Final Fantasy 14 Grinds are a thing of the past? Let’s Discuss
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The first comment Brian read, about long time players wanting FFXIV to be like a 2nd job…I have to push back on that one, as a long time player (longer than Zepla).
No, don't want that. I like the fact that I can take breaks, come back and not be behind, to the point that it takes months to get my character back up to par (like when I played FFXI).
But, I do want a relic grind, something that allows me to continue playing the game without just queuing for instances all the time. The relic grinds give this game much needed content to do in the world zones, instead of just instance content (i.e. dungeons / raids / trials). I know Bozja and Eureka were technically instances, but they functioned like zones in the world, not like the other instanced content in the game.
The other thing the relic grind provided was long term (short by most online game standards) content to achieve a goal. It also allowed for some fun interactions in the zones with other people and social elements, something the instanced content is lacking.
Also, the relic grind was always casual content, and it was providing a core game play type to a certain percentage of the player base. Yoshi-P is now realizing that removing that type of content was a mistake, as he stated in an interview that the voice for this content has never been present in the past. Of course it hasn't, the players who love it were getting their content.
Imaging taking away savage raids for an expansion. Yeah, that 30 something percent of the community would complain too.
All games are grinds, period. Too many people consider grinds to be only something they don't like. You grind out story and levels in offline RPGs. You grind out fights in fighting games, etc. Grinding is doing the same thing over and over again. All games are based on doing the same thing over and over again (hence, why it is called the gameplay loop).
My issue ends up being that while they say that they want people to take breaks, they still introduce sprinkles of FOMO content. It took them years to fix it but PvP was a good example as alot of very nice rewards were gated by seasons and are forever gone. Same with first print merch taking away in game music and minions. The more they want to make the game not punishing for taking breaks the more the little things that still do exist matter. While its not as bad as missing story, most events have little to no story, i would wish more event content would persist like the Monster Hunter Trial for both new and returning players to have. Yokai Watch is a dead IP and thats a massive bit of minions and weapons and 3 funny mounts lost to time. Square hasn't done a Dragon Quest Event in years. People want to be able to earn things, and i think the last thing we want are veterans having to tell them 'you cant'
I always enjoy the grind and enjoy the time building a weapon that will become BiS, but FF14 doesn't have that build, I thought for a moment it was going to change with Eureka but they didn't. So maybe they should make other paths to BiS like open world raiding and use variant as another option to and get also crafting items to have crafters make items to build a BiS armor or weapon, like give us more options.
If you do return to FF14, I may as well return, because Brian, I like ya…and I want ya, now we could do this the easy way or the hard way the choice is yours.😂😂😂😂 jk jk
The thing with these people with the mindset "you can go play other games" is they fail to realize that just cause there is a grind for something, doesnt mean you can't go play other games?
Why should there not be content for people to do who WANT to keep playing FFXIV?
Anyone who falls into the mindset that the lack of content surrounding the relics in EW is literally coping. It was cut because the dev cycles needed to be put into FFXVI and simply utilizing an existing system was an easy way out for Yoshi P and his team.
As of last week I now have EVERY SINGLE Endwalker Relic upgraded. Now I have nothing to spend tomes on again. And where do I find myself? Going back and casually doing content that has lasting appeal like a SHB Relic and a SB relic. Which… hear me out…. CAN BE DONE CASUALLY and not as a grind like everyone says!
Take away Savage for an expansion and there would be riots from the even SMALLER percentage of players that do that content compared to Relics.
Short answer: no.
Grinds aren't fun
As a long time player of 8 years, I disagree with a lot of what was said here. Nobody is trying to make a 2nd job out of the game. People who have invested time into this game and have grown to love it want something that they can constantly come back to because they enjoy it. They WANT to be in this world but there isn't much to keep them in it.
I think the "best year in gaming" argument, while very true, also shows the flaws in the current state of FFXIV. Just because people are leaving and playing other games just shows the lack of player retention in my opinion. People are leaving or taking breaks and although patches are being released, they're just not coming back for them. You'll often see people saying they'll just wait for 7.0 to see if it's even worth resubbing. That's a problem. That's also why I have an issue with the whole "take a break" mentality. What? You take a break and come back and it'll magically make your issues with the game go away? Absolutely not. There's still going to be the same tired content cycle with 2hrs worth of MSQ, a dungeon and some trials. All of which can be finished in a week even if you're not no-lifing it. Then you wait another 4 months for another patch.
