[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[threads]

cleared soph ex

pretty fun fight.

[RohanV]

It honestly boggles my mind why they would allow you to have both an apartment and an estate. Like wtf do you need an apartment for if you already own a home?

Answering this really late, but it's to smooth out the transition between the two states. For example, say you own an apartment and want to buy a house. If you can't own both, you have to get rid of your apartment before you can buy the house. Being allowed to own both makes transitioning from one to the other a lot easier and smoother.

[Kaelwryn]

Answering this really late, but it's to smooth out the transition between the two states. For example, say you own an apartment and want to buy a house. If you can't own both, you have to get rid of your apartment before you can buy the house. Being allowed to own both makes transitioning from one to the other a lot easier and smoother.

Ok, well then why not put like a week or something restriction on it so that the people who don't own a house can have first dibs?

[Faroth]

Yeah, I agree a transition system would make more sense than allowing for both. I'd consider one, but would rather people without a house or FC house have apartments.

Honestly, I'll just keep hoarding gil until they let us go to Doma and I can get a house in a Doman ward.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, some grades were quite expensive compared to others, sometimes they were even sold out.



Already told my brother to hide my wallet somewhere.

Where did you pull this from? Trying to find info on it.

[Kaelwryn]

Where did you pull this from? Trying to find info on it.

Its in the patch notes, right above the new recipes section.

[Eleccybubb]

Guys if you haven't done Alexander just go do it. A11 is arguably the most fun I've ever had.

[Gutler]

anyone know the MGP price of the chocobo barding they showed?

[Azmoden]

anyone know the MGP price of the chocobo barding they showed?

It's 150k if I remember well.

[Gutler]

It's 150k if I remember well.

ouch i hope not cause it would go so well with my wrangler outfit.

[Anzaman]

Guys if you haven't done Alexander just go do it. A11 is arguably the most fun I've ever had.

Working on it, just slowing insanely when tanks can't handle people not knowing bosses on release day, leaving after wipe even when it's their fault that boss eliminated us. In the end went in as 5-man premade and got proper 2nd tank, so A9 went down smoothly.

So far only seen A9, but can't wait to get my hands on A9S -- some Sophia Ex tomorrow.. speaking of which, I haven't even done normal mode yet.

[Granyala]

Guys if you haven't done Alexander just go do it. A11 is arguably the most fun I've ever had.

Maybe on weekend. No time to wipe for ours during week days. ^^

[Kaelwryn]

ouch i hope not cause it would go so well with my wrangler outfit.

It is.

Also, I'm not really a fan of A11. Really dislike the goddamn explosions everywhere making it impossible for me to dodge shit.



Bought the Doman barding. Its quite pretty!

[Gutler]

It is.

Also, I'm not really a fan of A11. Really dislike the goddamn explosions everywhere making it impossible for me to dodge shit.



Bought the Doman barding. Its quite pretty!

Hmmm that does look pretty nice (and decently priced as well).

[Faroth]

Anyone that's able to log in and check mind giving a price list on the new items? Curious about a couple. :3


Got through the MSQ (quite a lengthy installment) and Great Gubal hard. Unlocked Alex & Goddess before having to head to bed.

Looking forward to tackling Wondrous Tails with my FC tonight and hopefully get a clear on Sophia before working on Alex. Gah, and roulettes to run. But still wanting to poke at the rep grind in WoW and run LFR too.

Need lotto win, want to play all the games. T-T

[Anzaman]

Bought the Doman barding. Its quite pretty!

Same here, posted couple pics in "Post your character!".

[Wrecktangle]

Complexity for the sake of complexity does not equal fun. I personally fail to see the use of gimmick to make it more fun, especially when you just replace it in the end with another item.

Of course complexity for the sake of complexity doesn't equal fun. That's a stupid statement that I never said. Adding complexity for additional depth/control/reward though can be fun depending on implementation. I'd argue PotD is a fine example of adding complexity as fun considering its a new game mode with its own unique set of rules, rewards, itemization, etc.

Now with regards to itemization, it's very possible to add complexity here and have it be fun. I gave a perfect example earlier in the thread regarding an effect that granted an additional charge of Blood of the Dragon.

