Gold Saucer got a lot of press attention for some reason, as did Verminion. So I guess they think the attention is good for some reason.
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Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward |OT| The Midas Touch
- Thread starter Ken
- Start date
Gold Saucer got a lot of press attention for some reason, as did Verminion. So I guess they think the attention is good for some reason.
They're trying to lure in casual players with those activities. I've also seen a promoted tweet from SE advertising Verminion on the back of the game's free trial version. I guess they really want Gold Saucer to become active again because lately it's fairly empty.
If they make enough trailers, maybe someone will give a shit. I guess? This level of trying to promote Verminion is unreal.
I would love a Heavensward post-mortem that touches on things like the thought process that led to them looking at their 3.0-3.2 plans and how they looked at what they had and decided that their extremely limited staffing should be put towards Verminion for 3.1.
I get that they YouTube exists because they gave the marketing team almost nothing to work with in 3.1, but I still want to know if they heckle some guy on the team for pushing for Verminion in the first place.
GS hype made sense because nobody knew GS was going to end up how it did. Verminion got coverage because it and Diadem were to only really new things in 3.1. Everything else was exactly what we've come to expect from patches and hard to hype up beyond "this is what this iteration looks like!"
xxczx
Member
I'm on Cerberus and it's always fairly populated
Verminion is a good idea on paper but I feel like they didn't present it well enough to the masses for them to even care. Saying they should have focused on making something else instead of these Gold Saucer mini games is wrong though because the team working on such content isn't the same as the people working on battle challenges, etc. And hey, some people on other servers do play the thing so it's not like Ultros represents the game at large.
Yeah, that's kind of what I thought then. I don't know, I don't think verminion was a bad idea on it's own. People are just salty (possibly justified) that it was the main selling point of a patch.
I'd say Thordan Extreme and Void Ark were the bigger selling points, but that's my personal opinion.
The biggest problem I have with Verminion, is that it just doesn't look very easy to pick up. This isn't a simple little game that you can pick in in thirty seconds and have fun with, there's a certain degree of set-up and trial and error needed first it'd seem. That combined with the fact that there just isn't all that much left in Gold Saucer I really want right now, aside from the Fenrir mount, are probably the biggest reasons why I'm just not enticed to give it a try.
PS: I still think they'd be better off saving major updates to the Gold Saucer for the tail end of each expansion cycle. Until people have a fully satisfying end-game, it doesn't really make sense to divert major resources. Until then, tweaks, the occasional new reward, and new cards make far more sense.
PPS: I'm still kinda surprised they haven't streamlined Chocobo Racing/Breeding somewhat. I had some fun with that, but the amount of grind for very little reward kept me from going into the breeding aspect any.
PS: I still think they'd be better off saving major updates to the Gold Saucer for the tail end of each expansion cycle. Until people have a fully satisfying end-game, it doesn't really make sense to divert major resources. Until then, tweaks, the occasional new reward, and new cards make far more sense.
PPS: I'm still kinda surprised they haven't streamlined Chocobo Racing/Breeding somewhat. I had some fun with that, but the amount of grind for very little reward kept me from going into the breeding aspect any.
Based on OF LoV thread in late November onwards and their profile's listed server:
Excalibur:
Gilgamesh:
Odin:
Cactuar:
Byrnhildr:
Excalibur:
I'm talking about in terms of what they themselves pushed as opposed to what the community cared about. It's kind of like what someone (Angary?) said a bit ago. The other stuff in the patch (Thordan and Void Ark) were iteration of the month with Verminion being the actual new thing.
Verminion is a good idea for 2.5 or its HW equivalent, when there's a healthy base. Unless they somehow have a dev team only capable of creating minion RTS battles with dodgy controller implementation that only work in the GS basement, there's probably something better they could have done with the manpower . If they do have a team only capable of creating minion RTS battles with dodgy controller implementation that only work in the GS basement, that is an entirely separate issue.
Bigger/more active servers have more activity in everything. Gilgamesh has like six times the A4S clears that Ultros does, but that doesn't make A4S less of a mistake or Savage less bad for the game.
Thordan and Void Ark don't work as new selling points because they're exactly what we got in odd-numbered patches back in ARR. they don't grow the game in any way, so beyond "Malibu Stacy has a hat now!" there's not much to say. It doesn't make them bad, but they're hard to really sell (especially since Thordan was an existing fight.) Diadem and Verminion were the things they could bill as not just more of the same, but actually additive to the game. Diadem worked for a couple of weeks, Verminion flopped most places beyond being an easily exploitable source of MGP.
Bigger/more active servers have more activity in everything. Gilgamesh has like six times the A4S clears that Ultros does, but that doesn't make A4S less of a mistake or Savage less bad for the game.
Thordan and Void Ark don't work as new selling points because they're exactly what we got in odd-numbered patches back in ARR. they don't grow the game in any way, so beyond "Malibu Stacy has a hat now!" there's not much to say. It doesn't make them bad, but they're hard to really sell (especially since Thordan was an existing fight.) Diadem and Verminion were the things they could bill as not just more of the same, but actually additive to the game. Diadem worked for a couple of weeks, Verminion flopped most places beyond being an easily exploitable source of MGP.
