How would you feel about end-game gear only being useful for 3 months?

[elreed]

i would definetly go with some hard content like having to do a very hard chain of quest to get a key to some new area or a dungeon with lots of dungeons in it with different bosses in every one of them, gear should be good for at least a year in my op. so players can look forward to get em, after the first expansion they should rise level cap and give endgame gear that last for a couple of years but make it in some way hard to get not with the drop rate, more like having to get different mats from different mobs or difficult quest or dungeon bosses to be able to craft those, that should help new people to let em be busy with that stuff.

They need to add NM's with background stories, so you can have some lore there not just kill the new guy, but something that makes you think you're doing something, in other games if you completed some quest chains, at the end the whole area looked different to you and the people who hadnt finished those couldnt see the difference and some of the new content wasnt unreachable for them until they completed that, in example could be like getting all the content done in the rescue of the city of Ala Mhigo can let you get in while other ppls that hasnt finished it cant get there, cant attend to defending events, etc.

I think this game its taking some of that by adding enemy company leaders on sight, like 14 companies you have to defeat to rescue different zones of the entire world, maybe im wrong but that sounds really good, so people will be looking forward to clear content just to get to those areas, friends will be helping each other to clear content and play together later on.

0.02

[Ava]

I never said that. To the contrary, I said that making old content obsolete will reduce content.

The most successful MMORPG the genre has ever seen is based on content that become obsolete after 3-4 months. People love the game, and they love the idea of cycling gear constantly. It doesn't reduce the amount of content, it just means the developers need to keep up with the players that much more and produce more content when it's time to turn the old stuff obsolete.

[Krin]

The most successful MMORPG the genre has ever seen is based on content that become obsolete after 3-4 months. People love the game, and they love the idea of cycling gear constantly. It doesn't reduce the amount of content, it just means the developers need to keep up with the players that much more and produce more content when it's time to turn the old stuff obsolete.

The problem, as I've discovered, is the Armory system does not lend itself well to high gear turn over at all. If you like to play multiple roles, then you are screwed with high gear turnover if you don't play 80 or so hours a week with other people who play the same amount of time. In the end, you'll end up with the alt problem, only on one character. You'll want to run as a dedicated mage, and can't because your gear is only DoW-ish and you now have to rerun all the old content to gear up to your current level in mage gear. You get class lock-in and your DoM classes effectively become your "alt" while DoW is your "main".

I get the feeling many people, myself included, find this a bait and switch. The back of my FFXIV case says, "The Armory System: Change classes by simply equipping a different weapon or tool." I went for this game, with all of the well publicized issues, specifically to avoid class lock in. Changing classes in "that most popular MMORPG of all time" is both a massive time sink and a highly political activity within your Guild. You create a new character, spend a few months leveling it mindlessly, then have to somehow fit yourself into your Guild's role structure. Meanwhile, people feel your taking away from their game play because they now compete for raid slots since you changed roles.

The game play and quests in FFXIV punishes early specialization in the combat classes. I started out GLA/MIN/BS. I found out that if I wanted to craft some armor, I'd need to go back and start leveling ARM. Later on, I was dying pretty hard core on the Calamity Cometh quest protecting the whiny doofus and the angry gorilla from Mineites. At the suggestion of some veterans in my LS, I went back and ranked THM/CONJ to rank 10 and suddenly now I can heal the guys I'm supposed to be protecting making the quest several orders of magnitude easier, even with gimped weathered X gear.

In a game that does so much to force you into diversification of play style, a short gear cycle is pure hypocrisy. The original intent was if I want to be DD in tomorrow's run, I can swap out some gear and it's done. Someone else can do the same and fill my Tank or Healing role I had previously been in. This is why I think so many people have come out against it.

I think materia does a lot to bridge that gap, but only if you can keep gear relevant well into the next 1 to 2 tiers. Also, avoiding gear sets like the plague will help, and provide an important avenue of customization. Balancing VIT, STR, and DEX in a single set makes for easy DoW flexibility, or stacking heavily into VIT and DEX can make you a bad ass tank, but not much else. The point is, the games designed for each single character to fill multiple roles. So you really should consider things that take X months in class-locked MMORPG's to take at least X*3 months on a single character in FFXIV.

[Ava]

The problem, as I've discovered, is the Armory system does not lend itself well to high gear turn over at all. If you like to play multiple roles, then you are screwed with high gear turnover if you don't play 80 or so hours a week with other people who play the same amount of time. In the end, you'll end up with the alt problem, only on one character. You'll want to run as a dedicated mage, and can't because your gear is only DoW-ish and you now have to rerun all the old content to gear up to your current level in mage gear. You get class lock-in and your DoM classes effectively become your "alt" while DoW is your "main".

I get the feeling many people, myself included, find this a bait and switch. The back of my FFXIV case says, "The Armory System: Change classes by simply equipping a different weapon or tool." I went for this game, with all of the well publicized issues, specifically to avoid class lock in. Changing classes in "that most popular MMORPG of all time" is both a massive time sink and a highly political activity within your Guild. You create a new character, spend a few months leveling it mindlessly, then have to somehow fit yourself into your Guild's role structure. Meanwhile, people feel your taking away from their game play because they now compete for raid slots since you changed roles.

