Golden Corral buffet or high quality dining...Which do you prefer?

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Originally Posted by syntaxlies

yo, i saw that fountain on the commercial, how much foreign matter do you think is in that thing

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no idea, but im not touching it. i want my damn carrot cake.

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Originally Posted by Shyd

no idea, but im not touching it. i want my damn carrot cake.

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you should dip a carrot cake in it

Hate to break the news but the battle system we have now is what we are going to have for 2.0 nothing major is going to change. We are going to get group skillchains built on combo's to improve the cohesiveness of a group but that's about it. The speed of actions and server response will most likely improve slightly as the server structure improves. We will see little UI improvements such as activating the skills that are triggered from things like "blocks's" "evades" "parry's" etc but not much will change.

If you have a fundamental issue with this now I would take your losses and pack up shop.

Personally I really am starting to enjoy combat. The new skills are interesting and each skill feels like they have some real "weight" to them. Things like collusion and convert can change the course of a battle in an instant. Each job has a real purpose in battle, and the new dungeons let each job shine at different places and fights. The battles within AV and CC all have interesting dynamics I would say the dance in FFXI was very static in nature and a fight like we get with Marbol in AV is anything but static. It may not be the most difficult but it certainly pushes you. Honestly I can't wait to see what they have in store for the future.

I too wish that exp parties were slower, there's really no reason to use enfeeble effects

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Originally Posted by tachi

Hate to break the news but the battle system we have now is what we are going to have for 2.0 nothing major is going to change. We are going to get group skillchains built on combo's to improve the cohesiveness of a group but that's about it. The speed of actions and server response will most likely improve slightly as the server structure improves. We will see little UI improvements such as activating the skills that are triggered from things like "blocks's" "evades" "parry's" etc but not much will change.

If you have a fundamental issue with this now I would take your losses and pack up shop.

Personally I really am starting to enjoy combat. The new skills are interesting and each skill feels like they have some real "weight" to them. Things like collusion and convert can change the course of a battle in an instant. Each job has a real purpose in battle, and the new dungeons let each job shine at different places and fights. The battles within AV and CC all have interesting dynamics I would say the dance in FFXI was very static in nature and a fight like we get with Marbol in AV is anything but static. It may not be the most difficult but it certainly pushes you. Honestly I can't wait to see what they have in store for the future.

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you missed the point. He just wants longer fights in xp'ing with a sense of danger. Something that could easily be employed with bigger xp gains on certain mobs.

I mentioned before when we used to kill efts and they took like a minute to kill each and the lightning could easily kill you so they had to be tanked.

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Originally Posted by TheFatHousecat

Because of my ethnicity I don't really ever get to eat "American" cuisine, so going to Golden Corral is a big deal because it's like HOLY SH*T MASHED POTATOES AND MEAT WHAT IS THIS WIZARDRY

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GPOY

/10cha

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Originally Posted by KiriA500

Most other fights, such as grinding off mobs in Natalan for EXP should NOT be as time consuming. [...] I see no point in making all the fights in this game into tedious chores.

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Huh? Brainlessly spamming random skills against hordes of monsters that die within seconds is not a tedious chore to you?

I think it would be great to have something like boss fights for EXP. Or maybe advanced guildleves* that require a well-rounded party setup to complete. Whatever they do, I'd like to see longer, more engaging fights while leveling up. And of course a befitting EXP reward to compensate for the increased duration and higher risk of failure.

You can still keep the trash mobs in the game - I don't think anyone here is asking for them to be removed. But there should be other options that actually require a bit of skill and coordination, and these options should yield more EXP or other rewards.

* Yes, I know, I could just increase the difficulty of the leves. But usually that just ends up with people getting one-shot, and the EXP still don't match up to chain parties by far.

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Originally Posted by Efrye

Huh? Brainlessly spamming random skills against hordes of monsters that die within seconds is not a tedious chore to you?

I think it would be great to have something like boss fights for EXP. Or maybe advanced guildleves* that require a well-rounded party setup to complete. Whatever they do, I'd like to see longer, more engaging fights while leveling up. And of course a befitting EXP reward to compensate for the increased duration and higher risk of failure.

You can still keep the trash mobs in the game - I don't think anyone here is asking for them to be removed. But there should be other options that actually require a bit of skill and coordination, and these options should yield more EXP or other rewards.

* Yes, I know, I could just increase the difficulty of the leves. But usually that just ends up with people getting one-shot, and the EXP still don't match up to chain parties by far.

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Yeah, leveling isn't super fun, which is why I want it out of the way. Grinding levels isn't MMO content to me, it's what I do with the class/job I've leveled that I care about. If you want to make the journey to get there longer than it needs to be, by all means, go for it.

