[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Onikaroshi]

So I just got into heavensward a few days ago and my god did the patch content MSQ's from ARR take it out of me... Got no idea what they were thinking with that...

I'm real worried for the combat, it didn't bother me so much early on because it was new and supposedly was supposed to get better later on because of off gcd's n stuff but man is it still slow... and I'm playing a monk which is supposed to be the fastest.

Thought about swapping jobs to change it up, tried samurai but you barely get buttons for it early on. Dunno what's with MMO's obsessions with creating classes that are unenjoyable to play before you reach end game.

With post 2.0 that's just it, they weren't thinking. They were new to end game story questing and didn't think about how it would affect people leveling through 1/2/3 expansions later.

As for the abilities, yes it does get a lot better, you're on the cusp of that, it really takes off post 60. Why it has to happen that way? Just the way it is with mmo's with levels, not a lot you can do to get around it, gotta have some reason to level.

[dope_danny]

almost done with levelling jobs doing the roullettes and boy am i glad. Don't know how it is in other regions but in eu on chaos the "wowfugee asshole" is getting easier to spot. A lot of "princess silvanas" going "LOL FUCKING FAGGOT NICE JOB DYING" when its a sprout not noticing something like ancient flare. Seeing that "its okay because this is how we act in lfr" get shot down by all 3 alliance raids telling them its not wow and they need to chill out was probably a strange reaction for this assholes used to being a dick as the norm. Since Shadowbringers got announced i run into a couple a week and its always someone with a warcraft character name.

I miss the Kirito Starks, at least they just had stupid limit break macros.

[Kazgrel]

almost done with levelling jobs doing the roullettes and boy am i glad. Don't know how it is in other regions but in eu on chaos the "wowfugee asshole" is getting easier to spot. A lot of "princess silvanas" going "LOL FUCKING FAGGOT NICE JOB DYING" when its a sprout not noticing something like ancient flare. Seeing that "its okay because this is how we act in lfr" get shot down by all 3 alliance raids telling them its not wow and they need to chill out was probably a strange reaction for this assholes used to being a dick as the norm. Since Shadowbringers got announced i run into a couple a week and its always someone with a warcraft character name.

I miss the Kirito Starks, at least they just had stupid limit break macros.

I've noticed a fairly significant influx of sprouts on my server (Zalera) ever since the Twitch Prime promo kicked off last week or whenever. Zalera was actually locked for new character creation during primetime here a day or two ago, even though it's listed as a preferred server. Had me thinking that maybe hell froze over.

Not surprising, all of the current preferred servers for NA will be part of the Crystal DC once that whole split happens. While I don't see it much as of recently, I vividly recall all the "call to arms" for people to transfer to servers that will remain part of Aether, dubbing it the "raid DC". Basically the same mentality that led everyone and their brother to dogpile onto Gilgamesh a couple years ago, but now on a datacenter level.

[Dartz1979]

my favorite race is the one with the tail so sexy.

[StrawberryZebra]

Dunno what's with MMO's obsessions with creating classes that are unenjoyable to play before you reach end game.

It's a problem which is compounded by a lengthy leveling process that, in theory, is supposed to be a tutorial. In practice, the whole thing gets upended when you've one of the most important skills when you complete leveling, not early into it when you're getting started.

It's why so many people get to max level without knowing how to play their class - They only got the chance to start learning at max level. They've got to unlearn all the bad habits they picked up during leveling and learn how to play the correct way. That takes a lot more time than it does to learn those bad habits to begin with.

[Granyala]

It's a problem which is compounded by a lengthy leveling process that, in theory, is supposed to be a tutorial. In practice, the whole thing gets upended when you've one of the most important skills when you complete leveling, not early into it when you're getting started.

It's why so many people get to max level without knowing how to play their class - They only got the chance to start learning at max level. They've got to unlearn all the bad habits they picked up during leveling and learn how to play the correct way. That takes a lot more time than it does to learn those bad habits to begin with.

FF XIV amplifies that effect, esp on secondary classes by constantly putting you into low level content when you level via DF.

As for the "wowfugee" problematic: never witnessed that.

[Baconeggcheese]

With post 2.0 that's just it, they weren't thinking. They were new to end game story questing and didn't think about how it would affect people leveling through 1/2/3 expansions later.

