Battle Reform: Enmity (07/06/2011)

[Spellstar]

Players don't need a meter to tell them what to do, cause if one decides to cast that nuke and the boss burls over and spanks their ass, you can be damned sure the next time they face that mob, they'll cast the DoT instead...there's your meter ~ "Common Sense"

And as its been said already, in XI where no meter or means to really tell what a mob is going to do next has been quite successful for 9 yrs, why is it suddenly needed now!? It was not hard to get a jist of what was going on, by watching the mobs movements, and how it reacted to what spells you cast and what the PT members did.

Like for instance as a heal-bot myself back in the day and we'll use the dunes as an example. When I cast cure several times on the tank, the goblins would keep turning to face me, showing it was pissed off I was healing its target, sometimes it would start to make a run at and whack me. And as a healer you can't take that more than two or three times...common sense kicks in hard...maybe I should wait a few moments longer between heals so my enmity doesn't rise so fast and that goblin don't run over to thwack me again!

WALL OF TEXT APOLOGY

You say its common sense but thats not playing in the real world. Not everyone has common sense for a start but that not really my point.

With no meter, you dont know wether to cast the nuke or not - if you have common sense you will know roughly if its gonna draw hate - i agree.
So if you have common sense and decide not to cast a nuke for fear of drawing hate, without a meter you will never know if that was REALLY the right choice. It may have been that you could have successfully casted the nuke and taken a big chunk of HP from the mob, but because you had no meter, you held back a bit "just in case".

As i said originally, a meter empowers players to make wise choices not based on "common sense" as you put it, because even ppl with common sense still pull hate and die.

Anyway, the devs obviously think its a good idea, i agree with them. IM not an 'EZ Mode' player in mmo's and i genuinely dont think this will make the game easy. It will add another layer of strategy and help people make informed choices.

People are scared of progress it seems. Progress is what this game needs, while holding true to traditional FF values and experiences. As Yoshi said, the game being awkward to play or difficult for 'difficulty's sake' does not make a good game, and it does not make you any more skilled a player either.

If progress is not achieved soon then you wont have flashing red dots to argue about anyway, they wont be there. So well done FFXIV i'm in your corner guys. Make this game a modern FF to be proud of ! And modern players will come flocking, and the game will thrive.

One last point to Khalus in particular:

And as its been said already, in XI where no meter or means to really tell what a mob is going to do next has been quite successful for 9 yrs, why is it suddenly needed now!?

Conversely, just because it has been "successful" (questionable as the game doesn't really have a huge player base by modern standards) in the past, it does not mean that adding functionality will make the game any worse either. IF threat meters had been added to FFXI it would not have flopped, and once FFXIV is ship-shape and Bristol fashion, with all its modern elements, neither will this game.


People need to stop wishing for an intense modern replacement for FFXI - THAT IS NOT THE DIRECTION THEY ARE TAKING THIS GAME IN - THOSE GAMES DO NOT MAKE THE BIG MONEY.
You can still have a slightly more user friendly game which will please more people and keep the servers vibrant, while holding true to the fantasy, excitement and strategy of the FF series.

Killing your players with 11 hour boss battles etc is not good bizaness !

Like it or not. Vote with your feet.

[Khalus]

As i said originally, a meter empowers players to make wise choices not based on "common sense" as you put it, because even ppl with common sense still pull hate and die.

Then we die and "learned" something by "playing" the game, not by being told what to, when to or how to. There is no enmity meter in any other MMO that I'm aware of and I've played hundreds. You learn what mobs do by playing and if you die as a result, then so be it, death penalties all but don't exist anymore in the modern MMOs so who cares! You get back up and try again, only differently until you learn the pattern and what works best!

With a colored meter indicating whether its ok to go with the Nuke or a simple DoT, or whatever else; thats just blatantly telling one how to play the game instead of letting us decide and learn by consequence.

[Linkurrra]

Then we die and "learned" something by "playing" the game, not by being told what to, when to or how to. There is no enmity meter in any other MMO that I'm aware of and I've played hundreds. You learn what mobs do by playing and if you die as a result, then so be it, death penalties all but don't exist anymore in the modern MMOs so who cares! You get back up and try again, only differently until you learn the pattern and what works best!

With a colored meter indicating whether its ok to go with the Nuke or a simple DoT, or whatever else; thats just blatantly telling one how to play the game instead of letting us decide and learn by consequence.

Bah, this color meter is not accurate enough to tell you to do anything. It just "indicates" your getting a little careless and need to ease off. Why should a party wipe 4-5 times before they get it right.... Figuring it out?