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Originally Posted by KiriA500

If you want to make the journey to get there longer than it needs to be, by all means, go for it.

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Who's saying anything about taking longer to get to 50?

What I'm talking about are fights that last longer and give more EXP/hour. It will/should be more fun than what we have now, and it will/should be better EXP than what we have now. Win-win?

The length of the journey is a completely different matter. (It's still nonsense to say that if someone wants a longer journey, s/he can just go slower. A few rare exceptions aside, there's no value or sense of achievement in taking longer than everyone else.)

The problem is, most players like KiriA actually do not enjoy the game, and most people do not realize the game is not the end of it, it's not supposed to be showing off your character in town or whatever else kids do, you're supposed to play it through and enjoy the journey.

I really don't understand what goes on inside one's mind when they completely ignore the journey for some benefit in the end. The journey is dynamic, it changes, it tells a story. The end is static, repetitive. If you switch those two up, it happens precisely what this post complains about. People do not care about enjoying a good meal everyday, because they want to live the end of their lives now, and the faster way to do it is not spending any more than 5 minutes eating their food. Fuck it if it's not healthy or enjoyable, I don't give a shit about food being enjoyable, they will say.

This affects modern society as a whole and it could not be different when that same society plays games. People are just anxious for something in the end, so anxious in fact that they do not realize how enjoyable getting there can be. The biological pace personal to each individual might affect it but I believe that it is also mostly some result of education, culture and life experiences. Society changed as a whole to this new style of "get there as fast as possible" and we can still see the disparity between city folk and country folk in that regard.

So as long as we continue to live like this, consuming frenetically, it's very unlikely that gamer's minds will change and prefer to consume little for higher gain instead of a billion mobs per second.

I personally enjoyed FFXI battles way more than any other MMO I've played, and only there could you clearly see when a party was doing it's job right and when it wasn't. Not only things could go completely wrong when someone did not know their job right, but even a party that survived could earn exp incredibly slower than an excellent party. And it never stopped the game from having even stronger boss creatures that required an even greater amount of people, and even greater skill. That's what I miss in this game, where every little thing you can do affects the game ever so slightly, but in doing it right and using all you got, in the end the difference becomes enormous.

Fighting multiple enemies is something I've always wanted after I played XI, because every other FF did that, and I thought it would be a great idea. But it doesn't seem to work on a MMO style of gameplay.

Far from wanting the game to be a hassle, I want it to be enjoyable all the way through, and not just at the end. Fighting is a big part of any Final Fantasy game, and it should be as enjoyable as it possibly can. The way it is now is not, by any standard, enjoyable. Even those who prefer it like it is do so because it gets them to what they perceive as "enjoyable" much faster. And it's even crazier when the end game right now is so limited you can be doing nothing new in a month, so why the hell rush it?

I think the analogy fast food vs high cuisine is good, but not quite perfect. It would be more like fast food vs what the Brazilian said, a decent balanced home cooked meal, that takes you time to do it, but it's way more beneficial and rewarding. It can't just reward your tastes, it needs to get you through the day, too :P And neither junk food nor 20g of rare expensive mushrooms can do that.

Square needs to show gamers it can actually be fun to level up and play, because as it is now, it will be hard to convince any one to slow down and enjoy.

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Originally Posted by KiriA500

Yeah, leveling isn't super fun, which is why I want it out of the way. Grinding levels isn't MMO content to me, it's what I do with the class/job I've leveled that I care about. If you want to make the journey to get there longer than it needs to be, by all means, go for it.

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Syntaxlies was right, Kiri, you're missing my point lol

As many ppl have stated, I shouldn't have been so vague w/ the post. But, ppl don't want to read a wall of txt, so I didn't have much leeway there.

Anyway, while I'm all for bringing back XI's 1 min+ long battles, that doesn't mean I want the exp to be the same. I have no problem with the pace of leveling. I just have a problem with the way it's being executed. Here's the way I explained it in the Player Poll:



The pace is about appropriate, in terms of the "time spent" in a leveling scenario. However, the amount of *kills needed to level is terribly flawed, making leveling UNBEARABLE. In XIV's current state, leveling feels like a repetitive, meaningless process. Enemies die too quickly, FORCING party-roaming and eliminating any opportunity for players to take a break (w/o disrupting gameplay). Multiple party camping is not an option (unless the area is oversaturated with mobs). It's a major issue.

The only thing I was forced to leave out was my issue with WS spam, ab/magic spam, etc., which I brought up in the final question of the poll.

