Just a check, interest levels dropping?Follow

This is true,
I've probably made 20mil gil without breaking a sweat, but it isn't any fun.
I have to force myself to do it because it is just glamour.

I was going mad crafting the 2.35-2.55 gear because people were excited for it. It was hard to craft at the time, but there was a real benefit to having a full set of platinum jewelry stacked with vit and str.

I guess it's just nice to have options you know?

In FFXIV there is literally 1 way to gear up, the right way and the wrong way.
Everything that is not BiS is wrong.

Glamour is cool, but... yea, maybe I just need a break from the game for awhile. I'm holding out hope that they add some nice gear in 3.1. Something with an ilevel of 200 that would really be worth crafting.

I can dream.

Don't say such things!

I LOVE normal/story mode. They should have had this in the game since Day 1 with coil. Thanks to NM, I've had battle content to participate in over the past couple of months other than simply expert roulette. My FC has also had lots of fun doing NM runs together. The battles are fun and just hard enough that inexperienced groups may not be able to get clears; they're also engaging even for people who's mastered them.

Thanks to NM, players like me don't need to stress about beating our heads against the wall in hard mode in order to experience storyline content.

I know this isn't what some people want to hear, but FFXIV is more of a casual game than a hardcore game, and storyline shouldn't be locked behind content that's ultimately only accessible by the small fraction of the playerbase that has the time to commit to hardcore statics. (Although it would be cool if hardcore players could get a little something extra for their wins in savage mode, such as special mounts, titles, weapon skins, etc.)

But normal/story mode is pure win in this game. With each new release of Alexander content, that's a whole new group of battlefields that all of the playerbase can participate in, rather than just an elite sliver. What's not to love about that?

Edited, Sep 3rd 2015 9:35am by Thayos

The problem is looking at it from a progression standpoint (which it still seems you get told you shouldn't care about progression in this game even though that's what every MMO is about) hurts the way they release content and it messes up the flow of gear because all variations of raids will retain a locked nature. Normal mode still has a weekly lockout despite the next tier of raid (Savage) being released and the Tome gear (Esoterics) being a higher ilvl. So when the alliance based content is released, you'll have Esoterics, Story mode Alexander and Savage Alexander, 3 content with weekly lockout and 1 that has no real reason to be here (the story was also kinda eh at best since the actual story is more related to Savage Alexander), despite still technically being "new". It would have been much easier to do what every other MMO (including XI now) does - Create one raid with multiple variations of it through a simple "Do you want to do Story Mode - Normal/Hard or "Exploration" mode?" type of entry selection.

In terms of XI it's similar to the Assault system back in ToAU era and currently the Regular/Ilvl difficulty variations (which also affects the rewards.) So if they continue this path, it's just going to hurt any future possibility of crafting gear fitting in...anywhere lol. So what's not to love? Well if they create high ilvl gear but give us absolutely no reason to use it...what's the point? Isn't that honestly a waste of resources that could be better spent somewhere else? For example you can't progress Alexander Savage 3 and 4 without Alexander Savage 1/2/Esoterics gear..so the actual end-game raid of the game requires gear you get from said end-game raid..rather than using the gear you've gain to progress through it and obtaining that gear to ready yourself for the next raid...only to be overpowered when new content comes out because initially it'll be content tuned for "ease of access" then those who want a challenge, has to wait an additional 2 weeks - 1 1/2 patches to actually get it.



My only issue with this is, none of the content was locked behind incassible content..people simply chose not to do or couldn't do it because of their personal skill level or because they couldn't play for awhile. For example nothing stops you from loading up Party Finder (and later Duty Finder) and doing said content in terms of game design - However the limiting factor is the fact they couldn't succeed in the content themselves, not because the game prevented it :p If we truly do have 820k+ active people and according to SE's data, an incredibly tiny fraction of people even bothered with Alexander Story mode and dropped quite a bit from floor 1-4. Savage is even smaller because there's still quite a lot who didn't even want to bother with it because it's the same raid with more mechanics. So in all actuality, they did both for a small portion of their playerbase as by time the people who somehow aren't even 60 yet hit 60..there's no purpose for them to do Alexander Story as (if Alexander continues) the next set will be locked off from them if they care for gearing at all because as with any update we seen since 2.0, if they introduce something to push us past x content freely, it'll become quite a pain to go through older content.

I think my only personal opinion on 'story mode/savage' type setup is it's designed purely because, as even yoshi says, they didn't want to 'git gud', which has become another meme because even the director/producer said it even if jokingly. This is why I've said before, if this game is purely built towards making us play casually, they need to stop creating any kind of end-game content and focus purely on early and mid game content, which according to census data is where their targeted playerbase reside. So it does add content..but looking in the long term...it hurts more than helps, especially when it comes to crafting because in XI, crafted pieces can placehold, surpass or be relevant - in XIV, it's worthless out the gate because there's dungeon variations (Aetherial/Green) that is superior and will last you longer, thus invalidating needing to even buy it because "gear checks" doesn't come into play until at best, DD/AV and by then you're almost done with your initial leveling. I'm all for variation because every other MMO does it, but the itemization in XIV doesn't really support it because I don't mind doing tough content for story...

