Letter from the Producer, III (02/17/2011) + Player's Poll

[CasualPlayer]

He isn't trolling, he is just a moron.

/slow clap....

Name calling has always been my favorite way of settling an argument too. Having said that, you're an idiot and so is Lordender.

Not going to get into a how to win at World of Warcraft debate with you since you're probably the most biased poster of the game on these boards, and this is about ffxiv. As far as open world vs instanced hnms:

There were people that liked Kings, but if you gave them another route that they could obtain the same stuff, I promise many of them would have taken it. Many may never even have joined the linkshells required in the first place. By having an alternative that makes obtaining a Ridill the same 1% drop (or whatever it was) for everyone each day, with the only difficulty in having that opportunity the ability to defeat Fafnir and not the ability to claim it, it removes most of the incentive (if not all) in camping it in the first place. Having an instance that offers the same is ideal, but it kills the point by allowing an easily accessible alternative.

This isn't me saying I'm against it. Sure, throw in the equivalent to ground kings, and an instance everyone can access every day with the same HNMs in them with the same drops and drop rates. Have at. But realize that by doing so you negate the point in even needing the ground kings there. It's still nice that they are, wandering around the world, existing outside of an instance. But the need to camp them is gone, and with it (for most people, at least) the desire to.

I can't agree with this view. Having both would just mean more opportunity to get items from the loot pool faster for players that were willing to camp the open world version. Einherjer didn't stop our ls from camping ground kings.

[Kaylia]

Name calling has always been my favorite way of settling an argument too. Having said that, you're an idiot and so is Lordender.

So ignoring the argument, acting offended and tossing more insult is how you settle an argument instead?

The statement i made about the game is true, and anyone who do endgame can confirm it. I'm curious to see how you would defend your point. Using old content?

[Grey Jorildyn]

The best solution is not to place emphasis on open world content whatsoever. Many mmos, if not all, have open world monsters that require large parties to defeat. The difference between their implementation of it against SE's is the quality of the drops. In other words, open world content gear should not be top-tier stuff. Deep loot pools and bad drop rates only further worsened the matters for XI. Couple that with the ability to play every class on a single character and you can quickly see why the problem never went away, even when Einherjar was put in the game. The demand for the best gear in the game from those mobs was just far too out of hand.

I'm a firm believer that both can coexist but open world content should not be the end-all gear. Sidegrade stuff is what those mobs ought to have dropped. Then there isn't such high demand because it's just filler and many people can settle for second best in the end. Put the best stuff in instances where everyone can have an equal shot at it based on the effort they put in, rather than the quality of their claim bot.

[jPuff]

The best solution is not to place emphasis on open world content whatsoever. Many mmos, if not all, have open world monsters that require large parties to defeat. The difference between their implementation of it against SE's is the quality of the drops. In other words, open world content gear should not be top-tier stuff. Deep loot pools and bad drop rates only further worsened the matters for XI. Couple that with the ability to play every class on a single character and you can quickly see why the problem never went away, even when Einherjar was put in the game. The demand for the best gear in the game from those mobs was just far too out of hand.

I'm a firm believer that both can coexist but open world content should not be the end-all gear. Sidegrade stuff is what those mobs ought to have dropped. Then there isn't such high demand because it's just filler and many people can settle for second best in the end. Put the best stuff in instances where everyone can have an equal shot at it based on the effort they put in, rather than the quality of their claim bot.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Elrina]

Meh. I had a post written out, but it was getting lengthy. Lets see if I can sum it up.

Einherjar is a horrible example, because it only included abjurations and the drop rates even on those were horrid. Also, Einherjar required a tiered system to access higher levels where the stuff even had a bad chance at dropping, and you couldn't even enter every day, nevermind access the rooms the gear dropped in.

Grey has it almost entirely right. World spawn HNMs shouldn't contain the top shelf gear, at least not without viable, easy to access alternatives that occur just as often as the open world spawn itself. The focus for most of the top tier gear should be in an instance. I disagree in that I think a tiered NM system ala Sky/sea/ZNM could be a viable means of allowing content anybody could access which could offer some top shelf gear from it's upper tiers, as well as the instances (and with phasing, etc., they would have additional ways of making sure it wasn't the buttfuck sky used to be and common sense could prevent the horrible effort/reward sea had). But even if it did, there's no reason that has to be the only place the gear is accessible from even then.

Ultimately, the point is that re-establishing an HNM system and endgame scene just like existed in FFXI is a bad idea. There need to be alternatives, whether it's the same gear in daily instances, whether it's simply better gear available in instances, whatever. We don't even know what the ultimate level cap is going to be (it surely won't be 50), or if they plan on continuing to raise it with expansions instead of allowing it to settle at a static number like "Level 75" in FFXI. And after that point comes, whether gear will progress with side-grades, or if they'll actually continue to upgrade gear over time in new expansions.

