Former WoW player: Suggested changes to FFXIV Raiding end-game

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

In what way does having additional dungeon difficulties beyond the one-and-done faceroll as per OP's point #4... (1) have anything to do with gear, given that the rewards suggested were some "additional tomestones, titles, minions, and mounts", let alone (2) "make the end game a living hell for the other 99% of the playerbase who does not raid log"?

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You're reading point #3, not point #4. OP's point #4 is about gearing.

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Originally Posted by Cebo

4) Gear stats are very boring. Besides glamour, there is no excitement to end-game gear when it's only a slight stat improvement, and every materia meld is prioritized for Crit. I would love for more interesting materia options (new competitive sub-stats or enchant procs), set bonuses, or even a trinket slot. I understand balance is an issue. But I also don't think that should excuse SE from not even attempting to make more interesting gear options. They definitely have the creativity in them, as Bozjan has shown. We lack that carrot on a stick to keep playing end-game.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

1. I agree largely, but the thing about dungeons is that they can only really remain challenging if people don't improve at the game.

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Responding to your well-thought out points in kind:

1) I was really just referring to the design and layout of dungeons in this first point, not the challenge. It's disappointing that other than Bardem's Mettle, the ~30 dungeons we've gotten across SB and ShB have just been hallway simulators with different window dressing. Just as a simple example, why not have a new version of Haukke Manor with three wings and parties can tackle each wing in any order they so choose?

2) You're probably right about the nostalgia of past raids like Coils, Karazhan, and Icecrown making me forget about the tedium of farming them later ;). But at the very least, I'd like to see more varied arenas besides our usual circle/squares. I didn't realize though that there are engine complications that may prevent boss arenas from having different elevations, like Twintania/Caduceus.

3) Yup, I recall that heavy gear check in Gordias. I feel a scaling echo buff though for enemies would be simple to implement, and gives us an additional challenge like PotD. It also gives more incentives for groups to continue farming once they clear a Savage tier. Like I mentioned, my static has typically fallen off after clearing the first Savage tier in an expansion, and I think that's largely because there isn't any further content to make use of the gear upgrades. At that point, farming for more gear is just epeen flexing for DPS parses, and we inevitably get bored. And knowing that we can easily catch up in this game in a future raid cycle, why keep grinding?

But really, my suggestion was more for 4-man dungeons than Savage raids. It'd be nice to have some challenging small-group content to do in the interim of Savage tier releases, even if the only reward are bonus tomestones. This doesn't have to be Savage levels of difficulty, but like you mentioned above with Pharos Sirius in 2.1, SE is perfectly capable of designing 4-man dungeons to not be completely faceroll. And it's a way for us to actually make use of our improving gear ilvls.

4) You're probably right about set bonuses doing more harm than good. It'd also discourage the flexibility we have now mixing and matching raid gear and tomestone gear. I still feel our current materia options are very lackluster. I just don't think the complexity is there right now. Probably a hot take, but I even preferred Accuracy materia over Direct Hit, cause it added more nuance in gear customization (they just needed to display our hit % in the character window instead of leaving it to guesswork). As for my suggestion on trinkets, I only bring that up because I really enjoyed the Lost Action system in Bozja lol. Would love if a more minimal version of that was brought over to the main gameplay via a trinket slot.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

I think more varied boss arenas would be the way to go currently as the boss fights are the focus.

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That'd be a better expenditure of resource, imo, than "trash", but that's assuming the "trash" is as braindead as, well, trash.

For my part, I'd actually really like to see a more cohesive raid, as per the alliance ones, so long as the "trash" can be made interesting (and, ideally, CDs are all reset upon entering the boss arena proper). But yes, I'd take some variety in boss arenas over even good "trash" fights any day, despite loving ​the sense of exploration to a raid.

The part that doesn't quite sit right, in any either-or discussion of the two, though, is how much the two seem connected. True, we lost unique boss arenas (a la T1, T2, and especially the original T5) well before we lost trash, but it seems like there'd be some wasted opportunity or break in cohesion in introducing those boss arenas if not for some efforts meant to situate it prior, even, to the boss fight itself. Idk. It's just a nagging feeling.

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Originally Posted by Cebo

1) Dungeon design has become more boring with each successive expansion. I am not talking about the aesthetic or music, which has improved tenfold. I am strictly talking about the design. Whereas in ARR we had unique dungeons like Haukke Manor and Qarn, with multiple side/secret paths and mobs that had to be interrupted or prioritized quickly (ie. bees), SB and ShB dungeons have become incredibly linear with wall-to-wall pulls to each boss. While I understand that over time people would speed run dungeons in the most efficient way, the current formulaic dungeon design leads to a stale experience.

