Seriha wrote:
I was indeed thinking more in ratio with a side of on-offs like ES. But let's look to how others have described playing a melee in XI in that it's basically just wait for TP then WS. Positioning may occasionally matter, or if you're a DRK, maybe you'll have to Stun from time to time, but depth isn't there. On the other hand, one be hard pressed to find many combat abilities in XIV with a cooldown greater than 3 minutes. Yes, I may also agree that some associated durations there are too short, but I'd rather 2:50 to do something again instead of 9:50.
Since you're thinking of the duration:cooldown ratio, then you're just wrong. The ratios on average favor XI. For example, Dodge vs Featherfoot. 2:5 vs 1:6. Even if you expand it throughout 5 minutes, which actually favors Featherfoot as it gets an activation shortly before the 5 minutes end. So it doesn't have to eat it's last downtime which would've taken it to the 6 minute mark. Even then, Featherfoot is up 1 minute and down 4, while Dodge is still up 2 and down 3. You're being more active for less basically. lol.
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Barstatus spells, a large chunk of BLU's spell library, most Dark magic, mother@#%^ing Stymie, and more if I felt compelled to refresh my memory of the entirety of JAs available. Channeling the last point, sometimes it's a duration thing, others cooldown, and even more about potency. Sometimes these deficiencies also led to conflicts in job identity, like SMNs forced into healer roles or any poor RDM who ever wanted to melee. Yeah, some of you knew that was coming. :P
Barspells are far from useless. Ask any PLD or WHM who tanked/cured Suzaku back in the day. Ask RUNs now. The problem with barspells aren't so much they're useless or even underpowered, but that most mobs just aren't designed with a specific element in mind. Really have no idea about BLU, but I'd imagine it's similar to WAR's 2nd combo, it's not so much they were useless, the other options was just better. Same for Dark Magic. I'll give you Stymie. lol. They really should've made it a 30 second timer so it at least has some synergy with Chainspell. lol. Or make it like your normal Elemental Seal sort of thing, and not a one-hour. Our definitions of useless are obviously different here though. Yours is impractical or inefficient, mine is literally useless. Neither game has truly useless abilities(except maybe Holmgang), just ones with (sometimes very) specific uses.
That said, the 2nd part is actually a great example of XI's depth over XI. If SMN sucked in XIV, it was done(until buffed). SMN did suck in XI but was able to recover itself, despite the developer incompetence, as a healer.
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That said how does any of the above prove that XIV somehow has more depth in it's systems than XI?
Some might consider the stuff like windower's extended macros okay, but they're still things console users couldn't do. It wasn't uncommon to see builds revolving around the existence of such, though, and not having it available obviously made a player gimp. Then we could go into more insidious things like botting, move speed, and position hacking. It wasn't uncommon to feel totally helpless seeing the same exploiters flourish in the game despite GM reports.
The fact that there was no in game method of gear swapping was actually a good thing for the game actually. Everyone's experience is different but I don't think I ever met anyone who was a snob when it came to gear swapping. I'm sure if the game fostered it, that would've been much different. In fact it kind of allowed different ways to play the game. A level of depth that XIV doesn't have really(In case it isn't obvious, my problem is mainly with you implying XIV somehow has more depth than XI). Some people leveled a bunch of jobs but only had very basic or no gear swaps. Others focused on only a few jobs but had a lot of gear swaps. Both were completely accepted ways of playing the game. I'd imagine that isn't the case now though as the population is pretty much just the hardcore.
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That said, the comparison is more the belief that "more" automatically equals "better" for the game. If we trim the fat of all those useless or underpowered abilities I alluded to earlier, how different might things really be? The common goal of combat is to still get mobs dead, get loot, repeat. This is actually where I'd call into question flipping out over how games nowadays are of the Kill X, Fetch Y, Go to Z, Defend/Escort Q-type activities. All those are present in XI, too. Is it just not having a counter on the side? Hell, even XI had counters going on with Magians for a while there. Is it more a case, then, of not wanting to have your "hand held" as a commonly used statement of downplaying? Ideally, a game should let one disable or grossly minimize UI elements they may find displeasing, but I know that's not always the case.
I'm honestly confused about the first couple of sentences. Which game has more abilities?
XI does do the same sort of quests. The difference is, as mentioned, there's almost always multiple stages. They usually involve going more than 30 feet away, which allows the player to kind of fill in the blank. Making everything feel different even if it's not. Quests also aren't pretty much the only content really until level cap. And in fact are pretty sparse in comparison. The problem is it's the same sh*t over and over and over again with very few breaks from that. Peeling a potato isn't bad, peeling thousands of them will make anyone bored. It's brain-dead monotony. So my problem is the quests themselves, not the obnoxious UI which just serves to hammer home the game was made for idiots.
