Patch 1.21 Notes (08/03/2012)

[Aratharn]

I still like to tell myself that they are putting in almost bare minimum effort when it comes to any pre-2.0 content. Enough to make a decent raid but saving their full potential for things like Crystal Towers, etc.

[Grey Jorildyn]

The raid designs are just shallow. One mid-boss, one final boss, very few raid mechanics. Perhaps they can't add a ton of stuff due to client limitations or something. For example, guild raid progress tracking. Don't think the server could "save" our progress in a raid to the 3rd boss of 5 and then reset each week. Who the heck knows.

[Kurokikaze]

I still like to tell myself that they are putting in almost bare minimum effort when it comes to any pre-2.0 content. Enough to make a decent raid but saving their full potential for things like Crystal Towers, etc.

Thats what I tell myself as well. I hope it is the case. I can see Crystal tower being a long ass trek with a shit ton of trash mobs (that can't be despawned or ran past -_-) and about 6-8 bosses with good loot. Just think of the Crystal Tower in FF3 and FF4. Epicness.

The raid designs are just shallow. One mid-boss, one final boss, very few raid mechanics. Perhaps they can't add a ton of stuff due to client limitations or something. For example, guild raid progress tracking. Don't think the server could "save" our progress in a raid to the 3rd boss of 5 and then reset each week. Who the heck knows.

This may just be the case.

[Aratharn]

I'd like to see more puzzles involved, and not just 'how to beat' or 'how to get more loot' puzzles.

[Kurokikaze]

What sort of puzzles would you like to see? I find puzzles that involve multiple people to be cumbersome and generally don't work as good as described. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

How would you keep that puzzle fresh through repeated runs? Once you know the solution it's just an unnecessary cockblock.

[Raldo]

When I hear puzzles, I think Assault/Nyzul/Salvage. I loved those and certainly wouldn't mind seeing some incarnation of them again, hopefully along with additional stuff. Until we get further details on the "Crystal Tower", all I can envision is a copypasta Nyzul Isle.

[Cichy]

I was really hoping that they would go above and beyond with this patch but overall I'm bit disappointed. Jobs are great, quests are fun, dungeons are decent but I guess I thought there would be more mobs, missions, etc.
The influx of people I've seen after the patch is pretty much completely gone on my server now.

[Kurokikaze]

As I said, impossible to satisfy. v2.0 could shit unicorns and it still won't be enough.

[Lordender]

I was really hoping that they would go above and beyond with this patch but overall I'm bit disappointed. Jobs are great, quests are fun, dungeons are decent but I guess I thought there would be more mobs, missions, etc.
The influx of people I've seen after the patch is pretty much completely gone on my server now.

Pretty much standard for today's MMO's, patches don't hold people for long period of times anymore. Look at Blizzard, 5-6 months between content updates, people blow through the content in like 2 weeks unless you're doing hardmode progression then another 5-6 month timer starts ticking again.

The genre overall is stale right now.

[Vuitton]

In their defense, if the end-game content was defeated a week after being released than it was indeed too easy. Let's take other games for example... How long did it take for the top guilds in WoW to get through Black Citadel, Naxx, Tempest Keep, Cho'gall? All that shit before the final boss was tough. And no, I don't think FFXI/FFXIV players are just "better skilled" than WoW players.

Obviously SE's definition of raid is not the same one Blizzard is using for WoW. You shouldn't be expecting WoW raids in XIV. SE is merely calling their instanced dungeons "raids".

Also, most of WoW's raids were cleared (in "normal" mode) the same day or day after the patch hit thanks in part to the test server. So, bad example really.

Edit:

Current players will never be satisfied with this game as they've done it all. Patches and 2.0 aren't going to add a whole lot for them as they'll still have completed 99% of the entire game by then. They should just quit really. The only people who are going to like this game are any current players that are enjoying themselves and any future new players who get to experience the game fresh.

[Lucavi]

Pretty much standard for today's MMO's, patches don't hold people for long period of times anymore. Look at Blizzard, 5-6 months between content updates, people blow through the content in like 2 weeks unless you're doing hardmode progression then another 5-6 month timer starts ticking again.

The genre overall is stale right now.

Difference being WoW's raids aren't caves with a few bosses placed into them. Naxx was completely different from any other zone that had been shown before. You could say the same thing about ICC and other areas.

If I was going to compare the two, I'd say that something like Sky in XI, had it been condensed into less of an "everyone's invited, but only one group can play in the pool at the same time!" zone and an actual focused instance for 18-24-whatever amount of people, with the content consolidated into the Ark Angels, the pop gods, Kirin, and then the RotZ storyline boss fight, it could have easily stood toe-to-toe with any raid that Blizzard has ever come up with. You could say the same for Sea, or even the Limbus zones. Get up there after a shit-ton of hype storyline plot about having to save everything from absolution, fight some entry-level pop gods and steam cleaner and ulli and whatnot, then move onto the ark angels, then the Zilart bosses, then Kirin (on a hard mode). Give each boss their own loot table guaranteeing at least 1-2 drops per fight at a 15% random chance, throw one or two special items for the hard mode fights, toss in a satisfying ending afterwards, and presto, FFXI just made a sick-ass raid that everyone cums buckets over. At least in terms of the bosses present, the storyline surrounding the bosses, and the actual layout of the zone, SE wasn't actually that far off-base for something that hadn't even come out yet.

