FFXIV Doubles Subscribers since switching to Monthly Biling

[LD]

It's one of those things where you have a good idea of what they could do, but there's no evidence to show that they will do it. It's a lot like the rest of the game, parts of it aren't horrible ideas, but it all came together wrong.

[Sephiroth]

No one can argue Hamlet is boring, but the drop rate isn't "terrible" by any means. You can get hosed for sure but you can also get lucky. Two Sundays ago we went 3/9 and just this last Sunday we went 9/9 in Hyrstmill (sounds unbelievable reading it but I was there for all 9 runs) with 1 of those being 59k. Drop rate seems to be right around 50-55% for 60k runs.

If you have a dedicated static/LS that is farming together it's not so bad. I can see how horrible it would be to go with pugs and just hoping that the seal falls to you though. Find some friends/LS!

Maybe I've just been unlucky, but normally I do 4-5 60k runs on an evening and only see one drop. When 4+ people in your party need it that's pretty low odds. Especially when a run takes 35 minutes by the time you factor in the 15 minute wait time.

I've predicted that if I play 5 days a week with the time I have, I'd have to do nothing but hamlet for about 2 months to progress in the relic quest. That's not a fun thought.

The people starting in a couple of months will be the worst off. No one will need seals then and they'll struggle to form a party nevermind get a drop.

[shepardG]

Milita choker and gorget say hi... Hq rate +10% is like 20mil on Balmung. I think people are gonna keep doing hamlet. Maybe.

[Kirin]

We also don't know what changes or expansions to Hamlet nor what the invarible influx of people to the servers post 2.0 will do to Hamlet either.

Personally, 2 months though isn't that drastic of a wait to be honest.

[Waraji]

I am hopeful that they might change hamlet defense to campaign style events. I am not well versed on the lore behind Hamlet defense, but i suspect it will not fit with the coming changes, and therefor warant changes. It's not a particularly difficult thing to change.

[Fievel]

I am hopeful that they might change hamlet defense to campaign style events. I am not well versed on the lore behind Hamlet defense, but i suspect it will not fit with the coming changes, and therefor warant changes. It's not a particularly difficult thing to change.

Is there even a really any sort of lore at all? I always just assumed it was a ermahgurd we're being attacked save us type thing.

[Gadritan]

The lore as a whole was pretty weak, but it's headed in the right direction. There's going to be a lot that doesn't exactly make sense, but that's also why they're just nuking it all. Literally.

I loved watching CS and all the lore in XI, but this one...most of it I just skipped over because it was so flippin' boring. Don't get me wrong, there's a little touch of awesome here and there in it, but most of it is pretty bland.

[Niiro]

I don't think a campaign style fight would go well, the lag would make the game nigh unplayable nvm with the sheer number of people participating you would hardly get any credit (nvm that balancing the credit for campaign battles was always flawed and heavily favored/penalized certain jobs).

[Rocl]

Is there even a really any sort of lore at all? I always just assumed it was a ermahgurd we're being attacked save us thing thing.

The beastmen have been attacking us lately, so plz give us stuff. We've got so much stuff the beastmen are attacking us, plz help cuz the Grand Companies / everyone else is worried about the Garleans instead of the beastmen.

Afaik, that's more or less it. Basically Raubahn said he doesn't need to waste time doing Hamlet when he can be punching magitek vanguards in the face with his pectoral muscles.

[Sephiroth]

Milita choker and gorget say hi... Hq rate +10% is like 20mil on Balmung. I think people are gonna keep doing hamlet. Maybe.

Interesting. First I've heard of these items.

Hamlet defence wouldn't be so bad if they got rid of/toned down the crafting/gathering aspect. Hopefully the higher tiers of hamlet go that way. What ever happened to hamlet level 1 anyway? These all seem to be level 2s.

[Enygma55]

You probably wont ever see lv 1 with the fight to reach top3 will always push the total beyond 3M. As for DoH/DoL you only really need 1 of each to handle atk-up and atk-down, can go DD for the rest to make up the dmg.

With some strategy of not using enmity reset can just let the NM fight the carts all day while u cure them. Dont even need a tank to hold. Its just easier to do it by letting the NPCs handle dmg. Path of least resistance and all.

