Dev Tracker - Discussion

Yeah just program in an entire new pop set, add and balance 110 pieces of new gear, add mobs that are in the sweet spot between being steamrolled and being impossible.

EASY

use existing resources, change help text, in some cases they c/p most of the help text(see zeni nms).. this is a several hour job for a single person at most



ilevel uses a fixed formula, they clearly have a stat generator, so they just need to add individual tweaks to each piece.. let's not pretend they've ever done excessive balancing with anything they released.. this is a couple days for someone who knows the game and wants to do a thorough job, a couple hours to rush out


They really haven't succeeded in this manner for ages, but considering most of their TP moves and specialty stuff are near-enough copy/paste, this isn't a big deal either. Add ilevel until the mob feels hard. Probably the biggest part, but still not more than a couple weeks for the amount of mobs they typically use.

This stuff is all totally reasonable for a single developer who knows xi's systems to be churning out. It is a lack of SE's willingness to invest in the game more than anything else.

Private servers manage custom content, even with their hands tied to reverse engineering client files. SE has access to everything.

Lets say they want to make a whole new kind of content:

First they have to design it out of nowhere, they have to think up how it all works, where it is, all the mechanics and gear drop systems etc They have to write the mini-scripts for interactions and stuff, they all have to be translated to english.

Then they have to think up rewards (cause if the rewards are poor, nobody will do it anyway). They have to be "worth it" but not too powerful or they increase the massive gulf between the top 1% who have a REMA for every job and maxed out gear and everyone else in ambuscade gear. This is a massive headache because unlike other MMORPGS they can't just reset all the gear and then give normies welfare gear of just under the power of the new stuff.

Then they have to pay the beta test people to test it for months before it gets implemented (the bigger it is the more testing), this is not optional and is a requirement from Square Enix on them. Quality control mandated by the company on the developers.

After 2-3 months making it (including that they still have to put out monthly updates to the game and have to deal with people duping stuff that they have to then drop everything to fix) and then 1-2 months testing of it, the top 1% of players will beat it within a few weeks and post the exact strategy for the rest of them to do the same. This will be the exact point we go back to square one.

Not even modern MMORPGs get new raids and battlefields that fast, unless you want to count fully paid expansions?

I would like them to add a whole new 119 version of Abyssea but again I know that unless they made MAJOR changes to it, we already know how it all works and we would cap it out in a few months anyway.

Back in the CoP and ToAU era new content came out at a very regular pace. It was only after WoTG came out, and when the initial development of FFXIV began... back then only known as "Project Rapture", that content began to slow down. WoTG was one of the slowest periods of content development, but even then new stuff came more rapidly than it is now. And if anyone remembers the initial level cap lifting people were complaining that new content was coming too fast, because old gear was getting outdated by newer stuff before people even had a chance to GET the next tier.

New content takes time to develop, but they haven't had anything major since dynamis divergence, which was three years ago now. It's reasonable to expect a little more than they've given us when they're still charging the same monthly sub fee as always.

Cool description.. of how it would work in lowman project made by small indie studio crunching it down overnight. Definitely not how it would work in old school big company like SE, with project reduced to few people on half maintenance mode.

To yours description of actual development work, you can add months of decision making, getting approve several times during project's progression, negotiating budget, cutting budget, cutting content, quality control, fixing bugs, quality control again etc.

Also everything you wrote to make it faster, would result in 95% people wining about same models being used in same event on same maps, just with added loot. Same like people were wining about Dynamis, even that DynamisD has many different mechanics and twist in comparison to old Dynamis.

You may not like odyssey but it is major content they added (it was added to be a bridge between ambuscade and harder content), you don't get to ignore it cause you don't like it or it's too easy or whatever.

It's not crap, it's just not for you. They stated it was supposed to be for players who only do ambuscade to have something to step upto. Maybe it's good, maybe it's bad but it is what it is and it took a long time to make.

There is no guarantee if they made some other major new content you would like that either, or that it would be made for you.

Every MMO has these same problems, the raiders get mad when they add housing or whatever for casuals and the casuals get mad when they add new raids.

Also, it's not just about time spent on something. It's also about time spent learning to use tools, they stated a while ago that they took a lot of time learning to make cut-scenes and doing animations etc for them. The missions have eaten a lot of development time for this reason.

A few mission cut-scenes can take someone with little experience weeks, when someone experienced can do it in a few hours.

Beyond their original intention, they made merits something you needed to get passed level caps, they made merits something you needed to do fights, what're they doing with JP? I've always felt like that was something that could easily be expanded.

On this forum maybe, otherwise not even close.
Also its too simple prejudging. Im not a casual ambuscader and I really like Odyssey. I like to kill Nostos/NMs and go for Aurum on Main and Metal Gear Solid for chests on other chars. I opened probably like 2000+ chests total and I still dont find it annoying. Still also like 10 items to R15.

When a decked-out <job> can solo I-level 130 content like SR with trusts, any new content below 130, even 135 ...should not be considered new content. Period.

SE introduces new content below 130 because they have some upper limit they don't want to reach too soon.

If they're not going to honor content difficulty by way of I-Level, just make 50 NEW I-level assaults with new rules and a leaderboard.

I spend more time doing the UNMs now instead of odyssey which is very sad.

That's doesn't mean I should be mean to the devs for green-lighting content like this because making content is very hard for poor old SE. This isn't a free to play game that shits content out like no one's business. this is a monthly sub-game and we should be very nice to the devs and not voice our dismay on the forums about it. It must be very hard for the devs to sleep at night knowing people are paying monthly for engaging content that they can't deliver on. Those poor devs... My heart yearns for them as they deduct 17 bucks from my bank account monthly...

