Dev Tracker: Discussion

[PSOfanatic]

This game is unfixable. All the complaints people toss out there are almost pointless. I might be one to talk but I think I just came to the realization that SE doesn't really care. If you want to get anywhere in this game you just have to bandwagon. Doesn't really matter what SE does as the current playerbase is the one making the rules and limitations of who can/can't join a group. If you have issues with it you can either quit or deal with it. I guess I just chose to deal with it.

[Kanriel]

there isnt much stigma. out of the 22 jobs only a few are really useless. If you cant find out of the 22 jobs 3-4 jobs you enjoy playing and only want to stick to 1, then this game is really not ment for you and you rather go play thf on a game that has only 1 job per character design. There is really no justification to complain.

My specific issue is not the one at hand. I am minimally effected by this issue. The issue is this:

Someone loves PUP. They've gone up and farmed a mythic for their PUP, have all the best gear they have access to, and are amazing at playing it. There is a group shouting for a DD, they say MNK or SAM(so no specific need for MNK or SAM individually, just asking for the two most popular DD's). Is that PUP getting the invite? Almost certainly not. That's the issue at hand.

[Kyte]

I don't know, I'd sure as shit invite a mythic PUP (provided I was looking for a melee) because there's a greater chance that they aren't a retard versus a bandwagon MNK.

[stamos]

Generally invite player over job in most cases.

[Malithar]

To say matchmaking systems wouldn't work in XI, however, because you'd get nothing but dregs or that you can't figure out how to make it work is incredibly short-sighted. There are measuring sticks in place to be drawn from, including things like average ilvl, total merits invested into a job, CP/JP gains, stats relative to a role (HP/+enmity/damage reduction for tanks, as an example... or just /checkparam stuff), mission/quest completion, and so on.

This sounds great on paper, but how would they take into account gear swaps? It'd be pretty silly to have to queue up in a max acc set or something for example just to get classified into the right group. Then once that's figured out, you'd have those same dredges hitting that mark, but being just as useless since they have no idea what they're doing beyond "I have 900 acc so I'm endgame ready" etc.

[Sechs]

I don't know, I'd sure as shit invite a mythic PUP (provided I was looking for a melee) because there's a greater chance that they aren't a retard versus a bandwagon MNK.

If you need Formless Strikes or Mantra you probably wouldn't =/

[Damane]

If you need Formless Strikes or Mantra you probably wouldn't =/

well mantra is barely needed for current content, and formless strikes has lost most of its uses too (assuming you have a competent mage with you)

My specific issue is not the one at hand. I am minimally effected by this issue. The issue is this:

Someone loves PUP. They've gone up and farmed a mythic for their PUP, have all the best gear they have access to, and are amazing at playing it. There is a group shouting for a DD, they say MNK or SAM(so no specific need for MNK or SAM individually, just asking for the two most popular DD's). Is that PUP getting the invite? Almost certainly not. That's the issue at hand.

This is a playerbase issue, we invited players not jobs. DNC NIN BLU THF PUP etc. had them all in our PT once or more and we dont mind the jobs as long as we know the player behind them, which we usually do. The only thing we didnt have was BST, but thats mostly because we dont know any good BST and most BSTs are (sorry to say) dumb sadly. We let people come on their job they farmed their ass off to get a mythic usually, if the setup allows it, doesnt matter what job.

now that i think more about it, the only Job we a really didnt take anywhere was really BST. We have used all other Jobs, may it be from shell members haveing them or from outside people.

[arus2001]

This sounds great on paper, but how would they take into account gear swaps? It'd be pretty silly to have to queue up in a max acc set or something for example just to get classified into the right group. Then once that's figured out, you'd have those same dredges hitting that mark, but being just as useless since they have no idea what they're doing beyond "I have 900 acc so I'm endgame ready" etc.

Maybe it's time for the game to abandon gear swapping, then.

I know, I know, "dumbing down!" or whatever, but there's not really much legit depth added to gameplay by needing windower macros or SE's -1 attempt. All that's really gained is situationally lengthening the grind based on job. But seeing how much people whine about stat vomit here, I doubt TP and WS gear combining would be received all that well.

Basically, there's a third option beyond sucking it up or packing your bags, and that's getting things changed. Sadly, any form of dissent with how a game is presented tends to quickly get one labeled a complainer, an idiot, harassed, or worse by their graciously shit-swallowing peers. And I apologize if that may come off as harsh, but I'm a firm believer in there being differences in playing a game and the game playing you. MMOs thrive more on the latter with all the little time sinks, lockouts, and overly complicated people politics that arise from any given game's design. I'm sick of the BS all around. So, while some weisenheimer may acutely declare that MMOs aren't for me anymore, I'll just shake my head and disagree.

[Lyramion]

This is a playerbase issue, we invited players not jobs. DNC NIN BLU THF PUP etc. had them all in our PT once or more and we dont mind the jobs as long as we know the player behind them, which we usually do. The only thing we didnt have was BST, but thats mostly because we dont know any good BST and most BSTs are (sorry to say) dumb sadly. We let people come on their job they farmed their ass off to get a mythic usually, if the setup allows it, doesnt matter what job.

Recently did an Alluvion Skirmish. Shouted for Quote "Job that usually does not get invited to shouts!" to give some eminence noob a chance in life - all I got was 3 replies from seasoned players.

