[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Wrecktangle]

Your entire debate isn't about time. Time is just an detrimental effect regarding the root cause.

The root cause is effort. It's offensive to a lot of players watching someone AFK in a dungeon when they can do more. If they try and fail and own it, people understand and adapt.

The issue has, and always will be some moron wants to watch netflix while running Totorak for the 663rd time, forcing me to have to play even harder to make up for his apathy.

That's toxic behavior.

The fact that the run takes 23 mins or 15 minutes is irrelevant. We're not mad it took longer, we're mad that you had no respect to try and help out to speed it up. This is not about going for speed runs. This is about pushing more than 1-2 buttons over and over.

This is why I'm actually have fun with Blade and Soul. I can solo some group content and it provides a significant challenge, if I want to do it easier, I just group up. I always put forth the most effort I can in group content.

[Faroth]

Firstly, I don't work at SE, it's not really my job to work out the details of an implementation.

Secondly, off the top of my head, one way is to give players a soloable but difficult/tedious objective - you can do it yourself, if you want to challenge yourself, but it's better if others help out; ideally help out out of a sense of alturism.

Perhaps the objective is to kill high HP monsters ... that is responsive to skill chains. As you do your normal rotation, windows of opportunity will open for others to throw in a hit or two starting up a skill chain that can keep chaining - further details I will leave to game designers that actually have experience designing such systems. No grouping required.

You can do it yourself, the monsters don't hit that hard, it will just take awhile.

For those helping, maybe give them a small bonus reward when they complete their own objectives.

No one is beholden to each other but you are encourage to help out. Everyone will still be playing together.

So again, FATEs, or the FATE-like events from Guild Wars 2. Not my cup of tea to build a game around. Maybe there'd be a market for it.

[SodiumChloride]

So again, FATEs, or the FATE-like events from Guild Wars 2. Not my cup of tea to build a game around. Maybe there'd be a market for it.

FATEs are weird.

Not all of them are soloable.

You are competing with others for contribution. So others being there can actually be bad for you.

The only way to get contribution is to group up ... and the old problems of "expectations" start to crop up.

Close, but not ideal.

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Then that's not team play.

How is that not team play!? You are coordinating skill chains with others!!!

You are playing together.

I love the fact that we all have to work together and if one does not pull their weight then the whole thing fails.

I see I'm wasting my time. No point arguing with someone whose mind is closed.

[Granyala]

This guy's attitude is my issue with playing Black Mage as a serious investment. I wouldn't want to explain to someone why I don't weave in Flares in my single target rotation and why they just saw Enochian fall off 4 minutes into a fight with heavy movement.

Flares in single target? Does that even make sense, given the fact that you have to transpose and are at the mercy of the server for your first mana tick?

Seems like russian roulette in terms of DPS gain to me.

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I see I'm wasting my time. No point arguing with someone whose mind is closed.

Yes you are wasting your time.

Drop this shitty topic already.
There is no way to make a classical fantasy MMO into the solo oriented game you want it to be, while maintaining it as a classical fantasy MMO with vastly different classes.

The Trinity (Tank/DPS/Heal) alone eliminates virtually every course of action you could take towards challenging solo play.

Don't believe me? Go look at the mess that is GW2 PvE. They tried to get rid of the trinity and utterly failed.

Also no: incidentally hitting the same FATE mob with chained abilities (GW2 has that, you can buff each others attacks if I remember correctly) != strategic team play as you can see in hard dungeon/raids. Not even close.

[Lathais]

So again, FATEs, or the FATE-like events from Guild Wars 2. Not my cup of tea to build a game around. Maybe there'd be a market for it.

Nope, no market for it. That's what Rift was all about when it first released. They quickly realized, that's not the content people want, redesigned them entirely and went a different direction.

[Faroth]

FATEs are weird.

Not all of them are soloable.

You are competing with others for contribution. So others being there can actually be bad for you.

The only way to get contribution is to group up ... and the old problems of "expectations" start to crop up.

