Asimo posted:Yeah, that's probably the biggest part of it, with squeenix being both willing to readily reuse assets and encounter design and, more importantly, good enough at doing so that it still feels fun to do. I remain impressed by the hard mode dungeons in FFXIV even if I know they're fairly low effort... changing all the enemies and bosses and taking a different route through the map does make it feel new enough, even if it's reusing all the map assets. The reuse of mechanics also works surprising well too, yeah... I don't remember the address to it but I saw that same article and agreed with a lot of the assessments. Having repeated mechanics with visible and clearly distinct "tells" and markers makes it a lot easier to dive into a fight and understand what's going on even if it's a surprisingly complex encounter. In FFXIV, two of the big universal mechanics are gaze attacks and "stack together" mechanics. Gaze attacks are denoted with a giant red eye over the thing casting it, and you dodge it by facing away. Stack together is denoted by 4 massive yellow arrows so everyone knows to get in the arrows. In the new 24 man they combined the two, so a person got big red arrows with a gaze eye over them, and everyone instinctively knew, in my group, to stack on them, but face away. Granted, people died to a bunch of other poo poo in the fight, like running the moon drops through the raid and such, but having a few mechanics like that gives players a place to sort of sink their teeth in so they can get in the fight. Also, FFXIV managed to make a good roguelike randomly generated dungeon with PotD, and because the last 50 floors are super stacked with glamour pieces and a rare mount and orchestrion rolls you can only get from beating those floors, it's a fantastic money maker for people who are good at just playing the game, but don't like crafting and that sort of thing. This is on top of it being super easy to level classes in the earlier floors, so you can do PotD without getting poo poo DPS queues (no party requirements except any 4 people) and level really fast there, too. It's probably my favorite content any mmo has even tried to do, and they've announced there'll be another one in Stormblood 
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Feb 27, 2017 18:28
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CoffeeBooze posted:Im pretty sure it was quarterly, but I could be wrong. They had two big patches in the pipeline at launch and rolled out both as scheduled and both were buggy messes that did nothing but pile even more bugs on top of an already buggy product. It started as monthly but moved to quarterly and now sits squarely at "whenever they feel like." First monthly update was a new story zone that didn't actually progress the story but had another world boss and a tree defense meta-event that nobody did. Second monthly update was the sabotage battleground. I think at that point they moved to quarterly bc it was so buggy.
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Feb 27, 2017 18:52
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LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:In FFXIV, two of the big universal mechanics are gaze attacks and "stack together" mechanics. Gaze attacks are denoted with a giant red eye over the thing casting it, and you dodge it by facing away. Stack together is denoted by 4 massive yellow arrows so everyone knows to get in the arrows. In the new 24 man they combined the two, so a person got big red arrows with a gaze eye over them, and everyone instinctively knew, in my group, to stack on them, but face away. Granted, people died to a bunch of other poo poo in the fight, like running the moon drops through the raid and such, but having a few mechanics like that gives players a place to sort of sink their teeth in so they can get in the fight. PotD was pretty cool but it seems like it would be amazing with just a -little bit extra- added to it, but I'm not sure quite what it's missing. A food resource? Some way to change up your classes after a few sets of 10 floors? The last twenty floors were pretty hype and tense to get through the first time I did em tho, I really liked it. I want more small scale content like that in MMOs, it's easy to round up a few friends and maybe a random pubbie for a dungeon, but much harder to get 8/10 people together for a raid. But yeah, PotD has the most potential of any content in FFXIV I Think.
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Feb 27, 2017 21:36
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Minrad posted:PotD was pretty cool but it seems like it would be amazing with just a -little bit extra- added to it, but I'm not sure quite what it's missing. A food resource? Some way to change up your classes after a few sets of 10 floors? The last twenty floors were pretty hype and tense to get through the first time I did em tho, I really liked it. I want more small scale content like that in MMOs, it's easy to round up a few friends and maybe a random pubbie for a dungeon, but much harder to get 8/10 people together for a raid. But yeah, PotD has the most potential of any content in FFXIV I Think. Not having to do months of content to be able to unlock it would help! On wildstar patching woes, the reason it was so buggy was QA was outsourced and the contract ended when the game shipped and shockingly they didn't have a internal staff capable of bug testing/reporting.
