[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Cthulhu 2020]

It's 50/50. The content is designed to be more difficult as you progress and you've got to keep up with that rise in difficulty.

There's obviously a huge social component in there too. You're letting everyone else in the raid down if your gear isn't good enough and you could be benched or replaced depending on the type of guild you're in. Both of those are massive motivators for players to knuckle down and force their way through the grind.

Social problems aren't restricted to just WoW of course, but I feel as though expecting game developers to offer us amazing insights into human nature and be able to patch in solutions is asking too much of them.

Pretty much. There's just as much of a component that you need to do the stuff outside of raids to gain power as there is the social pressure and latent anxiety to keep up, and with how impersonal guilds and raids feel, players feel threatened if someone has more progress than them, guilting them into doing content outside of raids to improve their power just to keep their spot. Just because it's not exactly necessary to log in and do your chores every day doesn't mean nearly every player feels some level of pressure to do so. It's a poor design decision that continues to force players to engage with the game.

Anyone who thinks there is not heavy amounts of guilt and trepidation felt for missing your daily chores is not a raider or is deaf to the rest of the playerbase. Or in many cases, they don't see them as chores and do them anyway, then lecture others that they shouldn't feel forced to do them. But that falls under being deaf and blind to every other player.

"You're not a bleeding edge progression raider, why do you feel you need to do the chores every day?"

Precisely because they're not bleeding edge - Many of these people are not skilled players, and gear provides a huge boost to your overall performance. If you're not at the pinnacle of skill, gear is the one thing that can push you over DPS thresholds you normally wouldn't be able to make, but should be able to make at lower power levels.

Yes, 9.2.5 heavily nerfed those grinds. But it remains a fact that it continues to be a game design decision made expansion after expansion. I have no doubt we will still see it in some form in the next one.

Maybe if Blizzard spent more time developing fun casual content outside of raids, and pretty much gave you all the tools you needed to succeed in raids, people would be more inclined to engage with the game because they want to, and not because they feel like they have to. It's one of the greatest decisions that the devs made for FF. Removing that component of feeling forced to log in and do literal chores every day and just giving players fun things to do on the side should they choose.

[Granyala]

Making fun side content where doing it is its own intrinsic reward is far more satisfying ultimately, especially if it's well crafted side content.

This. So much this.

Oftentimes I get the feeling that game DEVs don't even try to do fun content anymore. Just throw some arbitrary grind at the player, pepper it with "rewards" and call it a day. They will do anything that gives them player power, even if it was running in circles in the city hub.

[KrayZ33]

Anyone who thinks there is not heavy amounts of guilt and trepidation felt for missing your daily chores is not a raider or is deaf to the rest of the playerbase. Or in many cases, they don't see them as chores and do them anyway, then lecture others that they shouldn't feel forced to do them. But that falls under being deaf and blind to every other player.

"You're not a bleeding edge progression raider, why do you feel you need to do the chores every day?"

Precisely because they're not bleeding edge - Many of these people are not skilled players, and gear provides a huge boost to your overall performance. If you're not at the pinnacle of skill, gear is the one thing that can push you over DPS thresholds you normally wouldn't be able to make, but should be able to make at lower power levels.

Yes, 9.2.5 heavily nerfed those grinds. But it remains a fact that it continues to be a game design decision made expansion after expansion. I have no doubt we will still see it in some form in the next one.

Nah... if you are a bleeding edge progression raider, do the grind, it's the game you chose to do.
If you aren't, don't and do heroic raids and switch to the higher difficulty when you are done with that.
If you aren't and are a bad player, do normal raids and switch to the higher difficulty ones you are done with that

That's what the difficulties are there for.
Most people that don't, and are good, can easily go mythic raiding without grinding anything or even playing more than 1-4 m+ each week. After all, the last heroic raid boss is usually harder than the first few mythic bosses.
They will need several weeks or maybe months more to actually clear the content, if they even can - but after a certain point it's no longer gear or grind or power progression that's holding them back... at some point it's all about 20 players getting their shit together to beat a boss as the game won't give you any more gear or power to do it.

That's not being blind.
Being blind means that you think you need to do all that shit to do content in this game, including the hardest one.
If you are on a guilt trip, it's the raid and guild that's the problem, not you (aside from yourself not realizing that this is just a stupid thing to do) - or rather, you are raiding with the wrong people.

