Poll: Would you Like to see a change in the current formula of FFXIV

[Mycow8me]

Just returned from a comp explode, quit shortly after lore came out. Had a long thread going about being tired of farming tomes for gear.

Lots of ideas came out of that thread but in all honesty, it is not likely we will see any big developments in creative content till 4.0 other than stuff like aquapolis.

Unique stats and ability enhancements would be cool. They don't have to be gamebreaking or so necessary that it becomes a "requirement". I don't understand why people immediately draw to this conclusion. A +3% jump damage would be neat on an armor for drgs for example but its not going to be so increasing that its required. This kind of mentality is already in the game due to player created ilvl requirements. It's not likely to get any worse than it already is.

I really would like to see neat creative content in this game cause I struggle to stay subbed between patches and I get the feeling that if another unique or really well thought out MMORPG came out all of a sudden, it would pull me away from this game fairly easily in its current state. I do enjoy this game as it is though, as an old ffxi player its hard to stay interested in such streamlined content that really doesn't offer much change in terms of gear, excitement, or social aspects.

[Shurrikhan]

And to be honest: I'd rather have a new job than a talent tree of an existing one anyway. If only gearing them wasn't so iffy with the lockouts... >_>

This is one of my biggest points of contention with FFXIV. It sells itself as an alt-friendly game, yet the only advantages it really yields is bonus exp, not having to relevel cross-classes, and not having to redo the MSQ, and at the cost of ALL time-locked gear progression. Virtually all raid, casual raid, and currency gear really needs to be dedicated to a single job, the rest picking up the waste and spares, whereas other MMOs' multiple single-class characters can each raid and gear up. It feels like another one of those things that would have made sense in the build-your-own job system of 1.0, especially since gear was less class-locked back then and atrocious RNG was your *only* barrier. But now it feels out of place and, worse, in conflict.

It's not typically a crucial issue, just as other players of MMOs wouldn't typically be able to keep up to date nearly as many jobs as we have access to, and slightly overgeared farm parties here can pick up decent alt gear easily enough, but it's still... awkward. It's that wall-cabinet everyone hits their head on from time to time, or that strange but not quite ugly lawn ornament that the grass would look barren without but doesn't otherwise have a reason to exist. But a lot more complicated to replace than either...

But then, what would a practical alternative be? 1 piece of loot per job per week? That would feel like we're trying to get people to run some 20+ casual raids per week? All currency-based gearing is done via upgrade items onto job-specific gear and each set can go through only whatever value in upgrades per week? That'd feel every bit as out of sync, just because of the sheer chasm between the time the average player wants to put in and what's seemingly encouraged (whereas, oddly enough, if the same space for gear progression were there without those little clues of deadlines and the like, it probably wouldn't go nearly as noticed). And that's not even mentioning how stale the re-running of our content gets as is, just between the weekly and relic grinds.

We could go for a softer splitting of gear, such as might be achieved through multiple main stats per job and all gear being simply tank, LNC-optimal all DoW, all DoW, or all DoM, as before, so that you can end up gearing a few at a time with each upgrade...
...though then our item sets would look like a similarly odd conglomeration or else lose identity, and likely fewer models would be made per ilvl (unless they decided to give more secondary stat choices per item level tier). And of course there's the massive challenge of balancing stat-niching, such as with the evasive GLD/PLDs of 1.x, as compared to much more offensively-stated Tanks, something SE only just tore down the remainder of (apart from parry avoidance) for better or worse.

We could go for even further reduced stat complexity, effectively combining stats further or making class-based stats on the same item so there are only 5 gear sets—ranged, caster, melee, tank, and healer—down from 7 to 13, but that'd do nothing for gaining alt gear in multiple roles and would partially strip, rather than just revise, class identity.

As a sub-category of that, you could go ahead and open up the sets while keeping them ideal only for one, such that anyone could technically wear heavy mail (at penalty) and tanks could wear lighter armor for lesser defense but slightly greater offense, such as by increasing tank base potency but then diminishing everyone's output based on increased armor class, while perhaps DRG and tanks are less effected by those negative armor-based output multipliers.

