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Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward |OT3| Keniki Gauge Cost: 20,000

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Guess Who

Banned
I feel like that's largely the disconnect here? The expansion is adding more of the basic parts of it. The next steps of the story, the next series of leveling content, etc. Most of my curiosity for an expansion is in what ways is it adding to the game as a whole to change or alter something you do with the time in the game. So I do sit here and acknowledge it's adding a hefty amount of story and bringing more world to play in and more content to experience. But how much of the game itself is also growing so much as the list of things in the game growing (e.g., dungeons 50-57, primal 16-18, raid 3, etc.).

If this was a single-player game, I think I'd be more inclined with your viewpoint? What's this DLC adding to the game to experience, where is it extending the game. For me with MMOs, it's more about how is the game evolving or growing as a whole rather than attaching a new shade of experience. Stripping out the FF or MMO of it, if all I'm really chasing is the list of new content to experience, I'd consume it and move on to a new game and chase those experiences? I stay in an MMO because of the whole package and I'd like to see how the game grows larger / wider rather than just longer.

I think FFXIV aims to be, basically, a single-player FF game that also happens to have an online component. It's very story-focused in a way many MMOs aren't, and bends over backwards to make most content playable without ever having to talk to another person outside of hitting "Commence" in Duty Finder. I think that's kind of why expansions are done the way they are - the story is the new content. They expect you to be invested in that story, and to play the expansion for the story, even if you do not care about endgame raiding or the crafting economy or the gear treadmill. You want it because it's the new Final Fantasy story.

I think it's fair to criticize them for not doing enough to keep you invested in the game once you're done with the story, though (at least until the next MSQ patch hits). God knows I unsubbed from 3.1 till 3.4 or so because I just didn't give a fuck about endgame and there was nothing else to do but run EXDR every day for tomes. I don't think they're totally blind to this, though - Yoshi even talked about how part of the reason they felt they could forgo making one dungeon every other patch is because they felt there will be other ways people can get tomes now, and they can use the resources to try making new types of content that don't currently exist.

We talk about how this expansion isn't especially "expanding" the game, just adding more of existing types of content, but it's definitely not as if they haven't been adding new types of content over the years. Hunts expanded the game. Gold Saucer expanded the game. Palace of the Dead expanded the game. Aquapolis expanded the game. Diadem at least tried to expand the game, even if it sucks. It's not as if they aren't trying to make new kinds of ways to play the game, they just aren't putting it in 4.0 proper - because the point of 4.0 is to be a new story campaign. That is what they are prioritizing for the expansion, because they think that's the appeal of FFXIV.
 

KuroNeeko

Member
Just some quick story-related questions! Please do NOT reply if they get answered in the story later on.

I'm at the very end of 2.5 and just finished
The Keeper of the Lake
.

First, why does
Midgardsomr remove my blessing of Light? I read it as he initially thought our party as human/Ishgardian, and as such, opponents to be dispatched of due to that ongoing war. Our "valor" in battle earned us a temporary reprieve (stay of execution), but when that time was up, he made to destroy us but was alerted to our true nature by the Blessing of Light.

In the English version, he replies, "Trickery...(paraphrase) you are not who you appeared to be." Then, says he won't kill us, as he remembers his covenant made with Hydaelyn. It doesn't stop him from (easily) removing her "feeble" blessing. Then he says he'll tag along to keep an eye on us? Why?

While I haven't played this quest in Japanese, I feel like it's something that was probably localized differently than the original text--and the result was something more ambiguous. I'm not going to comment on whether or not that was the "right" move, it just felt like I (the player) was missing information that the characters were not.

Second, at the end of
An Unwelcome Ascian, why are the Ascians so committed to non-violence? Both Nabriales and Elidibus make it quite clear that they didn't attack anyone and only acted in self-defense. How is it that the Blessing of Light "shielded the Ascians from this place" (Scion HQ) when Elidibus had appeared there earlier. What prevented them from simply warping to the HQ, grabbing the staff, and warping out? Why does X Ascian care if they harm Minfilia?

What was the Blessing of Light anyway? Was it the power that conferred our immortality? I thought earlier quests made it clear that it was the Echo that spared us from a Primal's influence.

WTF does my character just sit there while Nab opens a portal and pushes Minfilia in?
 

duckroll

Member
Just some quick story-related questions! Please do NOT reply if they get answered in the story later on.

I'm at the very end of 2.5 and just finished
The Keeper of the Lake
.

