Curious state of raiding and could something from the early days of XI fix it?

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I agree this game needs more midcore content. I also played and loved FFXI.

One problem is the super simple character "builds" in FFXIV. There are only a certain number of different ways you can put critical hit rate, determination, and skill/spellspeed on gear. I think that between lore, weeping city, Alexander normal mode, and crafted gear the devs pretty much have that covered.

One personal, huge difference I've noticed about myself is that In FFXI, I was always working ON or TOWARD something. In this game, I try to get content DONE and OVER WITH for the week.

To be fair, in XI, you couldnt really log in and say, today im going to get the drop from this guy, the drop from that guy, and do such and such 100% thats why. You always had something to work for cuz the grinds were way worse lol.

[Ibi]

But do you think that maybe if the development team tried to cater a little more to this end they might have a more successful game and not one that had so many people taking breaks?

I don't think it's possible to even guess, quite honestly. I don't think there's any way to know if the number of players you'd gain (or retain) from that kind of model would outweigh the number you'd lose (or who'd never start in the first place) because that model doesn't appeal to them.

Even if there was an overwhelming call for that kind of model on the forums, it would be difficult to draw any real conclusions. People post on forums to complain overwhelmingly more than they post to show appreciation for the way things are.

The following is just speculation, but bear with me.

It seems logical (at least to me) that the kind of player that favors a horizontal progression model is going to be someone who's okay going for a stretch of time without the game rewarding them, given that horizontal progression generally has less frequent rewards than vertical progression (in order to offset their longevity).

That would, as a result, imply that the kind of player that favors a horizontal progression model is someone who'd be more invested in the long term, on the basis that an infrequent reward system balances out over the long term.

I suspect it's also likely that the more a player is invested in a game, the more likely they are to post on that game's forums, and share their opinions, which would mean that the most likely people to post on the forums are also the most likely people to favor that kind of progression model.

But, again, that's entirely speculation, and I have no facts or statistics to back that up.

I am not saying do the same thing but why not have a sky/sea but have definite drops, have definite skill sets and make those pieces LITERALLY the BEST for the year maybe? I mean I am being hypothetical ofc but can you see the appeal to the mid-hardcore raider that these would have, a challenge with reward but that gets more people involved? Idk the answer but I am enjoying the discussion

As may have been illustrated by my comments above, the only (reasonable/profitable) way to have drops be "LITERALLY the BEST" for an entire year is to make the drop rate such that only a small percentage of the play base would obtain the majority of those drops over the course of a year.

Which, in turn, means that the vast majority of even the raiding player base aren't getting more than a handful of drops over the course of a year.

XI illustrated that that's possible... but probably only for a single event. You need a flood of events for which that's the case to retain interest, and that's not possible with XIV's current gearing model.

[KitingGenbu]

...

Item levels are too low and should be increased as well as allowing savage gear to be the only way to get gear sets. Increasing the ilvl more allows the team more room to make the even patches better for catching up to the previous while still motivating people to do the savage when their gear gets a little better since they wont be able to do the next one until they do.

[Cakekizyy]

But do you think that maybe if the development team tried to cater a little more to this end they might have a more successful game and not one that had so many people taking breaks? I am not saying do the same thing but why not have a sky/sea but have definite drops, have definite skill sets and make those pieces LITERALLY the BEST for the year maybe? I mean I am being hypothetical ofc but can you see the appeal to the mid-hardcore raider that these would have, a challenge with reward but that gets more people involved? Idk the answer but I am enjoying the discussion

I think that would be detrimental to the game.

[LineageRazor]

While I'm not sure which I prefer, one notable difference between battles (especially boss battles) in this game and in FFXI is the ability to dodge attacks. In FFXI, once the boss started using a special attack, there was no telegraph - and it wouldn't have helped if there was one, because the attack would follow you wherever you moved. There were only a few, rare cases where winning a fight was a matter of positioning (though "don't stand in front of the mob" was just as true there as here), but rather in reacting to the things after they happened. Bosses were generally not scripted, either; they had a set array of moves they could use, and those moves were used at random. It was entirely possible to get the boss's most awful attack three times in a row. Experienced parties would find ways to mitigate this, such as slowing down TP feed on the boss until the healers had had a chance to patch folks up. Timed encounters weren't even a thing at first, and Enrage only started to become a thing when players would deliberately hold timed-spawn overworld NMs for hours upon hours in order to "shift" their next spawn into a more favorable time zone.

Bosses in this game... Well, I've heard this game referred to unfavorably as "Battletoads the MMO". I do have to admit that it's a fair comparison. For those too young to know, Battletoads was touted as a fighting game akin to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - but most of the levels involved little or no fighting - just memorization of mechanics, the slightest failure of which to follow resulted in death. Sound familiar? Of course, that was a solo game - all you needed to do was memorize it yourself, and you were golden. In this game, of course, memorizing it yourself isn't enough - you also have to have seven friends that all memorize the fight just as perfectly, because if any of THEM screw up, you're dead as well. It's not surprising that the toughest content tends to be niche.

I think what it really boiled down to is that in FFXI, it was enough to know your job. If you were a good enough healer, you could hold your own in almost any fight - even going blind into brand new fights. Same goes for tank, dps, or support (yeah, dedicated support jobs are something else FFXI had that I kinda miss in this game). In this game, you both need to know your job, and you need to know the fight - and you need to participate with seven others who know the fight.

[Lan_Mantear]

My favorite experience in XI was not getting past lvl 20 and being stuck in the dunes.

You put a smile on my face. Thank you.

I remember leveling for the very first time in Dunes as a Monk. I was drunk and my party forced me to pull since we didn't have anyone else willing or able. There was a wind storm lowering visibility. I just wandered around for minutes until I finally gave up, ran back to the party, sat down and said: "Ok, i'm too drunk. I don't know what I'm doing. Someone else pull." @_@

[Cakekizyy]

Those goblins were deadly for sure.

[Alaltus]

I remember making the run from selbina to west Ronfaure at low level. Dodging Goblins, Orcs and just as i got up to the top of a hill *stomp!* *stomp!* *stomp!* i was ambushed and killed by the giant goat NM at the top! ^^

There have been threads from time to time about a FFIX ability stones esque implementation into XIV, if they implemented that they could tune it more horizontally without worry for item level and have those drop from content.

I made a thread a little while ago which is kind of relevant to this one.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...m-for-monsters

[Xenosan]

I think a good thing to pull from XI atm would be a city hub (Jeuno), and an emphasis on more open world content (not instances) - increasing social interaction between server players.

Duty Finder is needed - as is great - to keep players connected across data centers, but I think that considering the game's life since 2.0, the open world has not 'advanced' - it has not been made dangerous or 'exploratory' enough like the world of Vanadiel. And that I think is something this game could use. I'm fine with there being 'too much' emphasis on instances, but not there being 'all emphasis' on instances - which is more or less what we have had since 2.0, that dynamic remains unchanged.

[SendohJin]

Duty Finder is needed - as is great - to keep players connected across data centers

you misunderstand the purpose of the DF.

1) to generate enough enemies that it can handle any number of players. you can't have 300 people fighting Nidhogg to progress the story at the same time.
2) to allow for more players to take part in the same duties so that queues are shorters, 24 man dungeons taking only players from one server would take much longer than taking players across the entire data center.

open world monsters have 2 big problems
1) if the rewards are good enough they'll get swarmed by players
2) if the rewards are not good enough, you won't have enough people to kill it