"Open Style" vs "Rigid Structure" what do you want for the future of FFXIV

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

If I want to wander around aimlessly with a bunch of boring people, I'll play that game called real life.

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Real life is not boring, your just playing with the wrong people.

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Originally Posted by Joeking

Real life is not boring, your just playing with the wrong people.

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That's what happens when you get old. >.<

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

That's what happens when you get old. >.<

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Just get some more cynical friends, they will liven up your game experience.

PS: Old? Which trick box? 30-65? < I consider this old, anything past that is a zombie..

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Originally Posted by Joeking

PS: Old?

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37 in August. >.<

Pretty soon I'll be telling kids to get off my lawn.

I actually like the openness of the game, with some adjustment of course. I like the ability to cast some magic (though I should not be able to play healer to myself as any class) or use newly acuired skills on my favorite class and see how it works out.

But there should definately be major advantages and disadvantages to useing skills outside of their respecitve classes.

A bit more rigidness to the game design is needed, the game's current design is a mess. The cross class system in it's current state is making it too easy for people to play like an entire party all on their own and gives the classes no individuality.

But the openness of the system should be held onto. It gives players more choice and makes them think about what is important to them. Even when playing with other people you at least have a bit of individuality. Maybe I like to use bleed affects as opposed to straight up power. Or maybe I like slowing the opponent down instead of blinding him.

I understand that the game's systems need to be adjusted to give classes their own use and individuality. But to take away all the player's ability to make their character their own. It gives extra reason to level other classes as well as some more exploration, in a trial and error sort of way. I may be alone in this thinking, but I think a character should be able to express what the player feels is important in battle. Whether it be, speed, strength, the use of affects over straight damage or even the ability to use some emergency magic every now and then. We don't all think the same, why should we be forced to play as if we do?

I prefer open style. I like what ArcheAge is doing.

there is something called creativity.. you can take mage spells and put them together with a DD job and basically make your own DRK (Example)..

Its funny how people cant handle choices.

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Originally Posted by Morticous

there is something called creativity.. you can take mage spells and put them together with a DD job and basically make your own DRK (Example)..

Its funny how people cant handle choices.

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It's not that people can't handle choices.

It's that JRPG-players aren't people.

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Originally Posted by Verecund

The problem is that they've given us a sandbox without actually filling it with sand first.

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LOL Yep basically. Or maybe just a lot of sand but no water or toys to mold anything with.

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Originally Posted by giftforce

I prefer open style. I like what ArcheAge is doing.

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Me too :S Some of my friends are going there more then probably.. ; ;

My point comes in describing how I play with my two close friends.

Firstly, we are a close LS so we use VOIP. secondly we define our own roles. He and his wife are both lalafell mages while me being the big Hyur tank. These are our main roles, once these get fagged (fatigued) we change our class and move to a lower level area. Cue: Behest Leves NMs.

So here it comes, This game is not for the Anit-Social elitist, Unfortunatly that is what it was made for.
If you choose to make it rigid DO IT. force your party to retain what is unique to their class otherwise choose another LS or another Party. I can do it. I can just be a tank > tonnes of buffs and covers and taunts. My bud plays his DD mage and his mrs. plays our cleric. We, he goes PUG im now THM and she has gone back to Ul'dah to craft. then she comes back as an Archer so I change to my Lancer. Within freedom you can MAKE rigidness, within a rigid game design that is what you are stuck with. PEOPLE DEFINE YOUR OWN ROLES.

Also something else that was cool: We nearly failed a low lvl leve, but for the simple cause that we had other higher ranked classes we ran back over to those gnats and dropped them like proverbial flies.
that was an awesome feeling.

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

Pretty soon I'll be telling kids to get off my lawn.

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Yeah I feel like that sometimes already.. I have to stop myself. lol

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Originally Posted by Morticous

there is something called creativity.. you can take mage spells and put them together with a DD job and basically make your own DRK (Example)..

Its funny how people cant handle choices.

