Be brave

[whoopeeragon]

Alas, were it not true what I am about to say. I'd rest easier if Matsui would tell us how far he's going to screw us. But the fact is, he said in his blueprint he is restricting higher level actions to class-only equip. Under classes in the blueprint he said: "Actions will undergo major revisions, along with both the underlying mechanics and conditions. ... we will be making some actions settable on any class, while other "class-defining" actions obtained at higher ranks will be usable only by that class." So no, you're not going to have the freedom to be what you want.. you will be what Matsui says you can be.

As for the playerbase hitting uninstall, if the dev team learns one thing from this thread it should be to not act in fear of that. The playerbase means nothing to SE. It sits at under 30k while the players who paid for the game stands at over 600,000. What matters is THEM, not us.

Ah, I see. Well, hopefully, Matsui does not screw over the idea of freedom too much. Though I stick to my views that the armoury system will not be affected majorly, and remain the same except for new and additional aspects; only the job system will provide a new system. I do think there's a basis to what you say, but I still hope that at least I can use my buffs on my DoW classes. >.< I personally don't mind the high-level class options being limited to their own class, or at most the same discipline. It'll certainly be weird having a Conjurer do a Doomspike II out of nowhere. o.o

There is one thing I'm glad they're not changing and that is the freedom to choose your class and changing it. If they take that away, I will slap Matsui so hard his flab rolls off.

And I suppose the devs shouldn't be afraid of the uninstall button. They need to draw new and existing-players-who-quit to the game anyhow, so they have to appeal to them as well.

I don't mind debates as long as they don't turn into a flame war. Fun talking to you, Neptune!

[Shai]

Wow Shai, you have blown my mind. I looked at that list, and I was just shocked. I encourage everyone to click that link. Virtually everything people have been making threads about would have already been in the game by now if it weren't for the direction the dev team headed after the second player's poll.

I've posted it 1-2 other times around here. No one seems to actually click it and read through it.

I often feel if the game launched with all that content available at start (in near-perfect working order, mind you) then it would have had a much different impact on the players and reviews. It's sad to me that all that stuff was 4-6 months away from the release date. I have a feeling Tanaka's companies were going to be the meat & potatoes of this game (instead Guildleves seem to be).

Instead all that stuff got put on hold so we could have a new battle system. I'm not entirely against it and I understand why you'd want to fix a core game component before you add on to the game. I do wish sometimes, though, that some of that stuff had been put in before launch or before they decided to hold all real development on "future" content, because (aside from Chocobos & Airships) much of what the game really needed is listed in that post.

Yoshi-P has said most of it hasn't been thrown away (though Hamlet Defense may have been in exchange for these Quest Hubs, but I'm not entirely sure where I read that) and I assume once the battle is ironed out a lot of these systems that Tanaka had nearly finished before being put on the shelf will be implemented in a very quick manner - once they are sure it all works with the new battle & job systems.

So there's hope at least.

[Yellow]

I think we need to express how we feel, but we need to understand that things can change. They might implement something, and if it's not successful they can change it.

[Neptune]

Ah, I see. Well, hopefully, Matsui does not screw over the idea of freedom too much. Though I stick to my views that the armoury system will not be affected majorly, and remain the same except for new and additional aspects; only the job system will provide a new system. I do think there's a basis to what you say, but I still hope that at least I can use my buffs on my DoW classes. >.< I personally don't mind the high-level class options being limited to their own class, or at most the same discipline. It'll certainly be weird having a Conjurer do a Doomspike II out of nowhere. o.o

There is one thing I'm glad they're not changing and that is the freedom to choose your class and changing it. If they take that away, I will slap Matsui so hard his flab rolls off.

And I suppose the devs shouldn't be afraid of the uninstall button. They need to draw new and existing-players-who-quit to the game anyhow, so they have to appeal to them as well.

I don't mind debates as long as they don't turn into a flame war. Fun talking to you, Neptune!