Yeah but god why did they not go back and address it.

Its so awkward going from getting 25k xp per quest to all of a sudden for no apparent reason getting 4.8k per quest which is something they had to establish after the fact since these quests were originally made at level cap when you were getting 0 xp for them.

Probably one of the easiest things to address, and they just haven't done it.

As for the abilities, yes it does get a lot better, you're on the cusp of that, it really takes off post 60. Why it has to happen that way? Just the way it is with mmo's with levels, not a lot you can do to get around it, gotta have some reason to level.

This isn't really an excuse, have the same issue with wow. Why they would make it so you have no idea how a class plays until you hit level cap and make them unenjoyable while leveling is beyond me. There's really no excuse for it in design as abilities are far from the only form of character progression.

Like I'm not leveling right now at all because of abilities, I'm leveling to play through content and story. Its a story driven game...

It's a problem which is compounded by a lengthy leveling process that, in theory, is supposed to be a tutorial.

The thing is leveling takes tremendously longer than a tutorial is meant to last. I've also never played an MMO that actually played like a tutorial while giving you abilities.

It seems really arbitrary, like its just bad design from a long time ago that none of these games ever learned to grow out of. Especially in regards to dealing with expansions adding abilities and reworking classes.

[StrawberryZebra]

The thing is leveling takes tremendously longer than a tutorial is meant to last. I've also never played an MMO that actually played like a tutorial while giving you abilities.

Very few are explicitly a tutorial as such, but the intention was always that you'd learn new skills at a gradual pace so you had plenty of time to get familiar with them, both solo and in group content, before you reached max level. You'd break up the learning curve into small managable chunks for players, so they'd not get overwhelmed by heaping 50+ skills on them at once.

Players also expect that you can play properly by the time you hit max level too, and the only way to get that hands on experience in game is through leveling.

I agree that it's bad, outdated design. It doesn't function well as a means of teaching the player at all. It feels restrictive for the players, can get warped and invalidated with class changes and expansions and doesn't actually achieve much but create a hurdle for players to get over before they can get to the "good" parts of the game. At it's worst, it effectively creates two entirely different play experiences, one for players below max level and one for those at max level.

FF14 suffers with it perhaps more than most with the roulettes. Any time you get synced to a lower level you lose access to what are sometimes critical abilities for your Job to function. It's an awful feeling, and you're not actually getting better with your Job, just reinforcing potentially damaging habits.

[Baconeggcheese]

FF14 suffers with it perhaps more than most with the roulettes. Any time you get synced to a lower level you lose access to what are sometimes critical abilities for your Job to function. It's an awful feeling, and you're not actually getting better with your Job, just reinforcing potentially damaging habits.

Yeah I actually loved the downscaling systems at first, but they're growing more and more tiresome as I get higher and higher. I have no idea why they decided to remove your skills instead of just lowering your dmg across the board. Just feels awful, and frankly it would be better for new players to see all the flashy moves other people get later on as a motivator.

[threads]

I've noticed a fairly significant influx of sprouts on my server (Zalera) ever since the Twitch Prime promo kicked off last week or whenever. Zalera was actually locked for new character creation during primetime here a day or two ago, even though it's listed as a preferred server. Had me thinking that maybe hell froze over.

Not surprising, all of the current preferred servers for NA will be part of the Crystal DC once that whole split happens. While I don't see it much as of recently, I vividly recall all the "call to arms" for people to transfer to servers that will remain part of Aether, dubbing it the "raid DC". Basically the same mentality that led everyone and their brother to dogpile onto Gilgamesh a couple years ago, but now on a datacenter level.

i made a new alt this week on one of the preferred servers and it's crazy how many people were running around. reminds me of ARR launch.

[Faroth]

Had my first major jackass of Stormblood last night as well, though not a WoW name. Instead it was a XIV name... Elidibus. Credit, I suppose, as they were sowing chaos.

Running Ridorana Lighthouse, this dragoon kept hitting some anime "I'm so powerful" macro and pulling every boss early. They were told to knock it off after the 2nd. We got to the mini boss with all the robots in groups and they did it again. Half the Alliances decided to stay out of the fight and some who were in didn't heal or attack so they never got aggro'd but were in the fight in terms of the lockout. All the robots went back to their starting position and they just hung out with everyone else locked out.

