[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Wrecktangle]

Yo... until I get thrown into LFR (or a raid PuG) with a real raider, take a peek at recount and see that he can outperform me while playing one handed and watching 3 movies simultaneously.

Sure, to the average LFR hero it might not be an issue, but I am an ex mythic raider. I know how a properly geared character feels and handles.
Even though I am not raiding any longer, I still pay attention to my performance (even in LFR).
It sucks if the game tells you "no matter what you do, you don't stand a change against these dudes".
Just ruins my fun, so I essentially quit the gear grind.

Ok that changes things then if we're adding LFR/Pug raids in the mix. I was under the impression we were excluding them since we said no raiding. As a former ex top mythic raider I sympathize with you, but I don't think this specific instance is limited to just WoW. I mean if I logged on today (my sub is actually still active for another week or so) and said yo @Faroth let's go do whatever the FOTM EX this month together (Zurvan?). He's probably what, a i265 NIN and I'm a i205 DRG. I'm going to put out somewhere around 1k DPS and he's going to do like 2.5k. There's no getting around that either you know?

Now if we go back and we equate the difference between a heroic raider and a mythic raider the damage difference is there, it's noticeable, but it's also not super dramatic. The huge variances between damage is from kill timers being way lower (i.e. mythic geared full guild stomping through a heroic boss in 2 minutes that takes us 3.5 minutes) is artificially inflating DPS values. In a vacuum the mythic player isn't doing that much more damage in the same circumstances. I'd argue the same is true in FF14.

[Faroth]

Yes it has indeed. I am merely discussing raw growth percentages in a few specific points of time I had personally seen. In Yoshi's desire to mimic certain WoW systems he is going to run into the same problems WoW's ran into. I wanted to bring that to your attention since you were under the impression that FF14 isn''t scaling out of control (it is).

It's eventually going to be an issue for anything that has a power growth (you can even trace it in tabletop D&D), but I've been happy with the slower progression. Though I'll agree HW saw more. Why? Copying WoW... Having normal/savage requires larger jumps than 2.x did with only one mode of Coil. I honestly prefer the Coil method without a normal DF mode. I was perfectly comfortable knowing Savage raiding wasn't for me and I'd come back in the following expansion and see it. Sure, I like seeing the content during the expansion, but I'm a little itchy about the ramifications.

Final 2.x tomestone chest for NIN +45 Dex, ilvl 120
Final 3.x tomestone chest for NIN +157 Dex, ilvl 260

Final Classic hunter chest +45 agility, ilvl 92
Final TBC hunter chest +45 agility, ilvl 146
Final Wrath hunter chest +144 agility, ilvl 251

So I'll rescind my statement. With Heavensward, XIV has fallen in the same pace as WoW did when they decided to start having multiple levels of raiding going with around 100 ilvl and 100 stat point jumps in an expansion. Something I was actually a bit concerned about when they announced normal DF/savage raiding split. :/

Going to have to see what adjustments Yoshida referred to in that interview with the next expansion.

Is this a personal jab towards me based on your perceived beliefs about me?

More of a poor segue from one thought to another.

FF14 is already identical to WoW. I don't want it to be. I want it to be better than WoW, but most importantly I want it to be better than itself. FF14 is too complacent. It needs to break the formula. It needs to grow.

Completely disagree. It uses WoW's power progression path, sure. That's what you focus on and that's the sole thing you've noted wanting changed.

Square is expanding housing. They're expanding things to offer with housing (debate on how well). They're experimenting with guild shared crafting. They're expanding on in game marriage and looking at anniversaries and special Valentine's additions for those players. They are working on a progression Savage/Normal (or 8 man/24 man catch up) model for crafter focused players. They add vistas. Lots of climbing designed into Othard. Triple Triad. Chocobo Racing. Aquapolis. Palace of the Dead. Likely Blitzball coming.

They're doing large amounts of things that I don't see most developers even bother with because it's not power related. It's not chasing a single carrot on the treadmill. I feel they're doing a lot of non-raid/non-gear progression development to give things to do that aren't the same old same old. The problem is that certain players refuse to acknowledge that as even being content. If it's not "muh power levels, muh item level, muh raiding!" they dismiss it as waste. It was common for WoW as well, anything not raiding was met with "that's not real content." I see those players as playing the wrong MMO in FFXIV. That's not the design they're building. In a sense, all these makes FFXIV the best blend of old school EverQuest's "live in a fantasy world" with WoW's more active combat/progression design that I've seen.

Leveling is a multi-faceted issue. Do I want a new player to experience the story? Yes. Do I want a new player to be encumbered by a single player RPG for 100 hours before he can do current content with friends? No. Do I want the idea of players joining the game who might pay to skip leveling/story? Sure I could care less. Their decision has absolutely 0 impact on me (or you).

Also disagree. The influx of players that say "screw RPGs, anything that's not more power, more ilvl, more raids is bullshit" crowd absolutely have an impact on the game and on everyone playing it. As that crowd grows, everything that's not about raid and gear power gets pushed aside. Look at WoW's often joked about excuse of "it would cost a raid" to develop anything not-raiding.

That's the issue here. FFXIV was not built on Western audience fast gratification and WoW gear treadmill so much as it was built on Final Fantasy fans who enjoy good RPGs and stories. They were the ones who carried XIV from 1.0 to 2.0 in hopes of a worthy FF entry. And that's where the clash occurs. People who like FF as a series and want to share that with others do want the story and such to be part of the shared experience. Yoshida seems to note now and then where the various requests come from and NA definitely seems to be noted more often. We have a completely different mentality on games than Japanese, or Asian in general, gamers, especially with MMOs, which I see largely as being WoW's fault as it grew to encompass the typical CoD/Halo crowd as it became a historical juggernaut.