<stuff>

Keeper of the Lake:
Infamous "bad translation" debate in FFXIV that was pretty heated. But the gist of it is that the English localization was too liberal and failed to convey that he basically awoke to a Warrior of Light about to go head first into an Isghardian conflict you don't understand, and he's interested in how you will approach this. He strips the blessing as a test because he wants to witness you proving that you deserve it. It's a lead in to Heavensward.

Ascians:
Ascians suck and everything about them suck. Worst writing in the game and it doesn't ever get much better. They are comic villains who do things for "plot" reasons and no one can stop them until the plot decides so. It's hilarious.
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
Game needs new types of content instead of just the massive dungeon roulette grind.

Stuff like Aquapolis, Palace of the Dead. New stuff that isn't corridor dungeon # 51 to be added to the latest EX roulette.

The expansion launching will have a bunch of dungeons and trials, but no new types of content, just dungeons and trials.

This new expansion will have you doing the same you thing you did when you reached the level cap in Heavensward.

Thankfully they have recognized this at least partially and seem to have some new stuff in the pipeline.

Hopefully decent PvP
New Aquapolis and Palace of the Dead
Eureka
Blitzball
lol

A lot of that is unfortunately not going to be playable for months (whenever 4.1 comes out I guess).

Hopefully them cutting down on the number of new dungeons will hopefully lead to some new stuff that ends up being more enjoyable than dungeons as a level cap activity.
Completely agree with the above. My biggest problem with the game so far, which hasn't really changed since 2.0 is that there's no engaging long term content in the game.

I know I sound like a broken record, but Dungeons are fun for the first 1-3 runs and feel boring (and unrewarding, but that that's another story) afterwards. Raiding is definitely not for everyone. Adding normal level raids was a great idea, but it's still a 5 minute bossfight, the same every time, which gets boring after a week. Same with primals.

The first breath of fresh air since release for me has been PotD. While still repetitive if done over and over and over again on lower levels it also offers a challenge with a bit of randomness if you're soloing it or aiming for floor 200. Rewards? Worth it, both solo (since you get all chest drops) and on high levels (since they sell for a lot).

While I'm still excited for Stormblood, because of the new story and RDM, at this point I feel like I'm going to drop the game again when I get to the point where I've finished all the non raiding battle content. Which usually after a patch takes about 3-4 days.

While WoW has been really hit or miss with the expansions, I feel like trying to make each one of them different, by adding something completely new is a great idea. Those aren't just big content patches.
I guess with Stormblood we have swimming, but I still scratch my head why did they decide to go with it. You can't even fight underwater (which is a good thing).

/rant
 

scy

Member
Probably part of the disconnect is that I deliberately vary up my playtime in XIV (and stagger it with other games) so as to not get burnt out on any single activity. Since I hit level 60, I've only done 2-3 dungeons a week on average rather than multiple dungeons every day. If you're trying to grind tomestones to cap constantly, I can imagine it's easy to burn out.

I more or less just raid log at this point since the 'other stuff to do' in the game is fairly limited. I don't think of it so much as burn out for me, though? I still enjoy like ... doing things in the game. It's that I largely have little reason to do so for many parts of the game. So I'm mostly just on as stuff to do arises.

I think it's fair to criticize them for not doing enough to keep you invested in the game once you're done with the story, though (at least until the next MSQ patch hits). God knows I unsubbed from 3.1 till 3.4 or so because I just didn't give a fuck about endgame and there was nothing else to do but run EXDR every day for tomes. I don't think they're totally blind to this, though - Yoshi even talked about how part of the reason they felt they could forgo making one dungeon every other patch is because they felt there will be other ways people can get tomes now, and they can use the resources to try making new types of content that don't currently exist.

It's a big part of their shareholder meeting as well was in terms of improving XIV retention (though, unfortunately, it seems their method is the limited time event reward based on sub time which feels rather ... scummy, sort of). I'm hoping they find more and more ways to expand on the reasons to log in day to day or stay subbed month to month that isn't "because patch!" or "because relic grind!" Basically, more reasons people will just log on because something to look forward to doing for the sake of the thing they're doing rather than the reward of it.

We talk about how this expansion isn't especially "expanding" the game, just adding more of existing types of content, but it's definitely not as if they haven't been adding new types of content over the years. Hunts expanded the game. Gold Saucer expanded the game. Palace of the Dead expanded the game. Aquapolis expanded the game. Diadem at least tried to expand the game, even if it sucks. It's not as if they aren't trying to make new kinds of ways to play the game, they just aren't putting it in 4.0 proper - because the point of 4.0 is to be a new story campaign. That is what they are prioritizing for the expansion, because they think that's the appeal of FFXIV.

