Yoshi-P on Character Growth

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Of course you do. Even if this system were to change in the future, it certainly wouldn't happen in a patch cycle.

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Yes, I understand that. But if we don't talk about it now, I think it won't change in the next expansion either.

The tome system should have stayed in ARR. They could have made a new system, still grindy, for HW. I think you can come up with a lot of ways to earn gear without keeping the same system for 4 years.

A little note : I think Wondrous Tails is a nice concept. It doesn't bring new content, but it still gives a new philosophy on how you chose the content you wanna do. On the other end, the last Anima requires at worst 24000 tomestones (Maybe less if they change the cost in Lore), while you're already grinding tomestones for every other gear you want.

Hildibrand doesn't need to be "deep". It was a great way to make silly things and include nods to previous FF games without fearing for consistency.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

The tome system should have stayed in ARR. They could have made a new system, still grindy, for HW. I think you can come up with a lot of ways to earn gear without keeping the same system for 4 years.

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And maybe sports should stop keeping score, why do they keep score in every sport. they should change that up every few years too.

that's all tomes is, a number you can grind towards. they're not going to eliminate grinding. change purely for the sake of change is stupid.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

that's all tomes is, a number you can grind towards. they're not going to eliminate grinding.

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That's not the only way to grind things, in case you didn't play any other MMO.
Changing to prevent boredom is the best kind of change.

Might read all the responses later while at work, but for now just wanted to say I actually agree with the yeasayers for once: if you don't like the game, leave. There is no clearer admission from the producer himself that they are not interested in changing the formula of this fluff-filled, on-rails doll simulator of a game. 4-man content and 24-man content will continue to be faceroll, you'll still be able to be decked out in raid-worthy gear just by playing three months out of the year, and new features will be added to hook in the easily-fulfilled with no long-term plans to keep said content afloat other than shoehorning it in to a long pointless weapon grind quest.

It's OKAY to like it, or not like it. But please don't kid yourselves into thinking things will drastically change. It sucked finally admitting that I am not this game's target audience, but...I'm not. They'll never drastically adjust the content to please me, and that's why I'm playing another MMO ATM.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

Why is it that you must only play one video game? I have enough time to play FFXIV a few hours a day and play other console games. Yoshi P even said if you get tried of doing the content and a patch has been out for awhile play other games and come back when a new patch is out.

But I think FFXIV is the best MMO I have ever played, and its up there in the best video games ever. I like how there is new raids and dungeons every 3 months. I almost never run out of stuff to do in FFXIV.

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Lol one more time..for funsies - where did I say I only play one video game? Huh? What is up with the inability to read on these forums ; ; Is it just me that this happens to? lolol

Please show me where I said "I only play FFXIV" In fact I pointed out in my post my OP was about Tera and Aion LOL oh and Lineage 2! That is 3 other games in itself...with XI that makes 4.

Yo..if you are going to debate with me , please at least follow the conversation..I am not trying to be rude, its just how can you expect me to take this seriously when you cannot even read what I say and put words in my mouth?

This is great for you, if it is "up there in the best video games ever." there was also people who thought getting a mythic in FFXI was the greatest thing and game ever, also people who thought grinding in Lineage II for nobelesse quest was "the best game ever" you are entitled to your opinion but with the way subs are dropping I do not think many agree with that sentiment. ^^; It is an opinion and does not make it true.

So if we can manage to read properly - again, my point is not that the game is dying or its horrible, it is that Yoshida needs to try some things and stop playing it so safe and give us some more in depth stuff. For someone to not want more diversity and so forth I would say is rather close minded and shallow.

It all comes back to the producer suggesting you to unsub and play something else..

To be fair I believe it was meant to be if you don't like the core structure of the game it might be better for you to change the game, not that if you have a problem with a part of it in general

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Originally Posted by Remedi

To be fair I believe it was meant to be if you don't like the core structure of the game it might be better for you to change the game, not that if you have a problem with a part of it in general

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No core of any game should be a repeat of the same thing over and over and over. Having some similar elements is fine...but keeping things exactly the same and stale will never be fun. You can keep the foundation..of course, absolutely. But what is built upon it should be innovative and creative. Not the same thing with a new skin..

