FFXIV Random Speculation/Question thread VI: Phase 3, FFXIV is still on the rag!

[jenasu]

why does the best armor in beta gotta be pink....got my pug wearing a pink black mage looking cap
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b49/Kishr/balls.jpg

[Balphas]

Really people, lack of AH is not a legitimate problem. Not every MMO, especially earlier ones, even had an AH system. People act like everyone is just a random dumb ass that doesn't know how to organize shit.

Really think about it, there's multiple wards which means eventually you'll have it become common knowledge that for example:

Weapons and Armor crafters will congregate their retainers to East Ward
Consumable makers will congregate to West
Material venders will congregate to Middle etc

It's just simple organization, just like in XI over time people eventually set up Rolan/Batallia/Sauro bazaar "malls". Not everyone is completely clueless and not to mention an AH system doesn't automatically supply itself with everything it takes people to supply the AH to begin with. So in reality it actually is no different than the retainer system because you still have to farm the items, you still have to make items and you still have to sell items somewhere. Auction houses just centralizes everything so people have to sell things at a "standard" price.

So long as they get the search function in it will definitely be a lot better.

Walking isn't so bad to driving. I mean, it only takes you longer. You can try to take shortcuts here and there, or try to run, but in the end, you're still on your feet. You keep justifying poor game design with excuses. If they added a search function for the market wards, then guess what, that's an AUCTION HOUSE. So why go through all the hoops when you'll end up with the same shit? Why not just make a simple functioning auction house which allow people to do their trade in peace, without having to spend so much effort on the more menial things. Would you enjoy spending 1 hour going through bazaars because you're searching for an item? Or would you rather spend 5 seconds typing in the name of the item to see if it's available for sale? You're talking about organizing different wards for different kinds of items. Guess what? An auction house usually have something called categories. It works the same way.

What do you classify as legitimate concern? When you play an FPS, would the lack of a crosshair count as a legitimate issue for you? I honestly don't understand. In the end, you just need to look at it objectively. Will the lack of auction house benefit or hurt the game in the long run? Just the same as people arguing against proper support for input devices on PC. It makes no sense to alienate a lot of users because they're too lazy, unwilling or bound by economy to listen to the feedback of players. I'm sure they got a checklist of important things fix in this game, and for me it's weird that the things a lot of people consider important are not, nor have been on top of the list already. That just proves how detached they are from their customers, and should really try to broaden their views by looking at other games or hire some fresh blood (hopefully not more japanese devs).

[jenasu]

too long but did read.
and agree.

[Hyan]

It makes no sense to alienate a lot of users because they're too lazy, unwilling or bound by economy to listen to the feedback of players. I'm sure they got a checklist of important things fix in this game, and for me it's weird that the things a lot of people consider important are not, nor have been on top of the list already. That just proves how detached they are from their customers, and should really try to broaden their views by looking at other games or hire some fresh blood (hopefully not more japanese devs).

The only feedback they are not listening to so far is the "don't release the game before it's ready!" feedback, and I already explained why they won't do that.

It has nothing to do about being detached from the customers. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if you release an unfinished game, it's going to draw negative attention and less initial subs, and that looks like it's worth the risk for Square.

The funny thing is that they have the experience about this kind of situation, too, and are going by that experience right now. It's not something I ever expected would happen, but here we are and it makes painfully lot of sense to me in hindsight.

[Battlecat]

find out what kind of search options players will want and need and improve the situation.

This might just be the optimist in me coming out here... but it sounds like they are definitely putting in a search function for retail, and this is saying they will adjust the specific search options to better the search code. search.

[jenasu]

search and alot of other function is a given. and i agree with hyan also.

[Nama]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIO2g...layer_embedded

New making of Video. Some really nice areas in store for us.

