6.1: Deep reflection to the Devs

Good evening/afternoon/morning Devs,

While I wish not to speak any ill of the recent changes (be it for good & bad) I believe it is for the best interests to truly reflect what 6.1 overall has lead to, in which ultimately its leading most of the player base to have doubts & while not adding any sensitivity to aggravate the topic any worse, without any doubt its brought much discord & it has some of us questioning & concern for the future of whatever you have plan for us ahead past 6.1.

Samurai: While I cannot give specific highlights how the jobs currently functioning, it cannot be denied the utter reaction it brought into most of the player base, particularly the reason why "Kaiten" was removed as it stood as a respectful beacon of its job identity.....do you intend to do the same for every job? Rather, why not look to currently work the job's improvisation, deemed what's needed to be merged/or removed (only if absolutely neccesary).

I did & still do support the changes you brought into the job, however I myself cannot help but likewise feel skeptical as much as those that weren't pleased for it.

(Please look over the forums highlights regarding Samurai & analyze)

Housing/Lottery: What plans do you truly have to make the system any fair & convenient for those that were long looking forward to it? I cannot deny there's always an issue with editing the gaming codes etc., and glitches do happen, yet regardless it brought much deception.

(Please look over the forums highlights regarding housing lottery & analyze)

PvP: It brought such great change & truly it made the community more engaging! Regardless there's a lot to be overlooked at, in terms of the CCs & re-adjusting certain jobs to ultimately make PvP far more lively & engaging. You did fantastic in this overall with the bringing of a fresh new PvP! trial & error happens....please don't let it sit idle.

(Please look over the forums highlights regarding PvP & analyze)

Profile templates: Understandable it is still under BETA & please do continue on in bringing more creativity for it. A wonderful asset!

MMORPG Online to RPG Online: I cannot stress this out...this terrifies me...FFXIV stands a stronger beacon of a true MMO & the player base adores it.....why convert it into single player? While I am not certain what other ffxiv players sees it, to me its ultimately the abolition of an MMO & we play & like to display our actions, achievements, the journeys, friends, and anything to one another & even an introvert as myself still delight in the social aspects & interactions of other's & seeing their achievements & growth from FCs, Savages, Craft, memories worth keeping, the people whom we long befriended (especially during irl times as these...)

All in all,

I trust you're in the right direction to consider & truly understand some of us as truly we genuinely delight & care for the game.

I believe from the JP Patch reading, Yoshi P stated that they were going to discuss the reasoning behind the changes to Samurai, and I believe future changes and direction with job design as well, as he mentioned that crit synergy in general is a problem. I don't want to get to irate before hearing this out, how ever I believe changes like this, as well as changes that were made in ShB like to monk, feel like they should be held off on until the next expansion or until the end of the current expansion.

Housing is never going to work, not with out adding instanced housing. I am still of a firm belief the biggest mistake with housing was allowing singular players to purchase them. I understand there are loop holes around that, but those loop holes are also inconveniences to many as well. You will never see a fair housing system unless it is given to every one. I believe the most ideal change, would be to make every players inn function like an upgradable inside version of a house like an apartment or FC room but upgradable to larger sizes, while the Island Sanctuary functions as the outside portion of housing. It's a separated experience but gives everyone the same capabilities as owning a house.

The problem with the MMO to RPG is really in it's direction. The game is pushing more accessibility to things such as savage, which is content that many players choose not to do for what ever reason. Making this content more accessible isn't doing anything but making job design and raid design suffer. There is nothing wrong with having a high skill ceiling, most of the most popular games have it. That skill ceiling also does not have to affect everyone in all content either.

I know they are currently focusing on correcting the housing lottery system, but I am eager to hear what they have to say about some of these concerns specifically with class design.

I don't miss Kaiten :p I don't understand the sadness over an extra step being eliminated.

The game isn't being converted to single player. It's being made more accessible to those that might try it out that way. There's nothing wrong with that and there's potential for those people to join in the MP fun.
Frankly, the game is already very much single player as it's been with the ability to just queue up into parties and get stuff done and not really have to deal with people otherwise.

Duty Support is nothing new. We've had squadrons for some time now. Hopefully, those will see some improvement.

Housing should be scrapped and redone, but they won't do that. They're kinda stuck with it.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Housing is never going to work, not with out adding instanced housing. I am still of a firm belief the biggest mistake with housing was allowing singular players to purchase them. I understand there are loop holes around that, but those loop holes are also inconveniences to many as well. You will never see a fair housing system unless it is given to every one. I believe the most ideal change, would be to make every players inn function like an upgradable inside version of a house like an apartment or FC room but upgradable to larger sizes, while the Island Sanctuary functions as the outside portion of housing. It's a separated experience but gives everyone the same capabilities as owning a house.

