Randomly Ridiculous FFXI to FFXIV

[Cureslime]

Item decay is where it's at yo. You don't need anything else but that and some form of death sickness to prevent exploits. No need to take my hard earned levels away. It's not like I forgot how to block with my shield and how to swing my sword after getting exploded.

[Meresgi]

You could delevel in Lineage II

Like someone said before, deleveling was a bitch when you lost your gear sets. But then again I like to see a penalty for dying, other then a pointless repair bill. FF could do this, as money wasnt so easy to come by like WoW, but then again you're kicking your casual crowd in the nuts, or making people even more money greedy. If they just made the end game gear give a leeway of 1-2 levels it would be fine. Tossing on that super gear at 73 instead of 75 isn't that bad.

[McGoonagle]

As it is pretty well certain that there will not be levels in the FFXI sense in FFXIV, talk of deleveling or not is pointless. There will be a penalty for failure, for example a loss in a skill you were trying to develop, but you won't delevel because you can't lose what you don't have.

[willriker]

there really isnt enough information about the game to make any statement on 'levels'. Sure there is no EXP, but there are skill levels. and nothing released said the skill levels will work like they do in ffxi. You could lose skill upon death, none can say you dont... yet.

[Kaylia]

I'm not describing WoW, I'm describing nearly every other PVE-based MMO. FFXI is the only one that actually allows you to de-level. The grind itself is annoying, but most all MMOs have the death-loss grind. That's at least a corporate standard. FFXI takes it a step farther by not only penalizing you with a mandatory grind to recover what has been lost, but outdoes the others by potentially penalizing your impact on future fights, or on a current fight with your clan/guild/LS/ect. That's a no-no.

I don't know, the one I played prior FF were rather brutal. I havent seen many "easy" ( lot of reward, small penalty) mmo before WoW. I'm sure it wasnt the first one, but huge penalty were more common than they are now.


What I'm saying is, the amount of time wasted is directly proportional to the xp you waste. The "level down" has nothing to do with this. If you want to fix the problem with the current system, you will have fix the xp loss model no matter what. Taking out level down is like putting a bandaid to stop a hemoragy, it fixes nothing on its own.

Let's just pretend for 1 second that you remove the level down without any huge modifications? What happen? People get a huge xp debt before they can start meriting again? Death has no penalty at all? People over at 0 xp, but can't merit until they reach 44k? Every solution bring new problems, and some of them are much worse than "level down".


If losing xp is your penalty system, you can't have a "low cap" (otherwise, you penalize player who are over that cap more). One possible solution to the current system would be a better xp distribution accross the board (salvage, hnm, crafting..etc), and forcing people to get 44k xp before meriting. Something like this would remove 99.9999% of the level down you see endgame.

[Lucavi]

As it is pretty well certain that there will not be levels in the FFXI sense in FFXIV, talk of deleveling or not is pointless. There will be a penalty for failure, for example a loss in a skill you were trying to develop, but you won't delevel because you can't lose what you don't have.

I remember playing a FtP MMO awhile ago called Trickster that did something similar to this. You lost about a percent on each of the abilities that you were trying to master, which wasn't too big when you were a low level grunt with only 2 moves, but hurt you considerably as you gained levels and more skills, and those skills became harder to skillup.

I thought it was a pretty decent way to handle things.

I don't know, the one I played prior FF were rather brutal. I havent seen many "easy" ( lot of reward, small penalty) mmo before WoW. I'm sure it wasnt the first one, but huge penalty were more common than they are now.


What I'm saying is, the amount of time wasted is directly proportional to the xp you waste. The "level down" has nothing to do with this. If you want to fix the problem with the current system, you will have fix the xp loss model no matter what. Taking out level down is like putting a bandaid to stop a hemoragy, it fixes nothing on its own.

Let's just pretend for 1 second that you remove the level down without any huge modifications? What happen? People get a huge xp debt before they can start meriting again? Death has no penalty at all? People over at 0 xp, but can't merit until they reach 44k? Every solution bring new problems, and some of them are much worse than "level down".


If losing xp is your penalty system, you can't have a "low cap" (otherwise, you penalize player who are over that cap more). One possible solution to the current system would be a better xp distribution accross the board (salvage, hnm, crafting..etc), and forcing people to get 44k xp before meriting. Something like this would remove 99.9999% of the level down you see endgame.

