Yep
It's possible, but considering yoshi wants people to fit "perfectly" in xyz type of format it'd definitely be out of the box for this game.
Nah, just alchemists because it'd be another god damn book for turn ins.
Yep
It's possible, but considering yoshi wants people to fit "perfectly" in xyz type of format it'd definitely be out of the box for this game.
Nah, just alchemists because it'd be another god damn book for turn ins.
I see RDM working in this game as giving other people en-spells and being a caster type job rather than giving it to themselves and actively meleeing.
Inb4 it's a shitty version of BLM w/ buffing abilities similar to AST cards.
pretty sure that was exactly the type of stance they were calling garbage
Gauss Barrel isn't garbage. But what i am saying is that stance changing exists on DPS, even if they need serious refinement.
Lotsa jobs already have stances but most of the time its just a matter of picking a stance and then sticking with it all the way. AST sects are committed stances (and i hope they introduce a mechanic to swap mid battle, even if temporarily), SMN and SCH pets are essentially stances, because it commits to a specific playstyle at the cost of other options, but with SMN those are not even real options in DF group settings. For SCH its more situational based on basically how much you trust the other healer or if you want to DPS more.
but none of these are dynamic stances used in battle the way WAR does it, or how healers weave Cleric Stance. I personally think Cleric needs to be reworked somehow tho.
as for the whole wanderer's minuet turret stance thing, i think it was badly received since it seemed to go against the premise of the job moreso than its actual stance effect.
what was clear was that they changed the playstyles of jobs from 2.x to 3.x. Some for the better, like healer differences being rounded out, or SMN getting access to burst damage tools, but others being ridiculously tedious, like DRG and BLM
Gauss Barrel and Wanderer's are not even "stances" in any meaningful sense of the word. At LV52, MCH and BRD simply change to caster mechanics. The only reason to ever turn them off are essentially minor min-max exploits, and if they were ever really effective, they would swiftly be nerfed.
Accuracy is going away anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
The only thing clerics needs is when it goes on CD. Go on CD AFTER you turn it off instead of going on CD when you turn it on. Whether it has acc or not is moot after 4.0 when we hopefully ditch the stat as a whole.
The amount of healers that turn it immediately back on after turning it off is too much.
Agreed with that. Accidentally turning it on when you thought you were turning it off (or inadvertent double-tap), then being unable to cast a proper heal for 5 seconds is much more dangerous than the reverse. Especially since that normally happens when you need to start healing now.
I think that you make things look overly complicated.
To begin with, storing information about glamours requires less resources than about items, because glamours don’t need such additional parameters as condition (% of wear), spiritbond, melding status, items being high quality or normal quality, random stats (when we are talking about aetherial gear). The only viable parameter could be ‘user applied color’; but I’m sure that players would be OK even if colors were stored separately from glamour book only for gear that has been assigned by them to specific gear sets.
Then the glamours database could be very static, because they would need to write information to it only when players add new glamours to their books (after player game client’s request). It’s not like there is real need for players to remove items from glamour books, or to save on the server the sorting/filtering modes that players choose for their glamour books in the game’s client. As to the frequency of access to the glamours database on the server by game’s clients (for reading), it could be done so that the list of items available in the glamour book is also stored on the games’ client for preview purposes, and requests to the server are generated only when a player wants to apply a glamour to an item – just to verify, that the information about the glamour stored on the client is correct (has not been maliciously changed, for example). So such a static database would be very easy to maintain, and require less resources than it takes now to maintain the status of items that players keep in their inventory for glamour.
Another thing to note is that for each game character information needs to be saved only about glamours that he possesses. Out of 9 million characters (according to October 2016 FFXIVcensus) about 6,5 million haven’t even chosen a Grand Company. The majority of them must be bots, who don’ care about GCs, mounts, glamours and other stuff, unimportant for botting/rmt. You wouldn’t expect such characters to have a rich glamour collection anyways. According to the latest survey by Lucky Bancho (August 2016), there are about 500 thousand game characters that have been active during the period since his previous survey (April 2016). According to the aforementioned October 2016 FFXIVcensus, only 232 668 game characters have finished 3.3 main scenario.
If necessary, they could make several separate databases for the same purpose (for example for each datacenter or server) instead of one database, depending on how they store other information about each game character now.
If you are talking about the Armoire, then SE has never given a proper explanation, why they don’t allow the majority of items to be stored there. Their usual explanation about frequent data saves of player character’s data doesn’t apply here, because in this case no information needs to be saved when player’s character doesn’t access the Armoire in the game. And even when he does access the Armoire, information on the server needs to be updated only after the player makes changes to the contents of the Armoire (only when such a request is generated by the player’s game client). Same thing applies to retainers.
If you take a look at what items are allowed to be stored in the Armoire, then you’ll notice that they allow to store there all items purchased for real money, seasonal event items (that are used to attract gamers to the game due to their availability for free only for a limited amount of time, and later on can be bought only for real money) and some of the achievement related rewards (that could otherwise look like mockery if they cluttered the limited inventory space).
When they find opportunities to store things for additional money (items purchased for real money and additional retainers for a fee), but don’t find without receiving it, this looks much more like monetary than technical issue.
