Well i can understand and accept your disapproval about the Fatigue system....but your Sandwich example was one of the dumbest things i did read on this forums so far and that means something.....
Well, it's an example of just how stupid the fatigue system really is. So, stupid example for a stupid system. :P
It's pretty much the same thing. You pay them a set fee per month, and they tell you how long you can play.
It's like buying a sandwhich and them telling you:
A) how much it costs.
how much you can eat.
C) what condiments you can put on it, nevermind your allergic to onions or whatever.
D) next time you might get half the sandwhich, but not the whole one.
It's pretty redidulous.
I'm just saying change the type of business model and you'll see how stupid it really is.
If it's not sandwhich - some other service you pay for.
It could be cable TV - save if you watch more then 10 hours a week, well - the cable will only show you like half your show this time around. You'll have to go do something else and come back and watch the last 15 minutes of it.
I find it hilarious that so many people are thumbing up the idea of limiting XP. It's just mind boggling. It doesn't make you a better player. It's more skinner then skinner, really. It's negative reinforcement instead of positive. Hence it's gotten the amount of flak from the player base.
To use an analogy it'd be like this.
You go to a sandwhich shop and order a sandwhich. Pay for it. You get the sandwhich. You eat it.
Next day you go back and order another one. Pay for it. This time you get 90% of the sandwhich.
Next time, you get 80%, and so on.
Until you pay for the sandwhich and get 0%, cause gosh darnit. You just like our sandwhiches too much - but we'll take your money.
But that's okay. They make the sandwhich so they set the rules on how much you get, and how much you pay for it.
That's pretty much what a lot of the argument is for keeping the system.
I don't buy it. It's a crap system. It doesn't help Casual players out any, at all. It's just a limiter to keep people from rushing to the end. I say if they want to? Let them. The casual players they so much want to help out will be their lifeblood.
If they wanted to make people less angry they have to do but one thing.
Get rid of the part where at some point you get ZERO XP. If they did that? People wouldn't say anything.
Me? I just find it slightly condescending and insulting that they think they know how long you should play their game. Lol.
Well, i dont pay to run to cap level, i pay to have fun while doing so,stoping to examine a monster i find funy or just to do worthless quests that inmerse myself more than anythin jump( to put an example)could add to the game.I also enjoy making my char the best it can be for every lv range, geting skills from all over so it feets my gameplay on here as well.
Someone on another thread said old fashioned PVE players would like it even if he didnt, I think he got it right on the spot.
I buy a sandwich the first day,
Second day i whant eggs and bacon,
Third day i might whant a sandwich with eggs and bacon in it.
What i find funy is that people always complains about the grind, then 1 game tryes to do somethin diferent so people dont grind 24/7, ( yes becouse the surplus ONLY AFFECTS GRIND) and push you somewhat to do somethin else, and is the end of the world.Mindbreaking. " fight the power" and stuf.
all said is not at you in particular but just speaking my mind out btw,i laughed a lot with your example ( in a good way) hence why i quoted you.
Anyway, I honestly feel like 8 hours in the first place is long enough and then for the next 7 hours it will be decreasing slowly until 0% is just fine. I also can't really tell however until I start playing to see it. But if what you say is correct about how this experience decrease is not just class based and overall character based, then I think there may be a problem for a lot of players.
Bascally your allowed 24 hours a monthy of full physical exp. Any exp limit in a pay to play mmorpg is stupid, If it reset daily i'd not mind, but 8 hours a week? of full exp for physical, even a casual can prob blow thru that in 2-3 days.
"An MMORPG could be completely diffirent from WoW. Just look at games like Dofus, Wizard101 or EVE. But as it is, most of the Western MMOs are trying to succeed by out-WoWing WoW. It's like an army of 10 sports games made about same sports, and barely none about other sports. WoW clone is an accurate description of those games, it manages to convey much information with only two words." -Poster on mmorpg.com
Rift: World of Warcraft clone #9321 Nothing special to see here move along.
Well, i dont pay to run to cap level, i pay to have fun while doing so,stoping to examine a monster i find funy or just to do worthless quests that inmerse myself more than anythin jump( to put an example)could add to the game.I also enjoy making my char the best it can be for every lv range, geting skills from all over so it feets my gameplay on here as well.
Someone on another thread said old fashioned PVE players would like it even if he didnt, I think he got it right on the spot.
I buy a sandwich the first day,
Second day i whant eggs and bacon,
Third day i might whant a sandwich with eggs and bacon in it.
What i find funy is that people always complains about the grind, then 1 game tryes to do somethin diferent so people dont grind 24/7, ( yes becouse the surplus ONLY AFFECTS GRIND) and push you somewhat to do somethin else, and is the end of the world.Mindbreaking. " fight the power" and stuf.
all said is not at you in particular but just speaking my mind out btw,i laughed a lot with your example ( in a good way) hence why i quoted you.
I don't pay to run to cap level either, but - I don't think it's entirely fair to enforce something blanket on everyone. I like PvE and just sort of hanging out and having fun too. I did in the beta. It was loads of fun, and I loved playing all the different classes. What I am saying is as a business practice? It's crap.
But see, here's the problem.
They want you to pay for it. Then tell you. "No, you can't have bacon. You only get the green leafy vegan burger."
"What? I want the baconator."
"Sorry, it's bad for you. Just the leafy vegan."
It's a crap way to keep people from grinding. Cause honestly? Every MMO - Has grinding. They just dress it up as something else.
It's making the grind fun that keeps people going. I mean seriously, what do you do in a MMO?
You kill monsters to get tougher to kill tougher monsters so that you'll be tougher to kill even tougher monsters, etc.
Or you make items so you can make better items so you can make even better - you get the point.
Well, i dont pay to run to cap level, i pay to have fun while doing so,stoping to examine a monster i find funy or just to do worthless quests that inmerse myself more than anythin jump( to put an example)could add to the game.I also enjoy making my char the best it can be for every lv range, geting skills from all over so it feets my gameplay on here as well.
Someone on another thread said old fashioned PVE players would like it even if he didnt, I think he got it right on the spot.
I buy a sandwich the first day,
Second day i whant eggs and bacon,
Third day i might whant a sandwich with eggs and bacon in it.
What i find funy is that people always complains about the grind, then 1 game tryes to do somethin diferent so people dont grind 24/7, ( yes becouse the surplus ONLY AFFECTS GRIND) and push you somewhat to do somethin else, and is the end of the world.Mindbreaking. " fight the power" and stuf.
all said is not at you in particular but just speaking my mind out btw,i laughed a lot with your example ( in a good way) hence why i quoted you.
I don't pay to run to cap level either, but - I don't think it's entirely fair to enforce something blanket on everyone. I like PvE and just sort of hanging out and having fun too. I did in the beta. It was loads of fun, and I loved playing all the different classes. What I am saying is as a business practice? It's crap.
It is.But thats why i love it, just think about who arent going to play the game , Powerlevelers, dont use the term hardcore, is really not the same.Right now is bad enough to hinder everyone , but i know SE( like they said) will tweak it to make it less punishing.Or so far is what they been saying.
But see, here's the problem.
They want you to pay for it. Then tell you. "No, you can't have bacon. You only get the green leafy vegan burger."
"What? I want the baconator."
"Sorry, it's bad for you. Just the leafy vegan."
Ill put a better example, when your in a bar , and you are drunk. You ask for another drink, and a good bartender will say no and take your car keys away, and call you a taxi. In someway se is doing that atm.You can eighter never go back to that bar becouse they took away your "fun". Or actually apreciate what the bartender is doing , and always come back there.Is pretty acurrated this example.IMO.The young and the thugs will never come back(they might even beat up the bartender) , thats for sure, while the mature guy will always keep coming.This way the bar can keep a good mature customer base, instead of thugs and kids who dont whant the bartender to be their mom.Of course that bar will never be able to be the best thin in town, but i can tell you it will never be empty ,becouse that NICHE customer base will always be there and apreciate the way thins are.And keep it runing.
It's a crap way to keep people from grinding. Cause honestly? Every MMO - Has grinding. They just dress it up as something else.
It's making the grind fun that keeps people going. I mean seriously, what do you do in a MMO?
You kill monsters to get tougher to kill tougher monsters so that you'll be tougher to kill even tougher monsters, etc.
Or you make items so you can make better items so you can make even better - you get the point.
Up until now yes, but does it really has to be always that way, at the very least the force youto stop grinding, is a good example of what they whant to acomplish. Like the guy requiem said before, Horisontal(quality) exp rather than Vertical(quantity) exp, and is were SE is heading. And like he said so eloquently the only question remaining is " are you in it or not ", pure geniuos that guy lol.
I don't pay to run to cap level either, but - I don't think it's entirely fair to enforce something blanket on everyone. I like PvE and just sort of hanging out and having fun too. I did in the beta. It was loads of fun, and I loved playing all the different classes. What I am saying is as a business practice? It's crap.
No it's not, it's smart. Hard-Core players, Power Levelers, (whatever you want to call them, the people that are on the game 40 hours a week) are the worst customers any MMO has. They consume the most resources and demand the most content. S-E would gladly trade any hard Core player for a casual player in a second, because they're not eating up the server and bandwidth constantly. The casuals aren't sitting there at endgame level saying "C'mon Squeenix, it's been 3 whole months, where's the goddamned expansion already?!?!" or worse yet "Meh, there's nothing left to do. I'm gonna cancel my account and come back when they release the next expansion".
Building a MMO focusing on those types of players in mind would be the dumbest thing a developer could do, especially for a game that is strictly PvE like FFXIV is. If there was PvP, some sort of Arena system or battlegrounds, it would be different, because the endgame players would have something to do in between expansions. This is another reason why WoW is able to go so long between their own expansions, and why endgame players may stick around when they normally would just quit for 6 months...and even with PvP, people leave all the time. I personally have a few friends that went from FFXI to WoW to EvE to Aion and are now in the FFXIV Beta. They went from game to game, flying through, got their uber l33tsauce gear and quit when they were done.
MMO's depend on the casuals, because they're the ones that keep paying for years after release. The hard core players have already jumped ship by that point for the next new thing.
