FFXIV Closed Alpha/Beta Discussion (Cancelled for this week)

[Jinko]

The problem is that SE have been bound to FF11's engine for so long because of PS2 limitation, unlike other PC-only MMO developers who have seen their games evolve over the lifetime of the game.

As much as I hate bringing up WoW and comparing it to FF11 (because it causes hostility normally) the way in which blizzard has updated its game engine over the years is a good example of how skilled they are as a developer IMO.

SE haven't had the same kind of experience, although they have added stuff like Pankration, augmentation and other stuff they haven't really broken away from the actual game engine or its UI.

So in some ways I do feel there is a need to be concerned about them being a bit backwards with their game design, not guna say its guna be a piece of shit or anywhere near, but they probably need a good kick in the ass to get them moving in the right direction.

From what I have seen from the Alpha so far they are deffinately heading in a good direction.

[bluefan]

for phase 1 beta they should just let all the alpha people invite in 3 friends
and then for phase 2 let all the beta 1 players bring in 5

imagine how crazy that would be

That's actually a pretty fantastic idea.

[Lunarhawk]

It would encourage larger parties to test those higher level missions, linkshell/whatever they're called now testing, etc
assuming they were all implemented

sadly SE is probably just going to just keep choosing random applications

[GRT]

FFXIV has already more press attention than FFXI ever did in its entire life time(maybe excluding the last year or two). This might be because we are in the "Kotaku" era of game news these days.

EDIT: Also rant posts like Shaskoru, and the responses they get, ruin threads. Make a rant thread, pal.

Great idea. I'm all for separating FFXIV Closed Alpha/Beta Discussion (For praises) and FFXIV Closed Alpha Beta Discussion (For rants). This way we can bring the "discussion" back to the discussion.

[Stanislav]

- NMs and HNMs:

While being fairly unique for its time, and fun at that, it's a really bad system. Even if they correctly implement instancing, there is still the issue with spawn timers and drop rates. And that is assuming they do instance boss type fights. As of right now, it's probably one of the worst systems of FFXI and I don't think any amount of complaining will be able convey it more than it already has been, so I'll leave it at that.

Some of us like competition, and we know how instances are competitive right?

Only thing you find in WoW concerning competition is who can get world firsts, and that requires way more time and effort then afk-ing at camps while you do stuff in the real world like catch up with work or something.

So just because its a system you didn't like doesn't mean its a failed one. There is definitely room for instances and camps. I remember back when I played WoW my first time before the expansions, it was fun to do the world spawns, I enjoyed it more then the actual instances. Flash forward to when I played during WOTLK, it was fun to the instances for the first few times, but then it's boring, camping vs people in FFXI didn't get boring to me till the King became not so special anymore, and that took what? 6 years?

This is a massive-multiplayer game, instead of screaming to instance everything, there should be people looking for a solution to keep competition for guilds. There are casuals and hardcore, and you should never merge content for the two, and SE doesn't do that much (they have a little recently). If you want to be a casual and get some of the best gear in-game then go play WoW and wait for a new instance to come out so you can buy all the gear from the last instance and feel like you accomplished something.

On another note, I got to play the alpha last night.

If you have a good computer it runs pretty well, my i7 920 (OC to 3.66) was only using 25% (1 core) and my video cards were not any louder then when I played WoW. The one of the problems I had with the game that it does have the same controls as FFXI, but the characters move faster and the camera is more elastic which made for very weird side effects. The other problem is that the game is gorgeous, except for the textures for the rocks, is it me or they look hideous? I hope they fix that. That's all =)

[Tomino]

The issue some of you have on Party Invite amuses me.
You join a party to do something together on a specific landspot, what's the point of inviting people across the globe then? I think SE wished to stress the gathering of heroes instead of making just another chat channel.

