And I'll say it again... RDM/NIN doesn't make anyone special. Any class can solo with the right subjob, even without specific mobs to feast on but that sure helps just like in any other MMO.
I just pointed those parts out for those people who seem to have trouble with the concept and claim you can't solo. BST was the best soloer in FFXI but try using a BST in places like Ro' Maeve and you got your lunch handed to you. Same with magic users due to the magic aggro mobs there, but non magic classes could live in here staying away from the sound aggro mobs (not sure why though, this area didn't drop much loot IMO, unless they were shard farming)
I just think people weren't using their brains in this game who QQ while soloing because they came from games where any class could kill any mob by themselves and they liked God Mode. IMO, Paladin was the slowest soloing class I did; but I know plenty of Paladins who soloed when they didn't feel like dying in a PUG run. They just stayed in the RIGHT areas.
I didn't claim you said soloing was impossible (which we both know is a lie made up by bad players), but you are inferring that only certain jobs could do it well like RDM/NIN when in reality anyone could if they use their marbles.
Just not as fast, and if someone wasn't in a hurry to max level in two months then that really didn't make any difference, does it? But thanks for the RDM "compliment", I guess you decided to bash me sometime after that according to what you wrote there.
Not looking at bst, Some classes had serious advantages soloing vs others ill speak from my experiance (I had blm pld bst at 74) My blm could solo so much easier than my pld. I am talking pre-75. A pld couldnt really damage a T so you had to fight EM's and an EM to a pld is really EM and your drained after the fight, and that is fighting what a pld should be fighting. Maybe if one had endless funds you could buy the elite gear to allow you to kill T's but only a small, small, number of people could afford that so thats not a feasable counter argument.
On the other hand I could smoke through T and VT jellies on my blm with very average gear with sleep/nuke. I solo'ed probably 15-20 levels on blm, I wasnt getting xp as fast as a pt but I could get a decent amount of xp.
Some classes had real advantages over others solo pre-75. Most classes couldnt even get anywhere close to the exp solo that they could in an xp pt.
Post 74 things change because of lvl 37 sub. (I forgot what level nin get utsi ni, 36,37 but when that happens things change)
With utsi: ni I could solo alot better with pld/nin, I could do more damage and not take a beating that i would take otherwise, fighting bones became much much easier. However my blm still could out xp my pld solo, by 2x.
now to the rdm/nin, that probabaly is the most powerfull combo in the game for solo. (again excluding bst) I have never seen any other combo SOLO serket. Not any rdm/nin could do it but there were several great players that could, while no other class could do it solo. As for balista a good rdm/nin wouldnt loose 1 vs 1. If there was "real" pvp in ffxi rdm/nin would have had a serious nerf of some sort.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore) Now Playing: N/A Worst MMO: FFXIV Favorite MMO: FFXI
Originally posted by toddze Originally posted by popinjay
I did read what you wrote.
And I'll say it again... RDM/NIN doesn't make anyone special. Any class can solo with the right subjob, even without specific mobs to feast on but that sure helps just like in any other MMO.
I just pointed those parts out for those people who seem to have trouble with the concept and claim you can't solo. BST was the best soloer in FFXI but try using a BST in places like Ro' Maeve and you got your lunch handed to you. Same with magic users due to the magic aggro mobs there, but non magic classes could live in here staying away from the sound aggro mobs (not sure why though, this area didn't drop much loot IMO, unless they were shard farming)
I just think people weren't using their brains in this game who QQ while soloing because they came from games where any class could kill any mob by themselves and they liked God Mode. IMO, Paladin was the slowest soloing class I did; but I know plenty of Paladins who soloed when they didn't feel like dying in a PUG run. They just stayed in the RIGHT areas.
I didn't claim you said soloing was impossible (which we both know is a lie made up by bad players), but you are inferring that only certain jobs could do it well like RDM/NIN when in reality anyone could if they use their marbles.
Just not as fast, and if someone wasn't in a hurry to max level in two months then that really didn't make any difference, does it? But thanks for the RDM "compliment", I guess you decided to bash me sometime after that according to what you wrote there.
Not looking at bst, Some classes had serious advantages soloing vs others ill speak from my experiance (I had blm pld bst at 74) My blm could solo so much easier than my pld. I am talking pre-75. A pld couldnt really damage a T so you had to fight EM's and an EM to a pld is really EM and your drained after the fight, and that is fighting what a pld should be fighting. Maybe if one had endless funds you could buy the elite gear to allow you to kill T's but only a small, small, number of people could afford that so thats not a feasable counter argument. On the other hand I could smoke through T and VT jellies on my blm with very average gear with sleep/nuke. I solo'ed probably 15-20 levels on blm, I wasnt getting xp as fast as a pt but I could get a decent amount of xp. Some classes had real advantages over others solo pre-75. Most classes couldnt even get anywhere close to the exp solo that they could in an xp pt. Post 74 things change because of lvl 37 sub. (I forgot what level nin get utsi ni, 36,37 but when that happens things change) With utsi: ni I could solo alot better with pld/nin, I could do more damage and not take a beating that i would take otherwise, fighting bones became much much easier. However my blm still could out xp my pld solo, by 2x. now to the rdm/nin, that probabaly is the most powerfull combo in the game for solo. (again excluding bst) I have never seen any other combo SOLO serket. Not any rdm/nin could do it but there were several great players that could, while no other class could do it solo. As for balista a good rdm/nin wouldnt loose 1 vs 1. If there was "real" pvp in ffxi rdm/nin would have had a serious nerf of some sort.
Agree with a lot of this, but its still which mobs people fight with what kind of class.
I had a PLD as well, and one thing a PLD did extremely well was cast Holy spells on undeads. It was easy for me to beat Tough undeads due to the bonus of that damage type against that mob.
BLM did very well against Fish mobs in sea. You got some resists but usually you could burn them down easily. I liked burning magic pots down as well. The undead skellies were great exp fests with 4 BLMs and one RDM.
THF did extremely well against giants like in Upper Delks. If you pack enough EVA, they just could not hit you. They don't silence you and even if they did, with a /NIN subjob silence didn't matter. Two THF/NIN together wrecked anything.
DRG got bonus against dragons and dragonkin type mobs. SAMs were hell on wheels against harder type objects like stone mobs. Before they nerfed Sidewinder (made you use it from a RANGED distance instead of right in the mob's face), a RNG/NIN soloed anything with laughable ease.
Every class has a bonus mob they are good against and this is true anywhere in the gaming world. My RDM was good against one type of Fishlady mob in TAU (can't remember the name) but the other version of it made me work a lot harder so I stayed away from that type as it was a melee one. The other version just tried to out nuke me and lost everytime, but if I only fought that melee type, I'd be complaining about how tough soloing with a RDM was.
Every game since Everquest always had some classes that did well against 4/5 mobs while others did well against 3/5 and 2/5. This isn't anything new.
The "new" thing is that even though someone loves to play a WHM in a group, they opine and cast a jealous eye towards a BLM who can mash just about anything and secretly want to do that with the WHM. Some of them are jealous because BLMs could run BCNMs with just 4 BLMs and get rich. People used to complain a bunch about BLM charging to run those, until they made their own BLM to do the same thing, lol.
Those players think WHM, DRG, and DRK should be able to do what a BLM or RDm does as well but they don't admit it. But those people don't realize that in EVERY game a BLM type character does that against just about every mob. FFXI is no different and I'm not sure why people expect the same results privately, while masking it in "I'm not asking to do as much dps as a BLM.." when in reality, you can read right through it that they are asking for just that very thing, ala WoW.
I'm not saying everyone who wants more dps is claiming that, but more times than not when you see someone complaining about lack of solo ability or low dps or something else, they are comparing their classes which are usually support or heals or something against a pure dps and expecting the same results, then whining when they don't get it.
Agree with a lot of this, but its still which mobs people fight with what kind of class.
I had a PLD as well, and one thing a PLD did extremely well was cast Holy spells on undeads. It was easy for me to beat Tough undeads due to the bonus of that damage type against that mob.
BLM did very well against Fish mobs in sea. You got some resists but usually you could burn them down easily. I liked burning magic pots down as well. The undead skellies were great exp fests with 4 BLMs and one RDM.
THF did extremely well against giants like in Upper Delks. If you pack enough EVA, they just could not hit you. They don't silence you and even if they did, with a /NIN subjob silence didn't matter. Two THF/NIN together wrecked anything.
DRG got bonus against dragons and dragonkin type mobs. SAMs were hell on wheels against harder type objects like stone mobs. Before they nerfed Sidewinder (made you use it from a RANGED distance instead of right in the mob's face), a RNG/NIN soloed anything with laughable ease.
Every class has a bonus mob they are good against and this is true anywhere in the gaming world. My RDM was good against one type of Fishlady mob in TAU (can't remember the name) but the other version of it made me work a lot harder so I stayed away from that type as it was a melee one. The other version just tried to out nuke me and lost everytime, but if I only fought that melee type, I'd be complaining about how tough soloing with a RDM was.
Every game since Everquest always had some classes that did well against 4/5 mobs while others did well against 3/5 and 2/5. This isn't anything new.
The "new" thing is that even though someone loves to play a WHM in a group, they opine and cast a jealous eye towards a BLM who can mash just about anything and secretly want to do that with the WHM. Some of them are jealous because BLMs could run BCNMs with just 4 BLMs and get rich. People used to complain a bunch about BLM charging to run those, until they made their own BLM to do the same thing, lol.
Those players think WHM, DRG, and DRK should be able to do what a BLM or RDm does as well but they don't admit it. But those people don't realize that in EVERY game a BLM type character does that against just about every mob. FFXI is no different and I'm not sure why people expect the same results privately, while masking it in "I'm not asking to do as much dps as a BLM.." when in reality, you can read right through it that they are asking for just that very thing, ala WoW.
I'm not saying everyone who wants more dps is claiming that, but more times than not when you see someone complaining about lack of solo ability or low dps or something else, they are comparing their classes which are usually support or heals or something against a pure dps and expecting the same results, then whining when they don't get it.
I am not arguing that classes cant solo, I am arguing that some have the ability to do it easier/more often and get better xp than others. I am very well aware of the killer effects.
Theres no way a pld could get the same amount of xp as a blm fighting there respective mobs that they should be fighting in an hour. Anyways while pld was strong vs undead blm wasnt limited by its killer effect which idk what it was because it didnt matter because if it didnt resist sleep it could be killed, easy. Sort of like rdm, it doesnt really matter what its killer effect is because it does not need it.Thus their options are much much greater than that of the other classes.
I am not bashing ffxi system in case anyone is wondering I loved it. I hope ffxiv is as group oriented as ffxi. I also dont care if some classes can solo better in ffxiv than other classes. If thats the case Ill do the same thing in ffxiv as i did in XI, Ill level the class I want thats needed for groups(tank), then ill level a class for me to play around on(w/e bst,blm are in ffxiv).
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore) Now Playing: N/A Worst MMO: FFXIV Favorite MMO: FFXI
I personally don't mind soloing every now and then, and occasionally having some time to myself.
But I personally think what makes this genre really fun is playing with other gamers.
I personally feel as though if they make It solo centered I might as well be playing a Single Player Final Fantasy. And playing that way like It's almost a single player game is no fun for me personally.
It's going to suck for me If they make It a heavy heavy solo centric game.
Am I alone here? Does everyone want a more single player experience in their MMORPG'S?
It saddens me a little that this might happen.
I share the exact same sentiments.
This game will be solo heavy,but where it changes imo is in Guildleves.I think the setup will be one where yes you can go do something for your guild,but the better rewards will be the grouped quests.
It is no secret how Square does things,i bet your advanced skills will also be very hard grouped fights ,based around some quest or guildleve.All they have done in this game is disguise an identical system to FFXI but pan it off as different.You still had to level up your weapons to get your next weapon skills and you still had to do quests to get your advanced weapon skills,nothing is new here.Yes they added a lot of solo content in FFXI,but as you noticed it was limited,it did not replace grouping rewards.I believe FFXIV is going to fall around the same lines,as a grouped game but with some areas to allow for soloing,but it will not be the better option.
