Pax East InfoFollow

http://www.dualshockers.com/2016/04/23/deep-dungeons-announced-for-final-fantasy-xiv-new-app-and-more-info-on-new-content-revealed/

What do you think about the announcements and answers?

I am liking the Palace of the dead concept. Getting a vibe of Dark Souls here! Do they mean egi glamours or something else when talking about changing egi appearance? What JOBSSSSS do you think are hitting next expansion?

Edited, Apr 23rd 2016 3:22pm by sandpark

Samurai and a gunblade-wielding Red Mage

Breaking it down:


It's time to rewrite this code then considering the AI is not only the furthest thing from complex, but it's already just using basic functions. I don't think he meant to say complex and more "messy and requires rebalancing the content to take them into consideration"..because the chocobo simply acts as another party member since they removed the gambit system for them and used it for bosses instead.



Cute, but the animation team could be working on something far more important to the game. It takes literally only 1 person to do this. And no, you don't need to see their engine to know this, especially when they've confirmed they use z-brush and maya for a lot of this game's models and animations.



People choose not to do content rather than being barred from content aside missing the train, this wouldn't prevent that in any shape or form. So all this confirms is, as I've always said, they can do a lot that they simply CHOOSE not to do until their hand is forced (e.g Diadem.) They seem to like throwing tests at us (Diadem, Lord of Verminion, Void Ark etc) so they should test this to see how the reception goes before completely shrugging it off.



I hate cop outs like this - Currently, the game uses a carbuncle to be replaced by the egi, there's 6 or 7 carbuncles in the dats that are used as holders for egis, including Ramuh and Shiva egi. So the system may be "complex", but they have everything in place since Beta 2. They really need to hire more people...



Aside being throw away content like other stuff of similar nature (solo/4man content really has yet to be rewarding with other options for gearing available) it could be something interesting to do once or twice.



So it's going to be a lame version of Nyzul (considering current content cycle.) I wish they'd push this back to 4.x so at least it can benefit from new mechanics and HOPEFULLY a new formula, so that way in this "endless dungeon" they can copy what Ambuscade does in XI. It's the perfect chance to do something NEW and heck even cycle in/out rewards every major update to keep a need to start from the beginning fresh. So many chances to do something good.

New jobs doesn't excite me unless the game is getting an overhaul in the battle system and homogenization of it, otherwise my only hope is if they choose to implement any jobs XI has, it works even half as well as they do, because I'd honestly be pissed off if Dancer XIV ended up being just a XIV Rogue with a cure spell, since even in XI with it being a "healing dagger user", it still stood out on it's own because it could heal, tank and damage in a different format than what we were used to (PLD, NIN.)

Maybe in the letter we'll get more detailed info, otherwise it kind of sounds like the usual "good concepts about to be done poorly because of fear of exclusion."

I'm just hoping Doom Train will act as a story barrier like Steps of Faith did and has some difficulty to it, so there can be a REASON for players to get better so then they can raise the overall standard of content design and do less "face roll" to "your face gets rolled off your head" content.

Here's hoping that Dungeons Deep will be the new Nyzul Isle. An element is random like that is something this game sorely needs.

Too early to say whether this will be mid core progression content or side content like Vermillion.

As for battle design, I'm willing to give them a chance. If you can jump rope with eight people, why not four? Just means fewer people to ***** it up.

Edited, Apr 24th 2016 8:21am by Thayos

The way Ambuscade works is:
You choose the difficulty level and the monsters themselves don't drop it, but you gain a lot of points (depending on difficulty selection) to use to buy the rewards (similar to Legion/Nyzul/Neo-Nyzul etc) and they've actually changed it (starting with next update) that they'll retain certain important rewards but shift in/out other rewards along with monsters. For example next month's cycle is Odin and Alexander, so you got the general idea from reading it, but execution it's a lot more simple/straight forward. Considering XIV is more of a cumulative game, instead of resetting all they'd have to do is slap on yet another "tome" grind, because it being designed for solo/4man puts it in a severe niche in terms of design with current XIV since they can't offer too strong of a reward or it will overshadow what they introduce in 3.3 (Void Ark II and more crafted gear.)

So it actually sounds bad that it resets at the end of the month but it's not that bad once you take into consideration that even on easier difficulties you basically benefit greatly for doing it. Since the main appeal is that it will always change and offer new things (and certain old things.) So if this content isn't meant for progression (and from the sound of it so far it isn't unless the formula changes) it would be good if it rewards something else relevant so it doesn't just fade into nothingness, because they can add new floors every update, but it doesn't mean much if it offers only stuff like minions or furniture (kind of like the PvP rewards.)

