[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Usagi Senshi]

Congrats, I don't consider torturing myself with laggy jump'n'run in online based games as fun, so I didn't give it too many shots..

I only got to the top tiny ledges area again and have up when I missed and went to the bottom again. Should have switched to ninja for a wee bit. >

Man, there was five times when lag got me during attempts plus jumping is a bit shit in this game when momentum just stops mid jump sometimes.

[Sorrior]

The problem here is that those superbosses also tend to award gear too, gear which you generally need in order to beat the next superboss the game throws at you. While the model itself is comparable to raiding, it also has those rewards attached to it. To take your example of Emerald Weapon, beating it would award you with a Golden Chocobo and, if you didn't have it already, the Knights of the Round Materia by extension. Beating Ruby would get you a full set of Master Materia, another extremely good reward.

Would people have done Emerald and Ruby if they didn't have those rewards attached? Probably, the main reason they existed to begin with was as punching bags for you to use all of the other amazing gear you'd acquired. Outside of them there was nothing else you could really use to measure just how powerful you were against.



Which is very telling. "Raiding", as a concept, doesn't exist outside of MMO's. Everything else within an MMO does, all the social elements, the RPG elements, loot and so on all exist independently as core parts of other game experiences.

Which begs the question, "Why no single player raiding games?". In theory, tactical RPG's would be the ideal test bed for the concept. Something like DA:O, where you can assign the DPS priorities for each character, set their healing targets, conditions where they'd use certain abilities etc. Naturally, beating one boss would award you the gear you'd need to beat the next and so on without the need to constantly farm the same one over and over. Fundamentally, the idea is solid. You'd take on increasingly difficult boss battles as the game progressed that would require you to constantly mix up and vary your tactics to beat them.

The problem, I think, is that at it's core raiding is intended more as a social science experiment than to be engaging content in and of itself. Most of the challenges, in my experience as a guild leader, were getting the right people into the right roles to make the boss a success. Getting high enough DPS, then, was a matter of gear. Getting the rest down was a matter of addons and practice. That kind of experience doesn't translate well to a single player game at all.

Imo the gear focus is a mistake and to this day i say 2.0 and 2.1 had it right with tomestone, crafted abd raid gear being the same ilv. People still raided but it wasn't as much of a focus as it is now and honestly if we made it so you cannot just gear gear gear for stuff it might lead to people working together better.
.that said i also think if raiding as a thing people should do for fun/with friends because they want too/enjoy the challenge not just for the lootz as it often seems to be these days

[dope_danny]

Well the Rising event as maybe the laziest event yet. 3 npcs on the mainstreet of Uldah must be clicked on. Heres a song and minion. Thats it. Fuck off. The longer Stormblood goes on the more the little let downs pile up and sour me on the expansion as a whole. How many events could have been like the valentione event if they werent wasting time on grinds like Erueka?

At this point i have no idea what the next expansion will be structured like but this model really seems to be killing retention. Almost everyone i know that has been subbed for 5 years straight havent touched the game in weeks. Que's for things like heaven on high are as long as pvp on my server and i'm seeing less and less players in zones.

Its a shame because i love this game. I have my encyclopedia eorzea, shirts, statues and more and love it. It replaced WoW for me. But boy do i gotta say they are really looking like they have spread themselves too thin with Stormblood.

[Graeham]

There's more to come for the anniversary event. There's a vendor opposite the stage in Ul'dah that exchanges items for tokens, who also mentions some sort of special instance. I suspect the rest of the event will go live with the anniversary stream or the next round of maintenance.

[lawow74]

Que's for things like heaven on high are as long as pvp on my server and i'm seeing less and less players in zones.

Dunno what the actual queue is like, but flying over the other day doing my Hunt Bills I looked and saw nobody there (this is on Excalibur). Sucks, I'm hoping to lean on that in 4.4 for Tomestone capping.

[dope_danny]

There's more to come for the anniversary event. There's a vendor opposite the stage in Ul'dah that exchanges items for tokens, who also mentions some sort of special instance. I suspect the rest of the event will go live with the anniversary stream or the next round of maintenance.

Boy i hope so. Because the 'the game almost died, thanks for your support wise consumer' thing is kind of old at this point.

- - - Updated - - -

Dunno what the actual queue is like, but flying over the other day doing my Hunt Bills I looked and saw nobody there (this is on Excalibur). Sucks, I'm hoping to lean on that in 4.4 for Tomestone capping.

