FFXIV 3.0 : Heavensward - Expansion Information and Discussion

[Ramset]

So what content should they be cutting to make room to prioritize the content that YOU want to see? And, if someone else in here comes in and says that they're disappointing that the content that was cut for YOU was fun for THEM, what, then, do you say to them?

This is why making content laser-focused onto a small subset is a silly idea. Is it truly smart to alienate the majority to satisfy a minority? I still believe that separating coils in 2 difficulties with 2 sets of gear is the right direction. I'm more worried about penta melds and the over-reliance on design crutches like AOE HP checks instead of actual punishing mechanics during fights.

I'm not trying to isolate anyone, I don't think anyone in this discussion wants to do that. I'm only saying I tho k there could be better design to these systems which would be beneficial to everyone.

I think desynthesis was one of their solutions to cleaning up inventory clutter. However this only takes care of a very small % of inventory space, if any.

Does anyone remember when it was stated that the original Crystal Tower was way more difficult than what was actually implemented? Why not make something just slightly harder than current implementation, instead of race roll at least.

We all clearly love this game for various reasons, there's a wealth of content for many types of players, but just like pigeonholing is detrimental, so is spreading things too thinly; which is what I think has started to happen.

To your point about 2 sets of gear across difficulty levels...that doesn't change anything though. All that does is create another ilvl tier. So we'll probably see 24 man raid (ilvl 150), Token gear ilvl 150, normal raid i155, upgraded token gear i160, hard mode raid i160, weapon i165.

Again, only two sets will qualify for "BiS", with the odd 24 man piece trickled in to some sets. Don't we all love getting gear? Why not make more pieces of useful gear. Instead of endless glamour items.

[SamanosukeShiva]

I wanna see multiple options of gears than just 2 sets, maybe like 3-4 per slot, coming from more than 4 bosses. Seriously SE, time to get out of the kiddie pool.

[Cichy]

What I'd like to see most is some sort of way to allow players to use diversity of skills. Currently there is only one way to play every job. All those ability buttons but there is 1 clear cut way of what you supposed to be doing and that's it. Press buttons in this order and nothing else. Would be amazing if they added sets like in Diablo 3 that every 2 pieces you unlock some sort of new ability.
6 piece set bouns = when you jump 4 dragoon clones fall from the sky

[Takiwaki]

What I'd like to see most is some sort of way to allow players to use diversity of skills. Currently there is only one way to play every job. All those ability buttons but there is 1 clear cut way of what you supposed to be doing and that's it. Press buttons in this order and nothing else. Would be amazing if they added sets like in Diablo 3 that every 2 pieces you unlock some sort of new ability.
6 piece set bouns = when you jump 4 dragoon clones fall from the sky

Drg cant cross class Ninja though

[Ramset]

On the topic of new skills...would be sweet if WAR got Battlecries or something. I.e. "Shout proudly on the battlefield and all nearby allies gain increased Attack power for 10 seconds."

Paladin maybe get something like Commanding Presence, adds that spawn, or other mobs in a pulled group. Automatically put the PLD at top of the hate list.

DRG could get something like Double Jump where if any Jump ability critically hits, the "Jump" cool down automatically resets....just some ideas. Maybe slightly off topic...

[Edelweiss]

So Warcry merits.

[Spider-Dan]

Except it was entirely their choice to add the coil upgrade items to ST.

The items weren't there originally and are not tied to the event in any way.

Everything in the game is "entirely their choice," so that's a content-free statement.

I don't know what you mean by "tied to the event." Is the Coil of Bahamut somehow more Allagan than the storyline about the Allagan Emperor and his Crystal Tower? If not, I don't see how the items are more related to Coil than CT from a lore perspective.

Furthermore, the welfare upgrade system didn't exist at all pre-2.2, so the decision to introduce them came after "backward progression" CT had already been introduced in 2.1. It would be difficult to claim that Yoshida hadn't taken CT into account as a delivery mechanism when deciding to implement sands/oils; I would be inclined to say that giving CT a useful purpose was likely a major reason for creating that upgrade system in the first place.

[Sho]

I'm not trying to isolate anyone, I don't think anyone in this discussion wants to do that. I'm only saying I tho k there could be better design to these systems which would be beneficial to everyone.