When Square said things like ,your guild leader will give players quests[guildleves] that are better suited for them,i believe that means solo,mini grouped or large grouped.You can expect the rewards to be based on the difficulty,witch will also be based on the group size.So in other words,no your not going to be soloing your Tach:Kasha,but yes through normal play ,solo or grouped you will eventually get your Tachi:Enpi.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Seems there is a pretty common fallacy among MMO players that an MMO that is Solo Friendly is Solo Centric and even can't be Party Friendly. That simply isn't the case. FFXI had a HORRIBLE party system, because it was a complete pain to use. Very often people had to wait hours to find a group, even good players. I hear this got easier later on, but the central idea of forcing people to group is just made of fail. You don't have to force people to group up in an MMO. All you have to do to have a lot of a grouping is to reward it. Heck, look at WoW where grouping on normal quests is usually a bad idea (as far as gaining experience fast). People still do it there a good bit. They'd have even more grouping in WoW if you simply gained as much experience in a group as doing things solo. Generally MMO players like to group after all, because we like to have some level of social interaction. There's no need for grouping to be shoved down the throats of players when it can just be encouraged with some bonus experience and making group play fun and interesting. It looks like FFXIV is going to do just that, so there's no reason to complain yet as far as I can tell.
Now, you might wonder why a game should even bother being Solo and Party Friendly. Plenty of reasons for this.
Sometimes a guy can get burned out of grouping for a while, so they need a break. It's nice for the game to let them do this and still play their character where they want to play them.
Sometimes it is hard to find people for a group before you start questing, but it is usually easier in the field in games that are solo friendly (since you stumble over people doing the same thing you are doing). Moving away from the Tank-Healer-DPS dynamic also means when you stumble over players it is easier to group up effectively.
Some people just like to solo play some of the time (without getting burned out, per se). Catering a little to this player base is good financially.
It's possible that a game that is both solo and group friendly can support a wider number of party sizes. (This depends on the mechanics, so it isn't clear if FFXIV will be like this). If parties of size 1 through 5 are supported by the game, then that makes grouping easier and less of a pain (and a lot of new players join the game with a friend or some such who they play with, but often not 4 other friends).*
I am sure there are other reasons that aren't coming to mind. Anyhow, there is no reason to think that being friendly to soloing means the game won't have a strong group dynamic. So far the group dynamic looks pretty good to me, though admittedly they've only sketched some vague outlines of it.
-Drachasor
*I suppose you might wonder how this could be, but it isn't that hard. Say a level 15 guy can solo Medium Difficulty Mobs of level 15, two level 15s can duo tough level 15 mobs, three level 15s can trio very tough level 15 mobs, and so forth possibly increasing mob level for larger groups, assuming all groups adventure in the same areas and there aren't special solo zones and whatnot -- solo areas would be a bad idea, imho.
Its hard to believe he is still arguing and we've been agreeing with him.Originally posted by toddze
Originally posted by popinjay
Agree with a lot of this, but its still which mobs people fight with what kind of class.
I had a PLD as well, and one thing a PLD did extremely well was cast Holy spells on undeads. It was easy for me to beat Tough undeads due to the bonus of that damage type against that mob.
BLM did very well against Fish mobs in sea. You got some resists but usually you could burn them down easily. I liked burning magic pots down as well. The undead skellies were great exp fests with 4 BLMs and one RDM.
THF did extremely well against giants like in Upper Delks. If you pack enough EVA, they just could not hit you. They don't silence you and even if they did, with a /NIN subjob silence didn't matter. Two THF/NIN together wrecked anything.
DRG got bonus against dragons and dragonkin type mobs. SAMs were hell on wheels against harder type objects like stone mobs. Before they nerfed Sidewinder (made you use it from a RANGED distance instead of right in the mob's face), a RNG/NIN soloed anything with laughable ease.
Every class has a bonus mob they are good against and this is true anywhere in the gaming world. My RDM was good against one type of Fishlady mob in TAU (can't remember the name) but the other version of it made me work a lot harder so I stayed away from that type as it was a melee one. The other version just tried to out nuke me and lost everytime, but if I only fought that melee type, I'd be complaining about how tough soloing with a RDM was.
Every game since Everquest always had some classes that did well against 4/5 mobs while others did well against 3/5 and 2/5. This isn't anything new.
The "new" thing is that even though someone loves to play a WHM in a group, they opine and cast a jealous eye towards a BLM who can mash just about anything and secretly want to do that with the WHM. Some of them are jealous because BLMs could run BCNMs with just 4 BLMs and get rich. People used to complain a bunch about BLM charging to run those, until they made their own BLM to do the same thing, lol.
Those players think WHM, DRG, and DRK should be able to do what a BLM or RDm does as well but they don't admit it. But those people don't realize that in EVERY game a BLM type character does that against just about every mob. FFXI is no different and I'm not sure why people expect the same results privately, while masking it in "I'm not asking to do as much dps as a BLM.." when in reality, you can read right through it that they are asking for just that very thing, ala WoW.
I'm not saying everyone who wants more dps is claiming that, but more times than not when you see someone complaining about lack of solo ability or low dps or something else, they are comparing their classes which are usually support or heals or something against a pure dps and expecting the same results, then whining when they don't get it.
I am not arguing that classes cant solo, I am arguing that some have the ability to do it easier/more often and get better xp than others. I am very well aware of the killer effects.
Theres no way a pld could get the same amount of xp as a blm fighting there respective mobs that they should be fighting in an hour. Anyways while pld was strong vs undead blm wasnt limited by its killer effect which idk what it was because it didnt matter because if it didnt resist sleep it could be killed, easy. Sort of like rdm, it doesnt really matter what its killer effect is because it does not need it.Thus their options are much much greater than that of the other classes.
I am not bashing ffxi system in case anyone is wondering I loved it. I hope ffxiv is as group oriented as ffxi. I also dont care if some classes can solo better in ffxiv than other classes. If thats the case Ill do the same thing in ffxiv as i did in XI, Ill level the class I want thats needed for groups(tank), then ill level a class for me to play around on(w/e bst,blm are in ffxiv).
Its hard to believe he is still arguing and we've been agreeing with him.
I said this before in another thread, but it's worth repeating... the problem with FFXI isn't that it is group dependent or that there isn't anything to do while LFP. The problem is it isn't group friendly. It always blew my mind when there were 30 people all LFP and all sitting in Jeuno waiting for that invite. That's the problem that FFXIV needs to address, not the lack of solo content. I think for the most part people don't mind a group dependent game, what they do mind is not being able to group easily in a group dependent game.
I've never played the game. What makes grouping difficult?
In FFXI, if you weren't one of the jobs in high demand (tanks, healers, bards) then you often didn't get invites very quickly for a party. Typically this was because the vast majority of players were some flavor of DPS making them a dime-a-dozen. Also, because of the difficulty level with killing regular mobs (for EXP), if you weren't one of the "preferred" job combos, you were overlooked. Along those same lines, party makeup was very strict as well. You couldn't efficiently kill mobs if you had 1 or 2 fewer people than max in a party, so even if there were 4 ideal jobs online seeking, you still had to wait for the extra spots to fill. To make matters worse, travel times in FFXI could be lengthy, so parties looking for a replacement would often search for players who were nearby first, sitting in a major town for a quick teleport second, and everyone else last. So you couldn't go out soloing in a lower level zone (to skillup and get drops) for fear of being excluded from an invite. You also couldn't switch to a lower level job while waiting for a party with your higher level one because the LFP interface only listed you as your current job combo.
So basically if you played a DPS job combo and you wanted a party, you had to put up your LFP flag and sit around doing nothing until you got an invite. Frequently, that invite would never come and you'd log for the night gaining nothing (unless you really, really liked crafting).
However, when you did get into a decent party, the game was 2nd to none IMO. It made all the waiting worth it.
I said this before in another thread, but it's worth repeating... the problem with FFXI isn't that it is group dependent or that there isn't anything to do while LFP. The problem is it isn't group friendly. It always blew my mind when there were 30 people all LFP and all sitting in Jeuno waiting for that invite. That's the problem that FFXIV needs to address, not the lack of solo content. I think for the most part people don't mind a group dependent game, what they do mind is not being able to group easily in a group dependent game.
I've never played the game. What makes grouping difficult?
In FFXI, if you weren't one of the jobs in high demand (tanks, healers, bards) then you often didn't get invites very quickly for a party. Typically this was because the vast majority of players were some flavor of DPS making them a dime-a-dozen. Also, because of the difficulty level with killing regular mobs (for EXP), if you weren't one of the "preferred" job combos, you were overlooked. Along those same lines, party makeup was very strict as well. You couldn't efficiently kill mobs if you had 1 or 2 fewer people than max in a party, so even if there were 4 ideal jobs online seeking, you still had to wait for the extra spots to fill. To make matters worse, travel times in FFXI could be lengthy, so parties looking for a replacement would often search for players who were nearby first, sitting in a major town for a quick teleport second, and everyone else last. So you couldn't go out soloing in a lower level zone (to skillup and get drops) for fear of being excluded from an invite. You also couldn't switch to a lower level job while waiting for a party with your higher level one because the LFP interface only listed you as your current job combo.
So basically if you played a DPS job combo and you wanted a party, you had to put up your LFP flag and sit around doing nothing until you got an invite. Frequently, that invite would never come and you'd log for the night gaining nothing (unless you really, really liked crafting).
However, when you did get into a decent party, the game was 2nd to none IMO. It made all the waiting worth it.
Again, problem with the player base being too strict with what they were looking for and the unwillingness to try something that wasn't the norm. Best parties I have had in the games were the ones that everyone would have told you were doomed to fail.
The only way from a programmers stand point that could be done is to make every DPS job exactly the same so that anyone can jump in at any time, or make them all so different that they would only work in situational parties. FFXI is somewhere in the middle of those two. Either way you still have to wait for your number to be called.
Also if a particular party area can only hold 3-4 parties if 5 groups try to get in the area is saturated and exp suffers for everyone. Remember 60 people trying to fill 30 spots in 5 possible parties ... someone has to be on the bench. Between that, lack of necessary jobs (tank/healer), laziness, and/or elitism is the reason for so many lfp. The exact reason does change a lot. Yes there are it is sickening to see people who will only party with job X Y or Z ... but there is nothing you can do to change another person.
Some past time would be awesome.
I still have to disagree with the whole travel thing. I could get to most places in this game in 5 minutes (worse case scenario maybe 10). Between my chocobo whistle, teleport/warp spells, warp sticks, OP warps, AN warps, the gates in Aht Urgan ... it is quite easy to get around. Probably the hardest place to get to would be probably KA's camp in Jugnar Forest. I mean getting to sky would be: Stick home, OP to Li'Telor, hop a bird to Ro'Maeve, pop a pot, walk to sky. I don't think that is more than 10 minutes.
The only thing I hated was not being able to LFP as one job and do something as another. Like being a THF camping some NM while your flag is up to lfp as a PLD. Or even better being able to flag multiple jobs at once where if a party is looking for something in particular I can show them all I can be instead of just looking as one job. I think this new game will take care of this hopefully.
Originally posted by swalker23 Its hard to believe he is still arguing and we've been agreeing with him.Originally posted by toddze Originally posted by popinjay
Agree with a lot of this, but its still which mobs people fight with what kind of class.
I had a PLD as well, and one thing a PLD did extremely well was cast Holy spells on undeads. It was easy for me to beat Tough undeads due to the bonus of that damage type against that mob.
BLM did very well against Fish mobs in sea. You got some resists but usually you could burn them down easily. I liked burning magic pots down as well. The undead skellies were great exp fests with 4 BLMs and one RDM.
THF did extremely well against giants like in Upper Delks. If you pack enough EVA, they just could not hit you. They don't silence you and even if they did, with a /NIN subjob silence didn't matter. Two THF/NIN together wrecked anything.
DRG got bonus against dragons and dragonkin type mobs. SAMs were hell on wheels against harder type objects like stone mobs. Before they nerfed Sidewinder (made you use it from a RANGED distance instead of right in the mob's face), a RNG/NIN soloed anything with laughable ease.
Every class has a bonus mob they are good against and this is true anywhere in the gaming world. My RDM was good against one type of Fishlady mob in TAU (can't remember the name) but the other version of it made me work a lot harder so I stayed away from that type as it was a melee one. The other version just tried to out nuke me and lost everytime, but if I only fought that melee type, I'd be complaining about how tough soloing with a RDM was.
Every game since Everquest always had some classes that did well against 4/5 mobs while others did well against 3/5 and 2/5. This isn't anything new.
