[Gobbiebag]

Yo, humes. I'm Gobbiebag Jabbrox. We haven't met. Hope we never do. Anyway, the 'ol FFXIV Core staff wants me to keep 'ah hold of this here gobbiebag full of all sorts of nickets and pickets and take care of you lot's bustlebumble questions.

So it'll be simple, yeah? If you have festioning questions sitting in that brainy of yours, send 'em my way through them pm thingies. Anything on FFXI, FFXIV, or FFXIVCore and staff. Yup. I'll grab a gobbie handful and every way or so often I'll answer some. Not too many though, eh? Mot be one for work, I ain't.



FFXIV Core's gobbiebag feature is similar to the grab bags you see elsewhere. Here we'll answer your questions and push forward speculative discussion all the way up to the release of FFXIV; maybe even beyond! If you have a question all you have to do is pm Gobbiebag. It's that simple!

Question:Fighter x Crafter

Quote

I really want to be a crafter this time around, but I don't want to be completely gimped as a fighter. Do you know/think I might be able to master both a crafting class such as Black Smithing and a fighting class such as a great sword wielder or hand to hand without any consequences other than time?

Well, no one really knows but we can make some really good educated guesses! Let's look at crafters as a different class. Just like in FFXI there should really be no penalties aside from time. It'll be a bit easier however this time around because you can switch any time you want. This means you can go around doing black smithing leaves or quests and then get invited into a group and simply switch your equipment for say, lancer.

Of course there's also a good chance that crafters will offer advantages to the group or even be viable in combat, but either way it's a simple change away. A lot of people however seem to be making the mistake of seeing crafters in the same way as other games. It may be the case eventually but for now it's leaning towards crafters being fully fleshed out classes themselves...

Thus leveling black smithing with your lancer would be the same as leveling two characters at the same time in any other MMORPG and would thus seriously slow down your progression. Of course to some it doesn't matter, but it's a fair warning.

Speculation:PvP

Such a big debate, eh? Does it have a place in FFXIV? Without doubt, but perhaps not in the way most current-age gamers would like. I'll go out on limb and say this: Sorry, but FFXIV will most likely be a PvE game truly and through.

Now that's not to say there won't be any PvP at all, it just won't be like your typical PvP mmo such as Aion. I'd easily see dueling implemented for fun as well as perhaps an arena allowing teams to compete indirectly against each other. Perhaps a survival tourney where two or more teams try to survive the longest against a swarm of enemies?

Perhaps a race towards the fastest time in finishing a "BCNM" or arena boss. Of course I've no doubt there will be direct pvp coated in something else just like Ballista. Perhaps a sport similar to Ballista or an arena of sorts. But the simple fact is we're allies united against another force so there's no real place for open pvp of any form in the normal respect.

Can it still happen? Oh yeah. Maybe specific "regions" (the new name of what basically amounts to zones, much, much larger) that allow open pvp in the way of WAR's pvp lakes for military "training" among ourselves. We'll see!

Speculation:Death Penalty

Another interesting topic. Gamers feel very differently about this...I happen to be one of the ones that encourages "death" to be unforgiving. It's death, after all, and while I can't say I loved the xp loss in FFXI I was glad it was there. It gave success and failure real meaning over WoW's "oh, we wiped." feeling. Dying in WoW meant a dash of gold lost and a bit of time gone.

Should FFXIV's system be as brutal as FFXI? Nah. We're beyond that generation of gaming sadly. But there should still be strong penalties to death. I'm guessing a hit to durability of equipment as it's ever so popular. I'm for realistic weakness as well as in FFXIV a weakened character usually didn't fight. It would be better in my opinion to give him a few weaknesses that hinder but do not prevent further gameplay. No one likes to wait.

So perhaps dying would give you "bleeding" and "broken leg" debuffs depending on how badly the death worse, poison being less serious than a giant dragon hitting you with a breath attack for several thousand damage. Bleeding makes you take a bit more damage per hit while broken leg slows movement by 5% and hinders evasion. Perhaps "addled" gives you a respectable chance to miscast spells, not consuming any mana, but stopping the spell right before completion. Just something to reduce the effectiveness of your character consistently without completely making you worthless.

Removal of these could take quite some time, expensive/rare items, or a trip all the way back to town. This would nicely make death something worth avoiding without punishing too cruelly for a dash of bad luck. What do you think?



That's it for today! Hopefully next time we'll have some good questions from the rest of you to toss in with all the speculation.

[Forseti]

Yay, new goobiebag!

The survival tourney sounds like a good idea, maybe something similar to gold saucer.

[Mooga]

Hmm, I was thinking what happend to the goodies! XD

I like alot the Death Penalty Speculation, I was think how to be added, and the idea is some sort the same, but the goodie bag speculation is more defined. Good Job! :P

[Agemoz]

I think the death penalty should be harsh.
Similar to Monster Hunter where weapons can become dull after usage. I think that weapons and armor in XIV should eventually break if one doesn't maintain them. With simple equipment requiring simple items for maintenance and more rare equipment requiring more expensive or rarer items. As well as having guilds that can repair weak weapons cost little, and good weapons cost a LOT. And when you die it should REALLY hurt mess with a piece of equipment. This would really make "choosing your battles wisely" mean something.