You go to a sandwhich shop and order a sandwhich. Pay for it. You get the sandwhich. You eat it.
Next day you go back and order another one. Pay for it. This time you get 90% of the sandwhich.
Next time, you get 80%, and so on.
Until you pay for the sandwhich and get 0%, cause gosh darnit. You just like our sandwhiches too much - but we'll take your money.
But that's okay. They make the sandwhich so they set the rules on how much you get, and how much you pay for it.
That's pretty much what a lot of the argument is for keeping the system.
I don't buy it. It's a crap system. It doesn't help Casual players out any, at all. It's just a limiter to keep people from rushing to the end. I say if they want to? Let them. The casual players they so much want to help out will be their lifeblood.
In case it is not obvious, the flaw with your analogy is that you are using sandwiches to represent enjoyment (in the form of experience) and money to represent time.
The problem with this is that while saying "I want to spend as little money as possible" is a fantastic method of gauging value, "I want to spend as little time as possible" is not. Experience does not equal enjoyment; you cannot just double someone's satisfaction by doubling their experience, at least not in the same way that you could just double the sandwiches you give them.
The goal is for you to enjoy your character's gradual progression from a wimp to a catgirl of mass destruction. The enjoyment cannot be formulaically increased by decreasing the time you spend doing it; in fact, you might've noticed that most fans of FFXI dislike games in which the path from zero to hero is just a few weeks long.
I don't pay to run to cap level either, but - I don't think it's entirely fair to enforce something blanket on everyone. I like PvE and just sort of hanging out and having fun too. I did in the beta. It was loads of fun, and I loved playing all the different classes. What I am saying is as a business practice? It's crap.
No it's not, it's smart. Hard-Core players, Power Levelers, (whatever you want to call them, the people that are on the game 40 hours a week) are the worst customers any MMO has. They consume the most resources and demand the most content. S-E would gladly trade any hard Core player for a casual player in a second, because they're not eating up the server and bandwidth constantly. The casuals aren't sitting there at endgame level saying "C'mon Squeenix, it's been 3 whole months, where's the goddamned expansion already?!?!" or worse yet "Meh, there's nothing left to do. I'm gonna cancel my account and come back when they release the next expansion".
Building a MMO focusing on those types of players in mind would be the dumbest thing a developer could do, especially for a game that is strictly PvE like FFXIV is. If there was PvP, some sort of Arena system or battlegrounds, it would be different, because the endgame players would have something to do in between expansions. This is another reason why WoW is able to go so long between their own expansions, and why endgame players may stick around when they normally would just quit for 6 months...and even with PvP, people leave all the time. I personally have a few friends that went from FFXI to WoW to EvE to Aion and are now in the FFXIV Beta. They went from game to game, flying through, got their uber l33tsauce gear and quit when they were done.
MMO's depend on the casuals, because they're the ones that keep paying for years after release. The hard core players have already jumped ship by that point for the next new thing.
Thats so not true at all.
Casuals are the ones who jump ship if another highly hyped AAA title is on the horizon, acting like fanboys and claiming this game could be the next coming of Jesus Christ Superstar. Once they realize that the game isn't as braindead as Wow they start trolling, flaming and spamming the forums with their bullshit. Then the devs making it more like WoW, WoW releases another expansion and these guys are going back to it like always, but the changes pissed off the once who wanted to stay --->many many subs are gone.
NO time players aren't the ones that built up the genre. It was dedicated players with different amounts of time but the special word here is dedicated.
You simple can't punish players for spending more time thats just so stupid unfuckingbelievable. Its like telling someone whos buying the same car every year "you can't buy this car we want you to buy another one therefore we are increasing the price". Also most people are forgetting that the casuals already having their game its called World of Warcraft I really don't know how a game could be any dumber, easier and shorttime focused.
FFXIV should have become the successor of oldschool with lots of great mechanics but fatigue and the restriction onf guildleves will kill it. People don't like this kind of things. Hell we wanted to move from Aion to FFXIV now our whole guild cancelled their preorders.
I'm not a twinker never ever will be, I'm also not a huge crafter (only doing it after reaching max level in order to make money) so who in his right mind is giving SE the right to dictate HOW I have to play?
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
I don't pay to run to cap level either, but - I don't think it's entirely fair to enforce something blanket on everyone. I like PvE and just sort of hanging out and having fun too. I did in the beta. It was loads of fun, and I loved playing all the different classes. What I am saying is as a business practice? It's crap.
No it's not, it's smart. Hard-Core players, Power Levelers, (whatever you want to call them, the people that are on the game 40 hours a week) are the worst customers any MMO has. They consume the most resources and demand the most content. S-E would gladly trade any hard Core player for a casual player in a second, because they're not eating up the server and bandwidth constantly. The casuals aren't sitting there at endgame level saying "C'mon Squeenix, it's been 3 whole months, where's the goddamned expansion already?!?!" or worse yet "Meh, there's nothing left to do. I'm gonna cancel my account and come back when they release the next expansion".
Building a MMO focusing on those types of players in mind would be the dumbest thing a developer could do, especially for a game that is strictly PvE like FFXIV is. If there was PvP, some sort of Arena system or battlegrounds, it would be different, because the endgame players would have something to do in between expansions. This is another reason why WoW is able to go so long between their own expansions, and why endgame players may stick around when they normally would just quit for 6 months...and even with PvP, people leave all the time. I personally have a few friends that went from FFXI to WoW to EvE to Aion and are now in the FFXIV Beta. They went from game to game, flying through, got their uber l33tsauce gear and quit when they were done.
MMO's depend on the casuals, because they're the ones that keep paying for years after release. The hard core players have already jumped ship by that point for the next new thing.
Thats so not true at all.
Casuals are the ones who jump ship if another highly hyped AAA title is on the horizon, acting like fanboys and claiming this game could be the next coming of Jesus Christ Superstar. Once they realize that the game isn't as braindead as Wow they start trolling, flaming and spamming the forums with their bullshit. Then the devs making it more like WoW, WoW releases another expansion and these guys are going back to it like always, but the changes pissed off the once who wanted to stay --->many many subs are gone.
NO time players aren't the ones that built up the genre. It was dedicated players with different amounts of time but the special word here is dedicated.
You simple can't punish players for spending more time thats just so stupid unfuckingbelievable. Its like telling someone whos buying the same car every year "you can't buy this car we want you to buy another one therefore we are increasing the price". Also most people are forgetting that the casuals already having their game its called World of Warcraft I really don't know how a game could be any dumber, easier and shorttime focused.
FFXIV should have become the successor of oldschool with lots of great mechanics but fatigue and the restriction onf guildleves will kill it. People don't like this kind of things. Hell we wanted to move from Aion to FFXIV now our whole guild cancelled their preorders.
I'm not a twinker never ever will be, I'm also not a huge crafter (only doing it after reaching max level in order to make money) so who in his right mind is giving SE the right to dictate HOW I have to play?
SE offers his product, without any false advertising . SE isnt dictating anythin to anyone.He is telling you " listen this is what we hope for the game, and this is what we have to offer." If you dont think is of your taste then is just not for you.The game moves around building your OWN class by leveling diferent classes, there is NO ultimate tank-healer-dps- blm or anythin of the kind unless you build it,add extremly focus on crafting.Ever figured out you wouldnt like it anyways becouse you dont like this thins in particular ?
WHo is SE ? the ones who are making the game, their way.Im still amased at this point of the line after everythin is explained people still bitching about surplus.
1 more thin to point out is casual = / = easy. FFXIV =/= wow or aion.Yes i played both for a long time , and on beta on ffxiv. AT all.
Your post was fine until the last underline sentence , imo.
edit;
quoted from your post,
"FFXIV should have become the successor of oldschool with lots of great mechanics but fatigue and the restriction onf guildleves will kill it. People don't like this kind of things. Hell we wanted to move from Aion to FFXIV now our whole guild cancelled their preorders."
So can you please name 1 company that actually DOES try to keep the old school feel into the new AAA MMos,? yea , NONE. Why? becouse the comunity and the players is what make most of that old feeling.If they have to put down limitations in order to get rid of the wave of new players who just think when the next lv cap is coming, ill say put as many limitations as you want.If they make it hard to exp, people will bitch is to HARD to exp. If they make it to easy to exp, people will whine is to easy to exp. And if they are trying to find the happy middle , wich they are if no one else have noticed so far with new systems and not to try to limit people, people say is the most stupid idea on any mmo up to date.
Casuals are the ones who jump ship if another highly hyped AAA title is on the horizon, acting like fanboys and claiming this game could be the next coming of Jesus Christ Superstar. Once they realize that the game isn't as braindead as Wow they start trolling, flaming and spamming the forums with their bullshit. Then the devs making it more like WoW, WoW releases another expansion and these guys are going back to it like always, but the changes pissed off the once who wanted to stay --->many many subs are gone.
NO time players aren't the ones that built up the genre. It was dedicated players with different amounts of time but the special word here is dedicated.
You simple can't punish players for spending more time thats just so stupid unfuckingbelievable. Its like telling someone whos buying the same car every year "you can't buy this car we want you to buy another one therefore we are increasing the price". Also most people are forgetting that the casuals already having their game its called World of Warcraft I really don't know how a game could be any dumber, easier and shorttime focused.
FFXIV should have become the successor of oldschool with lots of great mechanics but fatigue and the restriction onf guildleves will kill it. People don't like this kind of things. Hell we wanted to move from Aion to FFXIV now our whole guild cancelled their preorders.
I'm not a twinker never ever will be, I'm also not a huge crafter (only doing it after reaching max level in order to make money) so who in his right mind is giving SE the right to dictate HOW I have to play?
Oh God, here we go with the "hard core players created MMOs and we all owe thanks to them playing 20 hours a day and setting a standard for us all to acheive" line. I've heard it before...
Say what you want about WoW and how it's stupid, juvenile, retarded, etc. The fact is,WoW has 12 million subscribers. Do you think that Blizzard gives a crap if "hard core" players think it's retarded? Do you think they haven't recieved their share of hate mail about their gaming system and the fact that they cater to the lowest common denominator? Of course not, they get those emails, hold them up next to the enormous sacks of money that roll in each and every month and laugh their way to the bank, every time.
