Learning from WoWFollow

There is actually a rather humorous story about this in WoW.

When Sunwell Plateau was released, Blizzard decided to block everyone from using any addons at all in the instance, ONLY the default UI, until the last boss was killed.

The guild that had been ranked number one in the world, Nihilum, that had consistently killed bosses before any other guild... Wound up taking the third kill...

"Hilarity Drama Hilarious Drama Ensued"

Which ultimately culminated in Nihilum breaking up and reforming under a new name later. I love watching drama :P

Edited, Jun 7th 2009 6:10pm by Karelyn

And I want to add my voice (if the devs are looking) to plead for an official forum where we know we are communicating with the devs, and the devs are constantly in communication with the players. It won't make the top ten of any list about what people want in XIV, but it's a powerful tool that gives players a huge boost of confidence that the information they are getting is genuine, and that the devs are listening. When consistently used by the dev team, it also gives the players just that much more insight into the future of the game.

I think that any time you're talking about a game on a PC, the nature of the platform is that people are going to find ways to mod to a certain extent whether the developer supports it or not. I think the key is to offer players enough of what they want from a UI so that your average player is going to be content with it. I had mixed feelings about the windower. I never used it, but at the same time I couldn't help but feel a little resentful that I couldn't tab out. What I really took issue with was all the "extra features" that ended up being developed for the windower. I tried to be the nice guy by not using it because SE said that it was 'forbidden', but eventually found myself behind the eight-ball in terms of performance because I was stuck with a UI that limited my performance relative to someone with multiple full time on-screen cooldown counters, range counters, etc.

If the stock UI for FFXIV is robust and customizable to a reasonable degree, I'll be happy with it.

Well, ya. I don't interpret anything they've said as suggesting that growth will be through weapons used. It may well be, but I haven't seen anything that says that will be the case. I've read that they plan on weapons playing an integral role in how you choose to develop your character, and that you may choose one weapon one day for a particular task and another weapon a different day for a different task. I don't take that to mean that the weapons themselves will be linked to your skill development (although they may well be). It could just as easily mean that if you want to develop your skills as a tank, you might use a sword and a shield. If you want to focus on melee dps, you'd go for a 2h weapon or dual wield. If you prefer the caster style, you'd go for a stave or a wand, and the weapons would offer stat augments to support that role.

Edited, Jun 7th 2009 4:07pm by AureliusSir

It is flat out absolutely @#%^ing true.
I have a healer spec druid with a Balance sub right now. I change to balance and I am killing mobs in 3-4 seconds. I change to Restoration and we are talking minutes for the same monster. The disparity between the specs in solo is massive. And thats with just my healing gear, My moonkin form is actually lacking essential stats like +crit ect.

You go from ONE SHOTING MONSTERS to slowly casting pathetic nukes and self healing between every few casts. Its Pathetic design and would have been the sole reason I left the game had I not known about dual spec around the corner.

Having to pay 1k gold at level 40 to escape this sh*tty design would have been on par with getting a brown belt. ;P

Compare leveling solo as a WHM to leveling solo as a holy priest in WoW. I think there's your difference. Tank and healer specs have always been group-centric in WoW; if you choose to level with a group-centric spec, you do so knowing that you're not going to see anywhere near the level of efficiency as a dps spec, but it doesn't mean you're incapable of killing mobs that grant decent xp. I was doing my dailies just fine as an 80 resto druid in kitty form wearing dps leather. There's a difference between "impossible" and "not nearly as efficient as".

Edited, Jun 7th 2009 6:10pm by AureliusSir

I don't see how its being selfish if both aspects will get you to max level. And you yourself admit that there is MUCH more effort into putting together a well functioning group, why should they NOT get more benefit from being in a party? I don't mean to say that solo gets shafted and earns next to nothing, but for dealing with that tank/healer that goes afk, or the idiot that aggros the entire room, there should be MORE benefit to being in a party. Again I don't see how that is selfish, both sides are able to earn xp, level, and play how they want to play.

