FF14 devs just keep doing your thing because my god

[MsQi]

Blizzard doesn't understand personal progression. SE is starting to head down the same path.

The Blizzard team never understood RPGs. They only had Diablo which is barely an RPG, more like Gauntlet with gear and a few story elements. They just had a good interface which was from there experience with RTSs. As RTSs go they were not nearly as good as Westwood, in the gameplay department and their interface design was already standard in the genre (colorful buttons that make everything clear). The RPG elements that made early wow pretty good were just lifted from other RPGs. But since the team didn't really understand why they were important the game quickly degraded. I remember comments from them like "that's just and RPG element" as reasons for removing them.

[Nothv13]

Oh I totally get that it was a product of its time but let me put it this way:

If he had said that trash-talk in a Blizzard game, even back then he would have been landed with a pretty hefty ban. The fact that Blizzard chose to promote the sort of language that is literally against the ToS in all their games is what's shocking me above everything else.

I've heard the sort of stuff he said a thousand times before. I have not seen a massive company promote activity that is against their ToS as some form of entertainment at their own convention. That gives very mixed signals to say the least.

I've literally heard worse in Blizzard games. Here's a reality about companies. They will promote anything they want even stuff against ToS if it will get people to pay money. To think they actually care about proper enforcement of the ToS is just shear ignorance.

[Penthea]

I've literally heard worse in Blizzard games. Here's a reality about companies. They will promote anything they want even stuff against ToS if it will get people to pay money. To think they actually care about proper enforcement of the ToS is just shear ignorance.

Every company cares about image and promoting someone who uses slurs that manage to insult two huge groups of people at the same time, one of which is half your playerbase, is not what any remotely sensible person would call good promotion. Blizzard have the money to make far better and more effective choices...which is actually why this thread exists in the first place.

They do care about enforcing the ToS, but not for the reasons most think. If the ToS isn't enforced the games would become riddled with so much toxicity that a large number of loyal players would leave. Everyone knows gaming communities can't police themselves. It is in Blizzard's interest to enforce it so that they can make current and potential players feel they can have a good time without having to endure constant harassment.

So promoting someone whose actions go directly against that at best gives mixed signals and at worst makes people unwelcome. And unsurprisingly it wasn't well received. What is sheer ignorance was thinking that this sort of promotion was in any way okay.

[linayar]

I have never had issue one with any SE site. You likely speak for the minority. I am sorry you find it difficult to navigate a web site.

I've heard it said by multiple people and, knowing technology, it's very possible that YMMV.

I personally have never had any problem either. I made one SE account with 2 FFXIV service accounts (one for Steam and one for non-Steam Windows) and now I'm on a second SE account with one FFXIV service account on it and had no problem each time.

On the other hand, I've had problem with Blizzard website trying to use credit card payment.

Also, on the topic of authenticator, while WoW has a convenient notification + button click system, FFXIV's manual authenticator works fine as well in my experience.

[Xoto]

Speaking of ToS. Is FFXIV ever gonna deal with their out of control bot issue? No...? just thought I'd ask

[Puremallace]

Blizzard doesn't understand personal progression. SE is starting to head down the same path.

The Blizzard team never understood RPGs. They only had Diablo which is barely an RPG, more like Gauntlet with gear and a few story elements. They just had a good interface which was from there experience with RTSs. As RTSs go they were not nearly as good as Westwood, in the gameplay department and their interface design was already standard in the genre (colorful buttons that make everything clear). The RPG elements that made early wow pretty good were just lifted from other RPGs. But since the team didn't really understand why they were important the game quickly degraded. I remember comments from them like "that's just and RPG element" as reasons for removing them.

Personally I hate role quest and find them as cheap replacements for job quest. You might be able to justify them in Shadowbringers but stripping them from Endwalker seems like a case of cheap penny pinching and slowly killing RPG elements of the MMO.

One big fear a LARGE amount of people have with FF14 is job homogenization and using broad generic terms to describe jobs and also only doing role quest does scare me when it comes to job design in FF14. It is an RPG and they are watering that down.

Cecil in FF4 was Paladin not just tank job. You remove job identity by attempting to save some money because making job quest is hard. This is one big area that is a red flag that I see Square Enix copying Blizzard.

It becomes far to easy to start going down the road of generic borrowed power abilities to save even more money and be even more lazier with job design. WoW is famous for having a bunch of class trainers standing around in every zone that literally do nothing now and serve no purpose.

The next step that will actually make me unsub as the writing will be on the wall is if I EVER see Square Enix start tying new abilities to these role quest instead of being job specific. You cannot claim the MMO is at its most successful ever then go down the penny pinching route when we all know they are making bank off this cash cow.

[Shougun]

Also, on the topic of authenticator, while WoW has a convenient notification + button click system, FFXIV's manual authenticator works fine as well in my experience.

Lots of things are 'fine', doesn't mean they can't improve. Notification system is incredibly easy to deal with, vs typing in a silly string and maybe miss typing it and then wasting even more time fiddling with something that is purely there for security and not 'fun'. (Dealing with it isn't an experience to elongate, if anything the experience should be as short as humanly possible while maintain security- that'd be good design).

