What makes you keep playing?

[Shenrien]

The big advantage of 1.23+ till 2.0? The randomness of the fights. I'll say it again not knowing what to expect from a fight gives a different challenge

In 1.0 Garuda HM, after her Aerial Blast, you never knew what to expect, she had 3 possible moves, and you only knew what she would do depending on where she appeared (and I'm not talking about possible phase skips)

I miss that from 1.23

Randomness is what this game needs, breaking patterns where you're uncertain what is to come next after a threshold of attacks is meet is what would really spice things up. An internal cool down system could be implemented for bosses to avoid spam of unforgiving attack patterns as well as a two time use of their ultimate attacks(primal's and boss enrages) and having them triggered by timed conditions only within a fight should be the only mechanics in a fight where you know, okay at 6 minutes we're gonna get blasted really fucking hard, and at 12 minutes it's game over if we don't beat this thing into a pulp regardless of what phase we enter.

[Kaisha]

They would have to break their habit of strict enrage/dps checks to even remotely allow random rotation selection from a boss. YoshiP said something to the effect ages ago he doesn't want that because then it'd just boil down to trying again and again until RNG is in your favor for its move selection/rotation.

On that note, was 1.X's end game encounters anything like XI where there was ample room for recovery since the fights were more about endurance than 110% DPS-uptime-or-you-wipe? An alliance, 45min BCNM timer, and as long as your healers had Reraise up you could hold an enemy until everyone was unweakened.

[Destinye]

Heh, 1.x's were recoverable because of 3 things:

-Randomness
-Company Tonics (raise items) that anyone can use
-If your Bard is alive they can give out clutch raises to recover

Least in some content but it still depended. Overworld wise, it was possible to recover from a Great Buffalo/Dodore wipe back in the day as long as they weren't sitting on top of you. And yeah Yoshi is against it........because it'd require breaking the content formula. The battle dude is said to get sad when people wipe the floor of his content when he (and matsui) programmed some pretty fun fights in XI and 1.x..but here it's like they aren't even trying. I guess that's why playing with friends enhances the experience more because I can't stand some of the content since it's the same..shit.

I think that's why I loved RDM MAAT before they changed it, where when he chainspells he could end sleeping you, nuking you sleeping you or sleeping, healing to full or nuking you etc..you don't know. But in XIV, if maat was here, you'd know exactly what he will do and when no matter what. To give credit, newer stuff has a bit more randomness to it but it's still predictable.

[Corrderio]

On that note, was 1.X's end game encounters anything like XI where there was ample room for recovery since the fights were more about endurance than 110% DPS-uptime-or-you-wipe? An alliance, 45min BCNM timer, and as long as your healers had Reraise up you could hold an enemy until everyone was unweakened.

From what I remember, not really for boss encounters/primals. One of the biggest reasons was since there wasn't a way to rest for MP like in XI, so healers had to keep tabs on MP, which is why the general strategy was to only use one DPS class so the healers didn't run out of MP too fast.

Though like I said, this is shit I'm trying to remember from over 2 years ago. I didn't stay long after jobs/Garuda were introduced.

[Carth]

They would have to break their habit of strict enrage/dps checks to even remotely allow random rotation selection from a boss. YoshiP said something to the effect ages ago he doesn't want that because then it'd just boil down to trying again and again until RNG is in your favor for its move selection/rotation.

I would disagree with this notion though. This only happens if you're garbage at balancing fights.

[Shenrien]

They would have to break their habit of strict enrage/dps checks to even remotely allow random rotation selection from a boss. YoshiP said something to the effect ages ago he doesn't want that because then it'd just boil down to trying again and again until RNG is in your favor for its move selection/rotation.

On that note, was 1.X's end game encounters anything like XI where there was ample room for recovery since the fights were more about endurance than 110% DPS-uptime-or-you-wipe? An alliance, 45min BCNM timer, and as long as your healers had Reraise up you could hold an enemy until everyone was unweakened.

That's where internal cool downs come into play, once something is used it can't be used for X-amount of time, and sets a X-amount of time delay after that ability with a range of time +1-5s example, before the next ability can go out, so an example.

Oppressor does Royal Fount at 11s, it can't be used for another 10s if it wanted to choose to do it, there is a default 4s delay before the next mechanic can go out with a randomly pulled time added on top of it of 1 to 5s, when that timer is hit it chooses; Shwoop-da-woop laser, Resin Bomb, or Gunnery Turrets. Once one of those abilities is selected it repeats the process bot Royal Fount is back into the rotation and whatever. As time dwindles down to the 1min 30s mark when the Oppressor summons his "split" the ICD is reset with a 5s delay to avoid them locking and doing whatever, however now their ICD is shared together.

What one does the other mirrors, but to keep with the tradition of the fight, missiles still come out at a set time, and adds come out at a set time, but Resin, Fount, Tank Buster(only usable once before the jump, timer resets upon the ability is used to start that mechanic.) and Gunnery Turret can be used at any time in between those attacks, it would be possible to never see Resin, or be flooded with Resin, it wouldn't be impossible to handle but it would definitely shake things up in the fight, so much so they could just adjust the time that the pools are left on the ground to be a shorter time.

