We Really Need To Talk About The State And Path Of FFXIV

[HyoMinPark]

No, for the sake of tranquility, I'm moving on from that topic. I've adequate stated my opinions on that topic and every else is free to consider what I said for themselves. An alternative to the status quo can exist.

I’ve already stated what I feel about alternative methods for obtaining gear. But you can’t just state an opinion and not give a why to it, and then attempt to shut down discussion when prompted for a reason. That’s not wanting to have a discussion, that’s wanting an echo chamber; why even state your opinion at all if you aren’t willing to discuss it or even state why you have it?

[Noodle_Trinidad]

Serious question here, why hasnt the community pushed for team to slowly fix these "Engine Limtations" brought about from the time constraint that the game was under to come out? Would it not benefit of everyone, both Devs and Players alike, if patch by patch they slowly try and get everything in a suitable state so we don't get anything convoluted like our current Glamour Dresser? I'd imagine so many of the "limitations" brought about by it would be nice to address so the scope of our content could grow not to mention to ease the frustrations and annoying code that the Devs apparently always deal with.

[Dualgunner]

No, for the sake of tranquility, I'm moving on from that topic. I've adequate stated my opinions on that topic and every else is free to consider what I said for themselves. An alternative to the status quo can exist.

So, you're ceding? Because if we're just going to play the "I can say what I want and not defend it" game...

Raiders deserve the best equipment from raids.

[Seddrinth]

Okay, and why should the raiders not get the best gear because they beat the hardest content? Why do you feel this way?

I have to respectfully disagree simply because rewarding players the best gear for completing the current Expert dungeon does not fall within a reasonable reward for the amount of effort one put into the content, in my opinion. Expert roulette isn't tuned as high as Savage, so why should the rewards from it be an equivalent of Savage rewards?

It's because he wants the gear but 1) he doesn't want to put in the effort to clear savage and/or 2) he doesn't have the ability to do it. He wants the gear but doesn't want to earn it so he whines on the forum about it.

[Miste]

And I don't agree raiders should get the best gear for beating the hardest content. Is this opinion of mine suppose to change because you've "explained" it to me or that you've repeated it to me again and again? I'll say it again, I don't agree raiders should get the best gear for beating the hardest content.

Everyone can have their opinions and if you don't want to change it then whatever, but people might point out that it doesn't make any sense...

It doesn't make any sense.

[Edax]

So, you're ceding? Because if we're just going to play the "I can say what I want and not defend it" game...

Raiders deserve the best equipment from raids.

I've already deconstructed the system and pointed to Old School Runescape as an successful example of an MMORPG doesn't use this system at all. And others on this thread and deconstructed the concept of "difficulty" in gaming. I'm already under the impression that many here have strong opinions about the system. I cannot invalidate their opinions and they cannot invalidate mine. If I'm going to just restate what I've already stated on this forum, then we'll just go around in circles.

As I recall, this raids-having-the-best-gear system was not in Old School Runescape. In fact, the problems I have in this game were problems I did not have in Runescape. There weren't such content dry patches and there was almost always room for self improvement in the game in so many different ways. If you wanted some of the best armor in the game, you could just buy it. Yes, there were some quest requirements and some combat requirements to wear them, but it was hardly a system where the players that did the most difficult content only got to have the special best stuff in the game. There were many ways you could acquire Dragon armor in that game, it all required a grind but you could choose to grind in the best way you saw fit. You could have fought the monster that dropped them for yourself, you could have mined, blacksmithed, lumberjacked or whatever to get the capital needed to buy that armor.
This spiritbonding armor system from loot drops is not a core foundation of a MMO. Neither is raiding.

Well, if nobody in the MMO world ever really deviated from that norm (as per your experiences), can we really tell if changing it would not work?

There's little theoretical reason why it shouldn't. The reason why difficulty options arose in gaming is because the skill level of the playerbase varies. If you tune the difficulty to easy, more skilled players get bored. By adding a harder difficulty, you do nothing for less skilled players, but your higher skilled players no longer get (as) bored and thus derive more enjoyment from your game.

If that is the case, it begs the question why higher rewards are needed to compensate for higher enjoyment. And if that is not the case, it begs the question why you add a higher difficulty in the first place.

Conclusion: People are weird.

[HyoMinPark]

Times change, and games change. You cannot expect an MMO in 2018 to be exactly like an MMO back in 2001. Has Runescape stayed the same throughout the years with nothing changing? I don’t know, because I’ve never played it. If it has, are players satisfied with that? As you can see in FFXIV, its playerbase are not satisfied with the same old thing they’ve had since the game relaunched in 2013. They also are not satisfied with old-school systems coming into it, either—namely, mob-chaining from Eureka, which is a throwback to older MMOs’ leveling systems (and partially inspired by FFXI).

