Endgame Post from a JP PlayerFollow

IMO, that's more the part of SE to fix, rather than players'.

Yes, okay, we know that Jumping Doesn't work.... but why shouldn't it? Maybe they should fix the engine to be a bit better in hit detection? There were times that I would get hit with cone attacks while standing behind a mob and no, I didn't jump and yes I did cut a 90... actually 180 degree turn.

It was literally "see the enemy casting a cone attack, walk through the enemy, turn 180' so that I'm hitting their back...... WHAM. I get hit with said cone AoE." and I'm like "Whaaat? Bulls***." Any enemy that uses Heartstopper is infamous for this at times. Such a tiny little AoE right in front of them... I've tried flanking them, standing behind them, its 50/50 whether or not the attack actually lands sometimes. And since the game won't actually give you an Honest-to-God Ping Time (we only get that S/R number which...doesn't tell us anything whatsoever), I can't tell if it is lag, or the game's engine derping, or what is going on, but the end result is the same: it is annoying and frustrating at times. Especially when said thing causes you to die.

And if I'm getting hit with Heartstoppers from joe lancer mob, what's going to happen when I try to kill Titan HM/EX/whatever and I'm taking damage from other, much worse stuff when I SHOULD be out of the AoE but the game claims I wasn't?

If they're going to spam insta-death AoE, they need to refine the engine so that it actually works the way it should, with up to 200ms latency. That's like making an FPS game where the guns don't always shoot where your crosshairs are, a game where your shots can be up to 10 degrees off.

Or, you know, Battlefield 4 with its horrible hit detection issues and poor netcode.

What's making me wonder, though, is that there's pretty much no delay (at least none that is actually noticeable) between the time I hit a button until the time I see my character perform the action. I get pretty much split second responses from using abilities from my hotkey bar, but yet I'm getting hit with stuff like Heartstoppers while standing behind the mob using it? Wut?

If it were lag, shouldn't I be seeing a noticeable delay between hitting, say, 1 and seeing the Fast Blade fire off? One of the reasons why I wish we had an actual Ping display instead of the ever-useless S/R numbers. I mean if I had something in the range of 180-200ms then I could maybe kinda understand, but TBH, in WoW, I get 80ms to California and I live in Pennsylvania, or 40ms to Google. I really shouldn't be having that kind of latency, which is why a part of me thinks it is the engine derping. And for a game that places such huge importance in dodging shapes on the ground, that actually needs to work properly on a reliable basis, especially if they're going to make a lot of those late-game, insta-kills.

Edited, Jun 7th 2014 12:05am by Lyrailis

I'm fully aware of the difference between Internet Latency and Frames-Per-Second drops.

The reason why I mentioned the Fast Blade Example, is well... I know that when I *am* having Internet Latency issues, when you hit a button to use an ability (like Fast Blade), it takes longer than usual for the server to receive your request ("I wanna use Fast Blade") and then the server sends you the "Fast Blade was used." code along with what damage you did. If there's enough latency, you should theoretically see a delay between hitting the hotkey and seeing Fast Blade actually happening.

That's what I'm not seeing, though: Fast Blades (and all other abilities like it) are happening as soon as I hit the button. There does not appear to be any delay between me telling the game I want to use the ability and the game receiving data from the server that I attempted (and the result) of using said ability.

But yet, with the AoEs.... I _am_ seeing what appears to be latency. That's what doesn't really make sense. Unless, of course, Ability Use is done Client-Side... but surely they didn't do that, as that opens the game up to a whole 'nuther can of worms that people can potentially exploit. Any other MMO I've ever played, such things are done server-side and you don't see the animation, nor the result, until you get the reply from the server.

FFXIV must do it differently then, other MMOs you don't even see the animation for the ability until you get the response from the server. If you have enough lag, you can actually hit a hotkey and sometimes you might wait 1-2 seconds and THEN the ability animation/sounds/etc are seen/heard only when your computer gets the reply from the server.

Hence, the confusion. And as I said above... it'd be nice if we had something actually useful like a ping number that told us exactly how much latency we have.

Edited, Jun 7th 2014 1:28am by Lyrailis

Reason jump doesn't work isn't an engine problem. He stated he has no intention on allowing standard Jump to be an evasion tactic in battles.

For the record, S/R is sending/receiving and is measured in bytes per second. XI and XIV both sip data. This is why, if you are not moving, your "sending" can be 0. My receving is at 2000 bytes in revenent's toll. So, I'm getting data at 2K a second here from the game environment.

But that is just the width of the pipes. It has nothing to do with the latency, the round trip between you and the server. Compare a tractor trailer (cable) and a bicycle (DSL). Both can get a human from point A to point B, but the tractor can haul a bigger payload, just a bit more slowly (and it occasionally stalls if you are on Charter or Comcast.) The bicycle can't haul the big payload, but it is more nimble and can go a bit faster in the short term. Cable ultimately beats it in the long term but a bicycle will never stall out.

