Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

Grim1_sl said:

Perhaps initially, but WoW raids evolved into to this mind numbingly boring hoop jumping contest where raid members have to program all their robotic moves and perform them perfectly or risk destroying the event for everyone else.

EQ raids mobs were not nearly as complicated and allowed for even end game guilds to carry the lesser skilled players who sucked at keyboard mashing but were funny and our friends.

There is no room for friendship or humor in a WoW style raid. You perform your robot moves in perfection or you lose. It's always the same.

Personally I find the WoW style of raiding to be incredibly boring. I prefer raids that are less predictable and allow room to carry your friends. Dungeon crawls in non instanced zones competing with the other top guilds on your server, while occasionally griefing them, was the most fun I ever had in a raid. Killing the dragon was just the finisher.

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I agree with this. I enjoy raiding, I hate precision based raiding these days. I need more room for error but still requires some coordination.

Draegan_sl said:

I agree with this. I enjoy raiding, I hate precision based raiding these days. I need more room for error but still requires some coordination.

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So then have gear be the major factor on if you win or lose?

It has nothing to do with gear honestly. Just encounter design. You can read my manifesto I posted in the What now thread for what I want my game to be.

Ambiturner_sl said:

So then have gear be the major factor on if you win or lose?

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I just hate the thousand variations of DONT STAND IN FIRE. Rift was an even worse offender than WoW in this regard. Positioning should be part of any encounter but hopping around everywhere is tedious and forces you to zoom all the way out. I'd rather have raiding depend on strategic use if your abilities rather than staring at the ground from a birds eye view avoiding the circles of death.

Thought you were talking about twitch based raids and not just ground aoes specifically.

But really it sounds like the your issue is more about a lack of diversity in raid encounters. Because if they make them more forgiving then they just become a contest of having enough tanking/healing/dps.

Here's kinda what I'm thinking. If a fight is 5 phases and on phase 4 if you die and release you are sent to a holding spot inside the raid while the encounter is ongoing. If the encounter reaches a certain point in phase 4, whether it's a enrage timer or some other mechanism like to many people in the holding area or whatever, the encounter gets triggered back to phase 3. You then beat phase three again and head back into phase 4 to try again.

This way you don't have to repeat the first 2 or 2.5 phases of the fight over and over.

Then give players rewards based on how flawless and fast they completed the fight.

Grizzlebeard_sl said:

To be fair, FFXI had even more roles than EQ. Tanking alone you had turtle tanking with paladins, avoidance (blink) tanking with ninjas, and additional situational builds depending on jobs, such as back-tanking mobs with damage shields on Dancer. You had red mages who could heal, debuff, nuke, and tank to a certain extent. There were so many different roles created by the ability to utilise subjobs and gears-swapping.

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I don't know that FFXI had more roles, just more ways of accomplishing said roles. Turtle tanking, avoidance tanking, and back-tanking still all essentially take place in the same corner of the holy trinity. Not that I'm really knocking FFXI's class design. The subjob system did a decent job of blurring the lines somewhat to where you could have a RDM/WHM being more supportive whereas a RDM/WAR was a little tankier.

It's just I don't know that we've realistically seen any new class roles come into play in MMORPGs. In fact, I'd say we have even less than we did in the EverQuest days. If you'll recall, back then the trinity was Tank/Healer/Crowd Control. A true "crowd control" role doesn't really appear in many MMOs more recently. It's mostly been chopped up and integrated with the other roles. Buffer/Debuffer has suffered a similar fate.

I have always quietly hoped and cheered for Final Fantasy as a MMO probably due to my love for the franchise from growing up. FF4(US 2) and FF3 are still some of the best gaming experiences I can remember. I look through a different set of eyes maybe as some because I played EQI for so long and never really made an enjoyable jump to WoW (wasn't for me, nothing against the game itself, but I played EQ2 primarily). I say this because from what I have seen thus far looks really enjoyable and I have no problems with what seems to be a pace or the combat. It could also be that my most recent and memorable FF MMO experiences were pretty miserable. I guess anything after that would be a step towards the better.

I don't have an invite and I don't really have the time at the moment anyway but, I really look forward to the updates. I am definitely more of a PvP guy now but I think the world (even myself) could use a good PvE game... Keep us posted guys!

The trinity, in its current form, leave no expansion on roles other thank EHP, DPS, and HPS. Sure you can get even more specific like Avoidance tank vs Mitigation tank, Range vs Melee and Single target vs AE, but these roles still have one common goal.

There is no more controlling the encounter from anyone, bar mechanics and tanks. There is no more pulling, just taunt.

There can still be really cool role designs, just nobody has the balls to go there.

GW2 was on the right track, but that game was designed for PvP, and not PvE. The roles were never defined, and such never really balanced for PvE either.

Here are a few ideas of some roles I could see being a ton of fun.

Support (Controller) - These people control fights. They knock down enemies, blind them, confuse them, all around beat their senses.

Puller - These people also control fights, mainly the beginning are important in how they setup the pull. They could lay traps, devise routes, and are really good kiters.

Bosses are no longer 'fixated' on tanks through threat alone. It is the job of the support and a tank to keep the boss focused on him. Tanks would have more abilities to jump in front of bosses and save team mates.

I mean there are so many things that could be done to break up the trinity, but I haven't seen a well implemented one yet.

Beta Sign Ups are Open:

Beta Sign Up:
NA:http://entry.ffxiv.com/beta/na

EU (English):http://entry.ffxiv.com/beta/eu

JP:http://entry.ffxiv.com/beta/jp

Newer version of the trailer:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h542Y...ature=youtu.be, new footage starts at5:30if you saw the original version. Square Enix still do the best CGI in the industry >_>

I'm toying with the idea of doing a FFXIV Junkies site. Is there anyone here interested in running it? Compensation will be tied to the success of the site.

Draegan_sl said:

I'm toying with the idea of doing a FFXIV Junkies site. Is there anyone here interested in running it? Compensation will be tied to the success of the site.

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If the beta turns out halfway decent i'm sure you may get some bites and I wouldn't care to help but there is just so much uncertainty with this game.

Yup. Doesn't hurt to be ready though.

I found this over on neogaf

Seems reasonable. If everything goes to the max time or close to... this puts release around June. I think they are advertising mid Q2? Like the fact two phases have the NDA lifted which should give everyone 4-6 weeks to talk it out. The more my friends and I looked at this the more we thought what else is there? Guys playing WoW said they are pretty much done and have been for a while. Rift guys have some new content to deal with and feel pretty confident in more to come but nothing exciting. The majority I have spoke to are play LoL and said the only game they see buying in the near future would be the SC2 expansion.

Slaythe_sl said:

I was going to wait for you guys to come back with a verdict but fuck it I signed up for the beta too. I don't really have high expectations though even if the latest promo stuff has looked (somewhat) promising.

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I feel the same way but you know what.... I have found myself looking for more and more at what people are saying about this game than any others. Looks like I'm already getting caught into the potential hype. Maybe it is where I passed on the last few hypes and i'm getting suckered in by the next new thing...

All they needed to do to make version 1.0 playable was add a PC UI w/ hotbars instead of assuming everyone was going to use USB controllers, plus an Auction House/mailbox system.

And keep the content coming.

If they fixed those 3 things, which it sounds like was the biggest impetus to relaunching, then it should be a good game.

The guy that took over after the original developer staff had to commit career seppuku seems pretty good.