I just don't get it.

[Shurrikhan]

This is my perspective as well. The X.0 patches (expansions) are the place to set up a foundation for future updates. You can't really afford to undersell in the new content and jobs (which I feel 3.0 has done in some regards), and it doesn't leave for a very good foundation to work upon (Airships, "FC" crafting, job design, specialists, etc). And some of the cuts they made doesn't sit well with me, either in regards to the 3.x series; we have two dungeons per patch and they are the only two options for roulette. In it's place we'd get things like diadem and LoV (which fall into the same trap where it feels very rushed and doesn't leave a lot to work with).

About that whole Expert roulette issue, I've been wondering what would happen if they just, instead of using a single worthwhile roulette, would just rescale the rewards (essentially a bit more than a current content encounter of the same expected clear time) for 3 additional dungeons, 2 additional trials, and 1 additional raid, per day, where you can collect 3 further daily bonuses total (now closer to Ex rl for the given dungeons), maximized by doing one of each category (dungeon/trial/raid), complete with a further reward multiplier for going min ilvl sync, the decision for which can be made via a group vote even after entering or after each boss. Poof, we get to see old content (more often) even when not grinding out relics. And it took a whole lot less flavor text to bring back than the dungeoning steps of the anima weapon.

If you want to make FFXIV to be accessible with not too much time commitment (some players, me included can attest to only having about 1-2 hours to play during the game's peak hours) having to require to do more than one roulette (especially as a dps) is a bit of a turn off in that regard.The current tomestone reward structure is fine imo.

My thought there was that it'd be optimal to have choices, but not so many that you're just shooting into the dark for elusive queue times, and variance. If any of these dungeons would, prior to finishing off your bonus, give as much as Ex rl, it's not like you're going to be spending more time doing dailies per week, anyways. When capped, you're capped. Just due to shit luck in Midas normal, I'm usually capped off 2 Experts. None if I do any Feast. And that's still doable with 60 minutes per day.

What I'd like is for the words 'Expert' and 'Roulette' to be reflective of what they typically imply. The dungeons are far from demanding anymore than the bare minimum of the players, even when newly released, and you can't honestly consider two possible outcomes to be a roulette.

I'd be fine with that as well.

[RiceisNice]

About that whole Expert roulette issue, I've been wondering what would happen if they just, instead of using a single worthwhile roulette, would just rescale the rewards (essentially a bit more than a current content encounter of the same expected clear time) for 3 additional dungeons, 2 additional trials, and 1 additional raid, per day, where you can collect 3 further daily bonuses total (now closer to Ex rl for the given dungeons), maximized by doing one of each category (dungeon/trial/raid), complete with a further reward multiplier for going min ilvl sync, the decision for which can be made via a group vote even after entering or after each boss. Poof, we get to see old content even when not grinding out relics. And it took a whole lot less flavor text to bring back than the dungeoning steps of the anima weapon.

If you want to make FFXIV to be accessible with not too much time commitment (some players, me included can attest to only having about 1-2 hours to play during the game's peak hours) having to require to do more than one roulette (especially as a dps) is a bit of a turn off in that regard.The current tomestone reward structure is fine imo.

What I'd like is for the words Expert. and Roulette to be reflective of what it typically implies. The dungeons are far from demanding anymore than the bare minimum of the players, even when it's newly released, and you can't honestly consider two possible outcomes to be a roulette. They could accomplish it with by keeping all the 60 dungeons in the ame roulette and enforce an ilvl sync so your average player doesn't outgear the requirements, let alone it's rewards; our current EX roulette offers 195 with an ilvl requirement of 180. Assuming they tune it so that you can clear it easily at 180, players on average are already wearing i200 from void ark and esos, and 190 from proto gordian.

If they want to keep older content relevant, there's much more graceful ways to do so, as well as better areas to do so. Beast tribes for example is entirely solo content, and it re-emrges previous issues likew aiting for spawn timers. Then you have hunts... The placement and implementation of the content is also another factor. Anima for example, has level 50 dungeons that can be done unsnyced, defeating the purpose of it to enliven queues. While at the same time, it doesn't touch onto the library which is relatively dead compared to other dungeons.