If I go by your comment of "it's not fun because you replace it with another item" how can you play FF14 then when that's all you do every single month? Spend tomestones to acquire a piece of gear. Take gear into raid, (or not, up to you) acquire new gear, dispense old loot to glamour status. That's it. You do that non-stop in FF14, yet you have fun playing that? That is hypocritical.

Well, it is impossible, if history has said anything about it, when has there ever been any balance. Tell me one time it has ever been balanced.

WoW is generally pretty balanced when things settle. I can't deny the shakeups from new expacs and their god awful balancing team. That said, they generally get it right afterwards. I.e. right now the game is very closely balanced compared to two weeks ago.

If we're talking balance, remember in ARR when WARs were useless, then they made them mandatory months later? Remember when DRG was the weakest melee and top tier raid teams stacked MNKs? I do. Remember when AST was released and it was dead weight for months? I do. Remember when MCH released and it was terrible? I do. Remember when PLD was basically useless because its utility sucked and it had significantly lower output than the other 2 tanks? I do. Sure FF14 fixed these issues eventually, but they've had their balancing woes too. They've also had times of very nice balance.

Well, for WoW's case, artifact skill is weird perks. Again, spicing it up does not make for fun. Increase complexity for the sake of it does not make it more fun, hell it can be more frustrating. More often than not stuff like proc buffs are more of a headache than it is actually fun. Lining up your procs with your CDs and hope RNG doesn't fuck you. A use item trinket is just another thing to just click along with the rest of the CD, doesn't make it even remotely more interesting, it's just another button. Describe to me an effect that is actually remotely interesting that isn't just going to be a buff that people will just leave it be cause it's another thing or a button that's just another button.

1) Artifact skills aren't weird. They're just new skills.
2) Spicing things up does increase fun. Adding Enochian/BotD spiced up things, sure they made it more difficult, but also more fun. They just needed to tune it to be a little less punishing if you made a mistake, but the overall concept is without a doubt more fun than the previous iteration, I'd be very surprised if a majority of people disagreed with me here.

Let us see. Describe an effect that is cool or remotely interesting:

New Relic Weapon: Gungnir - for Dragoons.

Equip: Immense power courses through the spear into your job stone transforming Jump into Hyper Jump.
Equip: Hyper Jumps damage increased by 20%
Equip: Hyper Jumps cooldown decreased by 10s.
Hyper Jump: Any enemy hit with Gierskogul will be marked for 10s. Jump will now strike all of these targets.

Imagine graphically that when the DRG presses Jump and 3 enemies are marked 2 energized copies of the DRG crash down and explode upwards (imagine like LV3 Lb, but significantly smaller), the DRG lands on the main target similarly.

That's my idea for what a relic weapon should look like and it successfully adds all 3 elements of "power".

1) Vertical Power: The ability hits noticeably harder.
2) Horizontal Power: The ability has a reduced cooldown, in addition to a new effect changing AOE priority.
3) Aesthetic Power: Your attack LOOKS more visually impressive after being empowered. It's very important IMO to really show your character becoming more powerful. I feel like BotD was a perfect example coming into the expac of a DRG LOOKING and FEELING much more powerful.

Then comes the issue of making gameplay changing items. If you do that then well, it's a pain to just keep changing things every time a new item comes out.

Meh, why release expansions or new content, it's just a pain to change things every time new content comes out.

Adding something whether stats or effect to increase power is the very definition of vertical progression.

Not true. Gear is vertical power. You constantly replace it, making the previous completely obsolete. Horizontal would be skill changes, new effects, maybe even just changing some cosmetic things (ala green fire quest for warlocks in wow), maybe having your chocobo learn new skills by training it via combat/racing/what have you. Things like the ability to sprint, super jump, dive, vault, etc. Things to progress your character other than chasing ilvl.

Probably the hardest question to answer, "what defines progression" as it's different to different people. Being a max level job in best Savage raid gear? Completing savage raids? Or is it expanding your character to offer DPS/Tank/Heal and have all three ready for use at a moment's notice (and capable in them)? Is it being an omnicrafter? Is it having enough gil to buy anything you desire on a whim? Is it simply having better gear than you did a week ago? And the answer, I suspect, is all of the above, depending on who you talk to and their interest in the game's offerings.

I think what you're saying isn't quite progression, but rather goals. Progression would be the act of reaching those goals for sure though. I think that FF14 actually does progression really well (i.e. the amount of content you can progress in, etc.) My issue is the reward structure attached to the progression. Almost every piece of content in this game feels so unrewarding because it just doesn't contribute to anything.