I love the MSQ. I think it is a very good feature. I would like to see it streamlined or have the ability to replay it on a second job so I can keep up with a new buddy player and actually see what's going on. I think the MSQ needs to focus more on the real stuff and less fluff.

Hmmm, replaying the MSQ as part of the mentor system might be quite interesting if you're playing with someone else who's new. I remember someone asked about that option and there were technical challenges. Yoshida joked you can make a new character, but seemed like it was something they'd try to look at, but making flags reset and retrigger and play out properly sounded like a hurdle.

Set bonuses are an interchangeable concept. The actual draw of that idea is that the game needs more exciting itemization. Items are beyond stale in this game. Materia is one of the biggest let downs, nothing to customize yourself from another player from a gameplay perspective. Relics are the most boring fucking weapon progression system I have ever seen (and I've seen some shitty ones). In fact, just the sheer item management system in this game is so bad and so deeply rooted that they're only solution at this point is to keep exponentially increasing inventory size.

Keep adding more random shit people can do, you'll still mathematically have the elite raiders doing the theorycrafting to dictate the only acceptable materia. Yeah, WoW talents finally eventually somewhat managed a balance on some of them, but after what, 13 years and dozens of iterations that STILL require tweaks and patches to hot fix that STILL need changes and adjustments every single round of patches?

As for item management, I'm old school and cold blooded as hell about that... If you can't manage the current inventory, you're not going to be able to manage a 5 times larger inventory. It reflects on the player more than the system and nothing's going to change that short of an infinite inventory solution. Like I said... cold blooded as hell.

But hell, I come from the old school of EQ where you not only had a finite bank space and finite inventory, but you were only strong enough to carry a certain amount and everything had weight. Even money.

I remember scrounging money in the fields that people threw away to get less encumbered. "I'll have you know I worked myself up to extreme poverty all on my own!"

The thing that you and others fail to see is that we (as in people who share my philosophy) don't want FF14 to be WoW. We want FF14 to be better. Period. I see so much potential for this game that is being held back by a developer who won't take chances. WoW for all its shit, definitely takes chances. They don't always succeed, but every now and then they get something right. The reaction I get from some FF14 players is that they don't want anything to change. They want to live in their new coat of paint bubble every year with nothing new. You want to talk about baffling? THAT SHIT IS BAFFLING.

Again, you only focus on "take chances" exclusively on gear, raid, and power progression. You've ignored the mass volume of non-raid/non-progression related content and have said before you don't consider it relevant because it doesn't progress you character (again, only in scope of power). To be surprised that players who enjoy a game and think the design is working great don't want change for change's sake isn't baffling to me at all. They enjoy the game. They like the game. They like the dev team, the design, and what they're playing. If they LIKE it, why would you expect them to want it to be completely redesigned every expansion?

Sidenote: revisit the combo discussion we were having. I'd like your (and others) thoughts on the idea that popped into my head.

I don't recall seeing anything new that I could really add to on the dynamic combo buttons, but I'll look again.

[Granyala]

Now if we go back and we equate the difference between a heroic raider and a mythic raider the damage difference is there, it's noticeable, but it's also not super dramatic.

Yes, and that would be a difference I could live with.
After all, Mythic should be rewarded, since it takes a lot of effort to make a mythic raid work and kill them bosses in a timely manner.

But having all these difficulties in between makes every non raider trash tier.

In FF: I can farm "HC raid" gear. No praying to RNG, no BS. Good gear that rewards time spent more than skill.
Does a savage raider do more pew pew in DS? Sure, as he should. Does he do 2x of what I can do?
Nope. If he doesn't pay attention, I will catch up and outperform him.

[Faroth]

Ok that changes things then if we're adding LFR/Pug raids in the mix. I was under the impression we were excluding them since we said no raiding. As a former ex top mythic raider I sympathize with you, but I don't think this specific instance is limited to just WoW. I mean if I logged on today (my sub is actually still active for another week or so) and said yo @Faroth let's go do whatever the FOTM EX this month together (Zurvan?). He's probably what, a i265 NIN and I'm a i205 DRG. I'm going to put out somewhere around 1k DPS and he's going to do like 2.5k. There's no getting around that either you know?

Man, I dunno if we can skip soar. We might both get kicked. :^)

[Reyll]

FF14 is already identical to WoW. I don't want it to be. I want it to be better than WoW, but most importantly I want it to be better than itself. FF14 is too complacent. It needs to break the formula. It needs to grow.

THIS MAN GETS IT. Stormblood with its announcement has not really offered anything innovative and, it can be argued, that it's offering things that should have been in the base game (increased inventory, swimming). I didn't realize how much I missed those things until I play WoW and have room in my inventory to work with or swim through water. They constantly use "server limitations" or "server stability" or "PS3 limitations" to why they can't do something over and over again that it has become a meme at this point. I'm beginning to think that because Yoshi re-did the game and brought it back to life that he thinks the same exact formula with the same exact patch cycle will keep this game going, but it's already showing strong evidence that people crave more and, more or less, play released content for a week and then let their sub lapse because it doesn't seem built for the long-run. The same will happen for Stormblood if they don't take chances and try new things.

Diadem 2.0 is a perfect example. It is the EXACT same map and exact same concept with FATEs peppered throughout it and a weapon blocked behind major RNG. They had more than a YEAR to work on it and what we got was extremely lazy, poorly-designed and a disaster. They had a major chance to try some kind of new system and get feedback going into Stormblood, but it's just another FATE grind at its core. You can't wrap an old gift in a new ribbon and expect people to look at it with a new perspective after the ribbon has been taken off.

