[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[dope_danny]

Can you que with randoms for Diadem? not sure on all the new stuff still catching up on story

You can now. You go in the Fury version. Do like 4 fates and kill a few mobs and get a bunch of lockboxes an npc opens and some coins to basically just get rank V materia and a pegasus mount.

[Faroth]

They wouldn't last because the existing game model wouldn't support them. Those types of players (and I know them personally, my brother, IRL friends, and co-raiders are all these players) don't have enough meaningful content to do so they quit. This is of course anecdotal, but it's roughly 10 people I PERSONALLY know and play other games with (hint: not just WoW) that get bored by this game. Some of their reasons are valid, some aren't. Please understand that meaningful content to say you and I is not the same as them and that's fine.

I don't see why they'd quit if we were on the topic of catering to a certain group, which would mean devoting resources to creating more content for said group, which is going to be at the expense of other content. So back to my initial point, cutting out more and more to cater to specific playstyle groups does impact the game and its design focus at the expense of those who enjoy existing design with a mix of things to do.

Your second point is silly and you know it Faroth. Not everyone posts on the forums. In fact an incredibly small subset of players actually do.

So outside of the small subset on the forums, there's a multitude of peple with nothing to do and they're complaining/quitting because they have nothing to do, but there's no way to quantify it (outside of Square's tools we can't see)? Don't see a reason to think the game's going to shrivel based on this (lack of) information.

The first thing I'm not sure would even be an improvement honestly. The second is a huge QoL improvement IMO.

Why not? You desync for dungeon runs, you desync for FATEs, but anything between those you're bouncing up and down, so if players want to play with their new friend (challenge logs, hunt logs, etc) they can't really do so.

Look I'm not saying perfect balance here. I'm saying good balance. Are you trying to say that you believe there is no way a materia system could work that was interesting and somewhat balanced? That I very firmly disagree with.

I think it would be extremely difficult to remain so while continuously giving you new and exciting things expansion after expansion, unfortunately. Every expansion will need to add more new/better skills and abilities that are more interesting and better than the previous. I'll agree the current materia use is pretty bland, but I'm not sure how much you can spice it up without breaking things long term.

Though I suppose an example would be limiting the types or how many you can have and moving cross class skills over to materia. If you have the materia on a certain armor piece, you have that cross class skill. (Or giving all players an ability to have a raise, but I'd be fine with phoenix downs becoming that with 1 per fight or something).

But then people would complain about having to reapply it each time they upgrade and being forced to have materia in the first place, so still going to be an issue there.

Every piece of gear isn't forever useable. The glamour of it would be. That said, I can see where you are going and I agree. There would need to be some improvement for crafters (but I think that needs to happen regardless, short of a few specific things crafters don't really do anything for me).

That's the same thing. You get the item once, you never have any need to get it from any source again for the rest of eternity. Assuming you go with a system like WoW has implemented and many seem to want implemented here where accessing it puts it in the appearance list you have access to forever from then on.

Even my own preference of "put it in the armoire for glamour availability" has the same impact, just with the player able to choose what goes in their list. It eliminates any need to ever acquire a piece of gear for glamour after you've gotten it once. I'm not sure if that's good for long term crafter economy or not.

If your focus is primarily on combat, how much can crafters really do for you, though? If Square gave them BiS or better-than-raid gear, you'd never need to do combat.

They're already the source for cutting edge raiders on food buffs, potions, and often leg up gear at the start. Not sure what more they can offer in that regard.

Yeah, and honestly I'm not opposed to the idea of the battle arena being party wide or a different format (2s? 3s?). The general idea was that the mobs spawned would be RNG (model wise) and they would have randomly generated mechanics (from various dungeons/bosses). You might RNG a monster that you couldn't kill with whatever buffs you were slotted against, but that's the risk/reward of the arena.

Hehehe, would be amusing to get a giant version of field enemy X but then suddenly it's using abilities from field enemy Y. "What the heck, they're not supposed to do that!"

The new player made design contest sets are in.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...8d3b8910d3b41b

http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/range...hSrgMGk/39.jpg
http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/healer/mQjY33nEZw/09.jpg

^ My personal favorites. Really love the look of a lot of them though.

Dollars to donuts that carbuncle costume is going to happen and be put in the Gold Saucer rewards.

