IS this the MMO to be played right now?

[Deleted]

This is true, PvP is in the game, but let's say its not...what PvP should be. You will have die hard fans shoot me down for this, but honestly those people have never played an actual PvP game if FF14 PvP gets a pass in their books.

[Faroth]

1) Dungeons could have events built into them to give a minutia of replayability. I.e. save x npc, take y path, do z objective instead. Could almost build a better M+ counterpart off of it. Stop making linear corridors.

2) They could restructure things to be progressive rather than dead on arrival. Instead of releasing 2 new dungeons every patch that offer completely irrelevant rewards and gameplay (due to be overgeared by an enormous margin), they could make it so each dungeon is progressively more engaging, making use of actual upgraded gear, and offering rewards commensurate to the increased difficulty.

They kinda dabbled with the rescuing the goblins in Brayflox, but after leveling the rewards weren't enough for people to care.

With the 2 new dungeons - I still wish they'd have a larger pool for EX. Say the last 2 dungeons at launch are EXDR. First patch adds 2 new dungeons so all 4 are EXDR. With the second patch, the original can drop into level 60 roulette, but keep 4 dungeons in rotation rather than just running the two new ones. This wasn't quite as much of an issue when they were managing 3 dungeons per patch. That was a heavy workload and hurdling towards burnout, so I'm fine with 2 dungeons per patch, but feel the 4 in rotation for roulette would break it up a bit.

I would like to see EX dungeons be tuned more like Steps of Faith were at release so you can't just pull everything and burn it down. When they fall from EX to 60 roulette, they could have an auto-echo buff to ease them down a bit. Basically agree the new dungeons should be harder and rewarding, then easier when they drop to lower roulette and become essentially for tomestones alone.

Once upon a time I developed my very own wishlist MMO in my head. I'm going to share a small piece of it here with you:

In this game the world was dangerous. Enemies had behaviors that you needed to react appropriately to. Even something as simple as a wolf could kill you at level xx if you were lazy and didn't respect it.

Things like enemies reacted to certain triggers. I.e. enemies getting low on HP could trigger any number of reactions: They could flee towards other camps for help, they could enrage dealing considerably more damage, they could attempt to heal themselves, they could call reinforcements, they could activate defensive skills, use powerful offensive skills, etc. As you progressed into more dangerous territories enemies would employ multiple triggers for multiple different conditions. I.e. One in a much higher difficulty area might enrage and and use defensive skills at low health. This would mean your usual strategy of just stun and burst down would no longer work, as he'd survive and maul you. The best part is, not all wolves are the same. The same wolf that previously fled, might enrage, might howl for help, etc. This way the gameplay stays fresh and keeps you engaged.

That's just one trigger, imagine if there were 5 per mob, how about 10? What about 20? You could mix and match these and create dangerous, engaging scenarios across an assortment of monsters/enemies. The fabled Marlboro is a dangerous creature in FF universe. Imagine if the Marlboro would try and cast Bad Breath. If you interrupted it or CC'd it too soon in the cast, there was a chance it'd enrage dealing double damage, it'd permeate an aura that slows you by 75%, and takes reduced damage until it casts the spell again. Nobody would want to be slowed while that thing is enraged pounding on you. Not even a tank. The obvious solution to this specific mechanic would be to get out of the way of the effect, but the Marlboro also has other ways to try and prevent you from escaping its Bad Breath. Maybe it always tries to stun you before hand. Maybe it does it while you're rooted, etc.

Now I know FF14 isn't obviously built for this (and this tech doesn't exist ha), but this is an example of a dangerous world that I wish I could play in. Where I have a big toolkit, my enemies have big tool kits, and they may have tricks up their sleeves that make me sweat and punish me for being lazy or making horrible decisions.

The tech nearly existed. This exact description is what EverQuest Next was aiming for with the Storybricks enemy AI. Enemies that have preferences and reacted to the environment. Orcs preferred less traveled roads to ambush caravans and travelers. If the road got more traveled, the entire camp would pack up and move somewhere else.

Wiping out enough of an enemy would trigger a retaliation with an army of that enemy marching on a nearby city... which could be razed to the ground if players didn't defend it. Alternatively, if players had built defenses in the city, the guards might handle it without players.

An NPC offering quests that changed based on your reputation with that specific NPC or changed based on how many people had already done the quest. And NPCs in cities that had their own preferences and daily routines, meaning they weren't in the same place 24/7.

EQ Next was really reaching for the stars, but they had presented it in a way that their partner, Storybricks, seemed like it might have pulled it off if it had the time and resources invested into it.

Your description sounds extremely hardcore for a dangerous world. Almost to the extent of returning to EQ days of "you don't travel alone, or even in pairs" to the point of needing a full group to travel almost anywhere or do anything. I'll admit, on paper it sounds exactly like something I'd love. In practice, even I wonder if I'd have time to play it! (I quit FFXI when I found the majority of my time logged in was spent looking for a group rather than playing the game). But as a true "live in a fantasy world" MMO, it does sound pretty awesome and if we're designing in dreamland, again at least conceptually, I'd 100% want to play that MMO.

There are a lot of things the creator of Log Horizon put into the story describing how the game they used to play worked that would make for fun additions to this sort of MMO.