Yeah, I don't want it to be made into a situation of saying that they literally have added nothing. I think they've added a fair amount, though I would argue some are merely replacing others in the grand scheme of things rather than an entirely new entity like, say, normal raid, Aquapolis, Palace of the Dead ended up being. It's mostly that if I want to count much of these as Heavensward or Stormblood additions coming up, I'll be thinking of it in terms of what all of 3.X or 4.X did. Maybe it's unfair of me to not think of those as expansion content themselves but that's the line of thinking I'm operating under.
 

Luminaire

Member
Just some quick story-related questions! Please do NOT reply if they get answered in the story later on.

I'm at the very end of 2.5 and just finished
The Keeper of the Lake
.

First, why does
Midgardsomr remove my blessing of Light? I read it as he initially thought our party as human/Ishgardian, and as such, opponents to be dispatched of due to that ongoing war. Our "valor" in battle earned us a temporary reprieve (stay of execution), but when that time was up, he made to destroy us but was alerted to our true nature by the Blessing of Light.

In the English version, he replies, "Trickery...(paraphrase) you are not who you appeared to be." Then, says he won't kill us, as he remembers his covenant made with Hydaelyn. It doesn't stop him from (easily) removing her "feeble" blessing. Then he says he'll tag along to keep an eye on us? Why?

While I haven't played this quest in Japanese, I feel like it's something that was probably localized differently than the original text--and the result was something more ambiguous. I'm not going to comment on whether or not that was the "right" move, it just felt like I (the player) was missing information that the characters were not.

Second, at the end of
An Unwelcome Ascian, why are the Ascians so committed to non-violence? Both Nabriales and Elidibus make it quite clear that they didn't attack anyone and only acted in self-defense. How is it that the Blessing of Light "shielded the Ascians from this place" (Scion HQ) when Elidibus had appeared there earlier. What prevented them from simply warping to the HQ, grabbing the staff, and warping out? Why does X Ascian care if they harm Minfilia?

What was the Blessing of Light anyway? Was it the power that conferred our immortality? I thought earlier quests made it clear that it was the Echo that spared us from a Primal's influence.

WTF does my character just sit there while Nab opens a portal and pushes Minfilia in?

First -
You'll find out later on in 3.X.

Second -
Balance.

Third -
Consider yourself tempered by Hydalen(sp). Apply this thinking to First.
Fourth -
The echo is a separate entity from the blessing of light.

Fifth -
¯\_(&#12484;)_/¯
 

duckroll

Member
If this was a single-player game, I think I'd be more inclined with your viewpoint? What's this DLC adding to the game to experience, where is it extending the game. For me with MMOs, it's more about how is the game evolving or growing as a whole rather than attaching a new shade of experience. Stripping out the FF or MMO of it, if all I'm really chasing is the list of new content to experience, I'd consume it and move on to a new game and chase those experiences? I stay in an MMO because of the whole package and I'd like to see how the game grows larger / wider rather than just longer.

Well, like I said, I don't play this because it's a MMO. I play this because it's a good FF game that has what I want. I would be fine with it not being a MMO too. Makes no difference to me. Being a MMO just means I can play some dungeons and raid content with friends, nothing more. When I run out of content or feel burnt out, I will go play other games. If my subscription lapses after I have exhausted all content I want to play, I won't renew until there are a few patches, then I'll come back to play them like DLC packs. When there's an expansion I'll buy it and come back to play for however long it lasts.

I don't see FFXIV as something I want to play forever. I just see it as the only modern avenue for me to get a new FF RPG that I enjoy. Lol.
 

LordKasual

Banned
I've accepted the game is what it is? I'm not protesting that the content changes exist, I'm protesting that combat changes alongside a level cap increase do not a massive expansion make.

I don't really know how to respond to this.

Alongside adding classes to the game, new areas, an entire new bulk of story scenario, features, combat revamp, promise of more features like Diadem/Palace/Vermillion/Triad ect, i'm really not sure what constitutes an "expansion" outside of these things. And no, I do not believe there's much value in redefining the term.

It honestly just sounds like you're disappointed because the game isn't adding specifically what you want it to add. And there's nothing wrong with that, but....yeah, that's what it sounds like.
 

Luminaire

Member
I don't really know how to respond to this.

Alongside adding classes to the game, new areas, an entire new bulk of story scenario, features, combat revamp, promise of more features like Diadem/Palace/Vermillion/Triad ect, i'm really not sure what constitutes an "expansion" outside of these things. And no, I do not believe there's much value in redefining the term.