I mean... it's not difficult.
I did it myself... There is still a forum thread on this forum of my guild who was recruiting (back in BC/WOTLK) new players and it says something about 5-6 raids a week (if necessary).
That guild eventually stopped existing.
In Legion I did a little bit of Mythic Raiding in the first tier and didn't feel like I had to grind AP at all. I just started later than the "others" (bleeding edge progression raiders) that's all you sacrifice. It's not like there aren't any good players to play with either at that point in time... they might be less frequent though and you might even need to form your own raid team of likeminded people.
And now in Shadowlands 9.2+ I don't really feel like raiding at all. Maybe in DF I will again. But I could have gone Mythic raiding months ago if I had an actual interest in doing so, because as long as you play like 2 hours a week, you will eventually reach that point. The reason I'm not raiding is the amount of time you invest INSIDE the raid (I just can't play this game for 2-3 hours and not get shit done, it's no longer fun to me)
And if someone isn't playing 2 hours a week, maybe that guy/girl just shouldn't touch that kind of content because it's not meant for them. Or they do touch it but shouln't be surprised that it's difficult and requires you to know your class and invest in your character.
People that "aren't good" as you said - shouldn't mythic raid from the start. It's pretty simple and there is nothing wrong about the fact that there is some kind of content not meant for that type of player.

[Ghost of Cow]

Nah... if you are a bleeding edge progression raider, do the grind, it's the game you chose to do.
If you aren't, don't and do heroic raids and switch to the higher difficulty when you are done with that.
If you aren't and are a bad player, do normal raids and switch to the higher difficulty ones you are done with that

That's the thing though, people just can't control themselves in this regard.

Tell them that they can get +1 haste from punching themselves in the face for an hour and everyone will be posting about how their bruises are Blizzard's fault and talking about how Blizzard literally grabbed their fist and forced it into their nose. Perhaps worse, other people will walk around with their bruises like a badge of honor, mocking everyone else who doesn't have them and kicking them from raids.

"gtfo bruiseless /kick"

There's a large segment of players that are just weird about this shit, and you'll never change them. And you'll never convince them that it's anyone's fault but the mean game developers.

[zealo]

That's the thing though, people just can't control themselves in this regard.

Tell them that they can get +1 haste from punching themselves in the face for an hour and everyone will be posting about how their bruises are Blizzard's fault and talking about how Blizzard literally grabbed their fist and forced it into their nose. Perhaps worse, other people will walk around with their bruises like a badge of honor, mocking everyone else who doesn't have them and kicking them from raids.

"gtfo bruiseless /kick"

There's a large segment of players that are just weird about this shit, and you'll never change them. And you'll never convince them that it's anyone's fault but the mean game developers.

That's precisely why it's part of the job of being a game designer to design your game in ways that doesn't encourage unhealthy methods of "optimising" the fun out of preparing for the content, though.

WoW didn't used to have any of this bullshit with borrowed power systems but instead functioned far more like how FF currently does, with having badges and currencies for buying gear alongside loot obtained from raids, that you could enchant and put gems in, at it's absolute most.

There's no reason whatsoever why they can't go back to that as a means of making the game respect their player's time more.

[StrawberryZebra]

There's a large segment of players that are just weird about this shit, and you'll never change them. And you'll never convince them that it's anyone's fault but the mean game developers.

It's not stats that are all that impactful.

What does matter are all those extra systems on top. Things like Conduits, where the power jump from one rank to the next can be significant. A mage I play with brags that she can now keep Icy Veins up 100% of the time because of hitting a break point where her crit stats and Conduit worked in tandem to both extend the duration and reduce the cooldown.

Situations like this break the scaling entirely are the ones players would punch themselves in the face for an hour for. Because it's less painful than actually doing all the work to get to that point!

There are so many systems that drive player power and you need to engage with all of them to get good performance out of your character. They've added even more of those systems with each major patch. And that is a game developer issue. They're basically designing by landfill, systems are good for one patch or expansion then thrown out and replaced.

It's one of those areas where simple is best. FF 14, while perhaps being a little bit too simple at times, has at least grasped this fact. You have gear and materia. That's it. There are some quirks with the Materia system, I'll give you that, but there are no situations where multiple systems interact and impact player power as dramatically as WoW allows.

