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#77 Jan 21 2015 at 10:22 AM Rating: Good
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Theonehio wrote:
Lyrailis wrote:
It is completely unreasonable to expect that to change. That's not what FFXIV is. You don't go to, say, Hearthstone and complain that there's too many Warcraft references. If you want a cardgame without the Warcraft references, you'd know there are others out there, like Magic.[/i]


So in other words, Heavensward will be more of the same even though Yoshida said they're moving towards more open world (aka akin to XI/1.x) in some designs? Despite obvious criticisms? (and yes they do exist, even Yoshi admits them.) It doesn't matter how the criticisms are laid out - People who don't like seeing XIV criticized and will adamantly defend everything about it will always find it as "whiny" or "you shouldn't compare it to SE's other MMOs."

Considering the guy who's in charge stated this game is a Fan Service title, isn't it a bit weird to be so push off towards something when the game itself already isn't standing on it's own? Heck a good majority of its content and systems derived from 1.x. So it's not unreasonable to expect anything to change, just like XI changed with every expansion - **** ToAU introduced an "actual" instanced system to XI, which was quite the change from the usual XI content at the time.
Edited, Jan 21st 2015 8:14am by Theonehio


That's not what I said, and you know it.

I like how you quoted only a piece of my block and didn't quote the rest of it.

The REST of that post, which you decided not to include in your quote, you will note I ACTUALLY said:

Quote:
Again, with respect to the landscape and/or teleports... the lands were made smaller so that more detail could be put into each area, and the teleports make things awesome, it is one of FFXIV's selling points.

It is completely unreasonable to expect that to change. That's not what FFXIV is. You don't go to, say, Hearthstone and complain that there's too many Warcraft references. If you want a cardgame without the Warcraft references, you'd know there are others out there, like Magic.


I have my sincere doubt that Heavensward is taking away Teleports or the smaller zones that already exist.

They might be adding newer, larger zones, but that's mainly because they plan on flying chocobos, right? Of course those zones would need to be bigger to compensate.

But good job on the partial quote attempt there, dude.

Edited, Jan 21st 2015 11:26am by Lyrailis
#78 Jan 21 2015 at 10:23 AM Rating: Decent
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Why did they have to break up Limsa into two pieces (even though graphically it still loads the lower and upper decks just the same, it's not two seperate maps, it's two identical full-size copy's only with one half of it playable each time). Ul'dah very much the same thing. Could have easily been one zone and been awesome, but nope. Gridania, fair enough, but Limsa and Ul'dah?
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#79 Jan 21 2015 at 10:26 AM Rating: Good
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KojiroSoma wrote:
Why did they have to break up Limsa into two pieces (even though graphically it still loads the lower and upper decks just the same, it's not two seperate maps, it's two identical full-size copy's only with one half of it playable each time). Ul'dah very much the same thing. Could have easily been one zone and been awesome, but nope. Gridania, fair enough, but Limsa and Ul'dah?


To make the maps more reasonable to read?

The maps for each already have two floors, or at least I know Upper Decks has two maps, I think Lower does too? Don't recall exactly.

Anyways, 3-4 floors in a town zone would be absurdly confusing.

As for Ul'dah, I feel the two zones are reasonably sized.

Also, these are IN TOWN zones. You know, where players are going to be sitting around AFK waiting on queues? We don't want to mash players from both zones into one and create a bunch of ridiculous lag, do we?
#80 Jan 21 2015 at 11:02 AM Rating: Decent
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Lyrailis wrote:
KojiroSoma wrote:
Why did they have to break up Limsa into two pieces (even though graphically it still loads the lower and upper decks just the same, it's not two seperate maps, it's two identical full-size copy's only with one half of it playable each time). Ul'dah very much the same thing. Could have easily been one zone and been awesome, but nope. Gridania, fair enough, but Limsa and Ul'dah?


To make the maps more reasonable to read?

The maps for each already have two floors, or at least I know Upper Decks has two maps, I think Lower does too? Don't recall exactly.

Anyways, 3-4 floors in a town zone would be absurdly confusing.

As for Ul'dah, I feel the two zones are reasonably sized.

Also, these are IN TOWN zones. You know, where players are going to be sitting around AFK waiting on queues? We don't want to mash players from both zones into one and create a bunch of ridiculous lag, do we?

