Mahjong is the most depressing mini game you've added to XIV

I like Mahjong, even if I'm not very good at it. I wasn't excited for it, but I was definitely going to try it out.

First player match took over an hour.



Yeah, that's gonna be a no from me dawg.

@Whatever mod moved this thread here - Thanks for putting this somewhere that WILL NOT GET MUCH ATTENTION AT ALL. That's why I put this in the General Discussion forum, because people will ACTUALLY see this damn thread.

"Unhappy with how they implemented Mahjong? "

Theres no such thing wrongly implemented mahjong. lol

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Originally Posted by Akor

"Unhappy with how they implemented Mahjong? "

Theres no such thing wrongly implemented mahjong. lol

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Did you read what's been said in the thread, or did you just skim over. It's an issue with the Rating system, and it not being explained well at all. They did a terrible job at it and didn't let people know from the start they should be pushed away from achievements for good due to other players knowing the game better than they do. The only way to not get a rating change it to only play against NPCs, but you get NOTHING out of it at all from doing that. They've also locked collection stuff behind an achievement that is linked to rating, and not ranking, which again THEY DO NOT EXPLAIN AT ALL.

SO kindly go back and read a bit.

The rating is the most stupid thing the devs could add. They probably wanted to copy "official mahjong league" or something, but they just forgot the difference between "professional mahjong players" and "FFXIV players playing a side game". Every mini-game in FFXIV have been damaged because the devs take these mini-game way too seriously.

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Originally Posted by Bacent

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yes i read it, and precisely said that. Theres nothing to prevent u from learning the game or get there on ratings. This game isnt remotly hard or difficult to catch on.

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Originally Posted by Akor

yes i read it, and precisely said that. Theres nothing to prevent u from learning the game or get there on ratings. This game isnt remotly hard or difficult to catch on.

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There's nothing to prevent people from learning it, yes. But when the game dies down very quickly in all non asian servers and the ONLY people left are the few that know the game very well, it's hard to stand any kind of fighting chance when you are against them.

I still haven't found out where it is located in the game, i wouldn't mind trying it out for a min or two but I have heard it isn't what regular mahjong is.

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Originally Posted by JuraLith

I still haven't found out where it is located in the game, i wouldn't mind trying it out for a min or two but I have heard it isn't what regular mahjong is.

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The 'regular mahjong' you're thinking is more than likely the Mahjong Tiles that people in non asian countries know of, where you remove the tiles in pairs to try to clear the whole board. This is actual Traditional Mahjong they added to the game, where you have to have 4 players in it, giving you more chances to play against someone who knows the game well before you can really grasp the basics. And you can pre-emptively see you're outmatched when you see people with high rankings in the game, while your rank says 'novice'

And to unlock it

Every Little Thing She Does Is Mahjong
Any class or job level 15
The Gold Saucer (X:4.8 Y:6.1)
Lewena
Players must first complete the quest "It Could Happen to You."

Just tsumo your way to victory

Original poster... you got depressed by playing an optional mini game in a online Massively Multiplayer online game?

I have to say, you are doing something terribly wrong. This content, I think, just isn’t for you, please pick something else from the massive array of content that might suit your interest.

People can share their disinterest in things but you have to realize content is created for this *massive* player base. For evey person that *detests* a piece of content it will be loved by someone else. Just move along. (And no I haven’t even tried this yet, but seriously people do something else if you don’t like it. But going as far as to call it depressing? Really?)

... as for your orchestrian roll...

Make a free trial account, unlock the gold saucer, play against yourself and make your main account win every time. “Super absurd kick to the groin” problem solved.

If you dont play on PC... ask a friend to make an alt and let you win against them every time.

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Originally Posted by Daniolaut

... as for your orchestrian roll...

Make a free trial account, unlock the gold saucer, play against yourself and make your main account win every time. “Super absurd kick to the groin” problem solved.

If you dont play on PC... ask a friend to make an alt and let you win against them every time.

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You can't sign up with any friends for points in rating, you'd have to hope that you get signed up with friends. And I'm talking about fact the game has two different ranking type things with it, one of which IS NEVER PROPERLY EXPLAINED. They short changed up on the explanation, and that's just a kick to the crotch from SE.

Well I'm glad there's finally another minigame to take the heat off Lord of Verminion.