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

-snip-

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If you were around, it was precisely this type of system in FFXIV 1.0 that was a factor in its doom. Solo THM on Dodore anyone? That's what happens even with what you describe, because there's still going to be a best set for every scenario. There's not much choice in that is there. You're still going to be told do get this piece for this content, and that piece for this. There's never going to be variety because the community will never allow for it.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

To be fair I believe it was meant to be if you don't like the core structure of the game it might be better for you to change the game, not that if you have a problem with a part of it in general

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This is exactly what I mean. Horizontal progression is not coming to this game. Pure support roles are not coming to this game. Removal of instances and heavy focus on forced-grouping overworld content is not coming to this game. Massive timesinks without any catch-up safety mechanisms are not coming to this game.

Most suggestions I see are along that line, and they don't mesh with the dev's design philosophy. This interview pretty clearly states that they have no intention of altering that philosophy, so if this casual-oriented, vertical progression, gear treadmill game with huge focus on RP, QoL, and character appearances isn't what you like, you shouldn't hold your breath for it to change.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

And my answer remains the same. You are still comparing apples and oranges. Character builds would essentially necessitate overhauling the entire character infrastructure. First and foremost, this is simply not possible in a patch cycle due to the cost and scope. Second, what does it actually accomplish? Okay, wonderful. We have character skill trees or means of influencing our stats. Within two weeks MrHappy, Xeno, Dervy, Mizzteq and every other guide maker on Youtube will produce videos on what the best allocations are for each of their preferred jobs and everyone will copy it.

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To support your point, Someone mentioned Monster Hunter earlier in the thread. All those armour, skill and customisation options. and yet I can go online in Monster Hunter Generations right now and, outside of outliers, I will be in a group with only "Gaijin Hunter/insert other youtube personality approved" gear.

This is the Illusion of choice in action.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

We have different ideas what constitutes horizontal progression. Simply having more options doesn't count as horizontal progression to me, it's just more options. When I think of Horizontal, I think of Monster Hunter, where any competent hunter has at least five different sets with varied elemental resistances and a handful of skills unlocked on each one.

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I simply think of it as a way to progress your character without necessarily going upwards in absolute strength (i.e. ilvl)

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Originally Posted by Razard

To support your point, Someone mentioned Monster Hunter earlier in the thread. All those armour, skill and customisation options. and yet I can go online in Monster Hunter Generations right now and, outside of outliers, I will be in a group with only "Gaijin Hunter/insert other youtube personality approved" gear.

This is the Illusion of choice in action.

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I really dislike that term. In actuality, everything in the game is an illusion of choice, and illusion of choice spreads into one's daily life. That is, there is almost always a best choice, but the great thing about living in free countries in today's society is that we get to make choices - whether they are the best ones or not.

In terms of the game, sometimes one may make a suboptimal choice in order to improve their enjoyment of the game. In WoW at the moment, I am running a sub-optimal talent on my mage, because the optimal one is incredibly frustrating to use and ruins my enjoyment of the class (it's basically ley lines in FFXIV). Choices like these are great, and no one in WoW has said anything to me about it and my DPS is still competitive with everyone I group with.

While the 'best' ones may be required by top tier groups, they are not required by the general playerbase. Having no choice puts major limitations on how one can enjoy the game.

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Originally Posted by HungryHippo

There is a difference wanting the game to improve than being a hater.

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Most of what I've seen is people complaining patch after patch about how nothing is ever enough, how they expect the game to fit their personal needs and even grant them fun for every single day of the year (which is simply not possible for any game to accomplish).
You say "improve". Granted, I obviously haven't read all the suggestions, but I happen to disagree with most of the ones I've seen here, and find many of them unfair and unreasonable. Your "improved", ideal version of the game doesn't need to be mine, or many other people's, and that's the point many ranters seem to be missing.