I was there last night at like 8pm on a sunday and there were two other people standing around going 'is HoH dead?' in shout chat. I'll have to check quarry mill and see how that is.

But maybe its not player burn out and just too many people stuck grinding in eureka? i'm straight up refusing to do that since i have better stuff to do with my time so for all know that place could be packed.

[Kazgrel]

Part of it definitely can be attributed to “the Eureka effect”. My group met up for HoH last Thursday and there was literally no one standing out by the NPCs. Prior to Pagos, you’d easily see at least a dozen folks scattered around those NPCs.

Four more Frosted Flakes to go and I’m noping the fuck out of Pagos until that light grind is mega nerfed. I’ll have WAR and MNK weapons done...just in time to craft 380 weapons come 4.4. The pacing and release of Anemos was fine. Pagos is a fucking nightmare for any would-be relic collector.

[Wrecktangle]

Regarding the MMO staleness bits people where discussing:

I like leveling. That's why my dream MMO in my head, has an essentially never ending leveling experience. Your level really doesn't matter in my game due to level scaling system. It's merely a vehicle to provide skill points that you invest in crafting new skills and improving existing ones (adding modifiers). Where you accrue power is by expanding and improving your toolbox.

This serves several purposes and caters to various playertypes:

1) You can have as many skills as you want, or as few as you want.
2) You can make them as robust or as niche as you want.
3) You get to use creativity to design tools to beat challenges.

I'll give an example.

Let's say you're currently exploring an area where there is a high concentration of bandit type enemies. These bandits might have a toolkit very similar to a WoW rogue where they can vanish, disable you, bleed/poison you etc.

Let's say you've died a few times because one keeps getting away and grabbing nearby friends. You'd take yourself back to your workshop (game has a very heavy alchemy vibe, a la the Atelier series) and use some of your skill points to create a skill that solves this problem (or empowers an existing one to handle it).

Do you design a deathgrip type of skill? Do you design a hard CC that prevents stealth for x seconds? Do you design a projectile with an execute effect?

This is then layered on by the concept that enemies have AI in that they don't ALWAYS flee when, the same bandit who ran, might enrage, or vanish and try to burst you down. Enemies would come prepared with options and as a player your goal would be to be as prepared as you can be.

Gear would be a generally small modifier on total stat pools. The idea here is that gear is kind of like D2/3 in that it's totally random. However, as Alchemists, we have the ability in our workshops to manipulate most if not all of gear properties. This way crafting is always relevant. You can get a crazy lucky drop and keep it for a long time by investing your time/effort/money into transmuting it.

Gear would afford like a 10-25% over/under when scaled. What that means is that let's say you're level 46. The enemies are all level 46 too. If your gear was on the weak side from say 15 levels ago, you might have a total penalty of say -6% against enemies now whereas 15 levels ago, you probably had a +16% bonus against them. This incentivizes you to care about your gear, improve it, craft new pieces, find new pieces, etc.

Enemies should always be dangerous. I know this is kind of controversial, but the idea is kind of like dark souls, where even the most trivial enemies can kill you if you're careless.

The way difficulty is measured is based on a star system. Different zones have different ratings (since everything scales to level). 1 star is the least dangerous and 5 star is the most. Things that impact difficulty include environmental hazards, enemy density, depth of enemy toolkits, and impairments.

For instance there's a zone I designed called the Abyssal Shelf. It's a hidden 5 star cavernous zone where vision is obscured heavily via darkness and there's only one light source which overlooks the ocean deep in the distance and there are pitfalls everywhere. To successfully traverse this place, you'd need a light source ability, or a torch. The downside to this is that it makes the enemies easier to spot you. Enemies will try and grab you and drop you into pits, mutated bat enemies will try to grapple you and lift you into the air and drop you somewhere to disorient/kill you, etc.

The core concept of gameplay flow would be like explore vast dangerous areas, accrue items/materials/levels and then head back to camp to empower yourself. I just think that if you give people some deep customization and put them in control of it, craft a nice world to actually explore with lots of hidden things (including entire zones) and let them do it with friends, it'll be a success.

The last bit I wanted to mention was that there would be an overarching story. The rough idea is that this world was newly discovered inside of an alchemical component someone accidentally created. There's the concept of alchemy being dangerous and should be respected, and there's a splintered faction of alchemists who think that it should their sole unmitigated tool and the only limitation is your own ambition and these 2 sides splinter and eventually transition to full on conflict as they explore this new pocket world that was discovered.