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I don't think it's the pathing that makes dungeons feel formulaic. If it even has a impact, it's probably notably less than well, almost everything else. While I'd enjoy a dungeon that actually takes advantage of its multiple paths -- such as by having a series of bosses available through multiple routes, each granting some bonus that carries over with designed intent into the fights after it, or even a dungeon in which we attack an Imperial base and it actually feels like an attack (franted, as a fresh PuG nightmare, I would not put that on a roulette) -- Haukke, like Matoya's Reliquery or w/e it's called, only feels worse to me for its backtracking.

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Originally Posted by Cebo

2) Raid design too has simply turned into boss arenas, with no dungeon to actually explore. The boss encounters themselves are great, but I have not felt the same sense of wonder exploring a raid, as I did in Coils. It's sad that after 8 years playing this game, nothing has topped the experience of first venturing into Icecrown Citadel in WoW.

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See above. I miss that exploration component, too, and the ocassional actually good trash fight, but I wouldn't sacrifice much for it.

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Originally Posted by Cebo

3) 4-man dungeons and Savage raids need scaling difficulty. Savage is challenging, but since they are now designed to be cleared in initial crafting gear, they are completed rather quickly in a patch cycle, leaving very little to do for months on end. SE can take a page from Blizzard's book and introduce a scaling + system; ie. if you clear a dungeon/raid, you can then attempt a +1 version that scales enemy health/damage (eg. reverse echo), and then +2, and so on. Rewards for these challenges could include additional tomestones, titles, minions, and mounts.

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Agreed. I'd love some replayability there, especially just to give some sort of content for those who like playing with friends but don't have enough simultaneous logged on to do 8-man content on the regular.

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Originally Posted by Cebo

4) Gear stats are very boring. Besides glamour, there is no excitement to end-game gear when it's only a slight stat improvement, and every materia meld is prioritized for Crit. I would love for more interesting materia options (new competitive sub-stats or enchant procs), set bonuses, or even a trinket slot. I understand balance is an issue. But I also don't think that should excuse SE from not even attempting to make more interesting gear options. They definitely have the creativity in them, as Bozjan has shown. We lack that carrot on a stick to keep playing end-game.

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Just keep it within reason, apart from balancing out the secondary stats we have now. FF7R, for instance, seemed to do a decent job with the amount of choices it brought. I certainly wouldn't want gearing to feel convoluted, though I suppose one could already make the case that the illusion of choice in our stats (worse, in some regards, than even in modern WoW), especially for how stale their effects are, is already pretty unintuitive.

Former WoW player here too. I want FFXIV to stay how it is and not cater to requests that other games do it better. Im pretty sure the reason WoW is in its current state is due to requests from the playerbase like this.

1) I think dungeons just need two difficulties, like raids and trials. I don't even think we need mythic+ or this kind of system. But at least 2 difficulties, especially if we only get one dungeon per patch.
I also think that the same should apply to 24-man raids as well.
That would give raiders a little challenge to work on during odd-numbered patches.
+ aside from the struggle of putting a team together, watching Delubrum Savage runs was fun.

2) Raids became like that because people do not like trash pulls, and that's probably also why they added some solo instances in the Omega quest for example: so you just have to do it once and be done with it.
The sense of exploration in Coils was also related to the fact that there was no 'story mode'. The story and exploration was one of the rewards for doing the raid. You will never get this back.
The problem in terms of exploration with Eden is that it did not have any of those solo instances where you'd make your way to the next area either. It was just like "Oh let's go to the thunder plains" and we then get warped to the thunder plains. "Let's go to the jails of Eulmore" and we get warped there etc. That's why it really felt like moving from one boss to the next with nothing in-between.

3) Gear gating is not fun IMO. But maybe that's just me. I think they could give more rewards for doing min iLvl/no echo runs in general though.

4) Maybe it is boring, but since we are speaking about end-game raiding, it means we are mostly speaking about people who would try using the optimal stats anyways. So everybody would use the same items in the end, no matter what.
As you mention, Bozja proves that you can have fun with things....by breaking the balance. And I don't think breaking the balance would make savage raiding better. Rather the opposite in fact...
IMO, more than the gear itself, the carrot should be the fun of figuring out the fights together with your mates. If fun is not enough to make you sub, I don't think gear progression should.

They should definitely step-up in the amount of hard content they are releasing though. Especially with the amount of WoW refugees coming in lately, who are used to playing a raid-centric game.

Also former wow player, and agree with others on this state. Things are fine as they are.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

Especially with the amount of WoW refugees coming in lately, who are used to playing a raid-centric game.