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It is funny. It makes me angry. As my friend below says you can make rigidness.. so all the whiners are gonna get is to take away my freedom.. and I'm.. A PATRIOT!!!

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Originally Posted by bojangles

Within freedom you can MAKE rigidness, within a rigid game design that is what you are stuck with. PEOPLE DEFINE YOUR OWN ROLES.

Also something else that was cool: We nearly failed a low lvl leve, but for the simple cause that we had other higher ranked classes we ran back over to those gnats and dropped them like proverbial flies.
that was an awesome feeling.

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Excellent first post sir. You are absolutely right. People can define their own roles. It'd be nice if they woke up and realized that.

i like rigid for mmorpg and prefer the more flexible style for single rpgs usually.
But i also think that tweaking the system, perhaps restricting some more of the abilites, defining the abilities we had, or changing them so they feel more unique could have worked out as well. But since atm stats, gear, LVL vs LVL, leves, classes, abilities... EVERYTHING needs balancing and some even need a purpose at all, since they are close to useless or completely useless, i don't mind a revamp but i would love to get more information on their big plan especially what the battlesystem and class system is gonna be like.

The fact that it won't be finished by the release of the 2 dungeons gives me a bad feeling about the dungeons.
Unless the dungeons are pretty mindless hack and slay like the rest of the game is.. how can they design a dungeon if they change the battlesystem or are half way through a big change (perhaps its not big at all though, who knows).

I would rather see the battlechanges and jobchanges done at least 90% + tweaks later on. But not just a few changes, then dungeons, then the bigger changes after...
The dungeons/bosses will need to be redone again to offer the same or a better strategic challenge.
I wanna know their direction. Examples on how they are gonna fix mages. I wanna see examples. But that is too much to ask for it seems. Instead i see the same textures as i see every day and some chigoe mob types ... i so hope for great surprises...

I find it ironic that many of the peeps who advocate an "Open System where I decide what role I want to play and I decide how I want to play" continually rip the peeps who say they want a "Rigid System where I play a designated role in a party".

Wouldn't a truly Open System allow everyone to play the style they want? One person can play sandbox mode and another person can play a specific job/role in a party.

If you go back and read Tanaka's original vision, this is exactly what they tried to create. We all know they failed. But the failure was not because it tried to do both but rather because it was Sandbox (Open) only. There was no party structure and no job specialization. It was all "Solo-Easy Mode" content with no "Challenging-Party Mode" content.

Yoshi and team are now busy adding that Party/Job content that was missing while leaving the base Sandbox-Mode in place.

FFXIV was never meant to be one or the other (Open vs. Rigid) and they are not trying to make it into one or the other. They are still trying to deliver on the original promise of having content for both play styles.

Will XIV be doomed because neither camp is happy or will it succeed at being a hybrid? The (ftp) trial is still ongoing and evidence has yet to be submitted. We, the jury need to set aside preconceived notions and prejudices and judge the game on content we can actually play (evidence) and not on speculation (hearsay).

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Originally Posted by Davorok

I find it ironic that many of the peeps who advocate an "Open System where I decide what role I want to play and I decide how I want to play" continually rip the peeps who say they want a "Rigid System where I play a designated role in a party".

Think about what you are saying there. Yes it is truly open so you can play riged if that is how you choose to play. The reason people are giving others a hard time for choosing the rigid style of play is that it is already there but to see it you just need to use your *rainbow hands* imagination a little.

Wouldn't a truly Open System allow everyone to play the style they want? One person can play sandbox mode and another person can play a specific job/role in a party.

FF14 does this now. bar controls. I never played FF11 so my opinion is valid on the basis of how this game was SUPPOSED to be perceived by the general public. This game is truly unique and while FF11 may have been a great game it has marred your perception of its (FF14s) true potential

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Please don't take me tearing into your post as a personal insult, I am using it to make example of my own points.

I'd lean more towards rigid.

But it doesn't have to be one or the other, I'd say about 3/4 structured as far as battle goes.
Quests could stand to be a little more open as well as the actual world in terms of terrain variation.

