Patch 1.17 Notes (04/14/2011)

[Lordender]

Bitching about gathering class mini-games being too tedious after the last couple patches is just... lazy. Go play WoW?

I love when a total moron plays the "if its too hard go play WoW card." You do realize WoW is a challenging game, Very few guilds in the world clear all the heroic mode content for the current tier before nerfs/buff's go out.

Let me enlighten you since you decided to play the lamest fucking card in forum history.

In WoW you don't have to put much time in to advance whatever character you play unless you're competing for world firsts, world firsts is a completely different ball game.

In FFXIV its just a big time-sink, want to craft? play mini-game, want to mine/cut tree's play a mini-game! Battle system moves at a snail pace. Want to go to gridiana? walk or hope you can take the Anima hit. This trend was also in FFXI, FFXI was a very slow paced game for years until about ToAU came around. SE is a master at creating roadblocks for the player to slow them down when its not needed at all.

In WoW you're not slowed down by a lot, the game flows fast, the game play is fast, you're in an out, it doesn't fuck with your time when playing solo just for the sake of doing it for no good reason. When you log off WoW you're going to feel as if you got something accomplished more times than not, you have made a noticeable advancement in your character.

In FFXIV progress is slow because of the way the game is designed. Everything was made the way it was to slow the player down as much as possible. Cutting the bullshit out that completely wasent needed is only going to bring people back to the game.

MMO's should be starting at the level cap, not being all about getting there. Leveling to 85 in WoW is easy, I get that, and is just a small aspect of the game because now you're just beginning the game. Grinding in WoW starts at the level cap, farm your heroics, rep and grind raids, it doesn't even begin the grind until after hitting the level cap.

I know many many people who enjoyed leveling in WoW who were die-hard FFXI players who said they would NEVER try WoW, you have an impact on the events while going through the various zones of the game, you're immersed into whats actually going on. I don't know a single person who has enjoyed leveling anything FFXIV to 50, All i heard from level 50 players is "thank god thats over with." Should leveling not be fun? should it not be about being on this grand adventure making an impact based on where the adventure takes you?

Mini-games for crafting/gathering, fatigue, snail paced combat, badly designed systems, players being nothing but glorified pest control is why this game is where it is. Yoshi-P is fucking chef ramsey of FFXIV, he was only brought in to make this into a modern MMO, no more, no less

Before someone flames me about being a WoW fanboy you should check out the WoW's random complaint thread where I flammed the fuck out of cataclysm quite a few times, I don't even play WoW anymore or like the game but that doesn't mean I can't respect the way the game has been made.

[Hyan]

MMO's should be starting at the level cap, not being all about getting there.

Whatever we say here won't have any impact on anything... but damn I hope Yoshida doesn't share that mindset.

[Tomino]

Agree with Hyan, it's wrong to see the levelling process as a huge tutorial session.
Picking WoW example, you'd say that casual players enjoy the path to cap while MMORPG's lovers feast on endgame / gear grind.

I feel it's fair to have someone buy your game, "clear" it by reaching cap (so experiencing zones, monsters and story/lore) and then move on the next one IF he's not the MMO type, and by that I mean guilds / endgame / events commitment.



@ Hyan
I'm not saying craft should be a couple of clicks with no brain attached, but still I can't defend a system where it took me 50 mins to craft a single common lv11 doublet because of all sub-recipes, minigames and general lag.

[Hyan]

Obviously you can choose how much time you want to spend making a single item. Even nowadays I don't think you have to go out there and gather the raw ingredients by yourself, then make a sub-recipe after another and finally the end-product. You can buy the sub-recipes and just make the doublet that way. Previously this was difficult but search system makes it pretty straightforward, AH even more-so.

Although I don't know what this materia system will do about that.

[Jamison]

What did the little "mini-games" add to the game? If anything it scared a lot of people away by being SO tedious, you wanna know what the real problem FF14 has? It was overcomplicated just for the sake of trying to be different, only the masochists love how things currently are and wouldn't want to see a single thing be streamlined so people will actually return to the game. I don't know about you but I just love seeing an empty game world outside of a few people at level 40 camps on my server! must be because the game is so good right?