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yes let's make this game that isn't WoW into WoW and then everything will be solved! smh

I agree with the TS, especialy point 1, 2 and 4. That a reason why i can't play FF14 for a longer period of time. You know one dungeon and you know them all because the only differences between the dungeons are different colors.



I find point 3 is not a good game design offering content with different difficulty levels. It is all about cutting costs and a reason to make less new content.


Cheers

I just feel like, as things stand, gear in FFXIV is pretty close to being worthless - especially when ultimates normalize item level. Is that a problem? Uh, I dunno - not really? There's so much about the game that doesn't really revolved around the gear (and thus, by extension, the high-end raiding scene) that even a minor change in this regard would mark a fundamental shift in the paradigm that governs FFXIV. Having said that, I do miss the feeling of just overpowering content at the end of an expansion because you've evolved into such a terrifying beast. That never really occurs in this game. Yeah, you improve your gear, and some people have the nicest items possible, but, at the end of the day, individual performance has as much (or more) to do with dodging stuff and not dying than becoming a human flamethrower.

Honestly, if I had to make one thing about FFXIV more like WoW (and, really, this is the only thing), it's the PvP. Because the PvP in this game is just terrible.

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Originally Posted by Cebo

Responding

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1) What about Bardam's Mettle makes it not a hallway simulator? Is it the fact that you can look out upon an endless expanse of plains at first, though you cannot walk beyond the hall?

2) Over time people have forgotten the actual reason for the elevation change to Twintania's arena. It wasn't that elevation changes allowed for, "Divebomb Cheese." It was that the slope leading into the arena had a staggeringly strange affect on enmity and line of sight. You can actually "cheese" the divebombs on any section of the outer ring. People misunderstand this mechanic all of the time, both then and now. The actual cheese came from stacking everyone, and everyone moving forward and back promptly, causing Twintania to always divebomb from the same angle. The divet was used so that add pickup of the Asclepius was easier to do. They have some leeway on arean design and elevation changes. It's just, in order to fight across elevation, melee oriented jobs including tanks would have to be given their own separate platforms, because part of verticality goes against their melee distance. Proof of concept: Copperbell Mines First Boss -> You can hit it with any ranged attack if you get the right angle before it drops down to fight you in melee range.

3) That's just your static coming to terms with what has always been true about games with a vertical progression gearing system. The only actually important gear is entry level/clearing level gear. Everything beyond that is actually fluff and bluster. This has been true for FFXIV in every instance. Ultimates have already solved your problem, though there aren't enough of them for every iteration of BIS, but then, if you already understand the proof of this concept, then you understand that gear upgrades are transitory by nature, so you should be playing solely for the gameplay, not for a carrot on a stick.

It would be nice to get new dungeons that present more of a challenge. They could conceivably add dungeons that split your party or have spontaneous split paths, like in 24 man raids, such that the same dungeons feel a bit different every time, but I think that the dev team has shied away from dungeons on the whole.

4) My only beef with Direct Hit is that it's basically Crit Junior. It's basically what the Crit stat was originally in this game back in 2.0 before HW added the stacking crit damage. I don't really miss accuracy in gearing, because while it made sense to a degree, it also made people do stupid things like, "I only need accuracy from flank/back." Then that caused things like 1% wipes where, because the boss turned on a DPS after a tank screwed up, the DPS missed, and the boss managed to hit enrage cause it didn't die due to misses. Also though, caster innately having to stack less accuracy gear than everyone else was kind of lame. I don't think Trinkets would be balanced either. The small increases would either be boring or flex fluff. Anything special is automatically inimical to standard fight design. If Trinkets are really good though, what drops them? If they're not worth the hassle, then it's a waste of dev time etc.

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Originally Posted by TeraRamis

Having said that, I do miss the feeling of just overpowering content at the end of an expansion because you've evolved into such a terrifying beast.

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The problem there is the backlash with each new expansion. It takes only some 3 levels to lose any carried-over advantage and your secondary stat effects to plummet.

If there was some way to tangibly experience power beyond just Crit rates (less impactful now that no procs depend on them) and Attack Speed, it'd be more manageable, but it kinda sucks to get an extra 3% Attack Speed trait, for instance, to nonetheless have some 9% longer of a GCD, just due to how much your Skill Speed has devalued. Therein, the higher the peaks (or lower the comparative floor), the further the fall.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

2) Over time people have forgotten the actual reason for the elevation change to Twintania's arena. It wasn't that elevation changes allowed for, "Divebomb Cheese." It was that the slope leading into the arena had a staggeringly strange affect on enmity and line of sight.

