I've played through Heavensward and the only thought going through my mind is "What the heck were they thinking making mindlessly droning fetch quests and kill quests a requirement for flying? Why haven't they done anything about the housing system and the horrible player distribution due to legacy servers vs other servers? What is going on with the inventory space?"
They can improve the story all they want, but it feels like that is just to help cover up or distract people from the gaping flaws the title currently still has.
Not just the story but crafting, bigger areas, hunt boards, leve's and many other things including lots of quality of life stuff. There are still flaws but I'm sure in time many will be addressed as they have in the past. Also I believe we have access to more retainers now for storage. I don't see the big deal in a few quick mandatory fetch quest for flying when the rest is exploring and completing dungeons.
I'd still rate the game as a 6 or 7 out of 10, which is pretty good for an MMO RPG. Comparing this to games like Witcher 3 or Bloodborne and saying it's on the same level is just madness.
No one has made that comparison, nor even mentioned either of those games in this thread, except you.
This isn't a discussion about how FFXIV compares to other games. It's a discussion about how Heavensward compares to 2.x.
Please stick to the topic of the thread, and don't try derailing or diluting it with discussions about other games.
So, do you have any thoughts or experiences to contribute to the actual topic in that regard?
The thing that really stood out for me as a long time player of this game (since beta 2 of ARR) was just the feel of how the story progresses, it feels like an actual journey when compared to 2.0.
The lore about the war between dragons and ishgard is pretty good but i really liked how the story takes you through the zones and makes it feels like you are really going through an adventure as you would on other final fantasy games or rpgs.
The cutscenes were also more impressive.
I play the game mostly for the content (raids, and hopefully it gets good pvp in the future) but was really, really impressed by how well the story was put together, kudos to them on that. Anyone skipping the story , i feel, will lose a big part of the experience.
Guess it's the result of experience acquired from this years of service + bigger cash flow.
The thing that really stood out for me as a long time player of this game (since beta 2 of ARR) was just the feel of how the story progresses, it feels like an actual journey when compared to 2.0.
The lore about the war between dragons and ishgard is pretty good but i really liked how the story takes you through the zones and makes it feels like you are really going through an adventure as you would on other final fantasy games or rpgs.
The cutscenes were also more impressive.
Yeah, the cutscenes have been really well-done. The voice acting has improved significantly (IMO), and the dialog is better written. You can tell more care and time was taken on each. There's some truly heartbreaking things going on in the story, too.
I play the game mostly for the content (raids, and hopefully it gets good pvp in the future) but was really, really impressed by how well the story was put together, kudos to them on that. Anyone skipping the story , i feel, will lose a big part of the experience.
A funny, but sad, thing to say on this... A FC-mate was on voice chat the other night, and said the story wasn't making any sense to them at all in HW. They didn't understand why certain people weren't there, etc. etc. They were chalking it up to poor writing/story-telling by SE. Knowing the events, and the lengthy, detailed cut-scenes playing them out, at the end of 2.55, we were kinda surprised by this.
**SPOILER** One such question they asked was, "Why is Raubahn randomly in prison? When did that happen?"
Turns out they were in a rush to get past the 2.x content and into HW so they could hurry up and get to 60. So they were skipping story, cut-scenes, dialog, everything, and continued to do so into HW as well. And now, they were confused about things that were going on.
Needless to say, it was explained to them that their problem wasn't "poor writing or story-telling"; that they'd skipped a *lot* of huge story events, and that's why it didn't make sense.
It was yet another, in a long long long list of examples, of how players make hasty and/or poor decisions, sacrificing long-term enjoyment to the gods of short-term gratification, ruining their own experiences in the process... and then blame it all on the devs. As I've said for a long time: MMO gamers are their own worst enemy.
And as always, all I can think of when I hear people talking about "skipping story" or other content, because they're in a hurry to reach level cap, is this song - particularly the chorus.
The thing that really stood out for me as a long time player of this game (since beta 2 of ARR) was just the feel of how the story progresses, it feels like an actual journey when compared to 2.0.
The lore about the war between dragons and ishgard is pretty good but i really liked how the story takes you through the zones and makes it feels like you are really going through an adventure as you would on other final fantasy games or rpgs.
The cutscenes were also more impressive.
Yeah, the cutscenes have been really well-done. The voice acting has improved significantly (IMO), and the dialog is better written. You can tell more care and time was taken on each. There's some truly heartbreaking things going on in the story, too.
I play the game mostly for the content (raids, and hopefully it gets good pvp in the future) but was really, really impressed by how well the story was put together, kudos to them on that. Anyone skipping the story , i feel, will lose a big part of the experience.
