Dev Tracker: Discussion

[arus2001]

It's part of why a lot of MMORPGs end up homogenizing classes because a bunch of variation really doesn't matter to "elite" players and it makes it easy to balance everything to satisfy both casual and hardcore players, to the annoyance of people who like the RPG stuff. This isn't really limited to online games, either.

If there's one thing I've come to hate about MMOs when it comes to ability bloat, it's a lack of ways to comfortably utilize them. A lot of this is a WASD+Mouse thing with numbers 1-5 being the most comfortable to reach for. Some say they modify other nearby keys to effectively emulate abilities 6+, but I've never found that comfortable while trying to keep two fingers dedicated to movement. Some take things a step further, then, and demand specialized hardware, which just adds a couple hundred more bucks to the cost of entry. Lastly, some rely a bit too strongly on add-ons, allowed by devs or not, that can certainly skew the playing experience and usually toward the "easier" end.

Anyway, this leads to an appreciation of things like combo chain systems where instead of having to press 1, 2, and 3 to do a chain, it can remain 1, 1, 1 as the chain progresses. Macro systems that don't flip out when a command can't be executed are also nice, similar to how Rift allows binding multiple commands to one macro where the only real factor is things being on cooldown. So, in a different way, proper rotations can be shortened to less required keys and cut down on needing to be a left-handed virtuoso. On the other hand, you'll still have skills that just really can't fit into any kind of combo, be that by design or the abilities themselves just being too situational. So, we risk going back to square one with control feeling awkward with too many abilities. Unsurprisingly, I kind of miss how XI could be played keyboard only and have striven in the past to try and emulate in other games. Unfortunately, their UI elements just tend to be too mouse-driven or the process itself is too cumbersome. Camera control tends to be a popular counter here, but I'm not so sure, especially with on-screen radars that actually provide sensible info.

So, for me, I don't think ability bloat is the problem in so much as giving us ways to use them comfortably or even antiquate older versions of similar abilities. Yeah, there'll always be that element that proclaims Less = Dumber, but I'd rather have streamlined systems over clunky and needlessly bloated ones. How this winds up relating to the MMO trinity is perhaps its own can of worms, but there's also a part of me that feels tanking as generally portrayed is perhaps becoming antiquated and non-sensical if you stop to consider how you might fight from a monster's perspective. Heavily scripted fights are also becoming a bit of a bane, to which I think some of us can appreciate XI's randomness despite some queues/triggers that exist in the game. I think it's more fun to know what a given mob's abilities does and adapting as they happen rather than knowing it's going to use specific abilities in a specific order in what effectively becomes a dance that makes the lives of healers easier assuming everyone knows it. Don't? Well, welcome the elitist nerd rage and all the random fail/complaint threads that have spawned here over time.

[Bukadan]

they should just make practice type events that provide gear to bad players when they actually succeed/get better. lets be honest, the only people who are making it so we dont get hard content are the bad players who think theyre good but complain about every little thing that stands in the way in terms of actual effort/challenge (as opposed to time gates). a way for players to find out they suck without them being able to either shit talk the source of the criticism, make excuses, or shit talk the game/creaters would drastically change the direction of content being added in this game. ignorance shouldnt be allowed to equal bliss. people should start asking for something of that nature because while the people who would normally complain about hard content being busy with practice content, they wont care/have any say about content they know they arent even ready for.

[ccl]

People saying Legion was a joke?

People in this thread saying everything is a joke because we can rotate brd+cor wich is crazy wrong.

You're right about the relic part, wich is an issue with current content, with haste, weapon is the most important part in dmg and unless they make content needing koga like dps to clear, we can never go back to pre dynamis change or delve 1 difficulty ever.

[PSOfanatic]

FFXI is really not that complex...I mean really...all DD does for the most part is macro gear sets and spam WS. I don't really feel like most of the playerbase tries to hold back in fights either. You basically spam abilities and autoattack.

I'm not a fan of WoW either but I'd admit to say there is more skill mechanically in the game over XI just by the pure fact that attacks can be dodged based on timing and actions you do. XI has some of that with stun/utsu/third eye/etc.

Again...this game has just resorted to ZERGFEST where I don't really see skill. With gearswap...it becomes even easier. Maybe I'm flattering myself but this game really isn't too difficult.

I think what makes XI difficult it finding people to do shit with.

[Sechs]

FFXI is really not that complex...

Yes and no.
Complexity can be subjective but it kinda depends from where you look at it.
If we're talking about player manual skills WoW requires a lot of attention and skill in using rotations, keeping them up, each class plays completely different, you have to know how to pre-pull etc etc etc. It requires many things that in FFXI either do not exist or wouldn't make a difference.

