FFXIV 3.0 : Heavensward - Expansion Information and Discussion

[ronin sparthos]

I take this to mean that successful MMOs never have people complaining about balance, or something?

This game is all about lowest-common-denominator and idiot-proofing. You basically can't wear the "wrong" gear because itemization is mindless and stupid; all you have to do is read the number next to your picture and if it goes up when you equip an item, you should use that item. Jobs can't use the "wrong" cross-class skills because the rails are so narrow that you are almost always "choosing" between actions that do something and actions that do nothing. There are very few situations where you are rewarded for making a smart choice... mostly just situations where you will be punished for making incredibly dumb ones.

modern MMO yo

Take it to mean that Yoshida's design philosophy is meant to remove much of the complexity that turned XI into a spreadsheet driven nightmare factor where DPS is formulated in labs and tested on small rodents. For better or worse, XI got too complex and with so many moving parts it's damn nigh impossible for the devs to keep things balanced and so we get a flattened down model here. Everyone speaks of middle ground but in reality it's a very difficult position to find.

Based on what we've seen thus far, Yoshida is more concerned with you actually doing the instances. And by that I mean doing the dance, dodging the deathcones and eventually memorizing the runs. The barrier won't be your job or even gear per se but the ability to follow the script to the letter in order to succeed. Even something like Titan HM was more complex than anything XI managed to muster.

My gripe is with the itemization which I agree is boring, dull and lifeless. Even among equal level ilvl gear we could see some more variety even if it was some unique NM type weapons harkening back to days of XI old. A blade with enspell damage, an axe that occasionally shoots stone spells, a staff that pukes up a fairy or a polearm that drops poison pools.... I mean anything.

XIVs greatest issue to me is it isn't worth subbing for months with lockouts and obvious 'walls' to content. Games social aspect is basically void with instancing for everything and very little overworld shit.

[Spider-Dan]

Not really. I've seen a lot of people leave FFXI over the years. The game kinda forces you to play but when your group starts falling apart you'll likely stop playing unless you want to start all over again. I've seen a lot of old faces in XI during the free campaign but I'm pretty sure most are gone again now (just like myself). The game is way past its prime, it's probably time to let it go.

Um, yes, 12-year-old FFXI is in the retirement home. I don't think that's in dispute.

You still can't tell anything about ARR's longevity or ultimate standing based on 13 months of existence.

[ronin sparthos]

Not really. I've seen a lot of people leave FFXI over the years. The game kinda forces you to play but when your group starts falling apart you'll likely stop playing unless you want to start all over again. I've seen a lot of old faces in XI during the free campaign but I'm pretty sure most are gone again now (just like myself). The game is way past its prime, it's probably time to let it go.
XIV works in cycles. When a patch hits you see a lot of people around checking out the new stuff and it eventually slows down until a new patch hits. The team also seems ok with this.

I'm talking about XI overall, not XI today. XI today is on its deathbed, slowly waiting to finally die in peace surrounded by loved ones who'll remember 5 hour sandworms and Tanaka loathing his playerbase fondly. But the fact that XI could have kept people for so long is a testament to another era of MMO, one that XIV is not fortunate enough to exist in. In today's market each time people play in bursts then desub 'till next patch, that's an opportunity for them to drop your game forever. All the content walls and 'you must farm X by Y tally' doesn't help either.

(Admittingly, I'm speaking from my own gripes above. But they are gripes shared by others. Seeing GW2 burn up in the atmosphere and Wildstar fizzle in my rear-view mirror ain't helping either.)

Considering all the MMOs that have gone from subs to F2P within a few years, I think it's premature to boast success when this game teetered on failure, had a triumphant return but at the end of the day is coasting heavily on nostalgia, brand and really hasn't done much to shake up the genre. I love FF as much as the next puke but for a non-aficionado? What's going to keep them playing 5-7 years out?

Or have we just accepted MMOs don't last that long anymore? Heavensward will definitely drum up buzz though.

[Sigmakan]

I would expect to see more "interesting" stats in Heavensward.

[Spider-Dan]

Take it to mean that Yoshida's design philosophy is meant to remove much of the complexity that turned XI into a spreadsheet driven nightmare factor where DPS is formulated in labs and tested on small rodents. For better or worse, XI got too complex and with so many moving parts it's damn nigh impossible for the devs to keep things balanced and so we get a flattened down model here. Everyone speaks of middle ground but in reality it's a very difficult position to find.