Why should everything stay the same just because you think that’s how it should be? I’m still not convinced that, just because another game did things things this way, that FFXIV should do it that way, too.

[Vaer]

FFXIV comes from more of a evolved Everquest/WoW lineage or a themepark. More structured gameplay, walled garden type of stuff. There aren't really that many possibilities in gameplay, you are stuck in a rigid streamlined system where the developers make the rules and the players just follow it for the most part.

Runescape is in a different sub genre of MMO, I'd say it's closer to a sandbox game. There's a story, but it's not mandatory, you can do whatever you want and there are a ton of different things you can do. It's closer to Eve than FFXIV imo.

If you want FFXIV to be more "sandboxy", that probably won't happen. The dev team doesn't want to change the core of the game at all. Even though you can level gatherers and crafters as it's own class in FFXIV, I think crafting is still second fiddle to battle content and they don't seem to have plans to change that.

[Edax]

Times change, and games change. You cannot expect an MMO in 2018 to be exactly like an MMO back in 2001. Has Runescape stayed the same throughout the years with nothing changing? I don’t know, because I’ve never played it. If it has, are players satisfied with that? As you can see in FFXIV, its playerbase are not satisfied with the same old thing they’ve had since the game relaunched in 2013. They also are not satisfied with old-school systems coming into it, either—namely, mob-chaining from Eureka, which is a throwback to older MMOs’ leveling systems (and partially inspired by FFXI).

The sum up the situation with Runescape, they evolved negatively because it added a hotbar and tried to emulate modern MMORPGs and update their graphics. They began losing a lot of their fanbase so they released "Old School Runescape" in 2013, a backup copy of the game that was saved in 2007 and by 2017 had twice as many players then the current "new" version of Runescape. Old School Runescape has had constant updates since 2013 but it's core identity is unchanged from 2007, and that's what makes it so popular. This older system sidesteps many of the problems the new MMORPGs have, and in my opinion is why it is still running so strong, being the world's largest and most-updated free MMORPG.

Why should everything stay the same just because you think that’s how it should be? I’m still not convinced that, just because another game did things things this way, that FFXIV should do it that way, too.

I'm not convinced FFXIV is perfect. If another game can do something better, than that's perhaps evidence that FFXIV can be better.

[Noodle_Trinidad]

Times change, and games change. You cannot expect an MMO in 2018 to be exactly like an MMO back in 2001. Has Runescape stayed the same throughout the years with nothing changing? I don’t know, because I’ve never played it. If it has, are players satisfied with that? As you can see in FFXIV, its playerbase are not satisfied with the same old thing they’ve had since the game relaunched in 2013. They also are not satisfied with old-school systems coming into it, either—namely, mob-chaining from Eureka, which is a throwback to older MMOs’ leveling systems (and partially inspired by FFXI).

Why should everything stay the same just because you think that’s how it should be? I’m still not convinced that, just because another game did things things this way, that FFXIV should do it that way, too.

I find its less an issue of game ideas not working and more in the fault of Yoshida and his dev team failing to realize that certain 1:1 implementations do not make a good fit for FFXIV. First off lets take Eureka for example. It's content that is constantly berated and associated with people wanting FFXI style content in this game. When you look at it at surface value sure it is content that seems to stem solely from FFXI alone and easy to associate with those wanting it but when you consider the overall lifetime of content in that vein you realize that Yoshida has been trying to push some form of Diadem in this game, remember the only reason we even acknowledge this more than anything is due to the Relic being tied to it as a whole. What we have is a worse version of what was essentially Dinosaur Island in Diadem where people would just kill dinos trying to pop NMs in hopes of getting that sweet sweet RNG loot. What the dev team has yet to realize is people will only be momentarily contained by the stat potentials of gear drops and eventually drop due to the boredom that is grinding basic mobs and dungeon tier bosses.

Do I believe Chaining could work in XIV? Of course I do but it would not be in the way we have it now. Mobs would have to be adjusted to our faster paced combat on top of having way more mechanics added on top of them. Having roaming NMs attack you out of nowhere or maybe have mobs fighting each other where you can favor one set to make sure they spawn in that area more. Lower their health and attack a bit and have them attack in more mob mentality since they are suppose to be dangerous beasts and I'd imagine a pack mentality would make more sense. Lessen the time between growing chains to allow people to actually talk or not worry about having to spam the keys every second. Simple things like that would ease up the monotonous strain "Dinosaur Instance 3.0" brought. Hell this could have been a great ground to experiment with FATEs but as this Expansion has shown that anything outside of Ultimate they are not willing to stray from their Formula.