i'm very concerned that FFXIV will be too easy

[Hyan]

Yesss, riddill. Did we go through Dynamis yet? Can't go back in time much more than that!


I think it should be pretty clear to everyone (if it isn't, go die in a fire) that pretty much everything before 2006 was shitty at least in the long-term. But that's all we ever talk about especially when we have an argument going on: fucking 2005.

[Eaglestrike]

Yesss, riddill. Did we go through Dynamis yet? Can't go back in time much more than that!

FFXI's 2nd expansion, CoP, done by the guy leading FFXIV. But of course it shouldn't have any relevance to the topic at hand...

While I agree with that bit Hyan, the OP seems to want a pre-2006 MMO. And yes, he can go die in a fire for it.

[Hyan]

FFXI's 2nd expansion, CoP, done by the guy leading FFXIV. But of course it shouldn't have any relevance to the topic at hand...

Of course this person stopped taking notes after he started working on XIV, and is ready to go back to 2005 yet again when everything past it has proven to be far better, far more enjoyable as a whole.

But yes, let us assume it holds relevance to the topic because otherwise there wouldn't be any point to bringing it up.

While I agree with that bit Hyan, the OP seems to want a pre-2006 MMO. And yes, he can go die in a fire for it.

I agree. Shit sucked, especially later on (3½h dyna was alright at first, but few years after... /suicide).

[Lucavi]

does WoW pay you for the endless promotion, i could use some of that cash

Right is right, though, or is there something in that statement you can refute?

[omegaB]

I was attempting to not look terribly bias, just my experiences in the end-game of both games. Though it is pretty clear which one I prefer, because it's just such a better model.

Love how the counter to the two models is talking about WoW dick sucking instead of you know, the pros and cons of the models, which is what the discussion should be about. I didn't mention WoW specifically for this reason. I'd like to actually talk about the topic.

I agree that ffxi endgame had some issues especially early, but yeah you did sound pretty biased toward one system, and are probably not describing the most challenging fights in ffxi, CoP had some good ones, and some of the later bcnms. Then you got the current stuff.

honestly anything that requires 25 people is only catering to one subset of players, and not neccesarily the most hard core, or skilled players, whether it be ffxi or WoW id rather not see that model being the focal point of all the best gear. All it shows is you know how to get into a big LS or guild where a couple of people provide most of the brains, and you often do some somewhat repetive not to difficult task over and over, probably over the course of weeks or months to get a drop then try to figure out who deserves it more.
the most interesting things i have done, have generally been low manning things that were meant to have more, or 6-9 man groups, more than that often becomes cluttered or wasteful, you dont get to use the majority of your abilities.

[Hyan]

If we want to really talk about past, man WoW sucked when it started, server lag and glitches and bugs all over the place. XI was a lot stabler game compared to 2004 WoW.

Or let's just stop talking about the fucking past. It has nothing to do with XIV. XI is already different from what the OP wants, he needs to deal with it or gtfo.

[Cureslime]

It's been said already but bullshit timesinks and griefing do not equal difficulty. They equal bullshit.

[Kalisa]

Yesss, riddill. Did we go through Dynamis yet? Can't go back in time much more than that!

Well, OP was yelling about 2006, so I figured I'd yell about something from his time frame.

But since you bring up Dynamis, that plays well into my next idea.

Love how the counter to the two models is talking about WoW dick sucking instead of you know, the pros and cons of the models, which is what the discussion should be about.

So let's make the discussion about this instead of the guy who thinks because he sat in Jeuno for years he's SO SKILLED.

Realistically, there are all sorts of differences between these two models that warrant looking at.

1- Instanced bosses vs. world bosses - I think people have come to really enjoy instances areas of FF, and have had enough Dynamis (teeheeharhar Hyan) zones and world boss claims jacked from them to shift to instanced areas. But then, some people in MMOs, especially oldschoolers from back in EQ planes and so forth, have fun knowing that they're cockblocking everyone else from being as good as they are.

2- If instanced: Battles tuned for the maximum number of participants or not? - We have events like Salvage and Limbus in FFXI that allow a maximum of 18 people, but people often take no more than 4-6 instead, which works perfectly well... whereas in some other games, being a single person short can crush your chances at the hardest encounters--you will simply NOT beat the bosses before they rage and one-shot everyone in the zone. In FFXI, if you're struggling with something, you can bring more outside healing, which is not an option in some other games where there's constant damage going out and the game is over once your set number of healers run dry.

