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

Originally Posted by FizzleofHyperion

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You are doing it again. You are saying it can work, but not actually explaining why. Your rambling boils down to "It will work because I say it will work. People will like it because I say they will like it."

Again, explain to me why it can work. How it brings people in, how it works on a new player, casual, midcore, and hardcore level. So far, you have done none of it. Please explain in detail. So far you have been incapable of doing so. Only thing you have said is "It worked in FFXI, obviously it will work here."

What is sad is you believe gear itself is the end game goal. It should be accomplishing the more difficult content in the game. Gear should be a means to get it done. Gear collecting should be secondary.

What is also funny is you think that I think the game is perfect. If you actually read my previous comments, I have been doing nothing but complaining up till I decided to have fun with you. Game isn't perfect. My argument is the foundation is fine, just misguided.

Originally Posted by Velhart

So far you have been incapable of doing so. Only thing you have said is "It worked in FFXI, obviously it will work here."

And despite having an unreasonable love of FFXI (I'm still subscribed even though I play it maybe once a month), even I know that what "worked" in FFXI wouldn't be as successful as FFXIV is. The latest Lodestone census has the game at about 700k active players, as I recall, and while it would take some digging to uncover the precise numbers, I'm almost certain that FFXI at its peak never had more than 500k.

And the 700k we have now is roughly comparable to the 700k we had in April which was smack dab in the middle of the game's longest content drought to date which strongly suggests that it was the content drought following the release of HW that brought the numbers to that point, not some misguided notion that gear doesn't last long enough. It's quite likely that once regular (and actually good, unlike Diadem x.x) content starts coming down the pipeline, subscription levels will rise again, potentially doubling FFXI's user base.

First of all forgive me since I'm a but buzzed Velhart but here is my reasons to why I think certain things that work:

The idea of having to force pop big bosses on the world map through items obtain through gathering dungeons and crafts will help the following:

New players will always have people doing old dungeons since it will give replay value to old dungeons to drop the unique item needed (its only tradable if possible so you can only trade it to somone that crafts withon your FC and i think that might be possible)
If a person is new that you wind up with in Duty Finder that can also increase the drop rate wich also motivate a veteran to jump in on DF for the sake of their FC/Event LS to do this.

So that covers up a huge chunk of people doing dungeons constantly to obtains items needed to pop the world bosses. This doesn't mean the chances are gonna be a easier drops because doing it unsynced with friends. That is why a new bonus becomes important and can play a key role but a drop is possible through a unsynced aswell. Ofcourse this has to be balanced so it doesnt turn out to be shit like the people who did Zodiacs who got slapped in the face so hard with the 100% drop rate because some things are "outdated".

This gives replay value and birth to old areas and content making sure new players can get help and support from veterans from your own server and DF wich gives you an urge to search for new players for the "drop rate increase" and also taking the chance through to DF. Not just old dungeons but even the storyline like having Gaius dropping stuff needed to pop bosses etc making final endgame dungeons more replay value than just getting 100 more poetics extra for a silly relic item.

This ofcourse has to be balanced and not get nerfed after 3 months because Yoshi P feels the urge to do so making content unrewarding. Its been 3 years of this and somewhere along the way I agree with you on the misguided path that needs to be rethinked.

About the gears its to make stuff personal as current gears are extremly personal. Someone had the final call to switch back gears from 1.0 to this WoW Envoirment stats with colorful crap gears and now its a regret and a mistake since its just an item hunt. I know deep inside you agree with this regardless of how negative you are. This has nothing to do with new players its just an overral thing to make you feel unique with your class/job and items.

Make sure that certain DF can only be joined with certain jobs to increase drop rates in items aswell helping new players for these world maps.

Making use of whats presented is making sure iitems for these world bosses are obtained through Diadem aswell through gatherers dps etc giving value to the new areas and content more than i210 gears and a silly hawk. It will make people do it more often and acheive things.

