Support NeoGAF

[Uthred]

Except those 35 bosses cost as much development time as a single dungeon, and is hours and hours of new content to deal with. While a dungeon is a 25 minute new experience.

The statement that those 35 bosses take as much time to develop as a single dungeon is entirely unsupportable. Its not hours and hours of new content to deal with, its 35 boss battles to deal with and then run again and again and again. There were, what, eight new dungeons in Heavensward? So around 24 bosses, with the "shortfall" from 35 accounting for the rest of the dungeon development time. I dont think theres a meaningful difference in development time (nor in completion time), though thats as equally unsupportable as your claim. I also still fail to see how fighting the same 35 bosses again and again is either superior or meaningfully different from running the same nine or ten dungeons again and again.

Edit:

PW boss chain (or Zeni NMs) was just a small part of an expansion / patch. It's comparable to one end game dungeon or one EX battle.

Again, I feel this is an entirely unsupportable statement, if you have some source for the dev team being either wildly different or in the same ballpark I'd love to see it,

 

[IvorB]

I just keep thinking to the following from FFXI:

1) Absolute Virtue. It was a secret boss that spawned randomly from killing another boss and it was not cleared legitimately for quite a while as people kept on trying to figure out the strategies, and it was a random pop which required a lot of farming to get to. But as gear got better with each patch and/or expansion, it became more possible.

2) Pandemonium Warden. It was the last boss of a set of bosses you had to beat using pop items that you lost after you spawned the boss. So not only did it keep you trying, but you had to do the older bosses and farming again. Lots of content there for little development effort (opposite of FFXI, little content for lots of development effort).

This seems like a nice idea in theory but given the way people moaned about the relic quest line can you just imagine if they brought something like this in?

 

[Jayhawk]

Yup, in like a week. How long did Nevereap dungeon take you to experience?

How long did CoP or Zilart take you to complete vs HW story?

There is definitely a difference in content. In terms of game design, FFXIV is superior. But content variety it's lacking, don't you think?

Yes, let's compare raid content to an expert roulette dungeon. The same mob types reskinned and recoloured sure is indicative of content variety.

 

[Kintaro]

But I really like FFXIV, it just dries up content wise much faster then FFXI, so I want some elements from FFXI introduced. Why is that a bad thing? Do you not agree that this game dries up content wise very quickly? Why wouldn't you want content variety?

You really haven't given us good example of content variety besides "35 bosses vs. 6!" No matter the number, you won't be pleased because...it's the same fights grinded out into dirt until the next time.

I believe both games offer tons of variety, but it seems you're coming from a place of raiding. Which becomes a very narrow and grindy thing. Those 35 bosses? They got old too. Quickly. AV and Pandy Warden you mention? Awful bosses. They were unfair. Hell, AV is probably still a bitch to fight if you aren't careful because of how stupidly designed it was (and the player base outgears it big time now). Pandy Warden? That boss got SE into some hot shit if you recall.

SE isn't going to cater to the super hardcore. Look where that got Wildstar. Even XI has eased up over time in so many ways its hard to count.

I'm really not sure what you want. If you want punishing elements of XI in XIV? Good luck with that. When the player base drops like flies because they reintroduce destroyed items on materia fails (that was 1.0 IIRC), level downs, bosses that may not drop ANYTHING and even more brutal RNG than what we have, what will we be left with?

Just look at the complains about the relic weapon quest line. That shit pales in comparison to the XI relic grinds and people just aren't having it.

 

[Tabris]

Yes, let's compare raid content to an expert roulette dungeon. The same mob types reskinned and recoloured sure is indicative of content variety.

Zeni NM's doesn't have an alternate in FFXI for me to compare to directly, so I'm using amount of a patch/expansion dedicated to it instead (i.e. a dungeon).

Raid content would be Salvage vs Coil. Salvage is an example of better content variety too as you had to make decisions and different paths for the type of gear you wanted that week. Coil is the same experience each time.