I'm not wanting to turn this into an OMG wow sux and OMG FFXI is the greatest although this thread is already pretty close to that, I play WoW as well (although i'm beginning to stop again since i've started playing FFXI again and my guild in is limbo atm), I like a lot of aspects of the game, yes 14 needs to implement a lot of them. But the balance in being able to solo and doing grouping can be done better than both WoW and FFXI. Lets just hope SE can pull it off.

Did you read what he wrote? He wants "80%" of the content tuned for group play. What's the implication? That he wants the game designed in a way to continue to force grouping because he's afraid that if grouping isn't forced, he won't get to enjoy the aspects of the game that he wants to play. And that, by very definition is selfish if not borderline fascist.



You shouldn't get the benefit just because you're in a party. The benefit should come from being in a party that performs well, and all too often that turns out to not be the case.



Absolutely. I'm 100% in favor of incentives for grouping. I just think..again...that it's selfish for people who want to see the game tuned in such a way that players feel forced to group as opposed to joining a group because they want to because the incentives are appealling. You can create a 50/50 split of group/solo options and if people want to group, they will. That's fair. Create an 80/20 split of group/solo options and people are going to feel that they have to group or they're going to miss out on the majority of what the game has to offer. WoW has a roughly 50/50 split (with end-game heavily favoring group content). Someone who doesn't want to have a hard time forming a group whenever they want one sees that and the selfish lil devil on their shoulder starts to look at how that could be corrected to suit them, and they start spouting off with ideas that don't take into account what other players enjoy.

Selfish.

No I don't think 80% of the game should be group oriented. That pretty much IS forcing people to group and that isn't fair.



I agree you shouldn't just get the benefits because your in a group, functioning well and chaining XP (which is something I hope they still keep) should net you more xp. But the party will be taking on harder mobs with greater risks and should be rewarded more for it.

I don't think we are really to far from wanting the same thing, its obvious your a bit more solo oreiented while I am more geared toward a party (although family/work would make me solo a good deal to which is why it should be represented well). The points about WoW I disagree on but its not important, this is the FFXVI forum not a WoW one, no sense in arguing over another game. In the end SE will be borrowing some things from WoW I can't even begin to deny that, but balance of things isn't uncalled for, and there are aspects of FFXI that should not be ignored as well.

Edited, Jun 7th 2009 9:58pm by Ipwnrice

One thing I learned in wow was that 'Pulling' abilities that were available on the rouge and hunter classes were largely ignored by the populace.

I would like to keep the idea of a 'puller' in party play in FFXIV, as opposed to just having the tank run in and pull the aggro. I was nice to see a clean pull by a ranger run in with exactly the mob the group wanted and to take aggro.

And it made more sense as to why those classes had higher evasion and special trapping/binding techniques. The stealth abilities of a Thief in FFXI was far more appreciated in group play than the stealth abilities of a Rouge in WOW in group play.

I think having a 'puller' also adds more depth to the group play.

In WOW group play takes on 3 roles: Tank, healer, and DPS.

I liked the additions to group play in FFXI that included a 'Puller' and 'Support' class.

A bard might be able to heal a little, but the focus is on Buffing the party. Poor enhancement Shamans and Discipline priests in WOW get forced into Main heal roles, without an appreciation for support abilities.

As someone who played an RNG/NIN in FFXI, the concept of pulling was as irritating as it was effective. Pulling meant that your casters had time to rest and regen MP between fights and you could stake a loose claim to a specific area to help reduce the competition for mobs. In the case of those "static" camps, pulling was great and made a lot of sense. For "roaming camps" like what we saw in some parts of sky and ToAU zones, it often made more sense to have the tank pull.

Edit: added in the word "often" to the paragraph above because when I think about it, there were still cases where a puller other than the tank was useful for roaming camps if a mob was nearby so that it could be brought to the group and keep the fighting more constant.

The one thing that really got me about pulling was when you're out of party LoS, the area is picked clean of mobs, and you've got impatient ninnies spamming your chat log to pull. They can't see what you see, they don't believe you when you tell them that there's nothing to pull, and they just carry on like obnoxious little pricks, usually culminating with "you're a crappy puller". Few things were more satisfying than having a mouthy dork decide to save the day and come do what you were obviously incapable of doing only to announce to the party that there was, in fact, nothing to pull.