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IMO housing would have been problematic long run even without personal housing having been introduced; people would have presumably settled on the same small-FC shenanigans that are in fact currently employed for what is often effectively a personal house, and even when it isn't, it's still a massive damper on the care and keeping of middling to large FCs (because of the lack of scaling of FC level resources with membership, and the fact that realistically house decorating is almost always a one or two person job whatever the FC's size, there has been perennially a tendency for FCs to spall off foursomes of friends who then go and form a separate FC for housing/resources purposes. A larger amount of land available to FCs would of course only exacerbate this).

At least you don't need FC house and airship access as a practical requirement to visit the Diadem anymore, so that's something. :)

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The problem with the MMO to RPG is really in it's direction. The game is pushing more accessibility to things such as savage, which is content that many players choose not to do for what ever reason. Making this content more accessible isn't doing anything but making job design and raid design suffer. There is nothing wrong with having a high skill ceiling, most of the most popular games have it. That skill ceiling also does not have to affect everyone in all content either.

I know they are currently focusing on correcting the housing lottery system, but I am eager to hear what they have to say about some of these concerns specifically with class design.

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In the case of the class design thing I expect a fair amount has to do with the limitations of input devices and the sheer number of buttons some classes have had (SAM for instance had literally over thirty essential keybinds last time I looked at the job, during Shadowbringers).

As for accessibility of content, it's a careful balancing act in an MMO because of how rewards impact further play (something which is less an issue in traditional RPGs because in trad RPGs superbosses tend to yield a lot less in terms of actual power upgrades: you get the best gear in order to prepare yourself to fight top end enemies, not afterwards!). I feel XIV does it better than most (WoW is a train wreck partly exactly because of this situation: the skill ceiling actually DOES affect everyone in all content, because there are reasons for Keystone Masters and Mythic Raiders to visit lower tier content, and then the players who that content is targeted at, who are trying to stay in their lane, are then forced off the road by that competition), but there are still some points of contention in which doing or not doing Savage impacts others in other content (in particular, some EX trials, especially odd patch ones where it's not uncommon for PF to ask for 5 ilvl below the tier cap which can at that point only be attained by having several Savage pieces, effectively locking out those players who have chosen not to do the latter content and regard EX as their limit).

Either way it’s so much of a mess currently going on, its pitting us amongst ourselves,

I was object from a previous SAM post & are at fault by it, while also it’s causing such schism to which where it’s lacking some rapport & the forum post will keep at it.

It’s no longer a laughable matter,

All in all, as being the too strongest MMO, with pride it can easily brings its own fall down (Take WoW for example)

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Originally Posted by Amarande

In the case of the class design thing I expect a fair amount has to do with the limitations of input devices and the sheer number of buttons some classes have had (SAM for instance had literally over thirty essential keybinds last time I looked at the job, during Shadowbringers).

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Classes do not have 30 buttons, as many of those skills upgrade to other skills or are assigned to a single button. Also most classes have additional buttons that serve little to no purpose over all that are never pressed or never put on some players bars. Looking at the number of abilities can be misleading, you need to play the class to understand how it functions before discussing something has button bloat and how it should be addressed. Also understanding how you play and designing good keybinds addresses this issue as well. No players plays the same, if you take 100 people that play Halo for example I will bet at least half of them will change a keybind some where before playing.

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Originally Posted by Vencio

MMORPG Online to RPG Online: I cannot stress this out...this terrifies me...FFXIV stands a stronger beacon of a true MMO & the player base adores it.....why convert it into single player?

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They're...not? They're making the solo option in the MSQ more of a thing instead of having the instances of solo questing and duties then having bottlenecks at forced grouping.

It's also a bit ironic to me when people complain about this because when I started XIV, you couldn't queue into Leveling Roulette with others. It was strictly solo, because the intent was that it was there to encourage players to redo the content to help others get their clears. Now we see people queueing together and ganging up to vote kick (which was one of the strong arguments for not allowing non-solo queueing) or comments that people who don't play "up to the standard" should just stick to Trusts. Now they are and SE is making that viable and these people are upset the game isn't forcing everyone to deal with their bs anymore.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

I don't miss Kaiten :p I don't understand the sadness over an extra step being eliminated.

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If it had zero trickle-down effects, I'd agree. But the removal of Kaiten has left Kenki, much like Blood of the Dragon's timer in Stormblood and especially Shadowbringers, stuck now in a vestigial, painfully dull state.

Unlike, say, old Power Surge, Kaiten was the basis for the job's core mechanic, not merely a "hit this second buttons to get the full effect" key.

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Originally Posted by Vencio

MMORPG Online to RPG Online: I cannot stress this out...this terrifies me...FFXIV stands a stronger beacon of a true MMO & the player base adores it.....why convert it into single player? While I am not certain what other ffxiv players sees it, to me its ultimately the abolition of an MMO

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Because this isnt early 2000s anymore.

