We Really Need To Talk About The State And Path Of FFXIV

So I have seen the raid gear argument run around a lot and it appears to me that what raiders really want is just something they can run around with saying "I'm better than you because I've got this", because the power of the gear they seem to want will give them the ability to solo current dungeons. Maybe I am misinterpreting things but the current scheme of things does give you gear that is the strongest in the game, although maybe they could change around some of the sub stats to suit your needs better. But this still doesn't seem to be enough because it isn't wildly over powered and make running any other content a solo one shot affair.

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Originally Posted by ElazulHP

...and i'll keep repeating this because nobody has presented a convincing logical case for why raid gear needs to be exclusively a higher ilvl and that if something is as powerful then it somehow becomes devalued instead of simply being an alternative.

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Stop.

You are awful at trying to make a point. People have given you several times over reasons for why things are the way they are. You are incapable of simply going "I acknowledge this thing but still do not agree with it," instead resorting to "nobody is saying anything anything of value so all points being made are ignored." But ya know what? I'm up for something fun.

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Originally Posted by ElazulHP

1The answer is why do you care? 2Does it somehow invalidate the time you spent? 3Would you have not done the raids if there was alternative gear at the same level? 4If you truly enjoy raiding then the fun should be in the raiding itself right? 5All parties spent the same amount of time in their choice of activity, yet the rewards are quite disproportional. *shrug*

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1) why do you care? The content clearly doesn't appeal to you, so why do you care?
2) ...people are already complaining that the new The Rising event invalidates the time they spent in 1.0 by rewarding players with what soon used to be exclusive items. They feel like the time they spent will be invalidated by this... in spite of the other things 1.0 legacy players have to laud over.
3) funny thing. There's more than one piece of gear that's i370. Best in slot sets used a mixture of Raid gear and Tome gear (for the most part), and if you're a tank you can even count on spending gil to penta-meld newly released combat crafted accessories.
An extension of that point you make: did you farm each EX primal in ARR/HW for their respective mount, or did you wait until you could simply unsync it and do the content more easily? Have you done the same for SB's EX primal mounts, or will you wait til 5.0 to unsync them and do the content more easily? (My point, surprise surprise, is most people will want to do the thing if it's easier and it leads to the same reward. That is basic. Human. Nature.)
4) If you enjoy doing Eureka then spending time gaining elemental level and lockboxes should be fun in and of itself and offer nothing else, right?
5) Already dealt with this point.

Get over yourself.

There's a very interesting correlation between some of the people getting up in arms over the supposed 'need' for raid gear to be exclusive and better than anything else on offer and the dubious party finder messages found in-game. I won't name any names for obvious reasons, though I'm sure attentive players can come to their own conclusions.

I thought it was odd that this thread was being heavily derailed by that particular talking point and that very few of the people talking about gear being 'devalued' were mentioning the much bigger concern that is people being boosted for gil and real world money where high end PvP and PvE content is concerned. Worse yet, account sharing is supposedly used for some of the harder content as it's impossible to carry someone through the extremely high end content in this game.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

There's a very interesting correlation between some of the people getting up in arms over the supposed 'need' for raid gear to be exclusive and better than anything else on offer and the dubious party finder messages found in-game. I won't name any names for obvious reasons, though I'm sure attentive players can come to their own conclusions.

I thought it was odd that this thread was being heavily derailed by that particular talking point and that very few of the people talking about gear being 'devalued' were mentioning the much bigger concern that is people being boosted for gil and real world money where high end PvP and PvE content is concerned. Worse yet, account sharing is supposedly used for some of the harder content as it's impossible to carry someone through the extremely high end content in this game.

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I don't like that this just turned into a "Why do you need raider gear?" thread myself. I thought really hard about including that section of my post. But I had hoped it wouldn't get such a response. Just once...

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Originally Posted by Theodric

There's a very interesting correlation between some of the people getting up in arms over the supposed 'need' for raid gear to be exclusive and better than anything else on offer and the dubious party finder messages found in-game. I won't name any names for obvious reasons, though I'm sure attentive players can come to their own conclusions.

I thought it was odd that this thread was being heavily derailed by that particular talking point and that very few of the people talking about gear being 'devalued' were mentioning the much bigger concern that is people being boosted for gil and real world money where high end PvP and PvE content is concerned. Worse yet, account sharing is supposedly used for some of the harder content as it's impossible to carry someone through the extremely high end content in this game.

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strictly speaking to eureka gear... isn't having a weapon, with a guaranteed 5 meld slots, rewarding enough? what more incentive is there?

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

I don't like that this just turned into a "Why do you need raider gear?" thread myself. I thought really hard about including that section of my post. But I had hoped it wouldn't get such a response. Just once...

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when content disparity is mentioned, of course it'll be a hot issue to tackle. People want to feel, and should honestly be rewarded for the effort put into a thing.
the issue with this point specifically is the value of the time spent on the thing itself, and the things being compared aren't equal.

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

strictly speaking to eureka gear... isn't having a weapon, with a guaranteed 5 meld slots, rewarding enough? what more incentive is there?