But the thing is...even though Alexander's story is similar to both..Savage is the actual story, but they added it to a prior raid..so when you load up savage..you're only doing it for the items and challenge even if you like story, because the story was already given to us 2+ weeks prior in an easier version...some people, like me...like getting gear, challenge and story all in one, which is why I still find Coil probably the best raid they'll...no doubt ever introduce. So if Savage actually went more in depth, it'd be great but that won't ever happen since they can barely get both raid variations out on time.

I would be ecstatic if that actually ever materializes.

Platinum was a mistake?
Oh man, I really only liked this game when it was "broken"
lmao

I was trying to fight it for so long, but you guys are right and I am convinced this game just isn't for me. It is a travesty in my opinion that they created a crafting system that for me at least, is equal to or even more fun that the battle system - and they 100% refuse to do anything with it.

I also agree completely that there is zero skill involved in this game, it is a matter of memorizing the pattern of attacks and performing them in sync with 7 other people. I admit that can be a very fun experience to do, but on a personal skill level there is nothing. at no point do you ever have any individual control in this game, you either did it right (they way they designed it to win) or you did it wrong.

That really bothers me about this game when even mediocre games nowadays give you much more room to express yourself and craft a unique play style. I'll never understand why the developers of this game want everyone wearing the exact same gear, doing the exact same rotations. I just don't see how that could ever be fun. This was my first mmo ever and I only stayed because of how much fun I was having in crafting lol. I know that's crazy, but there wasn't a lot of good games to play last may.

Now, there are tons.
So, I'll check in once in a while but they've really pushed players like me to the sidelines. It's like they are forcing us to play casually. I've already gone off auto resub and will just sub 1 month at a time to get my fix after major patches rather than stay subbed like I have up till this point. I'm legitimately mad at these guys, I feel like they are ruining what could be an epic game.

Edited, Sep 3rd 2015 9:26pm by nielsa

There is no way any game developer can develop a game that will cater all play style. At least Yoshida is clear in how he wanted to take the game. There is no way he can please everyone (trying to please everyone, pleases no one).

What I meant is that there will always be people want to play the game their way and then be unpleased the developers unable to fully cater their choices (it does not even matter if devs are being clear or unclear about it). Sorry for being unclear what I meant. Really folks should really care less in overall interest levels; just play for fun if you find it fun. It is easy to rejoin the game and to unsubscribe from the game. People come and go, and it does not bother me much.

Edited, Sep 4th 2015 8:41am by scchan

Beating A4S rewards a flying magitek gobwalker mount, so they got that part right.

I'm dropping extra retainers this month and buying a 1month block to see do I want to still play. I tried forcing myself to do the main quest but being a solo player with level 50's felt weird doing a few dungeons, level 60 1st time going in to them will feel worse. "dern fates make anything easy to level" I'm starting to think I played to max crafting and to hoard gil... at least it was a fun game.

It doesn't really seem conducive to making crafting any more viable either. I think the central problem with crafting(excluding the fact that it's attached to a now vertical progression system) is that there isn't much specialization. That's not to say that people can't and don't enjoy crafting. Just that you're limited in the reasons you enjoy it simply because of how it's implemented.

There were quite a few unique experiences and opportunities that specialization affords crafters who dedicate the time and resources. Not only do you have the personal achievement of being able to create gear for yourself, but you can help friends and even make new friends by networking. If you wanted to be successful you really had to reach out to other people for buying, creating and selling gear and materials. What XI had going for it seemed much closer to a real marketplace(with a few exceptions) than what you find in the 'jack of all trades' crafting system.

"Specialization" in crafting was added at level 56. Sort of. You get three specialist crafting Soul Gems and that's it - so far you can't change them. Specialists get additional crafting abilities and should eventually have access to unique recipes.

How do they work and how do you get them?

I have not been playing much at all anymore.

Yea I agree with Thayos there for sure..

Valk that sounds cool..



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I dont know on the topic I just have lost interest in the game..

I still get on and have talked to a few people from my original FC ZAM and they say they didn't care for the expansion either. Same as Tes and I story was good but added nothing new too the game. Most of my friends list is dead. Game still feels pretty busy when I am on and I dont know if it is just newer people or what.

I will say another reason is I keep getting the same DF trials and stuff and we never finish.. If we fail 1/2 the people leave right away again. When did people get so bad at the trials and dungeons.. For example I always get The Chrysalis or The Dragon's Neck. This is all old stuff that was passed no problem.

Oh the other is The Aery and I get this every time.. What is so hard about the last boss, IT is easy.. The last time I got on it took us a hour to beat the last boss and only after one dps left.

The group refused to get anyone out of Sable Price. They could not dps the adds/spawns fast enough to get the shield.. I would help dps as whm the adds but the tank would always pull them on top of the guy you are supposed to keep alive. OMG
But every time I get this dungeon and people struggle. It is not hard. So basically I get on for tomes just to get very few.

I think it is time to join a FC again..

Edited, Sep 14th 2015 9:51am by Nashred

Because of that, a lot of people are holding off picking their specializations until we learn what recipes we could possibly do with them. I set my GSM as one specialization because I wanted to try it out, but I'm saving the other two for now.

At one point the FC had discussed trying to make sure we had all the specializations covered between the crafters, but once we learned there were no recipes yet, we haven't talked about it again since.