I’ve been doing the “end-game”, or what is currently available in the end-game of FFXIV, for a couple of weeks now.
The common sentiment is that Square may have rushed things a bit. Â To get ready for doing true end-game activities one must run the same two dungeons over and over. Â One of those dungeons is a story dungeon, which causes a rift between those who want to speed run and those who want to watch cutscenes.
Grinding CM and AK Â (the two dungeons) yields tokens which can be redeemed for gear. Â The gear is really only needed to complete part of the Relic Weapon quest, then advance into the only “raid” currently available: Coil of Bahamut.
Right now I’m still in the “taking it slow” phase. I run 2-3 AK’s a day (30 min each) and collect tokens to redeem for gear I’ll need to comfortably slay Titan and Garuda Hardmode.
Can it improve? Yes. Â I wrote only a few days ago that a variety of dungeons wouldn’t hurt. Â Adding two or three more would be a great start. Â Speeding up the Duty Finder would also go a long way.
What I’m not suggesting is enhancing the gear grind. Â Some people are recommending a faster vertical climb. Â Me? Â I think a nice horizontal progression would be much better. Â More dungeon options, lots of gear in the same tier, and a long, long time before I have to worry about replacing the gear I just worked hard to earn.
Long story short, it’s not bad. Â Having played on a few hours a night, I’m only a couple of weeks away from being able to do the hardest content. Â That’s very reasonable.
Update: Patch 2.05 is bringing a great deal of change. A lot of what has been bugging me and others about the end-game is being addressed. All the details.
- Changes will be made to the way equipment is bound.
- Introducing additional servers and enhancements to act as a countermeasure against the congestion to enter “Amdapor Keep.”
- The difficulty for level 50 dungeons will be adjusted.
- The number of areas where you can acquire Allagan Tomestones of Philosophy and Mythology will be increased as well as the amount you can acquire.
- Implementation of a population cap for each field.
- Adjustments to the spawn rate of monsters that drop diremite web and additional locations where Karakul can be found.
- The amount of experience points that can be acquired on botanist and miner, as well the experience points that can be acquired from their fieldcraft leves, will be increased.
- User interface elements related to materia and target information will be adjusted.
The problem in my opinion is that more and more players are now “interested” in the end-game(Not mean to offend anyone). Lot of people starting a game and get one character to max level and then run the “end-game”. Back in the days, very few people was “worried” about the end-game. Most people wanted to try out things, visit places, level new characters, try their strengths on aoe farming/grinding, solo elite grinding, etc. Now you see everyone’s main focus is how to get to the very end, feeling that everything between is meaningless or a boring-obstacle they have to overcome(again not talking about you, but for the overal feeling I get from MMOs nowdays)
Granted, now the games are more and more easy to reach the max level and SE have made lot of mistakes for sure. For example, why have so many dungeons during leveling for people to only run them once because leveling is “intended” to be done with Fates..I mean who the hell would run a dungeon when at the same time could run fates and get 3x experience even if he is naked. They could have all these dungeons for the end-game, but still would this make the end-game much more fun? Wouldn’t people run the dungeon that yield the most tomes/hour?Or SE would make a “blizzard” trick to que for random dungeon for extra reward?
Sadly this is the end-game of MMOs. And I remember a post of yours, with ideas how Disciplines of Hand/Land could take part in end-game and make the mechanics much more interesting and most of all different from the usual “Kill adds-avoid-interrupt”
MMOs today are built being all about the end-game. The world is just there to get players to the end-game. Once you have explored an area and exhausted its quest hub, there’s no reason to ever return.
Early EQ was actually a world worth exploring. The world was huge. The four Karana zones together are as big as some game worlds. You also had stuff all over the world across all level ranges that were useful to the highest level players. It started in the newbie zone with the batwings that were used to cast levitate spells. High quality animal pelts were always useful in crafting. There was special clay and ore that dropped from mud golems. Spider silks were in huge demand, no matter what level spider they came from.
It’s only one aspect of a great world, but I think the world always needs to have things in all the lower level areas that are still relevant at higher levels.
Good news!
They basically are taking your advice to a “t”
They are increasing the number of dungeons that will drop both sets of tomes in an upcoming hotfix on monday.
Not sure about the gritty details, but they obviously read the blog.
Keen take a look…it seems that developers reading your blog hehe 🙂 http://www.xivnation.com/news/hotfix-soon-patch-2-05-schedule-rundown/
on the hotfix tomorrow
-Introducing additional servers and enhancements to act as a countermeasure against the congestion to enter “Amdapor Keep.†(MUCH needed still)
-The difficulty for level 50 dungeons will be adjusted. (They also talked about improving things so there’s reasons to kill trash mobs but provided no details yet.)