It honestly just sounds like you're disappointed because the game isn't adding specifically what you want it to add. And there's nothing wrong with that, but....yeah, that's what it sounds like.

Not to target anyone, but I notice (on the reddit too) people saying they're not getting what they want, or it doesn't do enough, or that it's a lot of the same...but they can never really say what would fix it. I rarely see ideas, and when I do, it's often "well WoW does..."
 

duckroll

Member
Not to target anyone, but I notice (on the reddit too) people saying they're not getting what they want, or it doesn't do enough, or that it's a lot of the same...but they can never really say what would fix it. I rarely see ideas, and when I do, it's often "well WoW does..."

Here's my great idea on how to fix all the woes of Square Enix tho:

- Get the people making FFXIV to make a single player FF
 

Qvoth

Member
http://imgur.com/a/s79md
bunch of new gear screenshots, very blurry though
i assume these are the genji omega gears

album was updated, there are clearer shots of the gears now
6WmECKC.png
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Very Sengoku feel but I wish it had a little more color.

Considering how most of the armor of that era was lamellar I imagine CRP will be crafting a lot of armor pieces.
 

Tomat

Wanna hear a good joke? Waste your time helping me! LOL!
They finally give BLM some heavier armor and still manage to make it a robe.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
This reminds me of Shire gear so maybe it's Tomestone of Creation? Or did they confirm it was raid gear.
 

Ken

Member
This reminds me of Shire gear so maybe it's Tomestone of Creation? Or did they confirm it was raid gear.

they said raid gear would be in the video
and it's called genji gear so it would be nippon themed instead of the usual SCI-FI look
and those were the only new pieces of gear that looked like a thematic set besides the PVP ones that were already revealed
 

scy

Member
Well, like I said, I don't play this because it's a MMO. I play this because it's a good FF game that has what I want. I would be fine with it not being a MMO too. Makes no difference to me. Being a MMO just means I can play some dungeons and raid content with friends, nothing more. When I run out of content or feel burnt out, I will go play other games. If my subscription lapses after I have exhausted all content I want to play, I won't renew until there are a few patches, then I'll come back to play them like DLC packs. When there's an expansion I'll buy it and come back to play for however long it lasts.

I don't see FFXIV as something I want to play forever. I just see it as the only modern avenue for me to get a new FF RPG that I enjoy. Lol.

Which, and I mean no offense by this, I think a large part of their push now is to have fewer players like that? They want to do better at retaining people through the content rather than those who come back periodically as they add new things. Retain subs through the expansion rather than launch to launch or story patch to story patch.

So most of my points of "So what's new?" is largely targeted at long-term health of the game. And I do admit that part of my view is largely focused on the launch of the expansion rather than the patches within it, kind of a putting their best foot forward sort of thing.

I don't really know how to respond to this.

Alongside adding classes to the game, new areas, an entire new bulk of story scenario, features, combat revamp, promise of more features like Diadem/Palace/Vermillion/Triad ect, i'm really not sure what constitutes an "expansion" outside of these things. And no, I do not believe there's much value in redefining the term.

It honestly just sounds like you're disappointed because the game isn't adding specifically what you want it to add. And there's nothing wrong with that, but....yeah, that's what it sounds like.

It's differentiating between increasing the existing things and adding a new aspect to the game; the list of stuff in the game grows larger but it'd be nice to see expansions themselves outright adding additional categories rather than a promised feature for a later patch. None of this is saying Stormblood isn't putting a lot of new stuff into the game, it's just that they're all the next checkbox of things in the game.

Not to target anyone, but I notice (on the reddit too) people saying they're not getting what they want, or it doesn't do enough, or that it's a lot of the same...but they can never really say what would fix it. I rarely see ideas, and when I do, it's often "well WoW does..."

I think the addition of potential 4-man content as an in between thing for normal dungeons and raid content is a step in the right direction; I even don't think Diadem itself was a bad idea so much as the feedback loop of it being poorly implemented? That is, RNG gating the best reward of it rather than flooding you with loot and a way to turn misses back into more attempts at said loot (e.g., spoils into loot boxes). It's part of why I said I think the promise of new content in 4.1 sounds like it hits what I want to see in the game, it's more that it being part of the launch of the expansion, or shortly into it, rather than as part of the first big content patch.

There is a lot to be said against Aquapolis scaling or PotD having it's own gear leveling but those did do a good job of adding new experiences that worked well at targeting people who want to play together regardless of how current they are, which is a rather useful niche in a game like this. I think there's a lot of room to reuse existing assets in the game to create new weekly content (e.g., rotating 'EXDR' dungeon choice that is scaled to current ilvl); a lot of what can be done is limited without expanding their toolkit on the whole what can they get away with doing when tackling content reuse. It'd be nice for at some point if they can simply add new mobs, or new AoE effects, or even AI scripts, without it being a huge drain? If only for a way to give us access to something like an i300 variant of Sastasha (Normal) that throws out T9 meteors, for instance.

