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"Human or not" a letter to Yoshi-P & SEFollow

#127 Dec 09 2016 at 4:40 PM Rating: Good
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My frequent distinction in what these games "are" is that they're combat systems. Doesn't matter if you're fighting a trash mob alone or a bunch of people trying to down a boss in a raid. The idea is to use your skills to take the target's HP to zero and then reap the rewards of that kill.

The beauty of all this, however, is that there are myriad ways to influence our combat potential that may wind up actually being more fun than the combat itself for some, as well as what to do with rewards. I think we can at least admit XIV tried to be more ambitious about its crafting game with the class devotions, but in the end, it still succumbed to the raider mentality of gear ceilings. Nonetheless, crafting is still a process requiring material acquisition. You could trade, be it manually or via AH. You could gather, be it via nodes or mob kills. There's not exactly a right way to be a crafter, only what winds up more efficient as people discover the best sources for materials, rarity, and eventual demand of end products.

When partaking of those various aspects, feature creep can easily take root. Already making gear? Why not furniture for housing systems? Or parts for airships? Digging around or killing mobs and find treasure maps? Such things may not seem immediately relevant to the core combat system, but what they do provide is variety and distraction to the point where they could be built into stronger co-objectives if they were given more perceived importance with the shackles of ceilings removed.

So, while I certainly have high aspirations for providing greater individuality to players within these games, all of this is really before you get into the nitty gritty of actual combat mechanics, skill balancing, who gets access to what, how you learn things, and so on. If one doesn't have interest in all of those things, that's absolutely fine. The people who enjoy farming can do it for the crafters who don't like to, creating that supply and demand backbone that becomes the synergy of a world that tries to live and breathe.

To run with my own analogy, MMOs are basically at the phase of life as portrayed in Westworld. The Hosts are simply coded to never win regardless of how stupid a guest behaves. When you carry that premise to the futility of the MMO open world these days, then you just see a bunch of areas that never really change, that players have no real need to defend locations/people/resources, where foes aren't intelligently aggressive, and so on. Not every single location needs to be a war zone, mind you, but the correct attempts to provide variety and randomization would further synergize with that living nature I noted above.

Put bluntly, we need a world that lets us write and tell the stories. Call it a fusion of sandbox and theme park, whatever, but this hard-line rigidity needs to stop. Otherwise, we're going to hit a point where if you just up and removed the world, crafting, and all that in place of dungeon/raid lobbies, you'd seriously have people who wouldn't know the difference. And we're supposed to just bend over, smile, and accept that fate? Nah. If there's one other constant I apply to these games, it's not that they're just primarily combat engines, but also that they can and should evolve. We don't aspire for hand-outs. We don't aspire for carries. We simply aspire for things to do that actually make sense for the worlds we're already in. Basebowl this is not.
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#128 Dec 09 2016 at 5:04 PM Rating: Excellent
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Put bluntly, we need a world that lets us write and tell the stories. Call it a fusion of sandbox and theme park, whatever, but this hard-line rigidity needs to stop. Otherwise, we're going to hit a point where if you just up and removed the world, crafting, and all that in place of dungeon/raid lobbies, you'd seriously have people who wouldn't know the difference. And we're supposed to just bend over, smile, and accept that fate? Nah. If there's one other constant I apply to these games, it's not that they're just primarily combat engines, but also that they can and should evolve. We don't aspire for hand-outs. We don't aspire for carries. We simply aspire for things to do that actually make sense for the worlds we're already in. Basebowl this is not.


Completely agree. And even in FFXIV, there are many players who find lots of enjoyment in the game without savage-tier raiding -- most players, actually. They just don't play at a hardcore pace, instead opting to take breaks or just play here and there.

Want evidence the game can be played in a multiplayer style without any connection to raiding? Hello, all of Balmung! Or, for a smaller and more normal example, how about all the players who simply enjoy leveling the various jobs and keeping all their crafting classes up to date? I know several people who've played since ARR (at least) who are perfectly content logging in, doing their roulettes and sometimes helping newer FC members with old content. Meanwhile, they're chatting away either in FC chat or on Discord. Yep, that's a perfectly valid way to play AND enjoy an MMO... no raiding needed.

And that's because raiding is just one corner of the theme park. It anchors the game's high-point progression, yes, but it's still just one of many rides that people enjoy.

It's no different than FFXI. My linkshell in XI was prolific in its membership and participation rate, and we almost NEVER touched endgame. We feasted on ENMs, BCNMs, the random lesser-camped NMs, etc. We just hung out, adventured and had fun. What better way is there to play an MMO?

FFXIV has problems, as do all games, And finally, the devs seem to be on the right track toward addressing those issues. And yes, that means (gasp) catering more toward non-raiders while also giving hardcore raiders some fresh meat. It's silly that some people are so resistant to these improvements.
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#129 Dec 09 2016 at 5:20 PM Rating: Good
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Eh, it really is just some nobles shocked that the peasants dare rebel.

Anyway, my XI play style eventually a hit a point where I just kind of decided to max everything I could. That meant leveling the jobs to 99, capping their skills, collecting all spells, putting decent gear sets together, and so on. While I'll posit me picking Alchemy back in the day was a mistake, I still capped it and the subs, too. Past LS dirty laundry I've aired here from time to time aside, I did the harder stuff as I was able. And really, ability was more about who else was on, since it's not like my job spread was a detriment.

