[dev1015] A Potential Method Of Solving The Disunity In This Game's Community

[gifthorse]

I usually don't like giving suggestions when a game is still fully in development. But due to the recent arguments and disagreements of "casual" and "hardcore" players I thought there may be a slight chance this idea can help bring the community to a whole and increase the customer satisfaction.

In order to please both types of players the "casual" players should still be able to play the game they like and have a reasonable survivability in both PvE and PvP (if it were implemented).

If they make a series of "hardcore" raids or dungeons which have a high difficulty and low drop rate for certain unique equips they might make the game satisfying for both crowds.
For example "hardcore" dungeon A drop rare equips which are vital for "hardcore" players to survive in "hardcore" dungeon B. And "hardcore" dungeon B drops even better and rarer unique equips which are vital to survive in "hardcore" dungeon C. This can go on until most of the "hardcore" people are satisfied with the amount of difficulty and timeconsuming content.

As a "casual" orientated type of player I don't have any interests in the above described "hardcore" activities I have suggested as long as I can function in normal PvE and PvP. Maybe the same goes for most "casual" players so that this might be a possibility for the developers to please every type of player..

Since I'm no developer nor have any experience in the process of making a succesful game, I obivously don't know if this suggestion is possible in terms of implementation and balancing.
I'm also quite new to this forum so I don't know if this has been suggested before.
Please respond and tell me what you think.

But wouldn't it be better if they made content that 99% of people will utilise, rather than only 1%? If we weren't on such a short supply of content as it is, I wouldn't argue that the game should appeal to both players at once, but since we are quite starved of content, i think it is in SE's best interest to only release content that everyone can enjoy, and not jsut a small fraction of over-zealous FFXIV players.

If they want to reach out to different types of players, it would be more cost-effective just to make different servers, probably and just recycle the current content in different ways for the different types of players.

[Abriael]

But wouldn't it be better if they made content that 99% of people will utilise, rather than only 1%? If we weren't on such a short supply of content as it is, I wouldn't argue that the game should appeal to both players at once, but since we are quite starved of content, i think it is in SE's best interest to only release content that everyone can enjoy, and not jsut a small fraction of over-zealous FFXIV players.

Oh my god. Me and Gifthorse agreeing is scary.

If they want to reach out to different types of players, it would be more cost-effective just to make different servers, probably and just recycle the current content in different ways for the different types of players.

Phew. Safe.
Making different servers is just as cumbersome, resources-wise, as creating different content. Every patch needs to be implemented and customized for every ruleset, and even more, it needs to be tested in each environment. Having different ruleset isn't something a developer hard pressed for time and resources can really afford.

[Thsscks]

But wouldn't it be better if they made content that 99% of people will utilise, rather than only 1%? If we weren't on such a short supply of content as it is, I wouldn't argue that the game should appeal to both players at once, but since we are quite starved of content, i think it is in SE's best interest to only release content that everyone can enjoy, and not jsut a small fraction of over-zealous FFXIV players.

If they want to reach out to different types of players, it would be more cost-effective just to make different servers, probably and just recycle the current content in different ways for the different types of players.

I'm not saying they should release it now and thereby neglecting most of the "casual" players who are also in need of content now.
They shouldn't divide the community even further in my eyes. We should embrace each others differences and try make something really special here.
Please don't see it with a black or white picture.

Tiered dungeons like that tend to be problematic. Mythic had a shot at it with Warhammer Online, but it backfired on them quite hard.

To avoid being boring, content needs variety. If you have to repeat the dungeon A a lot of times to access dungeon B, and then dungeon B a lot of times to acces dungeon C, the process becomes much more tedious for most player than just being able to access dungeon A, B and C to begin with.

Basically, you created "Content X 3", and you gave your players only "Fun X 1", instead of creating "Content X 3" and giving "Fun X 3"
It's a big waste of resources compared to the result.

The only way to implement a tiered system that doesn't conduce to tedious repeatitiveness is to make the actual item needed to access the next tier drop for everyone at the first completion of each dungeon, but STILL have additional gear dropping in each dungeon. Se that the players have a choice, once finished each dungeon, to do the previous ones for gear or the next one for the novelty.

Maybe you are a bit right, that it could become a bit tedious or repetitive, but I'm no "hardcore" player so I can't really judge that.
And your version of this suggestion also seems to be quite good.
It shouldn't be that they have to raid the dungeon endless of times to be able to survive the next tier "hardcore" dungeon. But on the other hand, "hardcore" players shouldn't be able to rush all the "hardcore" dungeons really quick and easy. Since that would take away the "hardcore" aspect of it.
If something like this would be added to the game than it's up to the developers to find the right balance. So the "hardcore" players won't be bored for completing it really fast or find the difficulty and the drop rates impossible to deal with.