Doesnt work that way. Limsa had a split two-part map to read even when it was still one big area. And lag-wise? There was none even in 1.0 when it was ALL one big zone. Even with everyone being in the market zone, no lag :/

It was literally the most pointless change of it all, since it still loads the entire area, displays it as well. Two full copy's.
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#81 Jan 21 2015 at 11:57 AM Rating: Excellent
There was no lag, but all the character models wouldn't load in the market ward. You'd move five feet, and half the retainers would disappear and others would appear to take their place.

For whatever reason, 2.x didn't have nearly as severe of a character model limit. Whether that has anything to do with the zones being split, I couldn't say.
#82 Jan 21 2015 at 1:08 PM Rating: Excellent
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KojiroSoma wrote:
Why did they have to break up Limsa into two pieces (even though graphically it still loads the lower and upper decks just the same, it's not two seperate maps, it's two identical full-size copy's only with one half of it playable each time). Ul'dah very much the same thing. Could have easily been one zone and been awesome, but nope. Gridania, fair enough, but Limsa and Ul'dah?


KojiroSoma wrote:
Doesnt work that way. Limsa had a split two-part map to read even when it was still one big area. And lag-wise? There was none even in 1.0 when it was ALL one big zone. Even with everyone being in the market zone, no lag :/

It was literally the most pointless change of it all, since it still loads the entire area, displays it as well. Two full copy's.


No, it's always been two maps. Going from Old/New Gridania, Upper/Lower Limsa, or Thal/Nal in Ul'dah always showed the fact that it's a map that's split across two servers. The number of times, especially in the beginning when 1.0 had 'peak' players, you could easily be kicked off the server was going across those lines. They were invisible but the dividing line between the zones were still there.

Edited, Jan 21st 2015 2:08pm by Viertel
#83 Jan 21 2015 at 3:40 PM Rating: Decent
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The difference with cod and fifa matches though, is that no two matches are ever the same. The objectives might be similar, but how the whole thing unfolds, and how you go about winning is always different. Thats why people keep playing cod despite the game always being the same. Its not like you go into a match knowing how to beat the other team. You have to go in, analyze the situation each time, and act acordingly. Ffxiv has almost 0 randomness to it which is what makes it repetitive. This is the situation i'm in. New content doesnt feel different from old content. And the stuff they have added, is just boring. Take the relic upgrades for instance. Farming boring fates (which is worse now than ever since your often alone which makes them take forever), then theres the books which i will admit is more fun since the content is pretty varied. Then theres the materia infusion which is a little redicilous if your a new player and dont have gil. I didnt have a problem with this part since i had money, but i did attempt to farm my own materia. I promply said F that and bought them instead. I havent upgraded beyond that point since i stopped playing, but it makes you run more of the same dungeons which already turns me off. I already dont enjoy running dungeons because they are all faceroll easy (up to halatali hard since i havent done the new ones). I like being challeneged when i play games. If i dont have to use my brain, i dont like it. Building a relic is very easy, yet time consuming. From my perspective, its badly designed since no part of building relics were fun for me besides the initial ilvl 80 relic. Its too easy while also being too time consuming. I would be fine if the difficulty was increased while lowering acquisition time. Just mindlessly running easy content is whats killing it for me. If what im reading about the new patch is true, ill give it a shot. Sounds more interesting than what i have experienced thus far.

Sorry for the long post.

And lack of paragraphs.
#84 Jan 21 2015 at 6:16 PM Rating: Good
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The difference with cod and fifa matches though, is that no two matches are ever the same. The objectives might be similar, but how the whole thing unfolds, and how you go about winning is always different. Thats why people keep playing cod despite the game always being the same. Its not like you go into a match knowing how to beat the other team. You have to go in, analyze the situation each time, and act acordingly. Ffxiv has almost 0 randomness to it which is what makes it repetitive.


The difference with those games though, is you aren't at the mercy of everyone you're playing with. Most people play FIFA, Madden,NHL etc online 1 vs 1. So it's all on you. CoD, short of the competitive scene, is also reliant on yourself. A good CoD player can carry a team of horrible players and win a match. Again, this doesn't apply to competitive matches, but that's only like 1-2% of the CoD population.

