Game dumbed Down a little to much

Hey I knew the RDM from the XI Titan video. Titan in XI was soloable (if you were good with the right job) even before they raised the 75 cap. I duoed them all the time for SMN LS mates.

I agree with the thread title though. The game has become a twitch / token fest. Learning a fight trivializes it instead of making it manageable. Mistakes aren't punished, they are 1 shots. The deepest you go in to strategy is 'turn the dread the other way please'. There are no viable gear/spec options. You react by moving to the left/right quicker instead of reacting with your wits. Perhaps playing RPGs for way too long now has spoiled me, but I expect my mind as well as my reflexes to be engaged by something with RPG attached to it.

I also agree with Asiaine's post. Lately I define 'casual' as 'someone who can't be bothered to learn and pay attention' moreso than 'has limited time'.


Edit-

TomTom: You would be surprised how much reacting slowly to situations in XI was bad. There were few 1 shot gimicks in that game, but you can easily get behind, drop DPS, mismanage CDs etc to the point you could no longer outlast the enemy.

I hate it when people use the rose tinted glasses bullshite.
No actually I don't have on rose tinted glasses I could make a list of 10+ reasons why I liked 11 better.

The rose tinted glasses statement is so god damn dumb , oh nothing in the past can ever be better because you must have been wearing rose tinted glasses

Hmm there are still people that fail at Titan hard, let alone his extreme version.

Hell, a lot of people still die to Ultima. Just wait till they put coil in duty finder, and we'll
get mass "it's still too hard" threads.

They're just catering casuals. Nothing new under the sun!

You talk about content being too easy but then you want solo content. Do you have end game on farm?

FF11 wasn't hard. It was time consuming and quite simply a bad game. The numbers prove it.....

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Originally Posted by remidi

You talk about content being too easy but then you want solo content. Do you have end game on farm?

FF11 wasn't hard. It was time consuming and quite simply a bad game. The numbers prove it.....

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A "bad game" yet lasted longer than most MMO's these days and was SE's most profitable game? By what metric are you measuring this?

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Originally Posted by Magis

A "bad game" yet lasted longer than most MMO's these days and was SE's most profitable game? By what metric are you measuring this?

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Thats why there are a bunch of FF11 players playing FF12 and complaining how bad it is on these forums when they are playing end game content or have multiple 50's. It was a bad game..we all know it. Sorry you liked it. The main point of this post was the OP was saying this game was too easy. I know you are easily offended but please stay on topic.

By the looks of it the OP has zero end game experience as well. These forums are filled with trash...

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Originally Posted by remidi

Thats why there are a bunch of FF11 players playing FF12 and complaining how bad it is on these forums when they are playing end game content or have multiple 50's. It was a bad game..we all know it. Sorry you liked it. The main point of this post was the OP was saying this game was too easy. I know you are easily offended but please stay on topic.

By the looks of it the OP has zero end game experience as well. These forums are filled with trash...

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I think you're proving your own point :D

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Originally Posted by Arkghyom

They're just catering casuals. Nothing new under the sun!

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Yea pretty much this. Its all about the money now so they dumb down the game to appease the casuals and draw them into the game. The casuals want everything changed to be soloable and super easy. Heck the leveling game from 1 to 50 is so easy, you could probably clear it half asleep afk auto attacking. Heck just look how super safe the open world is! Fates are a joke, most of the mobs don't even aggro you, the zones are super small and there are teleport nodes everywhere. I miss the old Everquest days where it was dangerous to travel. Mobs chased you down until you either zoned or died! In these current MMOs you can just mount up and herp a derp through the zone with no worries.

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Originally Posted by Yashnaheen

I also agree with Asiaine's post. Lately I define 'casual' as 'someone who can't be bothered to learn and pay attention' moreso than 'has limited time'.


Edit-

TomTom: You would be surprised how much reacting slowly to situations in XI was bad. There were few 1 shot gimicks in that game, but you can easily get behind, drop DPS, mismanage CDs etc to the point you could no longer outlast the enemy.

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Yeah, xi was a lot more creative in that regard, employing different kinds of moves the party had to deal with instead of slapping on 5 digits worth of damage and calling it a day. I think the twitch/one shot mechanics are also having a bad effect on the community, where people start to trivialize each other in df/pf parties.

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Originally Posted by remidi

Thats why there are a bunch of FF11 players playing FF12 and complaining how bad it is on these forums when they are playing end game content or have multiple 50's.

