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#277 Feb 22 2014 at 5:17 PM Rating: Good
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[EDIT] GAH, I really do write too much, I'm sorry. TL;DR: I think content needs to be designed with replayability in mind, because "bored man's" gear is just a band aid that's, while appreciated, still problematic in the fact that it's work that players need to do to not be bored, rather than gear that adds more fun to something already fun so you can access new, fun content.

Quote:
having gear that's made for specific types of content would actually be very awesome...


To be clear, I have no problem with this, when it lines up well with the content in a way when it isn't the "bored man's" gear. I don't think "make this content I'm bored of go quicker" is a good use of actual development time at the gear level, because that's a band-aid. The fact that people are running content they are bored of is the problem.

The solution, of course, is to make sure that doesn't happen. Either make the content more interesting, with higher replay value, or stop making people run it. I don't think "well, we made it less painful" is a solution.

That said, if the gear itself was fun to use, that could be different. But it has to be fun in a way that actually creates tangible replay value, it can't just be a gimmick. For instance, "turns Fire into Firaga" would be a lot of fun the first 2-3 times you go through an old dungeon. It's going to stop being fun after that, which makes it a poor solution to the actual boredom problem.

On the other hand, they could implement a "legacy" dungeon mode, where all the mob packs became randomly placed, where they added patrols, where the difficulty scaled to the ilvl of the group, where enemies and attack patterns changed on party makeup, etc. And if they attached more tangible rewards to this (and added a large pool of random, rare drops), then that content becomes WAY more interesting.

That's a lot of design work, sure. But once you get the core mechanics down, you can build future dungeons with that in mind. If players are always going to be playing tactically, old content becomes new and interesting, because it's always new, always interesting, and (probably) always has the potential for a cool new goodie for both veteran and newbie players.

Maybe that's a unique mount skin, maybe it's a legacy bow where the ilvl matches the job level of the equipped player (so you never need to upgrade your weapon when leveling), maybe it's a unique and rare housing item (sold for a pretty penny or placed in your house), etc. Hell, they could even do things like drop custom tattoo options. That means you can help new players gear and it's no problem, because their lower gear level is causing the actual instance to scale down in difficulty, so everyone contributes equally, all things considered.

When we're talking specifically about gear with special effects, I think it can be interesting when content is built around those. I don't think "Makes Spirits Within cause X" is that interesting. But if you could earn a legacy "dungeon master" set, that let's you do something really fun or interesting within the context of dungeons, then maybe it could be.

I don't have an answer on how to make "bored man" gear work well as anything other than a bandaid. I bet there IS a way, but I don't know it. I think content would need to be designed around it's potential implementation, though, and that it would need effects more interesting than "Spirits Within causes X effect."

A Dungeon Master set that gave a special capability to a player, based on both their class and the dungeon? That could be fun. Like if having a Whm with the Dungeon Master set in a dungeon with poison moats gave them water walking, so they could run over the moats to hit a level that opened a shortcut. But if you had a Scholar in that dungeon, you'd only get a "charm monster" effect (replacing your fairy with a monster minion, which acted as both CC and a dps boon).

I really don't see FFXIV ever implementing something like that. I'm HOPING that we'll see MMOs with randomly generated dungeons in the next 5 years, but that might be too much of a dream.

Edited, Feb 22nd 2014 6:18pm by idiggory
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#278 Feb 22 2014 at 10:58 PM Rating: Excellent
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Catwho wrote:
Note that they introduced iLvl to FFXI as well with SoA, since the cap is permanently 99. But the inflation is much lower. The highest you can get at the moment is ilvl 119. I think.

But a lot of things are checked at lower numbers in XI. You don't see tanks running around with 8000+ HP in that game.

Even before ilvl came into the equation, the scaling in FFXI was a much smaller curve than you find in most other MMOs. The difference between normal quality and high quality items may have been +1 or +2 to a stat, but for some items that was the difference between 50k gil and 5 million gil.

A bigger difference between levels means more variation so I don't mind it, but if it scales too high they'll have to borrow WoW's stat shrink.
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Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#279 Feb 23 2014 at 7:21 AM Rating: Good
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How much the actual number increase is doesn't particularly matter; what matters is how the numbers work, and the percentage increase.

I mean...

Ifrit's Cane - 18 mind
Allagan Cane - 35 mind

That's nearly a 100% increase.

It's a serious inflation problem if you're DOUBLING your stats in 7 months of content. Because it's not like we're talking about a system where the influence of gear is tiny. It doesn't really matter if each step was only 2 or 3 more mind, when 2 or 3 more mind is a 10-20+% increase in the stat on that piece of gear.

