Back in the day when I learned about FFXIV:ARR, three main things got me interested in it: Housing, PvP and being subscription based (lack of a cash shop). Time passed: months, them years. With every new interview, Yoshi talked about the grand future he had prepared for the game. Now, over two years later:
PvP - I think this is an obvious one. Some of you might remember that little concept art of how PvP was going to be in this game: a little army sided by catapults standing in front of something that looked like a huge fortification. Knowing about Yoshi’s DAoC background, I knew something good would come out of it. I couldn’t be more wrong. Wolves Den was terrible, Frontlines was just ok. No sieges, no keeps and fortresses, no persistent maps.
Cash Shop - There’s not much to say really. It’s here to stay, and it will just keep growing. The name they picked for it sounds like a bad joke (Optional Items) because of how being ”optional” is what was said over and over to anyone who was against it. What is not optional?
Hunts - That one might have just been wishful thinking on my part, but the first time I heard about it I expected something great: Maybe I could go out on a hunt with FC friends, looking for footprints? Maybe there’s going to be a system that tells us how close or how far of the marks we are? Oh I’m sure we’ll be able to show off our rarest hunts on the walls of our houses! I couldn’t wait to start hunting! In the end it was just a big, angry zerg farming for gear, and I never touched it.
Airship Exploration - There’s only two problems with that one: There’s no airship, and there’s no exploration. In complete disagreement with everything said on interviews, the only airship flying we got is a cutscene. It's curious to think that we have flying mounts just because of that other MMO, but we can't actually fly around in our airships (something that is seen as an important feature of most Final Fantasy games).
Can we really expect anything interesting or fun from SE anymore? Don’t get me wrong, I like how the game started, if I didn’t I wouldn’t have paid for it, but I’m only staying for the friends I made and the stuff we built together.
Ideal versus Real
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12-21-2015, 10:03 PMAustherusIdeal versus Real - undelivered promises or unfulfilled hype?
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12-21-2015, 10:23 PMLaerune
I was hyped for PvP aswell, but we all know what of a failure it has turned into. Boring content + long queue killed PvP for me. It could have been simple, remove GC requirements and turn every WoL into a mercenary and add a big map with castles etc, where players can fight over control. GW2 has it, WoW in a way has it and ESO has it, all 3 games have alot of players doing these contents, because its fun. PvP is simple, we do not require epic dungeons or scripted monsters, just give us faster queue, a big map and stuff that will make us want to bash the skull of our enemies.
Honestly, Yoshi-P is turning more and more into Peter Molyneux, both of them have the habit of overhyping and making false promises. PvP, more gender equality outfits for males, ability to summon primals as a FC, more housing plots etc. I would not be suprised if Egi-glamour is going to join this list aswell.
Like with Peter, whenever Yoshi-P promises a epic content, I want to experience first, then believe it.
EDIT: Just like with the Anime questline, the developers need to think and ask themselves, is this content going to be enjoyable for the players? -
12-21-2015, 10:27 PMWellFooledI think part of the problem with PvP, and some other FFXIV content too, is that they have a wonderful foundation for their content, but rarely is anything built up on it. Wolves Den has all of the basic functions needed for a solid Arena mode, but without tournaments, leaderboards, seasons, and rewards its just a slab of concrete without a house to go with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Austherus
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12-22-2015, 09:42 AMAustherusI think that's one of the most important things SE failed to realize. A fun PvP experience has to do with player interaction: recruiting and grouping up, successfully attacking and defending keeps/territory (even more fun when you are on the outnumbered side, overwhelmed by enemies), the rivalry that is created with the enemy faction(s). It's not about balance, mirrored matches, complicated systems, currency, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Laerune
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12-22-2015, 09:45 AMJijifliWell to be honest here, everything is there is optional. Nothing in there can give you some kind of advantage. Even WoW lets you buy characters at almost capped level (Unless we're close to the next expac, then it is capped level.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Austherus
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12-22-2015, 09:48 AMAustherusThat is something that bothers me as well. I'm not a fan of that kind of PvP (leaderboards, tournaments) but I understand many are, and to see Wolves Den abandoned like that makes no sense. They should at least talk about it, show some of their plans of how to fix it, but it looks like they decided to just ignore it and forget it ever existed.Quote:
Originally Posted by WellFooled
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12-22-2015, 10:42 AMAmiazeWhen it comes to how FFXIV works and the content it gives us, I try to stay fair and see what the devs were thinking and how the community should be taking it versus how we're actually taking it. But PvP is the one topic that really just frustrates me to no end. When I first heard about Seal Rock and it being more strategic than Wolves' Den, I pictured a fortress (not unlike the build and design of Haukke Manor) or several fortresses that would have posts we needed to capture. I immediately thought of every other game mode similar to this in every other game I've ever played, and loved the idea of forming strategies such as cornering players in a hallway and spreading DoTs on the floor at their feet, forcing them to flee in the direction you wanted them to, or setting up small teams at certain points in hallways to catch an enemy off-guard.Quote:
Originally Posted by Austherus
Granted, I based little of this off of what we were shown, so I can't say that they didn't deliver on Seal Rock. What I will say is...