Square is expanding housing. They're expanding things to offer with housing (debate on how well). They're experimenting with guild shared crafting. They're expanding on in game marriage and looking at anniversaries and special Valentine's additions for those players. They are working on a progression Savage/Normal (or 8 man/24 man catch up) model for crafter focused players. They add vistas. Lots of climbing designed into Othard. Triple Triad. Chocobo Racing. Aquapolis. Palace of the Dead. Likely Blitzball coming.

They're doing large amounts of things that I don't see most developers even bother with because it's not power related. It's not chasing a single carrot on the treadmill. I feel they're doing a lot of non-raid/non-gear progression development to give things to do that aren't the same old same old. The problem is that certain players refuse to acknowledge that as even being content. If it's not "muh power levels, muh item level, muh raiding!" they dismiss it as waste. It was common for WoW as well, anything not raiding was met with "that's not real content." I see those players as playing the wrong MMO in FFXIV. That's not the design they're building. In a sense, all these makes FFXIV the best blend of old school EverQuest's "live in a fantasy world" with WoW's more active combat/progression design that I've seen.

This is admittedly one of Square's worst traits, though. They create this side-content that isn't seen as main-content by most MMO players, but they drop the ball with it. Hard. Housing is the best illustration of this. On Balmung, housing is completely full and is unobtainable unless you pay a ridiculous amount. Square focuses quite heavily on housing with how much decoration they give out on events, stuff from the cash shop, etc, so I would consider it a core piece of content that should be available to EVERYBODY. Now while one could argue that they implemented apartments to counteract this, yes, but how long did it take them to do that? A very long time. It's a bandaid to the root of the problem.

They are releasing another ward in the expansion. While most people are excited about it, for some servers, it's just another bandaid. That ward will be filled up in an hour or less, there will be real-estate flippers, there will be people buying them on their alts for profit, etc. What does Square do? Make it "illegal" to sell houses on PF. That does absolutely NOTHING and only acts as another shitty bandaid. If this was WoW, Blizzard would look at the problem and say "oh, this needs to be reworked IMMEDIATELY" and come up with a better solution. For instance, they would go out and buy a new housing server and implement a system that is 1) instanced or 2) as an older ward fills up, a new one automatically opens up that is available immediately therefore eliminating house-flipping, alts, etc. Why can't Square spend the time and resources on that kind of system? Even further, since most servers are "dead", only upgrade the servers that are in dire need of it, such as Balmung and Gilgamesh.

Their other content is often riddled with RNG to the point where the carrot on the string isn't worth it or it's infuriatingly frustrating that most people want nothing to do with it. Also, cheaters. I love Triple Triad and I was looking forward to tournaments, however, when I saw how tournaments worked and the amount of people that cheated (and still cheat) to take lead on the leaderboards, I was extremely discouraged and I was even more discouraged as to how they have just basically thrown their hands up and given up with trying to fix it. Farming for cards is also extremely fucking annoying. Lightning card from Tataru, anyone?

Chocobo racing and breeding? Riddled with un-fun RNG. Aquapolis? Literally two doors, a right and a wrong choice. That isn't even remotely fun RNG, and adding latest glamour items/mats to it is a shitty bandaid attempt to get people to keep doing it even though they don't want to. Diadem, as I stated before, is basically another FATE grind with any reward worth a damn blocked behind an RNG mission. They literally block off a LOT of their own content from being done too quickly by shitty RNG walls instead of doing the treadmill in the right direction. Zhloe and the crafting things is content and the treadmill done right, but then again, I absolutely loathe the collectibles system and hope that changes. PVP is usually seen as the other huge elephant that MMO's need to make somewhat decent in order to attract players. PVP in FFXIV? lol. I won't even get into all the things wrong with it, but RNG with tomestone maps, bloated PVP actions, shitty server tick rate, animation locks, etc. keep people from wanting to participate in it and is the reason PVP dies soon after each feeble attempt to invigorate it. They said they are looking at getting sponsors and televised matches or something along those lines, which is another bandaid in essence, but I don't see them addressing the REAL problems with PVP. I will wait to see what they do with the PVP ability bloat, but my hopes aren't high.

Square's problem isn't the diversity of content, it's the exact "same old, same old" of the concepts they use. FATEs are boring and they've been their bread and butter for most of the things they have done, but they're not going away anytime soon. Layers of RNG upon RNG in any content they implement that frustrates and infuriates and eventually burns people out. Things like housing and owning land are cool, but on a server like Balmung or Gilgamesh that are actually populated with players? Forget it. While all of these problems may be little nitpicks by themselves, when you add them all together, you can see why most people let their sub lapse after a week and wait for the next patch. They try too hard to get "new" content out when their dev team is just too small and Square refuses to give them more. As more time passes, I really only see, what I feel like, is about 20% return into the game of what I feel I put into it. They try to attract new players, but they aren't recognizing the core problems they have which is what worries me and this:

The thing that you and others fail to see is that we (as in people who share my philosophy) don't want FF14 to be WoW. We want FF14 to be better. Period. I see so much potential for this game that is being held back by a developer who won't take chances. WoW for all its shit, definitely takes chances. They don't always succeed, but every now and then they get something right. The reaction I get from some FF14 players is that they don't want anything to change. They want to live in their new coat of paint bubble every year with nothing new. You want to talk about baffling? THAT SHIT IS BAFFLING.

perfectly sums up what I elaborated upon.

