Zepla: Most Wanted Changes in FFXIV

[Oizen]

1. no
2. no
3. no
4. no
5. no
6. no

Something could be made better but they aren't real problems.

it's not like "your problems" are "the world problems".

You're the person people talk about when the phrase "toxic positivity" is mentioned

[remiff]

It's a shame that Zepla didn't mention the direction jobs are taking and their homogenization.

What's even more unfortunate is the abscence of discussion regarding an instanced cross-data center server for the duty finder and party finder,
this would make it easier to find groups and tags instances, and it's clearly a feature that could be implemented,
especially given the current issue of some datacenter experiencing reduced party finder activity due to players congregating on other datacenters.

[Mr_Gyactus]

thank you for your amazing input, very detailed, I'm sure me and a lot of people have learned a lot from this amazing take

My pleasure.

You're the person people talk about when the phrase "toxic positivity" is mentioned

while you are the person people talk about when the phrase "I have nothing important to say but I write anyway" is mentioned.

[Ivtrix]

My pleasure.



while you are the person people talk about when the phrase "I have nothing important to say but I write anyway" is mentioned.

So like what you just did? Lol lmao

[Strika23]

You're the person people talk about when the phrase "toxic positivity" is mentioned

100 percent!!

[Reimmi]

Maybe if she didn't need them to like her for clicks and views / paycheck she wouldn't have to care like anyone else here.

Oh dont kid yourself this community *will* dox and harass you endlessly if you don't agree with them.
Look at anyone who's exposed for having mods getting run out of the game/social media

[Mostly_Raxus]

a lot of people in this thread give off the red flags of abuse, what has square done to you? its some sad Stockholm syndrome.. "no, no please dont correct the game, its what i deserve, plus if you tell them to shape up it will only make them angry"

yeah its dumb to mass align with the opinions of streamers, you know, unless they are actually right about something.
we get it, you are a unique individual, and it was your ideal first to wear 2b leggings as a fashion accessory.
it is both possible to be a streamer and have a valid take. *sometimes*

i watched her vid, it was pretty down to earth, and she is right, if you play any other mmo's out there you can easily realize that square is just giving the players the run around..

the square code is the equivalent of the ice cream machine at McDonald's, they say its broke, but anyone that works there knows plain and simple they just dont wanna be bothered with cleaning it.

the glam dresser is terrible, and it is only slightly better than nothing because this game hordes storage like its a plastic straw at a Cali starbucks..

the content keeps getting shorter, less zones, less quests, less reason to log in.
the gear system is do dailies get to weekly cap and leave, pretty sure this formula was what helped push the wow mass exodus. and i'm sorry but 6 months of 1 dungeon is trash game play.

as for the website stuff, its the worst game I've ever played in that department, and i play literal small indy mmo's that require having regg codes emailed to you that can take up to a day to arrive before you get to input it and have your game time.

square cares so much more about looking prestigious than actually making meaningful game play, they care about their over priced trailers more than the players they are meant to attract.

[Carin-Eri]

I watched her vid, it was pretty down to earth, and she is right, if you play any other mmo's out there you can easily realize that square is just giving the players the run around..

Doesn't that worth both ways though? I mean, by the same token, there are MMOs that are worse for doing whatever SE are being accused of.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

Re: 6 - This has always irritated me. Yes it would be hard to balance but ultimately weapon damage is determined by main hand weapon damage, not potency so a 300 potency attack at lvl 10 does a whopping 30 damage vs a 10 damage (100 potency) ability. Woo hoo, you don't have to cast 2 more times. . .

Point being, it can be done. Easily.

The thing is though, WD at lower levels is so flattened from job modifier values that it has very minor impact on the final damage output compared to raw potency, which in the FF14 damage formula, is effectively a damage multiplier. It's easy to showcase when even in SHB when WD values weren't flattened and were the same as back in ARR, yet jobs were doing massive amounts more damage than before. Why? because potency matters far more when not at least one level bracket away from the current level cap where WD's impact on the formula matters much more due to the pseudo-exponential power growth of FF14's stat system through its job modifers, and jobs in SHb were vomitting multiple times more potency left and right in old dungeons.

