Lost faith in Yoshi-P?

[ZakarnRosewood]

I do have a question though, and its an honest one, not trying to sound rude or anything. At this stage of the game, they have remade pretty much everything about the game and people are complaining about quests and combat and the UI. In what ways can they realistically adjust these core components to meet the high standards that the nay-sayers are wanting AND still release the game within a time frame that will "be before we all forget about the game and move on" (according to the sentiment from others who are not happy). I would be ok with the changes people are proposing but i dont know how they can meet all your expectations. They have already done so much in 2 years that normally takes 7-10 years development time.

Look at it this way, 1.0 changed so drastically from 1.0 to 1.28(?) under the direction if Yoshi-P and his team that i fully expect them to continue to generate newer and better content throughout the lifespan of the game. This might be what it is on release but one thing this game has going for it that (i dont think, please correct me if i'm wrong) the development team has much more involvement with their player base, they listen to us and have taken much of our feedback and even responded to us more than i saw in D3's case.

I'm not saying "stop complaining" just wondering if some people are asking too much. maybe as a group of people unsatisfied, pick a specific topic that you feel the be the most important and focus on that, my suggestion would be quests as that is really the heart of an MMO and easiest to expand upon.

[Levian]

*Hands Aion some popcorn and a crystal looking marble*

Sorry, I'm on a budget I can't afford no crystal balls. Hell I can't even do a glass orb. That'll have to work.

[Thebard]

I do have a question though, and its an honest one, not trying to sound rude or anything. At this stage of the game, they have remade pretty much everything about the game and people are complaining about quests and combat and the UI. In what ways can they realistically adjust these core components to meet the high standards that the nay-sayers are wanting AND still release the game within a time frame that will "be before we all forget about the game and move on" (according to the sentiment from others who are not happy). I would be ok with the changes people are proposing but i dont know how they can meet all your expectations. They have already done so much in 2 years that normally takes 7-10 years development time.

Look at it this way, 1.0 changed so drastically from 1.0 to 1.28(?) under the direction if Yoshi-P and his team that i fully expect them to continue to generate newer and better content throughout the lifespan of the game. This might be what it is on release but one thing this game has going for it that (i dont think, please correct me if i'm wrong) the development team has much more involvement with their player base, they listen to us and have taken much of our feedback and even responded to us more than i saw in D3's case.

I'm not saying "stop complaining" just wondering if some people are asking too much. maybe as a group of people unsatisfied, pick a specific topic that you feel the be the most important and focus on that, my suggestion would be quests as that is really the heart of an MMO and easiest to expand upon.

Just wait until beta, then the real entitled complaining will start.
SE are too willing to capitulate to player demands, they need to start growing some.

[Levian]

The honest answer to your question Zakarn is that it is probably too late to change the things people are unsatisfied with. At this point it would probably require an overhal as drastic as the one they're almost finished with. We're getting what we're getting and the best they can do is tweak this or that to make the pill easier to swallow so to speak.

As far as nailing it down to one specific item, the problem there is that it isn't one thing it's a host of things. And they're all unavoidable core mechanics that can't just be avoided or changed to suit everyone's palate. The WoW styled combat with moves on a GCD, the fetch questing, hand holding from cradle to grave, all the things that could make it another SWToR or AOC. Another game that feels and plays just like WoW that people will try for a month or 2 and walk from.

On top of that issue, differing palates means that some folks are ok with some of those aspects and not ok with others. I'm sure if I look in the "This isn't FFXI and never will be" thread in the Alpha forums there will be someone loving every scrap they've borrowed from WoW and still bemoaning the fact that they even so much as copied the look of the races from FFXI because they hated the game so much.

Edited:

Well, on the topic of questing. Perhaps people wouldn't be so fussy about it if there were a viable alternative. I don't mean something faster per se, just something comparable say within %10 plus or minus of quest grinding. I could see a number of things working that way. Mob grinding either solo or in a party, or chain running instances.

