4.3 site updated

[Ryaz]

I wonder if SE realizes I can make a lot more money off those items on the MB. :P

But looks like we might have to supply our own mats for this one if they're using actual crafting materials and not the normal "components". That could be costly for those without gatherers and time consuming for those with.

[RiyahArp]

You will make even more money selling them to non-crafters on the MB to do this. The 20k is just like collectibles, to defray the cost a little, the real prize probably will be what you get from rebuilding (achievements, etc.)

Of course, this is going to be bad for people buying them to level or craft with, the same way GC turn ins on the market board get extremely expensive.

[Remedi]

As expected heaven on high and eureka are not together, frankly I started to fear this would come considering the reception of this practice on wow was positive a sad day, but a confirmation that w/e happens on wow has a high chance to influence other games

[DreadRabbit]

A tad off topic but after watching the 4.3 trailer I'm definitely switching back to English voices once I get into Heavensward. Started playing with Japanese audio when I came back because I remembered how...corny ARR's voice acting was, as well as how jarring some of the voice changes between ARR and Heavensward was.

The English voice acting has improved in spades. I actually got pumped while watching the trailer.

Definitely want the Namazu mount, omg.

[Krokov]

I haven't really been gung ho with doing Beast tribe quests but after seeing the Namazu mount I have a new goal.

[Theodric]

-snip-

Staggered releases seem to be the norm these days, unfortunately. I don't think it's fair to blame WoW, though. Many games do it. In FFXIV's case the cynic in me believes it is being done to encourage people to subscribe for the initial MSQ stuff and other minor features and then subscribe the month after, too to explore the new POTD and the new Eureka.

I may be wrong, of course - but the demand for meaty, lasting content can't have fallen on deaf ears. FFXIV was so successful early on due to giving us meaningful content releases every 3 - 3.5 months. Now we're getting...roughly the same amount but it's spread out more. It's a shame that the people who subscribe constantly aren't a priority. Many of us play other games, too, so it's irritating that new content is staggered in such a manner.

[Reinha]

I haven't really been gung ho with doing Beast tribe quests but after seeing the Namazu mount I have a new goal.

It looks amazing! I wonder if it's a 2 seat mount.

Since the Namazu quests hub is on a ledge I hope we get gliding quests or punt-the-Namazu quests.

[Remedi]

Staggered releases seem to be the norm these days, unfortunately. I don't think it's fair to blame WoW, though. Many games do it. In FFXIV's case the cynic in me believes it is being done to encourage people to subscribe for the initial MSQ stuff and other minor features and then subscribe the month after, too to explore the new POTD and the new Eureka.

I may be wrong, of course - but the demand for meaty, lasting content can't have fallen on deaf ears. FFXIV was so successful early on due to giving us meaningful content releases every 3 - 3.5 months. Now we're getting...roughly the same amount but it's spread out more. It's a shame that the people who subscribe constantly aren't a priority. Many of us play other games, too, so it's irritating that new content is staggered in such a manner.

It is to make ppl subscribe longer, MMOs have always used grinding to make something last for a good while, but since that is not working anymore companies have gone for other methods, since they content consumption rate is far higher than the speed it is created.

I blame wow because with legion they touched a new peak on this and since wow is pretty much the top dog in the sector, what they do with that game will be reflected onto the others one way or the others. Also FFXIV devs are known to be looking up to wow

[KisaiTenshi]

It is to make ppl subscribe longer, MMOs have always used grinding to make something last for a good while, but since that is not working anymore companies have gone for other methods, since they content consumption rate is far higher than the speed it is created.

I blame wow because with legion they touched a new peak on this and since wow is pretty much the top dog in the sector, what they do with that game will be reflected onto the others one way or the others. Also FFXIV devs are known to be looking up to wow

WoW isn't the top dog MMO. Fortnite is. Let's not go there.

In terms of "subscription" MMO's, WoW, FFXI, FFXIV is all there is.

There are endless rubbish fly-by-night F2P MMO's that are just looking to empty your wallet.

"Grinding" in a JRPG is a standard thing that has been there since the 8-bit days. Walk 20 steps, get ambushed. Repeat until you can kill everything in one button press. That is how JRPG's are designed. You have to remember that the entire point of there being so many monsters was to give you an experience of playing a RPG (Pen and Paper), thus decide on strategies without waiting for the GM to be creative. However as computers got better, players didn't want to spend 10 minutes fighting trash on the overworld, and we discovered how really shallow every CRPG/JRPG was if you remove all the random combat and only have boss fights. A game like FF1-8 with the trash mobs turns off can be completed in about 5 hours. Just like using a walkthrough for Adventure game reduces the game's entertainment value from spending 3 months on it to about 2 hours.

Software developers realized that as the visuals went up, the amount of needed "gameplay" went down. So if you could make a game entirely out of pre-rendered backgrounds and cutscenes (FF7) that reduced the amount of random fights you needed to get through to level up to take on the bosses, thus storyline can take the front seat. So trash monsters were supposed to get stronger the closer you got to the boss so you couldn't just go directly to the boss. They were always setup in layers so you were prepared to fight the boss.

With MMO's, you can't do this anymore. Monster difficulty is not an impediment to gatekeeping players in an area, and especially with script kiddies, mods, bots and RMT being such plague on MMO games, MMO developers have to make content that actually requires attention, and not simply throw endless trash monsters that can be killed in one hit.

If you encounter a monster in the game, it should take most of the tools in your tool kit to defeat it if you are equal in power to it, but most players don't want to spend 5 minutes trying to fight a trash mob or field monster, they want to kill it in 5 seconds and move on. You see this in many encounter designs in current MMO's, instead of one monster that you spend 5 minutes on, you get 5 monsters that are linked together that you spend 1 minute spamming AOE's on.

This is why Eureka was panned as being awful. It takes 2 minutes to fight most monsters that are your level, and for what? Repeat this 300 times to level? No thank you. This is a time sink disguised as artificial difficulty. It's not hard or fun, it's just boring. That's exactly the problem 8-bit and 16-bit JRPG's have. In a MMO, the fun stuff comes from either figuring out how to solo something that should take a full party, or being in a full party to take down something strong. There is no fun in beating up tanks armed with slingshots. This is also why "the train" became a thing, because nobody wanted to fight the trash mobs.

By all accounts, the entire reason MMO's release content updates weeks apart is to keep giving players a reason to play, and not just login on the day of the content update, burn through it in an hour, and then leave again. Subscription MMO's need a reason to justify paying the sub, and if you don't put something out there every month, players will just sub for the month that the content update comes out on, or wait until the next expansion pack and not bother with any of the incremental updates.

Even "housing" that expires is a way to keep subscription players in the game.

We haven't yet crossed the line of "developers aren't even trying anymore" where they release nothing but cash shop outfits between content updates 6-12 months apart, and players feel compelled to buy the cash shop outfits or the content updates get pushed out farther.

[Remedi]

Fortnite is a battle royale, wow is an MMMORPG, I wouldn't really call fortnite an MMO either tbh, just like lol and mobas in general are not a good comparison to MMOS too, in fact I remember ppl comparng the success of lol to Wow many time, but they are fundamentally very different games.
It's not a subs count either that makes wow the topdog, is the fact that even when it's failing it still has a strong draw-in power after more than a decade, which is nothing to scoff off even though I consider it a terrible game by now I have to sadly admit it.

But this is enough of this, it's not like I can change anything of this