This is long? No TL;DR from me.
This is all my opinion and I welcome divergence in hopes of furthering my understanding of the world.
Let me preface this following statement that I believe any content that can't stand on its own unique merit largely through the intermediate age of time without adding or removing something is content that isn't good enough to be released and players should neither be punished nor rewarded for a developers lack of foresight.
I've started to notice a worrying trend that I hope doesn't continue into the future.
Gate keeping content behind "casual content" and making old content irrelevant by largely removing the only incentive to do it. I'm talking about what has been done to Bozja in hopes to "fix" it or what was already done before they realized something needed to change.
Let me also say before I continue that Bozja has brought with its release its own unique content such as minions, new and unique glamour(?), relics, and mounts.
I'm going to say that this all started when I became aware that the only way to get the new hair style is through doing savage content that requires you to do casual content(?). It then led down a rabbit hole where I became aware of an increasing fear I have for this games future.
Before I got any further let me say as someone who has cleared ultimate level content, hair styles should not be gate keeped behind savage content that was largely designed for casual players, it can be contributed to the same oversight of why sprouts queue for old extremes. Thankfully like all hairstyles you can just buy them from the market board(eventually) or just have them gifted to you.
I dare say all hair styles should be only obtainable through MGP and the like because it is the most accessible content in the game.
I know I know "But Dev what about the ultimate weapons and mounts from savage? Why should those be allowed to be gate kept but not hair styles?" To be honest I don't know and I haven't thought about that enough to bother even trying to defend that point but there's probably something to be said about every person who clears getting a totem(item) and if you have a group knowing that after 8 runs everyone will have the mount where as it's all rng farming for the new hairstyle and all the optional drops.
On this track I want to say there are plenty of people I know(anecdotal evidence~) that would do and still do ultimate's only for the title.
Largely I believe ultimate's are good enough to stand on their own through the age of time without having to change, remove, or add on to them for them to still be completed by their target market. This is because Ultimate's are done well enough and are unique enough that the experience alone is rewarding enough for players to complete said content multiple times (with multiple jobs sometimes).
I get it some content obviously just won't have that polish and needs added incentive to be done and create longevity in said content for the target market to feel rewarded(mount farms), I really do alas the things being done in Bozja are IMO unacceptable and will lead not only to this games death but all the side effects that come with dying.
With all that said none of the above is actually that relevant to what I fear is to come for this game
The addition of seeing horde weapons and barding of certain extremes or as I like to say "Literal content recycling" being added to loot boxes in bozja has either:
A. Crashed their market (Gil is worthless but that's not the point)
or
B. Made them irrelevant because the incentive has been removed essentially killing the content (regardless of how old and irrelevant).
None of these should have been added to Bozja or considered to be added while it was being developed, it tells me that the content itself isn't unique enough nor polished enough to merit completion from its target market and that instead of thinking of unique ways to make the content more appealing to players the developers lazily and unoriginally added old content to increase incentive all while effectively killing the incentive of the old content and all the work originally put into said content.
Some of this conjecture can be proven by the fact they had to "nerf" relic steps and "fix" castrum because it was simply easier to do fates instead, a very obvious oversight that was hopefully ignored and not simply missed.
I believe we've started down the slippery slope of content irrelevance, (literal)recycling, and overall mediocrity.
How long until birds, dogs, and dragon whistles are allowed to be gotten through other means readily available to the player base that aren't from their extremes?
Unilaterally killing said content second only to the actual removal of it from the actual game. I know for some events birds are already obtainable with event Moogle currency.
Content recycling is a natural thing in most all games but this isn't your usual
"Okay we're going to make another mob that has the same template, same AI, same model, same phases, and same attacks with 10 other mobs... But... We'll change the color and the model."
This is the unilateral, unannounced, and hopefully unintentional effective killing of all the hard work that was put into the old content simply because the new content isn't unique enough? and needs more I guess? How much longer until you can get Black Pegasus without even the sellers of the whistle having to enter Palace of The Dead?
Making new and unique content is hard work, time consuming, and sometimes depressing.
At the same time it can also rewarding and allows you to feel proud in your work.
It's okay to have a relapse, it's okay to have a cheat day but be honest about it.
It is such a disservice to take something like Bozja with all the hard work that has been put into it and say "Not good enough, add old content."
Let Bozja be what it wants to be and if it's not good enough for the target market then work on it some more later don't just kill old content and all the work you and your peers did prior to it.
If you want to recycle old content the expert roulettes are the best time to do it.
For awhile now all the new dungeons have simply been one big straight road.
Hero's Gauntlet is a perfect example. There are all these buildings and structures around you but you can't even jump on them because they're behind an invisible wall.
All these things spawn around you but you can't even fight them because reasons.
Dungeons stopped being inherently fun after ARR.
If you don't have time to make a truly interesting dungeon with lore included then don't, just polish what you have.
Instead of releasing something fresh, polish the old content more, "remaster" it and make hard versions of dungeons, those were actually fun.
Bring back big pulls where you could pick up packs upwards of 20+ mobs to the first boss, bring back pointless rooms with additional mobs that exist for no reason
It's too late to change anything now, the damage has been done, but sincerely.
Stop killing old content and most importantly all the work that was initially put into it.
What I fear most of all for this game's future is that when I recommend this game to a friend they won't be able to experience half of what I have, having grown with it simply because it was easier to take from the old than create something new.
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