FFXIV Tactics: Understand The Fatigue System [VIDEO]

[Amastacia]

Alma, I kinda agree, but if casual players are the biggest factor for SE, then why is this game so amazingly similar to FFXI in terms of its archaic design choices? Clunky UI, no real mouse support, terrible keyboard controls, and an overall old-fashioned system that promotes endless running around to figure things out rather than fleshed-out quality tutorials?

Tutorial part I agree with.

The rest has nothing to do with casual friendliness or unfriendliness, but rather SE's "comfort zone" being console land, and them not being able to step away from that. The fact that they think actual PC gamers want anything to do with a gamepad is laughable. It's such a tremendous step back from mouse + keyboard to a controller that only primarily console gamers rationalize the advantage away (this includes a sizable number of people who play(ed) FFXI on PC with a controller... just playing a game on a PC doesn't make them PC gamers).

The poor design decisions on UI and control schemes come from a desire to streamline development for a multi-platform MMO, which I guess makes sense aside from the fact that the whole premise is utterly retarded. Even the utter kludge that is Crystal Tools can be most aptly blamed on SE's console-centricity, since they had to build their game engine to the lowest common denominator of console GPUs and evidently decided that the additional work and expense to actually build a decent engine for a PC game was undesirable.

[Grey Jorildyn]

This video is a great visual representation of how I figured it worked based on descriptions we've read about.

That said it is interesting. It's not revolutionary though. It's a negative reinforcement model aligned in direct opposition to positive reinforcement models of "rested exp". It's masked by the phrase "horizontal progression", and why not--that's what it encourages after all.

Fortunately the game design pratically encourages this anyway. What is amusing is that while I was watching this, a thought came to mind; start on a class other than your intended main, preferably one you wish to draw the most early skills from. Then switch to another non-main and do the same. Once you have all the skills you want to use on your main to say, 16, since that seems to be the magic fatigue level for many, level it then. Repeat process for next chunk of levels.

The execution may seem awkward, but it is clearly intended to be that way.

[Baffle]

it's impossible to advance more quickly than SE desires.

This keeps getting said and I really have to come out and say how much I disagree with it.

Here's a personal example: When FFXI's level cap was being raised to 80 I decided that I should probably have SCH leveled as a subjob, but the idea of leveling it was really unpleasent. I put it off and put it off until I finally buckled down and level it from 1 to 40 in 5 days. Less than a week. To put that in perspective, the level cap when FFXI first came out was 50. It would be like someone getting to level 40 five days after FFXIV is released. I don't think SE intended for people to level that quickly. And that's just me, I'm sure other people could go much faster if they wanted.

I also highly doubt SE intended for people to get making 20-30k/hour merit parties when ToAH was released. I also doubt they ever intended for Summoner burn parties to exist. Players will always find a strategy or trick that surpasses what the developers expected. This isn't a bad thing, if anything it's a good thing! It keeps the game fun and interesting.

[Spider-Dan]

Here's a personal example: When FFXI's level cap was being raised to 80 I decided that I should probably have SCH leveled as a subjob, but the idea of leveling it was really unpleasent. I put it off and put it off until I finally buckled down and level it from 1 to 40 in 5 days. Less than a week. To put that in perspective, the level cap when FFXI first came out was 50. It would be like someone getting to level 40 five days after FFXIV is released. I don't think SE intended for people to level that quickly.

I'll be willing to bet any amount of money that you could not have leveled from 1-40 within 5 days when FFXI was capped at 50.

- no teleports
- no refresh
- no utsusemi
- no sneak/invis
- no sushi
- no outposts
- no exp rings
- no Corsair's Roll
- most importantly, no level sync

Being able to level from 1-40 when the cap has been 75 for 6 years has almost nothing in common with leveling from 1-40 when the cap is 50. SE has obviously made things easier for lowbies since vanilla FFXI's release.

I also highly doubt SE intended for people to get making 20-30k/hour merit parties when ToAH was released.

Ridiculous. Players were regularly managing endless chains within a week of TAU's release.

Abyssea exp parties confirm that SE is very deliberate when it comes to exp/hr.

[Hyan]

I also highly doubt SE intended for people to get making 20-30k/hour merit parties when ToAH was released. I also doubt they ever intended for Summoner burn parties to exist. Players will always find a strategy or trick that surpasses what the developers expected. This isn't a bad thing, if anything it's a good thing! It keeps the game fun and interesting.

Whether SE intended it or not is irrelevant.

If they wanted you to progress slower, they would have nerfed the shit out of all those exp methods. And yes, if level cap was 50, it wouldn't take more than a week for them to adjust the system to their preferences.

In XI the endgame advancement is more important than growth advancement anyway- players who got their Salvage gear 3x faster than anyone else got owned by SE's banhammer.

