[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Cthulhu 2020]

(It's also kind of a pisstake that almost every ingame event rewards housing items, often even outdoor housing items)

No real arguments here. While I do love holiday housing decoration (we seasonally decorate our houses in a certain ward, and hold big RP block parties, it's amazing) I also realize it's a big reminder to those who don't have a house, especially with the non housing rewards are lackluster.

[Yarathir]

No real arguments here. While I do love holiday housing decoration (we seasonally decorate our houses in a certain ward, and hold big RP block parties, it's amazing) I also realize it's a big reminder to those who don't have a house, especially with the non housing rewards are lackluster.

That really sometimes happens, lol. That you have an ingame event with one non-housing item and two housing items and the non-housing item is snooze-tier. Sad. FFXIV also kind of advertises its housing as a genuine facet of the game to just freely jump into, so I feel like they should work towards a game where that is the actual case.

Sidenote, does anyone else have features and improvements they want in XIV? Off the top of my head, for me, it'd probably be:

-Improved & unlimited housing in general
-Speech bubbles
-Better inventory and item searching system
-Something akin to WoW's account-wide appearance system for glamors to replace the glamor dresser
-Loosening up for glamor restrictions. In my opinion, just about everything except job artifact gear should be glammable by other jobs.
-Improving character customization. From untying existing options (horns from faces, beard styles from faces) to entirely new options

[Ghost of Cow]

Sidenote, does anyone else have features and improvements they want in XIV? Off the top of my head, for me, it'd probably be:

-Improved & unlimited housing in general
-Speech bubbles
-Better inventory and item searching system
-Something akin to WoW's account-wide appearance system for glamors to replace the glamor dresser
-Loosening up for glamor restrictions. In my opinion, just about everything except job artifact gear should be glammable by other jobs.
-Improving character customization. From untying existing options (horns from faces, beard styles from faces) to entirely new options

I'd probably just say a lot of glamour related stuff. It's probably the only system in the game that legitimately feels bad.

Glamour plates are neat as a concept, though. Especially tying each of them to a gear set/job.

[The Casualty]

I would give up my medium house for everyone to have instanced housing. You could even make it more of a gil-sink than it currently is by allowing you to purchase larger plots or other remodeling options.

[Cthulhu 2020]

That really sometimes happens, lol. That you have an ingame event with one non-housing item and two housing items and the non-housing item is snooze-tier. Sad. FFXIV also kind of advertises its housing as a genuine facet of the game to just freely jump into, so I feel like they should work towards a game where that is the actual case.

Sidenote, does anyone else have features and improvements they want in XIV? Off the top of my head, for me, it'd probably be:

-Improved & unlimited housing in general
-Speech bubbles
-Better inventory and item searching system
-Something akin to WoW's account-wide appearance system for glamors to replace the glamor dresser
-Loosening up for glamor restrictions. In my opinion, just about everything except job artifact gear should be glammable by other jobs.
-Improving character customization. From untying existing options (horns from faces, beard styles from faces) to entirely new options

I wouldn't say that the company itself advertises housing as an important feature. In all official literature and advertisements it's not present or is barely mentioned. But it's the players that really hype it up as a feature, being one of the vehicles through which people can build great communities in game.

And to note, there are still some of the small personal houses available on my server/data center. But when people complain they can't get a house and I tell them to go bid right now, they go "I don't want a small, only a medium or a large." So it appears to me that a lot of the time it is a status symbol to many people. Small houses aren't seen as special because they are so easy to get. Mediums and larges are seen as those status symbols because they are limited. Not saying that all people see it as a status symbol, there are tons of people happy with their small houses and would like to own a larger one but haven't won one yet, but a lot of the time it feels that way.

I don't see unlimited housing ever happening, since we know SE had to pay, what was it, something like $1.2M just for the servers to support the new housing wards? But I'm at least glad they have always recognized it as an issue. And even more importantly, SE does not see it as a core feature, and thus could have ignored improving upon it because it wouldn't have affected the game's profits much. BUT THEY DID IT ANYWAY because they respect their players. IMO if unlimited housing ever became a thing though, we'd likely see far less people owning houses simply because it would no longer mean prestige. One of the best parts about FFXIV is that Yoshi P and the rest of the developers are not beholden to a board of directors, a money grubbing CEO, or investors, no, SE knows to keep their hands out of Yoshi P's stuff and he'll earn them tons of money.