(Edit: Just for the record, I don't really know what your personal complaints are. I'm speaking in general.)

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Originally Posted by Razard

This is the Illusion of choice in action.

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You can go around the illusion of choice.

In FFXI, if you really really wanted to be optimal in every content, for every action you use, you'd have to gather lots and lots of stuff. So much that few actually managed to gather the perfect sets.
What you can do in FFXIV is change some design so that one set cannot be the best for everything. Elemental resistance should be important when facing primals like Ifrit, Shiva or Garuda...you could have mobs with low evasion but really high defense, so that you could focus more on Crit or Det. You can design a lot of different mechanics so that you can't calculate one absolute BiS set.

Of course, "casual" people wouldn't bother to collect all those items, and just accept to being suboptimal...which they probably are anyway already.

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Originally Posted by Clover_Blake

Most of what I've seen is people complaining patch after patch about how nothing is ever enough

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If you look at the Finaland interview, it's not that people want more, they want something different. We're fully aware that designing more content will take more time.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

This is exactly what I mean. Horizontal progression is not coming to this game. .

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Yes it is, according to Yoshida:

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Q. I'm sure there are players who think "I'm not enjoying this game if i'm not raiding"
Y. It might be because the Japanese MMO market hasn't had "high end raids" before and not being able to clear content even if you have the best gear is new for them. You have to have a certain player skill and spending time doesn't just reward you the victory and you need to put in all sorts of effort to achieve your goal. This can be tough at times, but you can get really excited when you clear it for the first time with 7 other people. This impact is what told the players "This is what FFXIV is like" and they have that image in their minds now, so the following problem we need to solve is, horizontal content.

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Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...needs_to_ask/?


Although I do not believe it until I see it, he still is entertaining the idea, and there are plenty of more recent interviews of him expressing the understanding of the need for horizontal type progression. I am not going to search and list them all obviously, but yea.

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Originally Posted by Iromi

Yes it is, according to Yoshida:



Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...needs_to_ask/?


Although I do not believe it until I see it, he still is entertaining the idea, and there are plenty of more recent interviews of him expressing the understanding of the need for horizontal type progression. I am not going to search and list them all obviously, but yea.

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Thanks for the link; was an interesting read. Still, looking at the context, I'm not really sure his idea of "horizontal content" is the same as what most people are thinking when they say "horizontal progression". Even looking at that statement vs the statements in the OP, he doesn't seem to want things like RNG procs or elemental stats on gear because casual players can't keep up with the supposed expectations to farm it for group content. Maybe he means more progression paths for ilevel sidegrades? That might work, if secondary stats are ever redesigned to be more than just "everyone, even tanks and healers, just stack crit lol".

I actually agree with Kaurie about WoW's talent system, though. There's a site called Icy Veins that tells everyone what they SHOULD be using (pretty much for the hardest raid content and that's it), but because playstyles and content difficulty/length vary drastically in that game people actually find better talent combos than the IV builds sometimes, based on individual needs. I think XIV could adopt some MINOR horizontal aspects like that, but I'm not sure having 25 gearsets to do all endgame content will ever be a thing in this game.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

I think XIV could adopt some MINOR horizontal aspects like that, but I'm not sure having 25 gearsets to do all endgame content will ever be a thing in this game.

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Raid tends to have big single target most of the time. You could chose a single target build for one of your job, and an AoE build for another with the purpose to go faster in dungeons.

Depending of party composition, some builds might also differ in effectiveness, so a "static" job will chose different traits than a job meant to run with random people...

I believe he is speaking about Horizontal Content for endgame.
Current raids and dungeons are norm,hard,extreme,savage or up,up,up.

He is thinking of new types of content with different mechanics.
Palace of The Dead
Diadem
New exploration type
Public Content

Just as XI had:
Assault
Limbus
Dynamis
Nyzule Isle
Sea
Sky

They need sky and sea in this game, would be soo awesome.

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Originally Posted by HungryHippo

They need sky and sea in this game, would be soo awesome.