There probably is a place for randomness in boss fights, as a I said in another thread, Shiva EX has some very small variations. You have to limit it though to endgame for the hardcores since it's quite clear in casual content, some people will just never get it. And this is stuff that you KNOW is coming time and time again. If it's not limited to hardcores, then it just can't be overly punishing.

I don't envy a MMO dev team at all. You're trying to cater to so many people, it's damn near impossible to do it. I can tell Yoshi is tyring though. He's hit the mark with some things and completely missed with others.
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#85 Jan 22 2015 at 11:18 AM Rating: Excellent
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Hmm, have not seen this discussion here before. ;)

My two cents is that FFXIV is what it is. Personally I don't enjoy it because of many of the things mentioned in this thread already. That is why I don't play anymore even though I love FF. My advice for OP is to wait for the expansion and see what direction the game takes and/or simply to wait for Everquest Next (or something else) because the way it is shaping up to be, that will be the game for you (just based on what you mention) and I. Everything will be open world and dangerous but at the same time the world will change with time, there will be a class system that promotes choice/variety and an item system made for horizontal progression, travel will also be a lot more restricted. All in all it is more the idea that everything is an adventure.

Now I of course realize that it will also have its issues and more than likely it will not live up to what it promises when it comes to the evolving world and things like that. I do however feel it still just has more of the same basic philosophies and ideas of what OP wants an MMORPG to be. That at least is how I feel about it which is why I am so drawn towards it. I wish FFXIV was the same because like I said I love FF, but at this point I just realize that FFXIV is a good game, but it was not made for people like me. There are a lot of people not like me so for the situation they were in, making the choices with XIV they did was more than likely the best choice tbh and even though it pains me I can't really be mad about it (not saying anyone is mad) even if I am a little bit dissapointed still.

Also for the record... that Triple Triad even makes me consider coming back haha.
#86 Jan 22 2015 at 1:09 PM Rating: Excellent
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Hyrist wrote:
How did you like the difficulty of the current dungeons?

I've only done Keeper of the Lake so far, and there's a lot more dodging needed and mechanics managed to do well in there. I definitely felt more challenged even though we handled the mechanics fine.

I'd say dungeon wise I've felt a steady increase in difficulty with each iteration. Usually once the mechanics are learned, they're easy to manage, but because of the way the mechanics are placed their definitely still more time consuming, which means more room for human error.

I feel as if we're starting to push past the 'let's teach the newbies' part of the game which, honestly, makes me feel better about it.


From a tank perspective, I don't think they're that difficult. Some of the bosses seem to take a bit of time, but I don't know whether that's because there's some trick that I haven't figured out yet or the dps weren't quite as leveled as I'd like. I do feel the bosses from this batch are kind of like remixes from previous bosses, and I liked that.

I personally like AK the most, in part because the last boss reminds me of the Magician from The House of the Dead 2. I want to say that the resemblance is intentional, but it might just be me.
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#87 Jan 22 2015 at 1:27 PM Rating: Decent
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Belcrono wrote:
Hmm, have not seen this discussion here before. ;)

My two cents is that FFXIV is what it is. Personally I don't enjoy it because of many of the things mentioned in this thread already. That is why I don't play anymore even though I love FF. My advice for OP is to wait for the expansion and see what direction the game takes and/or simply to wait for Everquest Next (or something else) because the way it is shaping up to be, that will be the game for you (just based on what you mention) and I. Everything will be open world and dangerous but at the same time the world will change with time, there will be a class system that promotes choice/variety and an item system made for horizontal progression, travel will also be a lot more restricted. All in all it is more the idea that everything is an adventure.

Now I of course realize that it will also have its issues and more than likely it will not live up to what it promises when it comes to the evolving world and things like that. I do however feel it still just has more of the same basic philosophies and ideas of what OP wants an MMORPG to be. That at least is how I feel about it which is why I am so drawn towards it. I wish FFXIV was the same because like I said I love FF, but at this point I just realize that FFXIV is a good game, but it was not made for people like me. There are a lot of people not like me so for the situation they were in, making the choices with XIV they did was more than likely the best choice tbh and even though it pains me I can't really be mad about it (not saying anyone is mad) even if I am a little bit dissapointed still.

