Should FF14 take a new route? Discussion

[KisaiTenshi]

I see many people asking for this, but no one actually says what kind of innovation. The current tomes system serves a) for everyone to get the gear if they work for it (no RNG involved), and b) for everyone, no matter how much or how little time you have, to get the gear at the same pace. This means no one is left behind, which I’ve always been thankful for. I for one can’t come up with any other system that might be better, and I fear that changing this might result in a less friendly system (>_<)


This point comes with two possible problems that I at least can foresee. 1. Since the gear can last for a whole year instead of half a year, perhaps the means to obtain it might be more grindy and might take longer. Perhaps tons of RNG involved like Mabinogi:Heroes/Vindictus? (This wouldn’t be a good thing for me). And 2. Since there’s no better gear to obtain for a whole year, people who already own it would have no reason whatsoever to play. There could also be no point in releasing new sets at all for a long time. I like getting new gear because it gives me new purposes, and I personally think the half a year spawn is quite good, for it's not too demanding and neither does it make you wait forever with nothing else to aim for.

First, FFXIV's "progression" is basically "gear, gear gear", which in other "RNG-only" based games (see the the 2.x raids) means you may have to play the same dungeon 1000's of times to get the piece of gear you want. That is bad. It increases player fatigue, and when people burn out on a game, they don't come back. That's the entire addiction problem in a nutshell. When you erase that person's effort by releasing new RNG gear that obsoletes the previous RNG gear, then people just quit, because they don't want to commit that much time, and probably subscription/cashshop to it.

Loot Boxes, is basically this, but without the game play. Why bother creating any content, just put the gear into gachapon, and let peoples gambling addiction take over.

Which, means, that "RNG" based reward gameplay is bad. Think about the difference between farming Atma's for the relic weapon, and farming these crystals to upgrade gear that you already paid tomestones for. At least you're gauganteed one crystal IF you get a chain of, what is it, 30? Let's do the math, if it takes at least 30 seconds to kill one enemy x 30 it takes 15 minutes per crystal, and you need 100 of them to upgrade one item. so you're looking at a minimum of a 25 hour grind provided you get no other crystals, provided you can actually maintain the chain. At least it's not like the Atmas which you can spend a week doing FATE's in Southern Thanalan and get nothing. Likewise when people were doing Coil, you could only get one reward per week, thus if that thing you wanted didn't drop, nobody was going to do the raid again just for you, if they got their reward already.

Hence, the "coins" and "parts" and "tomes", and "Crystals" are a way to ensure there is always some progression, you're never actually wasting your time (in theory)

In practice, people don't like the pace. Yeah, maybe it should not be such a grind, because it puts off solo-play, but we're not looking at the big picture either. What other way can people get rewards that are not "replace old gear with new over powered gear that makes high end content a faceroll?", there's all that level-1 glamour gear, which works for costumes, but still, think bigger.

What do other games do for progression? Advance other skills, that aren't used in combat. Like, I've not done much of the crafting stuff because it, itself is a tedious grind, what's the ultimate reward from that? In other games, crafting tends to be entirely RNG as well, and tends to not advance the game in any shape. Crafted HQ gear should be equal to whatever "end game" gear is present, otherwise there would be no point to crafting anything at all, but the gist of what I've seen is that crafted gear is entirely pointless. Blue gear has one or two materia slots. But this Eureka gear has 5. Yet is still not BiS. No, the BiS gear is the gear you get from turning in the Sigmascape datalogs.

So there is already quite a bit of grind in the game, regardless. It's either via tome farming, crafting, or playing the hardest content. To quote a friend who quit playing a different game "It's just a geargrind, there's no point."

At least with every piece of content we get, there is storyline that goes with it. Other games tend to just release new gachapon, and that's it.