I'd rather pay a flat rate for my sub and be done with the money finesse vs them going freemium and charging me 100 VanaBucks for a raid pass or something silly. You do not want then opening up that can of worms on us

I feel like 50 new Assaults with brand new rules is asking a lot. Someone has to draft up those rules, and then quality check, etc.

It'd be way easier to slow roll out a JP purchased KI for a harder version of all the High Tier fights and make all the current gear for those fights have a +1. Most of the work for them is copy/paste. They wouldn't have to change mechanics necessarily, just multiply the HP, add some evasion, defense and mdb or something. And the method for obtaining the JP is already done, with a whole assortment of JP camps and mobs. I saw some GEO forum talk about the Tenzen boots, for example. If those boots came with another point or two of Store TP and another 20 or 30acc, there's a lot of people who would be interested, I'm sure. If Ginsen got a little spicing up, a lot of people might be interested. And there's countless ways they could make some of these pieces worthwhile, without necessarily making them outdo anything else. They could throw on 10 magic evasion on Ginsen and someone would want the Ginsen for that 10 magic evasion lol

They would need to add a good bit of content for it to even matter at this point no matter what it is unless its substantial it will be done in 20 min the first day, since there hasn't been content in a year or more of any significance. Ody isn't fun, isn't team content, and really wasn't necessary. I'd pass on more assaults also.

More dynamis would be neat, but isn't for everyone I understand. Redoing limbus, VW, or like I said the other 5 dyna zones would all be larger end content. ToM for ilevel things would be a decent if annoying time sink. I also agree anything below 130~ is rather useless to group play.

Stop excusing a three year drought in endgame content please, are they paying you shill for them? We don't need more "new" content for fresh players, the players that have been here for years are the ones that don't have any new content to do. Returning players hundreds of hours worth of backlog they can complete (or merc in some cases) but seasoned players have basically nothing but a really sucky gamble simulator in Odyssey.

They should just give us Dynamis Beaucedine and Xarcard with I-Level 150-160 and 160-170 mobs, respectively.

Remember when SE said Wave 2 bosses would be the end of Dynamis and they have "no plans" to expand it further? ...but then sure enough they released Wave 3 within a year anyway?

...I'd be OK if SE's been holding out on us, but I hope this leads to something. SE's MO is to keep us in the dark as much possible. :/

They kind of DID do this, albeit with Master Trials (which I think are the stupidest things on the planet, if only for their cosmetic reward. Those items should dispense unique effects, even if just fireworks or unique food ....the whole subject of Master Trials just pisses me off because I don't think that's great content either).

No we have so much re hash content with merit the only rehash content that would feel okayish is soa vw and some abyssea aht urghan

It's all been rehashed since like 2015 the last new content was RoV unless you count solo content like ody, or the 15~ min of quests that will end in 2 years.

i think omen is the best event they've made in a long time, and i also think something new is coming soon, and probably without any warning.

Not even, to be honest. I've had friends come back who quit in like 2016 and they get caught up so quickly now with the lack of things. We need something longer lasting, don't care if its rehashed but it should be fun like many of the content they did in the past was. Dynamis is horrible, we've done it so many times now they could have revamped or added so many different things before that.

I agree with your line of thought. Lilith was basically figured out and done (all or most gear acquired) inside of a couple of weeks for a lot of people, and a couple of months for a whole lot more.

If they're doing content on their shoe-string budget and staff, they've got to be diligent about using Time Gates that don't scream to us that it's just a stupid obvious Time Gate. And they have to keep in mind that this is an MMO and that Player + Trusts shouldn't be valid for everything. Trusts are a great way for new players to play catch up for content nobody else wants to do anymore. In my humble opinion, trusts by default should not be allowed in new content for 6 months to a year. But here I am, soloing Odyssey NMs/fodder with trusts, in an MMO, almost as if it was designed that way.

If I were on their staff, I would make JP (Job Points) a currency in more ways than one. The idea I mentioned before about High Tier fights with a Job Point purchased KI, is one way. And content like described, would have both the JP cost to buy the KI & the drop rate of the gear of the content, as Time Gates. 10 JP would be too cheap of an entry fee. A lot of people probably have 500JP on multiple jobs sitting unused. I'm not sure what the most fair JP cost for entry would be.

Beyond that, they could make JP exchangeable like Ambuscade's Hallmarks with Weekly or Monthly limits for various REMA materials and more - just setup an NPC that we go talk to that accepts our JP for trade in.

My main interest in JP as a currency is mostly rooted in wanting to see JP/Merit style parties be more commonplace. I think they are crucial for the overall health of the game. I know there's a lot of voices out there that would see going to that kind of grind as self-abuse or something, but I think there's a lot to be gained from it.

It would help support Cooks with the food that gets used.

If we could get people on their Mastered/Idris GEO or their 1337 BRDs into JP parties willingly, all of those new/returning players will 1) have a large assortment of people they can meet and learn from and 2) actually be able to find support jobs for their (the new/returning people) JP party. Right now we have a situation where people could shout for a BRD for an hour and maybe never get one. But there's probably 100+ people sitting on a Mastered BRD that maybe wouldn't mind jumping in on a JP party if there was actually something in it for them.

Using job points for anything at this point is silly as long as bots exist and ppl endlessly shout to sell them without any repercussions.

Also out of the 8+ REMA brds I personally know including my own mule are all alts. If I needed job points I'd just duo apex with my self or possibly ls ppl as would most of the other ppl with said alts.

I think bots and various other cheats can spoil any content in the game. That's a moderation issue.

Soloing or Duoing JP is always an option, but it won't match up to an actual party. Not even close.

You "think"? When Matsui clearly said a new event/content is being released in the november or december patch?
Wut? D: