A Realm Reborn: A Look AheadFollow

Couldn't have said it better myself.

No one ever thanks Vishnu.

I like a lot of what I'm seeing, and yet, I still expect the game won't do very well based on it. Part of this is what others have already voiced with the HNM/FATE system.
What it comes down to is challenge and incentive. Challenge and incentive. This is the feedback loop that makes a game fun, as any learned game designer will tell you. I don't see that being done well here. The framework that they're building for these systems is going to make finding the proper balance for encounters and rewards incredibly difficult.

FATEs are going to be over-crowded, unbalanced messes unless they cap the number of people who can participate. Period. That's not the ideal solution, but it's the simplest and most resource-effective. This way the events are still publicly viewable even though not everyone can participate. And if they want to preserve a more public system (rather than instanced battles), those slots should simply be first-come, first-serve.

Compounding that with a generalized performance-rating systems, particularly those which do not provide real-time feedback, is a recipe for balance disaster. Some encounters will inevitably penalize certain classes. This means that they have to put significant thought into the evaluation system for EACH individual encounter. They can't just scale them according to level. This is not necessarily a problem as long as they actually do it. However, having those evaluations FURTHER scale by level makes them a balancing NIGHTMARE. There's just no way to do this gracefully. Rewards should be based on whether or not you succeeded in killing the monster, not how much you contributed to killing the monster. It may not be the "fairest" system, but it's the most efficient. Besides, if the fights and rewards are enticing, people will be giving it their best anyway. Also, presumably if being too low of a level won't get you a reward, you can adjust your level down as you could in XI? Otherwise their equipment scaling would need to be flawless.

The lack of camped NMs in general doesn't bother me. It's a niche part of the community that will actively enjoy them, and there are better ways to incentivize high-status players (by actually providing challenges which require great skill, rather than a no-lifer dedication and luck with claiming). If they did end up using a queue for FATE systems, you'd get the same basic rush in trying to be one of the first in line, though of course that means you'll be taking on the encounter with more strangers than friends.

Have we learned nothing from the past? A game can do many things masterfully, but if it doesn't deliver on gameplay, it launches on life support. The gameplay does look a bit improved as I see it in the gamepad video in terms of engagement, but there are still valid concerns about the level of challenge and the incentive structure. Those are the things that matter most. Without them, doing everything else right just isn't enough. The game failed miserably once; you'd have to be dreaming to believe it can't go the same way as SWTOR and every other recent major MMO release at this point.

I agree with you about the challenge. From the look of the video the fights still look way over simplified. They added jump so why don't I see people avoiding frontal cone attacks and such? Everyone is still just standing there and getting whomped on hitting 1,2,3, 1,2,3.

I would like more active boss mechanics the way fights are in wow,rift,and tor at least. I don't need the Tera model, I didn't really like it much tbh.

Is there a reason that everything I quote is getting quoted twice in my reply?



An event that is too popular gets overcrowded, and NO ONE gets to enjoy it. Remember when Besieged first hit FFXI? It was a super successful concept! And it was horribly implemented; the lag alone prevented most people from getting to attack a single enemy.

These FATE events are no different from the Dynamic Events in GW2. And most of them are horribly boring because there are too many people. Your contribution is mostly meaningless to the outcome, and you can barely even see what's going on.



He mentioned in gamepad video that he was chaining 3 skills together. If they have some features like that, maintain some semblance of positioning and direction being meaningful, balance abilities well, and include some cooperative party mechanics (NOT including trinity-like dynamics), I could see the gameplay being kind of mediocre, but good enough to survive, maybe even thrive, based on the game's other strengths. However, there's really no reason that they can't make the gameplay amazing other than a lack of knowing how to.



I was getting excited about it too, honestly, but then I remembered the bigger picture. I'm seeing some things that are being done very well. That gives me faith in the competence of the design team. That gets me excited for the game's potential. That allows me to see myself enjoying this game. But then when I take a step back and look at the evidence in front of me regarding the most important design elements, my excitement becomes tempered. I want to believe that the designers recognize the importance of balancing a series of novel challenges to match player ability, and that they understand how essential a solid feedback system is to maintaining player incentive. But the reality is that game designers on the whole don't understand that -even a little bit-. They're operating on personal theory and feedback from testers. Sometimes they get lucky and stumble onto something good, and other times their intuition leads them down the right path. But relying on game designers to know what they're doing is a recipe for disappointment.