[Deuce]

That said, I think it's something we're just going to have to put up with. From its core, itemization in this game is tough to play around with. Every piece of gear, down to the tiniest accessory, comes packed with PRIMARY STAT. This means that lower-level gear can never last beyond its prescribed duration, no matter how interesting its sub-stats are. This, unfortunately, also means that finally getting a piece of gear from difficult content rarely provides any kind of thrill or sense of achievement, like finally getting that E-Body or Pimp Hat could in FFXI - gear that you could be confident would be useful for years to come, both as a trophy AND as usable gear.

I agree, and go further to say that, the focus, weight, and compartmentalized structure of primary stats in the combat system are this game's greatest design flaw. I am serious when I say this. The limited primary stats (DEX, STR, MND, INT, PIE, VIT) in FFXIV: ARR and their significant weight were a mistake. To understand why we need to go back a lot further.

Sometime between 1.23b and 2.0 or possibly earlier, the development team made the decision to axe over 80% of the stats players could directly influence through gear. In A Realm Reborn we lost the ability to directly affect interesting and unique stats such as Attack Power, Critical Attack Power, and Block Rate. Furthermore, we saw a decrease in the number of primary stats from 8 to 6, losing CHR (Charisma) and AGI (Agility) along the way. While it is easy to see that these two stats have little value in the current combat system it is important to note that their removal only exacerbates the problem. Regardless, the developer's decided that "they", not "we" the players would be better off with making our choices for us. Admittedly, the materia system was bloated with a lot of stats, but the removal or consolidation of many of them into bland primary stats such as Dexterity and Strength was an extreme overreaction.

As a result of this simplification we find ourselves in our current situation, a jaded playerbase and dropping subscriber numbers. Players complain about an ever increasing iLvl, gear becoming outdated in 6 months, and old content becoming irrelevant. And no, no amount of mundane relic quests and short sighted design decisions (roulettes) will ever make them relevant again. Due to the problem of having few directions to go in with gear the developer's have little choice but to increase the primary stats on new gear. By the current definitions of the combat system these increases necessitate an increase in iLvl. Along with this increase in iLvl we see an increase in secondary stats, such as Critical Hit Rate, Determination, and so on. Unfortunately, the materia system has fallen behind because of this rapid increase in iLvls since 3.0 and it will continue to do so.

The primary stats weight in the combat system cripple this game severely and by doing so the development team have taken a baseball bat to the knees of player autonomy. There's a saying, "the crows have come home to roost". Well, SE, your decisions with regard to player accountability have finally begun to come full circle. This issue and more so overall philosophy of player's being unable to make intelligent decisions has permeated nearly all aspects of the game. Instead of being able to explore the world that they have created the developers have hemmed us into a small playpen unable to touch all of the interesting objects in the room.

Yoshida I must ask, whatever happened to non-linear dungeons? What happened to providing us with secondary and tertiary goals while in dungeons? No, I do not mean giving us more bosses to kill. Those are just roadblocks in place that are used to impede our progress towards goal one, which is completion. I am referring to having benefits to doing speed runs a la Cuttery's Cry, Aurum Vale, Dzemeal Darkhold in 1.23.

Where are the side rooms with chests and sidebosses that may be too difficult upon first entering, but become surmountable after gearing out? Thereby increasing the longevity of said dungeons as a result. While speed runs do not need to be as extreme as these examples it would be nice to provide player's with additional goals once they have geared up other than not falling behind before the next patch. Side attractions such as the Golden Saucer, PvP, and Lord of Verminion while initially fun they are very much short lived because good goals are too few and in some cases too far. Adding 5000 win achievements does not get players to play your dead content nor increase their incentive to do so without gaming the system a la win trades. Fortunately, PvP appears to be moving in a better direction, but please, do not waste more time with the travesty that is Lord of Verminion, a game that should have been a separate mobile game with a FFXIV tie-in at best.

[RiceisNice]

I agree, and go further to say that, the focus, weight, and compartmentalized structure of primary stats in the combat system are this game's greatest design flaw. I am serious when I say this. The limited primary stats (DEX, STR, MND, INT, PIE, VIT) in FFXIV: ARR and their significant weight were a mistake. To understand why we need to go back a lot further.

