I think ARR will succeed.Follow

P.S.: In reality, the line between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation is quite blurry.

PS3 is a huge factor. Hell, FFXI on Xbox sold some consoles, and got a number of friends of mine to try ffxi.

Another thing to remember is that SE won't let it fail. They will lose money for years just to prove a point, because they don't have investors to pay back, like swtor and others.

Remember that you're an administrator on a Final Fantasy forum. You are hardly representative of the population.

I think you're missing my point. I was pointing out the fact that you clearly have greater love for the franchise than even a longtime fan like me that you would be in your current position. You are not the "typical" FF fan. If anything, you are an outlier. Therefor, what is true for you is not necessarily extensible to the general population of FF fans, let alone gamers in general.

Oh durn, Thayos, you were on Masamune too? All this time... I never knew

In retrospect, you are probably correct, the sidegrades do allow for more events to be enjoyed without nullifying old rewards you may want to tote around for a long time to come, if for no other reasons than the memories associated with it's acquisition, or it's looks.

I remember being frustrated with the "side-grades" for sooooo long at 75 though, so perhaps that's where I developed that opinion. I guess 'at some point' you need to start fresh, and level cap increases really help that along. I can stand maybe 4 years of sidegrades for the same things, but after a while I'd like to feel like I moved 'forward' instead of 'sideways' (even if the feeling is artificial, and turns into another sidegrade session for the next four years).

My biggest frustration by far with FFXI though, to this day, was the "mid-combat gear-swap" stuff. I think it's horrible design to have someone popping in and out of gear instantly mid combat... not to mention it looks stupid (+1 for blinkmenot). For example, the possibility of starting a cast with fast-cast / haste gear on, then switching to mab / macc gear, and getting the best of all worlds is pretty damned stupid, it created this unnecessary greed where every single person wanted every single item for the off-chance that they might need to swap into it at some point. Or never deciding "whether to attack fast" with melee haste, or "hit harder" with other stats that effect regular hits and/or WS damage because you can maximize everything at once by abusing the swap system. Just dumb. This created extremely lazy gear design, which is why FFXI has so many pieces of gear that people "just don't use" because they couldn't possibly be upgrades. For a game mocked for the "tanaka balance" so much over the years, mid-combat gear-swapping being a core game-play mechanic for so long sure doesn't reflect well on the designers. ****, if it weren't for spellcast, I wouldn't even bother these days. It is my opinion that certain bonuses of AF / Relic / similar gear should at some point become "part" of the character, just like when you unlock weaponskills with certain weapons... there's no need to constantly swap into inferior / crappy gear for TH+1 for example... I don't understand why after 1000 mobs wearing those items they don't just become a permanent stat and eliminate the need for swaps.

I agree completely, it seems like some people really like this system(die heard endgame FFXI players that is), but I hated it. you had to make a macro switching yourself out of entire gear sets for the beginning, middle, and end of all your casts to be 'efficient' as possible, it was really dumb.

that "best of all worlds"idea that gear swapping introduces is to boring. even being able to swap to every elemental stave for each element is kind of silly. but THAT I was ok with.

its when I got to endgame and my friends convinced me that every single part of my gear every cape ring necklace and boot needed to be swapped out every 2 seconds where it got annoying. it's a huge part of FFXI, and I love FFXI, but gear switching is definitely something I didn't like about it

Edited, Mar 1st 2013 11:53am by Poubelle

Edited, Mar 1st 2013 11:55am by Poubelle

I enjoyed gear swapping.

It separated the good players from the mediocre, IMO, and allowed for a greater level customization. I played Blue Mage heavily though, which required 4-5 sets of gear because of the spells and melee. If we couldn't gearswap, that job would have been hugely nerfed because you would have to choose between str and dex for some spells, acc for melee, mind or int for many other spells, and refresh. As Pup, I would regularly swap on gear that allowed me to use triple manuevers without overloading.

Hell, I gear swapped in FFXIV as Bard. The AF just isn't as good as other gear options, so I would swap in a piece of AF for the song buff and then swap it out.

On the other side, gear swapping is annoying and was only essential in parts of FFXI because of design flaws. Forcing players to make tough decisions is what makes a game more engaging.



This is why I hope they allow us to turn AF into materia, to allow us to put these unique bonuses on other gear.

Edited, Mar 1st 2013 12:16pm by Louiscool

this, and mindsets like Louis' are exactly why the gear swapping system was so bad

I do agree that obviously there was a huge difference in efficiency based on how good your gear swapping macros were.

I'm saying that doesn't really make you a pro at the game in my opinion. but yes it did separate efficient players from non efficient ones who didnt want to bother with huge macros for every single action.

I agree it's just a matter of not being a good , fun design choice.

Edited, Mar 1st 2013 12:27pm by Poubelle

You're missing the point entirely, Louis.

The fact that those sets were created was because only of the gear swap mechanic, years down the road. But it was flawed mechanic to begin with, balancing the game off the fact that you could equip whatever you wanted to counter all possible weaknesses. Instead of balancing the game around set equipment that encouraged better teamplay.

Instead of creating a maxed out WS gear for players or several means of reaching haste cap, there should have been better adjustments to older mechanics such as skillchains and magic bursts, that now only have a few tacked on condition appliers to them as the only means to justify them above TP spam.

It was one of many blatantly broken and unbalanced mechanics that actually did more to separate those who cheated the game by using Windower and other 3rd party equipment, than those who played fairly, due to how much of a limiter that 6 line macro restriction the base game still has to this day.

It was not a matter of skill, at all - and this is from someone who did quite a bit more than your average macro swaping.


When I cite FFXI in the negative, especially when it came to misuse of broken mechanics, equipment swamping is at the core of it. It should have been eliminated rather than encouraged - and from there, there could have been an entirely different course of history for that game, that likely would have stabilized a lot higher in numbers than it did. As it is, if you don't have windower (which violates the 3rd party program issue), you're gimping yourself. That's bad mechanics, period.

I think you're villianizing gear-swaps a bit too much, and assuming everyone who swapped used windower and scripts. It didn't limit me at all, as there were macros to switch macro pallettes, etc.

I don't think I'm missing the point at all. A simple game mechanic is at fault for everything you dislike about ffxi, right? Point gotten.



Who is saying it is or should be in 14?

Edited, Mar 1st 2013 12:44pm by Louiscool