Wondrous Tails was another pretty good way of giving people guided reasons for running old content while also giving rewards that added a fair amount to the game without disrupting markets too much? More content that tries to use rewards like this can only help give people other things to do week to week beyond the tomestone chase in and of itself. And yes, I realize much of this is pointing at things they added and noting that the additional use or expanded use of them will be greatly appreciated rather than outright "add this new thing to the game."
 

duckroll

Member
Unrelated to any of the above, but the SB hype got to me and I bought this weird light novel which came out last week.

Is this a touching story about a couple that bonds through partying up as two DPS and having to spend all their time talking to each other while waiting in queues?
 

scy

Member
Is this a touching story about a couple that bonds through partying up as two DPS and having to spend all their time talking to each other while waiting in queues?

I prefer the twist that he takes her raid spot because DRG vs MNK and the slow descent into madness that follows.

This may say a lot about my tastes.
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
t-tummy

also they should have made a manga version of the tv drama
I think they want to stick to the blog/book, because that way they can show screenshots from the game.

Really like duckroll's story idea, lol.
 

iammeiam

Member
Alongside adding classes to the game, new areas, an entire new bulk of story scenario, features, combat revamp, promise of more features like Diadem/Palace/Vermillion/Triad ect, i'm really not sure what constitutes an "expansion" outside of these things. And no, I do not believe there's much value in redefining the term.

I mean, you started by telling me the game's not for me and that I should unsub, so I'm not super surprised we're not on the same wavelength?

This is the tricky point, because on some level I want to just point to Legion and go 'that', because WoW is the only other MMO I've played recently enough to cite recent specifics with, but WoW comparisons are traditionally a touchy point for XIV fans because reasons. Legion did the combat revamp thing, too. It was a feature, too. But they also took a bunch of wacky swings for the fences in changing how people engage with the game itself. The World Quest System, Mythic+, the questionably wise decision to take the relic weapon concept and make it the only weapon everyone gets for the expansion, the entire Suramar zone which had a shitty rep grind component tied into a zone that was deeply integrated with the overall story, etc. It's not just Draenor In Another Setting. It tries to change how people engage with the game, it tries to scale difficulty with the players. It tries in ways that address the base game itself, above and beyond diversions. XIV has made a couple of moves I've praised, but I think I waded into this whole thing saying I felt like SB did less 'expanding' of the core loop than HW because HW wrote in the normal mode/crafted gear step; it's not even a step that overall was super relevant to me, but it was a fundamental change in how they approached the core gearing cycle which I appreciated. You didn't go grind tomes for everything you wanted for every job, you'd run specific fights, or you'd craft up, etc, for gear good enough to go start raiding in. It's a small change, but I appreciated it. SB is just repeating it, while leaving the ARR era segments largely untouched (they've added new ways to get tomes, which is awesome, but at some point it's still the expectation that you do your MMO chores to cap each week, etc.) And yeah, yeah, go play WoW, I know. But I genuinely found a lot I prefer in the flow of combat in XIV (RIP 3.x MCH), and the smaller raid groups for Savage, and the feel of some of the boss fights. And given that they've mentioned a few times being aware of a call for more challenging content, or literally citing the jump potions as trying to make overtures to more traditional MMO players, I don't think it's out of line to discuss XIV-as-MMO as something they're trying to do alongside XIV-as-FF.

I don't expect XIV to do everything WoW does, or change things on the scale that WoW does, and to some extent it can't because of the rigid treadmill it adheres to, but it is disappointing to know we'd never see something like mythic+ because the game itself can't support it. We'll likely never see anything that ties progress to difficulty outside of the 4 fights every 6 months that constitute the raid tier (and even then--Savage fights don't reward lore and so aren't sufficient for engaging with a lot of the content treadmills. I will never finish Umbrite because I stopped making myself EXDR a long-ass time ago and running Savage doesn't count), because the game hasn't meaningfully committed to helping players improve. They're revamping the combat system, but still haven't implemented a Hall of the Intermediate to actually try to teach anyone which is still pretty insane. They've added some good content on the periphery--Aqua and PotD are good things to do just for the sake of doing, although PotD is shacked with 100 floors of tedium before 30 OK floors and 20 good floors--but it being good and successful isn't enough to make it foundational. The backbone of Stormblood is the backbone of Heavensward is the backbone of ARR and the heart of it is 'go grind a thing for tomes'. And for all that they emphasize the story, they don't even meaningfully improve their ability to tell it. I'm sort of shocked we've made it to a second expansion (and dropping PS3!) with no meaningful focus on overworld phasing.