So when you compare the stats of a player at endgame for 6 months to a player just hitting endgame, they'll probably have about double the stats. That problem is only going to continuously compound on itself as we go up, since each new tier of gear is 10-20% stronger than the last.

It's WAY too soon in the game for that kind of stat inflation. There's just no way around that, it's horribly unhealthy for the in-game ecosystem.

It makes me think they are absolutely going to increase the level cap in the coming expansion... but I just don't see how that would work in an XIV context, right now, because of the way they've been implementing content. All those primals and things just... what... become old, stale, leveling content you do from the duty roulette?

I'm really hoping that's not the case, because it doesn't sound fun to me at all.
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#280 Feb 23 2014 at 9:06 AM Rating: Excellent
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
How much the actual number increase is doesn't particularly matter; what matters is how the numbers work, and the percentage increase.

I mean...

Ifrit's Cane - 18 mind
Allagan Cane - 35 mind

That's nearly a 100% increase.

It's a serious inflation problem if you're DOUBLING your stats in 7 months of content. Because it's not like we're talking about a system where the influence of gear is tiny. It doesn't really matter if each step was only 2 or 3 more mind, when 2 or 3 more mind is a 10-20+% increase in the stat on that piece of gear.


There were countless examples of going from +1 to +2 in various stats on HQ gear in FFXI which is a 100% increase also. You have to look at the relative change based on the cumulative total on the player, not just on the gear.

Going from 18 to 34 (which is the actual mind stat on the Allagan Cane) on FFXIV gear isn't that dramatic given the relatively small impact each point gives you. Your primary stat is probably at least in the 400s or 500s by then. An increase in 16 points is probably going to be somewhere between a 4% change if you're not well-geared to a 3% change if you are, which is hardly earth-shattering given that you just jumped 35 item levels.
#281 Feb 23 2014 at 10:52 AM Rating: Good
I'm sure that gear swapping isn't the only way to make gear progression less linear. I feel like it's been done in plenty of other games but I'm a little tired. Any ideas? ARR's gear progression feels kinda like a staircase (a very, very short staircase).

Edited, Feb 23rd 2014 11:53am by LucasNox
#282 Feb 23 2014 at 11:11 AM Rating: Excellent
ARR's gear progression isn't as narrow as a staircase though, in that there are different paths to get to i90. For example, my paladin is i86 right now, and I even haven't been able to try BC yet... while others who are the same iLevel may just log in and burn through BC in one night/week. We end up with different gear that puts us on basically the same level, statistically speaking, but with minor differences. The vanity system will add value to seeking out different armor sets through the different side paths.

Another example is Titan HM, which may be the game's "Maat fight" at this point. You can grind dungeons for darklight gear to get ready for Titan, or you can go the route of crafted gear. Or, you can get some DL, then attempt to gear yourself up in CT to get more of an edge over Titan. In the meantime, you're gathering myth gear, so you may try to grab some relic gear too. You can also boost your DPS for that fight by trying to farm a primal weapon, or by farming Thornmarch. Whichever path you choose, you have several ways to prepare yourself for that big fight.... and, most importantly, it's fun!

The game really isn't on such a rail that you simply go from A to B to C. For a game that's only six months old, there's actually quite a substantial amount of endgame stuff to do.

Also, while I agree the dungeon roulette isn't content, it is a fantastic mechanism that's really kept existing content relevant. The only thing about the roulette I don't enjoy is getting Pharos Sirius... otherwise, I like being able to run a different dungeon each day. The mechanic will be even more enjoyable when it can be run with a partner.

As for the issue of level inflation... while I admittedly am confused by it, I'm also not afraid of it. Yoshi-P and the development team have proved their mettle so far in designing a strong, well thought-out game, and I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they know more than we do about the game's future. We just need to wait and see what the plan is.

And, yes, a level cap increase is absolutely coming at the first expansion... that's been clearly stated by Yoshi-P.



Edited, Feb 23rd 2014 9:15am by Thayos
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#283 Feb 28 2014 at 5:18 AM Rating: Decent
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punnjunior wrote:
Hey dudes i wanna clarify something.

Gw2 has cash shop but it's all for costumes. You can't buy gears there unless you transfer your real money into it game gold which most of ppl don't do.
Gw2 is all about costume aka skin. There is no tier gears or imbalance stats blablabla. their focus is skill based not Gears based like other games

Wow!
Is that what the box reads?
#284 Feb 28 2014 at 1:49 PM Rating: Excellent
The first Mobile Monetization Survey was released.

While this is specific to mobile games, it's pretty interesting to see the numbers they've garnered.

