[Kouper]

Originally Posted by Huck

I'm frustrated with this game.

I started playing at the NA launch after being an active researcher online since it was released in Japan, I had my 2nd job almost to 70 when the cap raised to 75.
I quit playing that char, and was done with FFXI about the time TAU came out.

It used to be hard to gain levels, but...
Signet bonuses- This alone makes it possible to solo, I was able to chain EM ~30 as a galka MNK.
Exp from EP~DC- they threw this in on top of that, what used to be like 12exp, now gives you 60??! Why fight DC or EM?
Exp Rings- Killing EP should not give me 100+ exp >< Especially if it's a BST pet.
Fields of Valour- So I can mow down EP for more than 25exp, and then get almost 1000 free exp (depending on lv)
Level Sync- Even if I didn't want to solo, I can join lv20 PT killing worms in Qufim and stay there indefinately.
/DNC- I can use drain samba, go afk while bashing an EP- and come back with more HP than I started... and Waltz TP..

The bar has been lowered so far, to not leave anyone behind... that we're all missing out on the challenge.

I basically have been soloing... MNK73 now.
I never rest, I mow things down... when I do join parties I am filled with rage and frustration.

No one knows shit anymore, People look everything up. It's like an open book test and people still fail.
LevelSync reminds me of Diablo II, cows or baal runs. Of all the camps we used to camp... skill was partly knowing where to camp, now- people look it up, and everyone is partied in the same place. I find my knowledge-base useless, because even if I am trying to teach someone, it's easier to find a person of the level we want to be at the 'pop area' wherever google says to go. People are ignorant. I enjoyed moving around, seeking new expgrounds whenever you grew too big. Leveling now is confined to the most convienent place. Most zones remain unexplored, or even unentered, unless for a quest/mission... it's really sad that today's generation is missing out on so much of the gameplay I found most enjoyable.


Nobody knows much about FFXIV so far, just speculations... I'm afraid of the 'casual-gamer', I'm afraid of finding myself as the casual gamer in the future, and seeing someone extremely progressed and thinking they have too much time on their hands. I remember viewing them with honor and respect, someone skilled... but I can't anymore. By making FFXI easy as hell, it's really taken away a lot of the pride.

"waah! I've wasted 3 hours LFG sitting in jeuno!"- You don't have to sit in town.. Get this- kill something you can solo for small exp, that drops stuff you can be farming. Craft, do Quests, fish. There's also that chance that maybe you're a tool who shouts a lot, I would see someone LFG that I know is a moron, and even tho the pt may need that job- I'd rather wait 5/6 for something else.

The difficulty curve used to be my best friend, it would keep the cream at the top... now the whole batch seems like bad milk, but maybe that's just Remora.


I'm pretty sure SE knows what they're doing, I'd have a hard time starting a 7year-old game new with no advantage to the people that have been playing since launch. Sadly, it's a fact that the handicap helped me out tremendously in starting over, but it's not fair to say that this is the same game it was 5 years ago.

I am excited for the challenges of FFXIV, I hope it will be rewardingly difficult at launch. They'll have plenty of time to dumb it down over the years again.

In other words-difficulty is decided by the amount of time it takes to level. and skill is defined by knowing where to camp. And the changes to make the game not seem like a full time job are only ok because you needed to start over. Sounds to me like you need to change your diaper and grow up.

The fact is catering to the "hardcore" and "elitists" doesn't make financial sense. Especially because of how much more expensive it is to make a game now then it was 7 years ago. I can guarantee that if SE hadn't made the game more friendly to new people the population would have dropped off much more significantly then it has.

You mention difficulty multiple times, but really, as far as leveling up goes there's nothing difficult about it, its just a ton of time. Thats it, no special skills or abilities, just the patience to push through. But a lot of that isn't a pride thing, or a we wanted the game to be hard so made leveling take forever. Its purely because of subjobs. With a game like FFXI you need leveling to be slow because there's not nerely as much at cap as there is other games. and since subjobs play such a huge roll, aquiring and leveling them is expected to be a significant chunk of the game.

[Kailea]

eh yeah never thought of putting it that way, but yeah, it has not become easier to level, just a bit more convenient.

[Ketaru]

I just think it's strange the OP seems to remember a game so fondly that does not exist anymore. He remembers it in such affectionate ways, compared to the moral decay that runs rampant in Vana'diel now...

...Here's the game I remember though. Back then, your time online was basically limited to 3 things.
- You seek for party.
- You farm.
- You sit in Lower Jeuno chatting in your LS about your useless trivialities.
And "If you don't agree with the majority on how you play, you can GTFO my game!"

God forbid we now have...options! XI is a much more complete game than it was years ago.

