The WoW Factor

[Tokitoki]

Wait you think it's unfair to claim that SE wont be able to release content at the same pace Blizzard does? Honestly?

I think it's completely fair. The amount of manpower/resources Blizzard has put behind WoW is staggering compared to any game SE has ever released.

Again, just because S-E has not dedicated the staff in the past does not mean they couldn't moving forward. Looking at this they are patching with content every 4-5 months. You don't think S-E could do that if they allocated the resources?

CoP (and ENMs) was released in 9/04, sea (Hu'Xzoi/Ru'Hmet) came out in 4/05, Limbus came out in 10/05, main CoP Dynamis 12/05, Dyn-Tav 2/06, TAU 4/06. The biggest gap there was right after CoP came out, when people were busy dying to level-capped missions and spamming all the new ENMs.

That's an average of 3 months, though I'd probably say overall they are looking at a 6 month average. Regardless, the question isn't what S-E has done in the past compared to WoW, but what they could do. The only thing stopping them from putting more manpower behind development would be money. If they get enough money through subscriptions they could increase manpower and decrease time between content patches.

[Meresgi]

no, pretty sure fighting any and all for 7 years was retarded (dynamis, limbus, sky, etc.)

^This, taking the gear and putting it somewhere else doesn't change it. You're still farming for the same items for 7 years or so which is stupid, at some point shit gets replaced. You replace your car, job and wife irl and you replace your gear in games.

Wait you think it's unfair to claim that SE wont be able to release content at the same pace Blizzard does? Honestly?

I think it's completely fair. The amount of manpower/resources Blizzard has put behind WoW is staggering compared to any game SE has ever released.

Depends on the content honestly. I would gladly wait a few months more and receive something that isn't 5 big rooms tied together with hallways and bosses using the same mechanics as other bosses(Not really their fault at this point though, they've used so many different mechanics they have to reuse them)

Does FF14 has a transmog type system? If it did right there would solve my problem for going back to old content, the armor looks great in this game and of course I would collect all that shit like a hoarder on pcp.

[Plow]

Competing with wow in terms of the quantity and depth of content release is flat out not possible without at least a few million subscribers.


That said, replacing rate of content with grind isn't an inherently bad thing if the grind is fun. If kings used a system like they use now all along, FFXI would have retained customers at a really impressive rate all this time, because no matter how much people want to complain looking back at their wasted time, we were having fun when we actually got to play the game.

The flaws with FFXI weren't horizontal progression, they were with the implementation of obtaining what vertical progression there was.

[Tokitoki]

Does FF14 has a transmog type system? If it did right there would solve my problem for going back to old content, the armor looks great in this game and of course I would collect all that shit like a hoarder on pcp.

Not yet, but there will be if I remember correctly.

[solracht]

Not yet, but there will be if I remember correctly.

They said it would be implemented in the first or second major patch, but I haven't seen it mentioned recently so who knows if it has changed or not.

[Deadgye]

Hardcore lawls at Elcura immediately giving up on the argument and moving straight to the "you can't read" card when called out on the obvious contradiction. Please continue to completely contradict your stance so blatantly so that everyone on this board knows how you operate so we don't have you waste time calling you on your bullshit.

You need to learn the differences between objectivity and personal bias/prejudice, so you can stop pushing the latter as the former.

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FFXI was a good game, but it was a niche game. In the same vein that I can't get any of my close friends to play demons souls because of getting reset multiple times at the first level, it just wasn't for everyone. The job system, which made you play one character 95% of the time was fabulous. Horizontal gear progression and gear swaps is a system that works. FFXI took it to the extreme with gear longevity, but you don't even need to make items last that long to make a horizontal progression system work or to be good. The horizontal gear progression meant that if/when you leveled another job you had a renewed reason to do old content for gear you previously passed on. The game caused the community to simultaneously band together and separate into sects with bonds that were really strong. The game had a large amount of varied content that you had a reason for doing multiple times. Would I play another game like ffxi now? No, because now I have a life and can't put forth the investment required to enjoy the game. Just like I didn't continue playing PSO2, despite finding it very fun and it having lots of content, because I was too busy with school.

If you didn't like doing dynamis, limbus, sky, sea, Einherjar, Salvage, ZNMs; If you didn't like doing BCNMs, ENMs, Assault; If you didn't like camping NMs or camping HNMs; If you didn't have fun talking with linkshell members and didn't have fun in exp parties with friends; If you didn't like investing into your crafting/fishing/digging skill to have the ability to do things that most other people couldn't; If you couldn't find any of that to be fun then the game simply wasn't for you. You didn't like it, and that's fine. But it doesn't mean that the game and its systems were horrible. I don't really like HALO and COD like regenerative health run and gun games, but that doesn't mean they're all shit that isn't worth playing.

