FFXIV at Vanafest

[Meresgi]

According to many, this is apparently how MMORPGs are "supposed" to be designed and FFXI did it "horribly wrong".

Right, because there's nothing like feeling you just wasted 4months for no reason XD. FFXI's system had it right for the most part, other then some of the gear being amazing for far too long, I enjoyed that some pieces could be swapped in and out to improve yourself in certain situations. In WoW it's just "Well we got Tier Y....in 5months Tier X will be better and then Tier Z will replace even that."


As for your quote Eagle. "WoW is a fun, casual game that offers you the MMO experience without a lot of the tediousness seen in other MMO's "


I find WoW to be very tedious and like most MMOs in that regard. You grind out rep bars, you grind out the dungeons to be able to grind out raid dungeons. You grind out gear to grind out more gear. While the same could be said for most if not all MMOs, I would enjoy a game that focused more on the story telling and less on the carrot on the stick grind for gear.

Which I believe Blizzard is amazing at. Their carrot on a stick strategy never ceases to amaze me. "Druid skins will be in WoTLK launch...they will be in the patch after this...the one after this one. Dance Studio will be in WoTLK launch...nevermind it will be in Cataclsym. The barbershop will allow you to customize your hair....oh wait it will just let you put pre-existing hairstyles of other races, and even then only a select few."

Comparison of FFXI to WoW though can't really be done. WoW caters to casual players who don't want to spend more then 2hrs a day on it, but want rewards and something to do. FFXI catered to a more hardcore playerbase that had 5-7hrs a day or so and pushed a much deeper story.

[Eaglestrike]

FFXI pushed a more mysterious and more emotional story, but I wouldn't necessarily say "deeper". And the actual story content of FFXI is less common than in WoW. Far more quests that have a story to tell in WoW. Story is something FFXI did well, but there still wasn't much of it. Like I posted in another thread, you have a day to do your new missions after a patch and then you afk in Whitegate for 2 months. That's what FFXI turned into for me. Sure, I did the occasional Salvage/Assault. But Sky wasn't worth spending 5-7 hours on to get a piece of gear for a job I rarely played since I had all my THF gear. Sea I think I even finished. Full Homam too. What was there for me to do? Level another job? I could barely get my DRK into a group, when it did, the group was often terrible and slow.

I think making a game under the assumption your playerbase has 5-7 hours a day to play the game is poor design. I do nothing with my life, no job, no school and I don't even want to be playing the same game for 5-7 hours a day when I have the free time to do so. My friends from WoW are your average geeks that have families now and they do not have 5-7 hours to put into a game.

And I got a Mandau. All of my playtime in WoW does not mount up the amount of tedious I put into a single item in FFXI. The levels of tedious are completely different between the games.

[GRT]

Why do people think WotLK was bad? I mean I stopped playing because I can no longer invest so much time, but I thought the whole intent and execution was pretty flawless. Both end of the spectrum got what they wanted, and enough new content was put in to be worth the money.

[Meresgi]

Why do people think WotLK was bad? I mean I stopped playing because I can no longer invest so much time, but I thought the whole intent and execution was pretty flawless. Both end of the spectrum got what they wanted, and enough new content was put in to be worth the money.

The hardcores hated it because it was made so easy, the moderate players dislike it because...well it's boring. The people who enjoy the lore dislike it because it took a shit all over it. It's an OK expansion for a MMO...but not something I would expect of a company making as much as Blizzard is, having the background they do, and having an expansion under their belt already.


Also Dalaran, nuff said.

[Eaglestrike]

The hardcores hated it because it was made so easy, the moderate players dislike it because...well it's boring. The people who enjoy the lore dislike it because it took a shit all over it. It's an OK expansion for a MMO...but not something I would expect of a company making as much as Blizzard is, having the background they do, and having an expansion under their belt already.


Also Dalaran, nuff said.

Only Naxx was clearly easy. OS3D was hard back in the day, Ulduar hard modes, ToGC and now ICC heroic are plenty challenging.

