I just don't get it.

[ChameleonMS]

I think SE are afraid of giving players the ability to make their character the 'wrong way', even if it wouldn't be permanent anyway. Since everyone's going to math out the best gear/ abilities/ rotations/ whatever, they seem to have conceded that there's no point in having a choice to begin with. More than that, they're obsessed with making sure every class is as close to balanced with each other as possible, possibly at the expense of more interesting gameplay/ equipment.

This is simply because the community became toxic to anyone not conforming to something akin to BiS. When that behaviour permeates, SE hears it from the players in a negative business way; complaints and un-subscriptions.
Make it easy, and fair, you will have a more peaceful, content, and subscribing player base.
Even with the gear/stats being made easy, you do not have to look to far, to find discontent, if someone is not using the correct skill rotation. Getting carried is getting carried, regardless of it being because of gear / skills.

[Iagainsti]

Changing tires and oil is more similar to "repairing" your gear. It's not at all a fun activity but we accept it because, economy balance. I bet you don't get excited about repairing your gear right? Bad analogy on your part..

Have you ever changed a tire? or changed your oil? Equating that to hitting a button then choosing an item and hitting another button is bad analogy, and your posts are rife with it. This dilutes anything youre trying to debate. You should really take the time to hash out what you are trying to get across without unrealistic filibuster because you're downright awful at analogies xD

[Critical-Limit]

Have you ever changed a tire? or changed your oil? Equating that to hitting a button then choosing an item and hitting another button is bad analogy, and your posts are rife with it. This dilutes anything youre trying to debate. You should really take the time to hash out what you are trying to get across without unrealistic filibuster because you're downright awful at analogies xD

I was thinking the context of working and paying someone to do those things like you pay an Npc to do it.

Sounds like you're bad at analogies


Why don't you talk about my fighting game analogy? Since people are so focused on work like those other two posters. I put a "work" in video game analogy. And why some people ENJOY the conclusion of their work. And want some kind of reward.

[Deuce]

Even in this example, the environments had that benefit of the "pretty paper", and the zones do change over time ever so slightly depending on the events (Alys Llya and Alexander for one), as well as providing the setting for the FATEs and hunts as you mentioned. It'd be sigifcantly more monotonous if the FATEs took place in copy/pasted or bleak terrains every single time.

It's just not a good reason to cut corners on development, and that's the same for making interesting gear or dungeons (where players would always go for the most optimal/fastest).

I suppose that my initial argument wasn't very clear, so I'll try to explain a bit more. When I say, "pretty paper," I do refer to a lot of the minute detail put into these zones and my main point is that they only serve to improve the aesthetic and serve no actual purpose. They are akin to facades of buildings often used in film sets. The problem is that we are not watching FFXIV we are playing it, so the illusion is much more obvious to us as players. Small houses and structures that are of little value are no better than copy pasted terrain. From 1.0-2.0 zones shrank considerably in size. This was both good and bad. The good was that it added character to the zones that was largely missing. The bad is that it leaves little option for the developers to add to them in future patches. Furthermore, zones have little meat to them and beast tribe daily quests are not fun, nor are they interesting.

Also, my point of mentioning FATEs was meant more as an example to demonstrate that the distractions in open world zones arguably decreased and did not increase from 2.0 to 3.0 A regression, even if the loss wasn't something significant.

I think part of that was because you were forced to spend ample amount of time in each zone. If you played XI, you probably have a lot of memorable experiences level grinding in Valkrum Dunes, The mob trains in Garliage Citadel, or that exciting trek with 17 other people to get to the BCNM or HNM location and getting lost along the way.

It was *very* grindy I admit that and it is definitely not for the average XIV player. But it did lead to some very fond memories. Specially when a simple thing like running to your XP Location could turn into a grand adventure.

