Survey: What are your thoughts on the state of XIV?

[RiceisNice]

....

1. IMO they really need to break the horizon and make those jumps. Even at first if it's not working as intended because it's op or up (see BRD, MCH, and AST), numbers can always be changed. Mechanics, on the other is much more tricky (such as WM/GB, fc crafting, and content layout). They've really shot themselves in the foot by making "FC crafting" the way it is, giving MCH and BRD two functionally same abilties at 52, because honestly what can you add at that point to make it evolve instead of adding more of the same recipes and skills that add no job depth/variety because of the aforementioned stances.

2. Aquapolis unfortunately feels like it runs into the same problem that their new content (such as diadem) runs into, it's interesting for the first few runs, but after that you just realize that you're fighting mobs that have very little interaction or diversity with abilties. They all do their abilties associated with what they are (such as dodos doing foul stench and treants doing canaopy)...but they're ultimately all the same abilities anyway, just different names and aoe indicators. The very little variation you'd get is the arges (which is a cyclops mob with the tonze swings) and a goblin punching bag. You have the rewards and that's about the only thing that's keeping it going imho.

3. Like point 1, those constraints need to stop being the limiter, especially when you're looking at into a new expansion and higher level cap. Less abilties that add no depth to the jobs, less homongenization, and more diversifying each job idenitity. If we're going into a lvl 70 cap, this almost definitely needs to be the case unless they plan to introduce no new skills/passives only (which is already the aforementioned shooting themselves in the foot, espesically if said passives are extrremely generic and add nothing). It's really the one place you can't afford to cut corners on because that's the foundation for future patches.

4. Your impression isn't completely wrong. It took up until 3.2 for them to introduce relevant recipes for combat classes. The patches before that, even gatherers didn't need much crafted equipment from crafters. It was a trend where crafters only made gear and tools for other crafters, but their materials were gated by both crafting and gathering scrips. This, alongside what specialization was supposed to be for, really took out the flare out of crafting and gathering for me (and i previously did a crafting service in 2.x, made about 60mil in a matter of few weeks)

5. I feel they really need to up the overall difficulty a bit, at least to the point that players need to be held accountable for failing basic fundamentals like avoiding aoes and knowing your job's 1-2-3 combo from level 26. Honestly, it should never get to the point that "I'm new to the fight" can justify dying on a telegraphed circle, consistently.

[Shurrikhan]

1. IMO they really need to break the horizon and make those jumps. Even at first if it's not working as intended because it's op or up (see BRD, MCH, and AST), numbers can always be changed. Mechanics, on the other is much more tricky (such as WM/GB, fc crafting, and content layout). They've really shot themselves in the foot by making "FC crafting" the way it is, giving MCH and BRD two functionally same abilties at 52, because honestly what can you add at that point to make it evolve instead of adding more of the same recipes and skills that add no job depth/variety because of the aforementioned stances.

Agreed. I feel like they should aim first closely for identity and fun, and then move on to relative capacities (say for burst, etc., for which Monk already out-dynamics any difference that likely would have occurred between BRD and MCH as is...), and then tune by numbers with an eye on internal balances (how many GCDs should it take X DoT to pay off relative to Y skill or Z average potency per GCD combo/rotation; CD syncing; additional rotational possibilities; situationals; etc., etc.).

This kind of stuff is why I've been almost too promoting of new undermechanics and large-scale changes to systems, like mob AI, enmity systems, damage-as-interruption, multi-striking, partial AoE, non-flat debuffs (debuffs as potency), etc., but also why I've been fearful of anything SE's likely to implement within those categories. If they can't even refrain from giving two jobs the exact same ability at the exact same level... how imagination do we really have to put into this? Just how distant a horizon could we actually see upon breaking those walls down, if we can't even see large cracks or.... reuse in the walls themselves?

2. Aquapolis unfortunately feels like it runs into the same problem that their new content (such as diadem) runs into, it's interesting for the first few runs, but after that you just realize that you're fighting mobs that have very little interaction or diversity with abilities. They all do their abilities associated with what they are (such as dodos doing foul stench and treants doing canopy)...but they're ultimately all the same abilities anyway, just different names and aoe indicators. The very little variation you'd get is the arges (which is a cyclops mob with the tonze swings) and a goblin punching bag. You have the rewards and that's about the only thing that's keeping it going imho.

