dev1031 You are losing your main playerbase by making things too easy/fast/casual

[Shiyo]

SE, you are losing your main playerbase and main followers(old FFXI players/hardcore players) by trying to make this game more casual and accessible for all players. The new NM's you released in yesterdays patch demonstrate this. 3-5 min repops, not even rare drops? Really? Everyone is going to have this gear in 1 day to a week. Spending 3-6 months to design and release content that'll only last a day to a week is BAD DESIGN. In FFXI all your content lasted YEARS, which was great! It kept people playing and paying for their subs! More $$. What are the players supposed to do after they beat this content in 1-7 days that took 3-6 months to release? Nothing, they'll cancel their subs and quit, or become very bored and eventually quit. FFXI lasted 8 years because it's niche in the MMO market was hardcore/hard, pretty much no other MMO in the market at the time fit in that niche, allowing the game to grow and stay alive for years. To this day, the same can be said, except FFXI no longer fills that niche, no game does. FFXIV should follow and become the hardcore/hard game that FFXI once was.

Why you ask? The reason is simple, casual gamers may make up the majority, but they won't stick around forever, they'll get bored after a few months, and move onto better casual games such as Rift or WOW. These games are much better for casual gamers, and more people play them allowing them to play with irl friends/family/etc more easily. Hardcore players on the other hand, they'll stick around forever. Most of the hardcore players(pretty much all) stayed around in FFXI for YEARS, 5-8 years, an insane amount of time, because the game was perfect for them, and they still had things they wanted, things they needed to get done, level, drops, etc. The game took time and dedication, so even the most hardcore had to play it for 5+ years to get everything they wanted.



Please, I beg of you, do not turn this game into a casual western-MMO like every other MMO on the market, we have far too many of them already, why not try to fit the niche of hardcore/hard and take those players, instead of trying to steal players from other games(and fail doing so)? There is currently ZERO mmos that are hardcore/hard on the market ATM, this would be a very wise decision, and if you read the forums you'll see many FFXI veterans complaining about the direction this game is going.