Randomly Ridiculous FFXI to FFXIV

[Lucavi]

That's one reason I liked the concept of badge-farming in WoW. Even if you didn't directly get a piece of gear on a particular run (or just nothing that you can use), the badges you get could go towards something else in a future purchase.

I'd love to see something similar (though not a clone -- there's plenty of room for improvement) in FFXI, even if the rewards are extremely small. I could see a lot of starter dungeons and instances and quests making great use of badges. I know that when I was playing FFXI, being able to save something up for completed quests would have been nice for some in-between gear.

Signet kind of did the job, but even if they revamped that system, it would go a long way. Something a little less restrictive than grinding monsters and your nation only.

If you do different activities every day, you'll get gear in reasonable timeframe. No one stops you from doing that. If you just Have to have gear X from event Y so you do it every day, then that's okay- but it's not necessary for progress.

The problem is when entire gear sets stem from one single activity that must be repeated ad-nauseum. Now, I actually enjoy that a single set comes from a single activity, as it would throw off the immersion to be able to get some sort of super AF or super set from all kinds of crazy zones across the world, but when you've got a slow-paced, slow-rewarding system that gives you one out of 5-6 of a particular set every 6-10 months... that's just terrible for a game that you pay 15 bucks a month for. You might as well equate it to paying for your gear, since you have to have this crazy minimum amount of time/money spent to attain a reasonable amount of progression.

[Hyan]

Badges could be used for intermediate rewards, and they work in keeping the interest in an event even though the drop rate for the better stuff might be lower.

Say, Nyzul and the mythic weapons. Those are something to work towards to, even if you have bad luck with equipment you'll at least gain a weapon skill for climbing up floors. Or the Einherjar system, as a more obvious example.

[Lucavi]

We agree, then. Badges should never be the best, but should always be able to fill in a spot, or simply feel rewarding. Even awarding consumables or crafting items from badges would be nice. I would have loved a system like that when I was farming for Mezraq when it first came out (what a godly spear back in the day...).

[Hyan]

Aren't BS and KS quite like something along the like of badges? Or even using Imperial Standing to gain Khroma ores.. Alexandrite from Salvage come to mind as well.

The problem is when entire gear sets stem from one single activity that must be repeated ad-nauseum. Now, I actually enjoy that a single set comes from a single activity, as it would throw off the immersion to be able to get some sort of super AF or super set from all kinds of crazy zones across the world, but when you've got a slow-paced, slow-rewarding system that gives you one out of 5-6 of a particular set every 6-10 months... that's just terrible for a game that you pay 15 bucks a month for. You might as well equate it to paying for your gear, since you have to have this crazy minimum amount of time/money spent to attain a reasonable amount of progression.

But you'd still be getting like a piece every month if you do all the events. Not one/month from one event alone, but all added up the progress would be more than reasonable. The events also last much longer when you don't do them daily, but weekly instead. Keeps things fresh. I don't see much problem in this, actually I prefer it to any other system. You can do many things to make the events feel fresh longer, too. Like what Nyzul did with random floors, or events being shorter in length, or intermediate rewards. Along with one good item per month/few weeks, you'd be getting lots of intermediate rewards as well.

[Kaylia]

You don't have to do it this way if you don't want. Daily content is daily only if you make it that way. It's only an option given to you. Salvage can be done 2 times a week, 4 times for example. You honestly prefer the way of Einherjar Limbus and Dynamis that force you to wait 3 days before you can go in again, just because you can't control your addiction to the game? I'd suggest joining a less hardcore linkshell if that was really a problem for you.

I said it somewhere else, but the problem is that "what people want" conflict between members of a same linkshell/group. The perfect solution usually a require a compromise, which isn't always fun.

I don't need anything off dyna, and I hate the place? Am I going to ditch my friends because I don't like it? I could, but I don't think it's the right thing to do. If I set salvage 5 times a week, am I going to overlap ls events? If I set it once a week, am I going to be able to keep people in the group (it's hard to build a salvage group around a single run, especially if it fail for w/e reason).

