A weary player sees hope in the new update

[Aarik]

So. A week ago I logged on after the new patch, thinking it to be just another add-on to content that everyone can access with utter ease. In some ways I was right, but then I hit something. Something new, something that I've yet to see in FFXIV: a true challenge. What am I talking about? Why, the new Darksteel gear, of course. Now granted, it's practically useless right now with the jobs that can equip it (non-specialized classes for weapons, and only GLA/MRD for the armor), something that hopefully SE will soon chance in a future update (I think they mentioned this in patch notes?)

But that's not why I spent a huge quantity of time mining the materials, all HQ, and then sweating it out as I painstakingly made all three pieces of the Darksteel Armor. Nor did I make it for the money, either. I made it because, after looking at what it needs and actually making it myself, I can safely say it was by far the most challenging, nerve-wrecking experience I've yet to have in FFXIV. This includes all the battles. To be frank, this was the first time that the true nature of the Final Fantasy series has shown through on this game yet, and I TRULY hope that this is just the beginning.

Now, I can already hear the naysayers coming, so I'll be frank. When you hear the term FF, what comes to mind? When you bought (if you bought) FF titles, WHY did you buy them? Personally, I bought them not for the storyline, or for the graphics, or for the shiny items. I bought them because FF has been known, and I hope will continue to be known, for making some of the most challenging experiences I have ever played as a gamer. THAT was, and is, the reason I play the FF franchise, and according to every other player I've spoken to, they are of the same opinion.

And I've talked to many a player.

In FFXI, Square Enix fully embraced this ideal. But, for a comparison, let's sidetrack a moment to a game I tried before I played FFXI: WoW. I used the trial period to see what the game was about, and if it interested me. And it, I'll admit, interested me. For all of three days. The next day, I logged on, looked at my level 40 character, and paused.

Level 40.

Three days.

At the time, the cap was level 50.

Something was wrong here, or at least something was wrong for me. Then I realized it. This game was for casual gamers...or those who like getting to high levels extremely fast. This did not pertain to me, and I quickly abandoned WoW, never to return.

Now, back to FFXI. I remember quite vividly my first time logging on in San d'Oria, running out into West Ronfaure, and attacking a cute, innocent little bunny.

I also remember that same cute innocent little bunny thrashing my sorry butt all up and down those woods.

I cried tears of joy.

It was not because I'm a closet-masochist, but because I recognized a game that offered a challenge. An MMO that offered a challenge, even better. The more I played, the better it got. It had a very nice setup, and covered all types of gamers: casual, moderate, extreme, and then the utterly insane hardcore gamers, even (Pandemonium Warden, anyone?). I, being around the line of moderate/extreme gamer, got to experience things that left me satisfied, things like HNMs, and Sea, and Dynamis, and the gut-wrenching agony of failing my very first attempt at making Adamantine Armor, and the following feeling of utter accomplishment when I did make it. Yet, I'll admit I never experienced things like fighting Odin in Einherjar, or getting the shadow gear from Dynamis Lord, or having tons of jobs at 75.

But that was ok.

I didn't want to go that extreme, and I accepted the fact that as a consequence, I would never get those items either, nor experience the joys that each job had to offer.

Fair trade.

Likewise, the casual gamers of FFXI would be limited to mainly crafted gear and maybe one 75 job, since they were not willing to put in the time and effort others WERE willing to put in to do things like Sea, and Dynamis, and HNMs etc.

Once more, fair trade.

Now, let's move onto the crux of the matter, FFXIV. An example of the worrisome trends I've been seeing with this game: yesterday evening I was a 32 Blacksmith.

Today, as I'm writing this post, I'm a 38 Blacksmith well on his way to 39, and may very well be 41 by the time I log.

This is worrisome.

If I put in the same amount of time that I have this past day into a crafting job on FFXI, I may have gotten two levels. Two LOW levels. Higher levels? Maybe 0.6 of a level. If I was lucky, and only after spending nearly half a million gil, which was quite a bit on FFXI. And this is for the slowest leveled classes, the crafting classes (though DoL is very slow to, at least comparatively). The battle classes are, quite simply, laughable. At this point it's actually near WoW levels. If you put in a full day of battle leves, you could EASILY get a job from 1-25, possibly higher, in a day. If you manage to get a party, you get levels even faster. What this means, is that for non-casual gamers, they hit the top very, VERY quick. I've lost count of how many friends have quit this game because they raced to the top, only to find themselves utterly devoid of anything to do, and then left the game, never to return. They were used to FFXI, where it actually took some effort to get up to the top. Instead, they got there in days, a week at tops.