Dropping realism often kills a game's feeling, which is vital on a persitent world like an MMO one.
When Guild Wars came out, it felt super cool to have instant teleport everywhere but guess what? It didnt give any feeling at all, it was like playing different stages of an arcade game, not like wandering on a fantasy land.
"Dead times" are useless on a single player game but they can work magics, imho, when properly implemented on an MMO.

[Jinko]

There is little point in argueing the party invite system.

You tell someone "want to join our party" they say yes, you say meet us at the X X X Aetherite crystal, they teleport there you invite, its simple.

[Alderaan]

I don't think it's fair to compare any companies customer service to Blizzards. Serious question, but what else has Blizzard had to do other than that? Sure SCII is coming out soon, but they haven't released anything since WoW.

The problem with other companies like SE and NCsoft is they release games and almost immediately begin work on another. Do these companies have dedicated teams of devs and customer service reps full time, or are they spread out all over the place? I, along with everyone else i'm sure would love the same customer service and dev feedback that Blizzard provides, but is that possible with companies like SE? Should they even enter the MMO market if they cannot?

[Jinko]

I don't think it's fair to compare any companies customer service to Blizzards. Serious question, but what else has Blizzard had to do other than that? Sure SCII is coming out soon, but they haven't released anything since WoW.

The problem with other companies like SE and NCsoft is they release games and almost immediately begin work on another. Do these companies have dedicated teams of devs and customer service reps full time, or are they spread out all over the place? I, along with everyone else i'm sure would love the same customer service and dev feedback that Blizzard provides, but is that possible with companies like SE? Should they even enter the MMO market if they cannot?

For the most part FF11's team is completely seperate to the other teams at SE.

[Azurewrath]

Kirb was right when he says he thinks Blizzard listens too much to their playerbase. I think it's pretty much agreed that most WoW players aren't the smarted motherfuckers in the lands. (Edit, lol'd at smarted motherfuckers :B derp)

WoW community gets defeated by a certain class, that class gets gimped, they suck at a certain class, class gets buffed. Every freaking week or 2. The game is old, they should have balanced it by now. I'm not a fan of that.

And someone said Square does everything wrong, they want everything to be instanced, etc etc. Your opinion.
I personally love competition. If I wanted instanced I'd go play an offline game. I want to be against other players, I want there to be a challenge, my skills up against another player, having the satisfaction of beating someone to the mob, healing them if they're dying, getting a claim on an NM as another guy is running to it too, and I want the experience of missing the NM pop, seeing the other guy get the item, getting a little bit mad, then finally getting the item, and that item then means 100x more to you than if it was in an instance where your max level friend killed everything and you get the drop no problem, no competition, just killing NPCs with absolutely nothing stopping you.

I think earlier FFXI (Pre treasures) was possibly a perfect game. It could have done with about 3x as many HNMs to camp, so it wasnt SO crowded, cause Nidhogg etc was a bit too much, but the regular NM system was perfect, minus gilsellers. If SE can get rid of them easier, a system like NMs in FFXI would make me the happiest guy out there

[revoemag]

There is little point in argueing the party invite system.

You tell someone "want to join our party" they say yes, you say meet us at the X X X Aetherite crystal, they teleport there you invite, its simple.

Yea, but the argument goes the other way, too. If it's so simple to invite somebody (because they can just teleport there quickly), then why not just let me invite them wherever they are? Maybe they want to finish crafting in the city while I find the rest of the party, but I still want to talk to him and whoever else is already in the party until we're all ready to go.\

And the "prevents random RMT invites" argument doesn't hold much water with me either. In FFXI especially, party invites were non-intrusive and if you didn't send me a /tell before-hand, I just wasn't going to accept it. No harm done.

[Kirb]

Kirb was right when he says he thinks Blizzard listens too much to their playerbase. I think it's pretty much agreed that most WoW players aren't the smarted motherfuckers in the lands.

I wouldn't single out WoW in particular, but simply consumers in general. It's just that WoW sticks out a bit more simply because they cater to such an incredibly large group of consumers.