This is not a direct response to Lordender, but the quote was the perfect counterpoint to what I wanted to say.

I know many well-adjusted, normal high-ranked gatherers, myself included. Gathering (assuming one class) can take, at maximum, 1-2 hours per day to do as much as you can. This, while still getting a respectable amount of overall items. There is no way this is too hard, and no way this is too time intensive. In MMO terms, this is a perfect compliment to a normal battle class in terms of time required, etc. Guess what? It's going to take a little time and dedication to learn how to be good (and more importantly, efficient) at the mini-game. (The same applies to any battle class.) I agree the ranking-up process needs smoothing out, but by-and-large gathering classes are done pretty well. There is room for small improvements, but it in no way needs the overhaul that the battle system does.

And even better, I'm glad that not everyone choses to do this one particular aspect of the game, because then I get rewarded more for it.

The overall problem that FFXIV has is not the gathering nor crafting classes, it is the combat. People don't leave a game because they don't like the gathering process. Combat is supposed to be the main focus of a game, isn't it? That's what needs fixed to bring people back, not gathering.

Learning the secrets of crafting and gathering, (ie. actually be a skilled player), gives far better rewards than if it were just a simple click and enter. This time around it is able to easily separate the shitty players from the great players.

I'm begging for more things that will help a skilled, dedicated gatherer do better than the average Joe. Relic pickaxe? I'm there in a heartbeat. I *want* zones with lots of aggro, with difficult-to-reach nodes, and items that might sell for crazy gil. Yes, I realize gil has little value at the moment, but one of two things will likely happen: 1) eventually there will be enough gilsinks to make it valuable again, or 2) at the very least, I'll be able to keep these super-rare items within the linkshell and as a group, we'll progress nicely for it. I want my skill to allow me to be rewarded, which when you think about it is what any battle class also expects out of their choices.

[CasualPlayer]

Missing the Point
By Kaylia

(bolded the part where you're completely wrong)

Before you start getting all retarded and pointing fingers based on your stupid assumptions of whether or not I actually enjoy the "mini-games," understand that I was actually saying they suck for skilling/grinding/etc. (my 33 fisher is well aware). Once you get to a point where your gathering/crafting classes become of use besides just a number in your skills menu, (you know, actually gathering items for crafting, and possibly crafting something you're going to use) the "mini-games" will supply versatility and purpose to your gathering/crafting that you're going to wish you had if they ever did away with them.

I still find it mind-boggling ridiculous that people prefer the concept of click a "craft" or "mine/fish/log" button and simply cross their fingers to HQ their Adaberks, NQ their Peace Capes, dig up Luminium Ore, or hook a Gugrusaurus instead of having any sort of control over the process, as long as it means THE THING HAPPEN FASTER.

Obviously the "mini-games" do have issues that could be tweaked into being less cumbersome for pure grinding from low-ranks into the mid-ranks, but I'd be pretty disappointed if they did away with them entirely because people would rather just close their eyes roll some dice every time they gather/craft.

I want to agree with this except in my experience the mini game is only an illusion of control. I can craft something several times and end up with 600+ quality and NQ it. Make the same item with 50 quality and HQ. Still seems eerily random to me at the end of the day. Kaylias argument against you is retarded however.

[Biggie]

So whats the command for the hpbar? I tried /hpbar, /hpbar on, /hpbar off, nothing seems to be working.

[Ksandra]

So whats the command for the hpbar? I tried /hpbar, /hpbar on, /hpbar off, nothing seems to be working.

/hpbar all

[Elcura]

/hpbar all

edit: beaten

[Biggie]

/hpbar all

edit: beaten

ohh lol thanks guys!

[Corrderio]

@ Hyan
I'm not saying craft should be a couple of clicks with no brain attached, but still I can't defend a system where it took me 50 mins to craft a single common lv11 doublet because of all sub-recipes, minigames and general lag.

They are going to simplify recipes soon from how it sounds, so when that happens everything should be good.

