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Is max level / endgame content a right or privilege?
c0exist
Member UncommonPosts: 196
Basic question, just wanted some thoughts. I enjoy the subscription model but this could be asked to the f2p model as well. As a paying / playing customer should that endgame content, that so many on here rush to, should that content be handed to me? (Right) Or should I have to work towards it for countless days and even months? (Privilege)
I come from the background that endgame content and even attaining max level for that matter is given to those that put the most time into building their character. Max level attainment to me should be difficult; not just with lots of time put in but difficult gameplay to get there. Too many games are focusing on rushing even casual players to high level areas, and for what? Now, I understand there are different play styles for different people. I am not knocking anyones play style, however, If you take away the grinding and the time consuming crafting and the farming and the levels and exp then what you have is not an mmorpg. Its like telling pro basketball players, you guys dont have to dribble anymore to make it easier for you guys to move up the court and we are making the hoop 4 times as big so you can make more baskets. At that point its not the sport of basketball anymore its something completely different. Thats what we have now, fast leveling and simple gameplay. But back to my original question I think that just because you log into a game that doesnt mean you are entitled to anything but a LONG journey ahead. Therefore, its most definitely a privilege imo.
Comments
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
I can see it as a right to access it, but a priveledge to perform well in it.
Sure, you could have the ability to powerlevel your first job to 50 and see all this nice content, but you will find it prohibitively difficult if you don't also build up your character with more of the 18 other classes to earn cross class abilities, repair and upgrade options, even a source of funds to help upgrade your gear. And even once you can reach endgame content, you need to be experienced enough to get past the strategic challenges (or bribe/convince a group to let you leech) to access the more advanced endgame challenges. And you will quickly run out of basic quests for leveling, if you dedicate them to your first lvl 50 choices, which means branching out to the many other leveling options for jobs 2-19.
Therefore, I would argue a hybrid option is best.
http://www.novacrystallis.com/2013/02/final-fantasy-xiv-a-realm-reborn-interview-with-producerdirector-naoki-yoshida/
Nova Crystallis: I’m curious about your design philosophy when it comes to balancing content created for the more casual player and of course the hardcore users as well.
Yoshida: Time is key. So all the hardcore gamers – those who really want to complete the latest content straight away and get the rewards the quickest – those people are the more dedicated players. If they really want to do that they will probably need quit their job just to play XIV. Now for the casual players, if they don’t have enough time, or want to play as long as they want whenever they want – they can still complete the end game content if they don’t rush. The way I want to address the balance is not to lower the difficulty straight away – that’s not fair to those who have paid attention and are putting a lot of effort into the game. They want challenge, so I want to give challenge to the hardcore gamers. But if we leave it too difficult, the casual gamers will never be able to complete the content, so after a while I may prepare a sort of easy mode or a buffer that makes users stronger. Again, I won’t do that straight away because I want the hardcore users to have a challenge first, and then later down the line the casual users will receive help from our end. That’s sort of how I imagine hardcore players enjoying the game and casual users enjoying the game.
In short the end game will be open to everyone. At first hardcore players are going to spend many hours cutting their teeth on it and banging their heads against the wall. After they complete it the end game will become more casual friendly so the people who dont want to be on the bleeding edge of raiding can see the content while the hardcore players are off beating their heads against the next brick wall and so on.
Leveling itself will be a process as will end game in. As you can tell Yoshi P is trying to make the game open for everyone just in phases much like WoW does with buffing
erfing end game content. Truth is if you do not care about casuals which will be the majority of any game you will end up with a small player base that will do you no good. So to balance the content out without being handed to people he makes it hard until new content comes out (which they are planing for new content every 3 months) and then they let more people in.
My only issue with end game is it being up to 24 people. I would prefer a tight nit group of 8 to 10 people for the content vs all the headaches of a massive guild. This could change and I am keeping an open mind.
Edil
In the end the game is going to become what you make of it. Thats basically what Yoshi P stated. You can either be on the bleeding edge of end game and leveling or you can take your time and do it at your own pace. At your own pace you will see the content just in an easier format.
I find it rather difficult to answer your 'question' by your terms of right or privilege. It's rather confusing as to what you are asking. You are asking if the content should be handed to you easily or should you have to work for it? What do you mean exactly, like should the content be easy and everyone will be able to do it, or are you saying that you should have to spend weeks or months just getting dungeon gear / crafted items to be able to enter and do the endgame/raids?
You need to clarify what exactly you are asking, kind of left it an open ended question with no right or wrong answer, just hard to get a feel on what you are looking for exactly.
