FFXIV Random Speculation/Question thread II: Let's Speculate the Speculations

[Hyan]

Makes it sound like so you can't just have some high level beat on your mobs for you and finish your quests in seconds for you.

I wonder if there's some kind of cap to each guildleve in that case?

Like, if you try to accept guildleve and Then invite the high level friend, that wouldn't work. And if there's a "phys. level 10" cap on the quest or something, the high level friend wouldn't be able to help then either (or would be synced to correct level range).

Assuming if you join the group you'll be able to see the leve mobs regardless of having the quest flagged.. if that's what that line means.

[Lucavi]

I can't say anything other than a speculation, but if its a flat rate of experience/cash, then they really wouldn't need to cap it (in terms of balance). If it takes 800 EXP to hit level 2, yet 88,000 to hit level 75 (for reference), you really don't have to scale or adjust the reward to keep that high level from not wanting to do it.

If he's just out there to help out, then I suppose that's no big deal. I mean, plenty of 75's rushed their low level friends through all sorts of stuff: key hunts, coffer hunts, Genkai runs. I don't see a problem with letting high levels help out, especially if they're still trying to keep this sense of "community".

I wouldn't care one way or another, but I admit that FFXI would have sucked a bit more if high levels were forbidden to help out on some of those God awful coffer and Genkai runs. Having a level 40-45 having to smack up some Exorays was NOT a good time.

[Dizzy]

This is all very true. My problem with 11 right now is I could not decide what healing/ support job I wanted to do because so many are contriversial EXCEPT RDM AND BRD. -_- I wanted to play DNC originally, but so many people dislike it cause its not COOKIE CUTTER or w/e, so I went with WHM. OH BUT WAIT!! WHM gets out done by RDM for merit parties and other things, so how am I suppose to get merit points on my WHM if thats the only job I want to play. So then I thought SCH. Same thing and it doesn't have Haste...so other downfall. Then I thought, I hate RDM. I hate it so much I will never play it because I feel forced to play it to be needed.

I like to play jobs based on their usefulness, scarcity, challenge, and uniqueness .(as with DNC, it healed and buffed in an interesting way). RDM turned me off a lot because everyone I know has RDM 75 or mains RDM. :\ I mean jesus christ! >< If 14 turns out like this, where one mage class/ support class rules over I will be so mad... I can't play the game how I want to because others are asshats and can't do things differently based on what is available. :\ I hope this mind set changes. Also, I hope SE thinks about how they make jobs and classes a little better. I don't want another DNC. (I loved this job so much, but even my good friend told me he wouldn't take me in end game stuff..)

I'm now currently lvling BRD because it's needed at all levels and I don't have to worry about not getting a party. /pout (RDM is not an option for me and never will be. I REFUSE to play it.)

Oh well, here is to hopes for 14 to be a bit more "balanced".

1) Level RDM
2) Only use it for meriting
3) Don't tell anyone you leveled it so you don't get forced to play it for events.
4) ???
5) PROFIT!

[Hyan]

I figure that would make the game too easy though.

Of course one could ask how hard can grinding for levels/items be in the first place, but if someone can get the best rewards from a 5 star guildleve simply by letting his high level friend join, then rape the leve mobs for him, I don't think that would be good in the end.

Just like when you do the Shadow Lord fight these days, you take one high level friend with you and watch him kill it for you.

I mean it's good if once there are no people at level 55-60 they would uncap the fight or something because at that point you couldn't get help anyway, but I think it shouldn't be abusable.

Not to mention exping, when you have a PL out there to help with healing and you can tell your mages "yeah no need to heal/watch for nuke hate" and tanks "no need to voke or manage hate just let it hit the PL", players will lack that little skill that is required to play this game well. I don't think that's an issue here though, just an example.

EDIT: We are once again playing with fire though, so I'll just end it here :D.

[qpoiuwer]

I can't say anything other than a speculation, but if its a flat rate of experience/cash, then they really wouldn't need to cap it (in terms of balance). If it takes 800 EXP to hit level 2, yet 88,000 to hit level 75 (for reference), you really don't have to scale or adjust the reward to keep that high level from not wanting to do it.

This is fine, but where the problem lies is in the reverse. If a level 50 guy kills a level 40 monster and gets 2000 exp for it, then level 1 guy with him shoots up 8 levels immediately. There needs to be some kind of limits in place on one end or the other to prevent stuff like this.

[Lucavi]

^ That answer is simple - have guildelves progress in order, like quest lines. You can't get to the rank 40 ones without going through the intial ones.

