Diablo2, FFXIQuote:
Originally Posted by Demoleon
Does anyone actually enjoy guildleves?
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03-22-2011, 11:19 PMBelgianRofl
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03-22-2011, 11:23 PMMalakhim
Guildleves as a concept are great. One centralized location to get different kinds of work and really feel like a merc? <Yes, please>
Problem is that I don't feel that SE really followed through on the idea, as right now there isn't a HUGE amount of variety, and given that they're nearly all we have to do right now, an arbitrary 36 hour timer is kind of well... Arbitrary. Were there more things to do, I doubt this would really be an issue.
I personally always viewed guildleves as something supplemental: Do these things when you can't get a group together to do the big stuff(like story quests, sidequests, arena PvP, partying), or maybe there are "big ticket" leves that require grouping. I saw(and still see) guildleves as a quick and easy way to get stuff done for people who don't have much time, and in this regard, I think they're a big success.
But we can do better. We can rebuild them. We can make them stronger, better, faster.
All the devs need to really do is add more variety, mix things up and such. A few of us over at Eorzeapedia came up with a bunch of different ideas, some realistic and some maybe not so much(probably mine :( ) like protecting traveling caravans from waves of beastmen/other mobs, or having to infiltrate and rescue someone from a beastman outpost/secure information, etc.
...I guess what I'm really getting at here is that I just want more excuses to grief beastmen.
Oh yeah, and something about guildleves... -
03-22-2011, 11:48 PMKilta_Firelotus
the levequest system is called field of valor in ffxi and is pretty popular to do. It pretty much gives you a reson to kill mobs. It is also part of the lore. The lore is eorzea is in the age of adventure, guild were formed to keep ppl busy. like all the mercenaries and the armies, all the craftsmen and gatherers. Since no other city-state was attacked.
All they are, are just glorified fov pages. They are not to be "quests" per say. More like how ff tactics is with the bounty system. I've done fov pages in ffxi and found them fun.
What is really a non issue is how far you run between the spawn points. After the starter zone ffxi fov pages are spread out using 2 or more mob types spread out on the map. They are not gonna be all in 1 spot.
So complaining about running around is a complaint for sake of complaint.
How about just stop thinking about stuff and just play. If your not having fun then just move on to find a fun game as you wait to do more stuff in this one. -
03-23-2011, 12:00 AMXeno
Leves are the same as FoV. I don't enjoy them but I do them to get fast SP.
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03-23-2011, 12:00 AMLinnearSuch a fan boy....Quote:
Originally Posted by Abriael
But considering that the texts in this game are not continuous, as in rank 20 leaves do not build on story form rank 10 leaves, if you can call that a story. Only thing amuzing about the text in the leves is the names of a very select few, I think 5 of them made me chuckle. I don't think there is anything in FFXI that is as entertaining as the Harisson Jones quests in Uldum, which is sad becasue SE is known for beign really good story tellers, they just don't seem to bother outside of mission content, if you want to think that 3 lines of pseudo flavor text on a card is trying to build a a lore and world then you are sadly mistaken. Hell even XI had the SOB....
As usual Abriael, your points are lack luster, and very biased. But you keep trying one day you will make a solid point on ... well something.. I am sure of it, I believe in you. -
03-23-2011, 12:07 AMLinnearA lot of people seem to be saying this phrase and I think it is a sign that everything is not ok with teh system. It reminds me of the BR system, Yes people use them and acknowledge their power but no they are not fun and if they weren't so overpowered they woudld rather that SE try to make them better or try to use/do something else.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xeno
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03-23-2011, 12:08 AMWolfie
I don't, but because every guildleve is identical do the last and there's only like 3-4 per camp.
How about we get some escort leves?
Or ones that spawn NPCs and we have to assist them in killing mobs?
Or ones that create temporary items and ask us to user those items?