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Originally Posted by Darshu

Everything that was said in Post #50

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Holy crap man. If I could hit the like button 100+ times I definitely would. +1000!

EDIT: Pasting into my Lodestone blog so others might read it as well. It's really the best piece of insight I've had the pleasure of reading on these forums.

Darshu hit the nail on the head. Well done

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Originally Posted by Khal_Drogo

I'm betting that most of you are just taking a peek in here to figure out what this thread could possibly be referencing. Well, I've been beating my head against a wall since the release of this game, trying to figure out why the hell I'm the only one that seems to think there's a MAJOR problem with the battle system.

Battle is the most funamental aspect of the game, and XIV battles just don't quite cut it. The title I chose for this thread is an analogy I decided to use to describe the comparison of FFXIVs battle to, what I would consider, an ideal "battle."


XIV battle is remniscent of a buffet at Golden Corral:

~You're there for quantity, not quality.

Ideal battle, imho, should be comparable to dining at a high-class restaurant:

~You don't care how much food you eat; you just want to savor it.




Anybody know what I'm talking about? or am I not "painting a clear enough picture?"

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I agree. I feel that the battle system is much better than it was, but it still a little laggy/unituitive and convoluted.

I know people that have played MMORPG's all their lives and then picked up this title and cringed at the UI, to the point where they refused to play past more than 24 hours worth of time.

I do however feel that the UI will be re-designed and improved for 2.0 (as shown in the PDF's), the Lag will disspear with a server upgrade and combat will be more interesting with the New Battle Regimens. I'm still enjoying the combos at the moment. Somehow as a pessimest i remain suprisingly optimistic. *Shrug*

I'm just here for the Salisbury Steak. http://images.media-allrecipes.com/u.../60/376047.jpg

A major issue I have with the leveling system is that while gaining 50 levels worth of xp you're (generic you) are never forced to LEARN YOUR G.D. JOB. I get into groups, whether pick-ups for content, or just parties to randomly go wander in a stronghold to kill time and find that the only people who play their jobs role well is the cnj/whm! I say its because you've been healing a big ol' pile of party members who all thought they could tank for 50 levels in xp parties.... so only having to cure one or two people while doin random stuff feels like a vacation.

Hate control, defense over attack on gear and blahblahblah a million things!, are things that people never get a chance to learn. They run around sayin I R LV 50! I R NA SERVER FIRST ON SOMETHIN! and still have no freakin clue how to play within a role. If the fighting to level up were more challenging (like i wish it was) I'd hope that people would have a better understanding that they, personally, are not supposed to be top-DD, best tank, A#1 mp sponge all at once.

As a side note (edit for spellin), yeah.... I do think taht 2-300k xp per hour in your 40's is too high given what you need to level. that last eight levels should not pass by as quickly as the first eight. Should it slow to a crawl? No, but it should require at least a little effort. No effort = no learning: No learning = no skill: No skill = content unfair to my job!!! q.q posts.

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Originally Posted by Peptaru

A major issue I have with the leveling system is that while gaining 50 levels worth of xp you're (generic you) are never forced to LEARN YOUR G.D. JOB. I get into groups, whether pick-ups for content, or just parties to randomly go wander in a stronghold to kill time and find that the only people who play their jobs role well is the cnj/whm! I say its because you've been healing a big ol' pile of party members who all thought they could tank for 50 levels in xp parties.... so only having to cure one or two people while doin random stuff feels like a vacation.

Hate control, defense over attack on gear and blahblahblah a million things!, are things that people never get a chance to learn. They run around sayin I R LV 50! I R NA SERVER FIRST ON SOMETHIN! and still have no freakin clue how to play within a role. If the fighting to level up were more challenging (like i wish it was) I'd hope that people would have a better understanding that they, personally, are not supposed to be top-DD, best tank, A#1 mp sponge all at once.

As a side note (edit for spellin), yeah.... I do think taht 2-300k xp per hour in your 40's is too high given what you need to level. that last eight levels should not pass by as quickly as the first eight. Should it slow to a crawl? No, but it should require at least a little effort. No effort = no learning: No learning = no skill: No skill = content unfair to my job!!! q.q posts.

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Seriously man, I couldn't have said it better myself. I don't know how many posts on these threads I've come across where ppl say, "well, that's what bosses are for blah blah blah." I don't want to walk into a boss fight, wipe 10 times in a row, and then finally manage to BARELY beat the damn thing, simply b/c no one has any idea how the hell to play (45 raid experience).