3- Encounter difficulty vs. encounter length - Here you get into the whole 2hr slow-and-steady guaranteed win fight vs. 50 attempts at a very tightly tuned and coordinated 4-minute fight. Which would you prefer, presuming no exp loss/deleveling? The guaranteed win will never get that much shorter (until new gear is released years down the line), while if you get skilled in the more frustrating fight, you can be in and out in a matter of minutes. On the other hand, if you go over a basic strategy you can basically pick anyone up to do FFXI's model, while if you aren't in a well-oiled machine of a team, the difficult fight might be a pipe dream.

4- Guaranteed drops vs. Luck of the draw - It's frustrating to some people that after months or years of trying to get that special drop (o mio dio), they still haven't gotten it. Other games are guaranteed to put out at least one item per boss, sometimes with a rarer loot pool you get lucky from. Me, I like the token system, where after a couple months of not seeing your drop, you can just go buy it or something comparable as a consolation prize, but other people hate this idea.

Think about which parts of the models you'd put together. What's your ideal game like?

[D44kpunk]

i think it's hilarious that everyone can compare FFXI or aion to 14 all they want but the second anyone brings up anything WoW related shit hits the fan and bitches be crying all over the place

[Jinko]

I for one don't want another time sink like FF11, that's not difficult that's just bad game design.

A game should not be a substitute for a life, if you have that much time to waste on a game its time to evaluate your life.

when I see someone with a Ridill, I don't think "man that guy must be good," I think "man that guy must have a lot of time on his hands." Because that's all having that Ridill proves that he has: time and a LS that knows how to kill one mob repeatedly.

This !

[BRP]

Why the fuck isn't this thread closed? Are you serious lol? There is absolutely nothing solid to be said on the matter. Just a bunch of distant ghosts to be afraid of. And now you got a WoW flamewar brewing up. AND the thread is even made by a burnt out FFXI player - this thread couldn't sound worse.

A lot of the OP seems be worrying about the complexity of a battle system. FFXIV is already shown to have more complicated rules. More focus on distance for example adds a lot of depth. There are dozen other things which are improvements to the FFXI formula. That much we can say. Whether they will implement challenges to make use of a combat system which is better than FFXI's is simply unfathomable at this point. It is also an activity worse than normal speculation because you are going to get a bunch of nerds to wet their pants and make value judgments on ghosts. (No one can rid you of your fears OP. Just like no one can rid you of your fears of Zeus.)

And on that note: Everyone should understand that repeating a boring/uninteresting task over and over again for however long isn't difficult play. It is easy work. Grinding. (How much time is demanded of you(whether overall or in one sitting) doesn't really factor into it.)

P.S. WoW sux.

[Meko]

Why the fuck isn't this thread closed? Are you serious lol? There is absolutely nothing solid to be said on the matter. Just a bunch of distant ghosts to be afraid of. And now you got a WoW flamewar brewing up. AND the thread is even made by a burnt out FFXI player - this thread couldn't sound worse.

A lot of the OP seems be worrying about the complexity of a battle system. FFXIV is already shown to have more complicated rules. More focus on distance for example adds a lot of depth. There are dozen other things which are improvements to the FFXI formula. That much we can say. Whether they will implement challenges to make use of a combat system which is better than FFXI's is simply unfathomable at this point. It is also an activity worse than normal speculation because you are going to get a bunch of nerds to wet their pants and make value judgments on ghosts. (No one can rid you of your fears OP. Just like no one can rid you of your fears of Zeus.)

And on that note: Everyone should understand that repeating a boring/uninteresting task over and over again for however long isn't difficult play. It is easy work. Grinding. (How much time is demanded of you(whether overall or in one sitting) doesn't really factor into it.)

P.S. WoW sux.

Aren't all MMO's a grind? Did you only go to sky once? Did you only do limbus once? Every MMO has repetitive content and there is no way around it. It's your time, spend it how you want it. If you prefer to camp a 3 hour spawn every 24 hours to get a chance at a chance, then by all means, knock it out.

[dejet]

Answer: its the same team that worked on FF11. Even in the last years of ff11 they have been giving random crazy shit for us to do. Its not so much the game or mobs that have gotten to easy, its more the fact that the player base has learned how to use everything >.>

and haste too lol

FF14 will work the same way I can only think. Ya they may have a few more easy things at the start(znm and such style) but we will see our fafnirs/KBs that people wipe to over and over till we learn them. and then we know for a fact that we will see AV again >.> lol

[ringthree]

Does taking a long time to do things equal legitimate difficulty?

CoP was incredibly well balanced when it came to difficulty. When they were released almost all of the CoP fights were challenging. It took a little bit of time to run around and get CS's and stuff. And if you were smart you would spend time farming the items needed to do the fights.

