FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

[Malacite]

Gamescom 2012: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles | Massively

by Ben Gilbert on Aug 16th 2012 6:07AMFantasy, Interviews, MMO industry, Massively Interviews, Massively Event Coverage, Final Fantasy XIV

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When Final Fantasy XIV's A Realm Reborn launches later this year on PC and PlayStation 3, each version will represent a scaled version of the game's highest settings. But with talk of next-gen consoles getting louder and louder, does it make sense to stick with the PlayStation 3? Square-Enixproducer/director Naoki Yoshida thinks so, but that doesn't mean he isn't prepared for the looming next generation of game consoles.

"The biggest thing is because we promised we'd release on PlayStation 3, and there are still a lot of players out there waiting for us to release a PS3 version. Before we talked about losing the trust of the playerbase with the original release of XIV and getting that trust back. One of the things to get that trust back is to fulfill our promises. That promise being that we'd release on the PlayStation 3," Naoki said in a group interview today at Gamescom. "That doesn't mean we're not looking to the future. We realize that things will be coming, and then making the game compatible for these systems is something we're currently thinking about," he added.

Of course, "Until Sony and Microsoft actually make an announcement," he said, "we can't make an announcement." Yoshida said that his team's flexibility with FFXIV is due to the game's new engine. "With this new engine, it's very scalable. It runs on low-end PCs and high-end PCs. So when new technology comes out, we can easily scale it to that high end."

Yoshida went on to show the game running on a colleague's Sony Vaio laptop sporting a Core i5 processor. While the graphics were scaled down for the lower-end specs, the game still ran smoothly and looked quite impressive. "This is at about 70 percent optimization," he added.


FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will launch on both PC and PlayStation 3 "this year."

[Firewind]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

But..But..."PS3 limitations" jokes...

[Etra]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

I don't even really think much of the limitation with XI was the PS2. It was just a shitty engine.

[jenova_9]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

oh ya this is nice news, mew. Though ya it is smart smart to make sure to release this for PS3 as originally planned. They would get more subscribers on PS3 than PS4 anyways. Buying a PS4 at launch would be like buying a PC. And most console gamers don't like spending too much to play something (or figuring out how PCs work, or getting viruses and higher risk of account swipes.) All that moolah is better spent just buying it for PS3 and get the subscription paid. In fact, the amount of a PS4, you could use that amount to pay for a Super Subscription and not have to think about monthly reminders, mew.

[Malacite]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

Lack of ram, shitty engine, and of course, Captain Trollface (I'm actually somewhat surprised to see just how many others are glad he's finally left the company).

[Aeni]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

After watching Ep 7 of Sword Art Online ... I wish SE would create a crafting system like that. In my opinion, professions should take just as long to level up as combat classes (they need to revamp everything, anyway) but with a different twist ... being able to own your own stall, to sell your wares, and then be able to create custom weapons, armor, etc by obtaining ranks of master craftsman ... for instance, like raiding for combat classes, there would be trials for professions, which requires a lot of time and dedication. The master craftsman would be able to create custom stuff. People who pick up a profession or two to supplement alongside their combat roles will still be able to make "standard" stuff. But you need to keep players from being masters-of-all. I don't like the idea of the best raiders also being the best craftsman. That idea is total bullshit.

[Malacite]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

Yeah I've been trying to get that last point across to people since the game came out, that letting any 1 person have all classes at 50 is going to be seriously game breaking.

I suspect that once they start raising the caps there will be limits to preserve balance, and that Yoshi's let it slide for now out of fear of scaring people away. Also, *everything* is different in 2.0 - combat, crafting & gathering are all being completely changed.

[Etra]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

Yeah I've been trying to get that last point across to people since the game came out, that letting any 1 person have all classes at 50 is going to be seriously game breaking.

I suspect that once they start raising the caps there will be limits to preserve balance, and that Yoshi's let it slide for now out of fear of scaring people away. Also, *everything* is different in 2.0 - combat, crafting & gathering are all being completely changed.

So you'd rather I just make multiple characters and level them all up to max instead of making it convenient and having it all on one? Ooookay.

[Aeni]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

So you'd rather I just make multiple characters and level them all up to max instead of making it convenient and having it all on one? Ooookay.