This. There are so many things that could be done with PvP to make it interesting, and not just the RNG-based game it's become, especially considering how many people are required to enter the instance. Morale was an interesting mechanic, but the mode that supported it died before anyone could really put it to good use. And the way gear is used in PvP makes no sense to me -- I understand that PvE gear is nerfed when entering PvP, but why is PvE gear still so overpowered and so much more useful that, even with materia melds, PvP gear is rendered grossly obsolete in the same mode that is was designed for? And the balancing changes that PvP is given are very minimal. I main WHM and AST, and I was really bummed when they removed Cleric Stance without really giving us any viable alternative to combat. It felt like a quick "fix" that wasn't given nearly as much thought as fixes are given in every other aspect of the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by WellFooled
And to top it off, questions related to PvP rarely, if ever, receive responses. Even those threads that remain civil and constructive are ignored.
Anyway, I don't mean to derail this thread, just wanted to voice my rather sour opinion concerning that point. -
12-22-2015, 10:43 AMAshkendorThere's supposed to be changes to Wolves' Den in 3.2 if I remember correctly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Austherus
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12-22-2015, 10:46 AMBelhi
This is a PvP revamp in 3.2 particularly focused on Wolves' den. Wether that will bring it closer to what people want is something we will have to just wait and see.
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12-22-2015, 10:50 AMNoahArks
Pvp:
Incredibly boring and slow. Wouldn't have worked out from the start.
Cash shop:
They basicly threw in everything they said they wouldnt throw in.
Hunts:
Expected it to be more fun myself. Got extremely annoyed by how the community reacted to someone pulling the hunt instead of "waiting" for others. Nothing wrong with trying to make sure your whole party gets the full reward. -
12-22-2015, 11:00 AMEnkidoh
Really, if you came into FFXIV expecting the game to be heavily PvP focused then you were always going to be horribly disappointed. FFXIV is, a FF game, and the FF series have never been about competitive multiplayer - spin-offs maybe, but the main series has never been about players fighting each other, even in FFXI PvP was never nothing more than a minor diversion completely separate from the main game. FFXIV is PvE not PvP focused, it always will be.
Also, that's the nature of game development for you - concepts and ideas might be mentioned and shown, but during the development process aspects planned may be discovered to be for whatever reason just not implementable to how they had mentioned it, and thus it's either altererd to 'make it work', or excised completely.
This isn't a terrible thing, it's a natural part of game design. Unfortunately players don't usually take this into account and thus it's far easier to articulate "They lied to us!" when a certain content idea is mentioned and then later on scrapped, than simply accepting this is what happens when developing a game, especially MMOs.
It's why early trailers for games after all usually carry a legal disclaimer along the lines of "The following shows this game in an early stage of development and thus may not match the final version," things can change at any time (it's also why developers are usually tight lipped about what exactly they're doing.).