Because people want specific things from particular events (usually the shit that wont drop), making everyone happy is a freaking hell. I would hapilly give up the current system for something that force you to make a rotation between events (instead of letting you decide which rotation you want).


WoW system isnt the only one that could works, but I think the amount of time spent doing "endgame" and the amount of time doing something more casual is great. The way it works, it's really easy to set up events compared to FFXI, especially since everyone want the same thing (or almost).

Aren't BS and KS quite like something along the like of badges? Or even using Imperial Standing to gain Khroma ores.. Alexandrite from Salvage come to mind as well.

Yes and no. They both serve as indirect reward, but their scope is completely different. KS and BS, require you to make another effort to harvest the result, and this reward isnt that good (not much money, or terrible drop rate).

Badge are satisfying because they allow you to get immediate rewards, and good one. In the event you have absolutely everything, they can be turned into decent money generally (equivalent of questing or farming money). If it can be compared to something, it would be to assault points or einherjar points, but more rewarding.

[Lucavi]

Aren't BS and KS quite like something along the like of badges? Or even using Imperial Standing to gain Khroma ores.. Alexandrite from Salvage come to mind as well.

BS and KS don't count in the same system because its not a guaranteed reward for time/effort spent. Its certainly a similar system, but it's been "Japanesed" by putting in the classic shitty droprates and carrot-on-a-stick photoshop efforts.

You have a "chance" to get these "badges" that when collected, will give you the "opportunity" to fight some reasonably tough monsters for a "chance" at some good loot, although the loot that's actually desirable will be extremely rare, and the lion's share will be useless-to-nominal junk that won't even allow you to line a small segment of your proverbial pockets.

I don't need shit handed to me, but badges seem more of a way to reward people that didn't get anything, yet still came along, whether it was just to help or to try and get something. If those badges are already the little cheap toy in the box of cracker jacks, why further mock the player by allowing them a small "chance" at something reasonably good if they collect enough of those cheap toys and exchange them?

Either gimmie something or don't, dammit.

But you'd still be getting like a piece every month if you do all the events. Not one/month from one event alone, but all added up the progress would be more than reasonable. The events also last much longer when you don't do them daily, but weekly instead. Keeps things fresh. I don't see much problem in this, actually I prefer it to any other system. You can do many things to make the events feel fresh longer, too. Like what Nyzul did with random floors, or events being shorter in length, or intermediate rewards. Along with one good item per month/few weeks, you'd be getting lots of intermediate rewards as well.

That's not really what I meant. There aren't enough truly good sets of gear to have someone doing assault, salvage, and nyuzul with a daily/weekly rotation. If I'm focused solely on salvage because the only set that I want is from salvage (and once salvage came out, a lot of people lost interest in assaults for gear - it was a clear upgrade), it's going to take at least 2-3 years to get a full set of salvage gear, short of duping or cheating, which a lot of people were already banned for.

Two to three years for any set of gear is too long in a game where I have a monthly payment, especially when only a limited amount of shit drops from said event and many people are already fighting over the drops. There's a difference between doing an event because its fun and I also get loot and grinding it solely because I can't afford to miss a single event because I'll fall behind the next guy when the one item I want for my salvage set finally drops. You might say that's the gold standard for grind-heavy MMOs, but I disagree. The system can be improved on. That's my bottom line.

[Hyan]

I said it somewhere else, but the problem is that "what people want" conflict between members of a same linkshell/group. The perfect solution usually a require a compromise, which isn't always fun.

I don't need anything off dyna, and I hate the place? Am I going to ditch my friends because I don't like it? I could, but I don't think it's the right thing to do. If I set salvage 5 times a week, am I going to overlap ls events? If I set it once a week, am I going to be able to keep people in the group (it's hard to build a salvage group around a single run, especially if it fail for w/e reason).

That depends. It's entirely different if those people helped you get your stuff from dynamis before and now in turn you'd help them. That makes sense. But if you never wanted anything there, you're not "ditching" them if you don't go. And even then, you don't have to help them for the rest of your life. If they gain few pieces of gear while you're there that should be enough anyway.

