[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Remilia]

It's friggin embarrassing how badly most people take any form of critique. Got into fights with guild officers multiple times b/c they always wanted to baby everyone (only critique in whisper etc).

In a group environment it's better to critique someone in private than it is to critique them in public. It has more to do with morale and atmosphere really. In the kitchen for example (more familiar with) it's very obvious how the atmosphere changes when people get criticized in front of everyone. Overall mood sinks and productivity worsens. "Praise in public and criticize in private" was one of the things our teachers and my intern executive chef emphasized. In this case it has nothing to do with baby them but everything to keep the place running efficiently. Critiquing can be essential but going about it the wrong way is going to backfire.

[Granyala]

If the critique needs extended discussion, yes, absolutely. Do it in private after the raid.
But if it's a gross fail that prevents the raid from being effective I'm not starting to whisper everyone involved.
I'll address the group that did the mistake in public b/c I want to disseminate information quickly.

Also, everyone with a parser can see your mistake, there is no need for "hush hush" in gaming.

[Anzaman]

Thank you for your preorder of FINAL FANTASY® XIV: STORMBLOOD - Collector's Edition [PC]. We are pleased to announce that we will soon be preparing your order for shipment. As part of this preparation, we will begin charging for preorders on Monday, May 29th, 2017 using the payment details that you provided upon checkout.

Four days after I got my monthly income, I'll need to live with 50€ for next ~3 weeks, lol.

[MrPaladinGuy]

Four days after I got my monthly income, I'll need to live with 50€ for next ~3 weeks, lol.

Enjoy the ramen.

[Granyala]

[INDENT][I]Thank you for your preorder of FINAL FANTASY® XIV: STORMBLOOD - Collector's Edition [PC]
Four days after I got my monthly income, I'll need to live with 50€ for next ~3 weeks, lol.

250€ is a pretty meager income. Oo

[Anzaman]

250€ is a pretty meager income. Oo

No job, so I'm getting "lovely" amount of unemployment compensation.

Currently in school, and they tried to deny my unemployment compensation AND any kind of study money. On top of that I need to pay for the studies myself.

[Granyala]

Currently in school, and they tried to deny my unemployment compensation AND any kind of study money. On top of that I need to pay for the studies myself.

*chuckles* I've been there.
That's why I had to go the "american way" of private student loans. Sucks. Esp if the employment market denies you the job you studied (and took debt) for.
Oh well, that's life.

[Faroth]

Every time I've asked about something like this, the reasons have always been along the lines of;

• It's a Final Fantasy game
• It was designed that way.

I get that it's designed that way, I do play it afterall. Whenever I've asked about why it was designed that way, and what benefits it has over a more free form questing structure people have gone back to "Because it's Final Fantasy". It's very disapointing that no one seems able to present anything better in it's defense than "I enjoyed it" and "That is the ineffable will of Square Enix".

-Increased depth to the world design. It's designed for you to care about the game's world and characters more than just your epeen ilvl and damage output. You've noted you don't like Alphinaud or Tataru (the latter of which should be heresy, you monster!), so that's an reason to want for more compelling characterization and presentation, not "make it irrelevant." (Personally I felt the same about Alphinaud in 2.x, but thought he became much better in 3.x story. I'd rather the twins take back seat and spend an expansion gallavanting with Y'shtola more, though).

-More meaningful reason to the "why" of doing things rather than "it has loot on a loot table"

-A desire for an MMO with a community that shares an interest in lore and continues to be a community that seems more helpful due to this shared mentality & interest in approach as opposed to "GO GO GO GO GO" mentality of other MMO communities. The fact that there's a bit of a slower pace and some investment required to get to end game has been widely perceived as a reason the endgame community isn't a toxic dumpster fire as has been perceived in other communities that speed players to endgame as the expense of all other content have any meaning whatsoever. Seriously, getting through the MSQ is likely a reason the dungeon finder player base is generally more patient than random dungeon groups in WoW. The instant gratification mentality is not fostered in XIV and has a direct result on the end result of who's playing in the long term.

In fact, that probably sums it up best: People are resistant to making the game designed around instant gratification mentalities.

And before people say "I've never seen any of this in WoW except maybe 4 times" let me just note that the WoW community, the people who still play regularly, often say the community it toxic as hell. This isn't a single player exaggerating one bad experience perception.

