Not World First
January 31, 2023 1:09 PM Subscribe
With the recent deployment of Patch 6.31, Final Fantasy XIV introduced its fifth Ultimate raid, The Omega Protocol - and with it a race to get the world first clear. The prior Ultimate raid - Dragonsong's Reprise - had caused consternation by the dev team over the use of third party tools, and when it was revealed that the supposed "world first" team used a third party camera hack, they took the step of stripping the team of their titles, achievements, and items related to the completion of the trial.
In commentary on the matter, FFXIV director Naoki Yoshida pointed out why the game has policies against third party tools, as well as noting that continued abuse would potentially see the end of development on Ultimate tier fights.
In commentary on the matter, FFXIV director Naoki Yoshida pointed out why the game has policies against third party tools, as well as noting that continued abuse would potentially see the end of development on Ultimate tier fights.
I just started playing FFXIV and tbh I’m having a hard time finding a game in it. It’s clear there is one as the above attests, but level 17 is not where it is. I’m genuinely curious though! It must be emergent in some way as the base game systems don’t seem to allow much freedom. I want to learn more.
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:29 PM on January 31, 2023
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:29 PM on January 31, 2023
Levels 1-20 are basically the tutorial - you get a class, you get the opportunity to try a second class or a crafting class (or both), you run a dungeon, you get all the setup for the first story arc. If the main line story stuff isn't interesting to you, then... it may not be the game for you? That is a very, very large part of the point. (There are a ton of dungeons and I think they're pretty fun, but I'm there for the story and for the completionist opportunities, not any high-intensity skill-based challenges, although there are plenty of those starting from once you hit the base game level cap. The higher-difficulty bosses are genuinely really fucking hard.)
posted by restless_nomad at 1:35 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by restless_nomad at 1:35 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
It’s clear there is one as the above attests, but level 17 is not where it is.
This is a function of not having a lot of your toolkit yet - and if you think you get frustrated, imagine an endgame player who gets tossed to Satasha (the game's first dungeon) in roulette and suddenly sees most of their buttons go dark. But it's done this way because there are a lot of players new to MMOs, and they need to learn the ropes. Once you start getting more of your rotation and OGCD attacks, combat becomes a lot more complex and enjoyable.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:38 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is a function of not having a lot of your toolkit yet - and if you think you get frustrated, imagine an endgame player who gets tossed to Satasha (the game's first dungeon) in roulette and suddenly sees most of their buttons go dark. But it's done this way because there are a lot of players new to MMOs, and they need to learn the ropes. Once you start getting more of your rotation and OGCD attacks, combat becomes a lot more complex and enjoyable.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:38 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
I've been told that the game gets a lot better once you hit level cap.
posted by Spike Glee at 1:46 PM on January 31, 2023
posted by Spike Glee at 1:46 PM on January 31, 2023
I've been told that the game gets a lot better once you hit level cap.
This is probably a joke, but it strikes me the same advice I hear about television series (
posted by zamboni at 3:18 PM on January 31, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is probably a joke, but it strikes me the same advice I hear about television series (
it gets a lot better after the first two seasons!), where I can’t tell if it’s factual or a bad case of sunk cost cognitive dissonance.
posted by zamboni at 3:18 PM on January 31, 2023 [7 favorites]
I know a lot of people who are really into it long term so I’m sure there’s something fun about it, I just haven’t got there at this point. It’s something I can poke at for free while rendering on another screen so it’s no big deal if I bounce off.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:25 PM on January 31, 2023
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:25 PM on January 31, 2023
This is a function of not having a lot of your toolkit yet
This, but yes, it's basically a meme that the storyline takes a while to develop-- early game for me felt like getting handed a mess of tangled threads and being told to make sense of it on my own. If I hadn't had friends swearing up and down that I'd love it, I probably would've given up because I really disliked most things about MMOs and didn't care about the jrpg aesthetic. It took me until the level 20 trial (fight) to feel the first real moment of interest in the main narrative. Followed that until the end of the first arc, at which point I got completely hooked. Even then, I played on free trial for a couple more months before subscribing. Everyone's mileage will vary but despite not having finished all the expansions, I'm at the point where I'm considering playing through that first phase (which I found bland and boring the first time) all over again to enjoy all the foreshadowing and seeds of lore that I missed as a new player.