As for the Cash Shop, players actually begged SE for it, so blame other players, not SE, they're after all only trying to please everyone. Really these sorts of posts they may as well not bother trying to because no matter what they do it's always wrong. -
12-22-2015, 11:03 AMMarxamMoney talks. The sad but true story of a lot of today's developers. Look at what's happening to Destiny.Quote:
Originally Posted by Austherus
My biggest let down was how they toted that you can "use" multiple jobs but they gate gearing up those said jobs with heavy grinds or weekly lockouts. Also the emphasis on keeping people subbed by making ridiculous grinds (anima quest) and forcing people to grind it like its a second job is almost enough for me to unsub. What happened to skill grinds? Using endgame content as part of the quest hasn't been seen since the first step of the 2.0 relic.
I think all MMO developers fail to realize their target market have a life outside of the game and can't commit to playing excessive amounts of time. -
12-22-2015, 12:15 PMAmiazeI'm fairly new to MMO culture, but I don't think anyone really came into FFXIV expecting this. I didn't; however, I did hope that, since the mode was there, that it would at least be a fun and interesting distraction for a while. Yet the mode itself feels so bare that players don't even queue into it, and I think that that's the most telling aspect of it. People play it so little that you could be stuck in queue for hours before getting in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Enkidoh
And I agree on the nature of game design; that's the nature of any sort of media, really. I purchase a lot of concept art books, and I often see things that were mentioned before or that the creators left little hints of in the final product. I leaned from AAA games to never trust a trailer or concept art, and just wait to play the game. -
12-22-2015, 03:09 PMKaiser-Ace
PvP: Was excited about Wolve's Den when it was active and frequently knew "The Fear" of seeing a Summoner and Scholar come out of the gate in full Allagan Gear. Disappointed when it faltered and was left for dead. Frontlines I only enjoyed Slaughter Mode since it was a traditional Team Deathmatch style PvP but again, was disappointed when it faltered and was left for dead.
Cash Shop: Admittedly I've spent a bit of money there am the owner of all the Cash Shop Exclusive Scion Minions. I regret nothing and wouldn't mind more effort being put into time limited event rewards like the "huzza" emote from the first rising event or the gear from the Lightning Strikes event. (Would also like to see a permanent price drop on Sleipnir but that's their ONE big ticker item so I'll let them slide on that)
Housing and Airships: Housing and I have a complicated relationship. My first FC broke up because of it so I've always been a little love hate with it especially with supply and demand. I'd like a little more customization and some leniency on "Non-Removables" but I'd like the Supply issue solved if nothing else. And Airships requiring a full light party is kind of absurd. Two to three members of appropriate rank should be allowed to perform it with out a light or full party of crafters.
Diadem, Hunts, Glamour, Zodiac, Anima, Gold Saucer and 24-man Raids: All grand ideas full of great potential but all suffering from various degrees of poor execution, The Gold Saucer being one of their greatest follies with Triple Triad, Lords of Verminion, and Chocobo Racing all dieing out with Vermnion dying immediately upon implementation. Now in the wake of the Blitz Ball rumors I'm inclined to insist that SE stays as far away as possible for the last part of Final Fantasy Mini Games I still love.
On a side note, I wish the devs would implement more exploration style content into the game like the quest line given by Matoya's Brooms. Maps was a shot in the right direction but ultimately missed the mark. I feel more like a Merc the way the game is designed than an Adventurer since we honestly do very little adventuring compared to our jobs as Preternatural One Man/Woman Armies and generic errand boys/girls. If we're adventurers then where's the adventuring and exploring? Hardly an adventure when the minimap goes full GPS on the quest location.