S-E can punish whatever "type" of gamer they want. When FFXI first came out, they actually punished the casual gamers. I was there, I sat with my flag up outside of Selbina trying to get a Dunes party for hours and hours back in the day. Some days I didn't even get a group, and had to log off for the night lest I get NO sleep before work the next day. And it wasn't because I wasn't a good player, or had gimp gear...no, it was because I was just the wrong job at that moment in time. If you didn't have literally 6 hours to sink into the game in a sitting there was almost no point to playing. You could conceivably wait 2 hours just to get a party going in the first place, and than lord knows there would be an hour break in the middle when the Tank or Healer had to log off and no other's were seeking in your level range. And, my God, the horror that was trying to do CoP missions after they bulk of the player base had done them. I once spent 5 hours shouting for 2 freaking people to come do a Promyvion-Holla, and they could have been any job they wanted. Guess what? No takers. Yeah, that's real casual friendly...
After the massive amount of fallout they got over that type of stuff (they were even sued over it at one point, although I believe the case was dismissed as being without merit, thank God), I think they decided to go completely the other way. No MMO before WoW was as popular as they are, because none of them catered to the casual market like WoW did. All you heard about in the media concerning MMOs was the grind, the people commiting suicide over Everquest, the asians dropping dead in internet cafes after 60 hour gaming sessions. What company in today's world would actually want to reward that type of behavior?
I'm sorry that you guys can't grind to the end as fast as physically possible, but honestly, FFXIV will get along okay without those types of players. WoW proves that completely. Apparently Square doesn't want your money. Do yourself a favor and don't give it to them if it bothers you so bad. All I know is, the casual players I ran around with when I started playing FFXI way back in the day are still there. The ones that were on the fast track to endgame are all gone.
Oh God, here we go with the "hard core players created MMOs and we all owe thanks to them playing 20 hours a day and setting a standard for us all to acheive" line. I've heard it before...
Say what you want about WoW and how it's stupid, juvenile, retarded, etc. The fact is,WoW has 12 million subscribers. Do you think that Blizzard gives a crap if "hard core" players think it's retarded? Do you think they haven't recieved their share of hate mail about their gaming system and the fact that they cater to the lowest common denominator? Of course not, they get those emails, hold them up next to the enormous sacks of money that roll in each and every month and laugh their way to the bank, every time.
S-E can punish whatever "type" of gamer they want. When FFXI first came out, they actually punished the casual gamers. I was there, I sat with my flag up outside of Selbina trying to get a Dunes party for hours and hours back in the day. Some days I didn't even get a group, and had to log off for the night lest I get NO sleep before work the next day. And it wasn't because I wasn't a good player, or had gimp gear...no, it was because I was just the wrong job at that moment in time. If you didn't have literally 6 hours to sink into the game in a sitting there was almost no point to playing. You could conceivably wait 2 hours just to get a party going in the first place, and than lord knows there would be an hour break in the middle when the Tank or Healer had to log off and no other's were seeking in your level range. And, my God, the horror that was trying to do CoP missions after they bulk of the player base had done them. I once spent 5 hours shouting for 2 freaking people to come do a Promyvion-Holla, and they could have been any job they wanted. Guess what? No takers. Yeah, that's real casual friendly...
After the massive amount of fallout they got over that type of stuff (they were even sued over it at one point, although I believe the case was dismissed as being without merit, thank God), I think they decided to go completely the other way. No MMO before WoW was as popular as they are, because none of them catered to the casual market like WoW did. All you heard about in the media concerning MMOs was the grind, the people commiting suicide over Everquest, the asians dropping dead in internet cafes after 60 hour gaming sessions. What company in today's world would actually want to reward that type of behavior?
I'm sorry that you guys can't grind to the end as fast as physically possible, but honestly, FFXIV will get along okay without those types of players. WoW proves that completely. Apparently Square doesn't want your money. Do yourself a favor and don't give it to them if it bothers you so bad. All I know is, the casual players I ran around with when I started playing FFXI way back in the day are still there. The ones that were on the fast track to endgame are all gone.
God yes another Fanboy bringing up, this game if its so cool why don't you guys just play it?! You also should learn what the word dedicated means. I don't give a rats butt about what Blizzard is receiving or not I hate them for polluting, destroying our genre and thats a fact. I also hate them for bringing the MMORPG genre into the focus of the mass media, politicans and other dubios people.
They didn't punish the casual gamer how stupid is that arguement?FFXI been a game where you need to be a dedicated players, so you weren't one and yet claim you have been punished for it *lol* You did play a game that wasn't for you that simple.
SE has already too much "non casual" mechanics and now they managed to piss off dedicated players too, mark my words: this wont end up well for them.
Do you know how many people are going to buy this game informed, have fun watching all the bitching once this thing is going live that way. Whatever people are doing with their time ingame is on everyones own.
So you want a casual, mass market game? GB2WOW or wait for purble wars with gay purple lightsabres
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
I don't pay to run to cap level either, but - I don't think it's entirely fair to enforce something blanket on everyone. I like PvE and just sort of hanging out and having fun too. I did in the beta. It was loads of fun, and I loved playing all the different classes. What I am saying is as a business practice? It's crap.
No it's not, it's smart. Hard-Core players, Power Levelers, (whatever you want to call them, the people that are on the game 40 hours a week) are the worst customers any MMO has. They consume the most resources and demand the most content. S-E would gladly trade any hard Core player for a casual player in a second, because they're not eating up the server and bandwidth constantly. The casuals aren't sitting there at endgame level saying "C'mon Squeenix, it's been 3 whole months, where's the goddamned expansion already?!?!" or worse yet "Meh, there's nothing left to do. I'm gonna cancel my account and come back when they release the next expansion".
Building a MMO focusing on those types of players in mind would be the dumbest thing a developer could do, especially for a game that is strictly PvE like FFXIV is. If there was PvP, some sort of Arena system or battlegrounds, it would be different, because the endgame players would have something to do in between expansions. This is another reason why WoW is able to go so long between their own expansions, and why endgame players may stick around when they normally would just quit for 6 months...and even with PvP, people leave all the time. I personally have a few friends that went from FFXI to WoW to EvE to Aion and are now in the FFXIV Beta. They went from game to game, flying through, got their uber l33tsauce gear and quit when they were done.
MMO's depend on the casuals, because they're the ones that keep paying for years after release. The hard core players have already jumped ship by that point for the next new thing.
That's completely untrue. In fact, if you survey people who play MMOs casually and people who play them hardcore, you'll find casuals have a higher tendency to jump ship or cancel subscriptions when they find their playtime can't warrent paying for one anymore.
Hardcore players have many benefits to keep around. Yes, they have a high content demand, but this keeps developers rolling out content constantly, so when casual players do reach that point in the endgame they have loads of content to do. Hardcore players also have a tendency to find bugs, complain about balance issues, and so on that get fixed and again make the game more playable for casual players. You can't really make an online game that's only meant for casual players, even Farmville has it's hardcore base. Hardcore players actually tend to stick around longer (if the game can keep up with their endgame demands) than casual players, so they pay for longer subscriptions, but at the cost of higher bandwidth to support their playing habits.
Look at World of Warcraft. It's a game that appeals to both hardcore and casual players, churning out new endgame content to keep up with the hardcore demands, but in turn casual players aren't suffering from it, they are benefitting from it. While casuals make up the majority of the income (there are far more casual players than hardcore) having no content for your hardcore to do will eventually make casuals jump ship too.
Oh God, here we go with the "hard core players created MMOs and we all owe thanks to them playing 20 hours a day and setting a standard for us all to acheive" line. I've heard it before...
Say what you want about WoW and how it's stupid, juvenile, retarded, etc. The fact is,WoW has 12 million subscribers. Do you think that Blizzard gives a crap if "hard core" players think it's retarded? Do you think they haven't recieved their share of hate mail about their gaming system and the fact that they cater to the lowest common denominator? Of course not, they get those emails, hold them up next to the enormous sacks of money that roll in each and every month and laugh their way to the bank, every time.
S-E can punish whatever "type" of gamer they want. When FFXI first came out, they actually punished the casual gamers. I was there, I sat with my flag up outside of Selbina trying to get a Dunes party for hours and hours back in the day. Some days I didn't even get a group, and had to log off for the night lest I get NO sleep before work the next day. And it wasn't because I wasn't a good player, or had gimp gear...no, it was because I was just the wrong job at that moment in time. If you didn't have literally 6 hours to sink into the game in a sitting there was almost no point to playing. You could conceivably wait 2 hours just to get a party going in the first place, and than lord knows there would be an hour break in the middle when the Tank or Healer had to log off and no other's were seeking in your level range. And, my God, the horror that was trying to do CoP missions after they bulk of the player base had done them. I once spent 5 hours shouting for 2 freaking people to come do a Promyvion-Holla, and they could have been any job they wanted. Guess what? No takers. Yeah, that's real casual friendly...
After the massive amount of fallout they got over that type of stuff (they were even sued over it at one point, although I believe the case was dismissed as being without merit, thank God), I think they decided to go completely the other way. No MMO before WoW was as popular as they are, because none of them catered to the casual market like WoW did. All you heard about in the media concerning MMOs was the grind, the people commiting suicide over Everquest, the asians dropping dead in internet cafes after 60 hour gaming sessions. What company in today's world would actually want to reward that type of behavior?
I'm sorry that you guys can't grind to the end as fast as physically possible, but honestly, FFXIV will get along okay without those types of players. WoW proves that completely. Apparently Square doesn't want your money. Do yourself a favor and don't give it to them if it bothers you so bad. All I know is, the casual players I ran around with when I started playing FFXI way back in the day are still there. The ones that were on the fast track to endgame are all gone.
God yes another Fanboy bringing up, this game if its so cool why don't you guys just play it?! You also should learn what the word dedicated means. I don't give a rats butt about what Blizzard is receiving or not I hate them for polluting, destroying our genre and thats a fact. I also hate them for bringing the MMORPG genre into the focus of the mass media, politicans and other dubios people.
