Simplicity over complexity, time to change.

[skaterger]

Quite frankly I don't give a rat's ass about PF. Everyone is, in fact, possible of building their own party. We see it all the time in the form of "Brayflox Sol Farm - NOT SR". I can't count the number of tears I've seen drop from players crying about not getting into parties. There is no rule or even vague notion that you are required to join someone elses party... Again, PF & DF are making this into an anti-social single player RPG. Here is a tip to prevent this: Socialize, make friends, find people who like to play the way you do as there are bound to be others, at least for now.

You don't give a damn about PF, that's cool but since its a tool that is implemented, you cannot expect players not to use it. You like to walk 15 minutes to get to the instance's entrance, I don't and enjoy the convenience of entering from wherever I am in the game world. I don't think PF makes the game anti social at all. All it does is to eliminate the need for shouting and spamming for party invites in city hubs. I am in a group for coil, but thank you for asking. As a raid leader previously, there is no such thing as play as you want. If there is a way to make the encounter easier, you will choose that option. Unless you choose to build a campfire and host a dance party around Melusine, no group that is in the very least progression minded will not choose to farm that gear to totally trivialize that encounter making the whole gear/combat system balance out of whack.

There is no reason that an MMO has to have perfect balance, none of them do anyhow. A little irregularity is really nice in creating inadvertent dynamics. FFXI was riddled with it, WoW is among the worst, Aion Clerics could solo almost any endgame dungeon. One thing that these all share in common? They were waaaay more fun in their prime time. The only thing that imbalance really hurts everyone in is PvP. I mean sure, it was disappointing that I couldn't get EXP parties as BLM in XI's ToAU but that lead the BLMs to creating epic manaburns or soloing mobs that would normally wipe an entire party of melee. My point is, there is no diversity at all in XIV and that is it's largest problem.

There is absolutely every reason for an MMO to be balanced, pve or otherwise. It is ok for single player rpg not to be balanced because you are only dealing with NPCs and not human players. Imagine if there is a class in ARR that deals 20% more damage than the rest of the classes. Everyone would be playing that and nothing else. Imagine levelling a class to 50 and finding out there hey, we don't want you because X and Y class is better than you. Must be a nice feeling huh. The diversity in FFXIV comes from skill, and that really should be the defining factor in any mmo.



First let me fix this for you.

That's almost perfect, they added one encounter that you had to adapt for. It didn't stay stagnantly like this for the rest of the content, they added a layer of something and created depth. It means you had to work towards and prepare for one fight in order to defeat it. That is what I'd call adding depth, dimension and building an experience for your players. Because what do we have now? Go in, cross your fingers people know the fight and have low latency. If they don't, you lose, if they do you win? That's not a shallow experience at all...

Yes because AOEing down a bunch of small elementals over and over again which pose no challenge at all so you can finally do the real encounter which "cross your fingers and know the fights" is really building an experience huh. Can I have some of what you are smoking?

[Kazama]

You don't give a damn about PF, that's cool but since its a tool that is implemented, you cannot expect players not to use it. You like to walk 15 minutes to get to the instance's entrance, I don't and enjoy the convenience of entering from wherever I am in the game world. I don't think PF makes the game anti social at all. All it does is to eliminate the need for shouting and spamming for party invites in city hubs. I am in a group for coil, but thank you for asking. As a raid leader previously, there is no such thing as play as you want. If there is a way to make the encounter easier, you will choose that option. Unless you choose to build a campfire and host a dance party around Melusine, no group that is in the very least progression minded will not choose to farm that gear to totally trivialize that encounter making the whole gear/combat system balance out of whack.

Do I like walking for 15 minutes for no reason? No. Do I like a challenge in getting to an instance first? Yes. Have you ever played a game that required you to travel through dangerous territory every time you want to run an instance? I really don't see your point about making raid content easier either, sure of course people will want to take the easier road, for that one piece of content. If that means I have to spend a week or a month acquiring the necessary tools to do one fight, that would be a godsend in contrast to: beat previous raid > queue new raid > log off for 7 days. Do you like to simply rush from one endgame instance to the next with nothing in between? Unless the only thing you have ever experienced is instanced raids and know no other way I don't see how anyone in their right mind would love that.

There is absolutely every reason for an MMO to be balanced, pve or otherwise. It is ok for single player rpg not to be balanced because you are only dealing with NPCs and not human players. Imagine if there is a class in ARR that deals 20% more damage than the rest of the classes. Everyone would be playing that and nothing else. Imagine levelling a class to 50 and finding out there hey, we don't want you because X and Y class is better than you. Must be a nice feeling huh. The diversity in FFXIV comes from skill, and that really should be the defining factor in any mmo.

