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

[Lucavi]

^ That's pretty good, actually. Campaign was the only time in FFXI where I actually felt "immersed" in the game, and that was because it was the only time where I really felt like my actions carried "weight". Sure, killing Mr. Big dragon is cool and all, but what was he doing? Sitting in his cave, bothering no one, waiting around; never threatening anything.

In campaign, if you weren't there, the odds of victory for your faction went down considerably. You had people all around you - people you didn't even know - stepping up to fight; to heal; to do anything to help bring victory for the team. If they failed, there were repercussions outside of your LS leader raging on vent or in chat. Sure, people injected the human element into campaign and turned it into a whine-fest of "WHO DRAGGED A QUAD OFF TO SOLO FOR XP, DAMMIT?!", but the concept was just right; "Finally," I thought, "there is something worth meaningfully fighting for outside of a title or the clothes on my back."

All the pretty graphics in the world don't mean a thing if the game around it is lifeless. FFXIV feels extremely lifeless. The NPCs outside of the guild shops don't do anything but stand around (though the idle animations have improved considerably - us PCs are the only people apparently incapable of shuffling our feet or shifting our weight now), there are few birds in the sky or critters on the ground, despite hearing nothing but the incessant squawking of birds in Grid, and there's nothing to pull a person into the game other than the fact that they can kill shit with their friends (available in just about every game on the planet), or pushing to see the next non-interact-able story cutscene.

Now these were fine with SE's first foray into the MMO market, but when you have a chance to improve on your first game, why wouldn't you? Put some life into this game. The lack of players isn't the only thing that has the game feeling lifeless and dead on arrival.

Edit: Reading this interview, one response had me tipping my hat to SE.

"
I'm sure the bulk of the problems are slated to be fixed in the upcoming updates, but are there any plans to instate a public test server (a la EverQuest or World of Warcraft)?
A: We already have a few private ones which the development and Q&A teams work with for debugging, but none are public. There is definitely much to gain from player insight via test servers, but it has little to do with the debugging process. It would also require two versions of the game to be installed which would be troubling for most players and nigh impossible for those on PS3.
Another thing to consider is the impact it could have on the economy. RMT (I imagine everyone is familiar with the term) would know which new items would be most profitable to farm and could in turn control the market on those."

With as bad as RMT was in XI, and based on the draconic policies SE has put in place to try to snuff it out in XIV before it can gain solid traction, I agree with this decision.

Some of these interview responses, like the UI one, really show that someone at SE understands where the people are coming from. That's a comforting thought, if nothing else. Knowing is half the battle.

Double edit: HOORAY for panties no longer having durability. Whoever designed up that little number should be bludgeoned.

[Alderaan]

4gamers e-mail interview:

http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/27553...73#entry422673

A pretty good read.

I hate that they never seem to emphasize the skill gain issue though.

I'm sure the bulk of the problems are slated to be fixed in the upcoming updates, but are there any plans to instate a public test server (a la EverQuest or World of Warcraft)?

RMT (I imagine everyone is familiar with the term) would know which new items would be most profitable to farm and could in turn control the market on those.

Boggles my mind. So concerned with something that cannot be prevented at the cost of the overall game.

Things like Besieged and Campaign had the building blocks of something SE could have expanded on in small scale events as well as large scale events for XIV. Would liven up the world and create content other than grinding.

I have this feeling SE shit themselves when they saw the way GW2 and Rift are going about the dynamic content route as they realized they missed a great opportunity to do the same. No, i don't consider leve's anywhere close to what's possible or how it could be used.

[Tomino]

Agree-ing with Lucavi.

My feeling is that FF11 world (and FF14 up until now) was created as another old school JRPG.
Cities have NPCs behind counters to sell stuff and a few ones as quest givers; outside areas are basically well portraited monsters containers. The same can be said for indoor areas such as Garlaige or Korroloka or anything else, they're empty (sometimes nice looking) places to host monsters and pop points.
Shame is you can't really see or imagine Sandoria citizens doing anything besides being vendors; there are no farms or mines or barns outside their city.

WoW areas are instead designed as quest hubs, there's a lot going on in each of them. Also, I love the fact each there's always settlements, bases, villages or such along the road.

EDIT: on the matter of "living world", those of you who are following GW2 development would agree they're taking a new, intriguing road.
Areas resembles WoW ones so you have lots of quest hubs but, as a further improvement, there are lots of Campaign style battles popping here and there at certain intervals. I feel their goal to try and turn an MMO into an actual game where you play with others (instead of fighting claim battles) should be definitely praised.