Also for the record... that Triple Triad even makes me consider coming back haha.


I agree with this. When i post i dont do it to shut down other people, but im not afraid to speak my mind either.

As for other mmo's...ive been waiting for everquest next for a while now. Still has no release date so i would assume its still far off. Almost all mmo's being made now are just clones of each other. Wildstar kept me interested for a whole 2 hours before i uninstalled the game. For everything they talked about, it was apparent they were lying through their teeth because nothing was new, original, or inovative. Unfortunatley they claimed all 3 of those things, which was really the erong move since nothing was like that. Tera is a pretty interesting mmo and i play it from time to time. The only mmo where i like to use a controller. Guildwars 2 is an mmo but it also isnt one. Thats a weird one but thankfully its free so i can install and keep going whenever. I refuse to play wow, and anything else ive tried, free or not, is not even worth the space in my brain for knowing they exist. I cant deny ffxiv is one of the top mmo's ever, but that isnt saying much when everything to compare it to is garbage.
#88 Jan 22 2015 at 10:04 PM Rating: Excellent
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Lyrailis wrote:
Quote:
As you can see AlmightyApkallu, if you say ANYTHING negative about this game, the communities tell you to gfto, essentially. So it's best to keep any criticisms or feedback to yourself. Though it's only certain people in this community that does it, be thankful you didn't say anything negative on the Official Forums or people would be out for your head for daring to dislike ANYTHING about FFXIV ARR. Even if it's practices most MMO gamers hated Blizzard and other companies for doing.

I hate the terms Fanboy/Fangirl/Whiteknight, but that is literally the definition of such if you get such ire for saying anything negative.


Maybe because most of the time, people saying something negative about FFXIV are usually doing so in a whining sort of way, OR, they are criticizing the game's strong points, such as the Teleports?


Why would it matter if someone criticizes what you perceive to be a "strong point?" Is that criticism invalidated because it doesn't agree with your own opinions?

Convenience features like teleports are always going to be a point of contention because players have different ideas about what they want out of their play experience. When it comes to teleports, limiting them gives the world a greater sense of scale, while making them too easy and accessible can leave the world feeling fragmented and, well, not really much of a world at all. Take what they did to hunts, for example. SE finally decided to add some overworld content, and what happened? It got zerged by every player participating on the server every time they popped. Why? Because players are always anywhere and everywhere at the same time. Dungeons are another example. They are run in the exact way you would expect them to be run in a typical hub RPG. You can run any dungeon in the game from your inn room. I wouldn't be surprised if most players who've run the same dungeon dozens of times don't even remember where those dungeons are located.

Then there's also the fact that with players completing content at a breakneck pace, many end up finishing everything they're interested in and are left with nothing left to do other than endlessly repeat whatever the latest content is for loot. Then SE has to later add quest lines to get players grinding all the old content that they blitzed through, because otherwise they would become deserted in no time, and the same players who don't have time for a few minutes of travel here and there somehow find the time to go do low level FATEs for dozens of hours or join the hunt stampede so they can upgrade all their end game armor until SE moves the bar higher in the next patch so they can do the same type of thing all over again.

There's nothing particularly wrong if you enjoy the game's super convenient approach to content, but it's understandably going to leave some wanting more for one reason or another.

Edited, Jan 22nd 2015 11:05pm by Susanoh
#89 Jan 23 2015 at 1:13 AM Rating: Decent
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You have to figure that much of what was done in 2.0 was fixing 1.0. They where also doing this all in a big hurry.

I would say what we have in 2.0 is pretty good considering the mess that was 1.0.
#90 Jan 23 2015 at 7:04 AM Rating: Good
Thayos wrote:
I don't have any massive issues with the way things are, but I think the overall enjoyment of this game would improve if the dungeons were a bit tougher and coil/endgame was a bit more forgiving.


I would agree, see this is constructive feedback.

Don't see me sitting here complaining about what you just said.
#91 Jan 23 2015 at 7:12 AM Rating: Decent
Keysofgaruda wrote:
The difference with cod and fifa matches though, is that no two matches are ever the same. The objectives might be similar, but how the whole thing unfolds, and how you go about winning is always different.