Another example. As I walk around Ul'dah these days, I would be very hard pressed to find someone that wasn't toting around a Primal weapon.

Everyone has them.

The supposed "top-tier" items in the game, and EVERYONE has them. Once again, something is wrong here. I'll admit, I don't have ANY primal weapons, nor do I honestly want one. Why? Because I see no point to it, and I can almost guarantee that when the AF weapons come out, they'll be just as good, if not better, than the Primal weapons. Now I'm not bashing the fights, I've done Ifrit and Garuda fights, and I've had fun on both, but what I am griping about is the ease in which one can enter these fights. For all intents and purposes, these fights are very similar to the BCNM (Burning-Cirlce-Notorious-Monster) or other equivalent fights of FFXI, only the requirements to enter these are absurdly easy. To fight Ifrit, you need five Inferno Totems. Which equates to killing five Amal'jaa at their stronghold. If you lose the fight, you keep the key item you get from the totems. This ends with people utterly spamming the fights nonstop, and the entire point of these supposedly epic battles is lost. On FFXI, if you lost the fight, you lost the items you traded to get in. Items which were nowhere NEAR as easy or numerous to get.

With all this said, we come full circle back to my hopes: the Darksteel items. Once more, they're practically all but useless until SE fixes which jobs can use them, but it's the concept behind the items that gives me hope. First off, all the synths involving darksteel are high 50s to 60, meaning they'll be at least mildly difficult, even with the best stuff/food/buffs. If this was it, it would just be another synthesis, and another disappointment. But then SE threw in the beautiful curve-ball: Each and every item of the Darksteel set has a part in it that MUST be HQ. It's NQ counterpart is utterly useless. This alone made everything much, MUCH harder. Now, not only is it a mildly difficult synthesis to just succeed, but you MUST make it a high quality (at least the component). With a synthesis that high level, you practically HAVE to have all HQ materials to even have a decent chance of succeeding. Then SE threw in yet another curve-ball. The Darksteel ingots. They have to be made with coke, an item that can only be found by purchase from an NPC, and only for 100,000 gil EACH. And the coke is a NQ item, meaning if the two other items were both HQ, you start out with at TOPS around 300 quality, and you're needing, or hoping, for an HQ ingot. Very difficult.

As one who has made the entire armor set, I can say with certainty that you can only obtain the set two ways: one, you are incredibly wealth and can afford to burn millions upon millions of gil to buy it, or two, you recognized the challenge for what it is and poured your time, money, and effort into it, and reaped the benefits, leaving you one satisfied crafter. This, obviously, is not for the casual gamer. Nothing about this stuff is casual, nor do I hope it ever becomes such. This is the FIRST time in FFXIV that I've seen it deviate from the wholly-casual gamer approach that it's been on ever since beta, and I dearly hope it continues. SE, if you're reading this, please do remember that your player base does not consist of only casual gamers, but many other types as well: making a successful MMO with a large player-base always needs to appeal to each 'tier' of gamer. And lastly, even though I'll most likely get flooded with whining/bashing/etc from the casuals, I say this: Do not expect to be able to access all the epic fights, and all the best armor, and all the best weapons, if you play casually. Why should you be granted such things when you play every now and then, while those who pour their time and effort into the game get shafted just because you want the new shiny sword, just without all the effort? It all comes down to balance: they choose to pour their time into this game, thus leaving little time for anything else. As a consequence, they reap the benefits on this game, but not in real life. You, on the other hand, put little into this game, and thus should receive little back. However, you have far more time to do other things than they do, thus you benefit here, while the extreme gamers do not. Balanced. If this still goes in one ear and out the other, and you STILL expect instant-satisfaction, and all game content for no effort, then go play a first-person-shooter, or WoW. I'm sure Blizzard would love to have you.

[Rau]

TL;DR it needs to take longer to rank up crafts. casuals aren't supposed to be entitled (to gear, or anything).

[Fingerbox]

Long grinds aren't challenging. Pouring your time into something, if anything at all, is just a challenge to your willpower.
For something to be truly challenging it must challenge your skills.

When something is challenging there are only a few people who can do it, not only a few people who are willing to do it.

[Alastor]

Long grinds aren't challenging. Pouring your time into something, if anything at all, is just a challenge to your willpower.
For something to be truly challenging it must challenge your skills.

