What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

[Fliegar]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

27 hours total spent grinding Atma, and I can no longer justify sitting here and gaining nothing. Both days off and grinding after work have net me a total of 6, while a FC mate of mine got all 12 in under 3 hours.

Fuck that shit.

[Firewind]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

Also worth adding is that overnight it has shattered all illusions of working together benefiting you. They started this off in 2.1 with Duty Roulette. The queues are solo only, which gives friends not that much incentive to play together. Why bother when the rewards are far greater with Roulette?

2.2 was the final nail in the coffin to this. You only need to do Atmas once, so once you have an Atma, there is zero reason at all for you to remain in the zone. That group of friends will also get their Atma at different times due to the random nature. This isn't "It's okay, we can try again tomorrow." it is "Okay, the game is giving me little incentive to work together with people since as soon as I get my item, nobody will blame me for wanting to bail.

The nature of the drops in the game also encourage the "I got my item so see you" mentality in players. It's an old and archaic method to have loot lists. Look at games like SWTOR. There you don't get items, you get a token to redeem for an item of your choice. Let's say Player A really wants a new set of gloves, and we know that a boss drops that token, we can farm that boss, and because it is a generic token, everyone kill will drop that token. So that means Player's B and C that want the item for alt classes can also get their items, instead of having to hope on luck of the draw. It actually killed off Ninja Lotting overnight since you are guaranteed some kind of reward that you can use ingame.

That is an example of a system that encouraged people to work together. FFXIV's system is no different than XI's. it actively encourages people to ninja lot and bail, especially since in XIV, it is impossible to kick someone while the party is lotting. So let's say you killed ADS 9 times in a row and that awesome BLM coat finally dropped? And that Summoner that has no use for it (AF2 is far better for SMN due to the Allagan Coat of Casting having no stats that benefit SMN) so SMN decides to roll on it to be a dick? There's no way you can just kick that person to stop them from taking an item out of sheer greed.

The above has also spawned an excellent way to troll in Instances and Treasure Chest Hunts. Since if you leave the instance, you can't loot, and it takes a full 3 mins for the loot window to time out. Chest Hunts are more notable because you can't leave the zone or party, and it entirely possible to screw over an entire party by tricking them into accepting a teleport to another zone, or to screw over someone by tricking them into teleporting to the next zone. This notably happens far more often when the Bluebird or Tonberry pets drop.

SE are doing less and less to encourage people to work together. And none of the ignorant "Ooooh just play with a little group of people!" does nothing to change the toxic environment the game is turning into because of bad design choices.

And bringing up XI's loot system is also in itself a massive logical fallacy. Who gives a flying fuck if XI's system was the same or worse? This is 2014, not 2003. MMOs have moved on. Using that as an argument to dismiss an argument pointing out bad game design, by saying "Oh well this terrible choice in game design was worse! hur hur hur!" makes little sense and serves nothing to add to the debate.

Contrast TESO that just launched, and thanks for the Devs listening to the fans, does all that it can to encourage people to work together. You get better rewards the more people partake in certain activities, if multiple people down a mob then everyone can loot it. It also takes the GW2 philosophy when it comes to open world events in that everyone that contributes gets something. Class synergy means that playing in balanced groups is the best way to go, especially in PvP, there small groups of players working together can make a huge difference in the Alliance Wars instances. last night myself and 3 friends helped take multiple keeps by constantly harassing the enemy players reinforcing the keeps. The game actively rewards those smaller groups is an example of good game design: that small, balanced and coordinated group can take on much larger and disorganised groups, while in turn can turn around entire battles in the big picture. Smaller groups can also go off to attack supply lines, while in turn weakens the other factions noticeably, by reducing siege weapons and resources to fix walls, and giving them less places to respawn.

It's also another game where getting to the level cap and getting your awesome gear will take a long time. It is however, done in a way where you can feel you can go at your own pace. Fall behind your friends? Well in the Alliance Wars instances you are boosted up to lv50 anyway (Sure people will have better gear than you but if you're playing TESO for 1v1 duelling you are playing the wrong game, no MMO ever balances around 1v1).

What is FFXIV doing? Taking pre existing content and adding very harsh RNG to it, something that Yoshi-P said that he was never going to let happen, but went ahead and did it anyway. You aren't working towards it at your own pace. You are sat there waiting until the game arbitrarily decides you can have something. There is a very good reason why people didn't mind Relics, Empyreans, Mythics and Magian stuff. Sure it took a long time and there were days where you just felt like giving up, but you could work at it at your own pace and you would get there eventually. Relic Atma in FFXIV is why very few people for the K-Club, RDM Relic Hat, PCC, Ridil etc. The vast majority of players don't want to do that shit.