Like many of the things in FFXIV, the guildleve system had a lot of great potential. But at this point, I'm pretty sure that it's never going to get the makeover it needs and it's going to keep staying shitty. -
03-23-2011, 12:13 AMArcell
I actually like Guild leves but not as the only means of leveling outside of grinding. Once we start getting the instanced dungeons and all it'll be nicer just to have another option.
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03-23-2011, 12:14 AMMalakhimActually if anything he IS making a good point. As irrelevant as the guildleve descriptions are, they're interesting to read at least the first time. The fact that you don't like something and choose to ignore it doesn't mean it doesn't exist and someone else can't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Linnear
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03-23-2011, 12:24 AMBlitz0309
If you couldn't repeat them till the end of time... maybe they would be more interesting.
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03-23-2011, 12:44 AMLinnearHe made a point, I wouldn't take the risk by throwing in an adjective such as good but he did make a point, as biased and arbitrary as it was, to which I was argueing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Malakhim
To that fact, I never said it doesn't exist nor did I say I am ignoring it, I said it was not enough to build lore or a world and what i want to see is a world with stories and reason for doing things.
I will give him some credit though he almost made a point, until he said "absolutely obliterate basically every quest in wow, both narriation and writing wise,"
Albriael claims they blow the flavor text of WoW quests out of the water and I doubt he will find much evidence to that fact, but then again there is never any evidence to anything he says so nothing new there. Can you claim to be engrossed, or entertained, hell I would even settled for highly amused by many of the texts in the regular leves? I would say ANY of them but I can't claim to have read all of them so I assume that there are some of them that might be good but I have yet to see evidence to that fact. If these leves texts are so mind bloiwng and entertaining, why isn't anyone else talking about how good they are? I guess the posters in this tread dont' appreciate the higher style of literature I guess....... -
03-23-2011, 12:49 AMGriss
I sort of enjoy leves. but would definitely like to see a greater variety of them.
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03-23-2011, 12:52 AMApplePie
Yes because I like gil, sp, guild marks, faction marks, armor, and gil. Did I mention that I like gil?
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03-23-2011, 12:59 AMvax
Guildleve are ok.
When FFXI started you had to party, party, party, party and more party till 50.
Atm on FFXIV you could play solo, party, guildleve, behest.
I see FFXIV better than ffxi when it started. -
03-23-2011, 06:16 AMgifthorseUm, you don't play the game so you don't know how crappy these quests are. We understand the inherent purpose of the levequests and their deisgn-philosophy, but that doesn't assuage the fact that they are implemented in a crappy, boring, way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus
If you need an alternative to levelling, then something is wrong with the levelling process. -
03-23-2011, 06:17 AMgifthorseSo very true.Quote:
Originally Posted by Linnear
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03-23-2011, 06:18 AMMoth
I like them cause they have made me rich >.> lul
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03-23-2011, 06:24 AMCendres
I like them a lot, they are designed for people like me who log only a few times a week (not necessarily out of choice), and want to still get somewhere, It's decent XP and money for a short time. It is perfect for casual players who may not have that much time to fight mobs for some hours.
If you do not understand this simple concept than I am afraid leves will forever be lost on you. It doesn't matter though because like Fields of Valor they are there for a very specific and good reason. With more content on the way hopefully the focus of leves will diminish and leave it for those like myself who need them. -
03-23-2011, 06:25 AMAbriaelbecause of course disagreeing with you means being a fanboy right? :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Linnear
A story doesn't need to be a chain-story to be a story. This not to mention that several leve quests are actually related or complementary.Quote:
But considering that the texts in this game are not continuous, as in rank 20 leaves do not build on story form rank 10 leaves, if you can call that a story.
