Your thoughts on the direction of this game?

[Renik]

I get the feeling you weren't there in the beta forums where people were begging for NMs because of FFXI nostalgia. And if I recall there was another thread on these forums sometime after launch asking for the same thing. There have been people asking for it. Don't pretend Hunts were just dropped on our laps out of the blue...even if I did wish the devs would have ignored those individuals.

I was and i asked for NMs, but instead they made another faceroll content that is bad balanced in every way, so no, this is not what ppl wanted. This horrendous system we have now is the result of a bad implementation, and it's really far from what ppl wanted.

[Duelle]

I was and i asked for NMs, but instead they made another faceroll content that is bad balanced in every way, so no, this is not what ppl wanted.

Was it one of those "I want NMs in the game" posts without any thought of what it would do to the game? I saw a ton of those, would roll my eyes at them then tried to futilely explain why it's a bad idea in a theme park MMO.

I wouldn't have the issue I have with hunts and NMs if they were a true side activity. Neat titles, vanity gear, vanity pets and so on. Continuously adding stuff to hunt rewards as the game aged. That would actually work while giving people something to do outside of gear progression. Sadly, no one asked for that, and the threads on beta as well as here instead insisted that NMs be an alternate progression route (which necesitated oils and sands entering the picture); in some cases they never specified how they think NMs should have been implemented.

[Renik]

snip

Seeing oils, sands, and alex on hunts was a surprise, a bad one, i don't think anyone asked for them, and if someone did it was wrong. On the other hand, we are supposed to ask for things we want, not say how they should be implemented, and even if we do SE has already proven they don't want our ideas, they just use their own bad implemented ones. But is this is not enough for you, it seems like i have read the alpha, beta and actual forums more than you because i remember some good ideas for NMs that SE simply decided to ignore.

Now redirect your anger to the dev team, this fail system is their fault, ppl would ask for NMs and open world sooner or later, but they decided to implement it this way.

[Yukiko]

I get the feeling you weren't there in the beta forums (..)

There are still some things left we had in BETA who are not implemented yet... I guess low priority.
It is a bit strange, but since Yoichi Wada gone something changed... It feels like they try to be cheap.
I liked Wada!

[Lemuria]

Ahem... *rolls up her sleeves and prepares to pull no punches*

First off, as a disclaimer, I don't hate the game no matter what this post may claim. Far from it, I genuinely love the game, but I'm utterly crushed about the direction the devs have decided to take content. It's a genuine slap in the face to anyone who played 1.0, and an even bigger slap in the face to any players who enjoy playing at their own pace. Here's why.

CRAFTING: Everything works fine up to 2-star recipes. We find items, we synthesize with them, we can meld our gear to improve our chances, but we don't need to go too crazy just to get up to a level where we can make the good stuff.

Enter the update: We're now forced to grind out high-quality items. Five of which require 9 of a rare material, and are required for the books. A further 50 of which have a difficulty rivalling 3-star recipes, and each one requires rare materials only found in gathering points which show up once every 70 minutes. That's 200 crawler cocoons, for those doing their math, and that's assuming you can HQ every time. All this just to even GET the tools necessary to attempt the 3-star recipes.

So, let's reiterate. You need maximum stats to even ATTEMPT the 3-star recipes. You need 45 potash or equivalent, assuming no NQ's. And all this just to ultimately create GLAMOR items since the highest we can craft is a mere ilvl 90. I swear, Square-Enix just plain hates us crafters...

COMBAT: So, you want a new sword eh? Perhaps your staff isn't quite as sturdy as you might like. Maybe your bow needs to be a touch more accurate? Enter the Zodiac weapons!

Ugh... there are literally a billion posts explaining why the Atma grind is both stupid, boring and meaningless so I won't go into too much depth. If you need this explained to you, then you're probably the type who thinks Pong is the most engrossing video game in history. Suffice to say you can either get really lucky, or you can waste hours doing the same thing over and over never getting anywhere nearer.