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Feb 27, 2017 23:15
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Minrad posted:PotD was pretty cool but it seems like it would be amazing with just a -little bit extra- added to it, but I'm not sure quite what it's missing. A food resource? Some way to change up your classes after a few sets of 10 floors? The last twenty floors were pretty hype and tense to get through the first time I did em tho, I really liked it. I want more small scale content like that in MMOs, it's easy to round up a few friends and maybe a random pubbie for a dungeon, but much harder to get 8/10 people together for a raid. But yeah, PotD has the most potential of any content in FFXIV I Think. Better bosses and making it so you can start at floor 100 if you're a fixed party are pretty much all I'd change about it. A trial version boss rush mode would be pretty cool, too.
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Feb 27, 2017 23:34
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Byolante posted:Not having to do months of content to be able to unlock it would help! You can enter at level 17 and we catch goons up to current crap within a month.
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Feb 28, 2017 01:33
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All you need to do is complete the MSQ through the first three dungeos, which should put you over the level min anyway.
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Feb 28, 2017 01:41
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Asimo posted:You know, I wonder if the reason why WoW and FFXIV 2.0 managed to keep and grow their subscriber bases (and why FFXIV was salvageable at all) was because the two companies didn't do the usual AAA dev house thing of firing or reassigning half or more of the staff once the game shipped. You always see a lot of fumbling and slow patches and recovery in b-tier MMOs and it always seems to be related to something like this. Even if you didn't somehow need all the people who made the game to make more of the game that's still a lot of institutional knowledge gone that the remaining staff has to cover for. None of the big Wildstar dev crew left until it was clear the game wasn't going to be the next Guild Wars, much less WoW.
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Mar 1, 2017 10:25
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Asimo posted:You know, I wonder if the reason why WoW and FFXIV 2.0 managed to keep and grow their subscriber bases (and why FFXIV was salvageable at all) was because the two companies didn't do the usual AAA dev house thing of firing or reassigning half or more of the staff once the game shipped. You always see a lot of fumbling and slow patches and recovery in b-tier MMOs and it always seems to be related to something like this. Even if you didn't somehow need all the people who made the game to make more of the game that's still a lot of institutional knowledge gone that the remaining staff has to cover for. Well, part of why FFXIV was salvaged was because SE felt like it couldn't let XIV fail without possibly dooming the brand. And SE brought in a ton of their other teams to work on ARR, with a core team that stayed on after release. At least part of why I feel XIV has managed to pump out a lot of content patches is because of their design philosophy. Compared to WoW, XIV dungeons are fairly straightforward and linear affairs. My primary experience with WoW was Pandaria and WoD, and the dungeons (and raids, only have experience in Pandaria) in those games tended to be really large and while still often linear, they weren't literally long paths peppered with trash and bosses. Plus, they reuse a lot of assets from other games, like XIII and XI. I do like the visuals and atmosphere that WoW's approach to dungeons and raid has but I've enjoyed actually playing through XIV's content a lot more. It also helps that XIV has none of WoW's raid trash (Siege of Orgrimmar and Throne of Thunder were especially bad at this). The harder 8-man raids are usually either just a straight up boss fight (or two) or a bit of trash followed by a boss. The more casual 24-man raids have pretty easy trash. In both cases, they're mostly there for pacing and as a breather between boss fights. In Pandaria's raids, there's just far, far too much trash between bosses, and part of that is how large raid zones are. And in LFR, some trash encounters could just completely destroy the raid. There's also a nostalgia element, though that wasn't as apparent at ARR's launch as it was over time. XIV is basically a giant Final Fantasy theme park with references to other games in the series that are done in a natural way. It never really pulls you out of the world of XIV when they do these references. I think part of why ARR managed to do well, at least initially, was because SE seemed genuinely interested in making a good lasting game. ARR wasn't going to be a cheap forgettable revival of XIV that'd they then ignore. Naoki Yoshida also generally comes off as a guy who has a solid head on his shoulders in MMO design. I can't remember the precise context but a player once complained that there wasn't enough to do in XIV and his response was that they shouldn't feel compelled to be constantly subbed. They can just resub for the next content patch.
