FFXIV Random Speculation/Question thread V: No one told me beta would have problems in it

[Khalil]

Right now, we're all waiting to see what kind of solo content will be available outside of the guild leves. For the most part, all battlecraft leaves are pretty much "Kill X amount of Y mobs". Then there's some leaves to gather x amount of y (as a disciple of the land), and craft x amount of y (disciple of the hand). Basically, it just gives a simple context to what you'd be doing anyway to advance in the game. There's a few leaves with kill an a certain NM, but basically, all of the leaves are things you did in FFXI, with the difference that most of them are instanced when taking the leaves, and they offer additional rewards/gil aside from the actual rewards you'd get normally from performing the task.

Unless Square-Enix adds some more in-depth quest system, like World of Warcraft, or got some other kind of system that gives you chance to advance in the game without just grinding mobs things will indeed look dire. They will probably focus on improving the grouping situation, increasing incentive and rewards for doing it. Like Hyan mentioned earlier in the thread, social interaction is a reward in itself, and really does add to the enjoyment of the game. Just as in FFXI, that is one way to ease up on the drudger of leveling up a class from scratch, but this time around the option for solo will also be available as you wait to group up, or just have a limited time to play.

I'm sure the quests won't change much as opposed to WoW. The majority of them will prolly consist of killing x amount of y mobs or obtain x amount of y item/herb/fur. I doubt we'll get variety in terms of quests.

[Destinye]

Though there's already a variety of Leves and even more that weren't active for Alpha/Beta. So far the casual content (Leves) are broken down into:

Kill mobs
Gathering Classes
Land (Mining)
Synthesis
NM (So far confirmed as a Faction Leve)
HNM Leves being thought about
Exploration Leves (talked about but no clue what they are or when/if they will be implemeneted)

So there's a ton of varying quests in terms of leves as well as the typical FFXI styled Quest/Missions. MMOs like WoW allows you level through quests, in FFXIV you don't unless you count the off handed leveling doing crafting and the mobs that offer exp, they don't offer an xp bonus..however WoW's systems aren't that deep, I'd say XI had the deeper questing systems in terms of story, WoW's was just for xp.

[Gulkeeva]

Well you gotta consider...
at lv 20 class, we had a choice of about...
9 guildleve's that were actually worth doing for gold (over 1K)

who knows if lv 30 they add another 3-6... and then 40.. and 50... and then you just got like... 30-40 guild leve's and your rolling around in like 2mil gil.

I heard someone already had about 200K before end of beta 2...

Probably not what SE intended so that inflation of prices go sky high at some point

Also I think the exp is fine... just needs to be better grouped or have some benefit grouped. As we get higher level that exping will slow down alot... grouped or not anyway, you can start feeling the slowdown by lv 25+ I'm sure

[Cichy]

I'm pretty sure that the JP that was selling brass gladius' on my server made more than that as no one else made them.
As far as guildleves go they give you shittier exp than just lvling by yourself. So far they are just a way to make gil and get some equipment so lets not count them as something you will be doing to level at his point.

[Gulkeeva]

I'm pretty sure that the JP that was selling brass gladius' on my server made more than that as no one else made them.
As far as guildleves go they give you shittier exp than just lvling by yourself. So far they are just a way to make gil and get some equipment so lets not count them as something you will be doing to level at his point.

well I'm sure he does, but I mean... that 200K is just from guildleve's
People will have millions of gil within a month at the rate you could get it... within a year 10mil will be like pocket change at the rate you an get it. Hopefully they adjust gil to be... worth something (although I wouldn't mind popping an elixir for mana per second while blowing mana away as fast as possible to level)

[BlackheartX]

Though there's already a variety of Leves and even more that weren't active for Alpha/Beta. So far the casual content (Leves) are broken down into:

Kill mobs
Gathering Classes
Land (Mining)
Synthesis
NM (So far confirmed as a Faction Leve)
HNM Leves being thought about
Exploration Leves (talked about but no clue what they are or when/if they will be implemeneted)

So there's a ton of varying quests in terms of leves as well as the typical FFXI styled Quest/Missions. MMOs like WoW allows you level through quests, in FFXIV you don't unless you count the off handed leveling doing crafting and the mobs that offer exp, they don't offer an xp bonus..however WoW's systems aren't that deep, I'd say XI had the deeper questing systems in terms of story, WoW's was just for xp.

There were also far fewer quest in XI and I'm not sure either system was deep at all. Go here find the ??? kill monster who stole my pants vs go here place cheese and kill the rat who ate my cheese.

[BlackheartX]

I'm pretty sure that the JP that was selling brass gladius' on my server made more than that as no one else made them.
As far as guildleves go they give you shittier exp than just lvling by yourself. So far they are just a way to make gil and get some equipment so lets not count them as something you will be doing to level at his point.