Of course, things have changed since then even in XI. People want high JP characters, which makes my past cross-classing efforts somewhat moot since there's simply no way I could get everything up in a timely manner, nevermind going insane at the grind (without CP bonuses). I did what I could soloing sparks and such to upgrade gear, but again, one hits a wall where doing the Reisenjima NMs simply needs the bodies, and since the loot's exclusive, it won't be openly traded. Maaaaaaybe one could find a mercenary group on Asura, but you can bet the prices would be stupid precisely because people see more advantage in fleecing their peers than simply helping them at random. Or, you know, ***** about having nothing to do. Strange how socialization has a terminus, that.
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#130 Dec 09 2016 at 8:56 PM Rating: Decent
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Montsegurnephcreep wrote:
This place never gets old. Comparing success in real life to that in a video game...wow...

It was actually a simple analogy. Similar != Same.

Generally when you apply to a job, aside from obvious personal info, they want to see experience and education. The reason thy ask for this is so that they know they're not getting someone who they have to use resources(time and money) to teach you how to do whatever it is you're applying for.

Raiding is similar because you're asked to provide achievements and show that you're equipped enough so they know they're not getting someone who they have to use resources(time and money) to teach you how to do whatever role you're applying for.

Nobody mounts a ******* picture of their achievement tab next to their degree on the wall, but they share relative credibility. That's the extent.

Lyrailis wrote:
Who said anything about a carry?

First of all, carry is not a bad word. It's just a term for being the inexperienced player in a raid with experienced players.Experienced players are more likely to know where to be, what to expect and what to do.

A 'farm' is a raid of experienced players who have already spent their time learning the encounters in the raid. The goal is to 'progress' so that after you've learned an encounter you make less mistakes, you increase your player power through acquiring more gear and eventually move on to the next level of difficulty.

As an inexperienced player you are not necessarily dead weight, but you're definitely not helping the cause of clearing content quickly. If other players have to pull your weight for you then you're getting carried. This leans heavy to the experience side and not so much item level anymore.

Also, to one of your edits, the reason I used 'Heroic' difficulty raids was twofold.

WoW has 4 difficulty settings as opposed to XIV's 2. When WoW had two difficulties they were called 'Normal' and 'Hard'. They later added two easier difficulties and renamed them all. 'Heroic' and 'Mythic' are the new 'Normal' and 'Hard' modes.

The first reason I used heroics is because they best represent what you have in XIV with normal and savage.

The second reason I used it is because LFR is a joke at best and the new 'Normal'(read: Easy) is essentially a buffer for players looking to get into raiding. People new to MMOs will generally benefit from easymode, but to anyone with any experience it just bridges the gap for you to get into heroics.

Edited, Dec 9th 2016 9:58pm by FilthMcNasty
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#131 Dec 09 2016 at 9:56 PM Rating: Good
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The second reason I used it is because LFR is a joke at best and the new 'Normal'(read: Easy) is essentially a buffer for players looking to get into raiding. People new to MMOs will generally benefit from easymode, but to anyone with any experience it just bridges the gap for you to get into heroics.


But yet, leaving LFR out is skewing your numbers, and badly for the reasons I already said:

The people who "just wanna see the sights", like the cutscenes, lore, dialogue, etc are only going to do LFR once and then stop. These are, of course, not actual "raiders" who do Normal, Heroic, or Mythic. They don't care about gear progression.

If you look at this....

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/3984-Armory-Stats-Siege-of-Orgrimmar-Progression-Blue-Tweets-DLC-439

You'll find that only 40% of the playerbase ever defeated the FIRST BOSS of Normal SoO at the time (May '14).

Oh wait, that's FLEX Immersius. NORMAL Immersius boasts a whopping 26%.

26% of all active subs at the time of that writing had cleared Normal Immersius. 26%.

And look at Normal Garrosh on that chart. A whopping 13% of the sample playerbase defeated N-Garrosh. 13. Percent.

Edited, Dec 9th 2016 11:00pm by Lyrailis
#132 Dec 10 2016 at 12:23 AM Rating: Decent
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Lyrailis wrote:
But yet, leaving LFR out is skewing your numbers

All you need to enter LFR is an item level set by Blizzard, not another player. I've never seen anyone kicked from LFR because literally the only thing you can do to **** it up is run through the entire raid trying to pull everything. Also, no party you should ever want to be in is going to require you to link an LFR achievement.

Nobody farms LFR. Nobody will decline you any invite without first linking an achievement. Not relevant. There are 4 levels of difficulty. The last two were the only two when raids started and still considered 'normal' and 'hard' by the community. LFR was a chore you did because you got gold or gear you might be able to dust for money. It rewarded other currency through it's iterations, but it's never been a bebchmark for anything.

You want more solo content in your MMO right? It wasn't in SoO, but Blizzard did implement variable difficulty solo content that was rough equivalent of the execution you would need in a raid setting to complete. It was called 'Proving Grounds'. You found the armory stats on your own and I commend you.

Hmmm... proving grounds you say? I wonder if there might be any armory stats for that content. I do recall an achievement...




