[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[The Casualty]

I'd be down for more types of content. I think they have a lot of room in between current dungeon design and savage/ultimate. Current content lacks teeth. Challenging 4 man dungeons or even full boss encounters would be cool. You could even add in 8 man challenging dungeon. It might open up encounter design a little if you had a zone to work with.

I disagree though with race against the clock. Obviously that shouldn't be the default, but if it fits for the encounter and is more than just zerging I think it could be done well. I still remember doing 45min Strat runs in WoW before everyone had gear and that was pretty fun!

[Poppincaps]

Making timed content results in people min-maxing and only bringing the best classes unless you're playing with friends who don't care that you're playing a suboptimal class. It'd definitely make the game more toxic and probably make ACT harassment a lot worse.

[The Casualty]

I guess it would depend on how tight they make the timers and if they have mechanics that completely hose out either ranged or melee. I've heard gloom and doom about certain classes not being welcome in savage raiding or being "sub-optimal" for years and yet tons of people have been getting in groups and getting clears regardless of the job they play. Outside of some jobs being slightly overtuned, like SMN, I think we are in a pretty good spot balance-wise.

[EllieNora]

Making timed content results in people min-maxing and only bringing the best classes unless you're playing with friends who don't care that you're playing a suboptimal class. It'd definitely make the game more toxic and probably make ACT harassment a lot worse.

Then you implement an element of RNG that makes it impossible to know what to take. Ie you bring two black mages, you get penalized, you bring a dancer, you're gimped if the trait the dungeon gives you makes you better off not cleaving (and dancer ST in dungeons is questionable) and so on and so forth. That is what made affixes so good in M+, the fact you couldn't just play the same comp in every dungeon with every combination, it won't work, but you can -get away- with doing the old CMs without an optimal comp.

As usual, people just write something off as "its hard content its going to be toxic" when it's no different to optimizing the "difficult" content already in the game, where groups who are still seeing the enrage spears on ramuh feel they're in a position to dictate excluding people because it doesn't fit the comp they want lol.

As it stands we have a 90 min instance timer in experts which is totally pointless.

[Granyala]

I disagree though with race against the clock. Obviously that shouldn't be the default, but if it fits for the encounter and is more than just zerging I think it could be done well. I still remember doing 45min Strat runs in WoW before everyone had gear and that was pretty fun!

YMMV of course but I just hate stressing against a dumb timer.
In virtually any game. Especially if the timer is visible.

I didn't like Zul'Aman bear runs, I did not like the challenge dungeons in MoP and I most certainly do not like the zergfest that is M+.

Before you ask: no I do not have a problem with a bosses enrage timer. Which is pretty much the only exception in my dislike of timers. ^^

[Hyral]

Timed challenges don't belong in a game like FFXIV.

They could start by doing challenging singleplayer content, like WoW's mage tower challenges; would be pretty straightforward to create one fight for each role (tank, healer, melee dps, ranged). Basically progression on a raid boss but without the stress of having to organize your schedule and guild drama and stuff. Could also do challenging 4 man content.

This on the other hand would fit right in. They already design some class quests to take advantage of what the classes can do so expanding on that to making challenging content people can do solo does fit the casual design FF goes with. I would love this, Mage Tower was one of the few good things about Legion.

[Wrecktangle]

They could start by doing challenging singleplayer content, like WoW's mage tower challenges; would be pretty straightforward to create one fight for each role (tank, healer, melee dps, ranged). Basically progression on a raid boss but without the stress of having to organize your schedule and guild drama and stuff. Could also do challenging 4 man content.

I'd be down for more types of content. I think they have a lot of room in between current dungeon design and savage/ultimate. Current content lacks teeth. Challenging 4 man dungeons or even full boss encounters would be cool. You could even add in 8 man challenging dungeon. It might open up encounter design a little if you had a zone to work with.

Eh, I see no way to do truly challenging 4 player content. You could certainly design 4 man content with teeth (he'll we had it before people complained they were too hard back in ARR), but truly challenging? Not so sure. I think with healer/tank toolkits it'd just be more binary "this much throughput, then hardcast DPS spells, cooldown here else wipe, etc."

I could get on board with them bringing back 8 man dungeons not as a story mechanism, but as say a savage supplement.

Timed challenges don't belong in a game like FFXIV.

Why do you believe that? Nearly every single instance of battle content in this game is already timed. Why shouldn't a challenging version of it also be timed?

[Kayleah Junia]

Reading all about how healing is mostly dpsing and not healing makes me not want to even play this mmo, I used to back in shadowbringers but I always prefered to just HEAL. Not dps as a healer :/

[Hyral]

Why do you believe that? Nearly every single instance of battle content in this game is already timed. Why shouldn't a challenging version of it also be timed?