Again, I understand your argument of if they add any itemization that SQEX will be then moving to a dartboard balancing process, but that's frankly bullshit. You assume that by adding said systems that they're unable to balance the game. I flat out disagree with this notion.

I only base the notion on the experience of a dozen or so MMOs through the years facing that very issue.

This is true, PvP is in the game, but let's say its not...what PvP should be. You will have die hard fans shoot me down for this, but honestly those people have never played an actual PvP game if FF14 PvP gets a pass in their books.

I think you'd find the majority of players agree PvP is more of a tacked on afterthought and never was, likely never will be, any real focus in the game. Which is fine, not every game needs to be built and balanced around PvP, but for those who lean towards that as their main preference in an MMO, I can see why XIV definitely doesn't fit the bill.

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EDIT;
Just wanted to clarify, these are my opinions, not facts (outside of the weapon damage thing)

But your idea of content is basically exclusively the raiding aspect, then, just without some of the headaches Bahamut's Coils had. Similar to the at length discussions I've had with Wreck. No worries, I was just curious what you were looking for.

[Deleted]

Yeah, Im not much for alts, that's my biggest problem and truth to be told, FFXIV doesn't do a good job at it, either. But Im a person who enjoys challenging content for the character Im playing on. I know I'm a rare sight who doesn't enjoy alts and that's me at fault if one looks for a fault. I just enjoy having challenging content for where my gear level is, no MMO did this before M+ in WoW anyway and Im surprised how much I enjoyed it. But with all that said, do we even know everything of the xpac? I know they are very sneaky with everything, more or less.

Prolly going to pick it up for the expansion again, but playing Warrior is so ass to find proper raid teams with >>

[Faroth]

Yeah, FFXIV isn't designed for the hardcore raider as the core development focus like WoW has been for years or Wildstar was supposedly attempting. It's not the be all end all only thing that matters, hence the other stuff being added so often (though I think that's downright better for "live in a fantasy world" MMO design - the focus on raiding makes it more "play a game" than "live in another world" for me design-wise).

They've hinted that completing the Savage raid in Stormblood may open a new difficulty level, but I think it's going to be akin to how Bahamut's Coil Savage just rewarded titles for bragging rights rather than going with 3 tiers of itemization per raid.

[Wrecktangle]

They kinda dabbled with the rescuing the goblins in Brayflox, but after leveling the rewards weren't enough for people to care.

With the 2 new dungeons - I still wish they'd have a larger pool for EX. Say the last 2 dungeons at launch are EXDR. First patch adds 2 new dungeons so all 4 are EXDR. With the second patch, the original can drop into level 60 roulette, but keep 4 dungeons in rotation rather than just running the two new ones. This wasn't quite as much of an issue when they were managing 3 dungeons per patch. That was a heavy workload and hurdling towards burnout, so I'm fine with 2 dungeons per patch, but feel the 4 in rotation for roulette would break it up a bit.

I would like to see EX dungeons be tuned more like Steps of Faith were at release so you can't just pull everything and burn it down. When they fall from EX to 60 roulette, they could have an auto-echo buff to ease them down a bit. Basically agree the new dungeons should be harder and rewarding, then easier when they drop to lower roulette and become essentially for tomestones alone.

Agreed only 2 "relevant" dungeons at a time and I REALLY struggle to use the world relevant here, was grating. It got tired, real fast. It seems you and i ultimately agree that the current method isn't optimal if the most important metric is fun (which it should be IMO).

The tech nearly existed. This exact description is what EverQuest Next was aiming for with the Storybricks enemy AI. Enemies that have preferences and reacted to the environment. Orcs preferred less traveled roads to ambush caravans and travelers. If the road got more traveled, the entire camp would pack up and move somewhere else.

Wiping out enough of an enemy would trigger a retaliation with an army of that enemy marching on a nearby city... which could be razed to the ground if players didn't defend it. Alternatively, if players had built defenses in the city, the guards might handle it without players.

An NPC offering quests that changed based on your reputation with that specific NPC or changed based on how many people had already done the quest. And NPCs in cities that had their own preferences and daily routines, meaning they weren't in the same place 24/7.

EQ Next was really reaching for the stars, but they had presented it in a way that their partner, Storybricks, seemed like it might have pulled it off if it had the time and resources invested into it.

While this isn't what I was referring to, these ideas were similarly present in my dream MMO. I felt that this type of environment combined with the combat mechanics I stated previously would really create that fun, dangerous, engaging world I sought after. Letting that town get destroyed would prevent you from acquiring quests there, also make it harder to rest and recover should you run out of supplies (in my dream MMO, crafting and gathering were actually very core to your characters progression a la Atelier/Mana Khemia series). The whole reason you ventured out into these unknown fringe territories was to acquire rare materials to craft more powerful items (be they offensive/restorative/crafting related) or to sell rare materials on the marketplace as money was VERY hard to come by. NPC's didn't have generic quests, their quests evolved and were slightly randomized. If a village is in danger elsewhere in the zone, an NPC's quest might update to reflect that and rewards would update to reflect the easier/hard activity.

We should start a business . You handle your pieces I'll handle the gameplay and we'll get a compromise both crowds will love methinks.

