Why Eliminate Guild Marks?

So you're telling me I should use all my guild marks?

Prox - given that they said they were looking into a way to convert stored-up guild marks into something useful, I wouldn't, if I were you.

And, yeah, it's a legitimate concern, Physic - given that the devs might not focus on something they think the majority of people won't do. I know that, for me, just the very presence and existence of quests is an incentive and a reward, but I'm a storyline and lore fiend. XD

Been collecting all the guuld skills for a while now and 103/105 and now there suddenly gonna take them away? after put so much work into collecting them all. Thats bullshit, it gave me something to work towards other than levleing, now there just gonna dumb it down and give you everything automaticaly. I will be extremely pissed off if all my efforts in collecting them since games release have been for nothing. I usaly look forward to loggin on, but today this has completly killed my motivation to play, it just seems like everything we are achiveing in the game right now is just completly pointless and is either gonna be eventualy completly removed, changed or nerfed untill they re-release the game in 2013.

If your gonna remove something at least have something ready to replace that system with and compensate the players that worked on the old system. Dont just remove it completly and leave all that work i have acomplished meaningless.

They already removed the need for training manuals on the new recipes and they didnt meantion a word about what these training manuals will be used for in the future. It was np them removing the need for them, but make them usefull in other ways.

Any way they can make crafting suck less is a good thing. Needing to collect points for abilities to help a class you've been grinding for 200 hours is not really challenging or rewarding.

Anything that reduces grind in this game is good. Grind is bad. Many former FFXI players (myself excluded of course) seem to think grind is good for some reason and think anyone who disagrees with them is a n00b or an idiot. Leaving aside the various counterarguments I can and have spent pages laying out before, less grind is where the market is. Get over it.

I also resent that since I'm maxed out on guild marks in my main class's home city, I basically get punished for taking half the quests I have there. I'd much rather take gil, or the occasional piece of gear, than have basically no reward to prop up a system that only gives the illusion of choice.

As far as the suggestions to add abilities every few months, besides the fact that no MMO does that, even cash-laden WoW; the game's pace and ability system would benefit from having fewer but well defined abilities as opposed to a million different ones you need to grind to get. I'd rather just get them automatically so as not to punish people who don't spend all day every day playing the game--once again, grind is bad.

Guild marks and abilities give us another interactive element to build our character. Yes, we would probably get all abilities eventually, but in the meantime, you still have to choose which abilities to go with first, and in that way, you choose the path for your character. It might not be as flashy and fun as a cutscene battle, but it's another element of depth and I like it. Automating something gives you no choices, no way to interactively progress your character.

Honestly, I'm not sure why some mmos don't just start everyone off at level cap and be done with it. To me, progressing my character is the fun part of the game, not endgame so much.

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Originally Posted by Kyra

it just seems like everything we are achiveing in the game right now is just completly pointless and is either gonna be eventualy completly removed, changed or nerfed untill they re-release the game in 2013.

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This game has basically been in beta since its launch last year, surely you aren't that surprised about these big changes ?

I really do not understand why Yoshida insists on making the Character development process consistently less involved. He keeps removing systems that could easily be adapt to serve a more in depth and engaging role in the over all world. Aside from the obvious unlocking of traits these could have also been used for guild specific items, unlocking special quests, or even temporary bonuses. I won't deny that currently they are too common and there is little reason not to just horde and buy everything, but with just a little thought a half decent dev team could have made this into a very viable system.

Sometime I fear this team just refuses to look at Logic and just pull Ideas out of a hat..

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Originally Posted by JackDaniels

Any way they can make crafting suck less is a good thing. Needing to collect points for abilities to help a class you've been grinding for 200 hours is not really challenging or rewarding.

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Your argument makes no sence. By doing Local leves I earn 20-30k guild marks and hour..

game really feels pointless, spend a year getting everything 50 and they make it easy, grind guild marks and they make them easy, then take them out completly. farm dungeons then craft gear is better. this hole game feels pointless right now.

Would be cool if we could buy low level JSE with guild marks and things like exp scrolls. Another way of obtaning engineering/survival manual right there.

As much as I'm in support of them removing guild marks entirely, I feel really bad for you guys who ground guild marks out and got nearly all the abilities. :( I hope there's some kind of compensation that you guys can receive for the work you've put in. Basically, though, the long and short of it is we've been playing a beta, so drastic changes like this are something we all needed to be prepared for. (This is part of why I didn't really play until 1.19!)

At least for DoH, I'd like to see them get rid of the 'gotta catch 'em all' mentality. Instead of letting us train in everything, let us only pick one so that we can actually specialize in something.