So while I would like to believe that Yoshi-P's design team is responsible for these good decisions because they are really talented and insightful designers, and they can be trusted to continually deliver work that is worthy of high expectations... the evidence just doesn't bear that out, historically. Not in the industry, not at SE, and not for this team (yet). So yes, I'm a skeptic, through and through. It very rarely leads me astray.

Honestly, as with the dynamic events in Rift and GW2, the problems come in when there are too FEW players doing them.

For instance, I can ride up to a rift event in Rift that's in my way (like.. literally in my way), and be totally incapable of progressing through it just because I'm not capable of completing the event by myself or even with one or two other people.

That's the danger. As the game ages, the events (especially in lower level areas) will be attended less and less. They still need to be doable in that circumstance, otherwise they're just a hindrance to people and not a fun event.

I'm getting nervous. Everything looks pretty good.

The "cross hotbar" looks like something me or a few posters thought of a while back, lol.

LOL at the upskirt in the second video around 3:00, ....other than that in addition to that (:)) it looks pretty good.

ALSO, the fact that PS4 uses PC architecture now means that it should be easy to make a PS4 version of this game (but I confess I don't know anything about programming other than the basics.)

In a grand scheme, I think these videos shows the devs "got it". Now it boils down to can they innovate/deviate from that basis and be successful. I like the fact that spells look better, and that the copypasta is gone., FATEs etc.....it almost doesn't make me want to play the beta because I want to be surprised, in part, because the game is actually looking good...if that makes any sense.

You say that as if other MMO's didn't beta test the same features and go ahead with them anyway
You're making a lot of assumptions with that jab. One is that the beta test will imitate the event strain that the game will experience in actual play. That alone is a dangerous assumption. Beta participation can't simulate large-scale server activity. You're assuming that the players who beta test it will vocalize the concern sufficiently for SE to notice and correct the issue. That's another dangerous assumption. Beta characters are not like actual characters and are unlikely to experience true game balance. But most of all, you're glossing over the fact that this is not a "potential" problem. This is an inevitable problem. It does not NEED to be tested in order to be addressed.



GW2 was not designed with longevity as a priority. It's not a subscription game. I wouldn't go so far as to say that GW2 reinvented the wheel in any regard--they did some innovative things, but their downfall was with their execution... the same things I'm trying to call attention to in FFXIV. They had a terrible incentive system and while the gameplay presented moderate challenge, they failed to progressively escalate a series of novel challenges. These are the things that killed the game, and nothing else, and these are the same things that will kill FFXIV, and nothing else.

SWTOR's questing and lore were great. So were Secret World's, I understand. Both of those games went free-to-play very quickly. Those things you're describing as "soul" are little more than an aspect of the novel incentive structure. They're surprising little rewards for in-game accomplishments. Yes, they're important. No, they will not ensure a game's success. A successful game has a very robust structure of feedback loops that coincide with progressively greater challenge. Most MMO designers do not understand this at all. They just theorycraft based on what they liked about other MMOs and what they didn't like. But that method will only show you the superficial features of a game, not the system design concepts that engage players. Design elements and features only play a very small role in a game's success. It's executing the proper balance that matters most, and that balanced cannot be observed merely by playing other MMOs... in large part because they don't do it well. There are many more single-player games (which can average similar playtimes to MMOs) that are better models to look to for successful game design.

You can participate in theory, but most players don't. Why would they? They reach level 80 very quickly and don't NEED the XP. It has no value once you reach the level cap, and there's way more content than needed to reach the cap without participating in level 10 dynamic events. I disagree that high level participation is a problem with the dynamic events in GW2.

Moreover, the solution you're describing is ironically the PROBLEM that GW2 was trying to solve... lack of replayability of low level content and areas. So what you'll end up with is low level players who can't get help to do these events because no one sees any value in doing them. Telling players, "You could participate in that, but you get no reward," is the absolute wrong way to manage player participation. That's a measure that should never be needed. There are so many more effective ways to manage player content participation. Namely, devising a well-balanced incentive system in the first place. A stopgap measure like this wreaks of lazy design, though it is more likely just a plain bad idea.

Kachi, are you suggesting that no MMORPG can survive nowadays?

The more we learn about FFXIV, the more it seems the development team is on the same page with what players want, while balancing the needs of casual and hardcore players (whereas GW2 seemed almost completely casual).

What news of FFXIV do you find to be most alarming at this point?

I showed the video to the folks in my office today.

One of them was like "Oh, is that the next opening movie?"

When I told her that it was actually the bench mark and a real time render, I could see her jaw drop a little.

"So, uh, when is this game coming out again...?"

Great graphics won't make a great game. But they sure don't hurt in attracting new players either.