You could simply allow an extra piece or whatnot of loot from certain sources that cannot be taken for the same job you already got loot for. A band-aid, but possibly decent.

[Shurrikhan]

How would you balance talent trees for tanks? Its tank, tankier, and tankiest? or tank tank, tank dps, tank healer?

How would you do df if you got tank dps, instead of tank tank? Unless its actually varying, talent trees are pointless.

In short, I'd argue that tactics (healer-tank conventional timings) and strategies (primarily tank CD at different pull marks) already vary based on composition, slightly, but it may well be the lack of such specializations—if they were to offer an alternative to the trinity system in terms of titled-role proportioning—that limit that variance so much. That specialization could have occured on the class/job level itself, rather than in sub-specs, but either way, there's not that much differentiation. When it works, especially in raids, it works, (see Cover-M1, Clemency A3S, etc.) but for the majority of content it's hard to alter tactics enough to outweigh compositional preferences (e.g. for a SCH to make a PLD truly worthwhile in a high-AoE party and not enough dps to kill the enemy group before Broil Spam; no matter what he does, it'd be better for an AST to place a HoT and spam Gravity at that point, unless mana is a drastic concern, than depend on Bane while filling only with single-target dps or heals that the PLD can't really take advantage of to significantly boost his own dps anyways).

This kind of stuff is often why we see two divergent directions of suggestion for whatever classes don't fit certain conventions, e.g. PLD dungeon speedruns (since 1.2 or Wanderer's Palace NM), one asking to be able to perform more similarly to others (such as in PLD AoE dps), and others asking to be able to handle out-of-role functions or excel situationally in certain core functions so that they can make up for what they lack through party adjustment. But the latter type of suggestions, while well defended, may often seem less practical just because that isn't an aspect the community seems all that used to considering.

As it stands, the most variance I see is that when on PLD, I prefer to maintain threat via Clemency between Blinds on large AoE pulls than spam Flash. Upside is that I usually just need the initial shield or Regen for the whole trash pull. On the other hand, when playing ANY tank that can really AoE (or, a non-PLD), I'd prefer to go all out after AoE DoTs are up, unless an extra 1 in 5 offensive GCDs is worth more for the healer than an extra 25% dps is worth for me. That can be the case for a WHM or AST, but is only the case for a SCH if they're needing to refresh Bane DoTs, which I can easily enough delay or compensate for if I know the healer will act in a logical, predictable manner. Sadly, that's the end of variance as I've seen it. And a lot of that is because we're so dependent on the trinity as it's been. I can do small pulls as PLD without a healer, or with a couple more CDs as WAR or DRK, but there's no viable efficient strat that can forego a healer just because of me being an especially tanky tank, allowing for an extra dps (whose AoE damage, basically the way of the dungeon game, is typically close enough to a melee's most of the time anyways). Nor are there any efficient tank-less strats, even if every dungeon can be tanked just fine on a DRG or MNK, etc. with a decent healer, because 1) tanks and heals are close enough, while each supporting the other and group cohesion and ease of action for a greater raid dps contribution, to a DPS and either, and 2) a lot of the tools that could be used to adjust a particular situation simply aren't usable anymore (e.g. most forms of CC on most dungeon mobs).

[Blackcanary]

Yes Yes yes... I want the the Element wheel back in. They should of never of taken it out in the first place. Give us more of a reason to use buffs, and spells. We are not little kids we can Handel it.

[Blackcanary]

To all the bean counters and elitists wanting these stat changes:

Prove to me that you are less likely to exclude people from fights in XIV than you were in XI.

Prove to me that "lol[job]" is not in your vocabulary.

Prove to me the elitist forum you frequent will not resurrect the "Wall of Shame" you used to exclude people in XI.

and finally,

Prove to me you are mature enough to let people customize their character THEIR way and not just how the Excel jockeys determine.

