"Revamped" Rewards System

[Firon]

I don't thing borrowing ideas is bad either I just don't like this one. I would have rather them copied XI's system than WoW's system here, but I'll wait and see how it turn out to decide if I really hate it or not. I just don't like the sound of it so far is all.

You been playing with wow system system for a while now FFXIV has replaced my pgl gear so many times since Darkhold came out the only equip that has been the same is my leg/hands equip everything else has been constantly changing every single update.

I don't want XI's system again cause when your sitting at 75 pld in XI @ one point with Aegis shadow mantle and all the other godly equip you can think of, then when they release new content your grinding your ass off for a piece of armor that has 1 extra % haste on it or 1 extra vit or def or sometimes nothing at all. WoW system works people like it and most ppl here wouldn't even be able to have most of wow's hardest to obtain gear cause they are use to lol tank in one spot fights. XI's gear system is the reason they lost a ton of players ppl was use to having the best for so long when they finaly raised the cap after seven years when they said they never would people got pissed.

[Almalexia]

So because the Primals aren't all released at the same time, that's your basis for not keeping them on equal footing with one another? That's a pretty weak argument.

Primals were an example, but it could be any piece of content. Compare DH and AV/CC: the rewards have strikingly different potency for content released over a year apart. For an average person subscribing to an MMO, a 1 year or 1.5 years seems to me a reasonable amount of time for "repeat content" to exist before something offers a greater challenge and a statistically superior reward.

Keep in mind I am talking about rewards, not reward structures. Grinding Dynamis for 3 years without a RDM hat has no effect on the properties of the hat.

I prefer to think of trading the drops in for seals as a way of giving people incentive to help others do the content, rather than just as a petty bonus for when you find something better to use. I'm a little surprised you wouldn't be more supportive, as someone who attained both Spharai and Glanzfaust (which I remember you were horribly disappointed with at the time).

That's my point. Glanzfaust underperformed because SE was afraid of making something that challenged 5 year-old content. The silly thing was how Glanzfaust gave the same statistical bonuses as Spharai--ATK/Counter--but connected them to your JAs instead of the weapon itself. It wasn't an alternative or a sidegrade; it was definitely worse.

Seals are just one way to repurpose content. Materia is another--primal weapons yield unique materia. There are surely a dozen ways to repurpose older content without holding back the advancement of new gear.

Sorry but I won't be convinced otherwise - newer doesn't have to automatically = better when the items in question are within the same level range. Tanaka had it right when they tried to keep everything comparably good, so that players who maybe wanted an item but didn't care for the content to get it, could do something else to obtain a similarly good item.

Newer doesn't necessarily have to mean better, but I think in the long term there will come a time when all of the alternatives and incremental sidegrides aren't cutting the mustard. There can be an equal measure of sidegrade to existing gear (Skirmish, for example) and more powerful gear, but the point I am driving is how there ought to be more powerful gear over time so that character growth isn't an imaginary or geologically slow progression like FFXI.

Aye, that's alot of the reason FFXI is in the crapper right now, because after they went above the 75 cap which had been in play for almost 8 years the power creep from stats/gear just went out of control in comparison to content.

Was it really lv.76+ gear that broke FFXI? I am pretty sure it was the damage calculations that depend so heavily on level difference.

Besides, FFXI's endgame foundation was sidegrades. Of course things got screwed up once they raised the bar after 8 years. FFXIV is starting fresh. FFXIV already has a primitive system of old gear = redemption items, new gear = more powerful at a one year turnover and I don't foresee any creeping at this rate.

[Ricky]

You're maths a little off there pal lol. Wow came out in late 2004 and they're currently on tier 15, and that's not including the tons of dungeon sets. As for it being something people will enjoy I have three words for you: Final Fantasy XI

It was a great game, people loved it, and they didn't use this system. Most people interested in XIV are XI players from the past.

wow has been out for 96 months basically, 96/15 = 6.4
so every 6.4 months a new tier has arrived.. which is basically what I said

[NefGP]

Primals were an example, but it could be any piece of content. Compare DH and AV/CC: the rewards have strikingly different potency for content released over a year apart. For an average person subscribing to an MMO, a 1 year or 1.5 years seems to me a reasonable amount of time for "repeat content" to exist before something offers a greater challenge and a statistically superior reward.

Keep in mind I am talking about rewards, not reward structures. Grinding Dynamis for 3 years without a RDM hat has no effect on the properties of the hat.