[Lucavi]

Nah, I agree with it. FFXI had a fragile economy that could have been shattered had people known ahead of time what items would be desired. FFXIV is far more similar to XI than it is to WoW, which has a relatively stable economy due to so the AH being badass (I love the recommended prices for each item to help set the market) and so many useful goldsinks (selling the chopper for some 15k gold was the smartest thing Blizz could have done in WotLK to give rich people something else to toss their money away on).

That interview did more for raising my hopes for this game than anything that's come before it. They took the time to explain, right off the back, that they were listening, and even cited some of the biggest complaints, and acknowledged the logic behind those complaints. It was far more reassuring to know that they "get it" than simply hearing some PR head constantly spouting "We're hard at work, guys! Hang in there!"

March should be an interesting month at this rate.

[Hyan]

Boggles my mind. So concerned with something that cannot be prevented at the cost of the overall game.

Nope.


EDIT: Meh, fuck it.

[Lucavi]

Nope.



Doesn't make sense. They don't care enough to even give a shit about these games. Don't you see what they've been doing up to this point? Sure as hell not looking at these games and shitting their pants.

I agree with Hyan. I'd label it more of not knowing how to do something different, yet just as cool, rather than just not caring enough to try something. SE always wants to go off the beaten path. They're starting to realize, now, that they can't simply just march to their own drum, but at the same time, they want to inject their own style into whatever they do. That doesn't exactly make it easy to design some immersive, innovative system.

I can't really fault them for it, I can only not pay them until they design and release something that resonates with me personally, like a Campaign V2 or some well-done public quest.

[Hyan]

I could have written that post of yours Lucavi!

I feel their goal to try and turn an MMO into an actual game where you play with others (instead of fighting claim battles) should be definitely praised.

I like it, just the same way as I liked campaign as "solo" content, which wasn't really solo content. You could play alone, but you were still cooperating with others.

But if they think that this will replace good ol' group content, they're wrong.. It is definitely the way I want "soloing" to happen from this generation onwards though.

[ronin sparthos]

^ That's pretty good, actually. Campaign was the only time in FFXI where I actually felt "immersed" in the game, and that was because it was the only time where I really felt like my actions carried "weight". Sure, killing Mr. Big dragon is cool and all, but what was he doing? Sitting in his cave, bothering no one, waiting around; never threatening anything.

I liked the idea of Campaign alot but once again SE made the idea far more complex than it needed to be. The encouragement to work together as a team was good but the average player had little idea what was going on a large scale. It boiled down to an event where people just wanted to work alone because the "group" rewards came weekly. I thought it was a significant improvement over Besieged however.

There were so many layers that served little purpose in Campaign. It really over-complicated the system because so many of the details were unexplained. (What are my Campaign Ops doing for the war effort? What do my suggestions to the CB NPC do? Where are my rewards for luring freelancers to my nation's aid? Why does the weekly tally which largely depends on Japanese effort remain the only way to shift regions?)

On HNMs? SE started to realize towards WOTG that in the terms of "realism" that dragons and other large monsters wouldn't stay in one place if they have an entire world to explore but again the system boiled down to mindless camping because the monsters were predictable.

Even though you'd annoy some players, having a monster attack a town and take some NPCs out of commission would be a nice twist if you made it random. In a fantasy world where all manner of beasts prowl the land, is it really that big a leap if a dragon attacks a town, the NPCs try to come to the aid of the townspeople and need you the player/s to assist or certain consequences would unfold?

I understand what you're saying and agree, yet I don't get why you associate "cartoonish" with he idea of an empty, hollow world.

I only associated "Cartoonish" with WoW because the game does not attempt to dive into realism with regards to such things as weapons and armor. Shit glows for no reason, weapons are huge and are a rainbow of colors just because and hell the shoulderpads breathe fire.

I hold nothing against WoW for those choices but it does remind me more of comic book or cartoon show with regards to aesthetics.

My comment was that XI seemed empty and hollow even though SE attempted to make the game more realistic. WoW ironically ends up being more realistic because of those small details.

[Alderaan]

Should have reworded it to say i don't think SE knows how to do something different without trying to reinvent the wheel.

I really felt they had everything set to build upon XI's strengths and a whole mess of other MMO's strengths already in front of them and i don't know what happened.

And i stand by my RMT comment. I'd rather they have a full time crew monitoring the game and those activities, than punishing everyone. They obviously were not willing to do that and thought they could outright prevent it.

[Hyan]

I really felt they had everything set to build upon XI's strengths and a whole mess of other MMO's strengths already in front of them and i don't know what happened.

You linked that GW1 dude interview a while ago. They answered it pretty clearly.

"Public" Alpha testing 2-3 years in advance, to set things right from the early concept stage. SE didn't do that. Probably has to do with their secretive policy when it comes to projects being worked on or something. Of course they had their Q&A team but it's not the same thing.