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In my opinion, it's not even enough incentive to even try to get the weapon. It's the fact that it will be garbage next month. Random crafter weapons will outclass the relic.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

I don't like that this just turned into a "Why do you need raider gear?" thread myself. I thought really hard about including that section of my post. But I had hoped it wouldn't get such a response. Just once...

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I wouldn't let it bother you too much. Your post was excellent and outlined a lot of concerns that I and others share. If people disagree on specific points, that's fine - but I do feel as if the people up in arms should take that particular discussion to a separate thread.

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

strictly speaking to eureka gear... isn't having a weapon, with a guaranteed 5 meld slots, rewarding enough? what more incentive is there?

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It'd be a lot more valuable as an incentive if it were released earlier. As it stands, 4.4 is very likely to go live within a month. I think there should have been more cosmetic rewards on offer in Pagos such as a mount and more minions.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

In my opinion, it's not even enough incentive to even try to get the weapon. It's the fact that it will be garbage next month. Random crafter weapons will outclass the relic.

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True, granted, but here's the rub: that's always the case. For the relic at least the hope is, at the end of the expansion, it'll be the best item to get... for the time. then 5.0 will come out and dungeon weapons will outshine the relic 100% of the time.

Gear is not static in this game, and thank the powers that be that that's the case.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It'd be a lot more valuable as an incentive if it were released earlier. As it stands, 4.4 is very likely to go live within a month. I think there should have been more cosmetic rewards on offer in Pagos such as a mount and more minions.

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I am in agreement with you there. I, along with so many others, have remarked on this. Heck I even made a thread about it myself here about the delay of Pagos. Granted my thread was mostly cynical, but... plenty of people are with you on how bad Pagos was / is in it's entirety.

People that don't do hard content can get comparable gear though or am I missing something here? I feel like this game is the most generous with gear. In other games if you don't raid you are permanently behind and never even get near raider gear ilvl.

People that don't do hard content can get good ilvl weapons and even armor. The HoH weapon is 365, not exactly hard to get. Before that if you just did Sigma normal you could get a 360 weapon after 7 weeks of the raid releasing, some raiders even use this path since they might not beat the 2nd turn soon enough and each week is only 1 person getting it. You would have to beat it on the 1st week, and it would take 8 weeks to get everyone one. One week further than it takes for people doing the normal token.

After they released the relic, they put the weapon upgrade on the vendor so now you can get a 370 weapon if you have the previous 360 weapon.

With the upgrade items being released in every catch up patch you can get comparable raid level armor without even going into the hard raid. Sure, you don't get it right away, but it's an incentive to do the raid when it comes out. Same reason the raid is now unlocked and Rido/tomes are still locked. Doesn't seem to make sense until you realize they want to get people to do the raid which is infinitely farmable max ilvl gear.

The high ilvl gear is in the raid to begin with because outside of the 1% world first people or 90% percentile players, everyone else needs it to complete the raid. So you beat the first and second turn, you get that gear, try the 3rd but you don't have enough DPS. Next week you come back, get more gear and keep going until you down the 3rd boss. Then you take the 3rd boss gear and try to beat the final one, and every week when it resets you get more gear to help, aka progression.

The relic has always been a pain to get and really most of the time it's been a glorified glamour piece since there were other ways to get a weapon that were easier and "good enough", even for people that don't do hard content.

They've tried this relic = raid weapon ilvl twice in the game's life (once in 2.0, and once in 3.0), and each time they reverted it. Dunno, they have an incentive problem since you can get comparable armor (other than dyeable but it feels like most people don't care) outside of the raid eventually, the story is already in normal. That leaves the early access to high ilvl gear/upgrade items, and the +5ilvl weapon/mount which you only get if you can beat the final boss.

ITT: People who don't understand MMO's are formulic out of neccessity.

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Originally Posted by SixtyLove

That's what the OP was getting at actually

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Uhh.... Are you really referring to me? :confused:

According to census reports as of August 2018:
AMERICAS ACTIVE CHARACTERS: 267,629
JAPAN ACTIVE CHARACTERS: 231,677
EUROPE ACTIVE CHARACTERS: 120,959
Total active characters across all servers and countries: 620,265
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We're less than a million in active players logging into the game at least once/twice a week. This doesn't say anything about how many subs are active, and most of those come with a caveat such as staying subbed to keep your house and logging in once every 30-45 days before it auto destroys it.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

WARNING! EXTRA EXTRA LONG POST

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Cool, this ought to be fun. I won't quote you on everything, but just a few things.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

After reading a Reddit thread about the state of FFXIV(https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...hy_squareenix/), it made me think about a bunch of things in FFXIV and it just made me want to talk about it more in-depth.

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Oh. That post. The one that doesn't really say much about what it opens with and tries to rile Reddit to rally against the game and claim that Yoshi P and crew aren't managing funds properly without evidence and just assumes things. Cool to see you're inspired by LACK of evidence over evidence. Plus, 90% of the post is about the Companion App which is not what your thread is about so I don't see why you were inspired by it or why it was at all worth mentioning.