Quote:
The vast majority of players do not make any purchases, in fact only 1.5% of players active in the month surveyed made an in-app purchase in that month.

50% of revenue is derived from the top 10% of those players who do make purchases. Expressed as a percentage of total players, this group represents a 0.15% of the total players in any given month.


I'd wager the numbers are closer to 10% for PC MMO gamers in terms of people purchasing at least something, with the total revenue among those less skewed.

Basically, the richest players who are willing to waste money are being forced to subsidize the players who don't pay anything.

zomg socialism!

Edited, Feb 28th 2014 2:51pm by Catwho
#285 Feb 28 2014 at 2:09 PM Rating: Good
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Well, think about kickstarters, like with Torment. 9 people pledged over $10k for an invite to the launch party with staff (NOT a crazy gala), a plaque, your name in the credits, and whatever game the company produces for the next 10 years. So excepting the $5k tier rewards (which they also get), that's $5k for that stuff.

People with money are weird.
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#286 Feb 28 2014 at 2:59 PM Rating: Excellent
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idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
Well, think about kickstarters, like with Torment. 9 people pledged over $10k for an invite to the launch party with staff (NOT a crazy gala), a plaque, your name in the credits, and whatever game the company produces for the next 10 years. So excepting the $5k tier rewards (which they also get), that's $5k for that stuff.

People with money are weird.


I prefer the old days when your reward for investing was a share of the profits Smiley: lol
#287 Feb 28 2014 at 3:26 PM Rating: Good
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Ha, well, you CAN do that... but the major publishers (Read: EA) are notoriously bad at marketing games they're publishing as less of their own capital is being used for the actual game development.
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#288 Feb 28 2014 at 5:29 PM Rating: Excellent
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Catwho wrote:
Basically, the richest players who are willing to waste money are being forced to subsidize the players who don't pay anything.


Wiiiinnnnt... Catwho just said I was on the welfare Smiley: frown
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#289 Mar 02 2014 at 12:22 AM Rating: Good
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Maybe they will take all this "success" money and pop out an expansion that can keep people playing for longer than couple months. And in the process make there be more to do than log in once a week to raid or force yourself to log on to farm weekly points just to raid once a week.

If they don't go amazingly big I don't see another expansion beyond that. One or two jobs isn't going to cut it. Neither are 1-2 raids and a couple dungeons.

Sucks but I really enjoyed the game up until i did everything there was to do... on 5 jobs.
#290 Mar 02 2014 at 4:35 AM Rating: Default
DamienSScott wrote:
Maybe they will take all this "success" money and pop out an expansion that can keep people playing for longer than couple months. And in the process make there be more to do than log in once a week to raid or force yourself to log on to farm weekly points just to raid once a week.

If they don't go amazingly big I don't see another expansion beyond that. One or two jobs isn't going to cut it. Neither are 1-2 raids and a couple dungeons.

Sucks but I really enjoyed the game up until i did everything there was to do... on 5 jobs.


I hate to break it to you but..

There are more players than just YOU in this game, with their own pacing and progression speed. That you are not happy with the volume of contents in the game does not equal SE going bankrupt over lost players after the first expansion.

There are more ways to play this game than be subbed 12 months a year for 8 years.
#291 Mar 02 2014 at 4:46 AM Rating: Good
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DamienSScott wrote:
Maybe they will take all this "success" money and pop out an expansion that can keep people playing for longer than couple months. And in the process make there be more to do than log in once a week to raid or force yourself to log on to farm weekly points just to raid once a week.

If they don't go amazingly big I don't see another expansion beyond that. One or two jobs isn't going to cut it. Neither are 1-2 raids and a couple dungeons.

Sucks but I really enjoyed the game up until i did everything there was to do... on 5 jobs.
This is pretty much how my whole FC feels.

We're only ~16 members, but we know each other mainly through RL and from FFXI. I was talking to an especially close friend, and we were remembering how fun it was playing FFXIV in the first 2 months or so.
We both agreed that it really lost its shine at about the point that we noticed we were iLvl 70 (thanks to running Amdapor and CM on a regular basis).

Soon after, it was the point at which we got comfortable completing Coil with few hiccups. Point is, we had the most fun when we were completing stuff for the first few times as a group. Content got incredibly stale from that point on.


I think it is in our (My FC) best interests to take a break and see what SE can come up with for content in the next few months.

I've been halfheartedly leveling WHM in the past couple of weeks, and I've not had fun other than optimizing my ability bars and recoloring my gear.

Edited, Mar 2nd 2014 3:49am by Kirby
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#292 Mar 02 2014 at 5:05 AM Rating: Good
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This is how I've been feeling for months (December, at least). This is how my entire FC feels (it's pretty dead during the week now). No one has quit but I know people are looking for a reason to.