Your description sounds extremely hardcore for a dangerous world. Almost to the extent of returning to EQ days of "you don't travel alone, or even in pairs" to the point of needing a full group to travel almost anywhere or do anything. I'll admit, on paper it sounds exactly like something I'd love. In practice, even I wonder if I'd have time to play it! (I quit FFXI when I found the majority of my time logged in was spent looking for a group rather than playing the game). But as a true "live in a fantasy world" MMO, it does sound pretty awesome and if we're designing in dreamland, again at least conceptually, I'd 100% want to play that MMO.

By all means traveling alone is fine! You just need to be careful and always aware of your surroundings. You can't just run in willy nilly repeatedly and mash buttons to success. You need strategy and you need to use your tools effectively. Traveling in groups in my dream MMO meant you weren't as stealthy, which meant that enemies would notice you easier (increased aggro range), and are much more likely to ambush/call in reinforcements earlier, or could be more likely to flee due to more numbers. They also react to tanks and healers, i.e. if a healer cleansed a debuff it could pop a trigger on an add (or multiple adds or multiple triggers) which would add more decision making/engagement on how to handle given situations.

In this dream MMO zones had a star rating. 1-5. 1 was a "safer" zone. More cities/camps, less dangerous mobs (less damage, less triggers/mechanics), safe roads, and lower rewards. In this dream MMO everything scaled with you. Even at level 26 that wolf you met in the beginning at level 1 in a 1 star zone could still kill you. You'd be stronger by nature of gear and skills, but you still need to respect every single enemy. a 5 star zone would have few camps, they'd be in danger constantly, there are no safe roads, enemies would be incredibly dangerous, and hazards are everywhere; but rewards would be very lucrative/rewarding.

In this game you developed your own characters skills from a template. For instance the template might recommend 5-6 offensive skills, 2-3 defensives/evasives, and 1-3 passive/utility skills (but you could do whatever you wanted). This would be your character at level 1. Leveling up would grant points to put in stats (think traditional D&D styled stats that also boosted sub stats) and skill points. If you found enemies killing you because you were constantly in a hit stun, you might "develop" a skill to deal with that. You could also put points into vitality to boost health and faster hit recovery to deal with it. Let's say you're in one of the 5 star zones (I dubbed The Abyssal Shelf) which was very dark, pitfalls, cliffs, enemies who could see in the dark, etc. In order to even set foot in this place remotely safely you'd need skills that illuminate areas (however illuiminating anything also draws attention). The point of the game would no matter what issues you face you could build your character to be better at them with a little creativity.

This system to me meant that there's no true level cap, and thus no 'themepark' endgame. You can invest your skill points into creating new skills (you can even name and map them however you wanted), or empowering existing ones. You can boost damage, lower resource cost, increase its cast speed/recovery frames, add utility like knockback, or stun, or ignore armor, etc. Each effect you added also added counter effects. For instance boosting the damage, typically increased its recovery frames and resource cost. This way you'd be encouraged to actually think about the role and thematic of each skill in your arsenal. Do I want a high MP burn super high damage slow to recovery/start skill? Or do I want a more balanced approach?
You then could build other skills to complement (or chain into) each other. Each skill you developed would have skill slots that you could increase via crafting items (called Alchemy in my dream game). You'd expand your skill slots to give your skills the effects that you want.

Gear was almost a mix of diablo and ff14/wow. Gear from lower starred zones would have less effects/stats and slots to put them in. You could use your crafting to change stats into a stat you wanted, or to reduce costs (i.e. str to equip, movement penalties, etc.) to to boost stat values or to add effects. The 'recipes' would be learned from quests all over the world, or from finding rare materials/drops. The idea would be that you could craft the perfect piece of gear if you took the time and care to do it. You may end up crafting it at level 46, and then at level 71 you find something better, and with room to spare to make it even better.

Sorry this got a little long winded, but these were just some of the ideas I had once upon a time. Sometimes I really wish I worked in game design and not finance haha.

They've hinted that completing the Savage raid in Stormblood may open a new difficulty level, but I think it's going to be akin to how Bahamut's Coil Savage just rewarded titles for bragging rights rather than going with 3 tiers of itemization per raid.

Dear god I wish they didn't just add ANOTHER difficulty. I'd much rather prefer savage versions of 24m content honestly, or savage versions of dungeon bosses or something.

[Faroth]

While this isn't what I was referring to, these ideas were similarly present in my dream MMO. I felt that this type of environment combined with the combat mechanics I stated previously would really create that fun, dangerous, engaging world I sought after.

Well, more building on. The idea of enemies having their own preferences ties in with how they fight. Do they bolster defenses, run for help, have different abilities (and each NPC can have different preferences, meaning a pack of mobs can fight differently today than tomorrow) like you said. I just meant EQNext was expanding it with the AI being racial and more individual to each NPC, both friend and foe.

Letting that town get destroyed would prevent you from acquiring quests there, also make it harder to rest and recover should you run out of supplies (in my dream MMO, crafting and gathering were actually very core to your characters progression a la Atelier/Mana Khemia series). The whole reason you ventured out into these unknown fringe territories was to acquire rare materials to craft more powerful items (be they offensive/restorative/crafting related) or to sell rare materials on the marketplace as money was VERY hard to come by. NPC's didn't have generic quests, their quests evolved and were slightly randomized. If a village is in danger elsewhere in the zone, an NPC's quest might update to reflect that and rewards would update to reflect the easier/hard activity.

