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Weirdly focused on squares focus on the story that they offer a pay to skip function for
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Sep 13, 2023 23:16
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I guess there's raiders who want to do the super elaborate endgame savage raidong but don't wanna play through the heaps of story to get there?
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Sep 13, 2023 23:19
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Catgirl Al Capone posted:people talk about FFXIV's story as if FFXI's wasn't pretty extensive too XI has very nice rewards gated behind the story but not everything is gated behind it. It feels good to do instead of absolutely mandatory to do. It compliments the broader game instead of hamstrings it.
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Sep 13, 2023 23:20
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Third World Reagan posted:Weirdly focused on squares focus on the story that they offer a pay to skip function for There's an extensive network of Square agents that go undercover on forums and tell people that it gets good after [insert expansion] to drive story skip purchases.
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Sep 13, 2023 23:27
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You can only skip up to the start of the current expansion, and you'd need to also buy a level skip to avoid grinding out a class the hard way to level 80 so you could start the current MSQ. The story skip is there as a compromise solution, and it's messy. During the WoW exodus, we saw plenty of streamers start, get bored with the story, buy skips, and then quickly lose all interest for one reason or another because the game is very much built around the story as the central draw. Skips only seem to really work out for alts, or for the few people who are really certain they're going to enjoy the game solely for the raids alone (and each raid series has its own side storyline you need to get through as well). FF14 is very much doing its own thing and thriving with its story-centric approach. It's not something I'd expect other games to find any success in, and it's not what I'd want out of new MMOs, but I do think it has a lot of lessons to learn that aren't married to its pseudo-singleplayer main story structure.
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Sep 13, 2023 23:27
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No Dignity posted:I guess there's raiders who want to do the super elaborate endgame savage raidong but don't wanna play through the heaps of story to get there? Lots of WoW streamers did this because WoW sucks poo poo and promptly ate poo poo. Other than the story, it does force you to learn how to do things
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Sep 13, 2023 23:32
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In the same way that I think it's bad for people to want to shove instanced matchmaking and all that crap into old MMOs like everquest I think it's silly for people to think FF14 should stop adding story content or make everything available from the start or w/e.
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Sep 13, 2023 23:41
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Because things that are things have to stay that way even if it sucks rear end
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Sep 13, 2023 23:43
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Ort posted:XI has very nice rewards gated behind the story but not everything is gated behind it. It feels good to do instead of absolutely mandatory to do. It compliments the broader game instead of hamstrings it. yeah you really want to do the story missions in xi because of the goodies they lock but nobody is saying "you can't play with your friends until you do xyz". well unless your friends refuse to party anywhere but khazam i guess
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Sep 13, 2023 23:50
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FF14 is basically a story game with a cinematic boss fight every ten or so hours and a small but rigorous endgame raid scene, it would absolutely not hold water as a sandbox MMO as is, it'd already have to be a completely different game to start with
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Sep 13, 2023 23:52
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Third World Reagan posted:Because things that are things have to stay that way even if it sucks rear end On the other hand, if there's one thing we've learned from old MMOs, it's that games shouldn't try to reinvent themselves to appeal to people who are not their target audience in the first place. FF14 is successful because of these things.
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Sep 13, 2023 23:54
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Telarra posted:On the other hand, if there's one thing we've learned from old MMOs, it's that games shouldn't try to reinvent themselves to appeal to people who are not their target audience in the first place. FF14 is successful because of these things. Yeah exactly. Regardless of peoples personal complaints with not wanting story in their MMO or w/e...It's why the game is so huge as it is. Square would be stupid to ditch their gigantic install base to try to appeal to everquest junkies or w/e lol.
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Sep 13, 2023 23:57
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lol they already trimmed the main story quest and gave you an option to skip it for money they are already doing this thing
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Sep 14, 2023 00:01
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If there's one thing you can be sure of it's that Square Enix is not going to pass up an opportunity to let people give them money. That you can waste it on a story skip doesn't mean anything with regards to the direction they're pushing the game.
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Sep 14, 2023 00:07
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Third World Reagan posted:lol they already trimmed the main story quest and gave you an option to skip it for money They removed some cruft from the original game, they've barely touched anything else. Do you think most people who play the game buy skips? Because they don't. It's there as an option but it is not the way people play normally.