I've already spoken about the entire industry needing to think outside the box and find new ways to handle things like death penalties. So many games try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to gaining experience: look at FFXIV's new system, but handling what happens when you die is equally important. The fault isn't simply with de-leveling, its that it was an added feature that was wholly unnecessary addition.

You already lose experience, and you already lose time, having to wait to "recover". Some people want a durability penalty, which may help the economy if they find a way to tie it into a crafting system , but having durability may have the game end up too much like WoW, and we all know that apparently using any feature that has ever been implemented into WoW is the capital sin in the SE MMO market.

I believe I've already heard that SE is implementing some sort of weapon degrading system, so I'd say its a pretty safe bet that death may simply speed up the process of the breakdown of weapons (although it should be moreso armor - constantly winning fights using big sword-slinging abilities or massive spells should degrade weapons more than getting beaten up).

We'll see, but discussion is healthy nonetheless.

[Boom]

Some people want a durability penalty, which may help the economy if they find a way to tie it into a crafting system

I'm pretty sure it's already going in this direction. Under Armoury System > Disciplines of Hand > Blacksmith it says "or hammering the dents from an adventurer's breastplate at a remote aetheryte camp deep in the wilderness"

[Lucavi]

I'm pretty sure it's already going in this direction. Under Armoury System > Disciplines of Hand > Blacksmith it says "or hammering the dents from an adventurer's breastplate at a remote aetheryte camp deep in the wilderness"

For shame, then. What will the "Omg WoW is teh Devil~" players think that SE is going in a direction that many other games outside of WoW have gone?

[Kaylia]

I've already spoken about the entire industry needing to think outside the box and find new ways to handle things like death penalties. So many games try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to gaining experience: look at FFXIV's new system, but handling what happens when you die is equally important. The fault isn't simply with de-leveling, its that it was an added feature that was wholly unnecessary addition.

You already lose experience, and you already lose time, having to wait to "recover". Some people want a durability penalty, which may help the economy if they find a way to tie it into a crafting system , but having durability may have the game end up too much like WoW, and we all know that apparently using any feature that has ever been implemented into WoW is the capital sin in the SE MMO market.

I believe I've already heard that SE is implementing some sort of weapon degrading system, so I'd say its a pretty safe bet that death may simply speed up the process of the breakdown of weapons (although it should be moreso armor - constantly winning fights using big sword-slinging abilities or massive spells should degrade weapons more than getting beaten up).

We'll see, but discussion is healthy nonetheless.

Well, I agree with this. I'm not defending for 1 sec the mentality mmo developper have that "grinding is good".

I played Starcraft and counterstrike for years, I don't need "grinding" to play a game forever. A fun gameplay, mixed with character progression is what mmo should aim for.

I'm fine with durability, I'm fine with xp loss, anything works for me, as long I don't have to go out of my way to make up for it. It has to flow with the rest of the game.

[McGoonagle]

Maybe they won't allow jumping for an hour if you delevel.

[Lucavi]

Well that would make sense, logically! You've just be revived from being a stain on the floor! Your legs are far too weak to be jumping and prancing around in full armor or heavy robes!

Edit: Seriously though, some type of disorientation state would be just fine for me. Make it "feel" like I've either been KOed in a bar fight, or have literally been pulled back from that light at the end of the tunnel. Have a person's directional controls feel wonky; have a person reduced to a slower speed while moving and attacking; lower a person's combat stats for a few minutes while they try to collect themselves; hell, force the player to sit or lay on the ground (if protected by other teammates) to allow for a person to recover more quickly.

There are realistic ways to handle death resurrections in MMOs. I actually enjoyed the animation (and voice grumblings) in Gears of War when your teammates were banged up and went down. I just don't feel that it needs to be a flat "50 DKP Minus!" because you got hit enough to fall over and stay down.

Fuck, make it like Fight Night or something... just advance the concept a bit.

[Kaylia]

Well that would make sense, logically! You've just be revived from being a stain on the floor! Your legs are far too weak to be jumping and prancing around in full armor or heavy robes!