Again I stand firm with making content rewarding and not this hell we are in atm. I know im a bit harsh but players have put up with this repeat for 3 years now. Surely new ideas need to pop. FFXI has many amazing content. Introduce a new area turn it like FFXI beseiged have a bunch of dragons attacking that requires tons of players from the server gather together for a common cause making the server in general personal by beeing with others from the server. Spice it up a bit by allowing flying mounts aswell where you can fire stuff in the new area etc.

Removing currency cap from start will benefit new players by having more active players at all times doing stuff trying to gear up more jobs than having players who feel they capped not wanting to do anything. You and Me know this very well that players who capped weekly feel no urge to continue playing so why limit them instead remove the cap and have people continue to play so content is available at all times for people who just started to reach endgame.

All of this again shall not be of the price to benefit newcomers and casuals only like the route of the current state of this game. It constantly shows rewarding to casuals and slackers that they can always catch up with someone who invests more time than you. Ofcourse I don't want new players or casuals to quit but there has to be some sort of balance like I've stated before.

One thing we discussed today in the FC was how retared gears atm that I cant borrow gears to a friend and then have him trade it back due to this strange spiritbond system thats part of this game. This has nothing to do with RMTs cause guess what RMTs are stills selling crafted gears through their websites anywways.

Now you have to answer the stuff I asked you about before in previous posts that you ignored from my previous post:

"Current state of the game is It doesn't matter what you have acheived or grinded I will always be able to catch up and do that like you did but with half the effort/time/gil invested the only difference I wont be "first". <-- You are telling me this is balanced?
That is not balanced Velhart. Its catering to one side only rewarding slackers and punishing and unrewarding the people who invest and dedicated time to this game that have it as a hobby.

Who wants only two new expert dungeons every update?

Who wants to feel like there is nothing to do when capped weekly?

Who wants to feel that the time they devoted to obtain gil for gears and items making them useless so fast that they have to repeat the process again?
That makes the player unmotivated you know that right? I can already tell on players on our server you are in it aswell.
Not everyone is as fortunate to obtain gil in huge amounts and as fast as others so how would you explain to someone for example who saved up entire january to be able to buy crafter gears knowing they are not the best gears by february 23rd? Thats balanced to you? Thats fair right? I'm pretty sure that person has a happy smile on his/her face knowing the countless hours spent are useless all for the sake for your idea of how awesome the current state of this game is because its only misguided? What are you gonna tell people like that? Encourage them to buy gil wich is against the rules and risk of getting them banned because they feel its not worth bothering?"

You couldnt answer these so feel free to shed your thoughhts on the stuff above.

Don't take this personal but I know you already new the answers from before and they can actually work but you are just arguing because you feel you already did what you did in FFXI and you don't want to see it here again.

Wish you would type in a better format. Ohh well lets have fun.

Originally Posted by FizzleofHyperion

The idea of having to force pop big bosses on the world map through items obtain through gathering dungeons and crafts will help the following:

New players will always have people doing old dungeons since it will give replay value to old dungeons to drop the unique item needed (its only tradable if possible so you can only trade it to somone that crafts withon your FC and i think that might be possible)
If a person is new that you wind up with in Duty Finder that can also increase the drop rate wich also motivate a veteran to jump in on DF for the sake of their FC/Event LS to do this.

So that covers up a huge chunk of people doing dungeons constantly to obtains items needed to pop the world bosses. This doesn't mean the chances are gonna be a easier drops because doing it unsynced with friends. That is why a new bonus becomes important and can play a key role but a drop is possible through a unsynced aswell. Ofcourse this has to be balanced so it doesnt turn out to be shit like the people who did Zodiacs who got slapped in the face so hard with the 100% drop rate because some things are "outdated".

This gives replay value and birth to old areas and content making sure new players can get help and support from veterans from your own server and DF wich gives you an urge to search for new players for the "drop rate increase" and also taking the chance through to DF. Not just old dungeons but even the storyline like having Gaius dropping stuff needed to pop bosses etc making final endgame dungeons more replay value than just getting 100 more poetics extra for a silly relic item.

First, we have treasure maps that already serve the purpose of open world fights. Open world raid level bosses do not work unless you make set areas for them. If not, then given the circumstances they can be exploited wherever you pop them. Which in that case, you might as well make it an instanced fight. Instanced also helps it so you don't have to worry about others coming in. Open world fights in a game set up like this doesn't work out well at all.