You really haven't given us good example of content variety besides "35 bosses vs. 6!" No matter the number, you won't be pleased because...it's the same fights grinded out into dirt until the next time.

Please see above example of Salvage vs Coil for a closer 1 to 1.

 

[dcye]

How long was yours together?

I was only in the group for 6 months or so (FCoB progression) but the group had been around since 2.0 or 2.1 (some of them downed Twin together). Very disappointing how it all turned out and I honestly don't know what I'll do now. Might even quit the game myself.

 

[Hasemo]

I haven't played FFXI long enough to talk about endgame, but if it's anything like other mmos of that time (Everquest 2, Ragnarok Online) isn't most of the "there's a lot of content" feeling there just because the repetitive grind took ages?

Aren't player currently blowing through all the XI content extremely fast just because the leveling has been eased and you can have NPCs which remove the biggest annoyance I personally had with XI which was waiting for a group if you weren't one of the most needed classes?

Sure, I agree that XIV dries out really fast, I'm one of the first people who rush through the non-raid endgame content after each patch and take a few week long break, but I can't really think of a way they could've fixed that given the current design of the game.

Add a super hard boss? Sure, there will be something that you can attempt to clear for a while, but it won't change a fact that it will be just a few short encounters if it's anything like coil.

 

[Teknoman]

Just give me more bosses post 50 that are at least as challenging as Titan EX with unique mechanics and dungeons with some unique mechanic or platforming...maybe some area only accessible via airship (out of the way dungeon that isn't tied to story) and i'll be ok.

 

[Jayhawk]

Zeni NM's doesn't have an alternate in FFXI for me to compare to directly, so I'm using amount of a patch/expansion dedicated to it instead (i.e. a dungeon).

Raid content would be Salvage vs Coil. Salvage is an example of better content variety too as you had to make decisions and different paths for the type of gear you wanted that week. Coil is the same experience each time.

Salvage is pretty much the same experience regardless of the path you take. Fighting sub-boss A on Mondays and Thursdays and sub-boss B on Tuesdays and Fridays is such a big difference than fighting boss C on all those days? Not really. The end boss for all Salvage zones were the same regardless of path taken. You're comparing a MMORPG's first expansion to another MMORPG's third expansion. The type of content for groups to tackle will change as an MMORPG grows older.

 

[Azzurri]

They need to add meaningful PvP too, that adds extra content for the people who like to PvP.

 

[Tabris]

Salvage is pretty much the same experience regardless of the path you take. Fighting sub-boss A on Mondays and Thursdays and sub-boss B on Tuesdays and Fridays is such a big difference than fighting boss C on all those days? Not really. The end boss for all Salvage zones were the same regardless of path taken. You're comparing a MMORPG's first expansion to another MMORPG's third expansion. The type of content for groups to tackle will change as an MMORPG grows older.

Different paths, variety in cell drops (which may determine which bosses you can go after when doing the content earlier in progression - i.e. not getting to final boss in time), multiple different kinds of pulls and boss mechanics with each path. How is that not more variety then Coil?

If you don't think there's any variety in that, then you agree with me that FFXIV has little variety as that is definitely more.

EDIT - 3rd expansion vs 1st expansion is a fair point though.

 

[Jayhawk]

Different paths, variety in cell drops (which may determine which bosses you can go after when doing the content earlier in progression - i.e. not getting to final boss in time), multiple different kinds of pulls and boss mechanics with each path. How is that not more variety then Coil?

If you don't think there's any variety in that, then you agree with me that FFXIV has little variety as that is definitely more.

Four unique salvage final bosses with differences in mechanics comparable to four turns of Coil. The sub-bosses in Salvage zones were about as complicated as an EX DR sub-boss. So no, variety isn't as large as you try to make it appear.

Actually, the four main Salvage bosses have enough similarities that it had less variety than four bosses of a Coil series.

 

[Spiritreaver]

They need to add meaningful PvP too, that adds extra content for the people who like to PvP.

This is really what they should do. I know people like throw around how this game isn't meant to be PvP focused, but if you do it right it pays for itself. If you create a fun enough experience, people will run PVP forever and just ask for balance changes.