The "new" thing is that even though someone loves to play a WHM in a group, they opine and cast a jealous eye towards a BLM who can mash just about anything and secretly want to do that with the WHM. Some of them are jealous because BLMs could run BCNMs with just 4 BLMs and get rich. People used to complain a bunch about BLM charging to run those, until they made their own BLM to do the same thing, lol.
Those players think WHM, DRG, and DRK should be able to do what a BLM or RDm does as well but they don't admit it. But those people don't realize that in EVERY game a BLM type character does that against just about every mob. FFXI is no different and I'm not sure why people expect the same results privately, while masking it in "I'm not asking to do as much dps as a BLM.." when in reality, you can read right through it that they are asking for just that very thing, ala WoW.
I'm not saying everyone who wants more dps is claiming that, but more times than not when you see someone complaining about lack of solo ability or low dps or something else, they are comparing their classes which are usually support or heals or something against a pure dps and expecting the same results, then whining when they don't get it.
I am not arguing that classes cant solo, I am arguing that some have the ability to do it easier/more often and get better xp than others. I am very well aware of the killer effects. Theres no way a pld could get the same amount of xp as a blm fighting there respective mobs that they should be fighting in an hour. Anyways while pld was strong vs undead blm wasnt limited by its killer effect which idk what it was because it didnt matter because if it didnt resist sleep it could be killed, easy. Sort of like rdm, it doesnt really matter what its killer effect is because it does not need it.Thus their options are much much greater than that of the other classes. I am not bashing ffxi system in case anyone is wondering I loved it. I hope ffxiv is as group oriented as ffxi. I also dont care if some classes can solo better in ffxiv than other classes. If thats the case Ill do the same thing in ffxiv as i did in XI, Ill level the class I want thats needed for groups(tank), then ill level a class for me to play around on(w/e bst,blm are in ffxiv).
Its hard to believe he is still arguing and we've been agreeing with him.
I guess you thought that was necessary.
No one is arguing, unless you consider making points arguing then the whole forum pretty much does that. I know I ticked you off by something I said, hence your "bashing" comments you posted earlier, but I don't wish to turn it personal, k? It's just opinions.
I've no desire to change the game as it is, because clearly many people enjoy it. However, for myself, making it a heavy solo game is the only way I'd consider even downloading the trial. I like grouping, but a oh-so-loathe the downtime of getting everyone ready and to the mission start point. Raiding is even worse. Soloing, I play at the exact speed I enjoy, take breaks when i want to, and get all the loot. Please continue to enjoy your style of play and I'll enjoy mine.
Happy gaming.
I think everyone likes the ability to do things on their own from time to time, or when there's no groups available, etc. etc. The thing is, when a MMO delivers enough content that allows soloing almost exclusively, if not exclusively, as an option, then more people solo... which results in groups being harder to assemble, because so many are soloing... which leads to people who'd otherwise be grouping having to solo themselves... which leads to a MMO that almost no one groups in.
Look at what's happening in FFXI... for years it was a group-centric MMO. People grouped and there were p ractically always groups to be found - if not one seeking, then you could put one together yourself (which many didn't do, opting to sit around with their seek flags up). Despite all that, people still found ways to solo, though they were limited, or at least substantially slower and riskier than in a party. In the past year or two, SE's started introducing new content that makes soloing more feasible... Having Dancer as a sub, FoV, Campaign Battle and so on... As that's continued, more and more people have started soloing or duoing and parties have become harder and harder to find, or even assemble.
Now there's that whole lame Astral Burn thing... which has resulted in me going to the Dunes a few nights ago, during prime time, to find *8* people soloing or duoing. You used to see parties everywhere in the Dunes. Now there's just people doing FoV's.
For all intents and purposes, FFXI is becoming more and more of a "soloers" game, with parties becoming more and more rare. If it can happen to FFXI with the addition of only a few systems that support it, it will certainly happen in a MMO that's designed to support soloing from the start.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I said this before in another thread, but it's worth repeating... the problem with FFXI isn't that it is group dependent or that there isn't anything to do while LFP. The problem is it isn't group friendly. It always blew my mind when there were 30 people all LFP and all sitting in Jeuno waiting for that invite. That's the problem that FFXIV needs to address, not the lack of solo content. I think for the most part people don't mind a group dependent game, what they do mind is not being able to group easily in a group dependent game.
The thing is... how many of those 30 people were even trying to assemble a party themselves? That's the thing... Back then, sometimes finding a group *could* be difficult, yes. But many times, more than some realize, a full party was right under their noses... but they wouldn't have known it because they were all waiting for a party to come to them instead of taking the initiative and putting it together themself.
A good friend of mine was *constantly* in parties. I'd ask her "how the heck do you find parties so quick? You just logged on 30 minutes ago and you're already xp'ing". She'd respond, "I put them together".
Also, as far as nothing to do while waiting? Crafting, farming, fishing, gathering, socializing (believe it or not, that can be an entertaining way to pass the time), questing... Nowadays on top of all that, there's FoV, Campaign, soloing (since it's a lot more feasible).
I think part of the problem is that many people are stuck in this mindset of leveling being the only useful activity in the game to their character, when the reality is there are *many* activities in the game that can be useful... If I had a nickel for every time I"ve seen people complain about not having money, yet when you ask them what their craft is or what they harvest, they say "nothing... crafting is boring and I can't stand harvesting". Suggest that they do some of that while seeking a party and they respond like you just told them to jump off a bridge.
So many perceived problems in FFXI (and in other MMOs) are self-imposed by the players themselves, yet they blame the developers for it. The developers provide the content... they can't force you to do it if you don't want, but it's not their fault if you don't (not you personally, Six)
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
As a super casual mmo'er who hardly has time to play.. my "dream" setup for a PvE oriented Mmo is as follows.
Solo..make TONS AND TONS of solo content...with.. crappy rewards, and crappy xp.. make it so you CAN solo to cap, but you sure don't want too, and make it challanging.. dangerous...
Crafting.. make the gear a "tad" better then what you can get soloing..
grouping.. better xp and gear for group based content...
raid.. best gear..
Make it so you CAN solo, but would more likely WANT to group.. that's where pve games lack...
I HATE games where they try to give everything to everyone for there style.. it's a mmo.. lack of challange makes it boring, making everything obtainable defeats the purpose..
if you impliment a PvP system, make it a "for fun" system and pointless... don't let it have an impact on PvE balancing.. make a leaderboard and make bragging rights, and make PvP only useable loot or something if you have to, but for gods sake, don't let it impact PvE balance.
I said this before in another thread, but it's worth repeating... the problem with FFXI isn't that it is group dependent or that there isn't anything to do while LFP. The problem is it isn't group friendly. It always blew my mind when there were 30 people all LFP and all sitting in Jeuno waiting for that invite. That's the problem that FFXIV needs to address, not the lack of solo content. I think for the most part people don't mind a group dependent game, what they do mind is not being able to group easily in a group dependent game.
The thing is... how many of those 30 people were even trying to assemble a party themselves? That's the thing... Back then, sometimes finding a group *could* be difficult, yes. But many times, more than some realize, a full party was right under their noses... but they wouldn't have known it because they were all waiting for a party to come to them instead of taking the initiative and putting it together themself.
A good friend of mine was *constantly* in parties. I'd ask her "how the heck do you find parties so quick? You just logged on 30 minutes ago and you're already xp'ing". She'd respond, "I put them together".
Also, as far as nothing to do while waiting? Crafting, farming, fishing, gathering, socializing (believe it or not, that can be an entertaining way to pass the time), questing... Nowadays on top of all that, there's FoV, Campaign, soloing (since it's a lot more feasible).
I think part of the problem is that many people are stuck in this mindset of leveling being the only useful activity in the game to their character, when the reality is there are *many* activities in the game that can be useful... If I had a nickel for every time I"ve seen people complain about not having money, yet when you ask them what their craft is or what they harvest, they say "nothing... crafting is boring and I can't stand harvesting". Suggest that they do some of that while seeking a party and they respond like you just told them to jump off a bridge.
So many perceived problems in FFXI (and in other MMOs) are self-imposed by the players themselves, yet they blame the developers for it. The developers provide the content... they can't force you to do it if you don't want, but it's not their fault if you don't (not you personally, Six)
Very good points, and I do agree with you, but SE wasn't without blame either. I spent a lot of time doing some of the things you mentioned while LFP but I know good and well that I missed party invites because of it. Even though you could get just about anywhere in 5 minutes or so, if someone was LFP in the same zone that a party needed a replacement, they got the invite. If SE designed it so that parties could summon people, that wouldn't have been an issue. If you could put up your LFP flag as one combo and switch to another, that would have helped. If each job combo had a unique ability that made them all (or almost all) worthwhile, that would have helped. If they increased spawn rates based on how fast the mobs were dieing so you could get more parties in the same zone, that would have helped.
I said this before in another thread, but it's worth repeating... the problem with FFXI isn't that it is group dependent or that there isn't anything to do while LFP. The problem is it isn't group friendly. It always blew my mind when there were 30 people all LFP and all sitting in Jeuno waiting for that invite. That's the problem that FFXIV needs to address, not the lack of solo content. I think for the most part people don't mind a group dependent game, what they do mind is not being able to group easily in a group dependent game.
The thing is... how many of those 30 people were even trying to assemble a party themselves? That's the thing... Back then, sometimes finding a group *could* be difficult, yes. But many times, more than some realize, a full party was right under their noses... but they wouldn't have known it because they were all waiting for a party to come to them instead of taking the initiative and putting it together themself.
A good friend of mine was *constantly* in parties. I'd ask her "how the heck do you find parties so quick? You just logged on 30 minutes ago and you're already xp'ing". She'd respond, "I put them together".
Also, as far as nothing to do while waiting? Crafting, farming, fishing, gathering, socializing (believe it or not, that can be an entertaining way to pass the time), questing... Nowadays on top of all that, there's FoV, Campaign, soloing (since it's a lot more feasible).
I think part of the problem is that many people are stuck in this mindset of leveling being the only useful activity in the game to their character, when the reality is there are *many* activities in the game that can be useful... If I had a nickel for every time I"ve seen people complain about not having money, yet when you ask them what their craft is or what they harvest, they say "nothing... crafting is boring and I can't stand harvesting". Suggest that they do some of that while seeking a party and they respond like you just told them to jump off a bridge.
So many perceived problems in FFXI (and in other MMOs) are self-imposed by the players themselves, yet they blame the developers for it. The developers provide the content... they can't force you to do it if you don't want, but it's not their fault if you don't (not you personally, Six)
Very good points, and I do agree with you, but SE wasn't without blame either. I spent a lot of time doing some of the things you mentioned while LFP but I know good and well that I missed party invites because of it. Even though you could get just about anywhere in 5 minutes or so, if someone was LFP in the same zone that a party needed a replacement, they got the invite. If SE designed it so that parties could summon people, that wouldn't have been an issue. If you could put up your LFP flag as one combo and switch to another, that would have helped. If each job combo had a unique ability that made them all (or almost all) worthwhile, that would have helped. If they increased spawn rates based on how fast the mobs were dieing so you could get more parties in the same zone, that would have helped.
These are all very good ideas. Hopefully the like will be addressed with XIV, as SE has said they are learning from their past mistakes/downfalls with FFXI (and I tend to believe them).
I said this before in another thread, but it's worth repeating... the problem with FFXI isn't that it is group dependent or that there isn't anything to do while LFP. The problem is it isn't group friendly. It always blew my mind when there were 30 people all LFP and all sitting in Jeuno waiting for that invite. That's the problem that FFXIV needs to address, not the lack of solo content. I think for the most part people don't mind a group dependent game, what they do mind is not being able to group easily in a group dependent game.
The thing is... how many of those 30 people were even trying to assemble a party themselves? That's the thing... Back then, sometimes finding a group *could* be difficult, yes. But many times, more than some realize, a full party was right under their noses... but they wouldn't have known it because they were all waiting for a party to come to them instead of taking the initiative and putting it together themself.
A good friend of mine was *constantly* in parties. I'd ask her "how the heck do you find parties so quick? You just logged on 30 minutes ago and you're already xp'ing". She'd respond, "I put them together".
Also, as far as nothing to do while waiting? Crafting, farming, fishing, gathering, socializing (believe it or not, that can be an entertaining way to pass the time), questing... Nowadays on top of all that, there's FoV, Campaign, soloing (since it's a lot more feasible).