Back when LotRO was still popular, its unlimited (but limited in scale and scope) housing system was barely used by the players, likely because everyone knew it was practically unlimited.

Speech Bubbles yes, account wide glamours yes, glamour restrictions I could go either way - yes, job specific gear should remain specific to that job because job fantasy is important, and I certainly wouldn't complain about more customization options.

But limited customization is also linked to performance. The game only has to load 4 faces, 45 hair styles, a limited number of hair colors, etc. into your active memory. With games like Aion, players experienced massive lag due to the almost unlimited character customization engine. Every single time a new player appeared, it took forever to load because it had to load every single unique slider value every time. So while more customization would be nice, I do at least recognize why it is limited as well. We're getting upscaled HD models sometime in the future, and maybe they'll even add a couple more faces, hair styles, etc. since SE does listen to its players and their feedback, but I could also see them not doing it.

[Yarathir]

I wouldn't say that the company itself advertises housing as an important feature. In all official literature and advertisements it's not present or is barely mentioned. But it's the players that really hype it up as a feature, being one of the vehicles through which people can build great communities in game.

Well, yes, a lot of it is player-driven, too. But I've definitely seen some advert type pictures with housing shown off as a big feature for people to just jump into.

And to note, there are still some of the small personal houses available on my server/data center. But when people complain they can't get a house and I tell them to go bid right now, they go "I don't want a small, only a medium or a large." So it appears to me that a lot of the time it is a status symbol to many people. Small houses aren't seen as special because they are so easy to get. Mediums and larges are seen as those status symbols because they are limited. Not saying that all people see it as a status symbol, there are tons of people happy with their small houses and would like to own a larger one but haven't won one yet, but a lot of the time it feels that way.

Again, can't speak for everyone, but I only want a medium or a large, but not for status symbol reasons. Frankly, I don't care about it, I honestly don't even care much about a house's exterior and would take an upgradeable apartment (with multiple floors and more space) if that was an option.

The reason I want a medium and large is interior decorating. A big part of advanced interior decorating and creating specific good result is glitching. Whether it's floating pillars up through the floor or sinking tabletops into them. Stuff like that requires at least two floors to do. As such, apartments aren't viable for it. Smalls are, but the problem here is that the upper floor of a small is about as large as an apartment room, while most of the small's space is in the lower floor. What's the issue with that? Well, for stuff like partitions and other items that can't be put on tables, you can only float them through from the floor below. You can't, for example, sink a partition into the floor. As such, if you have a small and you want to do that type of decorating, your practical space is minimal. Basically a few steps from the door to the opposite wall of the upper floor.

I don't see unlimited housing ever happening, since we know SE had to pay, what was it, something like $1.2M just for the servers to support the new housing wards? But I'm at least glad they have always recognized it as an issue. And even more importantly, SE does not see it as a core feature, and thus could have ignored improving upon it because it wouldn't have affected the game's profits much. BUT THEY DID IT ANYWAY because they respect their players. IMO if unlimited housing ever became a thing though, we'd likely see far less people owning houses simply because it would no longer mean prestige. One of the best parts about FFXIV is that Yoshi P and the rest of the developers are not beholden to a board of directors, a money grubbing CEO, or investors, no, SE knows to keep their hands out of Yoshi P's stuff and he'll earn them tons of money.

I don't think instanced housing would require the same thing. Hell, if islands, again, have no instance timer, that's basically just proof of concept that they could do instanced housing as well.

Back when LotRO was still popular, its unlimited (but limited in scale and scope) housing system was barely used by the players, likely because everyone knew it was practically unlimited.

Well, I didn't play LoTRO, so you may be right. I think there should just be the opportunity for everyone to be able to engage with the content if they want. As much space made as is requested.

