MP Regen

[Jinrya-Geki]

The game is easy right now, sure. The difficulty can skyrocket after the next few patches, or it could get worse. Only time can tell. It can't be fixed now, this very instant. You HAVE to wait, like everyone else. There is nothing anyone, but the developers, can do to speed things up. You have to accept the way things are now.

If they take out MP regen, I'd be pissed, but I'd get over it sooner or later. I admit that. I have no problem keeping up my mana, but I liked the fact if I really want to restore mana, and I need to use the restroom, I could disengage and go to the bathroom. By the time I get back I have some or all my mp back. It's convenient.

I do however think it's unfair to try and keep the casual/hardcore players seperate. Some people have lives, not saying you don't have lives, and they can't be on for 10 hours a day killing something that spawns once a week with a .01% drop rate.

Maybe like a Chain of Promathia original difficulty, to get a cool item. the Hardcores could get it done within a few weeks or maybe a month, while casuals take as long as they want.

[Shiyo]

I don't care if the game doesn't take 90000000 hours, it's the fact that "casual" for MMO developers means "easy" and not "less time consuming" is the problem. When they design for "casuals" they're basically designing stuff for "idiots", because that's what they assume casuals are I think?

I want a challenge, it doesn't have to be a long grindy challenge, but the current game is so easy my cat can play it.

COP was great, I'd love more things like that. The partying system in FFXI(pre-TOAU) was great, you were rewarded for being better, and encouraged to improve. Bad players gained less exp/hour than better players. FF14 has no skill scaling, no encouraging of proper usage of abilities/teamwork, and everyone games the same sp/hour because any idiot can spam 4 buttons and 2 shot mobs.

[Jinrya-Geki]

I am sorry, what did you expect. Before the game even came out the first thing I heard , that it was going to be mostly for casual gamers. From Gamestop, in-game FFXI, I believe E-3 mention it too, and other reviews like IGN.

I can only guess you heard the same thing, so if casual means that to you, then you should have known better. All I can really say is what I said before. You have to wait and see what happens.

[Physic]

I am sorry, what did you expect. Before the game even came out the first thing I heard , that it was going to be mostly for casual gamers. From Gamestop, in-game FFXI, I believe E-3 mention it too, and other reviews like IGN.

I can only guess you heard the same thing, so if casual means that to you, then you should have known better. All I can really say is what I said before. You have to wait and see what happens.

Actually i think what they were saying was casual doesnt mean easy, it means not as time consuming, A lot of games that sell well now, actually require a fair amount of skill, however, they are not hard to get into, IE spend time shouting for a group. Also when this game shipped, it was actually fairly more difficult, the sp gain system made it so that you had to find mobs that were somewhat challenging to profit, and it made it so more difficult fights had better rewards. Even then a good portion of what you are capable of with the open system went untapped. now that the game only requires finding weak mobs and mowing em down fast, its challenge level is too low. Fact is a game needs to be challenging to appeal to people, this games flaws mostly had to do with bugs bad implementation, and lack of content, now its endanger of becoming just boring and still has barely any more content.

[Anonymoose]

Bad players gained less exp/hour than better players.

I agree with your accusations of FFXIV's flaws except this one. An overwhelming majority of the time, you didn't get more SP per hour by being better at your job, you got it by playing a job people liked more. Birds were the prey, and piercing was the demand - you weren't a bad player just because you wanted to be a DRK and thus failed to outstab with your pity slashing attacks.

I, too, want to up the challenge, but cannot stress enough that it is a big mistake to do so with such simplistic reasoning. What I'm seeing is too much "Mages have too much MP, so let's attack their most obvious source of it." and not enough consideration towards the mechanics that make the flow of the game better. Some serious back-end balancing needs to take place, but not by just scrapping the most recent thing that added to the issue - especially if it was a good change.

The best suggestion I've seen here so far is that you should have to officially leave battle, not just disengage, to auto regen MP. It's not that the mechanic exists, it's not the speed it works at - it's that players can use it as too big of an advantage in an area they already have abilities suited to that purpose. That's the problem that needs fixing. If players have to run far enough away from the battle so that something terrible can happen before they can fix it, problem solved.