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Are you comparing XI as it is currently? The reason is because it was "dumbed down and simplified" just like they did with XIV 2.0! After the release of Abyssea in 2010 (raising the level cap after it wasn't touched for years as well as make the game a vertical progression one), XI saw it's largest population loss. But I digress.

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Originally Posted by remidi

It was a bad game..we all know it. Sorry you liked it. The main point of this post was the OP was saying this game was too easy. I know you are easily offended but please stay on topic.

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XIV is easy, period. Sorry, but instakill gimmicks and bad netcode doesn't make a fight hard, it makes it tedious. The fights themselves are all scripted (so much that you can literally chart the whole fight) and have no random element to them. There is no adaption, just memorization. XIV's boss battles boil down to the "don't stand in the fire" mechanic WoW did back in Molten Core!

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Originally Posted by remidi

By the looks of it the OP has zero end game experience as well. These forums are filled with trash...

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Talk about being mad about video games.

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Originally Posted by Magis

Are you comparing XI as it is currently? The reason is because it was "dumbed down and simplified" just like they did with XIV 2.0! After the release of Abyssea in 2010 (raising the level cap after it wasn't touched for years as well as make the game a vertical progression one), XI saw it's largest population loss. But I digress.



XIV is easy, period. Sorry, but instakill gimmicks and bad netcode doesn't make a fight hard, it makes it tedious. The fights themselves are all scripted (so much that you can literally chart the whole fight) and have no random element to them. There is no adaption, just memorization. XIV's boss battles boil down to the "don't stand in the fire" mechanic WoW did back in Molten Core!



Talk about being mad about video games.

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Yea its so easy when people are dying to Exprimals all day.
People are complaining about T2 enrage and saying its too easy and that the "correct" way is hard ..lul
People are selling T5 and Primal EX runs for millions.


End game content is no harder or easier than any other end game MMO content I have played(WOW, SWOTR).

You just have to learn the mechanics.

How am I mad? The OP is complaining about how this game is easy and he has no endgame experience....

Below are suggestions I posted in another thread on what [I feel] SE could do to possibly improve the game in its current state.

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Originally Posted by Vensaval

-Crafted equipment should have a point so that running dungeons aren't the only way to receive high-end gear efficiently.

-Combat should be made more engaging somehow. Implement tactics other than memorizing patters and repeating the same rotation(s) time and again.

-Have FATEs be more rare and difficult. Allowing them to provide experience, tomes, and rare items upon completion so that they're no longer just a grinding tool.

-Remove a lot of the quick travel so that players can actually see and feel how beautiful and vast the world is.

-Give classes a reason to exist. Boost their stats and give them access to even more cross class abilities so that players can experiment and create something unorthodox and fun.

-Introduce the element wheel so that battles can have more depth.

-Going along the above point. Give gear extra stats such as: elemental strikes, elemental resistances (when the have a point), % healing buffs, passive healing, % chances to apply status debuffs like poison and paralyze, provide buffs to individual skills in a class/job, etc.

-Provide alternative content other than dungeons and trials (PVP and Treasure Hunts were a good first step).

-Give players more incentive to perform leves. Perhaps have the bounties appear less often and drop greater rewards.

-Implement more animations. Give each race their own animations for each of the jobs/classes. Just give more life to the characters and NPCs (this is a big deal for me).


All I could think of so far.

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Originally Posted by NoctisCaelus

Yoshida said 1 through 50 is a guide for end game

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Only issue I have with that is that end game is annoying and uninteresting. IMO. I know some people enjoy it, but doing the same instances over and over hoping for drops, hoping everyone in your group isn't a prick, getting aggravated, etc., then doing it all over again isn't interesting to me.

Yoshi says end game is where the game starts, but so far, for me, it's where the game ends. It's just not worth the aggravation and the jerks you have to deal with. End game is just not fun.

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Originally Posted by remidi

Yea its so easy when people are dying to Exprimals all day.
People are complaining about T2 enrage and saying its too easy and that the "correct" way is hard ..lul
People are selling T5 and Primal EX runs for millions.

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Playing Bridge or Magic: The Gathering at a high level is hard.
Doing synchronized dancing or playing air hockey at high level is also hard.

