New FF14 Interview: What you hated in beta is here to stay

[Gavin]

The thing about the bazaar system that looks bad to me, is the fact that you have to go to everyone's store looking for what you want. No search system seems bad to me... I wonder if they will have little text flags giving you an idea of what kind of gear is available? Like in Aion.

 

On one hand, yah, that could be cool depending on how people set it up. But I always remember the bazaars in FFXI... with like one head of million corn for like 100,000 gil and NOTHING else useful... But if people actually put up good items, then maybe it can be an interesting way to handle the economy.

 

But even as my mind wanders, I think how neat it would be to find a retainer for a really high quality craftsman. Then when you need that type of good, you go right to his or her retainer. In fact, that is how a lot of people sold goods in Star Wars Galaxies. I remember going to specific player cities because I knew I would find what I wanted for reasonable prices.

[Kima wolf]

Yes that's probably what SE is hoping as well, crafters and gatherers get reputations for themselves and build up clients and followings for their wares to where you'll seek out specific retainers.

[Asyria]

A search system would make the bazaar an AH without bidding.

Which is pretty much what AH ares in mmo's. Most people Search for what they want and Buyout the lowest price.

Adding a Search function to the Market Ward would defeat the purpose of giving players a different experience from an AH and it would have all the possible economy-damaging drawbacks of an AH, meaning more money for the wealthy, less for the poor.

 

I feel that simply separating the different wards according to what type of item is sold would be enough, without hurting the system. Those who have the gil and not the patience can buy the first example of the thing they want that they find, others with more patience and/or less gil will simply keep looking for the best deal. This ensures that everyone has a chance to make their sale while everyone still has a chance to get the best price.

 

When they do add an AH, and they said they would, but just not at launch, then those who prefer that will be able to use it. I for one, will probably stick to the bazaar.

[Aveline]

"Hey, everyone ready to go fight this thing?"

 

"Oh crap I forgot my silent oils, potions, and I'm going to need a new sword at my next level. Hang on guys, I need to stop at the Market Wards first. brt in about 45 minutes!"

[Asyria]

Well, that's why you don't shop at the last minute.

Even in WoW Raids, with the AH, people -hate- when their guildies do that and threaten them not to bring them next time if they're not ready when everyone else is.

[Kashemia]

Yeah, I agree with Asyria on this one. Don't blame the game because people can't figure out to be prepared

[Nikolai]

I can't post, I don't have the rights.

Otherwise, I would have posted a while ago, on a lot of topics. ^^;

 

Well, I liked your idea so much that I've taken the liberty of posting it for you. I still haven't fixed whatever problem is stopping me from connecting these days (I swear, I fix one thing and I get a new error!), so I don't really have any new input of my own, so in the meantime, if there's anything you'd like for me to say for you, just let me know.

[Ellia Thorn]

Perhaps someone can clear something up for me, since their seems to be several people in the beta who are posting in this thread. As far as the 48 hour cooldown on guildleves, is there other things to do that would give you xp other then just grinding on mobs for no other reason then xp? People have mentioned story quests, as well as assumed there will likely be other quests that aren't guildleves, so is it safe to assume there will be things to do while waiting for your leve's to come off cooldown, other then just mindless grinding?

[Kima wolf]

Well at the moment that's all you can do is grind, or work on crafting/harvesting, but I believe, possibly they will have other quests not related to leves in the game, because as was pointed out to me they have a entire section for quests in your journal, but don't quote me on that one.

[Asyria]

Well, there's the whole Treasures of the Main thing, and I'm sure there's more story-related things, too.

[Averis]

Also, to add about targeting, you can use the last couple F keys to target certain things. I believe this will work in a group too. It's how it worked in XI. I don't remember which is which, but like F9 might select your character and F10 the nearest npc etc. In XI the low F numbers were party members, which you needed to use if you were a healer (which I was). I haven't grouped yet in XIV, so I haven't tested it. Try them out, though, and it might help a bit.

[Asyria]

Well, the Controls for targeting are:

Tab: cycle through targets (forward)

Shift+Tab: cycle through targets (reverse)

F9: target self

F11: target nearby characters

F12: target party members

Numpad 0: cycle through targets (forward)

 

This is from the Controls pages on the beta website.

[Eva]

In FF11, F8 used to target the closest enemy. Hopefully they'll be adding that one in soon as well.

[Magnus]

Looking over "several" post about the controls with the keyboard and mouse. Have any of the testers here tried the game with a controller? I noticed in the beta manual it's actually recommended. Does it change the feel of the game? I can imagine the hassle of setting down the controller to type will turn off many RPers. However if it makes Battles flow better there are a few that will keep one on the side to use.

[Asyria]

I used a controller in Champions Online, in FF XIV I'm just using a keyboard. I could see the controller being good, but it wouldn't make battles faster. What makes battle "slow" (and I don't think they're slow at all) is having a stamina bar and it running out.

[Kylin]

I've used a controller. Pretty much just like FFXI in that regard. You can change your button settings as well in the config menu.

 

I've always used a controller (and actually quit MMO's like Everquest II because they weren't gamepad friendly >.>--that's right, I hate keyboard/mouse usage ). Never have much problems RPing while using it. Autorun ftw!

[Magnus]

Oh ok. I was thinking more along the lines of navigating menus. The stamina bar seems more like a resource management learning curve we will have work with. It gives us more time to pause and say "That is a really ugly monster"

[Aveline]

Yes I've also used a controller and currently it works much better than the keyboard. However, I'm supposed to be testing a PC game, not a PS3-to-PC-shoddy-port, so I've been exclusively working with the keyboard and leaving feedback about it. If they want to bring this game to success in the US, they are going to need to take into consideration the vastly different playing styles between Japanese and US gamers. Stuff like this is why they need an anthropologist on their staff, damnit. (*sends resume to S-E* )

[Satrina]

 

Will we get any sort of mana regeneration abilities and/or items?