[Shaskoru]

FFXIV has already more press attention than FFXI ever did in its entire life time(maybe excluding the last year or two). This might be because we are in the "Kotaku" era of game news these days.

EDIT: Also rant posts like Shaskoru, and the responses they get, ruin threads. Make a rant thread, pal.

This is a discussion thread, and I'm discussing mistakes that SE has made. Not to mention that this thread is mostly speculation with small amounts of new information being released here and there.

Some of us like competition, and we know how instances are competitive right?

Only thing you find in WoW concerning competition is who can get world firsts, and that requires way more time and effort then afk-ing at camps while you do stuff in the real world like catch up with work or something.

So just because its a system you didn't like doesn't mean its a failed one. There is definitely room for instances and camps. I remember back when I played WoW my first time before the expansions, it was fun to do the world spawns, I enjoyed it more then the actual instances. Flash forward to when I played during WOTLK, it was fun to the instances for the first few times, but then it's boring, camping vs people in FFXI didn't get boring to me till the King became not so special anymore, and that took what? 6 years?

This is a massive-multiplayer game, instead of screaming to instance everything, there should be people looking for a solution to keep competition for guilds. There are casuals and hardcore, and you should never merge content for the two, and SE doesn't do that much (they have a little recently). If you want to be a casual and get some of the best gear in-game then go play WoW and wait for a new instance to come out so you can buy all the gear from the last instance and feel like you accomplished something.

Do you like pvp? Whether or not on the answer, why are you care about a pvp aspect in a pve environment? Besides, the only "competition" at HNMs was who had more bots. I'm sure it's tons of fun to afk at camps while letting your bot do the claim, then you magically spring to life like the superhero you are and take down the enemy with your superior skill. Which is another thing, FFXI was really difficult. The only people who thought HNMs were fun were those oblivious to botting (seriously?) or those who botted. The (H)NM system promoted nothing but cheating. Even when players tried to create their own systems to increase fairness, there was always a group of people who just had to do something to fuck it up. This is entirely a different beast on its own, and I'm very surprised you brought it up given your shady past.

Kirb was right when he says he thinks Blizzard listens too much to their playerbase. I think it's pretty much agreed that most WoW players aren't the smarted motherfuckers in the lands.

WoW community gets defeated by a certain class, that class gets gimped, they suck at a certain class, class gets buffed. Every freaking week or 2. The game is old, they should have balanced it by now. I'm not a fan of that.

And someone said Square does everything wrong, they want everything to be instanced, etc etc. Your opinion.
I personally love competition. If I wanted instanced I'd go play an offline game. I want to be against other players, I want there to be a challenge, my skills up against another player, having the satisfaction of beating someone to the mob, healing them if they're dying, getting a claim on an NM as another guy is running to it too, and I want the experience of missing the NM pop, seeing the other guy get the item, getting a little bit mad, then finally getting the item, and that item then means 100x more to you than if it was in an instance where your max level friend killed everything and you get the drop no problem, no competition, just killing NPCs with absolutely nothing stopping you.

I think earlier FFXI (Pre treasures) was possibly a perfect game. It could have done with about 3x as many HNMs to camp, so it wasnt SO crowded, cause Nidhogg etc was a bit too much, but the regular NM system was perfect, minus gilsellers. If SE can get rid of them easier, a system like NMs in FFXI would make me the happiest guy out there

Most wow players are pretty dumb, but what the hell is with these grossly over-exaggerated class changes in wow? If you want competition, perhaps you should look into a game more oriented toward pvp. Competition is not an aspect of pve gameplay, and I doubt SE had teams of botters envisioned when they created (H)NMs.

[Jinko]

Yea, but the argument goes the other way, too. If it's so simple to invite somebody (because they can just teleport there quickly), then why not just let me invite them wherever they are? Maybe they want to finish crafting in the city while I find the rest of the party, but I still want to talk to him and whoever else is already in the party until we're all ready to go.\

I think this kind of goes back to the NDA thing, It's not been confirmed whether this feature will be part of the final release or its only in the Alpha because there is no search function yet.