I think we agree they are hard in very different ways ^^

But this is not only about difficulty. It's about depth, it's about variety, it's about a challenge for the brain, not only for twitchy fingers and connection. It's about a challenge in devising a strategy about what jobs to take to a fight, what abilities, how those jobs/abilities cooperate with one another in order to respond to the threat ahead.

Think of all the strategies you saw in various forums for MMORPG when it came to a certain battle. Tons of posts about "we did it with this party composition: ..." testimonials from people which were sharing their experience, comparing strategies etc.

Where are these now? There are nowhere to be found because there are none ; ;

Unfortunately, right now ARR in too many situations (Primals Ex are a good example) tests more your arcade skills and reflexes then your strategic, tactic or adaptation to a new situation skills.

Hopefully it will change.

-Lak

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Originally Posted by Lakshmana

Playing Bridge or Magic: The Gathering at a high level is hard.
Doing synchronized dancing or playing air hockey at high level is also hard.

I think we agree they are hard in very different ways ^^

But this is not only about difficulty. It's about depth, it's about variety, it's about a challenge for the brain, not only for twitchy fingers and connection. It's about a challenge in devising a strategy about what jobs to take to a fight, what abilities, how those jobs/abilities cooperate with one another in order to respond to the threat ahead.

Think of all the strategies you saw in various forums for MMORPG when it came to a certain battle. Tons of posts about "we did it with this party composition: ..." testimonials from people which were sharing their experience, comparing strategies etc.

Where are these now? There are nowhere to be found because there are none ; ;

Unfortunately, right now ARR in too many situations (Primals Ex are a good example) tests more your arcade skills and reflexes then your strategic, tactic or adaptation to a new situation skills.

Hopefully it will change.

-Lak

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Quoting for truth.

This game has been dumbed down too much, and to compound the problem, they dumbed it down in the wrong way. I'm not an idiot, as I'm currently picking up a second language through listening to music and watching anime, learning database creation from my husband and reading books at a rate of about 3-5 per week.

But, this game doesn't use my brain at all. I don't have to think about anything or figure anything out. I have to learn a pattern, memorize the pattern and make my fingers move to specific keys at a certain speed. That's not challenging or fun. It is difficult for me as I'm not good at pattern memorization. Training my motor memory for a single fight would take just about as much time as it does to learn basic database setup and MySQL queries (if not more).

This game makes me feel the same way I used to feel in gym class. Always getting hit in dodgeball, never hitting anyone else, and getting laughed at because I got A's in math class.

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Originally Posted by KylePearlsand

Ahahaha... Keep saying that when you get to the hard mode primals. :)

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Hard mode primals are what the regular versions should have been. What we have now for extreme mode primals should have been hard mode. And extreme mode primals after that point shouldn't have existed because recycling the same content that many times is ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Ventus

1-50 should never be excusable as a tutorial. I understand this game is catering to non MMO players because they need money, but the issue becomes that by level 50 people still don't know how to play properly when the difficulty spikes (not to mention it's just boring to have such a low difficulty curve). Game is way too easy in my opinion.

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Yep.

Whereas XI was just as much about the journey TO endgame was it was about the endgame itself (and teamwork along the way) this game keeps pandering to... I want to say casuals, but I think even most casual gamers would agree this is a bit extreme. XI had a much simpler battle system by comparison, at least as far as the mechanics & formulas are concerned, and yet combat just felt so much more in depth.

We have this awesome revamped crafting system, but the endgame gear is worthless vs dungeon drops even fully melded.

We have an armory system that's supposed to encourage playing multiple classes/jobs but it forces you to focus on 1 job per class, and 1 job per week due to lockouts/caps.

They got rid of all the tedious nonsense that plagued XI like skilling up (and redundant/useless abilities like the lower level elemental ws), only to severely limit out choices for sub skills via the armory and basically have us repeat the same rotations endlessly in battle, using the odd cool down here and there. Combat basically boils down to poke, heal, and dodge the big red circles in a pattern.


This game has so much potential and it's being wasted.


I absolutely hate myself for saying this, but... I want Tanaka back.

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Originally Posted by NefGP

This game has so much potential and it's being wasted.


I absolutely hate myself for saying this, but... I want Tanaka back.

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Sadly i do to, though what yoshi did for the end of 1.0 was building up to be great, they just tossed it all because they wanted to take a lot of que's from WoW and had people play that...so what we got was not an attempt to be original (which 1.0 was trying, even if stuff failed) but more of the same crap most F2P games do just as well if not better.

