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

[Shaskoru]

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.

If you think people don't bot leaping lizzy, then what the fuck are you playing. It was worse when it dropped the non rare/ex version, but seriously?

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.

There is not, nor ever was an update to tweak classes every week or two. The most that was done was a monthly thing, which was after expansions, or to fix glaring issues in server resets on tuesdays that happened regardless.

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

Spending 3 hours in one location based on an irregular schedule and afking in 30 minute intervals then letting your bot do the rest of the work must be really fun for people.

Edit: I want to know exactly how competition is not a pvp aspect. Who are you competing against if it is not with other players (and their bots)?

[Ryuushin]

Here's the thing.. people competed a lot for gear in FFXI whereas in WoW gear was much easier to obtain but then updates would make those pieces of gear obsolete so quick..

[Alderaan]

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

Eliminating luck in respect to world bosses is a step in the right direction. Standing around for 24-48 hours, to my knowledge, is not efficient.

[Stanislav]

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.

While there may not be skill required to kill them for a long time now, its still a sort of competition. Luck or not, its still competition. In the end someone gets the mob and someone doesn't, it introduces scarcity for something, and makes items special, rather then temporary specialness as you find in WoW.

My mistake was mentioning kings, a better example is Khimaira or Tiamat, and which guild can mobile fast enough.

It is an awesome feeling knowing that I have not played for 1 year and my character is still special and my efforts were not in vain, in contrast to my WoW character which could be out geared a newly level 80 by doing Heroics and buying gear from an NPC, about a month after I quit.

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.

It's a well known fact that most HNMLS bot, and I have bottled in the past a lot as well, but anyone who believes bots guarantee claims were oblivious to how it worked. I have claimed Kings countless times manually by spinning my camera and spamming an ability, and its quite an awesome feeling when you do get lucky to get the claim, its no different then going to a Casino (people find that fun).

As for bringing up my "shady past." Way to throw something irrelevant into the argument here. Instead of remembering BG topics from 2005, be more current about my "past."

[Jinko]

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.

Now if FF14 did this and the LS/Team won the item/s based on the time it took to down the boss then that would truely be competition :D

[Stanislav]

Now if FF14 did this and the LS/Team won the item/s based on the time it took to down the boss then that would truely be competition :D

This approach would work, best group gets the loot, everyone gets to fight.

[zymurgy]

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

Any company that decides to make an MMO or any other game is doing it for one reason. I know all of you think that the reason that companies make MMOs is so that you can have fun, but newsflash, they do it to make money.

So let's discuss the HNM system in FFXI and how it's such a great idea and why they should do it again. SE invests money into creating this new game. Their hope is to make money. How do they make money? People need to renew their subscriptions.

Scenario: Fafnir spawns between 5pm and 8pm PST. LS goes to camp him. People who actually have jobs get home and go waste 2 hours of their night helpinig camp only to get outpulled by botters. Jobless kids decide that they can easily stomp the competition by holding said HNM until the spawn timer falls to a point where the majority of players can not even be on because they have other things to do outside of the game.

Let's consider things logically guys. There are many different types of players. Hardcore people with no jobs, hardcore people with jobs, casual gamers etc... It would be in SE's best interest to appeal to EVERYONE. I know it may be hard to wrap your head around the idea of actually working for 8 hours a day, but consider it from the point of view of a person that does:

What game would this person rather play? A game where they can get together with a group of people who share similar schedules and kill fun hard stuff any time of the day or week? Or a game where if they want something specific, they can only get it from one mob and that mob has a spawn timer and only one group can get it every X number of days?

"I personally love competition. If I wanted instanced I'd go play an offline game." - since when has PVE been competitive in more "modern" MMOs?

In conclusion, people don't make MMOs for the purpose of you having fun. They do it to make money. That means it's in their best interest to appeal to the masses.

[Skeletor1278]

I mostly agree with Shaskoru's point as well.

To be honest, when I first played FFXI I had all the time in the world to play it. Now, well, not so much.

IMO, FFXI was following the trend of MMO's before it, in terms of its core. As do all MMO's released post-WoW. What I hope to see out of a game like FFXIV, is a strong game that's able to hold a great amount of players and a game that allows me to spend most of my time PLAYING IT instead of waiting and waiting and waiting. Which IMO, was FFXI's biggest drawback. The game simply took too long to adapt to players that couldn't dedicate a plethora of hours to it in order to experience what the game had to offer, WoW has achieved that but perhaps a bit too extreme.

Judging from the rhythm of the first stages of the Alpha, and the interviews and info we have so far, it looks like SE is trying to do that with FFXIV and make it more accessible to those who play it.

PS: I absolutely hated HNM/NM camping. Please don't tell me a system that has you waiting for hours and hours for a 'chance' to fight said mob is an effective system. But then again, it is my opinion after all.

[Alderaan]

Now if FF14 did this and the LS/Team won the item/s based on the time it took to down the boss then that would truely be competition :D

This was pretty much Aion. Every boss turned into a dps race to see who got drops. There was a completely different claiming system though where anyone could come along and hit the mob you're fighting.