Its simply the design philosophy that was different, as well as SE's perchance for getting a lot of mileage from their specially-created zones by having a little bit of everything available in them: story missions, quest missions, random bosses that drop sweet loot, and xp camps. WoW leaves most of that to the actual world zones, and focuses on their specialty areas for nothing but the big story missions and plot developments.

XIV on the other hand, is currently trying to either "catch up" to or "emulate" western MMOs by trying to make raids, but all they're doing is making baby instances with a few bosses and little foresight to design, then calling them raids. I look at this new instance as little more than a Deadmines with a lot less plot, designed for the current end-game crowd. Its not a terrible thing to do, and who knows, maybe they're saving the good stuff for 2.0, but I think they'd be better served taking what worked from awesome zones like Sky and Sea and attempting to synch them with things like Naxx and ICC instead of trying to do a straight rip of the traditional "instance" and call it a raid, which isn't fooling anyone. Aside from the Ifrit encounter, did anyone see any of these other raids happening based on previously mentioned plot in-game? With WoW, you can kind of smell what type of raids are coming in the future, based on what lore exists in the game. I guess it'd be like someone assuming that there would be some massive Garlean airship raid coming, based on what we already know in-game.

There's still a lot of room for hope, though. I don't think anyone that is really interested in the game is giving up on them being able to do it right just yet.

@Vuitton: Its not really a bad example considering how long it took to clear them when there wasn't any test server. Test servers are irrelevant, really, because it still takes those guilds a long time to clear the bosses, even on a test server. A raid isn't considered a raid simply because the patch went live. This stuff, by comparison, took maybe a day to clear, just like I'm sure WoW's initial level 10-20 instances took a day to clear, because they were easy.

[Wulfgang]

As I said before, add a rare open world spawning mob(s) that drops sick gear or ingredients to make sick gear on a Ridill-esque basis (basically put Fafnir in XIV). Is it a great mechanic / addition? Not really, but it beats spending weeks hitting enter to level Cooking because there's nothing else to do. It is also extremely simple to add / won't consume 2.0 resources and keeps people busy / excited / frustrated / competitive. Then you release 2.0, raise the level cap, and make said sick gear either obsolete or not that sick anymore via alternatives thus phasing out the "Kings" / camping obsession in favor of more fully-developed raid content or other similar activities.

One thing I miss from XI is the lack of a competitive spirit among LSes; comparative raid performance doesn't really do it for me. I enjoy being thrown into a situation where you have multiple guilds seeking to fight or complete something and only one can win haha.

Wouldn't be up everyone's alley for sure, but hell I'd go camp Fafnir v2 for a few months.

[Lordender]

As I said before, add a rare open world spawning mob(s) that drops sick gear or ingredients to make sick gear on a Ridill-esque basis (basically put Fafnir in XIV). Is it a great mechanic / addition? Not really, but it beats spending weeks hitting enter to level Cooking because there's nothing else to do. It is also extremely simple to add / won't consume 2.0 resources and keeps people busy / excited / frustrated / competitive. Then you release 2.0, raise the level cap, and make said sick gear either obsolete or not that sick anymore via alternatives thus phasing out the "Kings" / camping obsession in favor of more fully-developed raid content or other similar activities.

Theres a lot of un-used potential for 8 person party leve's against a big bad enemy, I.E Fafnir type. SE would probably have to limit those type of leve's should they drop omgwtfbbqpwn gear.

@ Lucavi yeah, I meant more of along the lines of how long a patch can keep someone busy, In WoW you can be done with an entire content patch in like two weeks these days with Looking for Raid, assuming you're not into the heroic raiding scene. I think Patch 4.3 was a Nov 28th release, people were done with it before the 1st week of december ended. Unless you make your content incredibly grindy or low drop rate cockblocks its just not going to last anymore. You have to remember, not everyone is looking forward to grind out loot in x or y "dungeon", for a lot of people just seeing the content is enough for them.

This is the new nature of MMO's, this is also why people play "MMO musical chairs" these days.

[Lucavi]

One thing I miss from XI is the lack of a competitive spirit among LSes; comparative raid performance doesn't really do it for me. I enjoy being thrown into a situation where you have multiple guilds seeking to fight or complete something and only one can win haha.

Wouldn't be up everyone's alley for sure, but hell I'd go camp Fafnir v2 for a few months.