What's your view on Palace of the Dead? It doesn't offer increase in character power, but solo'ing it entirely is a challenge, and the leader boards going in provides the bragging rights. Or is a lack of character power increase detrimental to a feeling of progression?

PotD is a cool mini-game. It's lack of character power increase is sub-optimal (IMO) for sure, but it's not a major detractor as the game mode clearly offers fun, value, and challenge on its own. It would be nice to have rewards in that mode translate to something outside that is useful or fun, not ilvl based, and glamour while cool, is tired.

Void Ark to Weeping City, definitely a higher level challenge there and I think each of CT trio had higher ilvl requirements to get into, along with varying mechanics to figure out.

I don't have too much of an issue with the 24 mans regarding difficulty/rewards. I think IMO they missed an opportunity to create a 8m version of them though for midcore players to tackle. I'd say large majority was the dev time/money poured into making new dungeons that offer absolutely nothing to your average player except a new glamour. No challenge, no reward, no fun, no engagement, no nothing.

I consider tomestone progression of ilvl a necessary evil as it's unrealistic to expect a polished game to pump out enough content to keep up with player consumption. If you're savage raiding you don't have to worry about it too much, but a new raid for savage raiders every 2-3 months would be a hectic schedule for a development team too.

I'm ok as one can be with gated tomestone progression honestly. I also wouldn't expect a new raid every 2-3 months, and I don't think I mentioned that anywhere.

I advocated for larger raids within the 6 month time frame we currently receive them at. I'd have liked to have seen 6-7 bosses instead of 4. maybe 6 per first 2, then 7 on the last one. I'd have also liked the idea of being able to tackle them in one instance rather than separate so that if loot drops from one that's more valuable, or maybe comp makes one boss easier than another you have some freedom to tackle the ones you want.

Expanding character progression into new paths brings with it more challenges with balancing the game, especially if we continue to expect 3 new jobs per expansion.

Agreed, but I don't care. We shouldn't subscribe to the notion of oh, well it'll make their jobs more difficult, or it'll require SQEX to actually invest some of the profits of the game back into, rather than siphon it to other projects. That's not our problem to worry about, it's theirs.

Have they actually confirmed 3 jobs per expac? I don't recall hearing that they expect to continue that, but I have been out of the loop for a while. Even still, what jobs are even viable (short of creating new ones). We know SAM is pretty obvious, but what else?

I'd kill for a RDM melee DPS like swordmage with a rapier. I also came up with a fairly cool BLU mage as a tank class concept once too. Could see DAN as a healer class, and SAM as another DPS or tank pending which way SQEX wanted to go. Other than that, not too many ideas for new jobs IMO. Some other shit like BM or PM were stupid in 11, and would be redundant and stupid here IMO.

I think FFXIV is designed with more of a "live in another world for a while" approach and as such pursuing housing decorations, wasting some time in the casino, playing card games and chocobo racing, crafting, or just fishing up fish are intended to be breaks from the real world. While there is higher power gear coming out, I don't feel like the power climb is Square's sole focus. I haven't gotten that impression from an MMO since EverQuest and as an EQ Classic player, I have to say I love the approach.

I have no issues with the distractions, mini-games, and side content. I just wish it felt rewarding to actually do (again not necessarily raw power boosting). I'm also not implying that the power climb is SQEX's focus, I'm just stating that it's the only power progression in the game.

[Faroth]

I think what you're saying isn't quite progression, but rather goals. Progression would be the act of reaching those goals for sure though. I think that FF14 actually does progression really well (i.e. the amount of content you can progress in, etc.) My issue is the reward structure attached to the progression. Almost every piece of content in this game feels so unrewarding because it just doesn't contribute to anything.

If the act of reaching those goals is progression, then having gameplay to reach said goals would be progression. All of these goals can be achieved and not instantaneously, meaning there is a progressive reward structure to achive them. Again, it comes back to a matter of your perception is nothing matters and so far aside from character power, I've not put my finger on what you think does matter. You do mention spell effects, like warlock green fire, below but likewise dismiss glamour as being tired whereas they are essentially the same with one being glamour for the spell. So I'm having difficulty figuring out the type of rewards you'd like to see. (Other than one mentioned further below).