Also I'm basically preemptively mourning whatever the 4.1 optional hard content is because seriously it was not worth sacking a dungeon for; just give me a third tier based on a pre-tuned version of the raid. Less flashy but less overhead and more likely to be sustainable; I worry that 4.1's hard content will end up like Savage SCoB as the weird thing we all side-eye.
 
I wouldn't mind if they only added a single dungeon for whatever is needed in story patches and cut out any new optional ones.

A dungeon will always be a dungeon. Something you walk through once and it's cool and everything. Then you redo it over and over again and by that point it gets a bit lame but you do it because you need tomes for something.

New content on the other hand has the potential to become something more. They have 49 dungeons and the complaints have never ceased because they never change.

New content does not have this inherent limitation and has the potential to deliver new experiences.

If Yoship and co decided "fuck new content, more dungeons non stop because that's all this game needs" then we would not have Aquapolis, no Deep Dungeon, no Hunts.


It would be cool if they focused more efforts towards new content. The comment about cutting down on the number of dungeons gives some hope. I just hope it works out to be something tangible to diversifies what you can do in the game.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I remember Yoshi-P was asked about WoW's Mythic+. Did he give any response to it? I don't see why this game can't handle it, unless all items are handcrafted instead of being generated from some formula (which wouldn't surprise me if it was true) and there was no way to change it.
 

iammeiam

Member
I should clarify: I have zero problems at all with opting for 3 dungeons and a new thing per content tier instead of four dungeons, provided they let all 3 coexist in EXDR.

I specifically object to them just outright pitching it as: People wanted hard content so the dungeon had to die; don't do that. I don't want to steal assets and resources from people, I just want stuff tuned higher, and people still blame Gordias on anyone who wanted more of a challenge than FCoB provided, because somehow the difficulty scale jumps from Bahamut Prime to Nisi.

I remember Yoshi-P was asked about WoW's Mythic+. Did he give any response to it? I don't see why this game can't handle it, unless all items are handcrafted instead of being generated from some formula (which wouldn't surprise me if it was true) and there was no way to change it.

I don't know if he responded but I don't think we can see it any time soon because of iLevel restrictions, largely; there's not really any room for scaling iLevel gear without blowing up the entire gear treadmill. We know they have the RNG states down for Diadem, but they're always super specific about where each piece of content fits in the iLevel scale and I imagine there'd have to be a stat squish to prep for the kind of iLevel inflation you'd see at like +15
 

Foxxsoxx

Member
So like... what is there to do at 60 besides raid?

Once I got my bard to 60 I geared up a bit to 240 ilevel through PVP/tomes and started leveling a few other jobs I was interested in.

Obviously things are about to change a bit, but I want to make sure that I want to make the commitment of buying SB.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Well mythic+ gear adds ilvls in increments of 5, right? I think if they go for increments of 1 it wouldn't be so bad, although less exciting. Another way they could do it is to add some particle effects, with greater particle effects for higher levels. Considering how much the FFXIV pop likes their glamors it could play well.
 

royox

Member
I mean, you started by telling me the game's not for me and that I should unsub, so I'm not super surprised we're not on the same wavelength?

This is the tricky point, because on some level I want to just point to Legion and go 'that', because WoW is the only other MMO I've played recently enough to cite recent specifics with, but WoW comparisons are traditionally a touchy point for XIV fans because reasons. Legion did the combat revamp thing, too. It was a feature, too. But they also took a bunch of wacky swings for the fences in changing how people engage with the game itself. The World Quest System, Mythic+, the questionably wise decision to take the relic weapon concept and make it the only weapon everyone gets for the expansion, the entire Suramar zone which had a shitty rep grind component tied into a zone that was deeply integrated with the overall story, etc. It's not just Draenor In Another Setting. It tries to change how people engage with the game, it tries to scale difficulty with the players. It tries in ways that address the base game itself, above and beyond diversions. XIV has made a couple of moves I've praised, but I think I waded into this whole thing saying I felt like SB did less 'expanding' of the core loop than HW because HW wrote in the normal mode/crafted gear step; it's not even a step that overall was super relevant to me, but it was a fundamental change in how they approached the core gearing cycle which I appreciated. You didn't go grind tomes for everything you wanted for every job, you'd run specific fights, or you'd craft up, etc, for gear good enough to go start raiding in. It's a small change, but I appreciated it. SB is just repeating it, while leaving the ARR era segments largely untouched (they've added new ways to get tomes, which is awesome, but at some point it's still the expectation that you do your MMO chores to cap each week, etc.) And yeah, yeah, go play WoW, I know. But I genuinely found a lot I prefer in the flow of combat in XIV (RIP 3.x MCH), and the smaller raid groups for Savage, and the feel of some of the boss fights. And given that they've mentioned a few times being aware of a call for more challenging content, or literally citing the jump potions as trying to make overtures to more traditional MMO players, I don't think it's out of line to discuss XIV-as-MMO as something they're trying to do alongside XIV-as-FF.

