Aren't the graphic expectations really high for this game? I don't think my PC can handle it anyway. Hell, it can't run EQ2 to full capacity in graphics without lagging bad. Have a whole lot of MMO's that came After 2004'S FFXI,EQ2, WoW been successful? It's interesting how the dated 1999 original Everquest still serves SOE as a cash cow, but many of their newer MMO's with fantastic graphics become failures.
Given that it's a numbered FF, I'm of the opinion that SE are investing in a game to last a decade or more, so they need to consider that in a decade's time, the graphics will still need to be at least vaguely up to scratch.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
The graphics are good, but they don't run super efficiently.Originally Posted by Elskidor
everything is wrapped in gray
i'm focusing on your image
can you hear me in the void?
Wowza, that's a damn big shakeup they've got going on. :o
I guess this is a good thing?
One would hope. Both December updates appear to be leavings of the previous development team. I was holding out for something more with the late-December update, but it turns out it's just the first stage of a search system for the wards. It only functions to search for items if they're in the properly associated ward. Hopefully the new development team realizes that this exclusive bazaar system is a time-sink and institute a proper auction house. They promised an update in early 2011, so hopefully we'll see something by the new line-up then.
The more I look into the current state of Final Fantasy XI, however, the more I begin to fear that this line-up change will solve some problems only to bring new ones. From what I can see, while the new leadership in Final Fantasy XI certainly brought a lot of things to the table that fans wanted, it also absolutely wrecked game balance to achieve it. Paladin, for example, is fundamentally useless in Final Fantasy XI because of the game's very mechanics. It's not just that PLD has a difficult time keeping hate, it's that with the current dominance of DDs, it is physically impossible for a tank to keep hate. Because of CE/VE caps, a DD will cap hate faster than a PLD, and because they both have the same enmity cap, you'll never see the PLD pull it away long enough to properly tank. I worry that SE might become so desperate to please fans that they'll turn easy mode on in FFXIV the way they have in FFXI and destroy game balance in the process.
We'll just have to wait and see.
I think the first patch in 2011 will still be stuff from the old development group. It's been stated previously that the first patch will include things such as companies, company buildings and company ships etc.
Still, I have to say that as far as I'm concerned, the game doesn't really start until Ishgard is accessable.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
I think they only opened up FFXI and put it on easy street because FFXI is in its final days and they want people to move over to FFXIV. I personally like it and would have been really disappointed had they not gone crazy like this near the end. It's what I would have done if I ran a MMORPG.
But I agree that this can't be done for FFXIV, at least not yet. At the same time I hope it's not the super difficult grindfest that FFXI was for the first 4-5 years. Can't they come up with something in the middle?
Proud to be the Unofficial Secret Illegal Enforcer of Eyes on Final Fantasy!
When I grow up, I want to go toBovineTrump University! - Ralph Wiggum
I'm not so concerned about easy mode. Quite frankly, I realize that I kind of like a bit of easy mode sometimes. I don't have the time to be masochistic in an MMORPG anymore. I'm more concerned about the way that they turned on easy mode in FFXI which has completely disregarded any concept of game balance. The new super boss, Shinryu, can be defeated solo easily and there's no concept of usefulness for a number of jobs (DNC is inferior in most ways to NIN; PLD is fundamentally borked; RNG, DRK, SAM (never thought I'd say that), and DRG are useless next to WAR and MNK) has fallen to nothing.
Not big on easy mode. Make a server for easy mode, and one for challenge and one for medium play or something. I quit my last MMO after 2 year because they continued to make it easier and easier and easier with every update/expansion. Personally I'd rather MMOs to return to the 1999-2004 Everquest days. Pure challenge and none of this modern day yawn easy fest. The harder the game, and the better it will be. Make solo possible, but much harder to get a whole heck of a lot accomplished. Not sure what's up with the world obsessing over PVP nowadays either, but please separate PVP into it's own servers! It seems like a lot of the newer games and even new updates on older games continue to easy mode there game to steal WoW costumers and that annoys me to no end. So what if millions of subscribers like to play watered down and a laughably easy crapfest game called WoW. Do we really have to destroy MMO's that have some challenge left in them in hopes of stealing some immature amateur gamers that, from my experience, often annoy the hell out of server populations?
I'm not bothered by making things easier if the game's idea of difficulty is just being extremely tedious
What do you guys mean by challenge, out of curiosity? I mean, if you level high enough and have enough people alongside you at a decent level, I imagine most enemies are inevitably going to be pretty easy. Unless you mean that it should be a challenge to level up in the first place.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
By 'challenging' I mean FFXI in the first 2-3 years of it's existence. Where getting the level 50 cap break items took a full alliance killing for hours and getting maybe 4-5 drops (for 18 people who need it). I meant the CoP missions prior to the first nerf that required a full party of specific jobs and even then victory wasn't guaranteed. I meant leveling to 75 prior to the lowering of needed experience and even prior to ToAU or Level Sync.