There's a number of them there I like as well.

http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/healer/mQjY33nEZw/09.jpg might be an outfit for my alt who is our "FC Administrator"

[Scufflegrit]

i could see a lot of folks choosing to farm a set for RDM or SAM in here instead of grinding tomestones. Throw in 4 weeks of the UFO quest and you could get a really easy set to start RDM/SAM in Stormblood.

But then random stats sooo

RDM and SAM start at 50 though, so you'd still need something like the Ironworks set to get them going, and could likely be fine with just gear from leveling after that.

[Kazgrel]

If your focus is primarily on combat, how much can crafters really do for you, though? If Square gave them BiS or better-than-raid gear, you'd never need to do combat.

...unless the mats to make said gear are a drop from whatever the current savage level raid(s) are. Of course, that would only lead to the "omg raiders are required to craft!" complaint...or to flip the script, "crafters are required to raid to make BiS gear!". In other words, that's a lose/lose situation. But I'm a weirdo in that I liked having mats for raid quality gear in said raids, but that may be partially due to nostalgia for my Stormherald I had back in TBC era WoW.

I just hope that if they retain the current specialization system for crafting that they bump us up to 4 specialists (and in turn allow 4 desynths to be maxed out), so that 2 people could theoretically cover all the specialized needs for an FC's raiding team. Wishful thinking on my end, perhaps.

[dope_danny]

RDM and SAM start at 50 though, so you'd still need something like the Ironworks set to get them going, and could likely be fine with just gear from leveling after that.

Depends how they start, they seem to be making these as accessible to get as possible, i could see them just throwing some 50 gear at you even if you dont have a set of ironworks most will have on hand from the worthless poetics.

[Wrecktangle]

Considering this is the shit I've seen over 5 years in VGD, I'd take my own view of it over yours.

Benchmarks give you things like "this isn't like Skyrim, GTA 5, etc" and such. There's even a complaint about Horizon not being like Skyrim instead of letting it be it's own game. The only thing that should matter is having fun and believe it or not, that is extremely subjective. Not everything needs to be bigger than the competition especially when it ends up alienating it's core player base. Starwars Galaxy Pre-NGE and Post-NGE is a great example of trying to become bigger and better but it destroyed their core player base which lead to it's eventual collapse. People that keep using benchmarks and will make it feel like every game that doesn't meet is shit (this happens way too much) instead of having fun in it's own right.

Sure if you want to let your existing personal biases inhibit your ability to have an objective discussion that's your prerogative. At this point, all I want you to do is go back to your post#32541 and edit it to accurately reflect that I do not want FF14 to be WoW because those words were never said no implied and I debunked it multiple times.

I am grouping with a friend right now who just joined and is lvl 14 on his first class. Even as a lvl 60 I can queue up with him for guildhests and dungeons, and sync down with him doing fates. I may not be able to do everything with him but there is content I can engage with him. Its about doing stuff at my friends level rather than rushing him to mine and making him miss all the amazing content along the way.

The problem is that the content you can do is either severely limited or immeasurably boring/unrewarding for a max level. That means that the only fun/reward you derive from the activity is playing with your friend. I think that experience can be improved quite dramatically. This is not a bad thing, as I draw a lot of fun from helping friends or new players too, but you're being silly if you think that it's not worth improving.

FWIW I did include dungeons as a good example, (GH's included, but I didn't mention).

I m glad it only took around 10 pages of discussion to stop bashing a developer who saved a dying game and made it the 2nd largest MMO in the market.

Mind citing a few examples (say 2 or 3?) where anyone was bashing a developer/FF14?

Also FYI: Criticizing =/= Bashing. It's very worthwhile to take note of that distinction.

Lastly, just because someone did something good in the past doesn't mean they're immune to criticism LOL.

I don't see why they'd quit if we were on the topic of catering to a certain group, which would mean devoting resources to creating more content for said group, which is going to be at the expense of other content. So back to my initial point, cutting out more and more to cater to specific playstyle groups does impact the game and its design focus at the expense of those who enjoy existing design with a mix of things to do.

IIRC you had mentioned that if these players all came over in a mass exodus that SQEX would then make content tailored to them (i.e. more raid, less world). I disagreed with that statement because I don't think those players would stay anyway. Sure FF14 might make more content if people pushed and pushed for it, but they'd leave long before they got their wish IMO because dev cycles are planned pretty far in advance.