Sure I've ranted enough about Relic/Empy/Myth/etc having a long slog, but at least at the end of the day, finally getting there is rewarding, and you can get there with your friends, plus Empy did reward you for taking party since you could split the upgrade items your friend didn't need. With Atma, like the K-Club, RDM Hat (I have no idea why this is singled out really since it didn't have a drop rate different to other Relics) etc you don't feel rewarded. You just feel relief.

Plus the original Relic quest? That had some challenging content behind it. When everyone was just hitting the level cap, Ampador Keep, Chimera, Hydra, Garuda HM and Titan HM were tough fights. People only dismiss them as easy because people slowly started to out gear the content. Plus getting the Myth for a Relic Zenith was also a challenge (since you and your friends likely didn't outgear the content enough to faceroll it). That is fun content and that is what I would like to see more of. Not "Oh you might get your awesome weapon in 1 day, you might get it in 1 year, depends on how lucky you are."

Not everyone buys into the gambler's fallacy, if we did then people would still be grinding away. Not everyone falls for the sunk costs fallacy, if we did then then we wouldn't have the people leaving FFXIV in droves like they are now. Also gambling is generally fun because it tends to be over something you find entertaining. Atma Farming I assure you is not, especially when the FATEs are literally just "Turn up, Flash/Medica II/Blizzard II a couple of times, run to the next one while the rest of the zerg clears up since you're guaranteed gold anyway". No fun, no challenge, and no progression you can see and keep yourself and your friends going with.

[Malacite]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

It's amazing how many mouth breathers on the lodestone are white knighting for SE, saying the quest is fine and that we all should just shut up/don't have to do it blah blah blah.


Except as FW pointed out, you kinda have to if you want to keep up with the newer content. And I for one ENJOY Coil. I just hate cheap, gimmicky fights like Titan EX that employ bullshit attacks (Landslide) that screw over the entire group if even 1 person is lagging. That's the kinda shit you get with AV & PW, we shouldn't be seeing it with what is really average level content (Titan's not that complicated otherwise.)

So, let's just review for a bit shall we?


We have new Zodiak weapons which will be a long-term goal, with the end result being (hopefully) extremely powerful weapons with stats you can customize. That alone is incentive enough to put up with the grind. However, said grind needs to be separated from the RNG which is the current major complaint that mysteriously continues to elude the minds of all the white knights. There's no nice way to put this: If you equate luck with skill, you're a fucking moron. A random algorithm favoring you doesn't prove you're any better than someone else, it just means you got lucky. Bare minimum the drop rate should be increased to 15%, 20% tops so it's still low but you have a somewhat OK chance of getting it. I never expected SE to return to the days of sub-1% drop rates (Kraken Club etc.) and the whole questline makes me wonder if Yoshida didn't secretly consult Tanaka for advice.


Moving on, we have the Leviathan weapons as yet another "alternative", except Titan EX continues to be a massively unfair cockblock. Even with 5x echo and a well-geared party, the tiniest hint of lag will forever condemn you to not getting there. From what I've seen and been told, even Ifrit, who's supposed to be "harder", is a much more forgiving battle. My FC buddies have told me that Levi and Mog EX are both utterly insane though. So, to be perfectly honest, I think I'd still rather grind for Animus Relics over this, I'd just like it if the game actually respected me and didn't subject me to RNG Bullshit.


For the final bit of stupidity, we have the new weathered gear. I don't know where the weapons come from (only saw shield for sale with the armor) but I do know that you need to do Coil T7+ to get the unidentified tomes required for restoring the armor to i110. Nevermind that High Allagan is already i110 and in some cases has better stats. Or that the 2nd Coil is again on a weekly lockout and so you're dealing with lockout + RNG + other people lotting. At least prior to this, you had myth as a viable alternative to coil gear/place holder until you could get the better armor that drops deeper in.


Speaking of which, that's the final "fuck you" to the players in this patch. Both Myth & Sol tokens are absurdly hard to rack up. Either they are really hurting for ideas/trying to buy time, or Yoshida just decided to flip his stated design philosophy and change the game from being very casual friendly to extreme hardcore only. For the record, I'm not a fan of either extreme, though at least XI had enough other positives going for it to keep my interest.

