Chocobos and Airships (09/22/2011)

[Ferr]

no effort on getting your personal chocobos?
Maybe for the ones that are R50 and have beaten everything. But think about it, for getting your personal chocobo you need to be R45 and beat Darkhold. That alone is more work than for getting your own personal chocobo in XI.
I have yet to beat Darkhold (its not that easy for the people with small Ls) so I will not have my own chobo day 1.

[Gokulo]

nBut think about it, for getting your personal chocobo you need to be R45 and beat Darkhold

?.?

[Nilheim]

Well, considering you can do Caravan escorts every 15 minutes, I don't think you'll have to be that high. You'll just have to be lv25+ and do escorts. That's more work than trading one item to a chocobo every hour though. If we had to be rank 45 to get chocobos, a lot of new players would be pissed off, and rightfully so. You need to travel when you level classes more than when you have them at level 50.

[vadre]

You can still use rental chocobos prior to that, remember.

[Spider-Dan]

At the moment, basically everything is easily obtainable - in XI, not everyone had personal/coloured chocos and charged whistles, so not everyone was 100% of the time mounted up. Make it too easy and everyone just becomes identi-kit.

Everything is "easily obtainable" because everyone playing the game is already at the cap.

I'm all up for cool looking personal chocos being tricky to get, but making rentals slow sucks. Just being stock models should be enough.

So making personal chocobos no faster than rentals is the answer? Been there, done that.

[miokomioko]

everyone playing the game is already at the cap.

I see this said every day around here but it's completely false. I wish it were true to some degree, but there are a lot of new and returning beta/release players in the game now that it's getting a little patch-hype.

[Grey Jorildyn]

There are many players like that, for sure. There are also many players with multiple 1 or more 50 classes. It's certainly isn't "everyone" but it's a large chunk of the playerbase that gives a hoot about the game.

[Spider-Dan]

I see this said every day around here but it's completely false. I wish it were true to some degree, but there are a lot of new and returning beta/release players in the game now that it's getting a little patch-hype.

Then those players will not find everything easily obtainable. Q.E.D.

Let me rephrase my statement so as to satisfy you:

Everyone on these forums complaining about things being too "easily obtainable" is already at the cap.

[Lordender]

This is the biggest problem I have with the FF community across both games is that too many people want to be "special snowflakes" too many people want "exclusive things" while top tier gear should always be included in the "exclusive things" catagory but personal chocobo color mounts is the wrong thing to make "exclusive things" where the dev's are going to put some ridiculous road block in new players way just to please a bunch of people who have multiple 50's because they feel like they need to look cool while being a "Special snowflake"

People need to remember that they need to lure new customers to the game plus getting the older customers who quit on the game early on back. I always laugh at how pathetic some players are when everytime something is announced with this game theres always a slew of players that say "IT BETTER NOT BE EZ-MODE FOR CASUALS!" and we're not even talking about end-game content most of the time but something along the lines of accessible chocobo mounts.

These are the same people we see in XI who defend the latest craptastic XI patch and say "low drop rates on new spells and certain gear are a must to extend the life of the content otherwise its EZ-MODE!" when they could have just made better content using a point system where everyone puts the work in to eventually buy what they want instead of being lazy fucks and just making drop rates low. So typical that SE trained people to think low drop rates = challenge.

People are really reaching at this point, its pathetic to say the least and I hope for SE's sake that they don't listen to those XIV players or they're going to find it much harder to get newer players or players from launch back into the fold.

[Cichy]

I dont know who all those self proclaimed hardcore endgamerz are because in my experience some of the best players I knew quit long time before abyssea and they realized the short comings of FFXI.
When I hear all this bitching it seems to me like those are the people who got left out of the endgame for years and finally got their king drop month before abyssea made all their shit irrelevant.
They did not get enough being the "special snowflake" and think this time it will be different.

