2nd Anniversary 14-hour Broadcast - Hai! Sou Da. Hai! Un. Un.

[Elcura]

Personally I think the problem mostly is people don't want to feel like they're being left behind? I never really understood why you would compare your overall progress to anyone else especially if they play more. The idea that everyone progresses at the same pace hurts those who get shit done and makes content feel limited. In that sense, I felt like the way 1.23 handled things was perfect for how I played. I could use any job and get gear for it, and sooner or later the roles I liked playing most (melee dps) became viable. Provided you didn't have too much attachment to a particular job (which...I think is a lot of people) you had a lot to aim for and do if you weren't immediately successful or you played with someone else.

I definitely have a lot of mixed feelings about the way things are now. While I wouldn't mind more unbalance if it meant taking the time to gear something else up was possible, I like the idea that the job I choose is more or less effective without special tricks or abilities.

[Kari]

People say this and seem to conveniently forget that FFXI's endgame was like it was because the game sat at the same level cap of 75 for most of its life. Until they raised the level cap past that, gear never really got outdated and people were running the same events for years while some expansions added on a few more things every couple of years. What you guys want isn't feasible anymore and only worked because SE never had to keep the old events up to date when things never really changed. Even if XIV found some way to add enough battle-content to keep everyone happy, they'd have to constantly update a growing list of events all the time and I doubt that'd be feasible or cost effective.

It works in FFXI because gearswapping is a thing, and gear has interesting stats. No other reasons, really. These days ilvl exists, and even before they updated most relevant gear to have ilvl upgrade paths, they were still good for gear swaps because of the effects they brought. XIV doesn't necessarily need gearswapping, but a number of cool systems could be used. Even FF9 had a system where you would wear gear you might not normally wear to "earn" a benefit. Plenty of available ideas, all of them are better than having straight stats that are all boring and hard to notice.

Really the only way to extend your weekly playtime is to craft/gather.

I have all DoL/DoH at 60, capping red scrips every week, I nearly have all of the Folklore books, have all of the Mastercraft books. In 2.X I had them all geared out, minus a few Lucis tools because they weren't worth making, all mastercraft books done.
It's a fun distraction but ultimately not too useful, I make my own food and pots that I could have just bought with the millions of Gil I have saved up that is not used for anything.

My weekly playtime can really only get extended if I level new jobs (I'd rather wait for lvl 50 dungeons to give exp, I think, just doing roulettes otherwise). That or, I could get the 3.0 Triple Triad Cards and maybe get around to maxing out a racing chocobo. I can't say I don't have fun doing all of the side content, but when you only do the "real content" a few days a week for a few hours a day, feels shitty.

[Dein]

While this is true especially in a tiny low man or close knit group, given the horizontal nature of the gear combined with a farm nature/horrendous drop rates of the highly desired pieces (which was relevant or useful due to gear swapping), plus also some of the gating, meant there was always something to constantly work towards to in a multitude of areas, or to help your team with. And that's before factoring in HNM camping.

I know what you mean (that we were doing the same thing over and over) but at the same time it took a very long time to cap on any event.

It works in FFXI because gearswapping is a thing, and gear has interesting stats. No other reasons, really. These days ilvl exists, and even before they updated most relevant gear to have ilvl upgrade paths, they were still good for gear swaps because of the effects they brought. XIV doesn't necessarily need gearswapping, but a number of cool systems could be used. Even FF9 had a system where you would wear gear you might not normally wear to "earn" a benefit. Plenty of available ideas, all of them are better than having straight stats that are all boring and hard to notice.



I have all DoL/DoH at 60, capping red scrips every week, I nearly have all of the Folklore books, have all of the Mastercraft books. In 2.X I had them all geared out, minus a few Lucis tools because they weren't worth making, all mastercraft books done.
It's a fun distraction but ultimately not too useful, I make my own food and pots that I could have just bought with the millions of Gil I have saved up that is not used for anything.

