Random Complaint Thread. No white knighting allowed.

[Hyan]

Don't make assumptions that they'll balance their servers accordingly when SE has shown time and time again that you can't really expect them to do something that may seem like common sense.

It's rarely as simple as we make it out to be (especially if we throw objective thinking out of the window- sorry for that one). Just saying.

I think it'd be hard (if not impossible) to make it happen without it being seen in a negative light, but it would definitely help the current population. I guess they want to avoid possible bad PR at all costs, but I fear that may end up hurting them.

[Kaylia]

Say, what do you know about the engine, Kaylia? (like that's really even relevant, technical aspect is only one aspect)

Looking at the end result tell you a lot about the engine, and knowing its weakness give you a decent idea what can be done.

[Hyan]

Looks like the engine can bend to do a lot of things, even if cutscenes is it's bravura.

Who the fuck knows, either way. All their upcoming current gen games seem to use it for different purposes.

I honestly think the server hardware is the bottleneck here if anything. A guess, anyway.

[Alderaan]

What's gonna happen when everyone has already outleveled all the new content and quests by the time they're all implemented? Is everyone rushing to get to 50 going to reroll to experience it all?

If the majority of time is spent on developing lower level content, like i believe it should, aren't all the players currently active going to be pissed off? That's a big assumption on my part but i think it's the only way for long term success. The question is if that's even possible or should SE just cater to the ones still playing?

[Hyan]

If the majority of time is spent on developing lower level content, like i believe it should, aren't all the players currently active going to be pissed off?

That's what I've speculated, but we don't know until said content is implemented.

Level caps? I doubt it, but scalable content could be more likely.

The current quests in the .dats seem to indicate that they're designed for 40+. That may change, but I doubt it will. I think that new content not planned from the beginning will be for lower ranks than that though.

[Kaylia]

Looks like the engine can bend to do a lot of things, even if cutscenes is it's bravura.

Who the fuck knows, either way. All their upcoming current gen games seem to use it for different purposes.

I honestly think the server hardware is the bottleneck here if anything. A guess, anyway.

There is a thick layer of code between the default engine and the gameplay engine. How much in this case, I don't know, but they can't magically turn FFXIV into something completely differents. Given a lot of time and money...yeah, but that's wishful thinking and you know that at this point in development, it won't happen.

At the core, this game has serious performance issues for low end pc and ps3. This act as a limiting factor if they want to design large scale content that involve lot of people and monsters. They can optimize it, but it would be surprising to see significant improvement at this point

The server located in japan is another limiting factor that prevent them from adding any "reflex based" gameplay. No matter what they do, FFXIV is never going to feel as responsive as what we are used to in other games.

And there is many other things like the outside world being fucking empty, the annoying animation lock, and stuff like this that aren't going to disappears anytime soon.

What we could see is a reshuffle of the current classes system, some change to the targeting system, and some fluffs (more efficient UI) . After that, they will adds the same shitty contents they added in FFXI.

[Hyan]

Oookkkk.

[Kaylia]

Hell, adding something like a "jump command" would be a feat at this point. Major change like that aren't likely to happen simply because of the huge amount of consequence it has on everything else. If they pull it off properly, I will be impressed.

[Kaylia]

Oookkkk.

Let's put it simply for your tiny fanboy brain. Changing a game is difficult, cost a lot of money and require a lot of time. You won't see any major change because of this..

Since the game was designed in a terrible way, adding fun and original contents (and by fun, I'm talking about content that entertain a llarge fraction of the playerbase) is not going to happens.

[Hyan]

They are risking too much with it.

But yeah, sure enough there's no way for neither of us to know the outcome of this shit. What Yoshida listed there is 30% of their planned changes. The 70% may be all about the UI and "shitty contents", we'll see.

Let's put it simply for your tiny fanboy brain. Changing a game is difficult, cost a lot of money and require a lot of time. You won't see any major change.

Because it costs a lot of money and requires a lot of time, we won't see it. You may be right. You may not be right. Thats all that needs to be said here.

