Moment of Truth: How do you really feel

[Azurymber]

Yeah, balancing combat in a game like TERA or Call of Duty or something takes a lot of time because those games involve many more parameters than cooldowns/dmg which is basically all FFXIV combat boils down to. It's weird it took them so long to tweak certain parameters and add in autoattack.

exactly. the difficulty in FFXIV shouldn't be the battle system at all. thats like the easy cake. The hard part is server-related and they are still completely out on that. FFXIV was supposed to be a bunch of large seemless zones (and was like that at launch) but now we have fake-seemless zones where you can go from one to the other but have to wait 20 second for npcs and mobs to spawn when you cross the barrier (note: they dont tell you when it happens). That is seriously ridiculous. I've died so many times running into a group of agro mobs while they werent on my screen or radar yet.

So far it seems like its taken a year to do what should have been a weeks worth of tweaks. But it also sounds like they re-wrote a bunch of code so that might be why. Like they mentioned the old battle codes were completely convoluted and messed up and they simplified them. While that -is- easy, if the original code wasn't commented well, changing something can mess up other things and you spend weeks just trying to find and fix errors.

[TonyMontana]

exactly. the difficulty in FFXIV shouldn't be the battle system at all. thats like the easy cake. The hard part is server-related and they are still completely out on that. FFXIV was supposed to be a bunch of large seemless zones (and was like that at launch) but now we have fake-seemless zones where you can go from one to the other but have to wait 20 second for npcs and mobs to spawn when you cross the barrier (note: they dont tell you when it happens). That is seriously ridiculous. I've died so many times running into a group of agro mobs while they werent on my screen or radar yet.

So far it seems like its taken a year to do what should have been a weeks worth of tweaks. But it also sounds like they re-wrote a bunch of code so that might be why. Like they mentioned the old battle codes were completely convoluted and messed up and they simplified them. While that -is- easy, if the original code wasn't commented well, changing something can mess up other things and you spend weeks just trying to find and fix errors.

So if FFXIV was a restaurant what they gave us at release would be equal to them getting old canned food throwing it on a plate and selling it to us at the premium price. Glad to know they respected their customers so much.

[weeble]

So if FFXIV was a restaurant what they gave us at release would be equal to them getting old canned food throwing it on a plate and selling it to us at the premium price. Glad to know they respected their customers so much.

that's basicaly how i feel, i mean how long have they been working on this game supposedly? ..i just don't get how they launched this game as empty as it was and why. some really retarted stuff must of been going on, maybe some devs or overworked se workers that are on the way to getting canned can leak the truth to us... lmao. ty.

http://www.metalmusicman.com/forum/i...p?topic=3890.0

[Cid]

As a programmer..

Wow, azury, you're a programmer, and

I'm an economist irl..

and also you

i run a marketing business..

Plus still manages to find time to make 750+ useful threads/posts in this forums none of which are useless whatsoever. You gotta know that you're my hero, ...how do you do it?

[Azurymber]

Wow, azury, you're a programmer, and



and also you



Plus still manages to find time to make 750+ useful threads/posts in this forums none of which are useless whatsoever. You gotta know that you're my hero, ...how do you do it?

I specialize in E-marketing, my business's focus is on e-marketing. E-marketing requires programming. If you want to sell your product, I help make a site, set up social media, create "apps" for your product, etc. Much of that require actionscript, java, etc. I've programmed games before as well, both for fun and for school.
I have an economics + politics specialist degree and do economic + political consulting, usually for small businesses who would like to expand into international markets.
My business is successful because I mix these fields which very few other people do (thus having few competitors + being able to work at my leisure)
So yes, I'm an economist, I run a E-marketing business, and I program for said business.

If you read through all of my past posts you would find ones where I actually wrote out code (which would essentially prove i know how to program)
and ones where I went into detailed economic analysis of the games market (essentially proving i know economics)
o_O

edit: and just so no one calls me on it. My "interest" in economics is manly neuro/behavioural economics which uses neuroscience experiments to better predict human behaviour relative to economics and trade and decision-making. So I know a lot about neuroscience, behavioural psychology and cultural anthropology.

And i like your sarcastic remark essentially saying my posts are useless but at least I -try- to make this game more enjoyable for others (see the 3000+ word solo guide and 7000+ word lore guide in my sig, as well as my past solo guide from release, my botany for profit guide, and my exploring Eorzea guide)

[Azurymber]

So if FFXIV was a restaurant what they gave us at release would be equal to them getting old canned food throwing it on a plate and selling it to us at the premium price. Glad to know they respected their customers so much.

best analogy i can give to you is from hells kitchen

Some dude or girl didn't warm the pasta up enough so the angry chef guy freaked out
Instead of doing the smart thing and warming it up more, they threw the pasta out and started over

They then failed about 5-10 times each time throwing out the pasta until finally the chef guy yelled at them and said "look at all the pasta you wasted, you could have just warmed it up for 4 more minutes"

In SE's case
they released an unfinished game
then tried to re-do half the stuff in it but failed (coblyn grind time)
then changed the dev team
then tried to re-do all the stuff and failed (leve linking joy)
the tried to re-do all the stuff and got halfway there (last patch)
are in the process of re-doing all the stuff again (by having mobs link and adding in chain things)
and will be in the process of doing all the stuff again once they release jobs and have to rebalance and move mobs around

as opposed to taking the original game, fixing the main thing right away, and then adding ontop of it to make it better.