Your opinion. I find absolutely nothing creative or intresting in a wink to pop culture (of which wow is filled to nauseating extremes) that brings in concepts and characters that have absolutely nothing to do with a fantasy world, and ultimately looks just extremely childish.Quote:
I don't think there is anything in FFXI that is as entertaining as the Harisson Jones quests in Uldum,
I'm sure you were overjoyed when you saw Darth Vader and Yoda in Soul Calibur IV. I was disgusted.
but after all, the lack of creativity of Blizzard's writers is well known since when they created their two major worlds copying from other sources, it's not surprising that they have to copy pop culture tropes in order to find ideas for their questlines.
What part of "in FFXI" isn't clear?Quote:
which is sad becasue SE is known for beign really good story tellers, they just don't seem to bother outside of mission content, if you want to think that 3 lines of pseudo flavor text on a card is trying to build a a lore and world then you are sadly mistaken.
Besides the fact that even (quite a lot more than) 3 lines of flavor text on a card contribute quite nicely to create a lore and world.
The fact that you decide to ignore them is your personal problem.
Isn't it nice that this isn't for you to decide? :DQuote:
As usual Abriael, your points are lack luster, and very biased. But you keep trying one day you will make a solid point on ... well something.. I am sure of it, I believe in you.
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03-23-2011, 06:39 AMgifthorseIt wasn't tongue-in-check. I was dead serious. Consider end-game content in FFXI for a minute. Of FFXI, everyone seems to say “FFXI only started at endgame”. Well then why didn’t the simply start at endgame, if that's the case?Quote:
Originally Posted by Altano
When i mentioned a diverse array of objectives, I was considering things like quests with an exploratory emphasis, or quests which required you to protect an NPC or small village from monsters, or to escort an NPC to a specific location while protecting him or her from enemies, or perhaps escorting a valuable object, or perhaps defusing a bomb, shooting an airship out of the sky, setting up a trap for an encroaching horde of beastmen – hell – perhaps there could be a quest which involves collecting ingredients to call forth a demon which must be killed in order to pluck out its heart and feed to a dying orphan so as to cure his polio.Quote:
So let's address your 3, 4, and 5, which you claim are "better" alternatives. I think #3 is the most viable option, unless you're including "objective"-based quests that have jack to do with actually playing as the job. I don't know exactly what you're suggesting there, but if it isn't appropriately related to what a job does (as many campaign ops in FFXI weren't, for example), then it shouldn't be the primary source of SP for a job. If it is, then I welcome your suggestions, but make them in concrete terms, rather than floating some abstract claim that you have a better idea. Let's hear it.
Do I really have to be so specific?
The current objectives we have for leves have you essentially perform the exhilarating task of killing or collecting. Kill/collect, kill/collect, kill/collect. It doesn’t even sound good on paper.
Even the quests that require you to find a hiding enemy is basically just a kill/collect quest. While the objective in itself is fine I suppose, the implementation of the objective is pretty clinical and uninspired. Basically every single levequest in the game is completely unengaging. This is increased by the lack of variety. Similarly, the quests themselves do absolutely nothing for the lore of the world. People play MMOs for the adventure, don’t they? I didn’t know they played MMOs to be Hedgemole exterminators every 36 hours.
Anyway, to elaborate on my former objectives, I would like to explain what I meant about exploratory quests. With quests where there was an exploratory focus, I would suggest having the few monsters which you kill in those quests to have SP which scaled up according to the time allotted for that quest. This way there would still be similar SP/time as the other quests.
And yeah, maybe you have a point about my suggested quests being totally unrelated to SP gain. Quests should have something in them which relates to the class you're playing otherewise SP gain is nonsensical. After all, If there is no killing of mobs, how else can you justify SP gain?
Well, here is a solution, just throwing it out there: say you have a quest to find a magical herb, well there's no reason THM and CON couldn’t gain skill points from such a quest (rationally speaking) since the experience of finding a magical herb is related to the magical arts. Furthermore, the quests could contain some content to justify the SP gain for the other classes, tracking, destruction of obstacles, etc.
Anyway, if all you're looking for is some rational justification for SP gain, then I'd hate to see your opinion of the levequest system as a whole, which is entirely irrational by nature.
