Twinfinite Interview

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Cool, interesting gear? In an MMORPG? Screw that, throw some mounts (that never get used because there is no reason to be in a zone in which they can be used) at raiders. That's what they really want.

Gotta keep chasing those new players at the expense of the veterans.

Most raiders don't care provided whatever gear they can acquire is BiS. That's partly why they don't add effects and whatnot. Yoshi even specifically mentioned the min/max philosophy people have. Don't get me wrong, I'd like something a bit more unique than Crit > everything else but putting multiple sets of the same ilvl sprinkled around the map isn't going to get people to care. Hell, that's precisely why they stuffed a 280 weapon in Diadem. They were afraid a 270 or 275 one wouldn't attract the raiders.

Even zelda starts adding gameplay altering effects on gear. It's unbelievable to see how SE is out of touch in regard to game design currently, especially taking into account the company used to design such effects on gear in the past.

Zelda is a single player game. It can do whatever it wants because you aren't competing against other players. Blade & Soul has a whole skill tree outline. Guess what happened when Jaesung, the best PvPer in the game, released his preferred setup. They copied it.

[Stanelis]

Zelda is a single player game. It can do whatever it wants because you aren't competing against other players. Blade & Soul has a whole skill tree outline. Guess what happened when Jaesung, the best PvPer in the game, released his preferred setup. They copied it.

League of legends is a pvp game in which item have effects and where you're competing against other players. There are several builds for a single character.

Furthermore, item effects can be deactivated in PVP.

Also, the fact the game is a MMO doesn't imply the game design should be poor.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

League of legends is a pvp game in which item have effects and where you're competing against other players. There are several builds for a single character.
Furthermore, item effects can be deactivated in PVP.

Also, the fact the game is a MMO doesn't imply the game design should be poor.

LoL is a moba, which is an entirely different type of game. I don't follow LoL, but I'd hazard a guess they have a similar min/max philosophy. Keep in mind, FFXIV's version of custom builds is being able to play every job on one character.

Then what's the point? Why ask the developments to focus on something that will or can be deactivated? Speaking of PvP, we can actually customize those skills. Every guide I've looked up on the subject advises the same handful of skills to prioritize because they're simply better.

I never said the design was good. Just that asking for a bunch of special effects isn't going to arbitrarily make it better. Say one piece of gear increases the damage potency of Blood for Blood while another the duration of BotD. No matter how they attempt to balance that, one will inevitably be superior, and thus, favored.

[Stanelis]

LoL is a moba, which is an entirely different type of game. I don't follow LoL, but I'd hazard a guess they have a similar min/max philosophy. Keep in mind, FFXIV's version of custom builds is being able to play every job on one character.

LoL is a moba based on RPG class design. Also, no, ffxiv's version of playing custom builds isn't the class system, it is something totally different and you can have one and the other.

[Brannigan]

Most raiders don't care provided whatever gear they can acquire is BiS.

Speak for yourself. My sample size of my group pretty much despises this game's gear at this point. The reason they don't add effects - or any variation at all - is because the dev team is afraid of players feeling rejected because they don't have specific pieces of gear. This has been stated in the past.

The question to ask raiders isn't "would you like an interesting piece of gear or a good piece of gear," but "would you enjoy acquiring items more if they weren't so boring?" Getting cool stuff is exciting. Getting 2% more damage isn't, especially when you've been getting that same exact upgrade since 2014. Putting gear that's actually cool into the game might motivate people to go do the content where it drops and might actually help with player retention.

Also, making gear interesting doesn't necessarily mean giving it a unique effect. Something as simple as less MND than other pieces of its ilvl, but more VIT on a piece of healer gear is enough to make that item stand out from the endless march of Main Stat, VIT, one high substat, one low substat

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Speak for yourself. My sample size of my group pretty much despises this game's gear at this point. The reason they don't add effects - or any variation at all - is because the dev team is afraid of players feeling rejected because they don't have specific pieces of gear. This has been stated in the past.

The question to ask raiders isn't "would you like an interesting piece of gear or a good piece of gear," but "would you enjoy acquiring items more if they weren't so boring?" Getting cool stuff is exciting. Getting 2% more damage isn't, especially when you've been getting that same exact upgrade since 2014. Putting gear that's actually cool into the game might motivate people to go do the content where it drops and might actually help with player retention.

Also, making gear interesting doesn't necessarily mean giving it a unique effect. Something as simple as less MND than other pieces of its ilvl, but more VIT on a piece of healer gear is enough to make that item stand out from the endless march of Main Stat, VIT, one high substat, one low substat

And my sample size argues otherwise. I am in a lot of raid discord channels and the overwhelming consensus tends to favor BiS. The only time that healer piece with more VIT and less MND will even factor into the equation is during progression. And even then, only if you're attempting it at close to the minimal ilvl. For example, plenty of raiders meld VIT to their accessories during prog but immediately ditch it the moment they start jumping ahead of the ilvl. In essence, you've merely replaced melding with whatever method required to obtain this VIT focused set.