Um.... MNKs do deal about 20% more DMG than any other class when equally geared, cmon, you should know this with that High Allagan book. Imagine leveling a class and finding out people don't like it? Clearly you don't play that BLM of yours or have never played WoW, FFXI, RIFT, Aion, Tera. Again, you failed to read "Prefectly balanced" and you're stretching to extremes for examples. Skill in a game that requires next to none being the defining factor? What kind of drab and shallow rollfaceonkeyboard game did you come from oh former raid leader? All these grand ideas of what an MMO is or should be but have you played anything outside of WoW or one of it's clones? It really sounds like all you're interested in or ever experienced is raiding and you know no other kind of content outside of it. Open your eyes and look around at the world. No MMO is perfectly balanced or ever will be, nowhere is there a level playing field, never will we be without exclusion for one reason or another, there is more to MMOs than raiding. You're completely delusional, If anyone is high my friend, it's you over there in the rose colored glasses.

[skaterger]

Do I like walking for 15 minutes for no reason? No. Do I like a challenge in getting to an instance first? Yes. Have you ever played a game that required you to travel through dangerous territory every time you want to run an instance? I really don't see your point about making raid content easier either, sure of course people will want to take the easier road, for that one piece of content. If that means I have to spend a week or a month acquiring the necessary tools to do one fight, that would be a godsend in contrast to: beat previous raid > queue new raid > log off for 7 days. Do you like to simply rush from one endgame instance to the next with nothing in between? Unless the only thing you have ever experienced is instanced raids and know no other way I don't see how anyone in their right mind would love that.

I remember when I was level 30+ in Vanilla Wow.I had to walk for 15 minutes through Theramore Isle, across the Barrens, took the elevator down, across Southern Barrens and partway into Mulgore to get to Razorfen Downs. The first time was pretty epic, seeing the vast stretch of desert land, the roaming vultures and the wandering quillboar. The second time was pretty good too. The third time, not so much. By the fifth time, I was putting my character on auto run and surfing the web while checking back every minute or so to make sure I didn't die. Seeing that we needed at least 2 players at the summoning stone to summon the rest of the party to the instance, everyone didn't want to make the 15 minute trek on foot that they have made hundereds of times previously. Oh and don't get me wrong, there were dangerous monsters along the way, elites in packs of 4 or 5 that could 1 shot you along the way. But guess what we did, we just ran past them. On a related note, many players all purposely killed themselves so they could get to the other side of the map faster when they respawned. People do not want to run through the same place they had over and over again, and that was what lead to expert, then artisan and flying mounts and finally DF. You see, many of us don't have to be visually motivated (i.e. seeing the game world or other people around us constantly) to make us feel like we are immersed or invested in an MMO. We can run an instance and realize that there are thousands of others in the game world. To assume that others must see things the way you do or they are playing the game wrong is downright obnoxious.

You see, when you talk about rushing through content, you just don't get the point. My aim was never to rush through content, we are a semi casual group, our members often have real life commitments which lead to last minute cancellations. Our bard has isp issues that we have to cancel at least once a week. I feel comfortable at this pace because it fits my schedule because I no longer have 12 hours to burn straight like I did 10 years ago. Even though I can clear SCOB in 1 day now, I still find myself occupied with lots of other things to do in game; dailies, crafting, pvp, collecting glamour, hunts etc. Just because you refuse to do certain things because you deem them as "not your vision of what an mmo should be" doesn't mean that it is wrong or others feel the same way. You also neglect that these "1 day a week" raiders comprise of less than 1% of the entire playerbase. Many are still happily engaged working on T8 and T9, so its not as if they have a lack of things to do. Many don't give a flying hoot about raids and are still enjoying themselves doing other things. Their opinion means no less than yours as they are paying the same subscription fee.

Um.... MNKs do deal about 20% more DMG than any other class when equally geared, cmon, you should know this with that High Allagan book. Imagine leveling a class and finding out people don't like it? Clearly you don't play that BLM of yours or have never played WoW, FFXI, RIFT, Aion, Tera. Again, you failed to read "Prefectly balanced" and you're stretching to extremes for examples. Skill in a game that requires next to none being the defining factor? What kind of drab and shallow rollfaceonkeyboard game did you come from oh former raid leader? All these grand ideas of what an MMO is or should be but have you played anything outside of WoW or one of it's clones? It really sounds like all you're interested in or ever experienced is raiding and you know no other kind of content outside of it. Open your eyes and look around at the world. No MMO is perfectly balanced or ever will be, nowhere is there a level playing field, never will we be without exclusion for one reason or another, there is more to MMOs than raiding. You're completely delusional, If anyone is high my friend, it's you over there in the rose colored glasses.