Yes, well the perfect MMO with eternal and ever-changing, and unique content is obviously out of reach for MMOs of today because every development team faces time-constraints. To have a time-sink is a somewhat fundamentally necessity because of this scarcity of time and development costs which all development teams must deal with. With an infinite budget, I’m sure SE could develop an infinitely interesting game. Obviously this isn't the case, as even SE doesn’t have infinite funding. However, there are several ways of approaching an MMO, and to develop a huge timesink (grinding) as a prerequisite for the fun content (end-game) or some intermittent content (story quests) seems to be very old-fashioned. Especially in FFXIV's case where the intermittent content is so few and far-between.Quote:
Number 4 - a little bit of a grind is heading a lot down the wrong road, for a number of reasons. First, the grind itself functions as a dual-purpose time sink: it gives the players something to do when they don't have time for some of the more intense content (which admittedly, is yet to come) and it also gives the developers time to, you know, develop while the players continue playing.
Now you can disapprove of the forced time sink, but it's the nature of the beast in any RPG, and MMOs certainly not the least. Moreover, if you're talking of these sidequests/leves/"self-motivated content" (a vague-sounding term) as "supplements," then you're acknowledging the necessary primacy of the grind, making it more than just "a little bit." Lastly, you make the assumption that players feel "pressured" into doing leves because it is the most efficient use of time. Be that as it may, players will always look for the most efficient use of time when it comes to advancing their character. If the other activities are supplementary, then they'll not be turned to for the purposes of efficient time use. Nobody is forcing you to do the leves; they're just the grind with more concrete rewards.
At some point the developers will have to take shortcuts and introduce some kind of repetitive items (due to scarcity of development resources), be they a repetitive monster horde which you are expected to cut a swath through, or a huge distance which you must cross in order to fulfill your objective. Any gruelling task can be called a grind. And I readily implied that in my statement. But anyway, the relative magnitude of said grind, that I did not imply. And it is something developers should seek to avoid as much as possible, not incorportate into the very design of their game (see guildleves).
Unfortunately, FFXIV (using levequests as an example) has gone out of their way to include boring grind as part of their game design. Time-sinks don’t have to be as boring as FFXIV makes them.
What I am saying is that the foundation for an MMO should be to provide players with interesting gameplay. I mentioned above about grind being old-fashioned, and I'd like to further that by saying that many MMOs are developing games where dynamic content is part of the world (so it never gets tired and predictable). Also games are trying to make quest-progression the main form of advancement, as opposed to boring grind (quest-based or otherwise).
In another post, Abriael said that “Everything in an MMO is a grind” or something to that effect. And that’s truthfully a very sad indictment on the state of MMOs if he thinks that. Not everything has to be a grind. If something is enjoyable, then it isn’t a grind.
It's like, sure grinding can be a necessity because of restraints, but developers need to decide on a direction where the whole game isn't just one big, unenjoyable time sink. There's a fine line between what's interesting content and what's a grind. But what we see in FFXIV is an almost complete lack of the former and way too much of the latter.
Anyway, this carrot-on-a-stick is exactly the problem with a lot of MMOs today. You can’t just make a game around an elusive carrot which exists on the horizon. Instead, you have to make the whole game a field of carrots, and then on the horizon you have something even better than a carrot.Quote:
Finally, #5, a matter of taste though it may be, seems horrible to me. It is just asking for an elitist mindset. "Oh...your Gladiator doesn't have XYZ weaponskill fully leveled yet? We need it for battle regimen, noob." This suggestion calls to mind the materia system from FFVII introduced on a large scale, and the potential for exclusion based on not having certain abilities up to somebody elses' expectations is enormous. Call me a cynic, but I see that happening right away under this model. And if that wasn't enough of a problem, the idea of "endgame starts at day one" takes whatever hope we had for a carrot to reach for out of the game. But maybe that is just a matter of taste.