Now i have a strong feeling the original code was so bad they had no choice. So I don't really think its right to blame Yoshi-P and his team. But still, its a bit ridiculous.

[Dargoth_Draconia]

1. How do you feel about the patch frequency?
2. How do you feel about the changes themselves?
3. How do you feel this game will fair against current upcoming titles?
4. Do you think this game will ever exceed niche popularity?
5. Do you think the changes are in the right or wrong direction?
6. Do you think the they have focused on the most important things historically with patches or should the focus have been elsewhere?

1. Slow as expected considering they are trying to fix the old system or breaking it down and rebuilding new stuff from scratch. As soon as the big bulk of patches that fix the games current state come out we will probably see patches go back to 1 normal patch and maybe a patch a/b follow ups.

2. I feel like they are fixing the game completely by everything they add or take away. Overall I am thoroughly happy with all of the changes to date.

3. Currently not so well with upcoming titles like Star Wars the Old Republic but with the PS3 release and the great work the current team is putting out there is a possibility for redemption. I think at the very least the game will be a minor success I highly doubt the game will fail because it has kept a fan base even when the game was in the worst possible condition.

4. I would have to say it depends on the final product. I am not totally sure if it will exceed niche popularity but that is actually a hard call to make at this time.

5. 100% in the right direction.

6. Focus has been pretty spot on because it has followed the guideline they showed us. Honestly I would have liked to seen some things come before others but at least they told us what to expect and delivered on it, even though I wish they would do some of it in multiple patches instead of one big patch.

P.S. Captn you may have redeemed yourself in my eyes with this post because it is a proper and straight forward post. Even though I would have personally wrote my answers to my own questions, instead of just drawing feedback.

[IStolzI]

1. How do you feel about the patch frequency?
2. How do you feel about the changes themselves?
3. How do you feel this game will fair against current upcoming titles?
4. Do you think this game will ever exceed niche popularity?
5. Do you think the changes are in the right or wrong direction?
6. Do you think the they have focused on the most important things historically with patches or should the focus have been elsewhere?

1. First 7 months: Bleh. Recently: amazing.
2. Awesome. Sidequests need some tweaking. Bubbles that are lower lvl could be kind of "grayed out," and recently unlocked could stand out more. More pre-requisites, more interesting stories. There needs to be more layer to sidequests, such as quests with big rewards that require 2 or 3 others to be done first. More Echo and harder instanced battles. Shot Through the Heart, I think it's called, was awesome story, but lame battle to match it. wierd.
3. I think most of it will come down to which franchise people like more; star wars or final fantasy?
4. Absolutely. More XI players and people who quit will return as the coming patches are released. The PS3 release will bring a lot of new players.
5. RIGHT.
6. No not historically. all that work on targetting and it's still a mess. All the work on market wards should have just been an AH. I like that there seems to be a foundation down for all the coming content now though.

[Andrien]

I'm overall pleased with the results. Mainly due to the fact I take my time playing I guess.

[AmyRae]

I'm betting if this was Bioware fixing up the game, it would be a shining star right now.
No offence to the dev team or anything but theres no way it takes 6 months to rebalance a battle system as simple as the one in FFXIV. As a programmer I can honestly write out an entire mathematical balanced system within about 5 hours that could be applied to this game tomorrow. And I have done a simple version of one in multiple other threads.
This dev team dropped the ball. My only hope is that they invested their resources heavily in things we have not seen yet (ex. hamlet battles) which will revolutionize the game.

Fact is, it's not as simple as writing just any old algorithm. However they proceed, they don't get another bite at the apple. Not only do they have to deal with the legacy of how FFXIV used to work, they also have to keep the game running and working during any changes while holding on to the few players still kicking around, and they have to end up making a world-class MMO in one shot which will attract enough players (in spite of all the bad press) to keep the game alive (and oh yeah, they better hurry up, because they're losing money by the day).

So it's not just a question of development, but of marketing as well. They have to rediscover what the global audience expects from their MMO in terms of basics (which FFXIV missed the boat on), and what would be attractive in terms of innovation (which FFXIV needs to attract new players).

Maybe you could write a battle system in five hours, but those five hours could be biggest mistake of your life if no one particularly cares for what you've created and the game's re-release flops from your inept system. You haven't done the hard work to investigate what works in terms of enjoyment and playability, nor have you considered the long term strategy (players will want to quest for advanced weapons and armor over the years, which you have to accommodate without breaking the game). Taking out your crayon, and saying "See? Battle algorithms are easy! What's the hold-up?" just shows ignorance to what's at stake here. You're not going to suffer the consequences of letting millions of dollars of development go up in smoke if you get it wrong, are you?

Sorry if this is harsh, but posing as an expert when you're really not is very upsetting, especially when you have the chutzpah to claim that solving FFXIV's many problems is easy. Anyone who has ever worked on a project even a fraction the size of this knows that it is not. Going back to the drawing board after a release is pretty much the worst-case scenario for any developer, and for a project as big as FFXIV, it's especially horrifying.

If you really did any substantial business application programming with Use-Case scenarios and UML outlines, you of all people would know that, or at least, could appreciate it. And if you really worked a real job, you wouldn't be begging for FFXIV to take up more of your time with more walking and slow airship rides.

It just doesn't add up. Where does an economist/psychologist/software engineer/marketing professional/game developer/neurologist/international political analyst/anthropologist find the time to do all that... and troll these forums?