The difficulty in FFXI is more in the lack of information that you need to compensate with Wikis, theorycrafting, forums like BG and so on. The game usually just doesn't tell you anything about a lot of stuff, and we have to resort to people testing things and finding out what "X" really means. In WoW 99.9% of the stuff is known and the chatlog has an insane amount of detailed information that you can use to analyze stuff.
In addition to this the math behind FFXI is much more complex, you could argue it's unefficiently and uselessly complex sometimes (complex for the sake of being complex) but it undoubtely is.
There is a whole different level of complexity brought in not just by the "player skills required" but by the complexity of interactions between different jobs, different abilities, different buffs.
Last but not least, gear: In FFXI you can and are supposed to swap gear and "pro" players swap over9000 pieces of gear for every single JA, for every WS, for every situation.
You have normal TP builds, you have accuracy builds (many), you have PDT, you have MDT and a lot of hybrids between these.
There rarely is an "ultimate piece" that you can fulltime. More often than not what is best depends on what you're fighting.

Choices like these make the game complicated because it's sometimes hard to understand what is better to do/use in a specific situation.
This kind of complexity is (almost) completely absent in a game of WoW. There is a different type of complexity not present in FFXI in return.


Which is more "complex"? I'll leave the choice to you. They both are, just in completely different ways that makes it hard to do a straight 1:1 comparison.

[Hitou]

People in this thread saying everything is a joke because we can rotate brd+cor wich is crazy wrong.

You're right about the relic part, wich is an issue with current content, with haste, weapon is the most important part in dmg and unless they make content needing koga like dps to clear, we can never go back to pre dynamis change or delve 1 difficulty ever.

Sure we can, just drop another 20 lvl gap in our laps without adding any gear leading up to it. It will be "hard" for a few months until people find some niche that allows for semi-consistent wins until enough ilvl 128 or w/e weapons enter the player pool to allow people to trivialize the content. The other options is for the content to drop gear that's not that strong but then people probably won't bother with it.

[Bukadan]

last time that happened, most of the community used outdated rem's as a crutch to their terrible abilities, this time theyll use how hard it is to upgrade them to the new level cap as a crutch, until theyve completed it. then itll be "easy as shit" as it was to everyone who was completing it before hand.

[arus2001]

they should just make practice type events that provide gear to bad players when they actually succeed/get better. lets be honest, the only people who are making it so we dont get hard content are the bad players who think theyre good but complain about every little thing that stands in the way in terms of actual effort/challenge (as opposed to time gates). a way for players to find out they suck without them being able to either shit talk the source of the criticism, make excuses, or shit talk the game/creaters would drastically change the direction of content being added in this game. ignorance shouldnt be allowed to equal bliss. people should start asking for something of that nature because while the people who would normally complain about hard content being busy with practice content, they wont care/have any say about content they know they arent even ready for.

Do we really need another 3-4 pages or how MMO content accessibility is the larger issue and not exclusively placating the few who play way too much? Clamoring for practice zones just so you can mock the scrubs in their practice gear is asinine. Why? Such basically exists already with the ilvl gear tiering and the related events. Want to bitch about doing 109 stuff doesn't train someone to do 115 things? Fine, go ahead. Want to grumble that certain tiers can be skipped entirely? Feel free. Want to assume someone without something is a skill deficient slacker? Well, I guess we should hope you're enjoying your own blissful ignorance. Practice or no, there's no getting around the fact XI sucks when it comes to matching people up for content. Nevermind some of the game's more unique issues like the differences between console and PC capabilities.

[Damane]

Do we really need another 3-4 pages or how MMO content accessibility is the larger issue and not exclusively placating the few who play way too much? Clamoring for practice zones just so you can mock the scrubs in their practice gear is asinine. Why? Such basically exists already with the ilvl gear tiering and the related events. Want to bitch about doing 109 stuff doesn't train someone to do 115 things? Fine, go ahead. Want to grumble that certain tiers can be skipped entirely? Feel free. Want to assume someone without something is a skill deficient slacker? Well, I guess we should hope you're enjoying your own blissful ignorance. Practice or no, there's no getting around the fact XI sucks when it comes to matching people up for content. Nevermind some of the game's more unique issues like the differences between console and PC capabilities.

i think the ergon run/geo weapons did it fine. stage 1 is a solo fight that tests your knowledge/gear/capability to back up the job you play without haveing any sub. the fughts are decent not overly too difficult but demanding if you ate properly geared and know what you are doing. if you lack the gear or knowledge of the job or fundamental mechanics you will loose those fights or time out. i failed the run fight twice until i got the hang on what to expect to gear and what abilitys to use when. on geo i timed out once because i didnt know what was ahead and won then in 7 min. they should have done such "test your might fights for all the REMs. it forces you to use your brain and get your gear ready gearswaps etc

[Bukadan]

the difference in the pc and console capabilities is pretty ridiculous you are definitely right about that lol.they should add the aliasing ability to be honest, it really makes a huge difference to be able to just type out //c4 name or //paralyna name.even though i do have macros for them, it really allows me to play under pressure and even two box at a really high level. they could intertwine the new gearset system to a spell to spell basis, too.

[Maurauc]

A 10 minute warp. Fantastic! That should make life a lot easier.

[Damane]

A 10 minute warp. Fantastic! That should make life a lot easier.

i love it, but its 6 years too late ¬.¬, i'll take it anyway!

[Ophannus]

I coulda sworn the capacity point canpaign was till aug 11th but then reread and saw it's over. Was enjoying the cp gain. Man they should raise cp gain to double, permanently.