MMOs of the size and scope of FFXIV have existed for over a decade. CPU power, network throughput, storage capacity and performance have all been growing, and the associated cost of operating systems with comparable parameters have on the contrary been going down. So I think that this “technical” excuse is most of the time just laudable and overused by SE simply because it’s so good for PR, surely much better than admitting that certain limitations are imposed to increase the company’s income.
Laziness...tbh.
As much shit as people love to give anyone who brings up XI in any positive manner, the Porter Mog system is something that could have easily worked on this game. Their excuse about servers and whatnot is still suspect when people can buy 2-8 or whatever retainers and cause just as much strain.
Remember you can now pay for more storage in XI now. The biggest shitty thing about 4.0 is I'm going to have a third retainer with mats from the new zones.
"Just buy more retainers."
About the length of Heavensward and Stormblood.
Just before the release of Heavensward there were a couple of interviews with Yoshi-P, where he said that Heavensward was going to be shorter that A Realm Reborn and explained why:
– Game Watch Interview (see the answer for the question "Patch 2.57 which ended A Realm Reborn was about a year and a half from launch. Will the period following Heavensward be about the same length?" and further);
– Famitsu Interview (see the answer for the question "What are your thoughts on what an expansion pack should be?" and further).
Yet Heavensward has turned out to have about the same length as ARR.
I think that they actually had plans to make it shorter, but have changed their minds later on.
– The main Heavensward storyline – The Dragonsong War – has ended after 2 of the 3 content cycles (an even major patch + the following major odd patch) in Heavensward. This ending feels premature to me. I think that they have decided not to redo the Dragonsong War main scenario quests after the decision to prolong Heavensward has been made, but worked on and made the Scions storyline longer instead.
– There are also a couple new systems in the game that have been introduced recently: Deep Dungeon and Squadrons – that I think have been in preparation for the next expansion and will show their full potential after its release: Deep Dungeon as one of the main leveling dungeons (that could be used to level up 1 – 60 and further using new job actions and rotations, that will be introduced in Stormblood, and possibly replacing some of normal leveling dungeons) and Squadrons as the source of NPCs to form parties for older duties, for which it will be hard to find party members among real players. I think that they have been introduced now (although with very limited functionality in case of Squadrons), because they have been in production already and the prolonged Heavensward still needed some new content.
For the first time I’ve noticed an implication that Heavensward would be prolonged in the Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXVII (February 10, 2016), where they mentioned patch 3.4. Then they’ve talked about it again in the next Letter from the Producer LIVE (April 12, 2016).
I’ve heard only one big news in the media, that could point to the possible cause for Heavensward’s prolongation: these were the news about Microsoft lifting some of their limitations concerning cross-network support for Xbox One and an implication that FFXIV could appear on that platform. There are clear benefits of making the game available on a new platform simultaneously with a new expansion release:
– firstly, in this case users of the new platform don’t need to worry, whether it’s a good time to pick up the MMO (whether they are too far behind longer term players or they would be required to purchase an expansion soon after buying the game);
– secondly, SE doesn’t need to organize a separate promotion campaign for the new platform, it can be naturally made part of the expansion promotion campaign (without many additional expenses).
So SE could have made the decision to prolong Heavensward in order to prepare the release of the next expansion on Xbox One, if they have finally reached an agreement with Microsoft.
As to the reason why they haven’t made an announcement about it officially immediately, I think that they will announce it when it’s best for PR reasons. If they announced it back then, some of the existing players would have perceived it in a negative light, because they could have noticed the connection between:
– the premature ending of the main Heavensward storyline (and postponed beginning of the next main storyline);
– the continuation of (not so popular) Alexander raid;
– the ending of PS3 support,
and the release of the game on the new platform.
So SE would prefer to announce the fact that they have reached an agreement with Microsoft (if it has been reached earlier) and the release of Stormblood on Xbox One later, as if it has become possible after all the aforementioned decisions been made.
As regards the length of Stormblood, in case if the decision to prolong Heavensward has been situational (related to the unplanned release of the expansion on a new platform), I think that from now on they will follow their general course of making expansions shorter than ARR.
In the aforementioned Famitsu Interview Yoshi-P names three factors, that they take into account when determining the length of an expansion: player feedback, market trends, and operational figures. He elaborated on the first two factors, as usually leaving out the business/finance related one (about operational figures):
“It wasn't so long ago that the amount of entertainment choices around were more limited and people had more free time on their hands so there was more time for things like MMORPGs. Right now, with all of the different entertainment options available and limited amounts of free time, not to say that there's no room for fun, but it's tougher to decide how to spend your free time. Since a game is entertainment, you have to feel that way when you play it. However, a game isn't passive entertainment, it's entertainment that you get from your own actions, so it takes some time before you get the satisfaction from playing. These days, if you feel like you don’t have enough time for the game, you'd probably wind up deciding to never try it out in the first place. Taking that into account, rather than spending a lot of development time preparing a large volume of content, it might be better to prepare the next expansion in a relatively shorter amount of time, with the thought that it might be better to have a more episodic nature which better matches today's lifestyle. In the past, people were able to wait and look forward the launch of expansion packs every two years, but I don't think that fits well anymore.”.
