Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXVI

[TheDirtyHobo]

Just give us a Primal gangbang battle. Call it "Primal Rage" or some shit and just have us face an onslaught of every Primal to date, working together with their signature attacks (individually and interacting in neat-o new ways) on a battlefield.

Also I guess Bismarck can just fly around the arena launching attacks or something, who cares, he's a disappointment.

Y'know, if they just kept them current strength but let you do it at 60, then just put all 6 elemental primals in an arena completely unaltered, that might actually be kind of fun. No reward, no balance check, just plop them all in and see how shit goes for fun.

[Alkar]

Well we already have something close to that with Ultima #1. You can't just plop them in one arena with no checks though.

[Silenka]

I was thinking what would really be fun as a Gold Saucer addition would be something like the Battle Way or w/e that VII had. You go in (with a party or solo, whatever) and see how long you can last against a string of bosses. Could do a primal version of that or whatever. There could be a scoreboard...it's something people would actually enjoy I think, if done right (that is the problem with most of the GS stuff however...never done right).

[Fhloston]

Man i'm glad I quit 9 months ago

this all just looks like shit

Ditto. A part of me really wants this game to succeed and improve, but it's not looking too good. Mrs asked me to at least log back in during the free login month to do the Christmas event, but I've been unsubbed too long, so I'd have to pay.

Was there ever any mention about the FFXI team going over to the XIV team? I imagine SE is gonna move the majority of them somewhere, and leave a skeleton crew on XI for small shit. Would really help the game.

[Charismatic]

Yeah I finally completely uninstalled the game after anima weapons update. I used to cling on to some thread of hope they will do something that's gonna pull me back in but again and again they prove that they will only rehash the same shit over and over again till the game dies.

This was me way back at 2.2; took ya'll boys long enough.
I only came back shortly before they nerfed my favorite thing in PvP (Cleric Stance) and then I was done after that. I keep track of the threads 'cause maybe they'll walk back on that change and I can at least enjoy WHM in PvP again (that was my one thing).

[Petitssk]

Ditto. A part of me really wants this game to succeed and improve, but it's not looking too good. Mrs asked me to at least log back in during the free login month to do the Christmas event, but I've been unsubbed too long, so I'd have to pay.

Was there ever any mention about the FFXI team going over to the XIV team? I imagine SE is gonna move the majority of them somewhere, and leave a skeleton crew on XI for small shit. Would really help the game.

SE went back a little on their previous announcement regarding FFXI, so I hope they leave FFXI's team alone. The game is still fun and the team is doing a good job of keeping people busy, so they can leave them right where they are.

[Silenka]

Sad that I'm seriously considering going back to XI instead of playing XIV. Have mostly stopped playing XIV for the moment, it's just a grind chore and nothing fun anymore. Grim Dawn is eating my time now!

[Elcura]

I like the idea of moving from one mmo to another. Just play games, I usually play enough that having FFXIV as a game isn't even slightly offensive.

People are fucking weird.

[arus2001]

Seems like there's a lot of misinterpretation and assumption about the difficulty of things. I know it's easy to accuse people who can't get something done of being bad, but the catch in group content is that there are other bodies responsible, too. Mechanics that lead to an entire party/raid wiping because one person fucks up isn't all that cool, especially with lag as a wildcard no matter how many like to assert that's just an excuse. But then there's also the logistics side of it where keeping the same group of people together indefinitely can be a tall order, where needing to replace even one could result in a group's implosion due to the need to backtrack, bad RNG, personality conflicts, not wanting to repeatedly teach fresh meat, etc..