I think part of the problem is that many people are stuck in this mindset of leveling being the only useful activity in the game to their character, when the reality is there are *many* activities in the game that can be useful... If I had a nickel for every time I"ve seen people complain about not having money, yet when you ask them what their craft is or what they harvest, they say "nothing... crafting is boring and I can't stand harvesting". Suggest that they do some of that while seeking a party and they respond like you just told them to jump off a bridge.
So many perceived problems in FFXI (and in other MMOs) are self-imposed by the players themselves, yet they blame the developers for it. The developers provide the content... they can't force you to do it if you don't want, but it's not their fault if you don't (not you personally, Six)
I'm generally of the opinion the players are right if they complain that something isn't fun. It isn't the job of the player to work himself over to make something fun. The game should simply be fun. If a lot of players have trouble getting in parties, then from a developerand game designstandpoint that is a problem with the game. If a lot of players find the things besides combat and leveling boring when they shouldn't be, then that is a problem with the game. Forming parties doesn't have to be a cumbersome chore if the game is designed right. You can design a game so that soloing works AND so that you can form parties of 2-6 people, each party size working (obviously if you are in a party of size 2 then you are probably in a different area than the same level of people in a party of size 6). Crafting and non-combat/non-leveling activities don't have to be doing the same thing over and over (and most people do find repetitive tasks like this boring). It would require innovation to fix crafting, but it is far from impossible.
On the other hand, the masses are typically terribly wrong when they propose game mechanics. Most people simply suck at designing balanced and fun mechanics. Some people who are players are good at this, but it is pretty rare. Again though, the game, by its very nature, is supposed to be fun, so if a lot of players find something to be not fun, then it isn't their problem, but rather the game's. It's important to understand the distinction between these two things, which can get blurred. People often say stuff like "the game should work like X" or "X should replace Y" or the like, and what one might be able to get out of that (if changes to Y are often proposed for instance) is that Y isn't fun or Y is broken in some way. Often a lot of the X's proposed are stupid and bad, but that doesn't mean the players don't have a point when they keep saying that Y has to be changed. In short, players are good at identifying problems where the game isn't fun, but they are terrible at proposing how those problems should be fixed.
So when players say "grouping sucked in FFXI", then one shouldn't dismiss this out of hand. If people say "crafting was boring in FFXI" then one shouldn't dismiss this out of hand. Thankfully Square seems to grok this and it looks like they are working on fixing a lot of things people found to be unfun.
Originally posted by Sixpax Very good points, and I do agree with you, but SE wasn't without blame either. I spent a lot of time doing some of the things you mentioned while LFP but I know good and well that I missed party invites because of it. Even though you could get just about anywhere in 5 minutes or so, if someone was LFP in the same zone that a party needed a replacement, they got the invite. If SE designed it so that parties could summon people, that wouldn't have been an issue. If you could put up your LFP flag as one combo and switch to another, that would have helped. If each job combo had a unique ability that made them all (or almost all) worthwhile, that would have helped. If they increased spawn rates based on how fast the mobs were dieing so you could get more parties in the same zone, that would have helped.
I don't really think this fixes the problem, just slaps a band aid on it. I personally think the better solution is to make it so that parties don't have such rigid requirements (one tank, a healer or two, and dps), and in particularly moving away from having classes that are needed in a much higher proportion than the proportion of players who enjoy player them (healers, I am looking at you, though tanks aren't exempt here either). I'm happy to see Square seems to be doing both of these things in FFXI. This makes forming a party much easier, since you don't have to wait for an uncommon player. Combat mechanics will be different of course, but there are many, many fun games out there without dedicated healers and tanks that use tactical combat, so it is quite doable. Hopefully party size will also be pretty flexible (quite possible as well if most xp come from quests, since given the quest system they've described with a little scripting it could easily scale with party size).
I don't expect them to make this game very solo centric like say, WoW, but I do expect them to make it more friendly towards people like myself whom, honestly don't have a lot of time in our day to play, but would like to be able to accomplish something in the few hours I have, and yes, that means, making it possible for solo players to level and advance if they can't find a party.
I agree that, what needs to happen, is there should simply be a better incentive to party together. To use WoW as an example... yes, I can level all the way to 80 if I want to... but If I want to get the cooler gear, faster XP, Faster faction points etc. etc. Then I'll have to find a group and do dungeons together. That's one way of making it solo friendly, without alienating those that want to party.
Personally, even if they make it as solo friendly as LOTRO, then I'm on board.
I personally don't mind soloing every now and then, and occasionally having some time to myself.
But I personally think what makes this genre really fun is playing with other gamers.
I personally feel as though if they make It solo centered I might as well be playing a Single Player Final Fantasy. And playing that way like It's almost a single player game is no fun for me personally.
It's going to suck for me If they make It a heavy heavy solo centric game.
Am I alone here? Does everyone want a more single player experience in their MMORPG'S?
It saddens me a little that this might happen.
Without breaking down the entire game i will give you one example as to why in this new design a solo designed game is a big fail.Now assume they make soloing easier than FFXI,witch is what we are talking about here,so more xp for soloing Even MAtch than waht FFXI allowed as this would be the type of fight you could solo,VT and IT would of course stil lbe out of the question...maybe?.
Now my example is assuming i know the structure of the design ,i do not completely know ,nobody does.However this is what COULD happen....i start as a warrior,give myself WARCRY,change to thief startup sneak attack,walk up behind a sight mob and utilize massive damage,now i switch back to a ninja,i got a huge upperhand on the mob now.Change to DRK or BLM and STUN or SLEEP,now change back to thief sneak attack again,change back to ninja for safety of shadows or heck even Paladin so i can heal myself.There is also the possibility i can utilize several buffs before a fight by changing to 6/7/8 different jobs like having regen and shadows ect ect.
Square may vary well have an answer for this lame design,by not allowing you to have buffs unless you are on that job,but we wil lhave to wait and see,maybe they won't have an answer and allow for some ridiculolus easy game play.No other game has ever allowed anyone to have access to every ability and every spell at their choice,so this will be one tricky design to pull off correctly.
Now assume this is all possible to make soloing much easier,what would that mean for a group?WHOA ! is what i have to say,imagine 6 thiefs starting with sneak attack or 6 rangers all loading up sidewinder to start a fight,it gets incredibly ridiculous to say the least.Once you crossover and allow easy XP for soloing ,you cannot help but make grouping easier also,it is impossible not to.The ONLY reason soloing exists in other games,is because they are not designed to grind on mobs,they grind boring quests instead,so no matter how many people you have doing the quest,your XP is always the same,that is a huge difference in game design,witch does not work in FF.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Very good points, and I do agree with you, but SE wasn't without blame either. I spent a lot of time doing some of the things you mentioned while LFP but I know good and well that I missed party invites because of it. Even though you could get just about anywhere in 5 minutes or so, if someone was LFP in the same zone that a party needed a replacement, they got the invite. If SE designed it so that parties could summon people, that wouldn't have been an issue. If you could put up your LFP flag as one combo and switch to another, that would have helped. If each job combo had a unique ability that made them all (or almost all) worthwhile, that would have helped. If they increased spawn rates based on how fast the mobs were dieing so you could get more parties in the same zone, that would have helped.
I don't really think this fixes the problem, just slaps a band aid on it. I personally think the better solution is to make it so that parties don't have such rigid requirements (one tank, a healer or two, and dps), and in particularly moving away from having classes that are needed in a much higher proportion than the proportion of players who enjoy player them (healers, I am looking at you, though tanks aren't exempt here either). I'm happy to see Square seems to be doing both of these things in FFXI. This makes forming a party much easier, since you don't have to wait for an uncommon player. Combat mechanics will be different of course, but there are many, many fun games out there without dedicated healers and tanks that use tactical combat, so it is quite doable. Hopefully party size will also be pretty flexible (quite possible as well if most xp come from quests, since given the quest system they've described with a little scripting it could easily scale with party size).
While that idea sounds good on paper, I don't see how that can work. If you can kill the same mobs that a "holy trinity" party can kill, then it would be more efficient to do so without a dedicated tank/healer because you'd put out more DPS. So you wind up alienating the people that do play pure healers and tanks because they'd just slow down your TTK. To fix that problem you have to adjust mob difficulty so that the party with the dedicated tank/healer can kill more difficult mobs at a slower pace and the party without a dedicated tank/healer can kill less difficult mobs but at a fast pace. But... that's actually how FFXI was designed. Merit parties are a prime example of parties with no pure tank or healer.
As for party size, I think that should be viable, and in FFXI it was to an extent. I remember not having full parties and killing T/VT mobs. It worked but wasn't ideal.
SE has their hands full trying to pander to the WOW crowd and keep a semblance of what makes a Final Fantasy game.
Personally as a WOW expansion is in the works and people coming from WOW tend to like nothing much aside from WOW and are IN-and-OUT of MMOGS in a matter of weeks, I do not see SE making inroads with this demographic no matter how easy they make their game. LOL
Take into consideration that soon after SE releases FF14 Blizzard is making a new MMOG, I think SE will have a hard time holding on to many of the WoW crowd at all. LOL
... and if they make their game too WOW-like and not grindy enough, difficult and group oriented they will lose their FF11 and Japanese fanbase in large quantities.
SE is definitely in a tight spot, in my opinion. Since money is the main focus of an MMOG developer we will see many WOW like principles and aspects at play in FF14... It just stands to reason... So the question is, can SE make these aspects fit in the Final Fantasy genre and can they make them more enjoyable then WOW, any expansions WOW might make and any new MMO Blizzard might make.
Personally I think SE should stick the the games dynamics and mechanics they know best and not try and chase the crazy WOW dragon, I don't know that they can compete with it on a level playing field.
Im playing FF2 btw, and I love the skill based system.
I've seen a lot of sentiment here for it being okay for FFXIV to be more solo friendly, as long as there area incentives for people to group. Unfortunately, it seems to me that a solo/group balance that satisfies both sides will be a lot harder to achieve than people realize.
For instance, it has already been mentioned that as group oriented as FFXI is, it was certainly possible to solo, and you didnt need to be a BST to do it. However, the advantage to grouping was so immense in most cases, that most people didnt look at soloing as a truly viable option.
Now, look at the other side. Imagine a game like FFXI, except where you can solo exp every bit as easily as in a group, with the only exception being say a 5% exp buff for being grouped. Considering the effort it takes to form a group, in virtually any game, are you really going to go to the trouble of finding/building a group for a measily 5% benefit? As much as I love grouping, I doubt I would.
I threw out the 5% figure as intentionally low to make a point. Most of us would probably agree that there should be more grouping incentive, not necessarily exp, but some sort of significant benefit to encourage grouping. Okay, but how much? 10%? 20%? 100%%??? It has definitely been my experience and impression that exactly the point where the group friendly players are thinking, "Okay, this is worth my time", those who prefer soloing are going to complain about how much they are being "penalized" for preferring to solo.
I've seen a lot of sentiment here for it being okay for FFXIV to be more solo friendly, as long as there area incentives for people to group. Unfortunately, it seems to me that a solo/group balance that satisfies both sides will be a lot harder to achieve than people realize.
That is total Bull and you know it! Fact is, you just want to make FF14 as just another carbon copy of FF11 with its rigid game mechanics with its rigid "holy trinity" group mechanics that ended up alienating a lot of players.
You say that there were plenty of ways to solo other than BST, yeah, you know why? Because the players who wanted to do more than just sit around in Jeuno Looking for/Forming a party, had gotten utterly SICK of waiting and not being able to play the game and accomplish something with their limited time. Yeah, they might not have worked, or may have come in a bit too late in order to get new players in, but it seems pretty obvious from their interviews that they learned their lessons and are planning to correct it.
As for your "example" of solo v. group incentives. I think you honestly must not play MMO's a lot considering how unrealistic your 5% "incentive" is. Then again, I'm sure you used that example only to help enhance your idea that you want FF14 to be mostly group oriented. First off, not even in WoW can you honestly level at exactly the same rate solo, as would a full party, nor is there a 5% difference, it's bigger than that I'm sure. Secondly, there are more incentives for partying other than 5% I'm sure (dungeon quests, loot etc.) but don't let that get in your way of proving your point *sarcasm*.