PotD is a cool mini-game. It's lack of character power increase is sub-optimal (IMO) for sure, but it's not a major detractor as the game mode clearly offers fun, value, and challenge on its own. It would be nice to have rewards in that mode translate to something outside that is useful or fun, not ilvl based, and glamour while cool, is tired.

So again, what would be useful or fun that Palace of the Dead (or similar content) could offer that wouldn't be ilvl based nor glamour based? I presume we're excluding minions and mounts on top of glamour and armor/weapons that offer power increase. What would then be the desired reward?

I don't have too much of an issue with the 24 mans regarding difficulty/rewards. I think IMO they missed an opportunity to create a 8m version of them though for midcore players to tackle. I'd say large majority was the dev time/money poured into making new dungeons that offer absolutely nothing to your average player except a new glamour. No challenge, no reward, no fun, no engagement, no nothing.

I'm conflicted on that. It goes back to the argument of easy mode Alexander + Savage Alexander. The multiple versions/difficulties of the same raid is something I still haven't entirely decided where I fully fall on. An 8 man would be nice to be able to run it later with new players to let them see it, but the new Wondrous Tails may help with pushing those to stay active as well, so that aspect may be addressed.

I like dungeons. How long have people in WoW complained about 2 years without a single new dungeon? :/

But going with that thought, so far you're leaning the same direction WoW has taken. Less dungeons, more raids. Add more raids, add more raid bosses, focus on raids.

I'm ok as one can be with gated tomestone progression honestly. I also wouldn't expect a new raid every 2-3 months, and I don't think I mentioned that anywhere.

I wasn't meaning you had stated as such. I meant more of the lack of gating progress would result in needing a new raid every 2-3 months in order for players to have something to do (again, those long content droughts in WoW come to mind).

WoW has also given us a study in removing any gating with the daily quest cap being removed. The result was burn out and claims of players forced to do them all every day. People have no self control. X3 On that particular example, I think the easy solution was to remove prior content daily quests from counting towards the cap. That was why people complained, really. They did new dailies and locked out of going back to work on old reps they hadn't finished. But that's neither here nor there and I'm going off on an unrelated discussion.

I advocated for larger raids within the 6 month time frame we currently receive them at. I'd have liked to have seen 6-7 bosses instead of 4. maybe 6 per first 2, then 7 on the last one. I'd have also liked the idea of being able to tackle them in one instance rather than separate so that if loot drops from one that's more valuable, or maybe comp makes one boss easier than another you have some freedom to tackle the ones you want.

I'd like to see larger raids with more bosses, but with the tight turn around time, I also feel a need to try and be mindful of what's reasonable. We're not talking about a team as big as Blizzard and the amount of new models and things they put out is still impressive to me. Include the fact that they're working out of Japan with essentially live-development localization and it's quite a bit.

I'm aware you disagree on this, feeling they reuse and repeat the same methods too often to be given as much credit as some of us offer. That's fine for us to disagree on it.

If we could get WoW sized raids every 6 months while still getting new dungeons, trials, Primal EX trials, MSQ, new crafting additions, and new side games and mini-games, I'm all for it, sure.

Agreed, but I don't care. We shouldn't subscribe to the notion of oh, well it'll make their jobs more difficult, or it'll require SQEX to actually invest some of the profits of the game back into, rather than siphon it to other projects. That's not our problem to worry about, it's theirs.

That's where we veer in different directions.

I want to be, or try to be, mindful of reasonable expectations with the limits and constraints present. Investing profits back into the game I fully believe is done on a regular basis, though some is of course supporting other projects.

But to take a stance of I want what I want and it's someone else's problem to give it to me comes across as willfully ignoring reality, if not a bit entitled. Throwing money and more people at it doesn't produce instant results, as we've clearly seen with WoW continuing to increase their team working on WoW, yet each expansion takes as long as they ever did with continuing content droughts.

I'm pretty happy with the regular, consistent release of content with new encounters that are generally pretty enjoyable from a smaller team.

Have they actually confirmed 3 jobs per expac? I don't recall hearing that they expect to continue that, but I have been out of the loop for a while. Even still, what jobs are even viable (short of creating new ones). We know SAM is pretty obvious, but what else?