In the end, hardcores wanting content just for them isn't a new thing, but in virtually every game where it is given, unsurprisingly, the participation metrics blow, nevermind actual success rates. XIV might not be the best example in terms of content presented, but overall, raiding is a significant resource investment from developers where the rate of return winds up being in the neighborhood of 10-15% if they're lucky. Of the remaining 85-90%, it's not surprising to see people get salty of there being no progression content for them, and I do not mean fluff shit like pet battles or costume collecting. Diadem sounds like a step in the right direction to remedying that, but you can't subscribe to the elitist rhetoric that if someone could get comparable gear elsewhere, they'd never raid. Hint: The people they're commonly ragging on aren't raiding to begin with, either because they know their own limitations in skills and/or logistic reliability, or they just fucking plain hate the culture that's risen from it over time. SE needs to nut up, here, and basically enable equal progression all around. At the very least, maybe we could finally do something about the contradiction that is the job system and how you can only gear 1 or 2 into the high end in a patch cycle thanks to lockouts/caps.

[haroldsaxon]

Seems like there's a lot of misinterpretation and assumption about the difficulty of things. I know it's easy to accuse people who can't get something done of being bad, but the catch in group content is that there are other bodies responsible, too. Mechanics that lead to an entire party/raid wiping because one person fucks up isn't all that cool, especially with lag as a wildcard no matter how many like to assert that's just an excuse. But then there's also the logistics side of it where keeping the same group of people together indefinitely can be a tall order, where needing to replace even one could result in a group's implosion due to the need to backtrack, bad RNG, personality conflicts, not wanting to repeatedly teach fresh meat, etc..

In the end, hardcores wanting content just for them isn't a new thing, but in virtually every game where it is given, unsurprisingly, the participation metrics blow, nevermind actual success rates. XIV might not be the best example in terms of content presented, but overall, raiding is a significant resource investment from developers where the rate of return winds up being in the neighborhood of 10-15% if they're lucky. Of the remaining 85-90%, it's not surprising to see people get salty of there being no progression content for them, and I do not mean fluff shit like pet battles or costume collecting. Diadem sounds like a step in the right direction to remedying that, but you can't subscribe to the elitist rhetoric that if someone could get comparable gear elsewhere, they'd never raid. Hint: The people they're commonly ragging on aren't raiding to begin with, either because they know their own limitations in skills and/or logistic reliability, or they just fucking plain hate the culture that's risen from it over time. SE needs to nut up, here, and basically enable equal progression all around. At the very least, maybe we could finally do something about the contradiction that is the job system and how you can only gear 1 or 2 into the high end in a patch cycle thanks to lockouts/caps.

You should post on the OF

[Silenka]

It sounds to me like arus2001 is making a case for dropping raiding entirely, which is laughable. Raiders might be a small portion of the population. That 10-15% is, however, responsible for most of the in-depth game discussion, figuring out how things actually work in the game, driving the game's economy, and shaping its social landscape. Lose the raiders and the game loses much of what made it "go". Especially in XIV's case where at least 30% of the playerbase (and that's being conservative) has to be carried through even the simplest story fights because hurrdurr how i press buttons? It was a sad day when half the raid population made an exodus off Siren early this year. Not because I particularly liked them, but they were the ones actually doing stuff in the game. Everything got much quieter once they were gone. If there is no difficult content to keep the raiders around the game suffers in various ways.

[haroldsaxon]

What people forget that its a two way street. Without raiders, you won't have people driving content as you said Silenka - running events/PF's, buying items, writing guides and publicising the game on twitch/youtube/whatnot.

And without casual players, there isn't a playerbase for the game to survive money wise.

I also love how people pull player %age numbers out of their arse. More people attempt to raid than what the "Wah wah wah raiders are elitist toxic" bandwagoners think.

http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/Eorze...N_Census_L.png

Now, numbers will have increased as it was done in August, but those are the player numbers that have completed the duty. 23% of those that had completed A1 had completed savage AS1 - now, if you consider some wouldn't have completed it at that point as it doesn't track the amount of attempts, that is a pretty high number of people raiding. If you compare it to number of attempts to level 60 dungeons:

http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/Eorze...N_Census_L.PNG

While the figure looks initially low, these are number of attempts, rather than number of people that have cleared once. I wonder if theres been any unofficial census data taken from users lodestone profiles.