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http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/...20090130221450

They're going to kinda have to work on horizontal progression for horizontal content, though... Otherwise their just isn't going to be much point to the additional content... Final Fantasy XI had a plethora of varied content, and all of it was relevant... This game cannot achieve that, because the extreme vertical progression is just going to render the rewards pointless... They pretty much have to work on some form of horizontal progression for this kind of content... That's not to say we should be doing Palace of the Dead for special stats though... PvP is a good example, I think... Feast offered players nothing in terms of item level progression, it was all about pretty much showing off... People wanted that Wolf Coat because it became a status symbol, not because of it's stats... They need to apply that kind of reward structure to PvE content, I think... Perhaps they intended to, Palace of the Dead is getting a leaderboard after all... If they can give us a compelling reason to care about that, then that can work as a solid justification for participating, because item level who cares rewards will not retain interest long term...

A better way to keep it relevant is through something like the Relic quests... Lord knows the Anima weapons are just a dull chore at this point though... Final Fantasy XI - Treasure of Aht Urhgan was often described as the golden age of the game, and all the content in that expansion served a purpose for its Mythic weapons... You needed to do Nyzul Isle, you needed to do Assaults, you needed to farm Salvage and Einherjar, you needed drops from ZNMs... This is why I'm always saying I prefer the Zodiac weapons to Anima ones... 2.# didn't have a great variety of content, but the Zodiac weapons at least used it... You have to specifically go into Snowcloack for a drop and so on... Anima weapons gave us a lot of freedom in picking how we obtain items, but the result is just a weapon that you can get done without trying... I would have preferred to have had a situation in which Unidentified items only drop in Diadem... I'd have preferred to need to trade in an Aetherpool weapon with my Anima weapon for an upgrade stage... That gives Diadem and Palace of the Dead a solid purpose in the Anima upgrade process...

A lot of the additional content they make just kinda isn't great, too... Hunts, Diadem, and Palace of the Dead are all pretty bad IMO... Palace of the Dead is OK, but when I compare it to other games with procedurally generated levels? It sucks... There are no special rooms that make the procedural generation interesting... There are no different ways in which you power up, that can make one run different to another... You just open silver chests and get +1 to your aetherpool stuff... There are no interesting power ups that have a lasting impact to make a run different from another... Just temporary OP items... Diadem is just instances Hunts, when it could have been closer to Abyssea or something... Hunts are just lazy and pathetic IMO, could have been like ZNMs, perhaps endgame Levequests, so you spawn your own Alteci and Kreutzet, get a drop off both of them, trade them in for a Levequest that'll get you to Mirka, and so on... Instead SE just plops NMs in a zone randomly and I'm meant to enjoy aimlessly wandering around looking for them? F*ck off... At the very least I'm interested to see what the Accursed Hoard adds to Palace of the Dead, could give me Limbus vibes with Ancient Beastcoin farming verses clearing the instance to get towards Proto-Omega/Ultima... That's something I think Deep Dungeons could really benefit from going forward... Give every 50 floor boss a special drop, which when combined grants access to a special encounter, or since we're getting Deep Dungeons II, you could keep Palace of the Dead relevant by making it drop such an item to combine with Deep Dungeon IIs drop for such an encounter... Diadem changes just have me disappointed though, could have worked gathering into it well but instead they're removing it completely... Doesn't fill me with hope for 3.5...

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Originally Posted by Razard

To support your point, Someone mentioned Monster Hunter earlier in the thread. All those armour, skill and customisation options. and yet I can go online in Monster Hunter Generations right now and, outside of outliers, I will be in a group with only "Gaijin Hunter/insert other youtube personality approved" gear.

This is the Illusion of choice in action.

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This is pretty much why the idea of "horizontal progresion" was a pipe dream in XI as well as XIV. As long as there are players who value Excel spreadsheets over game experience, any hopes of gear diversity are dashed before an update has been live for 24 hours (unless you're like me and take their talking points with the grain of salt they deserve).