[Durahansolo]

Originally Posted by Ketaru

- You sit in Lower Jeuno chatting in your LS about your useless trivialities.

You forgot to add "any mog house." I swear I'm always in my mog house chatting inside the linkshell when I get bored.

I also craft in my Mog House in fear of being watched by RMT when I craft.

[Kaziel0]

Originally Posted by Karinya

I don't regret most of them, except for the decline of skillchains and increased use of hate-bouncing in exp. Neither of those is attributable to players being more clueless, though - rather, players *correctly* realized that the new tactics and mob choices are more effective than the old ones, and also call for less skill on the part of other party members to carry them out (which, as a practical matter, makes them more likely to be done successfully with a pickup full of random strangers). I think SE should adjust exp values to encourage players to exp on more difficult enemies where SC+MB and hate holding would be more beneficial, as they were in the CoP era, but I can't really blame post-ToAU players for playing by the post-ToAU rules, even though I like the resulting playstyle a lot less

Personal opinion: Based upon experience playing other MMOs and now with the expanded information gained from Kaeko's experiments into enmity values show me part of the problem. It's not just that hate bouncing works, it's that the average geared tank can't keep up with even average geared DDs.

We blood tanks (75 PLD here) are pulled in three directions gear wise. We need more enmity, more max HP (ties into amount of enmity lost from damage), and higher damage mitigation (VIT, DEF, and blocking). While there is a loose connection between them (taking less damage and more health means you lose less enmity per hit), they are generally independent of each other, but each are equally vital.

Meanwhile, DDs do not suffer from the same issue. While they need to figure out the balance between stats like STR, ATT, ACC, and other DDer stats, each time they gain a +1 in one stat their ability to DD goes up a little. It may not be much, but it adds up.

Then problems arise in other areas. Looking over Kaeko's results you can see that almost every ability in the game generates plenty of VE, but usually only 1 CE. So I'd guess about 90% of the total threat generated by a PLD is in the form of VE. Meanwhile, DDers are generating almost all their threat from damage, which breaks down to around 25% in the form of CE. These numbers may be wrong, but they aren't far from the truth. For every attack a DD makes, they generate both VE and CE, and some of the really powerful WS can do more damage (which translates to more CE and way, way more VE) than a single Provoke can generate VE. So if we're just barely staying ahead of someone suddenly we can't pull hate back off the DDers without using at least two of our abilities, one of them with a minimum of a 2 minute cooldown.

Aside: It seems that many gear that Melee DDs use, specifically the ones that share their gear sets with WARs and PLDs, have +enmity, yet still they use this. While I don't believe that +enmity alone is what is pushing certain DD jobs out ahead of others, I know it damn well isn’t helping.

My point is that it wouldn't just take adjusted XP values to fix the problem with tanks. As long as the DDs can survive the beatings (either via Utsu or just being healed through it), while the tanks can't effectively generate enough enmity to keep hate, Tanks will continue to be relegated to being brought in for things that hit too hard to survive (i.e. HNMs, bosses for Mission fights, bosses for special events like Nyzul or Salvage). Tanks just don’t bring enough bang for their buck if they can’t at least hold hate.

The fix required would pretty much mandate a total overhaul of a lot of FFXI's core mechanics, from how enmity is generated by tanks (greater emphasis on more easily scaling methods such as damage, along with threat generating abilities based on, and which scale with core stats such as VIT or STR instead of flat numbers which can eventually be overtaken unless you have gobloads of +enmity gear), to making it so that Utsusemi was not sub-able (thus vastly increasing the amount of damage a TP Burn party takes, meaning the WHM or RDM can't just occasionally patch up the person who took too many hits), to almost a 100% accuracy rate for magic bursts, along with making sure gear that has +enmity was not mixed with stats which would be of high value to DDers (or if it is, limit who can access it to just the "tanking" jobs).

There are probably other changes that would be needed, but I think my point has been made. At this point in FFXI’s life, I’m not expecting changes this big to happen. Hell, I’d put higher chances on me winning U.S. Open despite never having played tennis than I would for SE doing the fixes necessary for FFXI now. I expect (hope?) the fixes will appear in FFXIV instead.

PS: I would wager that this is only seriously an issue for low to moderately geared tanks. Those running around in AF+1, or Relic, or whatever else is available are probably doing pretty well for themselves. Meanwhile, low to moderately geared DDs can do just fine for themselves. The problem is that the well geared tanks only make up (again, this just a guess), but probably 10% of the tanking population. I’m not saying that SE should make getting tanking gear EZ mode. Abjuration or Relic or whatever should be something you proudly display because it makes you the cream of the crop. But being the cream of the crop shouldn’t be what’s necessary to be able to hold hate against pretty much anyone else…

PPS: As I do not have a 75 NIN yet, I cannot speak for their mechanics. All of what I say after this is theoretical, but what I believe is a fairly logical progression of thought. I would think that NINs can either suffer from the same problems, or their problems are lessened, but still there. As a tank, the NIN needs to focus on evasion/parry along with damage (without heals that a PLD has, the majority of their enmity generation comes from damage). With the greater emphasis on avoidance than a normal DD, again, they can't keep up and are eventually overtaken by the full DDs.