I dunno about that. The way WoW is played today, yes. Rogue stealth in groups is not put to much use. There was a time, however, where rogue stealth + Sap was an extremely valuable addition to a party in a lot of content.



I don't disagree, but I also see the other side of the coin. I never had a WoW party fall apart because we had a tank, healer, 2 dps, but were missing a particular buff. I had a lot of FFXI parties fail because we couldn't find an RDM or BRD. Sucks when you've got 5 people ready to go but they give up and disband because they just can't xp without haste and/or refresh.



I also played an enhanement shaman in WoW. You would not believe the whispers I got from melee dps screaming up and down that they needed a particular totem, despite the fact that the totem I was using served the direct benefit of not only melee dps but also the tank. My hat is off to the dedicated buff classes of any MMO. If I had to put up with that on an ongoing basis, I'd probably make my fortune as the guy who developed a means to reach through a monitor and strangle someone on the other side of the continent.

Edited, Jun 7th 2009 10:47pm by AureliusSir

Aaaaahahahahaha...post CoP nerf, we didn't pull and dps...we pulled and we missed...

(Sorry...couldn't help myself.)

;D

I agree, the instances are good and should be implemented, as in FFXI, you have a lot of instanced end game content.



SE wants a variety of ways you can get your items, either by instances, or with NM. 2 different ways to get it. If you are not comfortable to get your item threw the outdoor NM, you can try your luck in instance based content. SE will cater both side of the coin. They said they are going to cater both hardcore and casual in many ways, and that would ultimately bee taken both from FFXI and WoW OR, something completely different that neither exists in WoW nor FFXI.



Crafting is also linked to itemization and other various factors as well, so it’s not a simple task to handle.



It depends what that leather is used for, a very good item that’s really valuable or to skill up crafting that’s extremely useful once you max it.
In WoW crafting generally doesn’t make you benefit from it when you hit max level (in terms of making money) while in FFXI a master craftsman can make a good fortune. One could argue why not make it easy to skill up in FFXI, if everyone was a master craftsman, no one would make any money from crafting and in the end it would be as meaningless as in WoW.



I could say the same thing about WoW as well; " Oh damn, guys my gear is all red and I dont have any gold to repair ".



If the feature of UI mod is implemented in the game, sure its fine with me. But having external mods is hassle or rightdown a problem since SE target the console market as well, not just the PC.


Edited, Jun 8th 2009 3:50am by Maldavian

Absolutely nobody said that. Stop being a moron.



Damning with faint praise...

Edit for formatting

Edited, Jun 8th 2009 6:19am by MrSenethSomed

Actually, in the first FFT, there were flying chocobos. The black ones. Of course, there were also flying people in that game. In both cases, it was only good for scaling cliffs.

But hell, it's a video game. They could have flying green kangaroos if they wanted. That sounds pretty coo- eh, no it doesn't.

EDIT: Rated down for this?! Clearly I underestimated the popularity of flying green kangaroos.

I take it back. They are @#%^ing awesome.

Edited, Jun 8th 2009 7:35am by MrSenethSomed

FF5 has a black flying chocobo like in FF4.
FF9 had an upgrade from the hot and cold game to get a flying chocobo.


Not that I care for chocobos. I want a moogle suit for my "Galka" in FFXIV.


Edited, Jun 8th 2009 5:09pm by RedGalka

Also, as there seems to be a few WoW players here who seem to want a lot of WoW like stuff in FFXIV, I want to ask you a question, why can't you just keep playing WoW? I'm repeating myself here, but I'll say it again. WoW will for sure be updated and expanded for several years still and they won't change the gameplay. WoW still has all that stuff you're clearly looking for and hoping FFXIV have, so what's the problem, you already have your game.