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Originally Posted by darthkyron

Remember FFVI? VII?VIII? all those games? X, XII

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Y-you skipped IX . . . T_T

Please understand that while casuals, such as myself want goals that can be progressively achieved... that does not mean this theme park style lobby fest.

Casuals even played EQ and enjoyed the epically long quests there... not all "casuals" want dumbed down games. Just some styles of advancement paths available. I don't know what kind of players enjoy a repetitive lobby/instance grind.

^ I agree. That's what I liked about XI's approach to design - if you didn't like or couldn't do 1 event, you could simply do another for comparable drops.

Currently ARR's endgame is very cut and dry with strict limitations on both drops and participation and it makes for a rather dull experience, especially since crafted gear is pretty much worthless. You can make content accessible without having everything revolve around mind-numbing battles that simply boil down to pattern memorization and execution rather than testing a party's ability both to react & think on the spot, as well as employ tactics instead of simply spamming the same abilities over and over.

I'll use the Ouryu fight in CoP as an example. Back in the day the most common tactic was to simply manaburn him with a bunch of black mages. When I beat it we used a very unorthodox setup and we were all super proud for it. I was on my Warrior at the time, and we had a MNK, SMN, WHM RDM and I think a BLU with us as well I honestly can't recall (pretty sure it was a BLU anyway). It's also one of the few times I bothered using that god awful brady games guide as it came with a skillchain chart.

I quickly looked at our available WS and determined we could do a detonation (wind element) skillchain, which would allow our SMN to magic burst Aerial Blast with Garuda. I remember the others being a bit skeptical but they agreed to try it, and we were all taken aback by just how hard it hit him - Ouryu was of course an earth-based Dragon so his chances of resisting it were low and just 1 shot took out like a 1/3 of his HP, it was insane. It just made the victory all the sweeter because by all standards we had a pretty jank setup that probably shouldn't have worked, but it did.

And then there's all the videos of Avesta and Kanican soloing crazy stuff on RDM and BLM (when Kanican soloed that one Salvage run nobody could believe it - same with his Limbus solo run). That was the real beauty of XI's combat system, basic as it was it allowed for some pretty crazy stuff for anyone dedicated enough. PUP & BLU really exemplified this the most because of the insane level of customization on those jobs.


I know ARR is still "fresh" in its current form, but I'm not really seeing the foundation for anything amazing like XI eventually had just yet. I'll reserve final judgment until the 1st expansion, but that's still a fair way off and besides, we've already seen the great stuff YP is capable of in 1.23 - we're just wondering why we aren't seeing more of that instead.

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Originally Posted by NefGP

This game has so much potential and it's being wasted.


I absolutely hate myself for saying this, but... I want Tanaka back.

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Yoshi did a great job with the game, but this game does not and should not be another warcraft clone. While some may not agree with me, FFXIV should be its own stand alone title and stay true to the FF series before hand.

Tanaka's game lacked a lot of content, but I did enjoy playing it back in 1.x. So many things from 1.x were removed that I/many other players miss (1 example would have been the high level monsters you can find around the world).

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Originally Posted by NefGP

I absolutely hate myself for saying this, but... I want Tanaka back.

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The problem is Tanaka and yoshi are both extremes, I dont want either but I want them to work together to create a nice balance, instead being to extreme on either side.

Also less fan service, let this game develop an identity

This game had/has a lot of promise, and was so close to being truly enjoyable (for those who like strategic depth). If they made a few tweaks:

-- Variety of equipment (3 items at same level, but with different stats, so equipment is situational). Rather than pure linear progression.
-- Better materia customization (right now it's extremely trivial. They could borrow from FFVII and make it truly an art in itself).
-- Non-deterministic AI. It's not only boring, but rather silly, that we know the moves boss' will do before they do it. At the very least, make hard mode non-deterministic.
-- Battle Tactics. More advanced tactics (FFXI as an example since many know about it): Skill Chains, Magic Bursts, SATA.

If they added Skill Chains, MB, SATA, FFVII style Materia, better variety of equipment, and random AI in Hard/Extreme mode dungeons/bosses, I would be very happy indeed. And there is nothing stopping them from doing it. The 'casuals' (those who do not want to spend time learning/mastering a game) would enjoy all story progress without the need for advanced tactics/equipment. The 'dedicated' (those who want to learn and master a game, regardless of # of hours they have) would enjoy the need for advanced tactics in hard/extreme mode battles.

