Urgently Change your Approach SE

[BreathlessTao]

I've said this in another thread, but gonna post it here too, because, for cryin' out loud, it is as valid as ever....

Communication between devs and players has been such a cornerstone of FFXIV (lack of it in 1.0 and emphasis of it in ARR), so, really, whatever happened to that? Extensively, why do us, non-Japanese players, have to feel like we're just ignored, time and time again? /Frankly, for whatever reason, I'm still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they are listening to the feedback on the forums - the Japanese forums, that is, and the Japanese forums only./

Also the issue this /"personal" housing/ managed to fester, on the other hand, is the serious concern we now have: the game is just one year old, and we've already heard server/infrastructure limitations as the main reason way too often for so many things getting limited or outright not implemented at all. Is this how it's gonna be, is this what's down the road for ARR? Because if it is, then we might as well start thinking about designing the coffin and the gravestone of the game.

On another, but somewhat related note, /I would/ ask him if he enjoys gating content. Because for 2+ million players, with a casual nature of the game being emphasised so much (everyone's able to play the way they want, in a tempo they want), we sure as hell are being cornered and put into grindmills over and over and over again.

Hard restrictions:

• gardening - have a high enough ranked FC with deep enough coffers to afford the necessary facilities
• chocobo training - have a high enough ranked FC with deep enough coffers to afford the necessary facilities
• colouring your chocobo - have a high enough ranked FC with deep enough coffers to afford the necessary facilities
• glamour - prisms: lv50 DoH classes
• glamour - gear: lv50 DoH/DoL classes /additionally: why do they even have HQ variants??/
• extreme primals: good luck doing any of them beyond Garuda (and even that is a gamble) with PUGs
• Coil: good luck doing any of it beyond T3 (and even those are a gamble) with PUGs

Gil sinks:

• housing - no comment, personal or FC doesn't even make any difference
• glamour - gear: full HQ AF for your DoL/DoH classes and better have it all overmelded, else don't even think of creating/finding most stuff
• glamour - prisms: the price of those is just insane considering what they do (but probably thanks to the nonsensical requirement to craft them) /Ok, not really a "sink", gil goes from player to player, but considering the fact that we have to spend on it until we have all our DoHs at 50...../
• Novus and basically anything that requires materia - if you take the "easier" route

Time sinks:

• FATEs: whatever it is for, having to camp often hours just to complete one FATE is anything but fun
• glamour - gear: don't want to / can't pay for a certain piece, good luck desynthing items until you finally get it
• relic weapons: anything from atma onwards is a mindless grindfest
• Novus and anything that requires materia - if you take the "cheaper" route

RNG:

• crafting HQ (or even NQ in some cases) items beyond lv50
• gathering HQ (or even NQ in some cases) items beyond lv50
• atma
• all the loot rolls (absolutely no way to influence "luck" even in the slightest amount)
• chocobo colouring (just ridiculous, as if it wasn't gated enough already)
• Novus and anything that requires materia - if you take the "cheaper" route

...obviously these lists aren't complete (only the ones I personally know/care about), and are, individually, not long either. But if you consider all of them together, a generic casual player will have a hard time deciding which one to spend their limited time on to work for (and that's considering they aren't locked out of content by any of the hard restrictions). And I don't think it takes a genius to see that, perhaps, not everyone wants to spend their every online minute just throwing themselves at one of these contents. I also agree that some of these are perfectly fine as they are (a rookie lv50 shouldn't be able to complete T9 blindfolded); but most of them are just arbitrary gates to content that should be fun, content that should be enjoyed by everybody. And these lists keep growing, it's already alienating people, forcing them into quitting. Which is something they should be concerned about right now, in my opinion, if they don't want an early funeral to ARR.

So, yeah, if I /could/, I'd try to highlight these things to him. To take his mind off "personal housing" prices, because that's what he seems way too hung up on as the primary (and secondary) issue here./ Obviously too much at once and most probably needs some thinking and even then would be too long to reply to. But he should start thinking about it. And when he's done thinking about it, he could perhaps give us answers in a nice long Letter from the Producer.

