Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Sechs]

That's why every other system ever added to FFXI has failed.

Looking at other MMOs I doubt that's the only reason. But I agree with you it's a very important reason, for some of the things you named the MAIN reason for sure.
Overall I kinda agree that unless you create something INSANELY compelling/fun (and even if you do, its ability to gather interest won't last forever) you do need a carrot-on-a-stick.
I have nothing against that.
The point is that this carrot-on-a-stick could be something cool but that has no influence over the game's economy.

I.e. make cosmetic or cool items that some people will want but that won't change anything else.
Bad examples? Anything that would give you a gameplay-advantage over other players. Be it in the form of cool Key Items "empowering" your garden, or stuff that's worth gil, or stuff that's worth time ("precious" equipment).

This is the right way to balance it, imho.
FFXI has limited ways of offering cosmetic stuff compared to other MMOs, but they can still offer cool lv1 all jobs items, furnishing for your mog house, titles... etc. If they're creative and IF the event is fun (to a certain degree at least) those would be pretty effective carrots-on-a-stick from my pov.

than whatever time they spent developing that content that very few will ever bother with.

Yeah but seen this way we could also whine in terms of "why bother with this sort of content (i.e. expense of dev resources) instead of creating new end-game content"
But in all honesty people like us on a board like this are obviously biased concerning Endgame. Maybe we represent only a minority of the overall paying player base of FFXI, who knows.

[Fake]

If SE wants these systems to succeed then they need to provide an ongoing benefit to taking part or they will always fail. Doesn't matter if its fun at first, that novelty will wear off fast.

I have never taken part in Chocobo racing/breeding, I have no idea how they work or what's involved. What I do know is that there is no incentive to find out, and I am far from the only person who's never bothered to.

Pankration could be entirely circumvented with Imperial pieces if you wanted to do ZNM. Low interactivity, boring, served no end.

Monstrosity seemed popular at first but subsequent updates have resulted in far less interest, set to go the way of Chocobo Racing

Mog garden again maybe only 50-75% of the population actually did it at all, and a small fraction of that still do it.

Ballista was destined to fail because SE never balanced PvP gameplay the way other games do.

[Sechs]

If SE wants these systems to succeed then they need to provide an ongoing benefit to taking part or they will always fail.

Do you mean "in general" or specifically for FFXI?
If it's the first I'm afraid you're wrong Fake, and several other games are there to prove it.
If you meant the latter then I guess I could agree with you, to a certain degree.

But like I was saying before: one thing is offering incentives, another thing is putting there end-game or economy-related stuff that's so good that will make the majority of people do the event NOT because of the event itself (they couldn't care less) but just for the possible rewards.
In terms of game design would this really be a "success"? Or a "trick"?

[ccl]

I don't know about other games, but in XI if there is no good reward, it's not worth doing

[Sechs]

To further expand the topic, I remember a developer cooldown very well written article from WoW devs concerning this similar issue. How to make "side content" attractive to players.
I remember a similar discussion from Arena.net guys and from Rift's developers.
What they learned, through trial and errors, is that there has to be a balance somewhere between the extremes of: "Content offers absolutely nothing, the purpose is the content itself" and "Content offers a chance to get that special sword/armor that drops in the final raid, or that expensive item, or that other expensive mat, or make you gather money faster".
In FFXI terms that could translate in unique Mog garden KIs enhancing quality/quantity/speed of Mog Garden stuff, or Rem Tales, or Reforged armor synth, or... I dunno, delve drops? I'm just making examples.

So where would the right balance be? It would be in offering something, but that something being different from the examples above.
What do other games offer?
1) Custom titles
2) Mounts
3) Vanity pets
4) Vanity items/equipment
5) Achievements

Many of these aspects aren't present in FFXI, but at the same time I think that with a bit of creativity they could manage to offer attractive stuff, without stepping into the realm of economy/end-game related items.
And THIS would be the right way of doing it imho.
Never forgetting that the first purpose above them all is making the event fun. It makes no sense to offer 200000 things to attract people to an event when at the core it's not entertaining. But this is pretty obvious to me (maybe not for SE )

[fantasticdan]

With monstrosity, I think a lot of people were waiting for a real pvp system, like monster vs monster and monster vs player arenas. If that existed in any decent form, leveling and unlocking the species/instincts would be reward enough in itself. Without it, monstrosity is just grinding for the sake of grinding.

[Sechs]

I don't know about other games, but in XI if there is no good reward, it's not worth doing

Quoting those posts I mentioned before, iir they defined players of a MMO into 3 macro groups (it was just a simplification of course)

1) Casual gamers - They will do side content if they find it entertaining, they usually will drop it soon if it doesn't get updated
2) Hardcore gamers - Most of them will simply ignore it, unless there's something that will benefit them in their end-game activities in some way. They usually don't care wether it's fun or not, they just want the reward and in the fastest and most efficient way possible.
3) Middle grounders - There's a lot of variety within this category. Many of them are end-gamers but less hardcore, with less free time to play the game. If there's something good (for end-game/money) coming from a side-content they will feel "forced" to do it, but without the strong will typical of hardcore gamers they will be unable to keep going, getting very frustrated. (if the event is not fun). Most of them won't have too much time to dedicate to these side events, but will love to take part in them as long as they're fun and there's something (no matter what) coming out of it.

