Time for me to leave FFXIVFollow

It is a fact that the rate at which equipment is acquired is set by the developer. Lockouts combined by RNG is simply one manifestation of said rate of acquisition.

If lockouts were to be removed there would simply be more equipment in circulation as the result. But it needs to be understood that if this is the ultimate goal, the devs could just keep the lockout in place and have the bosses drop more loot in stead. Now if you want to keep the status quo by removing the lockout then the drop rate needs to be decreased as well.

As the result hardcore may benefit from the combination of removed lockouts + decreased drop rates because they can overcome the decrease by investing much more of their time to clearing the dungeons. Casuals on the other hand are left to eat the dust just because they can't/won't invest more of their time to the game.

All this in mind the lockouts do not hurt casuals, quite the opposite. What does hurt both at the end of the day is that the rate of acquisition set by the devs is set too "low". This in turn is due to the devs wanting the player to keep playing the game while they prepare more content to be consumed.

Edited, Dec 6th 2013 3:26pm by Hyanmen

WARNING, GIGANTIC WALL OF TEXT INCOMING!

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I'm not going to argue speculations on what individuals or groups in the community will do in response to game types. I hate to paint with a general brush, but people come and go in MMOs all the time, and we're still in the formulating months of the game where its niche is carved out.

Each an every one of us, as individuals always end up hoping that there will be enough room in that niche for us to fit our sensibilities and standards for gaming into it. However this is not the case for many, as much as it is a disappointment.

However, strictly speaking, it is not a fault on a Company's part for designing a game that disagree with a certain individuals or group's personal entertainment preferences, nor is it their responsibility to alter their own vision for the game to do so. Ignoring a dynamic, however, does have a clear effect on their subscription model, however the balancing of such things are usually beyond the view of any individual actually participating within the community itself. Put bluntly, we as players cannot, typically by design, see the forest for the trees when it comes to business matters. It is in their hands how and who they choose to appeal to their chosen audience. The best we can do is provide feedback on how they may, if they choose to, appeal to us better.

What upsets me is the assumptions on the part of a disenfranchised or disappointed player that the game should appeal strictly to them, in willful ignorance of these above facts. Or, when expectations are inflated beyond realistic proportions. And when called out upon this, or even without such provocation, a staggering number quickly resort to hyperbole, confirmation bias, and personal attacks upon any who have an opposing perspective, be it player, moderator, or game designer.

I am thankful to say the Zam is one of the few communities that I feel keep this behavior fairly well suppressed and out of our primary spotlight. That said, I would caution against encouraging the behavior in any manner as it can quite easily slip into the mainstream conversations.

I've said this before, but sometimes it's best to speak with one's subscription. I left FFXI with no great fanfare or complaint. I had made several attempts at feedback before over the years and even found alternate sources of entertainment within the game itself. When the issues became too numerous for me to really feel connected to the game, I simply left, without regret or remorse. Nearly a decade is a long time to be entertained by a single game, subscription or otherwise.

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That aside, there have been a lot of statements in the negative about the Lockouts that I do not agree with personally, though I can understand how they can upset someone who wants to progress at a faster pace then they are being allowed.

As a personal opinion, I am content with Crystal Tower lockout system, more-so than the one involving Bahamut's Coil. By all impressions, it seems to be that Crystal Tower only prevents you from hoarding loot, rather than flat out prevent you from playing and therefore aiding others.

I cannot help but think this system benefits and appeals to me in particular, as for me gear is a tertiary concern, behind story advancement and communal entertainment. As someone who values player made content on equal level to that of developer made content - as well as a limiting work schedule (11 hours a day spanning the middle of the day into the evening.) I cannot shake the feeling that this sort of system allows me to participate in endgame without feeling the pressure that it is completely consuming other aspects of my enjoyment in game.

While I can sympathize with the idea that a choice to play in focus of endgame has been taken away - I must argue that without such restrictions, there would be virtually no encouragement to assist other players, to socialize or community build unless it came with a substantive reward that contributed to Power Creep. At least in this sense the argument cannot be made that someone cannot help another individual or simply spend time in their community on account of not having available time due to endgame grind.