...because basically this is what "poor implementations" (read: disappointments) usually come down to: arbitrary gating and/or their hardware limitations. And for someone loving this game and being passionate about it, it's worrying as ××××.

[ajx]

I have to agree with the topic title.

[Darki]

Honestly my only peeve is Yoshi-P calling his obvious and blatant lie an "extremely unclear" comment (BULL!!! It was a lie! Pure and simple!) I wouldn't be nearly as irked about it if he came clean a month earlier and just said "I'm sorry I won't be able to keep my promise. I tried" I would of respected him for doing so.

[Purrfectstorm]

I'd love it if SE would go a little less daily crazy. I'm going to log on everyday anyway. I'd really like it if it didn't take several hours of doing dailies to get to the fun.

[Fornix]

Communication between devs and players has been such a cornerstone of FFXIV (lack of it in 1.0 and emphasis of it in ARR), so, really, whatever happened to that? Extensively, why do us, non-Japanese players, have to feel like we're just ignored, time and time again? /Frankly, for whatever reason, I'm still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they are listening to the feedback on the forums - the Japanese forums, that is, and the Japanese forums only./

As a European player myself I feel the level of interaction by devs towards us is actually still relatively high. It's more than numerous other MMO's out there and it's certainly greater than what the current biggest competitor had to offer. What people do need to realize though is that their demands and concerns though may simply be concidered as ludicrous and belong in the garbage bin at best.

You yourself set a very good example to that, you state the following: with a casual nature of the game being emphasised so much and then continue with some bogus listing on as to how this would be restricted. But you completely forget that Yoshi, and others, have repeatedly stated that they consider this game like a theme park. With different levels of content for everybody. At no time has it ever been said that all content ought to be accessible by everybody.

You also appear to believe, or at least are most certainly giving that impression, that (a majority of) casual players would be working down this list as they can't choose. For many players though, that's simply not going to be the case. Most will have no issue finding what they like doing and just stick to that. And it's not so much even casual gamers which come and cry about not being able to do all of it on these forums, it are usually the players who want it all with minimal time investment. The same who would followingly start QQ'ing that the game has nothing left to offer them.

Also the issue this /"personal" housing/ managed to fester, on the other hand, is the serious concern we now have: the game is just one year old, and we've already heard server/infrastructure limitations as the main reason way too often for so many things getting limited or outright not implemented at all. Is this how it's gonna be, is this what's down the road for ARR? Because if it is, then we might as well start thinking about designing the coffin and the gravestone of the game.

Server limitations in MMO's are absolutely nothing new. And will also remain a part of the genre forever. It is not a reason to think about designing the coffin and the gravestone for the game. It is a reason to start redesigning certain features on the backend. What people conveniently tend to forget is that that's not a matter of a simple button click. But may be a tedious process which can take months before a method is found which works in a more optimized fashion.

[Craiger]

SE has made a bunch of wrong things, but I still like the game. There is one thing that bugs me the most though...

New dungeons. When FFXIV 2.0 first came out, and everyone was still either leveling up or just started gearing up their 50 job, the dungeons pretty enjoyable IMO. The gear that dropped there was actually usable at first, while you geared up with Darklight gear, and slowly with Myth gear (before myth cap increase). The dungeons was easy ofc, but you couldn't eat and listen to music at the same time (I couldn't at least)... I quite enjoyed to do that easy, but not too easy task to get my gear.

I liked how in 2.0, you actually had to get some decent gear before you could do dungeons like AK, and even when you could do it, you would still not go through it using 1 hand... You also had to do those dungeons to gear up before you gradually defeated the primals, and then could go on to do Coil (well the majority of players had to gear up quite a bit).

Why did SE change this after that? Ever since those first dungeons in 2.0, all the new ones have either been for the same ilvl, or just recently a little higher... Take the upcoming 2.4 for example, while we don't know the ilvl requirement of them yet, I'll bet it's way lower than most players current ilvl.