When he is talking about player feedback, I don’t think he actually means things that players talk about on the Internet in the first place, but the feedback that players (unintentionally) provide them by their actions: how they purchase the games, game related services and items and how they play the games. This type of feedback is the best, because it is universal (includes all players and their categories), objective and instantaneous. He says that modern players tend not to stay focused on one game for as long as they used to do before.
As far as market trends are concerned, he notices increased competition for player attention from other entertainment choices. Those two factor are certainly connected, with competition from other entertainment choices being the reason why players don’t stay focused on one game for so long.
While the interview it has been taken more than a year ago, SE’s most recent financial report (Consolidated Financial Results for the Three-Month Period Ended June 30, 2016) confirms that the mentioned market trend is still in force and even growing stronger: “the console game markets in North America and Europe are increasingly getting competitive and oligopolistic”.
And the Outline of the Financial Results Briefing Session of Square Enix Holdings for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016, allows to shed some light on the third factor, mentioned by Yoshi-P, the operational figures. In the Outline they note “a significant contribution from expansion packs” to net sales and income in the MMO sub-segment, describe them as “particularly significant earnings contributors”, and say that they anticipate a YoY (year-over-year) decline in net sales in the next fiscal year (ending March 2017) “due to the lack of any expansion pack releases”. In other words, they relate releasing expansion packs to increasing net sales and income.
Since market trends are currently the same as they have been a year ago, and operational figures speak in favor of releasing expansion packs, I don’t see reasons for them to change their general plan to make expansion packs sorter and release them more frequently (unless something unexpected happens again).
Now, let’s try to figure out a more exact length of Stormblood.
Expansion cycles are certainly related to content cycles. In fact, player feedback and market trends that Yoshi-P names, when talking about expansion cycles (competition from other “entertainment choices” being the reason why players are not staying focused on one game for so long), can be even better suited for describing the reasons why SE makes relatively short content cycles. The third factor, that Yoshi-P mentions,– operational figures – is not directly related to content cycles (players are not charged for them), but must be the main factor when determining the length of expansion cycles. Content cycles are the foundation of the game, as far as consumption of game content by players is concerned, while expansion cycles are built upon them to ensure optimal monetization of the game. If SE has found an optimal content cycle length (that suits player habits best), it doesn’t make sense to break it with the release of a an expansion. It looks reasonable to base the length of expansion cycles on the length of content cycles.
Content cycles in FFXIV are 7 – 8 months long. In the aforementioned Game Watch interview Yoshi-P says, that they “would like to adjust the volume of the expansions to come out once a year”. One current content cycle is less than a year, and two are more than a year, so what is the answer?
I think that the first implication we can get form Heavensward, which main storyline – The Dragonsong War – has concluded in the first two content cycles.
And another implication comes from the other of the two of major MMOs that SE is running – Dragon Quest X Online (which Yoshi-P mentions in the Famitsu Interview as an example of an MMO with a shorter expansion cycle). Dragon Quest X Online (Wikipedia, Wikia) has had 16 month expansion cycles for its two expansions (AKA versions 2 and 3). The thing is that, according to the aforementioned SE’s financial documents, both of the games are being developed under the same market trends, and their expansion releases have the same type of influence on SE’s operational figures. So if SE has found optimal content cycle and expansion cycle length for one game, it can be also true for another game of the same type. On a side note, if you have a question why it has currently passed more than 16 months since the release of the last expansion for Dragon Quest X, it might be that this is also related to SE’s plans to release the game on a new platform – Nintendo NS. The release of the new Nintendo’s gaming console (also known as Nintendo Switch) is planned in March 2017. It’s not like SE has stopped adding new content to Dragon Quest X because of that (FFXIV is getting regular update as well, while Heavensward has been prolonged). Releasing an expansion is more a matter of releasing a commercial product, than just a matter of releasing content, and SE perfectly understands the necessity of releasing regular content updates for online games.
So, if FFXIV’s expansions are going to consist of two content cycles, how long are those content cycles going to be: 7 or 8 months?
If we take a look at ARR and Heavensward, we’ll notice, that SE has made the last content cycles in ARR and Heavensward, as well as the first content cycle in Heavensward 8 months long. In this post I have previously described in detail, why I think SE has made these content cycles longer. If further expansions are going to have two content cycles, I think that the same logic will apply to them and both content cycles will be 8 months long.
Another implication is once again coming from Dragon Quest X, which expansion cycles are normally 16 months long.
* * *
Stormblood has been announced to be released in the early summer 2017. I think that it’s going to be June, because 8 months since the beginning of the last content cycle in Heavensward will have passed at the end of May 2017 (patch 3.4 has been released September 26, 2016). Add 16 months to that, and you will get the release date of 5.0 around October 2018.
Of course, a lot of my reasoning is based on the assumption that the release of Stormblood has been postponed due to the forthcoming release of FFXIV on Xbox One. Well, the more exciting it is going to follow the news about the next expansion. I’m really curious how it turns out to be.
i think you lost me at how you calculate a content cycle. Why are content cycles in FFXIV 7-8 months again?