Personally I think, from a sadistic design standpoint, the best thing ffxi did was +1 equipment and how everything came together around it. Managed to get yourself full hecatomb? And then now you find yourself with enough resources to procure -1 pieces and you want to do the content again to get hecatomb +1 because it's ever so marginally better. If I ever have my hand in the making of a game or mmo where gear collection matters I'd make a +1 version of all the 'good' equipment and give it a low (Less than 5%, maybe less than 2%) chance of dropping or make it exponentially more time consuming to get. Casuals can just ignore the +1 pieces because they're not really that much better. Meanwhile hardcore players who want to be the best don't burn through the content and have nothing to do because they want the better equipment and have the time needed to put effort into getting it.

Vertical progression is also a game design style that works. It's not inherently better or worse than horizontal, automatically thinking so is just personal bias or prejudice. They both have their own unique ups and downs. It's simply different.

[Seiji Okita]

Also let's not forget, as the game currently appears you'll have the opportunity to gear 2 jobs per 1 class you cap. So in a completely bland vertical progression model that's still 2 sets to collect. There are still so many questions left unanswered... Lol

[Raldo]

That only applies if the gear is job-specific, or the job rely on stats that aren't shared on a piece of gear. It would be difficult to say whether or not that is the case at this point in time.

[Ksandra]

If you didn't like doing dynamis, limbus, sky, sea, Einherjar, Salvage, ZNMs; If you didn't like doing BCNMs, ENMs, Assault; If you didn't like camping NMs or camping HNMs; If you didn't have fun talking with linkshell members and didn't have fun in exp parties with friends; If you didn't like investing into your crafting/fishing/digging skill to have the ability to do things that most other people couldn't; If you couldn't find any of that to be fun then the game simply wasn't for you. You didn't like it, and that's fine. But it doesn't mean that the game and its systems were horrible. I don't really like HALO and COD like regenerative health run and gun games, but that doesn't mean they're all shit that isn't worth playing.

I don't have a problem with any of these contents (except kings' design, though new kings' design is fine). I have a problem with doing these contents for 7+ years.


And yet again, you didn't need gear swapping for this all to have stayed the same, because as you pointed out, anytime someone lvled a new job, that means they needed gear for that job.

Not to mention the shit ass drop rates that made it take forever for people to get their pieces anyway.


I don't think ffxi was a bad game, I do think gearswapping and the extreme horizontal progression were terrible ideas though.

[Lucavi]

@ Deadgye: When locking XI into its own little time capsule in the era of "well its cool to rip off of EQ because nothing else has hit the market to change everything", I can agree with most everything you said. When looking back at it based on the genre as a whole, I cannot. XI continues to be financially successful because the number of loyal of subs compared to the cost of keeping the servers running and devoting content updates a few times a year is in a favorable position. Even trying to repeat XI in modern times would break the bank if even XI's peak subs managed to be retained for more than a few months, which typically does not happen in the current MMO genre.

To say nothing of its actual systems, its kind of pointless to continue to praise this and that about what XI did right if those things done right didn't actually lead to change within the genre. At best, I think we could say that the upcoming EQ may have taken a bit of its job system from XI and Rift, but that's about it (off the top of my head). I'd be curious, though, to see just how many compiled things people can come up with that XI actually changed the game on, given that they took 90% of their concepts from EQ and the remaining 10% from SE archives.

[Viq]

I don't think ffxi was a bad game, I do think gearswapping and the extreme horizontal progression were terrible ideas though.

All of your gripes about gearswapping seem to stem from the need for 3rd party tools, and inventory issues. While certainly valid gripes in FFXI, I think those fall more under the lack of foresight and poor implementation of the idea than fundamental flaws with gearswapping itself. What if, as someone else here has mentioned a couple of times, a game was more properly designed around gear swapping from the start? Instead of needing excessive macros and 3rd party tools, what if there was a simple UI element that allowed you to drag and drop gear into saved sets, and then you simply reference the sets when you wanted them into each macro and/or hotkey? What if gear stored in those sets were simply saved there in a sort of limbo-esque inventory that didn't hinder your ability to carry other items, and didn't require you to transfer gear manually when you switched jobs? Do you think that system would still be terrible if it was designed to be more user-friendly from the start?

[Raldo]

What if...

or if the "situational gear" were one-time-use consumable items that just permanently increased [whatever].
Man, I would've killed to just eat my Thief's Knife instead of having to use that POS.

You'd lose out on the e-peen factor of wearing certain things though, hmm.