If A-Net didn't do it, they'd fail without a doubt. They don't get no second chances. SE sadly had the excuse.

And i stand by my RMT comment. I'd rather they have a full time crew monitoring the game and those activities, than punishing everyone.

As far as I know, they did(do). They just need to be one step ahead, because otherwise its too late.

[Alderaan]

The red flag came out as soon as SE announced the release date before beta.

I do agree the secretive approach isn't helping them. Hell, leaked gameplay footage of TOR already surfaced a while ago to an uproar of negative criticism. I can only see that as a positive in hopefully improving the game. Maybe they got the hint and are reworking some things. Had this happened a year ago for XIV, perhaps we wouldn't have people paying to beta test. I think devs can keep their vision of what they want and not cater to every whim of every player while embracing what the future players opinions are. But that's not SE, so here we are.

[Hyan]

The red flag came out as soon as SE announced the release date before beta.

I do agree the secretive approach isn't helping them. Hell, leaked gameplay footage of TOR already surfaced a while ago to an uproar of negative criticism. I can only see that as a positive in hopefully improving the game. Maybe they got the hint and are reworking some things.

The devs? Probably. But the ones controlling the cash flow/development? Doubtful. They need to see the disaster to believe. Especially when they can just say "it's just alpha, we can work things out after release if shit hits the fan, fanboys are raging over any little detail" etc.

Had this happened a year ago for XIV, perhaps we wouldn't have people paying to beta test. I think devs can keep their vision of what they want and not cater to every whim of every player while embracing what the future players opinions are. But that's not SE, so here we are.

I doubt it. But if they had done some official outside testing a year ago, things could be different as far as the design goes. The game would still be released without basic features & content in place though, as the people in charge wouldn't listen. They probably don't even understand MMO development.

[miokomioko]

Completely lacking features and content was not a design choice. It was a deadline sacrifice.

[Hyan]

That's what I said They could have taken some right steps as far as the design goes, but the game would have still been released too early.

[Alderaan]

I'm not even talking about content. Everyone knows it was sacrificed and i have patience for that.

It's everything else like UI, combat system, animation locks, and animations for skills in general that could have been "fixed" a year ago had they done outside testing. Not to mention an auction house/broker.

Things like being able to preview armor before you buy it, vanity items, item skin remodeling, armor dye, and fluff like that i'd have expected at release. I enjoy that stuff and i think many others do as well. I don't thing SE understand that though.

[miokomioko]

When what we're talking about is a game that's part of a genre which, by definition, is never completed... any "design" problems can be fixed with time. When something gets slapped together quickly to get it basically functional and out the door, it doesn't get the time to get tweaked from "bad design" to "good design" which all of the systems could be if they get enough attention.

[Hyan]

Anything that is easier to fix, they could have. But whenever it involves more money, more resources, I don't think it would have been enough to convince those who decide about this stuff to start any larger scale adjustments. 2-3 years ago would have been better for such features.

But it can't be argued that it would have definitely helped. They did start testing from Alpha, so I think they had a general idea about how to proceed, but it was still too late.

[Kaylia]

EDIT: on the matter of "living world", those of you who are following GW2 development would agree they're taking a new, intriguing road.
Areas resembles WoW ones so you have lots of quest hubs but, as a further improvement, there are lots of Campaign style battles popping here and there at certain intervals. I feel their goal to try and turn an MMO into an actual game where you play with others (instead of fighting claim battles) should be definitely praised.

GW2 look great so far. They are taking many good design from other games, and building it into something that look solid. Slapping good idea together doesnt necessarily mean good product, but in this case, it looks like they are doing it right.

It might not live up to the hype if there isnt enough variety in the contents, but so far, it looks good.

There were so many layers that served little purpose in Campaign. It really over-complicated the system because so many of the details were unexplained. (What are my Campaign Ops doing for the war effort? What do my suggestions to the CB NPC do? Where are my rewards for luring freelancers to my nation's aid? Why does the weekly tally which largely depends on Japanese effort remain the only way to shift regions?)

The concept behind campaign was great, but the actual fights were pretty underwhelming. In besieged, I loved how you could see the fight slowly degenerate. Generals would fall on after another, and it was a pretty big deal everytime. Then the door would open and you had to give everything to keep them away.

Campaign look nothing like what you would expect from a fight. There is a bunch of npc/monsters running around mindlessly like a horde of hungry zombie, and the outcome is completely meaningless. I want an incensitive to win a fight other than the xp gains.

[miokomioko]

There was some meaning to Campaign, but immediate exp always trumps long-term conquest in the eyes of players.

[Kaylia]

Completely lacking features and content was not a design choice. It was a deadline sacrifice.

One could say that design choice need to consider deadline. >_>