Please stop throwing the word etlisits around some people want these changes who are causal like me.

[Blackcanary]

I'm actually fairly against making new types of gear/stats/abilities attached to equipment.
As a player of XI, I remember how it was back then. The negativity, selectivity, and elitism caused from it was ridiculous. You had to have very specific gear for folks to want to team up with you and if you were casual you were left in the dust.
Not to mention the superior time/gil sink to get some of that gear.

You do know that hasn't changed if you don't have the highest ilevel gear in fights people kick you out of the party. So no matter what happens that will never change.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

You do know that hasn't changed if you don't have the highest ilevel gear in fights people kick you out of the party. So no matter what happens that will never change.

YAY then we start seeing equipment giving 1% increase to provoke going for 30 million+ on the market board. Oh how I cant wait for this :P

If anything like this came in the only place I would want to see it is locked behind something like diadem dropping augmented gear. Maybe even something like synergy trade in a piece of gear and get random stats put on it. So basically as long as the gear is not trade-able or sell-able then I don't care either way.

[Caelum_Dragguell]

So it seems that everyone and their mother keeps stating this "False Illusion of Choice" nonsense.

I just feel that people fail to realize that if made correctly, certain stats that are obtainable and certain gear that would be obtainable would vary in their levels of optimization depending on the fight or instance you go into. Fighting X amount of mobs in this case? => Direct self to these options, Fighting a single enemy with X resistance? => Direct self to these options. Need an all rounder base set of gear? => decide what works for your playstyle.

Not only this, but odds are it would provide incentive for more options to obtain gear meaning different types of content. Want relevant crafts that are actually comparable to current highest gear level? that can happen too. Interactions in the community could happen where crafters now have even more people seeking them out since players received a certain set of materials that can be used to make a cool item. Stuff like this can happen.

There would be choice. As the community stands right now I feel that it really isn't exclusive. Many times have I seen another players gear during an instance and thought to myself "Well that's really not great for secondary stats". Does that mean I excluded them or attempted to kick them? NO. The only times most players have issues is when the players skill level itself in a given instance is not adequate or that they can't learn properly or are unwilling to learn (or are just rude) and thus is getting in the way of a clear. The only exclusion based on stats that you would most likely see as a result of changes such as these would be in the tippy top of the playerbase that are hardcore raiders looking to race for world firsts or beat other groups on the server.

The community for this game is pretty much set after 3-4 years of its existence and I have to say, it's a pretty friendly community overall. I highly doubt that with the introduction of choice that would allow players to customize themselves to tailor their stats for what they want to do, that the community would then suddenly turn on itself and start hating everyone. Friends are already in place. FC's are set in stone for the most part. Players chat away in their LS's happily.

TL;DR There won't be a meteor of impending doom and hatred that will fall on an already friendly community if some sort of change to the formula of this game occurs.

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Edit: I should clarify some specifics of status' that I'd like to see. 2 options that I see are; (but obviously there are way more ways to approach things)

1. We remain with the same stat names and general purposes to each but with some decent amounts of rebalances. This would require 2 things.
a. That content changes in a way where certain classes have less homogenized roles
b. Each class' gear has more freedom or more choice within all the games stat options.

2. We add new stats that benefit each class in different ways and define their roles in a more interesting way rather than just having DPS, Healer, Tank.
a. For example Bard is known as a support DPS but what if we added certain status' that affected its cooldown times on certain support abilities, or changed how much a ballad reduced its attack power by etc... (depending on group composition these things would be interchangeable)
b. Or also, as I've heard and seen from playing dragoon (a class where having too much skill speed is detrimental to its rotation) having a stat that alters some timers for things like Blood for Blood or blood of the dragon in order to mitigate this factor.

Sorry these are just quick ideas I thought of or looked at from other threads and other people, don't take them too literally, just examples of what could be.

