Is 1.18 the final straw?

[Malakhim]

This whole thing reminds me of Windows Vista. MS gets comfortable, releases an OS that many consider to be beyond sub-par, and they try to rectify it with Win7.

I won't lie though. The tenth letter from the producer pretty much set my timetable in stone. If the game isn't up to speed by the end of summer, then I'll probably stop following it.

[Mireille]

We will add content, just give us time' phase, and I think most of the players are at that point. It's now or never!

Agreed that people are at that point. I'm just not sure its a realistic expectation. Introducing content that gets invalidated by game mechanics changes, or becomes too weak when the jobs system is implemented, won't win them any points with the players who enjoy that content.

End this crap and give the xi team the funds and support to create a master piece in the vision of xi and I bet they would turn out a game far more successful then this, even in the begining with their exp i bet it would be solid, the fundamentals would be there at least and xiv didnt even get that right.

There is nothing left to do in XI. What can be accomplished has been, ergo the level cap increase to 99 in order to set a new bar of accomplishments. And in so doing they invalidated a lot of other content like Beseiged, Campaign, Sky, and Limbus. They are also out running out of room on the PS2 hard drive hence the content updates that reuse old zones. Two server merges in the last year show that the XI player base is leaving. Not because XI isn't great, but because they have essentially beaten the game to a point that it holds no more interest to them. Now an XI-2 set 300 years in the future where you start over from scratch might be interesting, but I don't think that's what people mean when they say they want XI-2.

I won't lie though. The tenth letter from the producer pretty much set my timetable in stone. If the game isn't up to speed by the end of summer, then I'll probably stop following it.

I've seen a few people post that letter X outlines stuff they are putting out this summer. Letter X outlines a lot of things that they are working on 'up to this summer,' but a great many of those things were planning with implementation at a later phase. I took the letter to mean that a lot that of that stuff, like the mount system being planned, won't be out until after the summer is over. Potentially long after the summer is over depending on the work involved. Don't be surprised if some of it it is story driven as well, meaning content updates taking place prior to the introduction of those updates. For example consider the possibility of a mount system something like what the summons were in FF XIII. If they did something like that you would need content, like the primal battles, leading up to it. If it doesn't say implementation in phase 1 then don't set yourself up with an expectation you will have it by the end of August.

In comparison to XI in a way we are playing a game whose boundaries are the equivalent of having all the outdoor zones directly between the three cities up to but not including Jueno. We haven't begun to scratch the surface of what this game may encompass. I also get the impression those three cities are the boonies, and not the major metropolis of this game. When we get to see the empire the technology level of this game may change drastically. I think SE stated that this game was going to have a much higher level of technology than XI, but I have yet to see any player usable item that didn't in concept exist in XI. No weapons more modern than a muzzleloader for example. The Empire has high tech to be sure though. The storyline at this point seems more about creating a connection between the player and the region encompassing the three nations. The stars of the story have yet to appear on stage. Look at the world map, and you only seen one continent, oh but up in the corner is another landmass enshrouded by clouds. Notice that some of the ocean names are cut off by the edges of the maps too. Where is the polar ice or the tropical regions? We're living in a tiny corner of the world, and we don't even have full access to that corner yet, but we want to judge things as if that corner is all that will ever be.

I'm not trying to argue that we shouldn't expect then to make good on the promise of this game, but its going to require more patience imo. If you want date X to be the end all be all moment that your dreams get realized don't be surprised of those dreams get shattered by the code monkeys. Again we are playing a free game, so you can take a long break and come back when they say it is ready. Better to do that than burn out and never return in my honest opinion.

[Kiara]

Look at the world map, and you only seen one continent, oh but up in the corner is another landmass enshrouded by clouds. Notice that some of the ocean names are cut off by the edges of the maps too. Where is the polar ice or the tropical regions? We're living in a tiny corner of the world, and we don't even have full access to that corner yet, but we want to judge things as if that corner is all that will ever be.