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The enmity seemed fine, as did LoS. The main issue was flame (patch) cheese. The flame patches, despite the animation, were only at the elevation of their centers, thus allowing people to avoid the initial damage and stand seemingly in the fire without suffering periodic damage, so long as there was enough elevation change between their feet and the flame patches' center. I and my group's other Bard would regularly take no damage from it.

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4) My only beef with Direct Hit is that it's basically Crit Junior. It's basically what the Crit stat was originally in this game back in 2.0 before HW added the stacking crit damage.

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Same... Even Accuracy was more interesting, though more annoying. That said, they probably do need to rescale or rework Crit, regardless, since it quadratically scales and its value rises with party crit buffs, which then makes it rather compositionally-dependent even if it were somehow perfectly balanced.

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leaving very little to do for months on end

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Um....What?

FF 14 isnt raid or die and there is PLENTY to do outside raiding. I literally dont see HOW you came to that conclusion. im at endgame, I have all at 80, done all msq and I have plenty to do each and every day. There are also seasonal events, make it Rain, crossover events coming as well.....

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We lack that carrot on a stick to keep playing end-game.

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OP...just to let you know, the crafters in endgame built an entire city..so again, I dont see this "we have nothing to do". I also have a sneaking suspicion that we will be doing another Restoration down the line. The area is still open, the Kupo of Fortune is still there so..yeah...little to do?

Um...no.

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And eventually only a small portion of the playerbase will actually partake in and enjoy the majority of those additional challenge levels

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This is why they created LFR. I was there that day, the kicking and screaming from the elite raiders would have deafened an A380 at full thrust. How DARE people get to see content that was THEIRS alone, "only the worthy" was allowed to see it.

One of the reasons I left WOW, that attitude was sickening.

Ever hear of WOW's "hard parking'? That was the 'elite raiders" hanging around the cities so the "unwashed" could ooh and ahh at their elite gear.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

yes let's make this game that isn't WoW into WoW and then everything will be solved! smh

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Not what I am saying/implying.
IMO, with the player base increasing so much (and assuming people actual stay in the long term), I am hoping/expecting that the budget of the game will increase, and that they might eventually create more challenging content if there is an increasing demand for it.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

Not what I am saying/implying.
IMO, with the player base increasing so much (and assuming people actual stay in the long term), I am hoping/expecting that the budget of the game will increase, and that they might eventually create more challenging content if there is an increasing demand for it.

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But surely WoW must have exclusive hold on further difficulty levels, challenging small-group content, remotely impactful gear progression, less regularly shaped boss arenas, or dungeons not being face-roll...

Whilst I dont personally raid end game , as boss platforms dont appeal to me at all , I totally understand why many love it . Its quick to get to the meat of the action , there is no fluff and the boss attack patterns /mechs are crazy chaotic especially when you're unfamiliar with the encounter.

I am personally fine as a dungeon crawler , and alliance " raider" as I love the grandiose scaling . I really wish they could dedicate more SE staff to both new alliance raids and their accompanying story, as well as more boss platforms for those players.

One thing that woudl probably get me into the end game stuff is if the platforms allowed for me movement ( as in larger ) I get far too bamboozled by the chaos that is boss platforms , but thats just me and my clumsy brain so I would never petition/demand for changes to boss platform/trail style raiding just to cater to me . Im not that selfish.

Im glad both raid styles exists within ff14 , I just wish there were more development staff to make more of them.

1. Plenty of monsters take priority in dungeons, many require interrupts and dodging, are you asking for more 1 hit KO skills? Just because a pull is wall to wall doesn't mean me as the tank is not focusing and stunning/silencing stuff. Also Branching dungeons have never really been a thing? Even Haukke manor they are just rooms on the main path.
2. God no plz, the trash and 10min run times between bosses is why I never raid in WoW\
3. No thank you, if you want extra challenging you can do at min ilvl and do Ultimate fights. This just seems pointless.
4. This is very WoW mentality and part of the reason its community is running away, simplistic gearing is nice, it lets them focus on encounters not worrying if BLM A has "BIS LEET GEARZOR" having gearing disparities breeds toxicity.

I think there's something about #4 that I feel many people miss the most important point about it. While I get the people that talk against it because of the issues that widely different and unique stats on gear and set bonuses can create, I think the essence of it is something useful that could be extracted.

Itemization that impacts gameplay meaningfully

I think XIV has always lacked a bit in this department. Yes, accuracy was a thing. Yes, skill speed is a thing. But I feel that the way skill speed impacted rotation is not the kind of impact that I would be looking for. It's far too small and not
obvious enough how much impact is doing.