[Charismatic]

I keep seeing people mentioning 'benefiting' from this system. Where does that come from? This system doesn't give you anything... it only takes away. How is it possible to benefit from a system that gives nothing? And don't say class diversification because ultimately people are only going to level the classes that benefit the ones they want to play. It's no different from people leveling subjobs in XI which was done without the system forcing you to do it.
We already know that as MMO players many will do what it takes to get +1STR even when that one STR does next to nothing. You think without surplus people wouldn't level to get abilities like second wind, etc? You're only fooling yourself. Surplus doesn't benefit anyone in any way... period.
It might not be as harsh a penalty as some initially thought but that's all it is. A penalty. You can't benefit from a penalty.

[Hyan]

I keep seeing people mentioning 'benefiting' from this system. Where does that come from?

Uhh... did you watch the, y'know, video in the OP? It is explained there, very clearly in fact. This was already known by most but I guess it is a harder concept than one would think.. especially for the opposition.

[Lucavi]

Whether SE intended it or not is irrelevant.

If they wanted you to progress slower, they would have nerfed the shit out of all those exp methods. And yes, if level cap was 50, it wouldn't take more than a week for them to adjust the system to their preferences.

In XI the endgame advancement is more important than growth advancement anyway- players who got their Salvage gear 3x faster than anyone else got owned by SE's banhammer.

Isn't that because they cheated like the assholes they are? I don't think a group plowing through ToAU mobs raking in 20k is cheating, so I of course SE never nerfed it. SE controls things that they view as cheating: banning botters/dupers/ect., fixing "exploits" to their precious endgame mobs like AV, and the like. I don't think they've ever really taken a hands-on approach to monitoring XP gains outside of giving us XP scrolls.

@SD: Those things were put in as the game aged and evolved, not simply to appease nubs. Sushi was an evolution of the food system, and addressed the pathetic accuracy of many jobs due to poor level scaling and woefully inefficient gear choices at the time, not to enhance some n00b's valkurm dunes party - the n00b wouldn't have bought the sushi, much less had the gil to do it.

The point is that FFXIV should be starting off farther in its launch than FFXI did in its own launch. In some ways, XIV is, but in many ways, it certainly is not. This game has taken a tremendous number of steps back, when, if they wanted to differentiate it from some FFXI-2, they should have at least taken steps to the side, if not at all forward.

@Hyan: Stop throwing around "WATCH THE VIDEO!!" all the time. The "benefits" of the system are defined as being able to grow horizontally instead of simply vertically, but news flash: you could certainly grow horizontally without surplus. The only "benefit" is that SE is twisting your arm to grow vertically, instead of leaving it up to the player's decision to choose their own path.

[Charismatic]

Uhh... did you watch the, y'know, video in the OP? It is explained there, very clearly in fact. This was already known by most but I guess it is a harder concept than one would think.. especially for the opposition.

The video doesn't show any benefits to surplus/fatigue. It shows benefit to the class system...

[Hyan]

Isn't that because they cheated like the assholes they are? I don't think a group plowing through ToAU mobs raking in 20k is cheating, so I of course SE never nerfed it. SE controls things that they view as cheating: banning botters/dupers/ect., fixing "exploits" to their precious endgame mobs like AV, and the like. I don't think they've ever really taken a hands-on approach to monitoring XP gains outside of giving us XP scrolls.

They did it a lot before, but less and less as the game grew older. I guess they stopped caring at some point.

The point is that FFXIV should be starting off farther in its launch than FFXI did in its own launch. In some ways, XIV is, but in many ways, it certainly is not. This game has taken a tremendous number of steps back, when, if they wanted to differentiate it from some FFXI-2, they should have at least taken steps to the side, if not at all forward.

Uh, what do you know about the launch exactly? Some site with a retarded translation is your source of knowledge?

@Hyan: Stop throwing around "WATCH THE VIDEO!!" all the time. The "benefits" of the system are defined as being able to grow horizontally instead of simply vertically, but news flash: you could certainly grow horizontally without surplus. The only "benefit" is that SE is twisting your arm to grow vertically, instead of leaving it up to the player's decision to choose their own path.

Watch the video.

The video doesn't show any benefits to surplus/fatigue. It shows benefit to the class system...

FFS. 1:40.

Less grind per a single class, benefits casuals. Especially when you're expected to level more than one class.

[Lucavi]

We'll have this discussion about FFXIV's launch direction in about two weeks, Hyan. Be prepared.

[Hyan]

Yikes!

[Charismatic]

FFS. 1:40.

Placing walls in your path is a benefit, gotcha.
I guess I should be thanking SE for texturing those walls so nicely.

[Hyan]

Placing walls in your path is a benefit, gotcha.

Not placing walls in your path = benefit for hardcore

Placing walls in your path = benefit for casuals

The vid says this pretty damn clearly. Haters gonna hate.