For combat maybe taking another hint from WoW would be a positive thing. It seems like currently every non mage class will be working off of TP. TP currently regerates like energy (used to) for a rogue. Just a set amount regained over a set period of time with no influence over it's rate of gain. You're not really managing a resource, just tapping it out and then waiting on regen.

Tack on the fact that this looks like every non caster classes' mechanic and imo it makes things pretty bland. I would think it to be in their best interest to vary things a little bit more. Maybe have some classes start at 0 and build TP the old fashioned way (smacking something). Maybe give them a quick TP building move they can use when they're tapped out.

Just some thoughts off the cuff.

[ZakarnRosewood]

Well, on the topic of questing. Perhaps people wouldn't be so fussy about it if there were a viable alternative. I don't mean something faster per se, just something comparable say within %10 plus or minus of quest grinding. I could see a number of things working that way. Mob grinding either solo or in a party, or chain running instances.

For combat maybe taking another hint from WoW would be a positive thing. It seems like currently every non mage class will be working off of TP. TP currently regerates like energy (used to) for a rogue. Just a set amount regained over a set period of time with no influence over it's rate of gain. You're not really managing a resource, just tapping it out and then waiting on regen.

Tack on the fact that this looks like every non caster classes' mechanic and imo it makes things pretty bland. I would think it to be in their best interest to vary things a little bit more. Maybe have some classes start at 0 and build TP the old fashioned way (smacking something). Maybe give them a quick TP building move they can use when they're tapped out.

Just some thoughts off the cuff.

On the topic of questing, I actually prefer the quest based approach to the "hey, lets get together and kill this type of badguy for the sole purpose of leveling." Even though it is pretty predictable to talk to a farmer and have him tell me X monster is destroying his crops, please bring me 10 fangs to show me you helped clear some out, I much prefer to have a reason to be killing the monsters. Lol, PETA would be soooo upset at these pointless parties killing for "sport", just look at their attacks on Mario 3 and Pokemon (google PETA and Mario/Pokemon). I jest about PETA getting upset though.

I can also see why people would be tired of this kind of thing as it has been done to death. Especially if you have played "every MMO out there" cause thats a lot of MMO's. Several things that have me wondering though,
There will be a set amount of quests in the game.
Designed to help you raise your level.
To what extent will these gopher quests be repeatable?
I do the first 10 levels worth of quests to get me familiarized with the game then i change jobs, Will i again be forced to go through all of those tutorial quests? I'm no longer a new character, would they really make me do the "learn how to walk quest" "learn how to accept a quest quest" "help the local people quests" To what extent will these quests be repeatable?
Am i to do the same 10 levels worth of quests with each class or after finishing a quest with one class, is it finished for good? Wouldnt the repeatable stuff be the levequests? I would be fine with having to do all these "hand holding" quests so long as they are for a single class\job. the exception being class/job specific quests which would more likely not be "cookie cutter" quests. Something this MMO does differently than others I have played (havent played many mind you so please tell me others that do) is it allows you to changed your class\job without needing to start a new character and avoid the need to go through the tutorial and basic questing stuff. Also, whats to stop me from skipping all the filler hand holding quests and just doing the pivotal milestone quests that develop story and class/job progression. I only hope they make it so we can telll the difference between filler and important quests.

i know that in 1.0 once i did the quest it wouldnt come back if i changed my class/job, and this makes sense. I dont know if this will change come ARR but it seems a little redundent. Hold my hand with my first class/job up to endgame, ok. after that i get to grind with levequests and dungeon runs and mob grinding, awesome. Hold my hand through every class/job, whats the point of playing... Does this express the most of the concern with questing or do some people just not want this type of thing period? Am i over thinking this whole thing? Most likely. Cant wait to play the game and actually see how it handles and plays, with any luck the beta will give us all a better picture.

[Levian]

I for one just don't want to do it. I've stated before I did the wow thing for years, I'm sick to death of it. In WoW's defense once they introduced content finder and cross server instance parties, leveling via instance grinding became a viable alternative but that was a couple years in.