They didn't punish the casual gamer how stupid is that arguement?FFXI been a game where you need to be a dedicated players, so you weren't one and yet claim you have been punished for it *lol* You did play a game that wasn't for you that simple.
SE has already too much "non casual" mechanics and now they managed to piss off dedicated players too, mark my words: this wont end up well for them.
Do you know how many people are going to buy this game informed, have fun watching all the bitching once this thing is going live that way. Whatever people are doing with their time ingame is on everyones own.
So you want a casual, mass market game? GB2WOW or wait for purble wars with gay purple lightsabres
SE doesn't care about copying the market, and certainly not WoW. They care about evolving the video game genre, and even more so the MMORPG. They're currently TESTING out the Surplus system, they haven't implemented all it's features and refuse to release the features they do plan to add in during Open Beta. They apparently are listening to players ideas to improve upon the system.
" Surplus experience is currently not being used. However, we have received many comments suggesting some sort of reward be put into effect regarding it, and we think that’s a pretty interesting idea. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, though, and we’re currently investigating the possibilities."
Stop your complaining and wait till open beta to try it out yourselves. The game was great in closed beta for me, just get your own POV on the matter and stop listening to others misconstrued ones. I personally liked how fast leveling was during the 15 hour period you have before you hit 0, I got to physical level 20 before I was affected. If they add benefits to the system it could create a very interesting dynamic. Go into games open minded, you will be a lot happier that you did.
Fatigue system truly explained. My own experience in Beta3 was identical to his. People are blowing it way out of proportion.
Indeed. This actually was pretty much mine now that I think about it. My brebre leveled my dude up some during last week, but it was so minuscule that I hardly noted it. I suppose the exp reset at the beginning of this week and I was able to get my character to 20, I only started playing my closed beta this week. This pretty much clears it up folks..... Thanks Vagrant for the link!
That's completely untrue. In fact, if you survey people who play MMOs casually and people who play them hardcore, you'll find casuals have a higher tendency to jump ship or cancel subscriptions when they find their playtime can't warrent paying for one anymore.
Hardcore players have many benefits to keep around. Yes, they have a high content demand, but this keeps developers rolling out content constantly, so when casual players do reach that point in the endgame they have loads of content to do. Hardcore players also have a tendency to find bugs, complain about balance issues, and so on that get fixed and again make the game more playable for casual players. You can't really make an online game that's only meant for casual players, even Farmville has it's hardcore base. Hardcore players actually tend to stick around longer (if the game can keep up with their endgame demands) than casual players, so they pay for longer subscriptions, but at the cost of higher bandwidth to support their playing habits.
Look at World of Warcraft. It's a game that appeals to both hardcore and casual players, churning out new endgame content to keep up with the hardcore demands, but in turn casual players aren't suffering from it, they are benefitting from it. While casuals make up the majority of the income (there are far more casual players than hardcore) having no content for your hardcore to do will eventually make casuals jump ship too.
This isn't about individual players necessarily, this is about market share. Yes, some casuals will leave one game for another, but for every casual leaving WoW one and a half are starting up an account. Their membership continues to climb to this day, 5 years after it's release. This is why it makes sense to market the game towards a casual market and to introduce game mechanics from their perspective and catering to their wants over the hard core player. However, in my own observations, the hard core players burn out and quit. The casuals stick around as long as the game is appealing to them.
I don't get how you consider keeping "developers rolling out content constantly" a benefit to the person that's spending the time and resources creating the content. I'm sure Square would be happy as a clam if we all took 3 years to advance beyond the beta levels. Bug testing has nothing to do with being a hard core player, any player online in similar circumstances is as likely to find and report a bug as a hard core player, it's not like they check a persons play time before they glitch or anything. Whether that person found that bug after 10 hours of playtime or 80 hours of playtime is irrelevant, the circumstances surrounding the bug is all that matters.
And of course you can't make a game only with casuals in mind, there does need to be an endgame environment. However, they absolutely can directly control how long it takes their playerbase to get there. If they want it to take a certain amount of real time, it will. They've honestly probably already got a model in place with a time table of when the expansions and such are coming out 5 years ahead...and they probably already have some preliminary work done on the first expansion now. Speculation on my part as far as that goes, but given how long these games and such are in production for, it's a safe bet in my opinion.
Everyone seems to be forgetting about one group of people, the hard core that don't care about this system. There will always be hard core players in any multiplayer game, really. Even MMOFPS's have their clans and 20 hour a day players. Someone in this thread (or maybe another here, I don't remember) has already done preliminary calculations to get the absolute most experience versus the least fatique in a week. These people will be this game's "hard core" player and they don't seem to be losing their minds and cancelling their preorders over it, they are figuring out how to best make the use of the time they have in the game. Like I said, whether it's a hard level cap or a limit to the speed you are able to advance, either way they are limiting you. Either way they are keeping you from leveling farther than they want you to at that particular moment, and that's totally their decision to make...just like it's totally your decision to keep paying for it.
And what about the casual players that don't even care about endgame content? The people that just enjoy partying and running around and hanging out? I know a few people myself that have been playing for years that have never even done any of the endgame content in FFXI because they just don't want to deal with being in a group with 20+ people trying to do some big thing like kill a Sky God or run Dynamis. They just want to run around and do their thing, regardless of how many characters they have at Max Level.
All in all, it all boils down to opinions and speculation, considering the game isn't out yet. All I'm saying is that it makes sense from a business standpoint. You said yourself, casuals are the largest market share. They''ll have their expansions down the road, but it's gonna take you longer to get there. If you really can't take being forced to play less than I guess FFXIV in it's current form isn't the game for you. I assure you there will be plenty of other players out there that don't mind the wait, and apparently Square cares more about their dollar than yours.
I tend to want to progress fast in mmorpgs but even so, I don't think this is a bad idea and it will probably improve gameplay. In all honesty, most mmorpg players don't know what they want in games it seems since they change their minds rather quickly. A dev could only listen to player demands and yet they'd still hate the game. In order to take full advantage of the class system, they need this fatigue system in place. There'd be no point in trying out other classes, which is part of the reason the game is fun. The option to customize abilities is surprizingly fun imo. No matter what kind of player you are, most will be constantly looking at the exp bar in any game, but with it being limited people will slow down a bit and actually be in the world.
This is still a silly system to artificially "force" people to train alternate skills. Giving options is a positive; forcing people to explore them is a clear negative. This system should reward the training of other skills without providing impacing the primary skillset.
If this was conveyed in a different way, I think the population would love it, as follows:
Fatigue System Rewards Diversification of Skill Training
Today Square-Enix announced a revolutionary gameplay option in their new MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV. Leveraging the game's focus on class exploration and diverse skill training, this new feature will provide experience bonuses for the training of lmultiple skills and abilities.
At the beginning of each week, the player will be provided with 150% experience gain in every available skill. As they level, this bonus will slowly diminish until it reaches the 100% base rate. By switching between skill training each week, players can optimize their experience gain and obtain a diverse set of skills and abilities to compliment their own playing style.
Not exactly my best marketing prose, but if the feature was built this way (it isn't so different, except the ongoing diminishing returns) and marketed accordingly, the reception would have been better.
This is still a silly system to artificially "force" people to train alternate skills. Giving options is a positive; forcing people to explore them is a clear negative. This system should reward the training of other skills without providing impacing the primary skillset.
If this was conveyed in a different way, I think the population would love it, as follows:
Fatigue System Rewards Diversification of Skill Training
Today Square-Enix announced a revolutionary gameplay option in their new MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV. Leveraging the game's focus on class exploration and diverse skill training, this new feature will provide experience bonuses for the training of lmultiple skills and abilities.
At the beginning of each week, the player will be provided with 150% experience gain in every available skill. As they level, this bonus will slowly diminish until it reaches the 100% base rate. By switching between skill training each week, players can optimize their experience gain and obtain a diverse set of skills and abilities to compliment their own playing style.
Not exactly my best marketing prose, but if the feature was built this way (it isn't so different, except the ongoing diminishing returns) and marketed accordingly, the reception would have been better.
Am I the only one that remembers that nearly all the time spent playing a MMO is at the End Game, and not experence? No MMO ever has good End Game at the launch so what's the rush to get to the max level? The game is more than just going out and killing 1000 bores. It's Final Fantasy and with that comes great story telling and great exploration. I love end game stuff, but my most memorable exprences in mmo's is exploring the new areas i've never seen or spending days mining enough money for that level 21 neck piece ive been wanting. If you someone who just wants to jump into the game on raid nights, than maybe this game just isnt for you.
Once again, we would like to thank you all for your participation and support during the Closed Beta. We will continue to take your valuable feedback into consideration as we develop the game during Open Beta and even beyond the official release.
Now I would like to take a moment to respond to the many questions and opinions regarding the manner in and rates at which experience and skill points are obtained in Beta 3.
Firstly, the concept for FINAL FANTASY XIV was to design a system of character progression that offers meaningful advancement for those with limited time to dedicate to playing. We did not want to create a game that forced people to play for hours on end to see their efforts rewarded. To that end, in addition to the Guardian's Aspect and guildleve systems, we introduced a means of apportioning swifter advancement to shorter periods of play.
In order to achieve this balance, we calculated a value for the amount of skill or experience points that could be earned in a one-hour period. This theoretical value represents an hour spent engaged solely in combat, levequests, or any other activities that earn skill or experience points, and sets a threshold delimiting how many of these points can be earned in a period of play.
Based on this, we have implemented a “threshold value” concept. These thresholds are regulated by a one-week timer that begins counting down the instant you earn skill/experience points. After a week has passed, the thresholds will reset, and the moment skill/experience points are earned again, the timer begins counting down anew.
For the first eight thresholds during this week-long period, players will receive skill/experience points at the maximum rate possible. The actual amount of time spent reaching these thresholds is not significant. That is to say, a player who exceeds eight hours of gameplay will still be rewarded the maximum amount of skill/experience points, so long as the total amount earned is below the eighth threshold value. For the subsequent seven thresholds, players will earn skill/experience points at a gradually decreasing rate, eventually reaching a rate of zero.