That 45 raid is/was a total f@#$ing joke compared to almost everything else in, yes, "FFXI." And while I realize ppl don't want a "clone," that doesn't mean you do the exact oppisite to "solve the problem." And in regards to the pace of battle, either extreme (excruciatingly slow vs. unbearably fast) is bad.

I want to enjoy playing the game...I don't wanna hit max lvl, get all my gear, beat all the bosses, then roam around showing off my UNearned gear and levels. This game won't last a year with that kind of bs.

If it didn't "suck" so bad right now, I'd have max everything w/ all the gear available on every job -not to mention, max gil.

I like playing multiple monsters not 1 for 30mins unless its a boss, sometimes i want to run through these suckers, we are a powerful team it should not take 10mins to kill an ant

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Originally Posted by Mushy

I like playing multiple monsters not 1 for 30mins unless its a boss, sometimes i want to run through these suckers, we are a powerful team it should not take 10mins to kill an ant

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No one's saying that there should only be 1/30min mobs. Far from it.

Quantity is a quality of its own. I'd rather have 10 lbs of low grade pork that fills me up just fine over a half-ounce serving of finest quality steak that's barely a mouthful if I'm hungry. If I'm not so hungry though, that half-ounce serving of steak would be fantastic for the palate.

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Originally Posted by Mushy

I like playing multiple monsters not 1 for 30mins unless its a boss, sometimes i want to run through these suckers, we are a powerful team it should not take 10mins to kill an ant

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Originally Posted by jwang

Quantity is a quality of its own. I'd rather have 10 lbs of low grade pork that fills me up just fine over a half-ounce serving of finest quality steak that's barely a mouthful if I'm hungry. If I'm not so hungry though, that half-ounce serving of steak would be fantastic for the palate.

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lol ...sometimes, I think you guys just like playing "devil's advocate."

Exaggerate much? :P


In FFXI, the ONLY time it could ever take 10 minutes to kill an "Ant" was if your party was either complete "shit," or if you didn't have the right line-up. Now, of course, I do NOT want a repeat of that BS. Having to "/sea all <insert the only viable DD/Tank/Healer/Debuffer here>" all the time is not my idea of fun.

Hell, if you weren't gung-ho enough to make your own parties, you could end up waiting for a party all day, only to have it disband after 10 minutes b/c "you only killed 1 'Ant' in that entire 10 minutes" lol


So, I agree w/ you guys there, for sure. But JUST b/c that happened in XI, doesn't mean it's gunna happen here in XIV. The main thing that caused those issues were badly designed mobs and job system (which lead to the "sam, sam, war, rdm, brd, brd" line-ups that we saw later on).


So, YES, longer more memorable and engaging battles; but, NO, to everything else. The only way I'd be ok w/ that kind of thing was if there were more options for parties (different mobs available in different areas built for a WIDE range of party line-ups, i.e. mobs weak to piercing, mobs weak to slashing, mobs weak to blunt, mobs weak to magic, etc.)

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Originally Posted by Khal_Drogo

lol ...sometimes, I think you guys just like playing "devil's advocate."

Exaggerate much? :P


In FFXI, the ONLY time it could ever take 10 minutes to kill an "Ant" was if your party was either complete "shit," or if you didn't have the right line-up. Now, of course, I do NOT want a repeat of that BS. Having to "/sea all <insert the only viable DD/Tank/Healer/Debuffer here>" all the time is not my idea of fun.

So, YES, longer more memorable and engaging battles; but, NO, to everything else. The only way I'd be ok w/ that kind of thing was if there were more options for parties (different mobs available in different areas built for a WIDE range of party line-ups, i.e. mobs weak to piercing, mobs weak to slashing, mobs weak to blunt, mobs weak to magic, etc.)

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lol this has gotta be your dumbest thread to date, Khal. Smart thinking on the title though.

By the way, the answer to your question is yes. The whole devil's advocate thing is exactly what you call a troll. They come in and post something to get you riled up, and in this case... like always, you let them get under your skin.

Just wanted to say though... you can try your hardest to make every one listen to you, but in the end it's majority rules. FFXI was great, but it'll take more than fun stories to convince these hardheaded fools.

Maybe if you're lucky 2.0 will have a more XI-like feel to it, and people will realize how much better it makes the game.

That depends.
Do I want to eat a fancy meal each night, or save them for special occasions?

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Originally Posted by Khal_Drogo

lol ...sometimes, I think you guys just like playing "devil's advocate."

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Actually the opposite, my deal Khal. It might not be much, but i'm a tabletop RPG player and a game master to boot, and I do make a point of designing my own foes for the party to fight and what they (And me) have said is actually a design choice I personally like. Give them fodder for most of the time, hold back on the big involved fight for when it matters, what it does is create a completely special feel when they are hitting against a hard foe.