Likewise my friend

You seem to hope that the Armoury system won't get jacked. I fear that it will be. I don't think it'll be a dealbreaker for me but a pet peeve of mine is seeing people react out of fear. I am totally confident that if they had pushed ahead with their battle revamp and left the Armoury system be we would have seen spectacular results. Extreme freedom has never been seen in a game. Demon's Souls has a lot of freedom and it is pretty interesting - the tactics one can use in that game. They should have made point allotment more drastic instead of being afraid of players breaking the system. In my opinion with that one issue addressed the Armoury system would have shined. Now we are going to have to wait another 10 years for a game to come out with this awesome system while FFXIV retreats into the dark past of MMO tradition.

I've posted it 1-2 other times around here. No one seems to actually click it and read through it.

I often feel if the game launched with all that content available at start (in near-perfect working order, mind you) then it would have had a much different impact on the players and reviews. It's sad to me that all that stuff was 4-6 months away from the release date. I have a feeling Tanaka's companies were going to be the meat & potatoes of this game (instead Guildleves seem to be).

Instead all that stuff got put on hold so we could have a new battle system. I'm not entirely against it and I understand why you'd want to fix a core game component before you add on to the game. I do wish sometimes, though, that some of that stuff had been put in before launch or before they decided to hold all real development on "future" content, because (aside from Chocobos & Airships) much of what the game really needed is listed in that post.

Yoshi-P has said most of it hasn't been thrown away (though Hamlet Defense may have been in exchange for these Quest Hubs, but I'm not entirely sure where I read that) and I assume once the battle is ironed out a lot of these systems that Tanaka had nearly finished before being put on the shelf will be implemented in a very quick manner - once they are sure it all works with the new battle & job systems.

So there's hope at least.

I can sense your mixed feelings about the trade-offs. I feel the same way. I would take Yoshi-P over Tanaka any day of the week. I would have liked to see Yoshi-P produce the things on that list though instead of what the team has been doing. And I hope the battle revisions are great, but touching the Armoury system in light of what I pointed out in the OP has made me lose respect for the team a little.

I think we need to express how we feel, but we need to understand that things can change. They might implement something, and if it's not successful they can change it.

Well that's why we need a test server. But none of the devs are going to change it because they don't want to hurt their pride once it's live. They need to un-Japanese themselves over that, and fast.

[whoopeeragon]

Likewise my friend

You seem to hope that the Armoury system won't get jacked. I fear that it will be. I don't think it'll be a dealbreaker for me but a pet peeve of mine is seeing people react out of fear. I am totally confident that if they had pushed ahead with their battle revamp and left the Armoury system be we would have seen spectacular results. Extreme freedom has never been seen in a game. Demon's Souls has a lot of freedom and it is pretty interesting - the tactics one can use in that game. They should have made point allotment more drastic instead of being afraid of players breaking the system. In my opinion with that one issue addressed the Armoury system would have shined. Now we are going to have to wait another 10 years for a game to come out with this awesome system while FFXIV retreats into the dark past of MMO tradition.

-hugs Neptune-

Yea, I like the armoury system as it is, unlike some of the other playerbase which seems to hate it beyond redemption. I hope it doesn't get jacked too badly....if it does, I hope only minimally eg. only any new abilities to the classes will be restricted to class-only. Or perhaps rank 30+ abilities being limited to their own class would still be reasonable. Any jacking off past that, and I will be slightly disappointed, but I'll live with it, just losing a bit of joy if they take any more away of our freedom.

I agree on the point allotment aspect, though. It would have seen perhaps an improvement to how the battle system and classes work. But regardless, we shall see whose view will end up true, Neptune. Yours, or mine.

[Shai]

Well that's why we need a test server. But none of the devs are going to change it because they don't want to hurt their pride once it's live. They need to un-Japanese themselves over that, and fast.

I think XI is getting a test server (finally lol).

I think XIV may have taught them a quick lesson in humility.

I mean it appeared that way at first, but the hush hush production of this battle system is leading me to believe they're back to they're old "we know best so just wait" mentality. I think if the battle truly sucks it will nail this coffin shut. I hope they are aware of that, too. So with that in mind, I can only assume it's going to be "better" - maybe marginally, or maybe quite a lot - but I figure the majority will like it more than what we have, otherwise the game will probably be done.

I don't know what I'd do, but I'd like to think that after 6months of being on hold, being given something worse than what exists will really turn me off to what these guys can do and how they prioritize their production. So really my pessimism leads to hope because I assume (on some levels) they do know what they're doing. I remain patient for the battle system to start implementing.

