Letter from the Producer, III (02/17/2011) + Player's Poll

[fussel]

A sweet spot would be like 1-1.5hrs, like Salvage.

<3 Limbus.

[Elrina]

Then get the fuck out of my game.

World-spawning was the worst part of FFXI. The content that wasn't competitive was the most fun to actually participate in, much moreso than standing around waiting for a 21-24 (or 72) hour pop.

If idiots like you would guide FFXIV towards a competitive "claim first" system and fighting for the ability to participate in content, I would prefer you ceased breathing forthwith.

I think the most destructive part of the FFXI mindset (hi Artaxerxes) was the "we're just doing this to deny other people access to it and/or sell the drops" bit. Groups who had no further need to actually claim a mob except to make sure someone else didn't, and then sell the drops. I don't care about the selling drops part, really, just the fundamental problem of the most desirable drops being on contested mobs, making monopolizing them very profitable.

I'd much rather rare gear were rare because the content a group must complete to obtain it is fuckballs hard, not because the frequency it can enter the system is metered or there were insane artificial timesinks built in.

Kings, mythic weapons, etc. are doing it wrong. Proto-Ultima (when it first came out) was doing it right. Sure, Nashira gear was mehhhh in comparison to Homam, but Temenos was tricky (until people discovered and refined tactics... which is what should happen in MMO dungeons), and Ultima was a non-trivial boss for a while. Do more that, and less Fafhogg, and have a great endgame system.


Edit: I'll be the first to admit I don't care much about the "Massive" part of MMO. Most people are idiots (one major factor why I have no interest in WoW... idiot quotient off the chart), so I'd much rather interact closely with a smaller, tight-knit group, and have the "Massive" just be in a more general sense. The economy. A larger pool of people to sell HomamXIV to. More people to buy Monarch OrbXIVs from. And so on.

And I don't give a damn about the journey, either. I'm all for lore quests, to make a richer, more expansive and involving world. That shit's cool. But I could give less of a crap whether that happens along the way to cap on my 1st job, because the world is going to slowly and continuously evolve and grow, while my butt is going to be grinding multiple jobs to get them done in the least time possible.

I'll consume the story as it becomes available, but I guarantee most of my time is going to be spent getting one or more jobs to cap, because the content I care about most is endgame.

Wow. Like, wow. I can tell you've got pretty strong feelings about it. I agree with a lot of what you said, but disagree with all of it because you failed to mention key content.

Now, in all the instances you've mentioned, I completely agree. Kings and any kind of HNM system that strictly encourages botting in the order of 21-24/72/etc. hour spawns is bullshit.

But then you had things like Sky, and Sea, and ZNMs. Tier based systems that let you progress from a bottom tier to gain pops, tier of actual boss type mobs, which gave access to a larger final mob. However much I loved Limbus (and I really did, a lot), I enjoyed them too, especially sky. That's open world content. True, they each had their share of problems, but overall sky was my favorite part of FFXI, and that type of open world content deserves a place imo.

Sea had a lot of problems, and was probably the worst of the three. I enjoyed messing around with it, but never really cared to "go all the way" with it. Sky occasionally had issues with people (especially during the time RMT was up there botting Ulli) trying to monopolize pop NMs. But they made that easier to cope with, and there are more and better methods that they could use now to make it even less of an issue. Other than that, it's problem was just how long certain pieces of it's gear remained the best available (Hello, Byakko's haidate). I didn't really like the "taking pictures" part of ZNMs, and while I realize that something to achieve the same goal had to exist, I just didn't like that specific implementation.

The rest of ZNMs, however, was amazing. The pops were scattered all through the ToAU zones, and I remember the rush when it was first released to figure out the mob hierarchy to see what popped what and how*. But then the next to final tier of mobs, rather than dropping the key to the final mob 100% like with sky, had an atrocious droprate for them instead (I think they adjusted this eventually? Not sure). ZNMs were awesome, and didn't require competition at all, even on the level of sky.