I really wish they'd give people extra incentive to play. A really huge EXP roulette bonus or better collectible rewards. I don't know if there's an EXP bonus or not, but it should give comparable rewards as a trial roulette. I mean hell, think about how much that would've helped the leveling grind for HW.

 

[Taruranto]

You can be casual and have a different kind of activities that last. FFXI right now is hardly more hardcore than XIV once you get past the obtuse interface and managed to have dozen of end-game activities different from each other (And I'm just talking about stuff from last expansion, so no "But Taruranto, It's a 100 years old game" excuse!)


FFXIV is too focused to keep things narrowed for the player, gears don't have meaningful stats, dungeons are a straight line, there is no difference between one character and another in terms of build. No shit stuff doesn't last. I don't know if it's because Yoshi is incompetent, afraid to lose subs if he changes too much stuff or a super-WoW fan.

 

[Uthred]

You can be casual and have a different kind of activities that last. FFXI right now is hardly more hardcore than XIV once you get past the obtuse interface and managed to have dozen of end-game activities different from each other (And I'm just talking about stuff from last expansion, so no "But Taruranto, It's a 100 years old game excuse!")


FFXIV is too focused to keep things narrowed for the player, gears don't have meaningful stats, dungeons are a straight line, there is no difference between one character and another in terms of build. No shit stuff doesn't last. I don't know if it's because Yoshi is incompetent, afraid to lose subs if he changes too much stuff or a super-WoW fan.

I'm not familiar with XI in its current state could you give a brief idea of the dozen or so different things there are to do at end game?

I do agree that some build variety would be nice, though the job system somewhat scratches a similar itch. I'm not sure what you mean by gear not having meaningful stats? I mean clearly the stats on gear matter, though there isnt a lot of gear optimisation involved. As for the developer being incompetent, that seems like a bold claim considering how successfully theyve turned the game around.

 

[Azzurri]

You can be casual and have a different kind of activities that last. FFXI right now is hardly more hardcore than XIV once you get past the obtuse interface and managed to have dozen of end-game activities different from each other (And I'm just talking about stuff from last expansion, so no "But Taruranto, It's a 100 years old game excuse!")


FFXIV is too focused to keep things narrowed for the player, gears don't have meaningful stats, dungeons are a straight line, there is no difference between one character and another in terms of build. No shit stuff doesn't last. I don't know if it's because Yoshi is incompetent, afraid to lose subs if he changes too much stuff or a super-WoW fan.

To me he seems like he's scared to do anything of the beaten path because of how 1.0 turned out. Like you said he just plays it too safe for my liking. There no variety in rotation, every job goes for the same gear in their role of dps,healer,tank. I've played multiple MMO's and a lot of them have been theme park, and each job/class has at least 2 or 3 or so builds that work in the content that is made for the game.

 

[Spiritreaver]

FFXIV is too focused to keep things narrowed for the player, gears don't have meaningful stats, dungeons are a straight line, there is no difference between one character and another in terms of build. No shit stuff doesn't last. I don't know if it's because Yoshi is incompetent, afraid to lose subs if he changes too much stuff or a super-WoW fan.

I agree with you, but this is the case with pretty much every MMO on the market right now that isn't Korean or developed by an indie. It's a problem with the genre, and it's not going to change.

 

[Allard]

You can be casual and have a different kind of activities that last. FFXI right now is hardly more hardcore than XIV once you get past the obtuse interface and managed to have dozen of end-game activities different from each other (And I'm just talking about stuff from last expansion, so no "But Taruranto, It's a 100 years old game excuse!")


FFXIV is too focused to keep things narrowed for the player, gears don't have meaningful stats, dungeons are a straight line, there is no difference between one character and another in terms of build. No shit stuff doesn't last. I don't know if it's because Yoshi is incompetent, afraid to lose subs if he changes too much stuff or a super-WoW fan.

