Nerf, Buff, Change, New Class

[Kohta]

I have been on and off from Final Fantasy XIV since the release of 1.0, Can you relate that you have been looking to replace the old Vanilla or Pre-Abyssea MMO, accepting or hoping that what's next might be just what you were looking for?

From a personal stand point, I like how organized FFXIV feels, after playing games like Blade and Soul, where you literally can be matched up in a level 25 dungeon with 50's that rush through everything, one shotting it all and expecting you to just keep up, 50 menu options of only 3 buttons that you use 90% of the time, I'm satisfied with how FFXIV 'feels' - Until it comes to the jobs.

With the addition of Ninja, I regained much of the hope that FFXIV would start to sow the seed and regrow it's old roots, learning from previous mistakes from FFXI (One expansion now allows you to get what everyone else took 5 years to get in a month) and not making them again.

Machinist wasn't exactly what we needed in our roster and being such a brilliant community, many of you have been able to take a potato and make steak, Dark Knight being a tank was understandably necessary to help balance the roster of choices when it came to que and wait times, similarly with the addition of Astrologian, one of the coolest healing ideas I have ever seen (I love Science and Space).

Unfortunately, I have to ask, did you give up? Dark Knight was a sacrificial DPS, putting a heavy load of damage taken to end fights quickly, The Machinist is a neat idea, but how practical is it really with Bard already an option, Where is Ninja's Ustusemi along with the weapon skills that put the eastern theme at the forefront? Blade: Chi,Blade: Jin, Blade Ku? The elemental wheel that was not just flashy but could help increase weapon skill based damage, adding strategy to Black Mage, team work?

Look at any result of googling "FFXIV 3.0/3.5/4.0" etc and you will see people speculating on new classes already and in the past, I feel a psychological reason for this is because the appetite of "Final Fantasy" is not being satisfied, if you look even closer you'll notice many pouring hope and wishes into these rumors and ideas that they are anything close to the old MMO Final Fantasy XI. I implore you look at year(s) old threads or more that speculate the original Dark Knight and Ninja and how they are nothing like many hoped.

So where does this put us? The front page of these threads continue to ask for changes, revisions or speculate on new jobs and content. The desire from this community no matter where you look is holding on to that thread of hope that each update and patch is going to release something or make some sort of change that brings this closer to home in Vana'diel, and I completely understand.

We could start anywhere, Summoner would be a great one, The story certainly tells us that we can't handle summoning the full version of Summons, but through the interesting power of change, we can summon Bahamut's incredible ability through channeling with him, so, now we can summon full summons? If only briefly? I don't mind sticking to these "rules" of story telling, but at the end of the day, for 9 years, I had a full summon by my side doing Black Mage level damage, I found the loop hole in your story that tells me this Bahamut ability is essentially a way to bring these forces to my side, if only briefly enough to harness one ability.

But, I would take that? Would you? Summoning Ifrit, Garuda or others for an ability here and there? But we'd be speculating and wishful thinking, worst of all- we would be settling for "good enough" much like it has been so far.

If someone asked me what the end game of Final Fantasy XIV was like, I would tell them it's chasing gear, you run the same previous 5 dungeons, to get specific credits, to get an Item level, to run something else, to replace it, upgrade it and by them there will probably be a patch and you do it all over again, you can't deny this has been the way of things since 2.0 and the implementation of "Tomestones of Philosophy".

You can only re-skin a dungeon or change mechanics so many times before the trend sets in and you are repeating what you did 2 years ago. Adding new content, such as heavensward, was mildy acceptable- The music and new environments are great, but I don't remember half of them, they could go up in flames and I couldn't tell I cared about the place, I have no intimacy time with the area because it's all fetch quests to level, a few FATE's and then running around only to avoid aggro when necessary.

Once you hit 60, you're back to the same old thing. What will 4.0 be like? Level 75 cap, rush to 75 quickly so you don't feel left behind, hurry up and get those Tomestones of Gubajuba so you can get the i-lv 300 gear that will get replaced in 4.1!

I'm not sure about you guys, but this is getting old. I have played other games at this point that I have thought "This feels more like a Final Fantasy game", I have no idea what the development is catering towards, but the current direction is quite obviously not satisfying the desire for something on the scale of what has been.

I'd like to know how you feel about these points, are you really fine with the current "Phantasy Star Instance" style of gameplay, or would you like to see more cooperative game play like camping parties in the wild, or an optional mix of the two, maybe you have your own ideas? I believe what ever the case may be, this is getting stale since 2.0.

[Khalithar]

You can edit your OP to bypass the 1000 character limit.

[Kohta]

Thank you!

[SpookyGhost]

Because of the word limit on these forums I will sum it all up here, why are we accepting that earning 3000 "Tomestones of whatever" every 2 months for the last 2 years is okay, why are the classes being dumbed down in relation to the original Final Fantasy feel. Why is this acceptable at all, that we have half breed classes like Summoner, who's companion is no bigger than a cat.

Who knows, man. Probably a bunch of new people coming in with a fresh experience of the treadmill we already went through so they're not seeing what a headache it is after 3 years. Summoner's ship sailed long ago unfortunately, but people are happy with it for whatever reason so *shrug*.