I'm talking about stats that will actually impact gameplay. Change which buttons you click. Change your rotation. Etc.

I think a happy medium between keeping the simplicity of itemization right now and the spice of WoW itemization could be something like the Mastery stat. I feel it would be worth exploring. It's technically only 1 new stat to be added to gear across the board, but obviously the impact it would have on each job would be completely different and, ideally, interesting. It could be increasing how much their gauge is increased by weaponskills (I.E Gauge numbers increased by WSs, for jobs like Warrior, Dark Knight. A very simple example).

It's something I miss from XI too. Gear with stuff like <Job Ability> + 1 was so cool.

So yeah. A single stat that impacted job specific gameplay for a job would be awesome.

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Originally Posted by Yagrush

I think XIV has always lacked a bit in this department. Yes, accuracy was a thing. Yes, skill speed is a thing. But I feel that the way skill speed impacted rotation is not the kind of impact that I would be looking for. It's far too small and not obvious enough how much impact is doing.

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As one of the few WHMs that have a Sindri Lux with Direct Hit/Piety on it (because DH was once accuracy), I'd rather not have to return to stacking a skill that's not natively on my gear just so I can hit the broad side of a barn. The problem with set gear in FFXIV is that we're basically fighting against the armory chest, and too much class specific gear is not a good thing, the primary weapon chest shows that to be an issue.

I think the problem with #4 is that it starts promoting FOTM builds, and with the costs then imparted to pentamelding, it begins a very hard line between the "hardcore" min/max crowd and the rest of the players.

"oh, you have this slotted, well, only a loser does that, so you arent welcome in this group" or "oh, you only have two slots filled, well, you know, to be the best you need to pentameld"

So I guess at that point, what is considered a "meaningful" change? if its a change that can open the door to discrimination between play styles, I am firmly against it. as it stands now, for stats there is virtually zero difference between the top 1% of "hardcore raider types" and the rest of the population, and this is, despite what some may think, a good thing.

right now if anything, FFXIV caters to.. no one, and everyone. we all get parts of what we want/need but no one group gets a full desire list fulfilled, so no one is singled out as.. ."special". This is a good thing and keeps the game from being that other game. because that other game, is a job, it is not entertainment. FFXIV retains the fun.

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

As one of the few WHMs that have a Sindri Lux with Direct Hit/Piety on it (because DH was once accuracy), I'd rather not have to return to stacking a skill that's not natively on my gear just so I can hit the broad side of a barn. The problem with set gear in FFXIV is that we're basically fighting against the armory chest, and too much class specific gear is not a good thing, the primary weapon chest shows that to be an issue.

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Maybe I wasn't too clear. But I'm definitely against accuracy as a stat. It was terrible. As for class specific gear, I don't think my idea would make those issues, since it would be about adding one new stat across the board (That impacts each job differently)

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I think the problem with #4 is that it starts promoting FOTM builds, and with the costs then imparted to pentamelding, it begins a very hard line between the "hardcore" min/max crowd and the rest of the players.

"oh, you have this slotted, well, only a loser does that, so you arent welcome in this group" or "oh, you only have two slots filled, well, you know, to be the best you need to pentameld"

So I guess at that point, what is considered a "meaningful" change? if its a change that can open the door to discrimination between play styles, I am firmly against it. as it stands now, for stats there is virtually zero difference between the top 1% of "hardcore raider types" and the rest of the population, and this is, despite what some may think, a good thing.

right now if anything, FFXIV caters to.. no one, and everyone. we all get parts of what we want/need but no one group gets a full desire list fulfilled, so no one is singled out as.. ."special". This is a good thing and keeps the game from being that other game. because that other game, is a job, it is not entertainment. FFXIV retains the fun.

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Hmm, if you think a new 'Mastery' stat would maybe worsen the issue, I could maybe see it. As a new stat, just by existing, has the natural consequence of creating more "wrong" builds when theres one "right" one.

However a new stat like this wouldn't create the issue. There's already stat priorities, and 'useless' stats for some jobs, and definitely 'wrong' ways to gear up your character. So it wouldn't be a new thing.

As for what I consider meaningful? In this particular case, a stat that makes the job feel and play differently, if only slightly. That altered my rotation somewhat. Made me press a button sooner than I would've. Basically, a stat that makes me feel its impact once I have gear with it and that it interacts with my gameplay, not just a passive number increase, you know?

The issue I'm trying to address is basically job gameplay staying flat throughout a whole expansion cycle. Items that impact it would be cool. My idea I presented is just a happy medium between what we have and something new.