Edited, Dec 10th 2016 1:36am by FilthMcNasty
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30 bucks is almost free

cocodojo wrote:
Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#133 Dec 10 2016 at 12:20 PM Rating: Good
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FilthMcNasty wrote:
Lyrailis wrote:
But yet, leaving LFR out is skewing your numbers

All you need to enter LFR is an item level set by Blizzard, not another player. I've never seen anyone kicked from LFR because literally the only thing you can do to **** it up is run through the entire raid trying to pull everything. Also, no party you should ever want to be in is going to require you to link an LFR achievement.


This is irrelevant to the discussion, to be honest.

The discussion was "What's the REAL percentage of players who are interested in raids but can't do raids because of being unable to get in"?

And you threw up a 13% or something rather number, and I said that this number is false, because it is assuming that everybody with a max-level character wants to do non-LFR raiding which simply is not true.

*shrugs*

Quote:
Nobody farms LFR. Nobody will decline you any invite without first linking an achievement. Not relevant. There are 4 levels of difficulty. The last two were the only two when raids started and still considered 'normal' and 'hard' by the community. LFR was a chore you did because you got gold or gear you might be able to dust for money. It rewarded other currency through it's iterations, but it's never been a bebchmark for anything.


Relevance? I never said anybody farmed LFR.

Quote:
You want more solo content in your MMO right? It wasn't in SoO, but Blizzard did implement variable difficulty solo content that was rough equivalent of the execution you would need in a raid setting to complete. It was called 'Proving Grounds'. You found the armory stats on your own and I commend you.


Proving Grounds were not very well-made, to be quite honest. They threw unrealistic situations on you, sometimes said situations were not even very well handled by your specific class (I remember roflstomping DPS PG with my Paladin, but another of my characters... Shaman IIRC? could not do it whatsoever with roughly same item level), and they had rather high item-level requirements to even successfully complete it.

I remember trying the tank one, and back in the day I was a rather half decent tank, and I was able to do the bronze PG, but when I tried the Silver, I found my character was taking way too much damage. I was holding hate on the mobs just fine, but the NPC healer they give you just doesn't heal worth jack. Any normal healer healing like that would have been kicked after a couple pulls.

After doing some reading, apparently they expected you to be wearing full heroic dungeon gear to do PG, which is kinda stupid because a lot of groups at the time expected you to have Silver PG, IIRC. So it's like "uh, what's the point in this?"

PG wasn't a skill check, it was a gear check. Which kinda defeats the purpose of PG in the first place.

Quote:
Hmmm... proving grounds you say? I wonder if there might be any armory stats for that content. I do recall an achievement...


I know there's an achievement, depends on whether or not anybody compiled that. *shrugs* But I don't get the relevancy of this, either?

Edited, Dec 10th 2016 1:23pm by Lyrailis
#134 Dec 11 2016 at 9:53 PM Rating: Decent
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Lyrailis wrote:
The discussion was "What's the REAL percentage of players who are interested in raids but can't do raids because of being unable to get in"?

No, the discussion started when I told you that you were doing it wrong. I said that because you were doing things like looking at wiki for answers instead of reaching out to other players. You can't plant yourself in town waiting on someone to shout for content you need. That's why you consider me lucky. You don't grasp the concept of making your own way instead of waiting for someone else to lead.

Lyrailis wrote:
And you threw up a 13% or something rather number, and I said that this number is false, because it is assuming that everybody with a max-level character wants to do non-LFR raiding which simply is not true.

You're still missing the point. The population of WoW during SoO doesn't really matter. The number of players 'interested' in raiding during SoO doesn't matter. I cleared nearly all relevant content in FFXI. I had access to a sliver of what players in MoP had available.

There were more than 7 million active accounts during the MoP expansion. Even if only 10% were interested in raiding, that number is still higher than the ENTIRE population of FFXI at it's peak. I just don't feel bad for you if you can't put a group together in WoW because I was doing it with a sliver of the pool of players you could have drawn from in WoW.

Lyrailis wrote:
Relevance? I never said anybody farmed LFR.

LFR has no value other than for players who don't want to raid at all not to be excluded from seeing the story. Nobody learns anything from LFR. You don't need to run LFR for gear to attempt flex/normal. Nobody cares if you have an LFR achievement.

Lyrailis wrote:
Proving Grounds were not very well-made, to be quite honest.

Yet, they were made perfectly for players like you. You just didn't realize it.

PG wasn't something that was going to provide hours of entertainment for you, but it was a secondary and completely solo gateway to raiding. While there is no substitute for experience, the Gold PG achievement was at least proof that you carried your own weight. Most players running farm groups had no issues with you coming to an 'experienced' raid with no experience as long as they knew they weren't carrying dead weight.

The burden of proving that falls squarely on you. Do you want to make a group of inexperienced players and learn with others or do you want to clear Gold PG and prove it by yourself? This option makes it much easier to do in WoW, but we were still making it happen without all those tools in XI.
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Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#135 Dec 11 2016 at 10:07 PM Rating: Good
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You're still missing the point. The population of WoW during SoO doesn't really matter. The number of players 'interested' in raiding during SoO doesn't matter. I cleared nearly all relevant content in FFXI. I had access to a sliver of what players in MoP had available.