Second, so people complained about going to old content in this current relic quest, but how you explained it, you want to go full force on it? I can tell you, even in FFXI we got real sick of Sea/Sky, the only reason we showed up there was because the items were still valuable. The once fun content only became a chore, especially when competing with the same groups for items every day. Old content should only be revisited but so much. Sure give us a reason to go back if you want, but don't make us feel that we have to go back. We need to move forward, not backward. Its also a lazy excuse to pad content more on the developer's end. FFXI really was about padding content as much as possible, with reason however due to PS2 limitations. You couldn't just add new content in the game like you can with FFXIV.

This ofcourse has to be balanced and not get nerfed after 3 months because Yoshi P feels the urge to do so making content unrewarding. Its been 3 years of this and somewhere along the way I agree with you on the misguided path that needs to be rethinked.

Its 6-8 months. Like I said, gear chasing should be only a means to get the content done. It is sad that your mindset is that you want to focus on the gear grinding over the quality of the content. I like new fights being given to us in the amount they give us in one year. It keeps things refreshing and not you drooling over your keyboard doing the same content for years+.

About the gears its to make stuff personal as current gears are extremly personal. Someone had the final call to switch back gears from 1.0 to this WoW Envoirment stats with colorful crap gears and now its a regret and a mistake since its just an item hunt. I know deep inside you agree with this regardless of how negative you are. This has nothing to do with new players its just an overral thing to make you feel unique with your class/job and items.

I like this more actually. I played FFXI and WoW at the same time back then and always thought WoW's gear progression system was much better put together. Its easier to scale, easier to understand, easier to balance. Honestly, who really cares at the end of the day if you have "unique" stats on your gear? It doesn't magically offer choice. People will BiS no matter what has whatever on what. This was even a thing in FFXI. You know, a game so unbalanced in gear that 2-3 expansions in and there still isn't a better TP gaining piece of armor for Samurai than a lv.59 Haubergeon+1.

Again, I rather have a boring system that works than a unique one that can be broken by the slightest misstep.

Make sure that certain DF can only be joined with certain jobs to increase drop rates in items aswell helping new players for these world maps.

Sorry you can't come, we need a BLM, not a SMN.

Making use of whats presented is making sure iitems for these world bosses are obtained through Diadem aswell through gatherers dps etc giving value to the new areas and content more than i210 gears and a silly hawk. It will make people do it more often and acheive things.

Really this should all be within Diadem. Should focus on making ideas to have Diadem be better, not link it outside of it's domain.

Again I stand firm with making content rewarding and not this hell we are in atm. I know im a bit harsh but players have put up with this repeat for 3 years now. Surely new ideas need to pop. FFXI has many amazing content. Introduce a new area turn it like FFXI beseiged have a bunch of dragons attacking that requires tons of players from the server gather together for a common cause making the server in general personal by beeing with others from the server. Spice it up a bit by allowing flying mounts aswell where you can fire stuff in the new area etc.

You idea is called FATE's. Ask for more interesting FATE's. Also last I recall, this game is very rewarding, especially when accomplishing more difficult tasks. Rewarding isn't grinding something forever and then receiving item. A gordian weapon to me is 50x more rewarding than a anima relic could ever hope to be.

Removing currency cap from start will benefit new players by having more active players at all times doing stuff trying to gear up more jobs than having players who feel they capped not wanting to do anything. You and Me know this very well that players who capped weekly feel no urge to continue playing so why limit them instead remove the cap and have people continue to play so content is available at all times for people who just started to reach endgame.

So your answer is, leave it uncapped, let people burn themselves out much, much faster, then not get on the game till who knows how much later according to your perfect world? Limiting at least brings people back next week and doesn't throw all the gear at you at the start. Its unbalanced and only rewarding people who more time than others. There should be a difference of someone who dedicates themselves more to the game than others, but you are going extreme on the hardcore side. This is not a solution. You are trading a problem with a bigger problem.