Sorry for the rant.

There's more to come for the anniversary event. There's a vendor opposite the stage in Ul'dah that exchanges items for tokens, who also mentions some sort of special instance. I suspect the rest of the event will go live with the anniversary stream or the next round of maintenance.

So they're staggering the side event content now too? Jesus...

Well the Rising event as maybe the laziest event yet. 3 npcs on the mainstreet of Uldah must be clicked on. Heres a song and minion. Thats it. Fuck off. The longer Stormblood goes on the more the little let downs pile up and sour me on the expansion as a whole. How many events could have been like the valentione event if they werent wasting time on grinds like Erueka?

At this point i have no idea what the next expansion will be structured like but this model really seems to be killing retention. Almost everyone i know that has been subbed for 5 years straight havent touched the game in weeks. Que's for things like heaven on high are as long as pvp on my server and i'm seeing less and less players in zones.

Its a shame because i love this game. I have my encyclopedia eorzea, shirts, statues and more and love it. It replaced WoW for me. But boy do i gotta say they are really looking like they have spread themselves too thin with Stormblood.

I'm 99% sure you have me blocked, but I did want to pop in on this and say, it's been interesting to see the community shift over the years. I was much more critical than most on here years ago, and a lot of people here rallied against me (not in a bad way, just passionate way). It's interesting to see how many of you have changed your opinions over time to something that mirrors my own.

[lawow74]

There's more to come for the anniversary event. There's a vendor opposite the stage in Ul'dah that exchanges items for tokens, who also mentions some sort of special instance. I suspect the rest of the event will go live with the anniversary stream or the next round of maintenance.

So, from what I've been reading, apparently the NPC that can take you to that instance only spawns at certain times, doesn't seem to be a schedule to it. And it takes you inside a large-scale instance (cough Eureka cough) that features...you guessed it...FATEs to complete. Wow, who came up with this crap? 'Oh, players will do it in one day and quit and then no one will be in there, how can we keep them doing it?' 'I know, let's make it completely unpredictable as to when they can queue up and do it, that will make it more exciting and special and totally not crap on people who can't sit in game for hours and hours all day to try and do our limited-time content!'

[Rogalicus]

I like leveling. That's why my dream MMO in my head, has an essentially never ending leveling experience. Your level really doesn't matter in my game due to level scaling system. It's merely a vehicle to provide skill points that you invest in crafting new skills and improving existing ones (adding modifiers). Where you accrue power is by expanding and improving your toolbox.
-snip-

That sounds like Guild Wars 1, but with skill creation. I like that idea but doubt it would be viable because of design complexity of skill system, it needs to be unified enough to implement and balanced enough to be playable (like not allowing something like frost mage with infinite kiting to exist).

[Granyala]

It's just sad because it seemed like they were trying so hard for so long.

Yeah, it really feels as if the DEV focus has shifted and XIV is merely in barely-maintenance mode now.

[Graeham]

Well, this interview explains a lot of things:

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

[Kazgrel]

Some bits of that interview were rather interesting. But at one point (based on the translation), Yoshida basically admits to lying about the increased NM spawn rate. Also telling folks to basically l2p in Eureka, a series of areas chock full of target dummies that hit back...not doing themselves any favors.

Hopefully the upcoming Live Letter will have some semblance of good news outside the expected news. Won’t hold my breath, though.

[Granyala]

Also telling folks to basically l2p in Eureka

Seriously? I don't know what these people are smoking but it's clearly not good for them.

[Wrecktangle]

It's just sad because it seemed like they were trying so hard for so long. I really expected amazing things for a while there. I had my issues with the game as I have with every game, but I always knew I'd be back. I just go through phases being motivated and demotivated to play any given game.

But Stormblood has felt like a product of a group that isn't sure how - or isn't motivated to - keep the trend going. Everything from the "practically nothing actually happened" story to the recycling of all the usual formulas to the doubling down on the world-activity-killing PotD concept to the absolute atrocity that is Eureka.

I dunno where they're headed, but I don't think it's indicative of their previous passion and successes.

Agreed. I've even praised them as much in the past on this note. I however, just don't see it anymore. I've watched it wane over the years, and now I feel that maybe the dev team is just burned out on it and phoning it in.

That or maybe I'm just really that far gone as a player, but I don't think I am. I look at decisions in WoW and I go I don't like this, BUT I see what they were going for. I can respect the effort, but dislike the implementation. I've echoed the same for other MMO's and even other genres that I've played recently.

