The Battle Reform Blueprint

[Tomino]

You can make a 4 lines gambit that beat pretty much every bosses in every games

And we all know people whose average intelligence when it comes to games is probably equal to 3 lines gambit, so what to do?
Also, being told what to do by an Add-on isnt an example of great gameplay. Back in Thaddius day people were following an on-screen message during the whole fight, not something I'd call epic. But then again, I'm glad WoW has its playstyle so that FF14 can offer something different.
Not that I'd say *current* FF14 offers any challenge at all because it's plain dull and stupid.

Anyway it's MMOs we're talking here, you're almost "forced" to join others in battling certain bosses so it should come to no surprise that difficulty is always being toned down.
The whole idea of making 3-4 people parties for dungeon has potential because it'd allow a little more elitism and thus, I hope, difficulty. Same with 8 man alliances instead of 40 people doing Dynamises.

And yes, FFXI was easy. And at the same time, people wiped to Dynamis, Fafnir, Kirin and CoP missions.

[Gadritan]

Yeah, FFXI was so challenging, I two sometimes three boxed out Tiamat kills and never missed a beat. That shit was so easy back at 75, FFXI was more about figuring out shit than challenge.

Tough to find a good middle ground. Yeah, Tia was easy mode after every little detail was figured out for the "perfect," strategy, but it took some time. You certainly didn't just waltz through the fight at first. When things were less than ideal (lacking jobs for the ideal strat) you would actually see some separation in player ability when ppl had to make decisions on the fly rather than someone telling them "stand here. do ____ when this happens and _____ when this happens. rinse and repeat."

Here's hoping they create a good balance between strategy and "action," style difficulty. I think in this era of MMOs, it most certainly needs to cater to both.

[Nevex]

Figuring things out is the challenge in a MMORPG.

[Lucavi]

Still, we shouldnt mix RPG style difficulty with Action style difficulty.
Personally, I don't associate RPGs with reflexes, pattern memorization or counter-moves. Sure, games like WoW built their whole endgame around it and people loved that but this is still an MMORPG we're talking about, a FF-related one nonetheless.

I think it's fair for SE to work and deliver some kind of game experience that ties with other FF games. Bosses from previous games never required too much coordination, just a few brain cells and proper gear/setup.

In my opinion, FF11 managed to recreate that. And in doing so, surely "failed" all players who were looking for something more finger-challenging.

Oh, I think its perfectly fair for them to do that too. I also think its perfectly fair for people to label it as antiquated, and I think its more than fair for SE's sales to suffer from over-using what someone like you would consider "classic JRPG elements".

I mean, sure, SE is perfectly allowed to design a brand new MMO (a genre that, by definition, requires many players to keep the heat on and the electric running, not to mention turn a profit) that, at best, will only see a max of 500k spike subs and 75k average subs. If that's what the purest of fans of SE's genre truly desire, than so be it; the people have spoken, and so have their wallets by continuing to support the company.

I'd also wager, though, that by designing a game like that, the rest of the people (and their wallets, which also contain money used to provide said power/heating/water) have also spoken about how they feel about the situation by not purchasing the game. When you start thinking like that, though, you're getting into the territory of what the purpose of a MMORPG is: to create a virtua world for a small amount of people that can truly feel happy within it, or to make lots of pretty safe and easy money by churning out a bit of content here and there while keeping as many people hooked in your world as possible?

With the way SE's finances have gone, I'd wager that they're starting to look at the latter far more hungrily than the former.

[Lordender]

Figuring things out is the challenge in a MMORPG.

Not really, look @ WoW end game, shits all about execution, it doesn't matter how well you know the fight or not. Even if you know the fight 100% shit can still go wrong and cause a wipe. Shit can be going great then off a sudden 5-8 people can drop dead at a milliseconds notice, you can't even recover in WoW like you could in FFXI when shit went wrong.

It could take a really fail LS in XI over an hour to wipe to certain HNM's like CoP wyrms, in WoW if you're fail, you die in like a minute, 2 tops.

[Gadritan]

Figuring things out is part of the challenge in a MMORPG.

Better?

[Tomino]

Niches might as well be the future for MMO titles.
Not that I'm saying I'm hoping for that but games like AoC or WAR proved that aiming for the throne is very risky and may result in terrible failures.

It might even be possible that no other game will ever be able to reach WoW numbers, not even Blizzard's next title. I'm eager to see how GW2 (which has no monthly fee so tecnically isnt even a competitor) will face against "Azeroth Nostalgia" once Blizzard will release its own Abyssea, if you get what I mean.


Myself, I dont think FF14 will ever be able to reach something like 2+ milion users. It's not even a matter of game design.
At the same time, I'd not consider FF11 a "complete failure" or anything.

[Kurokikaze]

Figuring things out is the challenge in a MMORPG.

Oh really?

Raindrops fallin on ma head... but that doesn't mean these mobs will soon be spawning reeeeeeed.

[Kaylia]

And we all know people whose average intelligence when it comes to games is probably equal to 3 lines gambit, so what to do?
Also, being told what to do by an Add-on isnt an example of great gameplay. Back in Thaddius day people were following an on-screen message during the whole fight, not something I'd call epic. But then again, I'm glad WoW has its playstyle so that FF14 can offer something different.

