Learning from WoWFollow

Chill out. I also have an 80 resto druid and I'm telling you that it's not as bad as you make it sound.

*continues to point and laugh at you*

Tis just a child, caught in their lie, nothing more. Yet it pleases me watching him suffer so.

They say the same thing about protection warrior, protection paladin, dire bear form, restoration shamans, holy priests, and holy paladins. It doesn't make it impossible. Just suboptimal.

Suboptimal as in taking roughly 150-200% more time. Which, in WoW, means taking about 7-10 seconds to kill monsters instead of 3-5 seconds. Not "minutes"

You are talking about a community that generally considered (pre-3.0) it laughable for a Warrior to level as Arms spec instead of Fury spec. Both damage dealing specs. Out of the idea, that Arms Warriors would take approximately 3-5 hours more to reach level 70 than a Fury Warrior. When it takes an average player around 250 hours to reach level 70 (pre-EXP nerf)

The community is hilariously obsessed with optimizing time... then they reach level cap, and stand around towns doing nothing.

In other words. You are still a liar, and a bad liar at that, and it's funny watching you attempt to defend yourself with irrelivent facts.

I think you guys are moving from FFXI vs WoW to Player Choice vs Trinity Gameplay

The question is who can you get away from Trinity Gameplay (tank, heal, dps)? Does that mean every job can heal, tank, dps? I know some my think WoW is like that with talents but jobs are still pigeons held to heal, tank, dps. This is almost always going to be the case when parser come out and the community can see the numbers. Ultimately the community is going to decide what jobs can excel at.

Edited, Jun 9th 2009 10:52am by dyvidd

This.


I'm also a Druid btw. Went Moonkin, because of my playstyle it was the closest thing to a Red Mage. And in FFXVI I'll probably be trying a Red Mage first again.

Agree here, and SE have confirmed this really, no point in bring it up.



Yes, I have to agree, and again this issue will be solved now that you can solo XP.



I agree that you could have some kind of instance based dungeons, but you can at the same time make outdoor areas larger and divided the areas into group based mobs and solo based mobs (aka normal and elite mobs). Also adjust the respawn time so that you don’t need to wait ages to make another pull.



This have been brought up before, but whatever changes you want to make, you need to take into account that FF14 servers are placed in Japan and that the inputted game mechanism should not be affected by your latency/ping. If it’s affected then the NA/EU player will be at a huge disadvantage.



I’m not much into threat holding in FFXI since I quit the game 2004, but if that’s how it is now, as you describe it, then yes, raise the bar a bit so that tanks can hold aggro a bit better.



Agree.



Not really, it adds flavor to the game, the point being made here is "variation and diversity". If you don’t like the way Leeping Boots is being obtained, others might like how it is obtained. There are also people that hate how you need to get the seals for BCNM/KSNM, but they have to live with it as well, you need to have a diversified game to suit many different type of game play. Some will suit YOUR game play and some not.



They will need to do something about this I agree, if they want to implement solo xp level up. I think the problem is that you have 20 classes to make talenttrees for and that might be a daunting task to accomplish.



Agree here.



Agree.



I think they will address this in FF14, since it will be more solo friendly then FF11.



I don’t have a comment on this one :D



If you can have 20 classes on the same toon, this defiantly warrants more inventory space and also a very customized one that you can divide into type, level, class and so on. You can also have a system that gives you more inventory space the more you level up jobs to 75, this way people that really have benefit for it gets the extra inventory space needed.

Druid leveling discussions?

Why is this still in debate with Dual Spec available? Yes, it's 1K but that is definitely not hard to come by unless you absolutely feel the need to save up for your epic flying skill first. And as a Druid, you're going to benefit more from Dual Spec than Epic FF anyway (IMO of course).

Seriously, Feral is best for leveling period. Resto is viable for leveling, but why would you want to do it? The only benefit you will see going Resto is quicker dungeon invites, but even then you don't need a Resto spec to heal. I've main healed instances just fine with my healing set on while using a full Feral Spec (with Omen of course). If you don't think you can do it, just look for a Healadin, a Shammy, or Shadow and ask them to assist. The stacked ticks and MP return on lifebloom makes it really hard to fail as a main HoT as long as your tank can keep a good portion of the hate. Having tree form for the healing bonus is what makes it easier for us in Raids and Heroics.

We are all pretty confident that SE will allow job changes, so this is a non-issue as far as FFXIV is concerned. The issue they need to address as far as jobs are concern is making sure that each job is decent at soloing. I don't want to spend thirty minutes to an hour killing things just to have an unfortunate link or aggro and have to start over.