The right approach is to have different group for everything. "jack of all trades" LS's are quite restrictive, and most of the time generate all those problems. Get people that share your interests, and work with them. It's much less of a hassle that way.

Compromises can be worked out, anyway. If someone lets you get that Ares cuirass in Salvage, you can in turn let him get that Aurum cuirass in ZNM.

But the problem once again are the players. Things can work out with some planning, but people have to have at least partially a similar mindset. I never had a problem doing what I wanted, but of course that's not an experience that applies to everyone. Maybe I just got lucky? I don't think so though, I just found people with similar mindset and played with them. Not the most skilled bunch, but that's not the important thing anyway.

Salvage can be done twice in one day (or thrice, but that needs some tweaking to work..) Even if you do that only twice a week, that's 4 runs. Enough to make good progress, but not too much to make you burned out.

WoW system isnt the only one that could works, but I think the amount of time spent doing "endgame" and the amount of time doing something more casual is great. The way it works, it's really easy to set up events compared to FFXI, especially since everyone want the same thing (or almost).

What really interests me, is that even still there are things like "DKP" as a loot distribution systems in WoW that are quite complex. It can't be that easy if something like that is needed to sort things out, however things might be different now. But it sounds like a headache.

But still, with WoW you only have few options at any given time. The events don't stack up. You can't really "choose" what you do. If you don't happen to like a particular raid, tough luck.

Yes and no. They both serve as indirect reward, but their scope is completely different. KS and BS, require you to make another effort to harvest the result, and this reward isnt that good (not much money, or terrible drop rate).

Badge are satisfying because they allow you to get immediate rewards, and good one. In the event you have absolutely everything, they can be turned into decent money generally (equivalent of questing or farming money). If it can be compared to something, it would be to assault points or einherjar points, but more rewarding.

That entirely depends. The reward can be good, but again it depends what you do (Royale Ramble comes to mind).

"More rewarding" depends as well. When money in general is not nearly as valuable in WoW as it is in XI, is the reward really that good? In effort vs. reward ratio it might be, but considering how easy it is already to make money in the game... The meaning of "reward" loses much of it's importance.

BS and KS don't count in the same system because its not a guaranteed reward for time/effort spent. Its certainly a similar system, but it's been "Japanesed" by putting in the classic shitty droprates and carrot-on-a-stick photoshop efforts.

Depends. KS can net you a guaranteed reward.

That's not really what I meant. There aren't enough truly good sets of gear to have someone doing assault, salvage, and nyuzul with a daily/weekly rotation. If I'm focused solely on salvage because the only set that I want is from salvage (and once salvage came out, a lot of people lost interest in assaults for gear - it was a clear upgrade), it's going to take at least 2-3 years to get a full set of salvage gear, short of duping or cheating, which a lot of people were already banned for.

Two to three years for any set of gear is too long in a game where I have a monthly payment, especially when only a limited amount of shit drops from said event and many people are already fighting over the drops. There's a difference between doing an event because its fun and I also get loot and grinding it solely because I can't afford to miss a single event because I'll fall behind the next guy when the one item I want for my salvage set finally drops. You might say that's the gold standard for grind-heavy MMOs, but I disagree. The system can be improved on. That's my bottom line.

Those events are all of a different caliber anyway. From easier to hardest. The rewards, too, mirror the effort needed to get the rewards. There are enough truly good sets of gear (or single pieces) to have someone doing salvage, einherjar, znm's, dynamis and limbus (or even ENMs) with a daily/weekly rotation.

You can still do other events for alternatives. If you don't want to, don't blame SE if you have to wait longer to get what you want. Just by doing 2 events at the same time gives you twice the rewards. Also, systems where if you miss one run you'll miss the chance on an item suck. I'd advise not to use such shitty systems.

But really, I'm not saying the system in XI is some kind of holy grail or something. Each systems have their disadvantages, and advantages. I'm simply against saying that one system is better than the other. On a personal level this is true, of course, but generally.