I don't expect XIV to do everything WoW does, or change things on the scale that WoW does, and to some extent it can't because of the rigid treadmill it adheres to, but it is disappointing to know we'd never see something like mythic+ because the game itself can't support it. We'll likely never see anything that ties progress to difficulty outside of the 4 fights every 6 months that constitute the raid tier (and even then--Savage fights don't reward lore and so aren't sufficient for engaging with a lot of the content treadmills. I will never finish Umbrite because I stopped making myself EXDR a long-ass time ago and running Savage doesn't count), because the game hasn't meaningfully committed to helping players improve. They're revamping the combat system, but still haven't implemented a Hall of the Intermediate to actually try to teach anyone which is still pretty insane. They've added some good content on the periphery--Aqua and PotD are good things to do just for the sake of doing, although PotD is shacked with 100 floors of tedium before 30 OK floors and 20 good floors--but it being good and successful isn't enough to make it foundational. The backbone of Stormblood is the backbone of Heavensward is the backbone of ARR and the heart of it is 'go grind a thing for tomes'. And for all that they emphasize the story, they don't even meaningfully improve their ability to tell it. I'm sort of shocked we've made it to a second expansion (and dropping PS3!) with no meaningful focus on overworld phasing.

Also I'm basically preemptively mourning whatever the 4.1 optional hard content is because seriously it was not worth sacking a dungeon for; just give me a third tier based on a pre-tuned version of the raid. Less flashy but less overhead and more likely to be sustainable; I worry that 4.1's hard content will end up like Savage SCoB as the weird thing we all side-eye.

FFXIV is not WoW. Stop trying to make every mmo like wow, thanks.
 

KuroNeeko

Member
FFXIV is not WoW. Stop trying to make every mmo like wow, thanks.

He's not trying to make every mmo like WoW. He's pointing out examples about how one mmo (in this case, WoW, the one he has the most experience with) has gone about adding meaningful content that does more than just

a) refine existing systems
b) offer token "new" content that is expected with the release of an expansion

A and B put together probably represent the minimum of what a game that provides episodic content can get away with. If I am understanding him correctly, he would like to see FFXIV's development team take "bigger risks" or "dream bigger" in terms of new ways to play the game or engage the player.

At the end of the day, though, what shape new "content" takes is the purview of the development team. If they're happy with the type of content they're providing and simply want to continue to expand the game vertically, rather than horizontally, that's their call.

I personally think your replies aren't giving enough credit to his opinions, which he has gone to great detail to explain, whether you agree with them or not.
 

duckroll

Member
I find all this debate about the MMO parts of FFXIV really interesting. Personally I've never even thought about half of this stuff because it doesn't affect me. I'm not remotely seasoned enough in FFXIV to have anything to contribute, but it's been a good read, and definitely makes me think about the long term nature of the content I've played and enjoyed.
 

Frumix

Suffering From Success
FFXIV is not WoW. Stop trying to make every mmo like wow, thanks.

XIV is pretty much WoW with FF paintjob already. Been since 2013.
I mean literally, the devs were told to look at WoW and do it like that.
People are in denial or don't see the big picture if they think larger number of cutscenes makes it qualitatively different.
 

iammeiam

Member
He's not trying to make every mmo like WoW. He's pointing out examples about how one mmo (in this case, WoW, the one he has the most experience with) has gone about adding meaningful content that does more than just

a) refine existing systems
b) offer token "new" content that is expected with the release of an expansion

A and B put together probably represent the minimum of what a game that provides episodic content can get away with. If I am understanding him correctly, he would like to see FFXIV's development team take "bigger risks" or "dream bigger" in terms of new ways to play the game or engage the player.