Remember, if you're looking for a game that is,

• 5-10 minutes long at most
• 100% deterministic with no rng
• Has a higher skill ceiling than both the feast and ultimate combined

LoVM is that way :D

Ok look the song you get for this, is the bgm which is playing while you are playing mahjong. It has this really kinda constant nasty buzz to it, which loops every 2 mins or so. It's like the one area in the game that I kick myself every time I go into a match without having done a /bgm to turn it of so I can use other music sources -- At which point it's 45 mins or so of this constant buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzszszszszszszszszszszszszszszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Play mahjong enough times with that bgm on and you'll regret you can even use the roll.

Which brings me to two actual points:
• why is /bgm and other setting controls disabled during mahjong, it's really annoying not being able to do something about that damn buzz.
• why can't I see my own characters face like I can the other players?
○ Either have to make the game board super-tiny to see my character and/or lose information from the edge by dragging the board over.

Don't get discouraged OP. I started out playing just trying to learn from the NPC's and thought I knew the basics but got into the ranked games and was getting worked over and rating fell into the 1300's. I just got to 1600 tonight. The information they give is just not enough. There should be a tutorial where you play an actual game and have tool tips pop up for different situations. The thing that helped me the most was a simple sheet that showed different types of winning hands. This is the one I used, https://i.redd.it/6no9e5x3dl921.jpg The most important thing I learned from that was that certain hands could only be won with a closed hand and I was calling Chi and Pon way too often and with the wrong tiles and screwing myself. Just realizing what hands were even capable of winning turned things around for me where I won more than I lost. And once you start doing that your rating starts to recover fairly quickly. Another tip after you start figuring out how to play your own tiles is how to play a bit defensively. If someone calls Riichi and my hand isn't looking good and isn't even close to winning I'll start discarding tiles that I think the person with Riichi won't need even if it hurts my hand a bit. So not playing to win but playing not to lose. Hope some of that helps, good luck.

THIS MADNESS NEEDS TO STOP!

Not everyone is lucky! I have so bad luck in this game that i am at 1320 rating...
I learned the rules, and still i lose and lose and lose. And why do i get -rating if i am the 3th place?

Whover tought its funny to put an orchestrion roll behind a luck based game IS A MONSTER! THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE NOW! Put it behind x played games or x number of wins!!!!

I gave up, there is no chance for me to get this... /shrug

Seriously, in one game i had 23k points, on the 4th tiledrop someon did a ron on me with -24k points... how am i supposed to defend against that? Others get richi on the 3-4th tiledrop (multiple games in a row), when i see my hand still need 5-6 tiles.

I'm tired of this mini-game. I've spent the past 2 weeks playing ranked games and the highest I've gotten is 1542 thanks to a few lucky streaks. But I always end up in games with 2nd/1st Dans with 17-1900 ratings in the Novice leagues, which forces me back into the 1500/sub 1500 rating. Why am I being ranked against people who obviously should be in the intermediate or expert leagues? At the very least, if your rating hits a certain level, you should automatically not be matched with those who have a lower rating, even if it means longer queue times.

This is the frustrating thing for me...I consider myself pretty competent. Hardly some grandmaster, but I like to think I know how to go about shaping my hands, and folding when necessary. But by the twelve, the amount of 2nd-5th turn Riichi calls is infuriating... whenever I have a decent starting hand that happens. The rest of the time I just...still can't form anything either useable and/or valuable enough before somebody else snags it. The best players don't have giant win rates, but 4th place over, and over, and over...it's not like I'm even dealing into Rons all that often but I just can't break out of this rut. I'm either forced on the defensive all game and just don't gain anything, or see an opening to break it and never get rewarded by risk or safe hand. It's turning me into a bad sport, but it's thoroughly irritating.

If you couldn't farm off newbies with no idea in the first week then I'd give up, personally. It's a fun game when it's close, but there's only so much rng crap one can take. Skill is a factor in this game but if I see it come into play more often I'll let you know... I should quit, but the annoyance just makes me want to queue again

To get the Birds of Prey orchestrion roll you need 10,000 Wolf Marks. Even if you're terrible at PVP, as long as you participate in it you will eventually get 10,000 Wolf Marks.

To get the Four-Sided Circle orchestrion roll you need 10,000 MGP. There are tons of different types of minigames you can play to earn MGP, but even if you hate all of them you can literally get free MGP from Cactpots and Fashion Check, and you will get 10,000 MGP.

More importantly, neither of these punish you for losing, you just don't get as many rewards. Even for the achievements, if you lose it just means that you don't get another win added to your tally, it doesn't mean you get one of your wins taken away.