He and his entire team have made a very clear choice and they have given there reasons for it. They want this game to be approachable and constantly replayable (Aka you can quit and comeback without fear of getting too far behind you can't catch up within a patch cycle), they also decided to make all there encounters that required most of there end game resources dedicated to the Duty Finder or eventually would be placed in the Duty Finder, the result... you can't have divergent paths when you know nothing of the players without structured procedurally generated content (Like the switches in Satasha, or something like Maze Mongers/Nyzul Isle) that forces those players a specific route, it won't go well at all. Its why Almost all of WoW's dungeons are like this as well. The type of content you are asking for has to be off the Duty Finder and never put on it, it requires a different type of content and community to support it. The game is currently built around this type of content, I and lots of others might be asking for this other type of content but that isn't what this community has been founded on to expect and as history of MMO's have shown, making drastic changes to the formula of the game if its successful is not always the best idea. Some might take well to it but everyone you increase the happiness of you have as strong or stronger possibility of alienating someone, perhaps permanently.

Having said that the stance Yoshida has on the games stats is definitely a fault on his part imo. I understand why he does it, but I don't agree with it and I think having more gearing options through stat variety would go a long way to keep the content lasting longer patch to patch and then they won't be forced to constantly make primal stuff that doesn't even last the patch much less several patches later.

 

[Azzurri]

I agree with you, but this is the case with pretty much every MMO on the market right now that isn't Korean or developed by an indie. It's a problem with the genre, and it's not going to change.

Ehh, check out new MMO's in development they are not following the WoW clone any more, they're going back to UO or SWG sandbox style which is needed.

FFXIV just needs more variety in end game stuff to do rather then just queue up for dungeons and the occasional hunt.

 

[Kenai]

I just keep thinking to the following from FFXI:

1) Absolute Virtue. It was a secret boss that spawned randomly from killing another boss and it was not cleared legitimately for quite a while as people kept on trying to figure out the strategies, and it was a random pop which required a lot of farming to get to. But as gear got better with each patch and/or expansion, it became more possible.

2) Pandemonium Warden. It was the last boss of a set of bosses you had to beat using pop items that you lost after you spawned the boss. So not only did it keep you trying, but you had to do the older bosses and farming again. Lots of content there for little development effort (opposite of FFXI, little content for lots of development effort)

3) Chains of Promathia. This was an expansion with a difficult mission storyline that felt very rewarding. Later expansions and other content was available without having cleared Chains of Promathia, so it didn't gate anyone from a majority of the content in the game but it was refreshing to try.

Yo let me tell you about how this actually went down and why it wasn't a good idea or a fun experience then and why it wouldn't be now. I was an active FFXI raider right up through the middle of WotG so an expansion and a half after AV and one less for Pandemonium Warden.

AV was LITERALLY unkillable. This was back when you would lose exp from dying and have to travel for roughly 30 real life minutes to reach the spawn area. Servers literally threw their best people at this guy, and the only reason it wasn't a Pandemonium Warden like scenraio is because he would literally kill everyone so there was no way to recover. He copied the 2 hours of every class in the game at the time (so randomly goes back to full health from WHM Benediction or the afformentioned kill everyone in that 1/3rd of the zone with NIN Mijin Gakure). Huge, huge clusterfuck of a boss that might as well have not been there. It was NOT defeated until the level cap was raised 3 expansions later. Spending intentional development time on shit like that? No. Just no.

Pandemonium Warden. So there's 8 mobs you need to kill for pops (let's call them the B ranks). these are obtained by farming random monsters for a low drop percentage. If you get the drop from the B mobs, you can spam the A,, and then finally S Pandemonium Warden. The catch? Well, not only were the drop rates abysmally low (think OG Pony drop rates), but the stuff wasn't instanced, so if someone was already at the spawn point (which could be close or it could be in the middle of bumfuck nowhere 30 rl minute walk) you had to wait your turn. So imagine farming 8 pony percent drops, to farm 4 pony percent drops, to PW. Oh, and if they don't drop at any point in the chain, you have to go back to the start and try again. This was not fun content, this was mind numbing anti fun of the worst kind. You want to know why those people got sick on P Warden after 18 hours? Cause they did not want to farm that shit 24/7 for ANOTHER MONTH (I am 90% sure they took shifts so that they were always working toward that at all hours of the day but it's been awhile) and they literally spawned an effectively unkillable boss after all that time. I actually think it may be worse than i am describing because i think there were more than 12 mobs to Warden but you get the idea.