[Biggie]

So I logged in today to give the new patch a try. Did my 8 leves and a few quests before I,once again, raged and logged out. I can not handle the frigging camera. I can't be the only person out there that can not stand it. its always moving, bouncing, and going back to default. Its really bad when locked on to a mob and you have a wall or something behind you, the camera will bounce, or go down to the lowest angle zoomed all the way in. I spent all of my time fighting and stuff trying to move the camera around and keep it where I want it. Surely it can't be that damn hard to fix. I really want to get back into this game, but i just can't handle playing with the camera going bat shit everytime I engage a mob.

Anyone else out there bothered by this, is there an easy fix, maybe I'm just "doing it wrong."

Edit: I just made a thread on the official forums about this. If anyone else feels the same, please post on the thread and add your comments.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/7950-Camera
Thanks for the comment Kuro!

[Sign]

I highly doubt they are going to remove the minigame for the crafting and gathering jobs. These are supposed to be full-fledged jobs (unless SE has made a statement changing that fact that I haven't seen) just like their battle counterparts. Asking them to make them 1-click attempts like other MMOs is like asking them to make the Combat jobs 1 click kills as well. I think most people still view crafting and gathering as something you do on the side to augment your "real" jobs which is where the wildly differing opinions are coming in.

If they did make the DoH/DoL jobs single click instead of mini-game you know they would cut the xp and output down even further to maintain the same progression speed.

[Aratharn]

So I logged in today to give the new patch a try. Did my 8 leves and a few quests before I,once again, raged and logged out. I can not handle the frigging camera. I can't be the only person out there that can not stand it. its always moving, bouncing, and going back to default. Its really bad when locked on to a mob and you have a wall or something behind you, the camera will bounce, or go down to the lowest angle zoomed all the way in. I spent all of my time fighting and stuff trying to move the camera around and keep it where I want it. Surely it can't be that damn hard to fix. I really want to get back into this game, but i just can't handle playing with the camera going bat shit everytime I engage a mob.

Anyone who's tanked Great Buffalo and got pinned against the wall knows how annoying the rest the fight is until you can get some space again.

[Tomino]

I can not handle the frigging camera. I can't be the only person out there that can not stand it. its always moving, bouncing, and going back to default.

That's one thing it's always hurting my game experience, that and all the stamina/animation unpolishness bugs.
I think we may hope for the battle system rehaul to help solving things out.

On the craft matter, I'd agree on the minigame once they tone down the amount of item crafted for each armour piece.
I also liked a lot the idea of tieing craft and customizable stats to make it something more "rpg fans" oriented and give casuals quest rewarded gear to play with.

[Biggie]

Well I forced myself to log back in and just deal with the camera. I will have to admit that this game is really starting to take off. I had tons of fun hunting down a few NMs and getting some new gear for some lowbies I plan to level. I also did all the quests in Ul'dah which were decent. I then went with some friends and did a SP pt, there was 4 of us getting about 18k-20k sp an hour. I really like the smaller PTs, 15 man spam fest PTs was nothing but a cluster fuck. All in all (besides the damn camera) I had a great time, and would highly recommend to anyone thinking about coming back to give it a try. The game has improved greatly within the last few months. Looking forward to all the other improvements coming in the future.

Edit: Forgot to mention the best part... Started the day with my weapon @100%.... 80ksp or more, few hours worth of questing and killing mobs, 8 leves, and that only took my weapon down to 44%.... 3 months ago I would have had to repair AT LEAST 4 times. Rather happy about that!

[Celeras]

Not sure what you expect from the camera. I don't really know of a game that won't zoom in if you clip a wall.

[Foxer]

^TERA. The wall goes transparent to about 10% opacity so you can see anything going on, which is tremendous help. Cameras that automatically zoom in instantly as you clip a wall should all be worked on by now. I would understand shit like open world letting this slide, but in town/dungeons or anything that would be small areas, this should be standard.

[miokomioko]

Oh come on.

[Foxer]

Remark was made and answered. That should be the end of it.

I'm interested in this game as well, don't let my dislike towards it boggle your mind too much.