"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
I think they are getting better at this. For all the things HW got right (still the best expansion when it comes to content) it was pretty anal how level requirements were spaced out. Like you end a quest with Y'shtola in Idillyshire and you have to grind a level before you can talk to her again outside the city gates. Like what the actual fuck? And you have like two more talk quests before you even have to go into the next dungeon so why the level gap there? It was fucking retarded. They are a lot better at it now. Granted if you sometimes let you sub laps for months, like me (financial reason, I love the game) it can take some time to get back on track.
The childish naming conventions are mostly used by lalafell who look like potato children, so it's kinda fitting
If you'd like, set the voices to japanese. I'm sure the english voice actors try their best, but I feel the Japanese are just better at this. Specially for a japanese game
And yes, Alphinaud as a leader is laughable
This world don't give us nothing. It be our lot to suffer... and our duty to fight back.
To be fair there are other ways to introduce challenge other than raw duration. I hated 16+ minute fights in WoW and I hate them even more in FF14. It's why I don't like to do the Ultimates. I love that they're hard, I hate how long they are. It's also the reason why the old gatekeeper fights were my favorite, Exdeath, Kefka, etc. It was 4 and a half minutes of enjoyably challenging mechanics at a rapid pace. In both scenarios I enjoyed their gatekeeps much better than their full halfs (although God Kefka would have won, if the fight actually had a second half and didn't just repeat again to a free kill at 50%).
Definitely less, but way less? I'm surprised it was this close comparing Mythic Shriekwing to Ramuh Savage (last raid I did):
- I count in the journal 11 total unique mechanics for Shriekwing.
- I count for 14 unique mechanics for Ramuh.
- For Mythic Denathrius I counted almost 40 unique mechanics.
- For Shiva Savage I counted 42 unique mechanics.
This isn't the best comparison though. Denathrius is a opening raid and Shiva is a second tier raid. Denathrius is an 11 minute fight and Shiva is a 14 minute fight, but I think it does highlight interest topic points if anyone wants to look into it more. Here are the sites I used for reference since I do not have an active sub at the moment:
- https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/sire-d...ounter-journal
- https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/w...gence_(Savage)
Most players who progress or do Ultimates now use addons to clear it more quickly. My group did it, my friends groups did it, and most I know did it. Most top groups literally program it while progressing on it adding the steps and phases and callouts.Ultimates are also very difficult fights and there are no addons to assist you in XIV.
Ultimates are still stupid hard though.
Very true, but there have been bosses that long and even longer so I'd think they're likely identical in the scope of things given the infrequency of ultimates over the years. I.e. If we wiped soaking spirits on H25 LK (and we did) that was 16 minutes down the drain.The average boss in WoW does not last 16 minutes so its not the same argument.
That's not how that works. If there's no new checkpoints, it's one continuous encounter. It has different adds across different phases, but they're not unique bosses. It's one boss.
What do you mean less and less devs? Their team has been growing consistently expansion over expansion?
I don't like losing abilities when it downlevels you for content.
The lack of damage meters means I don't know if I'm doing well or terrible. Just some sort of "par" DPS indicator for my level and whether I'm above or below it would be good. I don't care about others damage.
Which (SPOILERS!) is ultimately the point of his entire arc in ARR...
Alphinaud is the embodiment of everything I hate about JRPGs. Yet... he is one of my favourite characters in fiction, now. That speaks to the strength of this story. In most MMOs, the character you're introduced to is the character you're going to see for decades - no growth, no development (unless they go crazy for X plot reason). Alphinaud started as this typical, grating wunderkind and the writers took pains to show why that kind of archetype doesn't work.
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The threat meter is generally a good indicator if you're against using ACT.
Garrosh, in the day. Long fight, many phases, and it was common to wipe on the last phase and have to do the whole damned thing over again. I'd say Arthas/Lich King in the day too, but he tended to wipe raids in any phase.
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My issue with the UI isn't with the lack of raid assists like BigWigs and DBM. I agree that allowing them has made life quite difficult for Blizzard's devs, and everyone would probably be better off if they didn't exist.
My issue is with how you have to target players to cast spells on them. Now, as of the last time I played FFXIV (early BfA I think - probably when it became clear that flying was actually being gated again, despite being told it wasn't) macros allowing mouseover casting existed in FFXIV but my research suggested that they weren't considered very effective and it was recommended that you not use them. Maybe that was bad advice, or maybe it's changed since then, but that's what my research told me.
In WoW I use Clique+Grid, to let me mouseover a character or their raid frame and do something like Ctrl+LMB to cast Healing Surge (for example). Addons like Vuhdo work in much the same way. Not being able to do that in FFXIV, or only being able to do so with a bazillion macros that I was given to understand are a poor solution was a game-killer when considered on top of the way the game always felt a little laggy (possibly because I'm in New Zealand, though in WoW I play on NA servers and it doesn't feel laggy) and a few other things. Also, I didn't like the way my character's main DPS job (Summoner) seemed to have changed from 'traditional affliction walrock' (DoT everything, manage DoTs, plus a few other things) to 'build, spend, some of the things are DoTs'. Also, with the relatively short DoT duration this went from being an active but not too hasty rotation to something altogether more fiddly, fussy, and timing critical. And a fair number of the spells seemed to exis just to give button bloat without adding anything to the game play.
I tried some other jobs, but didn't have it in me to level them enough to see how they were at high level, but what I saw at lower levels didn't fill me with confidence - everything seemed to be build-spend. WoW, at least once upon a time, had many different styles of rotation (though Legion made everything into build-spend and there's still some of that in the current designs), which meant there was likely something for everyone.