When something is challenging there are only a few people who can do it, not only a few people who are willing to do it.

This.

I'm so tired of the argument that time = skill. Not to sound completely opposed to you, Aarik. I do agree that when things go too quickly, the experience may not be as fulfilling. After a certain point, however, we explore the outer reaches of the threshold--those who have the time to waste and those who do not. Those who have time to waste will spend hours grinding their crafting skills in games like FFXI. Those who do not have extra time will not do so. When one accomplishes a feat (such as reaching a high/maxed crafting skill) that takes an immense amount of time, it may appear as if they have accomplished a great feat, due to the lack of other players who follow in their footsteps. The reality of the matter is, some people don't even attempt to participate in events they do not have the time for.

I don't mind SE rewarding people who do have the time with challenging synths. I just do not want to see a monolithic gap between players that have different amounts of available play time.

[Gramul]

Thank you Aarik.
And I'm sick of people rushing through games as if they where cheap distractions not worthy of their time. Where's the satisfaction in that? Where's the feeling of accomplishment?

Don't act like the feeling of accomplishment in finishing something that takes so long to do is somehow fake. Commitment is hard. Sticking with a long task to reach a goal takes genuine effort, and to disregard that is (as far as I see it) a little egocentric. The difference between challenging your commitment against your skills as a player is menial. It all comes down to what the player enjoys doing. One can just as easily look down at you for your impatience as you can look down at them for wasting time.

The game needs more content for people who like to have something to work towards. Something that won't take just a dedicated evening to finish.

And you know what? I barely have time to play this game at all. Just look at my levels. I might be in the same position as a lot of players here, but I understand the importance of commitment fueled content for the core crowd, who right now don't really have a decent MMO to play. This game shouldn't just carter to the casual crowd that can only play this game in short blips. We need to be open to content for all types of players.

[Ryans]

The thought that always goes through my head when someone says "Players should not be penalized for lack of available play time" is that it you are then punishing the players that do have enough time. The majority, if not all, of the popular MMOs on the market at current are fairly easy for any seasoned gamer.

I don't consider myself an elitest by any meaning of the word. In FFXI, I didn't get relic weapons, I didn't get a Novio's Earring or Kraken Club, and I didn't have all the jobs at 75. I didn't complete these tasks, not because I didn't have the time, but because I wasn't willing to put the time in. I did, however, complete all the dynamis zones, kill AV, and have a few jobs at 75. My point is that I could experience all of what the game had to offer by playing a few days a week and at the same time, it didn't take away from the challenge it offered others who wanted to put the time in.

Something that always uplifted my spirits was seeing a piece of gear that took real effort to obtain on a random player in town. Knowing that I most likely wouldn't get that item didn't make me want to play less, or more for that matter, it just made me smile knowing that there was always something better. That isn't the case in any of the recent MMOs I've played.

In summary, if you can only play for a few days a week, you shouldn't be the best geared but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to experience a fight.

[MrKupo]

It's funny you say this, because when I buy a Final Fantasy game, the thing I think about is the satisfaction of a well implemented strategy beating a difficult boss/event. I've seen this since I started the game pre-1.19. The sheer depth put into the battle system had so much potential. The new raids and new content is really taking advantage of the system. This game may have started badly, but the old FFXIV team laid a foundation that could potentially be one of the greatest MMOs out there, and I think Yoshi-P and the others are going in the right direction.
I can say that the moogle fight (which I have not beaten yet) is the best example of the battle system coming to fruition. A full party with a real class make-up to take on and defeat. Very good battles.

[indira]

alot of people fail to remember is this game is gonna be gone in a few months and were getting almost a whole new one in a few months who knows what ahead.

[Searious]

Level 40.

Three days.

At the time, the cap was level 50.

Something was wrong here, or at least something was wrong for me.

Go outside. Problem solved.
Leveling is fast but if you got 40 in three days either you don't do anything else besides play or you got powerleveled.

[Ruisu]

Final Fantasy (XI Excluded) has never really been about difficulty. Hell, unless you were doing sidequests, FFVII is one of the easiest games out there. The older Famicom/Super titles were difficult but in a tedious manner. 5 and 6 alleviated that, and the series continued to grow easier. Not that I mind, they still have some punishing bosses, and difficult content in the easy games.

Rambling on, Crafting in this game is already a chore. Don't make it even more of one.