Close, but not ideal.

So FATEs with no requirements of contribution... sort of. Obviously you've have to contribute somehow to get credit, but you have to remove 5 other people doing 80% more effort than you being a potential negative impact on you for you to still be rewarded. Because the boss IS going to die if others are cranking out more effort. Not sure how you could hope to balance that out.

How is that not team play!? You are coordinating skill chains with others!!!

You are playing together.

Challenge there is: you have no need to chain those skills. There's no reason to do so. If one person can solo it without any skill chains, 5, 10, 20 people can obliterate it with no skill chains.

On a side note, I do miss the skill chains from FFXI. Modern MMOs don't really lend themselves to that system, but they were often quite cool.

I see I'm wasting my time. No point arguing with someone whose mind is closed.

I think the problem is so far your suggestions sound a lot like removing the perceived group/team aspects from the game and making it a solo game with the rare occassion of another player just deciding to pitch in, though I don't think that's your intent.

The closest game out there to what you're aiming for, I think, would be The Division. It's not quite an MMO, but it has a lot of elements of one.

If we took FFXIV and applied Division methodology, players would see each other in Limsa, Gridania, Ul'dah, and Ishgard as well as within the vicinity of Aetherytes. Upon leaving that vicinity, however, the game would basically be a solo instance where you never see another player out in the world. All mobs, all FATES, everything is basically just your personal instance.

If you invite people into groups in the hub areas (or from friends list, FC, etc), they are pulled into the party leader's instance and now you're grouping up for the different FATEs. Missions would be the equivalent to dungeons and raids that you could go into, but even those would be completely solo'able (if you're really good and a crazy masochist for punishment... yeesh, those missions can be tough).

It's theoretically viable, as The Division has been showing, but translating it into a traditional MMO with skills would be tricky. You'd also face the challenge of having to emulate Guild Wars 2 where there are no true tank or healer classes. Everyone would be able to heal themselves and would have to balance their DPS with Tank skills to be able to be a holy trinity unto themselves to accomodate varying group teams.

Viable, even marketable as, again, The Division is showing, but 3rd person shooter vs traditional fantasy MMO are quite different style of games. Definitely not my cup of tea for what I'd want from FFXIV. It would be an interesting concept for a separate entry into Final Fantasy series and could inject some cool life into one of the side brands like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, though.

Crystal Chronicles has often wanted to do more small group multi-player, but has always been criticized for its lack of engaging and fun solo game. They could possibly do something cool emulating The Division.

[Lathais]

How is that not team play!? You are coordinating skill chains with others!!!

You are playing together.



I see I'm wasting my time. No point arguing with someone whose mind is closed.

Well, the same problem arises as we currently have if the other player is not working with me to achieve that goal.

If we set other individualized goals, it does not work.

You are wasting your time because what you want exists in other games. I realize that. I enjoy those games too. Just because I enjoy those games though, does not mean I want to turn this game in to those games. I like this game for what it is also and do not want it to become other games. I like that it is different.

[SodiumChloride]

So FATEs with no requirements of contribution... sort of. Obviously you've have to contribute somehow to get credit, but you have to remove 5 other people doing 80% more effort than you being a potential negative impact on you for you to still be rewarded. Because the boss IS going to die if others are cranking out more effort. Not sure how you could hope to balance that out.

Come on man. Did you even read the post?!

Faroth you are given a quest to kill 5 HighHPMonsters.

You can solo it. Grouping/finding help is NOT forced on you. But it would be easier if others help, so there is some incentive to get help.

But you are a tough guy and decide to solo it. While you are killing I so happen to come along, start a skill chain, mob dies 2.5X faster. I help you out with one more but deciding I have something else to do and leave.

I helping you have gotten me some karma points, these will be redeemed as a bonus reward when I do the objective myself ... maybe next week.

Result? We cooperated. You got what you came for. I got some extra rewards for my trouble.

If I fucked up, no skin off your back. In no way does it impact you negatively. It would be like I'm not there.

