Thread: Frustration regarding Patch 2.2

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Executive summary / TL;DR - S-E, please stop advertising new game features and then placing barriers in front of them that will require months of work to surmount.

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I was really looking forward to this patch. So many things in there that I wanted to do! This is probably the single biggest patch EVER!

... And then I got in, and looked around, and was amazed, not by what was now available, but what WASN'T.

For background, I've been around since 1.0 beta. I have all classes at level 50, including DoH and DoL. So clearly I enjoy gathering, crafting, and everything else this game has to offer. I am definitely a FFXIV fan. :P

Now, the first thing I wanted to do when I logged in was to make a Carbuncle chronometer. (It must be on my wall. Really, it must.) So I need a ruby. Okay, fine, I'll go mine one, must be from one of the new unspoiled nodes. I ask around, people found it in Lower La Noscea at 6PM.

-- OH WAIT, you need 408ish gathering to get one (or so I learned by finding and attempting to mine the node). I'm 30 short, more than I can get with food. Hrm. Surely there's something I can do....

Maybe one of those new gathering tools they talked about in the patch will help! Off to Revenant's Toll!

-- OH WAIT, I need 60 HQ umbral rocks from an unspoiled node to get the new tool. The amount of time that will take is 100% Random Number Generator dependent, but will probably take me several days. What else can I do today...

Oh, hey, while I'm in Revenant's Toll, lemme check on the recipe books! Maybe I can make a new hat.

-- OH WAIT, I need 5 HQ vanya silk, and that's just for the weaver book. That's 45 potash, assuming I HQ all five, which isn't improbable. Plus another 45 of six other kinds of materials to get my other six books. Ehehe. Hehe. Heh.

No problem, I have 2000 mythos, I spent weeks saving them just for this moment! Let's see how much potash costs --

-- OH WAIT, potash costs company seals now, 2,500 each. I only have 50k seals, enough for 20 potash, and because every other weaver is out to get potash too, it's drastically overpriced at the moment. Shame I spent all my gil on our FC house, isn't it?

All of this lovely crafting and gathering stuff, and I CAN'T DO ANY OF IT because of the huge walls placed in front of them.

Well, what can I get with my mythos? Hmm, emery, going to need one of those for that ruby. 500 mythos is kinda steep, though. Maybe I should work on getting some of those new tomestones. How about some COIL! Turn 4 oughtta work, it was 50 mythos before...

-- OH WAIT, tomestone rewards were changed. 20 mythos and 10 soldiers. Joy. And how many of those soldiery tomes do I need for a new hat? I don't know. I'm afraid to go look.

Hrm. Well, there's always that warbear! I've been complaining about the lack of bears in Eorzea for years, now I can finally get one!

-- OH WAIT, it's an achievement reward for ... What the heck? 200 high-level full-party instance runs?!

Now, I know that there is a careful balance in game design, right? You want to make it difficult enough that the player feels he accomplished something, but not so difficult that he throws his hands in the air and says "Forget this, it's not worth it."

The entire point of this post is that I feel that line was crossed with 2.2. Yesterday I could pretty much do whatever I wanted to do. Today everything I want to accomplish seems so far out of reach that there isn't any point in spending the time to do it.

If that wasn't bad enough, this is starting to look like a trend. Take housing, for example. We were all excited about it! Heck, our FC had 20 million gil! That would be enough for a large house, easy!

... Aaaand we all know how that went. Patch day hit, 300 million price on opening day just for the land and another 3M for the house itself. We the players raged, prices were lowered, and a month and a half of our entire FC doing nothing but gil farming later we finally got our house.

I wonder if people will rage this time, and if things will change, or if all these walls will remain in place. As for me... well, it hasn't even been a day yet, I'll give it a chance.

But I do know this. First time's an accident, second time's a coincidence, third time something is seriously wrong. Housing prices were an accident. All the walls preventing us from getting at the new stuff in 2.2? That's a coincidence. If 2.3 ends up being just as frustrating, that will mark a trend. A very, very bad trend.