Thread: The Current Status of FFXIV Patch 3.1 and How to Address it Moving Forward

Originally Posted by Kiara

Great post. I totally agree.

The latest Tomestone Weapon *is* basically ~90% of the best weapon in the current patch. With 3.2, anyone that doesn't clear the final Raid of 3.2 can casually, relaxingly farm the latest Tomestones of XYZ and save up for 3 weeks and get the latest Tomestone Weapon.

Sure they still need the Key Item to upgrade it to Max iLevel, but it's usually only 10 iLevels behind.

Yoshi P adds that Key Item into the latest 24 Player Dungeon (Crystal Tower, Void Ark, etc.), the following patch, and everyone's caught up again.

Compare that to doing the ridiculous grind of the Relic Weapon Quest, where you have to do stuff like beat Alexander HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of times, absurd grinds, to get an equivalent weapon.

It's not even close to being balanced nor rewarding.

That's the issue.

Yoshi P please consider making the Anima / Relic Weapon something that would be a real alternative to the best weapon and could be interesting and challenging to attain.

That's more content that keeps players busy and interested, instead of a CHORE that is the current Relic Weapon quest.

Totally. Just like they added gobdip to Void ark in 3.1. Oh wait... In the coming weeks I'm sure we will see more (individual) people with Anima weapons than Gordias or Upgraded Esoteric weapons. It's far easier and right now it's the fastest way (as in, real life hours spent) to getting a 210 weapon. If anything, they should have held off until the next patch because now we have a population of people who have no reason to raid until 3.2 since there is an easier weapon obtainable at the same level. You also make a lot of weird assumptions given that they posted that they will change the formula in 3.2 to favor raids.

UBERHAXED: Thats the problem when stuff becomes unrewarding. Again many things should have been untouched and just kept rare and sacred thats why some sort of Horizontal progression that doesnt get nerfed in a few months would have been what most player would want. Something you can persue that feels rewarding and enjoyable an actual acheivement. Even if its time consuming the time you invested has to feel like its worth it!

Plus, by the time the next raids are out, you'll be expected to have better weapons. And it doesn't encourage skill, so those that do try with their relic or even if they get an alternate weapon while working through the next step, they're likely just going to make the raiding scene even more miserable because they don't actually know the advanced fundamentals.

Its not like the current model didn't exist and work in 2.x. This raid/relic dynamic isn't new. This all worked fine before an frankly many of the steps in the Zodiak grind were worse when they first came out than the anima steps we have now.

@Belhi: Ofcourse its not new the only problem is compared to how FFXI relic was and how certain dynamis gear was they where still something you could use endgame and where not outdated due to some treadmill progression. Its different when you look forward to doing something and be hyped for it than doing something that feels like a burden or chore that you already know that it will get nerfed around the corner. FFXI didn't nerf stuff in years here we nerf stuff every 3 weeks when the casual joes complain over the stuff they will most likely not do more than once anyways. I think whats really worse is how comfortable alot of FFXI players have gotten in this envoirment. I understand that some of us are older and don't have time anymore but we are still playing an MMORPG its meant to be time consuming.

Originally Posted by FizzleofHyperion

@Belhi: Ofcourse its not new the only problem is compared to how FFXI relic was and how certain dynamis gear was they where still something you could use endgame and where not outdated due to some treadmill progression. Its different when you look forward to doing something and be hyped for it than doing something that feels like a burden or chore that you already know that it will get nerfed around the corner. FFXI didn't nerf stuff in years here we nerf stuff every 3 weeks when the casual joes complain over the stuff they will most likely not do more than once anyways. I think whats really worse is how comfortable alot of FFXI players have gotten in this envoirment. I understand that some of us are older and don't have time anymore but we are still playing an MMORPG its meant to be time consuming.

How exactly do you work a horizontal progression type like weapon into a vertical based game? Switching from a vertical to horizontal doesn't happen at the snap of the fingers. What you ask for is not realistic unless they decide to completely revamp the structure. They offer content on a 3-4 month basis due to the game working in vertical progression. In a horizontal, you have to plan out content that it lasts for a lot longer. We are in a community where people get sick of content very quickly and horizontal would make that even worse. People at this point expect new content to take on and new goals to work on every 3-4 months. Trying to make horizontal work in this fashion is absolutely terrifying and also a ton more work to balance each patch.

Ideas like that don't work on a mass scale. As popular as FFXI was in it's prime, it was still based around a niche audience. The end game scene was not as big as some led to believe. A ton of players who tried the game didn't even reach 75. You can't expect people who don't have a lot of time to adjust to this system. As unbalanced as this game is with casual content which I have been griping about in this thread, it does need to exist to keep the up flow going. Making the game too casual or too hardcore is not good for the game. We need balanced content that works in favor of casual players, midcore, and hardcore. FFXI in it's prime was truly only for hardcore willing to put in 4+ hours minimum in doing end game content. I know I was there from the start till Abyssea came out.