Challenge there is: you have no need to chain those skills. There's no reason to do so. If one person can solo it without any skill chains, 5, 10, 20 people can obliterate it with no skill chains.

That's a problem how?

I think the problem is so far your suggestions sound a lot like removing the perceived group/team aspects from the game and making it a solo game with the rare occassion of another player just deciding to pitch in.

If you are playing an MMO, you are probably looking to play with others, and here you are given the opportunity (but no forced to) help others.

Again, how is this a problem?

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Well, the same problem arises as we currently have if the other player is not working with me to achieve that goal.

If we set other individualized goals, it does not work.

You are wasting your time because what you want exists in other games. I realize that. I enjoy those games too. Just because I enjoy those games though, does not mean I want to turn this game in to those games. I like this game for what it is also and do not want it to become other games. I like that it is different.

... adding this little activity[1] affects the game negatively how?

[1] little activity = quest to kill High HP monsters in a certain area that are vulnerable to skill chains.

[Lathais]

The issue with this line of thinking is the assumption that every instance of ineptitude is attributable to malice. The assumption that any given instance of less-than-perfect play is an intentional slight at your person. (While, of course, attributing all of one's own shortcomings to, "Mistakes that I'll just fix" or something.)

It's almost like a form of paranoia, assuming that everyone is intentionally being bad for the sake of inconveniencing everyone else. And you know, maybe they are slacking a little. Maybe they're not pushing at "progression raid levels" of play for that Toto-Rak run. Are we really going to be so dramatic over it?

Not asking people to play at progression raid levels, just asking them to use the tools at their disposal. Do more than just auto attack. For instance, when I play my monk in a dungeon, am I playing optimal rotation? No. I don't remember exactly, but I think I end up mostly just going Boot Shine>TwinSnakes>Snap Punch>Boot Shine>TrueStrike>Demolish...repeat. Is it optimal? No.

[Granyala]

Viable, even marketable as, again, The Division is showing, but 3rd person shooter vs traditional fantasy MMO are quite different style of games. Definitely not my cup of tea for what I'd want from FFXIV. It would be an interesting concept for a separate entry into Final Fantasy series and could inject some cool life into one of the side brands like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, though.

Well that's what mainly turned me and my friend away from Guild Wars II. The game looks truly gorgeous and leveling/exploring was a lot of fun.
But both of us prefer to play heal/tank. Since that didn't exist in PvE it was rather boring for us.

Elementalist feels like "spam everything -> switch element -> spam everything -> swutch element -> spam everything" rinse repeat. You couldn't choose to
e.g.: stay in water and heal people. Or stay in earth and tank. Nope super long CDs on everything, might as well switch instead of auto attacking.

Division is a different animal entirely and absolutely NOT to my liking. The combination of "ego shooter with head shots" with "whittle down a mobs HP" just feels wrong to me.

As for FF-XiV: I openly admit that in 4mans, there's already way too much DPSing going on when you are a healer. Doing Mythic dungeons with my priestess as holy was refreshing (even though I dislike WoWs healing model with the super small heals that barely get a players HP moving) but at least I could HEAL people again and not throw stones 80% of the time.

As a last note: SodiumChloride needs to get it into his skull that you cannot design content challenging for solo play and then let 10+ people loose onto it w/o it going complete faceroll.
The moment you ramp up the difficulty to accommodate more people -> you just introduced a baseline at which everyone must perform or the encounter will beat the players.

What he wants is just not possible.

[Museigen]

It's a little sad that 80-90% is being described as a speed run. If you can't be counted on to put three quarters of effort into playing without it being described as a speed run then I suppose the pug community just isn't for me anymore. What arbitrary point does it not become a speed run? 50-70%? Is it literally half ass it or instant speed run?

[Granyala]

I mean, if we're only talking about some boogeyman of a player who only auto-attacks and dies all the time and makes the run last 2 hours (Kidding! ) then sure, that's not fun, but does it REALLY happen? I'm not sure I ever saw something like that. It would suck, but lets not pretend it's some common thing that ruins all our days!