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Originally Posted by lulunami

This game needs better character progression in order to keep existing players subscribed to the game. Item progression is uninteresting/underwhelming for hardcore, "midcore", and casual players. I know virtual item value is sort of made up, but Square needs to do a better job of making players value virtual gear. Players should feel very motivated to get items since most RPG games have this type of item progression. The majority of player are motivated by gear and items, like in a Diablo ARPG type of sense.

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This reminds me of the funniest thing I've see Yoshi-P say.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi-P

As an avid online gamer, I can’t go without mentioning Diablo and Ultima Online. Diablo taught me about the joys of playing online with other players, and how to add value to an item so that players would obsess over it.

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Ha. Ha. Ha!

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Originally Posted by Iromi

No core of any game should be a repeat of the same thing over and over and over. Having some similar elements is fine...but keeping things exactly the same and stale will never be fun. You can keep the foundation..of course, absolutely. But what is built upon it should be innovative and creative. Not the same thing with a new skin..

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What I meant is that if you don't like an RPG you shouldn't keep playing one and whine that it should be an RTS, also I don't think that your statement is necessarily true, some games are still very popular despite beign a carbon copy of themselves and other gets panned because they get outside of their comfort zone too much, the last 3-4 FF are a proof of this. Personally also I find that very few things that are coming from the community are innovative at all since most of the time ppl are asking to make this game like FF11

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Originally Posted by Remedi

What I meant is that if you don't like an RPG you shouldn't keep playing one and whine that it should be an RTS, also I don't think that your statement is necessarily true, some games are still very popular despite beign a carbon copy of themselves and other gets panned because they get outside of their comfort zone too much, the last 3-4 FF are a proof of this.

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You might want to refrain of the overstatements a bit, don't you think ?

For you, asking for changes is akin to wanting to play an RTS ? Yeah, sure...Oh, and by the way, did you...hmmm...played Lords Of Verminion ? Tell me how great it fits in the J-RPG genre...

As for the recent FF, despite what your personal opinion is, FF XIII was a huge success. It's the 4th game when it come to sales. So yes, stepping out of their comfort zone was a good idea.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

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Yeah, I agree as well. He will try to implement it..and it will probably not work as some imagine. If it was up to me I would like to see a balance like 1.x had. Some horizontal and some vertical. It was a perfect balance and I was able to beat and clear all content with each job. It was when he put in the ilvl that he screwed up any chance they had at putting back to when it was good.

We could choose from a few pieces of gear..and got a lot of stats and options to meld them and in the end there was never "one way" to do something, there was many. My ways of defeating Garuda with every job were just as efficient as those who would try to class stack ^^

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Originally Posted by Iromi

Yeah, I agree as well. He will try to implement it..and it will probably not work as some imagine. If it was up to me I would like to see a balance like 1.x had. Some horizontal and some vertical. It was a perfect balance and I was able to beat and clear all content with each job. It was when he put in the ilvl that he screwed up any chance they had at putting back to when it was good.

We could choose from a few pieces of gear..and got a lot of stats and options to meld them and in the end there was never "one way" to do something, there was many. My ways of defeating Garuda with every job were just as efficient as those who would try to class stack ^^

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1.x didn't really have much gear to choose from tbf. You had AF, 1 set of crafted gear, and darklight at endgame. and to get crafted required millions and luck, and darklight required crafted gear, and the right jobs leveled so people would take you.

If you didn't have the crafted gear or darklight, no one would take you into the garuda fight. I never was able to complete it thanks to that, tho I was able to down moogle and Nael normal before the server save went into effect.