posted by notquitemaryann at 4:05 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
This, but yes, it's basically a meme that the storyline takes a while to develop-- early game for me felt like getting handed a mess of tangled threads and being told to make sense of it on my own. If I hadn't had friends swearing up and down that I'd love it, I probably would've given up because I really disliked most things about MMOs and didn't care about the jrpg aesthetic. It took me until the level 20 trial (fight) to feel the first real moment of interest in the main narrative. Followed that until the end of the first arc, at which point I got completely hooked. Even then, I played on free trial for a couple more months before subscribing. Everyone's mileage will vary but despite not having finished all the expansions, I'm at the point where I'm considering playing through that first phase (which I found bland and boring the first time) all over again to enjoy all the foreshadowing and seeds of lore that I missed as a new player.
posted by notquitemaryann at 4:05 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
I find this stuff endlessly fascinating.
As the Dan Olson video highlights, the choices for the devs are to either expressly forbid third party tools and spend resources engaging in an arms race with the players or assume the players are using them and balance around them, excluding the 90-99% of the player base who don't use them.
Not to mention the questionable dynamic of players putting hundreds and thousands of hours into creating resources and tools and UI improvements into projects, creating huge amounts of value which they cannot profit from beyond a warm cozy feeling of people a part of the developers walled garden community.
It's especially complicated since things like World First races are entirely unofficial records that the devs only ever acknowledged on social media. Bragging rights within a chosen group is a huge motivating factor and that motivation drives subscriptions and engagement but also incentivizes breaking TOS and even the cultural experience of the game beyond their corner of the world adversely if not carefully shepherded.
It really demonstrates the tension between multiplayer competitive video games (massive or otherwise) as social events and "sports" versus multiplayer competitive games as money making ventures.
posted by Reyturner at 5:16 PM on January 31, 2023
As the Dan Olson video highlights, the choices for the devs are to either expressly forbid third party tools and spend resources engaging in an arms race with the players or assume the players are using them and balance around them, excluding the 90-99% of the player base who don't use them.
Not to mention the questionable dynamic of players putting hundreds and thousands of hours into creating resources and tools and UI improvements into projects, creating huge amounts of value which they cannot profit from beyond a warm cozy feeling of people a part of the developers walled garden community.
It's especially complicated since things like World First races are entirely unofficial records that the devs only ever acknowledged on social media. Bragging rights within a chosen group is a huge motivating factor and that motivation drives subscriptions and engagement but also incentivizes breaking TOS and even the cultural experience of the game beyond their corner of the world adversely if not carefully shepherded.
It really demonstrates the tension between multiplayer competitive video games (massive or otherwise) as social events and "sports" versus multiplayer competitive games as money making ventures.
posted by Reyturner at 5:16 PM on January 31, 2023
the reality is that the devs have a lot of power in setting the culture in the game, and thus are responsible for how it is shaped
yeah, this was always the problem with Olson's video, because players who jumped over to FFXIV during Shadowlands were very vocal about how different the culture was.
I think this is due in part because of dev action: a few years ago they made some dungeon cutscenes unskippable for everyone, because previously players were skipping them, getting too far ahead, and then telling new players that they should also be skipping cutscenes if they wanted to play. Clearly, the devs did not like this, and they did something about it. The devs pay close attention to what's going on, regardless; the world first and subsequent exposé was two days ago and this statement's already out, translated. (They also do good things, too; Paladin got a rework recently that removed a lot of the pain points, and they've done things like recreate community memes, as well as providing some of their own, during the Fan Fest cons.)
It's also, I think, because the design of the game is quite different to WoW; WoW funnels all players towards raiding, but there's a lot more to do in FFXIV as a casual player (not least because FFXIV rarely sunsets content, so all the old stuff still can be run at the same level). If you don't want to play a mode where your individual performance determines whether everyone else is having fun, you don't have to. There's plenty to do.
The WoW players had a different theory that I think has merit: FFXIV has a solid grasp on its themes, and its model of heroism is patience, compassion, and forgiveness, with a backup of overwhelming violence when that's inevitably taken advantage of. Players inevitably model that in the way they treat each other, because that's what FFXIV characters do. I think this is also one reason why the Warframe community is surprisingly supportive, because it has similar themes of pulling together as a group to defend loveable weirdos through ninja flips (although I'd imagine its moderated global chat is also a significant factor).