FFXII and FFXIII both followed this system with their "quest-based quests", so I'd wager FFXIV will follow suit.

The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

[Tomino]

Square is a company that very rarely balances jobs, and people flock to flavor of the month.

Blizzard is a company that constantly tries to balance jobs, and people still flock to flavor of the month.

I always felt that Square never really needed to balance jobs since you're always free to go and level the next big thing. Your character is there, it simply becomes more versatile.
This said, I met a lot of players who picked their jobs out of personal tastes and not gains, other who levelled bard to get anything for their dark knight and so on...
Since you can always try a new job, it could even be considered "content" because any new "power shift" (think RNG, or NIN, or SAM) encourages players to level something out, thus more grind, thus more cash for SE.

In WoW, if i'm playing my paladin since 3 years, got all achieves and whatelse, it'd terrible to suddenly "suck" because of game imbalance, and that's why Blizzard is always walking the line making constant buffs/nerfs, almost on annoying basis

[Kaslo]

Can someone tl;dr the last few pages? Is it just:

I wanna see food stats! I don't!

Shit is cookie-cutter

I wanna unique!

Unique is immaterial, it will all eventually be cookie-cutter!

[mai ikari]

Can someone tl;dr the last few pages? Is it just:

I wanna see food stats! I don't!

Shit is cookie-cutter

I wanna unique!

Unique is immaterial, it will all eventually be cookie-cutter!

If there's anything else, it got drowned out by the amount of what you just summarized. Oh, and there's a question of what would happen if you brought a high-level on a low-level's guildleve. But since nobody is high-level in the alpha yet (and with the level capped at 20 of 50, it isn't really possible), question is unanswered.

My personal guess, since you can select leve difficulty (from solo to 15-man), and higher difficulty gives better rewards on future guildleves, there'll be some restriction in place, perhaps limiting maximum leve difficulty with somebody more than X levels over you in party.

[Lucavi]

I always felt that Square never really needed to balance jobs since you're always free to go and level the next big thing. Your character is there, it simply becomes more versatile.
This said, I met a lot of players who picked their jobs out of personal tastes and not gains, other who levelled bard to get anything for their dark knight and so on...
Since you can always try a new job, it could even be considered "content" because any new "power shift" (think RNG, or NIN, or SAM) encourages players to level something out, thus more grind, thus more cash for SE.

In WoW, if i'm playing my paladin since 3 years, got all achieves and whatelse, it'd terrible to suddenly "suck" because of game imbalance, and that's why Blizzard is always walking the line making constant buffs/nerfs, almost on annoying basis

Its not a good or a bad thing, IMO. Its just what SE does. The only complaint I have with it is stagnation of a favorite job.

For example. Drg was my favorite job, and still is (The spirit of what the job is, not so much what it was in FFXI), out of any MMO I've played. I capped my Drg merits back in early 07, and had literally nothing to look forward to for years.

FFXI allowed for people to switch jobs, and I did, and leveled quite a few others, but Drg was always the job I wanted to play, all the time, no matter what the situation. Such was my boredom with not being able to progress in any meaningful way (skills, gear, abilities) that pld eventually began to fill that roll; not because I thoroughly enjoyed pld, but simply because it wasn't maxed out and I could build it up at my own leisure through campaign.

The system of stagnation, justified (but never confirmed by SE, which many people have yet to understand) and somewhat comforted by the knowledge that you can switch jobs at any time for a fresh set of wheels down the same highway, meant that for guys like me; the guy that liked his one car, and simply wanted to keep pimping it out and seeing it advance both in looks, but also in performance, were out of luck.

FFXIV looks to change some of that by way of the massive amounts of abilities and techniques they already have listed. Drg initially had a circle, three jumps, and a wyvern that used a pre-set number of abilities depending on subjob. That's not exactly a whole lot of variety, unless you were soloing or something, and even then, it was dia or barspell-spam.

Lancer looks to have at least 15 moves right off the back that we know about, and with more on the way as the game advances, I will, just like with my Hunter in WoW, have a ton of moves to play with and different styles to play. This makes a one-trick pony-lover like myself very, very happy.

[Jinko]

It's unlikely there is any restriction with high level help with guildleves in place at the moment but I can deffinately see that happening.

Perhaps a forced level-sync when your party undertakes the leve would be enough.

Of course this won't stop outside help healing.

[Khamsin]

^ That answer is simple - have guildelves progress in order, like quest lines. You can't get to the rank 40 ones without going through the intial ones.

