Zepla: Most Wanted Changes in FFXIV

[Saraide]

Feel like the video was more aimed at technical/functional fixes, rather than content fixes. Haven't see her post the "casual" issues that she said she was going to do.

And yea, it's telling that she has to open the video with that kind of disclaimer. But then, look at her other video and the amount of responses to that thread that focused on how she said things, as opposed to the actual ideas.

She could easily cut that disclaimer, it's futile anyway.

[ChrysOCE]

She could easily cut that disclaimer, it's futile anyway.

100% agree. Whenever I see that stuff on youtube, it makes my eyes roll. Like, well of course it's your opinion. You don't need to apologise for it. But that seems to be the world we are in, where you dare not offend anyone and have to remind people ad nauseum that it's just your opinion and everyone else may feel differently.

[CNitsah]

Feel like the video was more aimed at technical/functional fixes, rather than content fixes. Haven't see her post the "casual" issues that she said she was going to do.

She kinda did. In the podcast "State of Realm #350" where she appeared, she explained than while creating this video, she realised the didn't know shit about how casual played, while she thought she was kinda casual in the way she engaged with the game (It still baffles me she thought she was casual in some way). Her "casual" video was the midcore video she realeased about a week after the first one, and that had a lot less meat to it than the previous one (she does not state that clearly, but it feels pretty obvious). As a lot of hardocre players, it seems she mixed "not engaging in harder content or content that need scheldule" and being casual.

[MisterNublet]

while she's not wrong about these issues, she's completely missed the most important ones: jobs being crap and unrewarding to play (especially healers) and lack of repeatable content and midcore content
A game literally cant function without a good gameplay loop and the poor content and poorer jobs are whats causing this game's decline

This is the biggest thing which I have no hope in them correcting with DawnTrail.

[Asari5]

This is the biggest thing which I have no hope in them correcting with DawnTrail.

its a pitty you cant play the game without playing any job at the same time. makes me always wonder how much the players actually like the jobs or if they only playing them because there are no better options

[Ivtrix]

This is the biggest thing which I have no hope in them correcting with DawnTrail.

Im really tired of the "I just want to log on after a bad day at work and have fun" crowd getting their way.

[Shurrikhan]

Im really tired of the "I just want to log on after a bad day at work and have fun" crowd getting their way.

I'm all for them getting their way, too, so long as by having said after-stressful-workday content... they don't really just mean not wanting anything to be available beyond that. Just as I'm all for having more involved tasks that can keep people together for a good 90 minutes straight of engagement... so long as that ask isn't simultaneously a desire to remove all else.

Outside of the rare "I only want to heal/Malefic spam" or "I don't want to feel remotely enticed to raid" comments, though, neither of those is the case.

[Deceptus]

5. Difficulty of installing/setting up your account
6. Level sync removing actions

Re: 5 - This is insane to me how hard they make it to get you in game.

The Launcher doesn't have a "Verify Files" button so if something happens to your files? Welp, gotta completely reinstall! Want to keep the game up to date but don't have an active account? "Tough sh!t. Pay us $15 for the privilege of updating your files."

Re: 6 - This has always irritated me. Yes it would be hard to balance but ultimately weapon damage is determined by main hand weapon damage, not potency so a 300 potency attack at lvl 10 does a whopping 30 damage vs a 10 damage (100 potency) ability. Woo hoo, you don't have to cast 2 more times. . .

Point being, it can be done. Easily.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

Re: 6 - This has always irritated me. Yes it would be hard to balance but ultimately weapon damage is determined by main hand weapon damage, not potency so a 300 potency attack at lvl 10 does a whopping 30 damage vs a 10 damage (100 potency) ability. Woo hoo, you don't have to cast 2 more times. . .

Point being, it can be done. Easily.

The thing is though, WD at lower levels is so flattened from job modifier values that it has very minor impact on the final damage output compared to raw potency, which in the FF14 damage formula, is effectively a damage multiplier. It's easy to showcase when even in SHB when WD values weren't flattened and were the same as back in ARR, yet jobs were doing massive amounts more damage than before. Why? because potency matters far more when not at least one level bracket away from the current level cap where WD's impact on the formula matters much more due to the pseudo-exponential power growth of FF14's stat system through its job modifers, and jobs in SHb were vomitting multiple times more potency left and right in old dungeons.