That's all open world content. There was more that was good, Campaign and whatnot, but you didn't really seem against that type of implementation. And with Behest, and eventually Hamlet Defense, they seem to be returning some of that anyway.

tl;dr - Instances can be a good way of implementing content, and there is a lot of potential fun and ways they can work. But I agree with Hyan here, I don't have to be currently trudging through the bullshit that is FFXIV to try to argue against the bullshit that is a completely instanced endgame, and hope to god that isn't what FFXIV becomes. Instances have their place, and there's a lot of good and fun in them. But there should be a place for content like Sky and ZNMs too, an entire location or region dedicated towards a progressive mob tier system, and one that is literally scattered throughout the world you travel in itself.

[Gadritan]

would it really be that difficult to make a game that caters to both types of players?

Still don't understand why people believe it must be one way or the other. Have open world HNM spawns and instanced content share gear drops. If people want to do the camp/bot thing, they can. If people don't want to deal with that crap, they don't have to.

Ein was a fantastic example of this.

[Cichy]

The fuck is your beef with mythic weapons, sure they were hard to get but that was the appeal of them. Besides it kept people interested in the game if only for the exclusivity factor of them.

[CasualPlayer]

Why do the majority of posters here continually fail to acknowledge that some people actually liked camping ground kings? I'm talking about without all the botting shit but just pure and simple competition between one ls and another. The single mindedness and selfishness of people here amazes me. It's like you think an mmo should be made with just you in mind.

Instead of throwing a fit about what you don't want in the game why not just stick to shit you like and hope SE implements something for everyone. It was mentioned a few posts before but ein was a *perfect* example of this. Doesn't mean erase kings and force everyone to run the fucking instance instead.

Then get the fuck out of my game.

^This story sucks

[Amastacia]

But then you had things like Sky, and Sea, and ZNMs. Tier based systems that let you progress from a bottom tier to gain pops, tier of actual boss type mobs, which gave access to a larger final mob. However much I loved Limbus (and I really did, a lot), I enjoyed them too, especially sky. That's open world content. True, they each had their share of problems, but overall sky was my favorite part of FFXI, and that type of open world content deserves a place imo.

The rest of ZNMs, however, was amazing. The pops were scattered all through the ToAU zones, and I remember the rush when it was first released to figure out the mob hierarchy to see what popped what and how*. But then the next to final tier of mobs, rather than dropping the key to the final mob 100% like with sky, had an atrocious droprate for them instead (I think they adjusted this eventually? Not sure). ZNMs were awesome, and didn't require competition at all, even on the level of sky.

I get what you're saying.

On Asura, Sky wasn't just locked down by Ulli-botting RMTs. Ours POS-hacked every NM, and claim rate for everyone else was pathetically low. They had 30-40 RMTs there in a shift farming every single NM, pretty much 24/7.

And by the time the problem was solved (and the RMTs were banned), only a few pieces of Sky gear were still relevant.

Sea... effort/reward way out of whack.

ZNMs were a cool system, I'll give you that. Except for the picture-taking thing. But I don't understand how having them in the open world made them better than if it had been instanced. Hell, all the T4 fights were all but instanced, what with the isolated battlefields.

Ein was a fantastic example of this.

Just opinion, of course, but I don't think SE specifically implemented Ein to be an alternative to camping world NMs. I think people complained so long and so loud that SE eventually decided to stick abjs into their new content (when what they really should've done is put in better gear, instead of freeze-framing the "best" and offering more sidegrades, but that's a whole other rant).

The fuck is your beef with mythic weapons, sure they were hard to get but that was the appeal of them. Besides it kept people interested in the game if only for the exclusivity factor of them.

Hard to get I'm cool with. The parts that annoy me are like the "redo all 50 Assaults". You only get so many tags, so just that requirement pads the quest by almost 2 months

Or how time-consuming it was to pop T4 ZNMs for a low drop-rate item, and if you booted your fight after getting them, start over.