It also makes any discussion on story as a core engagement impossible - Especially when people take a statement like "I don't enjoy the story" to mean "I want to change this game to fit my exact ideal". Which leads me nicely to;

"The MSQ should be completely irrelevant" is pretty much changing the game's entire design. The game puts in story and lore elements for minor things. Letting summoners have different color carbuncle has fairly lengthy lore. Glamour has lore behind it. Dying armor has a quest. And none of these are a quick sentence, typically having a decent bit of text behind them.

Again, it's about as old school MMORPG EQ-ish world building of an MMO as you can get on the market these days rather than purely 'graphical queue for amusement park ride content' design. Suggesting everything should be irrelevant to gain immediate access to graphical queue for amusement park ride content does fundamentally change the game design with the refusal to believe this would have any long term impact on later design. Yeah, games change, but that's exactly the point, as was earlier stated "I left WoW for a reason" which is why there's resistance to turning this into a completely identical clone of WoW's model.

Even right now the people who are paranoid about changes ruining "their game" are excited for Stormblood, an exapnsion that's bringing tonnes of changes to the game!

That would indicate they're not paranoid about changes ruining the game. It indicates there are very specific things they feel are integral to the game's identity they don't want diluted and thrown away in the long run. If they're excited for Stormblood, that clearly indicates they're not paranoid of every change that comes along, but embrace them. You can't say the community is an echo chamber when they discuss changes, get excited for changes, but have one or two specific things they are firmly in disagreement with changing.

Though for a third time, let me reiterate, I'm talking to a brick wall. Not you or Wreck or anyone else here being said wall, but the fact that the MSQ is already skippable means everything I'm saying is moot and irrelevant.

I'm not arguing at this point, really. I've already lost the argument. I'm more speaking to concerns that in 2 or 4 more years, I'm going to see the game become more and more embodying the reasons I left WoW, which will mean FFXIV would no longer be recognizable for what made it popular in the first place and has become just another WoW clone.

People need to remember, this is a japanese developed game. They don't have the same design philosophies that the west does. They never embraced open world game play the way we did. They have never embraced the FPS at all. They prefer a more structured game play. Thats how all their games are developed. I've never seen Yoshida further elaborate on why the main story is required. Thats just how all Japanese RPG's are designed.

Just be glad Japanese development has abandoned the grind mentality. Man, old school JRPGs (and some modern ones) REALLY liked the grind and Japanese players ate it up. I think the Dragon Quest series is still pretty grindy and it's borderline a forced national holiday with how many people don't come into work when a new one is released.

Well you know today's gaming generation. "Waah waah he dared to criticize me! Waaah!" Doesn't matter HOW you do it.
The mere act of saying "you did sth. wrong" in front of others seems to be a no go for most of them.

Glad I haven't encountered that yet. I've had grateful responses when I've made suggestions to others, though it's not typically DPS since I'm not as often able to see what's going on as a DPS myself. I think tank and healer roles are more easily able to take note of what DPS are/aren't doing rather than us with a face full of monster butt.

[Granyala]

Glad I haven't encountered that yet. I've had grateful responses when I've made suggestions to others, though it's not typically DPS since I'm not as often able to see what's going on as a DPS myself. I think tank and healer roles are more easily able to take note of what DPS are/aren't doing rather than us with a face full of monster butt.

Got dissed as a "no-life RL loser" back in TBC with the excuse "it's just a game" when I gave people friendly advice on how to avoid critical mistakes.
I guess some are just so embarrassed that they instinctively respond with hostility.
Sure I've hat thankful responses as well.

[Aruhen]

I'm not arguing at this point, really. I've already lost the argument. I'm more speaking to concerns that in 2 or 4 more years, I'm going to see the game become more and more embodying the reasons I left WoW, which will mean FFXIV would no longer be recognizable for what made it popular in the first place and .

The day FFXIV starts leaning more towards the way WoW does things (and Stormblood is showing some of it) is the day I quit FFXIV. There's a reason I'm playing FFXIV and not WoW anymore just like you.

One thing I really don't get with the people who want the story skip is why do you want to play now all of a sudden? You will still have to do the story in 4.x to unlock stuff? If you didn't play the game originally because you were forced to do quests to unlock stuff... well this doesn't change anything because you could have just started back in 2.0 if that was the only reason you didn't want to play. I do understand that there are some players that probably only recently got interested in it but that doesn't apply to everyone.