[Sechs]

The 1 weapon 1 class thing is one of the basic issues

Wait, what?
This is the first time I see someone else saying this. I've been saying it since day one. I don't really know if I can define it an objective issue with the game, but it's certainly something I never particularly liked.
Personally I would have liked much more to be able to choose a class/job from some option in a menu (wether it's by talking to an NPC or a real option in your player menu, I don't care) and completely destroy the 1:1 thing, which is something that's only gonna create "limits" for the developers themselves.
Having 1:1 classes/jobs should be something that developers CHOOSE to do in some circumstances, if they want to, not a "rule" that they absolutely have to follow for every single class in the game.
Having the weapon you equip change the class you're on may seem like a stupid argument from my side, but really, I never liked it as a concept.

I can say the same with the "25 actions limit" they recently added with the class reforms of patch 1.21. I can understand their need to simplify and homogeneize things but once again doing it this way is like they're binding their "development freedom" to a stupid rule.
Say a class "needs" a few more actions than 25 (which, if you ask me, was very much the case for classes like Conjurer and especially Thaumathurge). Result? You won't be able to, you'll have to draw a line and keep something outside of those 25.
Say a class already feels perfectly balanced and fun with 21 actions. They'll be forced to add 4 "useless" actions just to reach the number of 25.
Mine are just "extreme" examples of course, but it's just to say that the 25 action thing should be a general rule that they try as much as possible to follow, not something that they absolutely have to comply to everytime.

I mean, I certainly do understand what they did with 1.21 and why they had to do it, but I didn't like it. I hope it was just something "temporary" to make things easier for them for patch 1.22 (jobs) while they were busy preparing 2.0 client.
I'm saying that I hope to see these things change with 2.0


What I didn't particularly like in the class reform?
Well, to sum up:

1. The way they raped Thaumaturge mainly and Conjurer secondly, ignoring lore, just to make so Conjurer could become WHM and Thaumathurge could become BLM. With the previous system CNJ would have become both BLM and WHM (which wasn't anything wrong, I personally like the idea of a single class having multiple jobs) and THM would have become... I dunno, RDM maybe?
2. They took two elements from the game, Astral and Umbral (Light and Dark from FFXI). Which is a shame imho, I wish that, just in this aspect, they could go back to the alpha game and have 8 stats, each of them linked to a different element. I was so happy that things could have been finally "regular" compared to FFXI's 7 stats and 8 elements
3. They took out elemental resistances, which is a very typical aspect in FF games. I'm talking about the fact that every target is alligned to one or more (or none) element, which then has a certain kind of influence (great or small, I don't care) on the element you use to attack them. Talking about the elemental wheel or whatever you want to call it. I think it's a cool mechanic and kinda resembles what for melees is the piercing/slashing/blunt thing
4. They took out all standalone debuffs (well, almost), incorporating most of them inside other spells as secondary effect. Now this could be a cool idea if done for some jobs/classes or for some actions, but doing for all of them as a game macro-mechanic, I dunno, I just don't like it particularly. I could kinda say the same about the oversimplification of -na spells. A small consolidation/simplification compared to FFXI would have been good, but a single spell for everything sounds like a bit too much of a simplification imho.

And that's it for me. Nobody else on the same boat?
Tbh I don't really think I can define these as "objective problems" of the game. They're more like... "choices" which maybe even work particularly good, but I just don't like them.
I mean, can't deny the game shaped up to be pretty cool in the end, but these aspects are something that still do not encounter my tastes, I guess.


Oh, one last regret is about some features FFXIV had and that have been cancelled. Imho they were some pretty cool and original features. Of course they were completely unbalanced/broken, but still it's a shame they just completely removed from the game instead of tryng to balance them. I hope they will return maybe as specific stuff for new jobs/classes.
I'm talking about the AoE/Single target option for all actions, the casting while moving thing and the three level bar that was present in the alpha client. You could use actions at 1, 2 or 3 of these bars (took time to charge them) to grant more efficiency/power to the action itself. Maybe it was boring to have such a system for the whole game, but still it would be cool to see it return for a single new job or something like that.

[Sechs]

Yes, Im still angry that ranger was named bard, I dont think Ill ever get over that.

can someone in the know tell me if normal archer is comparable to "bard"

I think they were trying to imitate other games which offer more "interactive" implementation of the Bard (buffer/supporter) class, Rift comes to mind.
It was like... a way to reply to all those people complaining that Bard in FFXI is boring and has nothing to do etc.
Aside from the fact that imho there were countless other ways of making Bard more "fun" and interactive to play without changing its nature, I kinda apreciate their attempt at making Bard a more interactive job in FFXIV.

Thing is that, atm, it feels more like a Ranger that also has a couple of cool party buffs, rather than what it *should* have been, i.e. a buffer with a lot of options who also has a few actions to shoot and do small damage. Then they should have found a way to "link" these two aspects of the nature of the job, like for example attacking/debuffing a target granting resources that you can use to powerup your party buffs or stuff like that.