You mean the like 90 minute timer every duty gets? That's not really what they are talking about. And because I don't think it fits the overall casual design of the game. Maybe for some Ultimate or Savage encounters I guess but sounds like the timer for those is already tight when they release.

Reading all about how healing is mostly dpsing and not healing makes me not want to even play this mmo, I used to back in shadowbringers but I always prefered to just HEAL. Not dps as a healer :/

Ah, a Sylphie. We all start like that but learn to like it after time. Or at least before ShB. Because now the dps part involves just pressing one button. Healing can be fun when you are new and doing something somewhat challenging but once you are familiar with the game is can be really dull or relaxing, depending what kind of person you are lol.

[Kayleah Junia]

[QUOTE=Hyral;52500124



Ah, a Sylphie. We all start like that but learn to like it after time. Or at least before ShB. because now the dps part involves just pressing one button. Healing can be fun when you are new and doing something somewhat challenging but once you are familiar with the game is can be really dull or relaxing, depending what kind of person you are lol.[/QUOTE]

I just like healing, if I wanted to dps i'd play a black mage for example, not a whitemage or SCH, I mean.. It gets very boring the later one is into the expasion/game healing becomes secondary and its just pure dps. but Still I do enjoy healing more than dpsing

[Granyala]

Reading all about how healing is mostly dpsing and not healing makes me not want to even play this mmo, I used to back in shadowbringers but I always prefered to just HEAL. Not dps as a healer :/

Then don't.
The community will not accept healers that are AFK 75% of their playtime.

[dope_danny]

Going through the suffering of finally getting MNK, the worst job in the game dont @me, to cap and going through Mt.Gulg makes me wish we got more Sin Eater stuff. It just feels wierd that such a huge threat is just going to be left in this alternate world we will just leave behind to go back to a border dispute with Garlemald we were doing dungeons around back in 2018. The imagery and tone alone feels like something you have to wonder if its really contained or its going to be like the voidsent from the 13th and they could show up again.

[Katchii]

Reading all about how healing is mostly dpsing and not healing makes me not want to even play this mmo, I used to back in shadowbringers but I always prefered to just HEAL. Not dps as a healer :/

Healer's don't heal nearly as much as they should, IMO, given how strong their heals are and how little damage a group takes in most content.

As Granyala already said:

Then don't.
The community will not accept healers that are AFK 75% of their playtime.

Pretty much this.

Unfortunately, the way the game is currently balanced, the amount of healing needed in most content is VERY minimal if the group is doing what they're supposed to and avoiding the avoidable AoE/incoming damage. To fill in the GCDs where you're not having to heal (which is alot), to make sure you're not just standing around doing nothing, you should be throwing out some damage spells. That's just the way it is.

For me, it has little to do with the damage component itself, and more to do with wanting the healer (and everyone else) to be doing something, and never be standing around doing nothing. That's just lazy, IMO.

[Poppincaps]

Then you implement an element of RNG that makes it impossible to know what to take. Ie you bring two black mages, you get penalized, you bring a dancer, you're gimped if the trait the dungeon gives you makes you better off not cleaving (and dancer ST in dungeons is questionable) and so on and so forth. That is what made affixes so good in M+, the fact you couldn't just play the same comp in every dungeon with every combination, it won't work, but you can -get away- with doing the old CMs without an optimal comp.

As usual, people just write something off as "its hard content its going to be toxic" when it's no different to optimizing the "difficult" content already in the game, where groups who are still seeing the enrage spears on ramuh feel they're in a position to dictate excluding people because it doesn't fit the comp they want lol.

As it stands we have a 90 min instance timer in experts which is totally pointless.

Have you actually played M+ in BFA? People bring the same comps all the time. To every dungeon. Also having a system that can randomly fuck you over sounds horrible. Why would you think that would be good or fun design?

And there is absolutely a difference between difficult content and timed content. Some specs in WoW will never be able to push the highest keys. Every spec in WoW can clear Mythic N'zoth with good play. Timed content creates an inherent competitiveness that does not exist to the same extent in non-timed content.

[Kayleah Junia]

Healer's don't heal nearly as much as they should, IMO, given how strong their heals are and how little damage a group takes in most content.

As Granyala already said:



Pretty much this.

Unfortunately, the way the game is currently balanced, the amount of healing needed in most content is VERY minimal if the group is doing what they're supposed to and avoiding the avoidable AoE/incoming damage. To fill in the GCDs where you're not having to heal (which is alot), to make sure you're not just standing around doing nothing, you should be throwing out some damage spells. That's just the way it is.