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Originally Posted by Yagrush

Maybe I wasn't too clear. But I'm definitely against accuracy as a stat. It was terrible. As for class specific gear, I don't think my idea would make those issues, since it

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The gear we have falls into different categories, and further breaking apart those categories is only going to cause us to pick up and grind out more gear. It's better that it's simple and that we have things like Ultimates to challenge us rather than the entire cluster that is WoW gearing. Seriously, you don't want that aspect of WoW here as it's the primary aspect of WoW that's causing people to flee (aside from the obvious drama with Blizzard).

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Originally Posted by Yagrush

As for what I consider meaningful? In this particular case, a stat that makes the job feel and play differently, if only slightly. That altered my rotation somewhat. Made me press a button sooner than I would've. Basically, a stat that makes me feel its impact once I have gear with it and that it interacts with my gameplay, not just a passive number increase, you know?

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This sounds a lot like skill speed and spell speed. Even now different classes want different amounts of this due to how rotations line up. For example DRG typically have little skill speed to make their rotation line up better, but nothing is stopping your from stacking more skill speed to change up your rotation, though that is suboptimal.

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Originally Posted by Yagrush

So yeah. A single stat that impacted job specific gameplay for a job would be awesome.

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Strength. Tenacity. Dexterity. Intelligence. Mind.

These are already built into the game and are 'job specific'. Gear for a particular job swims in these stats. The stats change depending on which job you're currently playing.

TL;DR The game already has what you're requesting.

the "mastery" stat in Wow was at best muddy and confusing and did little except add frustration since it was supposed to be good, but they added little that actually had it as a base stat. personally I think they added it as a sop to the people requesting what you are, a bit more 'differentiation' and it went poorly. Since naturally, everyone was trying to get it to be 'better'

when it comes down to it, changes in the stat values in FFXIV overall are miniscule due to materia. for instance I used to think determination, adding as it stated, healing and damage, would be beneficial, then I found a site with the actual added values. to say the least, I no longer think its important at all, same with any kind of speed.

with the incoming stat squish, I doubt they will give us more of any stat to be honest. might be nice if they changed how the end values are affected, but I doubt that was well. as it stands, things.. "work", maybe not excessively, but well enough to leave alone

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Strength. Tenacity. Dexterity. Intelligence. Mind.

These are already built into the game and are 'job specific'. Gear for a particular job swims in these stats. The stats change depending on which job you're currently playing.

TL;DR The game already has what you're requesting.

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They change numbers, not gameplay. Making my fell cleave do 10k instead of 1k doesn't change the gameplay. So no, the game doesn't have it.

I already talked about skill speed/spell speed. Making the rotation line up slightly by a few decimals of seconds that is barely noticeable doesn't fit what I'm talking about.

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Originally Posted by Yagrush

They change numbers, not gameplay. Making my fell cleave do 10k instead of 1k doesn't change the gameplay. So no, the game doesn't have it.

I already talked about skill speed/spell speed. Making the rotation line up slightly by a few decimals of seconds that is barely noticeable doesn't fit what I'm talking about.

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Change job. That changes the gameplay entirely, and you don't even need to make a new character!


And we get slight gameplay changes every expansion. Having to relearn jobs twice or more per expansion depending on gear would be dumb.

[
4) Gear stats are very boring. Besides glamour, there is no excitement to end-game gear when it\\\\'s only a slight stat improvement, and every materia meld is prioritized for Crit. I would love for more interesting materia options (new competitive sub-stats or enchant procs), set bonuses, or even a trinket slot. I understand balance is an issue. But I also don\\\\'t think that should excuse SE from not even attempting to make more interesting gear options. They definitely have the creativity in them, as Bozjan has shown. We lack that carrot on a stick to keep playing end-game.[/QUOTE]

Number 4 i have been saying for years now....i know this isnt popular but one of my favorite things about ffxi was being able to obtain pieces of gear (normally very difficult to get) that had a unique property to it that made the sense of accomplishment incredible. The foundation and formulas in this game seem to be very concrete and I highly doubt that a few pieces of specialized gear allocated to the endgame try-hards would throw the entire balance of the game off especially since most of the population may not even acquire. Gear now is basically reskin add more to the stats rinse and repeat. Alot of the time i don\\\\'t even look at the name just make the ilvl is high enough and thats it...no sense of attachment to my weapons or gear outside of glamour whatsoever.

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Originally Posted by Yagrush

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Face it, there isn't a single stat that changes gameplay for a specific job to such an extent that it matters in this MMO or any other that I've ever played (and that list is pretty long, and includes 10 years of WoW). In WoW, your talents affect gameplay not your stats. This game doesn't use a talent system.