Yeah, all this was along the vein of what EQNext was dreaming to build towards. Except adventurers and crafter/gatherers were a bit more separated, allowing players to be full time crafter/gatherer if they wished without having to partake in combat gameplay. This would, however, mean getting players to escourt you to dangerous areas to protect you while you craft or gather rare materials (encouraging guilds or even player driven content in paying adventurers to escort you, etc).

We should start a business . You handle your pieces I'll handle the gameplay and we'll get a compromise both crowds will love methinks.

Find someone with a bazillion dollars to invest!

By all means traveling alone is fine! You just need to be careful and always aware of your surroundings. You can't just run in willy nilly repeatedly and mash buttons to success. You need strategy and you need to use your tools effectively. Traveling in groups in my dream MMO meant you weren't as stealthy, which meant that enemies would notice you easier (increased aggro range), and are much more likely to ambush/call in reinforcements earlier, or could be more likely to flee due to more numbers. They also react to tanks and healers, i.e. if a healer cleansed a debuff it could pop a trigger on an add (or multiple adds or multiple triggers) which would add more decision making/engagement on how to handle given situations.

In this dream MMO zones had a star rating. 1-5. 1 was a "safer" zone. More cities/camps, less dangerous mobs (less damage, less triggers/mechanics), safe roads, and lower rewards. In this dream MMO everything scaled with you. Even at level 26 that wolf you met in the beginning at level 1 in a 1 star zone could still kill you. You'd be stronger by nature of gear and skills, but you still need to respect every single enemy. a 5 star zone would have few camps, they'd be in danger constantly, there are no safe roads, enemies would be incredibly dangerous, and hazards are everywhere; but rewards would be very lucrative/rewarding.

The amount of data this pie in the sky MMO would be bouncing around would be wild. Someday, though... someday this will all be easy. We'll probably play in VR from retirement homes, but someday it'll happen! >_>

[Scufflegrit]

I just enjoy having challenging content for where my gear level is, no MMO did this before M+ in WoW anyway and Im surprised how much I enjoyed it. But with all that said, do we even know everything of the xpac? I know they are very sneaky with everything, more or less.

Prolly going to pick it up for the expansion again, but playing Warrior is so ass to find proper raid teams with >>

I'm the exact opposite there. Mythic+ dungeons in WoW sucked to me honestly. It reminded me of running G rifts in Diablo III with other people. Kill the minimum amount of stuff possible as fast as possible to spawn the boss, kill the boss as fast as possible, move on to the next one. It's kind of a paradox: it requires you to be focused and alert, but it's also mind-numbingly boring to the point of making me sleepy. I do enjoy a challenge, but just trying to beat a clock isn't engaging to me.

re: open world danger in an MMO

Back in DAoC there some groups of monsters that had scouts patrolling their camps. And I don't mean just walking a short path back and forth inside the camp, they would be roaming around sometimes barely within visual range of the camp. If they saw you they wouldn't attack; they'd sprint back to camp and get like 4-5 others to come back with them. So if a scout saw you but you didn't see the scout... yeah. Just being in the area of one of those camps you had to pay attention.

I like the PvP in that game, too. I liked the siege aspects of it, so when I read Yoshida mention something about a PvP overhaul and some potential siege warfare in the future, needless to say I got a bit excited. I also liked the PvP because it incentivized everyone to get involved. Each of the 3 realms had 2 relics - one physical, one magical. So long as each realm had their own (or at least only one of each) there was no shift in power. But if you had 2 physical relics, all physical damage your entire realm dealt went up by 5%. Even in PvE. All 3 physical relics? 10%. Same for the magic ones. So having all 6 was a major boost in power. Of course, it also instantly made you more of a target of both other realms than normal.

[Masoner]

In title.. Is my question

What I liked in WoW. Social aspect.. chilling in goldshire, talking nonsense/duels.. helping others
Dungeons, both sides.. having to form groups for difficult dungeons and make the effort to travel manually but also enjoyed the casual experience and ease of normal dungeons with dungeon finder too - Ofcourse I enjoyed the actual dungeon systems too, I need trinity system. The one reason that puts me off Guild Wars 2 unfortunately.
I dont really care about raiding a great deal.
Enjoyable quests.


Please convince me to play FF or convince me not too ??? I want pros and cons on why you think FF is the MMO to be played right now, or why it isnt the MMO to be played (If not, what is?)

You can play the game for free and level each job to 30, you can then decide if you want to continue.

The fact is FFXIV's community is a million times better than Wow's. Dungeons, (check) Amazing quest with strong stories (check)

I could go on and on. Just download the trail and start playing.

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I'm the exact opposite there. Mythic+ dungeons in WoW sucked to me honestly. It reminded me of running G rifts in Diablo III with other people. Kill the minimum amount of stuff possible as fast as possible to spawn the boss, kill the boss as fast as possible, move on to the next one. It's kind of a paradox: it requires you to be focused and alert, but it's also mind-numbingly boring to the point of making me sleepy. I do enjoy a challenge, but just trying to beat a clock isn't engaging to me.

