1. FFXIV Reset Timers
    Last daily reset was 20 hours, 2 minutes ago / Next daily reset is in 3 hours, 57 minutes
    Last weekly reset was 1 days, 13 hours, 2 minutes ago / Next weekly reset is in 4 days, 20 hours, 57 minutes
+ Reply to Thread
Page 8 of 18 FirstFirst ... 6 7 8 9 10 ... LastLast
Results 141 to 160 of 355
  1. #141
    Impossiblu
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Posts
    10,362
    BG Level
    9
    FFXIV Character
    Prothescar Centursa
    FFXIV Server
    Balmung
    FFXI Server
    Valefor

    Normally the mechanics of the fight would address the rigid non-flexibility of combat, but XIV does that pretty poorly. There's potential for there to be very interesting and unique battles in XIV, but there's either a manpower or management decision getting in the way of it being realized. You can bake the best cake with the best recipe as many times as you want, but if the same people keep eating that same exact cake over and over and over every day, it's going to get old. Need to add something new and change the recipe to keep people at your bakery.

    And no, changing the color of the icing doesn't count.

  2. #142
    Custom Title
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Posts
    5,822
    BG Level
    8
    FFXI Server
    Bahamut
    Blog Entries
    3

    Gee before this thread came about I thought i was the only one who felt like something was off about XIVs gameplay systems. I feel that while the game is currently quite successful, at the rate its going, its setting itself up for failure if it doesnt make changes to the system.. and that being the whole system.. because all the issues are intertwined. Difficulty is tuned according to rewards, which is based on the structure of gear progression, which is based on the gameplay system itself.

    The inherent problem with the gameplay system is the strong unwillingness to allow jobs to develop any sort of distinctiveness that would put it at odds with the Duty Finder concept - because jobs of the same role must essentially be able to do the same thing and so in such dungeons there is only 1 "proper" way to play. This by itself isnt so bad if it isn't imposed everywhere, but it mostly is. Also, job individuality can come in various other ways - however gear is not one of them - and this problem resurfaces later on when looking at rewards.

    Being that most content is designed around being DF-able, it makes the game more convenient to play with complete strangers from a different server than FC or LS-mates, which is astoundingly stupid imo, as it removes that sense of community of adventuring together. As someone else mentioned, group flexibility is a huge issue, as you can't do anything for actual reward without 4 or 8 people even if the people are fully capable of handling it anyway. Even a mix of both would be nice. Undersized is a step towards this, except that instead of removing EXP altogether I feel as though they should calculate it based on the party's relative level so that people could run those for various reasons if they wanted to. They also need to extend it to HW dungeons too. And Diadem (with tweaks to that itself).

    It would seem that the only content that do not follow DF rules in XIV are guildleves and treasure hunts, which are both non-instanced and also unfortunately not end-game, although Dragonskin Maps may be considered to some extent. Treasure Hunts are extremely fun imo, and harken back to low-manning popped NMs in FFXI - you don't have to, but definitely can, and it opens jobs to different playstyles.

    But because they don't do this, and because gear has very little in the way of stat optimization, it removes the value of horizontal progression. So when Yoshi has 3 paths of same iLvl gear, it means nothing because they're inconsequentially different - people will choose the path of convenience / least resistance because they know they can clear the DF content they'll be faced with. There is no low-mannable content to mechanically push their limits, just raids that not everyone does that have scripted gimmicks/mechanics that need to be learnt - which mostly require specific 4/8 party setups

    tl;dr - lotsa things could use fixing, but I think the biggest natural shift will come if XIV introduces open world endgame content that don't require the DF role structure

  3. #143
    Sandworm Swallows
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    7,158
    BG Level
    8

    Quote Originally Posted by Spira View Post
    Gee before this thread came about I thought i was the only one who felt like something was off about XIVs gameplay systems.
    Have...have you been reading BG long?

