Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Starter citys/NMs/magic travel/agro (from an FFXI player)
zanfire
Member UncommonPosts: 971
This is one of the few games since my friends and I stopped playing FFXI that showed a sign of doing things like it. Not just another twitchy WoW style MMO that focuses on groups and community. I know this game takes a lot from EQ and i know FFXI built a lot of what it was off of the groundwork in EQ. As someone who played very little of EQ i was wondering about a few things and if they will work sort of like they did in FFXI.
One of the great initial grabbing points for FFXI was the way they handled the starting citys. They did a few thing i found really great that i hope to see in a game like this. First would be how they made it so the city you picked was part of their allience. There was an never ending battle for territorys (or zones) that reset each week. These gave a few minor advantages, but it kept everyone going and made people have a love for their home city. The second being how well placed and evenly spread they were from each other and the main city where the story and higher level players gathered. I loved these apsects and have yet to see a game where it felt so well designed.
One of the other things i quite liked though i had issues was NMs (named monsters or notorious monster for XI) basically the really tough normal monster with various spawning conditions that dropped really nice rare loot. Some of the items were good for your level, others great for basically into max level. They also had HNMs which were basically even more rare endgame versions that you would generally see large groups fighting. I know this system created so issues, but it was a big part of the game for a lot of people.
Travel i also think they did really well. They Whitemage teleporting to crags, Blackmage warping to home points along with chocbo mounts, outposts, ships and airships. They all felt nessicary, but never so convenient that you didnt have to hoof it more often than not. Keeping that teleporting with mostly the players it created a need for a service where mages could make some money getting people where they needed to go and a constant flood of chat like it should be in a major hub.
Im sure this last thing may not be easy to do or people may find it pointless, but i think even to this day FFXI had the best agro system in MMOs. Monsters detected you in so many way which made you learn how they work and fear the unknown. Sight, sound, blood(low hp), magic casting, and even ability agroing. They also had "true" versions which means you could not hide from them. You had to be prepared going into places. Needing sneaking and invisibilty items or spells and just plain old taking your time and watching your step made the world feel dangerous...and i loved it.
I know some of these things will be in this game in some form and if anyone knows exactly how please let me know. I just found some of these systems to be really well done, particularly in the begining of the game. Hopefully this gives the devs some ideas on how to do them in this game if they arent already there or what i think was a good example of how to improve. there seems to be a lot of threads and talk here about this game which is great and i know i could probably find some answers among them, i just need time to read through them.
One of the great initial grabbing points for FFXI was the way they handled the starting citys. They did a few thing i found really great that i hope to see in a game like this. First would be how they made it so the city you picked was part of their allience. There was an never ending battle for territorys (or zones) that reset each week. These gave a few minor advantages, but it kept everyone going and made people have a love for their home city. The second being how well placed and evenly spread they were from each other and the main city where the story and higher level players gathered. I loved these apsects and have yet to see a game where it felt so well designed.
One of the other things i quite liked though i had issues was NMs (named monsters or notorious monster for XI) basically the really tough normal monster with various spawning conditions that dropped really nice rare loot. Some of the items were good for your level, others great for basically into max level. They also had HNMs which were basically even more rare endgame versions that you would generally see large groups fighting. I know this system created so issues, but it was a big part of the game for a lot of people.
Travel i also think they did really well. They Whitemage teleporting to crags, Blackmage warping to home points along with chocbo mounts, outposts, ships and airships. They all felt nessicary, but never so convenient that you didnt have to hoof it more often than not. Keeping that teleporting with mostly the players it created a need for a service where mages could make some money getting people where they needed to go and a constant flood of chat like it should be in a major hub.
Im sure this last thing may not be easy to do or people may find it pointless, but i think even to this day FFXI had the best agro system in MMOs. Monsters detected you in so many way which made you learn how they work and fear the unknown. Sight, sound, blood(low hp), magic casting, and even ability agroing. They also had "true" versions which means you could not hide from them. You had to be prepared going into places. Needing sneaking and invisibilty items or spells and just plain old taking your time and watching your step made the world feel dangerous...and i loved it.
I know some of these things will be in this game in some form and if anyone knows exactly how please let me know. I just found some of these systems to be really well done, particularly in the begining of the game. Hopefully this gives the devs some ideas on how to do them in this game if they arent already there or what i think was a good example of how to improve. there seems to be a lot of threads and talk here about this game which is great and i know i could probably find some answers among them, i just need time to read through them.
Comments
I think the only thing that is concerning is the whole retiring your character thing. As long as its not like some games where you are weaker because you did not do that, im fine with it and personally will probably never do it.
Aside from that everything else im very much for and im just sad its not going to be around for another couple years. I recently moved away from where my friends are along with another close friend doing the same but way farther to move in with his GF. We had been looking for something to play together that would keep us going for a while but nothing has stuck. Now we are just waiting on stuff like The Division to keep us amused for the time being.
But as @Amsai said, it's too early to be "too" concerned because we just don't know enough - and have no idea how it will be implemented.
If implemented, I'd want the progency system to be similar to twinking. Your progeny character would start more powerful and deviate back toward the norm at max level where everyone was again equal - no bonuses for progeny characters at max level. Even still, I wouldn't want the bonuses to be "too" significant though to trivialize gameplay. Perhaps there was a range of "bonuses" that could be selected and only one could be applied.
I definitely would fall into the same category as you that I would not want to retire, reroll, and start my character again with small bonuses and I think my above example could avoid having to do that.