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A lot of arguments have been made to the case that Crystal Tower and other content in 2.1 is 'moving backwards' as a fault. I, however do not see fault in this. A lot of content in this game was focused on being irrelevant of an individuals personal progress, such as the Duty Roulette, housing, and PvP. Others, such as Crystal Tower, stem to make the progression into Coil itself easier, while others still focus on a progression of the main story itself. Multiple avenues and play-styles were appealed to at once, which makes sense why the Apex of endgame would remain mostly untouched or sparsely added upon - it was a broad strokes update.

It makes me feel like the game itself is designed with such broad style of play in mind. The game is multifaceted, and those who are trying to encompass much or all of it are finding plenty to do, and much of the game mechanics encourages you to stop and play other parts of it. These lockouts are simply evidence of this sort of playstyle.

As the game flushes out more, those who prefer a more focused play-style will likely be accommodated, I can't help but remind myself that this is equivalent of pre-Zilart FFXI, and by comparison we already have much more content than we did even at NA launch. (Dynamis did not come out until some time after.) While the player dynamic has changed, the age-true mantra of MMO's I feel still remains: patience is rewarded, haste is punished. To date, I have not seen an MMO that has broken this rule.

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On the OP topic. I won't lie, I'm not participant enough in this community as I would like to be, so I can speak for them. But for your second post here at Zam being one of an exit, it leaves the personal impression that you didn't try to engage yourself in what I would consider one of the better parts of the FFXIV community as a whole.

In spite of differences in opinion that occasionally clash, ZAM's good people. Maybe instead of saying goodbye to the game for a while, why not stay a while and say hello to all the folks here? You can tell by the sheer mass of information and opinion provided that we have a passionate community, and as I said before, it's fairly well tempered.

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TL;DL

In short, the game is new, it won't appeal to everyone, but the community here is better than most, and darn good in its own right. I play differently than others so the common gripes don't rub me the wrong way like they do others, but at the same time I feel like a lot of the complaints go overboard.

In the meanwhile, I feel the game encourages people to play around, rather than just focus on endgame. So why not stay a while, see what else the game, or even the players in the game, have to offer you besides gear progression?

But it's a wall made up of reasonably sized bricks of text, like a good wall should be. More forum post walls should be built this way.

It's a bit old school and dangerous to think everyone plots their entertainment in huge blocks of time like months or years. "Yay, I'll have a relic weapon 3 months from now if I..." certainly never excited me in FFXI and you can bet the vast majority never chase them because of such even after Dynamis' adjustment. I scratch my head at what seems to be a demonizing of people wanting to chase the carrot these days. Making friends through CT is handicapped due to lacking cross-server options. Doing it with friends or to kill time on occasion may indeed happen, but you can't assume everyone operates that way or enjoys dumping chunks of time for what amounts to digital charity.

It isn't selfish to want to do work and get something to show for it.

Even if we were able to spam CT without restriction, I'd be surprised if I got all the sets in 3 months. I know how I play. I know how RNG loves to spite me. I know there's never a guarantee I'll be the sole roller. But you know what else should be happening 3 months from now? Another patch and with that, shock of shocks, things to do! It's what we pay SE for, right? Certainly if I was content to put all that effort in before, with an even bigger carrot on the horizon, why, I just might do it again! And I'm not alone on this.

You can attempt to marginalize me into the hardcore demographic if it makes you feel better. I've not been shy about feeling I hover in between the two. Yet, when I argue against hardcore grinds and essentially keeping people from the content they paid for, it's because telling people what they can and can't do with their time is heavy-handed and quite often unfair. Simply flipping the dynamic and trying to say it's for the casual's benefit doesn't change this. There's over a million people in the game. I would be quite surprised if I ever interacted with 100,000 of them through the DF or directly on my server over time. I can assure you me being 0/30, 30/30, or somewhere in between will have no impact on their gameplay short of better performance if we do get paired up. Whether I play more or play less should have no impact on your personal feelings. And yes, while there are jackasses out there that hold others to unreasonable standards, I certainly don't enjoy being "punished" because they're juvenile twits.