Side note - I absolutely don't have a problem with casual players, I have an issue with lazy players that expect to be carried through content/spoonfed top tier gear when they can't be arsed to raid or earn it.

[FHT]

It sounds to me like arus2001 is making a case for dropping raiding entirely, which is laughable.

Maybe, it did not sound like that at all when I read it but I can understand why you would think so.

S/he said something that apply to me tho and which is probably why I can see it from another perspective.

or they just fucking plain hate the culture that's risen from it over time.

This is personaly why I have stopped raiding after SCoB, I just find the mentality awful. Its ok when you have a static, but when you're forced to PUG its a nightmare.

A game shouldn't turn us against each other, obviously the human factor play a big role but SE should really take that into consideration and to me they don't.

[haroldsaxon]

That isn't the culture for raiding though. The issue with Pugging is the player culture in this game - Too many players are lazy and expect to get carried. But sure, keep blaming the raiders that don't want to carry through lazy people in pugs. There are issues with the raiding culture in the game but its certainly not causing issues in Pug's - its the poor quality of the average player.

If you are good at what you do, you won't have an issue finding a group to raid with - be it a static, a linkshell or an FC. Too many people focus on trying to shortcut through content, rather than learning the class that they play. Sure, keeping people together/finding replacements in frustrating, but lets say my group decides to not continue raiding together, will I suddenly be left in the lurch without a group? No, because I know how to play the game and I won't have an issue finding another group.

As soon as SE stops allowing lazy players to get top end gear/progression without meeting basic competency in their class, you'll suddenly find pugging will be more rewarding. No, I don't expect players to get to i190 and instantly do savage capable DPS, but I expect them to, for example a DPS, to do more than a tank. I hope the training hall will help with this, and the mentors, but I can honestly see SE making the bars low for the training hall and to apply for mentorship.

[FHT]

I am not blaming the raiders for that, neither is Arus. "The culture that risen from it" it apply to the people who behave like raiders when they are not, and which give a bad image to true raiders, these people polute the PF.

[haroldsaxon]

I am not blaming the raiders for that, neither is Arus. "The culture that risen from it" it apply to the people who behave like raiders when they are not, and which give a bad image to true raiders, these people polute the PF.

Isn't he? He didn't specify that, and he was previously complaining about the "elitist" rhetoric about people saying there isn't a point in raiding when diadem gear outstrips it. Now, that comment is stupid enough on its own without the whinging about elitism.

But I do agree with you - I stopped using PF because its filled with lazy people expecting a carry. I'm at the point where if I was running a group, I'd want to see FF Logs stuff from DPS and Tanks, with solo heal experience from healers.

[Eldelphia]

It isn't just as simple as being good at what you do. The game doesn't encourage building bonds and relationships. Reputations used to be such a huge thing in xi and rarely here do you remember anyone from one week to the next. I have a great FC but it's a real mixed bag in terms of interest in raiding. I have friends in linkshells but many more have left the server or quit entirely. The game is designed for a bunch of single players to play alongside each other.

[Sho]

The game and it's players are both mutually destructive.

The way the game is designed fosters an attitude and a mindset for the typical gamer -- players who know what they are doing are matched up with inept (bads) or newbies, and instead elect to completely abandon helping them in favor for a more beneficial static type setting, where they can move a bit higher on the tiers of difficulty and content. It creates two problems:

1) Inept and newbies are forced to work more and more with other players at their skill level, leading to very little skill growth overall. Also creates rampant laziness among casuals.
2) As a person's skill in the game grows, he or she finds themselves among a smaller and smaller circle of players at their level of proficiency, due to a lack of patience (see: A3S statics breaking up left and right due to 2+ weeks of no victories.)

The game doesn't really provide the correct environment for people of lesser skill to grow, but at the same time, players are also exceptionally lazy and would rather wait for successive patches to content to happen before they attempt it, if not play expecting a carry. I also agree with Harold in the sense that SE is too easy on players.

