What Games are you playing 2015?

[Tide]

I definitely don't agree with Toughness antihype, a lot of bosses lategame and in the SG have damage which can OHKO/be very scary without Toughness and far easier to deal with if you do. It's much better than most offensive skills, you can pretty much predict who finds bosses like Odin competent or not based on whether they have Toughness yet, not based on any other skills.

Yeah, the keyword is 'more time'. I wouldn't expect people on a first playthrough to necessarily know about all the dumb ways in which you can pump up your damage. But as you've sorta alluded, on crystal+++ runs, things do change which is more what I was getting at in general. As you get more experienced with the game, toughness becomes less useful because you know more about AI attack ranges, limit levels to dodge SC, elements to get around GM/ AoE and so on. If you are going to get one rounded regardless, you might as well find some way to make a fight more efficient so you have less chances of screwing up. Its an excellent crutch otherwise for the first several playthroughs for sure and probably gamebreaking since balancing your challenge around whether or not a player may have learnt a 2x durability skill that is more or less permanent in battle is kinda tricky (see: Super Laggy RPG).

In terms of offensive skills though, several of them are quite good universally, although not game breaking. Higher crystal runs/speedruns and what not find that using less party members is more effective since it allows you to better focusing of your AP as well as accessories for boosting. As such, skills such as Adversity and Solitary Struggle are quite powerful. Fists of Iron is also very good as it costs only 2 CP. Giant Killer/Magician Slayer catches most dangerous enemy types, so combining the two of them + tertiary skill is also an option. In battle then, you use 2 people only and have them operate alone for greater maneuverability: one as support and the other for offense. This works quite well because you can stack elemental protection on your support to tank through AoE/GM and have other secondary skills like Free Item that are highly beneficial but not very good offensively.

[Captain K]

Terraint

You win the argument because you combined a job skill with taint.

Mass Effect:  Playing this for the first time.  Picked Infiltrator as my class.  My character has an evil mustache and is a dick to everyone, but they admire my dickish ways and simply label me a renegade.  Despite being a war hero, Shepard has apparently never fired a gun before.  The onset of Parkinson's disease makes using a sniper rifle a hilaribad choice.

Finally got off the Citadel and am now exploring the galaxy while playing Moon Patrol.

[Fenrir]

Yeah Reiska, I don't doubt that FF14 is probably fine as a MMORPG.

In general I think "RPG + multiplayer" is certainly a winning combination, and that MMORPGs are succesful thanks to it (and despite all their massive problems)
I don't know how they could make them good and I'm not really the right person for it.


If I could have unlimited money to make FF14 something I think I'd like, I'd do something like:

- Fast grind to max level, with very small incentives to level every job and a lot of options to have skills from one job transfer to another one
- Heavy randomization of enemy placements, enemies (and bosses) are roaming around. The difficulty of bosses is lower, though. The game would be less about the perfect execution of a plan made in advance, and more about handling whatever the game's throwing at you at the moment the best way you can. The game would feel more lively and grinding spots would be dead.
- Faster battles too
- Battles like FF12 except controlling one character
- Cool skills like Thief and Mix added
- HP/MP healing similar to Dark Souls Estus, can potentially be upgraded
- Quests chosen from a menu and auto completed
- Obviously Matsuno writes the story,  FF12 bestiary guy and Lost Odyssey novels guy hired write the lore

I'd have probably tried the Secret World but I don't have a good enough PC to run it

[Reiska]

That's (modern) MMOs in general.  I hate to bring it up again but City of Heroes is literally the only MMO I ever played that _wasn't_ like this, and only because being set in the modern day instead of being in a medieval-ish fantasy world gave them the narrative "out" of your questgivers having a cell phone, so the extent of your traveling was super-jumping or whatever from mission door to mission door.

Most of the games I'm familiar with only have you returning to the last hub for repeatable quests, if they do so at all.  Even WoW has a fair number of objectives that auto-complete and give rewards out on the last kill now, or barring that, you turn in at the next questing hub.  What is your frame of reference, in terms of things you've played?

CoH, FF11, WoW (through Mists), and FF14.  FF11 of course barely has quests.  WoW started doing what you mention in Mists, but AFAIK they didn't rework old quests to that standard, maybe that's changed since?  FF14 is a bit special since the questing hub doesn't move for like 20 levels, which probably contributes to that feeling of backtracking.  Even in the game's community it's a running joke how often you get sent back to the Waking Sands/Rising Stones, I mean.  CoH gave its questgivers cellphones, so when you finished a quest you could just call them for the next one.