I could go on with some more basic things like their being no DF so you had to hope you could even gather a group after hours of searching for basic things like leveling, or extreme class imbalance making roughly 1/3rd oh the jobs at any time literally have a snowball's chance in hell of actually being invited to content and whatever else but I hope you understand how this shit was not healthy and is largely considered unacceptable today. You see the amount of people that omplain that they can't get into Ishguard right away? They locked the entire content of Tavzania in CoP behind an incredibly punishing raid where everyone was stuck at 30. And that was just the very first area, it got much, much worse. That entire town was a ghost town for weeks, maybe even longer. GG getting people to continue that stuff with all the gating. GG getting people to pay for that today.

I won't pretend what we have no is perfect but it's so much better in so many ways than what we used to have. There is a 0% chance of them going back to any of it, not if they want an MMO with actual production values. 1.0 was a testament to that.

 

[Spiritreaver]

Ehh, check out new MMO's in development they are not following the WoW clone any more, they're going back to UO or SWG sandbox style which is needed.

We don't know if they're going to be successful though. Also are any of those big IPs/devs? Not arguing, just curious. I've mostly given up on the genre.

I mean, did Archeage even do well?

I agree that this game needs more shit to do though.

 

[dimb]

They need to add meaningful PvP too, that adds extra content for the people who like to PvP.

There are no MMOs with meaningful/good PvP. It's not even worth attempting with how saturated the competitive multiplayer space is.

 

[Spiritreaver]

There are no MMOs with meaningful/good PvP. It's not even worth attempting with how saturated the competitive multiplayer space is.

As someone who spent almost the entirety of my SWTOR playtime in warzones, I wholeheartedly disagree.

 

[Azzurri]

There are no MMOs with meaningful/good PvP. It's not even worth attempting.

DAoC, UO, SWG, EvE, AC, GW, GW2. Notice the trend here, all these MMO are before WoW. Hell, even WoW has some decent PvP in Arenas and BGs, and their OW PvP was awesome prior to dungeon finder and flying ruined it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean there shouldn't be an option for it.

Funny thing is YoshiP even said one of his favorite MMO's was Dark Age of Camelot, which is an awesome game, yet PvP in this game is crap. I get it's a PvE oriented game, but decent PvP could never hurt the sub count.

 

[Kenai]

DAoC, UO, SWG, EvE, AC, GW, GW2. Notice the trend here, all these MMO are before WoW. Hell, even WoW has some decent PvP in Arenas and BGs, and their OW PvP was awesome prior to dungeon finder and flying ruined it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean there shouldn't be an option for it.

There is an option for it though. It's just an afterthought and they never once pretended otherwise.

Edit: Not trying to be mean, but i don't think we are ever going to get more than what we have. Maybe new maps with some different mechanics, maybe even a bit of storyline if they continue with the Plateau stuff, but the devs just do not seem to care about PvP It was the same in 11.

 

[the_sun_king]

"It's too hard!"
"It's too easy!"
"Doesn't given enough!"
"Gives too much!"

I feel so sorry for the developers of this game.

Sounds like the typical FF fanbase reactions to me! They can never make up their minds!

 

[irfaanator]

the 09ers are killing me

 

[dimb]

DAoC, UO, SWG, EvE, AC. Notice the trend here, all these MMO are before WoW. Hell, even WoW has some decent PvP in Arenas and BGs, and their OW PvP was awesome prior to dungeon finder and flying ruined it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean there shouldn't be an option for it.

