FFXIV Random Speculation/Question thread VIII: Alpha Was The Best Beta v2 -_-;

[avelle]

So, why would they make Red Lotus Blade cost 10 mp per use but then not give Gladiator any way to get mp back outside of touching the aetheryte? Some of the design decisions in this game are astonishing.

[niwaar]

At least they're releasing patches every day and their size gets bigger and bigger. Keep going SE.

As long as they are fixing things each day there is hope, but these patches have to actually fix things the playerbase sees as problems... They need to come out on the beta site and say "we hear you, we are planning on adjusting these features..." They did this during the Alpha and Closed Beta stages. The notes on known issues and changes always had a list of items that they were working on changing and improving. We have lost that in Open Beta, and all these patches have fixed are minor issues and "glitches" that could destabilize the "economy".

Top 5 complaints that we have heard nothing about and have not been touched in any patch thus far ...

1) Guildleve failures due to server and client instability (ie disconnects and crashes)
2) Mouse functionality (not just the hardware mouse, but overall lack of functionality of the mouse in general)
3) User interface (this includes the overall poor UI as well as the inherent lag in doing ANYTHING. As well as the 3-5 embedded and redundant menus that plague a number of the game's basic systems.)
4) Search functionality. (What was so wrong with /sea all 75 inv ? This system has failed to be understandable to me and I have failed to be able to find anyone I was looking for.)
5) Camera Controls (They have "listened" and ignored JP, EU and NA players alike as we have complained about the keyboard camera controls. This problem is so strong that players have begun using a third party program to allow themselves to play the way they want to. This problem would not be as bad if we were given a "chase" camera like that was there in Alpha for about a week. Nor would these problems be there if combined with both "turn" and "strafe" movement keys. Instead we have 2 different strafe keys and zero turn keys.)

[miokomioko]

So, why would they make Red Lotus Blade cost 10 mp per use but then not give Gladiator any way to get mp back outside of touching the aetheryte? Some of the design decisions in this game are astonishing.

Because it's encouragement to rank-up multiple classes to use cross-class abilities. It's like having potentially many XI subjobs at once.

[Elcura]

I think mobs drop crystals specific to their type, so nothing would affect that much, unless it has an effect on crytals or clusters.

[avelle]

Because it's encouragement to rank-up multiple classes to use cross-class abilities. It's like having potentially many XI subjobs at once.

Yes and I have leveled many different jobs to use their weaponskills instead. I'm a sword user yet I use trunksplitter and other weaponskills far far more than red lotus blade. This doesn't strike you as bad design?

[Hyan]

So, why would they make Red Lotus Blade cost 10 mp per use but then not give Gladiator any way to get mp back outside of touching the aetheryte? Some of the design decisions in this game are astonishing.

Because we are supposed to progress by doing guildleves. That's the design decision behind it.

When one feature doesn't work as designed, it affects multiple features at the same time.

[Snowknight26]

Because it's encouragement to rank-up multiple classes to use cross-class abilities. It's like having potentially many XI subjobs at once.

Except that, you know, you don't have any subjobs.

[miokomioko]

I'm sorry you didn't grasp what I was saying.

[Elcura]

if someone in your party has stygian spikes (or you have them), mp for melee jobs shouldn't be a problem.

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

Hey I'd have stygian spikes... if I would stop getting game errors while tanking on thaum. Srsly.

[Hyan]

Top 5 complaints that we have heard nothing about and have not been touched in any patch thus far ...

1) Guildleve failures due to server and client instability (ie disconnects and crashes)
2) Mouse functionality (not just the hardware mouse, but overall lack of functionality of the mouse in general)
3) User interface (this includes the overall poor UI as well as the inherent lag in doing ANYTHING. As well as the 3-5 embedded and redundant menus that plague a number of the game's basic systems.)
4) Search functionality. (What was so wrong with /sea all 75 inv ? This system has failed to be understandable to me and I have failed to be able to find anyone I was looking for.)
5) Camera Controls (They have "listened" and ignored JP, EU and NA players alike as we have complained about the keyboard camera controls. This problem is so strong that players have begun using a third party program to allow themselves to play the way they want to. This problem would not be as bad if we were given a "chase" camera like that was there in Alpha for about a week. Nor would these problems be there if combined with both "turn" and "strafe" movement keys. Instead we have 2 different strafe keys and zero turn keys.)

