Various video game stuff not deserving its own thread

[WaterMage]

Is FF11 a gear farming cooldown managing boredom?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Is FF11 a gear farming cooldown managing boredom?

You should have joined us on our playthrough through FF11 Horizon last year. You literally cannot solo level on same level mobs past level 10, they will out DPS you, you have to level up in a party. Hiking through a vast dangerous wilderness, sneaking through caves to accomplish a mission. It was fun.

[WaterMage]

Is FF11 a gear farming cooldown managing boredom?

You should have joined us on our playthrough through FF11 Horizon last year. You literally cannot solo level on same level mobs past level 10, they will out DPS you, you have to level up in a party. Hiking through a vast dangerous wilderness, sneaking through caves to accomplish a mission. It was fun.

I mean is my character a soulless clone of everyone else that took the same class? Or a gear manequin?

[rusty_shackleford]

FFXI live has trusts so you can solo just fine, it was fun enough to play the story content
yes the classes are very different @WaterMage

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Is FF11 a gear farming cooldown managing boredom?

You should have joined us on our playthrough through FF11 Horizon last year. You literally cannot solo level on same level mobs past level 10, they will out DPS you, you have to level up in a party. Hiking through a vast dangerous wilderness, sneaking through caves to accomplish a mission. It was fun.

I mean is my character a soulless clone of everyone else that took the same class? Or a gear manequin?

Yes, the classes played differently from each other. It's not like FF14 where almost everyone except red mage and black mage plays identically.

On Retail FF11 I initially levelled as a Red Mage intending to sub it as summoner. As a Red Mage you get access to invisibility spells that cost MP which you easily regen just by sitting down for a minute. You can cast invisibility spells and safely stealth through almost anywhere, which is huge because by default it's a really dangerous world where you want to be travelling in the safety of a full party, and even then you would have to be constantly chugging expensive short duration invisibility potions which add up quick.

Once I had levelled RDM enough, I then switched to Summoner. I gained an usually large mana pool which allowed me to keep my big summons out for a long time. You get to pick between several different elemental summons that have different abilities. You commonly want to whip out Garuda, Shiva, and Titan and have them cast their AoE defensive buffs. You had to journey around the world and fight the summons to obtain them. Once you get all of the base summons and go through a long questline, you can then fight and obtain the big wolf summon Fenrir. He was my most favorite summon design and it was really fun to run around with him and sic him on mobs and command him to use Eclipse Bite to instantly kill a normal boss or chunk a boss for 60% of its HP bar. I also had RDM equipped as a subjob so I could use the stealth spells, which was great.

On Horizon I started off as a warrior. You do big damage and you have a taunt, but due to the way aggro works in FF11, whoever is dealing the most damage will generally pull aggro regardless of who is spamming the taunt unless you are wearing gear that amplifies aggro. I played a Tarutaru who has lower HP than the other races, and when the server launched the economy was expensive so I couldn't afford to buy good enough armor. What that means is that I had to hold my big damage buttons until when a mob was low HP before bursting and finishing it off.

Later on, I unlocked Dragoon, which gets a wyvern pet. The Wyvern mode has three different types of functionality depending on which three categories of jobs you equip as a subjob. One cool Dragoon build I researched on old FF11 forums is that you can do a Dragoon/Red Mage, which allows the wyvern's breath attack to trigger when you cast a spell, and the wyvern breath can heal your lowest HP party member. Red Mage has a fast cast trait and a cheap spell called poison. There is also dragoon artifact equipment that amplifies the healing potency of your wyvern breath, and you can instantly swap gearsets in combat. So a DRG/RDM can become a healer, pressing a macro to swap gearsets and fast cast poison to trigger a powerful wyvern healing breath before swapping back to your other gearset. Not quite as good as a white mage but still viable.

A year or two later when I introduced the HQ to FF11 Horizon, I unlocked Dark Knight and began levelling that job up. Dark Knight is different variation of the heavy armored melee damage dealer that warrior is. DRK has access to some spells, (which I didn't use often because I didn't have that much money to buy the spell scrolls or good spell damage amplifying gear), which is mainly useful in allowing you to cast the cheap poison spell and pull a target from afar. Dark Knight has abilities about trading HP for damage or stealing HP from targets. With the Souleater ability active, you will consume HP to deal MUCH more damage. It is quite addictive, but again because this is a game where generally whoever is dealing the most damage will get aggro, I had to be careful. But DRK also has a 2 hour cooldown lifesteal ability that causes your attacks to drain HP from the target, which is amazing for saving your bacon if you catch aggro and balances out the Souleater HP drain. You can mess up that mob. It's super fun.