Speech Bubbles yes, account wide glamours yes, glamour restrictions I could go either way - yes, job specific gear should remain specific to that job because job fantasy is important,

Yeah, well, at the same time, I can make my DRK glam a chicken suit right now. But yes, job artifact gear should be specific to that job (though I would make an exception for DoL and DoH job gear, since a lot of people wish they could glam that and it's genuinely pretty cool looking even if you're not playing a gatherer or crafter.

and I certainly wouldn't complain about more customization options.

XIV is annoyingly limiting about this. It's high time they do something about it, but I haven't heard a whisper about it and it's making me worry.

But limited customization is also linked to performance. The game only has to load 4 faces, 45 hair styles, a limited number of hair colors, etc. into your active memory. With games like Aion, players experienced massive lag due to the almost unlimited character customization engine. Every single time a new player appeared, it took forever to load because it had to load every single unique slider value every time. So while more customization would be nice, I do at least recognize why it is limited as well. We're getting upscaled HD models sometime in the future, and maybe they'll even add a couple more faces, hair styles, etc. since SE does listen to its players and their feedback, but I could also see them not doing it.

You have to keep improving and adapting to the modern world if you want to be an actively growing game. For current standards, XIV customization is dreadful. Aion may have botched it, but we know MMOs can have a pretty broad customization system nowadays and run just fine.

And I'm also tired of "muh 1.0 coding" or "spaghetti coding" excuses. It's a reason to postpone certain additions, not to not do them at all. That's how I feel about it.

[Ghost of Cow]

The reason I want a medium and large is interior decorating. A big part of advanced interior decorating and creating specific good result is glitching. Whether it's floating pillars up through the floor or sinking tabletops into them. Stuff like that requires at least two floors to do. As such, apartments aren't viable for it. Smalls are, but the problem here is that the upper floor of a small is about as large as an apartment room, while most of the small's space is in the lower floor. What's the issue with that? Well, for stuff like partitions and other items that can't be put on tables, you can only float them through from the floor below. You can't, for example, sink a partition into the floor. As such, if you have a small and you want to do that type of decorating, your practical space is minimal. Basically a few steps from the door to the opposite wall of the upper floor.

I miss Wildstar instanced housing and decoration.

Yeah, I know, I know. Wildstar isn't exactly what other games should aspire to be. But the housing was so good.

[Yarathir]

I miss Wildstar instanced housing and decoration.

Yeah, I know, I know. Wildstar isn't exactly what other games should aspire to be. But the housing was so good.

I didn't play Wildstar but I did see some of their housing stuff. Though it's been too long, so it's all vague.

Anyway, even a game that might otherwise not appeal can have fun features. To bring WoW back into it for a second: even though I wouldn't even remotely consider subscribing and buying Dragonflight for a moment, one of the few cool things that I saw on the alpha was the Drachtyr ability to soar. It looked legitimately... fun. I was not surprised when it got nerfed, though.

[Granyala]

Then again, I do the same in XIV, just for different reasons. It's less, "I don't feel like going through with this." and more "I've done all the things I wanna do, lets do something else for a little while."

Well I don't give too many hoots about power in XIV as well, tome gear is mostly a byproduct of running dungeons with buddies.

- - - Updated - - -

Each patch adds one or more new currencies to grind out, each patch ups the ilvl and shoos you off back to the m+/weekly vault RNG party.

If you want to keep up, you do need to grind. These are the facts.

Well, people yapped on for years how playing alts is lame and they want a lot to do on their main character.
Blizzard listened. Ever since Legion, the AP systems was their answer to the "raidlog" scenario on your main character.

Not their fault that the idiotic wannabe tryhards make everything mandatory or ERMAGAAAWD WE WILL WIPE!!11

- - - Updated - - -

I can read. I can see the broader lines of the discussion.

With respect: no you can't.

I only brought up housing because a poster mentioned that you can take long breaks in FF-XIV "with the DEVs blessing" in order to point out that people can lose something they cannot grind back in a few hours once the catch up mechanics are in place, compared to WoW. Yeah, bohoo it has nothing to do with player power or raiding, that doesn't mean that no effort went into it on the players side. A lot of people probably put more thought and love into their house than into smashing some replaceable boss into pieces to get some loot.