This is true, and stems in part back to the runup to Heavensward. At one point, the dev team positioned ARR as them playing it safe to establish a solid groundwork for go forward over the lifecycle of the game, with the expansion taking more risks and possibly branching out to more in-depth character evolution, etc. That obviously didn't happen, and HW overall was fairly rough for the game. There was a huge population boom at expansion, but people didn't stay subscribed. That's 100% fine from the XIV-as-FF perspective of a single player game, but it's problematic from XIV-as-sustainable-MMO. That it's repeating with SB almost down to the meta things like how they release information.

At the end of the day, though, what shape new "content" takes is the purview of the development team. If they're happy with the type of content they're providing and simply want to continue to expand the game vertically, rather than horizontally, that's their call.

This is equally true; there have been some indicators in the outside-the-game things that SE on some level is concerned about the sustainability of the user base outside of expansions. That's a line on the MMO slide from the latest fiscal report saying they'll emphasize retention, and it's maybe noteworthy that the revenue from MMOs last year was slightly lower (like statistical noise lower, but still lower) than the last year they had without an expansion release. Not "XIV IS DYING WE ARE ALL DOOMED", just like "that's probably not what they want to see" noteworthy. Additionally, I point to the jump potions a lot because they've caused a ton of concern with some of the more hardcore FF fans who object to them existing; they're a direct grab for a part of the market that doesn't want the MSQ. And so it's in those terms--where XIV's growth doesn't really add much for that market--that I view the expansions.

Like, if they announced tomorrow they were dropping Savage entirely and just going full-on casual I'd be bummed but I'd get it. It'd just be a direct signal of "we're not going to be doing that anymore." But there are parts of the game I really like on the MMO side, and I think the ultimate best path forward is the dev team figuring out how to handle both sides because I think we'd all end up benefitting anyway.

I personally think your replies aren't giving enough credit to his opinions, which he has gone to great detail to explain, whether you agree with them or not.

Thanks for reading and considering; I basically type any post with 'WoW' in it peering through my fingers waiting for backlash because it tends to evoke a reaction but it's also the easiest touchstone to use because... everyone's heard of it.
 

Squishy3

Member
I mean HW also had the really bad issue of 5 months between 3.0 and 3.1 and nearly 8 months until the next wing of the raid released, and they already said they don't want to repeat that at least. That alone was a huge blow to player retention.

Optional 4 man hard content is probably a better way of training their newer encounter designers to start making "hard" stuff than them taking the long path of dungeons -> trials -> raids as well. (I think this is how they said they start training people for encounters, think it came out of that panel with the encounter designer at Fanfest?)
 

Frumix

Suffering From Success
There was a huge population boom at expansion, but people didn't stay subscribed. That's 100% fine from the XIV-as-FF perspective of a single player game, but it's problematic from XIV-as-sustainable-MMO.

XIV is a huge revolving door of people. You constantly see new players popping up in towns, who are probably going through the game, some of them maybe not making it to the cap, but despite constant sightings of new players the population isn't growing which can only mean that there's not really any sort of retainment at large.

When people say that this game exists for the story or that if you want them to do something about it you're basically a nazi who wants to take things away from poor Final Fantasy fans they're kind of being oblivious to the fact that this is still an online game with a subscription for which retainment of players remains an important goal.

So, obviously you can't hold people with storyline spurts that happen once a year or two, that much is fairly obvious, but what they do to alleviate this feels kinda schizophrenic.
 

duckroll

Member
XIV is a huge revolving door of people. You constantly see new players popping up in towns, who are probably going through the game, some of them maybe not making it to the cap, but despite constant sightings of new players the population isn't growing which can only mean that there's not really any sort of retainment at large.

When people say that this game exists for the story or that if you want them to do something about it you're basically a nazi who wants to take things away from poor Final Fantasy fans they're kind of being oblivious to the fact that this is still an online game with a subscription for which retainment of players remains an important goal.

So, obviously you can't hold people with storyline spurts that happen once a year or two, that much is fairly obvious, but what they do to alleviate this feels kinda schizophrenic.

I don't think this game exists just for the story, but I do feel that there's another factor that people aren't considering. Yes, it's a revolving door for a lot of people, but even so... is that entirely a bad thing? Obviously the ideal is to be able to retain subscribers and grow the population from expansion to expansion, sure. But with how competitive the space is and how much of a time investment MMOs are, that's a big ask. What if you also look at it from this perspective: If FFXIV did not offer the FF experience it does, how many of those people who buy in for the story would buy in at all? We're talking buying the game and expansions, maybe a 3 month or 6 month sub, and possible bringing a few friends with them for the ride. So after that maybe they leave until the next build up of content. Or maybe they never come back. But is that investment they made insignificant to contributing to FFXIV's success?
 
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