I'd rather you had to get a drop (maybe a high-rate drop) from PW as one of the pre-reqs, because that would ensure exclusivity, wouldn't screw you out of a PW pop, and would entice more groups to explore new tactics for killing PW.

Why do the majority of posters here continually fail to acknowledge that some people actually liked camping ground kings? I'm talking about without all the botting shit but just pure and simple competition between one ls and another. The single mindedness and selfishness of people here amazes me. It's like you think an mmo should be made with just you in mind.

Instead of throwing a fit about what you don't want in the game why not just stick to shit you like and hope SE implements something for everyone. It was mentioned a few posts before but ein was a *perfect* example of this. Doesn't mean erase kings and force everyone to run the fucking instance instead.

I hear ya, I think you're crazy, but I hear ya.

I'd rather SE implemented a system that would let LSs fight for prestige, but that's just me. I don't like the concept of being denied content that you're paying for just the same as everyone else.

Being the first to complete new content (first Odin kill, for instance) is a lot more fun than out-claiming someone on a mob you both want. In one case, you've gotten something you want that you can lord over other people without impeding anyone else's progress. In the other, you've gotten something you can lord over other people, but denied them the opportunity.

Maybe it's ego/arrogance talking, but I prefer systems that reward "skill" (such as it is in an MMO), intelligence, the ability to develop new and effective tactics, instead of luck. Watching one more bonehead get an Adaberk for their gimpshit WAR is lame when Nidhogg isn't hard to kill, and the only difficulty is getting the claim.

Opinions are like assholes, we all have them. And part of the fun of a forum is we all get to show ours off to everyone else, whether they like it or not (see also: mooning people out the back window of a moving car).

Mine, swamp-assy as it is, is that systems that reward luck, or deny people access to content, are inherently shitty. Having to out-claim someone else to get what you want isn't fun, it's a chore. The last thing I want is someone else standing between me and my goals, I'd rather not get it because I'm not good enough (a problem I can fix) and not because I'm not lucky enough.

[Draylo]

That has me pretty excited.

[Priran]

My suggestion for the battle system improvements section was "Get rid of stamina". Worst mechanic ever.

[Kaylia]

Well, for me, Dynamis was fun at the beginning. Especially that first trip to Xarcarbard. However, after run #332328902, yes, it did become somewhat boring. I seriously doubt, any new instanced content in XIV will be over 3 hours or more like Dynamis was. A sweet spot would be like 1-1.5hrs, like Salvage.

I agree with that. One or two hours is great, but make it so that we don't have to wait forever before for people to get ready. Salvage couldn't have been closer from the city, but getting people on the right job, with enough assault point, and permit ready in a timely fashion was a pain in the ass. Dynamis was even worse, and limbus with the npc in jeuno isn't much better.

The fuck is your beef with mythic weapons, sure they were hard to get but that was the appeal of them. Besides it kept people interested in the game if only for the exclusivity factor of them.

Mythics and Relics weapons would be great if it was an individual effort, but that's not how it ended most of the time. Funded run (pay 1 millions, get 5 millions), linkshell's bank being redirected toward a few select individual, group monopolizing content for money, and other stuff like this created a destructive ambiance that wasn't needed at all.

Of course, not every relic holder were selfish fuck, but I've seen it way too often to think it was implemented properly. In my opinion, relic would have been the best if everyone in the linkshell would be able to farm one at the same time over the course of a year or two. This way, no one ever get screwed, and people can share a common objective.

Or maybe I'm just a communist, but for a team-based game, having reward focused on a single player is bad.

[Elrina]

tl;dr - Long post is long. Responded to different people (or the same regarding different topics). Read what you're interested in and ignore the rest, or skip the post.

Still don't understand why people believe it must be one way or the other. Have open world HNM spawns and instanced content share gear drops. If people want to do the camp/bot thing, they can. If people don't want to deal with that crap, they don't have to.