It's cool that you've been playing the game as long as I have been, but I don't see your sentiment of Stormblood being bad. You seem to have hyperbolized to the extreme and exaggerating in such a way that it's like you've never played a bad game in your life. It's good to be worried, but Stormblood isn't inherently BAD. It's FLAWED and some people can't get over the flaws.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

The Open World:
---TL;DR: HW and SB maps are filled with nothing. No exploration. No incentive. No danger.

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Name an open world game today that isn't this and I'll get back to you on if I should care about this long hidden point.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

Flying:
---TL;DR: Can I just say that imo, flying ruined everything that FFXIV was? I had to make a section just for flight.. it has ruined so many things now that I don't think I'll ever get the feelings back unless it's removed.

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Yes. Yes you can. But this TL;DR does not TL;DR your points. It doesn't explain what's ahead or behind it. It's just a summary of your feelings without the points you say after. Which, I must say are probably the most solid points in the entire post. I can see what you mean. However, I disagree that it takes away the beauty. I actually far prefer looking at Coerthas Western Highlands from high above, or the hinterlands from up above where I can take in all the splendor and small things they put into it. I can say the same about SB maps, the higher perspective gives a whole new angle to look at that's breathtaking at times (or at least, to the degree that the engine can handle). However, I'd like to use your last point here for something

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

• ... I kinda hate flying's existence now and would very much like it for it to NOT be in future expansions. I don't think it's compatible with the way XIV is. It just ruins the world, exploration, and the maps. Sorry.

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This is your TL;DR not the "TL;DR"

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

Glamours and Customization:
---TLDR: We get less and less, more restrictions, and more boring

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Completely disagree in many ways. First off, the new glamour plates system allows me to tie glams to the gearsets I use meaning I can just switch classes in a city (yes, I will admit that restriction is completely dumb) and change my DRK glam to my PLD glam which are now completely separate and it makes me so happy.

Also, you said "Why are the non artifact gathering gear now restricted to class?" have you ever had a blackmage below ilvl join your party then switch out to inferior gear just to cheat the ilvl? You have no right to complain, I saw that shit several times in HW and it was annoying to see tanks, DPS, and healers try to cheat the ilvl restriction using that. I don't care if it limits glamour, it was a godsend to not have people doing that thinking gear didn't matter.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

Dungeons, Trials, and Raids:
---TL;DR: SE, you cut corners and I see it but you don't give us anything in return. You're just giving us less and less here.

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Ah, this is where the inspiration from that Reddit post comes from. While I agree we need variety, as one post I saw above put it, people do the efficient way to do it and others get upset when it's not done the efficient way. If you want your multiple rooms, that's nice and all, but let's be honest here and just say: We need variety in HOW we get there or what we're doing between bosses (and also the bosses themselves) and not what there is to see between there because that leads to frustrated players when one decides to go exploring and the other three don't want to and just want to get it over with.

Trials do need more variety. I agree. However, Rathalos didn't. Rathalos had several intricacies that broke from the pack. The adds actually helped you damage Rathalos and was essential to keep them alive as long as possible before they started aggroing the healer, and the Garula's corpse being used to block against the fire was actually kinda clever. That being said, it was also a really big change in how the second phase went without healing.

idgaf about your opinion on raids tbh. Coils weren't that amazing, and people forgot that. There were several parts of Coils that were absolutely abhorrent design, the pad puzzle in Second coils and T3. Coils had a good story and the final bosses of each tier were top notch, but nothing else was. And I know because I just reran them recently. Whether the raids of Omega should be just fights or not I don't know, but after Alexander almost killed raiding I really don't care.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

Gear Rewards, Progression, and Raiders:
---TL;DR: This might spark negativity but here's my opinion.. Raiders and raids are restricting the game and causing all gear progression to go stale.

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Oh god, this topic. So many people keep mentioning the gear thing. I don't know about how to fix the gear system. However, the biggest thing I know right now is that changing it this late into the MMO's cycle would be like uprooting EVERYTHING THE ENTIRE GAME IS BUILT ON AND WOULD BREAK IT. They might have some ideas they can implement it from older MMO styles, but please keep that in mind before saying that again. I'm all for a new system, but not one that completely uproots and causes fatal balancing systems.

Also, as for "this can't happen because of raiders" it's more nuanced than that. I don't want to go into that in a forum post.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

I said I played for 4 years and when I think of it, that's not even a long time lol. It's really bad imo, that many players players(not all, let me clarify) feel this way in about the same amount of time each time. I think of all the FFXI players saying stuff like "I played XI for 13 years" etc etc.. and the first thing I think of now is "XIV is not something I can play for 6 years let alone 13". It hurts.

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I'm glad to know you've stayed so long. But here's the fact, if you truly think the game is so boring I suggest you break up the game with something else or take a break. MMO burnout is a real thing, and it can happen if you truly are bored of a game. Taking a break is a great way of keeping yourself from burning out in the long run and it sounds like you're close to that point. I've had this happen with other games, I suggest you take a break from it much like I've taken a break from those games.

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Originally Posted by Elkanah

According to census reports as of August 2018:
AMERICAS ACTIVE CHARACTERS: 267,629
JAPAN ACTIVE CHARACTERS: 231,677
EUROPE ACTIVE CHARACTERS: 120,959
Total active characters across all servers and countries: 620,265
***************
We're less than a million in active players logging into the game at least once/twice a week. This doesn't say anything about how many subs are active, and most of those come with a caveat such as staying subbed to keep your house and logging in once every 30-45 days before it auto destroys it.