An equally skilled monk will only deal 20% more damage than a Drg in T8, and only if they are able to get constant peons and are relieved of duties to keep GL3 up. A monk can never deal 20% more damage than me in T9, I promise you that. You might need to tell the other DPS in your group to step things up a notch. Um..if you want to get into semantics, okay, I concede, no game will ever be perfectly balanced. That does not mean that games should never try and let balance run riot. As much as you disagree, I think the game is pretty well balanced atm. This game isn't hard? Ok keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel any better. I guess you've cleared savage coil then. I come from a guild that was the server second for Sunwell in BC (you can check this character on the server Dath'Remar). Is this game hard? Hell no. I don't think any mmo that I played in the last 5 years I found hard. Anyone that has played mmo or games in general for a long time would have picked up a basic skillset that applies to most games. The skills that I use now are the same ones I picked up 20 years ago when I first started playing my first pc game. I wished I played FFXI or 1.23, then I would be qualified to tell you that it is not hard. Sadly I didn't, so I can't say that but I wish someone that played those can come in here and say it.

I guess you never rolled a shadow priest or ret paladin in bc, cause they were never invited to raids. I also read the same thing about some XI classes, though I never see you people admit it. I guess it doesn't matter so long as it doesn't happen to you. Screw the noobs, so long as I play an OP class, the rest can go to hell. I'll just be as OPed as I want.

[Felessan]

Reading through a lot of the dev trackers and notice a trend of favoring to answers questions about vanity, housing, chocobo's, etc.

People in general like these topics a lot.

But avoiding the more potent topics.

Buffer/debuffer jobs was already explained in details as unnecessary complexity. We already have a number of buffs/debuffs split across different classes. And what you want is actually simplifying game as you'll no longer need to think about party organization to get desired buffs/debuffs.

Many are still happily engaged working on T8 and T9, so its not as if they have a lack of things to do.

I know quite a lot of people who still "works" on their Twintania kills. They don't really cares about "game should be difficult" though, they are just casuals that spend some time in game.

I think part of the problem is that MMOs have become built around progression of some sort. We're lead through what often times amount to a un-engaging trek to the endgame which is often times revolves around gearscore, instances, etc...

People needs motivation and goal, not just social bonds. Otherwise most will have a serious doubt - "why pay a subscription fee, when I can get the same in F2P... oh well, I can chat with friends in Skype, I even not need MMO for that".
MMO converges back to usual games, where game should be interesting, somewhat challenging (but not grindy or insanely difficult right off the start) and quality made. And social interaction is just a nice addition.
Otherwise it'll be a niche game for niche people.

In contrast 2.0's Castrum Meridanum is: Queue DF, run through it as fast as possible ignoring the fact half the players don't even know their jobs.

Answer = i100 as ilvl trumps all else.

There are a number of cases where it's not true, not on a weapon side though.

Were armor and weapons able to be made augmentable by a crafter and later augmented by the owner it would create a lucrative market and a gil sink for every player type so long as obtaining them was relatively easy, say something like materia or augment drops in L50 dungeons. This adds incentive for the content, creates a sustainable market and an actual purpose for gil.

And leads to typical for FFXI situation "buy to win" and segregation and elitism when you either have large sums of money or you have not.
A small portion of people are entrepreneurs and many does not have time/dedication to farm for hours, so for them even a million gil already a sizable amount of money. And million gil for actual gear in FFXIV is nothing, crafted and fully melded ilvl70 accessory cost 1 mil per piece in 2.0. Fully melded Saurian/Cashmere/etc gear in 2.2 priced at 2+ mil. T4 crit/det materia on my server priced at 350-400+k per piece, making "optimal" 44/31 crit/det Novus be priced at around 10 millions.
And this is when only most hardcore and dedicated spend money on relatively unneeded and marginal upgrades, if they are become actual upgrades the prices will go up even more and we will see FFXI again. Where you are a gimp without HQ staves, but they are priced so high, that you requires weeks/months of casual farm to gets them.