Here's my 2 cents though in regard to end game.
I believe the 'end game' should be the main focus and the time most spent playing. End game referring to having entry level dungeons, elite or hard mode dungeons, and then raids / open world bosses and even PvP can be considered end game as well. Having only 1 of these things I list is bound to fail, just like the recent Neverwinter, there are no raids, no open world bosses, isn't meant to be a pvp thus only 1 pvp mode, and all there is to do are harder dungeons which give little to no reward for completion. That is a failure in my eyes.
The whole leveling process is nice, and shouldn't be forgotten, but doesn't need to be focused on so much because once you reach that level cap, there is almost no reason to ever go back and see those places again, unless somehow they can tie in some sort of content that involves the zones, but would be hard due to the map being taken up by leveling quests and low levels etc. This is why there needs to be much more focus on end game content and maps.
Hopefully we will see a lot of end game content being put in to FF14, raids, hard dungeons, open world bosses or PvP zones/arena/battlegrounds etc. There are so many more things that can be added in, but just a quick write up, its my view on end game.
The best way i see this is what Blizzard did in Icecrown.
Let a timer run once hardcore raiders step into the dungeon with no buffs and see if they can tackle bosses.
Once gear is obtained they should be able to progress slowly.
Once casuals reach that contend they are able to use a (buff) to make it easier and with each week passing by that (buff) increases.
There was a raid guild called Paragorn that completed end game contend like madness, no other guild cleared end game contend as fast as they did.
Even some hardcore guilds werent able to tacke this contend without buffs and better gear.
For me thats the best way to please both sides of the fence, dont nerf contend to fast as hardcore raiders feel scammed and disapointed.
Everybody is happy this way i think ?
That is essentially what they are doing. They will just come in and make it easier (maybe also requiring less people) once there is new content for the "hardcore" players to move on to.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
The real answer depends on a question, "Where is the content?"
To be honest, back in the older games where leveling was really hard, you didn't really have enormous amounts of endgame content. There was always something, and it was often very hard (or even close to impossible), but there usually wasn't a lot of it. Leveling was really the core of the content for 99% of players. That's fine if you actually design the game around leveling, which is essentially how FFXI was at launch.
The reason newer games make leveling relatively easy is because most of the actual game is in the endgame. They have leveling zones and a few dungeons along the way, but the vast majority of dungeon and raiding content is typically designed for max-level players.
And that endgame content is where the difficulty lies, in those kinds of games. That way, they have something fun and easy for casual players (leveling) and something difficult for hardcore players (progression raiding).
When it was making the rest of the game easier that lead to games being so end game dependent in the first place. Blizzard's solution? Keep making prior content easier to plow through.
http://thewordiz.wordpress.com/
I doubt you will see easy mode then hard mode end game instances to gear grind just to get into raiding. SE knows that this formula is old and not working anymore so don't be surprised if you see end game instances being on the same level so people can get gear. Also FFXIV will move away from the gear grind in the way of TEAM WORK will be the most important ingredient to being able to down bosses. If you do not use your best attacks during a limited break phase you will not be able to down a boss. Gear helps however it will not overcome lack of Team work.
Yeah I don't know wtf you are talking about I spent 90% of my time in FFXI in endgame (NA launch-Aht Urghan)).
I guess it did stop some people, but the rest of us were doing endgame more than most people do today so your argument is invalid.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Are you asking if this game will be one or the other?
Or are you asking which we prefer?
I prefer longer leveling.
This game has shorter leveling, its far shorter than say FFXI's original incarnation.
Ah its a trick question.... and look at all those responses.
Now the true response is...........
There should never be an end game in a mmorpg
I agree and disagree with this statement at the same time. If end game takes 6 months or a year to get to for hardcore players you will not have much of a player base. However if it takes 2 weeks for hardcores to get to end game its too short therefore boring.
Leveling and end game needs to be a process where people understand it will take time, not old school time where it took 6 months to a year to get to, however not casual 1 month and you seen all the content. I think somewhere between 3 months for hardcores and 6 months for casuals. This then gives players time to level up and learn the game before running off into raids.
I also think that making gear ups take too long is a big problem burning players out much faster than making the game more Team Work based. If the game is more Team Work based than gear based it involves the social aspect more than. Run X instances per week run LFR 5 times to gear badges.
Requiring to coordinate DPS with tank aggro and heals with times of incoming damage takes more skill than gear to the hilt and pound on X boss.