Letter From the Producer Live VI RecapFollow

You seriously think they'll be able to add enough to keep pace?

Of course I'll admit that I could be wrong, but my guess is that if they're creating all new content from scratch, it won't be enough. Think of it in terms of FFXI. XI didn't have enough content upon the JP release to prevent players from finishing it, and that game was slow as hell--it would never hold the attention of a U.S. audience. There's a tradeoff that's made in pacing a game that waivers between boring your players throughout the game vs. letting them do everything soon and be bored when its done. When you don't rely extensively on emergent mechanics, this is inevitable. Finding the best middle ground is all that they can do, but at the end of the day, you can't solve the pacing problem without more content.

It's like surviving a famine. You can stuff your players at the start and let them suffer on their own fat when they get to the end, or you can string it out, letting them go hungry every day. And somewhere there's an optimal rationing to keep them in the best possible shape, but at some point, no fancy rationing will save you. When you're out of food, you're out of food. A trickle of new rations here and there won't cut it.

Those things aren't content though. I've never known a game to be able to add content sustainably. At best, they can string people along so that there's only a month or two between the next major update.

If I'm wrong, I'll be impressed even if the game is otherwise an utter failure.

Well it depends on how you define "keep pace."

There are a couple of extremes here to examine first:

1: FFXI. They spent 5 years on their previous expansion, slowly trickling out content over that time and experimenting with the little scenarios in the interim. This is probably too slow for an MMO not based on horizontal-progression.
2: Rift. They released major content patches every month after release for like six months before they had to slow down to once every 3 months. Each of these patches contained a new raid, and I think every other one contained a large world event. Unfortunately, this blistering release schedule had the consequence of leaving crippling bugs in the earlier content. They literally didn't have time to fix them.

I think something in between is reasonable, but it's all dependent on how much content the game launches with and where that content is.

Keep in mind too that players aren't relegated to playing a single class, unlike other MMOs. This potentially adds life to early and mid-game content that wouldn't be there in a single-class game. Endgame might be a touch lighter at launch because of this, but there's no way to really know that right now.

I cannot imagine a scenario where the dev team would not continue to release content for the game. This is an MMO. I'm convinced they know what that is.

I remember my first experience with the Sea Horror. I love **** like that.

Unfortunately I'm not counting on the multi-class system adding replayability to the content based on the direction they're talking about, otherwise I'd agree. Maybe if the leveling pace is quick and fun and the classes are sufficiently differentiated. I feel that this is one area where FFXI could have easily picked up a lot of slack and been more successful by a lot, but I've probably said that about 100 times.

Like I said, if they can keep pumping out content, even if the game bombs, I will genuinely be impressed and my opinion of the developers will be improved by whatever amount. Eastern developers seem to have some aversion to making significant game updates.

When I say "keep pace," it's not a matter of semantics. It all goes back to the end user experience for me. If most people will enjoy it sustainably, then the game keeps pace. If they can't put enough content out to keep users engaged, then they failed to keep pace. Unfortunately this is one of those things that requires more than good intentions or even smart design--if you don't have the resources on the task, no resource management strategy will turn water into wine.

I honestly like XI still because I can log in and **** around on things that have absolutely nothing to do with leveling progression, endgame, or making money. I spent two hours completely redecorating my mog house a few months back. (Spent half a million gil on it, too...) Pared down my collection of useless junk, stored what I could, redid most of my furniture to be white cloth based, added in a small kitchen, a small dining area, and a bedroom. My living room only needs a couch to be complete, but SE has never seen fit to add those.

An MMO needs these little touches to help enrich the world. Endgame raid content is necessary too, of course, and plenty of it. But sometimes you just want to log on and fritter away your time on something silly. If the game provides nothing that scratches that itch, you're not going to log on at all that day, and eventually you won't log in again. 1.0 didn't scratch that itch for me - crafting was too confusing, botany was too annoying, I had no mog house, I could never get a spot for my retainer in the market wards...

ARR looks like they're going to have that kind of content, with the simplified crafting and the giant Free Company houses. Personally, there are days where I just want to plop down in a big city inside the game and watch life parade around me. When I did that in Ul'dah 1.0, only ten characters loaded so it was kind of pointless.

I don't think anyone would actually be against little things that add detail to the game world. I used to collect books on my gnome warrior in WoW (yet my collection was missing some stuff), for example. Certainly helps in giving our characters depth.

Breaking News! 14 will be more casual than 11!

No seriously, it's getting a bit tiring. Every new bit that comes out gets analyzed as proof this game will be "casual-only." I don't deign to know their plans, but you're all just spouting sh*t we already know.

And all the sh*t-talking on "casuals" here is really starting to sound like the god-awful official forums. You're all acting like Yoshi-P doesn't know or care about the core audience, and the fear-mongering is just getting tiresome.

I'm pretty sure that having Primals as the BASE endgame content tells a lot. Those that played 1.0 can attest that Ifrit and Garuda gave many people trouble (Garuda particularly). Now add Titan, Odin, etc, and remember that the old content was pretty damn hard for casual and pugs, and then clearing the crystal tower, which we know nothing about other than it's so long that you can save your progress on which floor you're on and come back to it later, all to get INTO the labyrinth of Bahamut.

Yeah, this sounds like easy mode. I quitting already.



Edited, Apr 19th 2013 8:27am by Louiscool

Depends on the game really. FFXI certainly wasn't that way, because the endgame stuff was WAY too difficult to get beaten in a couple hours. Most of that required precise strategies that took long amounts of time to figure out. Some, (AV, Pandemonium Warden) were so difficult they were never really defeated as intended. Even FFXIV 1.XX had some challenging content. I remember Ifrit taking people a while to figure out how to beat it. It certainly didn't help that you could basically spam the fight over and over until you did beat it though. Heck, even games like WoW weren't beaten in a couple hours. I remember back when ICC was out, beating 25 man Hardmode was an accomplishment, and took weeks to achieve even once.

Personally, I'm not worried at all about endgame for FFXIV. I consider myself a casual hardcore playe...sounds like an oxymoron I know, but what I mean is that I don't have a TON of time to play, but when I do I'm pretty competitive and like to be the best that I can. On release I plan to start at level 1 so that I can fully enjoy the game. I figure, by the time I actually get to 50, they'll be well on their way to adding more endgame content, and by the time I actually beat all the content that's out now, there should be more available.

Yeah I'm in the same camp. Two jobs kinda kills your availability.

I remember mine too! I met this 70 year old couple and we traveled together that day. They told me to stay down stairs. Man... I heard screams and fighting followed by death going on up top. I was terrified lmao. Good times~

Edited, Apr 19th 2013 8:19pm by GDLYL

So all of those other, long development time, multi-million dollar MMORPGs just didn't have enough "riding on it" to justify making content?

Well, these arguments don't matter, really. There's always a surge of blind XIV-defence following lengthy announcements. I attribute it to people trying hard to maintain their level of excitement for the game and therefore stomping out opposition with particular force. But it always happens that, months later, that glow wears off, and those same people alter their expectations along with their tone - that is, until the next announcement. Then some time later they slip away from the game quietly and forget all about what they said on the forums.

(Oh, and this isn't necessarily direction at you specifically, Wint, even though I decided to quote your comment at the top.)

Edited, Apr 19th 2013 10:55pm by KaneKitty