Putting three sets of ilvl 270 chestpieces behind A12S isn't going to make most raiders care to continuously run it unless they are already motivated to bump their numbers on FFlogs or do speed runs. Once they have the best of whichever three sets, the other two become irrelevant. Case in point, you can push 651 Skill Speed on Dragoon to more easily push for that one extra GCD-- somewhat useful in A12 to pull off two Geirskoguls-- yet the vast majority follow the standard 626 because Crit is higher, thus resulting in higher damage overall compared to a situational benefit. I am not saying they couldn't liven things up a little but adding a second gear set that favors VIT over STR/DEX/INT will be near virtually ignored for DPS jobs unless it's easier to get than the better damage stat equivalent.

Everyone copies everything, how many people can honestly say they figured coil and alex out for themselves with no use of guides?
Getting interesting gear is fun, it's still fun even if you're getting it to copy someone elses build rather than create one of your own.

That wasn't my point. Having to balance around multiple builds puts a massive strain on the developers since they now have to contend with however many builds are added. And to what end? For people to inevitably copy whatever raiders or popular youtubers do. They're already struggling to balance healers and tanks so people don't ignore one. Adding skill trees and what have you only increases their workload. I'd prefer they focus on actual content, personally.

[Brannigan]

I am in a lot of raid discord channels and the overwhelming consensus tends to favor BiS.

They favor BiS over what, exactly? The bad pieces? Well, no shit. There's only two choices in the game right now. If they were asked the question "would you prefer if gear had more variety and interesting stuff on it," I think you'd get some different results.

Also thanks for providing an exact situation where a random high vit low mnd piece would be good. Does only being good during progression (which is usually performed close to minimum ilvl) somehow invalidate its existence? What about a situation in which your healer is just a fucking baddie who gets hit by more AOEs than usual? He might opt to wear higher VIT pieces.

This is why the "everyone will just use the cookie cutter build" meme is so retarded. These games have so many different situations and types of people playing them that one build can't possibly always be the best for every individual. If it is, that's called being overpowered. Even in like WoTLK-era WoW you'd have a lot of little tweaks to the cookie cutter talent and gear builds to accommodate the little quirks of individuals and their party setups.

Yeah, there'll always be a configuration that is mathematically superior when played by a robot, but that doesn't mean devs should boil everything down to this simple garbage we have now. How is that any fun?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

They favor BiS over what, exactly? The bad pieces? Well, no shit. If they were asked the question "would you prefer if gear had more variety and interesting stuff on it," I think you'd get some different results.

Also thanks for providing an exact situation where a random high vit low mnd piece would be good. Does only being good during progression (which is usually performed close to minimum ilvl) somehow invalidate its existence? What about a situation in which your healer is just a fucking baddie who gets hit by more AOEs than usual? He might opt to wear higher VIT pieces.

This is why the "everyone will just use the cookie cutter build" meme is so retarded. These games have so many different situations and types of people playing them that one build can't possibly always be the best for every individual. If it is, that's called being overpowered. Even in like WoTLK-era WoW you'd have a lot of little tweaks to the cookie cutter talent and gear builds to accommodate the little quirks of individuals and their party setups.

Yeah, there'll always be a configuration that is mathematically superior, but that doesn't mean devs should boil everything down to this simple garbage we have now. How is that any fun?

No, you would get the exact same answer because damage reigns supreme in FFXIV. Look no further than back when STR tanking was a thing. Near everyone gradually adapted to damage over HP even down to the non-raiding content. Why? It was widely considered better. Likewise, why do you think healer DPS has become so prevalent? Because everything inevitably revolves around how much damage you do. "More interesting stuff" would devolve into the same "is x better than y" dichotomy we have now.

You mean like the system which already exists? It's invalidated because we can already meld VIT materia to the only tier of gear where it's more a factor. Crafted gear literally serves the exact purpose you're asking for. Once you upgrade to 260 though, very few players ever look at VIT again.

They boil down to it because most people follow the min/max philosophy. Do you know how frequent complaints are in the raid community because everyone tries to copy MrHappy, Mizzteq or Xeno's guides exactly despite not playing at their level? They'll do the same when those three or any other guide maker tosses up a video outlining what is better. The devs have to weigh whether the enormous workload would prove beneficial. I sincerely doubt it would. Can they do better? Yes. The Mastery stat from WoW has some potential. If they made the rotations a bit less rigid, Skill Speed could be more useful. There's things to improve. So don't mistake me for agreeing with their belief of streamlining further. But it's still a fine line what you can do that people will actually embrace.

[Jandor]

Blade & Soul has a whole skill tree outline. Guess what happened when Jaesung, the best PvPer in the game, released his preferred setup. They copied it.

Everyone copies everything, how many people can honestly say they figured coil and alex out for themselves with no use of guides?
Getting interesting gear is fun, it's still fun even if you're getting it to copy someone elses build rather than create one of your own.