More action oriented combat{again}

[Hyrist]

World NMs were horrible for the game the way they were done.

Rare/Ex items unlike any others in the game, superior to the majority of items. Dropping exclusive items REQUIRED for high level crafts. It bottle-necked the economy and paved the way for cheaters and RMT to effectively stranglehold FFXI for the longest time.

If World Bosses are going to be done right, they have to bypass the old conventions of exclusive permanents and monster monopoly.

TERA has one redeeming feature, the combat system.

FFXIV is set to be a carbon clone of every other MMO, only without that one redeeming feature. FAIL.

So why are you here?

Oh, right, because the game's free right now, eh?

There are a lot of things that are unique to FFXIV, and it's not even reached 2.0 which is set to have a lot of revisions on its own.

Tera's combat is good, but as you said, it is it's ownly redeaming feature.

FFXIV has distilled Questchains into a perfect repeatable formula. They also created a fairly effective means of isolating the amount of influence RMT have on the game.

Pair this off with FF's icons and some of the best player-developer communication gaming has seen period and there's a formula for success here.

You can make Auto-attack systems exciting.
Final Fantasy has a good track record for enjoyable stories in spite of previous mishaps.

Of course, every game stems to have improvements needed. MMOs in general are a constantly changing beast. But if you're going to sit and casually insult it without actually exploring, then don't expect a warm welcome to the community.

[Rokien]

World NMs were horrible for the game the way they were done.

Rare/Ex items unlike any others in the game, superior to the majority of items. Dropping exclusive items REQUIRED for high level crafts. It bottle-necked the economy and paved the way for cheaters and RMT to effectively stranglehold FFXI for the longest time.

If World Bosses are going to be done right, they have to bypass the old conventions of exclusive permanents and monster monopoly.

You're kidding that World nms were horrible. The nms Tanaka put in were amazing~

[Hyrist]

You're kidding that World nms were horrible. The nms Tanaka put in were amazing~

FFXI's world NMs were absolutely terrible. FFXIV's previous roaming NMs did have exciting battles, but again, if it followed the same underlining system as FFXI, then it suffers from the same extremely terrible flaws.

I'm not saying do away with world bosses. I'm saying revamp the loot and claim systems surrounding them.

I cannot stress this enough - unchecked aggressive competition and monopolization is critically bad for a game's overall health. It's choked every MMO to date down to its minimal hardcore base - encouraged RMT and 3rd party abuses and bottlenecks the entire game economy.

Epic fights? Yes please.
Dragon's Aery-2? F^*& No!

[Lienn]

FFXI's world NMs were absolutely terrible. FFXIV's previous roaming NMs did have exciting battles, but again, if it followed the same underlining system as FFXI, then it suffers from the same extremely terrible flaws.

I'm not saying do away with world bosses. I'm saying revamp the loot and claim systems surrounding them.

I cannot stress this enough - unchecked aggressive competition and monopolization is critically bad for a game's overall health. It's choked every MMO to date down to it's minimal hardcore base - encouraged RMT and 3rd party abuses and bottlenecks the entity game economy.

Epic fights? Yes please.
Dragon's Aery-2? F^*& No!

However, this would be easily fixed here tho. As a casual-friendly, stressfree, goal-oriented game (by then) it would be expected to have leves balancing this if we ever get close to a claim monopoly. What would be the point of risking a ban with claim bots if you could, from time to time, fight that NM at leves?

You can see this line of development at FFXI as well, where stuff that were having bot issues changing to forced pop and/or BCNM.

[Hyrist]

However, this would be easily fixed here tho. As a casual-friendly, stressfree, goal-oriented game (by then) it would be expected to have leves balancing this if we ever get close to a claim monopoly. What would be the point of risking a ban with claim bots if you could, from time to time, fight that NM at leves?

You can see this line of development at FFXI as well, where stuff that were having bot issues changing to forced pop and/or BCNM.

Both were good systems which could be refined further here.

I've a more compressible list that I'm working on to create a balance between the demands of Hardcore and Casual base. Taking in the depth of my experiences in MMOs as well as keeping in mind the typical tropes of both gamers and the Final Fantasy brand.

I've actually got the outlines right next to me here at work.

The first post, or first thread (Not sure if I want to separate these issues by thread or just have them be linked posts in one thread for ease of reference.) Is going to detail the reasons why a hardcore only or casual only development path is horrible for the game's health. Both extremes, after all won't produce the success this game is looking for.

I'm also detailing common and major issues that need to be contended with. World Bosses is actually the first I touched upon under the Loot category.

Haven't even started the game-play category yet.

[SwordCoheir]

They are, Tanaka wanted crafters to be just as important as dow/m. He infact wanted them to fight a long side dow/m. Though crafters now, are just the same as any other game.
You do it to make money.

