Why does this game keep locking things behind dead content?

[Giganx]

I wanted to get the Scion portraits for my house, but apparently the last part of the questline is locked behind the level 60 Alliance raids that no one ever queues for.

Every time they lock new content behind old ♥♥♥♥ content that no one wants to run anymore it just makes the new content inaccessible. Are the developers brain damaged?

[Alternity]

I don't know the problem being raised here. I queued for Ivalice raids 2 weeks ago on Primal, a supposedly dead data center compared to Aether and the queue wasn't more than 15mins as a DPS for all 3 of them. Just don't queue at 2 am?

I also keep getting them in my roulettes alongside Ivalice and Nier raids much more than Crystal tower since the patch that fixed the ilvl farm, so really, it's just a matter of not queuing at dead hours.

You may have leavers in Dun Scaith because some people don't like tank busters I guess, but generally it's a relatively smooth raid.

[Meowser has not]

Raansu の投稿を引用：

Meowser の投稿を引用：

I have queued for entire hours and not found parties for ARR and heavensward compulsory content

I do no believe this for a second.

I dont particularly care if you believe or not, it is simply a statement of my experience with the duty finder

[Judeo-communism]

Meowser の投稿を引用：

Raansu の投稿を引用：

I do no believe this for a second.

I dont particularly care if you believe or not, it is simply a statement of my experience with the duty finder

I've proven you wrong, so stop queuing during dead hours.

[Giganx]

Judeo-communism の投稿を引用：

Giganx の投稿を引用：

Credit for providing actual evidence, it does seem that queues have improved for Dun Scaith at least.

Doesn't really change my position on the matter of locking 90 side quests behind obsolete 10 year old raids, but you've proven that at least as of right now one of the 60 raids is doable.

I think Dun Scaith is the most relevant one because in order to do it, you have the other two completed and therefore in your Alliance Roulette. Which means there are a great many number of players who are queuing for Alliance Roulettes every day and will be included in the DF pool for when you queue for any of the 60 alliance raids.

Well, it was the Weeping City I couldn't get a group for, but that was before the ilvl fix. Unless there's some reason people would be farming Dun Scaith right now that I'm not aware of, your evidence seems to indicate that the Alliance Raid situation has improved since then, which is good to know.

Like I said, though, it still doesn't change the point of this thread. Locking level 90 sidequests behind 8 year old, obsolete group content is a stupid practice. If they're so intent on reviving level 60 raids then make them mandatory; don't hide an obscure level 90 side quest and some housing items behind them and potentially ♥♥♥♥ over the few people who actually want the items for their houses.

[Judeo-communism]

It's not obsolete because it's roulette content. Roulette content will always be relevant no matter what.

[Giganx]

You say that, but the ilvl requirement left some of the old Alliance raids nearly impossible to complete for a big chunk of this games lifespan. On slower data centers a lot of roulette content IS actually obsolete; people need to data center travel to even finish the MSQ.

The way this game structures content completely relies on it having a massive population of players, and basically forces everyone to move/travel to the most populated data centers if they want to actually do anything. No other MMO gets in it's own way and cripples it's low pop servers like this. FFXIV is just very lucky it got as popular as it did, because the way they structure content wouldn't work if this was a middling game, or ever becomes one.

[Artos]

Giganx の投稿を引用：

You say that, but the ilvl requirement left some of the old Alliance raids nearly impossible to complete for a big chunk of this games lifespan. On slower data centers a lot of roulette content IS actually obsolete; people need to data center travel to even finish the MSQ.

The way this game structures content completely relies on it having a massive population of players, and basically forces everyone to move/travel to the most populated data centers if they want to actually do anything. No other MMO gets in it's own way and cripples it's low pop servers like this. FFXIV is just very lucky it got as popular as it did, because the way they structure content wouldn't work if this was a middling game, or ever becomes one.

Then don't play on "dead" data centres lmao. Doing google search before creating a character is not difficult... anyway, jumping between data centers is not difficult, a price for wrong choice I guess + we are at the end of expansion so player base is at its lowest... + You can always pay them to permanently transfer your character. Those are options... and I already know you hate options...