For me, it has little to do with the damage component itself, and more to do with wanting the healer (and everyone else) to be doing something, and never be standing around doing nothing. That's just lazy, IMO.

I wouldn't mind having something to buff people or do something along those lines, sadly it's either heal for a bit and then spam stone for ages.. it's not fun at all.

[dope_danny]

So i'm replaying FF7R and i thought i was seeing this right the first time:

[Wrecktangle]

Have you actually played M+ in BFA? People bring the same comps all the time. To every dungeon. Also having a system that can randomly fuck you over sounds horrible. Why would you think that would be good or fun design?

I do actually believe RNG content can be engaging if done in a manner that makes sense. I once posited a relic weapon system that was like the "item world" in Disgaea where it procedurally generated open world Eureka like maps with random spawn locations in an fully unexplored location, mob density, positions, archetypes, etc. The idea was like M+ where you kill mobs to fill a bar but instead spawns a random boss (similar to dungeon bosses, but with actual mechanics ). As a team you'd decide where to go, which mob types to avoid based on your comp, etc and whether or not a boss was too far away to bother going after rather than simply filling the bar up again.

You could choose to inflate the difficulty (thus making the content scalable for multiple player types) to increase rewards. Bear in mind this is nearly 3 year old post with only lunch breaks at work fueling the idea. It could easily be iterated on and improved:

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...Eureka-Concept

You mean the like 90 minute timer every duty gets? That's not really what they are talking about. And because I don't think it fits the overall casual design of the game. Maybe for some Ultimate or Savage encounters I guess but sounds like the timer for those is already tight when they release.

Wasn't the topic though challenging? In that vein, it definitely makes sense to have challenging dungeon content follow similar design principles (especially if it's designed for the extreme/savage/ultimate crowd) doesn't it?

[Poppincaps]

I do actually believe RNG content can be engaging if done in a manner that makes sense. I once posited a relic weapon system that was like the "item world" in Disgaea where it procedurally generated open world Eureka like maps with random spawn locations in an fully unexplored location, mob density, positions, archetypes, etc. The idea was like M+ where you kill mobs to fill a bar but instead spawns a random boss (similar to dungeon bosses, but with actual mechanics ). As a team you'd decide where to go, which mob types to avoid based on your comp, etc and whether or not a boss was too far away to bother going after rather than simply filling the bar up again.

You could choose to inflate the difficulty (thus making the content scalable for multiple player types) to increase rewards. Bear in mind this is nearly 3 year old post with only lunch breaks at work fueling the idea. It could easily be iterated on and improved:

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...Eureka-Concept



Wasn't the topic though challenging? In that vein, it definitely makes sense to have challenging dungeon content follow similar design principles (especially if it's designed for the extreme/savage/ultimate crowd) doesn't it?

That's very different from the system that the person I responded to posted. They posted a system where you zone into an instance and you're met with affixes that specifically target jobs. I think RNG elements are fine. I mean the roguelike genre was built on them, but singling out jobs while everyone else in the group is playing at 100% efficiency seems awful.

[Granyala]

I wouldn't mind having something to buff people or do something along those lines, sadly it's either heal for a bit and then spam stone for ages.. it's not fun at all.

Yop. It was more fun when we had 3 DoTs to keep track of.
Now it's mostly mash 1 button and watch Netflix in order to not fall asleep at the wheel.

- - - Updated - - -

So i'm replaying FF7R and i thought i was seeing this right the first time:

Eeh... creepy!
Are we supposed to be like Cetra?
I guess we could be, being able to use magical powers, understanding the workings of the Aetherstreams etc.

Wonder when Jenova will make her appearance.

- - - Updated - - -

Wasn't the topic though challenging? In that vein, it definitely makes sense to have challenging dungeon content follow similar design principles (especially if it's designed for the extreme/savage/ultimate crowd) doesn't it?

I don't want more content tailored towards the savages. I want sth in between in terms of difficulty.

Right now content difficulty is basically binary.
1 - Savage/Ex/Ultimate
0 - The rest of the game (including dungeons)

What I want is hard enough to make me use by brain but not so hard that uncoordinated "spur of the moment" groups don't stand a chance w/o excessive wiping.

[dope_danny]

Eeh... creepy!
Are we supposed to be like Cetra?
I guess we could be, being able to use magical powers, understanding the workings of the Aetherstreams etc.

Wonder when Jenova will make her appearance.

Well we can make Materia out of thin air, maybe Hydaeyln is really a star parasite?