My weekly playtime can really only get extended if I level new jobs (I'd rather wait for lvl 50 dungeons to give exp, I think, just doing roulettes otherwise). That or, I could get the 3.0 Triple Triad Cards and maybe get around to maxing out a racing chocobo. I can't say I don't have fun doing all of the side content, but when you only do the "real content" a few days a week for a few hours a day, feels shitty.

You both mention gearswapping which is what I was getting at when I said that gear never really got replaced in XI. The game revolved around building tons of different sets on a job to handle many different specific situations better. Interesting stats (which I agree is something XIV lacks) didn't necessarily create the demand for gear sets but the horizontal side grading of gear was a big result of how long FFXI spent at the same level cap. To add to the low drop rates that Stig mentioned, it was pretty common for people in groups to be leveling new jobs and wanting the gear from endgame events for what they were leveling so there was always a backlog of demand for the better and rarer gear.

XIV's endgame problem to me is that the raid tiers are pitifully small. I want more than 4 bosses in a raid and I'd rather see them make an entire connected zone to house the raid than just 90 minute instances for each fight. A connected and fleshed out zone would allow for some possible branching between boss fights to allow groups to tackle fights in a different order from each other if they want but apparently anything more than 4 encounters is "too hard to balance" according to Yoshida.

[lilbubbles]

Spoiler: show

[Kari]

You both mention gearswapping which is what I was getting at when I said that gear never really got replaced in XI. The game revolved around building tons of different sets on a job to handle many different specific situations better. Interesting stats (which I agree is something XIV lacks) didn't necessarily create the demand for gear sets but the horizontal side grading of gear was a big result of how long FFXI spent at the same level cap. To add to the low drop rates that Stig mentioned, it was pretty common for people in groups to be leveling new jobs and wanting the gear from endgame events for what they were leveling so there was always a backlog of demand for the better and rarer gear.

But I mean, horizontal side grades are only a thing in XI because of gearswapping. There was no reason to use the DNC AF Body as a full-time piece at max level, but unless you had a better body with Waltz Potency on it, there was no reason to not keep it around for a Waltz Gearswap. It wouldn't be a valuable piece without gearswapping. In XIV, we don't really have much options for sidegrades. You wear whatever is the highest ilvl piece available to you, reach accuracy cap, gain desired VIT, then if you manage to get the one other possible piece that is the same ilvl, you can change to that piece if it brings you an almost unnoticeable stat weight increase.

I didn't really get the chance to experience endgame of XI at 75, so most of my experience is post-Abyssea and at 99 + ilvl 119, but I always had goals in XI no matter what. It's really difficult to be content capped, which is an amazing feeling.

XIV's endgame problem to me is that the raid tiers are pitifully small. I want more than 4 bosses in a raid and I'd rather see them make an entire connected zone to house the raid than just 90 minute instances for each fight. A connected and fleshed out zone would allow for some possible branching between boss fights to allow groups to tackle fights in a different order from each other if they want but apparently anything more than 4 encounters is "too hard to balance" according to Yoshida.

I heavily agree -- XIV's endgame has a ton of problems and you can pick at them any which way you choose. Literally any idea, fresh or stolen from another MMO, would be an improvement over how dull our endgame is.

[Fhloston]

Dev's can say what they want, bottom line is there aint shit to do cept cap then try alex savage or normal. If you are not doing savage I serious don't know why you would still play.

It all depends on the time you have to play. My work schedule doesn't allow me time to get a static and do savage. I just log in, do expert, run Alex normal if I haven't gotten my weekly drops yet, and that's basically it. The Mrs and a couple of RL buddies play, so we might level lowbie jobs together. But even that is occasional.

I can understand the plea for content tho for end gamers with the time to do that stuff. Even as a casual, I feel the game (at the moment) lacks activities that are worth our time. Gold Saucer, to me, was a flop. I don't care for the crafting system, or lack of motivation to even try. (Glamours, yay?) Hunts were only worth our time when law gear was relevant. Even then, racing players to get half credit, or even one hit on the hunt mob was retarded.

I still play b/c it's a game my wife, and friends can all play together. I enjoy the story, and the ability to finish it as a casual. I also like how with 3.0, I can run Alexander in some form. I'm still holding out hope based Yoshi P will answer our pleas. I'm hoping the new relic system won't be as horrid a grind as the zodiac saga.