I've been told that the game gets a lot better once you hit level cap.
Most of your job's abilities come online by level 50, which is kind of a long time. I'd normally say that the combat gets Good around the level 60 mark, but they went back to rework a few of the old dungeons with their current design sensibilities, so now I'd say that there's some interesting fights around the 20-30 mark, and the climactic story fights at level 50 are simple but pretty representative. The story itself only really starts to engage around level 35, but there's a clear dividing line between when the story has Potential, and when it Gets Good, at the very end of the level 50 main quests, when it first tells you "several cutscenes will play in sequence". Typically, this is when the writers start firing off every Chekov's gun at once.
posted by Merus at 5:17 PM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
yeah, this was always the problem with Olson's video, because players who jumped over to FFXIV during Shadowlands were very vocal about how different the culture was.
I think this is due in part because of dev action: a few years ago they made some dungeon cutscenes unskippable for everyone, because previously players were skipping them, getting too far ahead, and then telling new players that they should also be skipping cutscenes if they wanted to play. Clearly, the devs did not like this, and they did something about it. The devs pay close attention to what's going on, regardless; the world first and subsequent exposé was two days ago and this statement's already out, translated. (They also do good things, too; Paladin got a rework recently that removed a lot of the pain points, and they've done things like recreate community memes, as well as providing some of their own, during the Fan Fest cons.)
It's also, I think, because the design of the game is quite different to WoW; WoW funnels all players towards raiding, but there's a lot more to do in FFXIV as a casual player (not least because FFXIV rarely sunsets content, so all the old stuff still can be run at the same level). If you don't want to play a mode where your individual performance determines whether everyone else is having fun, you don't have to. There's plenty to do.
The WoW players had a different theory that I think has merit: FFXIV has a solid grasp on its themes, and its model of heroism is patience, compassion, and forgiveness, with a backup of overwhelming violence when that's inevitably taken advantage of. Players inevitably model that in the way they treat each other, because that's what FFXIV characters do. I think this is also one reason why the Warframe community is surprisingly supportive, because it has similar themes of pulling together as a group to defend loveable weirdos through ninja flips (although I'd imagine its moderated global chat is also a significant factor).
I've been told that the game gets a lot better once you hit level cap.
Most of your job's abilities come online by level 50, which is kind of a long time. I'd normally say that the combat gets Good around the level 60 mark, but they went back to rework a few of the old dungeons with their current design sensibilities, so now I'd say that there's some interesting fights around the 20-30 mark, and the climactic story fights at level 50 are simple but pretty representative. The story itself only really starts to engage around level 35, but there's a clear dividing line between when the story has Potential, and when it Gets Good, at the very end of the level 50 main quests, when it first tells you "several cutscenes will play in sequence". Typically, this is when the writers start firing off every Chekov's gun at once.
posted by Merus at 5:17 PM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
I effectively quit WoW short of BC due to the v2.0 UI lockdown. (Although looking at recent raid footage, it seems like all the stateful restrictions ['secured headers'] have mostly been worked around, somehow.)
FFXIV is a different game. It has a prevailing culture that parsing and such is actively harmful to, and I don't really get why the small number of srs raiders really need it for anything but out of band competitive purposes.
If challenging content can't be cleared (not necessarily immediately) without camera hax then either it needs to be nerfed or the players need to be buffed. Normal for MMOs.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:48 PM on January 31, 2023
FFXIV is a different game. It has a prevailing culture that parsing and such is actively harmful to, and I don't really get why the small number of srs raiders really need it for anything but out of band competitive purposes.
If challenging content can't be cleared (not necessarily immediately) without camera hax then either it needs to be nerfed or the players need to be buffed. Normal for MMOs.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:48 PM on January 31, 2023
As the Dan Olson video highlights, the choices for the devs are to either expressly forbid third party tools and spend resources engaging in an arms race with the players or assume the players are using them and balance around them, excluding the 90-99% of the player base who don't use them.