Edited, Jun 9th 2009 11:20am by sixgauge

This was brought up in terms of forced grouping and leveling speed which a both relevant imho. However it also touches on a pretty major point in a very large difference between WoW and FFXI.

leveling speed in wow from levels 75-80 are actually very slow with time to level averaging between 3-5 hours provided you are set to optimally level. tak on another couple hours to your average if you are restoration.

Which is the main thing to keep in mind. How quickly you are leveling is not as relevant if you are enjoying yourself more. It feels faster than it really is. When in reality leveling in FFXI averages out to be considerably faster than wows leveling across the board.

How much of that time is actually spent leveling in FFXI? Compared to being LFG, or finding a new camp, or god forbid getting killed once and running all the way back. Its an astronomically small amount of time actually gaining experience points when compared to WoW you are always progressing.

If you know what you are doing and are well prepared and geared you can level VERY quickly in FFXI within the games main designed and intended parameters. Where as in wow you have kind of fudge the rules a bit and spam instances with a PL to attain the same effect.

I would love to see a stronger mix of both extremes personally. But actually don't mind leveling at all no matter how slow it is if I am enjoying myself. 5 hours per level is acceptable if I need plastic surgery to remove the smile from my face...

Edited, Jun 9th 2009 2:50pm by thorazinekizzez

I hated how fast leveling was from 70-80. Exp gain was far too easy and you needed half of the new continent to get to 80.



Moonkin > Feral for leveling and you an use the same gear to heal instances for 70 to 80. Feral can't compete with a Moonkin killing 5-6 mobs at the same time with Hurricane.



Think 3 hours was the mage exploit. A couple of mages teamed up in a zone with skeletons really close together killing like 20(?) at the same time.

Average player without any exp buffs does probably about 7+ hourish per level


Edit: Anyway this stuff is in the past. Give us more data in FFXIV!



Edited, Jun 9th 2009 9:28pm by RedGalka

I seriously love that idea! An in-game adventurer's notebook would be such a handy thing to have. I had a composition notebook nearly filled up with notes and vendor's items and prices and locations back in the day since i didn't play XI in windowed mode. Such a hassle!

Edited, Jun 9th 2009 12:55pm by topheru

It would be better to have a built in system, but in MMORPGs that offer chat window and filter options you can already do this. Just use /say as your notebook.

I do the same thing in World of Warcraft D:

Just a quick mention: WoW had faster leveling times because they wanted people to not feel prohibited leveling up alternate characters. FFXI had slow times because all the progress was on one character, which to me made it feel a lot more gratifying.

about 80% of the posts in the last 2 days on this forum have been about WoW entirely. Meaning that they were about WOW and not about FFXIV in the majority of their content.

I put forth the idea that I liked the multiple roles in FFXI of 'Puller' 'Tank' 'Healer' 'Damage' and 'Support'. Those 5 purposes could be divided into multiple combinations. An avoidance tank/DPS, An avoidance tank/puller, A bloodtank/healer, a Ranged DPS/Support, a Ranged DPS/Puller, a Healer/Support, a Ranged DPS/melee DPS.

All I read in response was how WOW intended such things to be, but that they got overlooked and marginalized. This thread is supposed to be about LEARNING FROM WOW. I think that this is one of the things that can be learned from WOW, how the classes devolved into the 'Holy Trinity' and how the classes all became homogenized for one reason or another.


Here is one other thing to learn from WOW, there is nothing like Skillchains and Magic Bursts in WOW. Yeah, you don't need them to get along in a party or even a boss fight, but they certainly did award players with a certain amount of skill and strategy a BONUS to having skill and strategy.

Wouldn't that be something nice to include in the next FF online? A system like skillchains/MB that rewarded players for strategical decisions and for having good teamwork, but didn't penalize those who didn't have good strategy and teamwork?

Not true. A lot of people are using groups for instances these days to grind exp. And the exp is very good on the condition that you don't bring a high level friend to kill everything.

WoW has the choice between solo and grouping and because a lot of people pick solo it's called a solo game, but grouping can give you just as much exp only you're not forced to do it.

I guess we disagree. But let us be clear. I'm not talking about exploits. I'm talking about a regular group of people doing instances of the corresponding level range all the way from lowbie range to max range. The expercience points gained are just as good as soloing.

With "a lot of people" I meant that you could make group if you wanted to make a group at any level range.



Again, we disagree. The party xp gained from instances is equal to soloing on the condition you respect the level ranges and don't bring a lv 80 to clear it for you or get banned for your proposed exploit.

I really really dislike spamming instances for xp. How many times do I have to listen to some corny dialog from a boss saying "I NEVER EXPECTED YOU TO GET THIS FAR!!!!! NO MATTER BECAUSE YOU SHALL ALL DIE TO MY SUPER SECRET ATTACK!!!!!!"