[KaivaC]

Now that we've seen a good chunk of the 4.14 live letter, I decided to revive this because I feel like maybe the thought of a new direction isn't such a bad idea now. Lately, I've been thinking that ever since the drop of 4.0, the devs have made good steps in right directions, and completely dropped the ball in other areas. How do you feel now that the new live letter is out? Honestly, I feel like there does need to be a change in direction. Because this isn't it. The app, the changes to alliance loot, the recent issues with Eureka, the overall lack of communication at all...something needs to give here. And unfortunately, it feels like the devs are either completely tone-deaf to their Western audience, who are just as loyal as their local base or just do not care for the most part about what we think.

Thoughts?

[Tridus]

Whoever approved putting a sub and two currencies into a phone companion app should be fired. That's it. If it was YoshiP, then he's lost the pot and needs to go. If it was someone else, same thing. He's being promoted to the SE board of directors, at this point it's getting pretty difficult to accept this stuff is being pushed from above and he has no sway in pushing back.

My previous reply in this thread had a lot of goodwill towards the devs. They just set that on fire.

[Vstarstruck]

Yeah new direction
remove the sub cost fee and admit you are f2p already, 33 USD a month for a game is ridiculous

[KaivaC]

I agree. They are clearly milking us. Not all of us want more of those dlc for FFXV. And it's not like we're really even seeing the work for all the money that they are taking currently. It's disgraceful.

[KisaiTenshi]

Whoever approved putting a sub and two currencies into a phone companion app should be fired.

This. If the app was free, and whatever "sub" stuff was tied directly to the sub you have for the game, that would be fine. But what the hell SE, don't push this mobile trash on us.

[Khanscott]

S-E won't change the game and they will simply kill it when people leave in lieu of making something half the quality for twice the price.

[Hestzhyen]

Got fed up and stopped the renew on my sub. I will be here for the 24 man raid in 4.3 but that's it unless they show me they're worth spending money on. I'll be sad to lose the mansion and not see my char any more but holy crap this BS is not worth putting up with. I feel like my sub has gone to very few things I enjoy and many, many things I don't.

- unequal male/female glam quality and options
- a freaking cash shop with expensive exclusive items in a subscription MMO
- less and less communication and consideration since we are not JP players (fans will do all the translation work with the same quality as a paid professional who works for the company, no worries there!)
- the sense that this game funds other projects instead of itself
- less content overall
- the new stuff we do get is old stuff with all the fun sucked out of it, or something already in the game with a different coat of paint
- a deep-seated fear of shaking up the core, fundamentally flawed combat and loot systems (and even if they tried they'd probably botch it like Eureka and some of the job re-works)
- now "freemium" mobile game garbage that they definitely want to expand once people get used to and accept it

I love XIV, I've had a lot of fun for the 4+ years I've been playing. But the issues have been piling up and the game has been going so far from what I hoped to see that I can't feel good about supporting it any more. I hope Dalamud 2.0 comes around and nukes the current state of affairs into smithereens so we can get back to the fun and away from the current trend of having us pay the same or more for less.

[Savagelf]

and this why I said ffxiv has trolls. ffxiv is fine on it path, it story lead to next expansion. it not going ftp as yet there no sigh it even consider it is.
look twitter has use but the video detail have yet be put yet have they not wait few days to put them out.

and this problem why devs didn't use forum because forum is toxicity

plus SE office are close in USA on weekend

Don't you think SE folks want spend time with they families

[KaivaC]

and this why I said ffxiv has trolls. ffxiv is fine on it path, it story lead to next expansion. it not going ftp as yet there no sigh it even consider it is.
look twitter has use but the video detail have yet be put yet have they not wait few days to put them out.

and this problem why devs didn't use forum because forum is toxcity

plus SE office are close in USA on weekend

Don't you think SE folks want spend time with they families

Do tell me what has led you to believe that because of my thread, we have trolls? Or better yet, what toxicity? Please explain. Or are you a one-and-done type of person that just makes these types of comments without necessarily backing them up?

plus SE office are close in USA on weekend

Don't you think SE folks want spend time with they families

What does any of this have to do with the thread? This is the definition of a strawman argument.