I have to ask, are you confusing laziness with something taking a long time?

[Mooshywooshy]

I want da game to be better than FFXI Aion and WoW, Insert a little of each and poof.

[ringthree]

Why the fuck isn't this thread closed? Are you serious lol? There is absolutely nothing solid to be said on the matter. Just a bunch of distant ghosts to be afraid of. And now you got a WoW flamewar brewing up. AND the thread is even made by a burnt out FFXI player - this thread couldn't sound worse.

A lot of the OP seems be worrying about the complexity of a battle system. FFXIV is already shown to have more complicated rules. More focus on distance for example adds a lot of depth. There are dozen other things which are improvements to the FFXI formula. That much we can say. Whether they will implement challenges to make use of a combat system which is better than FFXI's is simply unfathomable at this point. It is also an activity worse than normal speculation because you are going to get a bunch of nerds to wet their pants and make value judgments on ghosts. (No one can rid you of your fears OP. Just like no one can rid you of your fears of Zeus.)

And on that note: Everyone should understand that repeating a boring/uninteresting task over and over again for however long isn't difficult play. It is easy work. Grinding. (How much time is demanded of you(whether overall or in one sitting) doesn't really factor into it.)

P.S. WoW sux.

Some one is still bitter they haven't gotten into the alpha yet.

[Dantrag]

CoP was incredibly well balanced when it came to difficulty. When they were released almost all of the CoP fights were challenging. It took a little bit of time to run around and get CS's and stuff. And if you were smart you would spend time farming the items needed to do the fights.

I have to ask, are you confusing laziness with something taking a long time?

No, we consider stupid time sinks like AF quest. Waiting until JP midnight for my COR af is retarded. Waiting til JP midnight for my SAM AF is retarded.

Having to run around to do CS's is bad. As long as it doesn't take 2 hours to get to said ??? for the cut scene that last 5 minutes.

[Meko]

I look at the time =/= difficulty thing like this. Remember back when people did sky and you had to ride a chocobo all the way there and it took around 20-25 minutes? Then, once you got there you had to have everybody there and ready to farm etc. So, it could potentially be 1-2 hours before you got to a god/boss fight purely based on travel times and such. The little things that WoW cut out like the travel times and being summoned make the game less time restraining.

Scenario: "Oh crap, our tank logged in 15 minutes late"
FFXI - Bah, alright, well it'll be another 20 minutes or so for him to get here etc.
WoW - It's ok, we can summon him to the group via warlock or summoning stone.

I hope with FF14 they realize that little time sinks like that are unnecessary (ie sky teleport).

[BRP]

Aren't all MMO's a grind? Did you only go to sky once? Did you only do limbus once? Every MMO has repetitive content and there is no way around it. It's your time, spend it how you want it. If you prefer to camp a 3 hour spawn every 24 hours to get a chance at a chance, then by all means, knock it out.

Almost every MMORPG developer employees repetitive tasks in order to have players play for longer. I can't think of any MMORPGs which don't have this(no one volunteer to tell me, because I do not care). So that should answer your (ugly) question. If you want to avoid grinding in a MMO you can indeed simply just not do stuff which bores you. (This could mean doing more than Limbus once, just stop doing it when your only motivation are items.) Why this clarification is needed, I don't know.

EDIT: Ringthree: Actually I can get into Alpha any time I'd like(well, any time it is up and I'd to play). A friend is more than willing to depart with his alpha account, at least half the time. I am no rush to play it though. Maybe beta.

[Amastacia]

And now lets talk about time and difficulty vs big dragons!

<FFXI vs. WoW>

I mostly get where you're coming from here and agree.

And I mostly think the OP is a masochistic idiot for wanting more grind and more time sinks.

But there's one thing that the longer, more drawn-out boss fights of FFXI have going for them: a sense of epicness.

A group will get faster and smoother at killing, and fights will get shorter and more routine in FFXI. There are a lot of things that WoW does well, such as forcing new strategies rather than figuring out how to apply old ones, but the trade-off for that is that the Big Bad Internet Wolf doesn't seem so big or bad once you realize you can down him in 5 minutes.

There are certainly things in FFXI that applies to also, such as Dynamis Lord or Baha v2, but they're mainly situations where CS Stun + zerging works.

I'd rather the time commitment for FFXIV not be the hard part. Make coordination, timing, and strategy more important than patience. But every now and then you need a dragon that just refuses to go down fast, and tests endurance as well (within reason... fuck you un-nerfed PW).