FFXII and FFXIII both followed this system with their "quest-based quests", so I'd wager FFXIV will follow suit.

The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

That doesn't help with a lowbie tagging along on a high level xp party.

There'll probably be some scaling of xp for lower party members, if mob experience isn't based on the highest level of the party anymore. If you're too far below someone, you probably won't get anything. Otherwise, you just find something that's IT to the lowbie, and too weak for the high level, and go to town.

[King Zuca]

i say if newbasaurs want to go into easy mode and get high lvl help, so be it. if anything its only ruining the experience for them and stopping them from progressing skillwise. for me all the players that were power-lvl'd the whole way or bought gil or used any shortcut ended up sucking ass at the game anyways.

[Gidonidon]

Any more details on grouping other than guildleves? Like, can I and a buddy team-up and exp? I guess what I want to know is if the game will be a party-based grind system like FFXI or more quest-based (guildleve) like WoW? It is my opinion that forcing people to party together made the FFXI community so strong. It was not perfect, but I really hope FFXIV is similar in style to the current FFXI where exp is gained at a maximum in 6-person parties but you can also get exp from events like FoV or campaign, etc. In that system your rewarded for working with others.

What is party size cap? 6 again? Is there raid capability in terms of party structure?

[King Zuca]

Any more details on grouping other than guildleves? Like, can I and a buddy team-up and exp? I guess what I want to know is if the game will be a party-based grind system like FFXI or more quest-based (guildleve) like WoW? It is my opinion that forcing people to party together made the FFXI community so strong. It was not perfect, but I really hope FFXIV is similar in style to the current FFXI where exp is gained at a maximum in 6-person parties but you can also get exp from events like FoV or campaign, etc. In that system your rewarded for working with others.

What is party size cap? 6 again? Is there raid capability in terms of party structure?

cap is currently at 15 ppl. i agree, i liked that you had a real sense of comradery in ffxi, but it did lack options when it came to leveling. i too hope they really fix this. i dont see them getting it perfectly right at launch, but im sure it will get better the older the game gets

[Loaar]

After reading the last page or so it seems that people are assuming guildleves are like quests from other MMO's. While thats right in a fashion, there are a few differences.

Leves do not provide an exp reward at this stage. Only mobs do but that is possibly an alpha restriction.

FFXIV still has FFXI style quests as well. The leve system seems to be to provide some direction to people leveling, let you do short, repeatable content at your own pace and in your available playtime, and gives you basic item and gil rewards.

[Jinko]

Yup Guildleves are basically Field Training 2.0, this time they give you better incentives with gil and rewards but remove the completion xp.

[Siatdiat]

Sounds like you're talking about Blizzard's "Bring the Player, not the class", where every class has something useful to bring, be they unique buffs and skills to bring to a raid, just about the largest (controlled) group setting in the game.

It works to a point, but also has its flaws. Some people complain of homogenizing of skills so that one class isn't specifically brought over another. This happens because people will eventually figure out the easiest way to get all of the major buffs between the fewest people possible, and then will simply stack more of the "best" class to fill the raid. Look at it as simply stacking more blms back in the day, or currently stacking more sams or KC drks.

There's also the problem that each class (job) has three specs, but people will theorycraft until they find the best one (assuming at least 2 of 3 specs are for DPS) and will simply stick with that class. Take hunters, for example. Their Pet spec, beastmastery, was all but ignored after the second expansion because it fell behind in DPS to the other specs. Hence, there was no more "uniqueness", because everyone just switched to the other two specs. Before that, everyone just used BM or Marksman spec, ignoring Survival, so really, there never was any uniqueness there. People just used what was the strongest, unless they were either stubborn and loved their particular spec, or they were somehow allowed to go another spec in their raiding guilds.

It would be no different in FF. You'll always have a small handful of people that want to do things their own way and walk their own path, but the majority of people in a MMO spend too much time in the game to bullshit around with a weak class/spec when it comes time to spend money and effort on killing some big boss or surviving some encounter.

You didn't see any army of beastmasters fighting in RoTZ, did you? How about CoP? ToAU? Hell, WoTG?!!

Square is a company that very rarely balances jobs, and people flock to flavor of the month.

Blizzard is a company that constantly tries to balance jobs, and people still flock to flavor of the month.

Its not the developers, its people, and more accurately, human nature.

There will never be true uniqueness in a MMO as long as people seek to be the strongest thing in the game and seek to kill things as quickly and efficiently as possible within that game.