1.x was even more exclusive as to who got to do fights than 2.x+ was, and I'd hate to go back to that.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

They're going to kinda have to work on horizontal progression for horizontal content, though... Otherwise their just isn't going to be much point to the additional content... Final Fantasy XI had a plethora of varied content, and all of it was relevant... This game cannot achieve that, because the extreme vertical progression is just going to render the rewards pointless... They pretty much have to work on some form of horizontal progression for this kind of content... That's not to say we should be doing Palace of the Dead for special stats though... PvP is a good example, I think... Feast offered players nothing in terms of item level progression, it was all about pretty much showing off... People wanted that Wolf Coat because it became a status symbol, not because of it's stats... They need to apply that kind of reward structure to PvE content, I think... Perhaps they intended to, Palace of the Dead is getting a leaderboard after all... If they can give us a compelling reason to care about that, then that can work as a solid justification for participating, because item level who cares rewards will not retain interest long term...

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I don't think horizontal would work here and I have asked for it before. I was an avid FFXI player but let's be honest. It was relevant because the level cap or BIS didn't change for x amount of years. And that relevance was really rewarding for the 200-500k subscribers over the course of it's lifetime, and the game was financially successful. However, it never gained a massive playerbase and by massive, I don't mean WoW size but a million plus.

All content will become obsolete as long as rising levels exist for the worlds, enemies, and players. A workaround that is world scaling where enemies strengths scale to match yours. I don't really like that solution though even though it allows players to group easier and keeps content slightly challenging. I feel it cheapens the point of a player progressing and getting stronger in the world.

I can think of a racing game called PGR and in it was a kudos system. Which is a system that not only awarded you for winning but winning with style. I wonder if that would work here? Say you stun x skill successfully earning limit points. Those limit points are zone/content specific and can be used to purchase boons and character perks for that style of content. Sort of a system combining kudos and the champion system from Elder Scrolls Online. And with the limit points you could buy title earned costumes that only a player who achieved that milestone in your type of content could don. Or maybe special crafting styles motif per content. Actually I wish XIV endgame crafting did work like that in unlocking special motifs per specific class.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

1.x didn't really have much gear to choose from tbf. You had AF, 1 set of crafted gear, and darklight at endgame. and to get crafted required millions and luck, and darklight required crafted gear, and the right jobs leveled so people would take you.

If you didn't have the crafted gear or darklight, no one would take you into the garuda fight. I never was able to complete it thanks to that, tho I was able to down moogle and Nael normal before the server save went into effect.

1.x was even more exclusive as to who got to do fights than 2.x+ was, and I'd hate to go back to that.

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I don't see where this fear of exclusivity comes from. On our current system you either have the gear or you're excluded. You can't get any more exclusive than that.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

I don't see where this fear of exclusivity comes from. On our current system you either have the gear or you're excluded. You can't get any more exclusive than that.

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Eh, i was more annoyed than anything.

But people seem to have an idea that 1.x was way better than it actually was lol. "it had horizontal progressiona nd i could do fights the way i wanted!"

Except the community locked you into certain gear and if you didnt have blm and mnk leveled and geared you werent doing cutters cry. oh, all you have is the AF gear? which, to get, you needed parties for back then, it wasnt easy.
You aren't doing any of the dungeons or primals, we need you to go make millions of gil so you can spend millions of gil breaking your gear trying to overmeld it. then you might be allowed in, if you have the right jobs leveled, cuz we need you to switch job mid dungeon a few times for the best results.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

As for the recent FF, despite what your personal opinion is, FF XIII was a huge success. It's the 4th game when it come to sales. So yes, stepping out of their comfort zone was a good idea.

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It wasn't a success from a gameplay perspective! You'd be hard pressed to find a single person that truly liked the interactive movie feel, and the combat and gameplay is often touted as one of the worst systems in the entire series to date!

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

It wasn't a success from a gameplay perspective! You'd be hard pressed to find a single person that truly liked the interactive movie feel, and the combat and gameplay is often touted as one of the worst systems in the entire series to date!

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I didnt like how closed FF13 was, the battle wasnt bad but I would say 12 one was better. However, story and how linear it was just made it worse. Old hardcore FF fans loved the amazing sidequest etc.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

I simply think of it as a way to progress your character without necessarily going upwards in absolute strength (i.e. ilvl)

I really dislike that term. In actuality, everything in the game is an illusion of choice, and illusion of choice spreads into one's daily life. That is, there is almost always a best choice, but the great thing about living in free countries in today's society is that we get to make choices - whether they are the best ones or not.