1) The director and tanaka already brought this up in one of the interviews, but it's not high on their priority list because there is already a workaround and to make it work they need to make the actual guildleve design work first... which they are trying to adjust in every patch.
2) They did not basically revamp the way camera is controlled by using the mouse, huh?! Hardware mouse is almost ready. There's no reason to believe they won't adjust it further.
3) They changed the UI, and tried to listen, but failed. In several interviews they have said that they are working hard on it.
4) Search has seen changes, and will see changes. The game is not ready, remember? The beta continues past release, and this isn't something the developers get to decide but the higher-ups who want to make money.
5) We got an option to rebind our keys, and again there is no reason to assume we wouldn't see further improvements.

You are basically mixing "they don't listen" with "they are releasing an unfinished game". Yes, shit isn't ready, and no, they do listen. That still doesn't help if their UI designers are incompetent.

ib4 the trolls.

[Frein]

Well, I have to admit lately they've actually been fixing some stuff that we've been complaining about. Still, they'll have to keep those fixes coming on a god damn assembly line if they want the game to be anywhere near ready for launch because they still have a long way to go.

By the way, I haven't crashed once in like two days now, which seems like an improvement. I do have some technical issues though: Opening cinematics have some sounds missing, others delayed and some cut off early. I also can't seem to log out without the game getting stuck loading forever, but I can just alt+tab kill it instantly.

[miokomioko]

All the "they won't listen boo hoo"s need to sit down and have a talk with any game developer that works for a huge company or a company owned by an even larger corporation. You will learn the woes of what they can do, what they want to do, what they are told to do, and how none of those three things ever overlap.

[Snowknight26]

I'm sorry you didn't grasp what I was saying.

It's not a matter of whether what you were saying was grasped or not, it's a matter of whether comparison is valid or not. In this case, in the present state of the game, it's not. 'Let me switch jobs to replenish my MP! Oh wait, action bar is empty now. Time to switch back again. Oh wait, still empty.'

[Doombard]

All the "they won't listen boo hoo"s need to sit down and have a talk with any game developer that works for a huge company or a company owned by a large corporation. You will learn the woes of what they can do, what they want to do, what they are told to do, and how none of those three things ever overlap.

Maybe if Tanaka didn't come across as a giant douche I would be more understanding.

[miokomioko]

It's not a matter of whether what you were saying was grasped or not, it's a matter of whether comparison is valid or not. In this case, in the present state of the game, it's not. 'Let me switch jobs to replenish my MP! Oh wait, action bar is empty now. Time to switch back again. Oh wait, still empty.'

Arguing just to argue, I see.

I said the cross-class abilities sytem was like XI's subjob system in that you are strongly encouraged to level other jobs to some generally low point because the abilities gain by doing so could very well benefit your higher ranking classes that you are focused more on.

How is that not a valid comparison to taking RDM to 37 for your 75 BLM? It's pretty damn close to the concept of taking CON/THM ranks up to a certain point to make your war disciplines' abilities more useful.

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

Can't believe I'm saying this, as I was looking forward to the solo aspect of this game, but playing conj or thaum, all I wanna do is party. Even on lancer last phase, I just wanted to duo all the time. The most fun I've had so far is having a 10 person behest that was just complete chaos. I guess the grass is always greener, and now that I can solo I just don't want to.

[Ksandra]

I'd say the gathering/shard thing is a very strong theory. So after I posted that I put all my points into elemental wind (I had been saving the points cause I didn't know what to do with them). I am botanist rank 7, and I would say that 90% of my harvesting trees have given me fire shards (rest earth/water). Now that I've done this I've been getting wind shards 100% of the time (done about 4 trees now so sample size is small, but for sure there is a difference imo, enough to do more testing as said.

[miokomioko]

I really want to reallocate my affinity into wind so I can move on with carpentry, but crazy water resistance is the only way I can survive The Black Shroud's fuckin aggressive mobs around my Fishing leves... ;/ I end up having to repeatedly kite mobs away from the fishing points or else it's impossible.

[solracht]

It's not a matter of whether what you were saying was grasped or not, it's a matter of whether comparison is valid or not. In this case, in the present state of the game, it's not. 'Let me switch jobs to replenish my MP! Oh wait, action bar is empty now. Time to switch back again. Oh wait, still empty.'

I'm assuming you're only thinking about Tranquility/Exaltation (in your example you're switching classes to replenish MP for some unknown reason) which you wouldn't be able to use anyways, since after switching classes and equipping these abilities, they'd be on a ten minute cooldown.

The SJ comparison was for abilities like Siphon MP, Damnation/Radiance or Stygian Spikes which can all be used by any class. If you want to use abilities that use MP often, you'll probably want to level other classes for their abilities to recover MP, and equip them on your class. The SJ comparison is perfectly valid.