To get back to raiding: inactivity in a guild scenario will cost you your raid spot just as much in XIV as it would in WoW. In XIV you also farm tome gear as a savage raider, especially if you are in a guild that doesn't clear the content very early, so getting your tome stone cap is somewhat comparable to WoW's daily/weekly grind as well.

The only real difference between the games seems to be in the PuG scenario, that is apparently more lenient in XIV. Can't comment on that, since I never PuG raids.

- - - Updated - - -

Sidenote, does anyone else have features and improvements they want in XIV?

-better netcode, so that what happens on my screen isn't delayed by 1 -1.5s, depending on server mood. FF never feels as responsive as WoW did, Blizzard really worked magic on that one.

- glamor plates working everywhere. The restrictions are utterly idiotic. The whole POINT of these goddamn things is that when I swap classes in the wild, I get my look and not look like a clown because the system throws an error message.

- improved housing so I don't have to rely on glitches to place things and ofc I agree: housing should be available for everyone.

[MsSideEye]

Only doing this to respond to specific things and since some of the others want to stop the war between games, and I've had a day to calm down.

I raided actively from TBC till late WoD in WoW. Heroic and Mythic included. Yes, if you want to clear mythic content and be among the best the game is demanding. Not to the point of "thou shalt not play any other game besides me!" (that is BS hyperbole and you know it), but it demands you dedicate a little time to it every day. Yes. Working as intended.

Except farming every day wasn't something that was flat out required during the Wrath to MOP Era to be at a decent level. Back then, we had our own tomestones, since I think if you're in this thread, you know that XIV drew a lot of inspiration for it's game from that era of WoW. We truly didn't start seeing the 'you're on every day or you die' feeling until Wod brought in it's phone game mechanics because it was bankrupt for content otherwise. And things only became worse as time went forward.

Casuals, that means: people who do not raid on a rigid schedule in guild environments and take longer breaks, should not have the illusion that they are supposed to clear current mythic raids. Wrong target audience. There may be PuGs that manage it but these are probably rare unicorns to find and not the norm.

Then it's bad design and something that WoW should have killed ages ago. There shouldn't ever be content in game that can't be done by a group of strangers gathering and working together in an MMO. The whole point of the game is the social experience and fostering those PuGs into eventual guilds is kinda the entire original point of MMOS as a whole. It's why I found 14 so freeing when I found strangers who worked together for a few hours with me in beating the Recent Savages, because I knew it would never happen in Warcraft.

Pugging always was a cesspit in WoW, even back in the Wrath of the Lich King days. Raid leaders demanded an Ice Crown Citadel Gear Score in order to raid Trial of the Crusaders. There is a reason why I never bothered with these idiots and stuck to guilds.

I'm glad you had that benefit. But finding a good guild was often harder than finding a friendly stranger in WoW or a chat channel that didn't do that stupid Anal joke and after my own imploded in the middle of Cata, for me it was either deal with PuGs or not play at all.

To put it bluntly: What you describe is not a problem with the game, the game's mechanics or with the time gating (pimping MAU). What you describe is the ancient community problem of people thinking you cannot attempt/do/clear content unless you have every conceivable power upgrade there is and outgear the stuff to a ridiculous degree.

I don't deny that most of what I've talked about is a community problem. But part of the problem also comes from Blizzard's side as well, when they designed systems like M+ that specifically punish the player for not bringing the best, when their own balance is so completely out of whack that it can leave specs and classes dead for entire expansions. It also is a problem when try and esport some of their content, meaning if you wanna be out there doing it, you gotta follow the best or you're DOA.

NEWSFLASH: content is NOT designed and balanced around people wearing BiS. People use that as a crutch because they are BAD.
These people exist in virtually any online game.

Then why is the Mythic version of the Jailor's raid being nerfed into the ground? If it's designed and balance around a normal mythic raiding guild, then they shouldn't be weakening it at all. Didn't even Blizzard themselves said they'll likely never make this kind of fight again because it was designed for the best of the best?