I know what I want out of this game. Content that's fun, challenging, and worth my time and effort. More goofy shit like Hildebrand. More of the adventures with Alphinaud we had in the MSQ that made us really feel part of the story. I can go on and on, but all we can do is sit and wait to see how the rest of 3.0 unfolds. They probably cannot afford to re-reboot this game, so I also use that as hope for a brighter tomorrow in XIV. For casuals and hardcore's alike.

[Eldelphia]

My problem over here in Casual Corner is not being motivated to level other DoW jobs. SCH is my main and with it, SMN for DPS. I've levelled AST a bit in the hope that it becomes relevant and BLM is grudgingly 57 but really not feeling it. I'll go do WAR at some point but half the server has a tank... They ruined Bard's appeal for me. My Gathering classes are all 60 because I enjoyed that but not really enjoying the book grind. Crafters: Weaver is up there and slowly making it with the rest because I know SE - if I don't they'll suddenly become hyper relevant again later...

[Silenka]

It all depends on the time you have to play. My work schedule doesn't allow me time to get a static and do savage. I just log in, do expert, run Alex normal if I haven't gotten my weekly drops yet, and that's basically it. The Mrs and a couple of RL buddies play, so we might level lowbie jobs together. But even that is occasional.

I can understand the plea for content tho for end gamers with the time to do that stuff. Even as a casual, I feel the game (at the moment) lacks activities that are worth our time. Gold Saucer, to me, was a flop. I don't care for the crafting system, or lack of motivation to even try. (Glamours, yay?) Hunts were only worth our time when law gear was relevant. Even then, racing players to get half credit, or even one hit on the hunt mob was retarded.

I still play b/c it's a game my wife, and friends can all play together. I enjoy the story, and the ability to finish it as a casual. I also like how with 3.0, I can run Alexander in some form. I'm still holding out hope based Yoshi P will answer our pleas. I'm hoping the new relic system won't be as horrid a grind as the zodiac saga.

I know what I want out of this game. Content that's fun, challenging, and worth my time and effort. More goofy shit like Hildebrand. More of the adventures with Alphinaud we had in the MSQ that made us really feel part of the story. I can go on and on, but all we can do is sit and wait to see how the rest of 3.0 unfolds. They probably cannot afford to re-reboot this game, so I also use that as hope for a brighter tomorrow in XIV. For casuals and hardcore's alike.

This is basically exactly me...except I got so bored with the logging in just to run EX and Alex over and over again ad infinitum for gear I don't even really need because there's no content I do that needs it...that I've stopped now. I'd rather wait til the Eso cap gets higher or uncaps and run expert dungeons in one go til my fingers bleed than this slow burn, ex-wait-rinse-repeat bullshit. Logging on every day to do the same thing every day is a serious drag to me and makes the game VERY not-fun.

What DOES make the game fun is what you listed - goofy shit (Hildy will likely always be the best content), epic story and playing with other FF nostalgia-addict friends. But the serious lack of good content, and the continual teardown of the game's core systems to meet "player desires" that I'm pretty sure only idiots or masochists have, is really depressing. I don't think they can afford to re-reboot the game again either, and I DO still hold some hope that in the future there will be a lot of varied content to do. But I know how having hope in SE usually goes, so it's a very muted and resigned hope.

Avoid or bitch about XI comparisons all you want, at least in XI there was ALWAYS something to do thanks to the sheer number of jobs, the advantages having multiple jobs leveled brought (thanks to the drastic differences between them), gear collection, overworld shit, extra shit, varied endgame, I mean the list is huge. And it did take XI at least a little while to get to that point so I'm just waiting to see if XIV ever actually gets there. But the groundwork isn't looking like it's being laid out properly for anything approaching that level of content, and I do suspect, like many keep suggesting, that we'll continue to see the same shit over and over for the rest of the game's lifespan, without anything drastically different than what we have now making an appearance.