I agree that HNM's did promote unfair competition, if you think that was fun then you are crazy, although I do miss the days of MPK madness.

[Alderaan]

I love competition more than anything, but claiming is not a competition or a challenge based on skill.

Give me a non instanced open world environment with competition that's actually based on skill and not luck.

[vrumpt]

I wouldn't single out WoW in particular, but simply consumers in general.

some wise words right here.

Final Fantasy XIII is proof SE can still make some incredible pieces of art. SE should listen to its fans, but i hope they do so with great care. nobody knows what they really truly want, but there are certain things that should be standard in this era.

[Azurewrath]

Most wow players are pretty dumb, but what the hell is with these grossly over-exaggerated class changes in wow? If you want competition, perhaps you should look into a game more oriented toward pvp. Competition is not an aspect of pve gameplay, and I doubt SE had teams of botters envisioned when created (H)NMs.

You're trying to tell me that people botted Leaping Lizzy? Get out of here. Obviously they'll do better to prevent botting. I saw countless levelling bots in WoW, that's just as bad, since there's no competition in WoW.

And Competition does not mean PVP. In WoW PVP, generally, certain classes are strong vs others and weak vs others, it has some skill involved, but in the end, it's very ability-based. That's why there's updates tweaking classes every week or two.

All games I've played with PVP are either horribly designed, or there's nothing to do and it's easy mode. I have maxed chars on WoW. WoW just didnt do it for me. Nothing to do, and when there is, a few months later new shit will be added and all the gear ive worked months to get is obsolete. Meh. I'll stick to FFXIV, and I'm not a fanboy, but early XI did it great. Treasures was when it went downhill, but the early stuff.. Spot on.

I want competition, not what nerd can find the cheapest combo of attacks to camp me at a graveyard, or vice versa.

[Azurewrath]

I love competition more than anything, but claiming is not a competition or a challenge based on skill.

Give me a non instanced open world environment with competition that's actually based on skill and not luck.

MMOs dont really involve skill like you're talking about. Just knowledge

[Jehr]

And someone said Square does everything wrong, they want everything to be instanced, etc etc. Your opinion.
I personally love competition. If I wanted instanced I'd go play an offline game. I want to be against other players, I want there to be a challenge, my skills up against another player, having the satisfaction of beating someone to the mob, healing them if they're dying, getting a claim on an NM as another guy is running to it too, and I want the experience of missing the NM pop, seeing the other guy get the item, getting a little bit mad, then finally getting the item, and that item then means 100x more to you than if it was in an instance where your max level friend killed everything and you get the drop no problem, no competition, just killing NPCs with absolutely nothing stopping you.

This this this... My favorite memories from FF11 involved the competition.. One I'll never forget is when I got my Dalmatica.. Server completely crapped out while we were fighting Nid and we were stuck fighting/holding it with 4 people or so for about 30 mins while people were trying to get back on.. The other LSes were calling GMs on us and the GMs were telling us they would jail us if we did not start killing it.. That will always stick with me no matter how long it's been since I quit the game just because it was such a genuine experience..

img146[dot]imageshack[dot]us/img146/6299/nidhogg6ej[dot]jpg

[solracht]

The problem I have with the NM/HNM system is it doesn't even feel competitive. You try to compete for 30minutes and then go back to AFKing, and even then, the only competition part is in claiming.

Pseudo-Instance the HNM: make the portal only open at a specific time, and only give rewards to the group that kills it the "best" way. Define "best" the way you want. I just I don't see how claiming is a good way to judge whether your LS is good enough to fight the mob.

Note - personally I don't even agree with the system I just mentioned, but it's the closest thing I could think of that resembles our HNM system but actually pits players against each other, rather than claimers or bots.

If you actually like competition, hope for a system that actually feels competitive, at least. If you actually want to pit your skills against other players, hope for a system that actually lets you do that, rather than only testing how good you are at claiming a mob.