Like I've said so many times, 2.2 will decide everything. It's really depressing to log into a game you WANT to play and look for every opportunity to play but just can't. I've reverted back to my behavior prior to 2.1 where I'll look for PF groups that need help, DF random things like Titan Ex, and run CT despite having my item for the week/myth capped. I want to use my character but there are few opportunities to do so.

Even with an alt character...since I don't enjoy leveling in dungeons, it most likely will never see another 50 unless they decide to tweak FATEs again. That leaves just one job to max and now it's back to where Hitome is: relying on RNG gods for gear and obtaining myth for marginal upgrades.

Edited, Mar 2nd 2014 6:06am by HitomeOfBismarck
#293 Mar 02 2014 at 7:28 AM Rating: Good
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HitomeOfBismarck wrote:
This is how I've been feeling for months (December, at least). This is how my entire FC feels (it's pretty dead during the week now). No one has quit but I know people are looking for a reason to.

Like I've said so many times, 2.2 will decide everything. It's really depressing to log into a game you WANT to play and look for every opportunity to play but just can't. I've reverted back to my behavior prior to 2.1 where I'll look for PF groups that need help, DF random things like Titan Ex, and run CT despite having my item for the week/myth capped. I want to use my character but there are few opportunities to do so.

Even with an alt character...since I don't enjoy leveling in dungeons, it most likely will never see another 50 unless they decide to tweak FATEs again. That leaves just one job to max and now it's back to where Hitome is: relying on RNG gods for gear and obtaining myth for marginal upgrades.

Edited, Mar 2nd 2014 6:06am by HitomeOfBismarck


My advice? Just bail until the first expansion if you're feeling this way. Young MMORPGs (people should really start using the whole title again btw) never have a lot of content to go around.
#294 Mar 02 2014 at 8:50 AM Rating: Excellent
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I don't begrudge Yoshi's team the lack of endgame content even if I am really bored (you can only help others in your FC that aren't as capable attempt to push through Extremes so many times before you log off and go play something else after the weekly Coil clear). They're trying to push out some content each patch that's for everyone and it is a fairly substantial amount. Having to play catch-up since launch hasn't helped either.

I'm personally going to wait long enough to see what the expansion brings. By that time there should be more than enough mid/low game content to just start pushing forward full throttle on endgame aside from other quirks and perks (housing, retainer leveling mechanics, Golden Saucer, etc.). If by the first major patch of the expansion comes and they're still thinking 4 bosses per 6 months in the highest endgame is viable then I'll probably jet because the only way to really extend those is to require ridiculous gear requirements or thresholds of the encounter that make it not worth doing (i.e. people bashing their heads up against an unkillable C'thun/Yogg Saron 0 Keepers/Pandemonium Warden/Absolute Virtue/etc.).

If Yoshi-P's going to make the statement that he views FFXIV as an endgame oriented game and wants to put out more content on that threshold than most competitors, then he needs to step it up come expansion time. So far almost all fights are distinctly different and enjoyable in their own rights and a much higher quality (even if fairly basic mechanics for the most part) than most other MMOs. They just need to add more.
#295 Mar 02 2014 at 9:14 AM Rating: Excellent
The seasonal events are lowbie events, but I think the latest one ("Little Ladies Day") has had one of the cutest stories yet.

Valentione's Day was also kind of cute, what with Yellow Moon poisoning half the male population of Ul'Dah and the leader of the female pirates in Limsa having a crush on the leader of the male pirates....

It may not be endgame content, but I'm pleased they're putting that much effort into the environments and seasons.

Hell, what they've done with Revenent's Toll since the game launched is worthy of it's own thread.
#296 Mar 02 2014 at 10:21 AM Rating: Good
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Arcari wrote:
My advice? Just bail until the first expansion if you're feeling this way. Young MMORPGs (people should really start using the whole title again btw) never have a lot of content to go around.


Eh...if I can take something as barebones as Ragnarok Online and spend a few years in it, I don't think the problem is young MMOs.

What is missing is the tedious (yet necessary) grind. Something to always keep the user active. Grinding mythology is a grind with a limit. The same with grinding CT gear. The same with grinding coil gear. All have limits.

You can grind extremes for gear, sure. But once you have all of those items, the fights become meaningless.

I really think open world special mobs are something that is needed. Take a look at WoW, for instance. They've always had some sort of unique mob that drops some cruddy gear. Recently in Pandaria, they've made some of the mobs actually worth camping and killing. You can see this behavior in quite a few MMOs (perhaps 11 being one of the most famous ones for this method).

