What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

[pearlsea]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Enchanting gear is bad. Sure it is an upgrade the first time you get the enchant but after that you are just making up the net change from the last piece of gear you had with an enchant.

[Lmnop]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

I still think things like drawing strength from your undies or even "summoning" the equipment you're bound to (in your inventory) can make sense and is all well and good... if your game makes it canonical. The problem with FFXI is they make no attempt at explaining this stuff. In fact, FFXI is severely lacking in the explanation of PC power. In FF7 and FF8, for instance, materia/GFs weren't just how your character gained power -- they were integral plot points. In 11, they never get around to thoroughly explaining just what it is that makes Moogles able to grant you knowledge and why it doesn't stick with you when you change.

So the short version: I don't mind any feature - even equip swapping - if they rationalize it story-wise.

Also: I like clothing as mostly statless, but I also don't entirely like the idea of wearing heavy armor and taking hits just as well as someone else' tank who designed their character to run around and meat tank naked. So I'd be happy with stats based on classes of armor, with customization within the classes.

[Ellipses]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

So the short version: I don't mind any feature - even equip swapping - if they rationalize it story-wise.

This I can get behind.

To me, the problem with it in FFXI isn't purely mechanical, or purely flavor. It's both. The mechanics of it suck, across the board (because of limited macro space, the inventory limitations, the amount of gear you "need" to swap, target loss, etc.), and the flavor of it just makes no damn sense.

I could even see, and enjoy, a game where it wasn't universal. Something where certain classes do it, because their armor is the souls of their ancestors, or an Actor class who clothe themselves in the spirit of their role, or whatever. And using different arrows with a bow makes sense (they're in different quivers, you just grab the right one). It doesn't have to be universal, Swap Or Suck, like it is here. If that's going to be the case (limited to certain classes), though, that obviously needs to be balanced against the way other classes work.

There are ways to achieve the same sort of mechanic (temporarily spiking certain stats over others) without it being gear, too, and that's fine. Abilities or consumables/one-shot-at-a-time items do the same thing, and can even maintain the same constraints (quested/purchased, can only have one of each type active, limited space for them).

As for stats on gear... I can see it in some cases. I mean, magic is magic. But that's another thing that really ought to be explained. I do like the idea of visible gear being more cosmetic than functional. For iconic stuff like AF, maybe make the quest reward both an inherent stat boost and a visible armor piece.

[Ziero]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Honestly, I think having stats on armor at all is a bad idea in an MMO. People get so attached to using specific bits for whatever they want, or carrying around extra stuff to look good. I've even heard some MMOs have two equip screens now; one for the equipment that shows up, another for equipment that actually affects your stats. It would be easier to keep armor as PURELY aesthetic; this would also be nice for letting people choose what their characters look like instead of "gaudy mix of whatever works best". Handle stats some other way; merits, skill tree, equipment that doesn't have any model to go with it (minimizes work put into trying to make it look good), etc.

Personally I'd rather attach magical orbs to my character to power them up and have them just WEAR CLOTHING than have pants that inexplicably make me stronger.

That sounds a lot like PSU's system. In that game, your outward appearance was based solely on "clothes" which provided no stats at all, what-so-ever. It was all for looks. But your armor was mainly a "force shield" generator type thing and generally unseen unless you took a hit or stat boosting "accessories" with no graphics at all. However, that didn't mean there was no gear swapping in that game. If you were going up against a fire based monster, you'd want to equip your fire based armor. Or if you were fighting a flying monster, you'd probably want to equip your accuracy accessory. And hell, one of the main features of that game relied on your need to constantly swap weapons around to have the best attacks for the right situation. It was a nice system, too bad the rest of the game sucked.

1) It complicates performing any action, and pretty much forces the player to work almost exclusively with macros.
2) The player ends up having to buy more gear because they can/should use gear for each specific purpose (TP'ing, WS, spells, etc.) This tends to be worse for mages, but even melee can build up quite a ridiculous collection of armor to tote around.
3) Just the idea itself is ridiculous, and beyond most people's sense of suspension of disbelief.

1) In a new game, a better system could easily be made
2) I personally like carrying around multiple sets of armor to enhance each of my capabilities, it also provides more reason to do events and helps liven up a market place as people will often require more then just the gear on their backs to be optimal.
3) This is more or less a matter of opinion, as the entire FF franchise is beyond people's "sense of suspension of disbelief".