[Kaylia]

Actually hyan, go ahead and tell us what you were thinking when you said: "That's why it should flank attack with shit other MMO's seem to be uncapable of doing". I'm genuinely curious to hear how FFXIV could compensate for what other mmo are lacking, when everything they can possibly adds will be subpar version of what exists already.

[Hyan]

Later, gtg. Development philosophy basically. FF games have always had subpar pretty much anything, it doesn't matter.

It'll never get approval from you and your perfect view of what every MMO should be like though, fortunately that doesn't matter in the slightest either.

[Kaylia]

They are risking too much with it.

But yeah, sure enough there's no way for neither of us to know the outcome of this shit.
Because it costs a lot of money and requires a lot of time, we won't see it. You may be right. You may not be right. Thats all that needs to be said here.

You can play the "we don't know" card, but I will most likely be right again like I was before in the alpha. Common sense isn't hard to predict.

When you look at what was done in the industry, when you look at FFXI's structure, when you look at how much was done after 8 months of alpha/beta in FFXIV, you can get a good ideas of where they are heading.

What Yoshida listed there is 30% of their planned changes. The 70% may be all about the UI and "shitty contents", we'll see.

I'm sure Yoshida has good intention, but his hands are still tied by the state of the game. He can only do so much with the big turd Tanaka left him.

Also, Yoshida doesnt seem to be the guy who will take the game in the wonderland you're hoping for. If anything, FFXIV will go for safe value used in other mmo before attempting more "innovation".

[Kaylia]

Later, gtg. Development philosophy basically. FF games have always had subpar pretty much anything, it doesn't matter.

It'll never get approval from you and your perfect view of what every MMO should be like though, fortunately that doesn't matter in the slightest either.

It's funny you bring this point since I've played and enjoyed a wide scope of mmo. The only genre I was never able to get into is the korean grinder, but even then, I still gave the first Lineage a decent run. You on the other hands seem to want nothing but FFXI/XIV. Even worse, the definition of "group based content" that you cherish so much make absolutely no sense in any online context, including XI/XIV.

And no, as long FFXIV offer the same contents as other mmo, without the challenge, and without the pacing, it won't get my approval. This is a bad single player game, this is a bad multiplayer game, and this is a bad crafting simulator.


[edit]
And let's face it, it didn't get the approval from at least 500k out of the 600k who bought it. Considering I'm still including myself in that 100k, I'm curious to see what percent actually think it's a good game.

[edit2]
And FFXIV isn't a bad game because I dislike it. It's a bad game because almost everyone hate it. Even within its own niche, it's not considered a good game by most.

[Elrina]

I often agree with many of the points you make Kaylia, even if I sometimes think you push the wrong aspect of an idea or are too adamant about how something will pan out (like broadly claiming they won't make any major changes because of costs, that the engine will definitively prohibit any big positive additions, etc.), but I think you're too convinced the game has no hope of redemption.

Right now, we all agree the game is bad. But none of us know for sure what is in store, what they will change and what precisely they are (if anything) unable to because of something like engine limitations. Just like I've disagreed with Hyan for broad comments he's made, I think you're making a statement with too much finality regarding something none of us really know for sure about. None of us will really know for sure until they either do or don't go through with certain things (like the jump feature).

It seems to me, at least, that Yoshida has been given a rather large amount of influence and leeway to restore this game to something people will like that even Tanaka didn't have. I agree that he's surely to go for specific traits of other MMOs that he's relatively sure people will like and enjoy, as well as fixing aspects currently in XIV that he knows they don't. He is an MMO gamer himself, and has an idea of what is fun and what to look at from our side of the table. That's one of the reasons his letters having a personal tone to them are so appealing, it's like he's just another one of us, the players, the hopeful. However, I think that when, if, he does manage to restore XIV to some semblance of success, not only will he have secured a major victory for the game and SE, but for himself. I believe we'll see far greater innovation and intuitive function from expansions to XIV, if he manages to reach that point, than we ever did from XI.

And for the love of God, why are you deliberately instigating Hyan? For once he isn't just completely trolling in response, his posts in response to you have been real rather than half of them just sarcastic bullshit (except for maybe the Oookkkk). You're actually the one being antagonistic in this discussion, and it's not really necessary.