The progression at least power and stat wise is locked to the content itself. The best thing I can compare it to is sort of like Guild Wars 2 are Maguuma masteries or Diablo 3 set dungeons, except the dungeons are random. I am hoping it functions closer to set dungeons and it might since they spoke of a leaderboard, hopefully it does stat tracking for rewarding skillful play.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/reimagining-progression-the-mastery-system/

http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Set_Dungeon

They stated numerous time the planned "Gambit System" was used for bosses in the game instead. Anyone with basic network coding knowledge can tell you the code is messy and isn't as efficient as it could be and that's if you remember back to the beta days how they said the gambit system would work like FFXII's, which means with the removal of it and placement on bosses is why the birds are fairly..stupid, and being "complex" simply is a nicer way to say messy lol (no one wants to admit when something is poorly done, especially when you're trying to draw in players.) It just depends on how deeply you buy into YoshiP's words, because even people within SE scratch their heads at some comments he makes, including the XI team during their last interview and "freshly Picked" when they got a question about implementing similar systems (for example armoury system) and they said "it's much easier to just expand a particular inventory using certain methods, so we'll just introduce new mog wardrobes as needed."

The way the duty finder system works in XIV is it creates a copy of your account data, chocobo's have no "account data", which means the trials are not designed in any shape for form to take into consideration an AI partner. This is also why they stated they'll have to "create new content" for that theorized "Grand Company Army" system where you command a group of NPCs, because instead of going back and rebalancing all of the game's content, it's easier to just create new content taking it into consideration. So the "messy" part is more because of the way they handle instanced content, which is terrible. Nothing should be so complex that it prevents basic systems from functioning simply because you have a braid dead turkey summoned or because you're messing with your retainer.



They talk about it all the time and how they prioritize things which is when YoshiP has said once before lore is a low priority so they don't get "lore walls" to prevent content. Example, the UI team did Lords of Verminion - Which means during the development of that and the much stated "limited resources", they could have easily spent more time fine tuning aspects rather than wasting said limited resources on content like that. Not to mention confirming the use of Maya alone means they don't need the whole team to break up parts when 1 person could do it.



It's already working for Garuda, Titan and Ifrit egi (Emerald, Sapphire and Ruby Carbuncle are the basis for this.) The code is there. That is my point. Ramuh already employs "Ramuh-Egis" which means the coding for their basic AI functions are already in game. This is also what I mean by how deeply someone buys into YoshiP's excuses without actually thinking about it or knowing otherwise. So knowing that, even doing a "glamour" system could be a bit troublesome because the current system in place allows for extremely easy egi placement (btw, the carbuncles in dats all have programming tied to them, because they're all tied to egi data or an NPC, for example Uri's Ruby Carbuncle (before they renamed it.)) He's admitted before they just lack man-power/resources, so adding more egi's isn't really "complex", they just lack the people. Which goes back to "instead of doing x, allocate them into important parts of the game." Whether you like minions or not, the people working on minions (including design, animations, interaction and coding now for LoV) could be put on the monster, animation or even programming team to get stuff fixed that's "too complex" and hold back on minion additions for even just one patch cycle.



I didn't mind steps of faith simply because compared to everything else thrown at us in 2.x aside Second Coil and Final Coil..it actually took coordination and as proven by the immediate dropouts and cries for nerfs, the playerbase simply can't handle something with a "tiny bit of difficulty" or it's designed for the BIG BAD HARDCORE PLAYERS BOO HOO HOO.

Seriously though, storyline gates I enjoy, I just hope it's well designed first and foremost because if they're going to keep doing these references, while DoomTrain/Phantom Train wasn't necessarily hard, he does have a legacy for not taking it laying down as well as being a damn awesome summon.

So his inclusion to XIV is either going to be "Hi I'm a talking train, let's go to the Garlean capital." or "Hi this is a **** easy trial because players will complain about difficulty if I'm actually a tough fight..so um...I guess just beat me up in 3 minutes and enjoy 4.0?"

Since Void Ark was supposedly something "new and unique to FFXIV"...I have my doubts. This is why even when they mention new content concepts, I hope first and foremost it's well designed and actually trying to step away from current formula, despite outcries of wanting otherwise.

I liked Nyzul when I was able to do it, but because the community for this event was more based in statics than event-linkshells (like Dynamis, Sky or Einherjar), I was more or less shut out of it. It has always been difficult to coordinate schedules and find people who are as willing as I am to flat-out make time.

On that note, though, I'm excited about Deep Dungeons though for two big reasons:

1) The ability to solo. I'll be able to enjoy this content even if I can't find people for a static.