The problem with FFXIV goes much further beyond just the new and old player argument as well. It's what the game has and is becoming. It's not an MMO it's an online game with multiplayer. It's a single-player RPG where your friends can assist on boss battles. Classes have been dumbed down and most have been homogenized like crazy. Trusts replace the need to even find parties for some content. Gear becomes obsolete by next patch cycle most of the time.
So a lot of us are at the point where we're asking why are we even playing anymore?
the issue with taking breaks is people think they are conceding the game to casuals if they accept take a break as an acceptable response
I wanna know why MMORPGs are going on the single route because there’s people that don’t wanna play with people but you don’t wanna socialize with people you can’t force someone to socialize with someone yes we need to socialize. Sometimes we wanna just play a game by ourselves what’s wrong with that?
I fail to see what too easy fights and homogeneous jobs have to do with the absence of grinding. The stuff you can do is just not rewarding unless you raid where now you need 7 other people and a schedule.
The social aspect of the mmo genre has been dying off. I like the grind. Hitting lv cap and exploring the world was an achievement at one time, now it seems the game is built around endgame content. It's no longer about exploring the world, learning lore and history, but a race to max lv. I always enjoyed the journey. I remember playing and seeing max lv chars and aspiring to reach cap to get the cool gear and relics. I still remember to this day, getting my Paladin mount in WoW b4 they nerfed the quest and you could just buy the mount. That made Pally feel unique and I enjoyed the questline and gathering all the mats I needed for the quest. It was an investment of time and gold. I remember a random rogue assisting me in a couple parts of the questline, I think fighting the Scarlette Crusade. No real memorable moments from FF14, although I still remember numerous from FF11. Nobody is making people play all day long like its a 2nd job. You can play a little at a time over months and still reach lv cap. I don't get why people feel the need to race to get to the end and be bored with nothing to do then.
That comment did my head in. I don't want the game to become a second job, people are not complaining about Endwalker relics and Criterion as "only drama". New content being dead a couple days after it releases is not normal, healthy, or good for the game! The content that is in the game should be incentivized to be repeatable. That's all. This isn't hard, complex, or 'drama'. Also, a lack of Bhozja highlights the scam of mogstation mounts. Where are you going to show off your mounts? Rhalgr's Reach? LMAO
Grind isn't a issue if it is a current expansions, but it will cause a problem in the future, like Bozja and Eureka, there's time not so many people are joining, and it became an issue for grinding crystals and items, I am currently trying to grind Resistant relic, but I am at a stage need to farm delubrum reginae which is so frustrating….
Just a question for anyone who agrees or disagrees with the comment; where did all those percentages quoted come from? If they're not from a legitimate source, the whole comment, at its core, is meaningless.
People who want everything handed to them on a silver platter for free or at a very low cost need to decide if they want to play an MMORPG,
which is a time-consuming type of game, without necessarily it being a second job.
You can just as easily play games like Overwatch or Fortnite, which literally take 5 minutes.
This kind of format where non-excessive grinding disappears or where you play a game for just 5 minutes simply doesn't work in an MMORPG.
Even solo games don't hand everything to you on a plate.
If you don't like grinding, the argument goes both ways – you're not obligated to participate in it.
If you want to obtain a weapon at a very low cost, there are already tomestone weapons available.
Let people who want to play for just one or two hours a day make their subscriptions worthwhile,
instead of going in circles in his house and doing nothing because the casual content in Endwalker has a insignifiant lifespan.
Moreover, it's not by inventing statistics out of thin air that Dacienvegas will have more credible statements than others.
Grinds need to have options to be fun. With fewer dungeons and a greater emphasis on endgame/hardcore content, you've lost much of that fun. This is why relics also suck. Bring back relics in 7.0, not 7.35. Don't tie them to Exploratory Missions and let them be their own thing. Don't require all the freaking Manderville Quests just to unlock them. The only requirement should be reaching level 100. That's it.