[Lordender]

I dont know who all those self proclaimed hardcore endgamerz are because in my experience some of the best players I knew quit long time before abyssea and they realized the short comings of FFXI.
When I hear all this bitching it seems to me like those are the people who got left out of the endgame for years and finally got their king drop month before abyssea made all their shit irrelevant.
They did not get enough being the "special snowflake" and think this time it will be different.

haha another example I could make is when the proposed crafting recipe changes came along there was a bunch of players bitching "OMG EZ-MODE" which is hilarious considering I knew people who watched netflix movies while hitting square over standard synth(which you can do while tabbed out with a controller) during skillup while having so many materials from farming that it didn't even matter if they failed a few synths.

I guess the moral of these post is "Time consuming is NOT challenging"

I hope the chocobo quest is a nice quest that ends up being a huge improvement over the XI one and one that touches on why so many of them got "sick".

[Thiefami]

This is the biggest problem I have with the FF community across both games is that too many people want to be "special snowflakes" too many people want "exclusive things" while top tier gear should always be included in the "exclusive things" catagory but personal chocobo color mounts is the wrong thing to make "exclusive things" where the dev's are going to put some ridiculous road block in new players way just to please a bunch of people who have multiple 50's because they feel like they need to look cool while being a "Special snowflake"

People need to remember that they need to lure new customers to the game plus getting the older customers who quit on the game early on back. I always laugh at how pathetic some players are when everytime something is announced with this game theres always a slew of players that say "IT BETTER NOT BE EZ-MODE FOR CASUALS!" and we're not even talking about end-game content most of the time but something along the lines of accessible chocobo mounts.

These are the same people we see in XI who defend the latest craptastic XI patch and say "low drop rates on new spells and certain gear are a must to extend the life of the content otherwise its EZ-MODE!" when they could have just made better content using a point system where everyone puts the work in to eventually buy what they want instead of being lazy fucks and just making drop rates low. So typical that SE trained people to think low drop rates = challenge.

People are really reaching at this point, its pathetic to say the least and I hope for SE's sake that they don't listen to those XIV players or they're going to find it much harder to get newer players or players from launch back into the fold.

While I agree with you for the most part if you make a game too casual it fails to hold players attention. I think there is a mid ground - and I think he is going about it the right way (at least he mentioned so in his letter ) by sort of separating the hardcore "uniqueness" from the casual.

Nothing is wrong with wanting to be a "special snowflake". I think in an MMO that is kind of the point. Not everyone willingly wants to run around wearing the same gear, with the same abilities, and same trinkets.

[Hyan]

Point systems aren't superior. They have their benefits, they have their disadvantages.

Also thinking time consuming is not challenging is correct, but to feel that you have truly achieved something you need to put effort into it.

Lots of activities in life are not "challenging", but the time and effort spent in doing it is what gives you the feeling of achievement at the end of the day. It is important.

But it also has to feel achievable in a realistic manner. Otherwise you might lose hope, and give up. On the other hand, if you start looking at the progression "bar" all the time it may start to feel like work.

Now if it feels like you don't need to put any effort into it, it's not really an achievement at all. In that case, well, hopefully the activity is entertaining in other ways instead. Say, leveling up, which is pretty much crushed to the ground as far as feeling like you've achieved something goes. But honestly speaking, from an entertainment perspective it's not really successful either. Gameplay sucks, quests suck, audiovisuals are pretty sub-par unless the art style saves it, et cetera. The feeling of achievement was pretty much the only thing it had going for it, as well as the novelty of socialization, but nowadays....

[Kaiyoko]

While I agree with you for the most part if you make a game too casual it fails to hold players attention. I think there is a mid ground - and I think he is going about it the right way (at least he mentioned so in his letter ) by sort of separating the hardcore "uniqueness" from the casual.

Nothing is wrong with wanting to be a "special snowflake". I think in an MMO that is kind of the point. Not everyone willingly wants to run around wearing the same gear, with the same abilities, and same trinkets.

This, one of the reasons I'm discouraged when playing WoW. Excluding the world first kills, every 3 months everyone is wearing the same gear basically. Getting lucky on a .1% mount is basically the only way to stand out anymore. XI always had that feeling because of the rarity of various pieces. Not so much anymore though. As far as XIV goes, I know having Solid Scale mail gave maybe a week of that "Special snowflake" till everyone figured the fights out. Seems like the same issue I have with WoW...