In that comparison, ST is a prime example you can have a team who are spot on and know what to do or you can have 4 people who are new, 3 people who are error prone which frankly spices things up. You are right that perhaps SE can spice things up a little but they gave us Coil/Titan Ex, Shiva Ex and now Odin/Crysalis

Having spammed Shiva, Titan Ex and still only on Coil 6 - These add randomness, and you end up working so flat out and needed to be "on it" they are not forgiving if you make more than a mistake. You also need healers/tanks to be again on it.

Sure SE could add more "Random" moves but I can see people avoiding that content more and more if for example Titan Ex's moves were pure random and you didn't know what would come next. What you are essentially asking for could be too difficult for players to put up with. Unless you want it to be more forgiving with added random but again you could say that is too easy.

It's times like that I feel no matter what SE does it will not satisfy you. Still playing Fifa though it's not as different as you say in one match to another when 1. You gain high stats for your player or 2. Gain the squad you want as a manager. Even with high difficulty settings it can be relatively easy unless you play multiplayer in which you will face either a better player or not. Asking SE to give us difficulty settings is already there with Coil etc and PVP again is there which again - is never the same like multiplayer Fifa.
#92 Jan 23 2015 at 9:33 AM Rating: Good
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Why would it matter if someone criticizes what you perceive to be a "strong point?" Is that criticism invalidated because it doesn't agree with your own opinions?


Because they usually do it in such a whining way.

Criticizing anything is OK. Whining about it, is not. Usually when someone criticizes something like Teleports, they'll talk about it is like the worst thing ever and that those who like the teleports are just lazy scrubs. I've read enough of that garbage that it doesn't amuse me whatsoever.

Quote:
Convenience features like teleports are always going to be a point of contention because players have different ideas about what they want out of their play experience. When it comes to teleports, limiting them gives the world a greater sense of scale, while making them too easy and accessible can leave the world feeling fragmented and, well, not really much of a world at all.


A player is not forced to use teleports (hunts aside). If they want a large, open world, they are free to use less teleports. In fact, those who aren't awesome at making large sums of gold will sometimes skimp on teleports as much as possible and still "see the world". The option is there for you to take. (Again, not counting Hunts)

Quote:
Take what they did to hunts, for example. SE finally decided to add some overworld content, and what happened? It got zerged by every player participating on the server every time they popped. Why? Because players are always anywhere and everywhere at the same time.


Hint: The Teleports aren't why hunts "sucked" in this respect. That would be SE's design of said hunts. There are plenty of things they could have done to alleviate the problems with Hunts. For one, making them non-aggressive mobs would have helped (so that every idiot there doesn't end up face-pulling the stupid thing before 'time', and for another, some prior warning a hunt was about to pop would have worked wonders. An NPC-run Linkshell could have popped a 5-minute warning that something dangerous was due to spawn in [zone] or some-such, giving people time to get there to search for this dangerous mob.

Quote:
Dungeons are another example. They are run in the exact way you would expect them to be run in a typical hub RPG. You can run any dungeon in the game from your inn room. I wouldn't be surprised if most players who've run the same dungeon dozens of times don't even remember where those dungeons are located.


True, but do you seriously want to go running your rear-end (seriously, that is STILL censored!?) off to whatever dungeon you get randomly invited to through the dungeon group system? I have my doubts very many people at all would actually enjoy this, and enjoy the wait times. I mean, picture it. You're 3/4 and you get that 4th person (to replace someone who dropped or got kicked) and the dude you just invited (Let's say it is Stone Vigil) and he goes "I'm in Gridania, BRT!". Let's say there were no teleports. Do you really want to wait 15+ minutes for him to ride through Northern Shroud, into Coerthas, and all the way over to Stone Vigil?

I'd really have to question the sanity of anybody who thinks that is good or interesting gameplay.

Sorry, but yeah. I don't see that being practical or good gameplay whatsoever.

Quote:
Then there's also the fact that with players completing content at a breakneck pace, many end up finishing everything they're interested in and are left with nothing left to do other than endlessly repeat whatever the latest content is for loot.


That's more a playerbase problem than a game design one, and it has nothing to do with Teleports. FFXIV does the same thing WoW Does: It relies upon the "newest raid" to keep people entertained for 90% of their stuff, and the other 10% is sprinkled around in the world like side-quests or endgame crafting. But really, if you want the newest crap, you go to the newest raid which you can only do once a week (it is gated BECAUSE everybody is in a mad dash to complete it ASAP).