As a final note, We need more Mog Mail and Hildibrand quests to add a touch of humor and charm to the world and it's NPCs. -
12-22-2015, 05:44 PMWellFooledI agree with your thoughts on the development process completely, but I disagree with this argument of PvP in FF. A feature doesn't need to have a history in the series to excel. Almost every FF game has included features unseen in past games or changed the fabric completely (No one would argue that FFXI shouldn't have been an online game because no FF had ever done it before, or that FFIV's ATB shouldn't be included because FF games had always been turned based, FFXV is even changing to an action RPG system for the first time).Quote:
Originally Posted by Enkidoh
I also believe the focus of an MMO should be up to the player. The game needs to be robust enough so that any of its features can be the focus for a player. If a feature is included, as PvP has been, it needs to be implemented well enough so that a player could feasibly dedicate enough time to it that it is their personal focus in the game. -
12-23-2015, 11:37 AMAustherusMy FC run treasure maps weekly, it's nice to have something a bit randomized (everything else feels just too streamlined), but I do agree that it could be better. Matoya's quest line was a nice surprise, I'm really hoping we get more of that (I think there was a similar quest somewhere else, about books, were you had to pick the right answer in the end; can't remember it's name though).Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaiser-Ace
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12-23-2015, 11:49 AMBrannigan
Maps are soooooooo underutilized. Should be having map chains (map drops a map drops a map drops a map and so on) with increasing difficulty/rewards until you run into one that you just can't beat. Instead, everything can be soloed by a scholar with a chocobo. I think OP is right on the mark about pretty much everything. Frontlines especially ended up being nothing like what they first envisioned, and Diadem was cool for about 3 runs before everyone realized that there really wasn't anything to it other than zerging monsters and a few treasure chests.
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12-23-2015, 12:40 PMTheCurlsIt's unfair to SE to suggest that they ruined Hunts. I mean, I'm not saying that's what you're getting at, but a lot of people do, so I'm using your post as a platform. Sorry.Quote:
Originally Posted by NoahArks
SE had the right idea in mind with the Hunt. It was the playerbase that stripmined the content and left nothing but ruin in its wake. I'll point you here for all you need to know about Hunts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfG8qY0dINY -
12-23-2015, 02:18 PMRyelThis isn't true.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCurls
The burden is entirely on the dev team to design content in a way that this doesn't happen and then to make adjustments when it does. With the way they release gear rewards it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes levels of deduction to come to the conclusion that players will always take the path of least resistance and highest reward. Not only that but the content was re-released in the same state multiple times after repeated feedback on the state of the system, it's also not as if the concept of open world notorious monsters with various spawn conditions is new to MMOs, FFXI in paticular (SE's longest running MMO) has had multiple iterations of content designed around systems like these from NMs and HNMs to ZNMs and various other systems.
Saying "the playerbase ruined the content not SE!" absolves the developers of the burden of creating and designing content, something they're paid to do and something we're being charged for with the expectation of them doing so. Hunts may have been a decent idea on paper but a good idea on paper may not always be a good idea when presented to a live playerbase. -
12-23-2015, 02:26 PMTheCurlsThe playerbase absolutely ruined Hunts. When they died down, some friends and I tackled hunts the way they were meant to be done and we had a blast. So yes, the onus -is- on the playerbase for ruining what could have been an enjoyable experience. And that's the funny part about all the complaints on the forums. "The game is boring and not fun!!" -- Well, that's because people are dumb and choose the boring and not fun way to play the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryel
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12-23-2015, 02:47 PMAlberelRequiring almost no one to be doing hunts for them to work properly only serves to highlight how poorly they were implemented.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCurls
The hunts here in FFXIV honestly should have functioned like ZNMs in FFXI. Instead of having roaming creatures they should have been triggered spawns for single groups with players able to progress to harder and harder marks by killing them in sequence.
When a developer makes content in an MMO they MUST bear in mind how the players will use it. If the content causes a situation where the community is regularly turning on each other and becoming toxic then that is something the devs need to adjust the content to prevent.
With regards to the OP:
The sad thing for me isn't the things that didn't meet expectations; that's kinda normal in game development. What I find depressing is that the devs have subsequently just started pretending the issues don't exist.
* Hunts were implemented in 3.0 with the exact same flaws as in 2.0 despite the playerbase making it clear they wanted changes to prevent the toxicity the system encouraged in the community.
* The personal housing system is simply unfit for purpose and yet the devs have never addressed this fact. Instead they occasionally tease more wards to be released at some unknown time in the future... and they've been teasing the next set for almost a year now with nothing new.
* The Gold Saucer was mostly a huge flop due to the absurd limitations on when and where you could participate in the content. Requiring players to lock themselves in a room to be able to queue for chocobo racing was ridiculous and precisely why no one bothers with it any more, and yet here we are a year later and LoV has the exact same problem.