I also levelled up Samurai and Ninja as subjobs for DRK. Samurai increases your TP gain (resource you get from autoattacking and taking damage, is spent on weaponskills). So it increases the damage you deal. It also gives you the Third Eye ability on a short cooldown which allows you to dodge one incoming attack, which also really helps for when you accidentally rip aggro. From research, with good enough gear a DRK/SAM can effectively tank. Ninja allows you to dual wield single handed weapons like axes or swords. It is also allows you to stealth, which ofcourse saves on your consumables bill everytime you have to go somewhere.



I haven't played the other jobs but they have unique things to them:

Thief has an ability called Flee that allows them to run fast for a while. This is huge because in FF11, mobs slightly outrun you, so if you pull a same level mob you are in danger of dying and delevelling unless you have a party to save you or you can get to a zone boundary in time. Thieves can also increase the droprate of items for the party. Thieves can also equip a ranged weapon and are thus good in farming parties for pulling mobs.

White Mage is the dedicated healer class, and can also teleport the party to a few spots around the world.

Black Mage can cause elemental bursts. In FF11, if the melee characters combo their weaponskills together, that burst can then be detonated with a magic spell and cause big damage (particularly against the mob's elemental vulnerability). Other classes can do this too like a Dragoon's Wyvern breath or a Dark Knight's spells, but a BLM will be the most potent and likely to do it. Black Mages also have a hearthstone spell that allows them to teleport back to their home point.

Beastmasters can charm mobs in the zone for a time and fight with them. The pets are not quite permanent like WoW hunter pets. A beastmaster's DPS is split between his own attacks and the pet's, which means your character has half the aggro of other DPS characters. I remember when FF11 Horizon launched and I used /sea to find out who the highest levelled characters on the server were. While most of us who were no lifing the game where just hitting the level 30s, there was one party of players who was way out ahead of everyone else in the 60s. A party of a paladin, a white mage, and four beastmasters. Beastmasters don't need good gear for their tamed pet to deal good damage, so in the fresh economy where everybody was broke, they were pooling their resources into funding the paladin and the white mage. If the paladin died, the other four tamed mobs would take the aggro and stall while the rest of the party zoned. That's how they were able to push so far ahead at launch with so few resources. Beastmasters are also the only class that can effectively solo level, because of the pet.

[J1M]

Is FF11 a gear farming cooldown managing boredom?

You should have joined us on our playthrough through FF11 Horizon last year. You literally cannot solo level on same level mobs past level 10, they will out DPS you, you have to level up in a party. Hiking through a vast dangerous wilderness, sneaking through caves to accomplish a mission. It was fun.

I mean is my character a soulless clone of everyone else that took the same class? Or a gear manequin?

Characters of the same class have the same abilities. There is a nontrivial choice of subclass which usually has more than one viable option depending on class and level.

I would say that the game is less about "self expression" or whatever through talent choices and more about climbing a mountain as a team.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

If there was one major issue with FF11's classes, is that the game is designed around playing with a party so you need a healer, but then your healer selection is extremely limited. The only initial option you get is White Mage, who spends most of his time off to the side dressed in robes and kneeling to regen MP, and then occasionally throwing sparkles at people before kneeling again. Not appealing. I researched a couple builds where you could turn melee characters into healers with /RDM or /DNC, but you have to do more work convincing people to go along with that rather than just doing the easy thing of defaulting to a WHM, and you would also have to be much further along into the game to unlock those build possibilities. Puppetmaster's pet could heal while you fought, but was locked to an expansion that Horizon didn't have yet (if ever). The way I saw it, one unfortunate guy was going to have to play the unfun uncool job so everyone else could have fun. Most other MMOs suffer this somewhat too with healers being unappealing and unenjoyable to me, but in those games you only need healers for instanced content which you only do some of the time, not for almost all of the game.