But it's easier to assume people will just gobble it all up in a week or so and then ***** about there's nothing to do. You're so totally doing these people a favor by defending this, aren't you?! I'll give you a hint: A dev shouldn't be encouraging people to quit. It may not be their intent, but the Road to Hell and all that... And no, I'm not saying XIV will die. I'm saying it'll lose potential. Potential fueled by money, by subs.

It's an option. Though my pragmatic side wonders why access must be so complicated. That's not me saying it's a bad idea, but just that free access is simpler. Only fault is unless CT got its own tokens, you still risk blowing leves for no progress. For the sake of disclosure, I also dislike the myth tome cap.

Of course it then comes down to how much time and effort you can put into a video game. Of course the potential is the same, but only those with more time than the others can actually meet said potential.

And so do the casuals lose.

Naturally the drop rates should reflect this sudden increase in the amount of times you can do the content. The rate of gear acquisition will not go up unless the devs want it to, and if they want it to go up then they may as well just raise the current drop rates instead of making the game more complex than it needs to be.

Edited, Dec 6th 2013 10:29pm by Hyanmen

You speak of gearing up multiple jobs but only use gearing up one job in your example. Because you can Greed an item while playing any job, you can easily use this to your advantage by playing another job when you get up to 3-4 items on the first job. While the chance to Greed the last piece on a single run is small, cumulatively the chance to Greed your 5th item increase the more runs you do on the multiple jobs you have. This is true especially when the end of the current content cycle is coming close as the players have had 3+ months to gear up their class(es). Cases where other players are after a single piece increase giving other players a better chance to Greed more items.

Essentially when the chances of you obtaining a desired item by Need decrease the chances to Greed the item increase.

<drippingsarcarsmthesizeofamolborger>is this kind of snarky commentary really necessary? I'm sorry if I've offended you.<drippingsarcarsmthesizeofamolborger>

I'm just saying you're not taking Greed into account at all, even though its usefulness increases by a wide margin the longer the current cycle has been in place. You're also not taking into account that your other classes will keep your probability percentages up for a long time into the cycle.

Interestingly you're also advocating the "if I don't get the one specific item I don't get anything at all" mentality and that's cool, but a relevant question is whether this kind of mentality is something a casual would embrace in the first place. The one specific item may give you +1% more value in comparison to other pieces but a casual can ask him or herself whether it is worth it to lock oneself up to such an extreme mindset. You can forsake other potential drops to be able to lot on the One Ring but you can also not do that. This should be obvious but you are stating that a person "must" do something so it needs to be mentioned. That's nothing but a single playing philosophy among many.

Either way an hour+ a day (in the worst case scenario) does not sound like something a casual can't handle.

I donno.. I haven't played healer in FFXIV, but I have a lot of..horror stories on RDM and SCH. I just don't think nothing can possibly be worse than imp parties. Many many times I came close to quitting the game due to those.

You're reaching a bit to twist my words, there. Nonetheless, it is possible for a dev team to make a decision later on in a game's lifespan that can influence a critique for the benefit of the game (not trolling). Despite my discontent, you don't see me saying XIV will die in 6 months like you championed repeatedly (trolling). Is it my fault for hoping SE might've done better between August and now? Perhaps.

Here's the thing. The PA thing mentioned in quotes? The situation is actually reversed. In Rift's case, you had the hardcores dictating what the casuals could or couldn't due based on a grind. Now you have casuals attempting to dictate to the hardcores, or at least those further ahead the progress chain, with these lockouts by invoking a worst case scenario. Both are uncool. I am white knighting giving the people choice to play as they choose. If they burn themselves out and *****? I am still quite confident in saying they're a vocal minority there. Everyone else plays as normal? More likely than you think. But understand, even if I am closer to the minority with my play style and time, I'm not telling people they can't progress.

Fair access to content goes both ways. And unlocked CT would still be a grind. Believe it.

I can't decide if I should be happy or sad about that. :P

Scrap that.

:/

Edited, Dec 13th 2013 9:45am by Gnu

Isn't a double necropost as a first action from a trolling sock a sign of the Apocalypse? I think that hits pretty much every factor, including the massive quote and one-line answer.

Kinda cool, actually, when you think about it.