Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[RIPRhongoBongo]

I would kill for a unique relic weapon. Give the base at the start of the expansion and upgrade as you go along like, "here's this garbage I found last week. Might still have some aether left, thought about seeing if you could do anything with it"

 

[SuffahWhorse]

Saw this on /v/. Not sure what the fuck is happening here

 

[Brandy [◉'']]

As a WOW player I have never fucking understood why the Relic weapons were remotely a popular mechanic.

Two things I'd say:
1) Back in ARR and HW, the relic was a grind and commitment, meaning it was one way for a player to express their 'main' job. It also had a admittably cool story and it made you do various things, utilising crafting, (hardmode) trilals, dungeon grind, the 24 man raid, collecting materia and so on... people bitch about the books but it was a pretty neat way to get people to do different content, without forcing them into high end fights. Of course, they completely removed all of this and now it is more or less going through the motions and you pay a universal currency per weapon.
2) vestige from FFXI. Relic weapons were a grind, it can not be overstated how much time, money and effort it needed to get one of these weapons. In turn these weapons would actually unlock new playstyles for your Job. Look at this

This weapon unlocks various things for mostly BST. Cloudsplitter is a magic based lightning weapon skill, which lets the BST partake in Fragmentation and Gravitation weapon skill chains. Note, for BST this is extra cool because they can skill chain with their pets when solo. This means that you can now deal magic damage, so making a magic damage set now makes a lot of sense. The Aftermath Effect also gives you a buff (potency depends on the amount of TP you have spent to use Cloudsplitter) that makes it you do more damage. This is one of the more simple, generic weapons, there is a BST relic that would hyper charge your pet, for example.

To put it into perspective, a Relic/Empyrian/Mythic weapon would unlock a whole new playstyle, imagine if the JIN mudra was tied to the ARR relic. Naturally this will never happen in XIV because raiders would piss and shit themself if anything remotely RPG related would be introduced into combat and the combat system its self can not support effects like the above. It is too bare-bones and doesn't allow for this stuff. So the best we can hope is that they return to 1 and make it a grind.

 

[Fcret]

To put it into perspective, a Relic/Empyrian/Mythic weapon would unlock a whole new playstyle, imagine if the JIN mudra was tied to the ARR relic. Naturally this will never happen in XIV because raiders would piss and shit themself if anything remotely RPG related would be introduced into combat and the combat system its self can not support effects like the above. It is too bare-bones and doesn't allow for this stuff. So the best we can hope is that they return to 1 and make it a grind.

God I would kill to have a new MMORPG that played like XI. You can always still play FFXI obviously but it's showing its age very clearly now and it's obvious that they don't really have any plans to try and extend its life once the PS2 devkits die.

 

[Baguette Child]

God I would kill to have a new MMORPG that played like XI. You can always still play FFXI obviously but it's showing its age very clearly now and it's obvious that they don't really have any plans to try and extend its life once the PS2 devkits die.

I like a lot of XI's design choices in theory, but when I tried playing it it felt like I was gaming in the early 2000s again. And not in a good way. If only it had a more enjoyable presentation and some minor QOL upgrades.

 

[Brandy [◉'']]

Today I teleported back to my place and saw that 2 plots in my neighbourhood were demolished. I checked paissaDB and man... every server has 200+ empty plots now. This is Balmung

https://zhu.codes/paissa?world=91&phases=1

Balmung has 363 open plots, at least 123 of which are available for bidding.

I have never seen this many plots open ever since ARR.

 

[Fcret]

Today I teleported back to my place and saw that 2 plots in my neighbourhood were demolished. I checked paissaDB and man... every server has 200+ empty plots now. This is Balmung

https://zhu.codes/paissa?world=91&phases=1

Balmung has 363 open plots, at least 123 of which are available for bidding.

I have never seen this many plots open ever since ARR.

Also unsubbed and lost my house. Not only that but my free company of like ten people has not had a single person log in for 45 days and the FC estate is also gone.

If the landlords are abandoning ship, you know things are dire.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Not that .3 patches are generally bopping things to draw people back, but it'll be amusing to see people trickle back in for the epic 'conclusion' of Dawntrail's storyline... only for this to exacerbate the decline. Really, the story isn't salvageable.