[dasva]

The only thing we didnt have was BST, but thats mostly because we dont know any good BST and most BSTs are (sorry to say) dumb sadly. We let people come on their job they farmed their ass off to get a mythic usually, if the setup allows it, doesnt matter what job.

now that i think more about it, the only Job we a really didnt take anywhere was really BST. We have used all other Jobs, may it be from shell members haveing them or from outside people.

Only time I've seen bst recently used was this horrible shout group for AAMR... That was so bad as a pld I managed to win the parse with 30% of the dmg <.<. And that's with doing all my own healing since the rdm forgot he had spells and spent the entire time meleeing with a 20% hit rate. And yeah bst only called a pet out in the beginning and never again and no evasion down pets despite our acc since our brd was basically perma dead from being hit by the AoE move during buffs

[Sechs]

Maybe it's time for the game to abandon gear swapping, then.

Bold words for a game entirely based on this very concept.
Are you even aware of the scale such a change would imply?

Granted that I agree this game lately has gone (again...) a bit overboard on the sidegrades/situational options, instead of consolidating them.
But that's what unavoidably happens when you reach a cap (119, atm) and need to provide stuff for players, to buy time for devs and to keep players busy.
It's what you can call "stagnancy" and FFXI atm is, once again, in a very stagnant situation that I could compare to the one before SoA.
Not as bad as that one maybe, but we're slowly getting there I suppose.

[arus2001]

Bold words for a game entirely based on this very concept.

I'm not going to agree with this. It may be a player driven sentiment rooted in combat efficiency, but I don't believe the /equip commands were initially designed with total gear swaps in mind. I could even lump initial inventory sizes into this. Over time, yes, SE added macro books and shortcut commands to hop between them, and then eventually the palette system, but I look to that more as adapting to how we play with a side of bridging the gap between PC and consoles. Plus targeting issues prior to <stpt> or <stal> and the whole aesthetic and logic nightmare of blinking like a christmas tree for every non-auto attack action.

Are you even aware of the scale such a change would imply?

Yes. But I also want to be incredibly mindful that doing it "right" will involve job rebalancing (including the enmity system) and making certain that a given class gets what they need in order to perform well. It will more than likely mean the abolition of class groupings like "light armor" being THF, DNC, BLU, NIN, etc. in place of things being more class specific, in part to keep people from finishing the gearing process as quickly. The effort alone is probably reason enough why SE won't do it, but to acknowledge the fear of people stacking things just to pass an entry req, such items should serve as passable to full-time. If they're not, I could only imagine you're putting mage gear on a fresh melee or something silly. Plus there would obviously be options to remove problem players from a group and replacements to come in. Yes, I'm also aware assholes will troll that, but we really can't be perpetually paralyzed from doing a good thing just because a lesser bad thing may spring up to replace an old problem. That just reeks of screwing RMT screwing legit players in the process.

[Kanriel]

I completely disagree with the idea of getting rid of gear swaps. IMO it's one of the best ways to be different from others, both acquiring the gear and utilizing it. What the hell would a "good" samurai be if you only have a single gearset, appropriate cooldown usage every 3-5min? Gear swapping is something that you can utilize regardless of job, and regardless of where your JA timers are, knowing when to use -dt gear, being able to change gear and run away, regen set, etc. all add a dimension to this game that if removed the game would cease to function as it has for 11+ years.

[arus2001]

I'd say balance adjustments would include things like tweaking cooldowns. Yes, XI is a "slower" game than a lot of other MMOs out on the market. It could benefit from being a bit faster, but certainly not twitchy (which I'd argue pinch -dt swaps fall into). Given role diversity and intelligent subjob choices, in the case of SAM, I'd be totally okay with there being "two sets" at a given level cap. One would be for damage dealing (including bow use) while the other would be for tanking or more safer DPSing if the target is AoE happy. Moving on, does the Meditate bonus need to be on items? No. It can be a tiered job trait. Going for point for point would be wasted effort for all sides here, however, but there really are multiple paths to a similar destination.

Plus it's not the first time this subject has come up, mixed reception as always.

[Suteru]

Oh, look, Linkshell2 is delayed again. Big fuckin' surprise.

[Sechs]

#notsurprised

Looking at the list it seems like what, 33% of the December patch got pushed forward lol

[Byrthnoth]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...114#post534114
They have gotten "fluffing up an update" down to almost an art form at this point. I swear half the bullet points on that page are redundant.

Looking forward to an expanded autotranslate dictionary, though. I wonder what they're going to cut (maybe the PS2).

[Sechs]

Didn't they cut the French and German parts from the autotranslate dictionary? Shouldn't that make it "lighter" in terms of memory usage and hence allow to expand the dictionary further?

[Byrthnoth]

No, because you only load the translation key for your language into memory.

[Sechs]

Ah, I always thought all of the dictionary was loaded at the same time, but only the one corresponding to your current local settings was being displayed.
Nvm then, shame.
Wonder how are they going to overcome the previously mentioned max terms limit?
They did cut something shortly after SoA release (PS2 specific stuff, X360 specific stuff, mroe stuff too), but since then many more terms have been added so I'm afraid we're kinda back to the initial situation of being at the cap.


Talking about "dynamic/selective memory load", someone on FFXIAH made a suggestion for a job specific wardrobe2. You can put only job-specific stuff in there, and only your current job's one gets loaded. When you're in MH or in a town with Moogles all of them get loaded of course, which would mean much longer zoning times when in such places, but it shouldn't affect the rest.
Wonder if they could technically implement such a change? Would be quite awesome. Beyond awesome.
I would even be happy with them converting Wardrobe1 into this new format honestly.