[Wrecktangle]

In fact, that probably sums it up best: People are resistant to making the game designed around instant gratification mentalities.

I want to start with a quick bit to @StrawberryZebra before I delve into this:

The benefits of the MSQ are largely what Faroth detailed: Deeper engagement to the characters and the world. Remember that by not liking Tataru means you've invested your feelings into NOT liking her. You made that decision based on interactions, cutscenes, voice acting, etc. That's actually a good thing. Ask me why I do or don't like Sylvanas or Genn Greymane.

It is just as possible that maybe you don't care about cinematic storytelling and prefer a more Dark Souls/Bloodborne styled storytelling where the world and gameplay is your story and its your job to uncover it. If it's any consolation in my dream MMO the story was actually heavily a mix of both. MSQ leads you to places/regions, but your own thirst for adventure unveils the real stories of locales.

Now, I'll give you the opportunity, if you could change the MSQ to be optional how would the game be structured? Walk me through your ideal interpretation of FF14 leveling to current endgame. What type of flow would varying players follow? A few examples would be ideal. How would I approach it based on my personality? How would Faroth? How would you?

Now @Faroth.

I have to say I don't buy the whole instant gratification (called IG going forward) ideology being a primary reason for resistance to change. Most of the systems I have talked about are the complete opposite of IG. Adding Materia that changes skill effects/etc.? People were against that because it added fake complexity that they felt would be mathed out. The current system is very IG and my proposed ideas would have removed some of that. I suggested larger raids or savage 8m version of 24ms. This would require more people playing more often and putting more effort in, the complete opposite of IG. Again this idea was typically rallied against because they don't want a raid or die mentality, which people had felt that more/bigger raids would foster.

I could go on, but I don't think IG is a compelling factor in the community's overall aversion to change.

[Faroth]

I have to say I don't buy the whole instant gratification (called IG going forward) ideology being a primary reason for resistance to change. Most of the systems I have talked about are the complete opposite of IG. Adding Materia that changes skill effects/etc.? People were against that because it added fake complexity that they felt would be mathed out.

I have reservations about systems that will seem interesting, but become a standard "community dictates only one right way" systems. I'll agree the current materia system is already pointless and could use an overhaul. To your point, (except people wouldn't like having to buy/reacquire them), instead of job roles being cross-class abilities in a pool, those abilities could have been materia. You'd need an ability materia slot on almost all items so players aren't left without an ability, though, so it has its own problems, but I could see that working. The current materia system is basically just extra primary role beneficial stat for those who wish to put in the time/effort to acquire and meld them. Pretty boring, I agree.

The current system is very IG and my proposed ideas would have removed some of that.

This would require more people playing more often and putting more effort in, the complete opposite of IG. Again this idea was typically rallied against because they don't want a raid or die mentality, which people had felt that more/bigger raids would foster.

Not sure how repeated runs and time restrains are instant gratification. The current system isn't instant gratification, neither in immediately going straight to endgame, not passing go, and not collecting 200 gil (lulz) nor in immediately being geared. It's fairly steady and readily available progression, which you can argue is repetitive and could be boring depending on your tastes, but it's not instant acquisition & gratification.

The HW raid change, however, moved in that direction... leading us to your next point.

I suggested larger raids or savage 8m version of 24ms. This would require more people playing more often and putting more effort in, the complete opposite of IG. Again this idea was typically rallied against because they don't want a raid or die mentality, which people had felt that more/bigger raids would foster.

Retuning a 24 man into an 8 man IS devoting more time to raiding and shifting development focus to more raiding, raids, and a little more raiding. I could see an argument for 24 man to have a savage difficulty more than reworking/tooling/designing 24 man raids to function as 8 man savage content in addition to the 8 man savage content already there.

Personally, I'm still not crazy about normal 8 man being added. I preferred the 8 man is the hard raid, 24 man is the normal raid model and the two are quite different. I didn't mind waiting to see the 8 man raid story since it was separate from MSQ, yet interesting.

