FFXIV Flame Wars Thread: because ten threads is not enough threads

[Kaylia]

An usual win-win strategy... It's easy to bash something because once it's out, if it turns out beautifully no one will ever remeber what your critics were about. If it fails, like XIV, you get your gold trophy. There is so little skill involved in sitting there and criticize, sorry. (Not meant as a persona attack tho)

As for the game, I agree with the aforementioned idea that they are aiming for those few people who would accept being punched in the ball to later become Eorzea's billionaries by having max crafts once the PS3 version is out. The fixes will come down slowly, you'll eventually got auto-sort feature but you'll be able to massively fap once the players start coming and you can craft everything for them.

Win-win? What am I winning here? It's not like anyone will ever give a damn if I was right or not. It's mostly personal satisfaction for predicting something correctly. Also, the prediction itself could go either way given a different situation, its not like I wanted ffxiv to suck.

[Machazareel]

Online FF are way more "loot oriented" than WoW will ever be. You should know that WoW outdate all your "hard" works every 3-6 months. That's why you play to beat the contents, get titles, and get achievements instead. You can see loot as a trophy, but that's not what the game is about.

I agree with most of what you say, but I have a hard time with this statement. Simply by reading the official forums right when patch notes get released that allow a new tier of gear to be purchased with badges shows you an explosion of bitching and crying from raiders getting upset that those evil casuals are able to get our gear. The massive amount of people that rely on that damn Gearscore addon to measure up a players worth is also indicative of a heavily gear oriented game, not surprising either as the gear in WoW makes such a massive difference in performance.
I'm not going to attempt to judge which game is more gear-oriented, but I'd certainly claim that WoW is an extremely gear oriented game, and while FFXI also is, there's at least not nearly as many items that absolutely overpower your toon compared to the stuff you can buy off the AH.

[Eaglestrike]

I agree with most of what you say, but I have a hard time with this statement. Simply by reading the official forums right when patch notes get released that allow a new tier of gear to be purchased with badges shows you an explosion of bitching and crying from raiders getting upset that those evil casuals are able to get our gear. The massive amount of people that rely on that damn Gearscore addon to measure up a players worth is also indicative of a heavily gear oriented game, not surprising either as the gear in WoW makes such a massive difference in performance.
I'm not going to attempt to judge which game is more gear-oriented, but I'd certainly claim that WoW is an extremely gear oriented game, and while FFXI also is, there's at least not nearly as many items that absolutely overpower your toon compared to the stuff you can buy off the AH.

Because never have people expected Sniper rings in FFXI. Or a Haubergeon. Or Haidate.

I was going to be a DRK when I first leveled up in FFXI. But I had been told and heard from so many people that you NEEDED Sniper rings so much I ended up quitting by the time my DRK got to the level to get them since I could not afford them. I went to play a THF from then on...

[Machazareel]

Because never have people expected Sniper rings in FFXI. Or a Haubergeon. Or Haidate.

I was going to be a DRK when I first leveled up in FFXI. But I had been told and heard from so many people that you NEEDED Sniper rings so much I ended up quitting by the time my DRK got to the level to get them since I could not afford them. I went to play a THF from then on...

And most of that you can buy off the AH. Haidate being one of the few items in the game that I mentioned are/were extremely powerful compared to purchasable gear, nor was it ever 'expected' until the game had been out so damn long that almost everyone who even wanted one anyway already had it. I played FFXI for 5-6 years, was an elitist jerk among elitist jerks and I don't think I've ever heard the comment "lol that scrub doesn't have haidate".

[Shaskoru]

FFXIV will still be awful at the ps3 release. Assuming they fix most of the bugs (and that notion is being extremely generous), then they still have the issue of designing the game around bad systems. They're never going to fix that. FFXI, which I feel has improved quite a bit in its last year or two, is still designed around the shitty systems that it shipped with.

Also, I fail to see the purpose of these people getting on top of the crafting game for a potential influx of players. Quite a few people in this very thread have claimed that gil is worthless by design to minimize the impact of RMT. What's the point of that hard work on crafting when money is so easily earned?