So outside of the small subset on the forums, there's a multitude of peple with nothing to do and they're complaining/quitting because they have nothing to do, but there's no way to quantify it (outside of Square's tools we can't see)? Don't see a reason to think the game's going to shrivel based on this (lack of) information.

There absolutely are. Just like there are multitudes of players who love FF14 for the way it is and still play.

I'm worried that the game is going to shrivel because of barriers to entry. When you add more barriers to entry less people will come. Over the function of time more people will quit than will join (due to barriers) thus causing a decline. This is largely inevitable in all games. I am worried that FF14 is starting down that path WAY too soon. I am worried because I think FF14 could easily improve on itself and take the #1 spot. I am worried because I love FF14 and the MMO genre.

Some barriers of entry include unable to play with existing players quickly enough, limited job selections, and an awkward power curve (game is WAY too slow in the beginning, and ramps up way too quickly for most jobs, too many "rotation" mandatory abilities too late in the leveling process).

Again this is just my opinion from one fan to others.

Why not? You desync for dungeon runs, you desync for FATEs, but anything between those you're bouncing up and down, so if players want to play with their new friend (challenge logs, hunt logs, etc) they can't really do so.

The reason is desyncing just to run around seems meaningless to me. If you were desyncing to participate in the actual quest (i.e. see markers, NPCs, quest stuff, etc. that'd be fine IMO). Otherwise at that point there'd be no real reason, you'd be 100% better off just staying 60 and obliterating things for you friend.

I think it would be extremely difficult to remain so while continuously giving you new and exciting things expansion after expansion, unfortunately. Every expansion will need to add more new/better skills and abilities that are more interesting and better than the previous. I'll agree the current materia use is pretty bland, but I'm not sure how much you can spice it up without breaking things long term.

Though I suppose an example would be limiting the types or how many you can have and moving cross class skills over to materia. If you have the materia on a certain armor piece, you have that cross class skill. (Or giving all players an ability to have a raise, but I'd be fine with phoenix downs becoming that with 1 per fight or something).

But then people would complain about having to reapply it each time they upgrade and being forced to have materia in the first place, so still going to be an issue there.

Not true IMO. I don't personally subscribe to the idea that they need to be more interesting expac over expac. They just need to be interesting on their own and different. The idea would be that you would now have access to something you previously didn't before.

Ideally in my Materia rework proposal you'd have gear with colored slotted Materia. Maybe build in the crafters here and give them the ability to shift around Materia slots or color. I.e. Maybe if your legs have 1 slot (max of say 2) and your chest has 1 (but is low ilvl and you're replacing it with one that has no slot or a bad color slot) you can shift it around. I'd make it semi-expensive and not exactly trivial to do.

Maybe to add to character growth make it not possible to instantly wear all materia slots or even colors. Maybe you have to improve your character is some fashion to wear more materia or stronger materia. I feel like there's just a ton of depth to these systems that we can improve on to make gearing much more interesting.

Regarding people complaining about the process of re-gearing/materia'ing I agree. That could likely be an issue. Would the positives outweigh the negatives? For me personally I can put up with some gearing pains for more interesting gearing gameplay.

That's the same thing. You get the item once, you never have any need to get it from any source again for the rest of eternity. Assuming you go with a system like WoW has implemented and many seem to want implemented here where accessing it puts it in the appearance list you have access to forever from then on.

Even my own preference of "put it in the armoire for glamour availability" has the same impact, just with the player able to choose what goes in their list. It eliminates any need to ever acquire a piece of gear for glamour after you've gotten it once. I'm not sure if that's good for long term crafter economy or not.

I did acknowledge that for crafters it'd be functionally the same (thus removing value from them) and thus they'd need some kind of reparations for that, the obviously enormous improvement would be the fact that I wouldn't need to stomach finding groups for LotA or ST or some other random arbitrary dead piece of content that has a look I want then compete against others that want it.

If your focus is primarily on combat, how much can crafters really do for you, though? If Square gave them BiS or better-than-raid gear, you'd never need to do combat.

They're already the source for cutting edge raiders on food buffs, potions, and often leg up gear at the start. Not sure what more they can offer in that regard.