It's still been written by Hiroi. You can't conclude this story without Wuk Lmao being heavily involved, because everything in Tural exists only as an extension of Wuk, almost by design. Wuk has to be involved, and Wuk has to save the day, and the purpose of this story is not only to conclude Dawntrail, but also to redeem Wuk by showing us a different side of the character.

The copium from the .2 story, 'Oh, it isn't so bad. Wuk is barely involved,' is setting people up for quite a lot of disappointment: if this is Wuk's final adventure before being shuffled off to the Nation-State-Leader retirement home, then of course the character will be heavily involved.

About the only way I think this story wouldn't disappoint people, and further the mass-exodus, would be if Wuk fucking died. But even then - there's only so far that can get you. There's still very little to do, with jobs that offer you different flavors of 'whack a mole' while you play some DDR.

 

[Baguette Child]

Today I teleported back to my place and saw that 2 plots in my neighbourhood were demolished. I checked paissaDB and man... every server has 200+ empty plots now. This is Balmung

https://zhu.codes/paissa?world=91&phases=1

Balmung has 363 open plots, at least 123 of which are available for bidding.

I have never seen this many plots open ever since ARR.

Yeah, it's really bad right now.

The ward my medium house is in has, no joke, only 7 owned plots now. The rest are completely vacant. I don't think we can blame this just on the demo timer grace period being ended; A lot of these *have* to be from people who've checked out thanks to DT.

 

[Kier Starmer]

I went on Bahamant out of curiosity before unsubbing, and so many places and districts are empty. I have been playing since 1.0, and Stormblood was dire but nothing like this. This is legit apocalyptic levels. Square should be shitting themselves as this is their earner, and the homeowners are the loyalest of the loyal. If they go, it's really bad.

 

[Fcret]

The troon cult leader implores his flock to keep the faith:

 

[RIPRhongoBongo]

I need to check Maduin because I KNOW we're fucking dead

 

[Xerxes IX]

Someone replied to me pages back saying even the ERPers aren't feeling the game anymore even though they barely interact with any content the devs put in. That and the fact that all the houses being demolished is the biggest sign that XIV is in a very bad spot right now. Many players were paying a sub just to have a house, this many plots being let go indicates they're biting the bullet and quitting the game for now.

 

[SuffahWhorse]

Someone replied to me pages back saying even the ERPers aren't feeling the game anymore even though they barely interact with any content the devs put in. That and the fact that all the houses being demolished is the biggest sign that XIV is in a very bad spot right now. Many players were paying a sub just to have a house, this many plots being let go indicates they're biting the bullet and quitting the game for now.

Owari da.......

 

[Kier Starmer]

Oh shit, I did not know that about the ERPers. If that is the case, then the game is fucked. My server practically turned into an ERP realm. If they have lost that audience, then it is over, really. That group was dedicated to say.

 

[Aesthetic Liminal Pool]

Not that .3 patches are generally bopping things to draw people back, but it'll be amusing to see people trickle back in for the epic 'conclusion' of Dawntrail's storyline... only for this to exacerbate the decline. Really, the story isn't salvageable.

Don't worry, they'll get tired of hyping up "omg the story is getting better now, the combat kahntent is amazeballs!!!" after they complete the patch in four days and go back to being drama pigs farming each other for views and reddit karma -- then .4 will be the best thing to hype up, then .5, then the next expansion.

Anyway, I'm still pretty fond of Stormblood's mid-patches and found them the most entertaining part of the story simply because these three stole the show (honorable mention to Asahi's antics) even if I feel it was all pretty mishandled in the end.

 

[Kane Lives]

Anecdotal, but of a dozen friends I knew who were casually into the game, some of whom even made fairly good faith attempt at savage raiding (though obviously not getting far since they don't actually have a stable friendgroup to play with), all of them have moved on. Even the shills who used to blast Wuk Lmao 24/7 had gone radio silent.

Squeenix must be bleeding players real bad if Balmeme of all places have empty lots.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Someone replied to me pages back saying even the ERPers aren't feeling the game anymore even though they barely interact with any content the devs put in. That and the fact that all the houses being demolished is the biggest sign that XIV is in a very bad spot right now. Many players were paying a sub just to have a house, this many plots being let go indicates they're biting the bullet and quitting the game for now.