[Advent]

It's eventually going to be an issue for anything that has a power growth (you can even trace it in tabletop D&D), but I've been happy with the slower progression. Though I'll agree HW saw more. Why? Copying WoW... Having normal/savage requires larger jumps than 2.x did with only one mode of Coil. I honestly prefer the Coil method without a normal DF mode. I was perfectly comfortable knowing Savage raiding wasn't for me and I'd come back in the following expansion and see it. Sure, I like seeing the content during the expansion, but I'm a little itchy about the ramifications.

Final 2.x tomestone chest for NIN +45 Dex, ilvl 120
Final 3.x tomestone chest for NIN +157 Dex, ilvl 260

Final Classic hunter chest +45 agility, ilvl 92
Final TBC hunter chest +45 agility, ilvl 146
Final Wrath hunter chest +144 agility, ilvl 251

So I'll rescind my statement. With Heavensward, XIV has fallen in the same pace as WoW did when they decided to start having multiple levels of raiding going with around 100 ilvl and 100 stat point jumps in an expansion. Something I was actually a bit concerned about when they announced normal DF/savage raiding split. :/

Going to have to see what adjustments Yoshida referred to in that interview with the next expansion.


More of a poor segue from one thought to another.



Completely disagree. It uses WoW's power progression path, sure. That's what you focus on and that's the sole thing you've noted wanting changed.

Square is expanding housing. They're expanding things to offer with housing (debate on how well). They're experimenting with guild shared crafting. They're expanding on in game marriage and looking at anniversaries and special Valentine's additions for those players. They are working on a progression Savage/Normal (or 8 man/24 man catch up) model for crafter focused players. They add vistas. Lots of climbing designed into Othard. Triple Triad. Chocobo Racing. Aquapolis. Palace of the Dead. Likely Blitzball coming.

They're doing large amounts of things that I don't see most developers even bother with because it's not power related. It's not chasing a single carrot on the treadmill. I feel they're doing a lot of non-raid/non-gear progression development to give things to do that aren't the same old same old. The problem is that certain players refuse to acknowledge that as even being content. If it's not "muh power levels, muh item level, muh raiding!" they dismiss it as waste. It was common for WoW as well, anything not raiding was met with "that's not real content." I see those players as playing the wrong MMO in FFXIV. That's not the design they're building. In a sense, all these makes FFXIV the best blend of old school EverQuest's "live in a fantasy world" with WoW's more active combat/progression design that I've seen.



Also disagree. The influx of players that say "screw RPGs, anything that's not more power, more ilvl, more raids is bullshit" crowd absolutely have an impact on the game and on everyone playing it. As that crowd grows, everything that's not about raid and gear power gets pushed aside. Look at WoW's often joked about excuse of "it would cost a raid" to develop anything not-raiding.

That's the issue here. FFXIV was not built on Western audience fast gratification and WoW gear treadmill so much as it was built on Final Fantasy fans who enjoy good RPGs and stories. They were the ones who carried XIV from 1.0 to 2.0 in hopes of a worthy FF entry. And that's where the clash occurs. People who like FF as a series and want to share that with others do want the story and such to be part of the shared experience. Yoshida seems to note now and then where the various requests come from and NA definitely seems to be noted more often. We have a completely different mentality on games than Japanese, or Asian in general, gamers, especially with MMOs, which I see largely as being WoW's fault as it grew to encompass the typical CoD/Halo crowd as it became a historical juggernaut.



Hmmm, replaying the MSQ as part of the mentor system might be quite interesting if you're playing with someone else who's new. I remember someone asked about that option and there were technical challenges. Yoshida joked you can make a new character, but seemed like it was something they'd try to look at, but making flags reset and retrigger and play out properly sounded like a hurdle.



Keep adding more random shit people can do, you'll still mathematically have the elite raiders doing the theorycrafting to dictate the only acceptable materia. Yeah, WoW talents finally eventually somewhat managed a balance on some of them, but after what, 13 years and dozens of iterations that STILL require tweaks and patches to hot fix that STILL need changes and adjustments every single round of patches?

As for item management, I'm old school and cold blooded as hell about that... If you can't manage the current inventory, you're not going to be able to manage a 5 times larger inventory. It reflects on the player more than the system and nothing's going to change that short of an infinite inventory solution. Like I said... cold blooded as hell.

But hell, I come from the old school of EQ where you not only had a finite bank space and finite inventory, but you were only strong enough to carry a certain amount and everything had weight. Even money.

I remember scrounging money in the fields that people threw away to get less encumbered. "I'll have you know I worked myself up to extreme poverty all on my own!"



Again, you only focus on "take chances" exclusively on gear, raid, and power progression. You've ignored the mass volume of non-raid/non-progression related content and have said before you don't consider it relevant because it doesn't progress you character (again, only in scope of power). To be surprised that players who enjoy a game and think the design is working great don't want change for change's sake isn't baffling to me at all. They enjoy the game. They like the game. They like the dev team, the design, and what they're playing. If they LIKE it, why would you expect them to want it to be completely redesigned every expansion?



I don't recall seeing anything new that I could really add to on the dynamic combo buttons, but I'll look again.

I may be out of line here, but coming from old school D&D character progression was everything. At the same time I might also be reaching, but isn't that at the core of the RPG genre? Becoming a character and watching it grow? Of course the people that come into it are primarily concerned with that avenue of progression as it is the most visible and straightforward. All the other methods of progression, if you can call it that are more...ephemeral, if you will. It's not simply coming from a desire to "Turn FFXIV into WoW", but more about trying to grasp at familiarity. This game has so much potential to be better than WoW in that, it has more varied content. But in doing so, many of those variations suffer from key flaws that keep the wider audience from taking part in them. @Wrecktangle pointed them out in a way, suffice it to say that the issue is that they offer no form of horizontal, open world progression. For example, Black Desert Online has quite a lot of non-power horizontal progression. You run, your stamina increases and you can dodge more. If you eat food, your health increases permanently. Something like that is, I think, what people refer to when they want progress, not necessarily more gear, more item level, etc...