Did you also miss the cheating? The botting? The MPKing? I'd mention the LS drama, but people are just as likely to leave a LS after grabbing the top loot from a raid as they are from grabbing the top loot from a world HNM. I'd say if SE can prevent much of the bad with world spawns, then why the hell not? It -would- breathe a little life into the game, but it wouldn't do anything for longevity unless they:

1) Put the HNM on a ridiculous spawn timer, IE. FFXI, or
2) Gave the HNM a ridiculously low drop-rate, IE. FFXI

Would you want one of those criteria? Would you want both of those criteria? One or both would have to exist for you to "camp Fafnir v2 for a few months".

@Lord: I absolutely agree, but I honestly don't think musical chairs is that bad so long as you have a group of buddies that you are hopping around with. If anything, it'll allow you to experience multiple good storylines and multiple good fights from each game. I'd take that over stagnant droprates and respawns in an effort to artificially inflate content.

I think the good thing is that SE hasn't stepped on that mine yet; they haven't released any new content designed to have completely shitty droprates or massive respawns, simply to cover their asses while they work on their new stuff. If they really wanted to give people something to do that would last awhile, they'd give them incentive PVP via ballista or battlegrounds or something, and design a bunch of gear for it. Let the people entertain themselves instead of having to do it all yourself and have people constantly asking you for more. Teach the players to catch a fish instead of having to toss them one every two weeks because they're sucking it up within a day.

[Cichy]

I'm really looking forward to Hamlet defense. I hope it's like campaign + 1. Instead of afking in town I'd like to go fight some invading enemies, hopefully few that last more than 30 seconds when I fight them.
They can just do that, give us company seals for it, give us bunch of decently designed unique company gear, give some exp for people who cant find party and that would improve the game a ton.

[Wulfgang]

Did you also miss the cheating? The botting? The MPKing? I'd mention the LS drama, but people are just as likely to leave a LS after grabbing the top loot from a raid as they are from grabbing the top loot from a world HNM. I'd say if SE can prevent much of the bad with world spawns, then why the hell not? It -would- breathe a little life into the game, but it wouldn't do anything for longevity unless they:

1) Put the HNM on a ridiculous spawn timer, IE. FFXI, or
2) Gave the HNM a ridiculously low drop-rate, IE. FFXI

Would you want one of those criteria? Would you want both of those criteria? One or both would have to exist for you to "camp Fafnir v2 for a few months".

Yeah, I want both of those criteria haha. Whether you like it or not, for many people including myself, pride in achievements is directly correlated to the difficulty, and hence the rarity, of those achievements. Would I rather there were incredibly difficult, fully-fleshed out raid content with great drops for those groups competent enough to achieve victory? Yes of course. The cheap / lazy alternative when you don't have the resources to make said raid content, is to focus on the rarity side of things (e.g. tossing a game-breaking sword on a dragon that requires button-mashing spam / botting to claim and almost never drops said sword).

Not everyone, but most people like shinyz regardless of how said shinyz are obtained. If that wasn't the case, people wouldn't have returned to a small circular room to button mash every half hour for 4+ years.

[Enygma55]

I also miss the competitive experience of HNMs. I basically don't interact with anyone on the server except my LS because I don't have to. Also means there's nothing to do if no one is on when I log on. I can't go watch another LS fight some world spawn as its all done inside instanced raids.

When some LS was gonna attempt Pandemonium Warden or AV for the first time or so, that was world news and spread fast like it was on twitter. Everyone on the server knew and wanted to spectate. Those LS would get server wide recognition and make a name for themselves. Right now I don't know any other big name LS because I can't witness them play.

Those 21-24 hr spawns were cool and made people play daily. Stuff like Ixion is how I prefer world spawns. Put it on a 1-2 day spawn and make it able to spawn anywhere in the zone. This eliminates bot camping and more or less brings spontaneity to the game when people run into it by chance.

I suppose that's what Odin is to cover in the future patch.

[miokomioko]

I also miss the competitive experience of HNMs. I basically don't interact with anyone on the server except my LS because I don't have to.

From my experience, the competitive nature of XI's HNM scene meant you also didn't interact with anyone except your LS because they were usually your enemies. I've found XIV to have a much more friendly player base and I end up meeting more random people because of the lack of competition.

Where you had some random asshole standing on your heels ready to steal a NM you were fighting, now is a random stranger helping you kill it.

[Kurokikaze]

From my experience, the competitive nature of XI's HNM scene meant you also didn't interact with anyone except your LS because they were usually your enemies. I've found XIV to have a much more friendly player base and I end up meeting more random people because of the lack of competition.

This is absolutely true. Sometimes LSes hated each other for no other reason than the fact that we were competing.

If you didn't experience the above, I'm sorry but you didn't really camp HNMs.

Edit: lol I remember getting shit for talking to PO members or bsing in /say with people in the pit.

[Cichy]

From my experience, the competitive nature of XI's HNM scene meant you also didn't interact with anyone except your LS because they were usually your enemies. I've found XIV to have a much more friendly player base and I end up meeting more random people because of the lack of competition.

Where you had some random asshole standing on your heels ready to steal a NM you were fighting, now is a random stranger helping you kill it.

^this. Did XI endgame for years and mostly with same people, everyone else was regarded as enemies. We played XI besides each other not together.