Are WoW's DPS calculations any less scrutinized than XI's were? Is it less complex?

You're making two separate arguments, here. One is that XI was taken over by number-crunching min-maxers, which is not really speaking from the perspective of 1-year-old FFXI (when people were still singing minuet over march). Furthermore, the question of complexity/min-maxing is not the same as balance; you could have a well-balanced game with complex itemization, and you could have a different game with dumb, linear itemization and poor balance.

It is true that allowing a greater breadth of viable choices increases the chance that people can make subpar choices, which can lead to balance issues. I think such freedom is worth it; you may disagree. (But then again, I'm perfectly content with the "spotlight" system of balance in a game where you can level multiple jobs on one character.)

[Gulkeeva]

I would expect to see more "interesting" stats in Heavensward.

Kinda of hoping in a way it goes like other MMO's, where as expansions effectively make past gear useless, not "well its got 3more vit, but not 30crit like my gear from 2.4"

Something like Lv 51 gear almsot as good as coil 2.4 gear
Lv 55 good as 2.4 coil gear
dungeon lv60 gear noticeably better
and possibly 3.0 raid gear 2X? better then 2.4 coil gear
/random idea

doubt they'll go wow route where they were doing like 400dps 1 expansion, 4,000dps the next, then 40,000's etc etc with people with HP in the millions.

[Eurell]

[I expect some people will come back for 2.4, play that new content and then stop playing again until 3.0.

To be fair, even the odd numbered casual updates offer a bunch to do. 2.1 brought a bunch of extremes. I admit 2.3 was very meh. But 2.5 will not only include the crystal tower conclusion, but also The Golden Fucking Saucer. If done right, Triple Triad and Chocobo Racing alone will keep people subscribed longer so they can at least fuck around a bit.

[Lucavi]

To be fair, even the odd numbered casual updates offer a bunch to do. 2.1 brought a bunch of extremes. I admit 2.3 was very meh. But 2.5 will not only include the crystal tower conclusion, but also The Golden Fucking Saucer. If done right, Triple Triad and Chocobo Racing alone will keep people subscribed longer so they can at least fuck around a bit.

Some people will always come back, some people will always leave. New people, however, will always join, so long as SE continues to launch in new areas. I still don't think they've launched in Russia and China, two massive markets. I'm not too sure about Mexico and Brazil either.

I'm pretty sure that SE, just like Blizzard and the other big boys, are keenly aware about the standard devour-content-quickly-then-leave gamer, that usually winds up coming back right around the next major content update. Lots of those gamers wind up paying for decent-sized blocs of time anyway, so even if they don't stick around for the entire time, companies still make their loot. You're never going to see any major catering to those individuals because companies know they'll eventually be back to consume the fresh content.

There's nothing wrong with playing like that. Hell, lots of people on BG do it. Plenty of people in this thread do it. I do it, just not in games with monthly subs. Look how many people bailed before 2.2, then came back, then bailed again, went back to WoW or tried Wildstar, and are planning to come back either for 2.4, 2.5 or 3.0. Companies know all of this, and SE and Blizz are no exception.

[Cutriss]

Some people will always come back, some people will always leave. New people, however, will always join, so long as SE continues to launch in new areas. I still don't think they've launched in Russia and China, two massive markets. I'm not too sure about Mexico and Brazil either.

China launched two months ago.

[Gokulo]

It's heading to south korea now.

[Lucavi]

China launched two months ago.

Oh shit, I'm behind the times. Thanks.

[Arthars]

with 3.0 seemingly coming right after final coil and CT, i dont blame people for not playing 2.4 much and just wait for lvl cap, lvl up and get lvl 60 gears........

SE is smart on this and released ninja for peeps to lvl up and at the same time, do coil and keep them interested.

can you imagine if ninja isnt scheduled for 2.4? no one who quitted would even come back.......

the final coil gears/poetics gears is going to be used for lvling come 3.0.......

[Cutriss]

I've been thinking about if/when we're going to get Xelphatol access, because it always looked on the map like we go "through" it to get from Thanalan to the South Shroud, but I guess if it's a pass that goes along a mountain ridge, the airships could "restore" access to Xelphatol.

[ronin sparthos]

Are WoW's DPS calculations any less scrutinized than XI's were? Is it less complex?

You're making two separate arguments, here. One is that XI was taken over by number-crunching min-maxers, which is not really speaking from the perspective of 1-year-old FFXI (when people were still singing minuet over march). Furthermore, the question of complexity/min-maxing is not the same as balance; you could have a well-balanced game with complex itemization, and you could have a different game with dumb, linear itemization and poor balance.