  4. #144
    Custom Title
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Posts
    5,822
    BG Level
    8
    FFXI Server
    Bahamut
    Blog Entries
    3

    not the XIV forum no

  5. #145
    Salvage Bans
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Posts
    989
    BG Level
    5
    FFXIV Character
    Harold Saxon
    FFXIV Server
    Ragnarok

    Quote Originally Posted by Spider-Dan View Post
    The problem is when your static loses 1 person (or, god forbid, 2+ people) and you're forced to recruit for replacements. Do you recruit from your FC/LS? Oh wait, everyone else in your FC/LS likely either a) is already in a static or b) couldn't get a static [after their static broke] for endgame content and stopped playing seriously. So you're thrown into endless cycles of recruiting randos from PUGs. There's no such thing as building up a roster because all raiding is done with exactly 8 people: no more, and no less.

    That's the main advantage of XI's endgame over XIV: group flexibility. You could go farm sky pops with 3 or 23 people, you could do Limbus with 4 or 40, you could do Dynamis with 12 or 50.

    This game has no flexibility: you do endgame with exactly 8 people, no more, no less. And even if they made a 24-man real endgame raid, then chances are you'd be required to bring in exactly 24. (And no, you can't just pick up randoms to fill up empty slots, because then your loot distribution is screwed up and you can't use any sort of DKP or other long-term loot rules.)

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: Yoshida's slavish devotion to stiff rails that dictate EXACTLY how every piece of content should be completed is a bug, not a feature.
    I know when the problem is, because the static i'm in has it right now. But we try to filter the shit by looking at FFLogs progress and parses (for DPS). For healers, we're mainly looking for people that can solo heal content.

    But it has nothing to do with the raiding culture, the issues come up when lazy people expect to be carried. Nothing to do with the raiding culture - this happens in PF/DF in all manners of content.

    I can't really say anything about XI, because I never played the game. I'd love to see thordan ex-level mechanics in the 24 man content. But Yoshida seems intent on balancing this game for the lowest common denominator, rather than expecting the community to work on basic competency.

    Edit: RIP, my statics down to 4 people now.

  6. #146

    Quote Originally Posted by haroldsaxon View Post
    I'd love to see thordan ex-level mechanics in the 24 man content.
    That'll be some shit.

  7. #147
    A. Body
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    4,046
    BG Level
    7
    FFXI Server
    Caitsith

    Quote Originally Posted by haroldsaxon View Post
    I can't really say anything about XI, because I never played the game. I'd love to see thordan ex-level mechanics in the 24 man content. But Yoshida seems intent on balancing this game for the lowest common denominator, rather than expecting the community to work on basic competency.

    Edit: RIP, my statics down to 4 people now.
    Seemingly, there's less money to be had compared to the current route of things. It's just weird to see them go backwards with Alliance based content rather than using it as a time and place to actually throw you into a box and have you fight for you lives. Rather than being so forgiven with mechanics. Yeah you can easily wipe but it's not because of difficulty or anything. I mean I've seen a few wipes on the 2nd trash pull in VA simply because people don't know how to target knots or press a button. Like the easiest thing you can do - There's no excuses either when people say in Alliance chat how to do it after it becomes apparent (from Cetus) that there's new people or people who don't understand mechanics. Unless of course they have it filtered, but if they can't figure out how to step on a button I doubt they know how to filter chat logs.

    Gee before this thread came about I thought i was the only one who felt like something was off about XIVs gameplay systems. I feel that while the game is currently quite successful, at the rate its going, its setting itself up for failure if it doesnt make changes to the system.. and that being the whole system.. because all the issues are intertwined. Difficulty is tuned according to rewards, which is based on the structure of gear progression, which is based on the gameplay system itself.
    This is how I feel and why a lot of people really question some decisions (but apparently it's bad to do so on Official Forums lol) That's why I had hoped they'd use an expansion pack to bring about big changes, rather than feign big changes that largely didn't matter in the end. Hell I wouldve been ok with using our Manaclipper in a dungeon and have aerial combat (after a quest to mount weapons onto it) since it's quite clear the game is capable of mounted combat.

  8. #148

    Seems like new JP interviews should be coming out. Here's one from 4Gamer:

    http://www.4gamer.net/games/278/G027835/20151224179/

  9. #149
    New Odin
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Posts
    8,664
    BG Level
    8
    FFXIV Character
    Sparthia Abysseant
    FFXIV Server
    Excalibur
    FFXI Server
    Lakshmi

    Quote Originally Posted by Silenka View Post
    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.
    Ingame discussion on what exactly? The top tier raiders will theorycraft the initial encounter, draw up some basic strategies then MTQ or Happy will drop a video and that's that. If anything, the criticism that this game holds too tightly to a rigid structure where players have nothing to 'figure' out other than the initial premiere content is firmly in effect.