Add-on can help, but they are absolutely not needed for raid at the moment. Blizzard is moving away from that, and is using more and more visual cues to warm players.

[Tomino]

Add-on can help, but they are absolutely not needed for raid at the moment. Blizzard is moving away from that, and is using more and more visual cues to warm players.

That's one reason to admire WoW designers over many others.

I'm also among those who really like the idea of a Dungeon Journal. Encounters should be based on a proper learning curve / reactions to cues, instead of forcing players to spam the hell out of Youtube each time they're heading inside a new dungeon.

[Alderaan]

- Damage control + the whole monster's TP issue. I loved how in FF11 you didnt simply unleash hell on your enemy but you had to weight if certain damages were worth the TP the monster was being feeding.

While in theory this sounds great, i don't think it was executed properly in XI. All it did was lead to people mana-burning everything and made people refuse to bring more than 2 melee. This was obviously alleviated with the multiple class system but you get the idea.

[Achitophel]

Difficulty I'd like to see in FF14:

- Preparation. Learn the fight and come up with a proper job setup. WoW can't do that because each toon is single-class and when they tried, raid leaders were keeping certain classes out of endgame.

- Damage control + the whole monster's TP issue. I loved how in FF11 you didnt simply unleash hell on your enemy but you had to weight if certain damages were worth the TP the monster was being feeding.

- Reactive situations. One thing I dislike of WoW bosses is the fact their abilities are on timers, which you can have on-screen via DBM. I prefer players to be on their toes and react once the boss picked its TP move.

- Crowd Control. Make it adds, pods, summons or henchmen. Oh and kiting.

- Positions. From the most common breath attacks, players should focus on how they're placing themselves as the fight goes on.

- Resources Control. Fights should be challenging in a way that players must use their brains to save mana/cures by using cooldowns and such. WoW took the same path with Cata and it's nice.

Good post.

Also, lol Kaylia

[Grey Jorildyn]

Figuring things out is the challenge in a MMORPG.

Man you played waaaaay too much FFXI if you think that's true.

[Cureslime]

Loving that they are aware that changes need to be made and are making them. Hope they're great. "Figuring out things" is a last generation MMO concept. Now it's all about reading guides, discussing and tweaking the accepted strategy to suit your available players, and getting the most loot for the least amount of work. That may make MMOs seem trivial but it is what it is. If that sounds dumb think of what the majority of people want from story/quests in MMOs: point out the NPCs to me, highlight on the map where to go and give me GPS directions there, highlight what needs killing or picking up, GPS me back to where I need to turn in. You can blame WoW if you really want to but it's more the fact that people don't want to be pissed off when they're playing games meant to be blissful escapes from reality.

[Takiwaki]

I think the entire non-actiony, non twitch/counter type gameplay in rpgs is a thing of the past. look at TERA, Blade and soul and Guild wars 2, rpgs have been growing from menu clicking and number watching, to more direct control combat. gamers have been growing wanting more control to immerse us, to get lost in. We can absorb more so we want more to do. simple watching pretty graphics and clicking attack is no longer fun, 2 things that games now are doing is either adding in action type combat or creating more intensity with tactical type rules, that makes us think on the fly.

for example a simple thing that would have made 14 battle system fun is if they took the 13 paradigm system with a twist. imagine allow players to equip 3 jobs at a time but in battle depending on what actions we took it only allowed us to stay in each job for a specific time limit, having to be forced to swap to another job, allowing the other job to recharge. imagine the fun one can have in a party with this simple thing. the battles do not have to be actiony in any way but the simple fact of having to force jobs like the tank to swap to healer while the healer swaps to tank in the middle of battle creates the fun..

[Kaylia]

^
While it sound fun in theory, you need to keep in mind that coordinating shit like this with other players would make it a complete pain in the ass.

[Kensaki]

Laggy ui + lag from server across the world = nightmare to time anything resembling a skill chain.

[Lordender]

I can just see Skillchains in FFXIV

MRD and LNC go!

Whiff, Whiff, bunch of blm's angry as fuck.

Lol I love SE's continued thought process, the bigger the weapon is the more it has to miss and when the hit does connect its hardly even more damage than the other weapons to make any difference once-so-ever.

Really wish they would just go the WoW route where once you stack so much hit/expertise abilites can no longer miss/evade/dodge/parry.

Or once a certain hit % is reached for spells they never miss. However this would require mob levels to be drastically redesigned.

[Grey Jorildyn]

I came up with an idea I think is pretty good for BRs and might post on SE's boards. The basic idea is that damage types chained in succession give the mob different effect, like BRs do now, but in a much greater variety (like two blunt ws in a row are knockback or stun effect for short period). Still working on the draft though. For those who read the official forums: worth bothering? Might just screw it and save myself the time.

[Null]

I can just see Skillchains in FFXIV

MRD and LNC go!

Whiff, Whiff, bunch of blm's angry as fuck.

Lol I love SE's continued thought process, the bigger the weapon is the more it has to miss and when the hit does connect its hardly even more damage than the other weapons to make any difference once-so-ever.

This post really confuses me. My MRD misses from time to time but not nearly as bad as any class in xi would. And my LNC seems to hit more often then any other class in the game. Acc has never been an issue in my eyes with this title.