I think desynthesis was one of their solutions to cleaning up inventory clutter. However this only takes care of a very small % of inventory space, if any.

Does anyone remember when it was stated that the original Crystal Tower was way more difficult than what was actually implemented? Why not make something just slightly harder than current implementation, instead of race roll at least.

We all clearly love this game for various reasons, there's a wealth of content for many types of players, but just like pigeonholing is detrimental, so is spreading things too thinly; which is what I think has started to happen.

To your point about 2 sets of gear across difficulty levels...that doesn't change anything though. All that does is create another ilvl tier. So we'll probably see 24 man raid (ilvl 150), Token gear ilvl 150, normal raid i155, upgraded token gear i160, hard mode raid i160, weapon i165.

Again, only two sets will qualify for "BiS", with the odd 24 man piece trickled in to some sets. Don't we all love getting gear? Why not make more pieces of useful gear. Instead of endless glamour items.

I think what people miss is the fact that a great deal of planning goes in before implementation of content. CT seems to be one of the few instances where they were simply late in implementation due to setting up the precedence of having raid swap content or not concerning iLvls. According to what we've been told at PAX (though not new info), they implement all of their fights at the highest of difficulty that they can conceptualize, then take away elements from the fights to create their "modes." Pretty sure the reason behind this is because it was the safest choice they could have made at the time.

Think about the position Yoshi-P was in at the time; vanilla 2.0 was just released to rave reviews in the shadow of a failed 1.0. The MMO atmosphere is that where most MMOs go free to play within a good year despite initial reviews. Of course, Yoshi-P by then had many interviews where he publically stated that ARR would not go free to play at all. So where does one go from here? You continue to play it safe and make safe decisions to not only retain your player base, but have an incentive for new players to join and play as well. Lowering the difficulty of CT was a safe and a good decision at the end of the day. Despite elitist type players giving others a hard time, the first iteration of CT was a success for the casual base, which is exactly what Yoshi-P was targetting in the first place.

What we are seeing now with the expansion is more or less Yoshi-P opening up his options after allowing players to play test thier raid ideas (remember Brutal Coil?), thus two versions of raid content, with an accompanying CT like content in the following month or two.

[Shenrien]

Someone has some nostalgia for Diablo 2.

[Niiro]

Everything in the game is "entirely their choice," so that's a content-free statement.

I don't know what you mean by "tied to the event." Is the Coil of Bahamut somehow more Allagan than the storyline about the Allagan Emperor and his Crystal Tower? If not, I don't see how the items are more related to Coil than CT from a lore perspective.

Furthermore, the welfare upgrade system didn't exist at all pre-2.2, so the decision to introduce them came after "backward progression" CT had already been introduced in 2.1. It would be difficult to claim that Yoshida hadn't taken CT into account as a delivery mechanism when deciding to implement sands/oils; I would be inclined to say that giving CT a useful purpose was likely a major reason for creating that upgrade system in the first place.

The point is it was still backwards and stupid.

Adding the upgrade items to CT while CT was still coming out months after coil was still backwards.

CT gear should have been available to help clear coil in order to help get coil drops and upgrade items, adding welfare upgrade items later on in the patch cycle is fine because by then you'd have gotten your mileage out of the actual gear from CT anyway.

edit: as an aside, CT gear should have been upgradable like tome gear, bam, 3 gear options instead of 2

[Spider-Dan]

The point is it was still backwards and stupid.

Adding the upgrade items to CT while CT was still coming out months after coil was still backwards.

CT gear should have been available to help clear coil in order to help get coil drops and upgrade items.

There was already i100 (2.2)/i120 (2.4) gear available to "help clear coil."

Basically, your argument boils down to "why don't they let us buy weekly-capped token gear at twice the speed?", as that would be the only real effect of the change you are citing. Unless you're also saying that sands/oils/UATs should have been in ST from day one of 2.2? I don't think I need to explain the problems with that plan.

[Niiro]

My argument is releasing gear after you no longer need it is backwards and fucking stupid.