Okay, so you've ground out your Atmas. What next? Tomes of mythology? Easy as pie! Wait, I need how many?! 13,500 tomes. I'm just going to let that sink in for a few minutes. On average even the best dungeon only gives you 70 tomes, with a couple of hundred if you do your dailies every day. Oh, did I forget to mention that's just to pick up a single book, which then has further grinding to be done for completing it? Do I dare even mention that some of those tasks involve Fates, which can involve standing around in the SAME SPOT for hours waiting for the thing to show up?

Okay, fine... we've worked hard. We have our Animus, so what's next? Thal's balls, you must be joking right?

Let's talk about Novus shall we? Because it needs discussing. So, you spend yet more myth to get some inks and then obtain your lovely scroll. So far, so good. You then need to find two things. Firstly, materia to meld to your scroll. Secondly, Alexandrite.

I'm rather glad that they were smart enough to add Alexandrite map to a daily quest. This at least gives people a guaranteed way to obtain their Novus, so we can at least notice some form of progression. A step in the right direction after that awful Atma quest. However, the way they approached the materia melding itself is just silly. I'm glad you don't lose your alexandrite, but on the other hand the grade of the materia has ZERO effect on the weapon. Grade I? 1 point. Grade 2? 1 point. Grade 4? 1 point.

The different grades are only there to act as a 'reset' point for the success rate. This means that ultimately you'll be paying a fortune just to finish your novus, or spending all your spare time spiritbonding to obtain the tier 4's needed.

GLAMORS: Why? Just why? I can understand wanting to look unique, and therefore making some of the nicer items that little bit harder to obtain, but wow... these guys really hate crafters!

Most of the glamor specific items require rare components which are about as hard to obtain as the novus weapons themselves. Most of them are rare finds from treasure maps. Treasure maps which, I should point out, can only be found once per day. That's before I even mention things like Mist Silk... which is a rare find from a map which itself is a rare find in another treasure chest, from another treasure map.

...

I'm not overly pleased about the direction many of the recent updates have taken, to be honest. The core game is still there, and it's still fun to play, but it's being glossed over by endless grinds and boring hunts with no reward in sight most times. The nice things have become the sole prize of the very lucky or the very rich, which is a far step beyond the casual game it opens out as.

I just want the devs to take one step back, take a good look at what they're creating and then think "how can we make these fun and interesting rather than endless grinds?". Maybe then, just maybe, they'll do something to remedy the issues which plague it.

[Staris]

1.0 failed, it was horrible, get over it already.
It is the only game I ever wanted my money back from for a collectors edition.

If you played it and liked it, your a fool and your opinion should be ignored.

[Barimu]

1.0 failed, it was horrible, get over it already.
It is the only game I ever wanted my money back from for a collectors edition.

If you played it and liked it, your a fool and your opinion should be ignored.

From what I hear, 1.23 is 100000000x better than what this game is now

[Aylis]

From what I hear, 1.23 is 100000000x better than what this game is now

It honestly was, despite all the issues and problems with the game that we all know about. All those aside what it did do well was really drove off a lot of the more toxic members of the community. Thus leaving the game with a community that cared about the game, the world and building a nice friendly atmosphere. 1.23 was small, it was niche and it was a far more friendly place to log in and enjoy and I would give anything to have those feelings back again.

[Tupsi]

1.0 failed, it was horrible, get over it already.
It is the only game I ever wanted my money back from for a collectors edition.

If you played it and liked it, your a fool and your opinion should be ignored.

Many that played 1.23 enjoyed it and purely wished they fixed the issues that we were always told it will be fixed "in 2.0" - quite frankly you also misused "your" in place of "you're." Ironically enough, yoshida said just recently that subs to 1.x tripled when it went P2P.

So regardless of your opinion, 1.23 was going in the right direction.

[Derceto]

1.0 failed, it was horrible, get over it already.
It is the only game I ever wanted my money back from for a collectors edition.

If you played it and liked it, your a fool and your opinion should be ignored.

Inspiring logic.