There were more than 7 million active accounts during the MoP expansion. Even if only 10% were interested in raiding, that number is still higher than the ENTIRE population of FFXI at it's peak. I just don't feel bad for you if you can't put a group together in WoW because I was doing it with a sliver of the pool of players you could have drawn from in WoW.


I'm beginning to suspect you have a hard time ever seeing something from someone else's perspective.

I've explained to you before that building, leading, and managing groups of people is a talent. You have it. Congrats. But please try to understand that not everyone has that talent.
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#136 Dec 11 2016 at 10:09 PM Rating: Good
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Wanna know what was an awesome system that Blizz scrapped instead of actually improving upon?

What were those called again, Scenarios? They had lots of extra lore, gave you a modest chance at gear that was almost as good as LFR gear, and plenty good enough for a soloer or anybody needing a leg-up when 5 man heroics refuse to drop something good, and was a nice fun little thing to do for 10-15 minutes.

If they had just tweaked them a little bit more, that would have been awesome. But they chose to just dump them instead.

Scenarios were WoW's version of XIV's Palace of the Dead. 3-man content of any role/class combination, didn't matter what class you brought, 3 people could reliably do the content, but if all 3 people were only "meh" geared, an idiot brought the whole group down so there was at least some effort in trying to stay alive.

A little more refinement, and that would have been awesome. And it encourages DPS classes to use survivability abilities and tactics (because sometimes you get 3 DPS setups), something they rarely if ever have to do in 5 or 24 man content.

As for the Gold PG, again, like I said it was poorly designed. An awesome idea, I agree, but very poorly executed. It was unbalanced, and it showed glaring flaws in class balance, where 1 DPS class could roflstomp it with ease and another DPS class can't even clear it without being over-geared. Gold PG didn't really actually "mean" anything, because of these huge flaws. Seeing a Paladin with the Gold PG achievement, it's like "Yeah, you're the FOTM. You can roflstomp that. Am I supposed to be impressed?"

But then, Blizzard never was famous for actually having class balance and they ARE rather famous for knee-jerk reactions to an issue, using a sledgehammer when a jewelry mallet would have done the trick.

Edited, Dec 11th 2016 11:11pm by Lyrailis
#137 Dec 12 2016 at 12:23 AM Rating: Decent
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Scenarios were boring and got bad feedback, that's why they were scrapped

PotD sucks too but SE thinks it's good content I guess
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#138 Dec 12 2016 at 1:29 AM Rating: Good
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Callinon wrote:
Quote:
You're still missing the point. The population of WoW during SoO doesn't really matter. The number of players 'interested' in raiding during SoO doesn't matter. I cleared nearly all relevant content in FFXI. I had access to a sliver of what players in MoP had available.

There were more than 7 million active accounts during the MoP expansion. Even if only 10% were interested in raiding, that number is still higher than the ENTIRE population of FFXI at it's peak. I just don't feel bad for you if you can't put a group together in WoW because I was doing it with a sliver of the pool of players you could have drawn from in WoW.


I'm beginning to suspect you have a hard time ever seeing something from someone else's perspective.

I've explained to you before that building, leading, and managing groups of people is a talent. You have it. Congrats. But please try to understand that not everyone has that talent.


The entire population of Earth could also be playing WoW, but as long as servers/clusters are a thing, the total population doesn't matter beyond what you can personally access. And the same applied to XI, only literally restricted to one server unless you were willing to pay to hop after some outside collaboration. Yet, even when limited to one player pool, factors like your job choice, the time of day you play, spoken language, gear level, and who else is looking to do whatever content is important.

The whole "You're not trying hard enough!" or "You're doing it wrong!" argument is bullsquat. One cannot simply impart that multiplayer is better and that's how everything should be without acknowledging such a path yields flaws outside the singular player's control. Doing nothing about those flaws yields the potential of people paying, yet being unable to play. I'll even be so bold to assert that XI not understanding this premise back in the day played a big part in why the WoW model became the more popular model over XI's or EQ's earlier still.

The whole concept of raiding sounds cool on paper, I'm not going to deny that. Yet, the logistics and expectations of players has grossly perverted that vision once actual game mechanics get thrown in. It simply isn't about a bunch of people coming together to down seemingly impossible challenges anymore. It's schedules. It's who deserves what more. It's playing one way or not being welcome. Everyone wants a master, but never the apprentice. It encourages smaller, insular communities instead of truly taking advantage of the collective population available. Should one have issue with any, or even all of that, they're in for a rough time. Yet, I'll continue to assert things don't need to be that way.
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#139 Dec 12 2016 at 4:39 AM Rating: Decent
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Lyrailis wrote:
Wanna know what was an awesome system that Blizz scrapped instead of actually improving upon?

What were those called again, Scenarios?

What are you talking about? Scenarios are in almost every kind of content in the game now. The intro to Legion, the main story, your class-specific storyline, your legendary weapon, leveling quests and world quests... yeah, everything. Even some of the quests you complete now for crafting are done through scenarios.

The only thing that's changed is the ability to queue for them, but it was replaced by the ability to trigger them yourself. You auto-join an instance when you enter an area or you trigger it by interacting with an item or NPC.