It is worth noting, however, that the reduced rate will also gradually recover while players are engaged in activities that do not yield skill/experience points. In this manner, it is possible for the threshold value to reset completely, even before the completion of the one-week timer.
Any skill points earned in excess of the threshold maximum—that is, at a rate of zero—will be stored as "bonus skill points." These are specific to each class, so players limited to earning bonus skill points still have the freedom to change classes and begin earning skill points again at the maximum rate, allowing their reduced skill rates to recover in the meantime.
The experience point threshold, however, is unrelated to class, and switching classes will have no effect on the decreasing rate of earnable experience.
This is how the progression system currently works.
This system was not introduced in Beta 3, but has been in place since the beginning of beta testing. There are several reasons why many people believe that these features were only recently implemented:
- Leading into Beta 3, operation hours were extended, making it possible to play more often during the span of a week.
- To encourage players to form guidleve parties in Beta 3, skill and experience point rewards for guildleves were significantly increased.
- The process that reduced the amount of skill/experience points awarded for weak enemies attacking in groups was unintentionally removed at the start of Beta 3. (This issue has been addressed.)
That last reason in particular was the biggest cause for players running up against the threshold penalty, with characters earning far more skill/experience points than we anticipated. We also faced an issue where we were simultaneously unable to adjust the amount earned for guildleves as well as the effects of crossing each threshold.
We sincerely apologize for the lack of explanation and our failure to make the necessary adjustments in the game.
The threshold values are being reexamined, and we plan to further adjust the different rates of earnable points based on feedback from our testers. One of the top issues we are looking at right now is fixing the excessively rapid drop after crossing the eighth threshold. We also plan to improve experience point reduction rates, even more so than for skill points, considering the threshold is unaffected when changing class.
At the very least, we can promise that players won't be running into the threshold penalty in the same short time span as they did in the beginning of Beta 3.
We would like to take this opportunity to also explain the following issues.
The diminishing results experienced during gathering are a function related to that class alone, and have no connection to this progression system. We are in the process of adjusting this system, and plan to make changes based on tester feedback.
We are currently in the process of considering the means in which bonus skill points can be used. There have been suggestions for various types of incentives, but as encouraging people to play with that in mind defeats the purpose of this threshold system, we will be examining this issue very carefully.
These are not the only adjustments we have planned for Open Beta. As mentioned previously, we are looking into increasing the amount of skill points earned when fighting in a party, and we look forward to seeing your input on these changes.
Last of all, I would like to apologize for the delay in releasing a developer's comment due to my recent attendance to Gamescom. The article based on my interview during that trip, coupled with conjecture, outdated information, and some misunderstandings on overseas websites, only added to the confusion. In the future, I hope to avoid similar problems by responding directly through official developer's comments as often as possible. Thank you for your understanding.
There is a rather unanimous take on fatigue which seems to be, formally, a capping system to prevent hardcore players from stretching the level gap too far ahead of the lower-end achieving players, the so-called "casuals" and their revolution.
Considering that particular issue, the "level gap" problem, the "feed 1% of insanely active and performing players with insanely fast-developed (expensive) content that most of the population will not see before months" and so on, it seems reasonable to think that Square is trying to come up with a solution.
However there is a second take by western philosophy, which players feel restricted in their freedom to "play as they wish" by this job-limitating feature. While I do perfectly see how it feels as a restriction coming from no fatigue system at all (or the illusion of that...), I do strongly feel that we're so "spoiled" as players and consumers, and so formatted by the WoW model as an ever-shadowing reference to compare every other MMO to, that some of us are beginning to confuse "freedom" with "lack of rules". It's not the same. And allow to say that, in games, the absence of rules is not necessarily a good thing.
Some game actually are designed with an absence of limitation in mind, as a goal, it's known to be a western delight and WoW's design certainly plays well with that. But that's one way to make games, RPGs, not the only way.
While in real life it's clear that defending all the freedoms we have is not debatable, for most of us, in a game it's the opposite: the trick is to beat the game within the rules, and better players/leagues usually impose more or stricter rules. Think sports: you and your mates on one hand, pro leagues on the other, you get the idea.
Every game is designed both with and by rules, and it's those very "restrictions" that shape up the game in the end. Liberty is only so much understood than when defined by a set of laws and rights, it's those limitations and guarantees that make you feel "free" as opposed to restricted; but obviously you have to experience those restrictions to know them. To know your freedom. If there is no limit whatsoever, then freedom means nothing, from a subjective standpoint. Think of space: if it's totally empty, you being able to roam freely in it means nothing, you actually feel trapped in the void of nothingness forever. But as soon as there is a star, you can move from/to it. If there is a soil, you can move on it. And so begins your feeling of freedom of movement: with a limitation of space.
Agreed, fatigue in FF XIV is just "too much", but please bear with me on this idea just a bit more.
More practically, there are a thousand reasons we can not know of at this point that may justify, from the game's core design blueprint, that players with several evenly leveled jobs would be much more exploitable by content makers or system programmers in the future. Maybe that would allow for more diversity in group leves resolution methods (think "RPG", because Square is, historically and factually, very much more "RPG" than most other MMO makers). Having characters with a lot of sub-jobs will allow for many interesting, versatile, diversified PvE designs, dungeon mechanics, peculiar encounters. A lot more than the "n tank 2n heal 3n dps" ratio model, you can be sure of that, for instance.
I'm not advocating for the fatigue system itself, because I think it's a bad way to achieve whatever is written on their agenda. Fatigue is penalizing rather than rewarding, it's not subtle or even smart (it's actually a pain to understand and predict), and it's psychologically alienating from a player standpoint. But again I'm not at all dismissing the agenda behind it. If they are willing to go that far (my god, just the thought of it!), there is a reason. I think multi-class characters, and I see wonders of encounters. I look at Square's record in RPG design, and I know they can make a lot of it. No wonder they practically "force us" to multi-level jobs at once if that's true.
Here's the idea behind my approach of this feature, but also any feature, really.
Each game has its own philosophy, its own design, and if that game is coherent, most of the features are tied to this global skeleton (this subsequently means we only consider "good games we don't like while others do" here, and not "crappy games no one likes at all", I think FF XIV qualifies).
Before I dismiss any feature in any game, I try to understand what the game wants me to do. I try to impersonate the developer, its code, to decipher the real, factual objectives of the game, behind all the shiny-s'ploding shaders blinding my eyes.
In some games it's just looking at the score and how to raise it faster; in others it's learning to use only certain skills that max out... something; but in an immense majority of cases the solution to "playing the best" will be to restrict your actions to the few best, most rewarding ones. (that can mean doing only one thing all the way, or on the contrary doing several things at once in a fair balance; it all depends on the game you're considering...)
That's hardcore if you ask me, because you have to spend more time on one particular element of content until you find the right patterns, thresholds, whatever it is the code needs to be beaten flat out. Hardcore is not just all grind, it's also a lot of "doing it smarter"--not because you'd be more intelligent than the average, mind you, but because you'd have taken the time to ascertain the real game objectives, the game's "ways", and above all complied to them. In any game if you want to be good you have to comply. Sometimes there are other, smarter ways around it, sometimes not.
Back to FF XIV, it seems to me that Square is trying not to "force" players into a certain playstyle, but rather to tell them that they'll have to play different jobs in FF XIV to get a "valid" character at any given level beyond 20 or so.
The bluntest way to put this I can think of is that "FF XIV will require good (HL) players to have at least 2 or 3 evenly leveled jobs". Be prepared to switch to a full Elem raid for a fight then switch to a 50% Archer/Elem for another, then a weird close-combat composition, and so on. Maybe pop a few crafters to perform on-the-fly doors for tricky dungeons. Whatever, it's Square, that's their thing.
I don't know if I got my idea through, but I feel this post is already too long. Once again, I'm strongly against fatigue in FF XIV because it's so psychologically dumb, and so not elegant/subtle as a system, that I'm very disappointed in Square. That and a human-machine interface, GUI and action mechanics, that pre-dates windows, so yeah disappointment is an understatement. Especially considering the whole quality and smartness of the game on pretty much all other aspects that just astounds me, it's a shame to think it could go to waste--anything below 1M subs would be a waste for this XIVth budget, and I don't see how it can even dream of that number in its current state, 1 month before release...
But there is a reason for fatigue, and it may not be just the "hardcore" you instinctively think of, i.e hours. I'm really wondering what design reason there is behind it, and I'm guessing it has to do with how multi-classes characters affect the game, especially in leve/dungeon group content. Remember, there is more to hardcore than meets the clock.
Oh, just a few things fyi:
- The very small hardcore crowds don't bring cash to sub-based MMO editors, casuals do. However hardcores are much more tied into the whole field on MMOing, from 2.0 buzz to real-life events and acquaintances, passing by prestigious guilds and very vocal forums. So you need to make them happy, but actually not having them would rather be a bless if you retained the casuals. Yet the casual crowds love to see hardcore opening paths for them, raising the fame of given games, hence it's all tied and complicated. But hardcore players, strictly, are negligible in terms of financial revenue in the MMO business. It's their word that matters more than their wallet.
- Not FFXIV nor any other MMO for years has tried to take on WoW, and by that I mean putting the financial means from day 1 on the table. No one does that, because it's not a sane business objective. Better work on improving your own position and trying to reach new audiences to help the market overall growth.
There is the notable exception of TOR, with its insane budget (more than 100M$, that's half of WoW 5-years budget), can only be aiming at taking on WoW directly, and/or extending the market by a raw 5M players within two years or so to be financially viable. The fact that TOR is sci-fi and WoW is fantasy tells me that TOR cannot beat WoW in raw numbers, but for sure TOR needs the silver medal to be profitable and viable.
- Finally don't forget that in FF XIV the fatigue limitation will start decreasing before a whole week, it's just that it takes a week to go back to 100%. But as soon as you stop using a job, you'll slowly go back from 0% (or wherever you're at) to 100% in 7 days from the moment you started earning experience (which mean that decrease will be variable, what a pain to predict...)