That's my point. Glanzfaust underperformed because SE was afraid of making something that challenged 5 year-old content. The silly thing was how Glanzfaust gave the same statistical bonuses as Spharai--ATK/Counter--but connected them to your JAs instead of the weapon itself. It wasn't an alternative or a sidegrade; it was definitely worse.

Seals are just one way to repurpose content. Materia is another--primal weapons yield unique materia. There are surely a dozen ways to repurpose older content without holding back the advancement of new gear.


Newer doesn't necessarily have to mean better, but I think in the long term there will come a time when all of the alternatives and incremental sidegrides aren't cutting the mustard. There can be an equal measure of sidegrade to existing gear (Skirmish, for example) and more powerful gear, but the point I am driving is how there ought to be more powerful gear over time so that character growth isn't an imaginary or geologically slow progression like FFXI.


Was it really lv.76+ gear that broke FFXI? I am pretty sure it was the damage calculations that depend so heavily on level difference.

Besides, FFXI's endgame foundation was sidegrades. Of course things got screwed up once they raised the bar after 8 years. FFXIV is starting fresh. FFXIV already has a primitive system of old gear = redemption items, new gear = more powerful at a one year turnover and I don't foresee any creeping at this rate.

I agree with you that the Mythics were largely disappointing, especially when they required far more effort than relics (however the current 99 versions are just insane, but that's hardly justification) however that doesn't mean the concept was wrong - just because something was implemented poorly, doesn't mean the idea itself was flawed.

I never said I was completely against introducing better gear - I just feel there needs to be a balance, and the whole emphasis on DPS as the main stat to look for on a weapon is counter-intuitive and even potentially destructive. I really can't fathom why the dev team opted to go that route as opposed to adjusting specific subskills to account for use on other classes/jobs. They did it fairly well in XI (such as meditate being reduced when used by non-SAM or ustusemi Ni only being 4 shadows for NIN main).

Again, I only single out Ifrit vs Garuda because IMO the Primals should all have equally attractive gear, with their elemental affinities offering different styles. Again look at XI - all the avatars offered a wide variety of things, but they were largely equal in terms of reward (at least the first 6 were anyway.)

As others have said, I just don't want to constantly be chasing after the newest items and completely ignore older content. There needs to be sidegrading, but to a degree. I think we both agree that XI took it to the extreme with 3 expansions across 5+ years before a level cap increase. That was insanity.

A way to upgrade the older gear might be cool as well - this is party why I suggested allowing melds on Rare/EX gear (only 1 mind you) and so that's 1 possible method - or they could introduce quests to get better/updated versions. The Primal Weapons are all really, really cool and are such a bitch to get, I hate to just toss them aside (even for a Relic) just because something better came along.

Not that I'd use one for anything other than cosmetics if I did get a Relic, but still ^^

Also, again speaking of which, according to Yoshi even Relics aren't safe... that we will see various "Relic" class weapons. If that's not a kick in the pants to anyone who's done that quest, I don't know what is.


I wouldn't mind seeing an updated version of Magian Trials in ARR - just, hopefully far less tedious than they were in XI.


Personally I think what finally did XI in was Tanaka coming back lol... after he took off and left the game in Matsui's hands, we got Abyssea, which was just so much fun... and then we went back to old-school dev shenanigans, but with a new level cap and it all just kinda fell apart.

Besides, it's pretty hard to come down from a high like that. Atma was just too much fun.

[Mijin]

wow has been out for 96 months basically, 96/15 = 6.4
so every 6.4 months a new tier has arrived.. which is basically what I said

You said a year, so we both exaggerated; just in different directions :P

[Tsubarta]

Alright, now that we have confirmation on the WoW token system, this can go one of either two ways.

The first is that it reflects the older, "Vanilla/TBC" WoW experience, where the content was HARD and the rewards covetous over the span of half a year. It wasn't so linear as to go up the ladder however - sometimes you needed to mix and match for peak performance, ensuring you were always doing the content of the current "tier". There are a lot of sensationalist statements being made concerning the longevity of WoW's tiers of raiding, citing "a couple of weeks" as a legitimate frame of time. Smaller raids typically came out every 4 months, and the bigger ones would come out at 6-8 month intervals.

To put it in perspective, the combined amount of time we have spent doing AV/CC, Mog/Garuda, and everything inbetween (Skirmish, Hamlet Defense, etc) is no different than a single content patch's duration in the old WoW people revere. With legitimate gear progression and a real loot system in place, it balances itself out quite nicely. Also of note is that they're going to have an easy-to-build and persistent raid going on at all times in the Crystal Tower, so they can always pick up slack by adding a few extra floors during the doldrums.