The gaming landscape and playerbases have changed, a lot more people prefer to play mmorpgs solo.

Single player games cannot ever suffice because your character is dead and gone when the game ends, people dont see your character, the grind is limited.

Meanwhile in mmorpgs you have a never ending story, never ending grind, you get new cool things after few months to grind and get, your character will forever exist as long as the game goes and other people in the world can see them, and you also have never ending power progression since it resets every few months, it keeps you busy like no single player game will ever achieve.

More importantly you dont have to mentally exhaust yourself dealing with certain idiotic or drama filled statics and other people or limit yourself to specific raid hours, you can just relax and enjoy the game. Plus you dont have to suffer doing the mechanics flawlessly and seeing someone else screw it up for the 5th time causing a wipe.

Only reason i bother with high end group content these day is because i am FORCED TO because of the gear rewards, otherwise I would only touch raids for the occasional fun, not something i would do often.

Many of us enjoy the "competition" of mmorpgs in terms of performance, but we are not interested in the actual people, we want people to exist, but we dont want to deal with them or chat, they exist to improve our game experience, nothing more.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

I don't miss Kaiten :p I don't understand the sadness over an extra step being eliminated.

The game isn't being converted to single player. It's being made more accessible to those that might try it out that way. There's nothing wrong with that and there's potential for those people to join in the MP fun.
Frankly, the game is already very much single player as it's been with the ability to just queue up into parties and get stuff done and not really have to deal with people otherwise.

Duty Support is nothing new. We've had squadrons for some time now. Hopefully, those will see some improvement.

Housing should be scrapped and redone, but they won't do that. They're kinda stuck with it.

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How is it being made more accessible... What are you even talking about?
I really hate how people call things accessible when it's made easier/ more braindead that's not really what it means.
The only thing it did was make you spam more Shinten and make it more monotonous and less interesting.

When I think of gameplay changes to make something more accessible I think of changes that have happened in the past to Mudras for example to make them less horrible unless you had perfect ping.
Kaiten has nothing to do with that at all...

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

Only reason i bother with high end group content these day is because i am FORCED TO because of the gear rewards, otherwise I would only touch raids for the occasional fun, not something i would do often.

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Why do you want the gear if you dislike high end group content so much?
The reason why you even want Savage gear is to do more Savage, so if you don't enjoy it then I don't understand the point.
You're not being forced to do anything?

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

I don't miss Kaiten :p I don't understand the sadness over an extra step being eliminated.

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Its not just an "extra step." It gave us some form of resource management outside of spamming shinten and it flowed well into our iajutsus. Also sam mains are not just upset over kaiten. Its the auto crits as well that has essentially removed the fun out of getting big hits since the auto crits now hit like wet noodles. Sorry that we want sam to be slightly complex....

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

Because this isnt early 2000s anymore.

The gaming landscape and playerbases have changed, a lot more people prefer to play mmorpgs solo.

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This is such a contradiction of the meaning of the term though. Mmo means massive multiplayer online. Why would you come to a multiplayer online game and want to play alone? That’s like going to a pizza place and ordering a taco lol. Single player rpg’s exists, many of them. Those are available but i’ll never understand people who complain or come into the game wanting it to be a solo experience. It’s an MMO. Not just an rpg.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

This is such a contradiction of the meaning of the term though. Mmo means massive multiplayer online. Why would you come to a multiplayer online game and want to play alone? That’s like going to a pizza place and ordering a taco lol. Single player rpg’s exists, many of them. Those are available but i’ll never understand people who complain or come into the game wanting it to be a solo experience. It’s an MMO. Not just an rpg.

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If more and more people prefer to play mmorpgs with a solo playstyle the technical definition of the mmorpg genre is irrelevant.

Unless you choose to worship a genre definition rather than the reality of what people enjoy.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

Why do you want the gear if you dislike high end group content so much?
The reason why you even want Savage gear is to do more Savage, so if you don't enjoy it then I don't understand the point.
You're not being forced to do anything?

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Because there is something called power progression that many people enjoy for the sake of it, not because they need it to do something, we simply like numbers go up

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

Because this isnt early 2000s anymore.

The gaming landscape and playerbases have changed, a lot more people prefer to play mmorpgs solo.

Single player games cannot ever suffice because your character is dead and gone when the game ends, people dont see your character, the grind is limited.

Meanwhile in mmorpgs you have a never ending story, never ending grind, you get new cool things after few months to grind and get, your character will forever exist as long as the game goes and other people in the world can see them, and you also have never ending power progression since it resets every few months, it keeps you busy like no single player game will ever achieve.