Long down time is the worst thing. Any penalty that last longer than 5 minutes is too long in my opinion (excluding HNM fight, where 5 minutes is just fine)

[McGoonagle]

I believe I've already heard that SE is implementing some sort of weapon degrading system, so I'd say its a pretty safe bet that death may simply speed up the process of the breakdown of weapons (although it should be moreso armor - constantly winning fights using big sword-slinging abilities or massive spells should degrade weapons more than getting beaten up).

I am really curious to see what they do for penalties.

They've got eight years of experience with FFXI, and all sorts of developments and ideas from other games and other companies that they really must have looked at very carefully. Such statements as we get really do seem to point to a lot of aspects of gameplay being different from FFXI, and some may even be completely new to MMORPGs.

[Lucavi]

Long down time is the worst thing. Any penalty that last longer than 5 minutes is too long in my opinion (excluding HNM fight, where 5 minutes is just fine)

Perhaps institute an overkill system. Depending on how strong the blow was that took you out, your level of "recovery weakness" will vary. Maybe make it a scale: any attack that brings you to lower than 25% of your negative HP (so if you have 1000 hp total, an attack that would bring you between -1 and -250 hp) would simply be a quick recovery. Now, fighting some big-ass dragon HNM that ubercrits you for twice your total health, you'd have a heavy, massive recovery (suitable to recover in a HNM fight).

They can then simply stagger the raise spells. Raise I simply revives you at your current KO level. Raise II knocks off one level of the KO bar. Raise III knocks two levels off the bar.

There, I just took 5 minutes and thought up a decent system. Surely SE can do better with their infinite Japanese wisdom - after all, I'm just one of the "foolish Americans" that they withheld FFV from, thinking I'd be too stupid to grasp the "complexity" of the battle system.

Edit: So yes, those screwdrivers we all remember taking from pugils in the dunes and in quifm would seriously require a good raise.

[Kaylia]

Perhaps institute an overkill system. Depending on how strong the blow was that took you out, your level of "recovery weakness" will vary. Maybe make it a scale: any attack that brings you to lower than 25% of your negative HP (so if you have 1000 hp total, an attack that would bring you between -1 and -250 hp) would simply be a quick recovery. Now, fighting some big-ass dragon HNM that ubercrits you for twice your total health, you'd have a heavy, massive recovery (suitable to recover in a HNM fight).

They can then simply stagger the raise spells. Raise I simply revives you at your current KO level. Raise II knocks off one level of the KO bar. Raise III knocks two levels off the bar.

There, I just took 5 minutes and thought up a decent system. Surely SE can do better with their infinite Japanese wisdom - after all, I'm just one of the "foolish Americans" that they withheld FFV from, thinking I'd be too stupid to grasp the "complexity" of the battle system.

Edit: So yes, those screwdrivers we all remember taking from pugils in the dunes and in quifm would seriously require a good raise.

Making it a level difference would be easier if thats what you want to accomplish. There is too many factor otherwise that would need particular tweaking (death to dot, people getting unlucky at 1 hp, and dying to a crit..etc).

I think I posted it on the last page of this thread, but HNM giving you a weakness debuff when they kill you could work well to eliminate downtime during normal gameplay, and prevent zerg on important fight. It's essentially what I want from the game play.

Anyway, there is 3 millions good possibilities here, it just need proper tweaking.

[Lucavi]

Making it a level difference would be easier if thats what you want to accomplish. There is too many factor otherwise that would need particular tweaking (death to dot, people getting unlucky at 1 hp, and dying to a crit..etc).

I think I posted it on the last page of this thread, but HNM giving you a weakness debuff when they kill you could work well to eliminate downtime during normal gameplay, and prevent zerg on important fight. It's essentially what I want from the game play.

Anyway, there is 3 millions good possibilities here, it just need proper tweaking.

Well they certainly need more than "we don't have any plans to discuss that right now", or "we're sorry for the inconvenience."

Get with the program, SE. I WANT to love you again! I really do...

[Lurking Badger]

Maybe they will force you to watch a 5 min long death sequence cut scene.

[Lucavi]

I'd be happy if they made my corpse blink or at least had the some of the hilarious death poses of FFIV. Tellah was straight-up dead in his sprite.

[Kawfee]

Maybe they will force you to watch a 5 min long death sequence cut scene.

This idea is fantastic and hilarious

[McGoonagle]

Maybe they will force you to watch a 5 min long death sequence cut scene.

As long as it's Paul Rubens in the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" movie.