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Mar 1, 2017 19:09
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Minrad posted:PotD was pretty cool but it seems like it would be amazing with just a -little bit extra- added to it, but I'm not sure quite what it's missing. A food resource? Some way to change up your classes after a few sets of 10 floors? The last twenty floors were pretty hype and tense to get through the first time I did em tho, I really liked it. I want more small scale content like that in MMOs, it's easy to round up a few friends and maybe a random pubbie for a dungeon, but much harder to get 8/10 people together for a raid. But yeah, PotD has the most potential of any content in FFXIV I Think.
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Mar 1, 2017 21:05
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Asimo posted:If you're enjoying a game, play it. Something doesn't have to be good to be fun. gently caress, I wish this was in the rules of games, and in the post window, and tattooed on everyone's hands so I never have to see another person post the "But if it was a bad game, how come you kept playing it?  " argument.
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Mar 1, 2017 21:55
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Pierson posted:It could do with a mix of bigger set-piece rooms rather than just the single room-size they have now. Mixing up the tilesets and music does keep things from getting stale but the endless configurations of grids mean there's nothing to break monotony. Yeah, that's true. Maybe throw in some special miniboss floors or other specially designed rooms. Then maybe some NPCs, like a pomander trader/vendor? or an NPC that lets you do one incredibly dangerous floor after your current one for a big reward?
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Mar 1, 2017 23:12
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Pierson posted:It could do with a mix of bigger set-piece rooms rather than just the single room-size they have now. Mixing up the tilesets and music does keep things from getting stale but the endless configurations of grids mean there's nothing to break monotony. I sort of disagree here, but that's because from floor I believe 170 to 200 is an open air sort of ice tileset where the rooms are open to view, but the floor is still the sort of grid pattern you'd expect. It really changes the feel of the place in a very good way, so I don't think bigger rooms will really do a whole lot to change it, but really playing around with the tileset itself and getting rid of the walls or ceiling and such does a lot to break the monotony. Different room sizes could be cool, but later on you're not full clearing every room anyway, so a large room could just be a bigger skip instead of an interesting thing to explore. A lot of people tend to think potd is super monotonous, but they also don't ever go above floor 100 because you need a fixed party for that, and even 100-150 is pretty low key. It's when you hit floors 170+ where you get gigantic pulls of like 10+ guys that can all stack vuln and really gently caress your poo poo, and the pomanders are suddenly vitally important just for proceeding instead of something that just makes the run go faster.
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Mar 1, 2017 23:47
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So they're giving away free lvl 50 toons now. https://www.wildstar-online.com/en/news/2017-03-06-get-a-free-level-50/
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Mar 7, 2017 00:16
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Byolante posted:On wildstar patching woes, the reason it was so buggy was QA was outsourced and the contract ended when the game shipped and shockingly they didn't have a internal staff capable of bug testing/reporting. Is this true? I worked there and I don't remember this being a thing. But I was honestly drowning by the time we hit the final months before launch that I may have just missed that this was a thing.
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Mar 7, 2017 05:38
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There was a thread on NeoGaf a while back with a former Carbine employee who talked about Carbine's code management system. Most of it was way over my head, but from the sound of it their ability to fix bugs was severally hampered by it. It sounds like the issues extended well beyond QA.