More importantly you dont have to mentally exhaust yourself dealing with certain idiotic or drama filled statics and other people or limit yourself to specific raid hours, you can just relax and enjoy the game. Plus you dont have to suffer doing the mechanics flawlessly and seeing someone else screw it up for the 5th time causing a wipe.

Only reason i bother with high end group content these day is because i am FORCED TO because of the gear rewards, otherwise I would only touch raids for the occasional fun, not something i would do often.

Many of us enjoy the "competition" of mmorpgs in terms of performance, but we are not interested in the actual people, we want people to exist, but we dont want to deal with them or chat, they exist to improve our game experience, nothing more.

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Well said imo

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

If more and more people prefer to play mmorpgs with a solo playstyle the technical definition of the mmorpg genre is irrelevant.

Unless you choose to worship a genre definition rather than the reality of what people enjoy.

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I just think it sounds very illogical to play a game who's genre contains the word multiplayer in it, and expect, demand, or want an entire single player experience or for the developers to cater to a single player experience. It would be like playing a FPS game, with the expectation and demand that there will not be any weapons used to shoot things.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

Because this isnt early 2000s anymore.

The gaming landscape and playerbases have changed, a lot more people prefer to play mmorpgs solo.

Single player games cannot ever suffice because your character is dead and gone when the game ends, people dont see your character, the grind is limited.

Meanwhile in mmorpgs you have a never ending story, never ending grind, you get new cool things after few months to grind and get, your character will forever exist as long as the game goes and other people in the world can see them, and you also have never ending power progression since it resets every few months, it keeps you busy like no single player game will ever achieve.

More importantly you dont have to mentally exhaust yourself dealing with certain idiotic or drama filled statics and other people or limit yourself to specific raid hours, you can just relax and enjoy the game. Plus you dont have to suffer doing the mechanics flawlessly and seeing someone else screw it up for the 5th time causing a wipe.

Only reason i bother with high end group content these day is because i am FORCED TO because of the gear rewards, otherwise I would only touch raids for the occasional fun, not something i would do often.

Many of us enjoy the "competition" of mmorpgs in terms of performance, but we are not interested in the actual people, we want people to exist, but we dont want to deal with them or chat, they exist to improve our game experience, nothing more.

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You don’t get lonely playing this way? I think it’s good to have some solo content for the people who enjoy it, but you don’t actually want to do everything without grouping or being with other people, do you? I don’t mind the MSQ being redone with trusts or people able to solo some parts of relics, but raids and trials should still be group content imo. There is already a gearing path people can choose with tomestones that can be farmed without grouping using trusts. You can even do solo hunts for nuts to upgrade that gear. I don’t want them to take away my raids, trials, relic groups because solo players feel forced to group :(

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

I just think it sounds very illogical to play a game who's genre contains the word multiplayer in it, and expect, demand, or want an entire single player experience or for the developers to cater to a single player experience. It would be like playing a FPS game, with the expectation and demand that there will not be any weapons used to shoot things.

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If said FPS game ends up increasingly having more and more people who prefer to play with melee only weapons instead of guns maybe it is time to start asking yourself why it attracts more of such players and less gun focused players, cuz something is going on there.

Unless of course you want to ignore reality to follow some old outdated strict word definition their school/parents taught them.

Like I said, many of us enjoy mmorpgs with a solo mindset for many reasons, one of the most important being "numbers go up" meaning max gear is wanted because that is a way for "numbers go up" and that is fun, seeing yourself do better than others is fun, that requires others to exist, but does not require me to interact with them.

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Originally Posted by Moonsprite

I don’t want them to take away my raids, trials, relic groups because solo players feel forced to group :(

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And this is where the solution is extremely simple yet players make it hard.
Give solo players a gradual difficulty solo designed deep dungeon where at the near max floors you get savage tomes and unique titles or anything similar really.

The solution is very simple, it gives everyone a path to max gear, yet players, typically raiders complain about how that devalues their speshiul raid gear or that they ll be forced to do the deep dungeon too which makes the easy solution suddenly hard.
Now they could make the savage tomes drop only once per week so you either get it from raid or the deep dungeon but never both, but this doesnt stop the raiders crying about how their gear is not as special anymore cuz "dirty solo players" can get it too which is a player created problem.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

If said FPS game ends up increasingly having more and more people who prefer to play with melee only weapons instead of guns maybe it is time to start asking yourself why it attracts more of such players and less gun focused players, cuz something is going on there.

Unless of course you want to ignore reality to follow some old outdated strict word definition their school/parents taught them.

Like I said, many of us enjoy mmorpgs with a solo mindset for many reasons, one of the most important being "numbers go up" meaning max gear is wanted because that is a way for "numbers go up" and that is fun, seeing yourself do better than others is fun, that requires others to exist, but does not require me to interact with them.

