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

It's really good to know where the game is heading, as if it wasn't clear already; keeping people busy, so they don't stop to think about what they are doing - keep running that treadmill, buddy!
Adding one big pile of cr-... stuff onto the other, until you have one big stinking mountain of it. There are good bits there too but they are too far and few between. If you just look at what other games have to offer without all that 'stuff' that keeps people busy and 'happy'. It's quite hard to justify even to get online every now and then to reset your housing reclaim. The cost of the game plus that expensive extra inventory, I mean seriously a gametime card costs you 10€ a month + 8,40€ for a month of 6 extra retainers e.e, I can't help but think of some similar business practices being performed by e.g. EA. And I guess people did already vote with their wallets as the recent 'free login' event is showing. Let's see if anything interesting gets added in the next 45 days, unlikely I know.

Please also consider how much time it took to obtain a Zeta pre-nerf and now its only worth a day or two of FATE grinding in HW zones.

Originally Posted by melisande

Please also consider how much time it took to obtain a Zeta pre-nerf and now its only worth a day or two of FATE grinding in HW zones.

Obtaining a zeta only takes a day or two of HW fate grinding?

Originally Posted by BunnyChain

It's really good to know where the game is heading, as if it wasn't clear already; keeping people busy, so they don't stop to think about what they are doing - keep running that treadmill, buddy!

In all fairness, MMOs in general are treadmills; however, good design disguises the treadmill, which is why a fair bit of the Zodiac quest was bearable (save RNG reliant stages and ones that made you go kill **** for its own sake). This one isn't disguised too well, as once we get to the merchant she arbitrarily decides not to take standard currency (or even nonstandard currency) in lieu of bartering for a total of nearly 100 rare artifacts / high quality merchant goods, and the illusion is quite thoroughly dispelled. (Hitting that big 100 sends red flags to most people.)

Originally Posted by Cilia

And, as always, that does not include the HQ Crafted Items, which casual / solo players are likely unable to make or afford. Specialist crafting may as well be Desynthesis by another name, as it locks you out of crafting items if you aren't specialized to do so much like Desynthesis locked you out of obtaining certain materials if you weren't specialized to do so. Either way getting crafting to those levels takes a colossal amount of time and effort casual / solo players likely don't have, and the prices for said items on the Market Board are simply outrageous (~750k / item on Famfrit last I checked, which totals out to 12m gil.

This!

Screw the grinding it's not an impossible barrier but the fact that you MUST have at least 9-10 MILION gil at your disposal cut out the target of the anima weapons

Originally Posted by Kaurie

Obtaining a zeta only takes a day or two of HW fate grinding?

Read what you quoted. I said its "worth" a day or two of HW FATE grinding. You know, the part I 'skipped' (even though i seemingly did a much longer and harder grind) to continue its progression.

Originally Posted by melisande

Read what you quoted. I said its "worth" a day or two of HW FATE grinding. You know, the part I 'skipped' (even though i seemingly did a much longer and harder grind) to continue its progression.

Oh, thank your for the clarification.

Originally Posted by Alahra

I'm a bit confused as to when you did your Alexandrite, but if you finished that part about a week before HW, it had already become a lot easier to acquire. The maps cost half as many tomestones if I remember correctly (400 Soldiery), and Soldiery was available at roughly twice the rate that Mythology was when Novus was first introduced (for an effective cost of 1/4 the Tomestones per map). If you got Alexandrite from FATEs, they had also by this time significantly increased the drop rate. So it might have taken you 23 days to do it, but you weren't doing it when it was at its most grueling (whereas you're discussing Anima when it is at its most grueling).

I spent some solidery on it, but the majority of mine at the time was being spent towards crafting and gearing up other classes while we were still under Poetics lockout, albeit the elevated one. It was pretty much entirely a built up reserve of Allied Seals, doing hunts and the daily Ex mission. FATEs I would only run if it was one of the ones in my Allied Hunt Log, I think I saw several Alexandrites from there across the three weeks.

And even so that's a step that deserves to be grueling. You're customizing your weapon how you want it, it was a welcomed effort. This in exchange is effectively an "You must have pockets this deep and playtime this wide to ride", compared to 2.x's initial steps that promoted far better values than this.

This has been posted several times in here, but I think the developers need to see it over and over again.



Raiding is going to take such a nasty nose dive in 3.2. Its like they are trying to sabotage the game. Why are casual players even taken into consideration in making them? The intent with them to begin with was to cater to players who were looking for a challenge that 95% of the game does not provide. Now we have to make sure the casual players have access to that also. Dev's, do you even MMO? Your only option if you really want casual players into the raids is to make a three tier difficulty (Easy/Normal/Savage). There should be nothing taken from raids that are in expense of the players they were intended in design for. What you believe is right (since you only can pick two according to you) is Easy/Normal. Seriously, where in the thought process was this a good idea? All you are doing is satisfying people in the short term and not in the long time. You seriously plan to have Easy/Normal stretch out for not one, but two patches? When has this ever been a thing besides 3.0? Wouldn't the logical thing to do is make Normal/Savage, then in a later patch put an echo buff on Normal so casuals can have an easier time? Then when lets say 3.4 comes out, you can make Normal mode very accessible and then have Savage set on a capped ilvl to retain it's challenge and difficulty to make it last till the game shuts down.

I'm sorry, I know common sense is not a thing in the development process. The hardcore scene of FFXIV is going to die even more than it already is right now. If they believe it was simply item level issues in why the game is such in a bad state right now then they clearly have no grasp of how their own game works.

I really expected more from Yoshi-P and his team, but each time they do something or make an announcement, it just makes me more disappointed. I see they do wrong that even the worst of MMO's do right. Please get your act together, team.