I vote they keep guild marks. Earning them was always high on priority when I played each job, and got people to at least visit other cities. It would feel like a big slap to have all my guildmarks turned into gil.
I was hoping guilds would sell class/job specific gear. Like FFXI had some armor pieces that flat out gave you an addition crafting lvl.
For FFXIV, you could start out with stuff that isn't really game breaking, like a tool that increases your chances for attaching materia by 0.5%. Maybe LNC will have a belt that enhances a LNC ability... but can't even be used by a Dragoon, making it really Guild specific?

Because locking basic traits and ability's behind a grind wall was good design?

I've said it before (at least once in the forgotten depths beyond the second page), and I'll say it again. The potential of the guilds for gameplay is being horribly wasted. A guild could offer so much more than it currently does. So much that each class could have it's very own, completely unique in-game experience. But as it stands, they are being wasted.

This applies to everything from class quests (squandered side-storyline), to the possibilities of guild mark usage, to the lack of class-specific gear, and everything in between.

So much potential being wasted. It makes me sad.

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Originally Posted by Griss

Because locking basic traits and ability's behind a grind wall was good design?

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You just described most of the RPG genre. :) Seems to have been a good design for a lot of people.

Working towards something builds character, and dare I echo the boards, a sense of acomplishment. Now, I'm not against changing the system up and/or making it better, but automating the abilities completely? ...I'd rather he not do that, please.

what grind wall? in general you almost always got all abilities just from doing your leves. Giving people a slightly more story driven way to get abilities, and milestones was imo good game design.

Keep in mind there was only 4 real abilities per job, what insane grind are you talking about? you can get up to 3k from a single leve.

But most of all, what about the stories? with cutscenes, and interesting stuff? i was looking foward to seeing what happened after the 30 story in pugilist. but now without any incentives, how will people know it exists? I guess he probably wants to get rid of all the class lore, and quests, but man, it doesnt seem like good game design.

Why does he think quests is a good idea for jobs, but not classes? i dunno.

You're implying that he's getting rid of guild marks because he thinks that having class quests is a bad idea, by the intermediary of "people won't do class quests if there's no rewards."

I think there are too many unquestioned assumptions here for this inference to be valid! I mean, I get your basic point and agree to an extent with your concerns, I just think you're putting words ("I want to get rid of guild quests") into Yoshida's mouth.

Blaise - do you have any design ideas as to what could fill in the currently wasted potential that'd be worth the premium-cost dev time available before "once 2.0 is stable"? I know /I/ don't, other than ambiguously "moar storyline plz", but I'm legitimately interested in other peoples' design suggestions.

Kinda funny how Marks were the only thing they could think of to get people out of Ul dah and now they are taking it out of the game..

Welcome back to Ul dah everyone who actually thought there was going to be a reason to leave for once?

Sucks to be anyone who thought there was a chance to doing content in a different town, myself included. It's just to bad we also can't change our companies to go be where all the people are going to be.. again...

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Originally Posted by Teakwood

You're implying that he's getting rid of guild marks because he thinks that having class quests is a bad idea, by the intermediary of "people won't do class quests if there's no rewards."

I think there are too many unquestioned assumptions here for this inference to be valid! I mean, I get your basic point and agree to an extent with your concerns, I just think you're putting words ("I want to get rid of guild quests") into Yoshida's mouth.

Blaise - do you have any design ideas as to what could fill in the currently wasted potential that'd be worth the premium-cost dev time available before "once 2.0 is stable"? I know /I/ don't, other than ambiguously "moar storyline plz", but I'm legitimately interested in other peoples' design suggestions.

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by minimalizing the guilds as a progression tool, they become less valuable. Essentially, what was once a thing that you did to progress, now becomes a side thing that you may never have to do.

You should imo, DEFINATELY lock some content to some type of quests rewards, not only do you make the quests more valuable, you make sure people see and experience parts of the game.

look at zilart in ffxi, people may have loved it, but they did it to get to sea, people talk about cop, but many people didnt even try till it gave sea access.

You basically have to have to diffrentiate the important quests by their incentives. what about the class quests will have a similar incentive (do these quests, or have less cool and useful abilities)

now when you look at it in light of the fact he doesnt seem to be against using quests as prereqs (see tying chocobos to grand company quests, and talk of job progression being quest linked) It seems he knows that important quests need to give great reward to matter, so if he makes them not matter, then he knows he is killing them.

Now he hasnt said everything, maybe he has a plan for them, but it has to be more than maybe you can gil for them if he wants them to matter at all.

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Originally Posted by Physic

Why does he think quests is a good idea for jobs, but not classes? i dunno.

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Welcome to the Enix generation.. It's not about whats good, it about what appeals to mindlessness. More people trying less = More money for less work. It's just to bad they can't see the candle burning at both ends..

They can go, bb Guild marks. You actually just stack these for nothing.

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Originally Posted by Synthesis

They can go, bb Guild marks. You actually just stack these for nothing.

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Giving something a greater purpose is always a better design decision than ripping it out entirely..