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Afterword:

Don't let the 1% of players that are mean and not accepting give you the idea that if changes happen in the game, everyone's personality will just suddenly change and you'll no longer have friends to play and enjoy the game with. I feel people lose sight of positives and are more easily perceptive of the few negatives of a concept, like how one bad experience with a person ruins something forever, when there are 90 other people who you would have had a good experience with otherwise.

anyway, enough rambling you get my point. We have a good community as far as respectfulness goes I feel. Sure we get heated about some things but nothing that ruins (real) friendships (at least far as I know).

No progress was ever made by thinking of all the hypothetical negatives of something and saying, "no won't try that", even when there were many or even many more positives that could come from it.

[Iromi]

To all the bean counters and elitists wanting these stat changes:

Prove to me that you are less likely to exclude people from fights in XIV than you were in XI.

Prove to me that "lol[job]" is not in your vocabulary.

Prove to me the elitist forum you frequent will not resurrect the "Wall of Shame" you used to exclude people in XI.

and finally,

Prove to me you are mature enough to let people customize their character THEIR way and not just how the Excel jockeys determine.

Sure! That is easy. It worked in 1.23. I cleared every primal fight, every dungeon with one of each job and I have videos to prove it. So..no one got excluded and content was easy to beat including everyone. This current game has more balance issues then 1.23/1.x ever did..lol.

What is a bean counter? I like beans..sometimes?

I do not even know what an elitist forum is. I've had stalker forums made about me..but uh, all that drama on XI? I ignored it and had a blast. The drama was never over our stats, it was over he said she said, someone stole an account, someone did this or that, wah my feelings got hurt cuz people in XI clinged to useless drama. For me I had "Drama" because of my appearance. Had a lot of jealous girls hating on me and guys who tried to impress girls to hate on my based on my looks. So..what are you talking about?

Why would adding in our stats back in 1.23 that worked just fine bring about drama from FFXI? In FFXI you could type and play at the same time. It was way way way more social. This game does not feel social at all. I have not really seen any drama in this game except stupid stuff like people robbing each other FC chest, or "ppl were mean to me in df!" it is hard to have the social drama XI had when this game kinda fails at being social....most people play with their FC and maybe a few LS but keep it really simple.

I remember when the game relaunched and we had alpha for 2.0 the first thing the JP were ranting about was how you could no longer type and play at the same time. You'd wipe your group. They wanted our 1.23 battle system back. Heh.

All I see on here is a bunch of people who never TOUCHED 1.23 or 1.x and dismissing the fact that somehow, someway...WE CAN STILL HAVE BALANCE. I played this game from ALPHA 2010 TILL NOW and never ONCE did I exclude ANYONE in content.

[Imakun]

Sure! That is easy. It worked in 1.23. I cleared every primal fight, every dungeon with one of each job and I have videos to prove it. So..no one got excluded and content was easy to beat including everyone. This current game has more balance issues then 1.23/1.x ever did..lol.

More importantly.. the things he lists do exists in current XIV, nothing would change at all.
People are already being excluded from content and straight out kicked from parties. Take, for example, the giant "NOOB HERE!" message that appears at the start of a dungeon/trial. Never saw anyone being kicked instantly or other people leaving because of that?
The loljob concept exists and will always exist everywhere, get over it. Same goes for the "wall of shame". Most of the time people that had bad reputation had one because they were legit idiots or jerks. And that shows how big and strong the community on XI was, where you actually interacted with people, getting to know them and establishing relationships with each other. You could play this game without talking to anyone, what the hell.


Finally, when it comes to customization you are already following a straight path with no choice. It's just the game telling you instead of reading it on some forum.

Some of us may be looking back with rose-tinted glassed, but some of you are straight out demonizing the past. The truth, as with many things in life, often lies in the middle. No one is asking to directly take XI or some other MMO's elements into XIV. Most of us want XIV to have an identity and be able to stand on its own two feet instead of being a glorified Final Fantasy theme park and dress up simulation.