I was afraid of that. Another one lost to over- and under-sight I guess.

As for the latter bit, I've always been a fan of increasing physical telegraphs but removing the orange AoE zone indicators (I swear the mere timing of them bugs every player I introduce to this game, as all damage hits per the indicator and never the animations—jump INTO the explosion for safety!). Somehow I doubt that's going to change though, and I think many players would be rightly pissed until sound and visual assets are placed to make them just as informed of incoming actions as the orange indicators do now, so it would take up a lot of resources for a mostly aesthetic change. A powerful one, I think, but still aesthetic.

3. Like point 1, those constraints need to stop being the limiter, especially when you're looking at into a new expansion and higher level cap. Less abilities that add no depth to the jobs, less homogenization, and more diversifying each job identity. If we're going into a lvl 70 cap, this almost definitely needs to be the case unless they plan to introduce no new skills/passives only (which is already the aforementioned shooting themselves in the foot, especially if said passives are extremely generic and add nothing). It's really the one place you can't afford to cut corners on because that's the foundation for future patches.

Agreed completely. My only point there was that each job being a decent choice should be the only balance, and that even then that choice can be dependent on other shifts in composition, as long as that adjusted party is as good an option as the first. However, that takes very real consideration at the individual job-, party-, content-, and range of content- level.

I can discuss further about what I feel a particular skill, or its addition to a given job, should accomplish, but I feel like we'd probably be in agreement on that, so it might not be worth delving into at this time. I'll summarize my thoughts or find a useful quote if you like.

4. Your impression isn't completely wrong. It took up until 3.2 for them to introduce relevant recipes for combat classes. The patches before that, even gatherers didn't need much crafted equipment from crafters. It was a trend where crafters only made gear and tools for other crafters, but their materials were gated by both crafting and gathering scrips. This, alongside what specialization was supposed to be for, really took out the flare out of crafting and gathering for me (and i previously did a crafting service in 2.x, made about 60mil in a matter of few weeks)

My issue with it wasn't actually the disconnect between crafters and useful gear. It was in the leveling experience. There are SO many opportunities to use gathering and crafting classes as a means of world or milieu-exploration, and XIV neglected virtually all of them. The most it had going for it was leveling a particular gatherer (Botonist or Miner), and a 3-4 crafters simultaneously while a friend or two grabbed the rest, and being able to trade goods around, find the best leves for easy crafts to exp output, etc. There was nothing in that to do with the actual world, which gatherers were only involved in for the length of one to two loops of 4 nodes per zone. In many ways the issues here, as they stick out to me, follow in similar footsteps to the lackluster-ness of quests, key items, and world interaction in general. There's just a under-utilization, a kind of lack of imagination or integration. I realize I'm being vague for now; I can come back to this later if you like.

5. I feel they really need to up the overall difficulty a bit, at least to the point that players need to be held accountable for failing basic fundamentals like avoiding aoes and knowing your job's 1-2-3 combo from level 26. Honestly, it should never get to the point that "I'm new to the fight" can justify dying on a telegraphed circle, consistently.

Agreed. I've never personally taken that excuse. And I do get a little pissed when someone dies to a mechanic that was prominent in a recent mandatory dungeon. "At least blame the lag instead, but by the third death I really should be seeing your corpse on the far side of the room, if that's the case, seeing as you should be trying to compensate; there are clear telegraphs even before the AoE indicator appears, and you move early without those zones tracking you." < this coming from a fight where the Summoner had to rez the healer 3 times, and I was keeping myself up with Stoneskin and Conv + caster Physics (between DoTs or only during the CD). But, at the same time, I feel like this is more a community thing than it is a design consideration. We sometimes end up with unnecessarily juxtaposed groups of "you should be playing like this" and "don't tell me what to do", or "keep it chill" and "keep it competent". Granted that last one was reasonable. I realize I blew up your example a bit there. Sorry about that, it just really is probably my biggest pet peeve next to "I pay to play my way" (when that means very low-output) in group content.

I'd just really like to see the game's design itself, or the difficulty-leveling curve push for a higher quality player, so that your typical new 50/60 is better able to appreciate the finer details of gameplay and attend a higher portion of content without being a burden or nerfing said content.