It is true that allowing a greater breadth of viable choices increases the chance that people can make subpar choices, which can lead to balance issues. I think such freedom is worth it; you may disagree. (But then again, I'm perfectly content with the "spotlight" system of balance in a game where you can level multiple jobs on one character.)

Why are we comparing an '04 XI to a '14 XIV? XIV exists ten years into MMO players understanding how this rodeo works with many people with having multiple MMOs under their belts. Most of XIs PS2 in '04 players had never even played an MMO before.

The two can't be compared. When XI was new, MMOs were still this rather niche market (EverQuest being the big banana) and now ARR exists in a post-WoW market where the genre is fully defined. Some would even go as far to say it's in decline.

As for as balance? It's far more difficult to balance things when you add complexity to the itemization. WoW became a bloatfest of numbers, XI remained woefully of out balance to ridiculous extremes for years and Yoshida seems well aware of this so far. Tweaks are minor and for the time being he's found enough balance to avoid a 'don't bring job X to events' mantra that will certainly arise as the game sheds its vanilla itemization.

I have no confidence that developers will ever create this mythical 'balanced' game because players are always looking to optimize which trickles down to idiots emulating the pros. I want a more complex game but that will come with jobs being thrown out of whack, it's inevitable.

The design philosophy of ARR emphasizes performance more than gear but perhaps this will change as Yoshida gets full reins of his first expansion pack now he feels comfortable with the stability of the game and has finally shed Tanaka's folly.

[Francisco]

Playing another game. Seriously. There are a lot of strategy/sim/turnbased games that require 50% attention and 50% input, allowing you to do things other than play the game. Like playing a better game.

Pretty much, and since leaving XI and XIV, I'm pretty much retired from MMO. Tried a handful of others, never could get into them. I was mostly posting would could coax me back into FFXIV, but didn't really expect many to agree with it, which is fine.

I like FFXIV for the exploration, storyline and the first couple of times through a dungeon, so in a sense I want to play it. But at the same time, it just started to get that "hamster on a wheel" feeling where you're just constantly chasing the newer gear. Such are MMOs, I guess.

[Spider-Dan]

Why are we comparing an '04 XI to a '14 XIV?

I'm comparing 1 year after release to 1 year after release.

XIV exists ten years into MMO players understanding how this rodeo works with many people with having multiple MMOs under their belts. Most of XIs PS2 in '04 players had never even played an MMO before.

I don't think it was ever PS2 players in XI that were driving min-maxing, so I don't really see the correlation. EQ (the game XI copied) already established the MMO market well before XI was exported from Japan.

You seem to be arguing that "people" (you?) only started caring about min-maxing in MMOs as the XI playerbase (i.e. you) matured. I assure you that people were min-maxing in other MMOs years before that.

As for as balance? It's far more difficult to balance things when you add complexity to the itemization. WoW became a bloatfest of numbers, XI remained woefully of out balance to ridiculous extremes for years and Yoshida seems well aware of this so far.

Again, I don't understand what point you're trying to make if you're saying that WoW (a mature, successful "modern MMO") has the same bloatfest of numbers that XI (a mature, successful prior-gen MMO) had, but that ARR (a toddler MMO that has yet to go through a single expansion) must avoid.

It seems pretty obvious to me that as an MMO matures, what you describe as "a bloatfest of numbers" is almost inevitable, if not necessary.

I like FFXIV for the exploration, storyline and the first couple of times through a dungeon, so in a sense I want to play it. But at the same time, it just started to get that "hamster on a wheel" feeling where you're just constantly chasing the newer gear. Such are MMOs, I guess.

This is the WoW-era "modern MMO" gear model: spend a bunch of time grinding out a piece of gear, only to toss it in the trash a few months later.

Some prefer this to the "grind an item and use it for 6 years" model of XI. I am not among them.

[Spider-Dan]

(double)

[Elcura]

Some prefer this to the "grind an item and use it for 6 years" model of XI. I am not among them.

Good, because (not even as an exaggeration) that's retarded.

ITT: Middle ground is hard.

[Grey Jorildyn]

Wait, so this is the expansion where Dragoon gets good, right?

[Tyrath]

Wait, so this is the expansion where Dragoon gets good, right?

No it's the expansion where all dragoons ditch the class for the superior Dark Knight.

Spoiler: show

When I say all, I just mean me.