Structure vs freedom is actually a pretty big concept to work with and debate on which is better has affected man sense they began to think. one might argue that they ain't even complete concepts as to have certain freedoms, you must first have structure as a basis of that freedom. But I'll stop myself before I ramble.

No matter what kind of stat freedom the game might have doesn't really matter as everything is a spoon-fed map-marked and timer-based leve.

I haven't yet learned any leves name because they all feel the same.
Follow the arrow kill everything that moves rinse and repeat.

Hope for content-->get disappointed that they follow the same leve format...
Try NPC questing and try to pretend that the quest flavor wall of text screen isn't a leve screen.

Next to these restrictions caps and levels seem to matter very little to me as it's all the same anyway.

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Originally Posted by bojangles

Please don't take me tearing into your post as a personal insult, I am using it to make example of my own points.

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I don't take anything on these forums personally. Everyone has their opinions but allow me to "tear into your post" a little.

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Yes it is truly open so you can play riged if that is how you choose to play. The reason people are giving others a hard time for choosing the rigid style of play is that it is already there but to see it you just need to use your *rainbow hands* imagination a little.

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What specific content is there currently in the game that requires a more rigid party-style play? This isn't a paper D&D game where we are supposed to "use our imagination" to pretend content is there that isn't. SE is trying to implement content specifically for strategic party-based play but it is the "Open Crowd" that is crying foul. There is already 50 ranks worth of Sandbox-Mode content and nothing for parties.

Wouldn't a truly Open System allow everyone to play the style they want? One person can play sandbox mode and another person can play a specific job/role in a party.

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FF14 does this now. bar controls

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.
Dunno what you are trying to say there.

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I never played FF11 so my opinion is valid on the basis of how this game was SUPPOSED to be perceived by the general public. This game is truly unique and while FF11 may have been a great game it has marred your perception of its (FF14s) true potential

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Where in my post did I say anything about FFXI? You are correct however in assuming I did play XI. I also loved it AND hated it. I fail to understand how my XI experience has "marred my perception"? You mean to say that any previous MMO experience (esp FFXI) voids my opinions of THIS game? I am sorry but that is just ridiculous.

XIV does have alot of potential but to achieve that potential it needs alot more content for both play styles. Then it will be truly unique as no other MMO has figured out how to do this yet.

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Originally Posted by Davorok

I find it ironic that many of the peeps who advocate an "Open System where I decide what role I want to play and I decide how I want to play" continually rip the peeps who say they want a "Rigid System where I play a designated role in a party".

Wouldn't a truly Open System allow everyone to play the style they want? One person can play sandbox mode and another person can play a specific job/role in a party.

If you go back and read Tanaka's original vision, this is exactly what they tried to create. We all know they failed. But the failure was not because it tried to do both but rather because it was Sandbox (Open) only. There was no party structure and no job specialization. It was all "Solo-Easy Mode" content with no "Challenging-Party Mode" content.

Yoshi and team are now busy adding that Party/Job content that was missing while leaving the base Sandbox-Mode in place.

FFXIV was never meant to be one or the other (Open vs. Rigid) and they are not trying to make it into one or the other. They are still trying to deliver on the original promise of having content for both play styles.

Will XIV be doomed because neither camp is happy or will it succeed at being a hybrid? The (ftp) trial is still ongoing and evidence has yet to be submitted. We, the jury need to set aside preconceived notions and prejudices and judge the game on content we can actually play (evidence) and not on speculation (hearsay).

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nothing is stopping you from a rigid style other than the sp cap. you can create specialized builds, but for some specialized builds, the best thing is a hard monster, for example gladiator to excel, needs tough monsters. its the highest single target damage reduction. for being a pure healer you need stuff that hits people hard. This stuff exists, but only on higher than 10 levels exp, which they give no reward for.

the same thing happened in ffxi, when the focus shifted from killing IT monsters to zerging lower VT infinitely, pld blm whm smn all went down in value. DPS and DPS buffers with one cure person took control as the party of the norm, blm were forced to create blm parties. The SP reward system is to blame for many peoples beefs, and the lack of certain types of content.

the SP change is the main culprit

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Originally Posted by Neptune

What you're really saying is you're a baby and you want to suck on your spoon. You can't play well with others when no one but you defines the roles of your party. Just like a little baby, you're completely helpless to feed yourself your liquified food.