You are not alone, the + system in Legion caused me to stop playing/bothering to do them all together.

[Wrecktangle]

Well, more building on. The idea of enemies having their own preferences ties in with how they fight. Do they bolster defenses, run for help, have different abilities (and each NPC can have different preferences, meaning a pack of mobs can fight differently today than tomorrow) like you said. I just meant EQNext was expanding it with the AI being racial and more individual to each NPC, both friend and foe.

I was actually moderately intrigued by EQN, only because the one trailer I saw of it back in the day had a Lion person. As a pretty proud Leo that had me sold, right there. (3 guesses which gear set I like to use for my PLD).

Yeah, all this was along the vein of what EQNext was dreaming to build towards. Except adventurers and crafter/gatherers were a bit more separated, allowing players to be full time crafter/gatherer if they wished without having to partake in combat gameplay. This would, however, mean getting players to escourt you to dangerous areas to protect you while you craft or gather rare materials (encouraging guilds or even player driven content in paying adventurers to escort you, etc).

Would you personally prefer them to separate (FF14) or together (my dream MMO)? I think that by having them together you embolden players to step out of their comfort zone. I truly do. If your average FF14 player (hunts, dungeons, normal raids) feels overwhelmed in a 3+ star area, how do I as a developer encourage him to try to explore more dangerous areas? If this person is really into gathering and sees in his codex (basically big book housing all logs, recipes, transmog, etc.) a bunch of blank spaces because he hasn't explored more than the 20 1-2 star zones (oh yeah my world is pretty massive) would this be enough to get them to try it? Would this work on you? (anyone else feel free to chime in). What if the game was smart enough to analyze how/why you died. It could tell you invest in some more vitality, dexterity, a specific type of defensive skill to help make an area easier and safer to navigate, or tips on offensive skills to increase your effectiveness against specific enemies. Would a feature like that help a player?

Your example of combat helping crafters is actually a nice compromise if you wanted to keep the systems separate (I still don't want too), but if I was forced too this could create compelling gameplay so long as the actual combat mechanics were interesting.

The amount of data this pie in the sky MMO would be bouncing around would be wild. Someday, though... someday this will all be easy. We'll probably play in VR from retirement homes, but someday it'll happen! >_>

Wouldn't that be something.

One last piece - you didn't mention anything about my skill system. Mind tossing me your opinion on it? I appreciate the other feedback. Maybe I need to make a post on the gen video game discussions and talk about it. Could be fun.

I'm the exact opposite there. Mythic+ dungeons in WoW sucked to me honestly. It reminded me of running G rifts in Diablo III with other people. Kill the minimum amount of stuff possible as fast as possible to spawn the boss, kill the boss as fast as possible, move on to the next one. It's kind of a paradox: it requires you to be focused and alert, but it's also mind-numbingly boring to the point of making me sleepy. I do enjoy a challenge, but just trying to beat a clock isn't engaging to me.

re: open world danger in an MMO

Back in DAoC there some groups of monsters that had scouts patrolling their camps. And I don't mean just walking a short path back and forth inside the camp, they would be roaming around sometimes barely within visual range of the camp. If they saw you they wouldn't attack; they'd sprint back to camp and get like 4-5 others to come back with them. So if a scout saw you but you didn't see the scout... yeah. Just being in the area of one of those camps you had to pay attention.

I like the PvP in that game, too. I liked the siege aspects of it, so when I read Yoshida mention something about a PvP overhaul and some potential siege warfare in the future, needless to say I got a bit excited. I also liked the PvP because it incentivized everyone to get involved. Each of the 3 realms had 2 relics - one physical, one magical. So long as each realm had their own (or at least only one of each) there was no shift in power. But if you had 2 physical relics, all physical damage your entire realm dealt went up by 5%. Even in PvE. All 3 physical relics? 10%. Same for the magic ones. So having all 6 was a major boost in power. Of course, it also instantly made you more of a target of both other realms than normal.

RE: Mythic +, what was the highest keystone you completed and when if you don't mind sharing? The reason I ask is that this doesn't jive with my experience at all.Like it's literally the complete opposite and completely ignores all the good qualities M+ has.

RE: open world danger. That sounds fun that they just flat out ran to get help upon aggro. That'd be a nice trigger to implement in my dream MMO I think. This way you'd have to act immediately most likely immobilizing etc., to try and stop them and burst them down. Would be fun to see how a solo player handled that mechanic, especially tied with being reduced CC, enraged on CC, or heal on CC. Not sure if you read my Dream MMO post or not, but what kind of skill would you develop to deal with this? The sky's the limit.

You are not alone, the + system in Legion caused me to stop playing/bothering to do them all together.

Would you mind clarifying why the M+ system caused you to stop playing?

[Faroth]

I was actually moderately intrigued by EQN, only because the one trailer I saw of it back in the day had a Lion person. As a pretty proud Leo that had me sold, right there. (3 guesses which gear set I like to use for my PLD).

.....the banana shoulder set!!!! No?

Would you personally prefer them to separate (FF14) or together (my dream MMO)? I think that by having them together you embolden players to step out of their comfort zone. I truly do. If your average FF14 player (hunts, dungeons, normal raids) feels overwhelmed in a 3+ star area, how do I as a developer encourage him to try to explore more dangerous areas?