[Destinye]

I would disagree with this notion though. This only happens if you're garbage at balancing fights.

To be fair though, their core system is kinda wtf. In XI you did have some terrain snafus..but the fact there I rare get "can't see x" errors compared to XIV where you can't see the shit simply because your camera is facing left..is pretty silly.

[Kaisha]

To be fair though, their core system is kinda wtf. In XI you did have some terrain snafus..but the fact there I rare get "can't see x" errors compared to XIV where you can't see the shit simply because your camera is facing left..is pretty silly.

ARR's client is pretty retarded since it'll do its own lifting of verifying legal command usage before sending it off to the server to......alleviate.....shit the server should already be verifying I suppose? It's why you get BS like instant-use ranged attacks getting cancelled just because you and the mob are moving and the client thinks you weren't facing it when the skill goes off.

Spoiler: show

Only thing the client should be doing is checking line of sight with terrain geometry from your player to your target, nothing with regards to your camera

I would disagree with this notion though. This only happens if you're garbage at balancing fights.

I'm no game designer so I wouldn't know, outside of making it beatable under the worst possible outcome, which would only then favor rolling the dice on getting an easier pattern. Having it completely random with CDs on enemy attacks like Shen mentions seems worse to me with ARR's current combat than having it pick from a string of attack patterns, kinda similar to last phase T10.


That said, god fucking forbid they introduce midcore content to the game and use that for experimenting with.

[Ratatapa]

Didn't yoshi blamed servers issue for removing randomness of fights?

[Destinye]

Didn't yoshi blamed servers issue for removing randomness of fights?

Yep. Can't blame PS3 limitations because XIV's monster script is read by 2 files - the indicators (for AoEs) then the usual rotation gambit system (think XII) which..yeah I assume must be part of the issue since he stated going into an instance for example makes a copy of ALL of your items and so on (which is why you can't gear swap or use items even though not in battle) so there's some unnecessary strain going on.

[Spider-Dan]

going into an instance for example makes a copy of ALL of your items and so on (which is why you can't gear swap or use items even though not in battle)

What are you referring to here? When can you not gear swap?

[Luthia]

What are you referring to here? When can you not gear swap?

Prolly talkin about the 45s from when your que pops to the moment you are taken inside the instance, you cannot do anything inventory wise till the que goes off.

[Destinye]

Prolly talkin about the 45s from when your que pops to the moment you are taken inside the instance, you cannot do anything inventory wise till the que goes off.

^ This. Since yoshi said before you go into it they have to copy your entire character data onto the DF servers, which I guess makes sense but seems inefficient as all hell if the servers are so sensitive even adding 1 extra inv slot will break them.

[Detzu]

MCH/BRD/AST/PLD have all been literally excluded from parties since 3.0 came out. Even though PF allows you to easily and simply exclude them from recruitment, you still had people saying in the PF description "NO MCH OR BRD PLZ" because they didn't even want to deal with responding to tells.

Today we know what kind of players are excluding BRD or MCH from their PF. Excluding PLD could be understandable because of optimization. AST is in a better place at the moment. There's no optimization without BRD or MCH.

[FHT]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...d-from-playing.

I post it here because its following this thread and for now its apparently troll free, no "Go back to FFXI" or "This game is fine as it is!" answers, thoses of you who are not banned yet might be interested in giving two cents.

[lilbubbles]

It took me awhile, but I have finally figured out why I hate this game, liked 11, and will likely be quitting in 3.1

FCs, friends, and linkshells are worthless.

The game is nothing but drama inducing 8 person musical chair bullshit to get in a raid, which is a bad experience for most. Even when it is going well your entire game life revolves around just 7 other people which also sucks because anyone else you like or care about you have no way to help or interact with.

Helping other people sucks because they will NEVER help you in return because they CAN'T unless they are in your 8 person raid group. The game provides no mechanism for people to play together.

What made 11 great was that I had a group of friends, they were my LS. We "raided" every single day 24/7. If someone didn't show, it was no big deal. If too many people showed, the more the better because as a leader I could make use of every single person that showed up and get things done no matter how many people we had. My ls was structured as such, that if I needed to skip a day and take care of real life stuff it was ok, my attendance was always useful but never required so I wouldn't feel guilty.

And sure, 9 out of 10 people you would help would bail and never do anything in return but it was worth it for that 1 person you would gear up that would continue to run with you and help you with stuff.

I quit during the second coil of bahamut for this reason, came back to check expansion and found nothing had changed. This "airship" content seems to indicate it has a variety of content to complete with a variety of people, I will wait and see. If it's more of the same, I am gone and will never return. I'm a social person, I have needs.

I don't understand why in this day and age, they can't possibly design a game you can interact with a variety people. I do recall some interview once where SE was asked why they don't add content like sea/sky and the response was that they didn't want to exclude "small fcs", in that case why call your game a MMO?