I, however, am gifted enough in imagination to be able to create my own outcome from the choices laid in front of me and I welcome the freedom it gives. Square Enix must not neglect you players who are not having a good time and so they will redesign the game for you, but that doesn't mean I will ever respect your lack of spine.

The openness of this game did correlate with its failure but that doesn't mean it caused its failure. To your lack of spine, lack of imagination, and baby urges, you can add lack of critical thinking.

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...What? How does wanting a structure to the game equate to being a baby? You're the one with dreams of grandure, thinking that the game is only limited by your glorious imagination. Don't give yourself so much credit, it just results in no class structure and an inability for the dev team to create challenging content.

Insulting people because they recognise the totally unrealistic approach and dream-like ideals that Tanaka took on when making this game doesn't help your cause.

Don't be deluded into thinking that just because you're one of the 20k who stuck with the game means you're special.

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nothing is stopping you from a rigid style other than the sp cap. you can create specialized builds, but for some specialized builds, the best thing is a hard monster, for example gladiator to excel, needs tough monsters. its the highest single target damage reduction. for being a pure healer you need stuff that hits people hard. This stuff exists, but only on higher than 10 levels exp, which they give no reward for.

the same thing happened in ffxi, when the focus shifted from killing IT monsters to zerging lower VT infinitely, pld blm whm smn all went down in value. DPS and DPS buffers with one cure person took control as the party of the norm, blm were forced to create blm parties. The SP reward system is to blame for many peoples beefs, and the lack of certain types of content.

the SP change is the main culprit

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You're completely right, it's the situation that calls for one structure to be used over the other. In the context of FFXIV, solo and low-man content will likely remain a place where you experiment and use the base classes to play so that everyone can heal and have access to lots of different abilities.

For instances etc, you NEED that structure to prevent it from being too easy, and allowing people to be able to deal with what will probably be the equivalent of 'IT' enemies in FFXIV. The mindset is different here, but if you carry on with the FFXI comparison, hybrid jobs really couldnt keep up simply because they didn't do anything to a satisfactory standard.

The other option is to go the Guild wars 2 way of allowing everyone to self heal and look after themselves, but balance it by making it a much more mobile action-y game and unfortunately I couldn't see the FFXIV team having anything that advanced in them.

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Originally Posted by Sephr

...What? How does wanting a structure to the game equate to being a baby? You're the one with dreams of grandure, thinking that the game is only limited by your glorious imagination. Don't give yourself so much credit, it just results in no class structure and an inability for the dev team to create challenging content.

Insulting people because they recognise the totally unrealistic approach and dream-like ideals that Tanaka took on when making this game doesn't help your cause.

Don't be deluded into thinking that just because you're one of the 20k who stuck with the game means you're special.



You're completely right, it's the situation that calls for one structure to be used over the other. In the context of FFXIV, solo and low-man content will likely remain a place where you experiment and use the base classes to play so that everyone can heal and have access to lots of different abilities.

For instances etc, you NEED that structure to prevent it from being too easy, and allowing people to be able to deal with what will probably be the equivalent of 'IT' enemies in FFXIV. The mindset is different here, but if you carry on with the FFXI comparison, hybrid jobs really couldnt keep up simply because they didn't do anything to a satisfactory standard.

The other option is to go the Guild wars 2 way of allowing everyone to self heal and look after themselves, but balance it by making it a much more mobile action-y game and unfortunately I couldn't see the FFXIV team having anything that advanced in them.

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i just want to say most games make hybrids artificially weak, this game did not, a team of well designed hybrids can equal a team of purists in most cases, look at sports for a comparison.
You can design content that can work with both, but it needs to be difficult, nothing we have tests anyone hybrid or not.

