Will you still play Aion when FFXIV comes out?

[Hyan]

Instead of replying every points individually, I'm just going to address all of them at once in bold

And...?

I understood where you wanted to go with this, I just don't think it's the only possible outcome.



First of all, not every events are farmed equally. Many events were completely abandonned because there is nothing good to get . If they wanted to keep every endgame ever released, there is better way to do it.


Secondly, point system/badge could easily fix most of the issues you're talking about (make every single kill useful toward some progress). Adding more "relic" type of weapon/armor as a second tier would give a new purpose to any events too. It's also wrong to think most people would stop farming events because they constantly level new jobs and need to gears them.



Thirdly, after 2 years, I want a new events. I know they don't want to release new things, but that's also why I left the game. I like new area, new dungeon, new challenging monsters (where the challenge doesnt involve the amount of people you need to gather at a single time)

It may not be the only possible outcome, but it's very possible this may happen. SE must be ready for it. And is the risk worth it? From what I said before, I don't think so.

Leveling new jobs just slows down the inevitable. What I described will happen, sooner or later and SE has to adapt or their game will be more broken than the US economy.

Point/badge system has it's flaws. If SE wants to keep the drop rate the same as before (to avoid the situation I described), they'll either have to lower the drop rate in exchange for point system, or take away the random drop rates completely.

For example, let's say drop rate of item is 5%. Now you add point system to it. To keep the drop rate same as before, the random drop rate must be lowered to 2,5% because you'd otherwise have double chance to get the same item, thus doubling the drop rate. At the same time, when you'd usually need 20 "points" to gain the item (5%), you'll need 40 "points" now. So, even more lowered drop rate and you have to do the event 40 times before you see your drop guaranteed. Is this a good fix? I don't like it, but maybe that's just me. I'd get bored sooner because the chance of random drop is so small, and to think that I'll have to do this event 29 more times would make me give up in exhaustion.

Or you can take the random drop rate away completely, for 20 runs/item. Now this means 2 things: the item can't drop on the 1st run, but it can't drop on the 40th run either. Let's say you're 4th in line for the item. That means 80 runs before you get yours. At least with random drop rate, you never know. Might be the 20th run, could be the 100th. But to know that there's no way you'll get the item before 80th run would make my head explode, to be frank.

Point system works in a game with high drop rates, but with low drop rates.. not so well. I don't think it's a good fix, of course that's an opinion of course, but if you can have opinions about it... is it a worthy "fix" again? Debatable.

The game is old. The playerbase is shrinking (from FFXIAH.com, looks like the playerbase has been gone down at least 25% since last summer). Not the best time to wish for new exciting events I'd say. I'd also say that for a new game like XIV the chances of getting something cool are slightly higher. Yeah, after 7 years things might be the same way they are now in XI, but.. who cares? I'll play the game happily for 7 years and quit then if it happens, like you. I don't think I shouldn't play the game because in the not so nearby future that might happen.

[Kaylia]

Hm, I don't think it's paradox. I mean, that teleporting near the objective is alright- it's a time saving factor- but if I'm tele'd straight to where the action happens, the world ceases to exist (for me). At that point it'd better to just have a lobby from where you can go anywhere you want, like in PSO for example.

I don't mind having Outpost warps in XI. I don't mind staging points either. What I'd mind is "teleport to any place from anywhere". It's not the case in XIV, since I doubt there are crystals everywhere. It's more probably like a staging point +1 system. The important thing is to make the downtime as short as possible without losing the sense of being in a large game world.

SE might be going after another slow paced MMO (I'm not sure about the extreme), but it's not really fair to say that only if the game is fast paced and involves needing fast reflexes it can be challenging. Like, you don't need skill to play chess? I'm sure most players these days have short attention span, but eh... I'm not sure if I really wanted halo kids in my MMO in the first place.

And it's not like there's not enough of these fast paced MMO's out there already. I hope you don't mean that SE didn't "learn from their mistake" if they're making another slow paced MMO? Because I don't think of that as a mistake at all. I'm not sure why anyone would.

Sincerely, do you think the traveling time in FFXI is "right". It never came accross your mind that you were wasting too much time walking around before getting to the actual content? I'm not talking about the first 10 times, I'm talking about the 350th times you run to sky or dragon aery. Outposts are great, but they are rarely enough. Beside, even if I'm fast, it doesnt mean the whole party will be as fast. That itself is the reason why they should give us gathering point or w/e.

