Random Complaint Thread. No white knighting allowed.

[Kaylia]

I don't really see the desire to reformat XIV into XI-2. Maybe there are a few specific potential fixes that would result in some similar ideas (like the armoury system changed to a modified version of XI's job system), I don't think the results would ever be FFXI-2, nor should they be. I also had a lot more written out regarding why FFXI was built around restriction, and how that's what stemmed many of those specific memories, and that the reasons aren't always good ones, but I decided to edit my post down a bit. While I agree that FFXI gave a sense of teamwork and accomplishment, a lot of it was forced and artificial, and the way it went about it in many was was ludicrous. I want a sense of accomplishment because I actually achieved something, on my own or with a group, not because I finally completed a quest after spending 20-30+ hours (potentially shorter, potentially longer) farming mobs for the three quest items required. That isn't accomplishment you're feeling at that point in time, it's relief.

I wouldn't even call this "sense of accomplishment" most of the time, I was simply relieved to be done with this particular activity. This is probably the same feeling gambling addict have when they win some of their money back.

There was still a few highlight that made me feel proud (first time we cleared ultima/omega BC, when we killed DL, when we discovered Ix'Aern after days of hunting), but they are too scarse.

Going back to the argument of talent trees earlier in this thread or another, wouldn't that have been a superior idea for homogenization than letting every class use abilities from every other class? That way each classic job could have been used, and most have multiple ways they could be specialized naturally anyway, with the ones that don't having additional ways added. Then each job could be used and changed to, but each one could also be specialized to be used in different ways that are still specialized and unique to that job/class, but would fulfill a different role. And it would allow the continued existence of classes that were purely for buffing or debuffing, like bards in FFXI. Hell, each class could have two specializations, and just leave you with the ability to choose between them at will in order to perform different roles, and it would still remain superior as each class was still unique even when performing a different function.

That's one thing I never understood. Why are people complaining about talents tree and the like. Ultimately, all that matter is how balanced the skills are, and how many viable alternative there is (alternative mean different gameplay, not different animation), it's stupid to hate a particular system because it's used in another game you want to hate.


I disagree with one thing here though, BRD-like class should never exists. Well, buffers are fine I suppose, but they needs mechanics that make them hard to play so they can possibly screw up .

[Hyan]

Talent tree is one way to do things. It is never a bad thing for a consumer to have choices, as if you don't prefer a particular system there is something else out there for you. Lack of choices, on the other hand, is stagnating.

Of course the new system needs to be adequately polished. Yet it doesn't have to be objectively better than the alternative, as people don't base their preferences on objectivity most of the time. It's new and shiny, it's refreshing... it's better. Of course the opposite is also true for some.

[Elrina]

I wouldn't even call this "sense of accomplishment" most of the time, I was simply relieved to be done with this particular activity. This is probably the same feeling gambling addict have when they win some of their money back.

I disagree with one thing here though, BRD-like class should never exists. Well, buffers are fine I suppose, but they needs mechanics that make them hard to play so they can possibly screw up .

That's exactly what I was saying, that anybody that believed that was an accomplishment (even if they got lucky and their drops were fast) was mistaking it with relief that it was done with and they didn't have to worry about it anymore.

After actually writing it out and thinking about it, I might agree that a bard class isn't necessary. I really like the idea of an "all support" class type, one that doesn't exist inside of the customary tank/damage/healer trio, but I remember that in XI it was almost ridiculously broken how dependent people became on wanting a bard. When adding a fourth, support category with buffs/debuffs that are stronger than a typical healer might have, you basically make them a required part of every party. And the more categories that are required in each party, the harder it can be to put one together if enough people aren't in each category. It would need to be balanced in a way that prevents what happened in XI with bards, where it became all about the 3 main offensive buffs and occasionally elemental resistance buffs. Corsair was balanced a little better I think, with a greater variety of useful buffs, and having two support classes helped a lot. It might be better to just avoid them entirely.

Talent tree is one way to do things. It is never a bad thing for a consumer to have choices, as if you don't prefer a particular system there is something else out there for you. Lack of choices, on the other hand, is stagnating.