Controllers are garbage /shrug
Real talk though, diadem was fine until they felt the need to nerf it. I don't know what it's staying power would have been if it had stayed the same but they definitely killed that one with a pointless nerf.
PPPS: Yes I agree that Gold Saucer games don't play with the Duty Finder very well, and that hurts things. For example, I wouldn't mind having to wait a bit for human players for Chocobo Racing, except I can't really leave the Chocobo Square while waiting, I can't go gathering, can't try to solo a hunt, can't go mess with my retainers or the market board, etc etc.
Granted, this is off-set by the fact that they'll just queue you up with a bunch of bots if there's nobody else to immediately play with. However, playing against bots kinda ends up highlighting the grindy nature of that particular side game.
Granted, this is off-set by the fact that they'll just queue you up with a bunch of bots if there's nobody else to immediately play with. However, playing against bots kinda ends up highlighting the grindy nature of that particular side game.
Alternatively, it's yet another thing that would have been interesting to see the effect if it was in there at launch. Just a lot of mistimed things in general when it comes to 3.0 - 3.15 period.
No controller support would rid you all of me. Controllers were obviously a mistake.
And I actually asked Felix about this when the nerfs happened and he was no longer living in Diadem. The overall impression I got was some fatigue with the RNG, infrequency of solid gear drops, and that everything really was just a few subsstats over what people were getting with poverty coats and twine had worn some of the shine off already (still value for extreme minmaxers, but for the average person eh.) The nerfs just kind of provided a sudden shock that broke things immediately instead of people petering out over time.
They really do need to stop being overly protective of iLevels, though. The Diadem nerf killed the most second most successful part of the patch (Thordan #1 probably), and the protectiveness over i210 weapons apparently created the relic delay. Who are these people that care that much about having exclusive iLevel advantage? Can we just put them on their own server or something?
Agreed, at launch (when most players are going to be busy for the next two to six weeks the the main story campaign,) or at the end an expansion, (when there's a healthy and complete end-game, and people need a few distractions to get by til the next expansion,) are probably the best times to introduce major side-games.
IF they just aren't capable of putting together better controls then that however, it probably should have been scrapped early on in favor of something simpler.
On this subject, I'm not sure how realistic this is, but I kinda hope that they're folding the remaining members of the XI team over to XIV development, for things like seasonal events, side quests, etc. I know the two games are dissimilar enough that their skill-set can't entirely carry over, but a few more people handling side-activity development in XIV would probably help a lot!
Again, I have no idea how realistic that is, and I'm not really expecting it.
The bolded is my thought as well, that petering out over time is important though. I think some people would still be in there gearing alts if it still felt viable but as it stands now, it stopped feeling viable when the nerf hit.
As for the ilvl debate. I don't even know who that is catering too anymore. This game does not have the snotty hardcore that I see in a lot of MMOs. They are there but they aren't nearly as vocal from what I've seen. With a lot of the hardcore seeming to abandon ship lately (which doesn't mean much since they can be pulled right back in with a good raid release anyway), I hope they stray away from protecting ilvls for no reason.
I think the biggest issue with the Diadem nerf was it now required some thinking and planning to which mobs you wanted to camp, on top of just not have enough data to go on leaving a lot ambiguous. Going by chest count, the nerf wasn't that significant as you could still get within 2-3 gold chests if pre-nerf Diadems. The difficulty was figuring out how to get these runs but strategies were all over the place so it felt like we were running on guesswork. It's also a lot easier to coordinate an instance when you can just tell everyone to camp a single spot for your whole duration, versus trying to make sure 8 groups are split up enough to ensure minimal DR but still having decent kill speeds, if DR even mattered that is.
I'm not even sure if anyone even figured out an accurate model for the new drop rates by the end.
I'm not even sure if anyone even figured out an accurate model for the new drop rates by the end.
But SE are the masters of promoting stuff people don't care about. This isn't exactly new.
They didn't seem to be THAT protective of ilvls back in 2.X, but maybe that's because they had the extra 5 ilvls for the raid weapons and all that. It let them be a little less stingy when it came to the flat numbered weapon, 90, 110, 130, ya know.
From what I know, T5 weapons were i90 at launch , then later bumped to i95 to allow them to remain special vs things like Zenith and Primal Focus weapons. The 5 gap continued the rest of ARR.
Then they forgot their earlier learned lessons and i210 A4S weapons happened. The new hitch this time is the existence of gobdip from A4S making the tome weapons the equivalent of raid weapons, and potentially BiS. They couldn't bump the Gordian weapons without also bumping the tome weapons, since people may have used pages on other things if their dipped Tome weapon was BiS.
We ended up getting relic this time during the step that usually catches relics up with raid weapons, because they didn't want to de specialize the raid weapons early. It is less x10 vs xx5 and more armor vs weapon. Armor goes genpop first, weapon last.