Considering I've spent the past few days grinding guild marks on a job I didn't really want to level just to get the higher-tier guild mark items to use on my other classes... this disappoints me thoroughly.

I like the idea of guild marks. If anything, I would have expanded the guild mark system, rather than getting rid of it. Possibly allowing a guild mark "tree" where you have to pick a path, and can't get everything, and more guild mark things to buy.

Almost certainly most of the 'paths' would be Considered Useless by the playerbase and anybody who chose them would be mechanically ineffective and then there'd be a fustercluck concerning how to undo guild mark purchases and etc. etc..

...that said, I would willingly grind Guild Marks rather than company seals in order to get XP scrolls. <_<;

So I take it no one has learned why Yoshida thought removing this system was a good idea? I mean how much more of what little class advancement and depth are we going to lose?

I really just cannot comprehend how he could think removing this is a good idea...

Well, I'm a bit interested to see what happens in this department, but like others have said I have a lot of faith in Yoshi. At this point, I'm kinda happy to hop on my surfboard and ride the waves to 2.0.

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Originally Posted by Mishakai

Well, I'm a bit interested to see what happens in this department, but like others have said I have a lot of faith in Yoshi. At this point, I'm kinda happy to hop on my surfboard and ride the waves to 2.0.

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I would be a whole lot more trusting if there was any logical reason expressed for doing it.. I mean, there is literally nothing wrong with this system..

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Originally Posted by Nayt

Is it really customization? Can't speak for others, but I always get them all anyway, and have marks to spare.

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It's definitely not customization for all intents and purposes since some skills are definitely worth getting, while people seem to detest the idea of grinding, they forgot that all the time they spent getting Guild Marks for traits and skills is indeed a grind and was indeed meant to artificially extend your playtime, which people seem to hate MMOs doing.

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Originally Posted by Airget

Guild Marks are actually a neat concept to obtain more customization for you class so I find it kind of strange that you plan on getting rid of it with the next update. When it comes to the introduction of new jobs I felt that perhaps you could use your Guild marks to obtain special job abilities for those jobs rather then all at once or through leveling.

Also if you consider keeping the cap at 50, Guild Marks offer a way to obtain new abilities without having to lift the level cap or place them somewhere around 1-50. If you were to keep abilities as they are now and then add to what can be learned by a class it would help prevent newcommers being overwhelmed by a wide range of abilities and once they understand the basis of their class they would be able to invest Guild marks into the abilities that they feel fit their playstyle.

By just having it all be level based I think it takes away from the overall characterization that can be done with your character and it really takes away a part of depth that could've been expanded on greatly. I hope you might reconsider taking away Guild Marks and implement it ina manner that can work with the Job system as well as a means to obtain abilities that are always being added to the list of Guild mark abilities.

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Customize your character?

You are a gimp if you don't have all of your class abilities. Hate to inform you. The only one you don't have to get is the specialization XXXXmanship for the class you are playing.

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Originally Posted by Teakwood

Blaise - do you have any design ideas as to what could fill in the currently wasted potential that'd be worth the premium-cost dev time available before "once 2.0 is stable"? I know /I/ don't, other than ambiguously "moar storyline plz", but I'm legitimately interested in other peoples' design suggestions.

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Forgive me if I implied any worth "before 2.0", but I certainly feel they can and should do so much with guilds in the future.

First, and most obviously, is storyline quests. I'm disappointed that there are only 3. A guild is a prime candidate for building an involved side-story. Adding up all the guilds, that is a lot of storyline potential that can keep people interested a long time. Requiring a certain progression in the main story to even begin these few quests only hinders the potential.

Guilds can also have advancing ranks, or reputation, opening a player up to better benefits for being involved in the guild as they progress through the class quests. Kinda like a mini-company, I guess. Also similar to how the guilds in the Elder Scrolls games progress, for those who are familiar with them.

And if story quests weren't enough, they could even introduce guild-specific leves or quests that can be done to increase the reputation even further.

Guild marks can also be used in a greater capacity than currently. I get so many, but currently have little use for them. Why not have unique (but not OP) class-specific gear that can be purchased with guild marks? For example, as a Pugilist, I could focus on evasion, or I could focus on raw power. Class-specific gear acquired through the guild could be designed to emphasize those. It doesn't even have to stop there. Food, traits, buff scrolls, and more!

Did I read something about titles in the future? That could be another player goal associated with guilds.

Ultimately, I feel that they are currently building Company content the way they should have built guild content.

I wouldn't call Guild Marks customization, but it is a very viable form of character advancement. When you consider what they did to the leveling curve for battle classes this game needs all the horizontal leveling it can get. Players hit level 50 and it's a dead stop. The only things left at that point are Materia and Guild Marks. Take the Guild marks away and now there is just materia. How long can we honestly last in character development with only 1 thing to work on. Most people I know had full materia on there Rank 50s in less than a month..