Agreed. Crafting isn't my strong suit when it comes to developmental ideas. So I don't have a ton there

Hehehe, would be amusing to get a giant version of field enemy X but then suddenly it's using abilities from field enemy Y. "What the heck, they're not supposed to do that!"

Glad it amuses you. Amusement is an aspect of fun, and I'm all for fun.

[Katchii]

I'm in total agreement that the glamour system in this game needs some serious work, I hate having to carry around 3-4 sets of gear on my character for glamour purposes to ensure it's available if/ when I need it. Keep the glamour crystals, just let me have access to the gear by having it in the armoire, on my retainers...or just in a database somewhere like WoW just don't make me carry it around.

SW:ToR also has a better system that lets you equip your glamour set and then you pay a fee to activate it and that's the visually active set regardless of what you actually wear for the stats; pretty sure Wildstar and LotRO use a very similar if not identical system.

[Faroth]

IIRC you had mentioned that if these players all came over in a mass exodus that SQEX would then make content tailored to them (i.e. more raid, less world). I disagreed with that statement because I don't think those players would stay anyway. Sure FF14 might make more content if people pushed and pushed for it, but they'd leave long before they got their wish IMO because dev cycles are planned pretty far in advance.

They certainly wouldn't stay if they were speed-skip to the end and raid was all they cared for, but they'd certainly cite not enough raids as their reason for leaving. Assuming that feedback is taken...

But otherwise, fair.

The reason is desyncing just to run around seems meaningless to me. If you were desyncing to participate in the actual quest (i.e. see markers, NPCs, quest stuff, etc. that'd be fine IMO). Otherwise at that point there'd be no real reason, you'd be 100% better off just staying 60 and obliterating things for you friend.

But they were specifically asking to play with their friend, not 1 shot speed run their friend through everything, but play and enjoy the game with them. I believe it was paired with the request to replay MSQ, which was the harder part, but the desync was the first step likely easier to accomplish.

Not true IMO. I don't personally subscribe to the idea that they need to be more interesting expac over expac. They just need to be interesting on their own and different. The idea would be that you would now have access to something you previously didn't before.

Then the next expansion is just "more of the same" and Square needs to "innovate in order to keep it fresh." The exact same arguments being made now would be made afterwards because materia becomes standard expectation and now they're just doing the same ol' thing with materia in the next one.

Ideally in my Materia rework proposal you'd have gear with colored slotted Materia. Maybe build in the crafters here and give them the ability to shift around Materia slots or color. I.e. Maybe if your legs have 1 slot (max of say 2) and your chest has 1 (but is low ilvl and you're replacing it with one that has no slot or a bad color slot) you can shift it around. I'd make it semi-expensive and not exactly trivial to do.

I foresee player backlash hating this design and demanding you change it to be easier to do because it's too crucial and required for any content whatsoever and your design is grindy and too punishing.

Maybe to add to character growth make it not possible to instantly wear all materia slots or even colors. Maybe you have to improve your character is some fashion to wear more materia or stronger materia. I feel like there's just a ton of depth to these systems that we can improve on to make gearing much more interesting.

How much more imbalance and power creep will it cause and is that a concern? The process of growing to access it would be cool, but again, how do you address these issues?

Regarding people complaining about the process of re-gearing/materia'ing I agree. That could likely be an issue. Would the positives outweigh the negatives? For me personally I can put up with some gearing pains for more interesting gearing gameplay.

Sadly that's not "efficient" and that's the pure necessity for a lot of players. Honestly, players are what have killed interesting game design in MMOs. They dictate the fastest, most efficient, most immediately gratifying path to everything. Otherwise it's "a grind."

Players are their own worst enemies.

That said, FFXIV would probably have a better shot at implementing it as Asian MMOers seem more content to grind than Western players.

[Acidbaron]

Willing to give this game another shot, could anyone recommend me a class.

Don't mind playing a team role but i do know that support will be fairly slow to level most likely. So i prefer a self sustain melee class, don't mind about class difficulty. Ideally want something that is engaging to play. Would be even better if it's wanted in groups since i'll most likely end up pugging most content.

Thanks in advance.

[The Casualty]

Willing to give this game another shot, could anyone recommend me a class.