[Kaylia]

I agree with most of what you say, but I have a hard time with this statement. Simply by reading the official forums right when patch notes get released that allow a new tier of gear to be purchased with badges shows you an explosion of bitching and crying from raiders getting upset that those evil casuals are able to get our gear. The massive amount of people that rely on that damn Gearscore addon to measure up a players worth is also indicative of a heavily gear oriented game, not surprising either as the gear in WoW makes such a massive difference in performance.
I'm not going to attempt to judge which game is more gear-oriented, but I'd certainly claim that WoW is an extremely gear oriented game, and while FFXI also is, there's at least not nearly as many items that absolutely overpower your toon compared to the stuff you can buy off the AH.

Gears play an important part in WoW, I wasnt saying otherwise. However, gears is easy to obtain, and you rarely have to go out of your way to equip yourself properly for the current contents. You can strive to have the "best possible" gears at any given time if that's what you like, but the game doesn't encourage that at all.

And yes, some people will cry everytime they outdate their gears. However, you really dont see that much crying from the endgame community. Most people are happy to have new contents to look forward. I mean, just look at the amount of people quitting when they are bored with the actual contents, and people comming back when there is new stuff.

[edit]
And just to be clear, yes, the gears in WoW make a huuuuge difference on your ability to survive/beat an encounter. However, the encounter are generally well balanced to the actual state of the gears, and offer challenge that require skills. If you're talking about outdated/nerfed contents, then gears will allow you to rollface through it, but no amount of gears will let you beat the currents raid easily.

In FFXI, you only had gears and merit to look forward . The occasional bit of story was also nice, but 1h every 4 months isn't a lot (especially if you consider you just paid 40$ in montly fee). For the rest, all there is to do is farm a relic, farm a salvage piece, farm nyzul..etc. Content progression is non existant in FFXI. You usually beat the new contents within days, unless it involve large party (which are a pain to make)

[Machazareel]

Gears play an important part in WoW, I wasnt saying otherwise. However, gears is easy to obtain, and you rarely have to go out of your way to equip yourself properly for the current contents. You can strive to have the "best possible" gears at any given time if that's what you like, but the game doesn't encourage that at all.

And yes, some people will cry everytime they outdate their gears. However, you really dont see that much crying in the endgame community. Most people are happy to have new contents to look forward.

It's entirely possible that most don't care about casuals getting the gear ( I know I don't ), since there's good chance it's just a very vocal minority spamming up the official boards with bitch threads, but I see it so damn often with so many different names attached to the threads that it seems quite a few people rage obscenely about it, most recent example being arena gear and 264 arena weapons being purchasable with honor, even though the arena season is over and there won't be another one until Cata and at that point the arena gear will be worse than crafted resil gear.

[Karnja]

What's the point of that hard work on crafting when money is so easily earned?

I could imagine later on when you do some kind of endgame, as rewards you get some crafting materials, maybe even rare/ex you need to craft your gear instead of getting gear drops right away.

[Eaglestrike]

It's entirely possible that most don't care about casuals getting the gear ( I know I don't ), since there's good chance it's just a very vocal minority spamming up the official boards with bitch threads, but I see it so damn often with so many different names attached to the threads that it seems quite a few people rage obscenely about it, most recent example being arena gear and 264 arena weapons being purchasable with honor, even though the arena season is over and there won't be another one until Cata and at that point the arena gear will be worse than crafted resil gear.

There are people who post on WoW forums about how "easy" the game is becoming, and how easy it is when the top guilds (guilds sponsored by companies and play 24 hours a day until content is completed) manage to clear content. These people usually don't even have the easy version of the raids completed, if they raid at all. They're trolling, plain and simple. Blues come out and make fun of them because they're such blatant trolls, because no toon on their account is clearing this content.

And to respond to an earlier post, I have seen people complain about someone not having a haidate, because "it's been so long everyone should have one by now" is typically the reason associated with it.

[Kaylia]

It's entirely possible that most don't care about casuals getting the gear ( I know I don't ), since there's good chance it's just a very vocal minority spamming up the official boards with bitch threads, but I see it so damn often with so many different names attached to the threads that it seems quite a few people rage obscenely about it, most recent example being arena gear and 264 arena weapons being purchasable with honor, even though the arena season is over and there won't be another one until Cata and at that point the arena gear will be worse than crafted resil gear.