So we can count out anything lucrative or repetitive gil sinks, any kind of rare sellable world drops or the ability to low man farm content for rare instance drops, basically 1/4 of what makes MMOs fun and rewarding...

There are actually a lot of things that are very expensive, can be exploited by RMT and quite popular (so they have nice liquidity). They just moved out of actual battle content to avoid creating segregation. Rare minions cost fortune, materials for many glamour items/fancy furniture are very expensive, but they can be obtain through simple grind, a lengthy one though.

[Tupsi]

Buffer/debuffer jobs was already explained in details as unnecessary complexity.

Issue is though, our debuffs are "after the fact" deuffs. The only direct debuffs we have are from Warlo...Summo....Arcanist, everything else is on weaponskill use or a "combo" - Someone who specializes in it would go a long way to adding depth to this game. It's not even 'complex', it just ...makes the game not feel so mundane battlewise. I mean Maplestory has more depth to its gameplay in comparison and anyone who's played it knows that's just a spam fest.

And leads to typical for FFXI situation "buy to win" and segregation and elitism when you either have large sums of money or you have not

You do realize this exists in XIV right now, right? It's not a 'FFXI situation" because FFXI was not the first nor last MMO to exist.

[Kazama]

I guess you never rolled a shadow priest or ret paladin in bc, cause they were never invited to raids. I also read the same thing about some XI classes, though I never see you people admit it.

No, I didn't, I "rolled" a Frost Mage, hit 65 in three days and gave my account away for free.

You just repeated my point... Every game has classes that nobody wants, oh well, adapt. Debating this any further with you is utterly pointless as you have no wider experience to pull from other than WoW. Not trying to say I'm better than you or that my opinion somehow counts more because i've played half a dozen MMOs over the span of almost two decades. What I'm saying is that your opinion is biased because you have never experienced a horizontal progression. I get that you're in love with XIV that's great, it is a really good game for casual MMO players who are on their first or second MMOs and I will not deny that. That doesn't mean I myself have to like the ease or simplicity of it and can't ask for something more does it?

Don't get me wrong either, I don't hate this game. I'm honestly just legitimately sad that they decided to throw away every good piece of FFXI and XIV 1.0 along with the few bad elements and replace it with something that has no soul at all. I mean, sorry to poke fun but have you ever heard the term "Through rose colored glasses"? I can't help but find your view and you glamour incredibly ironic. I'm done now, enjoy the game

[skaterger]

No, I didn't, I "rolled" a Frost Mage, hit 65 in three days and gave my account away for free.

You just repeated my point... Every game has classes that nobody wants, oh well, adapt. Debating this any further with you is utterly pointless as you have no wider experience to pull from other than WoW. Not trying to say I'm better than you or that my opinion somehow counts more because i've played half a dozen MMOs over the span of almost two decades. What I'm saying is that your opinion is biased because you have never experienced a horizontal progression. I get that you're in love with XIV that's great, it is a really good game for casual MMO players who are on their first or second MMOs and I will not deny that. That doesn't mean I myself have to like the ease or simplicity of it and can't ask for something more does it?

Don't get me wrong either, I don't hate this game. I'm honestly just legitimately sad that they decided to throw away every good piece of FFXI and XIV 1.0 along with the few bad elements and replace it with something that has no soul at all. I mean, sorry to poke fun but have you ever heard the term "Through rose colored glasses"? I can't help but find your view and you glamour incredibly ironic. I'm done now, enjoy the game

I wonder if you ever played the game Ragnarok Online? Played that game for many years too. You could have an creator deal a massive amount of damage to an mvp or a monk cast asura strike which can 1 shot some mvps. As such, classes like sin cross and alchemist were highly sought after while rogues were never brought to mvp parties. Also yeah, my magnus exorcismus priest could only solo places like Glast Helm and Nameless Island cause all I could kill was undead. Hated that. Took me about 2 months to farm for str accessories and 3x hydra card before I could duo stormy knight with a friend. I've played games with horizontal progression, it just got tedious after a while. Many of these games were f2p games and couldn't produce content fast enough so horizontal progression was a way to make content last longer.

The glasses pun were good, if only they were true And nah, I don't "love" ARR, if I did I would never have left to try Wildstar. I also think the game is far from perfect, as seen from suggestions I made earlier in this thread and http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...rove-ARR/page4. Sadly, the 1.23 and XI apologists seem to be demanding that ARR be either their way (XI and 1.23 clone) or the highway. I have no choice but to choose the lesser of 2 evils.