This Vs. That - Thoughts and Opinions on Various Things

When it comes to FFXIV, there is a lot of this versus that debate.  We have a better question: why can't  we have both? Going further, why can't we have it all? We think there's room in our world for everything. Let's talk about these versus options, and why we can make them all work.

Hardcore vs. Casual

Is one better than the other, or are they both important?

Much depends on your definition of both.  I think casual is just wanting to log on and have the ability to do something in an hour or two a couple times a week.  This probably will be a solo or light party activity.  It wouldn't require anything but decent gear and only a basic understand of how to perform your role.  In other words it wouldn't be terribly taxing to grab a couple friends and just go do something.  Hardcore on the other hand will mean more of an investment in time, probably along the lines of 3-5 hour blocks of time twice or more a week.  This would be a full party only activity. It would require the best gear that you can possibly get your hands on and an excellent understanding of how to perform your role. It would be very taxing and probably require static parties. It would probably also require a quest chain to even unlock the activity as well as pop item farming..

Sumasu Sisters Say:
We need both hardcore and casual content in the game. This game needs to cast a wide net and gather together players of all kinds.  Besides, while we are hardcore to our cute little cores, sometimes we want to kick back and do something casual style.

Instanced vs. Openworld
There are pros and cons to both. If you go with all openworld you risk the possibility of losing an NM to another player or a camp to another party as well as it allows you to bring 20 of your friends to go do something that was probably balanced towards being a challenge to a party of 8. If you go all instanced then you lose the feeling of a persistent world where you will never see anyone except your LS mates and there are no competitive activities of any kind. You would never come across that level 20 CNJ getting their butt kicked by Alux and swoop in with a cure and make a new friend. It would be a cold and lonely world.

Sumasu Sisters Say:
We think nearly everything in the game should be Openworld except those situations where it makes sense to go with instanced.

Things that make sense would be:

• Dungeons and NM battles that are balanced to be a challenge to a party.
• We can't really think of anything else...

How they went about guildleves is interesting; you have your own mobs that belong to you but you can still see and interact with other players. We like this.

Also, the fear of losing a NM pop to someone else shouldn't be grounds to instance everything. There are ways of combating the monopolizing of NM's that need to be implemented instead.

Crafted vs. Dropped
We both feel pretty strongly that something you can just buy out of the market wards should not be best-in-slot. Also, there needs to be some U/U equipment in the game that you can only obtain by actually participating in challenging content.  That said there has to be something to keep those crafters happy. To us, crafters should be making 85% of all equipment up to level cap. A fresh level 50 can have all crafted gear and then go about the process of replacing each slot with U/U. BUT! Crafters aren't done there! From that point on it should be crafters enhancing the U/U gear with materia or other items.

Sumasu Sisters Say:
There should be both while leveling up but for BIS we really want it to be dropped items, preferably enhanced by a crafter.

Solo vs. Party
We are not playing a MMO to play by ourselves. However there are times whether because of time constraints, or just not feeling like dealing with other people, that a person might prefer to just be alone. There should be meaningful stuff that can be done solo, duo, trio, light party, full party, and (hopefully someday) alliances.

Sumasu Sisters Say:
Needs both, but focus should be on party play.

Rare Long-Spawn NM vs. Instant NM Piñatas
Needs both but rewards need to reflect rarity.  However lets not have it where you need to kill a 24 hour NM for a drop or you cannot level up onion knight past 30... Let the drops be good, BIS even, but have an easier to obtain almost equivalent option available elsewhere.

To sum it all up, we believe this game can and should avoid the "this or that" question entirely. The game, the world, and the audience are large enough to support all of these styles of play. Should some be more important than others at this point? Absolutely. But eventually, there truly is enough room for instanced and open world, hardcore and casual, crafted and dropped.

In short, we want it all. And Final Fantasy can provide.

If they don't fuck it up.