[Faroth]

I may be out of line here, but coming from old school D&D character progression was everything. At the same time I might also be reaching, but isn't that at the core of the RPG genre? Becoming a character and watching it grow? Of course the people that come into it are primarily concerned with that avenue of progression as it is the most visible and straightforward. All the other methods of progression, if you can call it that are more...ephemeral, if you will. It's not simply coming from a desire to "Turn FFXIV into WoW", but more about trying to grasp at familiarity. This game has so much potential to be better than WoW in that, it has more varied content. But in doing so, many of those variations suffer from key flaws that keep the wider audience from taking part in them. @Wrecktangle pointed them out in a way, suffice it to say that the issue is that they offer no form of horizontal, open world progression. For example, Black Desert Online has quite a lot of non-power horizontal progression. You run, your stamina increases and you can dodge more. If you eat food, your health increases permanently. Something like that is, I think, what people refer to when they want progress, not necessarily more gear, more item level, etc...

That's interesting because most old school D&D players I've talked to despise how the game changed to be heavily ruleset restricted and focused on character power at the expense of flexibility for memorable stories woven by their DM. The stories and experiences were what made them exciting, not "I added another +2 on my character sheet, I'm more powerful now!" /shrug

Admittedly, that can be lacking to some extent in modern MMOs because of the WoW effect of popularizing the theme park design. Star Wars Galaxies and EQ, and somewhat FFXI, enforced a necessity of socialization, resulting in people making friends and having stories of nights spent with these strangers-turned-fast-friends. To some extent, from my understanding, BDO was influenced by those in its design quite intentionally. But the "queue up for a brief length of time with people you'll never see or interact with again for the rest of your life" certainly negates that ever happening.

I honestly think if VR tech ever reaches the levels we've longed dreamed of in sci-fi, we'll see an explosive resurgence of the true sandbox MMO.

I'm not sure what horizontal, "meaningful" progression would look like in the modern amusement park MMO, though. It's as ephemeral for people to describe as it is the existing side content's offerings. People say they want more progression and when I ask examples of what they're looking for that isn't "more power, more stats" they just sort of flounder and can't describe what they're wanting.

[Ilir]

any news about the game at PAX or whatever event ? The info we have about stormblood is pretty much non existant or just some "this and this" but i want specific stuff omggg

[Faroth]

any news about the game at PAX or whatever event ? The info we have about stormblood is pretty much non existant or just some "this and this" but i want specific stuff omggg

Afraid not, it was a Q&A at PAX and there are a few interviews, but nothing particularly meaty.

[Remilia]

So you believe that I think FF14 should be WoW? Painfully clear? Mind citing some of these painfully clear examples as to where I explicitly stated or implied that FF14 should be WoW. If you unwilling, please edit your post to remove that piece.

Are you not one that wanted Mythic+ for dungeons. Set bonuses. Items to have different effects than passive stat boost. Addons. Everytime these subject get brought up you brought up WoW.
You don't play the game but you talk a lot about it.

[Reyll]

Are you not one that wanted Mythic+ for dungeons. Set bonuses. Items to have different effects than passive stat boost. Addons. Everytime these subject get brought up you brought up WoW.
You don't play the game but you talk a lot about it.

In his defense, Mythic+'s is really the only one of those things listed that specifically belongs to WoW. The other things you listed aren't WoW-specific and are available in other MMO's and games. When talking about these concepts in an MMO, it's easy to refer to them using WoW as a baseline as most people are familiar with it and have experienced them at some point.

[Kazgrel]

any news about the game at PAX or whatever event ? The info we have about stormblood is pretty much non existant or just some "this and this" but i want specific stuff omggg

Nothing concrete as of yet, and I don't expect any really good details until next month at the very earliest (I'm honestly expecting it to be a live letter or such in May, perhaps after the NA data center move).

[Wrecktangle]

I honestly prefer the Coil method without a normal DF mode.

So I'll rescind my statement. With Heavensward, XIV has fallen in the same pace as WoW did when they decided to start having multiple levels of raiding going with around 100 ilvl and 100 stat point jumps in an expansion. Something I was actually a bit concerned about when they announced normal DF/savage raiding split. :/

I'm just glad I was able to get people talking about it. As you know I'm all about the discussion.

That said, I actually don't like the savage/normal split. I'm with you that Coil was a good approach and they need to revisit that (FWIW I absolutely have WoW's multiple difficulties). IMHO Coil itself isn't enough though. It needs a better difficulty curve if it is going to fly solo and honestly you're going to need more bosses to accomplish that safely, again IMO. I'm not asking for 10 bosses here or 14 lol. 4 isn't enough. 6 would be fine to get like 2 mediums, 2 hard ones, and then 1 harder and one very hard. Ideally I'd go as far to even say 7 for the final raid to give the big bad its own spotlight. Unfortunately we'd run into itemization issues here. Only so much gear to go around and it'd be spread way too thin.

Also - thank you for rescinding your statement.

Completely disagree. It uses WoW's power progression path, sure. That's what you focus on and that's the sole thing you've noted wanting changed.

ACTUALLY if you REALLLY, and I mean REALLY want to go there lol I have a bucket list of things I'd love to see improved across multiple MMOs. I'll spare everyone that post though

Growth is a funny thing in that it isn't just ilvl. Character growth can be as simple as being able to do something you couldn't before. Teaching your Chocobo new fighting techniques? That's character growth. Learning new ways to move around the world? Character growth. In another post I was very clear that ilvl isn't a motivator for me. I'm interested in more horizontal approaches.

