What does Heavensward actually bring to the table as an expansion?

[Magis]

Lastly if its as you said, that instance is more cost efficient, than why havent they done so yet(and from the start)? I will say im no programming expert, but im in progress of obtaining a degree in said field, so i would like to see more concrete evidences of resources usage. Which i dont believe we would ever see.

The current wards are actual zones. Clients in that zone are sending packets to a server that is consuming and updating the game world for that zone. Now, in the current state... a server has to be dedicated to the zone, and constantly running even if there is no one there. This is why they can't just add zones, it would mean either making one server process more zones (slowdown) or activate a new machine to do it. This is also probably tracked in a DB by a zone id which also means using up more IDs in the DB wish wouldn't be a great idea. FFXI had a limit of 256 zones due to the zone id field in the packet being 1 byte, with a max of 0xFF zones. This is why FFXI used instances for BCNMs, Housing, etc. The fact that the rest of the world was open world and zoned was pretty impressive. I think after Abyssea the network code was modded to expand that number.

With instanced zones, the zones are created and destroyed for the player's or players' instance. This means if no one is in their home at one point, there is no processing going on since no zone exists. You save resources, and can easily add or removed servers when needed. The thing is, our homes are already instanced I would guess. This is why when you logout and back in you are dumped in the ward. The game doesn't have a place to save your player because the instance might be destroyed, so they dump you. Still they could have just created the instance before logging you in if it didn't exist but /shrug. Anyway, the markets wards themselves I would guess aren't instanced and cause all the troubles we have.

The issue isn't really the homes themselves, but the wards.

This is one of the reasons why EQ's AA (Alternate Advancement) system was so loved by their players. It gave them numerous other options to improve their toons beyond just getting the current top end gear. It is a feature I have often wondered why is not included in newer MMOs.

That was similar to FFXI's Merit Point system wasn't it?

[Goodberry]

I think your criticisms are off base and parrot things you've read on this forum or reddit.

At the end of the day, in my opinion, the biggest problem that this game suffers from is player behavior. I'm not talking about trolling or abusing others, I'm talking about the content locust mentality that has people playing 8 hour shifts and ticking things of their to do list as they go. Farm this, cap that, etc.

When the expansion came out these were the people capping their characters at 60 within days and complaining about a lack of content at 60 thereafter. If players focus solely on completing things as quickly as possible and avoiding anything that slows them down, then of course the game is boring. My god, if they were to go for a 1200 mile road trip, players with that mentality would hit the interstate and drive in shifts to their destination getting there in 18 hours flat. About halfway there, they'd complain about the boring drive, and by the time they get to the destination, they'd be tired, burned out and cranky. Sound familiar?

Many others would take the same road trip in multiple legs with an overnight stop with each leg of the journey, they might plan on visiting places of interest on the way, and even get side tracked and visit other places they didn't originally plan on. By the time they get to the destination, a week might have passed, but they are fresh, happy and not bored because they saw the sights, stayed in different places, ate different things and experienced the journey. They have things to talk about and stories to tell, and probably a couple hundred pictures to share.

Imagine those two groups starting off at the same time and meeting up after their journey. The ones who drove straight through on the interstate would probably be pissed off with the others for making them wait for so long, and be itching to get home (again by the fastest route possible). The other group would have their stories to tell and pictures to share, but a very unreceptive audience.

I feel like we are at that point with FFXIV. There is a relatively large group of players who play the game in such a focused manner that they complete the content much faster than intended, and get bored and annoyed, or disillusioned. They complain about the game, about having nothing to do, or about everything being the same, cookie cutter content, or copied from WoW.

Since I'm still mid way on the journey and enjoying the ride, I really can't say I understand or agree with the criticisms being leveled at the game or SE. There is so much to do I can't do it all, and I've been playing since ARR Beta phase 3.

You mentioned hard mode dungeons as recycled, I don't think that's really fair. If they were simply recycled it would be the same dungeon with boosted versions of he same trash and Bosses in the same map, but the hard mode dungeons are not that at all, so I find your criticism completely off base. You call the relic quests an abomination, but why? That is what the community asked for. An alternate way to obtain a high ilvl weapon that is upgradeable and can be earned through long term play rather than clearing turns in the Coil so that players who lack the skill or time availability to complete coil, had an upgrade path for their weapon. If that isn't a grindy way of obtaining something, I don't know what is, and that is what people asked for.

In the end, the problem you are talking about, OP, is self inflicted.

What I can't quite get my head around is that people approach the game like it's supposed to provide them with completely new content every time they log in, but don't want to do anything for it. It's an MMORPG, some of the novelty in content is playing with others and reacting to how they handle things. There is no way that the developers can keep up with player appetite for content, nor their ability to consume it. But, if people login to cap tomes and do their dailies, and that's all, they have no room for complaint. You're not making use of the framework that is in place, nor are you making use of all the rides in the theme park. Instead you're using a very restricted subset of the theme park, and complaining that more isn't done for you.



How is it a huge mistake? This was something that was asked for by the majority of the community with many raiders saying that they were OK with a story mode version as long as the harder version had unique drops . The problem with having only the super hard version of things is that it disenfranchises many players - as Coil *did*. I lost count of how many threads asked for or demanded a normal mode version of coil, and in the end people settled for asking for the future raids to have a story mode version for non-raiders to complete.