Personally, i liked that more than who claims first, but it's still flawed.

[Jerseyprophet]

Notorius monsters and HNMs are one of the greatest reasons FFXI was so memorable. From Claiming Lizzy to racing other LSs to Despot. It created a high and addiction that was incredibly rewarding.

I have a toon in wow, and instances work there - but it would break my heart to see FF14 use instances and do away with NMs. Please, SE, leave NMs. Additional instances are wonderful, but there has to be some competition and community fights. Thats what adds to the socialism. Personally, I would love to see both in 14. Instance AND NMs, both with different rewards. Different options for your level and job.

Instances are great for a few friends, a solo mission with a nice challenge and reward, or an entire LS with random specific drops (just like wow). And NMs are great...well, for the feeling we all get from FFXI with NMs. I didnt go anywhere without tabbing through mobs or widescanning. Seeing a NM got your heart thumping. My personal favorite feature of FFXI.

Why not have both?

[Lunarhawk]

They should just make all NM/HNM part of the quests where they create the mob so that only your group can see it and then limit it so you can only complete it once per day. Don't get the drop you want? Try again tomorrow.
Or some crazy thing like that.

But I think they've already said there's going to be mobs like that outside of quests already so that idea was dead before it began

[Stanislav]

In conclusion, people don't make MMOs for the purpose of you having fun. They do it to make money. That means it's in their best interest to appeal to the masses.

Call me oblivious, but SE does not target the masses, they target specific people, while for example Blizzard targets anything that can use a mouse.

[Jinko]

In conclusion, people don't make MMOs for the purpose of you having fun. They do it to make money. That means it's in their best interest to appeal to the masses.

So in that case SE failed as the masses are all playing WoW. :Z

Notorius monsters and HNMs are one of the greatest reasons FFXI was so memorable

For you maybe, but for me it was community and storyline.

[Eldan]

I have very mixed feelings about NM's... It is horrible when you have to search an area for the monster to have a chance at getting the claim, to have a chance at getting the drop.

HOWEVER, nothing in a game has given me such a good feeling as getting empress hairpin or lizzy's boots [i never played in far enough to kill much harder NMs].

[solracht]

This was pretty much Aion. Every boss turned into a dps race to see who got drops. There was a completely different claiming system though where anyone could come along and hit the mob you're fighting.

Personally, i liked that more than who claims first, but it's still flawed.

In a system like that (referring to the system the post you quoted quotes) you don't have to reward the group that kills the fastest. Like I said, define "best" the way you want. We could be arguing forever about what makes a LS worthy of items over a different one, so I won't get into that.

In the end you could even make the game randomize which way it wants the groups to kill the HNM every day. Those that came prepared for everything would win most of the times.

[Azurewrath]

FFXI and WoW were different games. I personally loved FFXI, some people like WoW where you can do anything any time and get everything you want whenever you want.

I don't

Other people don't

If you do

Play WoW

if you dont

Play another game

Simple

Cause I can pretty much assure you WoW will keep popping out new content making everything you did useless and making you do the same thing to get your awesome tier gear back. If you like that, good for you

[rahskala]

Sorry if I don't feel like reading 86 pages to confirm this, but I think I have a good summary of the debate so far:

FFXI: Worst game ever.
FFXIV: Worst game ever?

[samalis]

Call me oblivious, but SE does not target the masses, they target specific people, while for example Blizzard targets anything that can use a mouse.

It kinda irks me to see these kinds of posts. Even though Blizzard does cater to casuals they also add challenges for the "hardcore" players. I mean if you think Hard mode Lich King is easy then lol.

Edit: I think adding more fight mechanics to bosses like Blizzard does is something I would like to see in FFXIV.

[Alderaan]

I still get all pumped up 30 seconds before a window after all these years. I guess that's one aspect that i'd miss as it's kept me entertained all this time. It just gets to a point where you realize you're not camping for gear, you're camping for money and to cock block.

[Shaskoru]

It's a well known fact that most HNMLS bot, and I have bottled in the past a lot as well, but anyone who believes bots guarantee claims were oblivious to how it worked. I have claimed Kings countless times manually by spinning my camera and spamming an ability, and its quite an awesome feeling when you do get lucky to get the claim, its no different then going to a Casino (people find that fun).

As for bringing up my "shady past." Way to throw some irrelevant into the argument here. Instead of remembering BG topics from 2005, be more current about my "past."

I know that bots are not a guaranteed claim, but people don't use them because of their awesome GUI interfaces made in visual basic.

Your past is very relevant, as it pertains to your behavior and opinion on the subject at hand. Would you have thought that "competition" at kings was fun if you were botless and outnumbered? Asking me to be more current about your past is laughable - I am not your keeper. Your accomplishments do not mean anything to me, as mine do to you. It is not an issue of being up-to-date, unless you completely reversed your position on botting in general - which I doubt is the case with your previous statements.

Also, since this was probably lost:

I want to know exactly how competition is not a pvp aspect. Who are you competing against if it is not with other players (and their bots)?