If you went from a story model, I'd prefer 24 man to be the main "story" raid and 8 man savage be a side story that's interesting but not directly connected to the expansion's primary events. That way you could keep the 8/24 split instead of 8 normal/8 savage/24 catch up.

But again, already a decision they've made to follow in WoW's path. I'd agree that's more shifting in the direction resulting in more instant gratification because players are doing all the paths of content while Square is designing it as different paths.

1: Tomestone gear from roulettes
2: Normal raid / EX Primals
3: Savage raid
4: 24 man seems more a catch up path, but can be a primary gear path if you choose

Instead, people are doing 24 man, normal raid, AND tomestone gear, which overlaps enough to make some irrelevant before you run it, but you still want to run it to see it or there's one thing related. I think they've gotten a little too overlapped and blurred a bit with the Heavensward changes.

[Katchii]

I want to start with a quick bit to @StrawberryZebra before I delve into this:

The benefits of the MSQ are largely what Faroth detailed: Deeper engagement to the characters and the world. Remember that by not liking Tataru means you've invested your feelings into NOT liking her. You made that decision based on interactions, cutscenes, voice acting, etc. That's actually a good thing. Ask me why I do or don't like Sylvanas or Genn Greymane.

It is just as possible that maybe you don't care about cinematic storytelling and prefer a more Dark Souls/Bloodborne styled storytelling where the world and gameplay is your story and its your job to uncover it. If it's any consolation in my dream MMO the story was actually heavily a mix of both. MSQ leads you to places/regions, but your own thirst for adventure unveils the real stories of locales.

Now, I'll give you the opportunity, if you could change the MSQ to be optional how would the game be structured? Walk me through your ideal interpretation of FF14 leveling to current endgame. What type of flow would varying players follow? A few examples would be ideal. How would I approach it based on my personality? How would Faroth? How would you?

Now @Faroth.

I have to say I don't buy the whole instant gratification (called IG going forward) ideology being a primary reason for resistance to change. Most of the systems I have talked about are the complete opposite of IG. Adding Materia that changes skill effects/etc.? People were against that because it added fake complexity that they felt would be mathed out. The current system is very IG and my proposed ideas would have removed some of that. I suggested larger raids or savage 8m version of 24ms. This would require more people playing more often and putting more effort in, the complete opposite of IG. Again this idea was typically rallied against because they don't want a raid or die mentality, which people had felt that more/bigger raids would foster.

I could go on, but I don't think IG is a compelling factor in the community's overall aversion to change.

I think the IG aversion isn't aimed at the content, it's aimed at the journey to max level. It takes time and effort to get to max level in FFXIV because of the need to go through the MSQ to get there. Otherwise people could literally spam PotD for hours and get to max in a couple days. The fact that everyone (or most everyone since it's technically possible to level to 60 without ever setting foot in HW zone) at 60 has gone through the MSQ means that you won't find people who are only in the game for a quick jaunt, they're invested, or at least more invested in the game and/ or their character than someone who just purchased WoW Legion and instantly has a level 100 character and has literally zero idea wtf is going only 5 minutes into their WoW experience.

[Granyala]

The day FFXIV starts leaning more towards the way WoW does things (and Stormblood is showing some of it) is the day I quit FFXIV.

Uuuh you are aware that WoW is pretty much Yoshidas Idol?
I just hope that they don't implement the Diablo RNG infestation.

[Aruhen]

Uuuh you are aware that WoW is pretty much Yoshidas Idol?
I just hope that they don't implement the Diablo RNG infestation.

Oh I know. At the moment though while FFXIV and WoW share a lot of things they still feel like very different games to me. FFXIV is basically what I loved about WoW up until the end of Wrath.

[The Casualty]

Personally, I'm still not crazy about normal 8 man being added. I preferred the 8 man is the hard raid, 24 man is the normal raid model and the two are quite different. I didn't mind waiting to see the 8 man raid story since it was separate from MSQ, yet interesting.

If you went from a story model, I'd prefer 24 man to be the main "story" raid and 8 man savage be a side story that's interesting but not directly connected to the expansion's primary events.

I'm not disagreeing with your other points, but don't you think BOTH the 8 and 24 man are side stories? None of them are tied to the MSQ events of 3.0-3.55 unless I am remembering wrong.