A funny, but sad, thing to say on this... A FC-mate was on voice chat the other night, and said the story wasn't making any sense to them at all in HW. They didn't understand why certain people weren't there, etc. etc. They were chalking it up to poor writing/story-telling by SE. Knowing the events, and the lengthy, detailed cut-scenes playing them out, at the end of 2.55, we were kinda surprised by this.
**SPOILER** One such question they asked was, "Why is Raubahn randomly in prison? When did that happen?"
Turns out they were in a rush to get past the 2.x content and into HW so they could hurry up and get to 60. So they were skipping story, cut-scenes, dialog, everything, and continued to do so into HW as well. And now, they were confused about things that were going on.
Needless to say, it was explained to them that their problem wasn't "poor writing or story-telling"; that they'd skipped a *lot* of huge story events, and that's why it didn't make sense.
It was yet another, in a long long long list of examples, of how players make hasty and/or poor decisions, sacrifice long-term enjoyment for short-term gratification, ruin their own experiences in the process... and then blame it all on the devs. As I've said for a long time: MMO gamers are their own worst enemy.
And as always, all I can think of when I hear people talking about "skipping story" because they're in a hurry to reach level cap, is this song - particularly the chorus.
FFXIV;ARR, does storylines very well imo, its spaced out enough that it keeps being interesting, at least it has been in my experience, but, i've still not reached level cap, probably because i've been too busy doing things that others are skipping over perhaps? but i am not in any rush, i am just playing the game and having fun
Of course i'd probably have reached cap ages ago if i hadn't been seriously distracted by the crafting
speaking of crafting, thank goodness for retainers, i have 2 currently and they tend to be carrying all my crafting resources that i am not using at the moment, along with any odds and ends i don't want to throw away
I've played through Heavensward and the only thought going through my mind is "What the heck were they thinking making mindlessly droning fetch quests and kill quests a requirement for flying? Why haven't they done anything about the housing system and the horrible player distribution due to legacy servers vs other servers? What is going on with the inventory space?"
They can improve the story all they want, but it feels like that is just to help cover up or distract people from the gaping flaws the title currently still has.
Not just the story but crafting, bigger areas, hunt boards, leve's and many other things including lots of quality of life stuff. There are still flaws but I'm sure in time many will be addressed as they have in the past. Also I believe we have access to more retainers now for storage. I don't see the big deal in a few quick mandatory fetch quest for flying when the rest is exploring and completing dungeons.
We don't have any additional retainers unless that individual is paying 2 dollars more per month per each one. The only thing they did was increase the optional number by 2, so someone could double their monthly fees just by renting a ton of retainers. The kind of thing we used to get for free in games like World of Warcraft.
I've played through Heavensward and the only thought going through my mind is "What the heck were they thinking making mindlessly droning fetch quests and kill quests a requirement for flying? Why haven't they done anything about the housing system and the horrible player distribution due to legacy servers vs other servers? What is going on with the inventory space?"
They can improve the story all they want, but it feels like that is just to help cover up or distract people from the gaping flaws the title currently still has.
Not just the story but crafting, bigger areas, hunt boards, leve's and many other things including lots of quality of life stuff. There are still flaws but I'm sure in time many will be addressed as they have in the past. Also I believe we have access to more retainers now for storage. I don't see the big deal in a few quick mandatory fetch quest for flying when the rest is exploring and completing dungeons.
We don't have any additional retainers unless that individual is paying 2 dollars more per month per each one. The only thing they did was increase the optional number by 2, so someone could double their monthly fees just by renting a ton of retainers. The kind of thing we used to get for free in games like World of Warcraft.
"The reason why we can’t increase item space is saving to the servers and getting that data transferred is one of the main reasons we haven’t been able to increase space. Currently, the save data size amount per character is probably the biggest in all of MMOs in the world," said Yoshida. "We have the most data per character. Every 15 seconds we take a backup of every player’s data. This is good for players because if the servers crash there is no rollback. Every 15 seconds we are updating that data. Increasing the inventory also increases the amount of data we send back to the servers to save every 15 seconds. What we could do is extend that time from every 15 seconds to five minutes we can add more data, but what happens then is if the servers crash there is the threat of rolling back player data and players losing some data."
"But, that’s not to say we’re not working on this or not doing anything. We’re always working on optimization making it so we can transfer more data. Right now, with Heavensward coming out we know that a lot of players are going to access the servers and there is going to be a lot of stress on the servers. To do something like this at launch would create an unstable environment. It’s something we’re working on now and hopefully we can increase the amount of items players can carry. I also need more space in my inventory."