I look at the multiplayer PvP space and I see heavily established giants that are more accessible than ever. The MOBA boom also came post WoW, and I think it is one of the biggest contributors to MMO PvP dying out. Something like League or Dota is simply a superior experience to anything an MMO could hobble together because PvP is the focus.

I think it's more sensible for MMOs to double down on what they excel at. A shared space/world between players and cooperative gameplay. There are too many barriers in place with balance for MMO PvP to be worthwhile in a modern era.

MMO PvP:
Is wildly inaccessible, often even for players heavily invested in the game
Is absurdly unbalanced and often has a detrimental effect on the PvE scene
Has no prospects for viewers/a competitive scene
Faces an uphill struggle with latency/response times
Diverts development resources and the player base away from what is important/unique to the title

 

[Taruranto]

I'm not familiar with XI in its current state could you give a brief idea of the dozen or so different things there are to do at end game?

On the top of my head: There are Skirmish (classic dungeons in which you kills stuff for points with various difficulty levels and modes, Yorcia for example is a game Dungeon Defenders game), Delve (classic kill mini-boss and then boss) or Vagrary (defend from waves of enemies) then you have Unity (gather people, go to one specific place in the world and pop a rare NM with currency, there is one in each zone)

There is also a degree of randomization to keep things a bit fresh, in Skirmish you may or not may get a boss floor for additional rewards and dungeons are not a straight line.

And it's not like stuff is particularly hard, you can literally jump in these events without prior knowledge of it (I mean, as long the party explains them lol)

I'm not sure what you mean by gear not having meaningful stats?

FFXI gears weren't just +1 at each stats, but they basically had proc rates and stuff. For example, some gears may boost cure-potency while some make you cast faster, or move faster. It creates much more interesting itemization and gives players more freedom to play with (especially in XI with the ability to (trigger warning)

Spoiler

swap gears

in battle)

There is also an augment system that allows players to customize gears with sub-stats (the system itself is a bit hit-or-miss)

 

[Spiritreaver]

And here we are, back at everyone thinks the game should be about this but not this because reasons.

They wouldn't even be bothering with PVP at all if no one wanted it period. I'm glad we're getting another Frontlines patch and I hope it encourages people to play. It's a fun diversion and more content of any type is a good thing.

I mean heck, I love Triple Triad and I thought it was a dumb idea when they announced it.

 

[ebil]

Make no mistake I enjoyed FFXI, and yes I did find things like that interesting, but I would not want a ton of resources spent on it and the games systems are not penalizing enough to make any type of content outside of an instance raid (which in turn requires lots of development and resources) actually difficult. What I think they do need to look into is more hardcore open world encounters under the leve system,[...]

I really liked what they were starting to do with Faction Leves by the end of V1 (the ones that had semi-challenging objectives to do in a sequence to have a chance at dropping Coliseum gear and Relic stuff, could be low-manned, was something to do with your LS). That was a step in the right direction IMO.

I wonder why they never expanded on these systems as it would be a good way to implement some content using the open world and would alleviate the "not enough content variety" issue to an extent.

 

[PhillipCostigan]

I'm sort of conflicted. I like the idea that people who want to see every bit of the story can do so in an accessible way, a way which wasn't available for them with Coil in 2.0 despite Coil's story being really fucking cool with a good payoff in 3.0

At the same time, the idea of farming something this simple for weeks for drops and then farming the same bosses but harder for other drops is like... it has me filled with dread honestly that I'll just burn out from repeated content.

I sort of hope that the Alex Savage story is the same but the bosses are just completely different.

I knew going into normal it would be easy and that's fine, but I'm not looking forward to all the farming of this that we'll have to do and the farming of Savage if the bosses are the same, but harder in some form.

I don't think any of the bosses are memorable enough to be worth repeating like Coil bosses are. I think all the Coil fights were far more fun and had more spectacle and more story attached to them.

Hope Savage proves me wrong and actually is a lot of fun and pretty different too.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

DAoC, UO, SWG, EvE, AC, GW, GW2. Notice the trend here, all these MMO are before WoW. Hell, even WoW has some decent PvP in Arenas and BGs, and their OW PvP was awesome prior to dungeon finder and flying ruined it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean there shouldn't be an option for it.