The only "boring" part of this expansion for me was the wait between Naxx and Ulduar. It got old to us in Feb or so and we had to make it to April, killed my guild at the time. I've enjoyed the raids and I don't dread going to the raids like I used to dread going into TK or SSC and having to deal with that trash.

I don't see how the lore was ruined, seriously. There is possibly some retconning going on with Frostmourne/Arthas/LK, but I don't consider that terrible, and there's clearly more to the story that we have not been told yet that could answer some questions people have. The only thing truly disappointing to me in WotLK is Rhonin, guy has done nothing.

[Meresgi]

Hard Modes =/= challenge. Making the boss just hit harder and AoE doesnt not equate to challenging. Also making people who WANT a challenge have to fight the same bosses they just farmed over and over again for a piece of gear that looks exactly the same but has "heroic" written on it...is retarded =\.

[Eaglestrike]

Hard Modes =/= challenge. Making the boss just hit harder and AoE doesnt not equate to challenging. Also making people who WANT a challenge have to fight the same bosses they just farmed over and over again for a piece of gear that looks exactly the same but has "heroic" written on it...is retarded =\.

Making bosses only a small % of the playerbase can do is poor design, plain and simple. If you can't see that point, I don't see a point in debating things with you. Hard modes are an EXCELLENT solution to allow people to actually play the content created while giving players their challenge.

Itemization and such should be changed for hard modes, I agree, but maybe they'll change that for Cataclysm since they have a better idea of how to go about hard modes now. And hard modes are challenging. Palin, a poster on these forums was quoted stating that ToGC25 Anub'arak was Sunwell-level of difficulty when it was first released.

[Meresgi]

Making bosses only a small % of the playerbase can do is poor design, plain and simple. If you can't see that point, I don't see a point in debating things with you. Hard modes are an EXCELLENT solution to allow people to actually play the content created while giving players their challenge.

Making encounters like that IS a poor design, I agree...but that reason most people did not see the encounters was only partially due to skill. most of it was due to the insane amount of buffs/flasks/ out of raid farming that it took. My issue with hardmodes is more about the laziness factor in design. Just rehashing the bosses and gear is what disappoints me. I felt the same thing in FFXI when a piece of gear was just the exact same model but a different hue.

[Celeras]

I don't see how the lore was ruined, seriously.

I was actually going to reply to each part of your thread individually, but couldn't proceed with coherent typing after I read "I don't see how the lore was ruined". You are no longer worth the time, so here's the TLDR. Not only do the majority of encounters lack any discernible difficulty, but the majority of them(not even including Naxx) are ripoffs of Vanilla encounters. And the PvP has been made equally scrub-friendly. If you'd like to see another expansion of quality decline, feel free.

Also, you're a retard for starting this conversation in the FFXIV forum, in a Vanafest thread.

[edit] Moving on, did we here if Elmer is going to be there or no?

[Lordender]

Least FFXIV won't be dictated by gearscore, but anyhow moving on.

I hope there is a lot of info that comes out, you know people aren't going to give a crap about anything 11 related because most smart people will be moving on from 11 to 14 sometime this year. I wouldn't expect a beta date but I hope they have a whole lot of info to share.

[altwight]

How do people find pleasure in gearing an 80 alt on WoW in a single day pleasing?

Story:

Guildmate got his mage to 80. We pugged 25toc he got 4 pieces of loot. We moved on to TOGC10 where he got another 3 pieces of loot. ICC10 up to putricide and then icc25 and in a single day he had 2700WH 5400GS.

THAT'S SO FUN!

Another argument.

My paladin hit 80 I spammed heroics for a good 8hours got 4piece t9. Went straight into ICC10 and topped heals and did perfectly fine. After ICC10 pugged an icc25 the following day and downed putricide and i topped heals and healed perfectly fine

So in a sense anymore gear than what I already have is overkill and useless. WoW rocks!

[Eaglestrike]

I wasn't aware obtaining gear was the only possible enjoyment in an MMO. I tend to also enjoy, you know, playing the game. Gear not being the incredibly arduous task keeping me from getting to play the game how I want is a very good thing.