Alexander is a side story around Cid, Mide, and the goblin-based Illuminati, and the 24 man ark and onward is essentially using a Sky Pirate theme as a vessel to explore the remnants of the Mhach civilization from the Fifth Astral Era/Sixth Umbral Era.

You could skip both of them and still see the Dragonsong War unfold, and then the events that lead up to Baelsar's Wall without missing anything.

[Anzaman]

Saw couple pics of upcoming outfit and Sice -hairstyle on Reddit.





https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ces_hair_hype/

[Kazgrel]

Just be glad Japanese development has abandoned the grind mentality. Man, old school JRPGs (and some modern ones) REALLY liked the grind and Japanese players ate it up. I think the Dragon Quest series is still pretty grindy and it's borderline a forced national holiday with how many people don't come into work when a new one is released.

*Looks at 8 anima weapons*

*shifty eyes*

[Wrecktangle]

I have reservations about systems that will seem interesting, but become a standard "community dictates only one right way" systems. I'll agree the current materia system is already pointless and could use an overhaul. To your point, (except people wouldn't like having to buy/reacquire them), instead of job roles being cross-class abilities in a pool, those abilities could have been materia. You'd need an ability materia slot on almost all items so players aren't left without an ability, though, so it has its own problems, but I could see that working. The current materia system is basically just extra primary role beneficial stat for those who wish to put in the time/effort to acquire and meld them. Pretty boring, I agree.

Homie I didn't need you go to into the context of the content, just merely that the system itself would be more engaging, thus less IG compared to the existing system, which was rallied against for reasons, but IG wasn't one of them ever mentioned.

Getting in to VERY briefly because I could honestly write a fucking thesis on the topic of Materia, I firmly believe that we could develop interesting and relatively balanced choices that wouldn't be mandated as one right way.

Not sure how repeated runs and time restrains are instant gratification. The current system isn't instant gratification, neither in immediately going straight to endgame, not passing go, and not collecting 200 gil (lulz) nor in immediately being geared. It's fairly steady and readily available progression, which you can argue is repetitive and could be boring depending on your tastes, but it's not instant acquisition & gratification.

I think you got off topic. My post was in regards to specific examples, the first of which was the Materia system. The current Materia system is just quest rewards (IG) or MB (IG). Yes you could SB gear to get Materia as well, which is not IG. My system required much more effort to reap rewards therefore less IG.

Retuning a 24 man into an 8 man IS devoting more time to raiding and shifting development focus to more raiding, raids, and a little more raiding. I could see an argument for 24 man to have a savage difficulty more than reworking/tooling/designing 24 man raids to function as 8 man savage content in addition to the 8 man savage content already there.

Again, I think you missed the point on this one. I'm not debating the fact of devoting more/less time to anything. I'm merely stating I offered ideas to expand content areas and there were rallied against for multitudes of reasons, but IG was never one mentioned.

That was to say, based on your statement of "instant gratification is a major reason people don't want change", which I refuted with examples. There are probably a half a dozen reasons why people don't want change, and we can hash them out if you truly want (I don't see much value in it atm), but I truly don't think aversion to instant gratification is at the forefront.

Personally, I'm still not crazy about normal 8 man being added. I preferred the 8 man is the hard raid, 24 man is the normal raid model and the two are quite different. I didn't mind waiting to see the 8 man raid story since it was separate from MSQ, yet interesting.

If you went from a story model, I'd prefer 24 man to be the main "story" raid and 8 man savage be a side story that's interesting but not directly connected to the expansion's primary events. That way you could keep the 8/24 split instead of 8 normal/8 savage/24 catch up.

Me either. I hated that normal 8 man was in. I just hate the idea of 24 mans. They're so beautiful, but the assets are criminally underused. I'd love real engaging content based on those encounters and I think the encounter team could do it without taking away a considerable amount of dev time from other content streams, I truly do.

But again, already a decision they've made to follow in WoW's path. I'd agree that's more shifting in the direction resulting in more instant gratification because players are doing all the paths of content while Square is designing it as different paths.

1: Tomestone gear from roulettes
2: Normal raid / EX Primals
3: Savage raid
4: 24 man seems more a catch up path, but can be a primary gear path if you choose

Instead, people are doing 24 man, normal raid, AND tomestone gear, which overlaps enough to make some irrelevant before you run it, but you still want to run it to see it or there's one thing related. I think they've gotten a little too overlapped and blurred a bit with the Heavensward changes.