    If you aren't at the cutting edge of raiding, which few are, there's nothing to really figure out. Some midcore doing testing on the effects of Marron Glaces on the local population of BLMs this is not. Do your weekly dungeon repeats ad nauseum, hit the caps and move right along.

    Game economy? Who gives a shit about that. This game is all about hard weekly caps and the obvious best things are laid out for you in painstaking obviousness. The hardest of the hardcore may find a stray AH item that becomes a hot item but lets not kid ourselves here, this ain't Hauby central and money is devalued heavily because of irrational RMT fears. The bulk of players have little incentive to participate in the economy.

    ARR isn't suffering because hardcores are being given a raw deal. The game is suffering because SE applies a Tinder mentality to the game where you hit it and quit it as soon as possible with little to no depth. Lacking focus and a meaningful experience, ARRs setpieces are fantastic but ultimately fleeting.

  10. #150
    New Odin
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Posts
    8,664
    BG Level
    8
    FFXIV Character
    Sparthia Abysseant
    FFXIV Server
    Excalibur
    FFXI Server
    Lakshmi

    To further beat XI's drum, you could support an entire endgame experience on putting together cursed gear or building haubies or being the only guy producing Fin Sushi. Even the most inconsequential drops had some use, be it making a potion that had application to two boss encounters or running into a lvl20 zone to hack at some trees for a logs found nowhere else. It urks me to no end seeing the number of fish that XIV has piled up with no actual purpose.

    Crafting is an endgame. An endgame left on the cutting room floor because... reasons. For a game that has dedicated crafting classes, it's shocking how that was ripped up root 'n stem for the sake of streamlining.

  11. #151
    Sandworm Swallows
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    7,158
    BG Level
    8

    The game has a lot of issues. Too many to even complain about them all in one post. The general trend of posting here is to pick and choose one or two things to complain about per day. That day it was raiders. I believe they are important to games that attempt to insert raid content. Of course there are bigger issues with the game. That was just the flavor of complaint at the time. Fact is, everything is shit in XIV currently. Nothing is fun, everything's a grind, they can't introduce new content for some reason, raiders get screwed, midcores get screwed, everything gets dumbed down and the playerbase is full of retards because Yoshi caters to them. I only log on now to water my plants and once they're ready I probably won't log on at all until 3.2. I can put up with a lot of shit. I complain about it, but I can put up with it. But even I've reached a breaking point with this game.

  12. #152
    BG Content
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Posts
    3,303
    BG Level
    7
    FFXIV Character
    Slycer Ilerion
    FFXIV Server
    Excalibur
    FFXI Server
    Fenrir

    Quote Originally Posted by octopus View Post
    Seems like new JP interviews should be coming out. Here's one from 4Gamer:

    http://www.4gamer.net/games/278/G027835/20151224179/
    Just found out about this... looks really long but I'll at least get started now.

  13. #153

    People being sick of the game or even burnt out on MMOs in general doesn't surprise me all that much. I harp on raiders largely because they're a vocal minority that tends to irrationally elevate themselves to a higher level of importance for future game development even though it's often the very people they shit on flipping the bills for their content, but screw tossing them some bones. I'm also not a fan of slinging out the zingers like lowest common denominator, welfare epics, or other trash terminology rooted in the scene. Such just reeks of lacking sensibilities while painting a picture of where they already stand.

    And while I get the concept of wanting to make friends, I feel it selfish that everyone you play with has to become that, or else. Presently, you CAN do FC-exclusive activities or only run dungeons with friends, but this resentment toward strangers banding up, getting something done, then parting ways just seems weird. Are some that hungry for the days of XI drama where someone's mistake or trollish action can be elevated to some level of temporary notoriety? Or is this something I'll just never hope to get because I don't use voice chats and generally keep a low profile in the games I play. At the very least, I can understand XIV's faster combat pacing making it more difficult to socialize than XI's while doing things. Still, I'd rather the choice to forge legit friendships than be forced into awkward alliances because there's no other way. Playing the "grow a thicker skin" card only goes so far and vehemently sticking to that only affirms the existence of those people out there that don't want to have to associate with such under the premise of rewarding bad behavior otherwise. Getting offended and to trying to justify it all with, "But I'm a good player!" only emphasizes the hypocrisy in the sentiment. And this is really only one aspect of player politics at play.