The stats bother me in this game as well, in both the 1-diemsnionality of it and somehow the intransparency of it. They're objective increases to your damage, and nothing else. At the same time, you have this convoluted means of finding how much accuracy you need because it's not a tangible percentage value versus the target's evade rate.

Yoshida I must ask, whatever happened to non-linear dungeons? What happened to providing us with secondary and tertiary goals while in dungeons? No, I do not mean giving us more bosses to kill. Those are just roadblocks in place that are used to impede our progress towards goal one, which is completion. I am referring to having benefits to doing speed runs a la Cuttery's Cry, Aurum Vale, Dzemeal Darkhold in 1.23. t.

This is also an issue I have in regards to the dungeon, and its only exasperated with the monotony of having only two in a roulette. It becomes incredibly routine and predictable. As beautiful as the environments are, it's ultimately a hall way and even the map shows it. You'd have to sink pretty damn low to put bonus chests in the middle of the (only) road. because you couldn't be bothered to make it side track or to a dead end.

[Nutz]

The formula/ treadmill/ disposable gear problem with this game is probably the thing I dislike the most. To me it's a very complicated problem though.

I played FFXI and I know how all of that worked. Put simply it wouldn't work well here and now. The environment is just too different for that. Further, one of the ways that FFXI allowed gear to stay relevant for so long was through mid battle gear swapping -- a practice that I don't think anyone actually wants to bring back. Without that, all of your niche pieces of gear become useless. Gear that reduces damage taken and little else? Useless. 2 mp/ tick refresh but terrible damage stats? Garbage. Tons of fast cast but no damage/ accuracy? Not going to use it.

That said, XIV is well overdue for a stat revamp. They need to add more diverse and interesting stats. Gear is just too boring. When I played XI I'd eagerly read through the mined data (because patch noted showed no equipment) to see what cool new things they added. With XIV they give you a table in the patch notes to show you what gear was added and its item level, and after the patch is live you can check the stats on the website for anything, but there's not much point.

I think SE are afraid of giving players the ability to make their character the 'wrong way', even if it wouldn't be permanent anyway. Since everyone's going to math out the best gear/ abilities/ rotations/ whatever, they seem to have conceded that there's no point in having a choice to begin with. More than that, they're obsessed with making sure every class is as close to balanced with each other as possible, possibly at the expense of more interesting gameplay/ equipment.

I think they need to take a more horizontal approach. I'm not saying stop the vertical climb, but maybe slow it down, add variety in itemization, and add/ utilize more routes to endgame (or endgame ready) gear. Maybe make the rewards from your 2 highest dungeons different from each other, and different from the 2 that were just kicked down the ladder? If gear lasts longer, you can create a whole subsystem of customizing it separately from (or perhaps and extension of) the materia system that's a lot more appealing than adding more of the same boring secondary stats.

[Lan_Mantear]

I like how they did things in XI, at least when I played it. Even after Wings of the Goddess came out, the last expansion I played, Sky, Sea, Salvage and their related equipment were still valid and sought after by players.

Equipment was much more mix & match depending on what you were trying to accomplish. There wasn't really a sense of 'BIS'. Never heard of that term until I started playing IV.

[Deuce]

The formula/ treadmill/ disposable gear problem with this game is probably the thing I dislike the most. To me it's a very complicated problem though.

I played FFXI and I know how all of that worked. Put simply it wouldn't work well here and now. The environment is just too different for that. Further, one of the ways that FFXI allowed gear to stay relevant for so long was through mid battle gear swapping -- a practice that I don't think anyone actually wants to bring back. Without that, all of your niche pieces of gear become useless. Gear that reduces damage taken and little else? Useless. 2 mp/ tick refresh but terrible damage stats? Garbage. Tons of fast cast but no damage/ accuracy? Not going to use it.

The environment is certainly different, but I do not believe that those who are critical of XI complain that there were too many stats. In general, the discomfort for a lot of players with FFXI was the grind, which is easy to adjust. Even 2.0 and 3.0 has grinds, grinds that many players are unhappy with such as the new relics. Also, I am aware that some players wish that FFXIV would have a form of gearswapping, but I'm not so sure that is what a majority of former FFXI players want. I believe that veterans of FFXI want to feel like they can explore the game and its world. That it is worth exploring and that they're rewarded for doing so.