Except that there isn't an arms race here - Yoshida showed that he is quite willing to hold these players accountable and strip them of their titles and winnings. Which is the underlying problem with Olsen's video - he tries to argue that this behavior is emergent while ignoring that the devs can set the tone. The inciting incident that caused Olsen to make the video in the first place illustrated the flaw - he talks about how his friend was attacked by his raid partners for not getting a perfect version of the BiS item, while ignoring that this sort of behavior is why games like FFXIV don't use deterministic gearing. In fact, FFXIV has been moving away from RNG influencing gear drops with coffers, run tokens, and other mechanics designed to allow players to always be making forward gains, which does a lot to eliminate toxicity, whereas systems like the Vault promote it.
WoW funnels all players towards raiding, but there's a lot more to do in FFXIV as a casual player (not least because FFXIV rarely sunsets content, so all the old stuff is still run if you just want to see it).
It's not just that content isn't sunset, but that content is kept relevant through systems that pull players back into it, like the daily roulettes. Even areas like Eureka and Bozja still see players challenge them, and there are communities that do things like coordinate running the Baldesion Arsenal (a notoriously difficult dungeon tied to Eureka), as an example.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:54 PM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
Except that there isn't an arms race here - Yoshida showed that he is quite willing to hold these players accountable and strip them of their titles and winnings. Which is the underlying problem with Olsen's video - he tries to argue that this behavior is emergent while ignoring that the devs can set the tone. The inciting incident that caused Olsen to make the video in the first place illustrated the flaw - he talks about how his friend was attacked by his raid partners for not getting a perfect version of the BiS item, while ignoring that this sort of behavior is why games like FFXIV don't use deterministic gearing. In fact, FFXIV has been moving away from RNG influencing gear drops with coffers, run tokens, and other mechanics designed to allow players to always be making forward gains, which does a lot to eliminate toxicity, whereas systems like the Vault promote it.
WoW funnels all players towards raiding, but there's a lot more to do in FFXIV as a casual player (not least because FFXIV rarely sunsets content, so all the old stuff is still run if you just want to see it).
It's not just that content isn't sunset, but that content is kept relevant through systems that pull players back into it, like the daily roulettes. Even areas like Eureka and Bozja still see players challenge them, and there are communities that do things like coordinate running the Baldesion Arsenal (a notoriously difficult dungeon tied to Eureka), as an example.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:54 PM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
You know, the more Dan Olson releases videos about games I know that are fundamentally flawed (those I know who play Fortnite say his reading of it is paranoid, and they feel very little FOMO in practice; his Minecraft one feels like it's taking advantage of the fuzziness of systemic games in a far less convincing way than, say, Feminist Frequency's critique of Hitman's sex workers) the more I wonder how much, for example, his assertion that flat-earth is an expression of Christianity is based in the available evidence.
posted by Merus at 6:31 PM on January 31, 2023
posted by Merus at 6:31 PM on January 31, 2023
My in-laws play FFXIV and got me in there when I was getting cranky about things with WoW (Shadowlands (2) and levelsquish (2), mostly). The culture was such a huge difference that I found myself in love with it. You mess up and die, and then the party dies and you need to do a boss fight again? The general feeling is "eh, that happens" and people don't start screaming at you about being a failure. Sometimes they have more experience in a class than you and they will give you advice how to play better, but not in a pitying way, in a "we want you to win" way. After playing WoW since vanilla (3), it was an incredibly refreshing experience and the kind of thing that keeps me going there.
For those that don't know the game much, you start off in version 2.0 of the game, A Realm Reborn, because the first version was so badly done that they pulled it completely and did a full rework of the game from levels 1 to 50, and the general feeling is that what they did is so much of an improvement that it's almost unrecognizable as the same game.
(1) the 8th expansion for World of Warcraft, which took you to where souls go when they die, and you need to fix the "machinery of death", because things are fucked up in the afterlife due to people trying to screw with things for their own benefit, and it turns out this plan has been going on for a couple of expansions before you get to the Shadowlands.
(2) Before Shadowlands was released, the levels went from 1 to 120. When Shadowlands came out, the 1 to 120 character levels were squashed to be levels 1 to 50, and a lot of reworking went on in the background to make changes. There was a fairly vocal community of people who dislike this, especially since they had previously done something similar with the power level of the gear you could get, and it made some things that were previously trivial more difficult due to failures in judgment in the power curve.