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Sep 14, 2023 00:07
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Even if you buy a skip there's 40 hours (w/ cutscenes) of Endwalker's story to do before you reach max level so your terminal WoW brain can do the "real content".
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Sep 14, 2023 00:08
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Ibram Gaunt posted:In the same way that I think it's bad for people to want to shove instanced matchmaking and all that crap into old MMOs like everquest I think it's silly for people to think FF14 should stop adding story content or make everything available from the start or w/e. instanced matchmaking in retail everquest would be hilarious because it most likely wouldn't take into account the absolutely staggering power disparity between a character with low AA points vs high AA points even in the same gear
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Sep 14, 2023 00:13
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But the real content is the friends you make along the way 
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Sep 14, 2023 00:22
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Telarra posted:On the other hand, if there's one thing we've learned from old MMOs, it's that games shouldn't try to reinvent themselves to appeal to people who are not their target audience in the first place. FF14 is successful because of these things. For some, but it's a lot more than that. A *gigantic* reason why it's successful is because of how it handles jobs. Being able to jump from job to job, including to make more complex crafting than other games, is a huge plus for FF. While in other MMOs you have to start entirely over every time you want to play a different class, you have a game where not only does all your currency and other bars carry over, so does most of your armor through the armory system. There's also a lot of different classes and advanced jobs for when you get to high levels with a basic class. It's great for keeping the feeling of one character being "you", and doesn't disrupt social networks by jumping around on characters. You could strip away almost all the story content and it would still be successful because the mechanical bones of the system are unusually good and easy to use.
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Sep 14, 2023 02:03
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i like XIV but the leveling and questing part of the game is uniquely awful every single quest is "go here and talk to a guy to watch a cutscene" occasionally you have to fight a few monsters before the cutscene the fact that the game is story-focused doesn't mean that the actual game part couldn't or shouldn't be more engaging Zokari fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Sep 14, 2023 |
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Sep 14, 2023 02:10
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Yeah exactly. Regardless of peoples personal complaints with not wanting story in their MMO or w/e...It's why the game is so huge as it is. Square would be stupid to ditch their gigantic install base to try to appeal to everquest junkies or w/e lol. My perspective is it doesn’t need to be mutually exclusive. Keep all the story in there, don’t change the game, but just stop locking so much content behind completing the story. FFXI is a perfect example of how both things can exist in parallel. The dungeons and raids in FFXIV rarely feel strongly connected to the main story anyway, other than trials. I was getting bored of doing the story so was like “oh I heard Bozja is cool, that might be a cool grindy cutscene-free way to level”. Lol turns out it’s also gated behind a bunch of cutscenes and old raids nobody runs anymore. Quit gating all of this crap.
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Sep 14, 2023 03:07
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Ort posted:and old raids nobody runs anymore.
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Sep 14, 2023 07:15
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the most successful mmo on the market needs to change drastically to cater, to me, specifically
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Sep 14, 2023 07:17
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Also Bozja is not cutscene free.