>.>;
This was a huge problem with WoW and really adds to its CHEESE factor by a large amount... Not only that but it has negative effects on the player base once the instances become actually possible to wipe in. You have to explain to people over and over and over and over not to do this or that or to run to X location when the Boss goes into X state or DONT CLICK THESE GUYS OR WE ALL DIE!!

Seriously id rather kill some blue crabs for 2 hours and get 5 levels in a lot of cases... Provided that I don't ever fight blue crabs again... Which was a problem in FFXI that drove me crazy... At least make the @#%^ing crabs green this time you @#%^s... Open photo shop change HUE done. thanks in advance.

Though Id much rather do garrison style event or something like campaign to gain xp with open grouping system where simply participating places you in a group with other people automatically.. Save the instances for missions and end game events where they belong vary up the experience a tad then point and laugh at how archaic WoW is by comparison.

Campaign style events are the bread and butter of FFXI whether SE wants to admit it or not. Not only is it an amazing concept but its completely original to the genre in implementation. If you can just for a second take your head out of Blizzards ass you would see that SE has been sitting on a gold mine of a concept that is completely new and nothing like wow at all.. In this one case I would be perfectly fine with it if SE turned a blind eye to WoW altogether. Stopped forcing us to attack inanimate objects for 30 minute stretches, allowed more side questing to be streamlined, allowed this system to be the games core leveling method and sat on a pile of fun cash for the next five years...

I mean the fact alone that the quests I am doing have an actual effect on a world battle system is a huge deal. I joined the game as a level 1 player and ran out supplies during a huge battle and helped a large group of 75s overtake 15 behemoths that were attempting to ravage X town.

If that was my first experience with the game and how I went from levels 1-5 it would have my ass so hooked on the game id be like "People still play WoW?"

*shrugs*

Edited, Jun 10th 2009 12:52pm by thorazinekizzez

Its more like playing battlefield or Quake or something MEANT TO FLOW IN A CYCLIC FASHION!!

The flow doesn't in any way mimic a single player linear design flow and philosophy. Its scripting is more open ended and it doesn't pretend to be like a movie.

Instead things happen and you react. The cool things happen on their own and not as a result of some canned ass prescripted game of SIMON SAYS.

Its the difference from playing a game and watching a movie.
If you don't see the difference I cant help you. Also too I am thinking on a different scale. Improving the already existing system would VARY the experience even more like I already explained.

it also happens on its own so eliminating LFG entirely. Log on and play in groups. Its the best of both worlds where you can play as long as you like while in groups..

My god people are you blind?

Edited, Jun 10th 2009 1:04pm by thorazinekizzez

Example:

Bastok and Windurst main front see the oppertunity to launch a massive attack on the orc main stronghold. both armies gather up supply runs and begin to prepare for the attack. You see high level players shouting for low level players and the like to begin gathering supply's and crafting materials to turn in for quests that raise each nations prosperity and moral. ( This is done simply by doing quests that feel a lot like standard WoW quests but you are asked to do specific ones. ) People begin building up catapults and potions ect to launch the attack.

Both armies are poised with their most elite NPCs and most well geared players from all 3 nations, 80 players and 120 npcs attack and take down the main gates of the orcs outer castle walls. 2 hours go by and the Orc army requests the help from the yagudo. This is seen by all players because at that very moment a lower level player was running a reconnaissance quest and spoted an orc caravan leaving through the back walls of the castle. This player was rewarded a huge sum of xp.

If this caravan is not stopped in time the Yagudo will be informed to help. At that moment people begin to try and reach the caravan and only a small group of lower level players are able to get there in time. They attack kill 4 of the 5 orcs before they wiped simply because the one orc was higher level than the other 4. the last orc reaches the Yagudo... "Sun of a bitch!!"

Yagudo attack from behind killing and wiping out alliances in the back row obliterating catapult launchers and lower level players who are running supplies and handling smaller trash mobs. The attack is felt on both sides so the main set of people on the front have to run back deciding that they cannot allow the yagudo to do too much damage or it could risk the entire operation.

This however causes a chance for the shadowlord to retaliate as well which is a risk you simply have to take. Once 2 of the 3 main armies are in a single battle the shadowlords chance to retaliate increases by 5% The shadow lords army is different from other types in that he has the ability to form and launch attacks on the world map regardless of who owns what territory.

The yagudo are doing terrible damage to the catapults on the back line crippling the entire operation. Just then 40 more high level players from Sandoria who had just got back from a defensive operation in the northern region against the Quadavs had ended in victory. The yagodu are destroyed and 4 more catapult launchers are brought up to the back line. The 40 people happen to be an elite super hardcore end game linkshell with the best players in the world. They push to finally destroy the Orcs inner sanctum begins. Dead players are raised ect.