No matter how you spin it, there is a benefit for certain demographic. You lose.

[Lucavi]

No, the casuals should thank SE for those walls being there to slow down those damned hardcores~!

Rested XP is a bad idea, benefiting casuals, but slowing down those dastardly non-casuals fiends will preserve the sanctity of society as a whole.

[Shade]

I think the benefit is not having a gigantic huge leveling curve? No 55k tnl at 5k/hr?
There WILL BE systems in place to slow your growth, this is an MMO. This is a different system, not a new system.
In this particular case, the system says "hey go do something else" instead of "hey kill crabs for 30 more hours".

[miokomioko]

I love how people say this system is "punishing" the hardcore players instead of simply rewarding casual players. What the fuck do you think it would be if they just set the curve high as shit and gave casuals increased exp gain to keep up. How is that not the same thing with a different name?

This system rewards hardcore players for not completely sucking at whatever class they want to focus on. CRAZY AND STUPID.

(p.s. I still think it would be better if it stopped at somewhere around -75% EXP reduction. Either way, the effect of this system is being drastically overstated, yet the kids with 20hrs to burn on video games every day still cry bloody murder.)

[Spider-Dan]

I love how people say this system is "punishing" the hardcore players instead of simply rewarding casual players. What the fuck do you think it would be if they just set the curve high as shit and gave casuals increased exp gain to keep up. How is that not the same thing with a different name?

F*cking THANK YOU. This is EXACTLY it.

People are bitching endlessly about "punishing" the players, but punishing and rewarding are two sides of the same coin. Would the game be any better if they presented fatigue as a rest bonus instead of a grinding penalty?

p.s. I still think it would be better if it stopped at somewhere around -75% EXP reduction.

I do think it would be nice if it stopped at a non-zero number (-99% wouldn't be out of the question, IMO) if only to shut up these "You won't get ANYTHING AT ALL from leveling" whiners. If some idiot wants to spend 100 hours to do something that would take 1 hour a week later, have at it, chief.

[Grey Jorildyn]

It seemingly punishing those with more time to play yes, but in actuality it is evening the playing field through rate of growth. True casuals play in spurts of short amounts of time. True hardcores play in longer amounts of time over consistently more points in time. There is definitely a difference.

The system does not taking skill into account whatsoever. Saying "rewards hardcore players for not completely sucking" is inaccurate. Having more skills to work with will make you more useful (read: utility-capable), than having fewer. The execution of those skills is still left entirely to the players.

I agree hitting 0% is a bit harsh, but it's also not like you won't see it coming on. I'm still not really for or against the system. What I don't like is the angle its taken on controlling player growth, which I stated in my last post.

F*cking THANK YOU. This is EXACTLY it.

People are bitching endlessly about "punishing" the players, but punishing and rewarding are two sides of the same coin. Would the game be any better if they presented fatigue as a rest bonus instead of a grinding penalty?

But they are still two completely different things. This system doesn't actually "reward" anyone. Think of reinforcement models from psychology. I will explain in terms of fatigue and rested:

Positive (rested exp): provide incentive when players are not logged in. (why this is good: decreases server load because players log off, encourages good human behavior like going to sleep, spending time away from the game, and generally doing any but playing but still paying for the game)
Negative (fatigue): implement growth penalty for players who play too often. (why this is bad: takes away your freedom to focus on a single task, encourages you to play the way they want you to play by reducing character growth--pretty much exactly what negative reinfocement means [taking away something you like to encourage a different behavior])

Since it is typical for a player, casual or hardcore, to either work/school for 3-6h, sleep for 8h (being generous here), there are more hours in a given day, over a lifetime that a player who subscribes to a game is not logged in. So yes, there is a difference between rested and fatigue. Is it "better" presented one way or another? That completely depends on the player. However, since casuals make up the vast majority of any player base across any online gaming community, it caters to casuals and in-turn appears to penalize hardcore players for sticking to one job too long.

[Spider-Dan]

Isn't that because they cheated like the assholes they are? I don't think a group plowing through ToAU mobs raking in 20k is cheating, so I of course SE never nerfed it. SE controls things that they view as cheating: banning botters/dupers/ect., fixing "exploits" to their precious endgame mobs like AV, and the like. I don't think they've ever really taken a hands-on approach to monitoring XP gains outside of giving us XP scrolls.

Aern pets say hi. And don't play the "you're not supposed to exp on pets!" card, because lowbie goblin pet killing is still alive and well.

@SD: Those things were put in as the game aged and evolved, not simply to appease nubs.

Not the point. Try to exp from 1-40 in a game without any of those things (not to mention a dearth of accuracy gear, a gimped economy that's largely NPC driven, etc.) and let me know how it would work out.