All the Alliances agreed to wait out the loot timer and that lock out prevented the dragoon from pulling again. It was no secret they were going to be vote dismissed as soon as it was possible.

So as soon as it WAS possible..... the dragoon popped a vote kick on their tank and with everyone expecting a vote kick for the dragoon they just clicked yes. -_-
They then immediately vote dismissed the dragoon, but everyone felt sorry for the tank they unintentionally booted.

Needless to say, the dragoon was reported.

- - - Updated - - -

So all the npcs are just living off gov't money in their parents basements? Leeching off society? Damn, that explains a lot....

All of the scions have retainers who are out stealing walls and roofs from houses to sell, of course.

- - - Updated - - -

The thing is leveling takes tremendously longer than a tutorial is meant to last. I've also never played an MMO that actually played like a tutorial while giving you abilities.

It seems really arbitrary, like its just bad design from a long time ago that none of these games ever learned to grow out of. Especially in regards to dealing with expansions adding abilities and reworking classes.

Catch 22 is if you have all your abilities by level 10, people grow bored of having no progression to their character, to which the argument then tends to get thrown around that there should be no leveling whatsoever and that's just a huge can of insanity worms to untangle logistics of.

[Baconeggcheese]

Needless to say, Catch 22 is if you have all your abilities by level 10, people grow bored of having no progression to their character, to which the argument then tends to get thrown around that there should be no leveling whatsoever and that's just a huge can of insanity worms to untangle logistics of.

That would be the case if abilities were your only form of char progression.

Also 10 is early but needing to basically get to cap is excessive.

[Faroth]

That would be the case if abilities were your only form of char progression.

Also 10 is early but needing to basically get to cap is excessive.

"It's been 30/40/50 levels and I still use the exact same skills/abilities/rotation" type of thing is exactly what I'd expect, despite getting bigger stats and gear with bigger stats. It's also a factor of the rework expansions bring. For example, I thought ninja was a lot of fun in Heavensward, but with Stormblood I thought the job was really dull on release day due to the pruning & changes (personally I don't find it much fun at 70 with the changes they made, but that's just me personally). So now someone who starts fresh has to go further to get the final toolkit rather than having them, utilizing them for a year, then adjusting to tweaks and changes, but I'm not sure how you get around that short of the skip potion model.

There's not really a surefire win. Are there any good examples of progression based games where you have every single skill/ability/power up from early on, though? I can't think of one in the RPG genre. Even most action games have you unlock new skills later in the game. Hard to say what the right balance is from the ground up.

Maybe at the very least more off GCD should be introduced earlier. Get your main rotation, some off GCD, then your secondary rotation, some final off GCD, and then at cap you're getting more of your "you're going to need these for hard hitting raid type stuff" abilities or a final notably powerful attack sort of thing.

I'm sure there are classes in game design around this stuff and I certainly haven't taken them.

[Onikaroshi]

"It's been 30/40/50 levels and I still use the exact same skills/abilities/rotation" type of thing is exactly what I'd expect, despite getting bigger stats and gear with bigger stats. It's also a factor of the rework expansions bring. For example, I thought ninja was a lot of fun in Heavensward, but with Stormblood I thought the job was really dull on release day due to the pruning & changes (personally I don't find it much fun at 70 with the changes they made, but that's just me personally). So now someone who starts fresh has to go further to get the final toolkit rather than having them, utilizing them for a year, then adjusting to tweaks and changes, but I'm not sure how you get around that short of the skip potion model.

There's not really a surefire win. Are there any good examples of progression based games where you have every single skill/ability/power up from early on, though? I can't think of one in the RPG genre. Even most action games have you unlock new skills later in the game. Hard to say what the right balance is from the ground up.

Maybe at the very least more off GCD should be introduced earlier. Get your main rotation, some off GCD, then your secondary rotation, some final off GCD, and then at cap you're getting more of your "you're going to need these for hard hitting raid type stuff" abilities or a final notably powerful attack sort of thing.

I'm sure there are classes in game design around this stuff and I certainly haven't taken them.