[Ramset]

I think what people miss is the fact that a great deal of planning goes in before implementation of content...... *snip*

I agree with you 100%. That's part of my point though, given the amount of time they've had to plan for the expansion, and analyze the current progression threads and completion of current content combined with learning curve... We should begin to move on from 2.0 and gradually increase difficulty level as well as time investments required to progress. At the current rate this game will not last for 10 years like Yoshi P envisions. He mentions bringing in new players for the expansion, well hello, that's what ARR should be for. Heavensward should be the next level of the game where seasoned veterans (hardcore players and casuals alike; we're all veterans at this point) can experience the evolution of the game's design as it enters a more mature stage in its life cycle.

The point is it was still backwards and stupid.

Yes

There was already i100 (2.2)/i120 (2.4) gear available to "help clear coil."

Basically, your argument boils down to "why don't they let us buy weekly-capped token gear at twice the speed?", as that would be the only real effect of the change you are citing. Unless you're also saying that sands/oils/UATs should have been in ST from day one of 2.2? I don't think I need to explain the problems with that plan.

My argument is releasing gear after you no longer need it is backwards and fucking stupid.

Spider-Dan ... that's under the assumption that nothing will change with gear progression moving forward (we hope it will change...however it may not).

As was mentioned, CT/ST having sands/oils/UATS was an after-thought which became a catch-up mechanic. What should happen is the ilvl gap should be increased, and the means by which token gear is obtained be changed. If you're going to keep 24 man content as face-roll weekly farm, let it be, but don't allow it to drop gear that is Hard Mode raid tier.

It really is silly that 24 man raid comes out after it's nearly possible for you to be max ilvl. Even a casual player could farm all the tomestones necessary and buy tomestone gear to be at or above the ilvl that is rewarded from 24 man raid, and the on top of that Hunts also included upgrade items (twine/sands). It's like the completely throw progression out the door for no reason. Content is content?

[Spider-Dan]

My argument is releasing gear after you no longer need it is backwards and fucking stupid.

Are you saying that no one benefits from WoD drops because "everyone" is already i130?

Once again: that's not the target audience for CT. If you already have full dreadwyrm and you've been getting carbon from coil for weeks, CT is not intended for you (other than to gear up side jobs and/or glamour). It obviously works well for its purpose, as there's no shortage of people running them.

Not every piece of content has to be endgame.

[Niiro]

Are you saying that no one benefits from WoD drops because "everyone" is already i130?

No, because everyone is already i120, making WoD drops, at best, sidegrades.

At worst, useless.

If WoD was released at the same time as FCoB they would be neither sidegrades nor useless for quite a few months.

[Deadgye]

By the time you get your second (or sometimes even first) twine or sand from raiding, all the scrubs are being handed them for almost free.

Anyway, the people that "CT is for" aren't the type of people who can even function in coil. CT coming out before would be exactly the same as CT coming out after, for them.

[Deader2818]

Isnt some of the WoD gear for bard bis?

[Niiro]

By the time you get your second (or sometimes even first) twine or sand from raiding, all the scrubs are being handed them for almost free.

Anyway, the people that "CT is for" aren't the type of people who can even function in coil. CT coming out before would be exactly the same as CT coming out after, for them.

No, it would not.

Unless you think getting an i120 body piece the first week of FCoB would be useless (and another 120 piece the second week, and third, etc).

In which case you're just a moron.

[Spider-Dan]

So again, you're basically just saying that players should be able to hit full i120 twice as fast. That's not the reason CT exists.

And yeah, if you've been getting coil gear, upgrade mats, and buying poetics gear for weeks before WoD, then i120 WoD drops are going to your third and fourth jobs and have marginal relevance. But if you've been buying poetics gear the whole time and you haven't been getting drops from coil, then you haven't geared up more than one job (by 2.5 release) and WoD drops are likely quite relevant for you.

I notice that you have not addressed CT giving out upgrade mats other than saying "they weren't there originally" (which does not address the fact that they are there now and have been there for the last two iterations of CT). This is a significant oversight on your part, as it's fair to say that the overwhelming majority of people doing CT are doing it for upgrade mats.

[Niiro]

I notice you don't read well.

CT gear should have been available to help clear coil in order to help get coil drops and upgrade items, adding welfare upgrade items later on in the patch cycle is fine because by then you'd have gotten your mileage out of the actual gear from CT anyway.