Comments
Well, it's an example of just how stupid the fatigue system really is. So, stupid example for a stupid system. :P
It's pretty much the same thing. You pay them a set fee per month, and they tell you how long you can play.
It's like buying a sandwhich and them telling you:
A) how much it costs.
C) what condiments you can put on it, nevermind your allergic to onions or whatever.
D) next time you might get half the sandwhich, but not the whole one.
It's pretty redidulous.
I'm just saying change the type of business model and you'll see how stupid it really is.
If it's not sandwhich - some other service you pay for.
It could be cable TV - save if you watch more then 10 hours a week, well - the cable will only show you like half your show this time around. You'll have to go do something else and come back and watch the last 15 minutes of it.
Well, i dont pay to run to cap level, i pay to have fun while doing so,stoping to examine a monster i find funy or just to do worthless quests that inmerse myself more than anythin jump( to put an example)could add to the game.I also enjoy making my char the best it can be for every lv range, geting skills from all over so it feets my gameplay on here as well.
Someone on another thread said old fashioned PVE players would like it even if he didnt, I think he got it right on the spot.
I buy a sandwich the first day,
Second day i whant eggs and bacon,
Third day i might whant a sandwich with eggs and bacon in it.
What i find funy is that people always complains about the grind, then 1 game tryes to do somethin diferent so people dont grind 24/7, ( yes becouse the surplus ONLY AFFECTS GRIND) and push you somewhat to do somethin else, and is the end of the world.Mindbreaking. " fight the power" and stuf.
all said is not at you in particular but just speaking my mind out btw,i laughed a lot with your example ( in a good way) hence why i quoted you.
Bascally your allowed 24 hours a monthy of full physical exp. Any exp limit in a pay to play mmorpg is stupid, If it reset daily i'd not mind, but 8 hours a week? of full exp for physical, even a casual can prob blow thru that in 2-3 days.
"An MMORPG could be completely diffirent from WoW. Just look at games like Dofus, Wizard101 or EVE. But as it is, most of the Western MMOs are trying to succeed by out-WoWing WoW. It's like an army of 10 sports games made about same sports, and barely none about other sports. WoW clone is an accurate description of those games, it manages to convey much information with only two words."
-Poster on mmorpg.com
Rift: World of Warcraft clone #9321 Nothing special to see here move along.
I don't pay to run to cap level either, but - I don't think it's entirely fair to enforce something blanket on everyone. I like PvE and just sort of hanging out and having fun too. I did in the beta. It was loads of fun, and I loved playing all the different classes. What I am saying is as a business practice? It's crap.
But see, here's the problem.
They want you to pay for it. Then tell you. "No, you can't have bacon. You only get the green leafy vegan burger."
"What? I want the baconator."
"Sorry, it's bad for you. Just the leafy vegan."
It's a crap way to keep people from grinding. Cause honestly? Every MMO - Has grinding. They just dress it up as something else.
It's making the grind fun that keeps people going. I mean seriously, what do you do in a MMO?
You kill monsters to get tougher to kill tougher monsters so that you'll be tougher to kill even tougher monsters, etc.
Or you make items so you can make better items so you can make even better - you get the point.
No it's not, it's smart. Hard-Core players, Power Levelers, (whatever you want to call them, the people that are on the game 40 hours a week) are the worst customers any MMO has. They consume the most resources and demand the most content. S-E would gladly trade any hard Core player for a casual player in a second, because they're not eating up the server and bandwidth constantly. The casuals aren't sitting there at endgame level saying "C'mon Squeenix, it's been 3 whole months, where's the goddamned expansion already?!?!" or worse yet "Meh, there's nothing left to do. I'm gonna cancel my account and come back when they release the next expansion".
Building a MMO focusing on those types of players in mind would be the dumbest thing a developer could do, especially for a game that is strictly PvE like FFXIV is. If there was PvP, some sort of Arena system or battlegrounds, it would be different, because the endgame players would have something to do in between expansions. This is another reason why WoW is able to go so long between their own expansions, and why endgame players may stick around when they normally would just quit for 6 months...and even with PvP, people leave all the time. I personally have a few friends that went from FFXI to WoW to EvE to Aion and are now in the FFXIV Beta. They went from game to game, flying through, got their uber l33tsauce gear and quit when they were done.
MMO's depend on the casuals, because they're the ones that keep paying for years after release. The hard core players have already jumped ship by that point for the next new thing.
In case it is not obvious, the flaw with your analogy is that you are using sandwiches to represent enjoyment (in the form of experience) and money to represent time.
The problem with this is that while saying "I want to spend as little money as possible" is a fantastic method of gauging value, "I want to spend as little time as possible" is not. Experience does not equal enjoyment; you cannot just double someone's satisfaction by doubling their experience, at least not in the same way that you could just double the sandwiches you give them.
The goal is for you to enjoy your character's gradual progression from a wimp to a catgirl of mass destruction. The enjoyment cannot be formulaically increased by decreasing the time you spend doing it; in fact, you might've noticed that most fans of FFXI dislike games in which the path from zero to hero is just a few weeks long.
Thats so not true at all.
Casuals are the ones who jump ship if another highly hyped AAA title is on the horizon, acting like fanboys and claiming this game could be the next coming of Jesus Christ Superstar. Once they realize that the game isn't as braindead as Wow they start trolling, flaming and spamming the forums with their bullshit. Then the devs making it more like WoW, WoW releases another expansion and these guys are going back to it like always, but the changes pissed off the once who wanted to stay --->many many subs are gone.
NO time players aren't the ones that built up the genre. It was dedicated players with different amounts of time but the special word here is dedicated.
You simple can't punish players for spending more time thats just so stupid unfuckingbelievable. Its like telling someone whos buying the same car every year "you can't buy this car we want you to buy another one therefore we are increasing the price". Also most people are forgetting that the casuals already having their game its called World of Warcraft I really don't know how a game could be any dumber, easier and shorttime focused.
FFXIV should have become the successor of oldschool with lots of great mechanics but fatigue and the restriction onf guildleves will kill it. People don't like this kind of things. Hell we wanted to move from Aion to FFXIV now our whole guild cancelled their preorders.
I'm not a twinker never ever will be, I'm also not a huge crafter (only doing it after reaching max level in order to make money) so who in his right mind is giving SE the right to dictate HOW I have to play?
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
SE offers his product, without any false advertising . SE isnt dictating anythin to anyone.He is telling you " listen this is what we hope for the game, and this is what we have to offer." If you dont think is of your taste then is just not for you.The game moves around building your OWN class by leveling diferent classes, there is NO ultimate tank-healer-dps- blm or anythin of the kind unless you build it,add extremly focus on crafting.Ever figured out you wouldnt like it anyways becouse you dont like this thins in particular ?
WHo is SE ? the ones who are making the game, their way.Im still amased at this point of the line after everythin is explained people still bitching about surplus.
1 more thin to point out is casual = / = easy. FFXIV =/= wow or aion.Yes i played both for a long time , and on beta on ffxiv. AT all.
Your post was fine until the last underline sentence , imo.
edit;
quoted from your post,
"FFXIV should have become the successor of oldschool with lots of great mechanics but fatigue and the restriction onf guildleves will kill it. People don't like this kind of things. Hell we wanted to move from Aion to FFXIV now our whole guild cancelled their preorders."
So can you please name 1 company that actually DOES try to keep the old school feel into the new AAA MMos,? yea , NONE. Why? becouse the comunity and the players is what make most of that old feeling.If they have to put down limitations in order to get rid of the wave of new players who just think when the next lv cap is coming, ill say put as many limitations as you want.If they make it hard to exp, people will bitch is to HARD to exp. If they make it to easy to exp, people will whine is to easy to exp. And if they are trying to find the happy middle , wich they are if no one else have noticed so far with new systems and not to try to limit people, people say is the most stupid idea on any mmo up to date.
Its there game , there making it the way they want , if you dont like it then dont play its that simple really.
Oh God, here we go with the "hard core players created MMOs and we all owe thanks to them playing 20 hours a day and setting a standard for us all to acheive" line. I've heard it before...
Say what you want about WoW and how it's stupid, juvenile, retarded, etc. The fact is, WoW has 12 million subscribers. Do you think that Blizzard gives a crap if "hard core" players think it's retarded? Do you think they haven't recieved their share of hate mail about their gaming system and the fact that they cater to the lowest common denominator? Of course not, they get those emails, hold them up next to the enormous sacks of money that roll in each and every month and laugh their way to the bank, every time.
S-E can punish whatever "type" of gamer they want. When FFXI first came out, they actually punished the casual gamers. I was there, I sat with my flag up outside of Selbina trying to get a Dunes party for hours and hours back in the day. Some days I didn't even get a group, and had to log off for the night lest I get NO sleep before work the next day. And it wasn't because I wasn't a good player, or had gimp gear...no, it was because I was just the wrong job at that moment in time. If you didn't have literally 6 hours to sink into the game in a sitting there was almost no point to playing. You could conceivably wait 2 hours just to get a party going in the first place, and than lord knows there would be an hour break in the middle when the Tank or Healer had to log off and no other's were seeking in your level range. And, my God, the horror that was trying to do CoP missions after they bulk of the player base had done them. I once spent 5 hours shouting for 2 freaking people to come do a Promyvion-Holla, and they could have been any job they wanted. Guess what? No takers. Yeah, that's real casual friendly...
After the massive amount of fallout they got over that type of stuff (they were even sued over it at one point, although I believe the case was dismissed as being without merit, thank God), I think they decided to go completely the other way. No MMO before WoW was as popular as they are, because none of them catered to the casual market like WoW did. All you heard about in the media concerning MMOs was the grind, the people commiting suicide over Everquest, the asians dropping dead in internet cafes after 60 hour gaming sessions. What company in today's world would actually want to reward that type of behavior?
I'm sorry that you guys can't grind to the end as fast as physically possible, but honestly, FFXIV will get along okay without those types of players. WoW proves that completely. Apparently Square doesn't want your money. Do yourself a favor and don't give it to them if it bothers you so bad. All I know is, the casual players I ran around with when I started playing FFXI way back in the day are still there. The ones that were on the fast track to endgame are all gone.