Hi Mireille,

Good points. I would say one thing that *is* a big mistake, if what you're saying comes true (that the current continent we're on is just the starter areas, so to speak), is that there's already too much *wasted space* currently.

If we're the equivalent of Windy, Sandy and Bastok right now, they really screwed up. How many people go and SP at:

* Lynxpatch Pelt
* Larkscall
* Snakemolt
* Lichenweed
* Woad Whisper Canyon
* Oakwood
* Zanr'ak
* The Red Labyrinth
* Twin Pools
etc., etc.

The list goes on and on regarding how many UNUSED areas there are in this game right now. So if they open up a "Jeuno," it'll be pretty sad to see all these major chunks of our current landmass go unused.

The sad part is, let's say they "balance" the above areas and finally use them for Leves or it's actually usable for SP Parties... it'd still be a disappointment for some because those areas are all really the same Copy & Pasted Textures and Geometry as the current more traveled camps nearby.

Don't get me wrong, I want the visual, exciting distinct change of environments like when we went from our starting Cities to Jeuno, Yuhtunga Jungle, to Boyahda Tree and Castle Oztroja and Sky and Sea, etc., but I wonder what they'll do with SO MANY unused areas right now (that are mostly copy & pasted textures)? It'll be interesting.

[Mack]

Yea its horrible how many unused sections of map there is and no matter what they use them for it will never feel like you're actually going to new area since everything looks the same.

[Mireille]

Hi Mireille,

Good points. I would say one thing that *is* a big mistake, if what you're saying comes true (that the current continent we're on is just the starter areas, so to speak), is that there's already too much *wasted space* currently.

If we're the equivalent of Windy, Sandy and Bastok right now, they really screwed up. How many people go and SP at:

* Lynxpatch Pelt
* Larkscall
* Snakemolt
* Lichenweed
* Woad Whisper Canyon
* Oakwood
* Zanr'ak
* The Red Labyrinth
* Twin Pools
etc., etc.

I would guess the goal was to prevent one camp from being over camped like Kazham, or Gob Hill was in XI, but at the same time we do have exactly that problem at Nanawa Mines and Camp Horizon because people hate to travel to Gridania. What I don't know, because I can't do a '/sea all,' is how many people are really logged in at any given time, so maybe if the active player base goes up people will exp in those locations, or move back to their starter city in self defense.

At launch a lot of camps that are empty now were packed then. Players would use Tranquil or Nine Ives now if they didn't congregate in Ul'dah and have to run across 5 zones to get there. That's a soluble problem though, and the eventual addition of a mount system may open up some camps that no one uses now. Some camps are just absurdly hard to get too like the flux near camp tranquil being guarded by rank 80 dragons. If for example we get airships, or flying mounts of some sort, a large world becomes a lot smaller in terms of travel, and agro won't block us from even acquiring a flux. We also haven't begun to see real content updates so who is to say all that wasted space will be wasted in a year.

The flux system in place is similar to what they do in abyssea except Anima takes a dumb amount of time to regen considering its the only fast travel available. There is no eqivalent of the teleport crags, that you could tele-taxi to for 1k, at the middle point to Jeuno/Sandy/Valk and made getting to a pt much easier. We burn all our anima as it regens and run everywhere. It might make more sense to have anima work more like cruor where you earn it through a variety of mechanisms instead of over time, but at the same time I think its not intended to be the only system that gets you to a location quickly. It was just supposed to be a beginning, but then the other methods ended up in terminal delay mode.

Bottom line a lot of stuff that could have made those camps functional, and for that matter Gridania and LL as home bases functional, is now on hold, so people hang out in Ul'dah and overcamp the stuff nearby.

[Kiara]

At launch a lot of camps that are empty now were packed then. Players would use Tranquil or Nine Ives now if they didn't congregate in Ul'dah and have to run across 5 zones to get there. That's a soluble problem though, and the eventual addition of a mount system may open up some camps that no one uses now. Some camps are just absurdly hard to get too like the flux near camp tranquil being guarded by rank 80 dragons. If for example we get airships, or flying mounts of some sort, a large world becomes a lot smaller in terms of travel, and agro won't block us from even acquiring a flux. We also haven't begun to see real content updates so who is to say all that wasted space will be wasted in a year.