But then again, it's balance... and Blizzard has never really been good at that.

My personal recommendation: stay away from people that make ridiculous demands of you and find people that know what they are doing and can set realistic requirements.

I mean, that's pretty much leaving WoW as a whole, which I did.

You cannot compare FF-XIV with WoW in that regard. WoW is FAR more gear dependent in general compared to XIV.
XIV's encounters are "do the dance correctly" first and foremost.

And frankly, I find that a much better design. Where if I die, it wasn't because my gear wasn't high enough, but because I stood in the bad or didn't follow the bosses tells.

A bit hyperbolic but that's one reason why I dropped WoW eventually. Yeah sometimes I miss the world too.
But the game developed in a direction I no longer find fun.
Ever since I stopped raiding, I no longer give much hoots about character power, so any monotonous gear treadmill (and lets be honest: 95% of WoW is just that: people chasing character power at all costs) falls flat on it's face.

I've gotta say that I'm surprised that you actually felt the same way as well, considering all the other things you've said that I've responded too.

Just...holy crap. It's a company. They make a video game. They're not your ex, or your estranged mother or something.

Laying whatever other issues you have on a video game isn't reasonable or sensible.

Kinda hard to do when said Video game also helped me through some of those same issues. When looking up to a company that seemed to truly care about their players and the game they created helped me get through days that I thought I'd never survive, sometimes in a literal sense.

The reason I've come to feel this way is the same reason why the LGBTQI+ Community has come to hate JK Rowling, a Sizeable number of Pokemon Fans came to hate Sword and Shield, or why the Teen Titan fans hate Go. It's because they've seen the same people that made the things they loved growing up, the things that helped made them the people they are today, and watch those creators turn around and go against the very values they have in their content, lie to the fans faces, and completely disregard anything that actually made the original content special in the first place.

Is it 'Just a company' that make 'Just a video game'? Probably just is for you.

But for others? It's a deep part of their lives, something that helps define them. And something that's very, VERY painful to cut out once it's grown cancerous.

[StrawberryZebra]

Well, people yapped on for years how playing alts is lame and they want a lot to do on their main character.
Blizzard listened. Ever since Legion, the AP systems was their answer to the "raidlog" scenario on your main character.

Not their fault that the idiotic wannabe tryhards make everything mandatory or ERMAGAAAWD WE WILL WIPE!!11

If this is the case, then Blizzard showed just how out of touch they are with their players. The problem was that there was never any challenging content to do outside of raiding. When you were geared up, even to modest degree, you'd outscaled all the open world content. Anyone who'd played for any decent length of time had more than enough gold to fund their raiding for years to come without needing to put the effort into getting more.

Reputatation rewards were one way of getting players into none-raid content, particularly when the offered enchants of consumable recipies. But once you had them, you had them for the whole expansion. Dungeon content too was one-and-done for the most part. You quickly outgrew them once raids opened up. If you were a raider, you quickly reached a point where raids were the only relevent content.

Let's be real - they knew that their players would go full tryhard mode on AP right out of the gate. Everything about it, from the iconic Warcraft weapons to limited availability world quests and AP sources was designed to suck as much time from their playerbase as possible. By making it mandatory (And lets not mince words, if you wanted to raid at any significant level you needed to be keeping up with AP grinds throught the whole expansion. They deliberately unlock new wings of raids to coincide with borrowed power spikes to make sure you're keeping up) they forced their most dedicated players into busy work tasks under the guise of it being casual content. The YouTuber Preach described it as "Mythic Tax", which I think sums it up nicely. If you want to do Mythic, you've got to grind out the taxes for it.

What FF14 gets right about this situation is that content is fully optional. You don't need to do Beast Tribes or Fates to meet a threshold to do raid content. There's lots of none-power related content you can participate in like Housing. Even getting to the point where you're ready and able to do savage raiding is as quick as a trip to the market board. FF14 puts up almost no barriers between the player and the content they want to do with the confidence that the content is good enough to keep you interested. WoW hasn't had that kind of self-confidence for a long time now.