Lately, I look at implementations of FF14 and I say to myself. Why? That doesn't make sense. Who playtested this? Who thought this was a good idea?

That sounds like Guild Wars 1, but with skill creation. I like that idea but doubt it would be viable because of design complexity of skill system, it needs to be unified enough to implement and balanced enough to be playable (like not allowing something like frost mage with infinite kiting to exist).

I only very briefly played GW1 back in the day and my memories of it aren't terribly robust. Re: Kiting - mobs have AI to help manage things like this. Where if you're X yards away, enemies will use new moves, or do something to de-incentivize you from maintaining that range.

For instance - that Bandit enemy might have these triggers:

• If player is stunned, either use burst attack, or flee to recruit help
• If player is more than x yards away, either - vanish and recruit help, lunging attack that deals significant damage, or use grappling hook to pull player and CC them
• If hit for more than 20% of max HP in a single hit, become desperate (enrage), increasing damage/attack speed and become immune to CC for 10s
• Upon expiration of hard CC, leap attack or ranged attack available

Not all enemies will have this degree of utility against kiting/ranged offense, and others will have different options and combinations of triggers/effects, but the premise is that enemies react to the things you're doing and it becomes a delicate battle of managing your tools to counter the threats your presented, and then managing the changing dynamic of battles as the triggers unfold.

From the skill side of things - the system is designed with checks and balances. For example, a frost nova type of CC skill would likely have negative features attached to it at inception.

For context an PBAOE root effect (Frost Nova) is a pretty powerful tool. As such it likely comes with expensive costs:

• Long cooldown
• High resource cost
• Slow cast time/missile speed
• Short duration
• Limited range
• Low damage

A skill wouldn't obviously have all of those detractors, but it'd have some. You would then invest additional skill points into the ability to reduce its shortcomings or add new benefits.

I know it's a pretty grandiose idea, but why it's my dream MMO.

Well, this interview explains a lot of things:

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

I was going to link that, glad you did.

I took away from it a complete lack of understanding what makes FF14 good and what makes it bad.

[Kazgrel]

Seriously? I don't know what these people are smoking but it's clearly not good for them.

Q: So they can't just use the same methods in Pagos that they were using in Anemos.

Yoshida: The most efficient way of increasing EL still hasn't been found. This time, the trick is to make efficient use of mutations and adaptations while chaining, but maybe it was a bit too hard to figure out. The people who are waiting on NM spawns don't want to farm regular mobs because of their Anemos experience, and are dissatisfied because they just want to hunt NMs.

So, with the last patch, we didn't really increase the NM spawn rate to as much as it was before [in Anemos], but we increased the amount of EXP they give. It's not as effective as it was in Anemos, but you can still wait for NM spawns if you want to. But for the weapon upgrades, your predecessors spent a lot of time and effort farming mobs to grow stronger, so we won't ease up on that. Please learn how to do that. It kind of feels like even though people ask for change, they're upset when there is change.

I wish I was making that up.

[blackblade]

I wish I was making that up.

"Instead of doing moderately challenging content as a group, please grind trash until your eyes bleed."

I love FFXIV, but it is amazing how they get anywhere sometimes.

[Kazgrel]

I find that so frustrating, too. All the work they did in reviving the game and making it better and creating a strong entry in the genre with its own direction and design...then they get comfortable and start falling back on ancient MMO bullshit that we all thought we left in the dust ages ago and doubling down on it.

It's almost like the initial design of ARR was a "happy mistake" or something and shit like Eureka was actually what they were leaning toward. I suppose the initial design of FATEs suggests this to some extent.

I’ve no idea who the target audience is supposed to be for this. Even the XI vets I know are like “fuck this shit” regarding Eureka.

[Granyala]

I wish I was making that up.

I get what Yoshida says about community cooperation and figuring things out. I'm sure the people that do that have boatloads of fun.
What he doesn't get is that 99% of the games community never do that or get the results from others. So all that is left is

"grind meaningless trash in the CarpalTunnelSyndromeSimulator". CTSS is not fun. It is boring, mind numbing, hell even my group of diehards does not want to go in there and that is saying a lot.

[lawow74]

Again and again I get the feeling someone at SE is basically going 'What? How dare they complain about my content design?!? It is the greatest thing ever and I will force them to continue playing it until they bow down and worship my genius!' See: FATEs, Eureka.