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Thank You.

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Originally Posted by Elkanah

According to census reports as of August 2018:
AMERICAS ACTIVE CHARACTERS: 267,629
JAPAN ACTIVE CHARACTERS: 231,677
EUROPE ACTIVE CHARACTERS: 120,959
Total active characters across all servers and countries: 620,265
***************
We're less than a million in active players logging into the game at least once/twice a week. This doesn't say anything about how many subs are active, and most of those come with a caveat such as staying subbed to keep your house and logging in once every 30-45 days before it auto destroys it.

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I'd like to point out that despite being less than a million, this was, if I'm remembering correctly, about where we were when HW was dying down. It's entirely possible that this is completely average during this part of the patch cycle, especially since the patch probably only brought on people interested in the trial &/or people weren't interested enough to do Pagos to return and Trials weren't important enough so they just haven't logged in. You also have to keep in mind that Stomrblood hasn't been extremely casual friendly (and no, this isn't a jab at people, this is based off of how much time they set aside for the game), so it's possible most of the people still subscribed are also of the higher interest category and that most of the more casual players aren't that interested, think that they don't have much to do on the game, or even just dislike Eureka because Eureka really doesn't appeal to the more casual crowd like it usually does seeing as they don't get to just log in, do something, log out, and call it progress to a powerful relic weapon like HW and ARR relics.

You are just posting statistics without context and making claims without real point.

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Originally Posted by LauraAdalena

Cool, this ought to be fun. I won't quote you on everything, but just a few things.

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Although I don't agree with alot of what you said, you still made a good lengthy post so thanks.

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Oh. That post. The one that doesn't really say much about what it opens with and tries to rile Reddit to rally against the game and claim that Yoshi P and crew aren't managing funds properly without evidence and just assumes things. Cool to see you're inspired by LACK of evidence over evidence. Plus, 90% of the post is about the Companion App which is not what your thread is about so I don't see why you were inspired by it or why it was at all worth mentioning.

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So that.. the Reddit post just reminded me of things that I really disliked for a long time. That was pretty much it. I wanted to make my own post but felt the need to link the Reddit post when I decided to include the fact that "A Reddit post" made me think of it. Consider it as some kind of honorable mention. I just felt that since someone else's material was involved, I should at least credit them somehow. Hope that clears it up.

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It's cool that you've been playing the game as long as I have been, but I don't see your sentiment of Stormblood being bad. You seem to have hyperbolized to the extreme and exaggerating in such a way that it's like you've never played a bad game in your life. It's good to be worried, but Stormblood isn't inherently BAD. It's FLAWED and some people can't get over the flaws.

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I'm going to say that this is your opinion. We do all have opinions after all. That's okay. It's simply my opinion that SB and therefore FFXIV is at it's worst state though. And there's nothing wrong with that either. This was a discussion topic after all :P

Oh and I've definitely played bad games. And a bad MMO in particular..

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Name an open world game today that isn't this and I'll get back to you on if I should care about this long hidden point.

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DC Universe Online had a thing where you could collect these things called "Investigations" and "Collections". There were hundreds of them scattered around the maps of open world, dungeons, and raids alike. Finishing each little batch(some had like 5 a set) would give you nice items you could wear as glamour and some gave you achievements. It was an amazing incentive to fly around and explore every nook and cranny in the maps. Unfortunately DCUO changed in it's later years and became the "bad MMO" I mentioned but that's another story.

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Yes. Yes you can. But this TL;DR does not TL;DR your points. It doesn't explain what's ahead or behind it. It's just a summary of your feelings without the points you say after. Which, I must say are probably the most solid points in the entire post.

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This is your TL;DR not the "TL;DR"

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I've never made a long, sectioned post of this level before so I apologize if the structure is off.

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Completely disagree in many ways. First off, the new glamour plates system allows me to tie glams to the gearsets I use meaning I can just switch classes in a city (yes, I will admit that restriction is completely dumb) and change my DRK glam to my PLD glam which are now completely separate and it makes me so happy.

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I honestly forgot about the glamour plates and prism when making this post despite using 4/10 plates myself(or was it 3...). It was a really good change though. I won't take that from them. I was mainly referring to class locks on things that were not locked or shouldn't be locked and reskinning. Basically I was mostly picking at the laziness of the devs. Everything else I said may be opinions but the reskins we get nowadays in SB are definitely real.

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Also, you said "Why are the non artifact gathering gear now restricted to class?" have you ever had a blackmage below ilvl join your party then switch out to inferior gear just to cheat the ilvl? You have no right to complain, I saw that shit several times in HW and it was annoying to see tanks, DPS, and healers try to cheat the ilvl restriction using that. I don't care if it limits glamour, it was a godsend to not have people doing that thinking gear didn't matter.

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A good friend of mine a few years back went into dungeons with gathering and crafting gear that but she was new to the game. Didn't even realize it was bad. Not doing it on purpose. I never saw anyone go into dungeons with crafter/gather stuff on purpose before.