[Hyan]

And FFXIV isn't a bad game because I dislike it. It's a bad game because almost everyone hate it. Even within its own niche, it's not considered a good game by most.

Just to clarify, whatever I mean by "flank attack" is something this game currently sure as hell is not. And whatever "potential" there is, doesn't make it a good game right now.

Also, Yoshida doesnt seem to be the guy who will take the game in the wonderland you're hoping for. If anything, FFXIV will go for safe value used in other mmo before attempting more "innovation".

This is why I think in the end your prediction will be right. He won't do what is necessary, he'll instead try to bring the game close to other games and make it similar. Any chance this game had (even when given the benefit of the doubt that they have lots of money and time) will go out of the window. This game won't be similar, and won't catch up, so I'd take it in another direction altogether. Reflex based gameplay may be objectively "better", but you can still have fun in other kind of game. It works better considering the high ping will make reflex based gameplay poor too, and the concept is already there. I doubt he will do that though.

Lots of the 70% will be used for shit like chocobo and delivery box, but I'll be surprised if he wants to make a poll for combat system just to confirm that "players want me to change the targeting". I didn't expect them to add jumping or change the class system (I expected them to close the shop), and maybe my expectations are too high now, but its not like the worst didn't already happen.

All I know is that the remaining 6 months won't be used for squashing bugs.

[Yoli]

I don't think a (temporary) server merge is really needed. I'm on a pretty small server (Istory), and while there's no overcrowding going on anywhere you still have 15+ people trying to get into behests at the main spots and doblyns were being fought over when I was hitting 50 (and I'm sure there's even more competition for them now that even more people are closing in on 50). There's enough people to have multiple shells running around killing the NMs, including some shells that are pretty big and were just assembled through open shouting earlier. Given that the lfg function isn't really being used because of the way it was designed, I don't think more people would get it to be used. The only think more people would really do on a server is end up creating more conflict over trying to get the few current NM's (conflict that really doesn't exist presently). I don't mind competing for NM's, but I don't mind being able to go out and fight these pretty much whenever I want either (for now). Competition can come when people come naturally, and we have more epic NM's than a buffalo.

As far as people getting mad over low level content being added later, I don't think it's an issue (too much). New jobs will be added later, and this game really requires you to level up multiple jobs to get the most out of any. So even if you had everything at 50 now, you'll be able to go back and experience the content on whatever new jobs they add in. Also - level 50 isn't going to be the end-game level. They'll raise the level cap I'm sure, and we'll be able to do new quests on our main jobs as we go up to 60 or 75 or whatever.

I have to say I don't think this is an awful game either. I'm so much happier with it than I was at the release. Needs content obviously, and more stuff like that. New (nicer) maps would be good. Whatever, everyone's heard the list. But the point is I think huge improvements have taken place, and it looks like the duck is going to keep them up.

[Cureslime]

Even if they added hamlet defenses, chocobos, mini-quests, and other stuff like that it still wouldn't be enough to get most people to pay for the game. I wouldn't even pay for it and I have no life. They will have to drop down to like 5 servers when they start charging unless they handle the PS3 release perfectly.

At least the game will be free til then which is at least 3 months away, probably a lot longer.

[Elrina]

I don't think a (temporary) server merge is really needed. I'm on a pretty small server (Istory), and while there's no overcrowding going on anywhere you still have 15+ people trying to get into behests at the main spots and doblyns were being fought over when I was hitting 50 (and I'm sure there's even more competition for them now that even more people are closing in on 50). There's enough people to have multiple shells running around killing the NMs, including some shells that are pretty big and were just assembled through open shouting earlier. Given that the lfg function isn't really being used because of the way it was designed, I don't think more people would get it to be used. The only think more people would really do on a server is end up creating more conflict over trying to get the few current NM's (conflict that really doesn't exist presently). I don't mind competing for NM's, but I don't mind being able to go out and fight these pretty much whenever I want either (for now). Competition can come when people come naturally, and we have more epic NM's than a buffalo.