Of course the new system needs to be adequately polished. Yet it doesn't have to be objectively better than the alternative, as people don't base their preferences on objectivity most of the time. It's new and shiny, it's refreshing... it's better. Of course the opposite is also true for some.

It's not bad to have choices, but sometimes it depends on what those choices are. It's doubtful that it would ever happen, but lets pretend for the sake of argument that FFXIV had the ability to swap abilities between classes removed, the ability point system removed, and additional abilities for each class added along with the ability to specialize into different talent specifications. Yet we could still change classes. So we still have a choice of something different, because now we are able to have one character with a myriad of classes that also has multiple options for specialization inside of each specific class. Some different choices are good, but different choices simply for the sake of being different is bad without there being reason for it, and the reasons we currently have are bad ones. The current options don't help make classes more fun, they don't make each specific class special in some way, they just bring them all down to a level of mediocrity.

We've discussed it before, and I know that you think with adequate polishing many of the ways the current system operates could be saved, but I don't have as much faith that in the long run it would turn into something more enjoyable to use. Thinking about it actually makes me more certain that polishing the current system isn't necessarily the best route to take, rather changing it entirely now - while it's still an option. After dragging it out and polishing what's there currently, if it turns out later that it is still detrimental, the choice to make a larger change to the core structure of the system itself won't be available anymore.

I realize that all the changes will take time and resources, yet it seems to me that polishing an existing design element that isn't very good (the use of any ability on any class as a means of achieving customization), considering that it does more harm than good to each class individually (in my opinion, better class specific customization options would be far better for combat classes, although keeping this for crafting classes wouldn't be bad, they require different kinds of balancing), isn't as good an option as putting in a better base structure and then polishing and balancing that over time. Especially since they'll be making possibly large changes to the current combat system, and overhauls to other aspects of the game at large, now would be the time to do it, if ever.

tl;dr The game is still a mess, and polishing what's there simply to save time isn't going to solve the fact that a lot of them were designed around restricting options in the first place. Just like the first poll asked, "overhauling the fundamental gameplay systems". Now, while the option is on the table and changes will be made, is the time to change some of them. Depending on polishing systems that currently aren't good, in the hopes that once they're all polished the balance will change them all from bad to good, isn't realistic.

[Hyan]

FFXIV had 1)the ability to swap abilities between classes removed, 2)the ability point system removed, and 3)additional abilities for each class added along with 4)the ability to specialize into different talent specifications.

#3 can be done as-is, and #1 can be done partly (say, after rank 30 more and more skills are class specific and "themed" as opposed to the more generic abilities pre-30). #4 is unnecessary, as the content will make us specialize into a role as deemed necessary, and #2 is a bit like having talent points, but fluid in nature, so no need to remove it.

In the end it can be like talents without restrictions within a single class. Also hell, I wouldn't be against making 2-3 kinds of "themed" skills per class- within a gladiator there is paladin, warrior and ninja(w/e) themed skills, etc. Then you just do whatcha wanna do with the points you have available, as well as make use of the more generic abilities cross-class (cure from conj would be good for pld, especially if there are pld-specific traits that raise the affinity of those sort of spells). Maybe make unlocking some themes require you to level more class combinations or do a quest or w/e so you're not just becoming a paladin by playing a warrior themed gladiator.

Now that I think about it, what I said above is like #4 but then again, not exactly. Subjob meets talents meets final fantasy perhaps. It got more complicated as I thought about it but not that it's a necessity or anything. One theme per class works too.

[Kaylia]

That's exactly what I was saying, that anybody that believed that was an accomplishment (even if they got lucky and their drops were fast) was mistaking it with relief that it was done with and they didn't have to worry about it anymore.

But my Ridill sure felt good after wasting 1 year of my life!