Maybe I'm just lucky or you're incredibly unlucky. I don't think a few bad apples should cause everyone to lose freedom though :/

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Ah, this is where the inspiration from that Reddit post comes from. While I agree we need variety, as one post I saw above put it, people do the efficient way to do it and others get upset when it's not done the efficient way. If you want your multiple rooms, that's nice and all, but let's be honest here and just say: We need variety in HOW we get there or what we're doing between bosses (and also the bosses themselves) and not what there is to see between there because that leads to frustrated players when one decides to go exploring and the other three don't want to and just want to get it over with.

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I guess as someone who enjoys the immersion aspect of going into rooms and who also enjoys doing full runs for low level players, I just would really love the option to explore rooms.

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idgaf about your opinion on raids tbh. Coils weren't that amazing, and people forgot that. There were several parts of Coils that were absolutely abhorrent design, the pad puzzle in Second coils and T3. Coils had a good story and the final bosses of each tier were top notch, but nothing else was. And I know because I just reran them recently. Whether the raids of Omega should be just fights or not I don't know, but after Alexander almost killed raiding I really don't care.

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This was the only part of your post that I disliked. Saying you "dgaf" about my opinion is very disrespectful especially when this is a discussion thread. Everyone's opinion is valuable and I would never say that kind of thing to you.. but in the end my opinion is that I don't like the current raids. But the fact is that raids are definitely trials now and they are not larger places like in the past. There's no denying that because it's in-game right now. The devs cut work by not making anything before the boss

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Oh god, this topic. So many people keep mentioning the gear thing. I don't know about how to fix the gear system. However, the biggest thing I know right now is that changing it this late into the MMO's cycle would be like uprooting EVERYTHING THE ENTIRE GAME IS BUILT ON AND WOULD BREAK IT. They might have some ideas they can implement it from older MMO styles, but please keep that in mind before saying that again. I'm all for a new system, but not one that completely uproots and causes fatal balancing systems.

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I don't think more i370 options would break the game. It would just give people i370 options A, B, C, and D for example, given from different content in the game. Basically a tad of horizontal progression. Can't hurt...

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I'm glad to know you've stayed so long. But here's the fact, if you truly think the game is so boring I suggest you break up the game with something else or take a break. MMO burnout is a real thing, and it can happen if you truly are bored of a game. Taking a break is a great way of keeping yourself from burning out in the long run and it sounds like you're close to that point. I've had this happen with other games, I suggest you take a break from it much like I've taken a break from those games.

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Except I've already taken a break... I came back in June after an almost 7 month break :[. Playing on and off to try and not blow through the content. Still have story left even! I made this post because I want to keep playing. But I will eventually get bored again. Unless I wait out again until 4.4.

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Originally Posted by LauraAdalena

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The stats doesn't tell us how many active subscribers there ACTUALLY are (since they're not really posted anywhere outside of the business to see). Just the average logging in. Most logging in are either 1 of 3 categories:
1) New players playing the game
2) Vets doing active content daily/weekly
3) Players logging in to keep their house (as some people do).

I would even likely take out #3, since those are just quick log ins and boils down to two really. For all we know, the amount of subscribers with a subscription whether prepaid or auto renew, could be in the millions. But the active player base is less than a couple million. The active player base logging in vs what their ads are still saying, such as "come play with the 10 million players in Eorzea" doesn't add up. If we can clearly see that the playerbase is less than 750k, and they're still shouting from the cliffs about their 10 million subscribers, somewhere between the date of the launch for the expansion and today, they're lying by a couple thousand miles and that fish is probably not as big as they keep mentioning it to be, and need to stop.

I just wish they didn't gut PvP.
PvP at the end of heavensward felt really fun and challenging, with mastery over your class really showing. Now? Not so much, with the abilities so few and restricted as they are now.
We also need a larger variety of modes, WoW PvP does it much better.
They need to bring back PvP gear that actually matters (I could easily gear my alts with pvp gear for leveling, and now all new pvp gear is just glamour items.)
However, I doubt this will happen, as the PvP community is so small because of the lack of updates, and that whenever PvP is finally given the tiniest scrap, the much larger PvE community always complain, saying they should have put more time into another raid or something.
(I remember how much people complained when PvP got an exclusive hairstyle, as if PvE hasn't ever gotten one).

The lack of actual fun in pvp is a huge issue this game needs to sort out. And give me back my abilities I had in HW, godsdamnit!

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Originally Posted by Elkanah

snip.

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Okay, I misunderstood your point then. I thought it was claiming the game was dying like a lot of people claim.

With that point in mind... what is it? Like, the point? All games do this. If they said the actual numbers new players and stuff wouldn’t play as frequently. Just a fact. It’s an advertising tactic. It’s a half truth. Humans like big numbers. Humans think “oh, 10 MILLION people are playing?! I must play too!”

Also, I think when they say “10 million” they are including the Korean and Chinese servers, which are separate servers from NA, EU, and JP and are about a patch behind most of the time. I don’t know what the statistics are for active players on them, but my guess is they are pretty decent.

I don't really care much about raid/gear progression as much as the open world (and glamour) so I'll just share my take on the latter.