There is only so difficult that you can make content expected to be completed in any reasonable amount of time with a group of random people. We play RPGs. We already know that stigma of bad RNG. The only way to avoid taking a bite out of a bad apple is to hand select it. It doesn't require talent. Just willpower, patience and the ability to communicate and play well with others.

Seriha wrote:
It simply isn't about a bunch of people coming together to down seemingly impossible challenges anymore. It's schedules. It's who deserves what more. It's playing one way or not being welcome.

You can make a group for content whenever you want, assuming you have the requirements done. If you don't have time to raid then you simply don't raid. Period.

As for drops, personal loot is standard in a PUG so what you get is what you get. If someone gets something they don't need that is an upgrade for you, they can trade it if they want to. Loot is not an excuse anymore.

The nature of multiplayer games is that they're designed for groups. It's not necessarily doing it wrong as much as it is going about it the wrong way. Play how you want, but realize that the fundamental philosophy of 'multiplayer' doesn't fit your preferred style of play. If you are not prone to making groups or making friends who can make groups, you're at a severe disadvantage. Your choice.



Edited, Dec 12th 2016 6:47am by FilthMcNasty
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Rinsui wrote:
Only hips + boobs all day and hips + boobs all over my icecream

HaibaneRenmei wrote:
30 bucks is almost free

cocodojo wrote:
Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#140 Dec 12 2016 at 11:11 AM Rating: Decent
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FilthMcNasty wrote:
What are you talking about? Scenarios are in almost every kind of content in the game now. The intro to Legion, the main story, your class-specific storyline, your legendary weapon, leveling quests and world quests... yeah, everything. Even some of the quests you complete now for crafting are done through scenarios.

The only thing that's changed is the ability to queue for them, but it was replaced by the ability to trigger them yourself. You auto-join an instance when you enter an area or you trigger it by interacting with an item or NPC.


(Reading Comprehension) (Can I Have It?)

Seriously, how many times in this thread have I said that I have not played WoW since Mid-Warlords?

I obviously would be unaware if such a thing was added during Legion.

Quote:
There is only so difficult that you can make content expected to be completed in any reasonable amount of time with a group of random people. We play RPGs. We already know that stigma of bad RNG. The only way to avoid taking a bite out of a bad apple is to hand select it. It doesn't require talent. Just willpower, patience and the ability to communicate and play well with others.


How hard do you think content has to be, to be rewarding to players?

Take an average Normal Raid. Assuming you have 24 players that are halfway decent players, you can get rather nice armor. The bosses are usually (unless you're fighting something stupid like Garrosh) not all that difficult, especially in the first few bosses.

Once you get the group all together, the fight really isn't THAT hard, as long as you don't have too many idiots that don't know what they're doing.

Why is it OK to hand out awesome gear to that group, but NOT OK to hand out decent but not quite as awesome gear to a smaller group that puts in about as much work? I really don't understand why everything has to be balls-to-the-wall hard just to get any kind of rewards.

When we DO see something like Scenarios, the developers are too afraid to attach anything that would be considered "decent rewards" to it (which is probably one of the main reasons why people didn't like it -- not rewarding enough). I mean, sure, don't make the I-Level as high as the Raid Content, obviously... but couldn't it be at least a little rewarding? If the current Normal Raid is 300, why not have a Scenario-type thing that'll fill your slots at 275? 280?

Quote:
You can make a group for content whenever you want, assuming you have the requirements done. If you don't have time to raid then you simply don't raid. Period.


If you can't raid, then there's little-to-no progression past Max Level, Period. Unless of course you want to do the horrendous grinds, such as the relic weapons (I remember the Atma FATE grinds that everybody talked about before I took a break from XIV, for example).

And if there is, you can expect to spend something ridiculous like 300+ hours to get a single weapon with some of the most horrendous grinds (sometimes filled with bad RNG) ever devised, just because "IT CAN BE DONE SOLO!" Somehow "Solo" = "Must be Grindy".

Quote:
The nature of multiplayer games is that they're designed for groups. It's not necessarily doing it wrong as much as it is going about it the wrong way. Play how you want, but realize that the fundamental philosophy of 'multiplayer' doesn't fit your preferred style of play. If you are not prone to making groups or making friends who can make groups, you're at a severe disadvantage. Your choice.


Not everybody can be a chief.

There's got to be some indians around, right? Not everybody can be an awesome leader, and sadly a lot of people are very self-centered in MMOs. If there's nothing in it for them, then they simply don't have time for your under-geared and under-experienced b*tt (seriously, ZAM?) and it's difficult to find people willing to help you get up to "their level".

Which brings us all the way back to the original point -- when you reach max level in an MMO during the middle of an endgame tier, you are instantly at a disadvantage because most of the people already there already know the content, and don't have time for you, the newbie.

No amount of "make your own group" is going to fix it; as soon as you get a few members and they realize you really don't know much about the content, they're just going to leave and jump into someone else's group instead.

Edited, Dec 12th 2016 12:14pm by Lyrailis

Edited, Dec 12th 2016 12:15pm by Lyrailis
#141 Dec 12 2016 at 11:20 AM Rating: Decent
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I do not get it? If you want solo play then why not play RPG, these are MMO'S and are meant to be played with someone else.


If you had issues getting something done in FFXI it is on you, I never had a issue. I has several LS and lots of friends in the game. If you are the kind of person that helps other out and is reasonably geared you should have had no issues. Also cannot expect people to drop what their doing, it did take some planning.