Not meeting expectations is one thing, but when they do so repeatedly despite the community being quite vocal about the issues... that's rather concerning. -
12-23-2015, 02:51 PMRyelYou still aren't understanding.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCurls
The fundamental issue with your statement is "When Hunts died down my friends and i tried it and it was fun!" which is a massive, massive issue.
If content only becomes enjoyable and playable the way the developers designed it because the majority of players are no longer doing the content there's an issue. The idea behind designing content is to do so in a way that it doesn't matter if 100 people or 10 people are doing it at the same time, if anything in MMO design the rule is that the fun and experience of the content should rise in direct proportion to the number of players taking part not the inverse.
You cant say "This content is only fun when nobody else is doing it!!!!!" when it comes to an MMO because the community can't come out and say "Hey guys can you not do this major patch release content so that my friends can do it instead!?" it's bad design pure and simple.
The Devs don't get a pass because players playing the game breaks the game. -
12-23-2015, 10:37 PMTheCurls
You're not understanding. The point is, it was never meant to be a 150 person zerg-fest. It was meant to have parties spread out killing them in smaller, adventurous groups. The fact that players banded together by the dozens and then ultimately hated the content is not SE's fault. It's their fault for playing that way.
SE cannot control how players will play the game. They can, however, have the expectation that players are going to play in a way that is fun and entertaining for them. Because why else are we playing video games?
At some point players are going to have to realize that they have to accept some of the responsibility for how they're receiving this game. -
12-23-2015, 10:52 PMRyelThis is not how game development works, it never has and it never will.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCurls
It makes no difference what the development team "intended" what matters is what actually happens.
The player side has zero ability to balance the game as they cannot dictate how content is delivered, the developers however can and do. Even if the developers come out and say "We expect the content to be handled X way" if the playerbase decides that "Y" way is better they will continue to approach content using the "Y" method instead of the the "X" method until the developers make them completely unable to do it any other way than the X method AKA the intended way which is exactly what they didn't do with hunts.
You need look no further than the Devs saying things like "Please don't win trade" or "We didn't intend for players to use the enrage method for T2" to see that players commonly do things against developer intention and at it's core it is a development problem; it's what feedback, patches and hotfixes exist for because it's routinely the case that the playerbase will do things that the developers didn't intend or didn't foresee happening. When the developers fail to act on that feedback though and continue to repeat the same content releases expecting a different result from a playerbase that has already proven which way they'll approach it, then yeah they can be called out on the issue and they have been by the playerbase.
SE cannot fully control how players play the game, but they can react to and change how the players approach content by making adjustments based on the feedback they receive thus curbing or eliminating certain issues. -
12-23-2015, 11:35 PMCritical-Limit
The most fun I had with hunts is when I solo'd Mahees the cat that petrifies you in drybone on MnK. And that's because I'm paralyzed like 70% of the time and I had to time my silence with his petrify move. One miss and I died. All of this while maintaining a good dPS rotation.
Mahees challenged me because I was forced to fight alone cuz no one wanted it. They should make hunts spawn when you meet conditions only see-able by your hunt group. And it should be a monster with interesting reactio airy mechanics. So we don't have hunt stealing and it's challenging instead of Zerg fest, hunt kills w/o waiting. -
12-24-2015, 07:04 PMAustherusI agree that players should have some kind of responsibility for ruining content for others, but that's just not going to happen. How do you even do that? The term "players" doesn't refer to a single entity easily accountable for it's wrongdoings, it is just a loose term for a group of very different people with only one thing in common: being players of the same game. Most players are just looking for the easy way out; if they see someone turning left they'll also turn left, even if they don't know why. SE has to deal with that, and the only way they can is by designing content more carefully.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCurls
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01-06-2016, 07:04 AMAustherusI've had the same experience with hunts as you. We usually tackle marks we find randomly when treasure hunting with the FC, but it's only fun when hunts are not "important" anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Critical-Limit
That's pretty much what I expected when I first heard about hunts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Critical-Limit