[Granyala]

Except farming every day wasn't something that was flat out required during the Wrath to MOP Era to be at a decent level. Back then, we had our own tomestones, since I think if you're in this thread, you know that XIV drew a lot of inspiration for it's game from that era of WoW. We truly didn't start seeing the 'you're on every day or you die' feeling until Wod brought in it's phone game mechanics because it was bankrupt for content otherwise. And things only became worse as time went forward.

Incorrect.
Wrath already featured daily quests and gated raid relevant content behind reputation factions (shoulder enhancements) I also vividly remember people going berserk at the start of Mists because there were a handful of epic items gated behind the daily reps and the wannabe tryhards deemed it mandatory to do all factions ASAP and subsequently burned themselves out.

Yes the badges in Wrath were very similar to the tomestones in XIV, yet with the introduction of weekly limited badges, Blizzard encouraged daily play as well.

Then it's bad design [Mythic raids] and something that WoW should have killed ages ago. There shouldn't ever be content in game that can't be done by a group of strangers gathering and working together in an MMO.

Sorry but hat is complete and utter horsemanure and you know it. Not every piece of content has to be tailored to every player. That would be quite impossible. Let Mythic be for the harcore and accept the fact, that as casuals, we are not.

I'm glad you had that benefit. But finding a good guild was often harder than finding a friendly stranger in WoW or a chat channel that didn't do that stupid Anal joke and after my own imploded in the middle of Cata, for me it was either deal with PuGs or not play at all.

I know, I had multiple guilds die over my long active period. It has it's downsides but to have a coordinated and reliable group + never having to rely on randoms even for 5mans was well worth the effort. I really enjoyed doing the early Cata 5mans with my guild buddies. With RNG groups? Not so much.

I don't deny that most of what I've talked about is a community problem. But part of the problem also comes from Blizzard's side as well, when they designed systems like M+ that specifically punish the player for not bringing the best, when their own balance is so completely out of whack that it can leave specs and classes dead for entire expansions. It also is a problem when try and esport some of their content, meaning if you wanna be out there doing it, you gotta follow the best or you're DOA.

FOTM or bust was an issue long before E-Sports. Especially in PuGs. It's a side effect of the content being challenging. Yes, Blizzard has fucked up on balance more than once. You are talking to a raiding SPriest from TBC to WoD. :P

I cannot really comment on M+ dungeons because I never liked the timer-based conceps and thus payed very little attention to them. Sorry.


Gotta run, answer the rest when I find the time.

[Pannonian]

Don't mind me in the discussion, just making sure no one missed this:

[Yarathir]

With respect: no you can't.

I only brought up housing because a poster mentioned that you can take long breaks in FF-XIV "with the DEVs blessing" in order to point out that people can lose something they cannot grind back in a few hours once the catch up mechanics are in place, compared to WoW.

And they were right. You can.

Yeah, bohoo it has nothing to do with player power or raiding, that doesn't mean that no effort went into it on the players side. A lot of people probably put more thought and love into their house than into smashing some replaceable boss into pieces to get some loot.

What do you want them to do? Allow you to keep your house even though you haven't even visited it once in over a month while there's a queue of people trying to get their own house that will basically just be offered the finger? I get your point: it sucks, but it's also an inherent flaw of the system, not Square/CB3's malicious attempts to keep you subscribed.

Let's not even begin to mention that every slight sneeze puts housing demolition on halt for months.

To get back to raiding: inactivity in a guild scenario will cost you your raid spot just as much in XIV as it would in WoW.

Yes, if you go inactive and hinder your guild's progress while taking up a spot, that's going to happen. That is a flaw in neither game.

In XIV you also farm tome gear as a savage raider, especially if you are in a guild that doesn't clear the content very early, so getting your tome stone cap is somewhat comparable to WoW's daily/weekly grind as well.

Which is, what? Two expert roulettes a day?

-better netcode, so that what happens on my screen isn't delayed by 1 -1.5s, depending on server mood. FF never feels as responsive as WoW did, Blizzard really worked magic on that one.

It hasn't been even nearly so bad for me tbh. But sure. Improvements are always useful.