The main targets they need to think of when creating side events are 1) and 3).
2) won't matter much because they're numerically inferior and because, tipically, you do not create side-content for Hardcore Gamers, you give them raids and other PVE end-game stuff.


So ccl your post makes sense, and it reflects the point of view of what is probably the majority of us here. Most of us are all part of group 2, one way or another.




@fantasticdan
Yes I agree, but in spite of that Monstrosity has been one of the most sucessful side-event SE ever created for FFXI.
They kinda failed to keep it interesting over time, so far.
And it makes sense.
I mean, a system like monstrosity offers much more depth and possibilities (and hence "entertainment") compared to one where you have to navigate through annoying console-based commands inside a 2002-based User Interface with security checks (are you sure? Yes/No) every 2 seconds. And likely with a very large part of it being left to completely random and uncontrollable factors (we all know JPs love RNG stuff, rite?)
That's what Monster Raising will probably be, and what Chocobo Raising has been.

There is no complex "interaction", is just navigating through menus of an old game with a very old, slow and annoying user interface.
How could something like that be possibly fun for a long time for a large portion of players?
With monstrosity you had a completely different depth of interaction within the world, the environment, the already existing assets and other players too.
It had (has?) the wherewithal of being something really entertaining for these reasons.

[Fake]

Do you mean "in general" or specifically for FFXI?
If it's the first I'm afraid you're wrong Fake, and several other games are there to prove it.
If you meant the latter then I guess I could agree with you, to a certain degree.

But like I was saying before: one thing is offering incentives, another thing is putting there end-game or economy-related stuff that's so good that will make the majority of people do the event NOT because of the event itself (they couldn't care less) but just for the possible rewards.
In terms of game design would this really be a "success"? Or a "trick"?

Should be obvious I'm talking about FFXI, since we're on an FFXI forum and I referenced the company that made the game.

The rest of your points are fairly incoherent and you type 10x more words than needed.

It can be summed up as: Whether it be giving custom titles, mounts, vanity items or endgame equipment, its all incentive. If you give people a reason to do content, they will do content.

[Malithar]

I think you're completely over analysing this all. I mean, you listed out what non-useful things they could give in these events, and Chocobo Racing/Raising had that. You could get unique racing silks to /lockstyle in, and you could raise your own bird to call in the field. How many people throughout the game would you guess bothered? I'm not saying these other games didn't find some success in their side content, but very, very rarely does their side content requires weeks, months, maybe even closer to a year of interaction and grinding to succeed. And that time spent working towards success is met with..chocobucks? Baws ass Pankration monsters to get a relatively small amount of Zeni? There needs to be something useful to the character. And no, titles are not the answer. This game has about the worst title system ever conceived among MMOs.

Yes I agree, but in spite of that Monstrosity has been one of the most sucessful side-event SE ever created for FFXI.

I dunno where you get this idea from. What do you consider successful? There are quite a few that are interested in it, but calling it a success at the moment is ridiculously far from reality. It has potential. They just have to realize it, and offer something of use to get people to do it as a side event to what they already do. If this Campaign like Monster battle system they're making rewards useless junk, I'd imagine it'll be left behind quickly, except for the few who will do it simply for the enjoyment of it. And thats great for them, glad someone can enjoy it. But that's not how you go about creating a system for an MMO of thousands of people, that's taken months, if not more than a year, to create.

Mog Garden as a whole hasn't been bad, I suppose. For <5 minutes of inventory management a day you can get some quick NPC gil, but that's about all it's offered so far. Unless you're one of the few that have gotten Tales, HPBs, or AA mats from it. Those are the carrot-on-a-stick so far for it, and it's not really a bad one, considering how little time per day you'd need to spend on it.

[Ophannus]

The thing is JP love the side content. They do it for the fun and the immersion. That's why SE made Pankration and MMM and Chocobo Racing. It was JP pining for it. Western MMO players are more about the rewards than the content(rushing through or using guides for events to get the Desired item then never playing the content again. So while these fail to us, JP still actively do it. I guess it's a culture thing; not saying they're right and we're wrong but SE does need to strike a balance if they want everyone to enjoy side content. Mog garden is nice but synthesis is a shadow of its former self. 110 was great because they introduced all these cool abjuration equips that needed expensive synths to make. So for a while, there was a resurgance of crafting and need for materials. Mog Garden would have been great for that back then for people trying to get synth mats or rare chance at a rare ore or coral to make a hexed piece. They need to raise the cap on crafting to 120 and make new ilvl cursed gear, stick a lowish drop rate of mats in mog gardens rank 7 to reward people who dedicate themselves to it. Also the "synergy level cap increase" has been in the update tracker of the forums for like 4 years, are they ever going to raise it past 80???