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Originally Posted by Chezen

You just described most of the RPG genre. :) Seems to have been a good design for a lot of people.

Working towards something builds character, and dare I echo the boards, a sense of acomplishment. Now, I'm not against changing the system up and/or making it better, but automating the abilities completely? ...I'd rather he not do that, please.

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I'm sorry, i didn't exactly state that correctly. So lets give it another shot.

So locking basic skills abilitys and traits behind a superfluous grind wall was a good idea?

Let me further refine that.
The idea of lateral character growth is good. Heck its what the armory system is built upon. but to tell you the truth i do not feel any sense of accomplishment when i fork over the marks to unlock a basic attack, skill, or class trait that should have been part of the skill package in the first place.

Now do not take this as i am saying the whole shebang is with out merit. The guild marks system was definitely cool on paper, but it suffered from the same problem that a lot of the other cool on paper things that were in at launch. It was done in such a way that when you really look at it you are just left scratching your head. When you step back its a bit like playing pachinko in a place where gambling for cash is illegal. Instead of the machine paying out cash, you get balls that you exchange for tokens. then go next door to redeem your tokens for cash.

I think i might be rambling a bit now so let me wrap this up.

Jumping through extra hoops for really cool and game play redefining things, ok (example xi's merit system). Jumping through hoops for basic stuff that should have been given to you in the process of jumping through the ones you already have, No bueno.

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Originally Posted by Griss

Jumping through extra hoops for really cool and game play redefining things, ok (example xi's merit system). Jumping through hoops for basic stuff that should have been given to you in the process of jumping through the ones you already have, No bueno.

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I don't disagree at all. But that is simply a matter of what you can purchase with guild marks.. The Two basic attack skills should have been Automatically learned. A lot of traits such as Fast Cast would be Ok to be auto learned. But things like that stat adjustment skill and the Cross class proficiency skills are a great way to customize a character outside of the basic grind to the top.

This system definitely needs to be adjusted and improved, but it definitely should not be removed from the game.

Things that would be kool to learn via Guilds could include

Killer Traits

Damage Type Modifications

Stats Modifications

Elemental Modifications

Class Proficiency

Skill Upgrades

Eluder Skills

Class Specific Emotes

This is just a list of traits. There could also be Items or Various Bonuses that can be obtained through Guild Marks. Really the system as it stands is perfectly fine. It is only the things that you can purchase that need to change.

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Originally Posted by Griss

I'm sorry, i didn't exactly state that correctly. So lets give it another shot.

So locking basic skills abilitys and traits behind a superfluous grind wall was a good idea?

Let me further refine that.
The idea of lateral character growth is good. Heck its what the armory system is built upon. but to tell you the truth i do not feel any sense of accomplishment when i fork over the marks to unlock a basic attack, skill, or class trait that should have been part of the skill package in the first place.

Now do not take this as i am saying the whole shebang is with out merit. The guild marks system was definitely cool on paper, but it suffered from the same problem that a lot of the other cool on paper things that were in at launch. It was done in such a way that when you really look at it you are just left scratching your head. When you step back its a bit like playing pachinko in a place where gambling for cash is illegal. Instead of the machine paying out cash, you get balls that you exchange for tokens. then go next door to redeem your tokens for cash.

I think i might be rambling a bit now so let me wrap this up.

Jumping through extra hoops for really cool and game play redefining things, ok (example xi's merit system). Jumping through hoops for basic stuff that should have been given to you in the process of jumping through the ones you already have, No bueno.

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uh i think its just a question of your perception.

1. in your perception they are making you jump through hoops
2. in your perception they should give you these skills free.

in your example merits, the only thing that made merit skills different from the skills before them is they were merits. if they gave me formless fists at level 1 or level 75 or after doing a quest it would have made no difference at all. Shikiyo or whatever on sam is a skill i could have used from level 1 onwards.

Also its a type of progression that doesnt involve grinding exp monsters, its a good idea to have multiple ways to progress so that it doesnt become so monotonous. It also is a method of making people do some type of story element, More people are familiar with the quests from guilds than the main storyline. The biggest problem with it, imo is that it wasnt developed enough, they should have had more storylines, more skills, and some things that actually tested your merit. They shouldnt have made run of the mill guild leves the only way to get the marks, and the extreme randomness. You should have been able to choose from some sidequests for points, that had something to do with your discipline.

Taking it away just makes progression slightly more one dimensional

I won't let this thread die without a fight. It's too important of a topic and must be brought to the top. So many very good comments reside in this thread. It would be a shame for them to go unheard.

The problem with guild marks is not their existence, it's that they are not being used to their full potential.

would be nice if guild marks could be used for class specific useable items. throwing weapons food, ect.

Indeed. Consumables are a great way to use guild marks, as well as maintain a demand for them.

guild marks for class specific eq!!