I do agree that is sad. I am fortunate that I enjoy the healing role most and excel at it in FFXIV so my main job (White Mage for now but looking at Sage in Endwalker) is both fun to play and performs well. For the DPS role I really do like Red Mage a lot. I'm not necessarily the best at it, but I perform adequately enough that I don't get kicked. And while it was a surprise to me, I also enjoy and perform well with Dancer far more than I expected to. Bard is ok. I don't dislike it, but I don't jump for joy over it either. I just find it easy to play.
Black Mage... ugh. I despise how that job plays. It almost feels almost like a WoW arcane mage and boomkin had a baby.
@Kalisandra
I use mouseover macros to heal in FFXIV and basically emulate the Clique addon from WoW since that's what I use to heal there. I can heal just as effectively in FFXIV using mouseover macros as I do in WoW. So you might want to at least give them a try yourself to see how it feels. Trying to use macros for your dps rotation though, yea that doesn't tend to work out well in most cases. IMy issue is with how you have to target players to cast spells on them. Now, as of the last time I played FFXIV (early BfA I think - probably when it became clear that flying was actually being gated again, despite being told it wasn't) macros allowing mouseover casting existed in FFXIV but my research suggested that they weren't considered very effective and it was recommended that you not use them. Maybe that was bad advice, or maybe it's changed since then, but that's what my research told me.
If you're like me and are older and have issues with your hands, certain macros that combine oGCD skills with a spammed ability can improve your performance and you can even perform at a mediocre level with them, but they will never do as well as doing it manually. Still for me it makes an improvement in my performance with certain dps jobs so I am better off using them than not.
I'm a little tempted to re-sub (but I'm still playing retail WoW with my guild, I'm levelling a character in Classic TBC, and I finally bought Cyberpunk 2077, so it might not be the best time...), but I have a feeling my character is on a boat, and to progress the have to do an instance, and I'd have to leave said boat and go and do a bunch of side quests to re-learn how to play first, which seems a bit immersion-breaking.
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When I look at XIV again (I say 'when' because it's almost certain Blizz will do something to piss me off and I'll try abandoning the WoW ship once again) I'll look into them then. I'm not interested in them for DPS, so them not working well there isn't a problem.
My eyes have started showing their age these past few years, but my hands are still okay (for now).If you're like me and are older and have issues with your hands, certain macros that combine oGCD skills with a spammed ability can improve your performance and you can even perform at a mediocre level with them, but they will never do as well as doing it manually. Still for me it makes an improvement in my performance with certain dps jobs so I am better off using them than not.
What problems do I have with it? It's a weeb game. Fuck weeb games.
The fact that I can even tolerate him is a feat unto itself. The fact that I actually felt something for him during the most recent story developments... that's a downright miracle.
I'm old and bitter these days, so very rarely am I actually moved by any media. FFXIV is the rare game that finally has this power over me. And it had to work for it - for the better part of a decade! - to get me this invested and keep me invested. When I see throwbacks to events that happened in 2.0, it evokes the same feeling I get when I meet up with an old friend I haven't spoken with for a decade or two.
That is very true. But unless you are a tank or a healer you shouldn't just be stuck on that boat. I think you might be at the first Stormblood dungeon by the way. If you already got that far I would recommend going till 6.0. See it to the end. With 6.1 a new story arc will begin. Hell it might even be considered a new myth arc. My involvement later depends on my satisfaction with the ending but I definitely will do 6.0
Quality is completely subjective. Popularity and market appeal is not.
There is a market for competitive wow that does not exist for FF or any other similar game. That does not mean other games are bad - someone may believe (subjectively) that it's better for the game to not appeal to that crowd. That's their opinion and that's fine.
But objective fact is that FF does not have the same competitive scene or viewer appeal, otherwise gaming organizations would move to play it instead since it would get more views.
This is the very sad and cold truth. Views are where the money is at. It doesn't matter if it's quality or not. This is the reason why people who should not be famous get famous. Bhad Bhabie, Asmongold, etc...
Some people gain fame through infamy. Even if someone is watching you because they hate you and just wanna make a nasty comment, they're still watching you and building your traffic.
Haters get so caught up in their hate that they do not realize they're contributing.
Just to give more detail, what I did was make a mouseover macro for each of my heals and esuna, put them on an action bar I keep hidden, and give them all specific keybinds. Only the heals with cooldowns are on my visible bars and only so I can see if they're on cooldown or not. I also put my Swiftcast/Res mouseover macro on the hidden bar and bound it as well for ease of use. Swiftcast stays on my visible bars so I can see it's cooldown and/or to use it with Holy on trash in dungeons when I typically don't need to worry about ressing people. It ends up playing very much like WoW with Clique.
Debatable. You could easily make the argument that FFXIV just isn't interested in promoting their product as something for the competitive scene. We can argue about the niggling differences between the endgame content 'til the cows come home, but they're virtually the same thing when you look at the big picture. The key difference is that FFXIV's developers - and marketers, by extension - are much more interested in selling their product to a more casual market looking for a more relaxed experience. That is ultimately their core audience, and it would be an audience they would drive away if they pushed the eSport angle.
It's a disagreement on the perception of the content rather a judgement of the content itself.
I mean... I would argue that WoW doesn't lend itself well to the eSports scene, but if you throw tens if not millions of dollars at it, cross-promote it, sponsor some streamers... it's going to happen regardless of any inherent competitive appeal.
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Here's something to ponder, though: is there a competitive race because the content takes certain amount of time to clear? Or does the content take a certain amount of time to clear because there is a competitive race?
I would argue that many of the choices being made in modern WoW are slowly tipping the scale toward the latter.