Ein was a fantastic example of this.

Why do the majority of posters here continually fail to acknowledge that some people actually liked camping ground kings? I'm talking about without all the botting shit but just pure and simple competition between one ls and another.

Instead of throwing a fit about what you don't want in the game why not just stick to shit you like and hope SE implements something for everyone. It was mentioned a few posts before but ein was a *perfect* example of this. Doesn't mean erase kings and force everyone to run the fucking instance instead.

This is all true.

If you make instances, places that allow people to obtain all of the same items without having to participate in that "competition", then yeah, it compensates and makes it so that nobody has to since they can obtain the same rewards somewhere else. Put the same mobs in an instance (like Apollyon NW in Limbus, but not attached to a tier system, so that they don't have to be dumbed down like they were in Limbus), and now people are also able to fight those same HNMs, even if they don't drop the same things in that specific instance. That's a solid way of dealing with putting a "ground kings" system in.

But it's also possible to inject forms of competition that don't rely on preventing people to participate in content. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there should only be content I enjoy or think is worth paying attention to in an MMO. I'm all for a variety of different types of content.

But Amastacia is right in that there shouldn't be a form of content specifically designed to preclude a certain portion of the player base. There were people who "enjoyed" ground kings because they were able to prevent other people from taking part, and content should never be designed in a way that specifically prevents people from being included. There are a multitude of other ways to include competition, and include ways to compete.

I'm going to say this as simply as I can. People who want or enjoy content, specifically because it allows them to prevent other people from enjoying said content, and that's the part of the competition they enjoy, should not be indulged. Just like you said, this is an MMO, and there should be content designed for everyone. But none of it should be designed in a way that allows players to exclude other players from taking part. That isn't the kind of behavior you reward, it's the kind you discourage or flat out deny.

I get what you're saying.

On Asura, Sky wasn't just locked down by Ulli-botting RMTs. Ours POS-hacked every NM, and claim rate for everyone else was pathetically low. They had 30-40 RMTs there in a shift farming every single NM, pretty much 24/7.

And by the time the problem was solved (and the RMTs were banned), only a few pieces of Sky gear were still relevant.

Sea... effort/reward way out of whack.

ZNMs were a cool system, I'll give you that. Except for the picture-taking thing. But I don't understand how having them in the open world made them better than if it had been instanced. Hell, all the T4 fights were all but instanced, what with the isolated battlefields.

We didn't have to deal with that on every NM (although they went after all of them), or at least, I never noticed it being (as bad) on anything other than Ulli. And my recourse at the time was something I couldn't do anymore, I just started spending ridiculous amounts of time there, days, weeks at a time, having others bring me supplies, with help coming up in rotations and often just being solo, in order to up our claim rate. Every time I went back to the game afterward, I always went up to farm statues for Ulli pops. Last time, when the cap went up to 80, that's what I did. If I went back in now, I'd probably get 90, then go farm Ulli pops. It became such a huge habit that I find it relaxing in some way (and I realize that's strange rofl).

I agree about Sea. The effort/reward was way out of wack, but if it hadn't been, and they'd actually added additional drops/rewards and adjusted the difficulty of the effort required, the system itself wasn't bad (imo).

I didn't like the picture taking of ZNMs either. But there's something to be said for those fights going on in the world, passing through and seeing others fighting, or strangers passing by while you're fighting. It actually being part of the world you're in and travel through, instead of a part of it that you never access outside of an instance. I would have rather the T4's be areas like the ground kings are in, so that they weren't instanced like they were, but I also don't really see a problem with instancing that tier either. I do remember the first big PW fights though, and following them through people watching and trying to help who had the time to post what was going on. It's not the same if it's instanced.

Just opinion, of course, but I don't think SE specifically implemented Ein to be an alternative to camping world NMs. I think people complained so long and so loud that SE eventually decided to stick abjs into their new content (when what they really should've done is put in better gear, instead of freeze-framing the "best" and offering more sidegrades, but that's a whole other rant).