[Cakekizyy]

Sounds like you want this to be FFXI.

[Kohta]

Sounds like you want this to be FFXI.

I would like this to be Final Fantasy, regardless of what number comes after it, the phenomenal amount of information in old threads can be organised to show, as well as the front page of threads here, that you can call this anything and it would pass. They have produced games already, like Bravely Default, with the job wheel and references to Final Fantasy, Crystal life source and yet it could have been called "Final Fantasy: Such and Such" and that would have been okay.

You can't deny that this does not feel like a Final Fantasy in the same breath describe how it's uniquely different from a game that has nothing to do with Final Fantasy.

[Cakekizyy]

I would like this to be Final Fantasy, regardless of what number comes after it, the phenomenal amount of information in old threads can be organised to show, as well as the front page of threads here, that you can call this anything and it would pass. They have produced games already, like Bravely Default, with the job wheel and references to Final Fantasy, Crystal life source and yet it could have been called "Final Fantasy: Such and Such" and that would have been okay.

You can't deny that this does not feel like a Final Fantasy in the same breath describe how it's uniquely different from a game that has nothing to do with Final Fantasy.

Feels like Final Fantasy to me.

[Khalithar]

Anyway, on to my actual response to your thread:

I was a drk main in FFXI and I absolutely loved the class, when it was to be released for FFXIV I had to go for it. I was disappointed (but not surprised) to learn Drk was going to be made in to a tank, SE has kind of made it clear (in my opinion) that plate = tank and Drk traditionally wears the heaviest armor. Also I agree with you that the nin weaponskills from XI were very unique indeed and added to the eastern feel of the game and the XIV version could use the same. Machinist isn't a bad idea, I like both the archery and gunnery option for ranged dps and while both classes feel and play very differently, GB/WM make them a little too similar in my opinion. A good part of that is wanting to be different to XI and the devs, for better or worse, seem to be sticking to their vision of how the classes should be. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, "final fantasy" to you might not be the same as "final fantasy" to me.

I can't disagree with you on summoner, I've already made a lot of posts about how much I dislike what they did with it. To me, Summoner as a class should have been focused on the pet, the pet doing the majority of the direct damage while the summoner played support by buffing the pet, debuffing and apply some DoT's to the enemy, and healing the pet. Make the pet matter more than it does now where the pet is honestly just a glorified DoT. I'm convinced at this point that SE has abandoned the pet system for anything but glamours. Hopefully if they add another pet class (Beastmaster comes to mind) it will be more focused on the pet.

I don't mind the gear treadmill, that's the bread and butter for any vertical progression MMO. But one thing I don't like is that it's only two main dungeons, two dungeons is not a roulette to me, it's more like a coin toss. The highest level roulette should (in my opinion) have at least 7-10 dungeons at the minimum. You sound burned out on the gear/dungeon grind which is perfectly cool. I'd say take a break from the game and I don't mean that in a rude way, I think some time playing other MMO's or maybe some non-rpg like a platformer or a shooter might be a good idea.

I am personally alright with the heavily instanced and dungeon focused style of gameplay. I don't mind that at all and it's actually my preferred way to play. However, I will grant the point that designing huge zones that players only ever need to go through once or twice and then never need to visit again is a waste. Once you unlock whatever the newest dungeons are you can sit in whatever town you want and queue all day. I'm not personally a fan of open world stuff as I mentioned before, but I appreciate that people are and I stand by my assertion that these huge zones are a waste if you aren't going to use them.

As far as the formula goes OP, SE has found a formula and they're sticking to it. It's a very simple formula that appeals to a wide group of people and keeps things simple. But if you really want more stuff out in the world where other players are semi-involved. I suggest you try gathering and crafting, especially at 60, going through all the different zones, traveling to the places you need, making friends with other crafters and working together to create some of those really nice items and obtain rare materials. The crafter LS I'm in does way more cooperative gameplay and does a lot of (non-combat) stuff out in the world. It might be something to look in to.

[TankHunter678]

Honestly, tapping on the summoner bit, if we could summon the full size primals to our aid for extended periods of time the majority of raid bosses would get covered up by primals.

Like seriously, can you imagine Brute Justice being punched by 4 full size Titans that are clipping through each other? You would not even be able to see to click on the boss.

Sure it would feel more Final Fantasy (specifically, Final Fantasy XII) but it would be at a detriment to gameplay.

I also feel that in some ways the classes we do get should not function too closely to how they are implemented in other final fantasy games, but still keep within the theme. That way they feel a bit more unique here instead of just being carbon copied from another FF game. After all, this world is treated as its own. So similar classes could have gone an entirely different route compared to other FF worlds. The Ninja in this game being more of an assassin, instead of an evasive distraction that alters the enemy's def.

[EdwinLi]

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Remember back in the day when Summons was just Summoning them to perform their Ultimate Attack only and then they leave?

Those were the days before what people consider "Summon" now to be personal slaves as Summons.

If they ever go to Full Summon I hope they make it like the old original concept of Summon being Summoing the Summon to perform their Ulitmate attack only.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUd-ExA8y74

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO2y20H8mF8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjDW_1cdgwM