game design – Kaylriene

Difficulty Ramps and How Endgame-Focused MMOs Fail To Onboard Players

I find difficulty discussion in games quite tedious, because it sparks the most elitist, garbage takes one can imagine. Soulsborne games get this the worst, but all… Read more “Difficulty Ramps and How Endgame-Focused MMOs Fail To Onboard Players”

I’ve been through a few drafts of this post, largely because trying to format and think through the very question of what 10.0 should look like is… Read more “My WoW 10.0 Predictions – Gameplay and Hopes”

The title says it all, really, but let’s go deeper. A common statement made about FFXIV is that PvP in the game might as well not even… Read more “I Think I Like Final Fantasy XIV PvP?”

My saga of Savage raiding to fill in that progression content need from leaving WoW behind has continued in earnest, and I have laughs and a genuine… Read more “Continuing My Savage Journey in FFXIV – Party Finder Observations and A Hard Loot Lesson”

I’ve never done current-tier Savage raiding in FFXIV before Endwalker. In fact, I’d barely done current EX trials, and if I counted up the total number of… Read more “I Parsed Zero On Samurai Twice, And Other Thoughts About My First Journeys Into Savage Raiding in FFXIV”

Yesterday, Blizzard announced something that felt inevitable and yet also was a surprise – that access to double-legendaries in patch 9.2 of World of Warcraft will require… Read more “The Double-Legendary Reputation Requirement, On Weasel Words and Grind”

There’s a lot I want to write about WoW and will be writing in the coming days and weeks, but one small thing I can focus on… Read more “The Backlash to the Patch 9.2 Shards of Domination News and Why It Makes Sense”

I’ve leveled both a Black Mage and Dragoon in Endwalker, with the changes that both jobs had to their existing cores from prior Final Fantasy XIV content.… Read more “Ability Design and RPGs – The Difference of Additive and Subtractive Designs”

This one is going to be fun, I can feel it! Like with the first and previous post in this series, on New World, today I just… Read more “The MMO Uninstallation Chronicles Part 2 of 2: World of Warcraft”

This post is spoiler-free! Endwalker has officially been out just over a week, and nearly two counting early access. As I was doing in the lead-up to… Read more “Chasing Goals – My Launch Set of Final Fantasy XIV Goals For Endwalker”