It isn't to say some FFXI style content can't work, but it has to work in the context of FFXIV's already established system. So far SE's attempts to work them in haven't been in their favor. Hunts are either chaotic or no one touches them and Diadem is a horrible mess right now.

I won't argue that the vertical progression system has it's flaws, but it works in the context of the game's system. Instead of trying to go full on horizontal, I would try to find ways to working more options to gear yourself up to feel like there is variety.

I am not against some horizontal progression but within limits.

However, to be blunt, this isn't FF11 and what worked in FF11 might not fit into the structure that has been built for FF14. Further, while some, particularly those from FF11, might have liked the model your talking about in the form it existed, that doesn't mean it will appeal to the majority of players. One of the reasons MMOs are in decline among online games is because people are choosing options which don't have the same level of long term investment. FF14's current success is built off following the trends it has.

Now there is something to be said for some horizontal progression but horizontal progression has as many potential pitfalls as vertical, particularly depending on the games structure and system. Things can easily be come overly complicated, too time consuming for newer people to get into, undermine the sense of reward a player feels from gear or require different gear for every occasion leading to inventory bloat and the feeling you have to get a different armor set for every weather. For many people a single badass gear set for a short while feels more epic than getting tonnes of different ones for every conceivable occasion.

With all that said, I think FF14 could do with a little less rigidness to the vertical system it has. Hopefully in 4.0 we will see them explore that since honestly the vertical model of just adding more levels and more skills with those levels will quickly fall into one of the core issues of vertical progression in the form of skill bloat.

To avoid random, they gives us Tome to exchange gears we needed.
To sustain the progress, they have to add higher ilvl items for people to keep going.

T'is where it's going wrong...

If ilvl remained next future patches, they have nothing to keep players in games.

For future patches with ilvl 210 remained as highest, what could be done?

Add slots for melding, materials that are not stats. (Since they are going to do it anyway)
Special effects, and obtained from Random Dropped of Diadem Extra Hard Mode.
Dropped rate low, and allow FC to group up to farm.
Different NMs drooping different a jobs special effects materials.

No more times exchangeable gears and so on towards end of 3.xx.

Raised only ilvl in your next expansion when you lift up our max level from 60.

P.s. My 10 years old niece was asking : why a level 60 job wearing 210 gears? When you are level 99, are you wearing 1000 gears?

Belhi & Velhart: IMO The relic could have been something that would never get nerfed. That would have been grinding hard for it. If it never got nerfed but only thing accepted is entering a dungeon unsynced to your level that could have worked. Everything else is a treadmill progression so new weapons would have gotten relased constantly with new ex primals tomes etc but the relic could have stayed sacred rather than something that it would loose its value with time it could have been even harder to obtain making it very rare/time consuming/costly/grindy. I truly beleive a player base would persue this if people knew it would never get nerfed around the corner but instead beeing something that constantly grew with you and your level instead of it beeing useless by 4.0. Thats one horizontal thing that could be put into the game while everything else can be veritcal treadmill mindless grind to be "first" with something thats useless by april.
There is no need to copy FFXI for anything FF14 can be unique but still make certain things rewarding rare and timeless instead of feeling that whatever you do now is useless and not worth the effort since in a few months its just gotta get nerfed anyways.

Originally Posted by FizzleofHyperion

Belhi & Velhart: IMO The relic could have been something that would never get nerfed. That would have been grinding hard for it. If it never got nerfed but only thing accepted is entering a dungeon unsynced to your level that could have worked. Everything else is a treadmill progression so new weapons would have gotten relased constantly with new ex primals tomes etc but the relic could have stayed sacred rather than something that it would loose its value with time it could have been even harder to obtain making it very rare/time consuming/costly/grindy. I truly beleive a player base would persue this if people knew it would never get nerfed around the corner but instead beeing something that constantly grew with you and your level instead of it beeing useless by 4.0. Thats one horizontal thing that could be put into the game while everything else can be veritcal treadmill mindless grind to be "first" with something thats useless by april.
There is no need to copy FFXI for anything FF14 can be unique but still make certain things rewarding rare and timeless instead of feeling that whatever you do now is useless and not worth the effort since in a few months its just gotta get nerfed anyways.

This doesn't make sense. Its much simpler to have it being available to upgrade through quests and balanced out with raid weapons. One thing people should really stop doing is comparing relics of FFXI to the ones of FFXIV. Their concepts at this point work very different from each other. Relic in FFXI is a long term goal and works as it is in that gear structure because the game on extreme rare cases comes out with new gear/levels that out date it. Even when it does, it has new quests to upscale it. If FFXI's system kept giving updates to gear and level caps, the weapon would constantly have to be adjusted just like FFXIV's. It works because it is an item that makes sense of the context of FFXI's systems.

The system for relics that are in place is just fine. SE just needs to find ways to make the quests have any kind of fun content in between the grinds and it needs to be properly balanced with other items in place at the time. Alas, the development team believes this weapon should only be grinds, and nothing else, because everyone universally agrees that mindlessly grinding without any attempt to make said content fun is fun, right?

You should ask to make the relic quest more engaging and fun, not try to make something from another game work in here.