Also disagree. The influx of players that say "screw RPGs, anything that's not more power, more ilvl, more raids is bullshit" crowd absolutely have an impact on the game and on everyone playing it. As that crowd grows, everything that's not about raid and gear power gets pushed aside. Look at WoW's often joked about excuse of "it would cost a raid" to develop anything not-raiding.

Let's be real for a second. In this fictitious scenario the players you're describing would never last and the game would likely never cater to them. In that sense SQEX would get their money for free. Not a bad thing for you and I.

I think you SEVERELY underestimate how hungry people are for character growth (not just ilvl shit).

Hmmm, replaying the MSQ as part of the mentor system might be quite interesting if you're playing with someone else who's new. I remember someone asked about that option and there were technical challenges. Yoshida joked you can make a new character, but seemed like it was something they'd try to look at, but making flags reset and retrigger and play out properly sounded like a hurdle.

The issue with making a new character is that I have to pay for it. Then I have to basically throw away all that progress once I hit max level which is (to trigger Nixx) an exceptionally clunky solution. There's no fucking way I'm capping tomestones across 2 characters or logging on and off to play a different job. Why throw away a key advantage of FF14 over its competitors ya know? It wouldn't be a huge issue if leveling wasn't such a single player game, but that's a huge rework in and of itself.

Keep adding more random shit people can do, you'll still mathematically have the elite raiders doing the theorycrafting to dictate the only acceptable materia. Yeah, WoW talents finally eventually somewhat managed a balance on some of them, but after what, 13 years and dozens of iterations that STILL require tweaks and patches to hot fix that STILL need changes and adjustments every single round of patches?

Disagree. Materia could be a VERY robust system with gameplay changing features and DPS increasing ones. While I know people rely on the oh it'll be theorycrafted argument as a catchall. I find it incredibly weak in actual application. That's not even counting the phenomenon that theorycrafters can be wrong.

As for item management, I'm old school and cold blooded as hell about that... If you can't manage the current inventory, you're not going to be able to manage a 5 times larger inventory. It reflects on the player more than the system and nothing's going to change that short of an infinite inventory solution. Like I said... cold blooded as hell.

It's more so the obnoxious limitations on which armor pieces can't be put in what box, that you have to carry them (in this day and age, very early 2000s MMO design). Then you have items normal and HQ version, then you have a dozen weapons, the then awkward glamour system (which I'm told has been improved).

Again, you only focus on "take chances" exclusively on gear, raid, and power progression. You've ignored the mass volume of non-raid/non-progression related content and have said before you don't consider it relevant because it doesn't progress you character (again, only in scope of power). To be surprised that players who enjoy a game and think the design is working great don't want change for change's sake isn't baffling to me at all. They enjoy the game. They like the game. They like the dev team, the design, and what they're playing. If they LIKE it, why would you expect them to want it to be completely redesigned every expansion?

I don't recall seeing anything new that I could really add to on the dynamic combo buttons, but I'll look again.

Not true at all. I once posited on this very post about how Chocobo racing was woefully utilized. How it should have been a character growth sidegame that improved alongside your character. Racing would make your chocobo faster, teach it new combat/movement skills, could have been the thing that gave you materials to craft the bardings/color changes.

Don't even get me started on triple triad.

Then I even went through the trouble of developing a battle arena for the gold saucer complete with spinning wheel of lock shit away and ruin your day. Naturally it came with some battle system changes needed to actually create compelling, engaging, and challenging solo player content.

I've even went through the trouble of going over some improvements to the color coding of gear and discussing the reward structure attached to that.

I may come across as only caring about power, but that's not my intent. I am very clear that growth is important to me, and that I do not considering ilvl as growth indicator.

Yes, and that would be a difference I could live with.
After all, Mythic should be rewarded, since it takes a lot of effort to make a mythic raid work and kill them bosses in a timely manner.

But having all these difficulties in between makes every non raider trash tier.

In FF: I can farm "HC raid" gear. No praying to RNG, no BS. Good gear that rewards time spent more than skill.
Does a savage raider do more pew pew in DS? Sure, as he should. Does he do 2x of what I can do?
Nope. If he doesn't pay attention, I will catch up and outperform him.

Not to pick on you bud, but I think you misunderstood my post lol. I explained how in WoW and FF14 the gear differential between Mythic and Heroic is pretty identical to savage to normal thus they're not doing 2x your damage in either scenario.

Man, I dunno if we can skip soar. We might both get kicked. :^)

How much avg group DPS do you need to skip it (for the luls).

I'm not sure what horizontal, "meaningful" progression would look like in the modern amusement park MMO, though. It's as ephemeral for people to describe as it is the existing side content's offerings. People say they want more progression and when I ask examples of what they're looking for that isn't "more power, more stats" they just sort of flounder and can't describe what they're wanting.

Here are two examples from BNS a game that I REALLY enjoyed.

1) New Movement skills. The ability to run faster, jump higher, glide faster/farther, run up walls, etc.

2) HM skills. In BNS you had a skill tree. You unlocked new skills as you leveled (like in any game), but you also got skill points to spend. These points could DRAMATICALLY alter your abilities. From a CC, to a nuke, to utility, to charges, etc. HM skills were learned as the game went on. To unlock them you could use achievement points to buy them, do dungeons for the drop, participate in PvP, guild crafting to unlock some, etc. You never had enough skill points to do what you wanted LOL so acquiring them was always fun.

In WoW - the artifact appearance is a fun horizontal progression system. Unlocking all the different variations and colors.

- - - Updated - - -

Are you not one that wanted Mythic+ for dungeons. Set bonuses. Items to have different effects than passive stat boost. Addons. Everytime these subject get brought up you brought up WoW.
You don't play the game but you talk a lot about it.