[KrayZ33]

It's not stats that are all that impactful.

What does matter are all those extra systems on top. Things like Conduits, where the power jump from one rank to the next can be significant. A mage I play with brags that she can now keep Icy Veins up 100% of the time because of hitting a break point where her crit stats and Conduit worked in tandem to both extend the duration and reduce the cooldown.

Uhum... and without the conduit at max level he had 0% uptime?
20%?
30%?
Or... 95%.

It's not that impactful at all. It just so isn't. I'd argue that as a Frost Mage, you are probably not going above 33,x% crit anway and you will always try to get that amount no matter what just to kill RNG.
And you don't "grind" conduits either so what's the deal. It's just something you get while playing the game.
There is a specific level of conduits you can get at the level you play and that's it. Wanting another level doesn't make you get a another level. It's skill limited.

It's always people comparing someone not playing the game at all with someone playing it 24/7 and beating the difficult content already or whatever.

Ghost of Cow is obviously right, I won't change anyone's mind, but so much information is outdated (like 6+ years old) and just remembered wrong.

There's no reason whatsoever why they can't go back to that as a means of making the game respect their player's time more.

Tell me how WoW is currently different from what you were saying?
As for the borrowed power:
You get all the covenant at max level passively by doing basically nothing.
Conduits are just "there" and have no real impact on what you can do about them.

As for the way to gain gear:
You have "badges" to upgrade gear you got from running a mythic dungeon above Heroic Raid levels.
You can use Mythic0 loot and upgrade it to tier sets.
You can even reroll some items for better substats (only 1 specific set of substats per slot though)

[Ghost of Cow]

What does matter are all those extra systems on top. Things like Conduits, where the power jump from one rank to the next can be significant. A mage I play with brags that she can now keep Icy Veins up 100% of the time because of hitting a break point where her crit stats and Conduit worked in tandem to both extend the duration and reduce the cooldown.

And a lot of people would argue that this is interesting and fun. Which it sort of it as a system, it's just the acquisition that most people complain about.

Conduits are actually a great example of this, though. Most conduits don't actually scale that crazy and you can get them to fairly high level without going nuts. But people will still act as if not having the 278 versions of everything makes them an evil human being.

[Maljinwo]

Can we go back to talking about FFXIV tho?


Like, were you able to get to the top of the jumping puzzle on the summer event?

[KrayZ33]

Can we go back to talking about FFXIV tho?


Like, were you able to get to the top of the jumping puzzle on the summer event?

Sure... I agree, we should stop, but maybe we should also just stop bringing it up for no actual reason.

[Granyala]

Like, were you able to get to the top of the jumping puzzle on the summer event?

New jumping puzzle or the old one? I think I managed the old one. Most difficult part was 94863772897829 people doing it at the same time obstructing the view.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

were you able to get to the top of the jumping puzzle on the summer event?

Three years ago I almost got to the top. Fell down. Didn't try again because the game wasn't designed around jumping puzzles like GW2 was.

[Granyala]

Kugane tower jumping puzzle was fun.
Though them jumps across edges with invisible walls were made of pure evil.

[Cthulhu 2020]

So it looks like we're finally getting armors with badass particle effects.





Based on the history of FF and how they implement cool looking gear, I'm going to place my bets on this being acquired in game, and not for IRL money. I'm not going to say that's for absolute certain, but in the past they've always done a good job at putting the most badass gear in the game, while the fluff items (mostly cosplays of bosses, other characters, and multi-cultural gear) are on the store.

I could be 100% wrong on this, but I don't think I am, nor would they be giving us pictures of the stuff during a major patch live letter if it was just going to be on the store.

IF TRUE, I'm glad they realize you shouldn't put the gear with the crazy looking particle effects on the store.

My theory is criterion dungeon savage rewards or new PVP armors.

- - - Updated - - -

So apparently this gear with the crazy particle effects is the 8 man savage drop gear.

Kind of pleasantly surprised that I won't have to go out of my way to get it.

[Poppincaps]

So it looks like we're finally getting armors with badass particle effects.