Players ignore skill and spell speed in this game because the meta for raw DPS regards it to be way below MAIN STAT, CRIT, DH or DET in rank of importance when choosing gear.

Nyet, end game is fine. We just need more raids in a patch is all.

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Originally Posted by Juun

Former WoW player here too. I want FFXIV to stay how it is and not cater to requests that other games do it better. Im pretty sure the reason WoW is in its current state is due to requests from the playerbase like this.

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It's actually quite the opposite. Blizzard devs notoriously don't listen to their playerbase whatsoever. Several of the mechanics in BfA and Shadowlands were heavily criticised in their PTA phase but still thrust into the game because the devs don't actually play it. Asmon even mentioned being told by people he knows in the company who said the dev team is baffled why players hate the new system. Take that with a grain of salt but considering how poor Blizzard's response has been to all the criticism WoW receives. I'm inclined to believe him. The devs seem clueless.

None of this is to say I necessarily agree with the OP or that every player idea is good because... oh boy, they aren't. But claiming Blizzard is in the state it's in because of player feedback is simply wrong.

#4 is an absolute non-starter for me. I desperately wish for Square (or any MMO maker, really) to push down the level where the core single target and aoe rotations are complete. It's bad enough that the level cap skill tends to be what makes a rotation work. I've played far too many MMOs where the set bonuses fundamentally changed a rotation. Maybe you like to play guess the rotation, but that's not something I find fun in the least.

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

#4 is an absolute non-starter for me. I desperately wish for Square (or any MMO maker, really) to push down the level where the core single target and aoe rotations are complete. It's bad enough that the level cap skill tends to be what makes a rotation work. I've played far too many MMOs where the set bonuses fundamentally changed a rotation. Maybe you like to play guess the rotation, but that's not something I find fun in the least.

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I agree. I feel like skill/spell speed enabling multiple rotations is about as much as FF14 should be doing.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

They should definitely step-up in the amount of hard content they are releasing though. Especially with the amount of WoW refugees coming in lately, who are used to playing a raid-centric game.

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Hard disagree here. I feel for the WoW players that they're finding themselves without their preferred game to play. However, this is not WoW and the solution is not to have this game become WoW. WoW players should appreciate this game for what it offers, and if it's not offering what they need, then there are other options. We all have that choice and many of us stay here because it's not like other games out there and doesn't focus on the same things.

1. No
2. No
3. No
4. definitely no.

There, my answers.

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Originally Posted by Genbe197

1. Plenty of monsters take priority in dungeons, many require interrupts and dodging, are you asking for more 1 hit KO skills?

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There is no point in prioritizing mobs in dungeons. Generally, you do the opposite, directing auto-attack damage and ST oGCDs against whichever mob has the highest health left so the die together, rather than any particular mob dying first. No mobs require interrupts. Very, very few bosses do, either.

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Just because a pull is wall to wall doesn't mean me as the tank is not focusing and stunning/silencing stuff.

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You have one at-most 5-second stun (at best stopping 2 auto-attacks) to which any significant enemy past Ifrit will be immune, and a single interrupt, per 30 seconds. That's not exactly a gameplay loop so much as just a feature of having brought a WHM.

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the trash and 10min run times between bosses is why I never raid in WoW

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You can just place a checkpoint right before the boss room... Having initial trash does not necessitate that you have to run back from the very beginning. Heck, it doesn't even do that in WoW unless there are also shortcuts from the central starting room.

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No thank you, if you want extra challenging you can do at min ilvl and do Ultimate fights.

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I don't think I'll ever understand this warrant.

'One (increasingly stale) variety of content has a challenging mode, so don't ask for challenge in any other forms of content.' ????

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This is very WoW mentality and part of the reason its community is running away, simplistic gearing is nice, it lets them focus on encounters not worrying if BLM A has "BIS LEET GEARZOR" having gearing disparities breeds toxicity.

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Those gear disparities already exist. Jobs here can be screwed over by poor optimization in a given tier to about the same extent as an "inferior" collection of secondary stats on a given spec in WoW; the difference is merely that WoW will tend to have had more options for a particular slot at a given item level and sees more tangible impact from those secondary stats (even if far less so in Shadowlands).

And, no, having a modicum of actual or impactful choice in one's gearing does not suddenly reduce what designs are possible in developing encounters.

And if you don't think that toxicity exists here already, take a look at reactions to tanks who stack Tenacity, or healers who stack Piety, since those, in their tuning and design, have been left always-inferior choices (effectively, non-choices). It's a damn sight more vehement than any secondary stat mismatch in WoW.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Strength. Tenacity. Dexterity. Intelligence. Mind.