And i wish they gave us accessory trials for relic/empyrean armor accessories like warrior stone or lancer torque. That green moogle in ru'lude's only purpose so far is the Job emotes(for which Run and Geo dont have yet). I wouldnt mind doing trials to boost those accessories. They could even expand his role to combine sea torques or ws torques, augment sea capes or novio/a earrings and other old accessories. Finally they could use that moogle to give us trials to update Rajas Ring/AA earrings/Toau rings.

[Ophannus]

Also what ever happened with those torques from monstrosity? Has anyone ever maxed them out? Are they even good?

[kasain]

Content is content regardless if you like it. Only a few mmos have as much content as ffxi. Ffxiv wishes it had some, but that game lets it out so slowly.

[dasva]

I don't care baby Qiqirn!!!

[dasva]

Also what ever happened with those torques from monstrosity? Has anyone ever maxed them out? Are they even good?

Yes. Check the monstrosity thread I have them in there. Basically only 1 is what you could consider useable and it's only a small improvement over other much less annoying to get options

[Byrthnoth]

A lot of the content suffers from a lack of motivation, which creates a lack of participation and makes some content essentially dead.

The problem with motivating all content is that the motivation becomes a barrier to entry for future players. In order to be a good Dancer, for instance, you have to do every pre-Adoulin mission. That is a huge barrier to entry, but SE lets it remain because it motivates mission participation. They have made it less of a barrier lately with all their mission adjustments and transportation options, but it still exists.

Imagine if MMM, Pankration, Chocobo raising/betting, etc. all had similarly essential rewards. It would take forever to gear new characters, and it would probably still be impossible to find groups for some of those events, like how it would be hard to find an old mission group now.

[Hitou]

Honestly, even content with rewards loses steam pretty fast these days. It becomes increasingly harder to find anyone interested in high-tier mission battles and delve etc as time goes on from it's initial release.

@Byrth do you mind listing the items you need for dnc from each set of missions? I'm assuming you don't mean the 3 nations since I can't think of anything from max rank of them. WotG I'm guessing the earring, ToAU I can't think of anything unless you mean a mythic.

[Byrthnoth]

Cities/RotZ is Suppa and Dynamis access
CoP is Brutal and Rajas
WotG is Moonshade
Yeah, ToAU would have to be Salvage access, mythic, etc., but realistically this is probably the least essential at the moment.
Adoulin is currently nothing, but the missions are easy so I've been doing them anyway.

[Hitou]

Thanks, mostly what I figured. I forgot you have to be rank 5 or w/e to start ZM and for dynamis access.

[NynJa]

Content is content regardless if you like it. Only a few mmos have as much content as ffxi. Ffxiv wishes it had some, but that game lets it out so slowly.

And the circle of life continues.

No, content is NOT content. How many resources do you think they invested in Pankration, and it was the flop of flops to most people. The only reason people gave a shit about it after was because ZNM's mandated it. How many people bother with Chocobo Racing? I doubt many, most people just use that zone for using login points on their jeuno mules.

[Sechs]

The rest of your points are fairly incoherent and you type 10x more words than needed.

I apologize, but I'm very passionate about this very specific topic and I've discussed about from very different points of view with many people over the last few years.

It can be summed up as: Whether it be giving custom titles, mounts, vanity items or endgame equipment, its all incentive. If you give people a reason to do content, they will do content.

Yes, that was the initial reply to Malithar. I agree with the necessity of a Carrot-on-a-stick, but it doesn't necessarily have to be something related to game economy or end-game.

I think you're completely over analysing this all.

I've been doing a lot of analysys about this, with other people. See above.

For the rest, you raised some valid points.
SE already tried the "vanity" way in the past but it didn't prove successful. I wonder why this hasn't worked here but it worked elsewhere?
Got a couple of ideas, but one of the reasons is that the "vanity" they offered wasn't attractive enough. People didn't desire it.
Another reason is the excessive korean-style grinding that some of these events require. Too oldstyle for 2014 maybe, given the rewards? Might be
But still, I think they can do better on this regard without conflicting too much with PVE stuff or the game's economy.

Altough my main concern here is, again, what I told to Fake earlier.
Wether a sidecontent has or hasn't cool possible rewards, what use is it if, at the end of the day, it's some boring annoying shit that you do suppressing your frustration just because you feel you don't want to miss your chance at the possibly good reward?
Is this really the model game designers should follow? Is this what we want as players? I'm not really sure myself but I doubt it.
And I'm seriously worried about how much "entertainment" something similar to Chocobo Raising could bring, with its convoluted, random, slow, annoying menus.
In terms of "potential", Monstrosity has so much more to offer than a system like this ever could.

I dunno where you get this idea from.

Might be bias?
I haven't even tried Monstrosity that much tbh. I'd love to, but no time.
It seems to me that compared to other events there has been a lot of people taking part in it for the first months, and when asked people came up with very positive opinions? Maybe there was something about it in a survey?
I'm not sure, but I had this impresison that the first months of the event were really positive but it kinda died out becaues of the excessive grinding to keep up and the lack of motivation/reward.
They DID update the system, but not in the structure. They "only" added new races and appearently that wasn't enough.
"Successful" was in proportion with other side content added in the past btw.