One of the major complaints with BFA is "why am I leveling, I don't get anything new? I haven't gotten a new ability it 20 levels!" so yea, leveling without ability gain just doesn't work in these type of mmo's.

[Advent]

The only mmo I can think of where you have all of your combat abilities early on is Guild Wars 2, but even that game gets stale while leveling. Though not, imo, as a result of lacking new spells/abilities.

[StrawberryZebra]

Maybe at the very least more off GCD should be introduced earlier. Get your main rotation, some off GCD, then your secondary rotation, some final off GCD, and then at cap you're getting more of your "you're going to need these for hard hitting raid type stuff" abilities or a final notably powerful attack sort of thing.

MMO's do tend to feel very slow when it comes to doling out new abilities. Especially when you're getting utility skills that are useful later on, but not particularly useful for leveling. You're often left with 3-4 useful buttons until well into level 20, oftentimes later. You've got to push through the boring stages of the game to get to the "good" part.

On the other end of the spectrum you have a genre like Fighters, they give you everything right from the off and as a result can often feel very overwhelming for new players to the genre. 3D fighters especially can have movelists that span into the hundreds.

There needs to be a happy medium between the two, one where you've not got to deal with slow, often times broken, class design until you get to level X, but not one that drops hundreds of skills on you at once and expects you to just know which ones to use and when.

The biggest issue with FF14 is that it locks away important Job mechanics until later on. That's not okay in my opinion. You could, for example, give BLM access to Enochian long before level 56, maybe level 30 for instance when you unlock the Job. That gives you plenty of time to get accustomed to the mechanic before you get Fire/Blizzard 4 later on, and those give you time to familiarise yourself with them before you unlock Foul. That feels like a gradual progression of the mechanic as you level, rather than having it all condensed into the span of 4 levels.

In exchange, you can move some of the utility skills later on in the progression. Like Convert, which is an ideal skill to be introduced later where the player can better judge how to fit it into their play.

Even earlier FF titles did similar things with their core mechanics too. FF7 let you have access to the Materia system very early on, then introduced more materia later to expand on the system when you'd had time to play around with it. It gave you the chance to experiment and customise your characters to suit whichever stratergies you could come up with, without ever feeling overwhelming.

FF8 Unlocked the Junction system before your first mission, FF10 unlocked the Sphere Grid not long after you left Zanarkand, FF12 unlocked the License board shortly into the game etc. You introduce players to the systems and then expand on it naturally as they progress. That's the right way to go about it in my opinion. It keeps the core playstyles intact at almost all levels, while at the same time not being overwhelming.

[blackblade]

One of the major complaints with BFA is "why am I leveling, I don't get anything new? I haven't gotten a new ability it 20 levels!" so yea, leveling without ability gain just doesn't work in these type of mmo's.

Ish? I mean, FFXIV has ranked spells (i.e. stone 1, stone 2, stone 3). each fill the same spot on your hotbars, do slightly more damage than the prior rank, and look more impressive. At the end of the day, doing something like that is better than nothing at all.

[Onikaroshi]

Ish? I mean, FFXIV has ranked spells (i.e. stone 1, stone 2, stone 3). each fill the same spot on your hotbars, do slightly more damage than the prior rank, and look more impressive. At the end of the day, doing something like that is better than nothing at all.

They still FEEL like you're getting something. But at the end of the day you can't give lvl 20s all the rotational abilities and then have people be like "oh, i've been doing the same rotation for 50 levels!"

The best way to do it would be to give more up from oGCDs to at least speed up rotations.

[threads]

I just started a new character and I think it's fine as it is currently. My Archer had a decent rotation by lvl 12 with a buff, dot, proc, finisher, off-gcd filler.

If they threw too much at you early on, then you end up like current WoW where you literally learn nothing for like the last 30 levels. That just makes leveling feel unrewarding and boring.

[Granyala]

Needless to say, the dragoon was reported.

Hmm why? Just kill crap. How is it possible to pull to early anyway, were people afking?

These days, you can (or rather: are force ported) though the gates, so even if a few members join a little later, a DPS pulling wouldn't be that much of a deal, esp on trash.

I get that it is obnoxious behavior but I don't see the point of the drama.