The flux system in place is similar to what they do in abyssea except Anima takes a dumb amount of time to regen considering its the only fast travel available. There is no eqivalent of the teleport crags, that you could tele-taxi to for 1k, at the middle point to Jeuno/Sandy/Valk and made getting to a pt much easier. We burn all our anima as it regens and run everywhere. It might make more sense to have anima work more like cruor where you earn it through a variety of mechanisms instead of over time, but at the same time I think its not intended to be the only system that gets you to a location quickly. It was just supposed to be a beginning, but then the other methods ended up in terminal delay mode.

Bottom line a lot of stuff that could have made those camps functional, and for that matter Gridania and LL as home bases functional, is now on hold, so people hang out in Ul'dah and overcamp the stuff nearby.

Hi Mireille,

Oh definitely. Yah, it seems like those rarer, unused camps I'm talking about were definitely for Level Cap Increase, or set aside for some expansion later, but like your flux example, most of the camps I'm talking about have R70 - 90 Mobs guarding them, and are basically unusable right now.

And even if they "rebalance" it later, and have lower Rank Mobs there, I worry that it'll still be a disappointment since those camps are mostly copy & pasted Textures and Geometry of earlier Camps (so that players suddenly able to go to, say, Lynxpatch Pelt, will feel really underwhelmed at the "New Camp," because it's just more of the same Black Shroud / Gridania textures (same grass, same vegetation, etc.).

(On a side note, it's sad that some mobs like the Doomvoid Guivre are unbalanced, because they look so cool! They have an attack that is epic enough to be worthy of being what a Black Mage / Conjurer's "Thunder IV" should look like! )

Just wondering what they'll do with these, because like you brought up earlier, I'm anxious to see new Continents and visually distinct zones from what we have now.

[Mireille]

Hi Mireille,

Oh definitely. Yah, it seems like those rarer, unused camps I'm talking about were definitely for Level Cap Increase, or set aside for some expansion later, but like your flux example, most of the camps I'm talking about have R70 - 90 Mobs guarding them, and are basically unusable right now.

In a sense its like you took la thiene plateau and made it five times as big by clone stamping it 4 times. You are right it would be neat if the higher level camps had unique features or each zones sub-regions had their own unique character. It sounds like we are getting that with the new camps in a patch soon, and hopefully that's the first of many similar updates.

To me right now FFXIV has a lot of little things wrong with it, and when you add them all together collectively they create something below the standards people have for the franchise. Little things should be correctable though, and it seems to me like they have been correcting them over time. Too many of the players want it to happen all at once, and have no concept of what software development takes. This isn't a small software project either. MS Word doesn't need play balancing, content updates, or anti bot/rmt taskforces.

They took care of some of the major problems, like the non functional wards, and the broken targeting system, so I see no reason to think that over time the remaining issues won't be addressed. Its just not going to happen with a wave of a magic wand. There was a recent post titled something like 'if you could have 1 wish' and only 1 person in 18 pages said they wanted an auction house, so SE must have done something right with their ward fixes. At launch the wards were about the worst thing in the game, and now it seems like they are a non-issue. Well ok some will only accept a traditional AH no matter how well the wards work, but SE undoubtedly isn't wasting effort tweaking the wards for that subset of the players. Targeting is no worse now than it was in XI, and people live with that to this day. What most people seemed to want were specific content items like mounts, mog houses, and challenging battles. Yoshi-P is just starting to bring that in. I say 6 months to a year to finish fixing the game, and if you cant hack that take a break. Those fixes will include some new content that realizes this teams artistic vision for the game, so it won't just be the same boring leve over and over.

[Mack]

They took care of some of the major problems, like the non functional wards, and the broken targeting system, so I see no reason to think that over time the remaining issues won't be addressed.

If that's the case I hope those aren't a sign of things to come.