I for one am GLAD that FF14 is not going to be a complete carbon copy of FFXI, and are planning to do away with the rigid group mechanics. Needing 6 people almost all the time in order to get to experience a good chunk of the areas in the game is not smart, it's not challenging. It's annoying, it's a time sink, time a lot of players don't have because, well... some of us have to work in order to continue playing.
I've seen a lot of sentiment here for it being okay for FFXIV to be more solo friendly, as long as there area incentives for people to group. Unfortunately, it seems to me that a solo/group balance that satisfies both sides will be a lot harder to achieve than people realize.
That is total Bull and you know it! Fact is, you just want to make FF14 as just another carbon copy of FF11 with its rigid game mechanics with its rigid "holy trinity" group mechanics that ended up alienating a lot of players.
Wow, talk about being an ass. Of course, the fact that you reacted so strongly simply proves my point, which incidentally, you totally missed. Did you even read beyond the first sentence, or did you just decide what you thought I meant ahead of time and go from there????
I've seen a lot of sentiment here for it being okay for FFXIV to be more solo friendly, as long as there area incentives for people to group. Unfortunately, it seems to me that a solo/group balance that satisfies both sides will be a lot harder to achieve than people realize.
That is total Bull and you know it! Fact is, you just want to make FF14 as just another carbon copy of FF11 with its rigid game mechanics with its rigid "holy trinity" group mechanics that ended up alienating a lot of players.
The "Holy trinity" group mechanics WERE the only thing that kept alot of us playing. Why would anyone want a easy FFXI??? There are plenty of other games that do this now.
You say that there were plenty of ways to solo other than BST, yeah, you know why? Because the players who wanted to do more than just sit around in Jeuno Looking for/Forming a party, had gotten utterly SICK of waiting and not being able to play the game and accomplish something with their limited time. Yeah, they might not have worked, or may have come in a bit too late in order to get new players in, but it seems pretty obvious from their interviews that they learned their lessons and are planning to correct it.
This is a problem of the Designers. Not the system. If only 1 class can heal well, or only one is a usefull Tank that falls 100% on the developers. And any player complaints should be directed there. not the group system. I never waited more than 10 min to get into a group. EVER. I played a Whm / Rdm. If you wont adapt to the system in place do you whine that your tank cant out damage a DPS? or do you switch to the DPS?
I for one am GLAD that FF14 is not going to be a complete carbon copy of FFXI, and are planning to do away with the rigid group mechanics. Needing 6 people almost all the time in order to get to experience a good chunk of the areas in the game is not smart, it's not challenging. It's annoying, it's a time sink, time a lot of players don't have because, well... some of us have to work in order to continue playing.
Like it or not that system was the only thing keeping FFXI from beeing just another clone.
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. Samuel Adams
I've seen a lot of sentiment here for it being okay for FFXIV to be more solo friendly, as long as there area incentives for people to group. Unfortunately, it seems to me that a solo/group balance that satisfies both sides will be a lot harder to achieve than people realize. For instance, it has already been mentioned that as group oriented as FFXI is, it was certainly possible to solo, and you didnt need to be a BST to do it. However, the advantage to grouping was so immense in most cases, that most people didnt look at soloing as a truly viable option. Now, look at the other side. Imagine a game like FFXI, except where you can solo exp every bit as easily as in a group, with the only exception being say a 5% exp buff for being grouped. Considering the effort it takes to form a group, in virtually any game, are you really going to go to the trouble of finding/building a group for a measily 5% benefit? As much as I love grouping, I doubt I would. I threw out the 5% figure as intentionally low to make a point. Most of us would probably agree that there should be more grouping incentive, not necessarily exp, but some sort of significant benefit to encourage grouping. Okay, but how much? 10%? 20%? 100%%??? It has definitely been my experience and impression that exactly the point where the group friendly players are thinking, "Okay, this is worth my time", those who prefer soloing are going to complain about how much they are being "penalized" for preferring to solo. Just my two cents.
Well spoken and I loved it. Especially the highlighted part. That was well thought out and so true I slapped my knee.
Comments
I did read what you wrote.
And I'll say it again... RDM/NIN doesn't make anyone special. Any class can solo with the right subjob, even without specific mobs to feast on but that sure helps just like in any other MMO.
I just pointed those parts out for those people who seem to have trouble with the concept and claim you can't solo. BST was the best soloer in FFXI but try using a BST in places like Ro' Maeve and you got your lunch handed to you. Same with magic users due to the magic aggro mobs there, but non magic classes could live in here staying away from the sound aggro mobs (not sure why though, this area didn't drop much loot IMO, unless they were shard farming)
I just think people weren't using their brains in this game who QQ while soloing because they came from games where any class could kill any mob by themselves and they liked God Mode. IMO, Paladin was the slowest soloing class I did; but I know plenty of Paladins who soloed when they didn't feel like dying in a PUG run. They just stayed in the RIGHT areas.
I didn't claim you said soloing was impossible (which we both know is a lie made up by bad players), but you are inferring that only certain jobs could do it well like RDM/NIN when in reality anyone could if they use their marbles.
Just not as fast, and if someone wasn't in a hurry to max level in two months then that really didn't make any difference, does it? But thanks for the RDM "compliment", I guess you decided to bash me sometime after that according to what you wrote there.
Not looking at bst, Some classes had serious advantages soloing vs others ill speak from my experiance (I had blm pld bst at 74) My blm could solo so much easier than my pld. I am talking pre-75. A pld couldnt really damage a T so you had to fight EM's and an EM to a pld is really EM and your drained after the fight, and that is fighting what a pld should be fighting. Maybe if one had endless funds you could buy the elite gear to allow you to kill T's but only a small, small, number of people could afford that so thats not a feasable counter argument.
On the other hand I could smoke through T and VT jellies on my blm with very average gear with sleep/nuke. I solo'ed probably 15-20 levels on blm, I wasnt getting xp as fast as a pt but I could get a decent amount of xp.
Some classes had real advantages over others solo pre-75. Most classes couldnt even get anywhere close to the exp solo that they could in an xp pt.
Post 74 things change because of lvl 37 sub. (I forgot what level nin get utsi ni, 36,37 but when that happens things change)
With utsi: ni I could solo alot better with pld/nin, I could do more damage and not take a beating that i would take otherwise, fighting bones became much much easier. However my blm still could out xp my pld solo, by 2x.
now to the rdm/nin, that probabaly is the most powerfull combo in the game for solo. (again excluding bst) I have never seen any other combo SOLO serket. Not any rdm/nin could do it but there were several great players that could, while no other class could do it solo. As for balista a good rdm/nin wouldnt loose 1 vs 1. If there was "real" pvp in ffxi rdm/nin would have had a serious nerf of some sort.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
I did read what you wrote.
And I'll say it again... RDM/NIN doesn't make anyone special. Any class can solo with the right subjob, even without specific mobs to feast on but that sure helps just like in any other MMO.
I just pointed those parts out for those people who seem to have trouble with the concept and claim you can't solo. BST was the best soloer in FFXI but try using a BST in places like Ro' Maeve and you got your lunch handed to you. Same with magic users due to the magic aggro mobs there, but non magic classes could live in here staying away from the sound aggro mobs (not sure why though, this area didn't drop much loot IMO, unless they were shard farming)
I just think people weren't using their brains in this game who QQ while soloing because they came from games where any class could kill any mob by themselves and they liked God Mode. IMO, Paladin was the slowest soloing class I did; but I know plenty of Paladins who soloed when they didn't feel like dying in a PUG run. They just stayed in the RIGHT areas.
I didn't claim you said soloing was impossible (which we both know is a lie made up by bad players), but you are inferring that only certain jobs could do it well like RDM/NIN when in reality anyone could if they use their marbles.
Just not as fast, and if someone wasn't in a hurry to max level in two months then that really didn't make any difference, does it? But thanks for the RDM "compliment", I guess you decided to bash me sometime after that according to what you wrote there.
Not looking at bst, Some classes had serious advantages soloing vs others ill speak from my experiance (I had blm pld bst at 74) My blm could solo so much easier than my pld. I am talking pre-75. A pld couldnt really damage a T so you had to fight EM's and an EM to a pld is really EM and your drained after the fight, and that is fighting what a pld should be fighting. Maybe if one had endless funds you could buy the elite gear to allow you to kill T's but only a small, small, number of people could afford that so thats not a feasable counter argument.
On the other hand I could smoke through T and VT jellies on my blm with very average gear with sleep/nuke. I solo'ed probably 15-20 levels on blm, I wasnt getting xp as fast as a pt but I could get a decent amount of xp.
Some classes had real advantages over others solo pre-75. Most classes couldnt even get anywhere close to the exp solo that they could in an xp pt.
Post 74 things change because of lvl 37 sub. (I forgot what level nin get utsi ni, 36,37 but when that happens things change)
With utsi: ni I could solo alot better with pld/nin, I could do more damage and not take a beating that i would take otherwise, fighting bones became much much easier. However my blm still could out xp my pld solo, by 2x.
now to the rdm/nin, that probabaly is the most powerfull combo in the game for solo. (again excluding bst) I have never seen any other combo SOLO serket. Not any rdm/nin could do it but there were several great players that could, while no other class could do it solo. As for balista a good rdm/nin wouldnt loose 1 vs 1. If there was "real" pvp in ffxi rdm/nin would have had a serious nerf of some sort.
Agree with a lot of this, but its still which mobs people fight with what kind of class.
I had a PLD as well, and one thing a PLD did extremely well was cast Holy spells on undeads. It was easy for me to beat Tough undeads due to the bonus of that damage type against that mob.
BLM did very well against Fish mobs in sea. You got some resists but usually you could burn them down easily. I liked burning magic pots down as well. The undead skellies were great exp fests with 4 BLMs and one RDM.
THF did extremely well against giants like in Upper Delks. If you pack enough EVA, they just could not hit you. They don't silence you and even if they did, with a /NIN subjob silence didn't matter. Two THF/NIN together wrecked anything.
DRG got bonus against dragons and dragonkin type mobs. SAMs were hell on wheels against harder type objects like stone mobs. Before they nerfed Sidewinder (made you use it from a RANGED distance instead of right in the mob's face), a RNG/NIN soloed anything with laughable ease.
Every class has a bonus mob they are good against and this is true anywhere in the gaming world. My RDM was good against one type of Fishlady mob in TAU (can't remember the name) but the other version of it made me work a lot harder so I stayed away from that type as it was a melee one. The other version just tried to out nuke me and lost everytime, but if I only fought that melee type, I'd be complaining about how tough soloing with a RDM was.
Every game since Everquest always had some classes that did well against 4/5 mobs while others did well against 3/5 and 2/5. This isn't anything new.
The "new" thing is that even though someone loves to play a WHM in a group, they opine and cast a jealous eye towards a BLM who can mash just about anything and secretly want to do that with the WHM. Some of them are jealous because BLMs could run BCNMs with just 4 BLMs and get rich. People used to complain a bunch about BLM charging to run those, until they made their own BLM to do the same thing, lol.
Those players think WHM, DRG, and DRK should be able to do what a BLM or RDm does as well but they don't admit it. But those people don't realize that in EVERY game a BLM type character does that against just about every mob. FFXI is no different and I'm not sure why people expect the same results privately, while masking it in "I'm not asking to do as much dps as a BLM.." when in reality, you can read right through it that they are asking for just that very thing, ala WoW.
I'm not saying everyone who wants more dps is claiming that, but more times than not when you see someone complaining about lack of solo ability or low dps or something else, they are comparing their classes which are usually support or heals or something against a pure dps and expecting the same results, then whining when they don't get it.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Agree with a lot of this, but its still which mobs people fight with what kind of class.
I had a PLD as well, and one thing a PLD did extremely well was cast Holy spells on undeads. It was easy for me to beat Tough undeads due to the bonus of that damage type against that mob.
BLM did very well against Fish mobs in sea. You got some resists but usually you could burn them down easily. I liked burning magic pots down as well. The undead skellies were great exp fests with 4 BLMs and one RDM.
THF did extremely well against giants like in Upper Delks. If you pack enough EVA, they just could not hit you. They don't silence you and even if they did, with a /NIN subjob silence didn't matter. Two THF/NIN together wrecked anything.
DRG got bonus against dragons and dragonkin type mobs. SAMs were hell on wheels against harder type objects like stone mobs. Before they nerfed Sidewinder (made you use it from a RANGED distance instead of right in the mob's face), a RNG/NIN soloed anything with laughable ease.