Added a huge edit to my last post, sorry.

They probably wanted to give everyone an opportunity to use up to date resil gears in bg, especially the one that will stay at 80 to farm BG. Do you think it's a issue to give people ilvl264 weapons? Like you said, in 4 weeks, everyone will vendor all their gears (heroic lich king weapon, badge gear, crafted gears that cost 10k 6 months ago...everything), until then, what you're doing in game doesnt really matter. Sure, blizzard could have waited a few weeks before giving away 264 weapons, but in the grand scheme of thing, there is no reason to cry about it.

[Hyan]

In FFXI, you only had gears and merit to look forward . The occasional bit of story was also nice, but 1h every 4 months isn't a lot (especially if you consider you just paid 40$ in montly fee). For the rest, all there is to do is farm a relic, farm a salvage piece, farm nyzul..etc. Content progression is non existant in FFXI. You usually beat the new contents within days, unless it involve large party (which are a pain to make)

While SE has had their fair share of poor years during WoTG, I don't think this is true for this year and ToAU times at all.

I didn't beat any of the content in ToAU "in a matter of days" and I don't consider myself below average at all. But when WoTG pretty much stopped the progression up to this year it got old after a while. So I quit. Because I was bored. But before that I had stuff to do and look forward to.

You don't find content that stays fresh for as long as it does from WoW either. I did Nyzul for a year and it never stopped getting old because of the random nature of it. Dynamis was the exact opposite because it was long and predictable. Salvage took the community months to figure out, and I liked those times. There was something to look forward to.

If WoTG had introduced something similar instead of just letting the game drift, that statement would be even less true.

I'd say that if the level cap wasn't raised every update I wouldn't be as thrilled about the adjustments these days. You do Abyssea... for what? To do the next Abyssea 3 months later. After that who knows? More Abyssea? After a year? Abyssea? Kill me please...

[Machazareel]

Added a huge edit to my last post, sorry.

They probably wanted to give everyone an opportunity to use up to date resil gears in bg, especially the one that will stay at 80 to farm BG. Do you think it's a issue to give people ilvl264 weapons? Like you said, in 4 weeks, everyone will vendor all their gears (heroic lich king weapon, badge gear, crafted gears that cost 10k 6 months ago...everything), until then, what you're doing in game doesnt really matter. Sure, blizzard could have waited a few weeks before giving away 264 weapons, but in the grand scheme of thing, there is no reason to cry about it.

Oh, no no. I have no problem with them handing out that gear to those who want to grind for it at this point. I honestly feel the divide in gear levels for pvp is unhealthy for the pvp portion of the game (Which is being adressed in Cata, yay.), so for those who like it, this should even out the playing field for a little while. I was merely pointing out that there's a lot of people being very vocal about it on the forums, as it seems gear is the main driving force for a lot of players.

[Eaglestrike]

I remember beating the storyline added in ToAU within hours of servers being back up over and over again...and that included either figuring out where to go or browsing the forums to find out where someone else went to complete it. 3 months of waiting for 3 hours of storyline. Fuck yes this is why I play the game, the epic story!

[Hyan]

ToAU wasn't exactly a storyline expansion, so you would have been dumb to play the game because of story at that point.

[vadre]

I'd love to know how you avoided those JP-midnight waits?

[Hyan]

I don't think there was any at that point.

[Kaylia]

While SE has had their fair share of poor years during WoTG, I don't think this is true for this year and ToAU times at all.

I didn't beat any of the content in ToAU "in a matter of days" and I don't consider myself below average at all. But when WoTG pretty much stopped the progression up to this year it got old after a while. So I quit. Because I was bored. But before that I had stuff to do and look forward to.

You don't find content that stays fresh for as long as it does from WoW either. I did Nyzul for a year and it never stopped getting old because of the random nature of it. Dynamis was the exact opposite because it was long and predictable. Salvage took the community months to figure out, and I liked those times. There was something to look forward to.