Both approaches have quite literally their pros and cons and people like each approach differently, but either of them used to no end bothersome. We need both the challenge to feel like we know what we're doing and the fodder to let us relax.

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Originally Posted by Skies

Actually the opposite, my deal Khal. It might not be much, but i'm a tabletop RPG player and a game master to boot, and I do make a point of designing my own foes for the party to fight and what they (And me) have said is actually a design choice I personally like. Give them fodder for most of the time, hold back on the big involved fight for when it matters, what it does is create a completely special feel when they are hitting against a hard foe.

Both approaches have quite literally their pros and cons and people like each approach differently, but either of them used to no end bothersome. We need both the challenge to feel like we know what we're doing and the fodder to let us relax.

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Why not create multiple mobs/camping spots, and give ppl the option* to choose which type of battle pace they prefer? Is it difficult to do that on a massive scale? like...basically, "Spam-Fest vs. Strategizing" all the way from "lvl 10 - max lvl."

Would it be difficult to implement a system that gives that option to players at all times?

I certainly do not have any idea wether it would be difficult in either a technical or logistical sense, I will grant you that. But for that both camps would have to effectively give the same rewards and being merely a choice of style and I believe that would probably be a party in hell wearing rusty nail slippers on a logistical level.

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Originally Posted by Khal_Drogo

Why not create multiple mobs/camping spots, and give ppl the option* to choose which type of battle pace they prefer? Is it difficult to do that on a massive scale? like...basically, "Spam-Fest vs. Strategizing" all the way from "lvl 10 - max lvl."

Would it be difficult to implement a system that gives that option to players at all times?

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I have to agree, just because how similar it is to post #12... ↓↓↓↓

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Originally Posted by Zantetsuken

In a similar vein:

I made a request in the last section of the poll for an alternate to rapid mob chaining for full party exp-ing.

In a nutshell, I asked that they introduce new large mobs (like Great Buffalo) that have very high HP, powerful attacks, and varying attack patterns that reward players with lots of xp proportional to the time and strategy that it takes to kill them.

Essentially, take the FFXI style of battles and add in a healthy portion of Monster Hunter as a new option for leveling.

Not only would this make battles more enjoyable and and intense, but it would also allow players to really get accustomed to using all their job/class skills -- long before they get to 'endgame content' (and need explanations on how to hold hate, etc..)

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As I said, we just need an alternative to the current system. If parties want to kill raptors in crazy fast chains, they can still do that, but if killing larger mobs in longer battles is a balanced option (xp:time), I think many players will end up choosing the latter.

Here's breakdown of what I would consider ideal leveling styles based on party size:

Solo, Duo [Classes] = Guildleves
Light Party [Class Parties] = Exp Chains (raptors, wolves, etc..)
Full Party [Job Parties] = Large Mob Battles

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Originally Posted by Zantetsuken

I have to agree, just because how similar it is to post #12... ↓↓↓↓



As I said, we just need an alternative to the current system. If parties want to kill raptors in crazy fast chains, they can still do that, but if killing larger mobs in longer battles is a balanced option (xp:time), I think many players will end up choosing the latter.

Here's breakdown of what I would consider ideal leveling styles based on party size:

Solo, Duo [Classes] = Guildleves
Light Party [Class Parties] = Exp Chains (raptors, wolves, etc..)
Full Party [Job Parties] = Large Mob Battles

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With that system, though, it means we would be "condemned" to the current "1000000 mob spam-fest" for leveling, huh?

I hope that's not the case. Leveling is supposed to be the only "recurring" content we have available, even when expansions and all that are on the back burner. If it's stays fast, and continues to offer very little "stimulation," then the game's gonna get really boring.

The finished product will end up being the way it is now:

Play after the new content is released, beat it, cancel subscription; repeat cycle.

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Originally Posted by Khal_Drogo

With that system, though, it means we would be "condemned" to the current "1000000 mob spam-fest" for leveling, huh?

I hope that's not the case. Leveling is supposed to be the only "recurring" content we have available, even when expansions and all that are on the back burner. If it's stays fast, and continues to offer very little "stimulation," then the game's gonna get really boring.

The finished product will end up being the way it is now:

Play after the new content is released, beat it, cancel subscription; repeat cycle.

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Not quite sure what you are saying here...

How does adding an alternative to the current spam-fest, end up condemning us to the current spam-fest?

Most people level in full parties, which means they will likely opt for the more strategic and longer battle xp option (esp if there is a slight xp bonus over chaining mobs in the same timeframe)