Every class has a bonus mob they are good against and this is true anywhere in the gaming world. My RDM was good against one type of Fishlady mob in TAU (can't remember the name) but the other version of it made me work a lot harder so I stayed away from that type as it was a melee one. The other version just tried to out nuke me and lost everytime, but if I only fought that melee type, I'd be complaining about how tough soloing with a RDM was.
Every game since Everquest always had some classes that did well against 4/5 mobs while others did well against 3/5 and 2/5. This isn't anything new.
The "new" thing is that even though someone loves to play a WHM in a group, they opine and cast a jealous eye towards a BLM who can mash just about anything and secretly want to do that with the WHM. Some of them are jealous because BLMs could run BCNMs with just 4 BLMs and get rich. People used to complain a bunch about BLM charging to run those, until they made their own BLM to do the same thing, lol.
Those players think WHM, DRG, and DRK should be able to do what a BLM or RDm does as well but they don't admit it. But those people don't realize that in EVERY game a BLM type character does that against just about every mob. FFXI is no different and I'm not sure why people expect the same results privately, while masking it in "I'm not asking to do as much dps as a BLM.." when in reality, you can read right through it that they are asking for just that very thing, ala WoW.
I'm not saying everyone who wants more dps is claiming that, but more times than not when you see someone complaining about lack of solo ability or low dps or something else, they are comparing their classes which are usually support or heals or something against a pure dps and expecting the same results, then whining when they don't get it.
I am not arguing that classes cant solo, I am arguing that some have the ability to do it easier/more often and get better xp than others. I am very well aware of the killer effects.
Theres no way a pld could get the same amount of xp as a blm fighting there respective mobs that they should be fighting in an hour. Anyways while pld was strong vs undead blm wasnt limited by its killer effect which idk what it was because it didnt matter because if it didnt resist sleep it could be killed, easy. Sort of like rdm, it doesnt really matter what its killer effect is because it does not need it.Thus their options are much much greater than that of the other classes.
I am not bashing ffxi system in case anyone is wondering I loved it. I hope ffxiv is as group oriented as ffxi. I also dont care if some classes can solo better in ffxiv than other classes. If thats the case Ill do the same thing in ffxiv as i did in XI, Ill level the class I want thats needed for groups(tank), then ill level a class for me to play around on(w/e bst,blm are in ffxiv).
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
I share the exact same sentiments.
This game will be solo heavy,but where it changes imo is in Guildleves.I think the setup will be one where yes you can go do something for your guild,but the better rewards will be the grouped quests.
It is no secret how Square does things,i bet your advanced skills will also be very hard grouped fights ,based around some quest or guildleve.All they have done in this game is disguise an identical system to FFXI but pan it off as different.You still had to level up your weapons to get your next weapon skills and you still had to do quests to get your advanced weapon skills,nothing is new here.Yes they added a lot of solo content in FFXI,but as you noticed it was limited,it did not replace grouping rewards.I believe FFXIV is going to fall around the same lines,as a grouped game but with some areas to allow for soloing,but it will not be the better option.
When Square said things like ,your guild leader will give players quests[guildleves] that are better suited for them,i believe that means solo,mini grouped or large grouped.You can expect the rewards to be based on the difficulty,witch will also be based on the group size.So in other words,no your not going to be soloing your Tach:Kasha,but yes through normal play ,solo or grouped you will eventually get your Tachi:Enpi.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Seems there is a pretty common fallacy among MMO players that an MMO that is Solo Friendly is Solo Centric and even can't be Party Friendly. That simply isn't the case. FFXI had a HORRIBLE party system, because it was a complete pain to use. Very often people had to wait hours to find a group, even good players. I hear this got easier later on, but the central idea of forcing people to group is just made of fail. You don't have to force people to group up in an MMO. All you have to do to have a lot of a grouping is to reward it. Heck, look at WoW where grouping on normal quests is usually a bad idea (as far as gaining experience fast). People still do it there a good bit. They'd have even more grouping in WoW if you simply gained as much experience in a group as doing things solo. Generally MMO players like to group after all, because we like to have some level of social interaction. There's no need for grouping to be shoved down the throats of players when it can just be encouraged with some bonus experience and making group play fun and interesting. It looks like FFXIV is going to do just that, so there's no reason to complain yet as far as I can tell.
Now, you might wonder why a game should even bother being Solo and Party Friendly. Plenty of reasons for this.
I am sure there are other reasons that aren't coming to mind. Anyhow, there is no reason to think that being friendly to soloing means the game won't have a strong group dynamic. So far the group dynamic looks pretty good to me, though admittedly they've only sketched some vague outlines of it.
-Drachasor
*I suppose you might wonder how this could be, but it isn't that hard. Say a level 15 guy can solo Medium Difficulty Mobs of level 15, two level 15s can duo tough level 15 mobs, three level 15s can trio very tough level 15 mobs, and so forth possibly increasing mob level for larger groups, assuming all groups adventure in the same areas and there aren't special solo zones and whatnot -- solo areas would be a bad idea, imho.
Agree with a lot of this, but its still which mobs people fight with what kind of class.
I had a PLD as well, and one thing a PLD did extremely well was cast Holy spells on undeads. It was easy for me to beat Tough undeads due to the bonus of that damage type against that mob.
BLM did very well against Fish mobs in sea. You got some resists but usually you could burn them down easily. I liked burning magic pots down as well. The undead skellies were great exp fests with 4 BLMs and one RDM.
THF did extremely well against giants like in Upper Delks. If you pack enough EVA, they just could not hit you. They don't silence you and even if they did, with a /NIN subjob silence didn't matter. Two THF/NIN together wrecked anything.
DRG got bonus against dragons and dragonkin type mobs. SAMs were hell on wheels against harder type objects like stone mobs. Before they nerfed Sidewinder (made you use it from a RANGED distance instead of right in the mob's face), a RNG/NIN soloed anything with laughable ease.
Every class has a bonus mob they are good against and this is true anywhere in the gaming world. My RDM was good against one type of Fishlady mob in TAU (can't remember the name) but the other version of it made me work a lot harder so I stayed away from that type as it was a melee one. The other version just tried to out nuke me and lost everytime, but if I only fought that melee type, I'd be complaining about how tough soloing with a RDM was.
Every game since Everquest always had some classes that did well against 4/5 mobs while others did well against 3/5 and 2/5. This isn't anything new.
The "new" thing is that even though someone loves to play a WHM in a group, they opine and cast a jealous eye towards a BLM who can mash just about anything and secretly want to do that with the WHM. Some of them are jealous because BLMs could run BCNMs with just 4 BLMs and get rich. People used to complain a bunch about BLM charging to run those, until they made their own BLM to do the same thing, lol.
Those players think WHM, DRG, and DRK should be able to do what a BLM or RDm does as well but they don't admit it. But those people don't realize that in EVERY game a BLM type character does that against just about every mob. FFXI is no different and I'm not sure why people expect the same results privately, while masking it in "I'm not asking to do as much dps as a BLM.." when in reality, you can read right through it that they are asking for just that very thing, ala WoW.
I'm not saying everyone who wants more dps is claiming that, but more times than not when you see someone complaining about lack of solo ability or low dps or something else, they are comparing their classes which are usually support or heals or something against a pure dps and expecting the same results, then whining when they don't get it.
I am not arguing that classes cant solo, I am arguing that some have the ability to do it easier/more often and get better xp than others. I am very well aware of the killer effects.
Theres no way a pld could get the same amount of xp as a blm fighting there respective mobs that they should be fighting in an hour. Anyways while pld was strong vs undead blm wasnt limited by its killer effect which idk what it was because it didnt matter because if it didnt resist sleep it could be killed, easy. Sort of like rdm, it doesnt really matter what its killer effect is because it does not need it.Thus their options are much much greater than that of the other classes.
I am not bashing ffxi system in case anyone is wondering I loved it. I hope ffxiv is as group oriented as ffxi. I also dont care if some classes can solo better in ffxiv than other classes. If thats the case Ill do the same thing in ffxiv as i did in XI, Ill level the class I want thats needed for groups(tank), then ill level a class for me to play around on(w/e bst,blm are in ffxiv).
Its hard to believe he is still arguing and we've been agreeing with him.
I've never played the game. What makes grouping difficult?
In FFXI, if you weren't one of the jobs in high demand (tanks, healers, bards) then you often didn't get invites very quickly for a party. Typically this was because the vast majority of players were some flavor of DPS making them a dime-a-dozen. Also, because of the difficulty level with killing regular mobs (for EXP), if you weren't one of the "preferred" job combos, you were overlooked. Along those same lines, party makeup was very strict as well. You couldn't efficiently kill mobs if you had 1 or 2 fewer people than max in a party, so even if there were 4 ideal jobs online seeking, you still had to wait for the extra spots to fill. To make matters worse, travel times in FFXI could be lengthy, so parties looking for a replacement would often search for players who were nearby first, sitting in a major town for a quick teleport second, and everyone else last. So you couldn't go out soloing in a lower level zone (to skillup and get drops) for fear of being excluded from an invite. You also couldn't switch to a lower level job while waiting for a party with your higher level one because the LFP interface only listed you as your current job combo.
So basically if you played a DPS job combo and you wanted a party, you had to put up your LFP flag and sit around doing nothing until you got an invite. Frequently, that invite would never come and you'd log for the night gaining nothing (unless you really, really liked crafting).
However, when you did get into a decent party, the game was 2nd to none IMO. It made all the waiting worth it.
I've never played the game. What makes grouping difficult?
In FFXI, if you weren't one of the jobs in high demand (tanks, healers, bards) then you often didn't get invites very quickly for a party. Typically this was because the vast majority of players were some flavor of DPS making them a dime-a-dozen. Also, because of the difficulty level with killing regular mobs (for EXP), if you weren't one of the "preferred" job combos, you were overlooked. Along those same lines, party makeup was very strict as well. You couldn't efficiently kill mobs if you had 1 or 2 fewer people than max in a party, so even if there were 4 ideal jobs online seeking, you still had to wait for the extra spots to fill. To make matters worse, travel times in FFXI could be lengthy, so parties looking for a replacement would often search for players who were nearby first, sitting in a major town for a quick teleport second, and everyone else last. So you couldn't go out soloing in a lower level zone (to skillup and get drops) for fear of being excluded from an invite. You also couldn't switch to a lower level job while waiting for a party with your higher level one because the LFP interface only listed you as your current job combo.
So basically if you played a DPS job combo and you wanted a party, you had to put up your LFP flag and sit around doing nothing until you got an invite. Frequently, that invite would never come and you'd log for the night gaining nothing (unless you really, really liked crafting).
However, when you did get into a decent party, the game was 2nd to none IMO. It made all the waiting worth it.
Again, problem with the player base being too strict with what they were looking for and the unwillingness to try something that wasn't the norm. Best parties I have had in the games were the ones that everyone would have told you were doomed to fail.
The only way from a programmers stand point that could be done is to make every DPS job exactly the same so that anyone can jump in at any time, or make them all so different that they would only work in situational parties. FFXI is somewhere in the middle of those two. Either way you still have to wait for your number to be called.
Also if a particular party area can only hold 3-4 parties if 5 groups try to get in the area is saturated and exp suffers for everyone. Remember 60 people trying to fill 30 spots in 5 possible parties ... someone has to be on the bench. Between that, lack of necessary jobs (tank/healer), laziness, and/or elitism is the reason for so many lfp. The exact reason does change a lot. Yes there are it is sickening to see people who will only party with job X Y or Z ... but there is nothing you can do to change another person.
Some past time would be awesome.
I still have to disagree with the whole travel thing. I could get to most places in this game in 5 minutes (worse case scenario maybe 10). Between my chocobo whistle, teleport/warp spells, warp sticks, OP warps, AN warps, the gates in Aht Urgan ... it is quite easy to get around. Probably the hardest place to get to would be probably KA's camp in Jugnar Forest. I mean getting to sky would be: Stick home, OP to Li'Telor, hop a bird to Ro'Maeve, pop a pot, walk to sky. I don't think that is more than 10 minutes.
The only thing I hated was not being able to LFP as one job and do something as another. Like being a THF camping some NM while your flag is up to lfp as a PLD. Or even better being able to flag multiple jobs at once where if a party is looking for something in particular I can show them all I can be instead of just looking as one job. I think this new game will take care of this hopefully.
