed and killed them. So it fair to say my shell had the skill t take down niddhig and aspidodah.

The reason we never really owned these items was simply time. 21-24 hour windows 2-3 days on kings often at times where people are working etc. Thus difficulty was not the obstacle time was. and imo thats wrong.

If I'd never owned a dalmatica cos I simply wasn't skilled enough to kill Nidhogg I'd be fine with that. Gives me a reason to better myself. But to not own something simply cos I have to be at work during pop times is kinda bs. so yeah no objection to stuff being out of reach in terms of difficulty. it gives me a reason to improve myself. but to be out of reach simply from time. NO

[Zdenka]

Relics in 14 are not the same as relics in 11. Just because they have the same name doesn't mean they are the same thing.

They are hardly as good as 11's, take substantially less investment, and in rotation shouldn't always be the best. Giving them a unique WS would make them beyond overpowered due to how the games combo system works.

I assume something like this will happen:

L50 Relics are best ->
Level Cap Raised ->
New endgame content has weapons better than relic ->
new relic quest add on -> Relics are best again ->
new content comes out with weapons stronger than relics ->
level cap ->
new weapons from content better than the previous strongest ->
-> new relic quest add on -> Relics are best again

etc etc etc etc unless Legend's are planned and are similar investment to XI Relics but preferably not a 100% gil investment.