ARR quite honestly is lacking in that regard still, and this patch is too much of a paradigm shift in the opposite direction. I do like and appreciate what they've tried to do, they just need to dial it back a bit.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

It is also important to note that it's not real content. Forcing someone to grind away at an RNG to artificially inflate the length of time to do something is not content, it's just padding in a way that does nothing whatsoever to respect the time of the gamer.

Not to say random number generators aren't artificial, but isn't everything in a game 'artificial' anyway?

Also stop patronising people and look at the facts. Your average player is not going to get up to Atma and Animus level anytime soon, while the elitists are going to fly ahead.

Well, elitists usually are big on efficiently chopping down content. Is it that much of a surprise they are ahead? (I suppose you'll want to call that view 'patronizing' as well.)

Problem is is that if you are behind on content, not even the friends you play with will be all too willing to slow down their own progression to help you.

Make new friends.

Seriously. If you're the helpful type, but get nothing back, just find new people to play with.

(Long term, helpful and cooperative people will end up together anyway, for mutual protection against the users and abusers. You might as well get a jump on it and start moving in that direction if you're the type.)

gear wall like WoW instead of just taking the current content and adding more gear options like FF14 Pre-Abyssea.

I have zero experience with WoW. Gear wall is like gear check?

There's always been soft gears check in FFXI during the time I played; think back to Lv.75 FFXI days: a Red Mage will have trouble sleeping stuff if he's not using a dark staff. Even in exp parties, people can be utterly ineffective if under geared.

Maybe you mean that the gear check is more pronounced in FF14?

There is a difference between progression with a clear goal and progression that is abritrary, random and just not fun. People do not want instant gratification, something that Itazuro can't seem to comprehend. I'll give him a hint, it's not the time it takes to get the weapon. It has to do with having the chance to put very, very long hours into something and have absolutely no sort of progress to show for it.

I understand it's not fun for you when you look at it that way. What I don't understand why you thought I was talking about instant gratification when I basically said "try to enjoy the time you spend in the game."

The 13.5k tomes in the second step is not that bad and people aren't upset about that.

So, people don't complain about that, and you think it's OK to pace oneself without regard to cap.

The next phase also required you to farm up 13,500 Myth Tomes, when Tome drops across the board has been decreased massively. I noted in another thread that it takes 45 hours of playtime per week to cap out on Tomes of Soldiery for the week, something impossible for people who actually have to be employed to keep a roof over their heads.

(For the record, I think I understand why you dislike this system. It's not that I don't sympathize, but I don't see why you want to dwell on what makes you upset.)

The Atma thing? It's purely random. You can play for 6 hours and get nothing, or play for 60 minutes and get three. That is what people are upset about. There is no clear goal, it's just random and arbitrary, and you don't take part in any challenging content to do it.

Of course there's a goal--win the random. (Works pretty well for the gambling industry, by the way.)

Not that I think it's the only way to go. Typically, you'll want to implement multiple reward schedules in a game like this. Guaranteed reward (e.g. finish one main story quest opens another), random rewards (ranging from low to high chance), and partial rewards (like tomes).

At least with Relic/Mythic/Empeyean/Magian in FFXI, you had something to show for it as you progressed. With Relic Atma/Animus, you can potentially be at it for months and not even have a single token to prove it.

I think it's now pretty clear which reward schedule you prefer.

Which is fine; I just also think that a single reward schedule won't work for an MMORPG trying to cater to a large audience. There's a reason why gambling exist, after all.

* * *

Red Mage hat in Dynamis. Random number generator at its greatest/worst; I sighed for months and months and months over it.

And, it was great getting it at last--I let out a rather loud and undignified cheer in real life.

That's why SE set it at a low drop rate (before): to make getting it feel special. It's not that SE didn't respect my time, but decided on a calculated risk to make the item seem more special. It's a technique that works for some but not all people.

You can argue it's a cheap trick, and I'd argue it's only cheap if employed without consideration, and we'd probably not reach agreement before the FF14 servers shut down for good.

[Firewind]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

It is also important to note that it's not real content. Forcing someone to grind away at an RNG to artificially inflate the length of time to do something is not content, it's just padding in a way that does nothing whatsoever to respect the time of the gamer.