(3) "vanilla" is a colloquial term for the original release of World of Warcraft, up to the last patch, before the release of the first expansion, The Burning Crusade.
posted by mephron at 6:32 AM on February 1, 2023
For those that don't know the game much, you start off in version 2.0 of the game, A Realm Reborn, because the first version was so badly done that they pulled it completely and did a full rework of the game from levels 1 to 50, and the general feeling is that what they did is so much of an improvement that it's almost unrecognizable as the same game.
(1) the 8th expansion for World of Warcraft, which took you to where souls go when they die, and you need to fix the "machinery of death", because things are fucked up in the afterlife due to people trying to screw with things for their own benefit, and it turns out this plan has been going on for a couple of expansions before you get to the Shadowlands.
(2) Before Shadowlands was released, the levels went from 1 to 120. When Shadowlands came out, the 1 to 120 character levels were squashed to be levels 1 to 50, and a lot of reworking went on in the background to make changes. There was a fairly vocal community of people who dislike this, especially since they had previously done something similar with the power level of the gear you could get, and it made some things that were previously trivial more difficult due to failures in judgment in the power curve.
(3) "vanilla" is a colloquial term for the original release of World of Warcraft, up to the last patch, before the release of the first expansion, The Burning Crusade.
posted by mephron at 6:32 AM on February 1, 2023
the general feeling is that what they did is so much of an improvement that it's almost unrecognizable as the same game
it's a completely different game that happens to support characters from the previous game*. It runs on a different engine, it has a different combat model, nearly all of the environments are different (mostly cities and some dungeons), it actually has a story with a beginning, middle and end. Some things were lost; the 1.0 game had gorgeous cutscenes starring your character, whereas 2.0 has cutscenes with canned animations. The game world is smaller than in 1.0, but that is a technicality because 1.0's maps were copy-pasted mazes, like a bad roguelike with only one seed. Technically there was more game world, but most of it wasn't interesting.
It is difficult to overstate how much of a disaster 1.0 was. It was ill-conceived from the beginning, a minor improvement on FF11's primitive gameplay loop that launched after Wrath of the Lich King. And then it didn't work on a technical, gameplay, or artistic level, either. It's not surprising that they chose to put it out of its misery; it's rather more surprising that they tried to build an MMO to replace it in two years and mostly succeeded.
* which is why there's some weirdness when levelling where you pick a starting "class" and then at level 30 your class permanently changes into a "job" and then any jobs released in expansions don't have a class but work identically. Jobs weren't part of the plan originally.
posted by Merus at 7:34 AM on February 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
it's a completely different game that happens to support characters from the previous game*. It runs on a different engine, it has a different combat model, nearly all of the environments are different (mostly cities and some dungeons), it actually has a story with a beginning, middle and end. Some things were lost; the 1.0 game had gorgeous cutscenes starring your character, whereas 2.0 has cutscenes with canned animations. The game world is smaller than in 1.0, but that is a technicality because 1.0's maps were copy-pasted mazes, like a bad roguelike with only one seed. Technically there was more game world, but most of it wasn't interesting.
It is difficult to overstate how much of a disaster 1.0 was. It was ill-conceived from the beginning, a minor improvement on FF11's primitive gameplay loop that launched after Wrath of the Lich King. And then it didn't work on a technical, gameplay, or artistic level, either. It's not surprising that they chose to put it out of its misery; it's rather more surprising that they tried to build an MMO to replace it in two years and mostly succeeded.
* which is why there's some weirdness when levelling where you pick a starting "class" and then at level 30 your class permanently changes into a "job" and then any jobs released in expansions don't have a class but work identically. Jobs weren't part of the plan originally.
posted by Merus at 7:34 AM on February 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
They didn't just pull the first game. They blew up the world, while players watched, in game.
posted by Spike Glee at 8:04 AM on February 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Spike Glee at 8:04 AM on February 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
They didn't just pull the first game. They blew up the world, while players watched, in game.