Hard to say. I like the idea of building an MMO with the concept of building a world. That typically means one individual can't be a master of all things. Einstein was a brilliant mind, but he wasn't a world renowned chef, Olympic gold medalist in fencing, AND a world leading diplomat. For that reason, I like a dream MMO allowing players to really dive in and find themselves with a niche to devote themselves to, allowing them to be a crafter from the start and remain a master crafter for 10 years of gameplay as their focused pursuit without requiring them to become a warrior or mage to run dungeons (honestly, if I had infinite resources and could make an MMO completely however I wanted, I'd try to find ways that a player could be a shop or tavern/inn keep as their focus if they so chose, never having to craft or adventure, but just living a life in a fantasy world as a source of information and rumors).

At the same time, I see no reason to put an arbitrary block preventing of jack of all trades to dabble in different things. It's just as reasonable for a dwarf warrior to be a miner and a dabbler blacksmith, even if they aren't world renowned. I also would say if the player can do both, it would make sense that it's far more dangerous to go mining by yourself as you'd be attracting monsters (you mentioned noise of a large group, mining is noisy, logging is noisy, etc). So even if you're a capable fighter/mage and also a high level gatherer, it might still be wiser to have a partner or party depending on the area.

I think having places that aren't explored & things not acquired can be enough of a temptation, especially if the tools are present to get there and explore. Again, if the systems are in place, I think letting players offer quests with their own rewards to groups could work. Something like you're willing to pay X Moneys for a party to guide you through the Bogs of Scary Things until you've acquired 50 of the Ore of Scary Places. You set it up in a system like Party Finder, requiring you to deposit the Noneys into the system (maybe an added incentive is any monster loot goes to the adventurers). Players decide it's a worthwhile reward and join the party. Once the PF poster acquires the set number of Ore of Scary Places indicated, the system pays out to the players present for their "quest reward."

Similarly, items could be placed in a system like this to reward party members upon completion.

Now, none of this random idea promotes the individual to go out and explore these places by themselves, but I'm suggesting the "I haven't gotten/done this" can likely be enough of a carrot, so long as there's a system in place to let them pursue the carrot.

If this person is really into gathering and sees in his codex (basically big book housing all logs, recipes, transmog, etc.) a bunch of blank spaces because he hasn't explored more than the 20 1-2 star zones (oh yeah my world is pretty massive) would this be enough to get them to try it? Would this work on you? (anyone else feel free to chime in). What if the game was smart enough to analyze how/why you died. It could tell you invest in some more vitality, dexterity, a specific type of defensive skill to help make an area easier and safer to navigate, or tips on offensive skills to increase your effectiveness against specific enemies. Would a feature like that help a player?

The "what killed me/how can I improve" is probably helpful to the player, but I'm not a fan of it. Coming from EverQuest and the "live in another world" the more game elements, theorycrafting, and number crunching the more the curtain is pulled back and it becomes a mechanical game rather than offering a sense of wonderment and community. If your character creation/development is robust and can allow for a multitude of approaches, that's hard to recommend. More vitality is more health, but higher avoidance prevents the hit from happening so you have options on the type of character you're building. Back to the tavernkeep, having taverns be a place of gathering and players discussing these things in game makes it a bit more alive. We saw this in the Commonlands Tunnel, which was the player adopted marketplace as well as a place of discussion.

One last piece - you didn't mention anything about my skill system. Mind tossing me your opinion on it? I appreciate the other feedback. Maybe I need to make a post on the gen video game discussions and talk about it. Could be fun.

I dig the general idea and while I often mention balance problems, you'd be surprised how quickly I also flip to "screw balance" when talking about dream MMOs from the ground up. EverQuest had some fairly wide imbalances with classes, but since the raids weren't restricted to strict numbers, it wasn't as horribly noticeable. An open world MMO can get away with more imbalances here and there in classes than modern MMOs. Once you instance things and give number feedback and pull back that curtain, balance is going to be at the forefront of every decision. If you're designing more sandboxy, I think there's more flexibility.

Log Horizon has a lot of cool dream ideas too. True support classes... man, I'd love to see those come back to MMOs.

I'd love to see a Dream MMO thread in the general Video Games forum. Interesting to see what people contribute.

[Aruhen]

The day that MMORPGs become the way they're portrayed in animes and coupled with VR is the day no one ever sees me again. ...One day...one day...

[Lathais]

Avoided? Like I did something incorrectly? I didn't need to trial the gameplay to make up my mind.

I think if a company wants to generate revenue when their product is purchased, it should be delivered timely. Not upwards of two days later without notification. That's how it should be avoided. Either way, a trial literally has nothing to do with the reason why I'm not playing FF14.

I chose not to play because of their customer service and failed delivery.

Thanks.

Except that you could have used that trial to play the game for that 48 hours, or longer, then when you got your key just applied it to your trial account and kept playing. Seriously, using that as the reason just makes you look like an ass, not them.

[Katchii]

The day that MMORPGs become the way they're portrayed in animes and coupled with VR is the day no one ever sees me again. ...One day...one day...