Maybe if everybody wasn't in a royal hurry to complete all the content as soon as they possibly can, and actually tried taking their time for once... maybe the developers wouldn't have to put so many roadblocks and speed bumps in your way (such as time-gated content).

Quote:
Then SE has to later add quest lines to get players grinding all the old content that they blitzed through, because otherwise they would become deserted in no time, and the same players who don't have time for a few minutes of travel here and there somehow find the time to go do low level FATEs for dozens of hours or join the hunt stampede so they can upgrade all their end game armor until SE moves the bar higher in the next patch so they can do the same type of thing all over again.


They did that so that newbies can get the stuff done.

They know that once the core playerbase is at endgame levels, the number of newbies going through the paces is going to be a lot smaller than the core playerbase was when they went through. They know that they'll end up with WoW's problem. Try looking for a Low Level Dungeon group in WoW. Have fun waiting an hour plus as a DPS to get into (insert dungeon here) on anything other than peak primetime hours. Now, thankfully in WoW's case these dungeons are not required and can easily be skipped (which many players do for that reason).

In FFXIV, however, most of these dungeons cannot be skipped. The FATEs are very rewarding (some offering stuff like pets) once you get into the 30s. They want players doing them. They know, however, that some of them are just not practical to solo or at least take such a ridiculously long time to solo AND they have a large group of bored endgame players who already did their weekly raid. Why not get the endgame players to help the newbies out? Win-Win, well, 'cept for the people who complain about having to farm FATEs, that is.

Quote:
There's nothing particularly wrong if you enjoy the game's super convenient approach to content, but it's understandably going to leave some wanting more for one reason or another.


Those "wanting more", should be asking for more things that aren't pure tedium. Traveling from Point A to Point B for excessively long times (5min+) is Tedium.

It isn't interesting gameplay, it is there only to slow you down and make many players bored.

More dungeons, more crafting, etc. That's actual gameplay, the kinda stuff they should be asking for. Now, maybe if they introduced something like Chocobo Digging, then maybe travel wouldn't be as bad (it'd give you an opportunity to do some digging along the way), but they'd probably have so many crappy limitations on that, and have the % chance of getting anything worthwhile so low that it probably wouldn't be worth doing anyways.

But still, it is an idea...

Edited, Jan 23rd 2015 10:34am by Lyrailis
#93 Jan 23 2015 at 10:34 AM Rating: Good
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If you want to ride from place to place on your chocobo and never use teleports, that's fine - you can make that choice and play however you see fit. I, on the other hand, might choose to save myself time (which I don't always have a ton of) by teleporting there. Neither one of us is at all affecting the other person's enjoyment of the game... so who cares?
#94 Jan 23 2015 at 10:37 AM Rating: Excellent
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Lyrailis wrote:
Those "wanting more", should be asking for more things that aren't pure tedium. Traveling from Point A to Point B for excessively long times (5min+) is Tedium.

It isn't interesting gameplay, it is there only to slow you down and make many players bored.

More dungeons, more crafting, etc. That's actual gameplay, the kinda stuff they should be asking for.


Again, this is completely subjective. Of course, at a glance, it'd be easy to say SE should add more gameplay. It's not that they shouldn't. But there's a limit to what they can do. SE has been adding "more dungeons" every patch since the game came out. They take roughly a half hour to complete (maybe more, maybe less), and then what? You're right back where you started, asking players to complete these same old half hour blocks of content for weeks upon weeks. It is the same with extreme primals. Let players fight them as much as they want, but encourage them to do the exact same scripted fight again and again and again for loot. It's doubly the same for relic quest, which is long grind after grind of old content. And hunts, which is essentially non-gameplay in itself but the experience is similar to the old launch FATE stampede but on a world wide scale.

Saying "more gameplay, more dungeons, more primals, more more more!" will only get you so far. SE can't come out with content faster than players can complete it, so there is going to be something that some players may consider tedious regardless of where it comes from. Whether you want that to come from traveling the "same old" terrain multiple times or running the "same old" instances again and again depends on the player.
#95 Jan 23 2015 at 10:58 AM Rating: Excellent
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There are things that can be done to encourage players to explore, to slow down and take in the scenery around them. Sightseeing log can be one of them. They can add more.