- glamor plates working everywhere. The restrictions are utterly idiotic. The whole POINT of these goddamn things is that when I swap classes in the wild, I get my look and not look like a clown because the system throws an error message.

Agreed. The entire glam system needs an overhaul, though, tbh. I do like the idea of plates, or at least being able to tie specific looks to specific sets or jobs, but other than that? Just throw the entire thing out of the system and redo it whenever possible. WoW unironically handles that better on the system side of things.

- improved housing so I don't have to rely on glitches to place things and ofc I agree: housing should be available for everyone.

Agreed. I also wish they'd overhaul housing in that way. I see so many cool interiors, and while I'm sure a lot of people will say "the glitching difficulty is part of what gives those designs their value!" I'm pretty sure most people use a certain mod to create their intricate housing interiors on the down low, lol.

Ideally, XIV furnishing would be a slightly more limited version of a level editor, where you have a catalogue of items to pluck from (assuming you own them) and you can basically move them freely on every axis, including height.

What I also want to see is for them to stop sprinkling a few disjointed housing items in every patch. I mean, sure, I appreciate that every patch introduces some housing items, but I still feel like it's far too controlled and without rhyme or reason. You have beautiful architecture in the game. Sharlayan, Amaurotine, Elpis, Eulmoran, Thavnairian and hell even some Goblin stuff seen in Alexander. Yet they generally add like 3-4 items in one go and then one will be of one style, the other of another, then another. You have literal situations where you have a table of one style but no chairs to go with it, and then chairs of another with no table to go with those.

I feel like they should just have one guy go around ripping existing objects from levels and just turn them into solo items. Then they can always add new items on the side.

[Granyala]

Then why is the Mythic version of the Jailor's raid being nerfed into the ground? If it's designed and balance around a normal mythic raiding guild, then they shouldn't be weakening it at all. Didn't even Blizzard themselves said they'll likely never make this kind of fight again because it was designed for the best of the best?

Simple: lower participation numbers than were the target. Yes, DEVs can make miscalculations as well.

I mean, that's pretty much leaving WoW as a whole, which I did.

My experience speaks to the contrary, so ... more hyperbole it is.

And frankly, I find that a much better design. Where if I die, it wasn't because my gear wasn't high enough, but because I stood in the bad or didn't follow the bosses tells.

Technically, you can die to stuff due to your gear being crappy in XIV, much more so than in WoW. Though it usually involves mistakes on the players part. Increasing HP pool is one of the most noticeable things in savage, as equipment is earned.

I agree to an extent: yes "do the dance correctly" is better design than "ERMAGAAWD DPS!" like in Alexander 1-4.
Personally I am not fond of binary pass/fail instagib mechanics in group content. Especially coupled with XIVs rather poor response time.

I've gotta say that I'm surprised that you actually felt the same way as well, considering all the other things you've said that I've responded too.

There is a difference between arguing the systems/objectively vs. what I personally feel.
Yeah I was never too fond of the whole gear shabang, even back in the day of being an active raider. Especially having to farm downed content for loot was always particular boring to me.

A pretty looking piece got me much more fired up than some temporary stats that produce bigger numbers. :'D

But for others? It's a deep part of their lives, something that helps define them. And something that's very, VERY painful to cut out once it's grown cancerous.

I feel you. WoW was a part of my life for 10 years. It was... more difficult to let go completely that I'd have anticipated.
Lots of fond memories that I'll treasure till I hit the grave IRL.

In the end though, Blizzard made it easy by killing my character with the forced Draenei revamp. It just wasn't my Ifalna anymore.
Weird how the human psyche works, eh?

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Let's be real - they knew that their players would go full tryhard mode on AP right out of the gate.

Of course they did. Absolutely, that's why the also explicitly stated that it is NOT a requirement to grind once progress slowed down but an option. They also stated right off the bat, that they would accelerate progress to equalize every patch.

I still remember DEV posts about these things.

Yes, you needed to "keep up" no, it did not involve hours of grinding per day. A handful of quests per day and that was it.