They haven't confirmed anything, it's still speculation. But I get the feeling players still expect three.

Samurai is an option.
Other options from past games that haven't been pulled in yet might be Red Mage and Blue Mage of course as well as
Dancer
Geomancer
Beastmaster / Berserker (since WAR took some Berserker talents, I could see what's left being merged with Beastmaster for a different take on the class than what XI used. I wouldn't mind seeing some abilities that call on beasts rather than having a pet class for it, though)
Necromancer
Time Mage (though arguably AST may have taken this and I'm not sure how well Time Mage would work in an MMO that isn't built around including support classes)

I'd kill for a RDM melee DPS like swordmage with a rapier. I also came up with a fairly cool BLU mage as a tank class concept once too. Could see DAN as a healer class, and SAM as another DPS or tank pending which way SQEX wanted to go. Other than that, not too many ideas for new jobs IMO. Some other shit like BM or PM were stupid in 11, and would be redundant and stupid here IMO.

I'd like to see RDM be a melee caster with a mix of Melee/Caster abilities. Maybe toss in something akin to NIN's ninjutsu combos to trigger some debuff/buff/minor heal options to keep that "jack of all trades" vibe without making them the overpowered "do everything, only take RDM" possibility.

SAM I would like to see as a tank, despite Yoshida making some comments of it as a DPS in the past. I'd like to be a SAM tank / NIN dps player.

I have no issues with the distractions, mini-games, and side content. I just wish it felt rewarding to actually do (again not necessarily raw power boosting). I'm also not implying that the power climb is SQEX's focus, I'm just stating that it's the only power progression in the game.

And thus we come full circle to my first quote on this post... Aside from glamour, mounts, minions, and power boosting, what would feel rewarding as a sense of progression coming from this content?


Enjoying this conversation, even if we veer into theoretical MMO design with it somewhat.





To those who completed the MSQ..... I wanted Ga Bu to come hang out at our FC house and our resident WAR said no. T-T

[Remilia]

Of course complexity for the sake of complexity doesn't equal fun. That's a stupid statement that I never said. Adding complexity for additional depth/control/reward though can be fun depending on implementation. I'd argue PotD is a fine example of adding complexity as fun considering its a new game mode with its own unique set of rules, rewards, itemization, etc.

Now with regards to itemization, it's very possible to add complexity here and have it be fun. I gave a perfect example earlier in the thread regarding an effect that granted an additional charge of Blood of the Dragon.

If I go by your comment of "it's not fun because you replace it with another item" how can you play FF14 then when that's all you do every single month? Spend tomestones to acquire a piece of gear. Take gear into raid, (or not, up to you) acquire new gear, dispense old loot to glamour status. That's it. You do that non-stop in FF14, yet you have fun playing that? That is hypocritical.

I noted for game changing (or class as you're noting) items isn't going to be fun when you replace it and potentially changing your cycle / rotation.

WoW is generally pretty balanced when things settle. I can't deny the shakeups from new expacs and their god awful balancing team. That said, they generally get it right afterwards. I.e. right now the game is very closely balanced compared to two weeks ago.

If we're talking balance, remember in ARR when WARs were useless, then they made them mandatory months later? Remember when DRG was the weakest melee and top tier raid teams stacked MNKs? I do. Remember when AST was released and it was dead weight for months? I do. Remember when MCH released and it was terrible? I do. Remember when PLD was basically useless because its utility sucked and it had significantly lower output than the other 2 tanks? I do. Sure FF14 fixed these issues eventually, but they've had their balancing woes too. They've also had times of very nice balance.

Yay? I noted items that come into play with balancing at the start. You noted balancing both too, which is where it becomes an even bigger issue. And FFXIV is still not balanced especially when WAR and SCH are very preferred for many situations. True balance where you can literally bring anything and everyone of equal skill and still go through the content is hard to do and I have yet to see a game that has done it.

1) Artifact skills aren't weird. They're just new skills.
2) Spicing things up does increase fun. Adding Enochian/BotD spiced up things, sure they made it more difficult, but also more fun. They just needed to tune it to be a little less punishing if you made a mistake, but the overall concept is without a doubt more fun than the previous iteration, I'd be very surprised if a majority of people disagreed with me here.

Let us see. Describe an effect that is cool or remotely interesting:

New Relic Weapon: Gungnir - for Dragoons.