I admire their commitment to lore for doing so.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 8:47 AM on February 1, 2023
I admire their commitment to lore for doing so.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 8:47 AM on February 1, 2023
I think it was a fantastic story choice, too, honestly - the sense of actual lived backstory not only grounds a lot of the minor quests but also gave them a fantastic platform to tell new stories on. A natural disaster that upended political systems and generated turmoil, refugee populations, economic inequality... it's part of why the story is so solid even when it's not at its very finest.
posted by restless_nomad at 10:12 AM on February 1, 2023
posted by restless_nomad at 10:12 AM on February 1, 2023
FFXIV is a rollercoaster: it starts ploddingly as you assemble your class's kit and climb through the world-building and character-introduction of A Realm Reborn. You clack-clack-clack up through ARR until you finally reach a point at the end of the ARR patches. You pause at the summit, where famously "several cutscenes will play in sequence," and then ... it is a non-stop ride through four expansions. No other MMO -- and no other video game I've played -- have evinced in me such strong emotions from its story. It is not flawless, but it is beautiful.
As for this scandal: one thing that is interesting to me is the streaming/non-streaming angle. The team that was punished for this cheat did not stream their progress, nor did the team that claimed World First after the first team was stripped of the achievement. (This second team also has a cloud over them, but I'm unclear on the details.) This led the folks coordinating the all-volunteer commentating effort to say they would no longer track progress for teams that are not streaming. This isn't to say that streaming teams can't also be using under-handed methods, but sentiment is turning against progression teams that don't stream their progress.
It'll be interesting to see how FFXIV world-first races are handled in the future. The streaming money isn't there to support the professional-level efforts you see in World of Warcraft, for instance. FFXIV may have subscription numbers to match WoW, but certainly does not have the same Twitch viewership numbers (by an order of magnitude).
posted by The Nutmeg of Consolation at 10:52 AM on February 1, 2023
As for this scandal: one thing that is interesting to me is the streaming/non-streaming angle. The team that was punished for this cheat did not stream their progress, nor did the team that claimed World First after the first team was stripped of the achievement. (This second team also has a cloud over them, but I'm unclear on the details.) This led the folks coordinating the all-volunteer commentating effort to say they would no longer track progress for teams that are not streaming. This isn't to say that streaming teams can't also be using under-handed methods, but sentiment is turning against progression teams that don't stream their progress.
It'll be interesting to see how FFXIV world-first races are handled in the future. The streaming money isn't there to support the professional-level efforts you see in World of Warcraft, for instance. FFXIV may have subscription numbers to match WoW, but certainly does not have the same Twitch viewership numbers (by an order of magnitude).
posted by The Nutmeg of Consolation at 10:52 AM on February 1, 2023
which is why there's some weirdness when levelling where you pick a starting "class" and then at level 30 your class permanently changes into a "job" and then any jobs released in expansions don't have a class but work identically. Jobs weren't part of the plan originally.
Sort of - jobs were implemented during Yoshida's stabilization of Legacy, and the original plan was to have new jobs grow out of classes, with jobs either having new base classes (for example, there was a planned Musketeer class that would have been the root of all gun wielding jobs, and you can actually see the signage for what would have been the class guildhall in Limsa) or tied to thematically appropriate existing classes.
What happened was that the testbed for this - the brand new Arcanist class that can become either the Summoner DPS or Scholar healer jobs - was so difficult to balance that they realized that the idea was a nightmare to maintain. Thus only one class they had in the can (the Rogue, which in turn becomes the Ninja) was implemented, with all future jobs being gated by progress (and they learned a lesson from that too, as the only three additional jobs that don't start in the starter cities are the Heavensward jobs of Dark Knight, Astrologian, and Machinist.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:18 AM on February 1, 2023
Sort of - jobs were implemented during Yoshida's stabilization of Legacy, and the original plan was to have new jobs grow out of classes, with jobs either having new base classes (for example, there was a planned Musketeer class that would have been the root of all gun wielding jobs, and you can actually see the signage for what would have been the class guildhall in Limsa) or tied to thematically appropriate existing classes.
What happened was that the testbed for this - the brand new Arcanist class that can become either the Summoner DPS or Scholar healer jobs - was so difficult to balance that they realized that the idea was a nightmare to maintain. Thus only one class they had in the can (the Rogue, which in turn becomes the Ninja) was implemented, with all future jobs being gated by progress (and they learned a lesson from that too, as the only three additional jobs that don't start in the starter cities are the Heavensward jobs of Dark Knight, Astrologian, and Machinist.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:18 AM on February 1, 2023
I will say my favorite part of the game (which I like very much) is the class-switching ability. Not only do you have flexibility on what you can do for any given activity, which I love, but you get to see all the class story stuff, some of which is quite enjoyable, without having to repeat content.