In terms of the game, sometimes one may make a suboptimal choice in order to improve their enjoyment of the game. In WoW at the moment, I am running a sub-optimal talent on my mage, because the optimal one is incredibly frustrating to use and ruins my enjoyment of the class (it's basically ley lines in FFXIV). Choices like these are great, and no one in WoW has said anything to me about it and my DPS is still competitive with everyone I group with.

While the 'best' ones may be required by top tier groups, they are not required by the general playerbase. Having no choice puts major limitations on how one can enjoy the game.

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And how exactly does this make the game more interesting? I can run a good portion of the content with Mind allocated and DEX gear. You're essentially asking for a complete character development overhaul despite fully acknowledging it is fundamentally pointless because at top tier content, you will be expected to optimize or you won't be taken. Why waste all their resources on something that doesn't actually accomplish anything? If they ever consider a similar direction, I would it to be impactful, not something I could (and likely would) ignore almost instantly.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

You'd be hard pressed to find a single person that truly liked the interactive movie feel, and the combat and gameplay is often touted as one of the worst systems in the entire series to date!

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No, you wouldn't. And your "often" is from "the few vocal people that took time to share their opinion on the game".
Most of any playerbase is silent. Any opinion you heard of is irrelevant to the general opinion. Personally, I loved FF XIII, it's one of my favorite. But I don't try to enforce this opinion as a "majority".

A video game is a product. If it sells, it's a succes, if it doesn't, it's a failure. That's the only objective measure you'll find.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

And how exactly does this make the game more interesting? I can run a good portion of the content with Mind allocated and DEX gear. You're essentially asking for a complete character development overhaul despite fully acknowledging it is fundamentally pointless because at top tier content, you will be expected to optimize or you won't be taken.

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So, why not making every item the same with the same stats ? BiS is already a strong candidate for discrimination. Besides, "top tier" concerns less than 10% of the playerbase judging from Alex Savage clears...not a big deal.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

And how exactly does this make the game more interesting? I can run a good portion of the content with Mind allocated and DEX gear. You're essentially asking for a complete character development overhaul despite fully acknowledging it is fundamentally pointless because at top tier content, you will be expected to optimize or you won't be taken. Why waste all their resources on something that doesn't actually accomplish anything? If they ever consider a similar direction, I would it to be impactful, not something I could (and likely would) ignore almost instantly.

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I don't understand what your MND and DEX gear comment is about?

I did not acknowledge that. I acknowledged that world firsts will go for the 'best', but anything after that doesn't need it. This is the same as, say, group composition. However, once you pass the world firsts, any combination of 4 dps, 2 tanks and 2 heals is really viable in this game.

I do acknowledge that it would take a lot of overhaul to change fundamentals of the game to be the same as WoW. It doesn't need to be the exact same as WoW. I just used WoW as an example of why the "illusion of choice" is an idiotic term.

I think that the game developers could use their current system and provide choice, on-going progression beyond max level and/or horizontal progression without being the exact same as WoW and without having the issues that Yoshi mentioned in the interview and without forcing players to swap gear in combat.

They actually already have some of the systems in place, for example they could expand on both the cross class abilities and class -> jobs. When I first came here, I considered jobs to be "specs" of the classes. Then they abandoned it. They could go back to that, as the system is in place, and provide more jobs from classes. We could get our sword wielding DPS from a gladiator etc. Further, they could open up more abilities that can be cross classed, and actually have them be a decent choice (vs now which fully embraces the illusion of choice).

There is also the added materia which grants some level of horizontal progression, but in the most dull way possible. Perhaps materia could be added to be a bit more interesting and really change how things are played (instead of +crit, you have materia that changes skills, cooldowns or playstyle changes). Obtaining materia also feels rather grindy, more-so than it really needs to be/should be.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

You might want to refrain of the overstatements a bit, don't you think ?