I really love the idea of open world content, and having viable gameplay systems that require functioning out in the "real world" of the game, where anybody could end up passing by, or not, whether it's a region dedicated to said system or just scattered around the normal areas of the world people wander through most often. I don't want everything that actually has worth to it having to be done in an instance.

But shit needs to be balanced around everyone. Some people like some content, some don't. Some people like different forms of content. But everyone should always have an equal opportunity to access content, and if that means instances until/unless they can come up with a viable way of doing it open world, then so be it.

[CasualPlayer]

So ignoring the argument, acting offended and tossing more insult is how you settle an argument instead?

With you? Yes.

The statement i made about the game is true, and anyone who do endgame can confirm it. I'm curious to see how you would defend your point. Using old content?

If you really want me to teach you how fo play WoW pm me. Not going to argue about it here.

The best solution is not to place emphasis on open world content whatsoever. Many mmos, if not all, have open world monsters that require large parties to defeat. The difference between their implementation of it against SE's is the quality of the drops. In other words, open world content gear should not be top-tier stuff. Deep loot pools and bad drop rates only further worsened the matters for XI. Couple that with the ability to play every class on a single character and you can quickly see why the problem never went away, even when Einherjar was put in the game. The demand for the best gear in the game from those mobs was just far too out of hand.

I'm a firm believer that both can coexist but open world content should not be the end-all gear. Sidegrade stuff is what those mobs ought to have dropped. Then there isn't such high demand because it's just filler and many people can settle for second best in the end. Put the best stuff in instances where everyone can have an equal shot at it based on the effort they put in, rather than the quality of their claim bot.

Who said anything about placing an emphasis on it? Should be equal to instanced content. More and more it seems like everyones problem with "open world" stuff is SE's shitty implementation of it, not the actual idea of it. There are proper ways to implement any type of content where you don't need bots and hacks and 3hr camps.

You can't make the loot pool from the open world stuff "sidegrade" for the same reason people were upset that kings dropped the best gear for years. That's just the same problem in reverse.

Einherjar is a horrible example, because it only included abjurations and the drop rates even on those were horrid. Also, Einherjar required a tiered system to access higher levels where the stuff even had a bad chance at dropping, and you couldn't even enter every day, nevermind access the rooms the gear dropped in.

You could kill Odin every 14 days. With a chance (albeit a small one) to get abjs. from any chamber leading up to him. Just curious but how fast do you think people should be able to get "the best stuff in the game"? Ridill is a poor example but back when it was king how often were people getting them? How about kclub?

[Grey Jorildyn]

Who says it can't be sidegrade? Aion's open world NMs all had sidegrade. Never heard anyone complain about it. You're applying FF mentality to it, and they didn't get it right.

[Patriarch]

All this I hear about items being too hard to contain, or drops shouldn't solely come from monsters that are hard to kill..? Ridill's should also come from chests that I can do in a BCNM 20? Items are challenging to obtain for a reason.

stop whining and go play everquest if you dont want to put in the work

/e

Listening to this shit sometimes is like watching a bad tv show. Complaining about people being able to obtain more of the elite items, due to the fact that they have the ability to play more is fffffff. To me that is like a part-time waitress who works 4 hours a day, complains that the Sales Broker, who works 12 hours a day, makes more money than her. I know this is a video game, but the difficulty shouldn't be dumbed down due to a few players who like to whine. FFXI did it well, and I do not know why SE has strayed from that path.

/rant

[CasualPlayer]

Who says it can't be sidegrade? Aion's open world NMs all had sidegrade. Never heard anyone complain about it. You're applying FF mentality to it, and they didn't get it right.

I never played Aion so I can't comment on how its done in that game.

In the context of ffxiv though, the people who "didn't have access" to open world content seem to have felt they were cheated out of some of the best gear available. If you make instanced gear the best gear available and everything else a sidegrade, that would be cheating the people that actually liked open world content.

Besides, if its done correctly, why do you feel it would need to be sidegrade equip?

[SilverBreeze]

Discussion is fine here, when you guys start flaming each other though, it's not. Let's discuss this like civilized people and not naughty little monkeys throwing poo at each other.

[Alderaan]

All this I hear about items being too hard to contain, or drops shouldn't solely come from monsters that are hard to kill..? Ridill's should also come from chests that I can do in a BCNM 20? Items are challenging to obtain for a reason.

stop whining and go play everquest if you dont want to put in the work

Then you misunderstand.

Nothing in XI was challenging other than PW and that was the problem. The biggest challenge in getting a ridill was getting a fucking claim. After that people can just afk while it's being killed in 5min. That's not challenging, that's just horrible implementation of endgame content. The fights themselves need to be difficult, not some stupid RNG. Also your EQ comment if off, as it was the biggest put work in to get stuff MMO.