After actually writing it out and thinking about it, I might agree that a bard class isn't necessary. I really like the idea of an "all support" class type, one that doesn't exist inside of the customary tank/damage/healer trio, but I remember that in XI it was almost ridiculously broken how dependent people became on wanting a bard. When adding a fourth, support category with buffs/debuffs that are stronger than a typical healer might have, you basically make them a required part of every party. And the more categories that are required in each party, the harder it can be to put one together if enough people aren't in each category. It would need to be balanced in a way that prevents what happened in XI with bards, where it became all about the 3 main offensive buffs and occasionally elemental resistance buffs. Corsair was balanced a little better I think, with a greater variety of useful buffs, and having two support classes helped a lot. It might be better to just avoid them entirely.

Yeah, corsair and dancers weren't too bad, it was a step up over BRD imo in term of class design (not balance though)


Like you said, it's interesting to have something other than a tank/healer/dps, but at the same time, this complexity hurt people who tries to form a party. The more roles you had to fill, the harder it was to actually start the event

[Alderaan]

Otherwise (it's personal tastes) pick the GW2 route and make everyone for himself which can lead to some serious fun too.

That's not how GW2 works. everything you do in party play affects the rest of the group. While each class is self sufficient in solo play, the skills you would use in group play will completely change. This is why i like the locked skill bar route that Anet uses. You equip certain spells and abilities based on what you're doing and you're locked to a certain amount you can use. Instead of having 30 skills and only using 3 or 4, you're limited to 10 skills from a list of hundreds. Planning in advance is part of the fun. And here's the kicker, your skill bar is actually saved between encounters and even automatically switches to whatever weapon you decide to equip. This is something that should be standard in any MMO where you can mix and match skills.

Also, i like the route Trion went with Rift when it comes to skill tress. Instead of all 32 classes being able to mix and match skills, you're limited inside the 4 main archetypes (Cleric - Mage - Warrior - Rogue). That way you're at least guaranteed 4 different routes instead of having rogues that can heal or warriors that can nuke and so on. You still have 8 different classes where you can go into 3 skill trees at one time. Clreics can tank or dps besides heal and rogues can tank very well depending on which trees you mix and match.

[Elrina]

#3 can be done as-is, and #1 can be done partly (say, after rank 30 more and more skills are class specific and "themed" as opposed to the more generic abilities pre-30). #4 is unnecessary, as the content will make us specialize into a role as deemed necessary, and #2 is a bit like having talent points, but fluid in nature, so no need to remove it.

In the end it can be like talents without restrictions within a single class. Also hell, I wouldn't be against making 2-3 kinds of "themed" skills per class- within a gladiator there is paladin, warrior and ninja(w/e) themed skills, etc. Then you just do whatcha wanna do with the points you have available, as well as make use of the more generic abilities cross-class (cure from conj would be good for pld, especially if there are pld-specific traits that raise the affinity of those sort of spells). Maybe make unlocking some themes require you to level more class combinations or do a quest or w/e so you're not just becoming a paladin by playing a warrior themed gladiator.

Now that I think about it, what I said above is like #4 but then again, not exactly. Subjob meets talents meets final fantasy perhaps. It got more complicated as I thought about it but not that it's a necessity or anything. One theme per class works too.

I think that, if applied the way you're suggesting, it would be an even looser version of what I was theorizing myself. I'm surprised at you!

Say that what you suggested was applied. The ability to swap abilities gained post 30 is removed, and everything 30+ is considered class specific, with possibly a couple more pre-30 classified as class specific as well in order to aid in class definition at lower ranks.

Then they add abilities to classes at rank 30+ in the same way they would if they actually did add talent specifications. Abilities that are quite obviously "Paladin" in nature, "Warrior" in nature, (I see Ninja more going to Pugilist, along with Thief and Monk, but maybe some kind of specialization that uses a shield with two hands offensively?) etc. There could even be progressive abilities at higher ranks, that require other abilities equipped as pre-requisites in order to equip them, which would enhance the sense of a specific "talent". Actually, using this concept, there could be a special "Paladin" "Warrior" "etc." abilities or traits earned at a specific rank that was required to be equipped in order to equip further abilities of that nature. It would quite literally allow them to create branching talents in the current system, and equipping one of those traits could even be made to change the "title" of our class.