For you, asking for changes is akin to wanting to play an RTS ? Yeah, sure...Oh, and by the way, did you...hmmm...played Lords Of Verminion ? Tell me how great it fits in the J-RPG genre...

As for the recent FF, despite what your personal opinion is, FF XIII was a huge success. It's the 4th game when it come to sales. So yes, stepping out of their comfort zone was a good idea.

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I expressed myself wrongly, I think this games needs some changes yes, like better dungeons, more bosses on raid, make hunts beign a bit more interactive like FFXII but some I don't agree that we need an overhaul of the system again
that's what I meant with the genre thing and probably I shouldn't have used the term whine so if I offended you I'm sorry.
Also I like FFXIII, no actually I like all FF, ask me my favorite I won't be able to answer you, that said I can see that a chunk of the fanbase is criticizing the newer FF for beign too outside of the formula. If you want my personal opinion I would say that FF made it's fortune by beign something different each time so I would say they are wrong, yet I can see their reasons

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

So, why not making every item the same with the same stats ? BiS is already a strong candidate for discrimination. Besides, "top tier" concerns less than 10% of the playerbase judging from Alex Savage clears...not a big deal.

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Because people like meaningful progression. Different leveled gear has a noticeable upgrade, thus it feels good. Adding character builds that serve no purpose other than to let you muck around with numbers isn't going to revolutionize the game. It'll only matter in progression content, where you will either need to optimize or groups won't take you.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

I don't see where this fear of exclusivity comes from. On our current system you either have the gear or you're excluded. You can't get any more exclusive than that.

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Yeah...it is worse now if anything lol. Lot of raid groups expect you to have some really top tier gear, and people making farm PT for stuff run parsers all the time watching your damage...and you can have all the skill in the world in this game and still have crap DPS if you don't have a relevant ilvl. So many people I see in my various linkshells how they got kicked out of a PT because of their gear..or removed from a dungeon.

So yeah..I'd rather go back to what we had before, some choices but everything worked if the group would be slightly open minded.

Again, I don't know who they played with or what server where people were acting like that..but I easily defeated Garuda with my gimp PLD back in the day and a buncha random people who had AF. One of each job..etc. I cleared every dungeon/ex fight/raid, etc easily. Lmao I did ifrit in a simple cowl..haha.

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Originally Posted by Iromi

SNIP

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This is a bit OT but I don't agree with you on one thing. OFC there is a high difference between lets say iLvl 220 and 240, but a player who can play his job well can still outDPS average player.
And it actually happens quite often. :)

I was reacting to this "and you can have all the skill in the world in this game and still have crap DPS if you don't have a relevant ilvl."

But if you meant iLvl 150 etc., then yeah that's how MMOs work. Gear will always be the 2nd most important thing, it will always make good players even better and bad players atleast a bit useful. :)

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

I acknowledged that world firsts will go for the 'best', but anything after that doesn't need it.

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Yes and no. You need to keep things performing within a tolerance threshold in order for them to be accepted. People will accept a monk over a ninja in their raid composition, but what about an arcanist in full STR gear with melee cross-class skills (Death Blossom, Fracture, Feint etc) that uses those skills instead of his class ones? An arcanist "as such" would already run risk of being kicked frequently. An arcanist that uses a bad build on top? No deal. The team is doing a pretty good job at keeping the jobs somewhat balanced with all the limitations, but I'm not sure how well they'd manage if they added builds on top. At least not if they were to add them for many jobs at once...

As for more class-based jobs - this actually reduces the amount of progression, because they no longer have separate levels. If you progress as scholar, you automatically progress as summoner in terms of level - it's only through gear that the two become separate and thus horizontal progression paths.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

It wasn't a success from a gameplay perspective! You'd be hard pressed to find a single person that truly liked the interactive movie feel, and the combat and gameplay is often touted as one of the worst systems in the entire series to date!

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FFXIII is in my top five Final Fantasy titles of the main series. There's your single person. :x