On another note, I never liked the questing format to begin with. I cut my teeth on FFXI. The only time you solo'd in that game was running the easy missions and farming for AH fodder. Frankly, I prefer that playstyle. I don't play an MMO so I can lock myself in my own personal bubble and only interact with people when it suits me to do so or there is no other alternative. Even a silent grind party with no meaningful verbal exchange to me is preferable to questing solo.

There's just something inherently cold and wrong with an MMO like WoW, where you can easily go from level 1 to the cap without ever joining a guild, talking to, or interacting with a single soul. At that point why bother playing an MMO? That solitude also creates a large learning curve at level cap, because not everyone will do their due diligence to check forums and learn to properly play their character. But that's a whole other can of worms that even a party centric MMO will face to a certain degree. Also really off track, the point I was trying to get at is that when 80-90% of your game time is solo the game starts to feel awfully hollow and soul less.

[ZakarnRosewood]

That makes a lot of sense. you are completely into the MMO' part of the MMORPG. I dont know why but i have alway had a hard time getting accepted into any of these little circles of players. It feels like there is an elitism involved in joining a Linkshell that i just can't qualify for. I'm not hardcore, I dont have 27 hours a day to devote to playing a game like this, When i play i play for fun and i just dont take any game as seriously as some people do. When I have gotten in a linkshell no one is on when i have the time to sit down and play, the linkshell is mostly inactive, or i just cant involve myself in the dynamic of the group of people and am still left out. I guess i just have shitty luck or dont know how to do this kind of thing and cause i'm a "noob" no one seems to want to take the time to help.

Why do i even want to play an MMORPG then? I love the grand scale of the whole thing. I love the attention the developers give the world and continued support, new content, and the liveliness of a world full of people. When i do get into groups, i love working together for a common goal, the interaction with other people that share a common interest with me. believe me, it's not for lack of trying that i cant get into a good group of players who welcome new people and are willing to help someone who might not be the best, get better. but i guess its players like me who want to be able to play the game even if i cant play it with others that ruins MMO's for the elite who have had "the quest format done to death" "dont like hand holding" "content finder that groups people will ruin the social aspect" and pretty much every part of the game that actually appeals to me they want to dissolve.

It really feels like people wanted this game to be only for people who know what they are doing and newcomers are not welcome. I have been a gamer all my life, i'm not stupid when it comes to games, i pick things up quckly but i hate the younger generation of gamers who prefer to call me a "n00b" and dismiss me as unworthy. I'm truly sorry i can only play at odd hours because i prefer to wait till i'm done work, made dinner for the kids, spend time with them, put them to bed, then i would like to log in and wind down.

i see where you guys are coming from, you want a challange, you dont want a game to treat you like you are stupid, you dont want to see easy content thats been done to death. Wouldnt it also be nice to have that at the mid to end game but have the early stuff ease new players into it in such a way that you get new blood? Why not take some time and do the most hardcore thing of all, transform a noob into an elite player.

Just my 2g worth.

/flame shield on!

[strallaalaa]

i haven't done the wow questing to death, i just know i hate it. i ran away from wow after 2months even though i payed for 6months and stuck with ffxi. i'm not playing mmo's to solo threw quests, it was awhile after wow launched so, but the zones were empty and i met like 3people total and they disappear forever after the few hours we quested together cause they were twinkies or what ever they call them lmao.

50hrs to max is 50hours to max it doesn't matter what type it is. i hate that they consider the running in between mobs part of it rather then straight killing. in gw2 there were some world events that chained so well that it was like ffxi grinds and guess what they nerfed the crap out of it. it shows how much time between killing they consider content lol.

lets face facts the reality is it's about the being able to solo, it's about being able to do a quest and get up and check on family. it's about things being so easy that both you and your family can play together. it's about not having time anymore so you rather destroy for others what you "did" enjoyed, for your own sake. it's about not wanting to feel like a total turd buying gold to keep up with others. not even trying to be rude but bending the mmo world to fit the real world doesn't make the game better. it makes it a offline game your getting charge 13bucks a month for. theres a reason i have a ps3 over a xbox360, xbox charges just to be online and ps3 doesn't ...same thing except some are willing to pay for it.