For example, A level 90 DRK can output 9k potency using their full kit and proper MP/Gauge banking during a 2min vs a 30 DRK outputting 1800~ during the same window. Even assuming identical weapon damage to equalize the already minimum impact is has on the damage formula at that level, that's literally 5x more damage for free. Let's not even talk about the hilarious joke of damage difference that would be 15 ROG in Sastasha vs 90 NIN. There's also the ultimate can of worms that is 'how do you balance something like Holy Shelltron that the lower level PLD has no equivalent of" without basically pretending it doesn't exist by nerfing it so hard into the ground and making the whole point of uncapped level sync pointless by making you play a ghost of what your job was.

Even games like GW2 who have done "better" syncing systems still have issues with equalized power in them, as plenty of my friends who play (and myself have dabbled in) have shown/told me. Speaking as a former game dev, trying to balance such a system is basically untenable. Not impossible, but untenable due to the continuous, constant development overhead it introduces. Any adjustment at all, from the slighest potency tweaks to the overhauls of jobs would cause any meticulously thought out, planned calculations and scalings in order to equalize every possible level range against every other level range (The same scaling variable that could theoretically allow a 90 PLD to stay in line with a 16 GLD will severely underperform a 70 PLD, for example) to instantly go up in smoke and create endless overhead.

It'd be the absolute epitome of wasting game development time when they already have a system that achieves what it was intended to do already in place and is effectively future proofed for all time and has exactly zero overhead.

Unless you have some magical solution to tightly balance every job against every level within that job, for the perpetuity of this game's lifecycle without ever needing adjustments, that is as simple to program as your current competition, this following if statement:

if (player.jobLevel > duty.maxLevel)
{
player.isSynced = True;
player.jobLevel = duty.maxLevel;
player.jobStatModifier = findJobModifier(player.jobLevel);
}

If my former team were the ones in charge of handling balance for FF14 and someone pitched that idea to us, they'd be laughed out of the design room in a heartbeat.

So long as the game wants players of lower job levels to be within a certain balance threshold of higher level players within the same duty, the level sync system ain't changing. It'd be absolute peak stupidty for them to trash their extremely "works as intended" system for something that would introduce far more chaos and overhead into their dev cycles that would force time to be spent on it and away from other stuff when people already complain about lack of content as it is.

You want an actual solution to low levels not being engaging that any serious game designer wouldn't just immediately perform the futurama 'oh wait you're serious, let me laugh even harder' meme on you for suggesting? Bypass tweaking the level sync system entirely and just shuffle skills downward in levels, or introduce new skills that evolve into later ones through traits/actions. All players will share the same skills at the same levels maintaining the desired in-job balance Level Sync accomplishes, but kits will be fuller quicker. It wouldn't totally solve the issue, but it would make lower levels far more tolerable if by 50 you have the majority of your main gameplay loop completed. This would also double function in making the experience more entertaining for newer players instead of just making it more enjoyable for higher level players.

WAR is probably one of the better examples of this currently in-game, where by 50 you effectively have all your tools you'd have at 90 besides additional actions like OGCDs & Primal Rend. You have your Maintain Buff, your 1-2-3 & your Gauge spender. Everything beyond that is just upgrades/additions that don't change WAR's gameplay loop far too substantially, the only noticeable change being IR at 70 simplifying your gauge spending at 1 minute intervals. Contrast to a job like RPR, which doesn't get it's defining job ability until 80, leaving so many levels of dead air where its excruciating to play. Even doing something like Enshroud, Arcane Circle & harvest at 50 and simply relegated the OGCD part of Enshroud as the 80 reward would do wonders for RPR's synced kit.

[Mr_Gyactus]

tldr for those who cba to watch

Zepla mentions the following issues in no particular order

1. Netcode
2. Glamour dresser
3. Gearing taking forever
4. Menus/inventory system
5. Difficulty of installing/setting up your account
6. Level sync removing actions

1. no
2. no
3. no
4. no
5. no
6. no

Something could be made better but they aren't real problems.

it's not like "your problems" are "the world problems".