There's lots of potential in guild leves and I have high hopes that the potential is at least partially realized when retail rolls out. There is a limitless amount of things they can do with this quest system besides kill X and Y for Z or find A gather A get B. For example miners could have to fight some gold monster to get a specific skill that allows them to use that concoction to kill metal based monsters or damage them heavily. Or maybe if there's a Utsusemi skill or some type of advanced evade you'd have to avoid a large group of Chigoes for a set amount of time in order to learn it.

[Kuya]

gold monster, lol

[BlackheartX]

gold monster, lol

More inventive names have been spotted in game like Bat and Mole.

[Jamison]

There were also far fewer quest in XI and I'm not sure either system was deep at all. Go here find the ??? kill monster who stole my pants vs go here place cheese and kill the rat who ate my cheese.

While the actual mechanics of these quests were always pretty simplistic, somehow though FFXI always had a way of tying these quests into the story/settings/whathaveyou that made them feel far more substantive, and in some cases epic. I'm counting on FFXIV being able to do this as well .... and if it can't, I will be pretty disappointed.

[BlackheartX]

While the actual mechanics of these quests were always pretty simplistic, somehow though FFXI always had a way of tying these quests into the story/settings/whathaveyou that made them feel far more substantive, and in some cases epic. I'm counting on FFXIV being able to do this as well .... and if it can't, I will be pretty disappointed.

I'd agree in a sense, I believe the cut scenes after just about everything helped a lot.

[omegaB]

There were also far fewer quest in XI and I'm not sure either system was deep at all. Go here find the ??? kill monster who stole my pants vs go here place cheese and kill the rat who ate my cheese.

i cant speak for wow, but while im not saying the presentation in ffxi normal quest system was insane, they had a number of quests that were more than just kill x or y mobs, many involved exploration of areas people dont usually go to, finding hidden areas off the map, doing some abnormal mechanic specific to a dunegon (unlocking the mysteries of ugglepih) (figuring out how to advance in sea serpent grotto). And the storyline stuff especially past cop, was pretty involved. While soem quests were kill x or y mob and bring me back its item, the more involved ones probably seemed like it, because everyone just uses a faq and fast fowards all text and ignores cutscenes. its another case of people just wanting to get stuff done and wanting it to be easy.

If you think about the utsusemi quest, you basically had to do various different tasks which related to black market or martial activities, Find a hidden lair, make a deal with teh right npc, explore the bowels of a highly agro area with multiple doors, dodging agro and fighting what you cant avoid to find a hidden area.
People turned that into, spam zinc sales 100 times, take a choco to norg conusult online map and faq for secrets of doors, and follow that to hidden location.
Basically, people bitch about complex quests, and when they exist, most people gonna ignore the context and cheese past it anyhow.


id say the best game with exp within the context of quests and story was guld wars but that was almost a single player game if you wanted it to be, sooo

[SamanosukeShiva]

I agree/prefer ff14 to be a story driven leveling, anyone remember how epic it was when at lv20 traveling to jeuno, probably get killed a few times, but when you got to jeuno you were greeted by an awesome song and seeing so many people in upper jeuno? It felt so damn good

[Kuya]

More inventive names have been spotted in game like Bat and Mole.

What's next? Rock monster?

[BlackheartX]

What's next? Rock monster?

Worm monster obviously.

[Cichy]

I do have high hopes for higher level guildleves but right now all the leaves are: go kill monster x, than y, than maybe z appears and gathering leaves are just that.
The starting quest was fairly entertaining imo, I hope we see more of that.

[Acturus]

What's next? Rock monster?

Atnm Test

[Kachi]

To put it bluntly, I feel cheated when games are so easy that anyone can complete them. It's not a game if it's simple. I want an experience that has to be struggled and fought for to be complete.

I also want to see less of the "grind" factor and more directed progression.

I agree to an extent. I don't feel like victory should only come to those who are extremely intelligent, extremely dedicated, or extremely dexterous, but I do want a game that actually continues to challenge me. I want to feel that I am continuing to grow as a player, rather than simply that my character is continuing to grow as a character.

I'm kind of sad they didn't keep the experience chain concept. I thought it was a really nice extra mechanic which rewarded you for doing well, made you take risks, and generally kept the pace up.

What would have been better would be having been rewarded for killing stronger monsters, rather than make it a game of how fast you can kill weak little shits.

[Gulkeeva]

I do have high hopes for higher level guildleves but right now all the leaves are: go kill monster x, than y, than maybe z appears and gathering leaves are just that.
The starting quest was fairly entertaining imo, I hope we see more of that.

Kinda sucked if you killed the monster before it "ran away to get more" the other mobs still spawned anyway ;/

[Destinye]

Kinda sucked if you killed the monster before it "ran away to get more" the other mobs still spawned anyway ;/

Yeah I bound Pyro and his bitches spawned still, but eh I'm sure there will be a failsafe by retail since in XI mobs like that still did their token action regardless of situation.