FFXIV feels hollow because you really do not need anyone else and the game hands you everything. FFXIV was supposed to be for the person who had less time but it does not feel that way.

There is no imagination in combat in FFXIV. You feel like a robot going through the motions when doing dungeons or raids doing the same thing over and over.

To earlier comments The environment in FFXIV everything is tied to a string and their is no danger except maybe the occasional hunt mob.


The one thing FFXIV does right is the missions and story. FFXI non could be done without Wiki.



Edited, Dec 12th 2016 12:38pm by Nashred
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#142 Dec 12 2016 at 11:32 AM Rating: Decent
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Nashred wrote:
I do not get it? If you want solo play then why not play RPG, these are MMO'S and are meant to be played with someone else.


There's a difference between wanting to play a single-player game, and not requiring a group to get ANYTHING done.

Back in the old days of FFXI, about the only thing you could do solo was go to the bathroom. If you could even do THAT solo.

See, there's two extremes: Can do Everything Solo, or Can't do ANYTHING Solo.

I like a happy medium, and I feel that current FFXI meets that happy medium rather nicely. There's plenty of solo content that I can keep myself busy, but yet there's enough group content that encourages me to try and seek quickie groups for a WKR or Ambuscade or something.

FFXIV is... well, it isn't too bad until you get up to endgame, then it's kinda a brick wall, because once you get up to the raids done, you're out of stuff to do (this has been covered to death in this thread already).

Quote:
FFXIV feels hollow because you really do not need anyone else and the game hands you everything. FFXIV was supposed to be for the person who had less time but it does not feel that way.


Except for raid stuff, then you kinda need other people. *shrugs*

Quote:
There is no imagination in combat in FFXIV. You feel like a robot going through the motions when doing dungeons or raids doing the same thing over and over.


They needed more variety in rotations. I don't know how Level 50+ Paladins go, but up until Level 50... you do the same 3 attacks over and over again until what you're fighting dies. Fast Blade -> Savage Blade -> Rage of Halone. Rinse, repeat. Of course it's going to feel stale. Or how about Black Mage? Fire, Fire, Fire, Fire, Fire, Blizzard Blizzard Blizzard, Fire Fire Fire.... with the occasional Thunder and element swap thrown in. Again, this might have changed after 50, haven't gone that high yet.

But yes, with 2-3 button rotations, yes, it's going to feel VERY stale and robotic. They needed more variety. We replaced Auto-Attack in FFXI with Robotic Rotations in FFXIV. Buttons for the sake of buttons.

Quote:
To earlier comments The environment in FFXIV everything is tied to a string and their is no danger except maybe the occasional hunt mob.


Does there have to be danger everywhere for something to be fun? I play Cities:Skylines. I think it is a fun game. But there's no danger of anybody getting killed, or your city ceasing to exist if you make a mistake.

I found the leveling path in FFXIV to be fun, although the boring GLA/PLD rotation kinda soured it a little, but it was still reasonably fun. But yet there was almost no danger whatsoever as you said. Doesn't mean it wasn't reasonably fun, though.

I have 1,000 hours on Terraria.... but yet I almost never die. Do I have fun? If I didn't, would I have put 1000+ hours into it?
#143 Dec 12 2016 at 11:43 AM Rating: Good
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Rotations are just stupid. Everyone uses the same rotations most of the time and you just look them up or watch a video. Rotations destroy skill because they require none. You should have to react to what is going on and what you do should change the coarse of a battle. Nothing builds up resistance so you can not do the same thing over and over, There is no elemental weakness, nothing that makes anyone use a brain.
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#144 Dec 12 2016 at 12:03 PM Rating: Good
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Quote:
Back in the old days of FFXI, about the only thing you could do solo was go to the bathroom. If you could even do THAT solo.


You needed sneak and invis.

Quote:
They needed more variety in rotations. I don't know how Level 50+ Paladins go, but up until Level 50... you do the same 3 attacks over and over again until what you're fighting dies


Fixed after 50 with a couple more combo branches to manage.

Quote:
But yes, with 2-3 button rotations, yes, it's going to feel VERY stale and robotic. They needed more variety.


While I agree they need more variety in rotations, let's not strawman. None of the rotations in FFXIV are 2-3 button at high levels, not if you're doing them even remotely properly.

Quote:
See, there's two extremes: Can do Everything Solo, or Can't do ANYTHING Solo.


I think this is the hangup here. Those of us asking for meaningful solo content recognize that we're playing a multiplayer game. That's ok. I WANT to play with other people. I just don't want to do it 100% of the time. Why shouldn't I be allowed to progress my character just because I don't want to put up with other people RIGHT NOW?
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#145 Dec 12 2016 at 4:34 PM Rating: Good
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While I agree they need more variety in rotations, let's not strawman. None of the rotations in FFXIV are 2-3 button at high levels, not if you're doing them even remotely properly.


What about Black Mage?

I did that to 40 and it was Fire, Blizzard, Thunder.... oh, wait, okay, the Element Swap that I don't remember the name of.

4 buttons. lol. And Thunder was that "use every so often when you have extra time" type deal from what I could tell. But then, BLM is powerful enough that in solo you can just Blizzard everything to death (and STILL kill things faster than a Paladin!) and in some cases, it is better to do that because of self-healing with Physick so you will never run out of MP.