Hunts, in my opinion, suffer from a flawed foundation that has players rushing the content. Had they taken a tiered NM system (complete a few normal hunts to unlock an elite, a few specific elites unlock an A rank, then S rank, all on force pop from key items. A familiar system to FFXI veterans.) with the hunts, it would have panned out a lot better than it is now, and the rewards could appropriately scale.

Instead it's a race to see which hunt LS can Zerg down the content first, or which mass group can cower down another to wait until the content is vastly overpopulated for its targeted content participation. It just doesn't work well as designed, which is disappointing because I'd be interested in it otherwise.

Anyways, I'm going to start another thread on a more comprehensive look at our maps. What we lost, what we gained. Segment by segment.
#96 Jan 23 2015 at 11:21 AM Rating: Default
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Susanoh wrote:
Lyrailis wrote:
Those "wanting more", should be asking for more things that aren't pure tedium. Traveling from Point A to Point B for excessively long times (5min+) is Tedium.

It isn't interesting gameplay, it is there only to slow you down and make many players bored.

More dungeons, more crafting, etc. That's actual gameplay, the kinda stuff they should be asking for.


Again, this is completely subjective. Of course, at a glance, it'd be easy to say SE should add more gameplay. It's not that they shouldn't. But there's a limit to what they can do. SE has been adding "more dungeons" every patch since the game came out. They take roughly a half hour to complete (maybe more, maybe less), and then what? You're right back where you started, asking players to complete these same old half hour blocks of content for weeks upon weeks. It is the same with extreme primals. Let players fight them as much as they want, but encourage them to do the exact same scripted fight again and again and again for loot. It's doubly the same for relic quest, which is long grind after grind of old content. And hunts, which is essentially non-gameplay in itself but the experience is similar to the old launch FATE stampede but on a world wide scale.

Saying "more gameplay, more dungeons, more primals, more more more!" will only get you so far. SE can't come out with content faster than players can complete it, so there is going to be something that some players may consider tedious regardless of where it comes from. Whether you want that to come from traveling the "same old" terrain multiple times or running the "same old" instances again and again depends on the player.


"tedium" "grind" "irrelevant" etc are usually terms used to counterargue an actual good point made. No matter what something will be tedious. It is ABSOLUTELY ******* TEDIOUS repeating the SAME damn content style over and over in every patch in ARR, yet I guarantee you there will be people who enjoy the fact every arc ends in a Primal type fight. That too is a type of tedium so there's no escaping it.

I still find it a bit funny how the main argument about why XIII is bad is the gameplay style "long hallways!" yet ARR gets praised for its content which too is 99% "long hallways!" style design for instances. Even though it gets mocked and "go back to XI/rose colored glasses for XIV 1.x!", having dungeons that branched and actually gave you options in terms of completion objectives is still an honestly better design over all. Even when they create new dungeons..it's still the same thing over and over.

That, as well, is tedium and it's not interesting gameplay doing the same style over and over, yet people enjoy it. So if someone can defend that, how is it such a bad thing people can actually dislike it and want them to actually try something different? This is why as I said Heavenswards is truly make or break in knowing the direction they want to take ARR.

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#97 Jan 23 2015 at 12:13 PM Rating: Good
The "long hallways" complaint for XIII was taking into account that there was absolutely nothing to do outside of those long hallways for large portions of the game play.

FFX suffered from this too. FFX-2 was open world map and non-linear from start, which was a nice change. FFXII was open world-ish, but you could only derp around so long before you got bored and had to move on. FFXI was pure open world. FFIII was back to X style again - you must run this map in this direction and attack these monsters in this order. At least the scenery in X was pretty from the get go. I didn't even WANT to stop and smell the roses in Cocoon because it was so.... bleah.

XIV's dungeons are long hallways, but you can go far around fishing in the open world in between dungeons as much as you want, and you could starting from level 10.