Mahjong is the only content of this type that hurts you if you lose. That's terrible design and it needs to be fixed.

I agree collectable content should not be gated behind ranked content, it's not a new thing. I seem to recall at least couple minions have been in the same position for years now.

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Originally Posted by Bacent

You start at 1500 points, and you slowly gain them if you win, or you lose them pretty damn quickly when you have a loss. The one time I came in second place I gained 9 points. The first time I get 4th place, I lose 29 points. This is beyond depressing if this is just an inkling of what kind of BS I'm gonna have to see just to try to get one damned item.

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Oof. This saves me time even trying for this one. Unless they make the gains bigger and losses smaller when you're below 1600 rating to help you reach that first achievement then this will be the first in-game orchestrion roll I don't get. Until mahjong my collection was complete aside from songs that come from premium S-E store merchandise with codes.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

Oof. This saves me time even trying for this one. Unless they make the gains bigger and losses smaller when you're below 1600 rating to help you reach that first achievement then this will be the first in-game orchestrion roll I don't get. Until mahjong my collection was complete aside from songs that come from premium S-E store merchandise with codes.

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Same here I also collect orchestrion rolls and right now unless something is changed this is probably one roll I may never get.

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Originally Posted by Robert_Ilcri

This is once again for the ranking aspect. Your RANK is a personal thing which starts at Novice and will level up as you get second and first places.

Rating starts at 1500 for everyone and is immediately able to be changed for better or worse. You can see this info under your Gold Saucer tab, but in any case right from your first match win or lose, your rating will change even if your rank does not.

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Krokov is right.

Per this page: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...ong/#playguide

When queued for Novice Mahjong (Ranked), you should only lose points from your rating (-10 at a time) for 4th place if you are 2nd Kyu or higher. 3rd place should come with no change, and then +15 for 2nd and +30 for 1st.

Advanced Mahjong (Ranked) nets you +60 for 1st, +15 for 2nd, Nothing for 3rd, and -30 for 4th...

But neither of those were happening (I've not entered Ranked for a few weeks now, but I've not seen a notice of it being changed). Instead, 1st for Novice was giving +30 like it was supposed to, 2nd was giving +10, 3rd was a -10 drop, and 4th was a -30 drop (regardless of being 2nd Kyu or not).

Which meant that VERY quickly, new players unfamiliar with the game were dropping quickly away from the 1600 for the Orchestrion Roll...and it clearly does not look like that was intended.

Harsh ranking penalties and locked collectibles aside, it's been incredibly depressing for me trying to play the game by itself. "Novice matchmaking" hardly feels novice at all, more than half the time I'm going into the negative and It just feels like the only people playing are experts or world champions.

I wanted to think at first it was just because I was bad/unlucky at setting up a winning hand but it's been consistent for quite awhile now and I'm even further away from unlocking that Orchestration Roll than when I started...I guess I'll just wait for a hotfix to how ranking works among other fixes until I try Mahjong again.

You saw how they let LoVM go to hell. It's only worth doing for challenge logs with a friend, and then never touching it again. They haven't done a damn thing with it, just like any issues in any other side content. Att this point it's pretty safe to say they don't give a damn about the players who do said side content.

I honestly gave up trying to deal with this game. Why bother when any time you even come third is just pushing you further away from the intended goal? Dunno why the game even has this system when they could have made it so 4th just didn't give any points. Sure it would mean adjusting some things but I'd rather a slow constant progression rather than some ill luck causing you to go eight steps back when you barely managed to go forward two.

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Originally Posted by Robert_Ilcri

I honestly gave up trying to deal with this game. Why bother when any time you even come third is just pushing you further away from the intended goal? Dunno why the game even has this system when they could have made it so 4th just didn't give any points. Sure it would mean adjusting some things but I'd rather a slow constant progression rather than some ill luck causing you to go eight steps back when you barely managed to go forward two.

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It might be worth mentioning that I put in a bug report that pointed out how the Play Guide here on the Lodestone says you shouldn't be losing any points until you're 2nd Kyu or higher, and then that's only when you place 4th in Novice (Ranked) and starts out at a small -10 (meant to increase as you go up in rank) to your rating. You're not supposed to be losing points until then, and never for third, according to the guide of how to play on the Lodestone...