The ugly mishmash of clashing gear that has the best combination of stats is definitely the worst case scenario though.

That's really my biggest problem, not the fact that I have to swap gear around, but the fact that a lot of it is just butt ugly.

I'd rather put that effort into beefing up my character, not a piece of metal that doesn't even make sense (WHY DOES THIS SHIRT MAKE MY SWORD HURT MORE?)

The higher quality of the armor you are using fits so well it allows you to put more force into your swing. Never mind the fact that some pieces may have been magically enchanted to allow your strikes to do more damage.

....seriously, explaining stat boosts on armor in story context isn't all that difficult.

Again, I personally have no problems with gear swapping. I like carrying pieces which help me be proficiant at whatever activity I may be involved in. The idea of one set being the be-all, end-all seems rather boring, when in this game even those with the best-of-the-best gear are constantly tweaking and modifying their sets to try and get that "perfect" build. However, that being said, I would actually prefer gear swapping be toned down at least somewhat and the whole "clothes just for look, armor just for stats" bit, as long as they provided plenty of options. Having to swap gear for *every* action you take can be a bit cumbersome and sometimes you just want to look good while you fight.

[Armando]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

1) In a new game, a better system could easily be made

That doesn't change anything though. Unless gear is trivial in that game, or the game comes with some built-in Spellcast-like capabilities to automatically switch your gear when you're performing actions, you'll still have the same problem on your hands - you can (and will be expected to) switch gear for individual actions, and you'll have to rely on macros do to that.

2) I personally like carrying around multiple sets of armor to enhance each of my capabilities, it also provides more reason to do events and helps liven up a market place as people will often require more then just the gear on their backs to be optimal.

But there's a difference. Carrying gear for different situations is all well and good, and I find it to be a positive thing. The difference is that in FFXI's case it's not just carrying gear for each situation, it's also carrying gear for each action that's affected by some stat.

[Elwynn]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Oh, and while fixing the "shirt that makes your sword hurt more" problem, you also have to make sure that it's possible to reasonably put stuff on an auction house. The way things are now, where you either have a +1 or you don't, there are still a lot of items there. Imagine if you had to choose between a range of +1 to +10 or more. Right now about the only thing like that is items with charges, where you can't put them up even after using one charge (bazaar or GTFO), and signed items where the signature is stripped.

[dirtyclown]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

I'd like it if Armor were enchanted with defensive properties only. A story explanation would be sweet too.

[Kailea]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

your asking for explanations to a fantasy game -.- ....yeah


I like gear swapping and stats.... but it should not turn into something that is mandatory like it has in FFXI

[dirtyclown]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

your asking for explanations to a fantasy game -.- ....yeah

Excuse me for liking things that make some sense.

[Kailea]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Excuse me for liking things that make some sense.

again its a fantasy game...... nothing HAS to make sense

[Grissom]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Keep the learning curve the same.

Bring back the crazy difficulty COP gave us, but don't make missions job specific. Luckily I only had a 75whm back in those days.

Continue letting players run the economy. Some people might hate this lol.

Have similar jobs. I really hope they carry over a BST-like job.

Keep Merits.

I hope they put an equal amount of effort into every job instead of a couple or mainly 1 *coughsamcough*. Honestly all the things they gave that job THEN the 2-hand update! Which I loved for my drg but god I believe SAM ruined that and forced them to tone it down.

[Feba]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

again its a fantasy game...... nothing HAS to make sense

No, but it's lazy at best to not explain things. There's a big difference between "Doesn't have to" and "Shouldn't".

[Fliegar]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Personally, I'd rather you not have the option of switching armor in combat. I love the fact that I can be taking a beating, and pulling out another set of plate mail and put it on, all while the monster is hitting me.

[aegina]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

again its a fantasy game...... nothing HAS to make sense

It doesn't have to be "realistic," but it does have to be "believable within this fantasy world." It's called immersion.

After, all, they never bothered to explain how your character switches gear in an instant. If they had, there would be less complaining.

[Feba]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Devil's Advocate, you could take the game FFXI as something of a 'digest' version of Vana'diel. The world is obviously larger than what we see, time passes at an increased rate. Items are also used instantly or nearly instantly, such as food. It could be that the actions we see are just very condensed versions of what actually occurs; such as your characters sitting down for a meal. Of course, that makes the amount of time between attacks even lamer, when you think about it...