God yes another Fanboy bringing up, this game if its so cool why don't you guys just play it?! You also should learn what the word dedicated means. I don't give a rats butt about what Blizzard is receiving or not I hate them for polluting, destroying our genre and thats a fact. I also hate them for bringing the MMORPG genre into the focus of the mass media, politicans and other dubios people.
They didn't punish the casual gamer how stupid is that arguement?FFXI been a game where you need to be a dedicated players, so you weren't one and yet claim you have been punished for it *lol* You did play a game that wasn't for you that simple.
SE has already too much "non casual" mechanics and now they managed to piss off dedicated players too, mark my words: this wont end up well for them.
Do you know how many people are going to buy this game informed, have fun watching all the bitching once this thing is going live that way. Whatever people are doing with their time ingame is on everyones own.
So you want a casual, mass market game? GB2WOW or wait for purble wars with gay purple lightsabres
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
That's completely untrue. In fact, if you survey people who play MMOs casually and people who play them hardcore, you'll find casuals have a higher tendency to jump ship or cancel subscriptions when they find their playtime can't warrent paying for one anymore.
Hardcore players have many benefits to keep around. Yes, they have a high content demand, but this keeps developers rolling out content constantly, so when casual players do reach that point in the endgame they have loads of content to do. Hardcore players also have a tendency to find bugs, complain about balance issues, and so on that get fixed and again make the game more playable for casual players. You can't really make an online game that's only meant for casual players, even Farmville has it's hardcore base. Hardcore players actually tend to stick around longer (if the game can keep up with their endgame demands) than casual players, so they pay for longer subscriptions, but at the cost of higher bandwidth to support their playing habits.
Look at World of Warcraft. It's a game that appeals to both hardcore and casual players, churning out new endgame content to keep up with the hardcore demands, but in turn casual players aren't suffering from it, they are benefitting from it. While casuals make up the majority of the income (there are far more casual players than hardcore) having no content for your hardcore to do will eventually make casuals jump ship too.
SE doesn't care about copying the market, and certainly not WoW. They care about evolving the video game genre, and even more so the MMORPG. They're currently TESTING out the Surplus system, they haven't implemented all it's features and refuse to release the features they do plan to add in during Open Beta. They apparently are listening to players ideas to improve upon the system.
" Surplus experience is currently not being used. However, we have received many comments suggesting some sort of reward be put into effect regarding it, and we think that’s a pretty interesting idea. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, though, and we’re currently investigating the possibilities."
Stop your complaining and wait till open beta to try it out yourselves. The game was great in closed beta for me, just get your own POV on the matter and stop listening to others misconstrued ones. I personally liked how fast leveling was during the 15 hour period you have before you hit 0, I got to physical level 20 before I was affected. If they add benefits to the system it could create a very interesting dynamic. Go into games open minded, you will be a lot happier that you did.
http://thisismyjoystick.com/editorials/final-fantasy-xiv-how-the-fatigue-system-really-works/
Fatigue system truly explained. My own experience in Beta3 was identical to his. People are blowing it way out of proportion.
Alltern8 Blog | Star Wars Space Combat and The Old Republic | Cryptic Studios - A Pre Post-Mortem | Klingon Preview, STO's Monster Play
RULE 1. IF dev says sites translated him wrong, then dont trust any website but ffxiv official website.
RULE 2. Never cancel preorders on possible false info, youll lose your sweet in game bonus items and then youll really be sorry.
Indeed. This actually was pretty much mine now that I think about it. My brebre leveled my dude up some during last week, but it was so minuscule that I hardly noted it. I suppose the exp reset at the beginning of this week and I was able to get my character to 20, I only started playing my closed beta this week. This pretty much clears it up folks..... Thanks Vagrant for the link!
This isn't about individual players necessarily, this is about market share. Yes, some casuals will leave one game for another, but for every casual leaving WoW one and a half are starting up an account. Their membership continues to climb to this day, 5 years after it's release. This is why it makes sense to market the game towards a casual market and to introduce game mechanics from their perspective and catering to their wants over the hard core player. However, in my own observations, the hard core players burn out and quit. The casuals stick around as long as the game is appealing to them.
I don't get how you consider keeping "developers rolling out content constantly" a benefit to the person that's spending the time and resources creating the content. I'm sure Square would be happy as a clam if we all took 3 years to advance beyond the beta levels. Bug testing has nothing to do with being a hard core player, any player online in similar circumstances is as likely to find and report a bug as a hard core player, it's not like they check a persons play time before they glitch or anything. Whether that person found that bug after 10 hours of playtime or 80 hours of playtime is irrelevant, the circumstances surrounding the bug is all that matters.
And of course you can't make a game only with casuals in mind, there does need to be an endgame environment. However, they absolutely can directly control how long it takes their playerbase to get there. If they want it to take a certain amount of real time, it will. They've honestly probably already got a model in place with a time table of when the expansions and such are coming out 5 years ahead...and they probably already have some preliminary work done on the first expansion now. Speculation on my part as far as that goes, but given how long these games and such are in production for, it's a safe bet in my opinion.
Everyone seems to be forgetting about one group of people, the hard core that don't care about this system. There will always be hard core players in any multiplayer game, really. Even MMOFPS's have their clans and 20 hour a day players. Someone in this thread (or maybe another here, I don't remember) has already done preliminary calculations to get the absolute most experience versus the least fatique in a week. These people will be this game's "hard core" player and they don't seem to be losing their minds and cancelling their preorders over it, they are figuring out how to best make the use of the time they have in the game. Like I said, whether it's a hard level cap or a limit to the speed you are able to advance, either way they are limiting you. Either way they are keeping you from leveling farther than they want you to at that particular moment, and that's totally their decision to make...just like it's totally your decision to keep paying for it.
And what about the casual players that don't even care about endgame content? The people that just enjoy partying and running around and hanging out? I know a few people myself that have been playing for years that have never even done any of the endgame content in FFXI because they just don't want to deal with being in a group with 20+ people trying to do some big thing like kill a Sky God or run Dynamis. They just want to run around and do their thing, regardless of how many characters they have at Max Level.
All in all, it all boils down to opinions and speculation, considering the game isn't out yet. All I'm saying is that it makes sense from a business standpoint. You said yourself, casuals are the largest market share. They''ll have their expansions down the road, but it's gonna take you longer to get there. If you really can't take being forced to play less than I guess FFXIV in it's current form isn't the game for you. I assure you there will be plenty of other players out there that don't mind the wait, and apparently Square cares more about their dollar than yours.
I tend to want to progress fast in mmorpgs but even so, I don't think this is a bad idea and it will probably improve gameplay. In all honesty, most mmorpg players don't know what they want in games it seems since they change their minds rather quickly. A dev could only listen to player demands and yet they'd still hate the game. In order to take full advantage of the class system, they need this fatigue system in place. There'd be no point in trying out other classes, which is part of the reason the game is fun. The option to customize abilities is surprizingly fun imo. No matter what kind of player you are, most will be constantly looking at the exp bar in any game, but with it being limited people will slow down a bit and actually be in the world.
This is still a silly system to artificially "force" people to train alternate skills. Giving options is a positive; forcing people to explore them is a clear negative. This system should reward the training of other skills without providing impacing the primary skillset.
If this was conveyed in a different way, I think the population would love it, as follows:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fatigue System Rewards Diversification of Skill Training
Today Square-Enix announced a revolutionary gameplay option in their new MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV. Leveraging the game's focus on class exploration and diverse skill training, this new feature will provide experience bonuses for the training of lmultiple skills and abilities.
At the beginning of each week, the player will be provided with 150% experience gain in every available skill. As they level, this bonus will slowly diminish until it reaches the 100% base rate. By switching between skill training each week, players can optimize their experience gain and obtain a diverse set of skills and abilities to compliment their own playing style.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not exactly my best marketing prose, but if the feature was built this way (it isn't so different, except the ongoing diminishing returns) and marketed accordingly, the reception would have been better.
yea i say wait till release to see how it is
Am I the only one that remembers that nearly all the time spent playing a MMO is at the End Game, and not experence? No MMO ever has good End Game at the launch so what's the rush to get to the max level? The game is more than just going out and killing 1000 bores. It's Final Fantasy and with that comes great story telling and great exploration. I love end game stuff, but my most memorable exprences in mmo's is exploring the new areas i've never seen or spending days mining enough money for that level 21 neck piece ive been wanting. If you someone who just wants to jump into the game on raid nights, than maybe this game just isnt for you.
Quote
Once again, we would like to thank you all for your participation and support during the Closed Beta. We will continue to take your valuable feedback into consideration as we develop the game during Open Beta and even beyond the official release.
Now I would like to take a moment to respond to the many questions and opinions regarding the manner in and rates at which experience and skill points are obtained in Beta 3.
Firstly, the concept for FINAL FANTASY XIV was to design a system of character progression that offers meaningful advancement for those with limited time to dedicate to playing. We did not want to create a game that forced people to play for hours on end to see their efforts rewarded. To that end, in addition to the Guardian's Aspect and guildleve systems, we introduced a means of apportioning swifter advancement to shorter periods of play.
In order to achieve this balance, we calculated a value for the amount of skill or experience points that could be earned in a one-hour period. This theoretical value represents an hour spent engaged solely in combat, levequests, or any other activities that earn skill or experience points, and sets a threshold delimiting how many of these points can be earned in a period of play.
Based on this, we have implemented a “threshold value” concept. These thresholds are regulated by a one-week timer that begins counting down the instant you earn skill/experience points. After a week has passed, the thresholds will reset, and the moment skill/experience points are earned again, the timer begins counting down anew.
For the first eight thresholds during this week-long period, players will receive skill/experience points at the maximum rate possible. The actual amount of time spent reaching these thresholds is not significant. That is to say, a player who exceeds eight hours of gameplay will still be rewarded the maximum amount of skill/experience points, so long as the total amount earned is below the eighth threshold value. For the subsequent seven thresholds, players will earn skill/experience points at a gradually decreasing rate, eventually reaching a rate of zero.