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There is a middle ground here. A couple, actually. The less hands on one is to set a check box to only automatically group with people on your server. The more involved version is let people set up parties for an advertised purpose that only people on your server can see, which XIV presently does.
I'm actually very interested in this. Could you provide a link or something with more information?
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Understand, however, that not everyone playing these games is out there to become your friend. We're all means to an end. Yes, the more socially capable will be more pleasant to be around, but trying to ostracize those who aren't good at communicating by removing or demanding such systems not be present isn't something I'd call for the betterment of a game. These folks are filling gaps for incomplete friend parties, greasing the economic wheels in their own ways, and even influencing the behavior of others they encounter out in the world, even if indirectly. Conversely, more restricted systems do not prevent people from being asshats. In my own XI experience, those the server came to collectively hate just wound up forming their own group, and they thrived in their own ways. In turn, the best we can hope for is a dev to instead minimize ways people can grief others through game mechanics.
I completely understand that. But through 1-46 WAR, all the relevant cross-class skills gotten for both WAR and MNK(of which were done in nothing but dungeons passed 15), 1-50 2 gathering jobs, 1-50 4 or 5(I don't remember) crafts. Friends made: 0, Enemies made: 0. Other people have almost no bearing on the game(maybe at endgame that's untrue). And it's ridiculously hard to actually make new friends in these games. And here's the thing, you said it yourself, people play and people come back because of their friends. They don't come back, or quit shortly after doing so because their friends are gone. Friends are the name of the game. MMOs are social platforms more than games. Because let's be honest here. You take the people out of the equation and you really just have a horrible game. That's true for all MMOs. XI, XIV, WoW, etc. The problem is they went from being a Facebook(for lack of better comparison) w/ 3D avatars, to a Mafia Wars w/ 3D avatars. Less about the people, more about the progress bars. And progress bars are @#%^ing boring.
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Content has a lifespan. For some, it's the moment it stops being fun. For others, it's the moment they have nothing left to get from it. Sometimes these align, sometimes they're miles apart and someone may begrudgingly partake because something they're after has no alternative source. I didn't like setting aside 2 nights a week for Dynamis for 2 years, in part to guarantee my place for a Duelist's Chapeau when my turn eventually did roll around. In fact, demanding that kind of time commitment was very much one of XI's old issues.
But one of the beautiful things about the non-tiered end-game was if you didn't like an event, and were okay with being slightly sub-optimal, you could just not do it(unless you were in a broad end-game LS. But then you had the option of leaving and joining several specific event ones). Because there were plenty of other options and you most likely enjoyed at least one of those. That said, Dynamis was really the worst, both in time commitment and in necessity. As since the equipment drops were job-specific, they often had very good pieces that there were just no alternatives to outside of it.
I kind of lucked out though. While the first Dynamis LS I was in was pretty meh and I was horribly bored those 4 hours. The 2nd one I was in I really hit it off with everyone and it actually got to the point where I looked forward to Dynamis, even after I got my drops because I enjoyed just playing with those people. But everyone's experience is different obviously.
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And believe it or not, there is also a point where there is too much content, especially if it winds up feeling compulsory for progression. Lockouts don't help here, especially for something like dailies where missing one means you lose out on progress forever. Pre-Adoulin XI was wrestling with this problem, making players farm Dynamis to try and be relevant in the construction of a relic or diverting the currency to gil for other purposes. This also carried over into Salvage, and by proxy, Assaults. Things like Einherjar and Limbus was then a lighter layer, but still on the clock. I'm not a fan of daily/weekly stuff, myself, and have been arguing against them in the XIV section, too. The more responsible players are their own moderators of content consumption. So, part of the issue of lacking content is more a matter of having content someone wants to participate in. In XIV's case, and for me, this isn't spamming dungeons for all time. Them being instanced or not isn't even really a factor.
"Losing out on progress forever" sounds rather melodramatic. lol. It seems like something that could be more be a problem with XIV and the tier system in general than anything XI currently(or ever) has. Adoulin doesn't have any sort of lock out as far as I'm aware. And missing a day of Dynamis or Salvage didn't really mean anything as there's no in-game point based systems to worry about and there's always other days. You never 'fell behind' because until they raised the level cap(and even really until Adoulin), that content was still very relevant and there wasn't a "correct" order to acquire equipment. Unfortunately XI does appear to be taking the Item Level/tier route which means it may happen to XI eventually but not currently.
I do see what your saying though. It's about having not necessarily lots of content, but just having fun content. Although one could argue that "fun" itself is subjective, so having a greater quantity of events would mean a greater chance of appealing to more and different people.
Edited, Aug 5th 2014 5:41pm by valid 