Crafters are going way back in the back. Even yoshi said he is going to make crafters not part of the story, not as important. You HAVE to have a DoW/m leveled. Before you didn't, Tanaka was going to make it where you could spend the whole game time playing doh/l

Vision and application are two drastically different things, and while it would have been cool to see botanists set traps, miners dig trenches, and carpenters and blacksmiths fortify defenses, I cannot for the life of me see this becoming commonplace in the game outside of instances like Hamlet Defense or Besieged or something. Anywhere else, it seems like it would be entirely impractical to actually find some kind of use for DoL/H, in common settings like Exp or Instanced Dungeons.

You can see this line of development at FFXI as well, where stuff that were having bot issues changing to forced pop and/or BCNM.

Unfortunately, that reasoning doesn't really hold weight considering they made that change just over a year ago and the games almost 10 years old now. It would have been viable had they made major effort to counter these issues back when bots were starting to rear their ugly heads back in 04-05, but the most they ever did was slightly extend the claim delay and the bots were eventually adjusted to get around it.

While I agree Tanaka has had some great ideas and visions for his games, he's really made little effort to actually addressing the needs of the player-base over his visions. I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase "Working as intended" correct? If it is that's great. However when a player points out major flaws/exploits in application, it doesn't matter how well it "Works" in their eyes. If they aren't willing to take constructive criticism and try to fix the flaws in their vision (or actually fix their fixes in some cases) then it's just like leaving an infected wound untreated and trying to treat it after you've gone into septic shock, too little too late. Unfortunately for us, Tanaka has been notorious for this behavior.

[Lienn]

Now, I've made this thread a while back ago when they first put in auto attack. It did get blocked because we got off kilter and started talking about other games, a lot.
So, I'm just wondering how many of you would like our old combat system back in place if it was improved on. please note: 1111111=LT(left trigger)LtLtLtLtLt. It's just how you perceive it. So, would you guys would have rather BUILD and make that battle system better or just stick with AA, because really, I know how much you guys like to stay with the "modern" mmo, and the "modern" mmo is more 111111 oriented.

As for me I would have loved to see yoshi build on top of that battle system(make it better). Instead of just doing a cheap/safe AA style, because really AA is sooo 2001. Yes it works, but really, I like to be involved in my games.

So, in 2.0 would you guys like a change in the battle system?

I do would want the old battle system back. Since the very start i said that moving back to AA was a step backward. I find the current battle system horrid in every single aspect so yes, i'd support the change back to old battle system...even if not improved at all.

[bobbygunz]

Still I find the worst thing about combat in FFXIV, either old or new, is the sound it makes when you select an action. Would it kill them to change it? Because it's certainly killing us.

[Hyrist]

Still I find the worst thing about combat in FFXIV, either old or new, is the sound it makes when you select an action. Would it kill them to change it? Because it's certainly killing us.

You'll have the option to turn it off in 2.0, I believe - there has been comments like yours to have options like that.

I do would want the old battle system back. Since the very start i said that moving back to AA was a step backward. I find the current battle system horrid in every single aspect so yes, i'd support the change back to old battle system...even if not improved at all.

I cannot disagree more, and I play on a controller.

What you're forgetting is that the previous system still had server side lag for ever input action, including your basic attack.

There honestly was no redeeming value in that system of combat as it horribly restricted your action inputs by forcing you to deal with a continually lagged queue system.

Granted, I'm not asking for FFXI's combat system of "wait, press third party macro button for ws, repeat until JA timer is up" either. FFXIV strikes a good balance between and can be developed on further.

If anything, auto attack, or the battle pacing in general could be quicken across the board. But we shouldn't have to press a button for our most basic attack. Instead we should be primarily focused on our combo attacks, attack positioning, etc.

I said previously that the best thing SE could do with an Action MMO would be to made a Dissidia Final Fantasy Online. To elaborate further - they could bypass 'normal' attacks all together and the TP system and focus only on the combos and special moves - using skill timers and target/player conditions as the controlling means of use for specific abilities. But honestly, this level of focus can be achieved with the current system by you just ignoring the fact that Auto Attack exists and focusing primarily on what you're supposed to do - combo effectively and using your abilities to exemplify your role.

Consider TP your global cool-down timer and your Auto Attacks a DoT attack that is triggered by you going into Active mode.

As far as my critique of the current combat system - they could inch the speed of combat up a little, as well as provide a 'quickstep' or 'dodge role' positioning tool.

And for goodness sake let monsters and characters both be knocked on their butts. Just those would be a huge boon for the feel of action in the game.

[Lienn]

While the kings were changed like an year ago only, the concept is much older, with the change regarding other items, like emperor hairpin, KC and other highly appealing NM loot were, over time, moved to rare/EX at NMs and/or moved to BCNM.

And about Tanaka not putting effort regarding the players' "needs", allow me to offer you a somewhat old post...

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...f018ec5fb504d2

Just check out what we would have since like january of 2011 (by then patches were monthly)...stuff that we are asking still were meant to be added by then. Unfortunately this patch never happened due the dev team change...but was never lack of effort of the original FFXIV dev team in neither improving the game nor hearing the players' feedback.