[solracht]

Passive MP regen is for the time between battles, MP regen abilities is for MP management during a battle. If currently people are abusing the passive regen, why not simply change it so you can't just go to passive mode while a target is still engaged? Are there any other interactions that would make it unfeasible to force a player to remain in combat?

Winner. Quoting so more people see it.

[DeadRiser]

Again, these are all valid points:

The game is too easy without large challenges added for fair comparison of ability use.
Mages currently cannot run out of MP. Ever. At all.
MP Regen + Abilities = Overkill

However, these suggestions on how to remedy that are just as counterproductive as the current situation. The goal here is striking a balance, which the removal of the system altogether simply does not do. MP Regen solves as many issues as it creates, and you're proposing that because we took two steps forward, we take a step back. I don't agree.

The implementation of MP Regen threw off the balance of the game, and it needs to be recalibrated by taking another step forward. I'm not willing to go back to the needless frustrations that lacking MP Regen caused me whenever I switched classes or walked more than three minutes from an aether just to make the battle more challenging if we can achieve the same re-balancing without adding the needless frustrations back.

Am I getting through to anyone? At all?

Sorry for the late reply, been at school and work.

The only thing I can agree on would be making mp regen actually regen slower than hp regen. Jinrya, convenience isn't always better. There needs to be more of a challenge in this game. Yes we can wait till they implement auto attack(whenever they actual do or give us some info on that).

[Boricua]

This complacency with ease of play just further alienates this title from being a Final Fantasy. This adds to the can't loose, can't die, and so what if I do die attitude. MP management is at the core of playing mages efficiently. This invalidates the need for leveling THM as CON for MP Siphon and Stygian Spikes, perhaps not Exaltation/Tranquility because future events will definitely require burst amounts of MP. AT THE VERY LEAST the MP regen should be scaled upon max MP (1% a tick would be perfect) not it's current state.

[Balbanes]

I wouldn't say get rid of the system, but do change it. The current MP regen rate is much too high, speaking in terms of balance.

[Eldaena]

Passive MP regen is for the time between battles, MP regen abilities is for MP management during a battle. If currently people are abusing the passive regen, why not simply change it so you can't just go to passive mode while a target is still engaged? Are there any other interactions that would make it unfeasible to force a player to remain in combat?

Winner. Quoting so more people see it.

The problem with that is without being able to go passive in combat makes it very difficult to get out of a battle regimen if you put up the wrong attack or ws, for instance. I'm sure there are other tactics that involve going into passive mode as well. Even if you need to run away you're faster by putting your weapon away. Being able to put your weapon away allows for a lot of freedom and outside the box thinking.

I honestly feel if you think that the mp regen is making it 'too easy' for your mages, then I would like to contest how good those mages are. MP = power for a mage. Maybe I'm biased because I never do parties over 8 people (if I even get 8 people.) We always keep the same two mages during NMs, myself and one other, and we are nonstop magic/healing/debuffing as a mage should if they have that mp. If someone gets low on mp, we will put our weapon away, but usually only to run off and grab a mob for us to siphon off of. If you just stand around waiting for mp to go up from the mp regen you are just wasting time. Tranquility/Exhaltation/Siphon MP are much faster and you are a better asset to your party for it.

I will say that I was never for the mp regen because I felt this sort of thing will happen. Mages that think they are only there to cure. Putting their weapons away and only waiting for those who need heals. I don't care for this combat style and find it lazy on their end. A mage does more than just heal. However, I am also anti 'nuking' mages too. Some mages on my server refuse to even equip a heal on their bar and they are nuking for like 50 damage on an NM. It's wasteful and it just lets down party members. Parties are a team effort and no one else is allowed to just put their weapon away and wait around like that. It shouldn't be that way for mages either. MP regen just gives people an excuse to, but it's those players choices, not the game, that causes that to happen. Before and after MP regen, as a mage, my combat style and my choices have barely altered. I hardly even consider the MP regen because that's how much it matters to me.