The open world.
While reading that section it reminds me when I went exploring the Lochs after finishing SB. I flew to The Song of Kings, only to find an unreadable tombstone in a secluded area.

https://i.imgur.com/UAyvu33.png

Oh this is nice discovery but what does this mean? The fact that the tomb is unreadable by itself frustrates me. I enjoy exploring these little areas but I feel they can be improved by adding a simple interactive notes to explain the significance. It doesn't have to be the entire lore being told in a series of subquests. Just a small tidbit would be sufficient similar to Gubal Library dungeon with the readable books on the floor (inb4 server limitations). Sure, this doesn't make the map anymore alive but at least it gives players such as me, who enjoys exploring feels more accomplished and connected rather than "ok I found this but what is it? why?".

The sea/lake diving is a lot worse. The most 'exciting' creature to find while diving is just sharks. Really, SE? No mystical sea beasts or terrifying looking giants? 90% of the deep water is very empty. No reason to go diving tbh. I have said in a different thread that it would entice me a lot more if they add giant sea creatures lurking in the waters. They don't need to be interactive. Just be there and not make the vast sea so empty like it is now.

I do agree the reason they make maps so huge and empty because the implementation of flight. However, to me flying is OK as it is. I agree with another post that said the beauty of map designs can be better appreciated when you're on higher altitude. I care about how the map is made out of. I care what enemies are out there (well, kinda. For hunt reasons). And I do care about how beautiful the maps are. All this can is more conveniently achieved by hop into your mount and fly. Another limitation that makes flying more convenient is SE's love for invisible walls. Most of the cliffs or ledge appears to be climbable or could be jump over but nope. You have to walk around even if it means double the travel distance. If it not because of the 'walls', I'm more than happy to drop off my mount and climb the steepest slopes and hills available just because I can!

What about lost in "sense of danger" in certain areas just because one can just fly above the monster's heads? That's what they intend to do by the need to acquire Aether Currents when you first stepped into the map. Apart from that, yeah. There's nothing else. I do agree on the ridiculous flying mounts tho. But eh, I simply choose not to use mounts that can break my immersion.

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Originally Posted by Edax

I spend most of my time in this game crafting and monitoring the marketboard to make large sums of gil. How come I can't use any of my hard work making gil to simply buy some really nice gear? Monitoring the MB everyday and maintaining a diverse resources stockpile to meet the demands of the market isn't exactly "easy". So why do I have to be hamstrung by armor, simply because I choose to make gil instead of raiding? Isn't this a capitalist game? And not some kind of military junta where only the raiders get the good stuff?

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Use your gil to buy raid clears,there problem solved.

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Originally Posted by LauraAdalena

With that point in mind... what is it? Like, the point? All games do this. If they said the actual numbers new players and stuff wouldn’t play as frequently. Just a fact. It’s an advertising tactic. It’s a half truth. Humans like big numbers. Humans think “oh, 10 MILLION people are playing?! I must play too!”

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What's the point? The question becomes; "is this advertisement working"? So far, this doesn't seem to be the case. Yes, it's an advertisement stunt, as all companies will try it. But there's point where they stop if it's not actually producing said numbers. I think it's understandable at the beginning of the expansion, to use that phrasing. But there's a time and place for it to eventually stop and tone it down. I'd actually like to see the K and CH servers, since those are also not listed on the census, however, I do not believe for one moment that K and CH of the SEA area, makes up the rest of the 9.2+ million players missing.

Ah how I love discussion over shouting at people over a game... it’s so much nicer and actually fun.

Noooot gonna quote since I just want to make a quick reply to Magic-Mal here and I’m tired so I need o make it quick. Sorry if I don’t quote you.

First, when I saw the Reddit post, my response was more on the fact that you were giving more attention to something somewhat unrelated to the discussion and a post that was kind of just an angry vent. I don’t really have any problems with your use of it as a link but more the post in general. That should not have been in my post.

As for the opinion part... I’d still disagree, as an overall package there’s few “bad” qualities. It runs fine it looks decent and the music is phenomenal, and most of it comes from a level design standpoint or a repetition standpoint which is harder to argue since MMOs are somewhat repetitive.

Okay then, on the “open world.” I personally think what you said is not that good of an open world example done well. Maybe Id have had to play it to understand the appeal, but it sounds far more tedious than good design.

I agree on class locks. 100%. But just for glamouring and accessories. It’s frustrating that they decided to limit tanks to just vit accessories because it removes some of the dynamic gearing that was happening, especially since Vit isn’t all that useful of a main stat and just makes hits harder and harder with higher and higher health. I just don’t think given my experience that gathering/crafting should be open to all again.

I love the immersion aspect. But I’m just being realistic here, most would get frustrated if you went exploring. That being said, I personally loved having the luxury of doing either “partial” or “full” runs of dungeons where someone would ask before we started and we either explored everything or rushed it fast.