[Viq]

Can't lose that e-peen

[Ksandra]

All of your gripes about gearswapping seem to stem from the need for 3rd party tools, and inventory issues. While certainly valid gripes in FFXI, I think those fall more under the lack of foresight and poor implementation of the idea than fundamental flaws with gearswapping itself. What if, as someone else here has mentioned a couple of times, a game was more properly designed around gear swapping from the start? Instead of needing excessive macros and 3rd party tools, what if there was a simple UI element that allowed you to drag and drop gear into saved sets, and then you simply reference the sets when you wanted them into each macro and/or hotkey? What if gear stored in those sets were simply saved there in a sort of limbo-esque inventory that didn't hinder your ability to carry other items, and didn't require you to transfer gear manually when you switched jobs? Do you think that system would still be terrible if it was designed to be more user-friendly from the start?

A lot of factors would have to come into play. For one, I don't even like the idea of collecting ten million pieces for one job, period. I like side contents believe it or not (crafting, pet training, chocobo raising, etc.). I don't want to feel I have to spend an exorbitant amount of time just trying to decently gear up a single job.

I think by the time a new expansion comes out, if you played regularly, you should already be "gear ready" for that expansion and not have to kept doing the last expansion's content because you could never get all the pieces you needed in time. Of course, one factor of this is obviously drop rates, but it really really doesn't help either when you have to also get so many pieces. I don't want drops to become 100% either to compensate for the mass of gear people needed.

As well, it must be remembered gear swapping could be used more than once during a spellcast to get certain procs at the end.

[Enkidu]

Again, just because S-E has not dedicated the staff in the past does not mean they couldn't moving forward. Looking at this they are patching with content every 4-5 months. You don't think S-E could do that if they allocated the resources?

I don't think SE could match the content, no. I also don't think SE is in a position to allocate such resources to XIV. The most likely scenario, in my opinion, is the team releases XIV then immediately is cut in half (or worse) with many going to work on XV and some heading up some mobile bullshit. Basing this on both SE's past in development for XI and their well publicized financial issues. Remember that I'm not just talking about patch frequency, I'm talking about patch content (quality, depth, size, etc...).

Sure SE could do it, and sure XIV could have 2 million subs and growing this time next year, but is that really likely?

[Spider-Dan]

Let's break this down and prove why you can't read and why your cherry picking out of context is stupid. "The only differences gear made in XI were for the most part, against weaker opponents..."

Now, the bold means that I'm clarifying that not all gear choices were meaningless, just the majority of them were. Because, like I said later (IN THE SAME POST!):

How about what you said later IN THAT SAME SENTENCE?

The only differences gear made in XI were for the most part, against far weaker opponents because on anything worthwhile, it didn't mean a damn.

You want to complain about context when you are intentionally chopping out the half of the same sentence that completely blows up your entire waste-of-time post? Please.

[Tokitoki]

or if the "situational gear" were one-time-use consumable items that just permanently increased [whatever].
Man, I would've killed to just eat my Thief's Knife instead of having to use that POS.

You'd lose out on the e-peen factor of wearing certain things though, hmm.

Depends on how you would obtain said items. Camoung Sozu was bad enough. Even farming the pops would be too much for a one time use if you're sky farming for instance. Popping gods included.

[Raldo]

Depends on how you would obtain said items. Camoung Sozu was bad enough. Even farming the pops would be too much for a one time use if you're sky farming for instance. Popping gods included.

Huh? What's the difference between a piece of gear (rare/ex, so it's only ever one your character), versus a one-time-use permanent increase to your character. Sky would still work the same, you'd just be able to eat your Suzaku Sune-Ate to permanently boost your Monk's Chi-Blast, instead of having to wear them.

[Spider-Dan]

^This, taking the gear and putting it somewhere else doesn't change it. You're still farming for the same items for 7 years or so which is stupid, at some point shit gets replaced.

Or, the WoW solution: after spending hours upon countless hours acquiring a hard-won piece of gear, the very next expansion reduces the most elite gear to worse-than-AH trash. And it does this every time.

The upside of items being good for 7 years is that you got many, many years of use out of them. I didn't mind spending my time in sky to get s.kote and w.legs because I got damn near two presidential terms out of those items.

I'd be curious, though, to see just how many compiled things people can come up with that XI actually changed the game on, given that they took 90% of their concepts from EQ and the remaining 10% from SE archives.

Auction House

That being said, XI's biggest addition to the genre (by far) is job change, which nearly everyone agrees is a huge bonus. The fact that most other MMOs don't copy it (Firefall is one of the very few) does not make it any less significant.

[Lucavi]

Auction House

That being said, XI's biggest addition to the genre (by far) is job change, which nearly everyone agrees is a huge bonus. The fact that most other MMOs don't copy it (Firefall is one of the very few) does not make it any less significant.

Was XI the first to do an auction house? Damn, I thought Asheron's Call had one... perhaps that was AC2.

Significance is relative, SD. We can sit here and trump up words like "critical acclaim" and all that, but it is what it is.