[Neptune]

I think XI is getting a test server (finally lol).

I think XIV may have taught them a quick lesson in humility.

I mean it appeared that way at first, but the hush hush production of this battle system is leading me to believe they're back to they're old "we know best so just wait" mentality. I think if the battle truly sucks it will nail this coffin shut. I hope they are aware of that, too. So with that in mind, I can only assume it's going to be "better" - maybe marginally, or maybe quite a lot - but I figure the majority will like it more than what we have, otherwise the game will probably be done.

I don't know what I'd do, but I'd like to think that after 6months of being on hold, being given something worse than what exists will really turn me off to what these guys can do and how they prioritize their production. So really my pessimism leads to hope because I assume (on some levels) they do know what they're doing. I remain patient for the battle system to start implementing.

Yeah see, I would say to them, why do you feel like you have to go for this all-in approach to these major revisions? There's no reason to be all-in on any of this stuff, which is how they're playing it. If they really don't want a risk they should sacrifice a little of this year (while none of the other 600,000 care) to redeeming the alpha/beta testing relationship they screwed up last year. Put up a test server and throw a functional version of what they've got up there and ask for feedback. It's not too late to do that. Why are they going to back themselves into a corner? They have nothing to lose by being a little more transparent and getting it right when it finally goes live. Plus, a test server would excite the community.

-hugs Neptune-

lol

Yeah, I mean I have hope, but I wish they would've not made such major plans based off the second player's poll, and made a greater effort to reach out to those 600,000 people for feedback beyond an email.

[toshimoog]

I don't think they're going to remove the armory system. When I read it, it sounded like they are just going to add traditional jobs separately from armory classes. This makes me think of when people were talking about equipping any specific weapon (class) and from there, you choose which corresponding job you want to be (uh, job). So you might have access to Warrior from either a Gladiator or Marauder class. I know they didn't confirm any of this, but that's what pops into my head. I think it'd be a pretty interesting system. We'll have to see how that pans out with ability distribution and stuff too.

Edit: Actually, I think it'd be better to completely remove actions/abilities from discipline classes and just have them on the jobs you choose to play as (since you'd have to choose one anyway).

Now that I think about it, if they were to implement this type of job system, sure, it's different and a new approach, but I would have just prefered the system from FF3, 5, and 11, where you just change to it and equip any appropriate weapon.

[Neptune]

It just occurred to me that you have a lot of people frustrated over the lack of these features in the game right now:

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...f018ec5fb504d2

And the dev team is redoing battle and Armoury based on checking with what the players wanted. So, they wanted to check with the players to see what they wanted, and then spent all their time designing something for the people who didn't respond to the poll. They wanted to respond to the players, but they didn't have the heart to follow through with it. They're still having trouble relating to players, and I don't know why.

I think they should just make the game in response to the feedback they got and the beta feedback and stop paying attention to where the community is at right now.

[Shai]

Yeah see, I would say to them, why do you feel like you have to go for this all-in approach to these major revisions? There's no reason to be all-in on any of this stuff, which is how they're playing it. If they really don't want a risk they should sacrifice a little of this year (while none of the other 600,000 care) to redeeming the alpha/beta testing relationship they screwed up last year. Put up a test server and throw a functional version of what they've got up there and ask for feedback. It's not too late to do that. Why are they going to back themselves into a corner? They have nothing to lose by being a little more transparent and getting it right when it finally goes live. Plus, a test server would excite the community.



lol

Yeah, I mean I have hope, but I wish they would've not made such major plans based off the second player's poll, and made a greater effort to reach out to those 600,000 people for feedback beyond an email.

They probably aren't very pleased with the types of feedback they have gotten, particularly from North Americans. I'm not sure why everything SE does is met with such hostility rather than objective criticism. That's just how I see it. Look around the forums for more evidence. There is some great feedback out there, but you have to weed through the jerky retorts, the bad attitudes, the /ragequits, the threats, the insults.

Don't remember the "remove fatigue or I'm not buying your game?" campaign. Fatigue isn't even that bad, or a significant problem with the game.