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Mar 7, 2017 19:27
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Pryce posted:Is this true? I worked there and I don't remember this being a thing. But I was honestly drowning by the time we hit the final months before launch that I may have just missed that this was a thing. I will send you a pm because I don't want to dox a source
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Mar 8, 2017 06:19
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So i finally got around to trying this game. On the one hand, action and movement based combat. On the other hand, EVERYTHING ELSE. The REAL BAD comedy writing. The Awful Wow circa 2005 esque world design. God drat. No wonder this game was a flop.
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Mar 8, 2017 10:24
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Don't say you weren't warned.
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Mar 8, 2017 11:24
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super sweet best pal posted:Don't say you weren't warned. Morbid curiosity. Emphasis on morbid.
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Mar 8, 2017 13:30
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Just wait until you fight murder deer! Unless they fixed (heh) their net code it should be death if you don't know what is coming.
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Mar 10, 2017 08:50
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I know the main discussion about subscriptions and free to play was a while back, but Yoshi-P talked a few years about why they chose to go with a sub model for FFXIV. https://www.google.com/amp/ventureb...-exclusive/amp/ Basically, subscriptions offer stability since sub numbers don't tend to jump around dramatically, so they can plan around that. Meanwhile, free to play revenue tends to be more volatile since it's heavily dependent on whether the players buy things - there can be amazing months but also terrible months. He also talks a bit about investors and how they can factor into why some subscription mmos transition into free to play.
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Mar 16, 2017 00:52
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But gw2's revenue was almost a straight line quarter over quarter until the expansion happened whereas lineage 2, a game with actual subscription is all over the place? I dunno, this sounds like conjecture on his part to me. I think ff14 should get on with the times, so I can get my stingy friends to play and also get whales to pay for my content instead. They'll just whale on some other game otherwise, this is wasted money yoship!!
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Mar 17, 2017 21:29
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Truga posted:But gw2's revenue was almost a straight line quarter over quarter until the expansion happened whereas lineage 2, a game with actual subscription is all over the place? Well they're letting you pay to skip to the latest expansion so there's that at least
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Mar 17, 2017 21:32
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hobbesmaster posted:Well they're letting you pay to skip to the latest expansion so there's that at least poo poo. I plan on boosting every non tank/healer job I have. gently caress leveling dps alt classes in that game.
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Mar 18, 2017 08:50
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Truga posted:I dunno, this sounds like conjecture on his part to me. Specific data points aside, what he said is basically true. Recurring revenue is the best sort of revenue -- both from a business perspective and from a gameplay health perspective. For as much as some people like to cart out specific examples of "but they made so much more money when they went F2P" and pointing to F2P launch revenue figures as proof, going F2P is still basically 'Plan B'. It only appears to be 'Plan A' for some MMOs in recent years because they're realizing up front that it's too difficult to compete for recurring revenue anymore. To maintain high income levels with F2P, you have to keep feeding the beast with monetizable content on a pretty demanding schedule; and when your bread is buttered from recurring revenue, you're more free to be able to take the time to do larger, more impactful work instead.
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Mar 18, 2017 13:21
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Rhymenoserous posted:poo poo. I plan on boosting every non tank/healer job I have. gently caress leveling dps alt classes in that game. FFXIV is one of my favorite games but I swear it took me like a month to do 50-60 on my BLM cause it's such a loving slog to get DPS classes up.