But on topic yeah alot sucks right now but quite a few things can change in a month( for better or worse). Only real problem is SE not wanting to acknowledge and change blatant issues. Lack of AH is huge issue but yeah its been an issue for alot of MMOs at release so its not something new, changing leve timers or increasing amount you can take is a quick fix. Lack of hardware mouse is the only thing i really can't wrap my head around why they wouldn't change it

[Meko]

I wonder if retail will allow for more precise mouse controls? My first time in beta last night and I used WASD for movement and the mouse for clicking on menus, NPCs, characters and mobs. While it seemed "laggy", I still found it a lot easier than tab targeting. Will release likely tighten those controls up or is it the best it will be at release?

[Kurp]

I wonder if retail will allow for more precise mouse controls? My first time in beta last night and I used WASD for movement and the mouse for clicking on menus, NPCs, characters and mobs. While it seemed "laggy", I still found it a lot easier than tab targeting. Will release likely tighten those controls up or is it the best it will be at release?

I wouldn't count on it being much better at launch. The recent interview stated that they 'had no plans' currently to use a hardware mouse cursor. At best, they might make targeting somewhat better by improving hit boxes for characters and mobs.

[Metafox]

Regarding the retainer system, it almost seems as if SE had some grand romantic vision of players browsing through a bustling market to pick and choose their goods in a much more colorful and interactive fasion:

Rising with the sun and setting out for the markets has become a daily ritual for Aeleyora. Here in Glutton’s Alley, adherents of the other disciplines gather to sell their bounty, be it of the hunt or of the harvest. Upon arriving, she finds that a particular stand, The Scratching Post, is having a blowout sale. Her culinary instincts take over and before long she has a satchel bursting with fresh ingredients. She even manages to haggle the proprietor down five gil on a somewhat less than choice cut of aldgoat chuck.

But the reality is apparently a little closer to this:

Spoiler: show

http://www.neko-sentai.com/images8tu/up61996.jpg

I just don't understand how there is such a disconnect between what they seem to think about the retainer system and what it actually is. I can't find any good reason to purposely create this overcrowded market system; all they can really do with it is to hide it behind some search function in order to spare players the trouble. I don't mean to rant about this, but if anyone has any insight as to why they'd create these apparently unusable markets in the first place, I'm curious about it and I wouldn't mind hearing an outside opinion.

[Frein]

Yea, maybe even skillchains might not go well with this battle system. In ffxi you had auto attack, so why while you set up a skillchain, you were still doing damage, but that's not the case for this game.

They could just change the chains so that only TP moves can start and finish them. This whole BR system sounded awful the moment I heard about it and well, once I actually got to play the game, it was just as bad as advertised as they're useless and a pain in the ass to set up.

I really hope BRs were somewhat fine in the alpha combat system and they're just working on the new BRs to go with the new combat, because if they for even one second thought BRs were going to work with a combat system anything like the one we have now, they're just completely delusional. Unfortunately, many other decisions also suggest they are, in fact, delusional.

[Hyan]

I really hope BRs were somewhat fine in the alpha combat system and they're just working on the new BRs to go with the new combat

That's what they said.

[Meko]

I was pretty surprised with the combat speed. A much improved speed versus FFXI.

[Baha]

Really people, lack of AH is not a legitimate problem. Not every MMO, especially earlier ones, even had an AH system. People act like everyone is just a random dumb ass that doesn't know how to organize shit.

Earlier MMO's were also inaccesible and full of grind. Things changed for a reason.

Really think about it, there's multiple wards which means eventually you'll have it become common knowledge that for example:

Weapons and Armor crafters will congregate their retainers to East Ward
Consumable makers will congregate to West
Material venders will congregate to Middle etc

How about they rename all the wards with this in mind? Miner's Ward, Botanist's Ward etc for all the crafting and gathering classes, and a few random ones for crystals, weapons, popitems etc. I can imagine that this is (part of) the intention behind the multiple wards. They could at least give the wards practical names to reflect this. East fripper's ward? That just some random name that serves absolutely no purpose.