Not sure what Mal's interpretation was, but I don't think that's my argument. If you got that much time on your hands to get all classes to 50 in my scenario, then you have to seriously think about how you're living your life. Putting personal and societal issues aside, I firmly believe that majority of players, up to the 90th percentile, under my proposed system, would focus ideally on one class, perhaps two, in a normal amount of play time. Up to 4-5 hours a day, 5-6 days a week. Anything beyond this creeps into "hard core" territory and if that's how you choose your time, so be it, you will still be free to level up additional classes. However, it shouldn't be so easy to do so. It'll require life-breaking dedication.

The reasoning here is that I feel right now the game has little incentive in "class loyalty", especially with professions. The balance on professions right now is centered on the individual and not on the guild. Contrast this with combat classes, where I feel it's more centered around the guild and not the individual. The difference, however, is that combat focus is fairly even (in my opinion) because you're able to spend as much time soloing in this game as in groups to accomplish and progress. This isn't the case with professions. It's quite possible to level all professions to 50 (before you could even level all available combat classes the same way) WITHOUT A SINGLE INTERACTION WITH ANYONE in the game. Remember, this is an MMORPG, not an offline game. If players insist on an offline experience, they can just go play FFX or something.

The only area where professions are reliant on other players is at the utmost high end. But at this point, if you're goal was to cap level on a profession, this is an entirely moot situation. At this point, you don't give a shit, you move on to some other profession. That's fine and all, but it does little to foster a community in a game system that emphasizes community.

The other drawback to current profession schemes is that materials and created items are loaded to the markets in such a way as to kill any form of meaningful profitability. This is the same in WoW and any other game. I have yet to see a single instance where there hasn't been a problem with the markets that it could severely impact a realm economy and in turn negatively impact the players themselves. Maybe Eve Online, but I don't think they're immune to these issues. The major reason for this is the ability for anyone to level their professions enmasse with enough financial resources. Clearly, then, money is a terrible artificially imposed barrier. I would prefer a balance of cost AND time. And not just solely leves and spamming recipes.

A much simpler and ideal solution is to engage players in quests, exploration and interaction. This includes adding profession based quests alongside combat missions (i.e., rather than having to fight unique monsters to accomplish a goal, a player could perhaps be instructed to provide the necessary materials or items to help accomplish that goal) Exploration can come in the form of being able to traverse between points of interest and having a mercenary system in place (a combination of being able to hire an accompanying NPC(s) or the help of others) for escorts into more dangerous territories. And interaction could be forced in such a way that a player may be granted options to pursue leveling in their profession through other means than to bot it. What I mean is to make many recipes time based (as in, you're not allowed to make more than X quantity of something in a certain amount of time) and/or add additional penalties for taking the "bot route". I would call it "gil drain economy", to help alleviate the pressure that gil sellers burden the players with, but it also serves as a double negative solely on gil sellers.

By providing alternative missions and questing routes, you could actually flesh out professions as an entirely separate entity (as it should) and provide for a unique interaction and community. A guild of blacksmiths, for example, or an all-around profession guild, where members help each other with materials, etc. It can be a potential source for a more stable economy and can easily be used to isolate gil sellers (something that cannot be done currently without detailed server transaction logs which bogs the processing down)

Having the ability to eventually own your own store or stand (a lot of time and money) would be the ultimate incentive, as the kinds of incentives combat classes have enjoyed (i.e., wielder of a legendary weapon/armor or renown in PvP/PvE based on guild progression and/or personal rankings)

Maybe we're not there yet in terms of the technology, but I think there are things that can be accomplished now that hasn't either yet been explored or even seriously discussed.

[Malacite]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

Very good points and I agree. I'd like to see more content like Hamlet as well, that tries to include all disciples in a combined effort. They could even give jobs like Armorer limited but unique combat buffs to help out in a pinch, like a party defense buff that prevents gear damage for a short time as well.