Anecdotal, but of a dozen friends I knew who were casually into the game, some of whom even made fairly good faith attempt at savage raiding (though obviously not getting far since they don't actually have a stable friendgroup to play with), all of them have moved on. Even the shills who used to blast Wuk Lmao 24/7 had gone radio silent.

Squeenix must be bleeding players real bad if Balmeme of all places have empty lots.

That is actually horrifying. I know DT is the lowest that FFXIV has ever been, but the fact that the game has been abandoned SO HARD is just lunacy. I'm actually starting to wonder if it'll actually be able to recover; remember that all of the new players or people that otherwise haven't gone through all of the new content will have to go through DT's stuff, unless they end up finding a way for people to skip it.

It really is something to see just how a single expansion can seriously fuck up a game.

 

[Well Intentioned]

Balmung having that many open spots is pretty telling. I'm curious how the Trooncat/Dawntrail dickriders are going to spin this.

The copium from the .2 story, 'Oh, it isn't so bad. Wuk is barely involved,' is setting people up for quite a lot of disappointment: if this is Wuk's final adventure before being shuffled off to the Nation-State-Leader retirement home, then of course the character will be heavily involved.

There's only so much in the way of adjustments you can do given XIV's very rigid structure for patch dev and how game dev in general works.

I do think that they were adjusting where they can with Troon Cat's presence although Wuk features very prominently in the poster and the 7.3 mentions she's becoming a Mahjong VO character (who would fucking subject themselves to that? Oof.)

The story is shifting away from Wuk and if the post-patch content was about on par with how Wuk was in base DT, I don't think I'd be as irritated with the character (the VA performance and the actor's insanity on social media, though? Unchanged.)

About the only way I think this story wouldn't disappoint people, and further the mass-exodus, would be if Wuk fucking died.

The monkey paw curls and she comes back as an Endless, a host body for Zenos, her Echo power is discovered to be immortality, etc.

Another interesting story that could've been explored is if Wuk was borne of all these ideals and we ended up having to fight/kill her as she turns into a despot, while Sphene was someone who was originally hostile but turned into an ally.

 

[John Roguelike]

My undying Elpis flower-tier hope is that the devs have a backup plan. The game became as homogenized as it did starting with the WoW exodus in shadowbringers. The changes were made to appeal to them, but the devs must have known that it couldn't last forever. Though this entire game is very likely spaghetti code, I was surprised at some of the things they were able to do with it, such as the rathalos fight or the ff16 event having dodges.

The problem is the game design. Homogenous classes, leading to the items and materia and fights being the same, which makes a game that is cool at first, but doesn't have a lot of staying power, less than average for an MMO, which has always been a bad sign. Im sure they can change things to draw players back in, since they did once before. Ff11 had a lot of cool ideas, while ff14 has a lot of user friendliness. I can't help but think that this illustrates the difference between the pros and cons of old vs new games. For some reason, nobody wants to make a game with the complexity of the first, but ease-of-use of the second, as if for every lesson gaming learns, it loses another.

My main suspicion is still manpower shortage. The dev cycle is somewhat inefficient in terms of dev effort/player engagement. Ignoring the other issues in game, item, fight, and class design, dungeons alone take a lot of effort to make, yet players only go through them once and have seen everything. If every dungeon was a bozja-like zone where you freely explore, get lore tidbits, and participate in lots of different fights/fates/critical engagements, I would imagine that would increase player involvement. This, compounded with other changes, would make the game much more engaging for the average player, I imagine.

I just want the tank-healer-dps trinity unironically abolished. Jobs should have a lot of ways to play and have decent overlap in different roles. The only traditional tank should be paladin, the only traditional healer white mage. The rest should have players figure out, on the spot, the best strategy for the team they are saddled with. The game would be great if unoptimal playstyle or team comp done with good teamwork led to victory. Instead, we got 4-24 idiots playing in parallel with others. You might as well turn off almost all other models but your own.

Hopefully Squeenix figures it out.

Last I played FF11 about 3 months ago, I got the artifact armor sets of almost every job and thought the plots were mostly cool. I absolutely know once I get to wings of the goddess that Im going to go insane with the events of the past. The Ranger quest line is gonna be so cash.