I shouldn’t have said “idgaf” about your opinion. I should have said “idgaf” about the changes. I apologize. Even then, I’d say given the context they have of the boring steakless Omega which was clearly made to advertise Dissidia NT (seriously, why am I the only one who brings this up in every discussion I’ve seen?) it’s fine as is since it’s basically a tournament arc in an anime. I would have loved more, especially if there was a short lead into Phantom Train where you fight through the cars and see doors on the side of where the ghosts onviously take you and stuff would have been cool. But it doesn’t really matter to me because those were always the weakest parts of Coils and Alex to me. Because they used the generic dungeon system of FFXIV or did frustrating jump puzzles or ADS from Binding.

Also, when I read the comment on the gear I thought you meant something like “get rid of the ilvl prog altogether.” misinterpreted, my bad. Removing the ilvl in favor of a scaling system like XI would break the game into an unbalanced mess in terms of ARR and HW.! I’m all for giving more options for 370 or whateverleveltheraidgearwillbe. It gives more options for BiS and makes it more and more optimal per class. Something I’d be all for since A LOT of classes get shafted in one piece of gear not having the right stats and having to build around that. I think it would be more interesting if we saw more gear with more combinations of the same 4 stats and the BiS people come up with from it.

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Originally Posted by Lorgana

Use your gil to buy raid clears,there problem solved.

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Why should I have to even get involved with the raiding mechanic? Why must so much of the game progression be tied down to the raiding system? Heck, if raid gear could be sold on the marketboard, would it be the end of the world?

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Originally Posted by einschwartz

The sea/lake diving is a lot worse. The most 'exciting' creature to find while diving is just sharks. Really, SE? No mystical sea beasts or terrifying looking giants? 90% of the deep water is very empty. No reason to go diving tbh. I have said in a different thread that it would entice me a lot more if they add giant sea creatures lurking in the waters. They don't need to be interactive. Just be there and not make the vast sea so empty like it is now.

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And headaches from the water effect... and nausea... and bad controls from flying controls... and drowning birds... and more headaches in the form of spearfishing... and gathering... and headaches... and load times for diving... and headaches... just lots and lots of headaches from that effect they put on the water. My eyes are all screwed up, and effects like that personally make me ill and give lots of headaches so I can’t be in the water in game for long because it’s literally a pain to look at for me.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Why should I have to even get involved with the raiding mechanic? Why must so much of the game progression be tied down to the raiding system? Heck, if raid gear could be sold on the marketboard, would it be the end of the world?

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Because that's how you get the good gear, raiding involves more skill and is more difficult than dealing with the market board,if you don't want to involve yourself with it thats your choice just don't complain that raiders get all the gear that they put in work for.

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Originally Posted by LauraAdalena

And headaches from the water effect... and nausea... and bad controls from flying controls... and drowning birds... and more headaches in the form of spearfishing... and gathering... and headaches... and load times for diving... and headaches... just lots and lots of headaches from that effect they put on the water. My eyes are all screwed up, and effects like that personally make me ill and give lots of headaches so I can’t be in the water in game for long because it’s literally a pain to look at for me.

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Thank you for reminding me!
Completely forgot how the graphic effects underwater turns me into someone with poor eyesight.

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Originally Posted by LauraAdalena

Snip

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I appreciate the post. I even gave it a like! Oh and apology accepted :)

Should also note that it really is a no brainer that the best gear is obviously going to be reserved for completion of the most challenging content. Whilst I do think there should be more variation in gear I don't think that people should get raid level gear without actually doing raid level content.

As for your point on letting raid gear be sold on the marketboard, again sort of removes part of the incentive to raid if just any shmoe could buy the gear plus it also would add additional temptations for people to give in to RMT.

In short if you want the best gear you have to do the content that drops it, if you're a person who thinks that it should just come to you without any real effort on your part then well....that's not really gonna happen.

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Originally Posted by Lorgana

Should also note that it really is a no brainer that the best gear is obviously going to be reserved for completion of the most challenging content. Whilst I do think there should be more variation in gear I don't think that people should get raid level gear without actually doing raid level content.

As for your point on letting raid gear be sold on the marketboard, again sort of removes part of the incentive to raid if just any shmoe could buy the gear plus it also would add additional temptations for people to give in to RMT.

In short if you want the best gear you have to do the content that drops it, if you're a person who thinks that it should just come to you without any real effort on your part then well....that's not really gonna happen.

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http://i.imgur.com/f5HvJKK.jpg

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I thought it was odd that this thread was being heavily derailed by that particular talking point and that very few of the people talking about gear being 'devalued' were mentioning the much bigger concern that is people being boosted for gil and real world money where high end PvP and PvE content is concerned. Worse yet, account sharing is supposedly used for some of the harder content as it's impossible to carry someone through the extremely high end content in this game.

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Its really sad. Raiding was only one point of the OPs and yet somehow most of the discussion seems to be about this. I really had hoped to read a lot of good discussion about different kind of points and how people see it and how it might be made better.

@topic:

I already wrote my points about the death maps, now onto flying: I have no problem with flying itself. I dont want to always walk the long way on the map and thus I am quite happy that I just can fly there. But I agree that flying made things a bit worse. Noticeable for me is size of the map which also makes it annoying to get somewhere even while flying. (And makes the map feel liveless too) Also I got the feeling that a lot of sightseeing points are now just somewhere high up without any real adventure behind it. Just fly around and look for the bubbles..