While it's just an artificial inflation of game time, making a really rare item (like the horse that has a low chance to drop from the extremes or the housing item that drops from CT) drop from mobs causes people to want to camp it which keeps them logged in. It would probably be the easier fix compared to the alternative: designing a lot of content with difficult boss encounters that keep people distracted for 3 months (which is pretty much what 2.2 will be). The problem is, after 2.2 we'll get an upgrade to CT which many of us find annoying as it isn't a continuation of 'endgame'.

Many do not want to admit it...but the fact is people feel special when they have an item that is rare/not easily obtained. I don't see that type of mentality in 14.

Edited, Mar 2nd 2014 11:24am by HitomeOfBismarck
#297 Mar 02 2014 at 11:55 AM Rating: Default
HitomeOfBismarck wrote:
Arcari wrote:
My advice? Just bail until the first expansion if you're feeling this way. Young MMORPGs (people should really start using the whole title again btw) never have a lot of content to go around.


Eh...if I can take something as barebones as Ragnarok Online and spend a few years in it, I don't think the problem is young MMOs.

What is missing is the tedious (yet necessary) grind. Something to always keep the user active. Grinding mythology is a grind with a limit. The same with grinding CT gear. The same with grinding coil gear. All have limits.

You can grind extremes for gear, sure. But once you have all of those items, the fights become meaningless.

I really think open world special mobs are something that is needed. Take a look at WoW, for instance. They've always had some sort of unique mob that drops some cruddy gear. Recently in Pandaria, they've made some of the mobs actually worth camping and killing. You can see this behavior in quite a few MMOs (perhaps 11 being one of the most famous ones for this method).

While it's just an artificial inflation of game time, making a really rare item (like the horse that has a low chance to drop from the extremes or the housing item that drops from CT) drop from mobs causes people to want to camp it which keeps them logged in. It would probably be the easier fix compared to the alternative: designing a lot of content with difficult boss encounters that keep people distracted for 3 months (which is pretty much what 2.2 will be). The problem is, after 2.2 we'll get an upgrade to CT which many of us find annoying as it isn't a continuation of 'endgame'.

Many do not want to admit it...but the fact is people feel special when they have an item that is rare/not easily obtained. I don't see that type of mentality in 14.

Edited, Mar 2nd 2014 11:24am by HitomeOfBismarck


Hardcore Problems.

I hope they give you mounts (beastmen mounts require long-term daily investment already) and housing stuff (large plots require long-term investment too). They better not make anyone with too much time on their hands stronger than someone without excess time to spare.

Edited, Mar 2nd 2014 8:56pm by Hyanmen
#298 Mar 02 2014 at 11:27 PM Rating: Decent
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Hyanmen wrote:
Hardcore Problems.

I hope they give you mounts (beastmen mounts require long-term daily investment already) and housing stuff (large plots require long-term investment too). They better not make anyone with too much time on their hands stronger than someone without excess time to spare.

Edited, Mar 2nd 2014 8:56pm by Hyanmen


These were hardcore problems a month ago: when my FC of ~30 active members purchased a house within 2 weeks of the patch and cleared all the extreme content within a week. Beastmen tribe grind is maybe two weeks and irrelevant casual content that envelops an overwhelming majority of this game's total content.

Notice how many players that are now bored are not actually hardcore players? Some even in this thread have quit the game and I wouldn't consider them hardcore players by any stretch of the imagination.
#299 Mar 02 2014 at 11:35 PM Rating: Excellent
I think Yoshi expected more people would chase after the really crazy DoL and DoH achievements, honestly. Now there's a grind. I think Wint caught something like 20,000 fish? I'm well on my way to getting an insane prize on my weaver from all the HQ felt sashes I make...
#300REDACTED, Posted: Mar 03 2014 at 3:17 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) I trust someone like you to tell me what a casual player feels about this game.
#301 Mar 03 2014 at 5:02 AM Rating: Good
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Yes clearly. It's not like I have an LS of friends from when I first started the game who range from very casual to extremely hardcore. And it's not particularly like 4 of the more casual members in that LS to have quit within the past week. Smiley: rolleyes

Hardcore, by nature, means you play something into the ground and then some more after that. We don't cling: we just seek to maximize the value of all possible venues of what we consider endgame content. Besides, most of us are in static groups we formed over 4 months ago and can't really quit so close to a patch when others rely on us for progression's sake.

But why trust me for a casual player's opinion? Why don't you go find a bunch of their opinions yourself:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/146217-My-friend-the-content-locust-%28

You remind me a lot of this guy. He considered sorting your storage as viable content.

You have fun with that beastman mount, though.
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