All of a sudden people begin reporting the scenes of behemoths and gigas right outside the sandorias main zone. Some people at that point realized nobody has been paying attention to the fact that the shadowlords army has been sitting on max prosperity and moral for a few hours ever since this entire operation has began. And just by chance it caused a high potential that he can launch a devastating attack on sandoria itself!! The odds of this happening were roughly 5% but it happened anyway.

People begin to react as they see huge number of the most terrible factions from the shadowlords army begin spawning in the outside location and prepare to attack sandoria level 10 besieged style. People begin shouting in town for everyone to begin doing quests to gather defensive materials and supply's. If sandoria falls everyone knows that it would be a huge hit to the entire population of the server. And the only way to get it back is a large scale dynamis/besiged style 60 person raid instance. Everyone on the server is informed to help out and all major linkshells not already on the front to take out the Orcs are asked to help with sandoria.

==============================================
Oh uh people still play WoW? it was an old EverQuest clone wasn't it? Thats my thoughts personally. You put a new coat of paint on a system like campaign and good knows wtf could happen.

Its entirely possible that end game could end up being completely reactive in nature. instead of LFG I want to run some Naxx it would be "Holy sh*t I dont give a damn what gear you have we need help over here damn it!!".

Fundamentally different style of play from what we are all used to. And comes as a result of not even bothering to look at WoW beyond some cool technical stuff they did maybe.. maybe not.

This thread is actually flawed in that respect



Instances are NOT REACTIVE CYCLIC GAMEPLAY!!!! They are redundant prescripted rows of sequences that happen exactly the same way every @#%^ing time..

Edited, Jun 10th 2009 2:07pm by thorazinekizzez

Hmmmmmm... I predict a thread lock coming on!

Well truth be told
As much as I might vividly imagine campaign for its full potential. Any MMO worth its salt should provide options. I like instances more for one shot, once a week style events though. Missions and special events.

But not the biggest fan of spamming them for a random drop rate piece of armor or XP.. That might just be me...

unless maybe they are randomly generated diablo style but that's another system entirely. Moblin Maze mongers done to be more casual is another system with a lot of potential...

Anyway I need to leave this thread for a day I spent too much time here lol...



campaign system man.
Mass monster spawning rule sets at its heart is a very powerful system. These rules are conveyed to the players based on a UI. Its a very simple concept. Pulling this out of my ass is an example of you not getting it.

Edited, Jun 10th 2009 2:53pm by thorazinekizzez

I did, but for parties I like to play flexible support more.

WoW has a very linear and boring leveling trend. You take a few quests, all of which ask to you do one of the following: gather X amount of a certain item, kill a certain amount of a certain enemy, explore a certain area, and/or escort a certain NPC. Granted, with the new expansion(s), they've changed it up a little (flying/bombing quests, argent tournament, etc.), but quests and leveling in general was very boring and repetitive. FFXI fixed this to an extent with the mission system, but the rest of it was pretty much a straight grind. I'd love to see more of an immersive story line, more mission-based quests, over-arching plots. Even the "get me X of these" quests should scale up and become chains; maybe ending with the NPC crafting you a whole SET of gear. Interesting quests to get your new weapons, interesting quests for money, interesting quests that lead to whole new areas, interesting quests just because.

One of the first quests you get in San d'Oria is to get some leather/skins and make a piece of armor for yourself. It was given to you by a leatherworker, it was completely in context, and you didn't have to do it. It wasn't a part of some over-arching plot, it was just some Mithra looking for a little work, and offering you a service. It would be really nice to see guilds of crafter NPCs offering chains like that to people who were a member of their guild/profession, but otherwise completely out of the way.

What I mean't by "scale up" was they start out with the bland "I need X of these" quests, and then turn into something else. The first thing that comes to mind is something like: Quest 1: NPC asks you for 10 spider fangs to create a poison. Quest 2: NPC tells you to take the poison and poison a different NPC that's leading a battle to burn down some sort of trade route that he needs kept up. So you go to poison the NPC, and that NPC offers you some sort of quest, which you can only take if you decide not to poison him. So on and so forth. Not "ok, now I need 10 of these", "ok, now 5 of these".



Yeah, I never said FFXI fixed this problem. However, I do think Missions were a step in the right direction. They were an overarching story. In the context they were set in, when I did them for the first time, I was interested in doing them. I was never interested in the "find me 10 of these" quests, even my first run through. Even if it's just to get to the cinematic and see what's going, that's a good reason to do it. I just didnt have that serious urge to do gathering quests, as I did with missions.