Edited, Jan 23rd 2015 1:14pm by Catwho
#98 Jan 23 2015 at 12:27 PM Rating: Good
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Yeah, I wouldn't say Teleports are why Hunts wound up such a faulty system, either. You really can't fault people for wanting to participate in content they find both meaningful and accessible. And while I'd done my share of proposing fixes for this in the past, the system seems overall unchanged and now just as bad as it used to be with demand for marks spiking again. Whether it's boring or tedious shouldn't mean much as long as alternative content does exist that someone could find more enjoyable and less of a chore. Unfortunately, there's a cruel irony to MMOs where casual content tends to translate to most grindy, least rewarding, and behind the overall progression curve--to the point it not only isn't casual, but lunacy to pursue. Can't make the 10%-ers feel bad, though. Nope.
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#99 Jan 23 2015 at 12:36 PM Rating: Good
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Theonehio wrote:

I still find it a bit funny how the main argument about why XIII is bad is the gameplay style "long hallways!" yet ARR gets praised for its content which too is 99% "long hallways!" style design for instances. Even though it gets mocked and "go back to XI/rose colored glasses for XIV 1.x!", having dungeons that branched and actually gave you options in terms of completion objectives is still an honestly better design over all. Even when they create new dungeons..it's still the same thing over and over.



A Strawman and Red Herring both.

First, two entirely different Genres, MMO RPGs, specifically theme-park MMO RPGs are designed to have instances that are more or less set encounters from start to finish. The difference here is that the narrow corridors is all that there was. You did not get an open world until late in the game, there was no cities or hubs to begin with and they are stalwarts to any single player RPG. Even FFX, which the game's pacing was modeled after, had cities with a touch of exploration to them, and more deviating paths and things to do there. (You could also back track through these zones, FFXIII was not as fortunate.)

FFXIV starts with the open zones, and the corridor-dungeons ARE the offshoots.

There's no correlation to the criticisms at all and there's no comparison even to the contexts of the complaints. You'd have to compare a single dungeon FFXIII offered and honestly it didn't offer any at all, because it was all integrated into the base game. You didn't go to X location on the map to go through a narrow corridor dungeon in FFXIII, you were lead to a dungeon by a straight line, the dungeon was a straight line, and the areas you went afterwards was a straight line. FFX had more exploration by comparison.

Edited, Jan 23rd 2015 1:37pm by Hyrist
#100 Jan 23 2015 at 2:34 PM Rating: Default
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Lonix wrote:

It's times like that I feel no matter what SE does it will not satisfy you.


What a stupid thing to say. clearly i havent been satisfied because they arent adding anything i find satisfying. All my 1.0 buddies who were super excited for 2.0 dont play anymore. All for the same reasons as me. They completely changed their target audience on us. Ffxiv is a casual game, with the hardcore content not being very exciting. And before you say "well then stop playing", i already am not playing. But that doesnt mean im not checking in to see if by some miracle, the game becomes more interesting to me.
#101 Jan 23 2015 at 2:57 PM Rating: Decent
Keysofgaruda wrote:
Lonix wrote:

It's times like that I feel no matter what SE does it will not satisfy you.


What a stupid thing to say. clearly i havent been satisfied because they arent adding anything i find satisfying. All my 1.0 buddies who were super excited for 2.0 dont play anymore. All for the same reasons as me. They completely changed their target audience on us. Ffxiv is a casual game, with the hardcore content not being very exciting. And before you say "well then stop playing", i already am not playing. But that doesnt mean im not checking in to see if by some miracle, the game becomes more interesting to me.


Of course they changed their audience, 1.0 was an utter failure. As good as 1.23 was getting, it still wasn't going to draw in a significant amount of people to keep it afloat.
There is hardcore content in 2.0 and most people are complaining it's too hard. I don't even want to know the numbers who have completed T13, it's probably pitiful. SE is in it to make money and trying to appeal to the masses, which is unfortunately casual content.

The problem again with "hardcore" is it has so many different meanings to people. Hardcore to me is trying to complete the hardest content regardless of time invested. To others, it's the sheer amount of time it takes to complete something regardless of difficulty (Dynamis comes to mind). To others, it's something else.

This is also why people take offense to your posts. "What a stupid thing to say", and I'm pretty sure it was you who started with "Guess you can't read.." on a friggen wall o text, or something along those lines. You start with that tone and wonder why people get defensive?. Some big supporters of the game have criticized this game multiple times, but you guys seem to completely ignore those and pick apart the positive posts.
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