Would imagine that part handles things that kick off immediately after beating the Shadow Lord and independent of Zilart's start. So, while it may seem awkward to vets, it's more a progression "make sense" move and not so much a call out to potential returnees.
Wild card: Level cap it at 60.
Personally that would be fine with me. Fuck the haters.
i doubt the fight will be hard at all
That's the problem with the whole lvl 60 deal. It's setting up the first pack to either be nothing but run here, click this missions in base/RotZ areas, or if it does have any fights, they're complete pushovers that are a waste of their time to design. I guess as long as the Dyna-like area in the first pack is setup for max lvl it won't really matter.
I feel like any more conversation on it is just a perspective clash that story content should not be THE endgame. Steps SE has taken post-CoP should serve as example to why.
Still utterly baffled by how the FFXI mobile app is expected to work and I'm skeptical as balls until I see what the real gameplay is going to look like.
I think you're looking at it as somebody with an ilvl character. I think they are hoping to get people to come back one last time, including those who stopped before abyssea. If they were to see it started at 117 or whatever, I doubt they'd give it a second thought. But starting at 60 and slowly working up, it is a lot less intimidating. Get them hooked again for the first part, then they might play long enough to get an ilvl character so they can finish.
Story =/= endgame. I don't care if it's level 1, missions are not there for that reason and even the most casuals should be able to enjoy them.
I don't think run here, talk to npc, run to other side of vana'diel, talk to npc, farm low drop rate items, fight bosses that die in a couple seconds, etc. is particularly fun for anyone. Why bother playing the game instead of just watching the CS on youtube at that point?
Even if the fights themselves aren't very fun, just the action of doing them makes you feel more like you're actually participating in the story instead of just watching it.
I think that'd be the wrong way to go at this stage of the game. They seem to be considering it from the standpoint of dwindling populations, so making solo/solo with Trusts type fights makes complete sense. Given the way SE has tended to prototype different content in-game, it wouldn't surprise me to see things take a page from the RUN and GEO Empyrean quests, and give players an easy route just to progress, with harder, more rewarding options to come back and challenge if they want. Plus all the selectable difficulty BCNMs and all now.
Missions in general can be a way to get players out and exploring the game world, which sounds like it could be an additional motivation for this. A hypothetical new or returning player might wind up with better guidance pointing the way to existing mission series without basically needing to look them up elsewhere. Could be that it'll serve as something of a central mission/storyline hub. Maybe a moot point for long-term players, but perhaps a good addition to the game from a ground-up perspective (especially considering it's supposed to make it to the mobile version eventually).
MAYBE if gear syncing was actually good. Shit winds up a lot weaker than level appropriate gear while some stats don't bother to scale at all. Nevermind the reality that some jobs become fucktarded to play the moment you start taking away abilities.
Again, story shouldn't be treated as THE endgame. Despite how some may revere CoP, it handled story delivery wrong, which included the long term sustainability of capped content. "Just make it capped for a bit...!" is dumb. So, could people youtube things? Sure. Same experience? Nope. Then again, those just in it to spam enter for scenario rewards certainly won't be happy until November.
They could incentivize it of course. if you cleared it with a lv cap it instantly gives you like a coupon for 1 capacity point, or something. it doesn't take very much to get people to do something if the reward is good. some people just need more encouragement than others.
i actually enjoyed the fact that CoP gated new zones behind missions that were hard. It firstly incentivized players who were pursuing missions already, and also made it so that the rewards from clearing them were that much more rewarding. in fact I think gating is good. its just a matter of what is being gated.
Abyssea gated atma behind zone boss clears, and it worked well because atma were insanely powerful and it built on itself. I'd think another self-contained system like that would be great.
Gating through skill is one thing. Gating through time or being lucky enough to find X others with the right job(s) when you want to do something is another. XI's history of gating has very rarely been about skill. So, forgive me for not wanting to see them fall into old habits with content on its last legs.
A modest reward for alternative capped versions is fine. Making them the mandatory versions (which includes making said rewards TOO good), however, nope.
No, Seha!
ALL content should ONLY be for the handful of LSs who do endgame content!
NO new content should exist that isn't catered to this section of the game!
Full 119 +1 17 Relics and Mythics everything or you're a bad player!
9_9
(In case that emoticon isn't comprehended, that is a representation for the human action known as "rolling one's eyes" this indicates that the associated actions or statements are not serious and usually indicates that they are facetious.)
Real opinion time:
It's kinda really dumb to expect the story to be "zomgsohardcoreonry"...
Because that's not the point of the story.
The story exists to enjoy the CSs and the plot.
This is why we have HQMNMs and Delve and Incursion and Vagary and all the other events that comprise the endgame.
Endgame=/=the end of the story.
(For traditional FFs think of the endgame as stuff like Weapons and extra bosses while the plot never requires you to be 99 with full 255/999s.)
mission =/= endgame but making the first part of the last chapter of the game doable at lvl 60 is super dumb; any casual can finish SoA mission and I enjoy soloing the fight so far since you can die in it if you go unprepared!