I guess the issue comes down to whether you think grind is awesome or whether you think it's stupid. -
03-23-2011, 06:41 AMgifthorseSo you need boring, repetetive things to do in FFXIV? You want to spend the few hours you have in game doing something boring? Suit yourself!Quote:
Originally Posted by Cendres
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03-23-2011, 06:42 AMAmegakure
I think the leve system is great. It's amazing SP if well organized(upwards of 30-40k/hr). As for the lack of leve, it wouldn't work if they just tossed in a mess of new ones... maybe add sets at unused camps to expand but it would be a lot harder to link them if there's a smaller % chance that each will show up on your list.
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03-23-2011, 07:00 AMgifthorseI am not defending WoW, because I have never even played it, but just because another game has crappy quests with crappy flavour text doesn't redeem FFXIV's lack of interesting content either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Abriael
Anyway, FFXIV uses pop-culture references all the time. Half the guildleve names, if you've bothered to read them, are puns or allusions to popular culture.
People say that FFXIV lacks content, and that is only half the problem. The other half of the problem is the fact that the content which FFXIV has implemented is so boring. -
03-23-2011, 07:01 AMCommat
I hated the first one i did and i hated the last one i did to ding 50.
What could have been a decent side activity to gain rep/gil should not be the center of the game.
lazy lazy lazy -
03-23-2011, 07:04 AMArgh
the names guildleave and leavequests are horrific and would be a reason alone to avoid the quest system. why don't they simply call them quests? like i need permission from some lifeless floating crystal out in the middle of nowehere to go on quests.
i keep asking myself "how can the director / producer make such a terrible game?" but never can come up with enough slander and conspiracy theories to get an answer. i guess it just goes back to the old saying, how can they have been so dumb?..... -
03-23-2011, 07:14 AMAbriaelNever said that. You should look at the point I was responding to.Quote:
Originally Posted by gifthorse
One thing is to throw in a quick pun in something as limited as a quest title (which is most probably a translation matter anyway, because I doubt the average Japanese writer has any idea of 99% of the western pop culture), one thing is to base a large percentage of content and questlines, their characters and stories on pop culture imagery and stories.Quote:
Anyway, FFXIV uses pop-culture references all the time. Half the guildleve names, if you've bothered to read them, are puns or allusions to popular culture.
That's serious lack of creativity.
It wouldn't be boring if there were more alternatives. I feel that levequests are fun when done in a group. Quite a lot more fun than aimless grinding. I've been one of the major advocates of the fact that FFXIV needs more actual quests, a lot more, and they need to be a leveling source and not just a source of gil and lore.Quote:
People say that FFXIV lacks content, and that is only half the problem. The other half of the problem is the fact that the content which FFXIV has implemented is so boring.
They did aknowledge the problem of the lack of quests, and I'm quite eager to see what they'll do about that.
Unfortunately questlines are one of the most time consuming areas of MMORPG development, so I'm not holding them at a gunpoint to deliver the most compelling and cutscene-topped quests *right now* it's just not possible if we want something of good quality. That's something that has to come gradually for simple reasons of physical timeframes.
Levequests, though *are* indispensible in FFXIV. Why? Because the FFXIV system allows you to level several classes, and no matter how many quests they can churn out, there will never be enough quests to bring a player through all the levels in all the classes. At least not for several years.
Repeatable sources of experience are a factor without which FFXIV simply cannot survive. They should be complemented by unrepeatable story-driven quests though, and by further repeatable sources (as many and as varied as possible). -
03-23-2011, 07:20 AMChinook
Not to sound negative and haven't read the whole thread, but even if they add variety to Guildleves, people will still only do the ones that give the maximum SP (either by the leve itself or the area that gives the highest probability to group with other people for links).