It is a problem but game breaking? No not in my opinion. WoW has some things done better than XIV and also the other way around.
Well, to be fair we're comparing a game that is still being built and systems still being worked on, to a title that is basically on life support systems and turning into its own worst enemy. I'd still consider FFXIV ARR the dynasty warriors of MMORPGs, in that it's incredibly simpleminded and easy to pick up and the entire objective being to build up all of the "characters" or player options as much as possible on their preset courses. So it is still bothersome it has taken them so long to simply reaffirm they are working on the inventory problems. The same thing can be said of the housing as well.
Also, Square Enix needs to work on setting up their questing in a realistic fashion. Right now, the Witcher 3 has probably one of the best organized quest systems that's been implemented in a long time that both fits the lore of the game and the needs of the players. By simply posting all the jobs the npcs need help with on a community board, it gets rid of the entire quest markers on a map system and makes it so that the NPCs don't appear like they are standing around for days in the middle of no where waiting for some kind of help to arrive. This is more of a small quibble, though.
Well, to be fair we're comparing a game that is still being built and systems still being worked on, to a title that is basically on life support systems and turning into its own worst enemy. I'd still consider FFXIV ARR the dynasty warriors of MMORPGs, in that it's incredibly simpleminded and easy to pick up and the entire objective being to build up all of the "characters" or player options as much as possible on their preset courses. So it is still bothersome it has taken them so long to simply reaffirm they are working on the inventory problems. The same thing can be said of the housing as well.
First, you're projecting. Maybeyou have a simpleminded view of what FFXIV is all about. But that's you. Your idea of "the entire objective" is not everyone else's. You don't know what others' objectives are, or what goals they set for themselves... so don't pretend to.
I like how, when it suits you, you'll readily make a comparison to WoW... such as you did here, just a few posts back...
Originally posted by Colt47
We don't have any additional retainers unless that individual is paying 2 dollars more per month per each one. The only thing they did was increase the optional number by 2, so someone could double their monthly fees just by renting a ton of retainers. The kind of thing we used to get for free in games like World of Warcraft.
But then you'll dismiss a comparison to that same game, when it doesn't suit you, such as your response in this last post, which I highlighted in orange.
How convenient. No hypocrisy there. Not at all.
Now, let's unpack your complaints about retainers and inventory, again, where it pertains to WoW (your comparison) versus ARR, because you're being dishonest here... though it's also irrelevant to the topic, I'm going to address it.
First things first, it's important to point out, here, a distinction between WoW and FFXIV where character slots are concerned.
Unlike FFXIV, in WoW, you can not level/train all classes on the same character. It's 1 class per character, and hence, alts are a necessity, if you ever want to play a different class. So, while it sounds good on its face to talk about all the extra char. slots WoW gives you, it's kind of necessary, given the game's setup.
Arguing that WoW is better because it gives you more character slots "for free", is rather like bragging that cars are better than motorcycles because they come with 4 wheels, while motorcycles are a rip-off, because they only have 2.
In FFXIV, however, all jobs/classes may be leveled on the same character. There's no need for alts. Thus, for $9.99, a player may get an "Entry Level" subscription, which allots you a single character slot, per server, for up to 8 total. Each character is given 2 retainers automatically. There is a higher cost option, which offers you additional characters; this I would assume is more ideal for shared accounts, or something of that sort.
Anyway, the point is, it's kinda disingenuous to argue about WoW offering you more character slots "for free", considering it's pretty much necessary, given their 1 Character, 1 Class setup.
Now, let's get to the crux of my response... The question of this "on-going problem with inventory" you allude to.
In a nutshell, you're being very dishonest, and are exaggerating an issue which - except in extreme situations - isn't really an issue at all - or at least needn't be. You, like another common poster in XIV's threads, seem to enjoy throwing out these complaints, without context or data to back them up; it's just a lot of rhetoric without context or substance.
On the other hand, I'll provide actual data to demonstrate why the math of your assertion just doesn't add up.
Let's start with someone paying for the entry level subscription, which is $9.99/mo, and provides a single character, with 2 retainers.
For that, you get:
100 Slots for "regular inventory".
300 slots in your Armoury; 25 gear slots x 12 categories.
75 slots for Key items - separate from regular inventory.
Crystals, Clusters, and Shards have their own space, separate from regular inventory.