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I follow the definition of words, because those definitions are how we communicate using languages. When you use a word but have a different interpretation of that word in your own head, no one is going to understand what you are talking about. It is not a mind set, it's English in this case...

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

If said FPS game ends up increasingly having more and more people who prefer to play with melee only weapons instead of guns maybe it is time to start asking yourself why it attracts more of such players and less gun focused players, cuz something is going on there.

Unless of course you want to ignore reality to follow some old outdated strict word definition their school/parents taught them.

Like I said, many of us enjoy mmorpgs with a solo mindset for many reasons, one of the most important being "numbers go up" meaning max gear is wanted because that is a way for "numbers go up" and that is fun, seeing yourself do better than others is fun, that requires others to exist, but does not require me to interact with them.


And this is where the solution is extremely simple yet players make it hard.
Give solo players a gradual difficulty solo designed deep dungeon where at the near max floors you get savage tomes and unique titles or anything similar really.

The solution is very simple, it gives everyone a path to max gear, yet players, typically raiders complain about how that devalues their speshiul raid gear or that they ll be forced to do the deep dungeon too which makes the easy solution suddenly hard.
Now they could make the savage tomes drop only once per week so you either get it from raid or the deep dungeon but never both, but this doesnt stop the raiders crying about how their gear is not as special anymore cuz "dirty solo players" can get it too which is a player created problem.

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Isn’t this what criterion dungeons are supposed to be? 1-4 players scaleable difficulty? Idk about savage difficulty, but do you really believe a solo player should get savage gear? Part of savage is cooperating in a group to overcome a challenge together. This teamwork gets rewarded with appropriate gear that isn’t even that much higher than tome gear. Why should a solo player get the same? I don’t think you should.

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Originally Posted by Moonsprite

Part of savage is cooperating in a group to overcome a challenge together.

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No, because YOU do not control the performance of others.
If you do the mechanics well and perform well dps wise you can still be rewarded with failure because someone else failed the above, this was not a mistake of yours, you didnt do anything wrong, you did not deserve this failure because you played your part great both mechanically and performance wise.
The reality is savage is not that hard just like any high end group content is never truly extremely hard otherwise nobody but an extremely tiny minority would clear it, talking about less than 0.2%, 0.3% of a population

Most group encounters create an illusion of difficulty and that is easy to explain, the devs cannot create something that requires literally perfect performance otherwise the above scenario would happen.

At that scenario only computers and literally perfect players with 0 mistakes both mechanical and dps wise can beat it, we are talking about 100% performance and perfect timing.
So the devs obviously have to create some room for error, let's say 5% for ultimates, a very small amount for group wide error, plus keep in mind they have to try balance so it is viable for all combs so another maybe 1% of error room is added.

For savage you have an even bigger room for error, let's say 15%.
The error % is obviously made up but if you want a number you can try gauge it by how easy it is to carry someone in said content if you play well, the moment carrying is possible(and literally buying carries) it is the moment you have to realize perfect play is VERY FAR from required.

So let's say each person has a performance score that combines mechanics and dps performance. (And let's ignore the common scenario of a raid wiping mechanic targeting the bad player and instantly wiping the entire group cuz of them)
1: 95%
2: 97%
3: 90%
4: 93%
5: 70%
6: 85%
7: 80%
8: 50%

Total average being: 82.5
Total average required to clear savage boss: 85%

So even though all these 5 people performed well enough and some way above what was required they still failed the encounter which results in the illusion of challenge, if we took player no.2 and sundered him into 7 others and let's say he has the same performance as a healer and a tank the savage raid boss would be a joke for him and he would even be able to clear ultimates. (Note: The percentages are obviously rarely like that, it is rare for the bad performance to only belong to one or two people, its often a few people under 85% and the few decent players who are above 85% are not that far ahead of 85% to carry the rest)

That is why often for good players high end solo content feels like a joke and too easy, because there is no illusion there since you are in complete control of the encounter, you do it well and beat it, simple

So what we have that matters individually is ability to manage the encounter's mechanics while keeping a strong dps performance, the thing you have CONTROL OVER as a player.
Those 2 can easily be placed in any solo encounter and that includes deep dungeons therefore you have similar difficulty solo content that deserves the same rewards, and honestly you can tune it so it is even harder because it is a lot easier to manage encounter design with 1 player than 8 with different classes.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

And this is where the solution is extremely simple yet players make it hard.
Give solo players a gradual difficulty solo designed deep dungeon where at the near max floors you get savage tomes and unique titles or anything similar really.