[Reiska]

Yeah Reiska, I don't doubt that FF14 is probably fine as a MMORPG.

In general I think "RPG + multiplayer" is certainly a winning combination, and that MMORPGs are succesful thanks to it (and despite all their massive problems)
I don't know how they could make them good and I'm not really the right person for it.


If I could have unlimited money to make FF14 something I think I'd like, I'd do something like:

- Fast grind to max level, with very small incentives to level every job and a lot of options to have skills from one job transfer to another one
- Heavy randomization of enemy placements, enemies (and bosses) are roaming around. The difficulty of bosses is lower, though. The game would be less about the perfect execution of a plan made in advance, and more about handling whatever the game's throwing at you at the moment the best way you can. The game would feel more lively and grinding spots would be dead.
- Faster battles too
- Battles like FF12 except controlling one character
- Cool skills like Thief and Mix added
- HP/MP healing similar to Dark Souls Estus, can potentially be upgraded
- Quests chosen from a menu and auto completed
- Obviously Matsuno writes the story,  FF12 bestiary guy and Lost Odyssey novels guy hired write the lore

I'd have probably tried the Secret World but I don't have a good enough PC to run it

It's worth noting that XIV actually does strongly incentivize leveling other classes, at least if you want to do anything at the level cap.  There *are* cross-class abilities and at least some of them really aren't skippable (e.g. only one of the tank classes actually gets Provoke, the other two have to get it by cross-classing it). 

Otherwise, what you described actually sounds almost exactly like City of Heroes.  God, I miss that game.  CoH was a game all about mowing through massive waves of thugs and feeling awesome about how much ass you were kicking, very appropriately for the genre it was representing.  It's probably historically most notable for the fact that it was reasonably successful as an MMO for something like six or seven years with no endgame raid content whatsoever; it was a rare MMO where the game was about the journey to the level cap, not what you did once you got there.  They *did* eventually add raiding stuff, but as the genre goes it was very lightweight; like, the hardest raid in the game at the time the shutdown came around was probably still easier than your typical WoW LFR instance.

If someone bought the rights to City of Heroes and put it back up, or got a private server working or the like, I would drop FF14 in a fucking heartbeat.  It wasn't a perfect game; in fact, it was actually pretty grindy if you really thought about it.  It just did a really smooth job of hiding how grindy it was because you were having a blast beating the shit out of twenty dudes at once with a bunch of people.

It's also the only MMO I can say I never had an unpleasant pick-up group experience in.

[Captain K]

It's also the only MMO I can say I never had an unpleasant pick-up group experience in.

I played it for about a month with a free trial.  The Heroes players were all dicks, but the Villains were very helpful!

[Reiska]

It did vary somewhat by server.  Freedom server admittedly had a reputation for toxic players, whereas Virtue (which is where I played) was pretty chill.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

CoH, FF11, WoW (through Mists), and FF14.  FF11 of course barely has quests.  WoW started doing what you mention in Mists, but AFAIK they didn't rework old quests to that standard, maybe that's changed since?  FF14 is a bit special since the questing hub doesn't move for like 20 levels, which probably contributes to that feeling of backtracking.  Even in the game's community it's a running joke how often you get sent back to the Waking Sands/Rising Stones, I mean.  CoH gave its questgivers cellphones, so when you finished a quest you could just call them for the next one.

Remote communication in quests actually went in with Cata, Blizzard just decided to stop trying to justify it so much in Mists and they decided to go with what was fun and made questing more enjoyable.  With WoD, they're far less interested in explaining who is giving you the 13g for finishing the area mission or why you automatically get it from walking into a region because, as they established in late Cataclysm, all player characters are psychic (which also explains zonewide chat).  Unsurprisingly this shift came just as several other games came onto the market that all had ways to communicate with most questgivers without doubling back.

Blizz has always been willing to borrow ideas, especially in the way they structure their questing, that work from other games that are less successful, which would be stealing if they weren't so good at figuring out how to vary it just enough that it's not.  Still, your take makes sense if that's your frame of reference.  In terms of design iterations that is an enormous goddamn jump from, other than WoW, a niche game that always did its own thing in CoH and FF11 which is a fucking abortion of a game to FF14.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Here Comes The Autobattle Again - Welp, got myself started on Yuna's event and blew all my Mythril on her banner. No rarity-5 armor, but I got Wakka's Official Ball and two Heat Lances. Also a decent 4-star rod and a 4-star Black Robe, so I can't really complain.