Based on the history of FF and how they implement cool looking gear, I'm going to place my bets on this being acquired in game, and not for IRL money. I'm not going to say that's for absolute certain, but in the past they've always done a good job at putting the most badass gear in the game, while the fluff items (mostly cosplays of bosses, other characters, and multi-cultural gear) are on the store.

I could be 100% wrong on this, but I don't think I am, nor would they be giving us pictures of the stuff during a major patch live letter if it was just going to be on the store.

IF TRUE, I'm glad they realize you shouldn't put the gear with the crazy looking particle effects on the store.

My theory is criterion dungeon savage rewards or new PVP armors.

- - - Updated - - -

So apparently this gear with the crazy particle effects is the 8 man savage drop gear.

Kind of pleasantly surprised that I won't have to go out of my way to get it.

We don't actually know if it's Savage or just the raid in general. The weapons definitely will be Savage since normal doesn't have raid weapons, but normally the only difference between normal gear and savage gear from an aesthetic standpoint is that you can dye Savage gear.

[Cthulhu 2020]

We don't actually know if it's Savage or just the raid in general. The weapons definitely will be Savage since normal doesn't have raid weapons, but normally the only difference between normal gear and savage gear from an aesthetic standpoint is that you can dye Savage gear.

It could go either way, but I hope they keep the particle effects to savage gear. That kind of gear looks like it dyes like shit anyway. Like say you want a light color? It's probably gonna look like ass. Most darker armors look bad dyed lighter colors.

[StrawberryZebra]

So it looks like we're finally getting armors with badass particle effects.

They look nice in the artwork but I get the feeling they're going to look awful in gameplay. There's a level of detail to them that is going to end up getting blurred in game and I doubt they're going to pop as well on any background that isn't solid black.

If you have particle effects on full bosses look like confetti explosions anyway, and adding in flame and spark trails is only going to add visual noise to what is already a noisy game.

[Granyala]

Well, this was certainly more difficult than I expected.

Ifalna's small height really gets problematic if she wants to use housing props. Wish these were resize-able.
She needs a bar-stool to barely reach the correct working height for the jewel crafter bench. :'D
The stone found by a rather nervous Graha'Tia and now to be prospected was donated by a generous Spriggan.

[Miriamel105]

The whole point of borrowed powers is, that you get something new with an expansion, but don't have to do all the old stuff to compete, what you would have to do if they would just add it up, because, guess, they would simlpy have to make the monsters strongers to still compete with you.

The main thing borrowerd powers change is making it easier for new players and alts, while keeping things fresh by adding something new without creating a giant mountain of 'must have'.

And yes, FF14 simply got nothing at all. You got job level and item level, that's it. Means your character reaches max level, that's it, no developement left and the item gear is just a numbers game. It's just as time gated as all other MMORPG, you run your dungeons to fill up your weekly limit and maybe do your weekly raids and some weeks later you got one role max equipped. And after 7-8 monthes you got reset and start new with the same. Again only item level, not fancy trinket or special skill or whatever.

Might be enough for people, many will see it as boring, especially because their Paladin is exactly like all other Paladins and so on.

- - - Updated - - -

Three years ago I almost got to the top. Fell down. Didn't try again because the game wasn't designed around jumping puzzles like GW2 was.

Was that one also so terribly designed like other jumping puzzles in FF14 with invisible walls? Or did they at least manage to not have those?

But overall, yes, FF14 is clearly not made for jumping puzzles, it's far too rough programmed regarding movement and barriers.

[Ghost of Cow]

The whole point of borrowed powers is, that you get something new with an expansion, but don't have to do all the old stuff to compete, what you would have to do if they would just add it up, because, guess, they would simlpy have to make the monsters strongers to still compete with you.

The main thing borrowerd powers change is making it easier for new players and alts, while keeping things fresh by adding something new without creating a giant mountain of 'must have'.

That's not really accurate, since item level resets and catch-up each expansion does the exact same thing for alts and new players.

The thing about borrowed power is that it's often just a grind to get back things that you had three expansions ago and keep losing. You'd have some effect that used to be a talent, got removed, tacked onto a legendary in Legion, removed in BfA, added as an Azerite effect, removed in Shadowlands, added as a legendary again, and so on.

It never feels like you're getting cool new things anymore, you're just grinding to get the same crap back each time. I remember being really excited to see new class abilities in BC and Wrath, for example. You just don't get much of that anymore.