I agree that many FFXI players are fond of those memories as am I myself. I would add that it's not just the zones that those players miss, but the open world dungeons that were difficult to explore on your own such as Castle Zvahl, Castle Oztroja, Temple of Ugaleppih and so forth. Real danger in FFXIV is missing completely and because of that players have little incentive to interact with those outside of their niche groups. This is a design philosophy that I hoped was going to be fixed when Yoshida mentioned "danger" in his live letter discussions of 3.0. Sadly, the only danger we got was mobs with more HP that hit slightly harder. The annoyance of being heavied while running through a zone is largely gone because of flying, but that doesn't change the fact that even if a player were to explore it is a simple task of using your sprint button to avoid any unwanted encounters. Encounters which serve no purpose other than to quite literally slow you down.

[Welsper59]

The environment is certainly different, but I do not believe that those who are critical of XI complain that there were too many stats. In general, the discomfort for a lot of players with FFXI was the grind, which is easy to adjust. Even 2.0 and 3.0 has grinds, grinds that many players are unhappy with such as the new relics. Also, I am aware that some players wish that FFXIV would have a form of gearswapping, but I'm not so sure that is what a majority of former FFXI players want. I believe that veterans of FFXI want to feel like they can explore the game and its world. That it is worth exploring and that they're rewarded for doing so.

I agree that the stats weren't TOO much of a complaint in XI. I don't think that's what the potato was getting at though. Pretty sure he was just referring to horizontal gear progression not working here due to system related conflicts, such as an inability to gear swap mid-combat.

One of the biggest mainstream criticisms of 1.0 was the copy pasted terrain, which became a meme of sorts. Unfortunately, that public criticism has provided us with empty boxes that are wrapped in nothing but pretty paper. What do I mean by this? Well, the zones in 2.0 and largely 3.0 are varied quite a bit giving this feeling that there is a detailed world to explore. However, once a player begins to open up that box and they remove the paper they begin to realize there isn't much of anything there. In fact, most zones are full of forgettable sidequests; yet, once those are exhausted there remains little reason to spend time in them unless you gather or do hunts. FATEs, something that the developers were proclaiming as this great addition to 2.0 before launch, have become an afterthought in 3.0. Most likely a result of players farming FATEs instead of dungeons for exp.

Actually, I'd say the biggest criticism that 1.0 had was the horrendous buggy launch. They literally took something with blatantly obvious UI and communication lag, then decided it was ready to go. Maybe it was a little more complex than them just thinking the public will love anything they crap out, but that is pretty much what killed 1.0. Those of us who played it, particularly any beta players, experienced the same exact problems during the testing period, yet there it went... up for sale. QoL and things that remove them (like UI lag) affect enjoyment far more than people may realize. It's a form of displeasure that slowly builds, which is actually one of the more detrimental forms of it when involving products that aim to keep them there for long periods of time.

The FATEs mention, for the time, really was a great addition to the MMORPG format. Keep in mind that they're designing the game not just from the WoW players aspect, but from their home game of XI (and 1.0). A simple faceroll means to level up fairly quickly? Those types of features were a godsend for those of us that dealt with the crawl back in the day. Yet, while everyone did enjoy FATEs, we (the players) are not the brightest of the bunch. We generally do not have self control in how we choose to enjoy ourselves. If we decide that something seems efficient and fun, we will absolutely burn ourselves out to the point of hating every single thing about it. What's even more humorous about that, is that most of us that do that will never ever figure out why that came to be, and will point fingers at the feature just being bad. There's a difference between something being objectively bad, and something being bad because someone is bad at how it's used.

That having been said though, the devs have proven time and time again that they just suck at execution. Ideas are great... usually... but how they envision the player base to receive it or take part in it without destroying it, is where they fail consistently. Despite whatever Yoshi-P says about learning from their mistakes, they haven't had the reality of the situation sink in yet about their overall philosophy behind content.

Design decisions such as these cause me to arrive at the conclusion that the developers have merely blind folded themselves and attempt to throw darts at a board in the hopes that something might stick. They constantly will promise one thing only to make a complete 180 on their stance 6-12 months later. Something that players continue to be upset about since it was released (housing) is a perfect example of this. Prior to its release and even before 2.0 launch Yoshida continuously told players that the gil earned from leveling to 50 would be enough for a small house. It's amazing to think that this was even promised when by the time it came out small houses were on some servers 100-200x more expensive than the gil earned from reaching the initial level cap of 50. To this day, small houses on most servers are 10-20x more expensive than the gil earned from reaching level 50.