The problems I have with the Freedom/Open system we have now are that it is not really free and open at all. You can not main heal as an Archer for example, you will only be effective at one thing as an Archer and that is Ranged DPS. The next problem is balance, I can see clear as day that this system is allowing me to create seriously overpowered Classes by allowing me to cherry pick the best abilities from all my Classes and combine them into a super class suited for a specific role. The next problem is that in an effort to achieve balance SE have made Classes very similar and this leads to the Class uniqueness problem. If SE place further restrictions on Cross Classing and make more things Class specific then what is the point in this open system.

I see nothing here that couldn't have been done better with the Job/Sub Job system of FFXI, only thing is that system allowed for more class/job uniqueness as it had tighter restrictions. If you were a WAR and you want to solo go /DNC, if you join a party and want DPS go /SAM, if you want to tank go /NIN. /NIN did kind of break the system for a lot of people but what do you think will happen when/if a skill like Utsusemi comes along in FFXIV that you are able to cross class? It won't matter what Class that skill is on or what rank it is, you will be expected to have it.

FFXIV with it's open system has the potential to be much worse than FFXI where elitism is concerned and a lot of people moaned about it in FFXI. In FFXIV with cross classing you will be expected to have those select few skill's/abilities that give your Class the edge when tough endgame roles around and certain builds start shining though. Only this time you might not have to level one sub job you don't want to, you might have to level five to cap just to get those skills to add to your super build just so you aren't considered gimp.

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Originally Posted by Neptune

What you're really saying is you're a baby and you want to suck on your spoon. You can't play well with others when no one but you defines the roles of your party. Just like a little baby, you're completely helpless to feed yourself your liquified food.

I, however, am gifted enough in imagination to be able to create my own outcome from the choices laid in front of me and I welcome the freedom it gives. Square Enix must not neglect you players who are not having a good time and so they will redesign the game for you, but that doesn't mean I will ever respect your lack of spine.

The openness of this game did correlate with its failure but that doesn't mean it caused its failure. To your lack of spine, lack of imagination, and baby urges, you can add lack of critical thinking.

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Nice! I also think that the OP suggestions would kill the player driven economy, which I think is the best part of the game.

They shouldn't have called them classes, called them weapons by their weapon name, no one would complain about "class uniqueness" then.

The elitism that characterized FFXI arose from the stiff competition for a a role in an EXP party. Since anybody can head out and gain EXP on their own, that shouldn't be as much of an issue, anymore.

World of Warcraft is a rigid game, and it's supremely boring. It doesn't matter which class you choose, there's a specific ability or spell rotation you have to use, specific stats have to have on your armor, and you can never compensate for your weaknesses. You will always easily kill certain other classes, and be easily killed by others. There's a little enjoyment in exploring the different classes and learning to use them, but there's absolutely nothing beyond that. You are your class, and it defines what you can do.

I don't want to play that game, and I don't want to see FFXIV became that game.

I want my rigid structure to go into your open style.

Come on! How come no one else is making these jokes! GEEZ!

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It is funny. It makes me angry. As my friend below says you can make rigidness.. so all the whiners are gonna get is to take away my freedom.. and I'm.. A PATRIOT!!!

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Do you really consider my posts to be "whining" in nature? I just want the game to be successful and contain entertaining content. A world where everyone can do everything without restriction fosters just that, a million players who all have the exact same skills and abilities nothing is unique.

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FFXIV with it's open system has the potential to be much worse than FFXI where elitism is concerned and a lot of people moaned about it in FFXI. In FFXIV with cross classing you will be expected to have those select few skill's/abilities that give your Class the edge when tough endgame roles around and certain builds start shining though. Only this time you might not have to level one sub job you don't want to, you might have to level five to cap just to get those skills to add to your super build just so you aren't considered gimp.