I don't know how many parties you been in but after 2-3 wipes most party members bail, find an excuse to leave or just disconnect from rage /quit! lol

The only way you won't suffer from this PuP (Pickup Party) mentality is if you are with friends or a static group all the time. Then you all know each other and are more understanding of mistakes or have a flow and nuance by working together before.

With a meter, you have a chance to pull it together if the when things go downwind from a donkey's rear. (Yay for metaphors without swearing! lol) Without, your face is in the sand asking for someone for a <Raise>. Unless you in that hard to find static party that everybody wants :P

If you have that kind of support group with you all the time, more power to ya! But the rest of us on the server were not so lucky. Prolley because your LS couldn't fit anymore members in it! LOL (C'mon SE seriously?)

[Zanfire]

WALL OF TEXT APOLOGY

You say its common sense but thats not playing in the real world. Not everyone has common sense for a start but that not really my point.

With no meter, you dont know wether to cast the nuke or not - if you have common sense you will know roughly if its gonna draw hate - i agree.
So if you have common sense and decide not to cast a nuke for fear of drawing hate, without a meter you will never know if that was REALLY the right choice. It may have been that you could have successfully casted the nuke and taken a big chunk of HP from the mob, but because you had no meter, you held back a bit "just in case".

As i said originally, a meter empowers players to make wise choices not based on "common sense" as you put it, because even ppl with common sense still pull hate and die.

Anyway, the devs obviously think its a good idea, i agree with them. IM not an 'EZ Mode' player in mmo's and i genuinely dont think this will make the game easy. It will add another layer of strategy and help people make informed choices.

People are scared of progress it seems. Progress is what this game needs, while holding true to traditional FF values and experiences. As Yoshi said, the game being awkward to play or difficult for 'difficulty's sake' does not make a good game, and it does not make you any more skilled a player either.

If progress is not achieved soon then you wont have flashing red dots to argue about anyway, they wont be there. So well done FFXIV i'm in your corner guys. Make this game a modern FF to be proud of ! And modern players will come flocking, and the game will thrive.

One last point to Khalus in particular:


Conversely, just because it has been "successful" (questionable as the game doesn't really have a huge player base by modern standards) in the past, it does not mean that adding functionality will make the game any worse either. IF threat meters had been added to FFXI it would not have flopped, and once FFXIV is ship-shape and Bristol fashion, with all its modern elements, neither will this game.


People need to stop wishing for an intense modern replacement for FFXI - THAT IS NOT THE DIRECTION THEY ARE TAKING THIS GAME IN - THOSE GAMES DO NOT MAKE THE BIG MONEY.
You can still have a slightly more user friendly game which will please more people and keep the servers vibrant, while holding true to the fantasy, excitement and strategy of the FF series.

Killing your players with 11 hour boss battles etc is not good bizaness !

Like it or not. Vote with your feet.

Sorry but your first part makes no sense. The meter wont tell you when its ok to nuke, you still have to decide that, you wont "hold back" more or less with or without that meter...it will only tell you the results right after. After so many nukes, sure, you can see "maybe i shouldnt do that next one since the meter says red". SO its actually backwards, the meter will hold you back. For me that just seems unessicary, .

And your quite wrong about the second bit, the games like FFXI are the only ones (aside from WoW, which is sort of the middle ground) that actually last and hold a heafty amount of players for YEARS. Can you name an MMO since WoW that has lasted with a pretty big amount of subs and has not gone F2P or shut down? Cause i cant.

Todays MMOs are built to be about quick play, fast leveling, easy to learn, not as difficult so everyone can do things like endgame. They can't keep those hardcore around because they burn through it too quick and find it easy and the casuals never play as long as hardcore...its not like they have long and difficult things that make either stick around.

[Spellstar]

Sorry but your first part makes no sense. The meter wont tell you when its ok to nuke, you still have to decide that, you wont "hold back" more or less with or without that meter...it will only tell you the results right after. After so many nukes, sure, you can see "maybe i shouldnt do that next one since the meter says red". SO its actually backwards, the meter will hold you back. For me that just seems unessicary, .

And your quite wrong about the second bit, the games like FFXI are the only ones (aside from WoW, which is sort of the middle ground) that actually last and hold a heafty amount of players for YEARS. Can you name an MMO since WoW that has lasted with a pretty big amount of subs and has not gone F2P or shut down? Cause i cant.