They should have made a mostly single player game with multiplayer options and a few chatrooms to share blow job stories, oh wait they did. That's FF14. Most of the content is duty finder, which is rarely a good experience and when it is it a good experience that is worse because you will likely never see the people you ran with again.

[Corrderio]

FCs, friends, and linkshells are worthless.

This has been a gripe of mine since day 1. I don't mind instanced content, but not having any open world, scalable fights such as ZNMs, sky and sea spawns, sucks. Hell, I'd even take dynamis for content.

And yes, I do consider that a huge problem. Call me old fashioned, but I want the point of a FC to be to band together and work together as a group so they can go "We came, we saw, we kicked ass". Not the "grats to the 8 of us. Sucks to be the others who cant go" content we have.

[Lokus]

It's funny you mention Yoshi-P saying not wanting to exclude small FCs. I remember the OF had a fairly long thread complaining about company crafting because requiring 4 players was too much for people's small FCs (ignore that company crafting is the most uninspired shit ever). Like what the shit. This is really a problem that SE created because you really don't need a lot of people for anything and everyone got used to it.

[lilbubbles]

I remember the OF had a fairly long thread complaining about company crafting because requiring 4 players was too much for people's small FCs (ignore that company crafting is the most uninspired shit ever). Like what the shit.

Even if you're in a 1 person FC, how could you possibly be living your life that no one will help you for 5 seconds by literately doing nothing but standing there?

It's like, people can make it in this game without the most fundamental of social skills.

[FHT]

It took me awhile, but I have finally figured out why I hate this game, liked 11, and will likely be quitting in 3.1

FCs, friends, and linkshells are worthless.

The game is nothing but drama inducing 8 person musical chair bullshit to get in a raid, which is a bad experience for most. Even when it is going well your entire game life revolves around just 7 other people which also sucks because anyone else you like or care about you have no way to help or interact with.

Helping other people sucks because they will NEVER help you in return because they CAN'T unless they are in your 8 person raid group. The game provides no mechanism for people to play together.

What made 11 great was that I had a group of friends, they were my LS. We "raided" every single day 24/7. If someone didn't show, it was no big deal. If too many people showed, the more the better because as a leader I could make use of every single person that showed up and get things done no matter how many people we had. My ls was structured as such, that if I needed to skip a day and take care of real life stuff it was ok, my attendance was always useful but never required so I wouldn't feel guilty.

And sure, 9 out of 10 people you would help would bail and never do anything in return but it was worth it for that 1 person you would gear up that would continue to run with you and help you with stuff.

I quit during the second coil of bahamut for this reason, came back to check expansion and found nothing had changed. This "airship" content seems to indicate it has a variety of content to complete with a variety of people, I will wait and see. If it's more of the same, I am gone and will never return. I'm a social person, I have needs.

I don't understand why in this day and age, they can't possibly design a game you can interact with a variety people. I do recall some interview once where SE was asked why they don't add content like sea/sky and the response was that they didn't want to exclude "small fcs", in that case why call your game a MMO?

They should have made a mostly single player game with multiplayer options and a few chatrooms to share blow job stories, oh wait they did. That's FF14. Most of the content is duty finder, which is rarely a good experience and when it is it a good experience that is worse because you will likely never see the people you ran with again.

- Replayability/fun of the content, most of the time when you're done with something you're just feeling relieved (Hello Bismark EX) which provide absolutely nothing reward wise, but headaches. FFXI was great for that, even if you had done the zilart quest to have sky access ton of times, you'd not mind going this once more to help completely random people because it was fun & provided unlimited sense of adventure. It did also provide a sense of sociability I have yet to find in any other MMOs.
I just don't understand how they thougth making this Primal reward iLv175 weapons was a good idea when you could easily have access to iLv180 in less time, considering this was a tougth DPS check for most of the playerbase.

Helping other people sucks because they will NEVER help you in return because they CAN'T unless they are in your 8 person raid group. The game provides no mechanism for people to play together.

Not only that, we come back to the DF issue where you can just queue for a said amount of time & get on with what you need to do. But SE went way over the board with that, now people may just ask you to join them for faster queue if you're a tank or healer, not because you could be a good player to hang out with.
We also come back to this replayability & sense of relief issue where most people will not be keen to help if they struggled themselve, just see what happen in the PF with (one fail = kick.)

And sure, 9 out of 10 people you would help would bail and never do anything in return but it was worth it for that 1 person you would gear up that would continue to run with you and help you with stuff.

I have a feeling, this whole game changed mentalities too, in FFXI you could stop running wherever you were going to /check people, see a nice piece of gear & ask "Where did you get it from? :O) Sometimes (about a good 70% of the time in my experience) you would end up chatting with said person for more than 10 mins, nowaday? You can praise the sun if the person reply to you, because generaly they just enter a duty & never /tell you back.

From here we can move on the "Oh people rarely says hello/talk in Dungeons" etc etc, but you get my point. Im in the same boat as you, if 3.1 isn't a drastic change i'll bail too. I'm just so happy I didn't buy the 130£ Collector Edition because the thing was just one of the biggest Rip-off I have seen in a while.