It's likely something to that degree. We need to always remember that devs try to cater to a nearly infinite number of tastes and preferences, while also keeping to what they want the game to be. Those tastes change over time, and that's an absolute BS situation, but it's reality checking in at every turn. Basically, while it might be entirely intentional for content to be released the way it is, the player acceptance and how we handle it is always a gamble, no matter what they did to prep for it. Keep in mind though, the devs creating something with proper prevention and care in mind is different from creating something then just letting it loose without doing the prep work (players cheating to win and lack of action, for example). The devs tend to never learn by doing the latter most of the time.

I'm going on a tangent here, but the point is, many of the design decisions for the game feel more like knee jerk reactions to criticisms or even players exploiting game mechanics such as Amdapor Keep and Wanderer's Palace (hard) speed runs.

You are absolutely right about the knee jerk reactions as a result of the things I've mentioned, and then some that I haven't.

[Iagainsti]

Sounds like you're bad at analogies

[ChameleonMS]

Design decisions such as these cause me to arrive at the conclusion that the developers have merely blind folded themselves and attempt to throw darts at a board in the hopes that something might stick. They constantly will promise one thing only to make a complete 180 on their stance 6-12 months later...I'm going on a tangent here, but the point is, many of the design decisions for the game feel more like knee jerk reactions to criticisms or even players exploiting game mechanics such as Amdapor Keep and Wanderer's Palace (hard) speed runs.

This is true in almost all development (any field, not just software). The DEVs come up with an idea and project what it could work like, they announces these features to build anticipation. After initial development and in house testing, they realize, umm.... that is not working too well. Let's change it. Then it gets released to the wild. They receive feedback, and make yet more changes.

Something that players continue to be upset about since it was released (housing) is a perfect example of this. Prior to its release and even before 2.0 launch Yoshida continuously told players that the gil earned from leveling to 50 would be enough for a small house. It's amazing to think that this was even promised when by the time it came out small houses were on some servers 100-200x more expensive than the gil earned from reaching the initial level cap of 50. To this day, small houses on most servers are 10-20x more expensive than the gil earned from reaching level 50.

This is simple to explain. After initial design, they realized the server load for the housing zones would force them to limit how many players could actually use it; this is an Infrastructure limitation, and those are not easily solved quickly.
You then have two choices
1. Scrap the design and start over. This has the implications of people feeling decived because the feature had to be delayed significantly.
Or,
2. Keep the design and put a limiter on it to "prevent" too many players from being able to use it. Design a limiter to be something that would just a somewhat bitter pill to swallow but you'll do it anyways.

[Critical-Limit]

Nice meme response. typical of people who can't defend themselves.

I'm not even the one who brought up oil change and tire change as some analogy. Someone tried to compare saving up to get a very expensive CAR, and that feeling of "yes I finally got this ride"... to saving up money to do an oil change.

And you're criticizing me? really.

[Critical-Limit]

This is my final post in this thread because people can't seem to get past the idea that yes WORK(aka something you don't really want to do) can be used in a game to attain something that makes you happy.

And I'm going to use FFXIV examples even though I already used some, but everyone ignores those, and just focuses on the work analogy.

1.) GATES: they were for the most part dead before this last patch. All they did was slightly increase it's MGP gain. Now people are spamming GATES. If it was FUN content. They would've done them anyways before the MGP buff. But they didn't. So them waiting around GATE npc's, is a result of people doing content because the reward makes it worth it. I bet when they see that big Cha ching that's significantly bigger, seeing the challenge log and thinking" Fenrir doesn't seem so impossible anymore.