I think at this juncture it would be very helpful for you and I to define "instant gratification". I'm not sure I completely follow your thoughts on this (and I normally don't have an issue following your logic, but I'm lost lol).

To me Instant Gratification (IG) is the relationship between high value rewards for low impact effort AND time. Let me also say that IG in and of itself isn't inherently bad, but like all things too much of it, or not enough can be bad.

I think currencies like hunt marks rewarding gear, story quests handing you full sets of gear, Materia as rewards from quests etc. qualify as IG. I do not think Anima quest lines qualify. I do not think EX trials or Savage Raiding qualify.

I think the IG aversion isn't aimed at the content, it's aimed at the journey to max level. It takes time and effort to get to max level in FFXIV because of the need to go through the MSQ to get there. Otherwise people could literally spam PotD for hours and get to max in a couple days. The fact that everyone (or most everyone since it's technically possible to level to 60 without ever setting foot in HW zone) at 60 has gone through the MSQ means that you won't find people who are only in the game for a quick jaunt, they're invested, or at least more invested in the game and/ or their character than someone who just purchased WoW Legion and instantly has a level 100 character and has literally zero idea wtf is going only 5 minutes into their WoW experience.

Agreed. I'm not even sure I could speculate which caters more to IG, I think they're both pretty guilty of doing it at the best of times and sometimes the worst of times.

What I can say though is that my brother went through the game, he watched most of the cutscenes, and got bored at max level. My friend Ken did the exact same thing. So I can state that I know 2 IRL people who have done just that. The MSQ doesn't engage everyone (I bet StrawberryZebra fits this mold as well). The point I was making is that these aren't bad people and shouldn't be told to GTFO of the game.

In this situation, I don't think IG is a bad thing, especially considering the absolutely near negligible cost to the existing playerbase. 99.9678% of the time you won't even know if a person skipped or not nor would it impact your experience/gameplay. Alternatively is the person still a bad person if they skipped but watched the entire Inn playback? I wouldn't think so, but by some of the community's standards yes they would be.

[Katchii]

Agreed. I'm not even sure I could speculate which caters more to IG, I think they're both pretty guilty of doing it at the best of times and sometimes the worst of times.

What I can say though is that my brother went through the game, he watched most of the cutscenes, and got bored at max level. My friend Ken did the exact same thing. So I can state that I know 2 IRL people who have done just that. The MSQ doesn't engage everyone (I bet StrawberryZebra fits this mold as well). The point I was making is that these aren't bad people and shouldn't be told to GTFO of the game.

In this situation, I don't think IG is a bad thing, especially considering the absolutely near negligible cost to the existing playerbase. 99.9678% of the time you won't even know if a person skipped or not nor would it impact your experience/gameplay. Alternatively is the person still a bad person if they skipped but watched the entire Inn playback? I wouldn't think so, but by some of the community's standards yes they would be.

I personally don't call them bad people, they just have different tastes, which is what life is kind of all about.

That said, I have difficulty wrapping my head around how/ why someone would play this game and actively avoid and/or disregard the story because other games do end game content just as well, if not better in some cases, than FFXIV so if end game content and gameplay are their main concern I don't understand why they're here rather than in those other games. I'm not saying they don't belong here or that I don't want them here, just that I personally can't wrap my head around it, but I don't need to. I think other people have the same problem, but rather than simply accept it as a fact of life that people like different things for different reasons, they reject that concept and end up hostile towards the people whose views don't align with theirs.

I have mixed feelings towards the MSQ skip and leveling potions because of my views and personal feelings towards the game. On one hand, because it IS a Final Fantasy title with a heavy emphasis on the story tying everything together to create a living breathing world, I feel you SHOULD be invested in the game world from just a lore perspective with the loot being a bonus/ inevitability with this being an MMO. On the other hand I also accept that the MSQ is a huge barrier for newer players who want to play with friends and the prospect of spending hundreds of hours potentially getting through it all just to be able to play the same content as your friends who have been here for a while is daunting and not very welcoming (this coupled with the character creation restrictions).

A healthy game world is more important to me than everyone experiencing the MSQ "my"way because I fully realize that without all types of players supporting this game, the game I love and enjoy wouldn't even exist.