For example, A level 90 DRK can output 9k potency using their full kit and proper MP/Gauge banking during a 2min vs a 30 DRK outputting 1800~ during the same window. Even assuming identical weapon damage to equalize the already minimum impact is has on the damage formula at that level, that's literally 5x more damage for free. Let's not even talk about the hilarious joke of damage difference that would be 15 ROG in Sastasha vs 90 NIN. There's also the ultimate can of worms that is 'how do you balance something like Holy Shelltron that the lower level PLD has no equivalent of" without basically pretending it doesn't exist by nerfing it so hard into the ground and making the whole point of uncapped level sync pointless by making you play a ghost of what your job was.

Even games like GW2 who have done "better" syncing systems still have issues with equalized power in them, as plenty of my friends who play (and myself have dabbled in) have shown/told me. Speaking as a former game dev, trying to balance such a system is basically untenable. Not impossible, but untenable due to the continuous, constant development overhead it introduces. Any adjustment at all, from the slighest potency tweaks to the overhauls of jobs would cause any meticulously thought out, planned calculations and scalings in order to equalize every possible level range against every other level range (The same scaling variable that could theoretically allow a 90 PLD to stay in line with a 16 GLD will severely underperform a 70 PLD, for example) to instantly go up in smoke and create endless overhead.

It'd be the absolute epitome of wasting game development time when they already have a system that achieves what it was intended to do already in place and is effectively future proofed for all time and has exactly zero overhead.

Unless you have some magical solution to tightly balance every job against every level within that job, for the perpetuity of this game's lifecycle without ever needing adjustments, that is as simple to program as your current competition, this following if statement:

if (player.jobLevel > duty.maxLevel)
{
player.isSynced = True;
player.jobLevel = duty.maxLevel;
player.jobStatModifier = findJobModifier(player.jobLevel);
}

If my former team were the ones in charge of handling balance for FF14 and someone pitched that idea to us, they'd be laughed out of the design room in a heartbeat.

So long as the game wants players of lower job levels to be within a certain balance threshold of higher level players within the same duty, the level sync system ain't changing. It'd be absolute peak stupidty for them to trash their extremely "works as intended" system for something that would introduce far more chaos and overhead into their dev cycles that would force time to be spent on it and away from other stuff when people already complain about lack of content as it is.

You want an actual solution to low levels not being engaging that any serious game designer wouldn't just immediately perform the futurama 'oh wait you're serious, let me laugh even harder' meme on you for suggesting? Bypass tweaking the level sync system entirely and just shuffle skills downward in levels, or introduce new skills that evolve into later ones through traits/actions. All players will share the same skills at the same levels maintaining the desired in-job balance Level Sync accomplishes, but kits will be fuller quicker. It wouldn't totally solve the issue, but it would make lower levels far more tolerable if by 50 you have the majority of your main gameplay loop completed. This would also double function in making the experience more entertaining for newer players instead of just making it more enjoyable for higher level players.

WAR is probably one of the better examples of this currently in-game, where by 50 you effectively have all your tools you'd have at 90 besides additional actions like OGCDs & Primal Rend. You have your Maintain Buff, your 1-2-3 & your Gauge spender. Everything beyond that is just upgrades/additions that don't change WAR's gameplay loop far too substantially, the only noticeable change being IR at 70 simplifying your gauge spending at 1 minute intervals. Contrast to a job like RPR, which doesn't get it's defining job ability until 80, leaving so many levels of dead air where its excruciating to play. Even doing something like Enshroud, Arcane Circle & harvest at 50 and simply relegated the OGCD part of Enshroud as the 80 reward would do wonders for RPR's synced kit.

[Swordsman]

Doesn't that worth both ways though? I mean, by the same token, there are MMOs that are worse for doing whatever SE are being accused of.

I see that classic whataboutisms are still alive and well on these forums, lol.