[Grey Jorildyn]

I'm pretty sure only FF players actually give a crap about open world content. Instancing is the standard in just about every other game of any significance out there.

If people (read: former FFXI players) seriously feel "cheated" because the game becomes instanced and horribly implemented open world content become defunct, then they need to go out there and play other games. The whole mmo community isn't FF online. People need to quit living in a box and better themselves by learning about other game systems and how they work and what is successful about them. Get real bro.

[Hyan]

The fights themselves need to be difficult

Not necessarily.

what is successful about them.

Well, on the other side we have WoW. On the other side, we have games like XI, EVE and L2, all with their own open world systems. All successful in their own way. Then we have million other MMO's, with or without heavy instancing (usually with) that end up failing horribly. Then we have a game like Rift which does both and is seemingly not doing too badly the last I heard.

What exactly do you want us to look at?

[Grey Jorildyn]

I'm not saying to look at anything exactly, just educate yourself about systems and see what works and what doesn't. A lot of arguments here use XI as a baseline, and that isn't expansive enough. If people are going to make good suggestions to the dev team or simply argue points for their own ideas, then what I am sayng is you need the largest toolbox to tackle that discussion. It can't just be XI and WoW--it goes beyond that. Everything from concept to claim to kill. There is more than two ways to make that omelet.

[Cichy]

Agree or not, exclusivity of content was one of the factors that kept players interested in XI.

[Hyan]

I'm not saying to look at anything exactly, just educate yourself about systems and see what works and what doesn't. A lot of arguments here use XI as a baseline, and that isn't expansive enough. If people are going to make good suggestions to the dev team or simply argue points for their own ideas, then what I am sayng is you need the largest toolbox to tackle that discussion. It can't just be XI and WoW--it goes beyond that. Everything from concept to claim to kill. There is more than two ways to make that omelet.

Yeah, I agree.

I hate how ZAM tries to justify the addition of auto-attack. Everything they say is just so out there that it really makes me wonder wtf Yoshida's doing. I can't figure out a good reason to implement it so that it benefits the game.

[Amastacia]

Agree or not, exclusivity of content was one of the factors that kept players interested in XI.

It was certainly one factor.

But I know a lot more people who burned out on kings than I know who kept playing for years just because they wanted to camp kings. And surely a number of people were mainly motivated to keep playing to finish their relics (or mythics, or whatever).

Most people I know kept playing because they liked the people around them and enjoyed participating in content with those people. Plus getting drops for their trouble now and again.

Low drop rates certainly extended the life of some content, and kept players hooked, but without good people to make the experience tolerable/enjoyable/downright fun I think you'd see a much lower retention rate.

See also: Why I am vastly in favor of instanced group content that rewards cooperation and teamwork and discourages anti-social behavior. It doesn't remove the exclusivity that motivates some people, it promotes a social experience focused on working together. And it still promotes competition, but of the "we killed PW and you can't" variety instead of the "we outclaimed you on KB" variety.

I write too many long posts, so I'm going to skip the totally badass analogy I was cooking up surrounding increasingly rare and ridiculous legwear, and their impact on wooing the ladies (no women on the internet, in any case). Since we know the most important part of getting rare and awesome gear is afking in town with it on.

[Selamis]

Yeah, I agree.

I hate how ZAM tries to justify the addition of auto-attack. Everything they say is just so out there that it really makes me wonder wtf Yoshida's doing. I can't figure out a good reason to implement it so that it benefits the game.

I haven't read anything that ZAM has said, but honestly the main reason I want auto attack is so that I can talk while fighting. I don't mind having to press buttons to do special moves, but at least generic swinging should be auto, so that you can respond to party or linkshell or friends in the middle of a fight. Not everyone uses Vent, so communication in game is still vital, and if you have to stop attacking to say something, that's hp that you are losing by getting hit without hitting back. I think that's why the feature alone is important to add.

[Corrderio]

Selamis pretty much sums it up. Being able to toggle one of my regular attacks (In LNC's case: Heavy Thrust, Light Thrust, Full Thrust, and Pierce) to be on auto would be nice to be able to speak. I do use vent for NMs, but I don't expect everyone to.

[blindSharingan]

so communication in game is still vital, and if you have to stop attacking to say something, that's hp that you are losing by getting hit without hitting back. I think that's why the feature alone is important to add.

To be fair there really isn't any battle pre-NMs that communication during battle is going to be vital or where fights last more than a minute. Leves are retarded easy, behest is the same and so is grinding; even the faction NMs are a joke. If you're in an "endgame" shell that kills the roaming NMs you should be using some short of voice communication to be effective imo. Seems silly not to.