Cause of bad DPS is people not chaining GCDs. I see it all the time when I observe random BLMs.
They have 2-3 second breaks between their casts.

Stuff like "Imma ice mage!!11" is exceedingly rare. So far I have not encountered it myself.

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It's a little sad that 80-90% is being described as a speed run.

I don't know man.
80th - 90th percentile parses is pretty damn awesome.

Most of the time I did NOT get that high during my raid days. :X

[Granyala]

Indeed. Just sub-optimal play is not enough to make me start going on rants about, "Kids these days are lazy!"

90% of the time I'm way too busy playing well myself in order to have the time to watch others like a hawk. :X

[Faroth]

Well that's what mainly turned me and my friend away from Guild Wars II. The game looks truly gorgeous and leveling/exploring was a lot of fun.
But both of us prefer to play heal/tank. Since that didn't exist in PvE it was rather boring for us.

I tend to prefer DPS and GW2 didn't click for me either. Part of that was the lack of the trinity strategy aspect.

Division is a different animal entirely and absolutely NOT to my liking. The combination of "ego shooter with head shots" with "whittle down a mobs HP" just feels wrong to me.

Division itself aside, I meant the instance world, up to 4 player group concept being something that could be interesting to explore a bit. Like I said, Crystal Chronicles seemed like it's tried to step into this territory before with mixed results. Something more Divisiony set up for the instanced world and its approach to solo/group play might work with a more action RPG design. Crystal Chronicles would be my vote to explore the possibility, though, not a full blown MMO.

I think the suggestion can work, but not for a true MMORPG where everyone shares the world. In my opinion, you'd need an instanced world where only your party shares it.


I've been enjoying Division, but I only play with 2 other friends. No other gameplay at all. One is a more charge in DPS type and the other is wanting to focus on healing and sniping (stay far away from the firefight). So I think I'm going to have to change my playstyle to the tank type abilities and start drawing fire.

Approaching it from an RPG mentality is the only way to accept it, though. Headshots are just "guaranteed crit" for whittling down HP is all.

[Lathais]

Sure, and that's ok.

I mean, if we're only talking about some boogeyman of a player who only auto-attacks and dies all the time and makes the run last 2 hours (Kidding! ) then sure, that's not fun, but does it REALLY happen? I'm not sure I ever saw something like that. It would suck, but lets not pretend it's some common thing that ruins all our days!

I guess maybe I am unlicky, because I see it all the time. Or Monks who just use only Boot Shine, not even bothering to build the haste buff up. I see terrible stuff in around 25% of the dungeons I run.

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It's a little sad that 80-90% is being described as a speed run. If you can't be counted on to put three quarters of effort into playing without it being described as a speed run then I suppose the pug community just isn't for me anymore. What arbitrary point does it not become a speed run? 50-70%? Is it literally half ass it or instant speed run?

Yeah, I knoda thought by saying I just want everyone performing at 80-90% of what they are capable of would be pretty clear I did not want a speed run. Speed runs everyone is at at least 90-95% and no breaks, no talking, no anything, go in get it done, get out. That is certainly not what I expect from and random group. I do expect people to at least try though, and if you are at least trying, you should be able to get a minimum of 80% of what you are capable of. It's just that people don't try, or don't even pay attention, and just don't care.

[SodiumChloride]

I guess maybe I am unlicky, because I see it all the time. Or Monks who just use only Boot Shine, not even bothering to build the haste buff up. I see terrible stuff in around 25% of the dungeons I run.

I do expect people to at least try though, and if you are at least trying, you should be able to get a minimum of 80% of what you are capable of. It's just that people don't try, or don't even pay attention, and just don't care.

Heh. If you support the current definition (according to you) of "team play", that everyone is responsible for the outcome of your shared objective, then you just got to suck it up.

WoW has been operational for over 10 years. Nothing has changed. Players as a collective haven't gotten any "better". 10 years of yelling, complaining on forums, flaming people ... all for naught.