It sounds like they fixed that after 50 and that's great, I'll have to see what it's like then.

Quote:
I think this is the hangup here. Those of us asking for meaningful solo content recognize that we're playing a multiplayer game. That's ok. I WANT to play with other people. I just don't want to do it 100% of the time. Why shouldn't I be allowed to progress my character just because I don't want to put up with other people RIGHT NOW?


^^
This.

I like to CHOOSE when I want to group up, and when I want to march to my own tune. But there's no choice in a lot of these games, you get to max level and it's "Group or do nothing meaningful for progression" except maybe crafting, but then again, in many of these games, Crafting is an afterthought at Max Level, as nothing crafted is actually any good. EVERYTHING that's good is dropped by Raid Bosses. If it ain't dropped by a Raid Boss, it's crafted from a Raid Boss Drop.

You can become the most expert (insert craft here) but be wholly unable to make armor or weapons that are anywhere near as good as some random (insert raid boss here) had in its (insert container/pockets/hoard/whatever here)? Seriously?

Always thought that kinda funny... where I can become an expert blacksmith, attain the highest level of blacksmithing possible, but the best sword I can make pales in comparison to some old sword laying around on some dragon's coin pile.

Dunno if XIV is like that, but I suspect it is, because almost every other MMO is like that.

There was a game that had an awesome system, that I've never seen in any other game: 99% of ALL equipment in the game was craftable, BUT, said equipment was rather useless beyond Tier 2 (out of 10) without being augmented. You augmented said equipment with magical orbs that are crafted, and with a Technique. Each Technique required 2-4 monster drops. Let's say you wanted to make an awesome sword with, say, Accuracy and +Damage to Dragons for those times you decide to hunt dragonkin mobs. Let's say the Accuracy IV Augment requires, I don't know, 2 Frenzied Bee Stingers, 4 Bright Orbs, and 2 Tiger Claws. The Dragon Killer IV Technique might require 2, I don't know, Lich Fingerbones, 4 Bright Orbs and 2 Dragon Claws.

Now let's say the above mentioned mob drops are only found in the latest raid, BUT, the Tier III equivalents of those can be gotten solo (with some work, perhaps difficult mobs with 'meh' drop rates).

The Raiders would have the sword with the IV techniques on them, and the non-raiders would have to make-do with the Tier IIIs. There should be a noticeable difference between the two, but yet not a HUGE difference between the two that it won't feel rewarding enough.

Just an example of an awesome system that allows us to have crafted endgame armor, so that crafting is still important even at endgame.
#146 Dec 12 2016 at 4:55 PM Rating: Good
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I did that to 40 and it was Fire, Blizzard, Thunder.... oh, wait, okay, the Element Swap that I don't remember the name of.


At level 40 your rotation without cooldowns should've been something like:
T2 -> F3 -> F1 -> F1 -> F1 -> F1 -> B3 -> T2/B1 -> repeat while responding to Thundercloud procs

By 50, F3 and T3 become a thing and you pick up an additional proc in the form of Firestarter. Level 50 BLM had the simplest rotation of any dps. By 60 you're dealing with a maintenance buff (Enochian) another medium cooldown dps buff (Ley Lines) in addition to managing positioning so you can spend as much time as possible in Enochian pumping out F4s.

Quote:
Dunno if XIV is like that, but I suspect it is, because almost every other MMO is like that.


It pretty much is as far as crafted gear goes. I don't necessarily have a problem with that as the top-end group content really SHOULD reward the best stuff. Crafters can make stuff that's good but not best, and that's ok with me.
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#147 Dec 12 2016 at 4:56 PM Rating: Default
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Lyrailis wrote:
(Reading Comprehension) (Can I Have It?)

Seriously, how many times in this thread have I said that I have not played WoW since Mid-Warlords?

They were still around during WoD FYI. Also, arguably THE best piece of gear you can get in Legion is obtained through a series of fairly easy scenarios that are done mostly solo.

It's pretty clear that you either don't understand progression or are not interested in it.. why play? I mean, I guess you don't play Legion but your personal experience doesn't line up with the point you're trying to make here...

Lyrailis wrote:
Which brings us all the way back to the original point -- when you reach max level in an MMO during the middle of an endgame tier, you are instantly at a disadvantage because most of the people already there already know the content, and don't have time for you, the newbie.

Why are you finally leveling to cap in the middle of a raid tier? Blizz gives you a few months to catch up to current cap before an expansion launchs and you have several weeks after it launches to level up before raids open. You're attaching some sort of barrier to entry that simply doesn't exist. What's ironic is that you could probably wait another month, join Legion and honestly not be any worse off than any other casual MMO player.

I don't understand why you keep hoisting this imagined barrier to entry that is keeping you from enjoying the game. You need to get out of your own way.

Callinon wrote:
I think this is the hangup here. Those of us asking for meaningful solo content recognize that we're playing a multiplayer game. That's ok. I WANT to play with other people. I just don't want to do it 100% of the time. Why shouldn't I be allowed to progress my character just because I don't want to put up with other people RIGHT NOW?