It's just simple organization, just like in XI over time people eventually set up Rolan/Batallia/Sauro bazaar "malls". Not everyone is completely clueless and not to mention an AH system doesn't automatically supply itself with everything it takes people to supply the AH to begin with. So in reality it actually is no different than the retainer system because you still have to farm the items, you still have to make items and you still have to sell items somewhere. Auction houses just centralizes everything so people have to sell things at a "standard" price.

So long as they get the search function in it will definitely be a lot better.

They add a search function without price preview: might as well not have a search function then, as you'd still have to browse over 9000 retainers to find where the cheapest fire shards are.
They do add a price preview to the search function: prices will be standardized. A stack of fire shards will hover around x-y, you'll just have to teleport and find a retainer in the right ward between dozens of his colleagues. Really, what does this add compared to a proper AH function? I'm genuinely curious.

You'll still be able to get your stuff repaired, or look to buy items (I wouldn't mind the extra effort of selling to a retainer if it gets me an instant sale), undoubtedly there will be un-AH-able items (those are just great btw). You'll also be able to use retainers as you would use mules for the extra AH slots. I like the retainer system, it's pretty inventive as a complement to an AH system, but as a full out replacement it just isn't practical.

[Jamison]

maybe they won't even let me alt tab now. Windower can't come soon enough.

It's not quite the same, but I've been launching FFXIV from inside Steam, and then you can Shift-Tab to get their custom overlay, which includes a basic web browser. Even though I've got a laptop available for looking stuff up, it's actually been pretty cool to have a browser window right overtop the game.

[omegaB]

the retainer has the inverse option of AH, basically you can buy items at a specific price, as well as the repair ability, both of which i think are pretty good, although buying needs to be tweaked a bit. Selling stuff is meh, but its not exactly an ah, because they could control what information you have.

Search could just tell you who has the item. then you got to do the footwork yourself, it probably wouldnt have a history, so you could only tell what the going prices are even if they tell you the prices.
Also AH was a guessing game, you can sell for 1 gil to undercut on the chance its cheap, small undercuts in this system probably wouldnt be worthwhile, would you go to a different ward for 99 gil? also people will sell stuff more for what its worth to them, IE you can probably find deals.

My main beef is the actual organization, if they are going to do this they need to make the server place the people in an orderly fashion, a clusterfuck is a clusterfuck. Its annoying to try to browse through hundreds of people you forget their names, and some disappear when you move, and new ones come in, ehhhh. If it was more like psu where you warp to their shop that may actually be better, its really just organizing it so its not super annoying to browse is the issue, if could go into some type of browse mode, or the items on sale just appeared when you mouse over or tab it might be better.

[Brodan]

After reading this poast I'm taking UI whining with huge grain of salt until OB, when I gonna test it myself.

[Hyan]

4Gamer interview, details:

Many players are still requesting faster battles and quicker action, and the developers are working on fulfilling their wishes.

So far, players are very happy with the ease of solo play. In FFXI, players complained they couldn't get parties, but in FFXIV, they don't even bother trying to join one.

New types of Guildleve quests will open up for players as they increase in level.

The open beta phase will last about 2-3 weeks. Tanaka believes they will be able to handle several hundred thousand players.

The game currently has 10 servers, with more possibly planned for when service begins in September.

The distance between each city-state is very far, allowing players to really explore the vast landscape of Eorzea for the first time. Getting to and from Limsa-Lominsa will require access to a ship.

Once the open beta is complete, all data will be deleted. However the developers are hoping to allow players to retain their names for the release version.

The game has been designed in a way that players cannot monopolize certain monsters in an area.

A new version of the benchmark software is under development.


2nd paragraph is hilarious.

[Chakra]

I was pretty surprised with the combat speed. A much improved speed versus FFXI.

and people are still asking for a faster battle system. . . .

[Hyan]

They probably mean BR's.