[Shadowkaji]

Agemoz, on 20 November 2009 - 12:50 PM, said:

I think the death penalty should be harsh.
Similar to Monster Hunter where weapons can become dull after usage. I think that weapons and armor in XIV should eventually break if one doesn't maintain them. With simple equipment requiring simple items for maintenance and more rare equipment requiring more expensive or rarer items. As well as having guilds that can repair weak weapons cost little, and good weapons cost a LOT. And when you die it should REALLY hurt mess with a piece of equipment. This would really make "choosing your battles wisely" mean something.

I like that but I dont like the way Aion has it, like when you die you have to buy your experience back for a handsome amount of money

[Grimix]

For death penalty they could easily set it so that it hits hard in early levels(when it's easier to get exp back and you don't loose so much) and offer quest later on to reduce the exp loss from death. That way you learn early not to die, and in higher levels you can quest to have the risk lessened.

So say that until you are at halfway to cap, your exp loss will be 10%. Well once you reach the halfway mark you can have a quest to reduce it to 5%. Then at cap have another quest further reducing it to 2.5%. 2.5 percent is not a big loss.

And the early levels, exp loss wasn't a big issue since exp tended to be easier to get and took less time to level up(less exp tnl)

Least this is how I wish it would be done>.> but it's hard to say what it could be since the game is based on skill and not exp. But to me in the end it's still the same thing since your advancing your character>.>

[Skubator]

Grimix, on 20 November 2009 - 01:55 PM, said:

For death penalty they could easily set it so that it hits hard in early levels(when it's easier to get exp back and you don't loose so much) and offer quest later on to reduce the exp loss from death. That way you learn early not to die, and in higher levels you can quest to have the risk lessened.

So say that until you are at halfway to cap, your exp loss will be 10%. Well once you reach the halfway mark you can have a quest to reduce it to 5%. Then at cap have another quest further reducing it to 2.5%. 2.5 percent is not a big loss.

And the early levels, exp loss wasn't a big issue since exp tended to be easier to get and took less time to level up(less exp tnl)

Least this is how I wish it would be done>.> but it's hard to say what it could be since the game is based on skill and not exp. But to me in the end it's still the same thing since your advancing your character>.>

I like that idea. Grimix. The quests to reduce your penalties would have to be fairly involved though. And not just some "Bring me these expensive items" quest. I hate quests like that.

Another system I've seen is in EQ2. in EverQuest 2, when you die an amount of experience "debt" is added. You can't gain anymore experience until you pay back your debt. You can also make the run back to your corpse (similar to WoW and other MMOs in that vein) to reduce your debt. I may be getting the details of the system wrong, but that's the basic gist of it.

What I like about a system like that is that while you don't LOSE exp, and potentially go down in level (always a major downer), the same basic effect is accomplished in that you're set back X amount of experience still.

[Agemoz]

You guys have to realize, like Grimix said, The game is based off of skill, not exp.

This post has been edited by Agemoz: 20 November 2009 - 05:51 PM

[RamenThief7]

Heh, I had a thread a while ago that discussed death penalties. A favorite death penalty was that equipment could take permanent durability health damage, thus eventually rendering some equipment useless because it would become too frail.

I used the search system, but I couldn't find my old death penalty system debate thread...

[Cerulean Shaman]

There's probably going to be some sort of invisible "xp" stat anyway be it skill points or weapon points or whatever. Anyway, I love Grimix's idea anyway that would be fairly balanced.

[Duck]

Gobbiebag, on 19 November 2009 - 08:06 PM, said:

I'd easily see dueling implemented for fun as well as perhaps an arena allowing teams to compete indirectly against each other. Perhaps a survival tourney where two or more teams try to survive the longest against a swarm of enemies? ... Of course I've no doubt there will be direct pvp coated in something else just like Ballista. Perhaps a sport similar to Ballista or an arena of sorts.

It's exciting to hear this, thank you!

[gmoyajp]

i be glad to see gobbie bag come back to FFXIV!

[Xenetos]

I love the idea for when we die rather then loosing exp you get gimped like you take more damage when you get hit your magic casting is weaker and then over a period of time you would regain your strength back like in the real world. Thats a great idea Spunky Swashstox!

[RamenThief7]

In terms of death penalty debuffs, this can be effective...or really weak if it's too easy to remove the death illness debuff (such as in Guild Wars and in WOW).

However, if it's lasting death illness that can only be removed over time or by an insane amount of money/difficult item to attain (as long as it's not done in the form of a quest), this would be effective. And if the wounds showed (bleeding, character appears to be grunting and in extreme pain, etc.), that would even be realistic.

[LadyYuina]

I like your death penalty idea of having unwanted status effects. Makes perfect sense, and it sure as hell beats losing exp, but then again, there aren't any levels in this game when it comes to your character. XD But I am sure I would probably complain about it if it were actually implemented into the game such as you had described. Heck, I'm sure everyone would from time to time. =P

[Wolfwood]

I hate exp loss as a death penalty. Just give me durability loss

[RamenThief7]

Since exp isn't going to be a huge factor this time around (judging from SE has told us, they need to tell more), permanent durability loss on items when you die could serve as an effective death punishment. It would also stimulate the game's economy because people sucking = buying more weapons and armor. Plus, we might be able to handcraft custom armor and weapons (not sure on this, it's a possibility), which would work well with what I suppose will be a capitalistic economy inside FF XIV.

[Razgriz]

I like the whole broken leg bit, I agree with the death penalty, it should be harsh, death is something you want to avoid after all.