Boom! A way to change class names, while allowing further class specific variation at the same time as enhancing class identity. And the ability point system in this case could be completely maintained as it is, or a subsystem involved (x number of points for other class skills, y number of points alloted for class specific skills), and it would be like you said, a fluid equivalent to talent points.

Also, quests could be implemented in order to retrieve the initial "Paladin" or "Warrior" etc. traits, that change your class title to the more focused (job?) name (but only when that trait is equipped*). That would actually be a rather exceptional way to restore the traditional class names/traditions while using the existing system to do it. Excellent idea.

[Sephiroth]

Wow that bot I talked about last night is still bouncing around Ul'dah repair guy...

[Elrina]

Wow that bot I talked about last night is still bouncing around Ul'dah repair guy...

This is what scares me about Yoshida. That he won't be able to change GM policy, and general customer service policy. That instead of banning fucktards obviously botting and exploiting, they'll continue to wait to do it in waves, despite reports or consistent behavior openly displaying what is going on. And that's when they even bother checking on the reports, and it doesn't result in a "we didn't see it" situation, because they never went and actually checked on the person till after the obvious botting ended. And we all know that at least some people innocent of any real crimes, people using means to window the game in full screen or some other stupid shit in-game will get lumped in with the others, and probably left with no real recourse to their ban.

All those shitty payment options are also just an excuse so that they'll be able to collect from the other companies and deflect problems with payment or billing issues to them.

There are so many administrative problems in regards to how SE deals with customers that it's ridiculous. Part of the making all of the servers international is that it allows them to keep them all in Japan, rather than place any at their NA/EU headquarters (do they even have one in the EU?). They would cite problems with multiple languages as the reason they wouldn't put in an official forum before Yoshida* took the lead, yet how difficult is it (especially with how much money they've got to be pumping into the game to revive it) to pay for additional translators and community managers? Why are they unable to create clear channels for people who are suspended to challenge their suspensions or bans with customer service so that they can't simply be the scapegoat of some shitty GM who's having a bad day, or some JP GM with a vendetta or whatever?

Man, you mentioning that guy still being there when it's that obvious makes me way angrier about it than I should be. Just makes me remember so many stupid shitty issues with GMs and customer service during XI that it makes me sick.

Yoshida, if you have anybody paying attention to these forums, FIX THIS SHIT. It's important to have GMs that actually do shit, and don't cite "working as intended" or ignore you. Make sure you hire good people that are instructed in how to help people with problems, and especially how to help them when the problems stem from other players. That customer service is actually able and willing to adjust issues with your account when there is legitimate cause, rather than completely blowing you off or requiring the damn Head GM or some completely ridiculous shit in order to make adjustments.

[Lucavi]

I always felt that disallowing invites to party when engaged was also a way to prevent holding parties. Just my two cents on that.

You may be right, but it still doesn't fix the massive problem it caused.

[Elrina]

The only reason holding parties would be an issue (unless I'm completely missing something) is if they bring back 21-24 hour HNMs, and if Yoshida has any fucking intelligence whatsoever he'll know better. Open world content is good, but I would rather 100% instances if that's what it took to prevent even a single new 21-24 hour HNM (or longer, lest we forget the CoP HNMs!) that holds pivotal gear unavailable anywhere else.

[Sephiroth]

You said it better than I ever could Elrina, completely agree. I don't expect any of this crap to change in the near future. We'll see a ban wave at some point, probably after people make their first payments so they can take some money off the botters. But that will be months. I've said it before customer service is almost non-existent in this game and this is just one of the many examples that prove it.


I think SE have got world NMs right so far in this game. They pop often enough that you can schedule them rather than being forced to do them at specific times every day.

[Elrina]

Yeah, it sounds like the "HNM"s or w/e are fine right now. I it's possible, after reflection, that Grey was probably referring more to claiming and holding for reinforcements and not so much about keeping a mob in a specific time zone. But it's still a design choice built around restriction, that restricts it in the entire rest of the game, over something that's not even really that big of a deal since they pop much more often anyway. Who cares if a group occasionally needs to hold out till more help arrives? Until it's people trying to monopolize spawns or people are getting locked out of the fights entirely I can't imagine it's really that big of an issue.