As for websites I feel most of FFXIV's webistes are pretty good but I do think the account control section feels a bit 2000 (Blizzard's feels more modern, imo). I've had more issues with SE's than Blizzards in my own experience, but I've hardly had issues with SE's either so it's not much to talk about for myself. I visit FFXIV's account controls like once every expansion though so I honestly wouldn't care either way, but I use the authenticator basically every day. Having to type in the code when I know it could be better is an annoyance, if yet a very mild one.

Or at least as Packetdancer said allow me to store it with my other authentications rather than have a separate app for it. Again it's all a mild annoyance, doesn't stop from playing the game, but "mild annoyance" is not the cornerstone of good UI.

"it's kind of okay I guess" is not how you want to describe your system or give yourself as the quality goal. If you HAVE to pick an area where something is good or bad maybe this one gets left behind, but that really shouldn't be the goal (like if one HAD to pick between ultimate vs island sanctuary, but 'both' in these situations whenever possible would be nice).

[linayar]

Cecil in FF4 was Paladin not just tank job. You remove job identity by attempting to save some money because making job quest is hard. This is one big area that is a red flag that I see Square Enix copying Blizzard.

The problem is they can't keep making 17+ storylines and have the MSQ as well. How much of the story in FF4 is strictly about Cecil as a paladin? At some point, Final Fantasy stories are more than simply about what specific jobs the characters have, at least of those I've played, and FFXIV is no different there.

The focus of FFXIV is the MSQ while the job quests served as introduction to the jobs, and I think they've done a decent job at it, but that's all they are needed for.

Also, the continuous progression of a game like FFXIV makes it hard to continue with job-specific storylines. Look at how some people feel about changes to Astrologian and how those changes may or may not affect the validity of the Astrologian job quests.

Moreover, combat itself favors the roles more than specific jobs, so the fact that people like to emphasize jobs over roles is pretty sad. When you're in an instance, what role you are is more important than what job you are if the game has been well made. People need 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 4 DPS. The specific jobs are for the players to decide, but it's the roles that party should care about.

[Edax]

Lots of things are 'fine', doesn't mean they can't improve. Notification system is incredibly easy to deal with, vs typing in a silly string and maybe miss typing it and then wasting even more time fiddling with something that is purely there for security and not 'fun'. (Dealing with it isn't an experience to elongate, if anything the experience should be as short as humanly possible while maintain security- that'd be good design).

As for websites I feel most of FFXIV's webistes are pretty good but I do think the account control section feels a bit 2000 (Blizzard's feels more modern, imo). I've had more issues with SE's than Blizzards in my own experience, but I've hardly had issues with SE's either so it's not much to talk about for myself. I visit FFXIV's account controls like once every expansion though so I honestly wouldn't care either way, but I use the authenticator basically every day. Having to type in the code when I know it could be better is an annoyance, if yet a very mild one.

Or at least as Packetdancer said allow me to store it with my other authentications rather than have a separate app for it. Again it's all a mild annoyance, doesn't stop from playing the game, but "mild annoyance" is not the cornerstone of good UI.

"it's kind of okay I guess" is not how you want to describe your system or give yourself as the quality goal. If you HAVE to pick an area where something is good or bad maybe this one gets left behind, but that really shouldn't be the goal (like if one HAD to pick between ultimate vs island sanctuary, but 'both' in these situations whenever possible would be nice).

I said no such thing.

[linayar]

Lots of things are 'fine', doesn't mean they can't improve. Notification system is incredibly easy to deal with, vs typing in a silly string and maybe miss typing it and then wasting even more time fiddling with something that is purely there for security and not 'fun'. (Dealing with it isn't an experience to elongate, if anything the experience should be as short as humanly possible while maintain security- that'd be good design).

As for websites I feel most of FFXIV's webistes are pretty good but I do think the account control section feels a bit 2000 (Blizzard's feels more modern, imo). I've had more issues with SE's than Blizzards in my own experience, but I've hardly had issues with SE's either so it's not much to talk about for myself. I visit FFXIV's account controls like once every expansion though so I honestly wouldn't care either way, but I use the authenticator basically every day. Having to type in the code when I know it could be better is an annoyance, if yet a very mild one.

Or at least as Packetdancer said allow me to store it with my other authentications rather than have a separate app for it. Again it's all a mild annoyance, doesn't stop from playing the game, but "mild annoyance" is not the cornerstone of good UI.

"it's kind of okay I guess" is not how you want to describe your system or give yourself as the quality goal. If you HAVE to pick an area where something is good or bad maybe this one gets left behind, but that really shouldn't be the goal (like if one HAD to pick between ultimate vs island sanctuary, but 'both' in these situations whenever possible would be nice).

Your quotation reference is incorrect.

That said, while Blizzard's authenticator is convenient, I personally prefer having to type the numbers individually. Pushing buttons reminds me of those malicious popups that people just randomly push ok to dismiss.

Also, there are times when it doesn't work, so I have to push manually in WoW too. And when that happens, FFXIV's slower timing is better for me as I'm not in a rush to type the numbers and make mistake.

I will say Blizzard's website is prettier, but I spend too little time on either to really care. The forum, on the other hand, I prefer FFXIV's. I love having to manually refresh and control what I read, including the pacing.

So it's not a matter of "it's kind of okay I guess" for me. It's a matter of "it works great for what it needs to do and sometimes even better than the alternative." It can be better, but things can always be better.