Hate to use the FFXI comparison, but if it was that game it would have put hair on some of these dude's collective chests, because that game would go years without any content nerf patches (if any) -- you were forced to learn each and every fight. Salvage, Mission 6-4 still fresh on anyone's mind. This game could use a bit less handholding.

[Destinye]

Yeah, XI was pretty nice at throwing you into the spider pit, even more so if you had a fear of them. You either came out a man (even if you were a chick) or you got eaten and uninstalled the game. Was as simple as that. That's the one thing I love about XI, whether it got nerfed or not, there's still a big reliance on "you have to get better", sure you could carry people here and there or try to cheese certain parts like chainspell stun, even with that it still didn't trivialize the content completely. I know people tend to hate hearing about XI, but SE really did show they had the creativity with their other MMOs and this one is just..painfully obvious they're playing it safe, even going on 3 years later if we're to ignore the Wadapocalypse that caused WoTG 2007 and XIV 2010.

[arus2001]

My emphasis is more that an alternative to raiding should exist. Part of the culture aspect I waggle my finger at is the angle that if you don't raid, you don't deserve progress past a certain point. It may be a difficult concept to imagine, but challenging solo content could be a thing, or even something that'd scale appropriately so you can do it alone or with a couple buddies whenever. What raiding should ultimately be is a vehicle that gets you to the destination faster due to the added social requirements and not being the only way there. If, by chance, the end result is that nobody raids in consequence, was it something the players really wanted and not something they do because it was the only way? Frankly, I see the hardcores doing both. Otherwise, the evolution of MMOs in a thing. WoW started off thinking 40-man raids were where it's at, but then they cut manpower requirements. And if hurt feelings are what's keeping you back from letting others enjoy the game, there's the whole pot and kettle analogy for the "whinging" there.

The whole "such and such wouldn't exist!" angle without raiders is a tired one, too. This presumes that no one else figures anything out. Some simply don't share because of world first blah or wanting to take advantage of exploits as much as possible before the nerf bat. Defining a casual player really comes down to time investment, which doesn't disqualify them from wanting to know how the game works or figuring it out themselves. I look to XIV's economy and don't see the raid scene being a driving force, in large part because crafted gear is inferior while furniture is more the crafter endgame. Not everyone's into vanity sets, either. Would things have a slower turnaround? Probably. How much? Who knows. Supply and Demand is a funky thing like that. Big point here is to simply not say never. My thought is the economy could thrive even more if Yoshi stopped being so afraid of RMT and let crafting really matter outside of relic mats.

Socially, I do believe there are a couple things that need to become the MMO standard sooner, if not later. The first is the complete elimination of server/world transfer fees. Part of finding your core group involves the difficulty of trial and error. One guild doesn't work? Try another. That doesn't work? Next. Exhaust your server or find some on the web you think you'd click with? That's when this option is important. Locking it behind a pay wall isn't good for the game. We're long past the XI era of someone running off with an LS bank and changing identities to avoid persecution. The second step is the ability to communicate and interact with anyone on any server at any time without the need of party finders. This may seem counter-intuitive with the first point, but your home server would limit things like who you could trade with, guild perks, and auction availability. What it would allow, however, is more minor PUG activity like chasing FATEs if that's your thing or simply taking people out for a test drive on demand before committing to the server hop. Any friends you did happen to have on your old server wouldn't be lost, either. RIFT does this and I do believe it's to the game's benefit. Functionally, the servers wind up more like Channels, which some may be familiar with from other MMOs.

Seeing some of you guys assert that people need to get kicked in the nuts or grow hair on their chest just to enjoy the game(s) makes me sad. I've been through this song and dance enough to guess that my words will be twisted into wanting hand-outs, OF tier whatever, and all that blah, but the real ugly aspect of the raid culture is its sociopathic enabling that goes on. It feels like doublespeak to demand people bond on one end, but then to promote restrictions and punishments on the other. Do you REALLY want friends, or just people to help you reliably get shit? I have no issue with the latter, but don't use the former as a smokescreen because you don't want to come off as selfish.