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It's actually not that simple, because if the solo version is any easier than savage, than everyone would just do that vs the group content to get the gear.
It's effectively the way you would kill the little bit of group content this game actually has.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

The illusion of difficulty in high end group content was just explained on my previous post.
Though dont think you are gonna want to understand that anyway xd

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Again, even if it is an illusion of difficulty, if the solo content gives the same rewards, and is viewed easier for any reason whether it actually is or is not. It would effectively kill the little group content the game actually has.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

It's actually not that simple, because if the solo version is any easier than savage, than everyone would just do that vs the group content to get the gear.
It's effectively the way you would kill the little bit of group content this game actually has.

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The illusion of difficulty in high end group content was just explained on my previous post.
Though dont think you are gonna want to understand that anyway xd

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

The illusion of difficulty in high end group content was just explained on my previous post.

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You explained that solo play removes the difficulty of coordination, making the content easier.

No part of that explains away the fact that then, yes, the solo content (unless remade/retuned to have a more difficult baseline) would be easier and therefore, if given the same rewards as group content, would greatly disincentivize group content, likely to the point of starving it of participation.

Also...

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

Only reason i bother with high end group content these day is because i am FORCED TO because of the gear rewards, otherwise I would only touch raids for the occasional fun, not something i would do often.

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This makes no damn sense. There is zero need for raid gear in anything but still more difficult content than what you get it from. If you don't like raiding, then why would you raid just to get stuff you'd never need outside of... Savage raiding? If what you want to do is purely the least gear-relevant stuff anyways, then you're going into content you are already soured to just to fawn over an irrelevant ilvl value.

That's like insisting on having a mansion... just so you could sleep in a tent on its driveway.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

Its not just an "extra step." It gave us some form of resource management outside of spamming shinten and it flowed well into our iajutsus. Also sam mains are not just upset over kaiten. Its the auto crits as well that has essentially removed the fun out of getting big hits since the auto crits now hit like wet noodles. Sorry that we want sam to be slightly complex....

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SAM has two extra combinations and more buttons to spend gauge on. OK. The most potent attacks needed an extra skill to charge up? That goes against the concept of SAM which is no wasted motion. They have slain the evil inside. Be at peace.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

This is such a contradiction of the meaning of the term though. Mmo means massive multiplayer online. Why would you come to a multiplayer online game and want to play alone? That’s like going to a pizza place and ordering a taco lol. Single player rpg’s exists, many of them. Those are available but i’ll never understand people who complain or come into the game wanting it to be a solo experience. It’s an MMO. Not just an rpg.

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Everyone gets so hung up on the MM part, even the SP folks they're trying to entice. The early 2000s called and want their gripe back.

Do you like to shame people for eating at restaurants alone as well? It's actually quite nice to be able to just sit there and enjoy your meal with no distractions. This isn't all that different. For all intents and purposes, I've been playing this game alone even before all this duty support stuff. I've done it for years. I can get so much done and never have to get into any real conversations with people and just enjoy the game. I also want to get comfortable with the game before I try anything that might require more time with people. What I do has little to no bearing on you or most people. The same goes in the reverse. What's the actual harm in letting single-player fans in the game? Given the chance, I think many might consider dipping their toes into the multiplayer side of things, especially while running around this world.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

You explained that solo play removes the difficulty of coordination, making the content easier.

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Then I guess if you and another car agree who goes first but the other guy screws up and crashes onto you aka "something you are not control of" you just call that "higher difficulty" xD?

Reality is, you didnt fail coordination, the other person did which once again is something out of your own control.

Difficulty exist in relation to things you can control, not things you are not in control.

If a meteor crashes next to my home I wont be calling that higher difficulty

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

Everyone gets so hung up on the MM part, even the SP folks they're trying to entice. The early 2000s called and want their gripe back.

Do you like to shame people for eating at restaurants alone as well? It's actually quite nice to be able to just sit there and enjoy your meal with no distractions. This isn't all that different. For all intents and purposes, I've been playing this game alone even before all this duty support stuff. I've done it for years. I can get so much done and never have to get into any real conversations with people and just enjoy the game. I also want to get comfortable with the game before I try anything that might require more time with people. What I do has little to no bearing on you or most people. The same goes in the reverse. What's the actual harm in letting single-player fans in the game? Given the chance, I think many might consider dipping their toes into the multiplayer side of things, especially while running around this world.

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hey!
I watch movies alone xD
I can actually focus that way

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

Everyone gets so hung up on the MM part, even the SP folks they're trying to entice. The early 2000s called and want their gripe back.

Do you like to shame people for eating at restaurants alone as well? It's actually quite nice to be able to just sit there and enjoy your meal with no distractions. This isn't all that different. For all intents and purposes, I've been playing this game alone even before all this duty support stuff. I've done it for years. I can get so much done and never have to get into any real conversations with people and just enjoy the game. I also want to get comfortable with the game before I try anything that might require more time with people. What I do has little to no bearing on you or most people. The same goes in the reverse. What's the actual harm in letting single-player fans in the game? Given the chance, I think many might consider dipping their toes into the multiplayer side of things, especially while running around this world.