Calli I also have times where I 'don't want to put up with other people RIGHT NOW'. During those times, I choose to play other games or not at all. Those are your realistic choices.
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#148 Dec 12 2016 at 5:49 PM Rating: Excellent
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Calli I also have times where I 'don't want to put up with other people RIGHT NOW'. During those times, I choose to play other games or not at all. Those are your realistic choices.


Isn't this kind of the beauty of new-school MMOs though?

After 12+ hours of working, and if I still have time after eating/cleaning/gym/whatever -- and if I want to spend some mindless time in FFXIV without needing to really deal with others -- I just log in and run a dungeon in the DF.

It's not true solo content, but it's solo enough for an MMO, isn't it? You can totally chat it up in the DF if you'd like, or you can just put your head down and not say a single word. If others are talking, you can just filter out party text. To me, it doesn't get more solo than that.

And MMOs already have traditional solo content in the way of crafting and leveling.

Beyond that, I kind of agree with Filth in that when I'm feeling extremely solo-ish, then I just play an actual single-player game.

I'm not at all opposed though to MMO developers trying to incorporate single-player content. Perhaps there will be more room for that as squadrons are developed. I just don't see how truly meaningful solo content could flourish in XIV's design. Too much focus on memorizing fight scripts, and not enough focus on mitigating mechanics/changing the battle with actual combat choices. None of the fights in XIV are hard once you learn the song and dance -- the challenge has always been finding seven other people who can be on the exact same page. Take that away, and I don't see how any solo content would have any kind of lasting value.

I'd rather the devs focus on group content that's more accessible by groups (and FCs) of different sizes and abilities rather than worry too much about solo play.


Edited, Dec 12th 2016 3:54pm by Thayos
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#149 Dec 12 2016 at 7:02 PM Rating: Good
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If there wasn't a dry spell of JRPGs this past console generation or so, I might be more keen on the "play another game" argument, but I'll still continue to assert that no MMO dev has yet to really strive to find that middle ground for the moments where you're not in the mood for others or hate enabling jerkface behavior because you have no choice in the matter. However, I'm also mindful that a singular solution will not fix all ills.

Nonetheless, I have felt MMOs are somewhat bait and switch with leveling and its progression shifting dramatically once you hit max level. Sure, they may spritz dungeons here and there, but if they're optional, you can bet a lot of people skip them to avoid the headaches of grouping. And sometimes taking the time is less efficient for leveling, anyway. Farming a full set for a particular lowbie tier is also often usually useless, since you'd just level past it before getting it all unless you're really, really, really lucky on drops/competition. Some might assert this just means leveling should take longer, perhaps even forcing people into said dungeons when the quests dry up, but that's not really a fix and is certainly flipping the bird to those that already dislike dungeon spamming. So, even now, we're back to alternatives needing to be accessible and viable.

Of course, we're also flirting with why players need to be given the tools to generate content for themselves. Those who want really hard stuff could actually make it. Those who want to explore the storytelling prowess of others can do so. Those who wind up preferring to make content could stick to it, acquiring their own reputation and following. All of this can work alongside devs releasing their official stuff, and expanding custom assets for use as they go. In a way, you wind up with a far more visual form of D&D, where the game already handles the rules. And no, this isn't about making rabbits drop Ridills. No actual reward should be gained from these other than the experience. However, if does emphasize the importance of making gear more accessible so people who don't raid could still take up more challenging variants.
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#150 Dec 12 2016 at 10:34 PM Rating: Good
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Seriha wrote:
If there wasn't a dry spell of JRPGs this past console generation or so, I might be more keen on the "play another game" argument, but I'll still continue to assert that no MMO dev has yet to really strive to find that middle ground for the moments where you're not in the mood for others or hate enabling jerkface behavior because you have no choice in the matter. However, I'm also mindful that a singular solution will not fix all ills.


^^^
THIS.

Call me an old schooler, call me an old man, call me anything you want, but I miss the oldschool JRPGs. Final Fantasy 4. Final Fantasy 6. Final Fantasy 7. Final Fantasy 9. Even FF10 I thought was reasonably fun (until you got near the end of the game and hit the grindwall).

Even FF4: TAY (only the PSP version though...).

I miss these games, and other non-Final Fantasy games (Lufia and the Fortress of Doom, anyone? Chrono Trigger?) that were just plain, simple, but fun. No overly complicated and convoluted systems, no "Gotta Re-invent the Wheel!" each new game (FF8, FF12, etc).

But sadly, everybody wants uber graphics and "moar detailed systems!" where you have 1,000 choices of how to build your character(s) but only 20 of them are actually any good.

I guess my point with this, is Filth earlier said "Go play singleplayer games".

My retort: The few single player games worth playing, I already played the *bleeep* out of. I mean look at Terraria. 1,000 hours. Starbound: over 500. Stardew Valley: 300+. I even started emulating PS1 games that will actually run on pSX (I think that's the emulator I've been using?), and got through those (well, I got an FF9 save right near the end that I kinda got bored of) too.

Maybe if they actually made good singleplayer JRPGs nowadays, I'd be more into those.
#151 Dec 12 2016 at 10:45 PM Rating: Good
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Maybe if they actually made good singleplayer JRPGs nowadays, I'd be more into those.


I Am Setsuna is pretty good, might give that a look.
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