How is Alexander Normal a huge mistake when it is precisely what was requested by the community?

Perhaps you're just pissed off because you feel that you *have* to farm the snot out of it for gear that you can use to take on Savage mode, only to find that savage mode is (as expected) the same content with a harder level of difficulty and better drops. You honestly expected it would be otherwise?

Wonderful post. Useless to add that I agree with everything you said.

[Fendred]

I didn't actually realize they said we were only getting part of the expansion. That is utterly ridiculous, because each patch is going to progressively invalidate the previous patch material. None of these patches are going to add up into feeling like a cohesive game. That is all we are asking for: One cohesive experience that continues to grow and improve itself, not destroy and rebuild itself over and over again. No one wants that out of a subscription based MMORPG. Virtually every MMORPG that refused to budge on the issue went F2P or died a horrible death.

[Evtrai]

Wonderful post. Useless to add that I agree with everything you said.

I never got to address his post because I was busy and unable to reply, but now I'll address some points of his:

When the expansion came out these were the people capping their characters at 60 within days and complaining about a lack of content at 60 thereafter. If players focus solely on completing things as quickly as possible and avoiding anything that slows them down, then of course the game is boring. My god, if they were to go for a 1200 mile road trip, players with that mentality would hit the interstate and drive in shifts to their destination getting there in 18 hours flat. About halfway there, they'd complain about the boring drive, and by the time they get to the destination, they'd be tired, burned out and cranky. Sound familiar?

He assumes that everyone rushed to cap their characters to 60, and that players one month later should be still trying to hit 60, when the game is designed that as you experience the story you should be already be 60, my brother for example, only plays on weekends, and even he managed to hit 60 in 2 weeks time, and even he is already bored of the game. It doesn't take more than one month to realize that the game content is repetitive and formula is largely unchanged. There's one player in my static, that due his job, he only plays some days 1-2-3 hours some nights tops and even he is caught up with the content and thinks it's getting boring.

I feel like we are at that point with FFXIV. There is a relatively large group of players who play the game in such a focused manner that they complete the content much faster than intended, and get bored and annoyed, or disillusioned. They complain about the game, about having nothing to do, or about everything being the same, cookie cutter content, or copied from WoW.

The same problem as above, he assumes that you need to play 24/7 to be bored of the game, you could have the same playtime as he but it's not possible for you to be bored that you have been doing the same things since 2.0 with a different coat of paint, regardless if you want to admit it or not, this game borrows heavily from WoW while trying to retain some of it's uniqueness, it's not a bad thing to borrow from other games as long as it's done well.

Those are the main things on his post that I consider worth adressing, because the rest are subjective to his play time and how he distributes his playtime, just because you are unable to progress in the game, it doesn't mean the others are as inept as progressing and he is making it seem, and just because they aren't inept at playing a game, it doesn't mean they play 24/7 or rush to do things as fast as possible, while there is some small player base that does this, trying to get first worlds clears, it doesn't mean that the whole playerbase rushes to do everything and are not allowed to think the content is repetitive.

[Evangela]

Nothing. It's like 2 and a half major patch updates mixed together.

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

it doesn't mean they play 24/7 or rush to do things as fast as possible, while there is some small player base that does this, trying to get first worlds clears, it doesn't mean that the whole playerbase rushes to do everything and are not allowed to think the content is repetitive.

It really doesn't even matter. If they make the game too hardcore/grindy they will lose the casual group. Make it too easy and streamlined and you lose the less casual group. Either way your going to lose a chunk of your potential playerbase. They need to be striking a balance between the two.

I think 2.0 did a decent job of making the game accessible enough but not making it so easy you blast through too quickly. But in Heavensward, they are tipping the scale towards the casual side more. Unfortunately, they are going to lose some subscribers because of that.

[fortuona]

when something called an Unidentified Flying Biomass gets passed off for a clam, i want to steer clear of ishgardian clam chowder, and anything else they put on the table.

snurbleberries though, i could probably get behind those.

[T2teddy]

I didn't actually realize they said we were only getting part of the expansion. That is utterly ridiculous, because each patch is going to progressively invalidate the previous patch material. None of these patches are going to add up into feeling like a cohesive game. That is all we are asking for: One cohesive experience that continues to grow and expand itself, not destroy itself over and over again. No one wants that out of a subscription based MMORPG. Virtually every MMORPG that refused to budge on the issue went F2P or died a horrible death.

EVERY game does it that way. Every one I've played at least

[Elim]

I'm one of those people who are bored. I did every single side quest and still got to 60 in a week or so... on AST. So I went from 30-60. When I played I didn't rush myself and enjoyed every moment leveling through the story. Watched every cutscene. Read almost every quest.

Honestly, besides the new house decorations, leveling was the most exciting thing in the expansion for me. And I do basically everything in the game-- raid savage(AS1-AS3), farm ex primals, pvp, housing, craft and gather.

[Akiza]

They won't lose a massive amount of subs unless the give away the highest level gear just by logging in like WoW.

Honestly Heavensward doesn't end until 3.5 or wheneve they decide to release 4.0 so we haven't sseen all of the expansion yet.