If WoTG had introduced something similar instead of just letting the game drift, that statement would be even less true.

There is a difference between events that take a few weeks to master, and event that take a few weeks because you can only try them so many times.

ToA endgame had some nice thing going on. Salvage was probably the best designed event in the whole game (once they added the starting chest). The "puzzle" were retarded with the lack of hints (hi2u rampart, frog and qiqiqn), but the zone itself was actually a challenge. Assaults were fun in overall, but they didnt have any real reward and were abandonned almost immediatly. Nyzul was an interesting concept, but personally, I got bored of it after climbing it so many time, and it was never a challenge. Saving the astral candescence was a very thrilling experience as well, but no reward...etc.

I havent played FFXI in 2 years, so I can't comment on the current state of the game. However, it does feel from the post I'm reading that the only thing to do is NM farming in abyssea, or farm random monsters/NM for weapon/armor upgrade. I really havent seen anything about progress or challlenge.

Anyway, diversity wasn't the issue. What I'm saying is that people will only put the emphasis on contents that give loot in FFXI, and the rest is ignored. Even worse, with the shit drop rate, once people set their eyes on something, you will be farming it for years. WoW doesnt have more contents than FFXI, it just make a better use of it. The fight will be more challenging, and everything is outdated relatively fast, making the "grind" much less painful.

[Eaglestrike]

I'd love to know how you avoided those JP-midnight waits?

Not every update had those waits. I recall there being on within the first 15 missions, but the update with Shantotto vs Khimaira weak didn't have one.

[Hyan]

ToA endgame had some nice thing going on. Salvage was probably the best designed event in the whole game (once they added the starting chest). The "puzzle" were retarded with the lack of hints (hi2u rampart, frog and qiqiqn)

I think the zones gave some clues as to how the NM's function imo. It was never a complete stab in the dark although frogs took us too long for some reason.

I havent played FFXI in 2 years, so I can't comment on the current state of the game. However, it does feel from the post I'm reading that the only thing to do is NM farming in abyssea, or farm random monsters/NM for weapon/armor upgrade. I really havent seen anything about progress or challlenge.

I dunno, to me it looks like the progression is like in WoW currently. As in, vertical. Every update brings new items to the game which replace the old ones. You do one Abyssea for a while then move on to the next (while not completely abandoning the first one, iirc).

Challenge is relative, I guess you can just kill everything easily with 18 peeps but lowmanning is always harder.

Anyway, diversity wasn't the issue. What I'm saying is that people will only put the emphasis on contents that give loot in FFXI, and the rest is ignored. Even worse, with the shit drop rate, once people set their eyes on something, you will be farming it for years. WoW doesnt have more contents than FFXI, it just make a better use of it. The fight will be more challenging, and everything is outdated relatively fast, making the "grind" much less painful.

That seems relative too. WoW abandons it's content after a while. I think that is a waste. But on the other hand, the earlier content in XI did not take into account the fact that you would be doing this shit for a long time. Dynamis is the worst example of this imo. The later content functions a bit like "time challenge" mode- how much you can do in the time given to you. I think that is an interesting concept of challenge and goes well with the random nature.

But overall, there is too little of this kind of content in the long run. If it started during RoTZ or CoP, things would be different. But you know, when you say "content progression" I'm not sure what exactly do you mean by that- I mean, Limbus was better than Dynamis, and Salvage was made much more interesting than Dynamis too. ZNM > Sky imo. There was very little item progression, so do you mean that?

[Kaylia]

Oh, no no. I have no problem with them handing out that gear to those who want to grind for it at this point. I honestly feel the divide in gear levels for pvp is unhealthy for the pvp portion of the game (Which is being adressed in Cata, yay.), so for those who like it, this should even out the playing field for a little while. I was merely pointing out that there's a lot of people being very vocal about it on the forums, as it seems gear is the main driving force for a lot of players.

Well, out of the 15 millions who play, some are bound to be unhappy lol.

WoW might not be perfect, but I do think Blizzard is doing a good job at giving everyone something to look forward. It doesn't matter if you're hardcore or casual, if you're obsessed with gears or progress, you will usually find something to do.