"We're still working on this so we will make some small updates and improvements in the future, but at the same time we think managing mana should be difficult and a challenge to the players." (Translation: mages are fucked)

"

 

 

Fight near crystals if you're a mage, melee characters should be going further out into the field if they want to grind because we can regen hp, casters should be hanging near the crystal so when they deplete their mp they can just refill again.

 

 

*They will be implementing an Auction House, but not right away because they really want us to give Market Wards (the ones universally loathed by all beta testers) a chance.

 

I'm fine with this. The second the AH is put into the game, RMT will swoop in and ruin the economy,ala Aion style. I would rather go a few months with players stabilizing the economy through trades.

[Tadir]

It takes quite a while for me to run out of mp while casting. I don't see it as that much of an issue. By the time i'm out of mana I can use my regen. By the time I run out again it's been more than half an hour and can use it again.

[Asyria]

Thaumaturges get mana regen abilities, I don't think Conjurers do.. or do they?

[Tadir]

We do.

[Averis]

I'm fine with this. The second the AH is put into the game' date=' RMT will swoop in and ruin the economy,ala Aion style. I would rather go a few months with players stabilizing the economy through trades.[/quote']

 

Did anyone here play Lineage 2? It was/is notoriously one of the worst RMT games out there and they work on a bazaar system (though, I think they may have added a limited AH recently).

 

The RMT people controlled the market because they would buy low and sell high, just like you do on the AH. Since you had to go through a crap load of bazaars to find what you wanted, half the time you'd find it at an insane price... and because it was nearly impossible to find a competing price you'd buy it or not get it. It wasn't like people with a certain item would cluster together to compete (it did happen sometimes, mostly with consumables though). So many people bought gold, got the item at a jacked up price which was essentially giving the gold back to the RMT so they could sell it to some other sap.

 

Eventually, they did add a limited search function. Since all bazaars were able to type a little message of what they were selling that showed over the character's head, you could then search for a term and it would highlight the signs. That was a big help, but it just made it easier for the RMT to buy up the good stuff and sell it high. XIV so far has no signs, but a bunch of rooms with creepy people standing around. You have no idea what they are selling and it could take you hours to find what you want, which I guess is a good thing since it can take the same time for an RMT person to find something. But with all this effort to stop RMT, all you're doing is making it hard for everyone else. There is really no easy answer. The RMT people make a living off this. They have tons of people that just do this all day long. You won't deter them this easily, unfortunately.

 

Honestly, I don't think one system is better than the other, but I know people have a strong feeling on this and I'm not trying to start an argument. I just don't think Bazaars will stop RMT especially if L2 is any indication as they were alive and well there to the point that you pretty much HAD to buy gold if you wanted to succeed.

 

Granted L2 had other issues, such as you couldn't get armor from drops (typically) and higher level armor could only be crafted by one race, which was stupid.

[Aveline]

Why is RMT on the AH even an issue? S-E handled this eventually with the RMT taskforce in FFXI, and I see no reason why they can't handle it the same way in XIV. Knowing there will be an AH "eventually" makes me happy enough to still consider buying the game. (I would not even consider playing it if I knew I was going to be condemned to slogging through bazaar hell every time I needed to buy something)

 

RMT is going to be a problem in any game, no matter what. There is no magic fix to make them go away, and limiting player convenience certainly isn't the way to go about it.

[Garaf]

Bazaar

I have, on occasion, taken an hour or so and just browsed the Market and enjoyed it. On one or two occasions I was looking for a specific this or that but generally I was just poking around. It has a much more... authentic feel to it than visiting an AH. About the only change I'd like SE to implement (that I could see having any chance of happening) would be limiting the number of retainers in each zone. Currently everyone crowds into the first zone on the list and it becomes difficult to even move around inside the Market. The retainers are packed so densely that the "render cap" is reached within a couple yards of your character. You wind up moving 4-5 times just to get all/most of the retainers in a single room to render.

 

I would very much like to see some sort of sorting mechanism as has been suggested, but I can't really see SE implementing one. I could see the player community adopting some sorting standards eventually (e.g. East Wards for Gear, North Wards for Crafting, West Wards for consumables, etc) but there'd need to be some maturing before that happens. At a guess, the AH would likely be fully implemented by then.

 

Mouse/Gamepad/Keyboard

After going through all the necessary fiddling to get a PS3 controller working on my PC I gave FFXIV a shot with the Gamepad for a few hours and then went back to the keyboard. Anecdotally I seem to be the only one who prefers the keyboard to the Gamepad, but the latter just felt awkward and cumbersome. Particularly with all the menus that are pervasive throughout the entire interface. The mouse would handle these menus pretty well but for some reason there's a noticeable mouse-lag anytime menus or panes (like inventory) are up.

 

Combat Speed

I noticed they sped up the combat animations and stamina bar with the last major update and that's made battle flow even faster and I've found it to be quite enjoyable. I think any more fiddling would just throw it off though.

 

Guildleves

I think I can understand why SE has the 48 hour cooldown between guildleves, but I don't see it (in and of itself) encouraging any partying. People will party if they were going to anyway, but not just to accomplish leves. It does have merit in "encouraging" people to do more than just regional leves (battlecraft, fieldcraft, or factional) or localleves (crafting, has a separate cooldown from regional leves) to enjoy the game. Things such as browsing the markets, exploring the terrain, grinding, working on gathering/crafting, or maybe even RPing. But while there may be merit for the existence of the cooldown, I wouldn't say that the length of it is justified. I'd like to see it halved to 24 hours, or even taken down to 12 hours if necessary. I'd wager this would eventually happen, but probably not until some months after launch.