And man, I mentioned it earlier in the thread or in the thread in the News section or somewhere or other, but a couple weeks ago I was reading through the threads linked in that "XI Drama" tab up at the top of BG. And some of them are just filled with accounts of GMs and customer service being so absolutely dumb fuck retarded that it's insane. I remember people who stopped playing the game, and people who were interested but wouldn't touch the game, simply because of how GMs and customer service responded towards issues like obvious botting/cheating, lack of options when suspended/banned unfairly, or billing issues.


I had a friend who was hacked, took six months to get her account back because of stupid back and forth shit from SE. Took like 2 months or more just to get the damn paper she needed to get notarized for the first time because they kept saying they sent it and it never showed up. Then she finally gets it back, and asks to make sure she can wait till the turn of the month to activate the account to check that everything is on it, and they reassure her that she can do so whenever she wants and that it'll all be kosher. So she tries to log in two weeks later and has to pay an upfront fee to get into her account. She pays it, because she's tired of dealing with hours on hold with SE customer service to get nowhere, and just wants to check her account. Pretty sure she thought it was just an overdue monthly payment or something, like when you don't have enough money on your card at the end of a freshly activated month and then they charge you immediately upon reactivation instead of waiting for the turn of the month. Anyway, she gets in and finds the account stripped, and on some other random ass server.

So she contacts SE, gets through finally, and they inform her that "they can't do anything". It's past the "7 day grace period" to do an item restore after getting her account back, despite telling her she could wait till the turn of the month. They won't return her to her server, despite acknowledging that it was put through after her account was hacked. They just returned it two weeks prior, she just logged in for the first time and found her shit wrecked, and they wouldn't do anything. Then, to add insult to injury, they charged her not only for the past month due fee, but the $25 for the world transfer fee. So she was hacked, had to wait ages to get her character back, moved to a server she didn't want to move to, forced to pay for it by SE, and then they refused to move her back to her own server or do an item restore, despite acknowledging that it was all the fault of the person who jacked her shit. They wouldn't even credit the $25 to her account, and told her she'd have to pay another $25 on top of that if she wanted to move her character back to it's original server.

Final Fantasy XI was rife with shit like that. This was not an uncommon story, and I'm quite sure every single one of you have probably heard several similar stories. It's completely retarded how rampant issues like this were, and it's all customer service policy! If they had treated her honestly, and it was like, they were unable to restore her items or something because the system locked them out after a certain time period (which isn't accurate) she would have understood. If they had understood about the money, and at least credited her account and offered to transfer her back to her server, she would have been okay. Depressed still over all of it, but happy that they at least did their best to help her now that she had her shit back.

But that is all Square-Enix policy, and who fucking knows how much influence over that Yoshida, or Tanaka before him, or anybody even on the damn development team even has over the customer service policies surrounding FFXIV, which probably aren't too different from those that existed for FFXI. I really hope he does have influence over it, and will realize it's an issue, and I hope the official forums become a flame filled pile of garbage aiming the hatred of it's wronged customers at SE if this kind of shit continues in the future of FFXIV, once it becomes an actual game and they're charging for it and it has (hopefully) some real population to it.

Man I'm stoked now. I'm going to go calm down, I'll come back and post some more later maybe, ugh.

Tl;dr - Square-Enix's fucking customer service deserve daily fucking floggings and anal rapage if they continue with the same stupid bullshit they pulled in FFXI during the future of FFXIV. And I don't give a shit who wrote the policies, they deserve them too. That shit needs fixing.

[Sephiroth]

NMs already have a unique feature to stop holding. After 30 minutes they go into rage mode, regen up fast and hit for 9999 damage. That's more than enough to stop holding as it's impossible to kill them in this mode.


I heard many a horror story back when I played XI. They did seem to improve somewhat over the years but it was and probably still is shit. I already had my dealings with SE twice in XIV.