Compared to those two, fiber connections are formula one race cars, but few of us have those.

Edited, Jun 7th 2014 1:43pm by Catwho

I can understand that specific players view. Let me state what I feel about the game right now:

1) Catch-22 - Yossarian will hate FFXIV: As certain contents in the game is simply getting the mechanics, so practicing the mechanics become essential. If there is decrease of training sessions to learn those "gimmicks" as stated by that Japanese poster, it becomes harder for people to clear them. Some people do got carried because they are lucky with patient or really good players (I play on JP server; you never see selling of wins of fight at all) or they are stuck with little hope to advance (some causal players will simply quit because of frustrating mechanics - as stated in the cited article). The Catch-22 is often need the skill and gear to advance, but the opportunity to get the right skill (no practice or clear unless lucky - which you still need to learn the mechanics which I value just as high as "collecting gear") or right gear are often denied. Many folks simply just do not want to sit with people that don't their jobs properly. I do think Content (Duty) Finder does somehow manage the problem; but, man, some CF/DF queues take a long time to wait and you are at peril with 3 strikes and give up.

2) Space Balls Ludicrous Speed - it is just too fast. 1-3 months to hit level cap on the first class ought to be enough.

3) My company's office HQ flag pole is more flexible (to strong winds) than than FFXIV class/job system: One of the charms of FFXI is that there are jobs that can fill in multiple roles together; while you still get those people "this formation or we are not doing it", but the option of using flexible jobs is always there. Developer cannot and will never be able to contain those "elistists" (as some may prefer to call them), so I think it is even more pointless to create an even more rigid system. I do admit, it may be impossible to create a CF/DF system to work with flexible game role system. In essence, choose your poison - is Duty Finder system more valuable or a flexible job system more valuable?

4) I can't fit a regression model for dungeon level and difficulty: I will concur with the original author that they are far more enjoyable than 50 dungeons. There are no reason whatsoever that level 50 dungeons should ever be EASIER than pre-50 dungeons if our hypothesis is that end game dungeons should be harder than pre-end game dungeons. You know which one I am talking about (silly Goblin tanks and Little Green Men)! I am disappointed that they remove the bugs from the Wall Face (if people still do that wall face); but heck the Wall Face is still easier than that funny Malboro boss in the Vale. I felt really good when I first cleared Qarn!

PS: In fact I think the Wall Face (or the original Amp. Keep as a whole) is a good model and measuring stick of difficulty - some mechanical challenge, but not as insane as Titan. I think other (harder or easier) content difficulty scale should be tuned according to the standard set by the original A Keep.
Edited, Jun 9th 2014 1:39pm by scchan

Edited, Jun 9th 2014 1:48pm by scchan

Or even better, they queue all of them together :-). And to be frank, any self-serving (haha) hybrid DPS + tank/healer person who is about to queue will queue as tank/healer role over DPS >_>

Edited, Jun 9th 2014 2:08pm by scchan

It kind of makes me wonder if they'll cap some of the dungeons at 50 or 55 once they start raising the game's level cap. I could see capping AK at 50, or Brayflox HM at 60.

I don't think much of this game's content will ever be made truly irrelevant, at least not permanently. SE has shown in FFXI its ability to put old content to good use. At the very least, older dungeons could also be retuned to be made more difficult for more current iLevels years down the line.

May be there is a need rescale the reward for the end game dungeons? Goblin - hard mode is just a bit too easy; I think it will be fairer if Goblin - hard to be swapped with the lighthouse.(so expert roulette will be lighthouse, coliseum and city ruins).

However, I am still bitter they remove the bugs from the demon wall :P AF and Darklight is good enough for it for AK.

The more I think about it and realized after the first 2 fights the more it's painfully obvious Leviathan is the most scripted fight of the primals thus far.

So hell even a small random element to that fight would do wonders.

As much as people wanna knock FFXI (specially certain ones lol), it's that kind of **** that makes encounters fun because you have NO clue what you're in for. Yeah guaranteed wins are nice and all....

But when we originally set out to play RPGs and the like, it was elements like that we wanted in our battles. We want progression but we also want the possibility of getting our asses kicked even IF it's every now and then and not getting our asses kicked because your healer decided to ********** in the corner when WotL spawns and thus we pretty much lost the raid then and there.

Like seriously...that Coeurl is pretty fun and proves why I ******* LOATHE them since FFIX, but at the same time..we need mechanics like that. The Coeurls in XIV just make me weep how far they've fallen. Sure you'll get the ones here and there that CAN actually use their TP moves, but...:\

I think Yoshi used Titan as a example why they won't do random, but hell..WoTL during bomb phase would at least give a sense of danger in that phase beyond: "WHICH SCRUB WILL GET HIT FIRST?!"