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03-23-2011, 07:22 AMAbriaelThat's why they need to add variety to sources of progression, not to guildleves. IE: They need to add more and more varied sources of progression on the side of guildleves, not more guildleves. Quests, Public quests, besieged... the more the better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chinook
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03-23-2011, 07:39 AMChezen
I love doing Guildleves, and I love the idea of them. The problem is there is not enough of them to choose from. The idea, at least how it seems from the trailer, is that you are picking that special, exciting job from admist many. It's hard to feel that way when you are doing the same ones every few days.
There is, of course, a lack of content altogether. There needs to be a lot more mini games and quests along with the leves.
I do pretty much the same, and I enjoy it. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by notebene
I agree more or less with your whole post. Especially this part:
Quote:
Originally Posted by notebene
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03-23-2011, 08:07 AMDubont
I hate them and I think that they need to be removed. There shouldn't be an alternate form of leveling other than grinding. This "easy" leveling is making people stupid. No one wants to really party anymore. They join a party, do a few leves, break the party and go solo grind. THIS.IS.NOT.HOW.TO.PLAY.A.MMO. -.-
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03-23-2011, 08:09 AMAbriaelBecause you decide how everyone should play a MMO, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dubont
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03-23-2011, 08:10 AMDubontSince when did a MMO become a single player game? MMOs should be about community...with the guild leve system in place, there is no community. No community = no MMO.Quote:
Originally Posted by Abriael
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03-23-2011, 08:12 AMAbriaelSince when people that don't have the time to dedicate to a party every single day and every single time they log in actually play MMOs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dubont
People that don't share your playstyle paid for the game as much as you did. -
03-23-2011, 08:14 AMChezenQuote:
Originally Posted by Dubont
Quote:
Originally Posted by Abriael
This is a moot point. Yoshi-san already noted the lack of socializing in the first poll and said he would be addressing it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dubont
You can see his comment here at question 5:
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...98e4034b898102 -
03-23-2011, 08:18 AMDubontIf you can't put forth the time, you shouldn't play the game. You wouldn't play a card game by yourself would you? (aside from dumb crap like Solitaire) "Some of us don't have the time to play card games with other people!" Then don't play those games. There are HUNDREDs of single player games out there. Go have fun. I, personally, play MMOs to play with other people and get in with the community. If there is no one to play with, since everyone is doing shit solo like a bunch of idiots, then there is no community. If there is no community, there is no MMO. If this isn't a MMO, then why the hell is it online? I think 11 had the right idea. You COULD solo some things with the right job/gear, but not everything could be solod. (I could solo Genbu on Cor and Blm, but not Byakko for example) THIS is how the game needs to be...not where you can solo to 50 in about a month then solo just about anything else that you want. This isn't how a MMO should be set up and if it continues on this route, it will fail just like WoW is failing because it's about 95% solo onry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Abriael
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03-23-2011, 08:21 AMAbriaelHe will encourage socializing by just that *encouraging* for sure he won't remove solo content to *force* people to socialize. Not gonna happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chezen
And who exactly are you to say who should and shouldn't play a game commercially available to everyone?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dubont
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03-23-2011, 08:22 AMDubontThis was over 2 months ago. I have yet to see anything that has required any amount of a social activity outside of a LS. Hell, you cant even start up the random shout discussions anymore. In 11, I remember people would sit in Jeuno or whitegate and just talk for hours about some random crap. Does 14 have that? No...everyone keeps to themselves and most shouts go unanswered.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chezen
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03-23-2011, 08:24 AMIsaaru
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...803-16-2011%29
Says stuff about releasing info regarding the Company system. I am going to assume that this company system will indeed involve socializing. -
03-23-2011, 08:27 AMMartin
I enjoy doing leves, but mostly they are when I'm alone in-game, so it gets boring fast, plus only 8 at once then have to way 36 hours... I think I need to join a Linkshell badly :/
Loners have a bad time playing this game. -
03-23-2011, 08:27 AMMalakhim
Hey guys.
Did you know that you can do guildleves with other players?
Sometimes you get bonus SP and stuff.