everyone in this thread repeats the same things over and over and the reality is other games have genre's and they are different(least they used to be, now it's part 2 part 3 part 4 of the same crap) and have multiple difficulties and what have you. mmo's they treat like super huge A++ movies that suck, i don't want to watch a pg13 remake of hellraiser. i want to see a rated R like it should be and the same thing goes with mmo.

either way quests should be huge part of game but without it being part of the questing they can be in depth story that people say ok its worth reading. it's gonna have tons of mini bosses(every other quest in ffxi had hard mobs in them and if done at the right levels were very fun) you can also do it on your leisure/doubles the content.

also what happen to mobs that weren't all just different skins that all fight the same way. what happen to silencing mages and paralyze and slow mobs.what happen to debuffs and enfeebles ...link leves removed this and so will quest grinds. in leves i used the same 3moves no matter what class i leveled lol and while it wont' be that bad it will be mobs that are all just different skins. and if not people will just do the few quests that are the fastest either way. paying attention in fights is where it's at, waiting for the right time to stun even in regular fights, removing stoneskins and phalanx. but meh. this type is what people want? it sure is the easier way to make a game for sure so why not.

if anything all they had to do is keep party grinding too, but they keep going threw all these stages of the game, from 16man groups(awesome, can't even afk or won't get exp), to crap we can only kill doblyns for exp slow as hell, to only link leves(was worse of all of them and it's basically what we have now) to now we can afk in a party and hit max level in days. (only thing that is good about the change/2.0 launch is this being gone)

i'm sure we will be able to grind in dungeons but i hate that type too. but as others said it's too late. they screwed up and for some reason thought changing the game isntead of fixing it was the best way to go. now they will lay in there mess twice. most of us have 50 everything so we will be blind to how sucky the questing is since we might only do the 1 or 2 classes that are new at launch but for the most we will see it as the same mmo's we hate and want nothing to do with.

in the end this really will be my last mmo. i'm done and tired of handing over to them box sales and a few hundred bucks cause i'm waiting for the next failure to come. if the makers of ffxi go on there own and set up a kick starter for a real deal mmo i like i'd donate to see it happen. i'ma just chill out and wait for smaller companies to come in and take over after failure after failure keeps happening. /hopes lol. but any way back to playing shooters with my other friends and fuk mmo's.

tldr, wow sucks, quest grinds suck, people who like them suck, and mmo's with them suck and since that is all that keeps coming out they can shove it. ffxi type mmo's or bust for life.

[Levian]

That makes a lot of sense. you are completely into the MMO' part of the MMORPG. I dont know why but i have alway had a hard time getting accepted into any of these little circles of players. It feels like there is an elitism involved in joining a Linkshell that i just can't qualify for. I'm not hardcore, I dont have 27 hours a day to devote to playing a game like this, When i play i play for fun and i just dont take any game as seriously as some people do. When I have gotten in a linkshell no one is on when i have the time to sit down and play, the linkshell is mostly inactive, or i just cant involve myself in the dynamic of the group of people and am still left out. I guess i just have shitty luck or dont know how to do this kind of thing and cause i'm a "noob" no one seems to want to take the time to help.

Why do i even want to play an MMORPG then? I love the grand scale of the whole thing. I love the attention the developers give the world and continued support, new content, and the liveliness of a world full of people. When i do get into groups, i love working together for a common goal, the interaction with other people that share a common interest with me. believe me, it's not for lack of trying that i cant get into a good group of players who welcome new people and are willing to help someone who might not be the best, get better. but i guess its players like me who want to be able to play the game even if i cant play it with others that ruins MMO's for the elite who have had "the quest format done to death" "dont like hand holding" "content finder that groups people will ruin the social aspect" and pretty much every part of the game that actually appeals to me they want to dissolve.