And I'm not bitching here (for the first time probably), but just finding it weird that there are people suggesting not only minor upgrades to FFXIV that WoW has, but clearly wanting FFXIV to have many things similar with WoW, what's the point? WoW is already there, let them make a new game with new kind of stuff. I'm already accepting the fact that it will not be another FFXI, but something all new. And I'm looking into that, in stead of trying to suggest them to add half of the stuff in WoW, maybe you should just wait and see what it will be like.

Also I'm pretty sure that since they've been working on FFXIV for years already, they already have some plans how the gameplay and all that stuff will be.

the RMT in FFXI has been cut down to 1/10th as well, so why copy from Blizzard when they got a team handling RMT already =/

But... but...

*teary eyed* Windows taste so good... like, strawberries...

You should try it sometime, maybe you would like it? :D

Honestly Id prefer if the game was almost exactly like FFXI baring a few tweaks.

Absence of standard NMs with overly important drops entirely. Argus,,, AAARRGGUUUUSSSS...

Questing to be more meaningful and take one major step ahead of old school wow style questing. In every zone pops up a list of 5 or so possible quests every 30 minutes that fit the current situation in the environment that everyone in the zone sees at the same time. "Defend X area" "Collect loose chocobos and bring them to the stables!" ect ect...

For the games current time line to be during a large war with beastmen like in wings of the goddess.

Everything else could be identical to FFXI beyond a more modern hud and the game would be amazing.

I've been playing WoW for the last year now after having played FFXI off-and-on for about 4 years prior. Alot of this has already been mentioned by here are some of my thoughts on the subject...

1) Get rid of some of the tedious grinding and at least make soloing an option. I don't want groups to become totally unnecessary and unappealing b/c i enjoyed XP groups, but being able to solo at maybe 50% effectiveness would at least give you something to do while LFG or if you are only online for like an hour.

However, spending weeks trying to skill-up Greatsword on my Drk when i hit lvl 65 was retarded. Having to find skill-up groups to auto-attack for hours b/c i cant even survive against mobs close to my lvl made it even more retarded. Elements like that were completely unnecessary and need to be fixed.

2)Need instances. They aren't perfect, but they beat the hell out of fighting other groups for respawns. All that creates is frustration and tension b/t groups.

3) Tweak the combat system. It had alot of potential and alot of great elements (skillchains were great, alot of the abilities were very good), but, as others have said, was a bit too slow at times. This certainly doesn't mean that you need the lightning-fast-paced combat of WoW, but something in the middle would be nice.

I expect to get arguments over this one, but i always thought that threat generation for tanks was too difficult as well. Yeah, some really skilled tanks (esp ones with full merits) were very good at holding aggro, but a whole lot more were not. And yes, walking the threat line is part of DDing, but it sucks when all of your DD have to wait until the mob is almost dead to fire off WSs b/c its an automatic threat-pull if they don't. It was also frustrating to get that double attack, double crit proc only to pull aggro with it, have no threat dump, and die b/c you *won* the RNG lottery.

Only having one class that could help transfer threat to the tank was pretty lame as well.

I would like to see more options with the whole threat generation/dumping system. Not as easy as WoWs but something a little more forgiving than FFXI.

4)Keep the 1-toon system where you can just switch jobs! Nothing is more annoying than having to make a dozen different alts over multiple accounts in WoW just to play each class. Keeping up with the names of everybodies alts is just a nightmare. Also, it really sucks having to go back and get gear on your alts that you already have on your main but can't use b/c its bound to one toon.

5) Do not make ALL of the best gear only accessible from the current highest raid instance or from crafting recipes that only drop from said raid instance. This is another thing that FFXI has over WoW with their BCNMs, KSNMs, Assaults etc. However, it is cheesy having such an awesome item like the Leeping Boots drop from a lvl 10 lizard in a newby starting zone.

6) More class flexibility. WoW has gotten this one about as right as anybody has. One class being able to both tank or DPS just by respeccing is really nice. It also gives every class at least one spec that is viable to level with. And the skill-tree also enables you to spec for soloing, spec for max-DPS, spec for raid-optimizing buffs etc. I was never a hater of the SJ system like some, so if SE can figure out how to attain some of the class flexibility of WoW via the SJ system then more power to them.