[Kazgrel]

All this about people half assing it in DF, yet here I am having to AFK to answer nature's call on last trash pack before Calcabrina the other day, only to get back just in time to find the other 3 folks had went ahead and pulled the boss, so I got locked out...only to see they easily handled the boss and I ended up with 2 commendations.

That run took 22-23 mins total, even with my untimely afk.

Moral of the story: If you need commendations...now you know what to do.

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People have provided many good options here. But honestly crafting/gathering is going to be your best way to get disposable income. Even at low levels you can make bank off low level mats.

I just don't understand people who feel so strongly against the relic. It's time consuming, but still possible to advance it even with only minor effort each day.

While it's grindy as hell, it's probably one of the friendliest grinds I've ever seen. There's 3-4 different options for obtaining the unidentified items. The fate grind portion can be done on alt jobs. The items for the third step can be acquired well before one even formally starts that particular quest (same applies for the recently added step to get the weapon to 230). Not to mention it's one path to a 230 weapon; the other being lore + tomestone/whatever from Midas. I still give the edge to the relic due to future stat customization.

I'm just now getting started on it personally (didn't play during 3.1). I already have about 20% of the unidentified items in a span of a week and a half from just doing daily roulettes. The new relic gave me the extra push/motivation to stop being a lazy slob and unlock the level 50 roulette (which I had to do about 10 dungeons to finish unlocking).

So far I want to throw things due to my crap luck with the crystals, but I'll end up leveling up another job as a result of finishing that quest, so it's not the end of the world.

[Sorrior]

Your entire debate isn't about time. Time is just an detrimental effect regarding the root cause.

The root cause is effort. It's offensive to a lot of players watching someone AFK in a dungeon when they can do more. If they try and fail and own it, people understand and adapt.

The issue has, and always will be some moron wants to watch netflix while running Totorak for the 663rd time, forcing me to have to play even harder to make up for his apathy.

That's toxic behavior.

The fact that the run takes 23 mins or 15 minutes is irrelevant. We're not mad it took longer, we're mad that you had no respect to try and help out to speed it up. This is not about going for speed runs. This is about pushing more than 1-2 buttons over and over.

This is why I'm actually have fun with Blade and Soul. I can solo some group content and it provides a significant challenge, if I want to do it easier, I just group up. I always put forth the most effort I can in group content.

You do know in Toto as s DRG one button is kinda mx dps if behind target

[Cthulhu 2020]

The main detractors for me are:
1) the WHM staff is ugly.
2) I know it will be nerfed HARD later on.
3) I don't raid -> I don't need the player power.


If your time is so limited you can't accomodate a run with weak players, you should refrain from doing group content.
Yes I like speedruns and good DPS too. But I don't give damn whether my expert takes 15 or 23 minutes.

240 version looks gorgeous imo.

I also get the feeling that people say it's ugly because they've already convinced themselves they don't wanna do the wotk. As I said I know people who hold the same sentiment who sit around eso, law, allied and centurion capped for more or less months while running stuff.

Have no clue where you get the idea that it's gonna be nerfed. MMO developers avoid needing anything unless it's completely unbalanced to the point of being unfair. The relic is going to be slightly stronger than equivalent ilvl items but that's it. One of the people I was talking about above though, had convinced himself that the 3.25 relic was gonna be 220 and 3.3 was 230, insisting that he had no reason to do it cause of that and not listening otherwise.

[Granyala]

240 version looks gorgeous imo.
I also get the feeling that people say it's ugly because they've already convinced themselves they don't wanna do the wotk.
Have no clue where you get the idea that it's gonna be nerfed.

Have screenshots for that? I only know the 210 version. WHM one looks like a broken Thyrus/Seraph haphazardly glued back together.

Disliked the 210 version before I knew what was necessary in order to get it.

Zodiak Relic set the precedent. It's reasonable to assume that they will ease up on Anima as well, when it is no longer considered current content.