The other way this might go: Utter and complete stagnation of the game like what happened during the more recent WoW expansions.

"Content Finder", "Badge System", all things that were added and effectively destroyed any sense of community. You don't need to go into a raiding linkshell when you could just farm the easier, low-man stuff over time for the same rewards...and don't even need to assemble your own group! If you or someone else acts like a prick during the encounters? WHO CARES?! You'll never see them again thanks to cross-server selection! Oh, and it will be cross-server selection if they want it to function.

Now, why would they do this, you ask? The expansion that created this dynamic netted them a cool 3 mil extra subscribers. With Yoshida and co. having done extensive MMO research, these numbers will not be lost on them. The most we can hope for is that they read a little deeper afterwards, and realized that having such a level of accessibility/anonymity caused the game to implode. WoW lost 3 mil subs in the last 3 years over this system eventually creating a soul-less game that everyone behaves their worst in.

I want to believe, but these guys working on the game are young and naive when it comes to the industry. There are going to be a lot of critical mistakes during these first couple of years as they feel out their new system, and I don't think they'll honestly have the breathing room.

[PinkamenaDiane]

WoW is on tier 14 not 15. Anyway it works keeps people playing. But now they have 3 difficulity levels, LFR (easy), normal, heroic (hard) for their raids. The system of gear progresson is proven to work and keeps people comming back trying to get the newest and latest gear. Without any gear progression or anything people run out of stuff to do really fast. Their 6 months for new tier of raids and gear is about right, its when people start to get bored of running the same set of raids week after week.

People keep saying WoW is easy but its not really, your average person can beat normal modes after they nerf it perhaps, but the hard raids heroics only have about 5% of the player base actually finishing them

[Warlock]

I would like Yoshi-P to create a system similar to FFXI Atmas into this game which you could unlock with a hard dungeon or mission they could act as new "gear" too

[Dzian]

As others have said, I just don't want to constantly be chasing after the newest items and completely ignore older content. There needs to be sidegrading, but to a degree. I think we both agree that XI took it to the extreme with 3 expansions across 5+ years before a level cap increase. That was insanity..

Think it's a case of balancing contents out. I don't want to feel rushed into contents with a sense of if I don't start a piece of content on day 1 of its release or if I don't play 12 hours a day then I'm going to be left behind... and I also don't want to feel that I have to spam that same content all day everyday if I want any chance of getting the loot from it. (ala av/cc)

This is one of the things I liked about XI. A lot of the content was on lockouts that meant that you could only do limbus twice a week or einherjar twice a week it didn't really matter if I played 2 hours a day or 10. The only real impact on that was how much said content I could do in a week. If you play 2 hours a day then maybe you could only do limbus, einherjar and sky. but if you play 10 hours a day you could maybe do limbus, einherjar, sky, sea, znm, salvage, nyzul etc. thus the rate of my progression in temenos for example wouldn't see me being left behind those who can play more. but those who could play more could progress in more things at once obviously. but it helped keep contents current for longer.

This I think is one of the things XI got right. The long lockouts didn't matter because there was so much other stuff to do. Where as in XIV the only thing people would do is spam av/cc day in day out as if you want darklight then you pretty much have to to stand any chance and thus the only thing keeping content relevent was the atrocious drop rates.

I want to work through content at a comfortable pace and have a chance to enjoy the loots from it rather than have them become out of date a week after I obtain them by new content. I also don't want to have to spam the same content every day that just isn't fun.

Their 6 months for new tier of raids and gear is about right, its when people start to get bored of running the same set of raids week after week.

I think this depends on how often that particular content is run. if for example it's like av/cc where you grind it day in day out then it gets boring fast. but going back to xi for example limbus is something I enjoyed doing even after a couple of years because of the way it worked.

[Reika]

While the details have yet to be finalized, Yoshida did discuss a bit about his plans for the new rewards system in a recent media interview. He said that for the overall path for how adventurers increase their strength, they're creating a flow where you would earn tokens via content to purchase equipment. Then, using that new gear, would be able to take on challenges for rare items, and once complete, challenge ever harder content to really become powerful. Players should be able to achieve the first objective, and then really challenge themselves on the higher difficulty content.

As soon as we have more concrete examples or details, we'll be sure to pass them along!

So pretty much youre going to make all new gear that is weaker than the current abysmal drop rate gear, thus keeping abysmal drop rates abysmal?

I don't know.... Sounds like people are still going to spam content that way if you ask me.