An Armoire in your Inn-Room (also accessible via FC and Private Room furnishings) can hold a variety of gear, including:
Artifact Armor Sets, which by itself can account for up to 115 individual inventory slots (23 Jobs x 5 AF pieces each) ; this amount will increase as new jobs are introduced.
Any Seasonal Gear, which can add up over time.
Achievement Items
Exclusive Items
2 Retainers, with 175 inventory slots each.
Retainers also have 13 equipment slots, which can be used as "storage", as well.
Special items, like Tomestones, Company Seals, etc, are stored separate from regular inventory.
Up to 25 Key Quest and Temporary items are kept in their own category, separate from regular inventory.
So, if we look at only the regular inventory slots on your character and retainers, (not key items, armoire, etc), each character has 776 inventory slots to start with.
Including just AF gear alone, using the Armoire increases that to 891 total slots. This does not account at all for Seasonal, Achievement or Exclusive items, which players will accrue over time... none of which will need to take up regular inventory spots.
If we add in the absolute minimum space saved by keeping Crystals, Clusters and Shards separate, that brings the total up to 909 slots.
If we include just one slot for each type of alternate currency (tomestones, seals, etc), the total goes up to 915 slots.
If we account for Key/Quest items, the total available space goes up to 990 slots. Such items would otherwise take up regular inventory space, so this extra space matters.
So, on a $9.99/month sub, without spending a dime more on additional retainers, you have almost 1000 inventory slots available to you, across all types and categories.
Not entirely sure how that's "limited" in any way, unless someone's a complete hoarder, or just sucks at organizing their stuff, but heck... let's look at this further.
You talk about what WoW includes "free" with its $14.99 monthly sub... so let's explore that.
Let's say someone really just wants to add on more inventory space, so they buy 2 more retainers. Aside from the additional benefits a Retainer provides (storage, selling, Ventures), that gives an additional 188 inventory slots per Retainer, bringing the total maximum storage space for a single character to 1366 inventory slots. 1074 of that is space for regular inventory.
And that's just for now. Yoshi-P and co. are looking into ways to allow players to expand inventory further down the road, so these numbers aren't etched in stone forever.
So there you go, for as little as $9.99 a month - significantly less than a standard WoW sub - You can have a single character, which can do everything in the game, without need for alts... and have up to 990 inventory slots (across all types/categories) out of the gate. Or, you can have up to 1366 if they decide to get 2 additional retainers, and pay $13.99 a month, which is still less than a standard WoW sub.
So, outside of being a complete hoarder, or just sucking horribly at inventory management - neither of which are in SE's control - tell me again how this is an "inventory problem" exactly?
To be clear, this isn't about "competition with WoW". I refer to WoW, because you did. The point of the post is to show that, as the numbers bear out, inventory in XIV is anything but "a problem"... and I'd be willing to bet that's so for all but the extreme packrats in the community.
Comments
The thing that really stood out for me as a long time player of this game (since beta 2 of ARR) was just the feel of how the story progresses, it feels like an actual journey when compared to 2.0.
The lore about the war between dragons and ishgard is pretty good but i really liked how the story takes you through the zones and makes it feels like you are really going through an adventure as you would on other final fantasy games or rpgs.
The cutscenes were also more impressive.
I play the game mostly for the content (raids, and hopefully it gets good pvp in the future) but was really, really impressed by how well the story was put together, kudos to them on that. Anyone skipping the story , i feel, will lose a big part of the experience.
Guess it's the result of experience acquired from this years of service + bigger cash flow.
FFXIV;ARR, does storylines very well imo, its spaced out enough that it keeps being interesting, at least it has been in my experience, but, i've still not reached level cap, probably because i've been too busy doing things that others are skipping over perhaps? but i am not in any rush, i am just playing the game and having fun
Of course i'd probably have reached cap ages ago if i hadn't been seriously distracted by the crafting
speaking of crafting, thank goodness for retainers, i have 2 currently and they tend to be carrying all my crafting resources that i am not using at the moment, along with any odds and ends i don't want to throw away
We don't have any additional retainers unless that individual is paying 2 dollars more per month per each one. The only thing they did was increase the optional number by 2, so someone could double their monthly fees just by renting a ton of retainers. The kind of thing we used to get for free in games like World of Warcraft.
Well, to be fair we're comparing a game that is still being built and systems still being worked on, to a title that is basically on life support systems and turning into its own worst enemy. I'd still consider FFXIV ARR the dynasty warriors of MMORPGs, in that it's incredibly simpleminded and easy to pick up and the entire objective being to build up all of the "characters" or player options as much as possible on their preset courses. So it is still bothersome it has taken them so long to simply reaffirm they are working on the inventory problems. The same thing can be said of the housing as well.