I agree a teleport similar to oblivion "point, click, teleport" wouldnt works, but there is major improvement that should have been made in FFXI, and it never happened. Something like WoW's gathering point would have worked quite well imo.


Don't compare FFXI gameplay (or any rpg) to chess. Chess require you to anticipate your opponement moves many turns before. MMORPG never get past the "reactionary behavior". Heal when you get hurt, stun when the ws is triggered, cast utsu when you have 1 shadow...etc. There is minors optimization here and there (mp management, knowing when to take a hit, back off...etc), but it's not strategy, and become a reflex pretty fast.


I'm curious to hear what fight you enjoy in FFXI. Personally, the fight I enjoyed the most had "weird" gimmick like LaC or Sandworm. Bahamut was also intense I guess

[Kaylia]

said before, I don't think so.

Leveling new jobs just slows down the inevitable. What I described will happen, sooner or later and SE has to adapt or their game will be more broken than the US economy.

Point/badge system has it's flaws. If SE wants to keep the drop rate the same as before (to avoid the situation I described), they'll either have to lower the drop rate in exchange for point system, or take away the random drop rates completely.

For example, let's say drop rate of item is 5%. Now you add point system to it. To keep the drop rate same as before, the random drop rate must be lowered to 2,5% because you'd otherwise have double chance to get the same item, thus doubling the drop rate. At the same time, when you'd usually need 20 "points" to gain the item (5%), you'll need 40 "points" now. So, even more lowered drop rate and you have to do the event 40 times before you see your drop guaranteed. Is this a good fix? I don't like it, but maybe that's just me. I'd get bored sooner because the chance of random drop is so small, and to think that I'll have to do this event 29 more times would make me give up in exhaustion.

Or you can take the random drop rate away completely, for 20 runs/item. Now this means 2 things: the item can't drop on the 1st run, but it can't drop on the 40th run either. Let's say you're 4th in line for the item. That means 80 runs before you get yours. At least with random drop rate, you never know. Might be the 20th run, could be the 100th. But to know that there's no way you'll get the item before 80th run would make my head explode, to be frank.

Point system works in a game with high drop rates, but with low drop rates.. not so well. I don't think it's a good fix, of course that's an opinion of course, but if you can have opinions about it... is it a worthy "fix" again? Debatable.

The game is old. The playerbase is shrinking (from FFXIAH.com, looks like the playerbase has been gone down at least 25% since last summer). Not the best time to wish for new exciting events I'd say. I'd also say that for a new game like XIV the chances of getting something cool are slightly higher. Yeah, after 7 years things might be the same way they are now in XI, but.. who cares? I'll play the game happily for 7 years and quit then if it happens, like you. I don't think I shouldn't play the game because in the not so nearby future that might happen.

Tier 1 Direct drop from the events (takes 3-4 months to get most of the stuff)
Tier 2 Badges/points/currencies you get from any events (takes 6-9 months to get)
Tier 3 Relic-like items (takes 1 year to farm, but mostly involve time and dedication, instead of whoring your whole ls)


If they are careful with the slots/jobs, they could run such system for a long time without outdating any of the hard earned items, and always have an item progression.


Instead, they constantly release new sets that are freaking garbage and have no possible uses other than afk'ing in town.

So, even more lowered drop rate and you have to do the event 40 times before you see your drop guaranteed. Is this a good fix?

Yes, it's a good fix because I wont have to deal with loot distribution in the first place. That's what I hated the most in the game. Rare loot make people cry, and having to deal with that kind of crap suck.

And I prefer going for a constant average than a loterery. At least, I know what I'm getting into.

[Hyan]

Sincerely, do you think the traveling time in FFXI is "right". It never came accross your mind that you were wasting too much time walking around before getting to the actual content? I'm not talking about the first 10 times, I'm talking about the 350th times you run to sky or dragon aery. Outposts are great, but they are rarely enough. Beside, even if I'm fast, it doesnt mean the whole party will be as fast. That itself is the reason why they should give us gathering point or w/e.

I agree a teleport similar to oblivion "point, click, teleport" wouldnt works, but there is major improvement that should have been made in FFXI, and it never happened. Something like WoW's gathering point would have worked quite well imo.


Don't compare FFXI gameplay (or any rpg) to chess. Chess require you to anticipate your opponement moves many turns before. MMORPG never get past the "reactionary behavior". Heal when you get hurt, stun when the ws is triggered, cast utsu when you have 1 shadow...etc. There is minors optimization here and there (mp management, knowing when to take a hit, back off...etc), but it's not strategy, and become a reflex pretty fast.


