Comments from the Devs

[Enkidu]

Maybe I'm crazy, but I actually like a little time sink in my MMO's. What I really like is low/mid level content that matters and is fun, along with level-less content that matters and is fun. XI did a lot right in that regard, the biggest problem just being a lack of variety in leveling and a semi-poor questing system among other things...

I mean if a game has content that's fun and content that matters for a variety of level plateaus, I think that casual gamers could latch on... I just hate the consensus that leveling should be quick and painless so that everyone can start doing endgame ASAP. I feel the same way about travel. The whole point of an MMO is its massive nature, it doesn't feel very massive if I can click a button to get to where I want to go in an instant... Make it fun and rewarding to travel to different areas and don't be afraid to design it in such a way that it might take 20-40 minutes to go from point A to point B. Just make sure that 1) I'll have fun going from point A to point B, 2) I'll be rewarded for my travel time, and 3) I'll have fun at point B so I wont regret the journey.

[Lucavi]

Leveling certainly doesn't have to be quick, simply fun. Grinding quickly or slowly isn't fun. Some people, however, never have fun while leveling, and will grind to end-game no matter how fun the leveling process may be. You can't really please them.

[Churchill]

To me that would require that in 20-40m I make the same amount of gil I would in 20-40m farming or mining or whatever, gain the same amount of XP I could get in 20-40m and reward me with tits at the end.

Seriously though, I'm more of the mindset that if I get on to play I want to play. Running somewhere is busy work and it isn't playing unless I'm rewarded for the run exactly as if I was playing.

[Thiefami]

Leveling certainly doesn't have to be quick, simply fun. Grinding quickly or slowly isn't fun. Some people, however, never have fun while leveling, and will grind to end-game no matter how fun the leveling process may be. You can't really please them.

as lame as it sounds, it truly is never about the destination and all about the journey. If SE can capture that, theres a good chance it'll be widely accepted as fun.

[Enkidu]

To me that would require that in 20-40m I make the same amount of gil I would in 20-40m farming or mining or whatever, gain the same amount of XP I could get in 20-40m and reward me with tits at the end.

Seriously though, I'm more of the mindset that if I get on to play I want to play. Running somewhere is busy work and it isn't playing unless I'm rewarded for the run exactly as if I was playing.

Well in the end fun is the only reward you'll get from an MMO, so if traveling was fun would that be enough?

I'm not going to list any ways to make traveling in an MMO fun, but it's not that complicated... The major tenants of MMO's in my book are:

Leveling
Grouping
Traveling
Acquiring loot

If an MMO can find a way to make all of the above fun and not repetitive, I think it'll be a success. In my book at least.

[Kurokikaze]

Travelling the first time: Awesome what an amazing experience. Like the first time you ran to Jeuno as a lowbie.

Travelling the same route/distance (5x): God this trip is so long... Can this chocobo go any faster?

Travelling the same route/distance (20x): Fuck this - Teleport.

This is not just something isolated to a group of "casual" players. This is universal. Anyone that disagrees is lying. I'm not saying that the game world should be a hub where people gather for instances but there has to be faster modes of travel for people that don't have 2-3 hours a day to spend just travelling.

[Takiwaki]

Travelling the first time: Awesome what an amazing experience. Like the first time you ran to Jeuno as a lowbie.

Travelling the same route/distance (5x): God this trip is so long... Can this chocobo go any faster?

Travelling the same route/distance (20x): Fuck this - Teleport.

This is not just something isolated to a group of "casual" players. This is universal. Anyone that disagrees is lying. I'm not saying that the game world should be a hub where people gather for instances but there has to be faster modes of travel for people that don't have 2-3 hours a day to spend just travelling.

Waypoints.

[Kurokikaze]

Waypoints.

Which counts as a teleport... lol

Using Outpost Warp from Bastok to Battalia Downs to get to Jeuno is literally 20 seconds away from being a teleport from Bastok to Jeuno. BUT DONT BREAK MY IMMERSION MAN.

[Takiwaki]

Which counts as a teleport... lol

Using Outpost Warp from Bastok to Battalia Downs to get to Jeuno is literally 20 seconds away from being a teleport from Bastok to Jeuno. BUT DONT BREAK MY IMMERSION MAN.

How is that breaking immersion? what is really wrong with teleporting from bastok to jeuno directly? Especially in a world of teleport cystals and runic portals?

[Kurokikaze]

How is that breaking immersion? what is really wrong with teleporting from bastok to jeuno directly? Especially in a world of teleport cystals and runic portals?

You and I are on the same side of the argument. I'm making fun of that complaint. Guess I should've made that clearer. lol

[Takiwaki]

You and I are on the same side of the argument. I'm making fun of that complaint. Guess I should've made that clearer. lol

I duno! you have a pic of yoshi with hope on it!, it confuses me sometimes! lol (im so kidding)

[Thiefami]

Seriously though, I'm more of the mindset that if I get on to play I want to play. Running somewhere is busy work and it isn't playing unless I'm rewarded for the run exactly as if I was playing.

Thing is playing a game is supposed to be rewarding. I have no qualms with teleport scrolls, teleportation spells and abilities on endless timers, but people should come into a game to have fun and to play the game as is. I do see your point, but I suppose I'm saying a lot of games get this aspect wrong. The whole entire thing is supposed to be rewarding if not in loot, and/or exp, but always in fun .

[Enkidu]

Travelling the first time: Awesome what an amazing experience. Like the first time you ran to Jeuno as a lowbie.

Travelling the same route/distance (5x): God this trip is so long... Can this chocobo go any faster?