[Patriarch]

Point systems aren't superior. They have their benefits, they have their disadvantages.

Also thinking time consuming is not challenging is correct, but to feel that you have truly achieved something you need to put effort into it.

Lots of activities in life are not "challenging", but the time and effort spent in doing it is what gives you the feeling of achievement at the end of the day. It is important.

But it also has to feel achievable in a realistic manner. Otherwise you might lose hope, and give up. On the other hand, if you start looking at the progression "bar" all the time it may start to feel like work.

Now if it feels like you don't need to put any effort into it, it's not really an achievement at all. In that case, well, hopefully the activity is entertaining in other ways instead. Say, leveling up, which is pretty much crushed to the ground as far as feeling like you've achieved something goes. But honestly speaking, from an entertainment perspective it's not really successful either. Gameplay sucks, quests suck, audiovisuals are pretty sub-par unless the art style saves it, et cetera. The feeling of achievement was pretty much the only thing it had going for it, as well as the novelty of socialization, but nowadays....

This.

I'll leech off XI with an example, relic. Although extremelly time consuming, and beyond repetitious, when I finally finished Yoichinoyumi, the feeling of achievement was pretty damn good.

Although I loved the XI setup, not all do and I respect that. I am not sure of a way to make it even for both casuals and the "special snowflakes" to a point where both are happy.

blah blah, Hyan put it very well.

[Jamison]

Finding that balance is difficult, and some very good points have been made. When I made my first rant/post, I was talking less about endgame status and more about the progression on the way. The thing I'm missing from FFXI the most right now are the *small* things while leveling up that literally gave my character the ability to do new things.

I'm talking about things like the airship pass, Kazham keys, chocobo licence, sky access, outpost warps, advanced jobs, moongate pass... hell, even doing the quest to unlock all the mog house exits *actually gave me a tangible benefit*. I'm easily forgetting a dozen more. These don't need to be hard, but they add to your character growing in a way that is different from just leveling up.

[dejet]

This.

I'll leech off XI with an example, relic. Although extremelly time consuming, and beyond repetitious, when I finally finished Yoichinoyumi, the feeling of achievement was pretty damn good.

Although I loved the XI setup, not all do and I respect that. I am not sure of a way to make it even for both casuals and the "special snowflakes" to a point where both are happy.

blah blah, Hyan put it very well.

The balance is never going to be found lol. One side will always be pissed, really WoW and FFXI both hit it as close as you could get really.

I will say though, in my time playing FFXI, AION, and WoW, nothing made me as proud as when I got the ebisu rod. By far the best feeling I have had ever playing a Video Game. I was working on a relic as well, but really the Fishing Rod was bigger to me lol one thing FFXI did well was that there was that rare item for everyone if you went for it.

I planed to hit up FF 14 for fishing but all the faults stopped me from even trying it.

[Hyan]

Everyone has their own thresholds. To someone leveling up to cap might be an achievement even in this day and age, to someone else you need dem relix to feel achieved.

There's no "balance" to be found.. aside from perhaps on a certain demographic level.

[Grey Jorildyn]

As someone who enjoyed XI's fishing, I find XIV's to be alright. I've gotten fishing to 35 while also getting cooking to 28 and alchemy to 36. Fishing has a real purpose imo and it's the best way to farm crystals straight up. Just need chemicking and fishcleaning and you can roll pretty nicely to 50 on both crafts and nothing goes to waste. You'll never be short mats or shards

[dejet]

As someone who enjoyed XI's fishing, I find XIV's to be alright. I've gotten fishing to 35 while also getting cooking to 28 and alchemy to 36. Fishing has a real purpose imo and it's the best way to farm crystals straight up. Just need chemicking and fishcleaning and you can roll pretty nicely to 50 on both crafts and nothing goes to waste. You'll never be short mats or shards

good to no, if the rest of the game fixes work out I may hit it up in a year if the PS3 is released ~_~