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Sep 14, 2023 08:09
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ff14 isn't even "gated" more than in other mmos, it just replaced "grind your motherfucking levels" with "do the motherfucking quests", and honestly? i think that's good. thanks to leveling being faster than quests you can rush the msq and not get the dreaded "you must be this tall to take this quest", or you can take your time, maybe even level 3-4 jobs while also clearing optional content, most of which is still just as fun as it was on release it does seem that the fact that you can't do something despite being high enough level makes some people's brain break, but i don't see how it's any different than grinding to level 70 in act 1 and then complaining they won't let you kill baal until you get to act 5. ff14 has problems, but the gating isn't one of them, it's just slightly differently flavored. also, ARR isn't *that* long anymore after the crunch, and thanks to level sync (which every online game should have) you can start playing with your friends as soon as they hit sastasha like 2 hours into the game, and you can start raiding as soon as they hit level 50, because the old raids are still alright content and have a fun story behind them also, ff14 endgame is really loving good and just keeps getting better/more fun fights, but it doesn't timegate your gear like a lot of games do. if you have the time to learn fights you can clear everything on week 1 with crafted gear instead of having to grind weekly drops to be able to clear the dps checks, the gear just makes it slightly easier. i think that, too, is a good thing Endorph posted:'old raids nobody runs anymore?' do you mean the ivalice raids? because people run the ivalice raids. they're in the alliance roulette. i resubbed recently to casually level some jobs because black desert anticheat is still broken for me and i keep getting orbonne and nier raids because they drop the most mogtomes so everyone keeps queueing them, it owns
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Sep 14, 2023 09:49
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I don’t want xiv to change because it’s clearly doing everything it needs to do right, I just want this niche genre of game to get some new additions who bring back the old style no/low instancing world. You can keep Limsa, don’t worry
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Sep 14, 2023 10:00
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Endorph posted:'old raids nobody runs anymore?' do you mean the ivalice raids? because people run the ivalice raids. they're in the alliance roulette. Bozja has Castrum Lacus Litore and Delubrum Reginae, and I think both are required to unlock Zadnor which is better for leveling than the Southern Front, which is what they said was their primary interest in Bozja. There's also the Dalriada but I don't think that's required for anything other than finishing the story. Both Castrum and Delubrum could be tough to get a group going for if you're playing outside prime hours.
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Sep 14, 2023 10:02
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an iksar marauder posted:I don’t want xiv to change because it’s clearly doing everything it needs to do right, I just want this niche genre of game to get some new additions who bring back the old style no/low instancing world. You can keep Limsa, don’t worry IMO, black desert is that game, and it's really loving good at what it does: actually good combat despite being an mmo, instanced only in the sense that there's too many players for the world so there's "channels" you can choose at login which is really just like shards in other games, lets you fight over farm spots, and the "pvp" channels even offer a 50% xp/drop boost it has other issues, but when i want to do some old school open world grind, BDO is what i choose my favourite classic grind game was RO though, but path of exile has completely supplanted that style of game for me. not an MMO, but i can clear mob-dense maps with friends at higher speeds ever thought possible, it owns 
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Sep 14, 2023 10:08
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an iksar marauder posted:I don’t want xiv to change because it’s clearly doing everything it needs to do right, I just want this niche genre of game to get some new additions who bring back the old style no/low instancing world. You can keep Limsa, don’t worry For what it's worth, I get my fill of the kind of game you're describing through playing MUDs, which by and large are still designed that way. In fact, a lot of the people who made games like UO & Everquest & SWG were MUD guys to begin with. It would also be really cool if newer graphical games used that design philosophy, but I don't know how likely that is to happen.
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Sep 14, 2023 10:09
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It’s not very likely because it’s a huge gamble compared to other setups, and yeah I actually think most people don’t want a truly massive multiplayer online rpg, they just want some level of persistent world they can play with their friends in, and chat rooms/social hubs. I play PoE, played xiv (its fine, the story is dated at first before it gets better but it’s honestly fine), and play project 1999 for my classic fix, but I think non-instanced games scratch a fundamentally different itch where everything you can do or achieve at any given moment is completely reliant on the actions and availability of other people. Because every bit of the world is shared, you automatically feel less important. This can be freeing (“I don’t have to chain run [dungeon] because I just can’t, so if nothing is available to do I can just slack off a bit or explore/try something new”) or frustrating (“I want to do X but it’s taken so I can’t”), and I think it tends more towards frustrating because people simply expect the ability to do what they want to do, when they want to do it, since that’s what games are like these days. I also think it’s reductive to regard one approach as better than the other, but they’re fundamentally incompatible, instancing is way easier on your servers/system requirements, and there’s no recent attempt at a non-instanced mmo to ape, so there’s really no reason to even try as a game dev.