I can't agree more on wanting the solo/mp aspects to be less divided than they currently are. Assuming I could get my friends to actually try playing the game with me a second time (sadly unlikely as things stand), we would STILL have the biggest hurdle that got in our way the first time: level differences and the constant requirement to break and remake the party. For 1, just 1, out of 6, this wasn't too big of a deal, and we just dealt with the annoyance of it. Everyone else? All gone. Some small luck, I still had unleveled classes back then, so I didn't need to create a new char, just pick a role type to compliment what they were playing and spend time we weren't together keeping it close to their level (because no rewards from ng+ for.. whatever reason that's a thing.) Now, however, I'm working on the last class to reach omni-80 (I really do want that Amaro), and if any of them return I no longer HAVE an option. I can do the whole starting a new char or stand around waiting for them until we hit actual group content. I would so much rather be able to just level sync down to party members so I can actually play things with them. And if we don't have a full group, it really WOULD be nice if the duty support/trust system could fill in the gaps, instead of be an all or nothing setup.
Never really liked mmos. Just started playing 14 trying to get into it
I love the idea of being able to do dungeons with npcs but it would be cool if I wanted to bring a friend to have the rest of the party be npcs . Having that flexibility would be pretty cool. Like I actually really love that idea you mentioned. Think it would be a good way to appease most.
I have been playing for 5 years but even so I still have so much content to do from all expansion. I am definitely taking my sweet time so when I do play I always have different option available. Now I know that’s isn’t for everyone and people love to just play and complete stuff which is also cool.
I do think the open world part of the game could use some love. I also don’t mind a grind if it is reasonable. Because I do work 80 hrs or more so I don’t have all the time in the world to spend grinding a relic or bozja or whatever it may be.
I do think it is def important to have that balance for casuals, mid or hardcore. I also think it is important to not only appease to your new players but the long term players. Idk I am kind of like yeah I see where many people are coming from … from all sides of the argument or debate.
Brian, all I can talk about is my experience and maybe that might be an indication of something.
So I quit raiding the tier before last and have just kinda casualed my way for the last like 8-12 months. I was burning out trying to keep up with work and fc stuff and raiding.
Pretty much the most difficult thing I do now is blu raiding. That is so fun/funny to do and the mount looks cool. If I didn't have my fc doing that and other events I would have unsubbed.
I'm not the richest person in 14, I only have bought a large fc house, 3 small houses for friends, and a medium house for myself. 3 other of my friends have the money but can't get one yet. Mostly all from selling crystals. They don't sell for much but everyone needs them :). I have 200k of crystals ready for the 3rd and They'll sell out in a week or so.
I have spent most of this expansion doing older content not current content. Criterion were fun but not rewarding for the time investment. Island Sanctuaries was great at launch but its been kinda shallow updates since. I love exploratory zones. Didn't think I'd like Eureka, love it. I personally like it better than Bozja mostly because the community in there is S++. ❤ those wonderful folks with callous and rez's and most of all patience with new people.
I will say that even though I'm a bit disappointed with the post patch content, they've been doing alot of new player upgrades. All dungeons can now be done with npc's or just about. They'll probably work on trials next. Were getting visual upgrades slowly. We got an entire new platform with Xbox. I see this expansion as a rebuilding, more than a cool new toys expansion.
Am I sad or upset I spent like 300 bucks on a sub? F no, I've had a wonderful time with friends I made during this expansion. Thats what an mmo is about for me, its not the next super difficult fight. No, its about the next fun thing I get to do with my friends. Hard or easy who cares? Friends are what make the experience more enjoyable to me. My friends and I beat Bahamut, silenced echo, as a party of blues XD. Halfway to Morbol. Just need a8 and a12 and done.
This is going to be long. Hear me out: Rejuvenating or revamping open world content which already exists.
Leves – They always had so much potential, but they just never ended up doing anything but crafting and gathering after Heavensward. A Solution? Have the expansion vendor for leve quests have a battle leve section which gives you a couple options, and how many allowances you would like to spend on the quest. One option could be having a scaling amount of waves of enemies swarm at you and potentially a party of however many people join in, and you just smash away at the enemies until the waves complete, giving you maybe tokens toward relics, or giving a chance at 1% rarity scaling relic gear within the expansion. The rarity means it wouldn't be abused by everyone, but it would be worth trying to do open world content until you get it. I don't hate the current leve system, but it leaves much to be desired. I would like swarms of enemy mobs a single person, a duo, or a trio of adventurers could tackle, or any amount of party members, and the amount scales to both the amount of party members present, and the difficulty spent on by exchanging leve allowances. I would also like boss monster leves, where we could fight raid level bosses in the open world where people adventuring around could watch in. Imagine uncapping leve allowances and spending a ridiculous amount of leve allowances such as 1k+ on a boss monster fate, and going past a certain amount makes it so random outsiders of the leve quest could be affected. Not exactly friendly, but it would be a rarer occurrence where maybe some people want to make a zone dangerous for a while.