2) I'll only need to find three other people for a static! That should be much more doable than finding seven other people.

I recently tried building a static... I found six other members but just couldn't find a seventh whose schedule met my narrow time requirements... and after a few weeks of nothing really happening because we couldn't find that elusive eighth person, the group started falling apart, and now we're down to like four members. Meanwhile, all that time spent in game just trying to wrangle people was more or less wasted. It's hard when you're a busy adult living on the west coast, and you can only make time to play consistently for a couple of hours on one night/week. So, yeah... I'm stoked about content that isn't built on such a rigid participation requirement.

Yeah. As much as I loved Nyzul Isle, I'll admit that the only reason I was able to do it at all is because I lucked into a static that ran at a really convenient time for me.



Mind if I ask why you hated Nyzul so much? Generally speaking people either liked it or had no strong opinions one way or the other. I haven't come across many people who actively disliked it, and I'm curious.

Doesn't that describe pretty much every activity in every game ever?

I do agree that the drop rates were way too low though. Only a 1 in 3ish chance that the boss will even drop anything? That's just insane.

I just shouted in Whitegate for my Nyzul and never had trouble getting a decent group for it. I guess I was on a skill player server or just extremely lucky. Now Einherjar took statics, as for Sky,Sea,Dynamis, I was in a very active linkshell that always had someone into something in those areas and Zeni.

I like the concept of Nyzul but disliked the gimmicky lamp thing. I am a tad worried the gimmick is going to be annoying to some players as Callinon stated his worry for being muted on mage.

I just see "hardcore players this" "hardcore players that" "this game isn't designed for you" so I preemptively say events aren't dying because of hardcore players, since they seem to get the brunt of the accusations and are the "players that don't matter."

The ACTUAL problem is, as I stated, and you can deny this all you want, the INCLUSION of story mode is what created "Savage" content to begin with. Instead of people crying for "easier version just for the story", they should have instead, asked SE to follow even Guild Wars 2 setup of content, since they borrowed "Dynamic Events" from them, why not the content setup? You seem to love SE, YoshiP and everything about this game, you'd think after 3 years you'd realize how they work when it comes to this game's content. Savage was OPTIONAL. Keyword: OPTIONAL, when there was only Ex Primals, Crystal Tower(s) and Binding Coil (1/2/3), people asked for Savage to see what the original, UNBALANCED version of second coil was like, no one, and I mean, NO ONE, asked for it as our main source of progression. However, people begged SE "WE WANT STORY MODE!", and I realize not everyone has ever looked into game design beyond just a player, but, even YoshiP has told us the "Savage Version" ala 3.x is the Original version of the fight and story mode is the fights with mechanics stripped out of it.

Why is that necessary? When all they had to do was just create another set of Binding Coil type difficulty if they weren't going to have "3 difficulties" like they said they couldn't due to lack of resources. You're trying to pin the blame of Savage content when in reality, they spend far more time and resources on content people rarely use or only use because it's the only source for something. When you're capped on Lore tomes, do you run Antitower or Lost City Hard every day, numerous times? Or are you more likely to run it for your daily and to cap off Lore as it's the MAIN source of high lore return?

I promise you most people don't run those dungeons willingly, just like I can promise, despite not knowing you, that you yourself don't run dungeons that serve no purpose to you at the time until relic came around or if you were leveling a job, but that comes to the next point: Trying to consider leveling as "content", when in reality, the whole purpose of the roulette system was because dungeon queues were abysmal. Deny it if you want, but that's exactly why they were implemented, it wasn't because of good will because SE was and still is perfectly fine with us "doing nothing" as long as they get their money.

If they kept Coil and 2.x Ex Primal cycle, everything would be peachy, if you can't do the content..you simply miss out, it happens in LARGE MMORPGs, you simply won't (shouldn't) be able to do everything. But now that there's a need to continually create "Story mode" and "Savage mode", they kind of HAVE to create content for a "small %" and since you're throwing out populations - Did you know, Alliance content were dying out because people got their gear and moved on? Why do you think NA/EU players were begging for an "alliance roulette"? Because no one were doing them until we got forced back into it.

Also, sorry to break it to you, but I don't do drugs nor have medication that would "affect me" as you're implying (which is rude as ****, by the way) and I know you love to disagree with everything and say I'm wrong about everything but, it's extremely obvious. Everything is "populated" including Savage, so you just have something against content you don't even touch. I guarantee "Deep Dungeons" is also a waste of resources until we see otherwise, because it will be a flat out lie if you sit and tell me people run the new dungeons to run them and not because of, say, the Lore tomes.