Travelling the same route/distance (20x): Fuck this - Teleport.

This is not just something isolated to a group of "casual" players. This is universal. Anyone that disagrees is lying. I'm not saying that the game world should be a hub where people gather for instances but there has to be faster modes of travel for people that don't have 2-3 hours a day to spend just travelling.

Yeah going from point A to point B 20x is boring when it's not fun. The whole point was to make it fun.

XI's problem was 2-fold though. You'd be going the same route(s) from the day you started the game until the day you quit because there was so little variety in where to level/farm/endgame. Save for when expansions were released of course. Some areas of XI are hardly ever utilized due to poor balancing and/or no incentive to actually get there. It's pretty sad seeing as how there was a lot of cool things to see in XI.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be fast-travel alternatives for those times you just want to get something done quick, but it should be a little restrictive/expensive/whatever so that it's not the main form of travel. All the while adding incentives to actually go out explorin' on foor or with mounts.

[Lucavi]

There's only so many incentives to go out and explore with mounts in a game that doesn't level cap individual zones. What "incentive" does a level 60 have on his way through a level 25 zone to get to the proverbial Jueno city hub? Vanilla WoW had treasure chests that were random and contained some goodies, and people raged when they took them out for expansions, but even with something like that, the goodies from level 25 mean nothing to a 60.

GW2 kinda gets around foot travel by allowing you to remain at the level of the zone you're going through and scaling your power so that the fights are always relatively thrilling, if not meaningful. They also upscale the drops to your max level so that you can still grab a few goodies for your level 60 while dicking around as a level 25, or even a level 5. While there will still be problems even if XIV adopted a similiar strategy, you take a lot of the "ugh" out of things like mandatory foot (or chocobo) travel when you find ways to keep things fresh, and to continue to allow a player to feel a sense of progression.

I just haven't seen a willingness from SE to go that "extra mile" to please players, whether its through a concept or system for the game, for adjustments to classes or mechanics, or simply through holiday events or whatnot. I feel like they do what's needed to keep the money train rolling, but after having seen the way Arenanet handles their business, its allowed me to look at SE a bit more critically for the way they run their ship.

Still looking over my shoulder for 2.0, though. My body is ready to reroll on a new server with a rusty spear in my hands as a lancer.

[Draylo]

I think if we could fly our own airships like flying mounts or something it would make travel a bit fun!

[Kurokikaze]

BUT MY IMMERSION! WHY MUST YOU RUIN IT!?

[Raldo]

Does flying suddenly make travel interesting? I fail to see how that improves anything.

[Kurokikaze]

It let's you experience the in game world from a whole different perspective and see more scenery... To say it doesn't make travelling more interesting would be stupid. To say it fixes the underlying issue would also be stupid.


Yoshi-P just needs to give me call/PM and pick my brain for ideas cause I have so many things in my head that would be cool for this game.

Imagine fighting Diabolos (gravity primal)... Engage him and he says "I AM DIABOLOS MASTER OF GRAVITY... HERE YOU PLAY BY MY RULES." and lifts the entire raid into the air where the fight will take place. Players are able to move up/down/left/right/etc for the encounter. He'll randomly drops one of the players causing them to take fall damage before getting sent back up. Also there are orbs that float around aimlessly (look like the Graviga spell in FF games) that do pretty much the same thing in a sense (increase gravity around you thus causing you to plummet and take damage). The battlefield could look similar to that of the magical lamp in FF8. Pretty much darkness everywhere.

Sorry I had to gush there... lol

[Alkar]

It let's you experience the in game world from a whole different perspective and see more scenery... To say it doesn't make travelling more interesting would be stupid. To say it fixes the underlying issue would also be stupid.


Yoshi-P just needs to give me call/PM and pick my brain for ideas cause I have so many things in my head that would be cool for this game.

Imagine fighting Diabolos (gravity primal)... Engage him and he says "I AM DIABOLOS MASTER OF GRAVITY... HERE YOU PLAY BY MY RULES." and lifts the entire raid into the air where the fight will take place. Players are able to move up/down/left/right/etc for the encounter. He'll randomly drops one of the players and they take fall damage before getting sent back up. Also there are orbs that float around aimlessly (look like the Graviga spell in FF games) that do pretty much the same thing in a sense (increase gravity around you thus causing you to plummet and take damage). The battlefield could look similar to that of the magical lamp in FF8. Pretty much darkness everywhere.

Sorry I had to gush there... lol

Well I think this is the general idea for primals. Yoshi confirmed that while they do move freely around the world they also teleport you into an instance when engaged and I'm assuming that it'll be the current instance.
Either way I'm sure we'll see more interesting primal fights in the future, especially with the issues and limitations of the current version going away.
Someone really needs to ask him if we're getting all the primal fights when 2.0 hits or just the current ones+ Odin. That'd be a lot of content already if we get the full package.
Bah, one more month of little to no info (except for the patch I guess but we're 2 weeks away from the supposed release and still nothing ;; ).

[Churchill]

I would be pretty dissappointed if they removed the current fight, especially if I was a player that stopped playing because the game was shit and was unable to obtain stuff because the game was/is shit.

I mean, say they do release all the primals and you have all these instances with gear/weapons but they're all Garuda level difficulty or greater. There is no ifrit/king mog that have greater tolerance for not being on the ball and obtaining items that would help in beating said additional content.

At the same time, you're removing content that people can do/will do that is perfectly fine as is for no reason, some of which is pretty fun (moogle) and will probably be fun if they can actually make the game not lag (ifrit, and doubtful)