Once when trying to retrieve a lost buccaneer's shirt runestone that I lost due to a full inventory and the game having no check for it. The game shouldn't just destroy rare loot without warning and then have no policy in place to get it back. XI has a policy for that shit so it's clear they aren't even using the good policies XI has. The amount of time you spend getting rare shit you kinda expect better. I'm sure their flawed design will cause many of those issues in the future. SE were clueless in trying to help, they passed me around five different sections of their "support" before I gave up.

The other was when a dude came and botted all the doblyns I was SPing on with that terrain hack and claiming them twice as far away as me despite them being out of range for me. The GM sent me an automated response about how I should instead go to their website, find the report feature and contact the special task force (which don't send replies at all). That's just ridiculous because a GM should come watch the bot in action, log the details and send the report to the task force themselves. You shouldn't have to stop playing to go report. Imagine telling that to a PS3 player who has to shut down the game completely and use that horrible PS3 browser.

[Elrina]

That's just an example of their horrible GM service and support. This could partially be because they care less right now, because they aren't charging for the game. Or it could just be their natural evolution of going from horrible to mediocre customer service in XI, only to revert to their natural state of horrible now that they're back in the beginning stages of their new game. "Who needs good customer service or support? It's the beginning of the game, what could possibly bother them that much!?"

Fucking idiots. And that policy that's currently in place in XI regarding item restoration, iirc, wasn't actually in place till like 2008 or 2009 or some shit. Which was like, only a couple years ago, and how many years after the game was out till they adopted it? Absolutely ridiculous that they can't spend some time revising these policies, what they can and can't do, what they're willing to do, etc. As it is, you've probably hit the tip of the iceberg, and this is a new game, who the hell thought policies like this were a good idea? This is going to be one of the first things I'm asking questions about on the official forums if we haven't heard something about it yet, because them fixing these horrible policies and enabling reliable customer support and proper channels to request help and/or dispute something are vital.

[Cureslime]

They probably only have one person per language covering all of their customer service for XIV so it's no surprise that their service sucks ass.

Random complaint: 0/THIRTY FUCKING FIVE on armorer guild mark leves since I hit 4950 marks on armorer. Give me my fucking sheeting training already. I need it for every fucking synth I will ever do.

[Hyan]

That would actually be a rather exceptional way to restore the traditional class names/traditions while using the existing system to do it. Excellent idea.

The only thing I'd change is perhaps some of the post-30 skills being subbable- mainly the few higher tiers of the more generic abilities from pre-30. Also to further enhance the idea, maybe make it so having a white mage themed conjurer at higher rank as well as a paladin unlocks few of those specific abilities/spells to be used cross-class, but only from those two themes and only when your "title" is white mage or paladin.

Also make it so each theme needs to be unlocked by doing a quest, imo. As it starts from around rank 30 it works like advanced jobs in XI and gives us milestones to look forward to, as well as gives them their own lore that doesn't conflict with the gladiator lore (paladins & coliseums don't mix).

I think the 3rd theme should be the main class in question. I mean, Gladiator would get paladin, warrior, and gladiator themed skills. I think this is important for those who like the current classes, while those who prefer good ol' FF classes have more options. I mean, it's not like the current classes don't have any lore or themes associated with them already. It should be easy to figure out themed skills for all of them. They simply take the role of "standard" classes that people start with, but are not forced to stick for the duration of the whole game.

[Sephiroth]

The only thing that pisses me off with the current classes is the combining of WHM with BLM. You're always going to be a heal bitch in any end game scenario. Why invite 6 CONs just so 3 of them can nuke when you have DoWs wanting to get in the main group?

[Hyan]

Why would you want to use BLM's in XI as opposed to melees, pre-Abyssea/melee dominant content?

[Sephiroth]

Why would you want to use BLM's in XI as opposed to melees, pre-Abyssea/melee dominant content?

BLMs and RNGs were the cool jobs to have in your party back when I played. I played as a DRK and without a kraken club the job was seen as crap for any end-game stuff. That changed later on, not sure what happened.

And anyway I'm talking XIV situations.