7) Make travelling easier, and give some way to summon party members. I think it's a bit TOO easy to get around in WoW and it makes the game feel too small, but FFXI had the exact opposite problem. It really sucked when you wanted to invite somebody to your party, but couldn't b/c it would take them an hour to get to you. Need to find a happy median here where the world still feels large like a world, but it's not so extremely time-consuming to get around.

8) Keep the world dangerous! It's just way too easy in WoW. You can basically point yourself in the right direction, hit autorun, and go AFK without dying.

I loved the tension of running through a zone in FFXI knowing that i was in danger all of the time. My first trip to Jeuno through Jugner Forest and Batllia Downs is still one of my most memorable FFXI moments. However, it would be nice to be able to fend off at least one even-level mob, or be able to occasionally escape something tougher when you are detected. That's back to adding at least some kind of soloability though.

9) Completely different crafting system. WoWs is way too easy while FFXI's was way too gimmicky and frustrating, and perhaps a bit too time-consuming and tedious as well. Having to wait until a new moon on firesday while facing SW and then praying you got lucky on skillups was a bit too ridiculous when it took so long to gather together all of the items for the crafting session.

10) More inventory space! Even with all of the gobbie bags, i still found myself getting full all of the time while trying to do things like craft. I don't care how they go about implementing it, just give us more bag space.

Wow Had true pacing for new players. So much so that most other MMOs fail in comparison except possibly Age of Conan.. Though in this case Age of Conans fantastic start areas and pacing were literally DRAGGED HORRIBLY through the mud disgracing the games very feeling of a true world. They made the first quest everyone gets once leaving the starting area a random romp through a series of disconnected portals around the entire world with absolutely no care to the players experience even in the slightest while handing out quests ALL OVER THE PLACE and not even giving a slight clue if you are going in the right direction.. It was disgusting I had like no freaking clue what was going on...

WoW to date has gotten the way it treats new players down to a perfect balance. They start you in very calming tranquil locations with very little danger right in front of the first quest npc to literally walk 10 feet over and kill some mobs.

You feel safe and have plenty of time to breathe and learn the game while also are given goals that are very easy to understand and complete. They ease you into everything and continue to build up momentum with quest complexity slowly.

This was something that FFXI did very poorly too. They start you in some huge sprawling city and say "GOOD LUCK" lol....

Warhammer starts you off in the middle of a giant war and you have like 10 abilities and que up for battle ground style instance is like the first tutorial LOL.. Oh and they give you some quests too. "GOOD LUCK!" haha

Well this thread is still going, and there are still posts like this being made. The WoW players here are actually also FFXI players, and I'd really like people like you to stop trying to put me in this little box of being a single game player. I'm not only on the WoW side of camp. I play both, I'm bi-game, and I'd like XIV to be something greater than both WoW and FFXI. It seems that those of you who are only on the XI side of camp cannot fathom that there are people who actually enjoy BOTH games and BOTH developers.

You know what the biggest thing that folks like us are asking for is? Options.

Options is something that XI is sorely lacking and we don't want to see SE make a mistake by limiting Options.

1. Options for UI customization (regardless of platform, it would be nice to pick and choose what I want to see. HP bars for a healer, TP bars for a DD, etc. instead of one size fits all)

2. Options for leveling my character, instead of:
- Kill an EP mob in a zone that I have no business even being in for 50 xp a piece with ring if I'm lucky because I can't actually kill EM+ without getting my ass handed to me (FoV, Level Sync, and Campaign-like things were huge wins, but too little too late for XI and come with their own drawbacks i.e. skillup issues, so you still *have* to party or you are so behind you might as well not even exist)
- Wait anywhere from 10 minutes to 10 days for a party depending on my class to group with people I may or may not get along with, all to chain the same freaking mobs over and over for 2-however many hours

3. Options to get my gear pieces instead of the current:
- Camp x mob by yourself anywhere from 2 hours to 20 days depending on how lucky you are (to get the claim AND the drop), whether you can kill it by yourself, and/or your friends' availability
- Pay Kindred Seals or Beastmen Seals to do an "instanced" NM that you need to have x setup for and will only get a small *chance* that you will get what you want out of it, if you manage to win (really the difficulty level on some of them is beyond belief)
- Join an end game group and pray that it stays together long enough for you to get something worthwhile out of it. Lots of stories of people who join a group and invest a lot of time into it only to have the leaders get everything they wanted and then break the shell without a word. Not everyone, but enough for it to be discouraging to newer players who don't have the rep/jobs/dick sucking that gets them into the super elite shells.