Agree with a lot of this, but its still which mobs people fight with what kind of class.
I had a PLD as well, and one thing a PLD did extremely well was cast Holy spells on undeads. It was easy for me to beat Tough undeads due to the bonus of that damage type against that mob.
BLM did very well against Fish mobs in sea. You got some resists but usually you could burn them down easily. I liked burning magic pots down as well. The undead skellies were great exp fests with 4 BLMs and one RDM.
THF did extremely well against giants like in Upper Delks. If you pack enough EVA, they just could not hit you. They don't silence you and even if they did, with a /NIN subjob silence didn't matter. Two THF/NIN together wrecked anything.
DRG got bonus against dragons and dragonkin type mobs. SAMs were hell on wheels against harder type objects like stone mobs. Before they nerfed Sidewinder (made you use it from a RANGED distance instead of right in the mob's face), a RNG/NIN soloed anything with laughable ease.
Every class has a bonus mob they are good against and this is true anywhere in the gaming world. My RDM was good against one type of Fishlady mob in TAU (can't remember the name) but the other version of it made me work a lot harder so I stayed away from that type as it was a melee one. The other version just tried to out nuke me and lost everytime, but if I only fought that melee type, I'd be complaining about how tough soloing with a RDM was.
Every game since Everquest always had some classes that did well against 4/5 mobs while others did well against 3/5 and 2/5. This isn't anything new.
The "new" thing is that even though someone loves to play a WHM in a group, they opine and cast a jealous eye towards a BLM who can mash just about anything and secretly want to do that with the WHM. Some of them are jealous because BLMs could run BCNMs with just 4 BLMs and get rich. People used to complain a bunch about BLM charging to run those, until they made their own BLM to do the same thing, lol.
Those players think WHM, DRG, and DRK should be able to do what a BLM or RDm does as well but they don't admit it. But those people don't realize that in EVERY game a BLM type character does that against just about every mob. FFXI is no different and I'm not sure why people expect the same results privately, while masking it in "I'm not asking to do as much dps as a BLM.." when in reality, you can read right through it that they are asking for just that very thing, ala WoW.
I'm not saying everyone who wants more dps is claiming that, but more times than not when you see someone complaining about lack of solo ability or low dps or something else, they are comparing their classes which are usually support or heals or something against a pure dps and expecting the same results, then whining when they don't get it.
I am not arguing that classes cant solo, I am arguing that some have the ability to do it easier/more often and get better xp than others. I am very well aware of the killer effects.
Theres no way a pld could get the same amount of xp as a blm fighting there respective mobs that they should be fighting in an hour. Anyways while pld was strong vs undead blm wasnt limited by its killer effect which idk what it was because it didnt matter because if it didnt resist sleep it could be killed, easy. Sort of like rdm, it doesnt really matter what its killer effect is because it does not need it.Thus their options are much much greater than that of the other classes.
I am not bashing ffxi system in case anyone is wondering I loved it. I hope ffxiv is as group oriented as ffxi. I also dont care if some classes can solo better in ffxiv than other classes. If thats the case Ill do the same thing in ffxiv as i did in XI, Ill level the class I want thats needed for groups(tank), then ill level a class for me to play around on(w/e bst,blm are in ffxiv).
Its hard to believe he is still arguing and we've been agreeing with him.
I guess you thought that was necessary.
No one is arguing, unless you consider making points arguing then the whole forum pretty much does that. I know I ticked you off by something I said, hence your "bashing" comments you posted earlier, but I don't wish to turn it personal, k? It's just opinions.
Thanks.
"TO MICHAEL!"
I think everyone likes the ability to do things on their own from time to time, or when there's no groups available, etc. etc. The thing is, when a MMO delivers enough content that allows soloing almost exclusively, if not exclusively, as an option, then more people solo... which results in groups being harder to assemble, because so many are soloing... which leads to people who'd otherwise be grouping having to solo themselves... which leads to a MMO that almost no one groups in.
Look at what's happening in FFXI... for years it was a group-centric MMO. People grouped and there were p ractically always groups to be found - if not one seeking, then you could put one together yourself (which many didn't do, opting to sit around with their seek flags up). Despite all that, people still found ways to solo, though they were limited, or at least substantially slower and riskier than in a party. In the past year or two, SE's started introducing new content that makes soloing more feasible... Having Dancer as a sub, FoV, Campaign Battle and so on... As that's continued, more and more people have started soloing or duoing and parties have become harder and harder to find, or even assemble.
Now there's that whole lame Astral Burn thing... which has resulted in me going to the Dunes a few nights ago, during prime time, to find *8* people soloing or duoing. You used to see parties everywhere in the Dunes. Now there's just people doing FoV's.
For all intents and purposes, FFXI is becoming more and more of a "soloers" game, with parties becoming more and more rare. If it can happen to FFXI with the addition of only a few systems that support it, it will certainly happen in a MMO that's designed to support soloing from the start.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
The thing is... how many of those 30 people were even trying to assemble a party themselves? That's the thing... Back then, sometimes finding a group *could* be difficult, yes. But many times, more than some realize, a full party was right under their noses... but they wouldn't have known it because they were all waiting for a party to come to them instead of taking the initiative and putting it together themself.
A good friend of mine was *constantly* in parties. I'd ask her "how the heck do you find parties so quick? You just logged on 30 minutes ago and you're already xp'ing". She'd respond, "I put them together".
Also, as far as nothing to do while waiting? Crafting, farming, fishing, gathering, socializing (believe it or not, that can be an entertaining way to pass the time), questing... Nowadays on top of all that, there's FoV, Campaign, soloing (since it's a lot more feasible).
I think part of the problem is that many people are stuck in this mindset of leveling being the only useful activity in the game to their character, when the reality is there are *many* activities in the game that can be useful... If I had a nickel for every time I"ve seen people complain about not having money, yet when you ask them what their craft is or what they harvest, they say "nothing... crafting is boring and I can't stand harvesting". Suggest that they do some of that while seeking a party and they respond like you just told them to jump off a bridge.
So many perceived problems in FFXI (and in other MMOs) are self-imposed by the players themselves, yet they blame the developers for it. The developers provide the content... they can't force you to do it if you don't want, but it's not their fault if you don't (not you personally, Six)
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
As a super casual mmo'er who hardly has time to play.. my "dream" setup for a PvE oriented Mmo is as follows.
Solo..make TONS AND TONS of solo content...with.. crappy rewards, and crappy xp.. make it so you CAN solo to cap, but you sure don't want too, and make it challanging.. dangerous...
Crafting.. make the gear a "tad" better then what you can get soloing..
grouping.. better xp and gear for group based content...
raid.. best gear..
Make it so you CAN solo, but would more likely WANT to group.. that's where pve games lack...
I HATE games where they try to give everything to everyone for there style.. it's a mmo.. lack of challange makes it boring, making everything obtainable defeats the purpose..
if you impliment a PvP system, make it a "for fun" system and pointless... don't let it have an impact on PvE balancing.. make a leaderboard and make bragging rights, and make PvP only useable loot or something if you have to, but for gods sake, don't let it impact PvE balance.
Me!
The thing is... how many of those 30 people were even trying to assemble a party themselves? That's the thing... Back then, sometimes finding a group *could* be difficult, yes. But many times, more than some realize, a full party was right under their noses... but they wouldn't have known it because they were all waiting for a party to come to them instead of taking the initiative and putting it together themself.
A good friend of mine was *constantly* in parties. I'd ask her "how the heck do you find parties so quick? You just logged on 30 minutes ago and you're already xp'ing". She'd respond, "I put them together".
Also, as far as nothing to do while waiting? Crafting, farming, fishing, gathering, socializing (believe it or not, that can be an entertaining way to pass the time), questing... Nowadays on top of all that, there's FoV, Campaign, soloing (since it's a lot more feasible).
I think part of the problem is that many people are stuck in this mindset of leveling being the only useful activity in the game to their character, when the reality is there are *many* activities in the game that can be useful... If I had a nickel for every time I"ve seen people complain about not having money, yet when you ask them what their craft is or what they harvest, they say "nothing... crafting is boring and I can't stand harvesting". Suggest that they do some of that while seeking a party and they respond like you just told them to jump off a bridge.
So many perceived problems in FFXI (and in other MMOs) are self-imposed by the players themselves, yet they blame the developers for it. The developers provide the content... they can't force you to do it if you don't want, but it's not their fault if you don't (not you personally, Six)
Very good points, and I do agree with you, but SE wasn't without blame either. I spent a lot of time doing some of the things you mentioned while LFP but I know good and well that I missed party invites because of it. Even though you could get just about anywhere in 5 minutes or so, if someone was LFP in the same zone that a party needed a replacement, they got the invite. If SE designed it so that parties could summon people, that wouldn't have been an issue. If you could put up your LFP flag as one combo and switch to another, that would have helped. If each job combo had a unique ability that made them all (or almost all) worthwhile, that would have helped. If they increased spawn rates based on how fast the mobs were dieing so you could get more parties in the same zone, that would have helped.
The thing is... how many of those 30 people were even trying to assemble a party themselves? That's the thing... Back then, sometimes finding a group *could* be difficult, yes. But many times, more than some realize, a full party was right under their noses... but they wouldn't have known it because they were all waiting for a party to come to them instead of taking the initiative and putting it together themself.
A good friend of mine was *constantly* in parties. I'd ask her "how the heck do you find parties so quick? You just logged on 30 minutes ago and you're already xp'ing". She'd respond, "I put them together".
Also, as far as nothing to do while waiting? Crafting, farming, fishing, gathering, socializing (believe it or not, that can be an entertaining way to pass the time), questing... Nowadays on top of all that, there's FoV, Campaign, soloing (since it's a lot more feasible).
I think part of the problem is that many people are stuck in this mindset of leveling being the only useful activity in the game to their character, when the reality is there are *many* activities in the game that can be useful... If I had a nickel for every time I"ve seen people complain about not having money, yet when you ask them what their craft is or what they harvest, they say "nothing... crafting is boring and I can't stand harvesting". Suggest that they do some of that while seeking a party and they respond like you just told them to jump off a bridge.
So many perceived problems in FFXI (and in other MMOs) are self-imposed by the players themselves, yet they blame the developers for it. The developers provide the content... they can't force you to do it if you don't want, but it's not their fault if you don't (not you personally, Six)
Very good points, and I do agree with you, but SE wasn't without blame either. I spent a lot of time doing some of the things you mentioned while LFP but I know good and well that I missed party invites because of it. Even though you could get just about anywhere in 5 minutes or so, if someone was LFP in the same zone that a party needed a replacement, they got the invite. If SE designed it so that parties could summon people, that wouldn't have been an issue. If you could put up your LFP flag as one combo and switch to another, that would have helped. If each job combo had a unique ability that made them all (or almost all) worthwhile, that would have helped. If they increased spawn rates based on how fast the mobs were dieing so you could get more parties in the same zone, that would have helped.
These are all very good ideas. Hopefully the like will be addressed with XIV, as SE has said they are learning from their past mistakes/downfalls with FFXI (and I tend to believe them).
The thing is... how many of those 30 people were even trying to assemble a party themselves? That's the thing... Back then, sometimes finding a group *could* be difficult, yes. But many times, more than some realize, a full party was right under their noses... but they wouldn't have known it because they were all waiting for a party to come to them instead of taking the initiative and putting it together themself.
A good friend of mine was *constantly* in parties. I'd ask her "how the heck do you find parties so quick? You just logged on 30 minutes ago and you're already xp'ing". She'd respond, "I put them together".
Also, as far as nothing to do while waiting? Crafting, farming, fishing, gathering, socializing (believe it or not, that can be an entertaining way to pass the time), questing... Nowadays on top of all that, there's FoV, Campaign, soloing (since it's a lot more feasible).
I think part of the problem is that many people are stuck in this mindset of leveling being the only useful activity in the game to their character, when the reality is there are *many* activities in the game that can be useful... If I had a nickel for every time I"ve seen people complain about not having money, yet when you ask them what their craft is or what they harvest, they say "nothing... crafting is boring and I can't stand harvesting". Suggest that they do some of that while seeking a party and they respond like you just told them to jump off a bridge.