I would want to see 2.4 bring dungeons that actually are somewhat of a challenge for even the most geared players in the current patch. Why not make them require near ilvl110 and let them drop gear that's actually usable (other than vanity), and that you also have to get some tomes from these dungeons before you can face Shiva and the Final Coil.

Right now, every new content is low level it feels like... You can move on from your current gear to all of the new content instantly pretty much.

By making everything require higher ilvl, you also make the old content more fun for the casual players, and make it last longer... Instead of people just doing the new dungeons for tomes right off the bat, and getting ilvl120 gear or whatever...

EDIT: Making a bigger gap between 2nd Coil and Final Coil, would make the game last a little longer for the more hardcore players too, since they wouldn't be able to just jump straight into the Final Coil without getting better gear first...

[Mjollnir]

I'd love it if SE would go a little less daily crazy. I'm going to log on everyday anyway. I'd really like it if it didn't take several hours of doing dailies to get to the fun.

I feel like I've been doing dailies for months. Daily hunt marks, daily Ixal quests for Oaknots (ie gil), daily ventures, daily treasure map, daily ex roulette for Alexandrite maps, daily market board listing, daily gardening (mining up soil and tending), maybe then daily other roulettes for myth for another map and a trip to Syrcus if I haven't yet got my Sands from that week.

I actually gave up two days ago and decided to focus on raising 80mil gil to buy myself a personal large house so I can decorate the interior with stone and put no furniture in there except the Emperor's Throne so I can sit and brood endlessly.

[reality_check]

I've said this in another thread, but gonna post it here too, because, for cryin' out loud, it is as valid as ever....



...because basically this is what "poor implementations" (read: disappointments) usually come down to: arbitrary gating and/or their hardware limitations. And for someone loving this game and being passionate about it, it's worrying as ××××.

It's hard for me to even read dumb replies like this.

1. How can you justify your feeling being ignored? We get PLENTY of updates from the developers. They have very active social media, they're very active on the forums, we get live letters. The LEAD DEVELOPER of the team, within 24 hours of 2.38 going live, replied in ALL languages to your qualms about the housing system. So, in short, if you think you're being "ignored" your standards of developer communication are WAY TOO HIGH.

2. You've complained about gil sinks, RNG, and time sinks as if they're out of place in an MMORPG. Players have absurd standards of what content should be in an MMORPG now a days. MMORPGs are BASED around currency sinks, time sinks and RNG.

Do you honestly think that hardware limitations are something new in MMORPGs? The FFXIV team is just a lot more transparent about where their hardware limitations lie.

Individually, I want to talk about each of your little bullets, (good luck pugging anything beyond garuda extreme? I've gotten EVERY single one of my EX wins in a pug, from Ifrit to Ramuh, I've never had a static anything for Extreme primals), but I give up with players like you. And the development team has too.

[SythSynner]

Atma grinding was completely idiotic. And the books are worse. I've given up on the whole thing, to be honest.

Personally the Atma and especially the Books are nothing when it comes to grinding. If you think these are hard, you should check out a French made game called Wakfu. Currently 160 levels, at a point (normally between Lv125-130) it would take a full day or two to just get a single level in. Above that if you want a new gear you have to deal with drop rates of 0.1%, 0.3%, 1%, 3% for over 95% of every gear in the game. (Which makes Atma's 5% a joke.)

Idk, I know ppl have some bad luck and that really truly sucks for them, but they will at some point make it even easier for everyone to get Atmas.

On the side note: Awhile back I looked up some info on Atmas drop rates and the likes. Many players have reported that going solo (Chocobo is ok) always seemed to make the Atmas drop faster. I personally only ran solo with Chocobo. So if you want to test your luck run solo. Don't group with others. It worked for me, maybe it will work for others as well. Wish anyone that still needs them the best of luck and I hope this info would be of some help!

[reality_check]

Personally the Atma and especially the Books are nothing when it comes to grinding.

I agree.

Players on this game are helpless. Variants of the Atma grind have been in MMORPGs since their inception.