Let's face it, the live letter isn't making it look real good. While I'm excited about Arboretum because I thought that place really seemed like it would make a cool dungeon, I know I'll be bored with it after I run it the first 10 times...and then be forced into running it another 100+ times for this currency or that relic quest until I hate the sight of it. The minion and chocobo stuff could be interesting, but considering how bad they fucked up the implementation of chocobo racing, something that COULD have been really fun and much tighter than the clusterfuck it is right now, I'm not getting my hopes up this time. And it took this fucking long for party TP bars to be visible despite no fewer than three jobs having ablities that require you to know your party's TP...well, that says it all really. It's always beating a dead horse to complain about this game when I'm still subbed to it, but I just can't let go of those stupid shreds of hope for some reason

[Ratatapa]

My subs ends in October and I'm also on the fence, but something is clear. I don't think I'll resub 6 months, if I do it will be shorter

[haroldsaxon]

The only thing keeping me playing the game is a few friends (a few of which are in my raid group). If 3.1 is going to be as disappointing as what it sounds so far, i'll probably unsub as soon as i'm done raiding.

[Arelian]

The fundamental difference between new MMOS and Ye Olde MMORPG is the fact that the older games desperately wanted to be the only game you played. They were made for mono-gamers that wanted to toss 40 hours a week into a single game.

These days? The only games of that nature are MOBAs and open world survival horror like ARK and DayZ. MMOs have transitioned into being a game you play on the side. This is 100% by design because games that rely on content updates from the developers as opposed to being largely composed of "player-made" content (Competition in MOBA and community-building in Open World Survival) will never, ever be able to keep up.

FFXI was an all-consuming game because it was designed to suck away your time and to lock anything meaningful behind significant time constraints. There's absolutely no game on the market these days (read: that's succesful) that's designed around you having to spend a mandatory amount of time doing <x> task to accomplish <y> feat. There's no room in the modern market for it. There are too many things scrabbling to get your attention that dangling something in front of you that's going to take over 50 hours to accomplish is a great way to have mediocre sales.

Anyone that does make a MMO that's centered around large swathes of your time being dedicated to it is likely going to have to operate at a financial loss for some time.

That said... What's everyone's played time? What other sort of game is going to allow me 3000+ hours played for roughly $3/day?

[Ratatapa]

That's not the issue

The issue most of us have, is that, they are not trying to please both sides.

I have 0 problems with casual content, but why can't they make content for good players. Savage should be a different raid. I'm tired to run A1-4 normal and then redo the same shit for savage. It's not hard to do content for both type of players?

[Qeomash]

Hard? No. Time consuming? Yes.

[Arelian]

I'm gonna go on a limb and say that--yes--it is very difficult to do content that pleases both types of players. It costs a shitload of money to make modern assets and get it tested and put out for people to toy with.

Not to say that I wouldn't like having both types of content. Choice is better, etc, etc.

But the reality is nobody has had content that pleases both types of players. WoW never had stuff that kept everyone happy, FFXI didn't have content that kept everyone happy. The only way to really include content that "pleases" most players is to make that content player-run as opposed to developer-based.

[Ratatapa]

I never said Happy, I specified please on purpose

It's impossible to make everyone happy. But it is possible to please both sides. I think savage difficulty is fine. Just wish it was a different raid that's all.

And I kinda wish they don't nerf savage (which i'm sure they will)

[haroldsaxon]

The fundamental difference between new MMOS and Ye Olde MMORPG is the fact that the older games desperately wanted to be the only game you played. They were made for mono-gamers that wanted to toss 40 hours a week into a single game.

These days? The only games of that nature are MOBAs and open world survival horror like ARK and DayZ. MMOs have transitioned into being a game you play on the side. This is 100% by design because games that rely on content updates from the developers as opposed to being largely composed of "player-made" content (Competition in MOBA and community-building in Open World Survival) will never, ever be able to keep up.

FFXI was an all-consuming game because it was designed to suck away your time and to lock anything meaningful behind significant time constraints. There's absolutely no game on the market these days (read: that's succesful) that's designed around you having to spend a mandatory amount of time doing <x> task to accomplish <y> feat. There's no room in the modern market for it. There are too many things scrabbling to get your attention that dangling something in front of you that's going to take over 50 hours to accomplish is a great way to have mediocre sales.