Materia needs a complete overhaul as well but that can easily take up its own thread so I'll avoid it for now. It's honestly not *that* hard to get all the crafts up to 50 if you really want to take the time to do it, it just means forgoing anything else that might be fun like raids etc - and quite frankly, I start wanting to shoot myself after about 15 or so minutes of continuous crafting. It was cool at first but now the system is more annoying than interesting. Cooking is especially aggravating as most of the ingredients you need are obtained from harvesting, which like quarrying and spearfishing doesn't allow you to actively target specific items (which again, is another massive issue with the game - as a 37+ BOT I shouldn't have so much trouble trying to get A GOD DAMN FUCKING APPLE FROM A TREE but no, I get everything else instead - literally every other item possible but the damn apples at Emerald Moss.)

I still don't think it's a good idea to allow every player to max every profession though. If you want to pay for extra characters to have multiple maxed crafts fine, whatever - it's still horribly unbalancing IMO, much as I like being able to repair & meld anything.

[Aeni]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

I still don't think it's a good idea to allow every player to max every profession though. If you want to pay for extra characters to have multiple maxed crafts fine, whatever - it's still horribly unbalancing IMO, much as I like being able to repair & meld anything.

Well, if they do, like I said, it would require them to play the game 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the rest of the year to get cap on "most" of the professions ... would require at least 18 mos to accomplish that if at all. I don't know about you, but aside from bots, I don't think there would be more than a handful of people able to do that. The problem with MMOs is that, unless it's like WoW, where you are forced to choose a class (bad design), you're not likely to discourage players from making the attempt. I want designers to decouple the idea that having all classes to max level is a good thing. It's not, it shouldn't be and furthermore, it shouldn't be required. If the game is designed well, balanced well and have a variety of great content, then players can simply ENJOY the path they choose rather than having to constantly switch paths in order to obtain enjoyment from the game. Switching paths would simply be a matter of choice and not a requirement.

[Etra]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

If you want to pay for extra characters to have multiple maxed crafts fine, whatever - it's still horribly unbalancing IMO, much as I like being able to repair & meld anything.

$15 a month gets you 8 characters per server. That's not exactly paying extra.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, if they do, like I said, it would require them to play the game 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the rest of the year to get cap on "most" of the professions ... would require at least 18 mos to accomplish that if at all.

It takes less than a month of casual playing to get all battle classes to 50 in the game right now... It's not exactly the most challenging thing to do. Hell, I got my White Mage to 50 in two weeks and I barely played. If you go the power leveling route, things go by so much quicker, as well. Professions can be a breeze if you use rested exp in conjunction with the company seal items. If anything, making a player have multiple characters to do professions would make it easier on them to level. Let one sit in the inn and get rested exp while you do the other ones. Just cycle in and out while using seal items.

To me, it just seems like you don't want one person to have a monopoly over something. Well, I would agree if recipes were only allowed for one person per server. No one is stopping anyone else from doing the same thing.

[Malacite]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

He's talking about crafting jobs, not DoW/DoM - those are complete joke to level.

I haven't hit the 40's yet so I can't really comment on the final tier, but I seriously doubt it's that bad. Horrendously damaging to your own sanity, but not quite that difficult. All those fancy materia melds aren't coming out of the aether.

Regardless, that's why I'm putting off crafting until Beta - I want to see how the new system works, and hopefully they make it easier. It's not difficult, but it can be horribly tedious and time consuming. At least combat is fun, so you don't notice the time going by as much. Crafting (and gathering when nearing the last few levels of a given camp) is like pulling teeth.

[Aeni]

Re: FFXIV's A Realm Reborn will be 'scalable' for next-gen consoles

To me, it just seems like you don't want one person to have a monopoly over something. Well, I would agree if recipes were only allowed for one person per server. No one is stopping anyone else from doing the same thing.

Actually, this is my point. When certain individuals have a monopoly on possibly every class in existence (which means they got every game breaking patch bug covered), it poses another barrier to entry for other players. What this means is this:

For instance, in a guild, there are 7 players. Only 6 are allowed to raid in a "light party" at a time. If the party healer couldn't make a raid, the seventh person, also a healer, could drop right in. Well, instead of this happening, one of the other players, say, a melee DD, changes to his maxed out healer class, and then brings a "friend" from an outside guild, a melee DD, to fill that void. How is this seventh player, in the same guild, being allowed to participate?

That's just an over simplified case, but I can go into a 100 page thesis if you want me to. The point I'm making (a) leveling a class should require loyalty and dedication (b) having classes akin to a product "made in China" and easily disposable is game breaking.