EDIT: This mostly means that Wakka's spot for the long-term is even more guaranteed, since Status Reels is an awesome SB and the Official Ball is also an excellent weapon. I can also use the Heat Lances for a superior option for Balthier, since hey 6-rarity equip post-combine. I'm already at three character-unique equips and counting, this is kinda nuts. Funnily enough, I may just wait for the Selphie/Quistis event for another pull, since it sounds like it has more good mage equips, gives more time for the next batch of dungeons to kick in and Yuna's Magistral Rod isn't that great anyway (the SB is kinda generic). Regardless, my haul's looking pretty good, defensive equipment aside.

[Scar]

I think I'm going to wait in sabin and edgar's event for another relic draw. I'm just about done with Yuna classic, but I ran out of stamina right before seymour.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Also putting away at Yuna's event. Did a relic pull but got nothing but four star crap. Oh well.

More importantly...

Pokken Torunament! It's been out in Japan for less than twelve hours, but it looks like they don't have any newcomer fighters that weren't accounted for already. The eight playables are Pikachu, Lucario, Charizard, Gardevoir, Suicune, Gengar, Machamp, and Weavile. Each of them plays pretty differently so that's good at least but I can't help but to want a few more. The game looks great and plays smoothly though I've only tried a couple of rounds so far. The arcade game runs on a card-account system so that you can level up your Mon and gain new accessories and skills a la Dissidia. Because of this, there is the possibility of unlocking more characters but no confirmation on that yet.

The controller is a weird addition but it works fine. I like it better than the giant joysticks most arcades use honestly. It just needs a freakin thumb sized analog stick. Seriously a D Pad?

Still fun. Looking forward to playing it some more after work when I can stop by the arcade.

[Grefter]

If you want to get technical, Burning Crusade had quests where you summon a hologram to do hand ins.  It ain't got shit in CoX' mobile phones or radio missions, but they toyed with the tech early on.

[DjinnAndTonic]

FFRK: Yuna GET. Instaegged up to level 49. Holy crap she's really good. Fits into any party and I don't even have her unique weapons.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Autobattle Intruders - Got Yuna, instaegged her up all the way to L50 and beelined for her Memory Crystal. Zero regrets. In other news, L56 Tidus with a Genji Armor has more trouble staying alive than front-row L56 Balthier with a Monk Robe. Um yeah, he's going back to the bench once I'm done with this event. Meanwhile, I'm going to at least get Diara to R2, since it's gonna be a huge help on this event and it starts at 4 uses. 

[DjinnAndTonic]

People keep ragging on Tidus, but I got lucky and got his 5* weapon and holy shit is Spiral Cut a useful thing to be able to constantly spam. It is the highest physical damage out of a physical Soul Break at this point, but it also happens to be MT, unlike Squall/Cloud/Tifa (the other high-multiplier physical soul break PCs) so Tidus definitely isn't useless. Also, I happen to have like four 5*-swords while I have a dearth of other weapon types (like 5* staves/rods, I just want ONE, come ON, RNG.)

He just slots into my party well. Spiral Cut is definitely outdamaging Vivi too. (I really want Vivi's Soul Break weapon, Snow you are a jerk.)

[Scar]

Teeedus isn't bad. Even his default sb is decent.

But he's maxed and I hate wasting a spot because you know wasting experience and such.

This event hasn't been too bad so far. I gave Yuna my mystic veil so her sb isn't total ass.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

People keep ragging on Tidus, but I got lucky and got his 5* weapon and holy shit is Spiral Cut a useful thing to be able to constantly spam. It is the highest physical damage out of a physical Soul Break at this point, but it also happens to be MT, unlike Squall/Cloud/Tifa (the other high-multiplier physical soul break PCs) so Tidus definitely isn't useless. Also, I happen to have like four 5*-swords while I have a dearth of other weapon types (like 5* staves/rods, I just want ONE, come ON, RNG.)

He just slots into my party well. Spiral Cut is definitely outdamaging Vivi too. (I really want Vivi's Soul Break weapon, Snow you are a jerk.)

In all fairness, I was ragging out of a circumstancial coincidence (Tidus has better pdef and HP than Balthier, after all, but for some reason enemies target Tidus a lot more argh). I'm using Balthy over Tidus in normal dungeoning right now mostly because I used my spare 5-star sword to upgrade Cloud's weapon to R6, and my best substitute is a R4 FFX sword (which at least happens to be a nice boon for this event) while I have had a maxed Golden Spear in my inventory for ages and I'm about to forge a rarity-6 Heat Lance. As for now, Tidus, all things equal (factoring in SB weapons) is a bit better than Balthy anyway because Thief skills haven't rolled in yet and nobody has rarity-5 skills to use (plus, Tidus' SBs are clearly superior). Regardless, Tidus will eventually fade into unnotability due to nothing in Celerity 5 skillset being all that interesting even in JP, while Thief 4 will be a hotly disputed niche (I expect Locke to stumble his way up once his MC and Thief skills begin to roll in).