I'm curious to hear what fight you enjoy in FFXI. Personally, the fight I enjoyed the most had "weird" gimmick like LaC or Sandworm. Bahamut was also intense I guess

Hmm, I didn't find it a problem. Getting to sky takes a minute at most, getting to Dragon's aery and Behemoth's dominion takes too long, but these 2 areas represent the extreme cases in XI, especially when you run there so many times in your playtime. Not as much as to other places, frankly. I wasn't interested about HNM's though, so it was hardly a problem for me. I didn't mind the travel time when I happened to have business there. The game would benefit from teleport-aery, you're right, but don't act like it's some massive problem that makes the transportation methods for the game as a whole insufficient. I don't think teleport-aery would be considered a major improvement, a nice feature nonetheless. It was fine as it was, excluding these 2 examples.

Did those gimmicks involve jumping? I mean, you don't need jumping to make the fights interesting. There are million other things beside that to make fights more interactive, like expanding the SC/MB system further or developing the monster AI to make anticipating moves a lot more important, like in chess.

And I didn't compare FFXI gameplay to chess. I'm only saying that the gameplay can be like chess, the only way to make things challenging isn't by making the fights fast paced. Slow paced can be challenging, chess proves this.

[Hyan]

Tier 1 Direct drop from the events (takes 3-4 months to get most of the stuff)
Tier 2 Badges/points/currencies you get from any events (takes 6-9 months to get)
Tier 3 Relic-like items (takes 1 year to farm, but mostly involve time and dedication, instead of whoring your whole ls)


If they are careful with the slots/jobs, they could run such system for a long time without outdating any of the hard earned items, and always have an item progression.


Instead, they constantly release new sets that are freaking garbage and have no possible uses other than afk'ing in town.



Yes, it's a good fix because I wont have to deal with loot distribution in the first place. That's what I hated the most in the game. Rare loot make people cry, and having to deal with that kind of crap suck.

And I prefer going for a constant average than a loterery. At least, I know what I'm getting into.

I wonder, how good are those tier 1 items, as opposed to the rest of the game's equipment and tier 2/3? Better? Worse?

In the end, you'll get your stuff at the same time as before. Some stuff earlier, some stuff later. Constant average is what would make things ultimately boring.

[Kaylia]

I would like to see you get to sky in 1 minute, even with a dem-ring, and crag teleport unlocked. And don't forget we went 5 whole years without any mean of teleport. They give these fix when it doesnt matter anymore.

Did those gimmicks involve jumping? I mean, you don't need jumping to make the fights interesting. There are million other things beside that to make fights more interactive, like expanding the SC/MB system further or developing the monster AI to make anticipating moves a lot more important, like in chess

Where the fuck did I say there is no possible way to make something interesting without jump?

Limiting movement to the the 2d plane does limit the diversity you can offer, and greatly.

And I didn't compare FFXI gameplay to chess. I'm only saying that the gameplay can be like chess, the only way to make things challenging isn't by making the fights fast paced. Slow paced can be challenging, chess proves this.

Of course not, but I would rather take diversity and challenge, because the same script repeated multiple time isnt very challenging.

[Kaylia]

I wonder, how good are those tier 1 items, as opposed to the rest of the game's equipment and tier 2/3? Better? Worse?

In the end, you'll get your stuff at the same time as before. Some stuff earlier, some stuff later. Constant average is what would make things ultimately boring.

Tier1: usukane/morrigan kind of good.
Tier2: white box box usu/morri
Tire3: Relic kind of good.


thats what I had in mind earlier.

And no, you dont get a full salvage set in 3-4 months unless you're extremely lucky. It tooks me 2 years to get 10 pieces, and i could never complete a set (morri shoes never dropped).


Something like this give people the incensitive to go back to event, especially once they get loot. You always make progress, even when nothing drop. Your effort pay off, and your gears wont be outdated immediately.

There is a lot of tweaking to do, but it would work better than anything they have so far.


[edit]
and replace the whole evolith bullshit with a true enchanting/socket system. It would add a new dimension to endgame farming, instead of adding 1 or 2 more worthwhile macro pieces.

[Hyan]

Tier1: usukane/morrigan kind of good.
Tier2: white box box usu/morri
Tire3: Relic kind of good.


thats what I had in mind earlier.

And no, you dont get a full salvage set in 3-4 months unless you're extremely lucky. It tooks me 2 years to get 10 pieces, and i could never complete a set (morri shoes never dropped).