Also, Square Enix needs to work on setting up their questing in a realistic fashion. Right now, the Witcher 3 has probably one of the best organized quest systems that's been implemented in a long time that both fits the lore of the game and the needs of the players. By simply posting all the jobs the npcs need help with on a community board, it gets rid of the entire quest markers on a map system and makes it so that the NPCs don't appear like they are standing around for days in the middle of no where waiting for some kind of help to arrive. This is more of a small quibble, though.
Now, let's unpack your complaints about retainers and inventory, again, where it pertains to WoW (your comparison) versus ARR, because you're being dishonest here... though it's also irrelevant to the topic, I'm going to address it.
First things first, it's important to point out, here, a distinction between WoW and FFXIV where character slots are concerned.
Unlike FFXIV, in WoW, you can not level/train all classes on the same character. It's 1 class per character, and hence, alts are a necessity, if you ever want to play a different class. So, while it sounds good on its face to talk about all the extra char. slots WoW gives you, it's kind of necessary, given the game's setup.
Arguing that WoW is better because it gives you more character slots "for free", is rather like bragging that cars are better than motorcycles because they come with 4 wheels, while motorcycles are a rip-off, because they only have 2.
In FFXIV, however, all jobs/classes may be leveled on the same character. There's no need for alts. Thus, for $9.99, a player may get an "Entry Level" subscription, which allots you a single character slot, per server, for up to 8 total. Each character is given 2 retainers automatically. There is a higher cost option, which offers you additional characters; this I would assume is more ideal for shared accounts, or something of that sort.
Anyway, the point is, it's kinda disingenuous to argue about WoW offering you more character slots "for free", considering it's pretty much necessary, given their 1 Character, 1 Class setup.
Now, let's get to the crux of my response... The question of this "on-going problem with inventory" you allude to.
In a nutshell, you're being very dishonest, and are exaggerating an issue which - except in extreme situations - isn't really an issue at all - or at least needn't be. You, like another common poster in XIV's threads, seem to enjoy throwing out these complaints, without context or data to back them up; it's just a lot of rhetoric without context or substance.
On the other hand, I'll provide actual data to demonstrate why the math of your assertion just doesn't add up.
Let's start with someone paying for the entry level subscription, which is $9.99/mo, and provides a single character, with 2 retainers.
For that, you get:
So, if we look at only the regular inventory slots on your character and retainers, (not key items, armoire, etc), each character has 776 inventory slots to start with.
Including just AF gear alone, using the Armoire increases that to 891 total slots. This does not account at all for Seasonal, Achievement or Exclusive items, which players will accrue over time... none of which will need to take up regular inventory spots.
If we add in the absolute minimum space saved by keeping Crystals, Clusters and Shards separate, that brings the total up to 909 slots.
If we include just one slot for each type of alternate currency (tomestones, seals, etc), the total goes up to 915 slots.
If we account for Key/Quest items, the total available space goes up to 990 slots. Such items would otherwise take up regular inventory space, so this extra space matters.
So, on a $9.99/month sub, without spending a dime more on additional retainers, you have almost 1000 inventory slots available to you, across all types and categories.
Not entirely sure how that's "limited" in any way, unless someone's a complete hoarder, or just sucks at organizing their stuff, but heck... let's look at this further.
You talk about what WoW includes "free" with its $14.99 monthly sub... so let's explore that.
Let's say someone really just wants to add on more inventory space, so they buy 2 more retainers. Aside from the additional benefits a Retainer provides (storage, selling, Ventures), that gives an additional 188 inventory slots per Retainer, bringing the total maximum storage space for a single character to 1366 inventory slots. 1074 of that is space for regular inventory.
And that's just for now. Yoshi-P and co. are looking into ways to allow players to expand inventory further down the road, so these numbers aren't etched in stone forever.
So there you go, for as little as $9.99 a month - significantly less than a standard WoW sub - You can have a single character, which can do everything in the game, without need for alts... and have up to 990 inventory slots (across all types/categories) out of the gate. Or, you can have up to 1366 if they decide to get 2 additional retainers, and pay $13.99 a month, which is still less than a standard WoW sub.
So, outside of being a complete hoarder, or just sucking horribly at inventory management - neither of which are in SE's control - tell me again how this is an "inventory problem" exactly?
To be clear, this isn't about "competition with WoW". I refer to WoW, because you did. The point of the post is to show that, as the numbers bear out, inventory in XIV is anything but "a problem"... and I'd be willing to bet that's so for all but the extreme packrats in the community.