It is worth noting, however, that the reduced rate will also gradually recover while players are engaged in activities that do not yield skill/experience points. In this manner, it is possible for the threshold value to reset completely, even before the completion of the one-week timer.
Any skill points earned in excess of the threshold maximum—that is, at a rate of zero—will be stored as "bonus skill points." These are specific to each class, so players limited to earning bonus skill points still have the freedom to change classes and begin earning skill points again at the maximum rate, allowing their reduced skill rates to recover in the meantime.
The experience point threshold, however, is unrelated to class, and switching classes will have no effect on the decreasing rate of earnable experience.
This is how the progression system currently works.
This system was not introduced in Beta 3, but has been in place since the beginning of beta testing. There are several reasons why many people believe that these features were only recently implemented:
- Leading into Beta 3, operation hours were extended, making it possible to play more often during the span of a week.
- To encourage players to form guidleve parties in Beta 3, skill and experience point rewards for guildleves were significantly increased.
- The process that reduced the amount of skill/experience points awarded for weak enemies attacking in groups was unintentionally removed at the start of Beta 3. (This issue has been addressed.)
That last reason in particular was the biggest cause for players running up against the threshold penalty, with characters earning far more skill/experience points than we anticipated. We also faced an issue where we were simultaneously unable to adjust the amount earned for guildleves as well as the effects of crossing each threshold.
We sincerely apologize for the lack of explanation and our failure to make the necessary adjustments in the game.
The threshold values are being reexamined, and we plan to further adjust the different rates of earnable points based on feedback from our testers. One of the top issues we are looking at right now is fixing the excessively rapid drop after crossing the eighth threshold. We also plan to improve experience point reduction rates, even more so than for skill points, considering the threshold is unaffected when changing class.
At the very least, we can promise that players won't be running into the threshold penalty in the same short time span as they did in the beginning of Beta 3.
We would like to take this opportunity to also explain the following issues.
The diminishing results experienced during gathering are a function related to that class alone, and have no connection to this progression system. We are in the process of adjusting this system, and plan to make changes based on tester feedback.
We are currently in the process of considering the means in which bonus skill points can be used. There have been suggestions for various types of incentives, but as encouraging people to play with that in mind defeats the purpose of this threshold system, we will be examining this issue very carefully.
These are not the only adjustments we have planned for Open Beta. As mentioned previously, we are looking into increasing the amount of skill points earned when fighting in a party, and we look forward to seeing your input on these changes.
Last of all, I would like to apologize for the delay in releasing a developer's comment due to my recent attendance to Gamescom. The article based on my interview during that trip, coupled with conjecture, outdated information, and some misunderstandings on overseas websites, only added to the confusion. In the future, I hope to avoid similar problems by responding directly through official developer's comments as often as possible. Thank you for your understanding.
See you in the Open Beta Testing!
FINAL FANTASY XIV Director
Nobuaki Komoto
There is a rather unanimous take on fatigue which seems to be, formally, a capping system to prevent hardcore players from stretching the level gap too far ahead of the lower-end achieving players, the so-called "casuals" and their revolution.
Considering that particular issue, the "level gap" problem, the "feed 1% of insanely active and performing players with insanely fast-developed (expensive) content that most of the population will not see before months" and so on, it seems reasonable to think that Square is trying to come up with a solution.
However there is a second take by western philosophy, which players feel restricted in their freedom to "play as they wish" by this job-limitating feature. While I do perfectly see how it feels as a restriction coming from no fatigue system at all (or the illusion of that...), I do strongly feel that we're so "spoiled" as players and consumers, and so formatted by the WoW model as an ever-shadowing reference to compare every other MMO to, that some of us are beginning to confuse "freedom" with "lack of rules". It's not the same. And allow to say that, in games, the absence of rules is not necessarily a good thing.
Some game actually are designed with an absence of limitation in mind, as a goal, it's known to be a western delight and WoW's design certainly plays well with that. But that's one way to make games, RPGs, not the only way.
While in real life it's clear that defending all the freedoms we have is not debatable, for most of us, in a game it's the opposite: the trick is to beat the game within the rules, and better players/leagues usually impose more or stricter rules. Think sports: you and your mates on one hand, pro leagues on the other, you get the idea.
Every game is designed both with and by rules, and it's those very "restrictions" that shape up the game in the end. Liberty is only so much understood than when defined by a set of laws and rights, it's those limitations and guarantees that make you feel "free" as opposed to restricted; but obviously you have to experience those restrictions to know them. To know your freedom. If there is no limit whatsoever, then freedom means nothing, from a subjective standpoint. Think of space: if it's totally empty, you being able to roam freely in it means nothing, you actually feel trapped in the void of nothingness forever. But as soon as there is a star, you can move from/to it. If there is a soil, you can move on it. And so begins your feeling of freedom of movement: with a limitation of space.
Agreed, fatigue in FF XIV is just "too much", but please bear with me on this idea just a bit more.
More practically, there are a thousand reasons we can not know of at this point that may justify, from the game's core design blueprint, that players with several evenly leveled jobs would be much more exploitable by content makers or system programmers in the future. Maybe that would allow for more diversity in group leves resolution methods (think "RPG", because Square is, historically and factually, very much more "RPG" than most other MMO makers). Having characters with a lot of sub-jobs will allow for many interesting, versatile, diversified PvE designs, dungeon mechanics, peculiar encounters. A lot more than the "n tank 2n heal 3n dps" ratio model, you can be sure of that, for instance.
I'm not advocating for the fatigue system itself, because I think it's a bad way to achieve whatever is written on their agenda. Fatigue is penalizing rather than rewarding, it's not subtle or even smart (it's actually a pain to understand and predict), and it's psychologically alienating from a player standpoint. But again I'm not at all dismissing the agenda behind it. If they are willing to go that far (my god, just the thought of it!), there is a reason. I think multi-class characters, and I see wonders of encounters. I look at Square's record in RPG design, and I know they can make a lot of it. No wonder they practically "force us" to multi-level jobs at once if that's true.
Here's the idea behind my approach of this feature, but also any feature, really.
Each game has its own philosophy, its own design, and if that game is coherent, most of the features are tied to this global skeleton (this subsequently means we only consider "good games we don't like while others do" here, and not "crappy games no one likes at all", I think FF XIV qualifies).
Before I dismiss any feature in any game, I try to understand what the game wants me to do. I try to impersonate the developer, its code, to decipher the real, factual objectives of the game, behind all the shiny-s'ploding shaders blinding my eyes.
In some games it's just looking at the score and how to raise it faster; in others it's learning to use only certain skills that max out... something; but in an immense majority of cases the solution to "playing the best" will be to restrict your actions to the few best, most rewarding ones. (that can mean doing only one thing all the way, or on the contrary doing several things at once in a fair balance; it all depends on the game you're considering...)
That's hardcore if you ask me, because you have to spend more time on one particular element of content until you find the right patterns, thresholds, whatever it is the code needs to be beaten flat out. Hardcore is not just all grind, it's also a lot of "doing it smarter"--not because you'd be more intelligent than the average, mind you, but because you'd have taken the time to ascertain the real game objectives, the game's "ways", and above all complied to them. In any game if you want to be good you have to comply. Sometimes there are other, smarter ways around it, sometimes not.
Back to FF XIV, it seems to me that Square is trying not to "force" players into a certain playstyle, but rather to tell them that they'll have to play different jobs in FF XIV to get a "valid" character at any given level beyond 20 or so.
The bluntest way to put this I can think of is that "FF XIV will require good (HL) players to have at least 2 or 3 evenly leveled jobs". Be prepared to switch to a full Elem raid for a fight then switch to a 50% Archer/Elem for another, then a weird close-combat composition, and so on. Maybe pop a few crafters to perform on-the-fly doors for tricky dungeons. Whatever, it's Square, that's their thing.
I don't know if I got my idea through, but I feel this post is already too long. Once again, I'm strongly against fatigue in FF XIV because it's so psychologically dumb, and so not elegant/subtle as a system, that I'm very disappointed in Square. That and a human-machine interface, GUI and action mechanics, that pre-dates windows, so yeah disappointment is an understatement. Especially considering the whole quality and smartness of the game on pretty much all other aspects that just astounds me, it's a shame to think it could go to waste--anything below 1M subs would be a waste for this XIVth budget, and I don't see how it can even dream of that number in its current state, 1 month before release...
But there is a reason for fatigue, and it may not be just the "hardcore" you instinctively think of, i.e hours. I'm really wondering what design reason there is behind it, and I'm guessing it has to do with how multi-classes characters affect the game, especially in leve/dungeon group content. Remember, there is more to hardcore than meets the clock.
Oh, just a few things fyi:
- The very small hardcore crowds don't bring cash to sub-based MMO editors, casuals do. However hardcores are much more tied into the whole field on MMOing, from 2.0 buzz to real-life events and acquaintances, passing by prestigious guilds and very vocal forums. So you need to make them happy, but actually not having them would rather be a bless if you retained the casuals. Yet the casual crowds love to see hardcore opening paths for them, raising the fame of given games, hence it's all tied and complicated. But hardcore players, strictly, are negligible in terms of financial revenue in the MMO business. It's their word that matters more than their wallet.
- Not FFXIV nor any other MMO for years has tried to take on WoW, and by that I mean putting the financial means from day 1 on the table. No one does that, because it's not a sane business objective. Better work on improving your own position and trying to reach new audiences to help the market overall growth.
There is the notable exception of TOR, with its insane budget (more than 100M$, that's half of WoW 5-years budget), can only be aiming at taking on WoW directly, and/or extending the market by a raw 5M players within two years or so to be financially viable. The fact that TOR is sci-fi and WoW is fantasy tells me that TOR cannot beat WoW in raw numbers, but for sure TOR needs the silver medal to be profitable and viable.
- Finally don't forget that in FF XIV the fatigue limitation will start decreasing before a whole week, it's just that it takes a week to go back to 100%. But as soon as you stop using a job, you'll slowly go back from 0% (or wherever you're at) to 100% in 7 days from the moment you started earning experience (which mean that decrease will be variable, what a pain to predict...)
When's the game going to be back up for testing?