Don't mind playing a team role but i do know that support will be fairly slow to level most likely. So i prefer a self sustain melee class, don't mind about class difficulty. Ideally want something that is engaging to play. Would be even better if it's wanted in groups since i'll most likely end up pugging most content.

Thanks in advance.

Right now, the most support-ish of the melee is NIN. Either them or DRG are both pretty sought after in static comps. Who knows what the meta will be in Stormblood though.

[Acidbaron]

Right now, the most support-ish of the melee is NIN. Either them or DRG are both pretty sought after in static comps. Who knows what the meta will be in Stormblood though.

Assuming that stands for dragoon and ninja? Which of those have the highest skill cap? I guess if i prefer melee plate users dragoon is probably more down my alley.

Stormblood is still some time off, so not going to break my head over upcoming future content.

Guess i need to see what server to roll on, and hope i don't roll on something unofficial german, polish, french etc

[Faroth]

Anyone else starting to wonder if the final MSQ patch is getting bumped into April?

[Anzaman]

Anyone else starting to wonder if the final MSQ patch is getting bumped into April?

Hopefully not, I'm already having withdrawal symptoms.

Even ended up buying GTX 1080 since they offered free game with it..

..I need something to do.

[Kazgrel]

Anyone else starting to wonder if the final MSQ patch is getting bumped into April?

If there's no prelim patch notes and/or maintenance downtime announcement as of Friday, then yeah.

[Aruhen]

Hopefully not, I'm already having withdrawal symptoms.

Even ended up buying GTX 1080 since they offered free game with it..

..I need something to do.

I really need to upgrade my PC. Not for Stormblood though... Mass Effect Andromeda . i5 3570 is really showing its age at this point with games like Mass Effect. Actually might just build a new one considering I'd need new RAM, Motherboard and CPU at this point.

[Kazgrel]

Assuming that stands for dragoon and ninja? Which of those have the highest skill cap? I guess if i prefer melee plate users dragoon is probably more down my alley.

Stormblood is still some time off, so not going to break my head over upcoming future content.

Guess i need to see what server to roll on, and hope i don't roll on something unofficial german, polish, french etc

Yep, DRG is Dragoon and NIN being ninja.

I believe Shiva is known as the unofficial German server and Moogle is the unofficial French server. I'm far from an expert on the Chaos data center, though, so I'll leave further details on that to our other folks from EU.

[Graeham]

Anyone else starting to wonder if the final MSQ patch is getting bumped into April?

I doubt it. They said 'late March' so if it's not the 21st then it's very likely to be the 28th. Unfortunately this also coincides with 7.2, apparently. Not that I play WoW anymore but it does rub me the wrong way that Blizzard refused to do timely content updates whilst I played yet now they've finally got some real competition they're suddenly motivated.

[Acidbaron]

Yep, DRG is Dragoon and NIN being ninja.

I believe Shiva is known as the unofficial German server and Moogle is the unofficial French server. I'm far from an expert on the Chaos data center, though, so I'll leave further details on that to our other folks from EU.

Did a bit of searching and seems i would want to roll on servers that have a current character creation restriction, ugh.

Got a character on Shiva which i'm deleting since i won't play on german servers or any other than english for that matter, simply out of convenience.

[Kazgrel]

Did a bit of searching and seems i would want to roll on servers that have a current character creation restriction, ugh.

Got a character on Shiva which i'm deleting since i won't play on german servers or any other than english for that matter, simply out of convenience.

For kicks and giggles I made a character on Cerberus (was checking various race emotes/voices/animations), but that was last night my time (US Eastern time), which would've been around dead ass o'clock for most of Europe (like anywhere between 3-5 AM), maybe a little later but not by much.

That being said, the only server that was locked at that time was Ragnarok, but for all I know that's the Chaos equivalent of Balmung or Gilgamesh, so it may stay locked around the clock.

[Anzaman]

I really need to upgrade my PC. Not for Stormblood though... Mass Effect Andromeda . i5 3570 is really showing its age at this point with games like Mass Effect. Actually might just build a new one considering I'd need new RAM, Motherboard and CPU at this point.

Heh, yeah - built myself PC couple years ago, served me well.. but sadly GPU is starting to show lack of power in newer games. Sure I can still do FFXIV raids at 100+ FPS, so it's pretty low on the list to upgrade for.