Regarding rods and staves: Selphie/Quistis event next week might help you a bit, since both of them are mages. Quistis' weapon is a -whip-, though, which would require you to use either her or RYDIA. About Vivi's Oak Staff, excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, princess, come back when the Eiko event rolls in.

[Fenrir]

I am using Djinn's Tidus SB so much that I am basically paying Djinn's virtual rent.
Otherwise yeah, Tidus is pretty subpar.

I think I'm ready for the upcoming mage meta, thanks to Lenna's wand, Aeris' stick and Rinoa's thing. Now I just need Rinoa, or Aeris. Yeah.

I have 70 mithril but I'm finally saving up instead of spending it all immediately. I'm going to spend all of it the next time a 5* gun comes around, I want Irvine in my dream team. I love that cowboy hat and all, but he's just unusable without a gun.
Steiner, Seifer and Auron have HOT sprites too, might spend mithril on them. Now that I have a pretty strong five men team, my willingness to spend mithril on pulls is directly proportional to the sprite hotness of the character in the current banner.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

That's pretty salutable as far as strategies go, Fenny. I'm tempted to use Quistis/Selphie myself because their sprites are kinda adorkable (particularly Selphie's), but that all depends on whether I get them their unique weapons, their stats and skillsets not all that scorching. Steiner sounds like a nice addition when Taunt sweeps in for certain setups, though.

[Fenrir]

Steiner has BULK.
Hmm. Selphie's cool, but I don't really like Quistis' sprite. A shame. She looks hunched forward, and I don't like that hair.
He's old news now but I still really like Josef. Bald + Poncho ? Yes. Never getting tired of him.

(Here is every sprite)
http://chapter731.net/ffrk/
Edit: I changed the link, here is REALLY EVERY sprite

One thing we don't mention is synergy mattering. It makes every core character worse (... Yeah) but I think it also makes FF1-2-3 characters worse:  DeNa knows it would get 1000x less money from making a FF2 event about that dragoon guy rather than making a FF7 event about Tifa. So we're nearly guaranteed to get way more events from the most popular games in the series.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Synergy bonuses do lead to one piece I like in event design, though: every event hands you low to mid-end equips in multiples for upgrading and combining. A combined 3-rarity equip with synergy bonuses is almost as good as a maxed natural 5 without synergy on average, which at least lets people who get screwed by gatcha-RNG have a fairer shot at the elite fights - and can get used for realm synergy on maingame dungeons as well. It's a nice acessibility nod.

[Scar]

Looking foward to steiner because I need a new magic sword user.

Zack looks like sex. Golbez should be fun.

Vaan can go burn in hell.

[Fenrir]

Synergy bonuses do lead to one piece I like in event design, though: every event hands you low to mid-end equips in multiples for upgrading and combining. A combined 3-rarity equip with synergy bonuses is almost as good as a maxed natural 5 without synergy on average, which at least lets people who get screwed by gatcha-RNG have a fairer shot at the elite fights - and can get used for realm synergy on maingame dungeons as well. It's a nice acessibility nod.

Yeah it's pretty good.
How many more fencing sabres are we going to get, though?


Materia doesn't really feel like a good mechanic... We cared about them for 1 week, but now we've got all the best ones (Auto-Haste, magic regen) and don't care anymore since we only use five and almost never switch. I mean, I'm still looking forward to Josef's RM2, but that's about it.


Edit: Ashe's sprite really looks weird.  I would never have recognized her.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I know I am late to the party probably but that Red XIII sprite is badass. Also SE continues to fail at making Warrior of Light look anything but awful.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Well, WoL would have to not be an awful aesthetic concept to begin with. Also, the sprite work for the later FFs is one of my favorite parts of the game. PALMER'S BATTLE SPRITE SKIPS RIGHT AND LEFT.

And, for Record Materia, I think unlocking a second slot would be nice. Most of the dominating ones are way overcentralizing (you're never -not- using Mana Spring and Concentration II on a mage unless you're running an EX++ boss fight, for instance), and the other ones just can't justify the trade-off.