2.) 3.1 Relic quest. People complained really hard about the step to get it to 210. I can guarantee you hundreds of alexander runs were done under the pretense of "work" aka not having that much fun. In order to obtain end goal. Some people didn't find the reward worthwhile and skipped it. Some people were content with a daily routine to work toward it (Still something alot of people probably wouldn't have done otherwise). Bet they are happy they did it now, when they sit around with 230 weapons before the people who skipped it.

3.) Beast Tribe quests. If they had no reward, how many people would do those? wouldn't you consider beast tribe quests bad design? But I bet people who didn't like them, but did them anyways got the mount. Are content with their decision.

Who are you guys to tell people that "doing things you don't want to do in a video game" is a waste of time? The END result feeling is all the release someone needs to enjoy the content.

Stop trying to force your ideology of "you should like the game w/o rewards" on other people.

[Krissey]

This is my final post in this thread because people can't seem to get past the idea that yes WORK(aka something you don't really want to do) can be used in a game to attain something that makes you happy.

And I'm going to use FFXIV examples even though I already used some, but everyone ignores those, and just focuses on the work analogy.

1.) GATES: they were for the most part dead before this last patch. All they did was slightly increase it's MGP gain. Now people are spamming GATES. If it was FUN content. They would've done them anyways before the MGP buff. But they didn't. So them waiting around GATE npc's, is a result of people doing content because the reward makes it worth it.

2.) 3.1 Relic quest. People complained really hard about the step to get it to 210. I can guarantee you hundreds of alexander runs were done under the pretense of "work" aka not having that much fun. In order to obtain end goal. Some people didn't find the reward worthwhile and skipped it. Some people were content with a daily routine to work toward it (Still something alot of people probably wouldn't have done otherwise)

3.) Beast Tribe quests. If they had no reward, how many people would do those? wouldn't you consider beast tribe quests bad design? But I bet people who didn't like them, but did them anyways got the mount. Are content with their decision.

Who are you guys to tell people that "doing things you don't want to do in a video game" is a waste of time? The END result feeling is all the release someone needs to enjoy the content.

Stop trying to force your ideology of "you should like the game w/o rewards" on other people.

I'm not trying to force any ideology on people. I just think it's ridiculous to treat a game, a leisure activity for pleasure, like a job - a requirement to be productive to society to be able to afford leisure activities of pleasure.

I did the Ixali beast quests at first only because I heard they were "good crafting EXP", but I still do them despite being capped in rank with them because I actually had a lot of fun with the story of building the airship with the bird men. I got invested in "What happens next" and enjoyed interacting with all the characters in the story.

I do the antitower like 8 times a day grinding esoterics to get my gear but I ENJOY playing my monk, I like the big time hits with Forbiden Chakra and Tornado Kick. I enjoy weaving my rotation together and trying to do a great job every fight. I got a Shiva mount really quickly during a pony farm but was SAD when it ended, because I loved using her as a punching dummy. I like playing my monk, dishing out dps on it and figuring out ways I can power up my chakra mid-fight without losing any DPS.

I love gathering, and had a great time leveling my miner and botanist to 60...and I loved getting my Fisherman to 50. I can't wait to get it to 60 but I'm doing my crafters to 50 first. I love the stories of every class trainer. They're hilarious and engaging.

I enjoy FATE grinding for my relic quest, I enjoy hunts, I enjoy housing, I enjoy farming materials for big time rewards like Stuffed Goblin. I've been gardening to grow a Mandragora Queen stuffed animal for my house and it's been fun to watch the process of getting the right plants and growing them in a precise order. Sure it's a lot of waiting around, but it's cool to see the fruits of the labor and enjoying the labor.

I don't see anything in this game as a "chore". I'm excited every time I log in. I do it for the rewards, but I enjoy the journey to the rewards also. This isn't my job, it's my escape from my job. I love this game and every aspect of it. Check my character sheet I've got a lot of high level stuff. I do a bit of everything. Maybe not to the nth degree - I'm no savage raider, pentamelded turbo crafter, +500 gathering monster for the 4 star materials, I don't do anything "The best" but I do all of and love it.