    As fo XIV's design, yeah, like others, I could probably pick it apart, propose fixes, imply certain things should be dropped, and so on. Truth is, I kinda do that for any game that manages to strike my fancy. To segue back to my intro, too many MMOs these days are pretty much just Raid or GTFO with their endgame. I wouldn't mind dungeon running so much if they took a page from ARPGs and randomly generate maps with specific tile sets in mind, but the monotony of it all and eventual evolution of speed running just to get through the shit ASAP, sometimes deliberately doing things in an unintended manner, gets old and fuels other things like job/class bias. I'll still stand behind my earlier assertion that XIV's economy is shit, mainly because its endgame is largely for fluff content. Things like rotations will probably never go away, combat system being what it is, but I think a lot of opportunity has been missed with the materia system and varying people with build/gear choices. The whole P2P to guarantee premium content bull just seems to keep stinking, too. Oh well. :/

  14. #154

    Quote Originally Posted by Silenka View Post
    Fact is, everything is shit in XIV currently. Nothing is fun, everything's a grind, they can't introduce new content for some reason, raiders get screwed, midcores get screwed, everything gets dumbed down and the playerbase is full of retards because Yoshi caters to them. I only log on now to water my plants and once they're ready I probably won't log on at all until 3.2. I can put up with a lot of shit. I complain about it, but I can put up with it. But even I've reached a breaking point with this game.
    Hahahaha

    Holy shit, there's something in the water for sure.

  15. #155
    Sea Torques
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    728
    BG Level
    5
    FFXIV Character
    Hioki Mitone
    FFXIV Server
    Leviathan
    FFXI Server
    Shiva
    WoW Realm
    Destromath

    Quote Originally Posted by Elcura View Post
    Hahahaha

    Holy shit, there's something in the water for sure.
    All I can imagine is some game grump ranting. Things just blown out of proportion and just looking for all the bad in the game.


  16. #156
    Sandworm Swallows
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    7,158
    BG Level
    8

    You say that as if more than half the people on this forum who were playing XIV regularly haven't quit the game by now because it sucks. Yeah, keep white knighting. I'm glad, truly, that you're happy with the state of the game and see good in it that I don't, please continue doing so. All I can see is wasted potential in a game I desperately want to be good, but simply isn't.

  17. #157
    Impossiblu
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Posts
    10,362
    BG Level
    9
    FFXIV Character
    Prothescar Centursa
    FFXIV Server
    Balmung
    FFXI Server
    Valefor

    Quote Originally Posted by Silenka View Post
    You say that as if more than half the people on this forum who were playing XIV regularly haven't quit the game by now because it sucks. Yeah, keep white knighting. I'm glad, truly, that you're happy with the state of the game and see good in it that I don't, please continue doing so. All I can see is wasted potential in a game I desperately want to be good, but simply isn't.
    With you on that. I want to know where all the sub money is going, because it certainly isn't being put back into XIV. Its been the same content model since 2.0 with the same tired types of content over and over again, and I'm sure even the 2-3 individuals who consistently whiteknight SE and Yoshida on a daily basis have noticed that the patch cycle has gotten slower and slower. "But there's an expansion" may have been a reasonable excuse during the summer, but not anymore. The only people who seem to actually try to innovate in the XIV studio are the art and music teams.

  18. #158
    Strider/Doom/Cyclops
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Posts
    5,687
    BG Level
    8
    FFXIV Character
    Viper Beam
    FFXIV Server
    Balmung
    FFXI Server
    Quetzalcoatl

    Quote Originally Posted by Fiye View Post
    Spoiler: show
    I don't understand the relevance of AV to my post, other than as the primary example of a poorly-designed fight in XI (along with original PW).

    I really don't see how Yoshida can make 8 man content that is flexible. He does have the staff to do 3 tiers of difficulty.
    People keep talking about "staff levels." Honest question: is XIV massively understaffed compared to 75-era XI? How about current XI? Either seems incredibly unlikely to me.