[Lucavi]

Speaking for myself, I can say that the badge gear rewards that I purchased were "that good" yes. I was looking to fill a few slots when Naxx raiding, and I received quite a few DPS boosts from some of the trinkets and neck pieces. For the player who already has 25 man gear that easily triumphs badge gear, there are consumables and crafting items which, at the very least, you can throw up on the AH for a nice, fat profit.

I'd say for the time spent and amount of things I was actually able to walk away with, my badge gear was more rewarding than the seals I spent in FFXI,which I think only resulted in maybe a mil in gil and some spectacles and a jagd gorget, both of which I shared with my teammates.

[Hyan]

I wish it only felt as rewarding as it should. Were the encounters really that hard that you felt you deserved those rewards for the time you put into it?

I never got such a feeling when playing WoW. Kill 5 boars I could two-shot, gain sword of epix and 25% exp to the next level. Hell yeah, rewarding...

[arus2001]

Mmm, over-generalizations~

[Kaylia]

That depends. It's entirely different if those people helped you get your stuff from dynamis before and now in turn you'd help them. That makes sense. But if you never wanted anything there, you're not "ditching" them if you don't go. And even then, you don't have to help them for the rest of your life. If they gain few pieces of gear while you're there that should be enough anyway.

I wish it was that simple. People who don't take part in ls activity are generally frowned upon. You need to be helpful all around the clock if you want people to trust you, because in an environment like FFXI, people get paranoid very fast. I'm not sure if you ever had a sack, but the amount of stress that come from people skipping event is scary, even when they "owned" nothing.

Personally, I never cared much about attendance. I hated the game, and wouldn't want to force anyone around me to play, but I can say the actual endgame (reward system, event schedule) help me keep the group together. It was always a fight to keep everyone happy.

The right approach is to have different group for everything. "jack of all trades" LS's are quite restrictive, and most of the time generate all those problems. Get people that share your interests, and work with them. It's much less of a hassle that way.

Compromises can be worked out, anyway. If someone lets you get that Ares cuirass in Salvage, you can in turn let him get that Aurum cuirass in ZNM.

But the problem once again are the players. Things can work out with some planning, but people have to have at least partially a similar mindset. I never had a problem doing what I wanted, but of course that's not an experience that applies to everyone. Maybe I just got lucky? I don't think so though, I just found people with similar mindset and played with them. Not the most skilled bunch, but that's not the important thing anyway.

Salvage can be done twice in one day (or thrice, but that needs some tweaking to work..) Even if you do that only twice a week, that's 4 runs. Enough to make good progress, but not too much to make you burned out.

I agree, but it come to a point where finding member, competant and well intentioned, is harder than getting a ridill. Linkshell with large money income (and we can draw a correlation here with bot) are going to be the most popular, because people want to be rewarded for their effort, but trying to find people who enjoy playing the game for what it is is hard.

What really interests me, is that even still there are things like "DKP" as a loot distribution systems in WoW that are quite complex. It can't be that easy if something like that is needed to sort things out, however things might be different now. But it sounds like a headache.

But still, with WoW you only have few options at any given time. The events don't stack up. You can't really "choose" what you do. If you don't happen to like a particular raid, tough luck.

DKP in WoW is easier to handle than DKP in FFXI. In WoW, loot will drop for everyone. In FFXI, I can't promise you a ridill, d.ring or ares body in the next 6 months...and in 6months, who know who will be playing the game still. In overall, I think dkp in ffxi was more harmful than anything, unless you were dealing with a dyna shell back when the list on every pieces was long.

That said, I'm too "casual" to bother with a DKP guild. Pug and small guild allow me to get the most out of the game, without playing it too seriously.

That entirely depends. The reward can be good, but again it depends what you do (Royale Ramble comes to mind).

Setting the party and doing all 6 royale rumble often take 2-3 hours. If you take into account that you could be mining for 3h in zhayolm during that time or anything, the net gain for the time spent isnt that great.