I mean, I dunno, the idea is cool but really atm it feels anything like BRD, imho, which is disappointing for whomever was looking for that kind of job (is there any, tho?)

[Gokulo]

Most of the abilities/spells they took out of the game will return later with higher levels and new classes.

And for me, the Single/AoE trigger was stupid and 3 bar system was just horrible.

[Sechs]

For me, it's a bit of a perception problem. I still cringe a bit from old school FFXI and early FFXIV leveling speed. 2 of the 3 classes I have to 50 now took 2 months each of grinding under the original system. I just have zero desire to level up anything else, and I'd prefer the game be designed in a way that I didn't have to. But this is SE we're talking about, so I don't have the highest expectations of balance and accessibility in the future.

While in the days of Abyssea I sometimes still miss the days of "hard levelling" because of the sense of achievement it sometimes implied, it's unreasonable to expect a developer to go such an anachronistic way.

Still, having jobs automatically levelled up sharing the same level as the class they depend on sounds a bit... too much.


In my very personal opinion of this issue, levelling speed should be something that "scales" with your experience and time you've played. The first time through should be slow, not as slow as it was in original FFXI or even original FFXIV maybe, but it should require some effort.
It should then become faster the second time through, then even faster the third, then the fourth and so on until it eventually reaches a speed cap.
This would be a a system that I like. It gives you a big sense of achievement, the first time, but at the same time it doesn't stress you when you're already an experienced player and just want to level another class as fast as possible.


So, applying this to FFXIV, they could put a coefficient that multiplies the exp you receive and that increases each time you bring a class to 50, until such a coefficient reaches its max value. And also have Jobs require to be levelled the good old way, but at a much faster pace thanks to the rased coefficient (and your "raised experience" in knowing how to level faster and more efficiently compared to the first time through)

[Sechs]

And for me, the Single/AoE trigger was stupid and 3 bar system was just horrible.

The way they implemented those... it certainly didn't work. But I could say the same for the "casting while moving", was a bit overpowered.
Still they were nice ideas concept-wise. Maybe it's good they removed them as game "macro-mechanics" which apply to all classes/jobs, but I'd love to see them return as specific mechanics of some new jobs/classes.
Would add variety to the game, would make new classes/jobs play even differently and give more options to players. Not everybody has to absolutely love every single class, having a lot of variation not just in terms of efficiency/aesthetics but "playstyle" is a valuable aspect imho.

[Niiro]

Wait, what?

My thoughts exactly, aside from agreeing with me, you seem to be having an entirely different conversation with someone else.

Most of the abilities/spells they took out of the game will return later with higher levels and new classes.

I seriously doubt that, all of the meaningful changes that came with the 1.19(I think it was 1.19? maybe 1.18) ability rehaul completely changed how jobs were played on a fundamental level; mages no longer have ranged attack abilities, no longer have WSs, no longer have any reason to draw their weapons and at this point it would only hamper their ability to perform as they couldn't recover MP with them out. Unless they re-rehaul the battle mechanics again-again (at which point things would just be getting ridiculous), I wouldn't hold my breath.

Many of the old abilities/WSs are still in the game anyway just with different functions, Pummel, Full Thrust, Heavy Swing, Power/Life Surge, etc. If any of the old abilities are reintroduced it's not going to be in their old forms, they're just going to reuse the names and perhaps the additional effects and have them conform to the new model (ie. DRG may get Moonrise and it might even still have the inhibit TP effect, but it's just going to be another WS with the additional effect probably being combo-dependent, just like every other WS).

[Gokulo]

Yeah, I didn't mean that mages will get their WSs back because of the battle system changes. But I remember S-E saying ages ago that some stuff (mainly spells I guess) will be reintroduced, if not with lv cap raise then with new classes.

[Alkar]

Mages are fine, they just need to make fire and blizzard spells more relevant when it comes to damage. BLM is going to have issues when thunder resistant bosses show up.
I also don't think they've ever mentioned some rule of sorts, it's simply what they have decided for now, they can always add more spells and abilities later on.

[Niiro]

With the way elemental spells are handled I'm sure they deliberately take into account whether or not something should resist lightning every time they add a boss or something like that, it essentially determines whether BLM will be useful or worthless.

They already reworked mob elemental resistances/weaknesses when they redid the ability system so it's safe to say they're aware that adding a lightning resistant boss to something would basically exclude BLMs entirely, I can't think of any mobs that actually resist thunder for that matter. Every dungeon boss is vulnerable, every primal.....doblyns? idk