It really feels like people wanted this game to be only for people who know what they are doing and newcomers are not welcome. I have been a gamer all my life, i'm not stupid when it comes to games, i pick things up quckly but i hate the younger generation of gamers who prefer to call me a "n00b" and dismiss me as unworthy. I'm truly sorry i can only play at odd hours because i prefer to wait till i'm done work, made dinner for the kids, spend time with them, put them to bed, then i would like to log in and wind down.

i see where you guys are coming from, you want a challange, you dont want a game to treat you like you are stupid, you dont want to see easy content thats been done to death. Wouldnt it also be nice to have that at the mid to end game but have the early stuff ease new players into it in such a way that you get new blood? Why not take some time and do the most hardcore thing of all, transform a noob into an elite player.

Just my 2g worth.

/flame shield on!

No need for a flame shield. This is gonna be a little long winded though, lol.

I think you've misread something in my post. I wasn't a hardcore or elitist player. Those guys burned my ass as badly as they did yours. The closest I came to "hardcore" was the insanely long xp parties I did because I was 18 and had the stamina to stay up for 48 hours straight. I would start a party, take it to camp, and keep it rolling until I either couldn't find replacements, everyone was burned out, or I was ready to pass out. Sometimes folks would logout for the night, then login the next morning and be shocked to see I still had a group right there where they left, usually also just in time to replace someone else that was ready to leave.

I didn't do it because I was elitist or hardcore, and I didn't demand my group members be the best of the best. I did it because it was fun. And I had more fun with a bunch of rag tag no money or equipment having newbs sporting a group combination that never should have worked than I ever had with the perfect elitist setup. I'm talking 3 thieves, a Samurai (me) tanking, a whm for heals, no refresh and the 6th member was probably a beastmaster. But we cleaned up like no 2x nin brd & rdm party I ever had, and had more fun doing it.

I wasn't in an HNM shell. I didn't get into Sky until late in TOAU. To this day I've never run Dynamis because it never sounded fun. Helping newbs was all my LS did honestly. We would usually pick them up early, in Valkurm. Show them the ropes, get them their subjob items. Walk them through RotZ and the early CoP missions. We'd even help them camp some of the easier HNM like Charybdis. Invariably once they hit 69-75 they would get tired of waiting for us to gather up enough players and jump ship to another shell that was already doing some form of end game.

I've lost count of how many jobs I dragged through Valkurm across 3 or 4 characters. I know for a fact it's been more than 40, especially after level synch began. Not just because I needed them leveled for subjobs, but because it was fun to teach the newbys that were willing to learn. The mnk with no subjob got an invite over the ranger to my parties. The WAR/WHM was welcomed with open arms. I enjoyed teaching the new players that were willing to learn until the day I quit, because I never forgot the first Mithra Paladin I met in Valkurm Dunes on Bahamut in 04 that picked me up, knocked the green out of my meelee RDM/WAR playing self, and pointed me in the right direction.

Zelaude, level 50 Paladin and leader of Whiteshield, my first LS putting up with all my scrubly newby questions. Talonchiavari, 30 Redmage that fielded my questions when Zelaude was sick of my crap lol. Akanubon, the 12-ish monk that stole my LS name (DrunkenChocobos) then invited me to the shell, Kronous the awesomest WHM/WAR you'd ever meet, and Eisman, the thief that stayed level 15 and farmed for literally a year in outer horutoto ruins outside Windurst were the first 3 I got to pay it forward with, using my 30 rdm to help with khazam keys and the like. That would come full circle after I took a 6 month break and everyone was now 30 levels higher than me.

I didn't get that out of WoW. My fondest memory of that game was level 55, soloing elite black dragons and skinning them so I could make a nice piece of Dragonscale gear for my hunter. Which got sold because it was finally completed about 2 weeks before BC and I knew it would be instantly overshadowed by outlands gear. I didn't join a guild until right before WotLK, but never really interacted with them. I don't know what any of their characters looked like, just some familiar names from the green text in the chat box.

[Raven_Reborn]

(@_@) Wall-o-text

Felt like I just read a Game of Thrones book... VERBIAGE OVERLOAD!