All of this again shall not be of the price to benefit newcomers and casuals only like the route of the current state of this game. It constantly shows rewarding to casuals and slackers that they can always catch up with someone who invests more time than you. Ofcourse I don't want new players or casuals to quit but there has to be some sort of balance like I've stated before.

This only punishes and overwhelms new players and casuals. I am not sure how you look at it as fair.

One thing we discussed today in the FC was how retared gears atm that I cant borrow gears to a friend and then have him trade it back due to this strange spiritbond system thats part of this game. This has nothing to do with RMTs cause guess what RMTs are stills selling crafted gears through their websites anywways.

Ohh you can't meet your DPS checks and have done nothing to earn gear to overcome it? No worries, just borrow my gear and you can do it. - -;

Even FFXI had restrictions on certain gear. This is a really bad idea. It was only fine in FFXI, because there was barely anything that required a strict DPS check. Understanding your job with reasonable gear always got you where you needed to go.

Now you have to answer the stuff I asked you about before in previous posts that you ignored from my previous post:

"Current state of the game is It doesn't matter what you have acheived or grinded I will always be able to catch up and do that like you did but with half the effort/time/gil invested the only difference I wont be "first". <-- You are telling me this is balanced?
That is not balanced Velhart. Its catering to one side only rewarding slackers and punishing and unrewarding the people who invest and dedicated time to this game that have it as a hobby.

Again, you care only about gear grinding. No matter how much gear you obtain, it will not help you beat difficult content like AS3/4. It helps you meet your checks, but it isn't what completely determines if you win or not. Horizontal patch like 3.1 just gives the tools easier to people to accomplish this. If you are not using the gear to help you beat Savage, then you are collecting just for collection sake.

This is what separates people. Who cares when and how gear is obtained, as long as the content it's used for is still hard, which it is. Even with best gear in 2.4/2.5, Bahamut was still challenging to beat. Gear helped, and that is what it is meant for. A means to an end.

Your statement would be valid if they dumbed down the mechanics of the harder bosses in 3.1. Then we would have a problem.

Who wants only two new expert dungeons every update?

Not me. I want three again, and cut the Lords of Verminion crap out, SE.

Who wants to feel like there is nothing to do when capped weekly?

There is plenty in this game to do. You just don't want to do it. There is a major difference. Maybe ask SE to make the current content more interesting, not stretch it out like FFXI, making it worse. Maybe ask for more challenging content like a Final Coil level Alexander, or maybe more trial fights. Or make dungeons and relic quests that are not bang your head on the keyboard easy.

Most people loved Thordan EX. Why not request to get more of those? Best fight they have made in a long time.

Who wants to feel that the time they devoted to obtain gil for gears and items making them useless so fast that they have to repeat the process again?

Its only useless if you don't make use of the items you made. If you make them and never step into trial fights or Savage content, then yea its a waste of time. Again, gear is a means to get the current content done.

That makes the player unmotivated you know that right? I can already tell on players on our server you are in it aswell.

Motivation is given, its up to you if you believe its worth it or not. Video games are designed to make it to the end and beat it. Challenge is motivation. Gaining victory over something you feel you normally could not is motivation. Your motivation seems to be "I wanna look shiny!"

Not everyone is as fortunate to obtain gil in huge amounts and as fast as others so how would you explain to someone for example who saved up entire january to be able to buy crafter gears knowing they are not the best gears by february 23rd?

They have better means to obtain the next set over than if they didn't do it at all.

Thats balanced to you? Thats fair right?

Yep, sounds fine and fair to me.

I'm pretty sure that person has a happy smile on his/her face knowing the countless hours spent are useless all for the sake for your idea of how awesome the current state of this game is because its only misguided? What are you gonna tell people like that? Encourage them to buy gil wich is against the rules and risk of getting them banned because they feel its not worth bothering?"

This is a game that is always involving, and even crafters need to be challenged again. Giving them a gear set and not getting anything new to work with till the next expansion sounds boring to me. Even crafters/gatherers need an end game goal.

You couldnt answer these so feel free to shed your thoughhts on the stuff above.

There you go.