Money is always good, but before you actually get a good upgrade from the BCNM money, a few stack might have been burned (unless you're lucky)

I never got such a feeling when playing WoW. Kill 5 boars I could two-shot, gain sword of epix and 25% exp to the next level. Hell yeah, rewarding...

Of couse, getting a ridill after 8 months of nothing will feel better, but WoW end game is never as bad as you described. In FFXI, the first few hours might be euphoric if you're in for the loot, but the next few months will be dry.

Beside, with thing like "world first kill" achievement,and ultra rare mount, there is plenty of content that cater to the crowd who want to feel special because they got something rare. In fact, WoW in overall is doing a better job at making you feel "special" than FFXI. My e.body, ridill, morri set bland in the crowd more than a 310% rare mount might.

[Lucavi]

I wish it only felt as rewarding as it should. Were the encounters really that hard that you felt you deserved those rewards for the time you put into it?

I never got such a feeling when playing WoW. Kill 5 boars I could two-shot, gain sword of epix and 25% exp to the next level. Hell yeah, rewarding...

I don't remember any FFXI events that were hard -to me-, except for Snoll Tzar and the airship fight of CoP, but that was more of a frustration thing. Actually, lots of those original CoP fights were downright challenging and annoying, especially when you hemorrhaged all your consumables and had to take the fucking walks again.

With dynamis, yeah it hurt if you got targeted as a drg, but just beat the shit out of whatever everyone else was and you win. Once I was fully geared and merited, I soloed plenty of mobs with no problem. Dyna Lord hurt, but for the longest time he was a luck boss - if he didn't do the worst moves and you zerg fast enough, you win.

Most fights in FFXI could be zerged to death in minutes, if not seconds. Once KC zerging became well-known, even big badasses like the Dyna Lord were reduced to jokes. HNMs became jokes, Sea Gods became jokes, Sky Gods were already jokes if you weren't a fool or brand new, and ToAU HNMs were jokes. Nobody fought Hydra and Cerb was easy if you stunned GoH.

I wanted to say Divine Might was hard back in the day if you did it the right way, but there was even the Blm exploit to make that into a joke.

SE was afraid of AV becoming a joke, so they nerfed KC spam to make it a non-issue.


I was around in WoW for the back end of vanilla, and I never would have even considered doing 40 man Naxx. It was just too much. Too long, fights too hard, and way too involved for a guy like me. I later did the much easier Naxx in WotLK and it was challenging and easy, again, depending on the group I was with. I used my Hunter for all of that, so certain things were challenging and fun, like fighting Gluth and kiting all of his bastards, but again, not a ton of individual challenge for my job.

I think the biggest difference I can think of between both games is that wipes come faster in WoW if the wrong people screw up. I can think of a ton of examples in FFXI where half the LS dropped in a hard fight, but were able to rez up, pop the broken-ass utsu shield, and stay out of trouble and recover. In WoW, typically if you go down, you're reduced to either being a cheerleader, or screaming at whoever fucked up, so there was less of a margin of error in terms of "no dying".

Both games have their hard fights. Take any Hard Mode in Uld, or ToC, and that's hard. Take AV, and that's hard. WoW hard modes are meant to be defeated, though, so I guess you can say that FFXI's hardest fights are harder, simply because the developers just didn't want them to be beaten?

As for your "kill 2 boars, get epix" comment, I wish I could have gotten any top-tier, end-game worthy epic from killing boars anywhere. The most I ever got from those quests is a green weapon/armor, some potions, or a fist full of gold. Of course, that's better than finishing some long, drawn out mission in FFXI to receive a pat on the back and the message to return on JP midnight to take the next leg of the world fetch quest.

The "best" item I can think of getting from a quest like that was the icier barbed spear from the amphitheater, which, while an "epic", is outclassed the second you start any 70+ instance.

[Kaylia]

CoP was fun. >_> I thought it was genuinely challenging back in the day, since most of us just reached endgame, and we had to figure out the game mechanics to beat the fight. Kiting mammet without pulling aggro for example might be obvious now, but it was not 6 years ago. In my case, that's where the game peaked.