One of the very nice grace notes of my brief tenure on Lineage II was staying late one day to crowd with the rest of the team around one of the CS's guy's computer so we could watch the first (in North America) successful takedown of one of the huge bosses. This was before streaming was a thing, and the team was super invested in it. I can well imagine getting that invested in an event like this and then discovering you have to ban the fuckers for cheating. I'm glad they are taking a Position on this - I think it's important for the culture of the game and, honestly, the internal team morale.
posted by restless_nomad at 2:53 PM on February 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
One of the very nice grace notes of my brief tenure on Lineage II was staying late one day to crowd with the rest of the team around one of the CS's guy's computer so we could watch the first (in North America) successful takedown of one of the huge bosses. This was before streaming was a thing, and the team was super invested in it. I can well imagine getting that invested in an event like this and then discovering you have to ban the fuckers for cheating. I'm glad they are taking a Position on this - I think it's important for the culture of the game and, honestly, the internal team morale.
posted by restless_nomad at 2:53 PM on February 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
I just picked up my second class (botanist) and it's kind of fun just fucking about. I am really, really hating the mapping system, though. "Go collect shit, some of it's been seen in Honey Bell" (for example). Well where the fuck is Honey Bell? I have no idea. The map is almost opaque when it comes to neighbourhood names. The quest won't tell me where to go to get it, it tells me where to drop it off once I've found it. Argh! And don't get me started on the targeting system! Oh it is so bad. But still I'm enjoying it, somewhat, around these horrible edges.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:29 PM on February 1, 2023
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:29 PM on February 1, 2023
I don't love that resource gathering is as much easier as it is with some of the fanmade websites, but it sure is. The in-game resource log is pretty helpful, though
posted by restless_nomad at 4:27 PM on February 1, 2023
posted by restless_nomad at 4:27 PM on February 1, 2023
The map is almost opaque when it comes to neighbourhood names
I think the majority of quests show the item location rather than where to turn it in on the map, but it can be a pain - perhaps it's lower-level quests? Usually there'll be an orange circle on the map with the name of the relevant quest if you move your pointer over it.
The place names aren't obvious, but are marked on the map if you zoom in - they're also written in Eorzean in larger letters, which can be read once you figure out the characters.
The targeting system isn't great, especially with a controller, but it's worth looking in the settings as I'm sure there are few tweaks that make it easier - I have mine set to automatically select the next enemy in a mob - I can still tab to a different enemy if necessary but it means I am not standing there pressing buttons like a lunatic and wondering why none of my attacks are hitting anything!
posted by kumonoi at 5:16 PM on February 1, 2023
I think the majority of quests show the item location rather than where to turn it in on the map, but it can be a pain - perhaps it's lower-level quests? Usually there'll be an orange circle on the map with the name of the relevant quest if you move your pointer over it.
The place names aren't obvious, but are marked on the map if you zoom in - they're also written in Eorzean in larger letters, which can be read once you figure out the characters.
The targeting system isn't great, especially with a controller, but it's worth looking in the settings as I'm sure there are few tweaks that make it easier - I have mine set to automatically select the next enemy in a mob - I can still tab to a different enemy if necessary but it means I am not standing there pressing buttons like a lunatic and wondering why none of my attacks are hitting anything!
posted by kumonoi at 5:16 PM on February 1, 2023
It can get convoluted, and the targeting is clumsy, but FFXIV's native support for layering context-sensitive controller mappings is actually pretty impressive.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:51 PM on February 1, 2023
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:51 PM on February 1, 2023
The memes taking the piss out of the team that used the camera hack are hilarious.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:07 PM on February 1, 2023
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:07 PM on February 1, 2023
And Neverland - the team that got the WF for Dragonsong's Requiem - takes the WF for The Omega Protocol.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:26 PM on February 2, 2023
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:26 PM on February 2, 2023
If you have the Destiny 2 disease, there is apparently one of those get-it-while-it-lasts shard farms happening now; related to drop adjustments in advance of Lightfall.
(I meant to put this in the other thread, but still.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:41 PM on February 2, 2023
(I meant to put this in the other thread, but still.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:41 PM on February 2, 2023
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posted by NoxAeternum at 1:15 PM on January 31, 2023