Fascinating an MMO (massively multiplayer online) game requires other players to do content... Bruh, why don't you just go play singleplayer at this point...

+ Proof of what you saying ? where is the proof ? You saying you can't complete content. I would argue you can. You simply don't know when servers have high traffic hours. Just because you have time to play, doesn't mean thats the peak time of your server. It could be 2h after you finish, or 2h before you join. I am guessing you don't know.

There will always be players to do MSQ, so your point " you can't even finish the MSQ" is wrong. Everyone has to go through it, so everyone has necessary dungeons/trails unlocked which are part of Duty roulette... unlike old alliance raids that are not needed to progress. Hence a lot of newer players that currently play (which would be more than old players) don't have it unlocked... Its simple, end of expansion, literally time when player base is at its lowest.

Trust me, there is always a reason those 2 quests lines are connected. It might be weird to you, but surely there is connection. In case of your quests. The wiki literally says

"This quest chain also serves as an epilogue to side content in previous expansions, particularly the Shadow of Mhach alliance raid quests, the Four Lords, and the Sorrow of Werlyt trial series quests. As such, those are prerequisites for certain quests in this line."

Since this is the expansion that was supposed to tie the lose ends... Its only fair that finally it happens. People usually play for lore, you can't have lore just slapping you in the face and you being confused. Hence.... Locked before you complete... Imagine if you could jump straight to Heavensward or Stormblood, because its not locked.

[Sunny]

Why does this game keep locking things behind dead content?

PHOENIX DOWN

(it's a resurrection spell)

that's how this game's hamster wheel works: bribery. the entirety of multiplayer content is built on a backbone of bribes for veterans to do non-veteran content.

stupid? genius? ymmv.

reality? yup.

[Giganx]

Artos の投稿を引用：

snip

The point is that the way this game structures content is DUMB.

Basically every new piece of group content they create is locked behind all of the group content released before it. That means nearly everything they've released has to stay active indefinitely or people literally can't progress through the game.

It takes A LOT of players to sustain that, the new data center isn't sustaining it at all and they're adding new group content that needs to be sustained with every expansion. People have to travel constantly just to get through the story; where in most MMORPG's you can still get stuff done on a slow server because everything isn't locked behind 10 years worth of inactive content.

It's not even like data center travel is a well advertised feature. A lot of new players are going to roll on Dynamis, hit a trial with a 2 hour queue somewhere in MSQ and from there proceed to quit.

Smart MMORPG's don't lock the endgame behind every bit of group content that came before it. Smart MMORPG's allow people to reach the endgame without player population barriers, and then it only needs the server population to sustain enough people for just the endgame content.

[Judeo-communism]

Giganx の投稿を引用：

You say that, but the ilvl requirement left some of the old Alliance raids nearly impossible to complete for a big chunk of this games lifespan. On slower data centers a lot of roulette content IS actually obsolete; people need to data center travel to even finish the MSQ.

The way this game structures content completely relies on it having a massive population of players, and basically forces everyone to move/travel to the most populated data centers if they want to actually do anything. No other MMO gets in it's own way and cripples it's low pop servers like this. FFXIV is just very lucky it got as popular as it did, because the way they structure content wouldn't work if this was a middling game, or ever becomes one.

What do you mean "ilvl requirement?" I still get Crystal Tower Alliance Raids the majority of the time in my Alliance Roulette.

[Giganx]

Judeo-communism の投稿を引用：

Giganx の投稿を引用：

You say that, but the ilvl requirement left some of the old Alliance raids nearly impossible to complete for a big chunk of this games lifespan. On slower data centers a lot of roulette content IS actually obsolete; people need to data center travel to even finish the MSQ.

The way this game structures content completely relies on it having a massive population of players, and basically forces everyone to move/travel to the most populated data centers if they want to actually do anything. No other MMO gets in it's own way and cripples it's low pop servers like this. FFXIV is just very lucky it got as popular as it did, because the way they structure content wouldn't work if this was a middling game, or ever becomes one.

What do you mean "ilvl requirement?" I still get Crystal Tower Alliance Raids the majority of the time in my Alliance Roulette.