These are already built into the game and are 'job specific'. Gear for a particular job swims in these stats. The stats change depending on which job you're currently playing.

TL;DR The game already has what you're requesting.

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No, the game has nothing like what was being requested.

The example was Mastery, a stat available to every spec and useful to every spec, but the effects of which varies by spec. That has nothing to do with Power-but-for-melee-other-than-Ninja, Power-but-for-Ninja-and-Ranged, Power-but-for-DPS-Casters, and Power-but-for-healers. Those aren't job-specific effects. They're the same effect. They're just convoluted to extend time spent grinding.

A closer example here would be if, say, you had a stat which increased proc rates or resource generation by a job-specific percentage (as to leave it balanced near Crit and DHit), or which added a variably intense mechanic to one's playflow.

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Personally, I'd be cool with just having actual choice in secondary stats and a bit more % effectiveness per stat point. But that requires some further polish.

Jobs vary pretty significantly in the portion of their damage that stems from oGCDs. That's a whole portion on which SkS/SpS (which should be consolidated into simple Haste rather than continuing to uniquely screw over PLD and DRK) has no contribution. So either Haste needs to be scaled differently per job, to provide equal value to the stat, or there needs to at least be a compensatory mechanic. I'd say the latter will probably be the worse option, though, as most compensatory mechanic concepts can only function by watering down the distinction between stats. There's also the imbalance in MP efficiency, though that could be easily solved by placing MP ticks on a rate equal to player GCD, rather than on a 3-second server tick.

Similarly, increase both the peaks of secondary stats and the between-expansion valleys. That's not to say the maximum Crit chance we can achieve by the final patch should increase from expansion to expansion, but merely that we should both be able to hit some significant peak in %Haste or %Crit, etc., by each final patch and that those percentiles shouldn't dive so sharply with the new expansion. In the end, secondary stats are at least as much about having some sense of impactful choice by which to play a bit more in the style we want (i.e., about the actual percentages in play) as the sense of power progression for a given expansion's endgame (i.e., the increase in percentages or, more importantly, the damage thus provided).

Heck, I wouldn't even mind losing Materia as it stands presently. For how much it bloats our inventory, it provides little more than a constant, dull gil-sink. I'd far sooner rather have a single, separate slot by which to just drop in just one customizable, any-job Materia for an oversided dollop of secondary stat of my choice -- say, adding Haste until X, and then Crit. Voila, rather than micromanaging gear to be able to play with the rotation I want, I can just choose it then and there. Choiceful, impactful, convenient.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Hard disagree here. I feel for the WoW players that they're finding themselves without their preferred game to play. However, this is not WoW and the solution is not to have this game become WoW. WoW players should appreciate this game for what it offers, and if it's not offering what they need, then there are other options. We all have that choice and many of us stay here because it's not like other games out there and doesn't focus on the same things.

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Again, I am not saying that it should become WoW and become all about raids.

I am a casual player myself and don't do any difficult content whatsoever.
I think that the team is doing a good job for players like me. The amount of non-endgame-raiding content is fine. And they are adding more and more and more over time.
Including that Island Sanctuary which is likely to become a big part of my time in game depending on what it actually ends up being.

However, what I am observing is that a lot of the criticisms the game is getting, especially with Shadowbringers, and even from people who have been playing the game for years, are about the lack of challenging content.
So, while I personally don't care, I think they should not cater to any specific audience. Which means there should be more casual content AND more difficult content.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

Again, I am not saying that it should become WoW and become all about raids.

I am a casual player myself and don't do any difficult content whatsoever.
I think that the team is doing a good job for players like me. The amount of non-endgame-raiding content is fine. And they are adding more and more and more over time.
Including that Island Sanctuary which is likely to become a big part of my time in game depending on what it actually ends up being.

However, what I am observing is that a lot of the criticisms the game is getting, especially with Shadowbringers, and even from people who have been playing the game for years, are about the lack of challenging content.
So, while I personally don't care, I think they should not cater to any specific audience. Which means there should be more casual content AND more difficult content.

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Any game has to decide on what audience it wants to cater to. It's impossible to please everyone. There's not enough time to make enough content for everyone to get something they want.

Deviate from what had been a successful formula and you end up with a WoW - a game with a player base a fraction of the size of what it had been at its peak with the numbers being masked by a reboot of the original game that's turned out to be more popular than what the game has become.

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it provides little more than a constant, dull gil-sink.

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Um...you DO know you can get clusters to buy materia?

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by a reboot of the original game that's turned out to be more popular than what the game has become.

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WOW classic has failed, the servers are deserted, and even their TBC remake has been a flop.