As far as people getting mad over low level content being added later, I don't think it's an issue (too much). New jobs will be added later, and this game really requires you to level up multiple jobs to get the most out of any. So even if you had everything at 50 now, you'll be able to go back and experience the content on whatever new jobs they add in. Also - level 50 isn't going to be the end-game level. They'll raise the level cap I'm sure, and we'll be able to do new quests on our main jobs as we go up to 60 or 75 or whatever.

I have to say I don't think this is an awful game either. I'm so much happier with it than I was at the release. Needs content obviously, and more stuff like that. New (nicer) maps would be good. Whatever, everyone's heard the list. But the point is I think huge improvements have taken place, and it looks like the duck is going to keep them up.

That's why I'd suggested a tweak to the behest limitations. And you do have a point about the NMs, but then again I'd argue that in defense of merging the populations as well. The game, and it's current content, and whatever new content is added, needs to be able to handle populated servers. They need to know how content like those NMs will hold up when the servers actually have people on them, not just speculate and hope they've balanced it well. Then when they add new content, they know how it's actually going to hold up to a population and whether it needs tweaking for the (hopefully) new people that will be needed for the new servers.

On top of that, it helps ensure that the ridiculous level of inflation is restricted mainly to the few servers that are mostly made up of people that played through "the troubled times" of the game. That leaves fresh servers to develop fresh economies out of the new blood at PS3 release, from the PS3 users + PC users that hopefully convert from the changes implemented by then and marketing showing it off. Which would solve that problem, rather than leaving the minority on each server that is able to lord over their respective economies because they either earned or botted a ridiculous amount of currency while things were still unstable. This would give the influx of new players with fresh servers to start on, as if it really were just releasing, while keeping all of the current crowd collected together, leaving the perks and drawbacks both for having played through the last several and next several months to all of them, rather than forcing it upon the new players starting fresh.

I do agree with your center paragraph, however. Adding lower level content will always be able to be reiterated by current and future players, and even current "endgame" content would just be later's upper-mid-range content. It's just a matter of having some types of content that scale, as well as stuff that is geared towards specific rank ranges.

As to you saying you don't think it's an awful game, I'm not even sure what to say to that. I'm not going to just troll you though, because I don't like people doing it to me. I'm just going to keep my mouth shut.

The more I think about it though, the more I think it would be a good idea to shift the current populations to fill up a few servers. There are all kinds of ways they could put a spin on it that would make it come off as a positive decision, to enable current players to have populated servers as well as the future influx to have a chance at a real fresh start. Yeah, it might cause some additional conflict now, but that would be worth it too since it would show exactly what kind of content they need to avoid depending on, and help them properly balance what they add for later. I think they would have to adjust Behest, the limit on how many people can participate or how often it happens. Maybe make it 2-3 times every hour instead of once, double the amount of people able to join, and put a cooldown timer on people that prevents them from joining another for 60 minutes.

The more I think about it, the more I hope for it. I don't think it's a solution in and of itself, but I think it could be part of one. I know I for one would love to be able to start fresh on an empty server with a ton of other people doing the same come PS3 release, without all of the weight of players and inflation and what have you from September till that point.

[Sephiroth]

I believe they need to focus on high end content first or scalable content. There's no point bringing the new players in yet until they're ready for the re-launch. The content will mostly go unused until then while everyone is shouting for high end content and quitting out of boredom. Content needs to start at rank 30 eventually however because you can do 1-30 in less than a week with 3 leve cycles/behests. Remember, content designed for rank 30 can be done by people in the early 20s too.

The easiest way to do content right now is to use those hamlet defence battles. There's 6 hamlets in the starting regions, they could alternate each from 30, 40, 50 each hour so that each hour two hamlets are at your recommended rank but as they alternate you get to experience all 6. A command could tell you which. They can keep the hamlets in Coerthas for when they increase the level cap. Wouldn't be surprised if they're surrounded by mobs that 1-2 shot a 50 anyway.

I do believe SE was extremely lazy with high end content however, moreso than with low rank content. I mean there is no reason for not having rank 50 leves or behests. The 50 camps already exist. There is apparently rank 40 and 50 class quests that were never implemented too. It's like they designed the game and then content was an after thought. Perhaps they didn't expect people to reach 40 so fast or the launch was supposed to go smoother and all this was to be implemented in a patch a few months after release? Who knows.