I agree. I'm pretty sure they were ridiculously rare and difficult to obtain for quite a while even in Ein, meaning it wasn't really that great of an alternative for at least quite a while even after it was added.

Hard to get I'm cool with. The parts that annoy me are like the "redo all 50 Assaults". You only get so many tags, so just that requirement pads the quest by almost 2 months

Or how time-consuming it was to pop T4 ZNMs for a low drop-rate item, and if you booted your fight after getting them, start over.

I'd rather you had to get a drop (maybe a high-rate drop) from PW as one of the pre-reqs, because that would ensure exclusivity, wouldn't screw you out of a PW pop, and would entice more groups to explore new tactics for killing PW.

If it just required all 50 assaults done, and not done over, it wouldn't have been so bad. There's no reason it couldn't have checked your completion log to determine how many you had already completed. The point was the delay, not accomplishing another part of the quest. They might as well have just required a 2 month or 4 month or however long wait after beginning the quest before you were allowed to complete it.

I don't think tedious is that bad, when you don't have the time delay/requirement like assault did with 1 tag per day or whatever, and it's not excessive. I don't think excessive amounts of pure mob grinding are very fun, and the only reason not to make it in a way that actually offers some kind of content throughout is because requiring a massive amount of grinding on mobs gives a goal that will take a while to complete and not require the work to actually fill that time in with more than just "kill x mob 500 times".

A high rate drop from PW would probably be better, but considering the Absolute Virtue~like difficulty it had when first released, I don't think they were really planning on it being killed that often at first. Assuming it was made difficult, but not completely ridiculous, I'd agree with that.

I'd rather SE implemented a system that would let LSs fight for prestige, but that's just me. I don't like the concept of being denied content that you're paying for just the same as everyone else.

Mine, swamp-assy as it is, is that systems that reward luck, or deny people access to content, are inherently shitty. Having to out-claim someone else to get what you want isn't fun, it's a chore. The last thing I want is someone else standing between me and my goals, I'd rather not get it because I'm not good enough (a problem I can fix) and not because I'm not lucky enough.

I've already agreed with this, and why at the beginning of the post, but I wanted to include it because I do agree, and the bolded is a much better way of allowing competition without excluding people.

Mythics and Relics weapons would be great if it was an individual effort, but that's not how it ended most of the time. Funded run (pay 1 millions, get 5 millions), linkshell's bank beind redirected toward a few select individual, group monopolizing content for money, and other stuff like this created a destructive ambiance that wasn't needed.

Of course, not every relic holder were selfish fuck, but I've seen it way too often to think it was implemented properly. In my opinion, relic would have been the best if everyone in the linkshell would be able to farm one at the same time over the course of a year or two.

Or maybe I'm just a communist, but for a team-based game, having reward focused on a single player is bad.

And there is so much truth here that I don't even know where to begin to explain why I agree. Going to just let it speak for itself and say that I agree.

[Lordender]

Lol at all the people who keep saying "I hope they don't instance everything that will kill the competition." Yeah, and you'll be the first people to ragequit with QQ posts about how you just lost claim for the 87th time to bots. Do I even have to remind you that RMT's are pretty much already botting out of control on 14 currently?

Time to take off the rose colored goggles, FFXI endgame blew dick when it was just 21-24hr HNM's/CoP wyrms/khim/cerb. Not only was the design terrible it lead to douche-baggery LS's that would cheat with bots so they could sell the drops effectively cockblocking anyone who wanted to experience the endgame content. I won't believe a single person who thought that camping those mobs was good design to build an endgame around such a flawed system and will just assume everyone who defends the HNM system is just trolling at this point.

You can have challenging instanced content, look @ hardmodes in WoW, a very small % of the raiding guilds actually clear those hardmodes when its the current tier content.

[Kaylia]

You can have challenging instanced content, look @ hardmodes in WoW, a very small % of the raiding guilds actually clear those hardmodes when its the current tier content.

