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Huge apology to the FF14 team
free2play
Member UncommonPosts: 2,043
Too little too late but I went back and redid this game from scratch. This time around I did something nobody would have thought to do. I made a Culinary starter char. I refused to fight and in so doing I was left with no other option but to follow where the game took me.
Timeline condensed:
- Cutscenes, intro etc.
- Intro to Trial in the sands, run the quest complete. Find out with Momodi's "slipped Levequest" you get a recipe in granted recipes.
- Finish Trial in the sand and go back and get the 2 available Culinary local levelquests. Get all the stuff to make them,get 2 more recipes from doing them, get to level 5 in 3 quests.
The options are now open for me to do all the other trade of hand Levequests, with the 12K Gil from the Sands quest. Build a recipe database and do it with no gil at all. Level in the process (used to mean something with general level - they killed that because we couldn't figure things out)
Move on to Land levels, move on to combat with prem, all crafted gear.
-------
This game should have been the benchmark on a craft based MMO and because people (like me) bitched and moaned and didnt take the time to PLAY THE F'ING GAME now it might not be.
I can scold you at Square for not selling this with the right spin but you didnt screw up, I did and I don't hesitate to admit it because you guys took alot of shit you shouldn't have for things not being thought out. It was so subtle and so creative it went over our space cadet, westernized heads.
My humble apology.
Comments
eh? So you like crafting.... I like killing mobs + crafting. But not the horrid crafting system they have it. More like XI's man. I guess you never played XI huh?
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
Cool beans OP im happy to see a post like this. kinda refreshing after alot of the usualy mud slinging that goes on
No, I didnt play 11. Was told it was another guild only game but this crafting system was just fine save it could have done with a lowering of ticks. 20% was cap tick and rare at that. The average Synthesis takes 12 ticks to reach 100%. It should take 4-6 meaning the rare 20% should have been the rare 50% tick. Had that happened it wouldnt have seemed so tedious.
It's not just the crafting in itself. Most of the combat depends heavily on your gear. The game is designed (was) to accomodate a long term evolution of a character capable of making, using and benefiting from everything they do. Even the "lack of Mobs" wouldn't have seemed like a problem if people had leveled out Hand, Land and combat. With the previous general level system that sequence would have made level stuff above you less intimidating.
It doesn't matter now anyway. 2.00 will bring in a whole other way to play and all I know is, this time I won't be pissing on it before I figure it out. All of it.
What I'm trying to say is that it seems you are like blaming yourself and a lot of people who jumped to XIV were XI players and all these new concepts just did not fit.
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
I don't think anyone doubts that the crafting system in this game was one of its strong points. It did have a few aspects that could have been tweaked, or changed outright, but overall, the crafting was incredible. I like crafting myself, and before I quit, my armorsmith was my highest level (28 or something).
The problem I found was that it got too repetitive. In the end, you REALLY have to like crafting in order to just do that. Eventually, most people would want to do other content and at the time of release, there wasn't much of that going around.
There's more content now, yes. But I don't think it is the player's fault for rejecting the game when it first came out. A robust crafting system is not enough to hold most MMO players in a game for too long.
In all honesty I always felt the crafting and gathering aspect of this game were amazing and when those two aspects are compared to other games I personally have not played any that were better. To the people that think FFXIs crafting was better I completely disagree, FFXIV took a step in the right direction if only when concerning crafting.
I agree. I played FFXI and loved it. Even the crafting. But when I played FFXIV, the crafting and gathering system stood out and as far as I'm concerned were far superior to any other game's comparible systems.
Seriously, I really don't think I've spoken to ANYONE from FFXI who doesn't agree that FFXIV would have been far more successful and appealing if it were simply FFXI part 2, with better graphics and an overhauled crafting/gathering system.
They kept the same races even... with changed names (stupid? /shrug)
I saw the screenshot of FFXIV 2.0 and it is impressive, but, considering the game feels WAYYYY too obvious at it's attempt to appeal to FFXI players, they really should consider making it feel more like FFXI with updated technology. progress the story, set in a different time frame, improve on combat, whatever.... but getting rid of all the mechanics and features that made FFXI such a well
'd game was bad judgement, and to not consider that for 2.0 is further bad judgement.
Honestly man, people can keep saying it's the players who do things wrong (as a very vocal forum minority kept repeating in the beta of this game), but in the end it's the players who make the game by actually, well ... playing it or not.
If even your target audience is getting seriously disappointed with the overall (not just the crafting) quality of the game, something is very wrong.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
If the benchmark for a crafting focused MMO is FFXIV, then I fear for the future of crafting focused MMO's. If you have a turbo gamepad, you can automate crafting. How rich and compelling. The system could have been interesting, but they decided you need to press the same button a few hundred thousand times to progress. How is that good design? I can watch a movie at the same time, and be more engaged in the movie than I am in what I'm doing in a video game. Something is wrong when that happens.
I don't think most people were saying it was perfect. It could have used many tweaks and changes. But the foundations were there to make a very robust and good crafting system and it was certainly very different than most games. If they made the mini-game a little less long and repetitive, made the ingredients a little more streamlined, it would have made it really good. I think those changes are coming in an upcoming patch however?
Furthermore, I don't see how you could automate that much. Just making a sword required to make a whole bunch of different crafts, not to mention often needing to switch crafting professions. You could maybe automate the actual crafting process if you were very high leveled compared to the recipe, but for the most part, you had to actively engage in the process, especialy if the recipe was higher level than you.
They removed a lot of the in-between materials and added a reciple (sorta) function, so you can select the last thing you crafted and it will put the materials in the menu for you. I don't know too many crafters who sit down to make a single item unless they're trying to HQ it or something. Most crafters sit down and craft in bulk, and you can literally press the same button the entire time or you can get a turbo gamepad, turn on turbo and let it do it for you. I should know. I got Alchemy from 1-50 using a turbo gamepad. I didn't do any of it. I didn't have to download a bot or learn how to write a script. I just got a bunch of materials, got a turbo gamepad, turned on turbo, and left.
Some people use bots to level in MMOs as well. Just because you can automate your gameplay, it doesn't mean that most players will want to do this. As I said, the crafting is not perfect. That does not mean that there's a great baseline to work with.
What part of XIV's crafting system do you find to be so compelling?
The feature that limits EXP gain per week is horrible. This is why I chose not to play the game.
The combat, crafting, economy, etc. were all good ideas IMHO, but limiting the EXP gain and forcing a player to try othe stuff is too restrictive...I mean why not play the game for me too, I mean might as well since it's already dictating what I can and cannot do on top of the game engine's innate limitations.
It was fun and all, but as soon as I hit that EXP ceiling...the fun stopped.
But honestly, I have not been following this game lately so can I ask a if this horrible feature is still in game???
Ready for GW2!!!
I've never hit this exper ceiling so I have no idea if it's still ingame or not.
While I still say the crafting in the game is explorative and a visible strong point it is clear they werent aiming for that. The scaling is just mind blowing. One of many examples, Batfang needle. You need of course a Batfang and a Ragstone whetstone. A goldsmith can make both the batfang needle and the Ragstone Whetstone. The needle at 11, the part for the needle? You can't make that until 21. So by the time you can make the parts to make the needle? You don't need to make the needle. Not well thought out really.
The surplus system (EXP limit) was removed in 1.18 or .19, can't remember which.