Agreed. If Sword Art Online (or Log Horizon, or any one of those other super VR type MMOs portrayed in anime) became a reality I'd be lost to the world...maybe not permanently, but for very long periods of time.

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Um, excuse me? Because I didn't get my product that they'd already taken money for, and didn't even receive it 48 hours later... I'm an ass?

Right on, buddy. Seriously, calling me an ass for not getting what I paid for makes you an ass.

There's no excuse for buying a digital product and not receiving it in, or an explanation, in a timely fashion. If you're gonna white knight a company like that, you're the asshat.

Once again, trial has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. As I clearly stated. I don't tolerate that from a company. You might, but I don't.

To live up to my name you so eloquently coined... You can fuck right off.

Did you ever find out why there was a delay in you getting your key? Like you said, situations like this are pretty rare. Completely writing off an otherwise great game for an oops type of thing (that's what it sounds like so far, which is why I'm asking about it) just seems over the top. I wouldn't say it makes you look like an ass, but it does seem rather petulant.

Their customer service can be frustrating, but so is the customer service for every other MMO out there that I've ever dealt with (WoW, Rift, SW:ToR, WildStar, FFXI, FFXIV to name just a few). I've had to deal with SQEX customer service twice, and aside from being on hold/ on the phone for ~an hour each time, the situations were resolved quite well.

[Kazgrel]

Honestly, I gave the company a chance. I called them on 3 separate occassions to ensure my information was correct, or to make sure they weren't going through maintenance, or there wasn't a problem with my funds. The bank assured me the next morning the funds had been withdrawn. My next step was to visit the official forums, and what did I find? This same exact situation had affected hundreds of other people across quite a long timeline. As any reasonable consumer would do, I became worried I'd never get my product that I'd paid for. After two entire business days of waiting with no e-mail reply or contact period, I cancelled payment and requested a refund.

Once again, I had played the game. I knew I liked it. A trial was NOT the reason, and I'm not sure why these people keep force feeding that bullshit to me. Playing a trial in the meantime would also not sate the bad taste left in my mouth from the customer service department. If they can't handle a simple issue with supplying a registration code, I'm certain they wouldn't be of much help with larger issues. Therefore, I have refrained from buying a physical copy, as well. I moved on.

I don't really need other peoples' opinions to confirm or deny my actions here. Please feel free to just move along.

Are you sure you've moved on? Your responses here indicate otherwise.

[Katchii]

Honestly, I gave the company a chance. I called them on 3 separate occassions to ensure my information was correct, or to make sure they weren't going through maintenance, or there wasn't a problem with my funds. The bank assured me the next morning the funds had been withdrawn. My next step was to visit the official forums, and what did I find? This same exact situation had affected hundreds of other people across quite a long timeline. As any reasonable consumer would do, I became worried I'd never get my product that I'd paid for. After two entire business days of waiting with no e-mail reply or contact period, I cancelled payment and requested a refund.

Once again, I had played the game. I knew I liked it. A trial was NOT the reason, and I'm not sure why these people keep force feeding that bullshit to me. Playing a trial in the meantime would also not sate the bad taste left in my mouth from the customer service department. If they can't handle a simple issue with supplying a registration code, I'm certain they wouldn't be of much help with larger issues. Therefore, I have refrained from buying a physical copy, as well. I moved on.

I don't really need other peoples' opinions to confirm or deny my actions here. Please feel free to just move along.

Looked into the issue on the official forums and it does seem to have plagued several people. Everything I read also stated that it can take up to 72 hours for the online transaction to go through and for you to get your registration code, that's three days. I agree with you that it's bullshit. But I've seen WAY worse and this is not something out of the ordinary with online retailers that use third party authentication and whatnot from overseas. So....if you like the game and got your money back, why wouldn't you purchase a hard copy with a registration code so you could play? Why deny yourself the pleasure of hours and days of enjoyment over an ultimately meaningless situation?

[Deleted]

Some see it as a standard of the company being low and not caring about you. its about principles more than anything else, would be my best guess

[Faroth]

*snip*

Out of curiosity, where did you buy it? Through the Square online store?

[Wrecktangle]

.....the banana shoulder set!!!! No?

I don't know what set that is, but if its one I like I don't want it ruined by seeing a banana that I never saw before. LOL.

Hard to say. I like the idea of building an MMO with the concept of building a world. That typically means one individual can't be a master of all things. Einstein was a brilliant mind, but he wasn't a world renowned chef, Olympic gold medalist in fencing, AND a world leading diplomat. For that reason, I like a dream MMO allowing players to really dive in and find themselves with a niche to devote themselves to, allowing them to be a crafter from the start and remain a master crafter for 10 years of gameplay as their focused pursuit without requiring them to become a warrior or mage to run dungeons (honestly, if I had infinite resources and could make an MMO completely however I wanted, I'd try to find ways that a player could be a shop or tavern/inn keep as their focus if they so chose, never having to craft or adventure, but just living a life in a fantasy world as a source of information and rumors).

At the same time, I see no reason to put an arbitrary block preventing of jack of all trades to dabble in different things. It's just as reasonable for a dwarf warrior to be a miner and a dabbler blacksmith, even if they aren't world renowned. I also would say if the player can do both, it would make sense that it's far more dangerous to go mining by yourself as you'd be attracting monsters (you mentioned noise of a large group, mining is noisy, logging is noisy, etc). So even if you're a capable fighter/mage and also a high level gatherer, it might still be wiser to have a partner or party depending on the area.