I wrote alot reflecting on my experiences in ffxi and wow as far as class balance and the ups and downs of both games, then realized the bottom line that if I had a choice of playing an mmo with no friends, or playing any offline game, I am going to pick the offline game. Any mmo even if there is only 10 people playing it, if those 10 people get along and have fun playing it together, then on some level its a success. Maybe the company wont be happy about their bottom line, but its better than nothing heh.

[Siatdiat]

Any more details on grouping other than guildleves? Like, can I and a buddy team-up and exp? I guess what I want to know is if the game will be a party-based grind system like FFXI or more quest-based (guildleve) like WoW? It is my opinion that forcing people to party together made the FFXI community so strong. It was not perfect, but I really hope FFXIV is similar in style to the current FFXI where exp is gained at a maximum in 6-person parties but you can also get exp from events like FoV or campaign, etc. In that system your rewarded for working with others.

What is party size cap? 6 again? Is there raid capability in terms of party structure?

When you mention campaign, are you trying to say that people work together in that event? Its great that you can get some xp from it solo on jobs that are hard to get merits on and in short spurts, but who really enjoys it? Its merely a means to an end. I mean, I leveled my materia to ridiculous degrees in ff7 to beat emerald and ruby but did I enjoy grinding in the underwater sub? Not by a long shot.

cap is currently at 15 ppl. i agree, i liked that you had a real sense of comradery in ffxi, but it did lack options when it came to leveling. i too hope they really fix this. i dont see them getting it perfectly right at launch, but im sure it will get better the older the game gets

I'm not sure what camaraderie you mean.

If you want to go back in time to the early days of ffxi, then you mean standing around jeuno putting a party together to go to some shitty place like Labyrinth of Onzozo or Cape Terrigan. Best case scenario, you are making the party, and putting together good jobs to make the right skillchain for the right magic burst. Usually this was based on what the BLMs highest nuke was that was effective against the mobs you were fighting. If the melee couldnt open or close the right skillchain, you would need a replacement. Sorry guy, continue seeking! Nice to meet you! Lets be friends!

Or you could have been seeking. You get invited to a party with no BLM oh noes! You were doomed to killing approximately 10 mobs and hour and rarley get past chain 2 if that. Everyone would either be in an irritable mood about slow xp and wasting time, or they would be a horrible player who was just glad they werent getting kicked.

Fast forward a few years, DW war was gods gift to parties. People who managed to get 1 job to 75 somehow but were horrible would take things that worked at 75 for merits at try make them work from the dunes on. Go to dunes on 15drg/7mnk (hi2u boost instead of voke!) sam/brd (throw out a song for att buff to other dds) or drk/whm (some extra cures in mostly shitty parties, and get derided for not using the proper sub for your job. I saw many a war/nin at level 13 trying to tank with 1 axe and no shield. "Itll be all good dog, ill have 2 axes soon!" Im willing to bet alot of players here did the same dumb shit I am describing and someone will tell me Im stupid for saying sam should sub brd at level 15 vs war.

Today, most players try like hell to only xp with friends if at all possible. The average party has actually gotten worse I believe than they were in 2004. I soloed 90% of thf to 65. Ive soloed rdm sub from 37-45 and pld from 1-45. Good players have the common sense to solo successfully, that leaves all the idiots to be seeking for parties. Anyone I know still playing leveling new jobs or subs is going to do it with only friends leveling jobs and friends willing to level sync down for good lower level camps (qufim, ronfraure birds).

I guess if by camaraderie then you mean the cliques that formed around the players with common sense wading through a sea of morons, trying to level up jobs without losing their sanity. And then the shout in jeuno/wg cliques that formed by all the shitty players who only xped with each other, thought ffxi was a hard game, and even today feel like they have achieved something by leveling a popular job to 75 even though they are horrible at it.

[Vitglance]

You know, separating out abilities from classes and into things that have costs to equip puts them in an excellent position to enact balancing changes on the fly. It's not exactly evidence of the game allowing a great variety of options to be viable, or the willingness to keep on top of adjustments, but it's nice to know they seem to laying good groundwork.


Re; Guildleve Rewards

An old Dengeki report mentioned Guildleves can reward skill levels.*
Also, I think your right about it only being an Alpha restriction, Meonline, as the Alpha Manual points out that experience points can only be earned via killing mobs at this stage. (Implying it can be earned by other means later)



* http://ffxiv.zam.com/story.html?story=19456
Hey, I can post URLs now :3