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

-- Battle Tactics. More advanced tactics (FFXI as an example since many know about it): Skill Chains, Magic Bursts, SATA.

If they added Skill Chains, MB, SATA

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No, please no. I don't want to skill chain -.-;
Those 11 days are over, and I'm glad SC is over. Just imagine trying to save a skill (lowering your overall dps), dodging post heart in Titan EX, and all that for a shiny animation which will be lackluster damage. Heck even ff11 people didn't save tp for SC for a lot of content. Plus with the way our TP works this couldn't happen the way it did then, and if you want it to work differently then you are just asking for another form of LB. Now, if we had a way to make it so each group role in a party had their own special bar to build. That would be cool, then fights could be tuned a bit harder for this extra bonus.

SA is useless because we already have bonus from attacking from behind... called combos.
TA would be bad due to game design considering they would definitely give a new tank job a way to generate threat just as fast as WAR/PLD because otherwise "it would give reason to exclude them from fights." (which happens already ranged/melee - but you know this excuse would be used)


Now, new materia variety sure. I even mentioned before in another post about "melding soul stone" with materia that augments our abilities. "Cheaper medica 2", "Faster Cure 2", "Potent Cure 3" things like that.

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Originally Posted by Mardel

No, please no. I don't want to skill chain -.-;

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I'm using that as an example of a tactic since a lot of people are familiar with it. There are of course other different tactics that can be invented or borrowed from other games. There is of course no need to have that specific one. Just 'something' that makes the game more engaging and that you have to pay attention to others.

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Originally Posted by Mardel

Now, if we had a way to make it so each group role in a party had their own special bar to build. That would be cool, then fights could be tuned a bit harder for this extra bonus.

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Having your own bar would not be really that much extra strategy... it would be: Business as usual, oh, new flashy button, hit it! Something I (and i'm sure some others) would like is far more in-depth battle tactics. Obviously there will be others who don't. And that is the crux of the problem here.

I would say it isn't because the majority of the people in the game haven't beat Coil Turn 5. Either they lack the skill or coordination to play as a group to beat the fight.

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Originally Posted by CyrilLucifer

While I'm not new to MMOs, a friend of mine who is playing is.

He is overwhelmed by everything. There's a lot he didn't get; things that are common knowledge to all of us who have played a lot, were completely foreign to him. I had to explain things I learned more than 10 years ago and have become second nature to me.

If Yoshi-P was targeting non-MMO players, I'm not sure how well he succeeded. This game seems to be in an uncomfortable rut. It's more complex than people give it credit for, but it's not quite simple enough that just anyone can pick it up.

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This is a very clear definition of why trying to mix hardcore and casual MMO players is a bad idea, my son tells me a true hardcore MMO aimed at that playerbase would be too niche these days and fail. Somehow I don't think it would, your friend is new and so it makes sense he/she is a little overwhelmed. However veteran MMO players tire quickly of games made for new players.

Mistress it is good to see you still engaged in discussions, and soon you will be seeing a character of mine on your server.^^

Tanaka had a much, much better vision for the game; unfortunately, the implementation was rather poor (well, I still think it was due to rushing, but there's no way to know for sure). I came to ARR hoping to see 1.0 done right. What I found instead was a generic MMORPG casserole with a picture of FFXIV plastered over top of it like some derranged kind of video game Leatherface.

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Originally Posted by Mardel

THEY TERK ER DPS!!!

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Oh noes, god forbid we have a system in place that rewards synergy and working in concert with your party members. 1.0 actually had a newer version of the SC system called Battle Regimens, but it got scrapped due to all kinds of technical bugs. I for one would love to see it come back to add an extra layer of strategy. I also really miss being able to break/disable body parts on NMs to cripple them, like breaking Ifrit's Horns to weaken him in Extreme Mode (1.23) or Chimera's tail to block his old poison attack.

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Originally Posted by darthkyron

No i think you MISUNDERSTAND true ff fans,
They are the ones that started on the nes, remember that first game , the game that was hard? where you couldn't save in dungeons, the game where you could die if you didn't pay attention?
Remember FFV the game that had a story where Important npc's died around the corner?
Remember FFVI? VII?VIII? all those games? X, XII
Now tell me, in which way this FF reskined WOW CLONE has something to do with those games?
This game is for cassual FF posers that caim they are fans,
This will be ftp in 2 years max

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lawls...ok