Funny thing is YoshiP even said one of his favorite MMO's was Dark Age of Camelot, which is an awesome game, yet PvP in this game is crap. I get it's a PvE oriented game, but decent PvP could never hurt the sub count.

The few MMOs which had a lot of PvP weren't successful because of the PvP though. Most people who played even PvP-heavy MMOs going all the way back to original UO didn't want anything to do with PvP and after UO finally got sharded into PvE-only and PvP servers, the majority of players stayed on PvE servers. The number of people who care about PvP in MMOs is and has always been vanishingly small, this is why there is no substitute for PvE content in MMO endgames.

In the context of MMO PvP, 90% of "PvPers" on OWPvP games are gankers anyways. This is why OWPvP is dead in modern MMOs outside of Korea and even the Koreans are tired of that shit, most new Korean MMOs no longer have OWPvP.

 

[Imagine Wagons]

I keep losing connection after the character select screen. Is this happening to anyone else on Ultros?

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I mean, did Archeage even do well?

Archeage flopped pretty bad in the West, but let's be honest, it was really bad.

 

[WonkyPanda]

So, what's the consensus? Worth coming back to if I haven't played since ~Jan '14?

 

[Qvoth]

want!

 

[Kagari]

So far the Coil story was a lot better... :V

 

[Hasemo]

Is Alexander going to get new phases down the road, like Coil did?

 

[SliceSabre]

Me and my FC are helping people in the FC clear Alexander and have been having a blast over mumble and then this moment happened at the end of Floor 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdjxoLDmg08

 

[Sylas]

On the top of my head: There are Skirmish (classic dungeons in which you kills stuff for points with various difficulty levels and modes, Yorcia for example is a game Dungeon Defenders game), Delve (classic kill mini-boss and then boss) or Vagrary (defend from waves of enemies) then you have Unity (gather people, go to one specific place in the world and pop a rare NM with currency, there is one in each zone)

There is also a degree of randomization to keep things a bit fresh, in Skirmish you may or not may get a boss floor for additional rewards and dungeons are not a straight line.

And it's not like stuff is particularly hard, you can literally jump in these events without prior knowledge of it (I mean, as long the party explains them lol)




FFXI gears weren't just +1 at each stats, but they basically had proc rates and stuff. For example, some gears may boost cure-potency while some make you cast faster, or move faster. It creates much more interesting itemization and gives players more freedom to play with (especially in XI with the ability to (trigger warning)

Spoiler

swap gears

in battle)

There is also an augment system that allows players to customize gears with sub-stats (the system itself is a bit hit-or-miss)

FFXI was a horribly unbalanced game that had people swing wildly from one job to another as updates brought in new gear with "cool stats" that totally broke certain comps. Remember Kraken DRK?

Boring itemization is infinitely easier to keep balanced--WoW ran into the problem many, many times where you literally couldn't make new gear attractive to players because old gear had better proc-rates as additional effects. It's part of the reason WoW was a horribly balanced game for a very, very long time (not that I can comment on it these days).

While I would definitely like to see weapons and armor with more interesting stats on it, I would also much rather see balance be somewhat maintained rather than watching the pendulum swing harshly from one job to another and making some jobs factually useless in comparison to others.

I'm sort of conflicted. I like the idea that people who want to see every bit of the story can do so in an accessible way, a way which wasn't available for them with Coil in 2.0 despite Coil's story being really fucking cool with a good payoff in 3.0

At the same time, the idea of farming something this simple for weeks for drops and then farming the same bosses but harder for other drops is like... it has me filled with dread honestly that I'll just burn out from repeated content.

I sort of hope that the Alex Savage story is the same but the bosses are just completely different.

I knew going into normal it would be easy and that's fine, but I'm not looking forward to all the farming of this that we'll have to do and the farming of Savage if the bosses are the same, but harder in some form.

I don't think any of the bosses are memorable enough to be worth repeating like Coil bosses are. I think all the Coil fights were far more fun and had more spectacle and more story attached to them.