Don't take this personal but I know you already new the answers from before and they can actually work but you are just arguing because you feel you already did what you did in FFXI and you don't want to see it here again.

No I am pretty sure I stand by what I said. Despite how much I post in this particular thread, I don't have to energy to respond to each of your borderline walls of text which in a format that is a tad hard on the eyes.

Even if I say something controversial, or an idea I give isn't great, my mind set is always how to make an MMO that is fair on a casual, midcore, and hardcore level. To make it accessible, while challenging at the same time. To not have SE look down on us like we are dumb and can't handle a challenge. Your mind set to me at least is archaic, misguided, and heavily influenced by foggy rose-tinted glasses that just barely worked in a game that was released in 2002-2003 and to this day has not been able to successfully balance itself out.

I enjoyed and loved FFXI from 2003-2010, but I am not blind as to see that it had more issues than good things about it. I also won't dismiss anything good that came from it either. I can already think of a few in my head. You on the other hand only want things that were awful and outdated about it to come back. We already got the races, monsters, similar job system.

FFXIV despite it's current issues, still brings in what I liked about FFXI and WoW and put it into one. Sorry if you think I am one-sided, but I side with good game design, not archaic ones.

Annnnnd......scene!

Velhart:

The thing is you already know there is more too it than the treasure maps we have now. The reasure maps we have now only benefits you for minions crafting items and a silly relic item. There is no real challenge to this maps aside from just spamming buttons and hoping for a good. Since you get more crafting items than minons or the relic drop that pretty much sums up that the farming benefits mostly a crafter.

You asked how it could benefit new players thats why I said return to old content. Only thing is the older this game gets the lesser newer players will turn to this. Especially the "hypetrain minded ones" you already know wich customer group I'm talking about. Thoese who mmo jump to the newest thing constantly with 0 dedication and wanting to play an MMORPG like it should be played.

The reason why I keep turning back to gears is because how the game is build up now. Silly acheivements and burning you out into have the latest ilvl gear to do the current content. You seem to find great joy in this but this is whats going to burn you out.

The removal of tomes cap is to not limit a person. The amount of so called veterans that would burn their life away gearing up everything with the new currency is very small anyways but it will keep players going at it. Lets say you only had time to play every two weeks or three weeks but when you do its 3-4 times a row. If thats possible you should be given the chance to not feel limited and grind what you want to grind and gear up. Should you only have time to play every two or three weeks with the current way with weekly cap the feeling of when you finally get something will be feeling like its useless because new gears are just around the corner making current progress shit.

The beseiged idea what not be like fates because you feel its already here. Its presenting something else that should give more than XP/Minions/GC seals. I can't come up with something right now but it should be some sort of battlefield. Something thats just a part of a new area on the world map that shouldnt be a DF or instance where friends can feel like 3 people can do it together among the many people that are there. Not feeling that i must be playing with 8 people total if I didnt have too. Its not like we can enter VA CT WoD with 3 as an example atm.

That is why it should just be presented to us on the world map as something different.

Back to the items where you said its only useless if you can't put it to use. How can you even start to recoup the gil and time you invested when new items and gears are just around the corner.

When you are playing a game with the feeling that whats the point of currently doing something since you already know its gonna get nerfed thats bad honestly it teaches you the slacking will get you rewarded as long as you continue to pay for your sub.

People in this thread discussed this part before and clearly you missed it. When you say there is plenty of stuff to do in this game there isn't. Someone shouldn't feel they need to level other jobs aside from their main as having something to do. That is not fun thats a chore. The same goes for levling crafts or gathering.

Since this game is a constant item hunt if you don't do endgame raids at this moment wich is alex savage and thordian ex there isnt much to do because there isnt anything to do. I'm in a FC where people have level 60 everything most of the players do yet they feel there is nothing to do that motivates them to continue. This is also a mix of people who are balanced between casuals midcore and hardcore players.

Ofcourse for the moment the new players in the FC find joy in everything cause the world is new to them. The people in the FC that hit max level and beat ARR and HW feel like there really isnt anything to do after your weekly voidark / dailys etc.
Again this isn't just the state of the FC I'm in but how the feeling travels fast of players are getting burned out because of limitations, lack of content. Learning AS or Thordian Ex shouldnt be an excuse as having something to do neither is crafting or gathering stuff because having a to do list.