M+ for dungeons in FF14? Not sure I ever said that. If you said I wanted challenging and engaging dungeons that'd be true. Not sure how that relates to WoW. Tons of games have difficult dungeons...

Set Bonuses? Pretty sure they're in other games other than WoW. Actually I was very clear that I wanted just better itemization in general. Last I checked a lot of games have differing levels of itemization and differing levels of quality associated.

Addons. Actually, I was very clear when I said I don't care for addons. Wanting an in house SQEX made DPS meter is not an addon wish. That's merely a functionality improvement. That's not even taking into consideration that other games have addons too.

I bring up WoW considering FF14 draws a significant portion of its systems and inspiration from WoW. I also bring up WoW because it is the benchmark in the MMO industry. Makes very easy comparisons when necessary.

Is it a crime to talk about a game you don't currently play? Is it even "bad"? Or "wrong" to do that? Why mention this?

Now that we've covered all that, I'll appreciate you editing your previous post.

Thanks Rem!

[Advent]

That's interesting because most old school D&D players I've talked to despise how the game changed to be heavily ruleset restricted and focused on character power at the expense of flexibility for memorable stories woven by their DM. The stories and experiences were what made them exciting, not "I added another +2 on my character sheet, I'm more powerful now!" /shrug

Admittedly, that can be lacking to some extent in modern MMOs because of the WoW effect of popularizing the theme park design. Star Wars Galaxies and EQ, and somewhat FFXI, enforced a necessity of socialization, resulting in people making friends and having stories of nights spent with these strangers-turned-fast-friends. To some extent, from my understanding, BDO was influenced by those in its design quite intentionally. But the "queue up for a brief length of time with people you'll never see or interact with again for the rest of your life" certainly negates that ever happening.


I honestly think if VR tech ever reaches the levels we've longed dreamed of in sci-fi, we'll see an explosive resurgence of the true sandbox MMO.

The part I enjoyed about D&D was always the progress. I mean, I enjoyed the company of the people I was with, but it was the adventure and the character I was invested in that kept me engaged. I could've done campaigns with just about anyone, honestly. As far as making fast friends in a game? Never experienced that, and I'm honestly surprised that other people have, it's just never been my experience.

I'm not sure what horizontal, "meaningful" progression would look like in the modern amusement park MMO, though. It's as ephemeral for people to describe as it is the existing side content's offerings. People say they want more progression and when I ask examples of what they're looking for that isn't "more power, more stats" they just sort of flounder and can't describe what they're wanting.

The examples I cited are basically what I would enjoy as horizontal progression. The more you run, the faster and longer you can do it. The type of food you eat dictates your weight, health pool, etc. There are other ways to progress your character besides higher stat values. Guild Wars 2 also had some foray into that with their mastery system, but it's a bit more shallow than what I'm looking for.

[Remilia]

Uhh... no.

It's the same argument seen in VGD. Since other games have it therefore it's fine while consistently bringing up WoW.
If a game can't stand it's own on it's own merit or lack there of then it should be able to be criticized on it's own. If you can't criticize it without bringing up another game every time then you're doing nothing better than arguing for it to become the game.
The criticisms that stands on it's own without relying on other games is as like the Stormblood/Combat revamp threads with combos or cleric stance and such. I don't really have much opinion on that. If you need a benchmark back drop then... well... that's how we get a stagnant market. While that's not necessarily on topic it's still a thing that I've worried whenever this happens.

[Faroth]

Let's be real for a second. In this fictitious scenario the players you're describing would never last and the game would likely never cater to them. In that sense SQEX would get their money for free. Not a bad thing for you and I.

Why wouldn't they last?

I think you SEVERELY underestimate how hungry people are for character growth (not just ilvl shit).

Where are the masses of people who are shriveling on the vine of XIV with no progression and crying for something to come their way? Seriously, are there multitudes of forum posts and tweets I've never seen?

The issue with making a new character is that I have to pay for it. Then I have to basically throw away all that progress once I hit max level which is (to trigger Nixx) an exceptionally clunky solution. There's no fucking way I'm capping tomestones across 2 characters or logging on and off to play a different job. Why throw away a key advantage of FF14 over its competitors ya know? It wouldn't be a huge issue if leveling wasn't such a single player game, but that's a huge rework in and of itself.

Like I said, Yoshida seemed to be making a joke, acknowledging that was the only real option at the moment. I don't think he genuinely meant for everyone to create a new alt every time they get a new friend to play in order to play through MSQ with them.
He's also acknowledged looking at a way to perma-desync to play with someone rather than just in FATEs and allow the new player to do solo trials in quests without breaking group.

Disagree. Materia could be a VERY robust system with gameplay changing features and DPS increasing ones. While I know people rely on the oh it'll be theorycrafted argument as a catchall. I find it incredibly weak in actual application. That's not even counting the phenomenon that theorycrafters can be wrong.

Almost 20 years of MMO experience has suggested otherwise. The more "robust" a system gets, the faster it completely breaks out of any semblence of balance and what in the entire history of MMOs suggests theorycrafters won't immediately negate a portion of options and narrow in on a handful of "right way to do it" solutions?

It's more so the obnoxious limitations on which armor pieces can't be put in what box, that you have to carry them (in this day and age, very early 2000s MMO design). Then you have items normal and HQ version, then you have a dozen weapons, the then awkward glamour system (which I'm told has been improved).

I'd certainly not mind the glamour system being merged with the Armoire (and even if not, the armoire needs to be expanded to allow more items anyway). But then, there's a flip side to it as well and that's big picture aspects - economy. Necessitating that not every piece of gear you come across is forever useable means crafting doesn't become totally irrelvant immediately upon acquisition.