Also stop patronising people and look at the facts. Your average player is not going to get up to Atma and Animus level anytime soon, while the elitists are going to fly ahead. The next level of content will be higher and will REQUIRE you to go through the grind, just to see the next bit of content. You're also acting like you can't laugh and joke with your FC while grinding. Problem is is that if you are behind on content, not even the friends you play with will be all too willing to slow down their own progression to help you. The game is currently that bad. Best example is Garuda Extreme. I still haven't done that fucking quest because nobody will be willing to help you in it. Not now it's old content. That leaves me unable to do Leviathan Extreme to for an alternative route to a Lv100 Weapon, or Mog Extreme.

This is what happens if you lock content behind a gear wall like WoW instead of just taking the current content and adding more gear options like FFXI Pre-Abyssea.

It's going to be worse for new players as well. Like in Post-Abyssea FFXI nobody will help you unlock the content because they are too busy grinding to unlock the current content. It's bad game design and needs to stop.

To put it in perspective. I've played the game for over 10 hours over the weekend and not got a single Atma. FC members who have played for less have gotten more, and FC members have put even more time into it and are at 0 like me. Then there is the grind to get 13,500 tomes. None of this takes skill. None of this takes any organisation. None of this really is any fun or interesting. It is not content, but you are forced to do it to be able to do the stuff locked behind the gear wall.

Think before you post. Just for once think.

- - - Updated - - -

Adding more on the issue for people that won't instantly White Knight Square Enix:

There is a difference between progression with a clear goal and progression that is abritrary, random and just not fun. People do not want instant gratification, something that Itazuro can't seem to comprehend. I'll give him a hint, it's not the time it takes to get the weapon. It has to do with having the chance to put very, very long hours into something and have absolutely no sort of progress to show for it.

There's a big difference between instant gratification and a goal which you can actually progress towards.

Example -

A) You're on a job and you're told once you wash 1000 dishes you can leave for the day

B) You're on a job and you're told that you'll randomly be allowed to leave whenever your supervisor feels like it

Your chances of getting Atma after 3 FATEs and 3000 FATEs are the exact same. There's no progression, no sense that you're actually doing anything, just mindlessly pushing forward until you get lucky. That's why people don't like it. There's a big disconnect between checking my Tomes amount, and seeing that I need X number of instances, that I can progress towards by playing any of the huge number of dungeons in the game with friends, while knowing that I will be able to get all of my gear in a few weeks time (Progress with a clear goal), and me running into FATEs without any sense of when I'll be finished if ever.

With the former you know you will get there eventually and can go at your own pace. The 13.5k tomes in the second step is not that bad and people aren't upset about that. It's doable at your own pace. The Atma thing? It's purely random. You can play for 6 hours and get nothing, or play for 60 minutes and get three. That is what people are upset about. There is no clear goal, it's just random and arbitrary, and you don't take part in any challenging content to do it.

Plus it is massively screwing over new players, and people levelling lower classes. It's impossible to do a FATE at a low level now because all the 50's just come in and steam roll everything. It has killed all dungeon activity too because everyone is still trying to get Atmas.

At least with Relic/Mythic/Empeyean/Magian in FFXI, you had something to show for it as you progressed. With Relic Atma/Animus, you can potentially be at it for months and not even have a single token to prove it.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

Not capping on one week means that you are going to be a full week behind in getting a new bit of gear that will let you clear a portion of the content.

I think my problem is in understanding the significance of being a week/month/year behind. I mean, it's a game, that's all. (Isn't it?!?) As long as when you play you enjoy the experience, it's all good.

So why spend every waking hour busting your ass for something that won't even be relevant by mid summer.

I ... wouldn't?

Part of that is working 60 hour week, week after week, but "busting my behind" for something in-game just doesn't fit well with my current attitude toward recreational activities.

Besides, it's all but inevitable that the level cap will increase.

Given the trend, by the time we hit Lv.75 we'll have iLv.1000 gear to worry over. There's really no reason for rushing to equip the best of the bestest unless you're planning on quitting in three months and must experience being virtually god-like for that moment in time before ending your subscription.

Just enjoy the journey at a pace comfortable for you, and joke around with your LS/guild mates as often as you can. Don't know about you folks, but I certainly don't need more stress than that.

[Fliegar]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

I'm not entirely sure how to make myself look more like a Thief.

Thief Set

[Malacite]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

Currently sitting on 6/12 Atma and around 270 Soldiery. Goddamn capping these really sucks. Myth is a complete pain in the ass now as well.