[Charismatic]

When there's nothing to do in the game besides kill things/people for gear... how is obtaining gear not the only possible enjoyment? lol

[Meresgi]

When there's nothing to do in the game besides kill things/people for gear... how is obtaining gear not the only possible enjoyment? lol

QFT

Unless you really REALLY love doing those dailies, or you RP.

[Kaylia]

How do people find pleasure in gearing an 80 alt on WoW in a single day pleasing?

Story:

Guildmate got his mage to 80. We pugged 25toc he got 4 pieces of loot. We moved on to TOGC10 where he got another 3 pieces of loot. ICC10 up to putricide and then icc25 and in a single day he had 2700WH 5400GS.

THAT'S SO FUN!

Another argument.

My paladin hit 80 I spammed heroics for a good 8hours got 4piece t9. Went straight into ICC10 and topped heals and did perfectly fine. After ICC10 pugged an icc25 the following day and downed putricide and i topped heals and healed perfectly fine

So in a sense anymore gear than what I already have is overkill and useless. WoW rocks!

Here is another

I was naked, used utsu over and over and won the fight. That sure was hard.

FFXI doesnt require more skill to play. You might argue it require a bit more planning with job, but thats mostly irrelevant. once you master the base, both game become a joke.


Anyway, you don't play WoW for gears, there is plenty of other motivation. If all you care about is gears progress...your loss.

[Kaylia]

When there's nothing to do in the game besides kill things/people for gear... how is obtaining gear not the only possible enjoyment? lol

Achievement and trying to master every fight
Be ahead of people
Beat the "top tier content"

[Whaleporn]

Strange, it seems every topic that tangetally involves fixing what's wrong with FFXI going into 14 slides into WoW chat...

*puts on sherlock holmes hat* we have a mystery here gentlemen!

[Lordender]

Not even sure why WoW is even in the coversation other than making a joke here and there. It's simple, really, FFXIV will either be great because SE learned a lot from their failures in XI or it'll be just another game people try out for the first free month and go back to what they were doing before it.

SE has one at-bat this time around to hit the homerun. People will be more skeptical and leave a hell of a lot quicker this time around if there is much carry over BS that plagued XI. Hopefully they have learned from their mistakes and the whole system that FFXIV is built upon can be easily adjusted so they have no excuses as to why something cannot be changed.

[Whaleporn]

Not even sure why WoW is even in the coversation other than making a joke here and there. It's simple, really, FFXIV will either be great because SE learned a lot from their failures in XI or it'll be just another game people try out for the first free month and go back to what they were doing before it.

SE has one at-bat this time around to hit the homerun. People will be more skeptical and leave a hell of a lot quicker this time around if there is much carry over BS that plagued XI. Hopefully they have learned from their mistakes and the whole system that FFXIV is built upon can be easily adjusted so they have no excuses as to why something cannot be changed.

WoW is mentioned because it's the most successful MMO on the market/ever released.

I agree with the one time at bat.

[Lucavi]

I guess I don't see the fun in WoW anymore. With the lack of challenge, the fact that each patch update almost completely negates all the gear you worked for, and how easy it is to even get gear. I just leveled a priest to 80 on alliance less then a week ago. I have my full T9 set, ToC25man wpn, and a bunch of other junk. Only thing I need to replace are blue bracers I got while leveling. I enjoyed back in the day, not even PreBC, when it would take awhile to get geared up. Granted I can see why it was changed because of what I previously mentioned of how gear becomes obsolete so fast, and the need for alts in WoW.


Sorry but explain this o_O

Do hard modes if you want a challenge. Go beat Alagon if you want to talk about easymode - he drops nice loot for you.

Strange, it seems every topic that tangetally involves fixing what's wrong with FFXI going into 14 slides into WoW chat...

*puts on sherlock holmes hat* we have a mystery here gentlemen!

That's an easy mystery to solve. FF-purists want FF to stay like FF, and not become like other MMOs. WoW is the biggest target dummy on the other side.

I never hear people talking about how they wish FF wouldn't turn out like Age of Conan or Darkfall Online or Mortal Online, but those games are all apparently under the grid, especially Mortal, because they aren't as easy to insult.