So everyone would go after tier 2/3 and skip tier 1...

Like now you have Nyzul and Assault, but everyone does for Salvage instead...

And complains about Salvage drop rates, even though you can get Nyzul/Assault stuff in a shorter timeframe.

And still, those events would make anything that came before it obsolete. You'd end up doing 3 (or 1? I'm not sure) events, then 2, then 1... and SE still has to work their ass off to create 3 events so we'd end up with dynamis-bhaflau and so on, however with slight alterations (3 events a year is still better than one every update)

And if its just one event with 3 tiers, you'll be doing one single event for a year, without anything else. Is this really an improvement?

[OzzofAsura]

I guess I'm missing something then, because I'm still playing XI after five years and still enjoy it.

I was giving you my opinion, not yours... so, good for you? It's not like I want everyone to think it's a trashy game just because I do. I played for 4 years myself, but I didn't know how bad it was until I played other things. I didn't know fighting for the same gear for years on end was not the way everyone else did it, and I was probably too much of a FFXI fanboy to go and check. I won't make that mistake again.

I hope you enjoy it for another 5 years, but I don't think it's the excellent game design keeping you there.

They give these fix when it doesnt matter anymore.

Just wanted to throw that in there as it was one of my biggest problems with XI, and feel that it is true in many, MANY parts of the game.

[Kaylia]

So everyone would go after tier 2/3 and skip tier 1...

Like now you have Nyzul and Assault, but everyone does for Salvage instead...

And complains about Salvage drop rates, even though you can get Nyzul/Assault stuff in a shorter timeframe.

And still, those events would make anything that came before it obsolete. You'd end up doing 3 (or 1? I'm not sure) events, then 2, then 1... and SE still has to work their ass off to create 3 events so we'd end up with dynamis-bhaflau and so on, however with slight alterations (3 events a year is still better than one every update)

And if its just one event with 3 tiers, you'll be doing one single event for a year, without anything else. Is this really an improvement?

You cant, tier 2 is point progression and require a certain time to get. Tier 1 is the immediate reward you get for doing events.

Tier 1 would be the nyz/salv setv. Tier 2 is point/badge/token you gather while doing nyzul and salvage (and possibly other events). Tier 3 is like nyzul weapon, minus the insane alexandrite requirement.


[edit]
You can always gather points for new gears doing old events (just like Blizzard change the badge given occasionally at the end of instance), and tier 3 would be vastly superior to make you go back to any old events if you want the items.

[Hyan]

I would like to see you get to sky in 1 minute, even with a dem-ring, and crag teleport unlocked. And don't forget we went 5 whole years without any mean of teleport. They give these fix when it doesnt matter anymore.



Where the fuck did I say there is no possible way to make something interesting without jump?

Limiting movement to the the 2d plane does limit the diversity you can offer, and greatly.



Of course not, but I would rather take diversity and challenge, because the same script repeated multiple time isnt very challenging.

I'd show you, but I don't play anymore =(. Okay, 2 minutes =p.

I think people still do sky, so if you could explain why it doesn't matter anymore I'd be happy.

The topic at hand was "did they learn from their mistakes?" and so far it looks like yes, they did. Are they slow? I guess. Doesn't matter.

You said you want a test of skill, not patience. Implying that a slow paced game can't be a test of skill. Which is false.

There's enough diversity to offer even without jumping that no company can take advantage of all of it. With jumping there may be even more diversity than that, but no one will be able to take advantage of it as well as the advantages without jumping. In the end the game will be just as diverse without jumping as it'll be with it, as long as the developers ain't hit with a cap as to what you can do without jumping, and they won't- for a long ass time, if ever.

AI =! script.

[OzzofAsura]

Can you not jump in FFXIV? Seriously?

[Kaylia]

Depend of your definition of "learning from your mistake". Imo, they will learn from their mistake the day they address issue in a timely fashion, and the day they will start communicating with their player base.

Blizzard doesnt do everything the player want, but generally, one of their employee will give you a solid argument on the forum to explain why it's one way more than the other.

I would like to see SE's justify their actions using real argument (and not just evasive PR answer)

Can you not jump in FFXIV? Seriously?

If it's a serious question, they said you can't. Well, they said "it's not implemented for now, and we might reconsider it at a later time" or something like this.

In other word, they didnt make the game around this, so it wont happens.