I know the convenience factor dictates "screw that," but if you're building a world that keeps the crafters working as part of an economy, it's something to consider. And Yoshida's team doesn't seem to like old crafting becoming pointless as they keep bringing older items back into play. Limited storage of gear ppl never use (honestly, I'm sure a lot, including myself, have 3 pages of retainer inventory with gear we never use for glamour and really could get rid of, but don't) means a desire to re-acquire it means getting a crafter to make it for you.

And again, really, 500 inventory slots BEFORE RETAINERS is "nowhere near enough space"? I can't even with that.

Not true at all. I once posited on this very post about how Chocobo racing was woefully utilized. How it should have been a character growth sidegame that improved alongside your character. Racing would make your chocobo faster, teach it new combat/movement skills, could have been the thing that gave you materials to craft the bardings/color changes.

Hadn't seen that one, I do like the sound of some of those.

Then I even went through the trouble of developing a battle arena for the gold saucer complete with spinning wheel of lock shit away and ruin your day. Naturally it came with some battle system changes needed to actually create compelling, engaging, and challenging solo player content.

Sort of like brawler's guild but more going on?

How much avg group DPS do you need to skip it (for the luls).

I don't actually know. I only recently learned what "skip soar" was even referring to!

Here are two examples from BNS a game that I REALLY enjoyed.

1) New Movement skills. The ability to run faster, jump higher, glide faster/farther, run up walls, etc.

2) HM skills. In BNS you had a skill tree. You unlocked new skills as you leveled (like in any game), but you also got skill points to spend. These points could DRAMATICALLY alter your abilities. From a CC, to a nuke, to utility, to charges, etc. HM skills were learned as the game went on. To unlock them you could use achievement points to buy them, do dungeons for the drop, participate in PvP, guild crafting to unlock some, etc. You never had enough skill points to do what you wanted LOL so acquiring them was always fun.

In WoW - the artifact appearance is a fun horizontal progression system. Unlocking all the different variations and colors.

1. Move faster becomes a necessity since it speeds you out of mechanics faster. Run up walls would be amusing, but kind of weird. I'd love to see climbing, though.

2. I'll agree, I did particularly like the concept of the different appearances, but woooo some were grindy and I couldn't stick with pursuing them.


Fun experiment I might give a try would be to go back through all the expansions of EverQuest and see what they added through the years. You want to see a game that's taken wild, bold experimentation with new additions, that's still a gold standard. They also had the Alternate Advancement system, which might be curious to look at more deeply, though I think it became basically massive grinds for a single point in a stat (I could be wrong there).

[dope_danny]

Has anyone else noticed nobody really rolls on Tank and Healer gear i dun Scathe? every run i do as NIN since its my main job and my DRK/AST are still just around 245ish to its 270 and i want to make the run faster anyway i can right?
But if i see a tank or healer piece i'll greed because why not y'know? i assume theres a rare chance week 1 i might get it. But i do. I have every week. My DRK is in full Diabolic gear and i have not tanked it once, my AST is missing like 2 pieces because occasionally i see healers go after them.

I never saw this in Void Ark or Wiping City and i would think its anecdotal but its been every week. Is it actually DPS mains playing Tank/Healer for the fast que but doing the reverse and greeding dps gear for their main job or something? It just seems like actual tanks have no interest in the Diabolic Fending set at all and thats so strange.

[Kazgrel]

Has anyone else noticed nobody really rolls on Tank and Healer gear i dun Scathe? every run i do as NIN since its my main job and my DRK/AST are still just around 245ish to its 270 and i want to make the run faster anyway i can right?
But if i see a tank or healer piece i'll greed because why not y'know? i assume theres a rare chance week 1 i might get it. But i do. I have every week. My DRK is in full Diabolic gear and i have not tanked it once, my AST is missing like 2 pieces because occasionally i see healers go after them.

I never saw this in Void Ark or Wiping City and i would think its anecdotal but its been every week. Is it actually DPS mains playing Tank/Healer for the fast que but doing the reverse and greeding dps gear for their main job or something? It just seems like actual tanks have no interest in the Diabolic Fending set at all and thats so strange.

I had a large amount of shire tank gear already, so all I needed was the upgrade tokens. I did pick up the pants though (and I was tanking for that run, so easy need roll ftw), which while 260 are far better overall than upgraded shire pants with that maxed out parry of theirs. First couple of weeks, I want to say any healer gear that dropped was need rolled for the most part. But main healers were probably in similar situation that I was with tank gear, only needing to upgrade their shire gear to 270.

[dope_danny]

I had a large amount of shire tank gear already, so all I needed was the upgrade tokens. I did pick up the pants though (and I was tanking for that run, so easy need roll ftw), which while 260 are far better overall than upgraded shire pants with that maxed out parry of theirs. First couple of weeks, I want to say any healer gear that dropped was need rolled for the most part. But main healers were probably in similar situation that I was with tank gear, only needing to upgrade their shire gear to 270.

I wonder if it just means the number of none tanks with an alt tank job they still gear up behind their main is way smaller than the other jobs?

[RohanV]

I wonder if it just means the number of none tanks with an alt tank job they still gear up behind their main is way smaller than the other jobs?

Maybe pure tanks do more content and get tomestones at a higher rate, so they're mostly in Scripture or Alex gear. I'm a casual tank who could use Dun Scaith gear, but it doesn't seem to drop for me (I have more Proto-jewelry than armor pieces).

Edit: Whoops, misread your post. I agree, though. It seems like you either tank randoms as main, or don't tank randoms. The people I know with backup tank jobs tend to only tank for guildies.