[arus2001]

i think the ergon run/geo weapons did it fine. stage 1 is a solo fight that tests your knowledge/gear/capability to back up the job you play without haveing any sub. the fughts are decent not overly too difficult but demanding if you ate properly geared and know what you are doing. if you lack the gear or knowledge of the job or fundamental mechanics you will loose those fights or time out. i failed the run fight twice until i got the hang on what to expect to gear and what abilitys to use when. on geo i timed out once because i didnt know what was ahead and won then in 7 min. they should have done such "test your might fights for all the REMs. it forces you to use your brain and get your gear ready gearswaps etc

I'm just kind of looking at those fights as their Maat equivalent, and we know Maat wasn't always kind. Nevermind how the game tests you and what your fellow players expect likely not being in sync due to the desire of speed runs, not wanting wipes, or whatever.

I just find it tiresome that any criticism lobbied against a particular activity usually just winds up getting labeled as casual whining no matter how valid the concern brought up. Yes, some do it just to troll. Some might not really know what they're talking about, too. That's okay, though. No game forum is ever majority representation, which is why you always hope more behind the scenes statistics are being collected like how many times a player has beaten a particular piece of content, failed, or what-have-you. In knowing XI's lack of matchmaking services, cross-server or otherwise, we can only hope SE is looking at such data to further conclude that 6-man content (with possibly varying difficulty) is the smarter bet to invest their limited manpower on.

[Damane]

I'm just kind of looking at those fights as their Maat equivalent, and we know Maat wasn't always kind. Nevermind how the game tests you and what your fellow players expect likely not being in sync due to the desire of speed runs, not wanting wipes, or whatever.

I just find it tiresome that any criticism lobbied against a particular activity usually just winds up getting labeled as casual whining no matter how valid the concern brought up. Yes, some do it just to troll. Some might not really know what they're talking about, too. That's okay, though. No game forum is ever majority representation, which is why you always hope more behind the scenes statistics are being collected like how many times a player has beaten a particular piece of content, failed, or what-have-you. In knowing XI's lack of matchmaking services, cross-server or otherwise, we can only hope SE is looking at such data to further conclude that 6-man content (with possibly varying difficulty) is the smarter bet to invest their limited manpower on.

i dont remember maat being difficult much, it had a random/luck thingy attached to it, but nothing else much. Those geo/run fights have particular mechanics attached to them around their jobs and are harder then maat, but without a Random/luck thing involved, it really is a testimony if your gear/job knowledge/game knowledge can hold up to it. If you arent geared properly, you might survive the fight, but you will time out, if you dont know the capabilitys of your job, you might die because you dont know how to defend/heal yourself without a sub and if game knowledge is missing (proper WS sets, gearswaps, how magic damage works etc, proper food, correct Merits put into usefull stuff) you will timeout.

I dont think that access to events should be restricted on people, but it wouldnt be bad to have a gearcheck/abilitycheck somewhere on the line/road. FFXIV has an ilvl check that wont let you enter dungeons/raids if your gear is too low. FFXI has just an advice noone gives a fuck about reading ("this battlefield is level 119 designed blabla"), such battles like the run/geo ergon battle would be nice to give you a permanent KI that allow you to enter battlefields of ilvl 129 or so (future content), it would function like a gearcheck on the road in terms of: "are you ready for the upcomeing hard content?!" and force people to "upgrade" the gear of their jobs and their playstyle.

[arus2001]

Gear swapping itself kind of makes gear level locks questionable, especially if it's possible for lower level gear to be superior to higher level versions due to potentially unique attributes. I do think minimizing the need to swap (as many items as possible) is for the better of XI, and not just because of the console gap. However, it's not uncommon to see people whining about how XIV is so bland when it comes to gear selection. I agree somewhat, but think the fixes there lie more in materia than lots of gear sets.

[dasva]

i dont remember maat being difficult much, it had a random/luck thingy attached to it,

I suppose the difficult part then was making it so you didn't have to depend on luck... at least with the exception of maybe stupid one like nin or smn where you could be one shotted at anytime. Though for some that difficulty was more of just a gear/did you skill up check lol. Like rdm was balls easy if you had a great sleep set but if you didn't you had to really be on your toes and have some luck

[Julian]

They could always have the next set of ilvls have rem upgrade gradually as they increase ilvl. Say 129 is new cap, and they start with 122 content, they can have a way of upgrading to 120, 121, and then 122. So as you do the content and clear it, your rems slowly increase in power to the content level.

That would require a slow buildup of ilvl tho, instead of releasing 129 and then filling in the blanks like they did last time. Would also take up a lot of resources with the different ilvls, maybe.

Sure its not a perfect suggestion but I think it would be a step in the right direction

[dasva]

i wish they would update monstrosity. thought we were supposed to have party play and shit for it already

Seriously they told use party stuff was on the way a year ago... I'm beginning to feel monstrosity is becoming the new Cait Sith. I mean I capped everything on Dasva months ago and now I'm decently thru it on a mule and that's just using it as super easy sparks farming while I play on main

[ccl]

i think the ergon run/geo weapons did it fine. *

If you remove the 8 months gate that close the content from the majority of the player base yeah.