[Hyan]

I was giving you my opinion, not yours... so, good for you? It's not like I want everyone to think it's a trashy game just because I do. I played for 4 years myself, but I didn't know how bad it was until I played other things. I didn't know fighting for the same gear for years on end was not the way everyone else did it, and I was probably too much of a FFXI fanboy to go and check. I won't make that mistake again.

I hope you enjoy it for another 5 years, but I don't think it's the excellent game design keeping you there.



Just wanted to throw that in there as it was one of my biggest problems with XI, and feel that it is true in many, MANY parts of the game.

So from fanboy to a hater? You're no better than before.

[Kaylia]

You said you want a test of skill, not patience. Implying that a slow paced game can't be a test of skill. Which is false.

There's enough diversity to offer even without jumping that no company can take advantage of all of it. With jumping there may be even more diversity than that, but no one will be able to take advantage of it as well as the advantages without jumping. In the end the game will be just as diverse without jumping as it'll be with it, as long as the developers ain't hit with a cap as to what you can do without jumping, and they won't- for a long ass time, if ever.

AI =! script.

I said this because FFXI is a test of patience. Every aspect of the game is incredibly slow, and the "bad" kind of slow.


AI is virtually impossible in a mmo environment (server limitation!). Everything is scripted to save processor a lot of times. And really, if there was an AI, it would just go rape the mage in the back and ignore the melee/tank. Script is the way to go.

[Hyan]

Depend of your definition of "learning from your mistake". Imo, they will learn from their mistake the day they address issue in a timely fashion, and the day they will start communicating with their player base.

Blizzard doesnt do everything the player want, but generally, one of their employee will give you a solid argument on the forum to explain why it's one way more than the other.

I would like to see SE's justify their actions using real argument (and not just evasive PR answer)

They already started communicating with their playerbase. We give them suggestions, they fix them in updates. What else do you need? Some kind of pampering to make you feel like a princess as a customer?

And that's one of the things you think are their "mistakes". Now you act like if they learned from that mistake, all the other mistakes would be taken care of as well?

Even if they come and tell about why they did things, that's not gonna change anything. More than anything, it'll make things worse. You think people are satisfied if SE comes out and starts an argument? Hell no, they won't believe them. That never happens. Just like now, did you just accept my answer or did you start arguing against me instead? So the "right thing to do" is to make SE argue with it's players like we do now? I'm not following your logic.

[Hyan]

I said this because FFXI is a test of patience. Every aspect of the game is incredibly slow, and the "bad" kind of slow.


AI is virtually impossible in a mmo environment (server limitation!). Everything is scripted to save processor a lot of times. And really, if there was an AI, it would just go rape the mage in the back and ignore the melee/tank. Script is the way to go.

Well I hope you realize that the way XI does it is not the only way.

What about an AI that reads your movements so you have to adapt to different situations? So you can't just attack with your best skill because the monster will start blocking it?

[Kaylia]

I'm not sure what game you played, but it was probably a different FFXI. You're the first person to ever say they are responsive.

[Kaylia]

Well I hope you realize that the way XI does it is not the only way.

What about an AI that reads your movements so you have to adapt to different situations? So you can't just attack with your best skill because the monster will start blocking it?

Like I said, from a programming standpoint, that kind of thing cant be done in a mmo. Maybe if it was limited to 1 mob that have only 1 instance, but that's beyond the point.


I really can't imagine a situation where an AI could be useful to counter a player action. You don't have enough (defensive or offensive) skills to create different outcome. A script will do a much better job at countering players and making the fight look the way you want it to be.

[Hyan]

You cant, tier 2 is point progression and require a certain time to get. Tier 1 is the immediate reward you get for doing events.

Tier 1 would be the nyz/salv setv. Tier 2 is point/badge/token you gather while doing nyzul and salvage (and possibly other events). Tier 3 is like nyzul weapon, minus the insane alexandrite requirement.


[edit]
You can always gather points for new gears doing old events (just like Blizzard change the badge given occasionally at the end of instance), and tier 3 would be vastly superior to make you go back to any old events if you want the items.

So in the end you'll be stuck grinding for points for 6 months or more? And after that a new event comes and all your tier 1/2/3 equipment is obsolete. It works as long as the drop rates are high enough, but to grind a year to get a relic, and then it becomes obsolete in the next patch? Sounds horrible.

And what would you do aside from grinding the event? You have 1 choice, and even if SE added the badges to older events who would do them, after grinding them for 1 year already? Not many.

So you're still stuck doing one event, this time for 1 year instead of maybe 3 months, and everything you worked for will be obsolete in a year.