But at least for me flying is still fine..lets talk about swimming. I found that feature to be quite useless. There is no true gameplay value imo and everything under the sea feels lifeless too. There is no combat, no mini game, just some loney sharks swimming around.

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Originally Posted by LauraAdalena

Okay then, on the “open world.” I personally think what you said is not that good of an open world example done well. Maybe Id have had to play it to understand the appeal, but it sounds far more tedious than good design.

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Not the person that you replied too but just wanna say: Rift also have these hidden items on the map. I am not sure how well received they are in the community but when I played it this was quite fun. I loved running around the whole map just collecting these and on top of that I got some nice glamour out of it. Next to that Rift also had some riddles. There was a place that needed you to click on the right towers which would teleport you to the next one if you are right again and at the end there was a treasure chest. There had been no marker, no quest, just a riddle that I found randomly.

Their maps also feel a bit more alive thanks to two things: Small animals going around it and animals fighting against monsters when rifts are opening all over the map. (And than you will have animals that are mutated versions thanks to the rift) Honestly these rifts (which are kinda their fate version) also felt more fun. Especially the unending ones that would get harder and harder the more rounds the people have done.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

Tome gear?

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I'm not sure what your question is

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Originally Posted by Lorgana

I'm not sure what your question is

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Look again. I ninja edited.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

Look again. I ninja edited.

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I'm still not sure what you're getting at here, tome gear can be part of a BIS set yes and it's upgraded forms are usually reserved initially for people who raid. Though I'm not sure what you are referring to here.

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Originally Posted by Lorgana

I'm still not sure what you're getting at here, tome gear can be part of a BIS set yes and it's upgraded forms are usually reserved initially for people who raid. Though I'm not sure what you are referring to here.

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Clearly put, you don't need to raid to get raid level gear. Haven't needed to for 5 years. Doesn't matter if it happens initially or not.

Okay let me reiterate then.

You need to raid in order to get raid specific gear and upgrade items for tome gear until a few weeks before they become irrelevant at which point squenix releases the upgrades to the general public.

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Originally Posted by Lorgana

I'm not sure what your question is

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They’re saying that the DRG tome body is raid-level gear (it’s actually BiS for DRG) that is achieved outside of raid-level content for little to no effort. However, it’s important to note that the i370 version, in the beginning of this tier, was only accessible if one could clear the 3rd floor of the tier (which tends to be the gatekeeper and the divide between below average and above average in terms of raid skill). Once 4.3 dropped, then it was available to the general and non-raiding playerbase—the typical formula.

I think it’s also important to note that Tome will not always necessarily be better. Prime example: the i370 Aiming Tome body. It is absolute trash; burn it, and then burn its ashes. The i350 Anemos was better than it, and the i360 Augmented crafted is better than it. Good, “raid level” gear is more than just item level. After all, just look at tank accessories for the last two tiers—pentamelded crafted is vastly superior to the augmented tomestone and Savage accessories.

I agree with the OP so much (though not about everything---e.g., flying). I just wish SE would take into account the fact that casual players hit endgame too, so how about giving them something to do that isn't limited to mindless beast tribe quests, running the same few dungeons over and over again, etc. I would love to see them actually use the open world more, and put some viable and fun things in there for (mostly) solo/super casual players who, despite not having boundless hours to devote to the game, still want fun and interesting content outside of MSQ that actually yields decent rewards---even if they are doled out more slowly than they are for the high-end crowd.

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Originally Posted by Lorgana

Should also note that it really is a no brainer that the best gear is obviously going to be reserved for completion of the most challenging content. Whilst I do think there should be more variation in gear I don't think that people should get raid level gear without actually doing raid level content.

As for your point on letting raid gear be sold on the marketboard, again sort of removes part of the incentive to raid if just any shmoe could buy the gear plus it also would add additional temptations for people to give in to RMT.

In short if you want the best gear you have to do the content that drops it, if you're a person who thinks that it should just come to you without any real effort on your part then well....that's not really gonna happen.

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And yet my armor rating remains the same while my gil piles ever higher. I think I have a right to complain that the way I play the game is not being rewarded properly since I'm not progressing in anyway. (I don't necessarily want raid level gear, but it would be nice if all that gil I earned could keep my progression going. As it is, I'm peaked with my Amenos gear, and gil can't improve that at the moment.)

So your saying that Raiders would stop raiding if they could get raid gear from the Marketboard? Are you sure those raiders are having fun?

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Originally Posted by Edax

And yet my armor rating remains the same while my gil piles ever higher. I think I have a right to complain that the way I play the game is not being rewarded properly since I'm not progressing in anyway. (I don't necessarily want raid level gear, but it would be nice if all that gil I earned could keep my progression going. As it is, I'm peaked with my Amenos gear, and gil can't improve that at the moment.)

So your saying that Raiders would stop raiding if they could get raid gear from the Marketboard? Are you sure those raiders are having fun?

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You have something better than progression gear; you have a headstart on making crafted gear come 4.4, which will from launch outdo everything that you can possibly get pre-4.4. You can be full i380 pentamelded the day that 4.4 drops, which is something that I, an Ultimate raider, cannot say.