[J1M]

If there was one major issue with FF11's classes, is that the game is designed around playing with a party so you need a healer, but then your healer selection is extremely limited. The only initial option you get is White Mage, who spends most of his time off to the side dressed in robes and kneeling to regen MP, and then occasionally throwing sparkles at people before kneeling again. Not appealing. I researched a couple builds where you could turn melee characters into healers with /RDM or /DNC, but you have to do more work convincing people to go along with that rather than just doing the easy thing of defaulting to a WHM, and you would also have to be much further along into the game to unlock those build possibilities. The way I saw it, one unfortunate guy was going to have to play the unfun uncool job so everyone else could have fun. Most other MMOs suffer this somewhat too with healers being unappealing and unenjoyable to me, but in those games you only need healers for instanced content which you only do some of the time, not for almost all of the game.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed healing in FFXI more than other games so I benefited from this. If you have a friend group and this seems like a deal breaker, it might not be. I think that's in part because you can't do everything solo (or solo faster) by playing a non-healer role like in WoW or other games. In FFXI, everyone needs a party so that drawback to being a healer is eliminated.

[DemoGraph]

HD games: issues across the board. Quality of the games, marketing, ailing franchises, etc.

ailing franchises

Let me check what brands they developed (and probably own now), because I honestly don't know [https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Список_игр_Square_Enix]:
- Deus Ex
- Final Fantasy
- Thief
- Hitman
- Valkyrie Profile
- Fullmetal Alchemist
- X of mana

ailing franchises

Criticisms of SE's medium term plans
- Focus on reboots and sequels rather than new flagship games.
- SE isn't showing KPIs or promising to use them to identify problems and improve.
- SE has not explained why they are keeping these core non gaming businesses around like publishing, or what their plans are to develop it.
- SE hasn't explained why they missed the optimal window of opportunity to buy back shares.

That minority investor is a dumb Yankee, isn't he?

Edit. Nice pdf, though, @Val the Moofia Boss

[DemoGraph]

Edit. Nice pdf, though, @Val the Moofia Boss

To continue. I actually got interested and looked at data. Square seems to be doing, well, okay?
They've changed the president 2 years ago (slide 12 in presentation), and the new president, it seems, began to clean up the farm. Of course, profitability decreased somewhat, it's inevitable. I would've expected that.
But generally they're doing what they were doing for the last 20 years or so. Here're the pics with a selection of indicators.

► Show Spoiler

Also, some criticism is completely outlandish.
Slide 56. New IPs are harshly criticized. -- Well, no wonder then that the management mostly sticks to the old ones, huh?
Slide 63. It is evident that SD games overly rely on saturated domestic market. -- Maybe it's because of 30% Apple store cut and similar Yankee/Euro ********? Of course they don't want to share profits with monopolists, especially considering that they already spend a lot on marketing.
Slide 12, right chart. Now, this is pure attempt at manipulation.

Overall, meh. Yes SQEX isn't a unicorn. But they were doing what worked and already began to clean house 2 years ago.
I'd say that this "minority report" is a cheap drama based on the lack of common sense (or an attempt at manipulation).

[RolandKvltgames]

Looks pretty cool in all honesty. Don't know it it's actually good or even complete, but it looks good at first glance. This is how games should strive to look (minor nitpick, Atari/8-bit squares for blood effects - not a fan) and if well designed/programed/tested, be made. Glad to see small companies trying (and maybe suceeding?) to release good games. Hope it's not a bait and switch and you meet a surly niggress in level 2 or something equally woke.

Hey, Dverghold-dev her, happy you like it! The game can only be wishlisted at the moment. We are going to release for Early Access some point Q1 26. The game is still early and graphics arent final yet - I do agree with your point about the blood, it's still a bit placeholder-y and we will polish that. I can also promise you it is *not* going to be a bait and switch - we will keep the game 100% free from wokeness. Just oldschool heroic fantasy.

[KnightoftheWind]

Squeenix not doing a reboot of Parasite Eve is absolute insanity. A Triple-A Horror JRPG would do extremely well, and be a nice alternative to Resident Evil.

[Kalarion]

Is FF11 a gear farming cooldown managing boredom?

You should have joined us on our playthrough through FF11 Horizon last year. You literally cannot solo level on same level mobs past level 10, they will out DPS you, you have to level up in a party. Hiking through a vast dangerous wilderness, sneaking through caves to accomplish a mission. It was fun.