[IfritnoItazura]

Originally Posted by Kaziel0

My point is that it wouldn't just take adjusted XP values to fix the problem with tanks.

Actually, it may. Damage is scaled (using the word loosely) down with level differences between target and attacker, so DDs will be far less effective at generating enmity if fighting harder targets, because they will be doing less damage.

In the mean while, PLD's Flash, Cure, and JAs would still generate the same amount of enmity. Plus, with more dangerous monsters, TA WS on PLD would suddenly look more attractive if the party is relying on a squishy BLM for the big MB. Heck, longer fights would also make Atonement more useful in exp parties.

(Lesson here: Double check your thinking, twice, before disagreeing with Karinya; he tends to have good insights into game play balance issues.)

Originally Posted by Kaziel0

As a tank, the NIN needs to focus on evasion/parry along with damage (without heals that a PLD has, the majority of their enmity generation comes from damage). With the greater emphasis on avoidance than a normal DD, again, they can't keep up and are eventually overtaken by the full DDs.

Depending on the target, NINs do not normally need to focus on evasion. (Don't think they ever put much emphasis on parrying.) Haste is king.

Damage output is very important on easier monsters, like exp targets. For big fights, NINs often use /DRK and rely on /DRK's JA and spells for enmity instead of damage output.

[TheGrandMom]

Originally Posted by Durahansolo

You forgot to add "any mog house." I swear I'm always in my mog house chatting inside the linkshell when I get bored.

I also craft in my Mog House in fear of being watched by RMT when I craft.

YouTube - Mysto & Pizzi - Somebody's Watching Me (GEICO)

YouTube - Mysto & Pizzi - Somebody's Watching Me (GEICO)

[Raydeus]

Durahan has a theme song!


(I just hope I never find out mine <_<; )




It's a nice song.

PS > It's so sad I actually liked watching Geico's CMs oh so many years ago.

[Durahansolo]

Originally Posted by TheGrandMom

YouTube - Mysto & Pizzi - Somebody's Watching Me (GEICO)

*Points at Dak's sig*

[Karinya]

Originally Posted by IfritnoItazura

Actually, it may. Damage is scaled (using the word loosely) down with level differences between target and attacker, so DDs will be far less effective at generating enmity if fighting harder targets, because they will be doing less damage.

In the mean while, PLD's Flash, Cure, and JAs would still generate the same amount of enmity. Plus, with more dangerous monsters, TA WS on PLD would suddenly look more attractive if the party is relying on a squishy BLM for the big MB. Heck, longer fights would also make Atonement more useful in exp parties.

(Lesson here: Double check your thinking, twice, before disagreeing with Karinya; he tends to have good insights into game play balance issues.)

/blush

Actually, I think I've posted on that exact subject before: against low level targets, DDs do a LOT more damage, but tanks can only generate slightly more enmity (because they too do more damage, but because it's not the focus of their gear/food/tactics, not nearly as much more). The abundance of fast-repopping mobs in ToAU camps would have changed exp dynamics even if they weren't imps and colibri, because they can be profitably fought even when they are low level relative to players. Being the only party in Ru'Avitau or KRT with exactly the right setup *could* pull this off before, but it wasn't common because the conditions had to be exactly right and there were only a few camps that others were probably trying for. (And if you tried and didn't get it, or had too many parties for the camps, you got rather poor exp compared to people pulling in a steady chain #5 in Moongate/Bibiki/Lufaise/Uleguerand/etc.) Now lots of parties can do it at once, with sanction refresh and an exp bonus.

Furthermore, this is specific to physical DD; the fact that BLMs don't get the same benefit from fighting lots of weak mobs is part of what has shut them out of modern post-60 exp. Their need to rest for MP before doing damage used to be offset by the relative reliability of their damage once they did it, compared to melees that had to overcome the eva and def of a high VT-IT mob. That isn't so much of a tradeoff against a low VT mob, now that you can get the huge supply of low VT mobs you need to make up for their lower value per kill.

/NIN hate bouncing is riskier against higher level mobs, too; even a couple hits taken when shadows are down can put a serious dent in a careless DD. (Which, even back then, was most of them.)


I wrote once, maybe on this thread, maybe on a similar one, that players en masse act like a liquid and take the shape of the incentives provided by the game designers; I wonder now, what kind of players will flow to FFXIV? And what kind will remain in FFXI? Looking back over this thread and the history of FFXI, I doubt I'll spend much time in FFXIV (even if I have a system capable of running it, which I might by late 2010, but no guarantee) until it has a couple years worth of content. There really wasn't that much to do in the early years other than level; now there literally aren't enough days in the week to do everything. (Especially since FFXIV will be international at release - meaning the relevant comparison is to pre-NA-release FFXI, when there were only a bit more than half the jobs we have now, and endgame meant Shadowlord and completing your AF.)

[Yellow Mage]

Originally Posted by Karinya

players en masse act like a liquid and take the shape of the incentives provided by the game designers;

I've double checked my thinking, twice, and I've come up with this: the above statement is very true, which is why the developers must be more careful with the incentives they put in, as I surely doubt they intended this breakdown of the traditional party structure at all. Complete lack of foresight is the diagnosis in this particular case.

[Kailea]

Originally Posted by Yellow Mage

I've double checked my thinking, twice, and I've come up with this: the above statement is very true, which is why the developers must be more careful with the incentives they put in, as I surely doubt they intended this breakdown of the traditional party structure at all. Complete lack of foresight is the diagnosis in this particular case.

*blink blink* huh? ;p

[hexx]

Originally Posted by Yellow Mage

I've double checked my thinking, twice, and I've come up with this: the above statement is very true, which is why the developers must be more careful with the incentives they put in, as I surely doubt they intended this breakdown of the traditional party structure at all. Complete lack of foresight is the diagnosis in this particular case.

I agree. In making the ToAU mobs so gosh darned easy to killl, and quick to repop, they pretty much killed strategic thinking when it came to EXP camps. Whats that caused now is that people got used to it, and expect the same level of effeciency from a low level exp mob in the dunes and such. Overall, it generated a large amount of laziness in my opinion.

[IfritnoItazura]

Originally Posted by hexx

I agree. In making the ToAU mobs so gosh darned easy to killl, and quick to repop, they pretty much killed strategic thinking when it came to EXP camps. Whats that caused now is that people got used to it, and expect the same level of effeciency from a low level exp mob in the dunes and such. Overall, it generated a large amount of laziness in my opinion.

Repop time for outdoor monsters are the same everywhere, ToAU or RoZ, I thought?

Try playing RDM in those 5 melee 1 mage parties--laziness means people get KO'ed or even party wipe.

Anyway, WS spam parties actually have more activities than than traditional SC+MB parties--if nothing else, the DDs switching targets and WS'ing more often. The difference is less coordination between front line jobs, since it's pretty much use TP as soon as one has 100%.

Strategic thinking on efficiency is this: "Do what gives the best exp/hour". Laziness is unthinkingly trying to apply SC+MB to ToAU exp camps, or trying to use a 5 melee + 1 mage set up to low level camps--that leads to inefficiency, or worse.

* * *

I thought SE stated it wanted FFXIV to be even more soloer friendly? Wouldn't that mean cooperation between people even less emphasized than now in FFXI?

[Karinya]

Cooperation with people requires communication, and putting up with other people, and finding the right people, and waiting for them to answer the phone / go to the bathroom / whatever, etc. If it doesn't produce more reward (in some sense) than soloing, people will mostly just solo because it's easier. (Exhibit A: WoW.) Even in this game it's often been said that 3k/hr soloing is better than 0k/hr sitting on your butt in jeuno/whitegate (although, of course, if you're soloing for that little, you probably want to do it with your flag up and switch over to partying if you get the opportunity).

Therefore, I predict a more solo friendly game will have even less party cooperation than the current post-ToAU state of FFXI, because the benefits of partying for most content will not exceed the cost of finding and coordinating with other players.

For exp, that is - once you get into endgame content, even WoW requires working with other players. For anything resembling endgame content, you generally don't want to do it in a pickup group (although Assault/Nyzul are somewhat of an exception, and Besieged/Campaign if you count those as endgame content); so you have to have a regular schedule that works with everyone in the LS (or whatever the FFXIV equivalent is going to be), and that has to include time for people to get their act together before every event. And someone has to put in additional time on top of that to plan the events, find strategies, recruit players, etc. None of that changes in a "solo friendly" game, unless endgame is also solo friendly, which is kind of hard to imagine.

They might try to move toward more pickup-friendly endgame (something like Nyzul where every run is sufficient unto itself, and you don't accumulate pop items/chips/key items/etc. toward a future run like sky, sea, Limbus, ZNMs, Einherjar), idk.

Actually, if the history of FFXI is any guide, there won't be *any* endgame as we know it for the first couple years.