Hope Savage proves me wrong and actually is a lot of fun and pretty different too.

See, I'm in the opposite boat. I immediately found 3/4 bosses in Alex normal infinitely more enjoyable and memorable than anything in the First Coil of Bahamut. I'm banking, and hoping, that Savage mechanics are different and not just tuned higher to make the encounters fresh for people that wanna do actual raiding.

 

[Khrno]

(especially in XI with the ability to (trigger warning)

Spoiler

swap gears

in battle)

My favourite part of FFXI, being able to actually use so many items, and lasting through expansions while having situational uses.

Unlike XIV, where every new iLevel tier, I just vendor/discard all the old gear because it becomes useless every, right now let's say, 2 weeks, since that was the time it took me to get the Asuran casting belt, to now upgrade it to the Gordian belt.

Old gear here has no value aside from fashion, and although great, for those of us wanting a deeper stats/gear system, is very bad.

Of course I do understand this is tied to the gameplay system, and with this gameplay there is no place for gear swaps, and the most you can do is have two pieces of the same ilv (Allagan and AF for example) and use one piece when you need Accuracy, and when you don't, use the other one that might give Crit and Det.

FFXI was a horribly unbalanced game that had people swing wildly from one job to another as updates brought in new gear with "cool stats" that totally broke certain comps. Remember Kraken DRK?

What are you talking about? I was a main DRK since 2004 to 2008, I went through all the 75-cap DRK phases, I used Icarus Wings, Sleeping Potions, KC for zergs, abused the engage/disengage thing, the 2-handed buff, and also went BLM when my ls cried about DRK being shit against my will.

 

[Azzurri]

Not a fan of having to switch armor and weapons mid battle, but I do like having multiple sets of armor and weps depending on what I'm doing.

WildStar does this and people like it, they also have two roles for each class which I like too. I can see later on jobs dividing into multiple roles.

 

[SliceSabre]

Gearset just remind me of the biggest drawback of Ragnarok Online: optimal buildsets. Having to farming for X amount of days to get the most optimal set of gear for different situations is the fucking worst IMO and would make me leave this game if that was a direction they went into.

I don't mind things like one here were some gear may give you spell speed while another favors determination.

 

[Qvoth]

So far the Coil story was a lot better... :V

i have a feeling the story will be continued in savage mode
the fact that the enemies are basically a bunch of jokes (goblins) doesn't help either
song is pretty shitty imo

 

[K.Sabot]

Was hoping something other than Goblins being the cause for Alexander. Boy is fighting goblins in tanks as epic as fighting allagan monstrosities created in the lair of bahamut.

 

[Pancho]

All the negativity in the thread is kind of bumming me out :/
Sucks that you guys are not enjoying the game as much as I am. Then again, you've been playing for longer and are experienced MMO players so I get it.

 

[Qvoth]

oh i'm definitely still enjoying the game, just disappointed with the alexander that's all

 

[Sylas]

All the negativity in the thread is kind of bumming me out :/
Sucks that you guys are not enjoying the game as much as I am. Then again, you've been playing for longer and are experienced MMO players so I get it.

Nah man, the game is goddamn amazing. Super veteran MMO player and FF14 gives me exactly what it says it's going to--and I love it for that fact.

It helps that I'm a roleplayer so the game has a vastly extended life-cycle for me, but there's a lot to be said about a developer that actually responds to feedback and still creates compelling content.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's an amazing game with a super bright future ahead of it.

 

[SliceSabre]

I was talking with my FC about Alexander and we agreed that something like this is fun to play and a lot more light hearted than Coil ever was and at the end of the day there is gonna be a alexander savage for people who get off to having their ass spanked with a nail laden wooden paddle.

And because of the way Stage 3 and Stage 4 are I feel like Savage is gonna play the way those people want to play.

oh and the main reason Coil's story is better than Alexander's has a lot to do with the fact well its fucking Bahamut no other primal has nearly as much build up as he has.