I mean is my character a soulless clone of everyone else that took the same class? Or a gear manequin?

It's not for you, don't touch it, **** off.

[WaterMage]

It's not for you, don't touch it, **** off.

I'm asking if is for me. Sorry for asking gaming questions in a gaming forum.

[J1M]

Edit. Nice pdf, though, @Val the Moofia Boss

To continue. I actually got interested and looked at data. Square seems to be doing, well, okay?
They've changed the president 2 years ago (slide 12 in presentation), and the new president, it seems, began to clean up the farm. Of course, profitability decreased somewhat, it's inevitable. I would've expected that.
But generally they're doing what they were doing for the last 20 years or so. Here're the pics I've chosen.

► Show Spoiler

Also, some criticism is completely outlandish.
Slide 56. New IPs are harshly criticized. -- Well, no wonder then that the management mostly sticks to the old ones, huh?
Slide 63. It is evident that SD games overly rely on saturated domestic market. -- Maybe it's because of 30% Apple store cut and similar Yankee/Euro ********? Of course they don't want to share profits with monopolists, especially considering that they already spend a lot on marketing.
Slide 12, right chart. Now, this is pure attempt at manipulation.

Overall, meh. Yes SQEX isn't a unicorn. But they were doing what worked and already began to clean house 2 years ago.
I'd say that this "minority report" is a cheap drama based on the lack of common sense (or an attempt at manipulation).

The root of a lot of their problems is having very low expectations of JP teams and impossibly high expectations of non-JP teams as a means of scapegoating non-JP employees for overall financial performance. Some kind of weird cultural quirk to avoid shame. It's just so obvious I'm not sure why they don't consider the technique even more shameful.

[Stack of Turtles]

Edit. Nice pdf, though, @Val the Moofia Boss

To continue. I actually got interested and looked at data. Square seems to be doing, well, okay?

I don't see how you can look at this data and not think it's pretty bad and that the new management's regrouping plan is likely to fail.

[DemoGraph]

Edit. Nice pdf, though, @Val the Moofia Boss

To continue. I actually got interested and looked at data. Square seems to be doing, well, okay?

I don't see how you can look at this data and not think it's pretty bad and that the new management's regrouping plan is likely to fail.

The only fail I've noticed is too much divident payout in 2024. They shouldn't have appeased investors. Weak-willed should sell and get the **** away. Then, when stock crashes 50% or more, it's time for buyback.

I've thought a bit more about it all. Now I suspect that the drama is an attempt by that same minority investor to short futures on his portfolio (probably even in agreement with management and main shareholder). Pretty cheap. But since 2/3 of portfolio is held by American hedges and public, japs should be able to pwn them.

The root of a lot of their problems is having very low expectations of JP teams and impossibly high expectations of non-JP teams

In other words, a typical Japanese offshoring.

[rusty_shackleford]

Generally, tailing missions are worse than escort missions.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I find them to be a refreshing change of pace as long as they are done sparingly. It would also be neat if there was more incidental stuff happening that you have to be aware of, like a wagon or a truck moving into the way.

[jdcp]

that took the same class?

No, it's very unique in that sense.

/RDM

As an RDM I can attest red mage healing is lame asf

You should have joined us on our playthrough through FF11 Horizon last year. You literally cannot solo level on same level mobs past level 10, they will out DPS you, you have to level up in a party. Hiking through a vast dangerous wilderness, sneaking through caves to accomplish a mission. It was fun.

You guys still play?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

that took the same class?

No, it's very unique in that sense.

/RDM

As an RDM I can attest red mage healing is lame asf

You should have joined us on our playthrough through FF11 Horizon last year. You literally cannot solo level on same level mobs past level 10, they will out DPS you, you have to level up in a party. Hiking through a vast dangerous wilderness, sneaking through caves to accomplish a mission. It was fun.

You guys still play?

The group hasn't played since December of last year. We killed the Shadowlord and beat the base game's story, then we got 80% of the way through Rise of the Zilart and reached Sky and we were levelling up in the mid 60s, and then during December scheduling conflicts happened and some people decided that they had spent enough time on the game (we had played about 300 hours together over 5 months). So I continued on alone PUGging and reached level 75, and then joined a PUG to beat the final boss and complete the RotZ story. And then that has been pretty much it ever since. Back then, Shilitron still expressed an interest in playing (not sure how he feels about that now or what his schedule is like), so maybe we could reboot the group.