The M+ raid level loot enticed my guildmembers to far more grind than AP ever did. I watched them moan about it from my comfy retirement chair. :'D

[Ghost of Cow]

FOTM or bust was an issue long before E-Sports. Especially in PuGs. It's a side effect of the content being challenging. Yes, Blizzard has fucked up on balance more than once. You are talking to a raiding SPriest from TBC to WoD. :P

Pretty much, yeah. I remember the Vanilla days of being a rogue and no one wanting you. Profound sadness.

Of course, it goes back even further than that. Ah, the old days in EQ where every raid wanted a Shaman and X number of Clerics, but no Druids.

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It hasn't been even nearly so bad for me tbh. But sure. Improvements are always useful.

Everything has felt just slightly better since Endwalker released, so that has been nice.

[Granyala]

I get your point: it sucks, but it's also an inherent flaw of the system, not Square/CB3's malicious attempts to keep you subscribed.

I never wanted to state that they deliberately do this. I'm sure they dislike having the Demo timer as much as we do, but as you pointed out: currently it's a necessary evil.

I feel you on the sprinkled items. to this day I don't understand why they don't make a proper housing item catalogue in the crafting menu with integrated previews and data on how to obtain the recipe. I really hate having to go through 3 UI/s or external websites for it.

In general I feel that Blizzard is lightyears ahead of SE when it comes to UI design. Why the heck do we still have text based menus on our retainers?!

[Ghost of Cow]

Simple: lower participation numbers than were the target. Yes, DEVs can make miscalculations as well.

That and Mythic (and Heroic before it) almost always gets hit with the nerf bat after a little while.

I remember being in a really good raid group back in the day. We always got realm firsts despite raiding only 3 nights a week, but we were also often racing against the impending nerfs because we wanted to kill the "original" versions of everything.

[Granyala]

That and Mythic (and Heroic before it) almost always gets hit with the nerf bat after a little while.

I remember being in a really good raid group back in the day. We always got realm firsts despite raiding only 3 nights a week, but we were also often racing against the impending nerfs because we wanted to kill the "original" versions of everything.

*chuckles* I remember.
We used to joke that in 2.5 Magtheridon would use the cubes instead of the player. :'D

[StrawberryZebra]

Of course they did. Absolutely, that's why the also explicitly stated that it is NOT a requirement to grind once progress slowed down but an option. They also stated right off the bat, that they would accelerate progress to equalize every patch.

I still remember DEV posts about these things.

Yes, you needed to "keep up" no, it did not involve hours of grinding per day. A handful of quests per day and that was it.

The M+ raid level loot enticed my guildmembers to far more grind than AP ever did. I watched them moan about it from my comfy retirement chair. :'D

Which is fine once it slows down in between patches. But lets not pretend that Blizzard don't do things like open up Mythic raiding on the same week they make Conduits, Legendaries, Azerite Powers etc available too. It's obvious they've tuned the content with these things in mind. If you're not on that curve already, you're behind before you even get off the start line.

Also bare in mind that, in Shadowlands at least, you've got to fill up your vault each week to give yourself the best chance of being on the right track in terms of gear - Even more so with set pieces, domination sockets etc.

Even if you're not going to an extreme like the World First guilds are, it leads to a situation where raiding at a high level forces you into a cycle of binging WoW for a few months at a time while content is current, followed by being burnt out for a few months while you're waiting on the next patch to repeat it all over again. That's not a healthy model for either Blizzard or the players.

FF14 on the other hand avoids these kinds of problems by simply having minimal barriers to entry and those barriers stay static between resets. Where WoW has an ever rising average player power, FF14 just has one line you need to cross to be ready for the content. For all it's flaws, it's at least more respectful of the players time. And old content stays relevent too, so there's no chance of missing out on savage or ultimates even if you don't take 4 weeks off work every new patch just to keep up with everyone else.

That and Mythic (and Heroic before it) almost always gets hit with the nerf bat after a little while.

This also factors into it too - There's a sense of FOMO on getting things killed before they get nerfed to the ground. Then 6 feet under.

If you want to do the hardest content you don't have the option to go at your own pace. You need to go at Blizzards.