FFXI isnt since WoW its before so not sure what you're saying there? If youre saying that hard MMO's last and make big money then you are wrong. FFXI Has a SMALL population. Its been around 500,000 mark for years. there have been lots of mmo's since WoW though that have lasted and not gone free to play. Aion is one which hold just over 3 million subs (including Korea) and it is not a difficult game at all.

Lord of the rings online is another example of a great fantasy game that is not difficult for the sake of being difficult. (You say that hasn't gone free 2 play, and lord of the rings online isnt really free to play, the first 20 levels are free (much like WoW's first 20 levels are now free) before you need to start buying content.) Lineage 2 is another example, and while its grindy I wouldn't call it difficult.

So IMO my point stands that people want games with more modern features that aren't unnecessarily difficult for the sake of it.

Thankfully the director of FFXIV is on the same side of the fence as me, so im going to enjoy playing FFXIV as it evolves.

You, however, are just going to get more and more bitter about it i feel.

[Zanfire]

FFXI isnt since WoW its before so not sure what you're saying there? If youre saying that hard MMO's last and make big money then you are wrong. FFXI Has a SMALL population. Its been around 500,000 mark for years. there have been lots of mmo's since WoW though that have lasted and not gone free to play. Aion is one which hold just over 3 million subs (including Korea) and it is not a difficult game at all.

Lord of the rings online is another example of a great fantasy game that is not difficult for the sake of being difficult. (You say that hasn't gone free 2 play, and lord of the rings online isnt really free to play, the first 20 levels are free (much like WoW's first 20 levels are now free) before you need to start buying content.) Lineage 2 is another example, and while its grindy I wouldn't call it difficult.

So IMO my point stands that people want games with more modern features that aren't unnecessarily difficult for the sake of it.

Thankfully the director of FFXIV is on the same side of the fence as me, so im going to enjoy playing FFXIV as it evolves.

You, however, are just going to get more and more bitter about it i feel.

First off FFXI, having 500k steady subs for this many years IS good, especially pre-wow, when having 1 mil subs was fricken amazing, especially when there is how many other games keeping that rate nowadays? 2 tops? LOTR went F2P pretty quick (fully F2P, you should look into it) http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/vipchart.html (if you need some proof)

As for Aion...well most of their subs come from Korea http://mmodata.wordpress.com/2011/02/ So im not even going to bother arguing that part.

SO other then Aion (which is basically a big korean game) can you name another that holds 500k steady for even a few years?

None of the big recent games seem to be doing it, Warhammer, STO, DCU..not doing so hot...and a bunch of the rest went F2P. Rift may be the only thing, i havent seen much from it, except people saying its pretty much WoW 1.5.

[Capita]

First off FFXI, having 500k steady subs for this many years IS good, especially pre-wow, when having 1 mil subs was fricken amazing, especially when there is how many other games keeping that rate nowadays? 2 tops? LOTR went F2P pretty quick (fully F2P, you should look into it) http://www.lotro.com/betasignup/vipchart.html (if you need some proof)

As for Aion...well most of their subs come from Korea http://mmodata.wordpress.com/2011/02/ So im not even going to bother arguing that part.

SO other then Aion (which is basically a big korean game) can you name another that holds 500k steady for even a few years?

None of the big recent games seem to be doing it, Warhammer, STO, DCU..not doing so hot...and a bunch of the rest went F2P. Rift may be the only thing, i havent seen much from it, except people saying its pretty much WoW 1.5.

Now take 500,000 and multiply that by about 10, and you have WoW's active playerbase.

Now take that 5,000,000 and subtract 5%, and you have WoW's world top players.

That's 250,000 people, half of the entire FFXI population (of what amount I don't know are actually active), who are very skilled at gaming. They all use threat meters. I'm about 99% sure that top 5% in the world are more skilled at gaming than a good amount of the people saying threat meters are for idiots who can't think for themselves.

[Zanfire]

Now take 500,000 and multiply that by about 10, and you have WoW's active playerbase.

Now take that 5,000,000 and subtract 5%, and you have WoW's world top players.

That's 250,000 people, half of the entire FFXI population (of what amount I don't know are actually active), who are very skilled at gaming. They all use threat meters. I'm about 99% sure that top 5% in the world are more skilled at gaming than a good amount of the people saying threat meters are for idiots who can't think for themselves.

where this came from who the heck knows, you clearly never read our argument...so yah...

[Malakhim]

Guys, the internet is easy mode. Get your asses to a library, you lazy dorks.

Why back in my day *mumble* *mumble*... ZzzZzzZzz