I was just talking about the old way the ilvl requirements worked, where you could queue at level 90 with the level 50 raid ilvls equipped to make sure you never got the expansion raids. Made getting anything but Crystal Tower virtually impossible.

[Judeo-communism]

Giganx の投稿を引用：

Judeo-communism の投稿を引用：

What do you mean "ilvl requirement?" I still get Crystal Tower Alliance Raids the majority of the time in my Alliance Roulette.

I was just talking about the old way the ilvl requirements worked, where you could queue at level 90 with the level 50 raid ilvls equipped to make sure you never got the expansion raids. Made getting anything but Crystal Tower virtually impossible.

Even then, I still got Nier raids and others fairly often. Again, sometimes I queue for older alliance raids manually just for fun. I enjoy them (except Nier). So your argument is a non-issue and not valid.

[Artos]

bruh you doing side quest for painting. Its no where close to end game content... and as explained to you

"This quest chain also serves as an epilogue to side content in previous expansions, particularly the Shadow of Mhach alliance raid quests, the Four Lords, and the Sorrow of Werlyt trial series quests. As such, those are prerequisites for certain quests in this line."

Its more like extra prize for having them done, rather than new extra difficult content. You really don't have to do it. Hence "optional"...

Its obvious you won't get as many people to do optional content, when they have to first finish MSQ, which has priority...

Lastly... what did you expect to happen when they opened new servers in NA ? To be populated ? NA before Dynamis was opened had already 24 servers, now they have 28. Personally I think its an overkill and they should merge them and accept failure. People already had their favourites, extra 4 just pointlessly diffused the population. Tho, again... end of expansion, people moved on and will be back in 4-6 months.

Btw.... MSQ can be done with party of NPC... so even if they don't know they can travel between data centres, they can easily do required content with NPCs... throwing all your points out of window. So its not locked XD.

[Giganx]

Judeo-communism の投稿を引用：

Giganx の投稿を引用：

I was just talking about the old way the ilvl requirements worked, where you could queue at level 90 with the level 50 raid ilvls equipped to make sure you never got the expansion raids. Made getting anything but Crystal Tower virtually impossible.

Even then, I still got Nier raids and others fairly often. Again, sometimes I queue for older alliance raids manually just for fun. I enjoy them (except Nier). So your argument is a non-issue and not valid.

Before the ilvl fix was when I couldn't complete the 60 raids because there was no one else queuing, so I disagree. It seems like the situation is better now, but it doesn't change the fact that for a long time certain Alliance raids weren't able to be done in roulettes.

Also, if you think the ilvl thing was my argument you clearly haven't actually read or understood what I've been saying. It was just 1 example of a bigger problem with how the game structures it's content.

Artos の投稿を引用：

Snip

I'm fairly sure you're not understanding a word I'm saying at this point, and most of your rambling barely makes sense, so I'll just touch on a couple key points.

1) The underpopulated servers wouldn't be a problem if they didn't endlessly, perpetually lock every new bit of content they create behind every thing else they've created. It's honestly a moronic system that pretty much dooms underpopulated servers from the outset.

2) Once the entirety of MSQ is covered by trusts/duty support you'll have a point, but until then every single trial released over the last 10 years needs to be sustained forever, which Dynamis can't do. The only way to get through a lot of them on Dynamis is DC travel; which is a poorly advertised feature that most new players will probably quit before becoming aware of.

[Judeo-communism]

Giganx の投稿を引用：

Before the ilvl fix was when I couldn't complete the 60 raids because there was no one else queuing, so I disagree. It seems like the situation is better now, but it doesn't change the fact that for a long time certain Alliance raids weren't able to be done in roulettes.

Also, if you think the ilvl thing was my argument you clearly haven't actually read or understood what I've been saying. It was just 1 example of a bigger problem with how the game structures it's content.

I had no issue getting Void Ark, Weeping City or Dun Scaith before the ilvl change, either. I regularly saw them in my roulettes, albeit less frequently than I do now. The fact is they were able to be done, and you were either queuing during dead hours or just blatantly lying for some reason.

The game's structure for MSQ content is fine, really. There's nothing attached to the MSQ that you can't easily get done thanks to roulettes.