Like you said, BoB, any high level party of competent people should be able to do most tasks without too much fuss. It shouldn't be easy street but it shouldn't take you 20 tries either.
Proud to be the Unofficial Secret Illegal Enforcer of Eyes on Final Fantasy!
When I grow up, I want to go toBovineTrump University! - Ralph Wiggum
The unfortunate problem is that Square Enix's idea of difficulty is exactly what Jessweeee♪ has pointed out. Final Fantasy XI has never been a particularly difficult game. The game has always been an artificial time sink. A bloated experience curve isn't difficulty, it's tedium. Obnoxiously low drop rates don't make the enemies any more difficult to beat. Requiring people to repeat the same task repeatedly over long periods of time does not make the game a challenge. Final Fantasy XI certainly does have some instances of genuine challenge (finding strategies to defeat Odin in Einherjar, for example), but a majority of the content was always artificially difficult.
I don't mind a challenge. When a boss is genuinely difficult to beat but can be overcome by a specific strategy, it's exciting. When a boss is difficult and the only way to defeat him is to abuse a glitch in the game (I'm looking at you, Absolute Virtue), it's ridiculous.
Also, a lot of the difficulty in FFXI was also due to a largely ignorant player base and Square Enix's refusal to release information about the game mechanics. It took people a long time to figure out exactly how powerful haste is. Once we figured out the mechanics, the game began to descend into easy mode because, quite frankly, it was there all along.
The whole idea of a "time sink equals challenge" is long dead. Just because you don't need to play 40 hours a week to get anywhere, doesn't make it easy mode. Reports of incredibly challenging dungeons are arising in the World of Warcraft community, and after a friend explained them to me they certainly do require a lot of skill, co-ordination and member management. Moreso that any "hard-mode" MMO I've played, including FFXI.
The whole idea of a "hard-mode" MMO is so flawed now. FFXI is probably the best example of why; Why should I spend 6 months doing a set of dungeons that are just an easy-long grind, only to have the chance of getting an item that I then need to collect two more pieces and spend 6,000,000 gil on? That my friend, is incredibly flawed and in no one makes the game challenging.
Just because a game rewards you for doing a task, whether challenging or not, does not make it "easy-mode" or undesirable.
You're forgetting something. FFXI =\= FFXIV. You have to get past the whole idea that which you think every other MMO plays the same as FFXI's core concepts and stop comparing what FFXI is doing to what other MMO's are doing because they just don't work the same at all. FFXI is a special case in its current core mechanics overhaul, and therefor is going to need time and feedback in order to get it to where they want it, since it is a dramatic shift in what the game was for the last decade.
This does in no way reflect what the team might possibly do to a fresh new game that pretty much has no gameplay established in the first place.
At the moment this new team needs to break the game. Make it completely unbalanced and every class overpowered, then water it down. Because right now it's not working.
Are you drunk or something? Because this is the worst load of dribble I've ever read in this section of the forums.
Last edited by Rostum; 12-22-2010 at 07:05 AM.
"... and so I close, realizing that perhaps the ending has not yet been written."
I understand that the two have fundamentally different game cores. My point isn't that FFXIV is like FFXI, it's that with the new shift in development teams, which has brought a recent number of people over from the team recently working on FFXI, I am concerned that the new team has no sense of balance. You mention that FFXIV needs to be broken before it can be fixed. I am worried because while the recent development team for Final Fantasy XI has shown that they are exceedingly adapt in breaking existing content and mechanics (the uselessness of any endgame event aside from Abyssea, the job imbalance, the overpowered gear, the underwhelmingly easy enemies), they have yet to demonstrate an ability to do anything else.You're forgetting something. FFXI =\= FFXIV. You have to get past the whole idea that which you think every other MMO plays the same as FFXI's core concepts and stop comparing what FFXI is doing to what other MMO's are doing because they just don't work the same at all. FFXI is a special case in its current core mechanics overhaul, and therefor is going to need time and feedback in order to get it to where they want it, since it is a dramatic shift in what the game was for the last decade.
This does in no way reflect what the team might possibly do to a fresh new game that pretty much has no gameplay established in the first place.
At the moment this new team needs to break the game. Make it completely unbalanced and every class overpowered, then water it down. Because right now it's not working.
It worries me because a broken game is not fun to play; you say they need to break FFXIV before it can be fixed. I am confident in this development team's ability to break the game. Anyone can overpower everything. I'm just worried that they're going to be able to then take a step back and reel it all in and make a solid experience.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