Fates – These could be tied to leves. Imagine getting a leve allowance per fate completed with the uncap on leve allowances. Of course still accruing leve allowances through the wait system already in the game, but hear me out. Fates don't have to change, just give us a chance at the previously mentioned 1% relic equipment coffer. Perhaps after an expansion is over, let us spend fate currency of bicolor gemstones on those coffers. The coffers would no longer be ridiculously overpowered for current content and more be a glam you'd grind for. Could be really nice, glowing glamours. I want more incentives, and maybe the coffers can be tradeable so to make it worth it even if you aren't a raider.
Imagine if we just have these changes. Imagine if fates and leves were tied back into the relic grind, and not just for the weapon. Imagine we get those coffer drops, and those pieces of gear can either be traded to a raider who will max out the relic gear fairly quickly due to doing more challenging content, or a casual glam-a-holic opens it and they just play through the expansion with the piece of gear. I'd say don't have any materia slots on it, it would just be best in slot for the gradually growing ilvl it would have for the expansion it belongs to. Having that for every single expansion, and having the relic weapon much sooner, and tied to fates, leves, and variant dungeon content, just finding semi-rare drops, or doing specific content like in the past, would make it feel like more of a journey. It doesn't have to be a complete slot for the relic weapon – that could potentially be made much quicker of a journey by keeping the scaling system and if a raider takes it into harder content, it could reach patch ilvl cap much faster than people just running fates and leves.
Leves could be harder content. Imagine summoning 100 allowance leve bosses. These could be like extreme level bosses in the open world which only the summoning party can interact with. Imagine summoning 100 allowance hordes of monsters, which you might need several healers and incredible aoe damage to deal with. Imagine summoning these and if you fail, you don't just lose the allowances like currently if you fail a leve, but you can try again, meaning you could essentially create an instance within the zone, which people could pass through harmlessly, or just watch on. Imagine creating an alliance party of 24 people through the party finder for leves, and summoning crazy challenges through leve allowances. Imagine every member or a bunch of members of the alliance summoning several bosses. Having tome awards as well for defeating the content if you happen to be level capped or above the level cap of the expansion you're doing the content in. The world would be able to feel alive everywhere in the game if such a thing were implemented. It would encourage people doing fates more. Maybe that 1% chance at getting a relic coffer goes up the higher difficulty a challenge you summon with leve allowances. Maybe we get more super fates, or maybe one super fate per zone, which gives perhaps 5% chance at a relic gear coffer. I love the idea of relic gear being in the game. Yoshida mentioned not liking adding scaling gear to the game before, because it makes other gear useless, but if it is rare or glamour, it doesn't hurt the gearing process for endgame content, and the gearing for endgame content is ridiculous as is, we should have more ways to gear up at endgame for people who play more than one job or role, and this rework could be the answer. If the relic system were into the future also made to be accommodating to this, maybe the first time a stage of a relic is done is a grind, but after that it becomes an easy tome grind like this expansion. Maybe it's an option.
Oh right, one more old content I want revitalized – Grand Companies – They have immense potential. Imagine linking them back into fates, and into revitalized leves, imagine we get the ranking up changed so it no longer requires the squadron, and the squadron just becomes whatever content when we reach the first lieutenant rank and we progress further in ranks to find more equipment. I want GCs to interact with current expansion content more. Imagine using GC seals to get catch up gear. Maybe it's not a new appearance and just enough to do the newest story. Imagine getting materials through it for crafting and gathering gear and newer combat gear. I would like Grand Companies to have more interaction. It doesn't have to be insane, but maybe we do grand company battle leves, in which we get GC seals for the amount of leve allowances we spend by completing the content. Having new GC outfits once in a while would be nice, but it feels somewhere between dead and just used for levelling crafters and gatherers of late.
Sorry about going on so long, but hopefully if you read through it all, you don't hate my suggestions. I just hope that some old content gets some updates and revitalization. They give so much potential to making the game feel perpetually alive and abundant.
Would be fun to have a duo mode in FF14, having your partner included in all the cutscenes as a 2th WoL.
Along side with all the singleplayer trails and everything else.
Would be allot of work, but maybe an interesting idea for Yoshi to follow 🤔