Anyone that does make a MMO that's centered around large swathes of your time being dedicated to it is likely going to have to operate at a financial loss for some time.

That said... What's everyone's played time? What other sort of game is going to allow me 3000+ hours played for roughly $3/day?

The thing is, I don't drop 40 hours a week into the game and I'm still bored outside of raiding. I work full time, raid 3.5 5 times a week. I do enough experts to cap, which is one of two dungeons. And there will be 2/3 months of not even having that because their inbetween patches are terrible.

Having a major patch without nothing new at the high end, and very little with level 60 content - what is in effect 2 new dungeons (one being a 24 man longer dungeon) and one dungeon from current assets just isn't good enough to last 3 months. Can't we have "Void Ship Extreme" for 8 man? What about Extreme dungeons? Hell, some open world tough treasure maps would be pretty cool.

But they don't care and aren't making an effort to please the better players, they just want to push their latest gimmick which will inevitably not get used and then get ignored later on down the line.

They have enough subs, if they cannot do the content with the dev team they have now, they should either expand, or eat the unsubs that will inevitably come. What people often forget is that the high end players tend to drive the content - guides/videos/discussion and what not.

[Destinye]

The problem is, Yoshi wants to keep everyone on equal grounds.

[Carth]

The problem is, Yoshi wants to keep everyone on equal grounds.

Which is funny because the people who find Alex Normal laughably boring but Alex Savage a step too far is shit out of luck.

[Arelian]

The thing is, I don't drop 40 hours a week into the game and I'm still bored outside of raiding. I work full time, raid 3.5 5 times a week. I do enough experts to cap, which is one of two dungeons. And there will be 2/3 months of not even having that because their inbetween patches are terrible.

Having a major patch without nothing new at the high end, and very little with level 60 content - what is in effect 2 new dungeons (one being a 24 man longer dungeon) and one dungeon from current assets just isn't good enough to last 3 months. Can't we have "Void Ship Extreme" for 8 man? What about Extreme dungeons? Hell, some open world tough treasure maps would be pretty cool.

But they don't care and aren't making an effort to please the better players, they just want to push their latest gimmick which will inevitably not get used and then get ignored later on down the line.

They have enough subs, if they cannot do the content with the dev team they have now, they should either expand, or eat the unsubs that will inevitably come. What people often forget is that the high end players tend to drive the content - guides/videos/discussion and what not.

The thing is... it has been enough content to last them 3 months for the past 2 years now. 2 years with nothing but subscription increases to support their patch styles. For every anecdotal piece of evidence that says, "Oh, I only play for 20 hours per week and am bored outside of raiding," (which is still a lot mind you), you have hard data that says only fractions of the people paying for the game take part in that sort of content.

If we assume that the 5 million number are active subs (which they aren't but we have no other number to work off of), then the 200k number the showed for Alexander Floor 1 normal only accounts for 4% of the population. We can assume that number goes up to 10-15% for active subs, which while being a more substantial number... Really isn't all that impressive still.

You say the in-between patches are awful. I, and most of the people I play with, say they're awesome. You say that high end players drive the content--I say that the OF and Reddit are filled with people that actively decry most of the things that those high-end players want to do.

It's easy to play armchair CEO/Producer and say they should expand to better suit the needs of what people so very clearly want. The reality is that the numbers simply don't add up. What they're doing has brought them success, so continuing down the road shows no signs of slowing that success as of yet. How many times did people threaten to quit WoW while the subscription numbers only continued to increase until the game's age really started to show?

[Kaisha]

I'd be happy with a Savage version of what will be CT this patch. Its only fair as they wasted dev time doing a Casual Raid version of Alexander this time round.

It's one of the things that bugs me about their workflow for ARR.

They spend a huge amount of resources on extravagant locales, for content that lasts maybe one content cycle, two at most. They need to make better use of these assets they create, be it for multiple-difficulty levels, or re-purposing them for another style of event (modern FFXI's forte) for the cost of just Q&A testing whatever you script + a couple new animation/mechanic effects for recycled enemies.