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Mar 18, 2017 15:37
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I had BLM at 60 before the early access was even done. Level dps as your first class, get that free quest xp that isn't getting better with armoury bonus anyway.biznatchio posted:To maintain high income levels with F2P, you have to keep feeding the beast with monetizable content on a pretty demanding schedule; and when your bread is buttered from recurring revenue, you're more free to be able to take the time to do larger, more impactful work instead. But FF14 does exactly that too, even yoship said they feel like they have to have a patch out every 3 months because they see such big sub drops between cycles. Hell, we see it in the goon guilds a lot, many (most?) people sub for a month every 3-6 months. You'll excuse me if I don't believe that line without more detailed look into their numbers. Truga fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Mar 18, 2017 |
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Mar 18, 2017 17:08
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Truga posted:But FF14 does exactly that too, even yoship said they feel like they have to have a patch out every 3 months because they see such big sub drops between cycles. Hell, we see it in the goon guilds a lot, many (most?) people sub for a month every 3-6 months. You'll excuse me if I don't believe that line without more detailed look into their numbers. Anecdotal but I believe it. Every patch I see a rash of people popping up then disappearing a month later once they've farmed out the new content.
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Mar 20, 2017 16:10
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Haven't played this since like August 2014 (2 months after launch). Left because Warbringer was being deserted because "attunement was hard" and Autism crashed the economy on the server. Is this game worth returning to? I have a 50 Medic and a 50 Engi Tank that I raid attuned back @ launch. Ended up leaving for above reasons and the fact that Wildstar was charging premium prices to transfer OFF their empty servers to make as much money as possible before going F2P 6 months later. I enjoyed the game and the gameplay. The raids were fun; the 2-3 runs I managed to do before everyone fled the server. What's the Goon presence like? Are we organized? Are we accomplishing things and making frenemies like in EVE, or are we scorching the Earth like in Rift?
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Mar 20, 2017 19:58
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The answer is pretty much no. With that said if you really liked the raiding there might be enough there to make it worth your while to at least give it a try. The few people still playing this game definitely seem to feel that is the game's strong point. Oh, and there is absolutely no goon presence in the game and hasnt been for years. That should tell you a lot about how it is doing.
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Mar 20, 2017 20:16
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Truga posted:I had BLM at 60 before the early access was even done. Level dps as your first class, get that free quest xp that isn't getting better with armoury bonus anyway. Goon guilds are strange beasts that trend better than average on clearing content and playing more than one game. I'm not saying you're lying or anything, but you do have to keep that in mind. FFXIV is special, though, just like WoW is, because the parent companies running the games are so big that eating a loss on a month if they have to is fine as long as each quarter is profitable and the brand isn't damaged. It's the main reason FFXIV in particular can have a sub and a game like Wildstar can't. That stability also means that as long as SE is happy with the money they make, Yoshi and the devs have a very stable and reliable budget.
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Mar 20, 2017 20:42
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I went against better judgment and went to try one of the free level 50s to see if maybe this awful shitpile got better at the endgame. My video driver crashed 3 times while playing. UI bugs that were in at launch that would disable nameplates and make certain parts of the UI stay on your screen permanently are still there. Eventually, the game hard locked my system before I could really do anything. I then uninstalled Wildstar
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Mar 20, 2017 20:59
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As lovely as Wildstar may be that honestly sounds like a PC issue rather than a game issue.
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Mar 20, 2017 21:20
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the issue being your computer has wildstar installed on it
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Mar 20, 2017 21:22
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At least theres an easy fix for this problem.
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Mar 20, 2017 21:24
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LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:the issue being your computer has wildstar installed on it I can confirm I've had 0 freezes or issues since uninstalling Wildstar!
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Mar 20, 2017 21:47
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Back at launch there was a bug I could never fix that made the game never save my settings. Everytime I booted it up I had to reconfigure everything. This was still the case when I reinstalled because F2P gently caress it amirite. Wildstar. Wildstar is the bug. Problem free now!
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Mar 20, 2017 22:25
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LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:Goon guilds are strange beasts that trend better than average on clearing content and playing more than one game. I'm not saying you're lying or anything, but you do have to keep that in mind. poo poo even FFXI still has a sub and has been getting small content updates even though they claim its in maintenance mode.
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Mar 21, 2017 04:40
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https://www.frostkeep.com/ I found where wildstar devs went sa thread is called "another ea survival but with better devs"
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Mar 22, 2017 13:57
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