Basically there are lots of areas where this new game can get it right, coming out of the gate. It doesn't have to copy WoW to get it right, and just because there are some suggestions regarding what WoW *did* do right floating around, it doesn't mean you have to get so militant and close your mind to possibilities because you see it as a threat. That's what a heck of a lot of you are doing though, it seems. You read the first few lines of a post, see the letters W o W in it, and automatically assume it's a WoW fangirl slinging mud at the game that you love, when that couldn't be further from the truth.

FFXI has a lot of great elements, but a little more choice will go a long way in building a larger fanbase.

Otherwise, we'll see the same thing happen that basically happened with XI. Only the "hard core" sticking with XIV and the rest playing other games, and I don't think that's SE goal no matter how much you want to believe you are the only ones who are important.




And this is one thing that I would not miss. I swear no other game better ever implement a Rogue class because this has to be the most annoying thing on the @#%^ing planet :p

If I could choose any one -Game Mechanic-(i.e. not extra communication, official forum etc.) to learn from WoW, I'd say Badges.


Going 0/130 on a Valkurm Emperor-type thing should not be possible.

Should not be possible

Valuable things can be hard to get, they should be. That's what rarity is. But there needs to be an acknowledged cutoff point where effort supersedes luck, where, after X amount of effort is put forth, Your hard work cannot be spat on by Random Number Generation.

The Badge system in WoW provided you with a Badge, a special currency, for each boss you killed in an instance - dungeons, located on a remote server.

These "Tokens" could be used, in large quantities, to purchase much of the great gear in the game, or gear comparable to it. Note that the best gear still could not be obtained by it, but you could get darn good competition.

It meant that if you ran groups for a month, got sickeningly unlucky, or were just getting into an endgame shell and had no point, and were far behind before you could start lotting big stuff, You were still progressing, growing, as you gained more gear by default just for helping to kill the big stuff.


Effort...should be measured, not arbitrary, I guess is my suggestion. WoW has hit that nail right on the head, IMHO.

That is one of the things I always found annoying about the player base in wow.

"I can't heal that lvl 40 instance, I'm a shadow priest" - Bullsh*t. A dps spec hybrid can heal any non-raid / non-heroic instance just fine. I leveled a shadow priest / enhancement shaman and a ret-pali and I always main healed if needed and in those instances did just fine. All you need is to build a heal set of gear, which is easy enough through quest rewards.



Ok - lets assume 12.5k Hp for a mob.

Moonfire base dmg - rounded to 450 intial and 800 dot.
Wrath 600 base dmg - 3 second cast
Starfire - 1.1k base dmg - 3.5 second cast


So the error in your arguement so far is that YOU ARE USING BASE DAMAGE AND IGNORING ALL SPELL POWER

A resto druid will have about 2k spell power. Add that to your calculations and you get(taken from http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t37800-wrathcalcs_moonkin_dps_spreadsheet/ ... simply remove the talent choices to get a "resto" feel) factoring all co-effecients and such...

Total base dps - no talents : 2135.57 DPS ... wow, that mob will take all of 8 seconds to kill.

Now lets say you do not crit at all:

Starfire - 4k avg non-crit
Wrath - 2k avg non-crit
Moonfire - total damage 4k

So yeah, 12 seconds tops it is dead - a full moonfire dot and a couple casts of either spell.

Yeah dude... I mean, seriously. That is low dps no doubt, but like i said you just exagerate like crazy.



You didn't see how spell power and spell coeffecients work. I don't doubt you wouldn't see this either.