And it's now in "Accepted Bugs" so here's hoping that the -30 you currently get for fourth and -10 for 3rd is just a screw-up and/or oversight that will be fixed soon.

I just tumbled into this rabbit hole myself today.
5th Kyu and never been higher. I thought today I might grind some matches to get to 1600 points and earn that orchestrion roll, myself. I was already close from some early-implementation beginner's luck and wins!

Cut to... 10 hours later, and my score is barely over 1300 now. Still 5th Kyu.
(EDIT: I included my unchanging rank to provide context that I did not rank up and therefor qualify for rating point losses at some point in those 10 hours. I remained a low rank the entire time and, based, on the information provided by Square Enix, should not have been losing rating points at all.)

I'm really glad this thread exists, and that this point/score/rank/rating conundrum is recognized as a bug. I put in a report of my own, just in case SE reverses the erroneous point loss.

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Originally Posted by NaiaLalita

Cut to... 10 hours later, and my score is barely over 1300 now. Still 5th Kyu.

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A lot of people still seem to get confused between rank and rating. You are still 5th Kyu because you didn't lose ranking points, as stated in the description in the game. What you lose are rating points with every match you end up being 3rd or 4th. And that is not a bug.

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Originally Posted by ACE135

What you lose are rating points with every match you end up being 3rd or 4th. And that is not a bug.

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https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...ng/#anchor_004

Source on it not being a bug?

By their own site, you shouldn't lose any rating (and the playguide specifically mentions that it impacts rating, not ranking - "Ratings are affected as follows" is right there on the page before the image showing point gain/loss) when placing 3rd (ever), and only lose rating points when 4th at 2nd Kyu or higher in Novice or when placing 4th in Advanced.

Also worth noting that when I last gained Ranking points, I went up by 20 points...which isn't one of the numbers displayed on that chart.

So either it is a bug, or the lodestone playguide has the wrong information...

Which is why we're gonna need a source from you confirming it's working as intended, rather then continuing to attribute the confusion to players not understanding the difference between rank and rating when even the official word (as we currently have it) from SE on their website (which has been updated since they added Mahjong, most notably in the more robust descriptions of the various yaku) isn't accurately reflecting what is happening in game.

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Originally Posted by Berethos

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...ng/#anchor_004

Source on it not being a bug?

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http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Place-and-Rank - It's in accepted bugs

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Originally Posted by Bacent

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Place-and-Rank - It's in accepted bugs

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*Psst...I'm aware. That's my post. :o

I was more poking the bear in responding to the person I quoted, since I already knew it had shown up in Accepted Bugs and was wondering where they were getting their claim that it wasn't a bug.

Sorry, was adding it to your post. My bad on wording and such

I can't figure this mahjong game out, it's impossible for me. I wish they'd just move the orchestrion to MGP. It's really frustrating as an orchestrion roll collector but I'm going to have to give up on ever getting this one.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

I can't figure this mahjong game out, it's impossible for me. I wish they'd just move the orchestrion to MGP. It's really frustrating as an orchestrion roll collector but I'm going to have to give up on ever getting this one.

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Tbh there's such a luck element you'll have moderate success just going for easy, cheap hands. Tanyao (hand only has #s 2-8) is a very easy hand to get, combine with Riichi if you don't chi/pon, and combined with the Dora tile / red 5s if possible is an easy way to score big. If someone calls Riichi or you suspect they are close to winning, and you're in a comfortable position, just discard tiles that person has already discarded, or that have been discarded by anyone since the call.

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Originally Posted by Aeliott

Tbh there's such a luck element you'll have moderate success just going for easy, cheap hands. Tanyao (hand only has #s 2-8) is a very easy hand to get, combine with Riichi if you don't chi/pon, and combined with the Dora tile / red 5s if possible is an easy way to score big. If someone calls Riichi or you suspect they are close to winning, and you're in a comfortable position, just discard tiles that person has already discarded, or that have been discarded by anyone since the call.

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I have no idea what you just said or what any of that is.

For me it is the mini cactpot. Just never see any good payouts in it.

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Originally Posted by hynaku

For me it is the mini cactpot. Just never see any good payouts in it.

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This thread has nothing to do with the mini cactpot, it's solely about Mahjong.

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Originally Posted by Bacent

This thread has nothing to do with the mini cactpot, it's solely about Mahjong.

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You can probably see why she thought this was a discussion on the most depressing minigame added to XIV, however. Since you went so far as to make your thread title a claim that Mahjong has that very title.