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There’s a difference between a restaurant and an mmo. Restaurants typically aren’t advertised as a group thing at least not any i’ve gone to. The problem with the single player pushing is that it affects the multiplayer content. We saw this with the second ex trial this expansion where to make it fitted for trusts, they had to simplify many of the mechanics. There’s also the problem of resource cost. The resources put towards the single player pushing affects the time and resources that could be giving other content. It’s not free, and it affects everyone.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

Then I guess if you and another car agree who goes first but the other guy screws up and crashes onto you aka "something you are not control of" you just call that "higher difficulty" xD?

If a meteor crashes next to my home I wont be calling that higher difficulty

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Except you absolutely have a degree of control in coordination. Working with others does not somehow strip you of agency. There are absolutely ways to coordinate more effectively, or less.

There are performance gaps from familiarity involved (i.e., knowledge-gap in) in telegraphing and reading intent, for instance.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Except you absolutely have a degree of control in coordination. Working with others does not somehow strip you of agency. There are absolutely ways to coordinate more effectively, or less.

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Yet no matter how much you talk about coordination in advance, if they fail to do the mechanic at the right moment like everyone else you wipe and you have no control over that because that is another person's failure.

Thus you have no control over what matters, the moment where the individual fails to do the mechanic as that is a PERSONAL FAILURE.

What you have control over is your own performance and your personal mechanics, hence that is what matters, if you are doing well on those you should be clearing the boss and receiving your reward alas, the illusion of difficulty that comes from other players failing has resulted in people thinking high end group content is something incredibly hard while solo content even when tuned to be difficult is quite easy because there's no illusion of difficulty since other people's failures dont exist.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

Yet no matter how much you talk about coordination in advance, if they fail to do the mechanic at the right moment like everyone else you wipe and you have no control over that because that is another person's failure.

Thus you have no control over what matters, the moment where the individual fails to do the mechanic as that is a PERSONAL FAILURE.

What you have control over is your own performance and your personal mechanics, hence that is what matters, if you are doing well on those you should be clearing the boss and receiving your reward alas, the illusion of difficulty that comes from other players failing has resulted in people thinking high end group content is something incredibly hard while solo content even when tuned to be difficult is quite easy because there's no illusion of difficulty since other people's failures dont exist.

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"Less than 100% control" =/= "0% control," no matter how many goalposts you move to reduce to try to devalue any sort of group content.


ANOTHER player doing something wrongly does not become YOUR personal failure.
YOUR doing less than YOU reasonably should have to preempt and prevent such occurences, is.


Throwing your hands up in the air the moment you can't figure out how to better do the latter does not make that difficulty a mere illusion. It's merely elusive TO YOU.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

"Less than 100% control" =/= "0% control," no matter how many goalposts you move to reduce to try to devalue any sort of group content.


ANOTHER player doing something wrongly does not become YOUR personal failure.
YOUR doing less than YOU reasonably should have to preempt and prevent such occurences, is.


Throwing your hands up in the air the moment you can't figure out how to better do the latter does not make that difficulty a mere illusion. It's merely elusive TO YOU.

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I think we should return to reality cuz I am pretty certain people dont do high end content cuz they find the process of coordination fun or the process of teaching people fun.

People usually want to beat an encounter, that is the goal, the longer it takes the more difficult or more of an achievement it seems to be yet in reality the only reason people dont clear it as quickly is because all groups often have 1-3 slower or underperforming members, which if we are honest, people often get fed up with when they keep wiping on the same mechanics. So again, this worshiping of "coordination" does not seem to reflect reality because people absolutely do not enjoy doing well and wiping anyway cuz player no #6 failed the mechanic again.

Solo content is the same situation but reversed, because it is cleared relatively quickly without 100 pulls most relatively skilled people feel it is easy, the reality is, higher difficulty solo content is just as easy as high end group content. High end group content simply feels harder due to the illusion of difficulty created by other people's failures aka the thing I said you have no control over.

About the whole singleplayerification of FFXIV, Imo this is not an issue at all, lots of people have tight schedules and cannot progress MSQ if they can only play around dead hours, having an alternate mean of completing these dungeons is not a bad thing.
One could say FF is one of those MMOs where you can easily be a loner outside of some specific content, which gives greater freedom, yadayada yada.. Most importantly, no servers are kept up forever, just take a look at TERA shutdown, I'd much prefer being able to enjoy/replay FFXIV in some form even as a singleplayer/co-op experience than have the rug dragged from under us entirely and be left with nothing. Try to think of it as far-future proofing if anything.