The definition of "competitive PvE" in FFXI was so backward. You were competing to do the contents instead of competing over which one is able to clear the contents.

[Elrina]

Time to take off the rose colored goggles, FFXI endgame blew dick when it was just 21-24hr HNM's/CoP wyrms/khim/cerb. Not only was the design terrible it lead to douche-baggery LS's that would cheat with bots so they could sell the drops effectively cockblocking anyone who wanted to experience the endgame content. I won't believe a single person who thought that camping those mobs was good design to build an endgame around such a flawed system and will just assume everyone who defends the HNM system is just trolling at this point.

You can have challenging instanced content, look @ hardmodes in WoW, a very small % of the raiding guilds actually clear those hardmodes when its the current tier content.

The definition of "competitive PvE" in FFXI was so backward. You were competing to do the contents instead of competing over which one is able to clear the contents.

Okay, I'm going to keep this post small so that you actually read it.

The argument isn't whether or not there should be instanced content. The argument is whether there should be only instanced content. It's already been acknowledged that there is nothing wrong with there being instances by the people who want open world content.

There are ways to implement progressive, non-instanced content, that do not depend on HNMs with ridiculous respawns in specific, small locations that are the only source for some of the best gear in the entire game for several years.

It was the combination of all of those things that made HNMs in FFXI bad.

Different people may like different shit, nobody should assume their way is the only way to have fun in a Massively Multiplayer game. The only requirement should be that everyone is able to participate.

[Kaylia]

Okay, I'm going to keep this post small so that you actually read it.

The argument isn't whether or not there should be instanced content. The argument is whether there should be only instanced content. It's already been acknowledged that there is nothing wrong with there being instances by the people who want open world content.

There are ways to implement progressive, non-instanced content, that do not depend on HNMs with ridiculous respawns in specific, small locations that are the only source for some of the best gear in the entire game for several years.

It was the combination of all of those things that made HNMs in FFXI bad.

My reply wasn't even addressed at you, I don't know why you're being an ass and act like I'm not reading your post.

First of all, talking in absolute is utterly pointless. The real question is: should they put the emphasis on "instanced content", or "open world" activity. Basically, should they implement competitive contents in the outside world, or it should be instanced? At this point, having a different arguments is pointless and not worth my time, because obviously, both are acceptable if they are implemented properly. However, we can still argue that one has a better chance of success based on our experience with various mmo.

Secondly I never argued that open-world contents can't be balanced properly... that's not even the issue. The question is, what do you gain from it , and how much harder is it to balance this kind of content. My argument against open world content is:
-Instanced content give developer more creative freedom
-Instanced contents are easier to balance since it's easier to encapsulate the problem and control them
-Considering the type of game FFXIV is (no pvp, no role playing, no unique dynamics, and a small playerbase), open world content will have minimal impact at this point, because it will be more of the same.

Different people may like different shit, nobody should assume their way is the only way to have fun in a Massively Multiplayer game. The only requirement should be that everyone is able to participate.

Your statement is nice and all, but there is many players who enjoy griefing other. I'm curious to see how you consider them in your game


[edit]
And playing the "there isn't only way to have fun" card is ridiculous. I can simply counter it by saying there is more than a single way to design the content. We are dealing with hypothetical content that might or might not be instanced...there really isn't much to say. The best we can do is observe the success rate of previous contents, and bet on the type that is usually the most succesful.

Yes, people enjoy differents thing. Some people know what they want, some don't, and other just don't care. The question is, what kind of content will be the best for the current playerbase. Personally, I'm convinced that people would enjoy a dungeon dynamics more than another "tiered NM" system, or another behest-like events at this point. Why? Because players's answer was generally better in FFXI when it involved a dungeon than when it involved tiered NM (althought, 99% of the hype came from gear) .