The game play and quests in FFXIV punishes early specialization in the combat classes. I started out GLA/MIN/BS. I found out that if I wanted to craft some armor, I'd need to go back and start leveling ARM. Later on, I was dying pretty hard core on the Calamity Cometh quest protecting the doofus's from Mineites. At the suggestion of some veterans in my LS, I went back and ranked THM/CONJ to rank 10 and suddenly now I can heal the guys I'm supposed to be protecting making the quest several orders of magnitude easier, even with gimped weathered X gear.

In a game that does so much to force you into diversification of play style, a short gear cycle is pure hypocrisy. The original intent was if I want to be DD in tomorrow's run, I can swap out some gear and it's done. Someone else can do the same and fill my Tank or Healing role I had previously been in. This is why I think so many people have come out against it.

I think materia does a lot to bridge that gap, but only if you can keep gear relevant well into the next 1 to 2 tiers. Also, avoiding gear sets like the plague will help, and provide an important avenue of customization. Balancing VIT, STR, and DEX in a single set makes for easy DoW flexibility, or stacking heavily into VIT and DEX can make you a bad ass tank, but not much else. The point is, the games designed for each single character to fill multiple roles. So your really should consider things that take X months in class-locked MMORPG's to take at least X*3 months on a single character in FFXIV.

Oh, I agree. I'm the one that explained my pov about that above that you replied to.

But, regardless of what I like, or what I feel is right for this game, ultimately the developers will go in the direction that leads to more revenue, and thus allows them to expand and implement more of their ideas that they may not otherwise due to lack of funds.

A "Trial of the Magians" system would solve most of the issues with the above, as you'd be able to collect an old set and upgrade it to the point of being on par with new sets, the only problem arising in this case is making sure gear doesn't curve beyond the difficulty of content. It wouldn't work out that well if one could just solo old content and then do trials to upgrade their gear. I think this is where FFXI did things right, bosses required more strategy than numbers (ofc brute force strategies existed for some, but not for all) thus making content equally difficult whether you were in the best rare dropped gear, or gear you bought off the AH.

Materia certainly wont solve anything if they do go with a tiered progression system. If you have a tier 5 materia (the highest level iirc) and it gives +8 STR, then the materia will make both the lower tier, and the higher tier equally stronger, thus the gap between the two remains the same. Gear may remain relevant, but I think relevancy is subjective. High skill players will always require less gear to do the same thing a lower skilled player would need to do the same thing, so where is the line drawn?

Ideally I'd like to see the non linear progression system discussed throughout this thread, but whether or not it's the best idea from a business point of view, I'm not sure. Don't you feel the same? That a constant cycle of new content and new gear is more exciting for the "average joe"?

[MizoreShirayuki]

All I have to say is THIS

[User201109011315]

Wow... I didn't know that you worked there and knew how do they work.
Also I like the fact that you suppose to know things that you could never know unless you worked there, it's like you are an all-seer or something.

It takes them 1 year to add a mount (probably longer than a year) and you think I have no right to question their ability to release stuff efficiently? FFXIV has a small team working on the project. It's pretty obvious. Other companies release stuff so much faster.

[Eekiki]

It takes them 1 year to add a mount (probably longer than a year) and you think I have no right to question their ability to release stuff efficiently? FFXIV has a small team working on the project. It's pretty obvious. Other companies release stuff so much faster.

SE tried the fast thing. Look what happened.

Sony tried that fast thing with DCUO. Look what happened.

EA/Mythic tried the fast thing with Warhammer Online. Look what happened.

SE has no room for error. Can you blame them for taking their time?

Wait, don't answer that. You blame SE for cloudy days.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

It takes them 1 year to add a mount (probably longer than a year) and you think I have no right to question their ability to release stuff efficiently? FFXIV has a small team working on the project. It's pretty obvious. Other companies release stuff so much faster.

News flash!

SE didn't start their redevelopment for all of these things til January. That means, production on the majority of the content was halted, scrapped, or pushed aside to reevaluate later. So, when they figured out a game plan, started redeveloping basic systems, and adding in quick fixes that were big priorities, they didn't have the luxury to develop and released content in the same way the other companies could.

Your inability to see that.. --or maybe you do and you still feel that it isn't fast enough-- ..shows how little empathy you have and ultimately your lack of intelligence. Also, are you Gifthorse? I'm starting to think that you are. lol

[SilvertearRen]

Dzemael is not a true "endgame content" dungeon. And frankly, I don't think we're going to see "true endgame" until after Ishgard opens up and we get more content that is equivalent to what FFXI had post-Chains of Promathia.

Until then, let's shut up about endgame. It's purely speculation at this point.

[AmyRae]

My answer will be "it depends."

A good FFXI example would be the Walahra Turban. For a spell, it was the best headgear for a lot of jobs, and it was relatively easy to obtain. Hardcore players crossed that off their list right away, but it wasn't long before everyone started looking the same. In a case like that, three months would be fine for better replacements.

It just depends on the situation, how common the item is, how long it took to obtain, and all that.

It's no different than fashion. You can have the best looking clothes, but eventually, everyone "catches up" and copies you. At that point, you can't be satisfied looking the same as everyone else, so you crave the latest fashion for a new look.