The interesting thing about the whole Kaiten removal from SAM is, that this isn't the first time Squeenix pulls off a stunt like that. During ShB Launch, they straight up removed not only Heavy, Shadowflare, Miasma 1&2, from SCH, but ALSO Energy Drain at first. The Community got so mad during that time, that they immediately returned Energy Drain 2 Weeks later.


About the thing of turning this Game into single player mode, it has more drawbacks than actual benefits, allow me to elaborate.

FFXIV is, as much as Squeenix likes to state otherwise, a MMO first and a RPG second by DESIGN, and while you "can" run Dungeons with freaking Bots, it defeats the main purpose of the Genre, which IS social interaction. Content needs to be oversimplified in order for Bots to work, since the moment they hit a wall of progress (because they die), youre done for.

Secondly, it takes ALOT of ressources, which would have been better spent elsewhere. I think its quite unfair that Squeenix decides to inpliment Bots, while ignoring core issues like the bland Job design, undertuned Dungeons and Raids, useless Levequests (despite explaining specific Mechanics, almost NONE of those ever happen outside of said Levequest) and Content that has simply being forgotten, like Chocobo Racing and Lord of Verminion.


But maybe the Trust System will fix it, by inplimenting Blockchain into it, so you gotta buy your NFT for it first.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

I think we should return to reality cuz I am pretty certain people dont do high end content cuz they find the process of coordination fun.

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Team-play, including what coordination it involves, is largely why one would go and do combat content in a multiplayer game, including MMORPGs, rather than just loading up a single player game, yes.

I'm not sure why this shocks you.

People also, shockingly, enjoy team sports, not just being limited to 1v1s or shadow-boxing in an empty court.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

I think we should return to reality cuz I am pretty certain people dont do high end content cuz they find the process of coordination fun or the process of teaching people fun.

People usually want to beat an encounter, that is the goal, the longer it takes the more difficult or more of an achievement it seems to be yet in reality the only reason people dont clear it as quickly is because all groups often have 1-3 slower or underperforming members, which if we are honest, people often get fed up with when they keep wiping on the same mechanics. So again, this worshiping of "coordination" does not seem to reflect reality because people absolutely do not enjoy doing well and wiping anyway cuz player no #6 failed the mechanic again.

Solo content is the same situation but reversed, because it is cleared relatively quickly without 100 pulls most relatively skilled people feel it is easy, the reality is, higher difficulty solo content is just as easy as high end group content. High end group content simply feels harder due to the illusion of difficulty created by other people's failures aka the thing I said you have no control over.

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As someone who actually does high-end content: all Ultimates, Baldesion and Delubrum Savage, multiple week 1 Savage kills, and currently on P5 prog in DSR...

This cannot be further from the truth.

My most enjoyable experiences in the game has been raiding with friends.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

There’s a difference between a restaurant and an mmo. Restaurants typically aren’t advertised as a group thing at least not any i’ve gone to. The problem with the single player pushing is that it affects the multiplayer content. We saw this with the second ex trial this expansion where to make it fitted for trusts, they had to simplify many of the mechanics. There’s also the problem of resource cost. The resources put towards the single player pushing affects the time and resources that could be giving other content. It’s not free, and it affects everyone.

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Excuse me? The second EX trial? Either way, that's a poor example. Even the normal mode was very difficult for people to grasp. I remember explaining her job changes multiple times and people were still just -derp-. There's so much that people playing right now could learn by running trust, but they're basically just sitting there hitting buttons for actions they haven't read. I know this because some actually admitted it.

I have joined the game pretty late, end of ShB. Though reading how Square has been simplifying the jobs and how they recently hit Samurai with 6.1 has been very un-nerfing... I am the only one, " Click Here " <- if you're curious.

FFXIV made more accessible? great. At the cost of making everything easier? no. It's unhealthy for the players and the game. Skill-Floor can be lowered to make barrier of entry easier to pick up jobs. Though I disagree if it comes at the cost of lowering the Skill-Ceiling, alienating hardcore players.

Currently you can pick up any job, do any content below Extreme, and know absolutely nothing about how to play the job correctly - press some buttons randomly - and you can complete whatever you set out to complete yes below Extreme.

Overcomplication of the game does nothing in the long run. It makes Square cater to an audience and do the following by encouraging players

• To not learn how to play the game
• To not learn how to play jobs correctly
• To be irresponsible of their actions in content
• To become worse and worse players

And from there on out, where do we go? spiral downwards and lowering the quality of the players we have, complaining about not being able to do content because Square encouraged players to become worse so that we get worse content? I don't see a better FFXIV out of this.

Why vouch for just one side of the player base audience over another?
At the cost of compromising another player base audience?

Why not vouch for the option of appealing to both?
At the compromise of neither?