[Alkar]

Isn't Abyssea a good example of this?
Let's pick seal farming: you can either pop a NM or get the roaming ones.
Both drop the same seals you're looking for but one is a popped thing and the other is not.
If every HNM that pops on his own has a counterpart that drops the same thing in an instanced area/dungeon then it's all fine (unless the drop rate is Einherjar's <.<). Having exclusive items that are the best for years drop from NMs that repop every 21-24 hours (or worse every 4 days or so) is simply retarded.
Also if you have to do a system with tiers Sea (except some NMs),ZNMs, VNMs and Abyssea are the best ways. Sky was horrible.

[Siatdiat]

Ok, so I have a question for Casualplayer. If they do a mixture of ground king type content, which you have specifically mentioned desiring, do you want there to be different loot pools between the ground spawn versions and the instanced versions? Curious to know the answer to that, which will tell me a lot.

[Vice-Admiral von Titsling]

Open world 'ground kings' are sadism in its purest, most virulent form. They seemingly exist only to promote drama, rage, and botting/hacking.

They're a gameplay mechanic not suited to the modern era. Let them remain a fond dream for those who enjoyed them and a nightmare for those who did not.

[Luna Flower]

I am so excited for a lot of these changes. What bothers me the most is how they ruined behest I mean they wanted more people to participate yet they nerf it by making party's of 15 ppl obsolete. I mean I can understand that for everything els, but behest? That is already camped hard core by everyone....

[Gadritan]

I'm going to say this as simply as I can. People who want or enjoy content, specifically because it allows them to prevent other people from enjoying said content, and that's the part of the competition they enjoy, should not be indulged. Just like you said, this is an MMO, and there should be content designed for everyone. But none of it should be designed in a way that allows players to exclude other players from taking part. That isn't the kind of behavior you reward, it's the kind you discourage or flat out deny.

The bottom line is giving your playerbase things to do that they enjoy. If people enjoy this sort of competition and there's an instanced alternative, there simply isn't a reason to exclude it aside from your own personal moral beliefs (which, frankly, I could care less about).

It's also rather hypocritical to say that it's unfair to exclude players from content, and thus that sort of content should be excluded. You're excluding the players that enjoy it. /headsplodes

[CasualPlayer]

Ok, so I have a question for Casualplayer. If they do a mixture of ground king type content, which you have specifically mentioned desiring, do you want there to be different loot pools between the ground spawn versions and the instanced versions? Curious to know the answer to that, which will tell me a lot.

What a baited question.

It would depend on how the instanced version was set up. Personally, I could care less whether they had different loot pools or not. My love of open world content has to do with the challenge (from claiming to killing) not the gear that drops.

However, if players had access to the instanced version more than the open world version, based on the open world versions spawn conditions, that would make the open world version more difficult in nature, and thus I would think it should have a slightly modified loot pool. Or maybe not a modified loot pool but perhaps better drop rates.

Now you can go ahead and flame me because I said ground spawn mobs should have a better loot pool than instanced ones.

Lol at all the people who keep saying "I hope they don't instance everything that will kill the competition." Yeah, and you'll be the first people to ragequit with QQ posts about how you just lost claim for the 87th time to bots. Do I even have to remind you that RMT's are pretty much already botting out of control on 14 currently?

Funny but I see more people QQing about how they were "left out of content" on these boards, as opposed to people "bitching about losing claim for the 87th time to a bot".

You can have challenging instanced content, look @ hardmodes in WoW, a very small % of the raiding guilds actually clear those hardmodes when its the current tier content.

Success or failure of instances in WoW is 95% dependant on gear. Has very little to do with being a challenge.

Make instances in the same vein as Einherjar and I'll be happy, at least they were somewhat challeging in that you had to prepare for different mob combinations. (Although as everyone found out you can just meleeburn the hell out of any chamber from any tier)

Instances like Limbus are fine......the first few times.... but then you just figure out a way to clear it with as few people as possible and it gets retardedly boring. Same with Salvage and any other *instance* in ffxi.