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This was what I expected to happen to FFXIV, everyone becoming super builds that all blended together. I'm just glad were getting more rigid elements being built in. I hope others can embrace some of these changes as if nothing else a step in helping populations by offering content for many types of players.

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Originally Posted by lun4tic

The elitism that characterized FFXI arose from the stiff competition for a a role in an EXP party. Since anybody can head out and gain EXP on their own, that shouldn't be as much of an issue, anymore.

World of Warcraft is a rigid game, and it's supremely boring. It doesn't matter which class you choose, there's a specific ability or spell rotation you have to use, specific stats have to have on your armor, and you can never compensate for your weaknesses. You will always easily kill certain other classes, and be easily killed by others. There's a little enjoyment in exploring the different classes and learning to use them, but there's absolutely nothing beyond that. You are your class, and it defines what you can do.

I don't want to play that game, and I don't want to see FFXIV became that game.

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LIked. Right on!

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Eekiki

I want my rigid structure to go into your open style.

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Very funny, but could also work as a system in itself.

There are a number of complaints about a completely open system, and also a number of complaints about a rigid system. For both sides, you make very good points, however I feel that neither the previous system, or adding jobs in with classes will fix the problems involved.

The issue with the current system is not the lack of class uniqueness. It is the lack of ability for other players to determine a character's role. If a party is looking for a tank, what class do they look for? Do they look for a gladiator, with a nice shield. A marauder with more parry, etc. This happened with all of the traditional party roles and people turned back towards the previous system for answers, calling for class uniqueness when what they really wanted was role specifications. The point of the open system was to allow players to create the character they want to play, but there was a lack of structure that caused the system to fail.

There are a number of benefits to a rigid system. However a completely rigid system would destroy the unique system of the game. Rigid systems provide an easy way to determine the party role of a character, because certain jobs are better at that role than others. They also provide a large amount of support for players who do not with to create their own classes, but simply play ones already there. Unfortunately, rigid systems have been done over and over again. There is also another rigid system that SE currently hosts, known as FFXI.

So what SE really needs to consider is a system that combines the rigidness of a job system, with the openness of the armory system. There are a number of solutions that accomplish this nicely that have been posted in the forums, most involving a 2-tiered system. Such a system would keep the armory system for the underlying freedom, and then add a job system ON TOP of that, which would give benefits and restrictions that allow players to indicate their role. This means a player would have both a Job and a Class/Weapon, where the job indicates and helps the party role, and the Class would allow players to pick their weapon and some other abilities.

In the case of the current solution, adding jobs in with classes. I feel that this is very close to a good solution, but at the same time seems like a half-worked solution. Considering that SE needs to get the system right this next time, I hope that they spend more time considering the benefits and consequences of different solutions.

I don't think your aloud to use the phrase VS. if you aren't going to make a comparison..

The OP fails completely at defending his point by lacking in examples of his claims and for not defining and refuting the opposition to his argument.

Attempted Debate Fail..

its a simple debate in context to the other 15 hot topic threads that have popped up in the past month. If you take the thread out of context then yes its a failed OP since I don't present the different sides of the argument. I don't have to though as those ideas have been beaten to death in the past month for me. I simply am making a commentary styled post and the topic helps generate interest making it seem like its a heated debate. My goal was draw in the people who have been raging on specific topics where the central argument is over "freedom" vs "structure". I chose the wording Open vs rigid because its humorous word play. My goal was achieved and I now have a better understanding of the arguments on both sides giving me and hopefully anyone who reads this thread added perspective. Since we as a community are actively shaping the future of FFXIV the best thing we could all have is more information from all points of view. We can then make our own decisions as to what we wish to see and hope the devs take them all into consideration.

Way to troll a thread though nice work contributing anything meaningful.

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The OP fails completely at defending his point by lacking in examples of his claims and for not defining and refuting the opposition to his argument.

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I'm not arguing any specific point, except that the game bombed at launch and things needed to change. We still have basically the same game as launch and if they released PS3 today (before 1.18) it would bomb again and that would be the end of FFXIV as we know it.