One of the biggest mainstream criticisms of 1.0 was the copy pasted terrain, which became a meme of sorts. Unfortunately, that public criticism has provided us with empty boxes that are wrapped in nothing but pretty paper. What do I mean by this? Well, the zones in 2.0 and largely 3.0 are varied quite a bit giving this feeling that there is a detailed world to explore. However, once a player begins to open up that box and they remove the paper they begin to realize there isn't much of anything there. In fact, most zones are full of forgettable sidequests; yet, once those are exhausted there remains little reason to spend time in them unless you gather or do hunts. FATEs, something that the developers were proclaiming as this great addition to 2.0 before launch, have become an afterthought in 3.0. Most likely a result of players farming FATEs instead of dungeons for exp.

Design decisions such as these cause me to arrive at the conclusion that the developers have merely blind folded themselves and attempt to throw darts at a board in the hopes that something might stick. They constantly will promise one thing only to make a complete 180 on their stance 6-12 months later. Something that players continue to be upset about since it was released (housing) is a perfect example of this. Prior to its release and even before 2.0 launch Yoshida continuously told players that the gil earned from leveling to 50 would be enough for a small house. It's amazing to think that this was even promised when by the time it came out small houses were on some servers 100-200x more expensive than the gil earned from reaching the initial level cap of 50. To this day, small houses on most servers are 10-20x more expensive than the gil earned from reaching level 50.

I'm going on a tangent here, but the point is, many of the design decisions for the game feel more like knee jerk reactions to criticisms or even players exploiting game mechanics such as Amdapor Keep and Wanderer's Palace (hard) speed runs.

[RiceisNice]

One of the biggest mainstream criticisms of 1.0 was the copy pasted terrain, which became a meme of sorts. Unfortunately, that public criticism has provided us with empty boxes that are wrapped in nothing but pretty paper. What do I mean by this? Well, the zones in 2.0 and largely 3.0 are varied quite a bit giving this feeling that there is a detailed world to explore. However, once a player begins to open up that box and they remove the paper they begin to realize there isn't much of anything there. In fact, most zones are full of forgettable sidequests; yet, once those are exhausted there remains little reason to spend time in them unless you gather or do hunts. FATEs, something that the developers were proclaiming as this great addition to 2.0 before launch, have become an afterthought in 3.0. Most likely a result of players farming FATEs instead of dungeons for exp.

Even in this example, the environments had that benefit of the "pretty paper", and the zones do change over time ever so slightly depending on the events (Alys Llya and Alexander for one), as well as providing the setting for the FATEs and hunts as you mentioned. It'd be sigifcantly more monotonous if the FATEs took place in copy/pasted or bleak terrains every single time.

It's just not a good reason to cut corners on development, and that's the same for making interesting gear or dungeons (where players would always go for the most optimal/fastest).

[Lan_Mantear]

In fact, most zones are full of forgettable sidequests; yet, once those are exhausted there remains little reason to spend time in them unless you gather or do hunts.

I think part of that was because you were forced to spend ample amount of time in each zone. If you played XI, you probably have a lot of memorable experiences level grinding in Valkrum Dunes, The mob trains in Garliage Citadel, or that exciting trek with 17 other people to get to the BCNM or HNM location and getting lost along the way.

It was *very* grindy I admit that and it is definitely not for the average XIV player. But it did lead to some very fond memories. Specially when a simple thing like running to your XP Location could turn into a grand adventure.

[Critical-Limit]

Is it really amazing though?

Did I use the word amazing for something like what you're describing? I literally spoke in terms like "some people" and "they". Why are people thinking this is my opinion.

Changing tires and oil is more similar to "repairing" your gear. It's not at all a fun activity but we accept it because, economy balance. I bet you don't get excited about repairing your gear right? Bad analogy on your part.

You don't think people do what they detest in this game to get what they want? Were you asleep when people complained about 3.1 relic but did it anyways?

I'll give you a different analogy, since your not focusing on the point. In fighting games people grind combos and they study yes "study" frame data. To many people doing these things are boring and not fun. (Lol work)

But the people do it anyways because they have a goal, and the reward is worth it.

Who are you to tell these people the way they play the game is "wrong".