    I understand what you're selling but until Yoshida accepts the idea of thordan ex tier mechanics in a 24 man raid then we're SOL for flexibility for raiding.
    I don't see how having a coil-level 24-man raid would even solve anything if it's still on lockouts. You'd be in the same situation you're in now, only you'd be stuck finding exactly 24 people to raid with instead of exactly 8.

    I mean, imagine a less-lazy version of Diadem where instead of the objectives being semi-meaningless busywork for esos, objectives dynamically updated and you could spawn chests by completing them. And instead of grinding enemies for a random chance at T5/T* spawn, you would grind enemies for pop items (which even lowman groups could do) and then bring your alliance later to kill these difficult NMs for more chest spawns.

    But instead, we get a lazy, dumb version of Diadem where the entirety of the (meaningful) content is mindless mob grinding, and the "hard" mode just gives those enemies more HP.

  19. #159
    Sea Torques
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    728
    BG Level
    5
    FFXIV Character
    Hioki Mitone
    FFXIV Server
    Leviathan
    FFXI Server
    Shiva
    WoW Realm
    Destromath

    Don't get it wrong. FFXIV is a pretty awful game simply due to design decisions. What I'm saying though is every time we see new content it's a self fulfilling prophecy that everything is going to be awful. The content may not even be that bad but in our mindsets the content might as well be DoA. It will not provide the satisfaction needed. The game is bad and you feel bad for letting it ruse you for so long.

  20. #160
    BG Content
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Posts
    3,303
    BG Level
    7
    FFXIV Character
    Slycer Ilerion
    FFXIV Server
    Excalibur
    FFXI Server
    Fenrir

    I usually avoid taking sides on some of the more oddball stuff that gets said in some of these interviews, but here's a gem from this one (specifically the last two questions and answers below). Sounds like the battle developers couldn't beat 3/4 savage without breaking it down into phases. Hopefully I'll have the full translation done at some point tomorrow.

    -----

    Yoshida: For high difficulty battle content like the extreme battle series, Bahamut's Coils, and the savage version of Alexander, we begin by performing adjustments to the mechanics from an invincible state. Since members of the planning team are practicing the fights for the first time just like players do, if they had to wipe repeatedly there wouldn't be enough time to make adjustments. The priority in this stage is to make sure the mechanics are understandable and hinted at.

    By looking through the whole fight in an invulnerable state, you can still repeat with trial and error but it takes less time to get used to the mechanics.

    Yoshida: Well, since we're doing adjustments we're starting from a "rough" state of the final fight, so it's a bit different. By implementing the mechanics roughly and testing them in an invincible state, we can make larger adjustments for the mechanics and get a feel for each phase. Once we've made the primary adjustments to the mechanics, we apply a different version of the invulnerable status.

    What are the differences?

    Yoshida: The HP gauge will drop from damage as usual, but instead of falling when it hits 0, it gets refilled to max. Finally, we remove it and we see whether it can be cleared normally with no changes.

    I see. And this applies to the highest difficulty content like the fourth section of Alexander savage?

    Yoshida: For the third and fourth parts of Alexander savage specifically, we tested each phase. The FFXIV battle team is made up of some pretty good players, but these aren't world class players. It would have taken longer to perform adjustments if we tested as usual, so we tried to shorten it a bit.

    So the release would be delayed if they tested until they could clear.

    Yoshida: Since the development cycle is limited we had to proceed with the development of other content. You could sort of say we've cleared it completely through (laughs).

+ Reply to Thread
Page 8 of 18 FirstFirst ... 6 7 8 9 10 ... LastLast

Similar Threads

  1. Letter from the Producer LIVE Part IV (11/02/2012)
    By xopher in forum FFXIV: Official News and Information
    Replies: 538
    Last Post: 2012-11-25, 16:50
  2. Letter from the Producer LIVE Part III (09/06/2012)
    By Gokulo in forum FFXIV: Official News and Information
    Replies: 17
    Last Post: 2012-09-11, 11:05
  3. Letter from the Producer LIVE Part II (10/25/2011)
    By Cayos in forum FFXIV: Official News and Information
    Replies: 234
    Last Post: 2011-11-04, 21:09