As much as you feel that people share your opinions so do I and that shows there is clearly no balance or we wouldn't be here arguing.

Originally Posted by FizzleofHyperion

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This is comical. If you want a comment on what I think of your current post, just read the post above yours. Overall it is pretty silly a system you think works that didn't even work well in the past would somehow magically work today. Didn't work well in FFXI and was only held together by veteran players even in it's prime.

You still have not convinced me that bringing these archaic designs back work on a casual, midcore, and hardcore level. You have not convinced me that a new player will not be overwhelmed when he needs to catch up with higher end game players. You have not convinced me that your methods would not burn someone out faster. This comes down to that what you believe is best for you and your friends. Also I would not take the forums too strongly into account as they are not an accurate representation of how the mass majority feel about the game. You don't think on all levels of play but your own and that is why everything you say is heavily flawed. At best you try to make excuses on why it might work for newer players.

But who am I to say what you can and cannot think!? If you think archaic, outdated design is something that will work, then more power to you.

Originally Posted by Kallera

From what I hear some are making the argument of making the content harder, to force players in being skilled all the time, this might backfire like it did in steps and savage, because the way content is set now is very, mercenary. Yoshida' idea of players going "That wasn't so bad" misses the follow up where players clear the content, but the experience is such that they loathe the process of playing through it.

It is more about making a proper learning/difficulty curve than just throwing difficulty on top of something. As Extra Credits once said: Throwing too much difficulty at the start can also dissuade people from continuing. It is sort of like a fighting game. At first you can just use the same move and spam buttons and succeed. Later getting past more fighters, you see that it doesn't work well like it did before. So you have to think of getting better to overcome that obstacle, making yourself more experienced and well adjusted in the process. Eventually getting to the end where all your knowledge and skill comes to the test. Maybe a bad analogy, but just trying to get a point across that people just need to be better motivated to better themselves. I can't say I have an answer to that and it is a person by person basis type of thing, but the answer certainly isn't just dumbing down things for people. It is insulting at another level.

Originally Posted by Velhart

It is more about making a proper learning/difficulty curve than just throwing difficulty on top of something. As Extra Credits once said: Throwing too much difficulty at the start can also dissuade people from continuing. It is sort of like a fighting game. At first you can just use the same move and spam buttons and succeed. Later getting past more fighters, you see that it doesn't work well like it did before. So you have to think of getting better to overcome that obstacle, making yourself more experienced and well adjusted in the process. Eventually getting to the end where all your knowledge and skill comes to the test. .

Well, i am pretty sure you can find every solution for this game problem at Extra Credit using Dan Number one voice. I remember the part dan mention the street fighter. He also mention that when Blizzard nerfed Zerg tactic in starcraft a lot of people quit because the game never taught them any other tactic. You can drop a lot of parallel here.

These are some big walls of text.

Thing is SE is touting the new sephirot battle and the dungeons as new, but in a sense, they are not. This was predictable, with very little to expect other than repeating it tons of times.

From what I hear some are making the argument of making the content harder, to force players in being skilled all the time, this might backfire like it did in steps and savage, because the way content is set now is very, mercenary. Yoshida' idea of players going "That wasn't so bad" misses the follow up where players clear the content, but the experience is such that they loathe the process of playing through it.

Originally Posted by Kaurie

Then we have the much slower progression in ilvls initially. I remember getting the first ilvl 70 pieces took awhile, and then upgrading to 90 was a big feat. Conversely, ilvl 170 and 190 stuff was thrown at you so fast that you could easily be max 179 gear in less than a week from HW launch (I was), and 190 before August.

I have to agree. I think this was a big consequence of them staggering the release of Alexander for Heavensward—it really did feel like we progressed too quickly, as we sort of had two "mini tiers" at the start of the expansion. The progression will hopefully feel more meaningful in future patches this expansion, as they won't be staggering the gear for a particular patch like that again. Hopefully, they handle things better for the release of the next expansion.