Divine Might was also a nice fight looking back at it. The whole alliance actually had a role, and the execution had to be flawless. Too bad gathering 18 people is an hassle in FF, because real 18 men BC were generally pretty fun.

[Vacht]

CoP was awesome, especially the final mission! RoZ was ... filler? I hate sky. I never want to see despot again.

Anyone still get an adrenaline rush from seeing an NM name? I farmed lizzy for so long, i still freak out if i see that name, reminiscing with widescan.

Prudence was one of the hardest, but fun fights! Love was alright too.

[Lucavi]

CoP was awesome, especially the final mission! RoZ was ... filler? I hate sky. I never want to see despot again.

Anyone still get an adrenaline rush from seeing an NM name? I farmed lizzy for so long, i still freak out if i see that name, reminiscing with widescan.

Prudence was one of the hardest, but fun fights! Love was alright too.

I used to get the shakes when lizzy popped, especially the -one- time I managed to claim him.

[Karbuncle]

I still get cold sweats when i claim an NM, depending on what it drops.

if i run up and see a useless NM up its like "oh lewk, NM /kill", if its something im camping against others and need, i spazz at it D:

[Meresgi]

As for your "kill 2 boars, get epix" comment, I wish I could have gotten any top-tier, end-game worthy epic from killing boars anywhere. The most I ever got from those quests is a green weapon/armor, some potions, or a fist full of gold. Of course, that's better than finishing some long, drawn out mission in FFXI to receive a pat on the back and the message to return on JP midnight to take the next leg of the world fetch quest.

The "best" item I can think of getting from a quest like that was the icier barbed spear from the amphitheater, which, while an "epic", is outclassed the second you start any 70+ instance.

I find WoW pretty boring nowadays when I can reach level 80 on an alt in roughly 1 week, and have it in full T9-9.5 gear in another 2 weeks. That just isn't..fun to me. Granted I have a lot of time to play MMOs right now, so it's more along the lines of that, but even only spending 4-5hrs a night or less will net you full T9 in about 3weeks.

Its like the direct opposite of FFXI, FFXI was annoying at times because that one HNM just wouldn't drop that fucking item you had wanted for a year, WoW is annoying because that gear you just spent a year working towards is now obsolete and being given to people in 1-2 weeks.

[Kaylia]

WoW is annoying because that gear you just spent a year working towards is now obsolete and being given to people in 1-2 weeks.

Well, most gears have a life span of 3 month (6 in some case), and you won't get all of them instantly after an update. Unless you're talking about change they made to the game before, you can't really lose "1 years worth of farming". It's hard to lose more than "3 months worth of farming" in the current system.


You can't approach WoW with the mindset that your gears will last forever. Your objective should be achievement, world first, outdpsing people..etc

[SilverBreeze]

I find WoW pretty boring nowadays when I can reach level 80 on an alt in roughly 1 week, and have it in full T9-9.5 gear in another 2 weeks. That just isn't..fun to me. Granted I have a lot of time to play MMOs right now, so it's more along the lines of that, but even only spending 4-5hrs a night or less will net you full T9 in about 3weeks.

FFXI isn't really any different. I leveled my Dragoon up in a few weeks, and leveled into Homam, Ace's Helm, Cerb Mantle, Ares, Askar, etc. Then did the same thing with my Scholar, leveled it up in about a month and leveled into all my Black Mage gear. I'm not seeing how this is not relatively the same. I could go on and on, my Samurai leveling into my Monk's gear, etc etc.

You could say "Well your first job didn't level into gear because it was your first job", and I could say in Vanilla WoW you didn't get full epics in a few months, when raids had 40 people instead of 25, and you had to WORK for your epics, instead of Blizzard carebearing them out.

[McGoonagle]

Isn't this turning into a FF vs. WoW thread, and isn't that something frowned upon by the higher garters?

Anyway, what I'm looking forward is everybody being equally clueless when the game is new.