Mr_Antimatter
Member
Soo...White mage versus Scholar.
I'm not sure which to build my character toward at this point. What are the pros of each, from a healer standpoint?
I'm not sure which to build my character toward at this point. What are the pros of each, from a healer standpoint?
Are you talking for leveling or do you have both of these maxed already?
At the cap, white mage is straightforward and mostly based on healing over time and direct heals while Scholar has a healing pet, is more technical and utilizes shields. Main pro of WHM is huge burst potential, both in healing and damage and main pro of SCH is better sustainable DPS and a focus on mitigation. Pick whichever appeals most to you although if you want to main one there's no reason not to play the other as well since they frequently share majority of equipment.
Yeah that'll go well cause you'll have like what 5 minions at best during your entire trial period?
Not allowed to argue your opinions around here, objectivity and facts only.
Well there's a few you can buy from the vendor there...
Pro - They're not Astrologians
I'm actually thinking about levelling Scholar up next. Could get it to i200 instantly if I bothered, which is nice. The pet stuff just feels so wrong with a controller though... Maybe I just need more time with it
Mr_Antimatter
Member
A bit of both. i'm lv 17 with conjuror, and like lv 7 now with arcanist. Only problem I have with conjuror is, well, it's rather boring since I seem to have few methods for attack while solo. Not too far with arcanist yet, but that pet is kind of neat.
I remembering being dead broke on a consistent basis when I first started.
V
Vilix
Unconfirmed Member
Someone's chocobo is in the stable with the armor I was discribing earlier. It's blue with yellow horns. Does anyone know what armor that is?
ROBOKITTYZILLA
Member
Barding of Light - 360 Day Veteran Reward. Need to subscribe for at least 360 days.
V
Vilix
Unconfirmed Member
Whaaaa? I'm not sure if I wanna play
Thanks
That's both sad and funny, I'm sorry. Next time I see you I'll pass you some money.
AST is great, Synastry is broken as hell, 166% healing power, hello?
Dangansona
Member
Just switched to Ultros and applied to the FC on the website! Character name: O'tenpe Tohr
TomcatTheLion
Member
40/80. I could be further along but no need to rush.
Sitting on 1386 esoterics at the moment with 16 clan mark logs and 2 Mhachi farthings. I've mainly been gathering Void Ark pieces (MNK) and probably should look into those 210 pieces.
Sitting on 1386 esoterics at the moment with 16 clan mark logs and 2 Mhachi farthings. I've mainly been gathering Void Ark pieces (MNK) and probably should look into those 210 pieces.
GGNKovalski
Member
I'm on Mateus. It's always a ghost town. Occasionally I'll see a few people getting their mini-cactpot tickets right when the reset hits but that's it.
Come to Butt-Head
Banned
Just thought I'd give a little update. I created a Au Ra Pugilist on Ultros, and I'm currently level 16. I'm most definitely enjoying the game so far, and especially so with the Pugilist. It took me a little while to find out which race and class I wanted, but I eventually landed on those two.
Anyway, I figure I'd hold off on applying to the GAF FC until I get the air pass or whatever that lets me travel to different cities. I'm still getting used to the controls, but I'm almost there. I'm assuming it'll be harder the more moves I get, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, lol.
Anyway, I figure I'd hold off on applying to the GAF FC until I get the air pass or whatever that lets me travel to different cities. I'm still getting used to the controls, but I'm almost there. I'm assuming it'll be harder the more moves I get, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, lol.
I had really bad luck with DF groups today. Other 2 alliances couldn't pull their weight in Void Ark and we ended up abandoning the duty after we wiped on Irminsul (this is after a wipe on the first boss and three wipes in the ventilator room) and then got an Alex with a bonus (Hooray! Progress to relic tokens!) but the tank pulled before I could explain Alarums to the new person(s) and tanked Oppressor 1 without being in any stance and it's not like I could just elusive jump anytime I came close to stealing aggro. Needless to say, we ended up wiping after the 4th stack of infirmity and the tank finally decided it'd be a good idea to let people explain Alarums to the new people and use a stance.
Oh yeah, and the story about the poor ninja who got yelled at by a BLM for not handling the gels in Pharos Sirius HM during the second boss.
Oh yeah, and the story about the poor ninja who got yelled at by a BLM for not handling the gels in Pharos Sirius HM during the second boss.
How did the card game turn out in XIV? Is it great?
I'm really sad that I'm still lvl 14 archer and haven't even gotten my passport yet.
But I have to complete FF VII and XI before I return to Eorzea.
I'm really sad that I'm still lvl 14 archer and haven't even gotten my passport yet.
But I have to complete FF VII and XI before I return to Eorzea.
Did you just start playing FFXIV? Maybe we could add each other as friends in the game?
That's... actually a really good idea. Huh
Haha, naa. Friend in my FC gave me like 20k the other day plus I've been doing my daily roulettes. Thanks anyway xD
Oh I know. I actually just got my AST to level 60 and I'm having fun with it. More of a joke!