And to top it off, the nerfs to Coil won't start until *after* my sub runs out so I won't even get the pleasure of beating Turn 5 in time. Bleh.

At least the new dungeons are fun, though that's going to wear off very quickly as the grind sets in. The roulette bonuses are a joke (though the huge spikes in gil are welcome) to the point of being insulting. Honestly, people were having trouble before with the existing content even at i90. The stuff in this patch might not get tackled outside of the top 10~15% of the playerbase until 2.3 or even 2.4 they're really cranking it up and not in a good way. If this is their answer/justification for power creep than count me out.

They also lied out their asses. 2.2 was going to have twice as much story content as 2.1, but it was roughly the same - just with voice acting. Yugiri is pretty awesome, and I suspect that LL will be home to the NIN/THF guild at some point but overall I'm not happy the patch. Initial impressions were great and then reality hit like a tonne of bricks.

I did bump into a PLD during my roulette tonight with Atma Curtana & Shield and they looked pretty spiffy, but other than that... bleh.

[Caspian]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

Fire: Is the content just not passable without the new level of gear or is it just the elitist attitude of the community that "requires" it?

Itazura: I think part of the problem is the new vertical gear progression paradigm. With FFXI, for years Relics were the end all be all of weapons, so if you were hardcore enough you could get one and didn't have to worry about it being made obsolete in a few months with a new patch. Now with the precedent for gear progression that WoW has set, any gear you can get out of a patch becomes nothing more than a stepping stone a few months later. So why spend every waking hour busting your ass for something that won't even be relevant by mid summer.

[Fliegar]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

Since I had a couple days off, and nothing to do, I've farmed a total of 19 hours for those damn Atma crystals. I now have 2.

Yay.

[Firewind]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

So ... Don't cap?

I mean, what's the hurry to devour all contents?

You need the gear to get into the content since the tuning of the content assumes that you have that level of gear.

Not capping on one week means that you are going to be a full week behind in getting a new bit of gear that will let you clear a portion of the content.

It's one big vicious circle.

[Malacite]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

So the retarded grindfest doesn't stop there.


Apparently we have confirmation that the new weathered weapons are upgraded from Coil T6~9 drops. So, on top of having to get soldiery tokens you have to deal with the weekly lockouts, RNG, and outlotting 7 other people? This whole patch is nothing but a massive grindfest what the hell. The game went from overly casual to ridiculously "hardcore" overnight this is ridiculous.

I blame the JP.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

The next phase also required you to farm up 13,500 Myth Tomes, when Tome drops across the board has been decreased massively. I noted in another thread that it takes 45 hours of playtime per week to cap out on Tomes of Soldiery for the week, something impossible for people who actually have to be employed to keep a roof over their heads.

So ... Don't cap?

I mean, what's the hurry to devour all contents?

[Malacite]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

Yeah I don't know where they got this from.

Yes, a lot of us XI vets were asking for content that lasts, and to have an actual challenge. Nobody was asking for an RNG-heavy grindfest with absolutely no skill involved, just pure luck. And yet there are retards on the forums praising the devs.

I don't even...

[DakAttack]

Re: What's your pet-peeve in FFXIV: ARR?

So that Zodiac quest.

First of all you are forced to farm 12 Atma, one from each zone, with a 2% drop rate. You have to be on a Lv50 and have to have a Zenith Equipped, even though you are level syncing. You are required to get gold in a FATE for an Atma to have a chance at dropping.

You see where I'm going for this.

The next phase also required you to farm up 13,500 Myth Tomes, when Tome drops across the board has been decreased massively. I noted in another thread that it takes 45 hours of playtime per week to cap out on Tomes of Soldiery for the week, something impossible for people who actually have to be employed to keep a roof over their heads.

Nobody knows what the next phase is because it's impossible to farm up the number of Myth Tomes needed to progress in the space of 2 days.

Seriously what the fuck SE? People wanted challenging content to get the best gear, not a purely RNG based grindfest that is WORSE than Relic/Mythic/Empyrian/Magian weapons from FFXI.

Rewarding nolifers and people who got lucky with drops, who will inevitably cock block anyone that doesn't have these weapons from participating in endgame content is not good, fun or challenging game design SE. I feel that this game no longer respects any of my time as a player and with TESO launch on Sunday, and Wildstar coming up and the new SWTOR Expansion in June, I'm seriously considering my subscription again.

We didn't want FFXI 2.0. We want something that is actually fun to play.

It's always difficult when it's first released. They'll tone it down.