So many perceived problems in FFXI (and in other MMOs) are self-imposed by the players themselves, yet they blame the developers for it. The developers provide the content... they can't force you to do it if you don't want, but it's not their fault if you don't (not you personally, Six)
I'm generally of the opinion the players are right if they complain that something isn't fun. It isn't the job of the player to work himself over to make something fun. The game should simply be fun. If a lot of players have trouble getting in parties, then from a developer and game designstandpoint that is a problem with the game. If a lot of players find the things besides combat and leveling boring when they shouldn't be, then that is a problem with the game. Forming parties doesn't have to be a cumbersome chore if the game is designed right. You can design a game so that soloing works AND so that you can form parties of 2-6 people, each party size working (obviously if you are in a party of size 2 then you are probably in a different area than the same level of people in a party of size 6). Crafting and non-combat/non-leveling activities don't have to be doing the same thing over and over (and most people do find repetitive tasks like this boring). It would require innovation to fix crafting, but it is far from impossible.
On the other hand, the masses are typically terribly wrong when they propose game mechanics. Most people simply suck at designing balanced and fun mechanics. Some people who are players are good at this, but it is pretty rare. Again though, the game, by its very nature, is supposed to be fun, so if a lot of players find something to be not fun, then it isn't their problem, but rather the game's. It's important to understand the distinction between these two things, which can get blurred. People often say stuff like "the game should work like X" or "X should replace Y" or the like, and what one might be able to get out of that (if changes to Y are often proposed for instance) is that Y isn't fun or Y is broken in some way. Often a lot of the X's proposed are stupid and bad, but that doesn't mean the players don't have a point when they keep saying that Y has to be changed. In short, players are good at identifying problems where the game isn't fun, but they are terrible at proposing how those problems should be fixed.
So when players say "grouping sucked in FFXI", then one shouldn't dismiss this out of hand. If people say "crafting was boring in FFXI" then one shouldn't dismiss this out of hand. Thankfully Square seems to grok this and it looks like they are working on fixing a lot of things people found to be unfun.
I don't really think this fixes the problem, just slaps a band aid on it. I personally think the better solution is to make it so that parties don't have such rigid requirements (one tank, a healer or two, and dps), and in particularly moving away from having classes that are needed in a much higher proportion than the proportion of players who enjoy player them (healers, I am looking at you, though tanks aren't exempt here either). I'm happy to see Square seems to be doing both of these things in FFXI. This makes forming a party much easier, since you don't have to wait for an uncommon player. Combat mechanics will be different of course, but there are many, many fun games out there without dedicated healers and tanks that use tactical combat, so it is quite doable. Hopefully party size will also be pretty flexible (quite possible as well if most xp come from quests, since given the quest system they've described with a little scripting it could easily scale with party size).
I don't expect them to make this game very solo centric like say, WoW, but I do expect them to make it more friendly towards people like myself whom, honestly don't have a lot of time in our day to play, but would like to be able to accomplish something in the few hours I have, and yes, that means, making it possible for solo players to level and advance if they can't find a party.
I agree that, what needs to happen, is there should simply be a better incentive to party together. To use WoW as an example... yes, I can level all the way to 80 if I want to... but If I want to get the cooler gear, faster XP, Faster faction points etc. etc. Then I'll have to find a group and do dungeons together. That's one way of making it solo friendly, without alienating those that want to party.
Personally, even if they make it as solo friendly as LOTRO, then I'm on board.
Without breaking down the entire game i will give you one example as to why in this new design a solo designed game is a big fail.Now assume they make soloing easier than FFXI,witch is what we are talking about here,so more xp for soloing Even MAtch than waht FFXI allowed as this would be the type of fight you could solo,VT and IT would of course stil lbe out of the question...maybe?.
Now my example is assuming i know the structure of the design ,i do not completely know ,nobody does.However this is what COULD happen....i start as a warrior,give myself WARCRY,change to thief startup sneak attack,walk up behind a sight mob and utilize massive damage,now i switch back to a ninja,i got a huge upperhand on the mob now.Change to DRK or BLM and STUN or SLEEP,now change back to thief sneak attack again,change back to ninja for safety of shadows or heck even Paladin so i can heal myself.There is also the possibility i can utilize several buffs before a fight by changing to 6/7/8 different jobs like having regen and shadows ect ect.
Square may vary well have an answer for this lame design,by not allowing you to have buffs unless you are on that job,but we wil lhave to wait and see,maybe they won't have an answer and allow for some ridiculolus easy game play.No other game has ever allowed anyone to have access to every ability and every spell at their choice,so this will be one tricky design to pull off correctly.
Now assume this is all possible to make soloing much easier,what would that mean for a group?WHOA ! is what i have to say,imagine 6 thiefs starting with sneak attack or 6 rangers all loading up sidewinder to start a fight,it gets incredibly ridiculous to say the least.Once you crossover and allow easy XP for soloing ,you cannot help but make grouping easier also,it is impossible not to.The ONLY reason soloing exists in other games,is because they are not designed to grind on mobs,they grind boring quests instead,so no matter how many people you have doing the quest,your XP is always the same,that is a huge difference in game design,witch does not work in FF.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I don't really think this fixes the problem, just slaps a band aid on it. I personally think the better solution is to make it so that parties don't have such rigid requirements (one tank, a healer or two, and dps), and in particularly moving away from having classes that are needed in a much higher proportion than the proportion of players who enjoy player them (healers, I am looking at you, though tanks aren't exempt here either). I'm happy to see Square seems to be doing both of these things in FFXI. This makes forming a party much easier, since you don't have to wait for an uncommon player. Combat mechanics will be different of course, but there are many, many fun games out there without dedicated healers and tanks that use tactical combat, so it is quite doable. Hopefully party size will also be pretty flexible (quite possible as well if most xp come from quests, since given the quest system they've described with a little scripting it could easily scale with party size).
While that idea sounds good on paper, I don't see how that can work. If you can kill the same mobs that a "holy trinity" party can kill, then it would be more efficient to do so without a dedicated tank/healer because you'd put out more DPS. So you wind up alienating the people that do play pure healers and tanks because they'd just slow down your TTK. To fix that problem you have to adjust mob difficulty so that the party with the dedicated tank/healer can kill more difficult mobs at a slower pace and the party without a dedicated tank/healer can kill less difficult mobs but at a fast pace. But... that's actually how FFXI was designed. Merit parties are a prime example of parties with no pure tank or healer.
As for party size, I think that should be viable, and in FFXI it was to an extent. I remember not having full parties and killing T/VT mobs. It worked but wasn't ideal.
SE has their hands full trying to pander to the WOW crowd and keep a semblance of what makes a Final Fantasy game.
Personally as a WOW expansion is in the works and people coming from WOW tend to like nothing much aside from WOW and are IN-and-OUT of MMOGS in a matter of weeks, I do not see SE making inroads with this demographic no matter how easy they make their game. LOL
Take into consideration that soon after SE releases FF14 Blizzard is making a new MMOG, I think SE will have a hard time holding on to many of the WoW crowd at all. LOL
... and if they make their game too WOW-like and not grindy enough, difficult and group oriented they will lose their FF11 and Japanese fanbase in large quantities.
SE is definitely in a tight spot, in my opinion. Since money is the main focus of an MMOG developer we will see many WOW like principles and aspects at play in FF14... It just stands to reason... So the question is, can SE make these aspects fit in the Final Fantasy genre and can they make them more enjoyable then WOW, any expansions WOW might make and any new MMO Blizzard might make.
Personally I think SE should stick the the games dynamics and mechanics they know best and not try and chase the crazy WOW dragon, I don't know that they can compete with it on a level playing field.
Im playing FF2 btw, and I love the skill based system.
WOOT
www.eorzeapedia.com
(Great FF14 source)
I've seen a lot of sentiment here for it being okay for FFXIV to be more solo friendly, as long as there area incentives for people to group. Unfortunately, it seems to me that a solo/group balance that satisfies both sides will be a lot harder to achieve than people realize.
For instance, it has already been mentioned that as group oriented as FFXI is, it was certainly possible to solo, and you didnt need to be a BST to do it. However, the advantage to grouping was so immense in most cases, that most people didnt look at soloing as a truly viable option.
Now, look at the other side. Imagine a game like FFXI, except where you can solo exp every bit as easily as in a group, with the only exception being say a 5% exp buff for being grouped. Considering the effort it takes to form a group, in virtually any game, are you really going to go to the trouble of finding/building a group for a measily 5% benefit? As much as I love grouping, I doubt I would.
I threw out the 5% figure as intentionally low to make a point. Most of us would probably agree that there should be more grouping incentive, not necessarily exp, but some sort of significant benefit to encourage grouping. Okay, but how much? 10%? 20%? 100%%??? It has definitely been my experience and impression that exactly the point where the group friendly players are thinking, "Okay, this is worth my time", those who prefer soloing are going to complain about how much they are being "penalized" for preferring to solo.
Just my two cents.
That is total Bull and you know it! Fact is, you just want to make FF14 as just another carbon copy of FF11 with its rigid game mechanics with its rigid "holy trinity" group mechanics that ended up alienating a lot of players.
You say that there were plenty of ways to solo other than BST, yeah, you know why? Because the players who wanted to do more than just sit around in Jeuno Looking for/Forming a party, had gotten utterly SICK of waiting and not being able to play the game and accomplish something with their limited time. Yeah, they might not have worked, or may have come in a bit too late in order to get new players in, but it seems pretty obvious from their interviews that they learned their lessons and are planning to correct it.
As for your "example" of solo v. group incentives. I think you honestly must not play MMO's a lot considering how unrealistic your 5% "incentive" is. Then again, I'm sure you used that example only to help enhance your idea that you want FF14 to be mostly group oriented. First off, not even in WoW can you honestly level at exactly the same rate solo, as would a full party, nor is there a 5% difference, it's bigger than that I'm sure. Secondly, there are more incentives for partying other than 5% I'm sure (dungeon quests, loot etc.) but don't let that get in your way of proving your point *sarcasm*.
I for one am GLAD that FF14 is not going to be a complete carbon copy of FFXI, and are planning to do away with the rigid group mechanics. Needing 6 people almost all the time in order to get to experience a good chunk of the areas in the game is not smart, it's not challenging. It's annoying, it's a time sink, time a lot of players don't have because, well... some of us have to work in order to continue playing.
That is total Bull and you know it! Fact is, you just want to make FF14 as just another carbon copy of FF11 with its rigid game mechanics with its rigid "holy trinity" group mechanics that ended up alienating a lot of players.
Wow, talk about being an ass. Of course, the fact that you reacted so strongly simply proves my point, which incidentally, you totally missed. Did you even read beyond the first sentence, or did you just decide what you thought I meant ahead of time and go from there????
That is total Bull and you know it! Fact is, you just want to make FF14 as just another carbon copy of FF11 with its rigid game mechanics with its rigid "holy trinity" group mechanics that ended up alienating a lot of players.
The "Holy trinity" group mechanics WERE the only thing that kept alot of us playing. Why would anyone want a easy FFXI??? There are plenty of other games that do this now.
You say that there were plenty of ways to solo other than BST, yeah, you know why? Because the players who wanted to do more than just sit around in Jeuno Looking for/Forming a party, had gotten utterly SICK of waiting and not being able to play the game and accomplish something with their limited time. Yeah, they might not have worked, or may have come in a bit too late in order to get new players in, but it seems pretty obvious from their interviews that they learned their lessons and are planning to correct it.
This is a problem of the Designers. Not the system. If only 1 class can heal well, or only one is a usefull Tank that falls 100% on the developers. And any player complaints should be directed there. not the group system. I never waited more than 10 min to get into a group. EVER. I played a Whm / Rdm. If you wont adapt to the system in place do you whine that your tank cant out damage a DPS? or do you switch to the DPS?
I for one am GLAD that FF14 is not going to be a complete carbon copy of FFXI, and are planning to do away with the rigid group mechanics. Needing 6 people almost all the time in order to get to experience a good chunk of the areas in the game is not smart, it's not challenging. It's annoying, it's a time sink, time a lot of players don't have because, well... some of us have to work in order to continue playing.
Like it or not that system was the only thing keeping FFXI from beeing just another clone.
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams
Well spoken and I loved it. Especially the highlighted part. That was well thought out and so true I slapped my knee.
WOOT
www.eorzeapedia.com
(Great FF14 source)