Equip: Immense power courses through the spear into your job stone transforming Jump into Hyper Jump.
Equip: Hyper Jumps damage increased by 20%
Equip: Hyper Jumps cooldown decreased by 10s.
Hyper Jump: Any enemy hit with Gierskogul will be marked for 10s. Jump will now strike all of these targets.

Imagine graphically that when the DRG presses Jump and 3 enemies are marked 2 energized copies of the DRG crash down and explode upwards (imagine like LV3 Lb, but significantly smaller), the DRG lands on the main target similarly.

That's my idea for what a relic weapon should look like and it successfully adds all 3 elements of "power".

1) Vertical Power: The ability hits noticeably harder.
2) Horizontal Power: The ability has a reduced cooldown, in addition to a new effect changing AOE priority.
3) Aesthetic Power: Your attack LOOKS more visually impressive after being empowered. It's very important IMO to really show your character becoming more powerful. I feel like BotD was a perfect example coming into the expac of a DRG LOOKING and FEELING much more powerful.

Reducing cooldown increases power, though in a more broken way because it doesn't scale linearly and effects the entire rotation or the entire outcome of the class. Which is why I specifically noted certain things like game changing, or well class changing in your example. The moment you add effects that change how classes work you (technically) rework how the rotations and such work and it may become a mandate especially when there's no con. I'll note something that honestly is better and isn't just straight up power increase as you're suggesting, which is literally the definition of vertical progression.

Meh, why release expansions or new content, it's just a pain to change things every time new content comes out.

Items, temporary things that get replaced cause reasons, not the entire gameplay, though they can do that, it would be more suited for expansions.

Not true. Gear is vertical power. You constantly replace it, making the previous completely obsolete. Horizontal would be skill changes, new effects, maybe even just changing some cosmetic things (ala green fire quest for warlocks in wow), maybe having your chocobo learn new skills by training it via combat/racing/what have you. Things like the ability to sprint, super jump, dive, vault, etc. Things to progress your character other than chasing ilvl.

The things you want would be more suited to skill specialization that's not on an equipment or anything temporary.
Everything that you're asking for would be better suited if it weren't on items really.

Just to pick an example from PSO2 cause they do stuff like this. Certain Photon Arts and all Techniques have customization capability. However, every single one of em has a detriment to go along with it so you weigh your choices and it becomes a lot more even field without a straight power push.

So to take an example for a technique, Foie, which is a basic fireball kind of technique. There are two customizations I can pick.
1st one is Flame Foie which for recipe 3 is as goes. Recipe 1/2 actually increases PP cost instead of debuff chance. PP being your skill resources.
Merit: Power +40% to +60%.
Demerit: Debuff chance -18% to -10%.
Special: Increase projectile speed by +8.
2nd one is Efficient Foie recipe 3.
Merit: PP consumption -12 to -3
Demerit: Range -26.0m to -13.0m
Special: None

Stuff that's not really known for people who don't play the game, but flame spells can get specced to have -50% charge time, making it extremely spammable, and the debuff is a dot. So you get to pick your choice of strengths and weakness if you want to customize your skill. Which is why either of these customization are up to debate on which is the best, and of course depending entirely on situation too. Of course you don't have to customize your PA/techniques at all, which what makes it nice cause you don't need to.

What your suggestion has absolutely no cons to it, which is why it's a straight up power increase. A horizontal progression for skills has to be balanced out by something bad, since pretty much the definition of vertical progression is power increase.

[Anzaman]

Tried Sophia Ex earlier, darn she has a lot health - can't wait to upgrade my i235 bow.

Liking the fight, it's not that hard - but small mistakes are quite punishing, position yourself in wrong angle and off you go. We have healer announcing scale side and strength, so rest of us can focus on boss. But well, mathematical mistakes happened, and will happen - when your healer tells you to go to left side with small impact force.. well.. you do hope that it's correctly calculated. Few times flew all the way through platform to death, haha.

Been so busy with all new content that haven't even finished MSQ yet.

Also, the facial expressions in this patch's cutscenes are just.. how should I describe these..



Grabbed these two, could have uploaded more but Imgur likes to do it's own things and 99% of the time upload gets stuck at 5%.

[Granyala]

Hey, you're a cat again.

I like the dress, never seen it in game before.