[rusty_shackleford]

If you just want to do the story, retail is an option. It has 'trusts' which are summonable companions you collect, this can get you a full party. I enjoyed my time with it, but the controls are rough.

[jdcp]

The group hasn't played since December of last year. We killed the Shadowlord and beat the base game's story, then we got 80% of the way through Rise of the Zilart and reached Sky and we were levelling up in the mid 60s, and then during December scheduling conflicts happened and some people decided that they had spent enough time on the game (we had played about 300 hours together over 5 months). So I continued on alone PUGging and reached level 75, and then joined a PUG to beat the final boss and complete the RotZ story. And then that has been pretty much it ever since. Back then, Shilitron still expressed an interest in playing (not sure how he feels about that now or what his schedule is like), so maybe we could reboot the group.

Let me know then, last time I played this game I had completed the requirements to be blue mage but due to time had to stop playing and left myself desiring to try it out

Would be glad to lend support if I have time

[jdcp]

If you just want to do the story, retail is an option. It has 'trusts' which are summonable companions you collect, this can get you a full party. I enjoyed my time with it, but the controls are rough.

I remember playing once with those companions, they were fine in my experience, but I didn't do much.

I think mine was a white mage if I recall.

Personally I just want a quick MMO fix, I never cared much for this game's story.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

but the controls are rough.

I wouldn't say that they are rough. I found it comfortable playing with a controller. The main issue is that as a new player if you log in, you won't understand how to do stuff, so I had to keep going to the docks in San D'oria where our people were spawning in at on new characters and walk them step by step how to open the options menu, how to set the aspect ratio, and then run them through the Ghelsba Outpost to farm orcs to get the axe drop turn in for the first nation mission, etc. After that it becomes more comprehensible. The main deal breaker for most people seems to be the moment to moment experience of the levelling party, where you are spending most of the game hiking to locations and then attacking a mob as a group, and the game is not actiony so you don't have many buttons to be pushing every second. The people who liked socializing and shooting the breeze in chat and dying together and laughing had a good time. If you don't like typing in chat or doing stuff together, then it is very boring.

[jdcp]

I wouldn't say that they are rough. I found it comfortable playing with a controller. The main issue is that as a new player if you log in, you won't understand how to do stuff, so I had to keep going to the docks in San D'oria where our people were spawning in at on new characters and walk them step by step how to open the options menu, how to set the aspect ratio, and then run them through the Ghelsba Outpost to farm orcs to get the axe drop turn in for the first nation mission, etc. After that it becomes more comprehensible. The main deal breaker for most people seems to be the moment to moment experience of the levelling party, where you are spending most of the game hiking to locations and then attacking a mob as a group, and the game is not actiony so you don't have many buttons to be pushing every second. The people who liked socializing and shooting the breeze in chat and dying together and laughing had a good time. If you don't like typing in chat or doing stuff together, then it is very boring.

The controls being clearly made for a controller make it pretty stubborn, at first, you get used to it pretty fast by idk level 10.

I started playing with a group of people from a forum, they were new too, so we had our fun figuring out how to do things. But I can see why someone would see them as "rough", very old and clunky control scheme tbh.

no big deal for me honestly, the game's pretty chill to me and if you get chocobos the "hiking" part gets less annoying, besides the enviroments look cool and I pass most of the time typing ******** to people so I don't mind.

[KnightoftheWind]

Apparently Silent Hill: Downpour had a PC version in the works back in 2012, for a late year release, before it was cancelled by Konami. It's a shame because a major problem with the game was it's terrible performance on consoles and it's associated downgrades. A good PC version would've gone a long way to improve the game's reception, and would've provided more consistent lifetime sales and mods that improved on it's shortcomings. I also like the game's style and tone in general, it had that cold "autumn" feel that I enjoy in these types of games.

downpour.webp

[rusty_shackleford]

Silent hill was never good.

[KnightoftheWind]

Silent hill was never good.

Beyond the first game?, no. But each one has something good about it that keeps me interested, even Homecoming.

[Trickster]

Wtf is this ****?

► Show Spoiler

Oh, I know. That's the reason Valve won't see any more of my money. Someone should tell Gabe that woke garbage isn't popular anymore.