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Sep 14, 2023 12:19
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Endorph posted:'old raids nobody runs anymore?' do you mean the ivalice raids? because people run the ivalice raids. they're in the alliance roulette. Idk man if the queue takes 40 min as a healer I’m looking at 4 hours of stuff I don’t necessarily want to do right now to do something else. Just let me go to Bozja and do the Ivalice raids separately when I feel like it. I like the game. I like the story. I like the jobs and combat. It’s a cool game. It is just on the way upper end of “do x before you can do y” where x is a way higher gatekeep, in length of time and how often it happens, than other games. This always leads me to burn out of it despite liking so many pieces of the game and this is the experience for a lot of players who have to catch up if they haven’t been playing each expansion when it comes out. I don’t know why that criticism is so controversial. Ort fucked around with this message at 12:43 on Sep 14, 2023 |
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Sep 14, 2023 12:35
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You have to qualify every bit of xiv you don’t like or people will get upset/try to convince you you’re wrong
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Sep 14, 2023 12:43
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idk im not trying to be like that, people being super defensive of ff14 bugs me too and im someone who likes it, but it only took me like an hour and a half to do the ivalice raids, not 4 hours. if youre getting long queue times for that sort of thing if you ask in limsa or the novice network or whatever you'll usually get a ton of people willing to hop in and run through that stuff with you. and that gets you some of the socialization you're wanting too, people usually chatter when you do stuff like that. i can get where you're coming from but i think viewing it as like, 'the stuff you have to get through' and 'a gate' is the issue. like if you view it that way then im not going to change your mind and if youre approaching it with old old mmos as a baseline i get why you'd view it that way, but for the vast vast majority of players the content you're looking at as a gate is the fun part they're excited to do, its part of the whole experience.
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Sep 14, 2023 12:54
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The queue times for Ivalice does kind of point towards the underlying issues with some of the MMO elements that have been left to fester for expansions now, in this case how Alliance Roulette functionally doesn't work most of the time due to Crystal Tower being mandatory and also rigged to appear by people abusing gear ilevels. Like I had some hideous queue times for Ivalice too, a few evenings I had to give up too because it went past an hour wait time
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Sep 14, 2023 13:01
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No Dignity posted:The queue times for Ivalice does kind of point towards the underlying issues with some of the MMO elements that have been left to fester for expansions now, in this case how Alliance Roulette functionally doesn't work most of the time due to Crystal Tower being mandatory and also rigged to appear by people abusing gear ilevels.
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Sep 14, 2023 13:04
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Yeah the “stuff I have to get through” thing is definitely born out of me constantly being two expansions behind and wanting to get to the current endgame, but also knowing I enjoy the story so trying to only do it when I’m feeling like I’ll enjoy it. It’s this weird feeling of “power through this thing I like” that creates a weird friction that my weird brain can’t just turn off. Last time I was caught up to current content was in ARR and I really enjoyed running all of the roulettes and stuff once the story was done so I keep trying to get back. I’m level 80 now and just started endbringers, so close but so far away.
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Sep 14, 2023 13:42
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Endorph posted:theyre fixing the ilvl thing at least, and with other content being locked behind ivalice and nier having popular transmog gear that should help. Ah I'm glad they're finally sorting that out. Maybe that can make EXDR fun next
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Sep 14, 2023 13:57
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When you need to progress forward in ilvl and the story to play with your friends, everything which doesn’t point you in that direction is just side content. That’s the direct result of a gear treadmill and in XIV you progress in 4/8 man dungeons, everything else is a novelty at best which doesn’t get you caught up and which is also completely unchallenging because everyone else is overgeared and just farming it for tomes/cosmetics. Once you’re caught up you can do whatever, but you first have to catch up or you won’t be able to participate in the new things which are marketed everywhere and which people are excited for. Not because of lack of ability but because you didn’t check all the boxes. That somehow people look at this system and say ‘yes, this is a good mmo’ continues to surprise me. It’s a game with an extremely rigid story based progression and a loot treadmill, which only lets you meaningfully progress by doing 4/8 man content. The songs slap but there is so much actively hostile about how everything else is set up
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Sep 14, 2023 14:46
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It's a story based man, I don't know what else to say. The way the story's conveyed could certainly be better sometimes but it really just sounds like you want it to be a different game entirely
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Sep 14, 2023 14:53
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an iksar marauder posted:When you need to progress forward in ilvl and the story to play with your friends, everything which doesn’t point you in that direction is just side content. That’s the direct result of a gear treadmill and in XIV you progress in 4/8 man dungeons, everything else is a novelty at best which doesn’t get you caught up and which is also completely unchallenging because everyone else is overgeared and just farming it for tomes/cosmetics.
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Sep 14, 2023 14:55
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