Hmm.. That might just be a little too far towards Second Life for me haha. I imagine that the sheer amount of exploration/battle content/crafting content would make it very hard to be a master of all, but that the systems all tie in. If you're a really good at battle content it's likely you honed your experienced out exploring and fighting, but didn't put as much time into crafting. Alternatively you could end up finding someone who's level 26 never left a 1 star area, but is fed materials from said well versed battle friend to fuel their obsession with crafting. I don't see anything wrong it, but it's definitely hard for me to associate with.

I like the idea of this fictitious relationship blossoming into them adventuring and exploring together while he forages and crafts things to make them both safer. In this vein I'd argue said level 26 crafter aficionado could likely build heavily into defense and healing skills (a la healer to better support the battle friend).

I think having places that aren't explored & things not acquired can be enough of a temptation, especially if the tools are present to get there and explore. Again, if the systems are in place, I think letting players offer quests with their own rewards to groups could work. Something like you're willing to pay X Moneys for a party to guide you through the Bogs of Scary Things until you've acquired 50 of the Ore of Scary Places. You set it up in a system like Party Finder, requiring you to deposit the Noneys into the system (maybe an added incentive is any monster loot goes to the adventurers). Players decide it's a worthwhile reward and join the party. Once the PF poster acquires the set number of Ore of Scary Places indicated, the system pays out to the players present for their "quest reward."

Similarly, items could be placed in a system like this to reward party members upon completion.

Now, none of this random idea promotes the individual to go out and explore these places by themselves, but I'm suggesting the "I haven't gotten/done this" can likely be enough of a carrot, so long as there's a system in place to let them pursue the carrot.

I think that'd be cool. I like the idea of say you, me and Granyala just grabbing random quests in a 3 star zone from other players to adventure out and explore and protect them. That to me just sounds like so much fun to have. Bonus points if the requester wants to go somewhere exotic and dangerous we've never been before!

The "what killed me/how can I improve" is probably helpful to the player, but I'm not a fan of it. Coming from EverQuest and the "live in another world" the more game elements, theorycrafting, and number crunching the more the curtain is pulled back and it becomes a mechanical game rather than offering a sense of wonderment and community. If your character creation/development is robust and can allow for a multitude of approaches, that's hard to recommend. More vitality is more health, but higher avoidance prevents the hit from happening so you have options on the type of character you're building. Back to the tavernkeep, having taverns be a place of gathering and players discussing these things in game makes it a bit more alive. We saw this in the Commonlands Tunnel, which was the player adopted marketplace as well as a place of discussion.

The feedback loop is just so players who aren't as creative have hints on what they can do to overcome an area they're struggling with.

I imagine that a local village is under attack from say bandits, one of the NPC's outside changes the quest, someone sees it, goes inside and says Faroth Village is under attack by the Bandits again, anyone up to help out? You just see a group of 10-12 people resting/crafting etc in the tavern, drop what they're doing and head over to help. That sounds fun.

I dig the general idea and while I often mention balance problems, you'd be surprised how quickly I also flip to "screw balance" when talking about dream MMOs from the ground up. EverQuest had some fairly wide imbalances with classes, but since the raids weren't restricted to strict numbers, it wasn't as horribly noticeable. An open world MMO can get away with more imbalances here and there in classes than modern MMOs. Once you instance things and give number feedback and pull back that curtain, balance is going to be at the forefront of every decision. If you're designing more sandboxy, I think there's more flexibility.

I'd love to see a Dream MMO thread in the general Video Games forum. Interesting to see what people contribute.

Yeah I imagine balance wise it'd be a hot mess (especially with skills adding effects, and counter effects), but I honestly think in a game like this fun should be king. I think that it's ok to have a downright broken skill, because the enemy might have one too.

In my world it was also open PVP. Which I know a lot of people don't like, but as someone who adores open world pvp and the thought of PVP in a game where you design your own skills sounds like fun. You'd bluff, feint, test boundaries, bait out dangerous moves or defensives. I also think it helps creativity. I mean imagine if you're out and about, helping someone gather killing enemies, and another person comes up. By his looks he's likely a caster of some sort, but then he pulls out twin swords of magic, one fire, one lightning and turns into lightning and zaps towards you and attacks. You both chain your attacks as best you can, trying to setup big combo's when you think the other has no defensive options left. You end up losing. (never did determine what you lost for dying) Now you're annoyed this guy killed you, but in the fight he did something you never saw before. You thought to yourself that was sick, I wonder what he used to build that skill and it encourages you to see what other people came up with. I'll tell you right now, some of my best ideas are built off/improvements of someone elses IMO.

Maybe I'll make the post tomorrow if I get some free time.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Gotta try it out and see for yourself. Everyone I know that plays this game, enjoy it immensely. At the same time, I couldn't be less interested in it. Only you can decide for yourself if a game is "THE" game for you at this point in time.

[Kazgrel]

Yeah, your mom helped me get over it.

Tell her I said thanks.

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Yes, through the official site.

Good job on acting the part of a petulant child.