What ever happened to the Roaming primals?

[KyahAlmasy]

Look at the HW benchmark. No 8-man fight against Nidhogg and adds (yet), but when we encounter Bismark...we don't get eaten, as it is implied there.

Well we are still in the HW expansion, so I don't see why that is relevant? I'm sure that at some point they will add the 8-man fight with Nidhogg considering that's what this expansion centers around. And while you do technically get eaten by Bismark should you allow the Island to break, that's not exactly promised content like the roaming primal concept that was flagged in everyone's face.

And ts no "slap in the face"; plans change, things that seem like amazing ideas become a nightmare to implement properly, if it can be made to work at all.

Benchmark =/= Game Trailer

But yeah it's just a benchmark, it's there to test your computer with in-game assets while being entertaining. Taking events in there as "future content" is making some huge and unjustified assumptions.

Only the benchmark isn't where they promised roaming primals as "Future content", the roaming primals were a consistent promotional tool used to get the attention of customers. You don't promise a type of content, hype it up in promotions, in magazines and blog articles just to sweep it under the rug when the content finally releases. It'd be like buying a vacuum that claimed it could also wash stains out of fabric, and then you buy it and it's just a plain old vacuum. Misleading your customers could easily be perceived as a slap in the face.

In addition, placing it in the Benchmark was a poor decision if they hadn't even conceived an idea on how it would work, or if it was even going to be implemented at all because it gives the impression that the concept was currently being developed. The whole campaign revolving around this "roaming primal" idea was very misleading and in bad taste in my opinion.

[Belhi]

If I was them I suspect my concern is they would just end up like hunts where they get zerged down in no time by hordes of players. Really the fact they are primals or not wouldn't matter much in that situation. If they are going to have roaming primals I think they need to incorporate mechanics that it more structure than just spamming Threat generating skills to try and make sure your Party get the Max reward.

I mean, how exactly would you imagine it actually would work?

[Jeykama]

Only the benchmark isn't where they promised roaming primals as "Future content", the roaming primals were a consistent promotional tool used to get the attention of customers.

I've been playing since 2.0 (and a little before) and I never saw any mention of roaming primals in promotional material, especially after 2.0 released. In E3 2012 there were a few interviews that mentioned the roaming primal concept, but Koji apparently stated in an interview a month later (http://www.rpgsite.net/interview/308...oper-interview he states that E3 translation implying roaming primals was in error. This looks like scrapped content and always has been since ARR launched so... any misleading impressions was entirely of your own doing. A benchmark isn't advertising even if they mentioned the possibility of open-world Ifrit, or else you'd be complaining about not having open-world Bismarck as well (since they did the same thing in the HW benchmark). It's just a fancy benchmark.

Not to say the idea of open world primals wouldn't have been cool, but game dev floats on a sea of scrapped ideas.

[Lone-wolfe-02]

They'd probably screw it up like every other open world feature anyways.

[Kuwagami]

snip.

I'm pretty sure Yoshida mentionned the roaming primals were still planned in a recent interview or live letter.

Well doesn't the Odin fate count as a wandering primal?

not really. Wandering primals are advertized as primals that a FC could summon

[awbalto]

Well doesn't the Odin fate count as a wandering primal?

[dinnertime]

Well doesn't the Odin fate count as a wandering primal?

I was about to mention that myself. He probably was used as a test subject to see how it would turn out.
He doesn't give any meaningful rewards though.

[Preypacer]

It went the way of Egi glamours, the addon API, sieges on Ishgard, and many other features it seems.

All of that would add more variety, intrigue and possibly even depth to the game, which doesn't fit with their narrow "vision" for XIV, so they had to be cut. Same goes for the elemental wheel, more interesting stats on gear, more options in character development, open world dungeons, and roaming primals, among other things. Maybe they fear giving us all that variety would "stress us out".

[Asmodai]

And ts no "slap in the face"; plans change, things that seem like amazing ideas become a nightmare to implement properly, if it can be made to work at all.

For real I am with you on this it sounds super intensive to make things interesting. What they should do to make everything easier is rehash all the old content and boss fights mob models and mechanics. Also perhaps add some sort of token system and then make an item available only if you can collect so many of them, the tokens could drop from old content that way all the people who are sick of playing the old content will have to go back and play that old content again to give the appearance of an active 1-50 scene. That would make it easier on them so they could put bunny ears on male toons.

[Kalsoa]

Stuff like this gets thrown to the wayside and we get crap like Lord of Verminion instead.