As a person who has tried many, many MMOs out there none have impressed me more than Final Fantasy XIV and its miraculous ressurection.
As a player who played only A Realm Reborn - I got to experience the successful part of the game, but through other players I learned a lot about what made the original incarnation fail miserably. Limitations to how long you could play, limiting exp gain and generally making travel around the world a nuiscance were some of the many things that caused the game to flop.
However... I have a couple features from FFXIV that I would like to propose to have in Pantheon in some fashion. So without droning on for too long...
Linkshells
It doesn't have to be called Linkshells. But the way FFXIV does the feature is probably my favorite thing about it. Linkshells are separate from guilds (Free Companies is what they are called in FFXIV). Guilds are your group of people you play with. Linkshells are sort of like separate chat channels, except it is treated like a Guild. You name it, you set officers/leaders who can invite and remove people and it has an entire UI dedicated to this feature. FFXIV allows you to be in one Free Company(Guild) and eight Linkshells.
Why I want this feature?
Simple. I want this feature so when I find a guild I want to play with but I meet cool people I would like to find a way to keep in touch with them in a public fashion. Its a great way to make friends. In addition it is an easy way to have groups of people for a common cause outside of guilds. Ever wanted to have a guild, but also a group of Crafters you can talk to and learn from? Me too.
Party Finder
This is not an automated party feature. FFXIV has a system in place where you can set up in a UI window what you want to do, what roles you want and where you are and it lets people simply right click > join. I don't want the exact feature in this game, but what I propose is...
A system that lets you zone into a zone and open a UI window that will populate a list of groups in the zone - and that group can write in what camp they are at and what they are doing and if they are recruiting more players and a button that lets you send a tell to the leader of said party.
Why I want this feature?
This one is a bit selfish - but to get rid of people always asking "Camp check!?" and spamming chat LF1M [x][y][z]. I want it to work in a way that lets you see quickly if the zone is full so you can go somewhere else if it looks hopeless of finding a group anytime soon. Its kinda a quality of life feature that will help limit people wasting time. I can remember countless times I sat in a zone yelling "LFG" when I could of went to another zone and found a group quicker.
This would NOT be a worldwide feature. You would only be able to see the zone you are currently inside.
Apartments(Yes I realize housing is going to be later)
When FFXIV added housing, it was pricey and it worked. It kept all the housing available to be snapped up immediately. Eventually they added apartments. Smaller rooms you could buy in a larger building to decorate to your specifications.
Why I want this feature?
As a player who could care less about housing an apartment lets me use some of the decorations for a smaller room and use some of the features of housing without having to shell out a lot of cash.
Going to think a bit longer about other features I remember from FFXIV - but the first two are important to me and the third more like a request.
I almost viscerally reacted negatively because to me FFXIV is a perfect example of the decline in creativity in the MMO market in the wake of WoW. I will give you credit, however, because those 3 concepts are not totally bankrupt of value. Party Finder adaptation is pretty interesting way to make grouping easier in a way that still requires you to contact people.
I, too, can see potential merit in some of these (though never played FFI-through-FFXXXVI or however many there are!).
1. Linkshells:
I can see, perhaps, NPC owned channels. You join a local NPC crafting society - the crafter teacher would instruct you and get you to make your 'entry piece' to gain admission. Once in, the channel is available and your name is prefixed by [Apprentice], [Journeyman] etc. Raising your rank - through skill and perhaps fulfilling any crafting orders for the town, would raise your status in the channel until you became an officer, Master etc. Your rank would determine access to channel features.
Apprentice - talk (colour = grey) only (spam limiting checks)
Journeyman - talk (colour = white), post item links (subject to spam checks)
Master - talk (colour = yellow), post items, vote for leader (1 vote)
Syndic - talk (colour = orange), post items, vote for leader (3 votes)
Leader - talk (colour = Red), post items, vote for leader (5 vote)
These could be created for non-crafting areas too - eg Warriors guild, 'Town Guild', 'Lorekeepers Guild' etc
2. In zone 'Group Viewer'
I can certainly see a simple tool to replace the 'camp check' being issued by everyone entering the zone and having to be replied to by every groups who is in the zone.... however:
A. Will this cause zones to be 'silent', rather than having a busy, bustling chat going on?
B. How to you remove an entry if they have finished/left...
C. How do you not remove an entry if they wiped?D. How do I stop a group from zoning in, spotting an unchecked camp and flagging it for themselves .... even when they are by no means certain of even getting there, let alone any time soon? What happens to the group half-way there? Do they stop? Continue on and contest it? Or does everyone now send the Bard/Druid to rush into the zone and 'claim' the camp?
Perhaps simpler would be a transparent box (or even just adding it to the zone 'motd') that echoes (i.e. filters) and retains any chat using 'camp check' and 'camp group' chat lines. That way, when you zone in, you can immediately see the last, say, 15 lines of 'camp check' and 'camp group' lines. They should be timestamped by default, even if you have not got time-stamps enabled. This feature could be enabled/disabled, or can just be used by typing '/camp check' which returns the last 12-15 lines of camp chat.
3. Housing
.... yeah, that's in the distance, though perhaps needs to be planned 'in principle' some time soonish!
Dhampir said:Linkshells
It doesn't have to be called Linkshells. But the way FFXIV does the feature is probably my favorite thing about it. Linkshells are separate from guilds (Free Companies is what they are called in FFXIV). Guilds are your group of people you play with. Linkshells are sort of like separate chat channels, except it is treated like a Guild. You name it, you set officers/leaders who can invite and remove people and it has an entire UI dedicated to this feature. FFXIV allows you to be in one Free Company(Guild) and eight Linkshells.
Known as a 'clan' back in the MUD days. Can set them up based on religion, trading corps, friends, raiding groups...whatever floats your boat.
Please add FF14's Healing style to the list. No other game has done this so well. I feel like I am actively participating in the fight just like everyone else.
This is a pretty good example of healer gameplay in a standard 4 man dungeon: https://youtu.be/bTOvYjQ5O8k?t=1787
I played quite a bit of FF XIV's beta and it was a disaster in many ways. One thing that stuck out the most for me was that they had Beta forums, but it was nearly impossible to post a new topic, particularly if it was negative or critical. And if you did, you were immediately hammered as not knowing anything about how MMORPGs work.
I remember finally making a long list of things that were not going to be well-received at launch that were quickly dismissed. It was no surprise when the first release of the game was met with the same criticisms but magnified by thousands and thousands of players. I certainly applaud them for fixing/rebooting, but if they had taken player feedback into consideration in a more serious way they might have avoided the mess altogether.
That's one reason I'm open to feedback and constructive criticism. I've been on the other side and watched even the simplest things to fix be completely ignored. As a developer, you don't have to cave in to every wish and want if it doesn't go along with your philosophy, but you should still be on the lookout for improvements that make sense.
Zippy, FF14 was revamped completely. Depending on which beta you played, it's a drastically different game compared to the other. You may want to check out that video I posted to get an idea of what the game grew to become. Every game has it's fanboys. You'll have people in any game that will defend the poorest of qualities no matter what game it is. FF14 is superior when it comes to storyline and mechanics in raids and dungeons... but the open world is very barren though. Also, Repetitive grinds are what made me stop playing it.
The idea is to pull concepts into Pantheon that you think will work for everyone's benefit and promote the longevity of this game, Pantheon.
I'd also like to see Archage's gathering system be implemented in Pantheon. You basically plant crops or take care of livestock and they produce a product (or choice of product) over a period of time. An exmaple: You can either harvest eggs from a chicken or butcher it for meat. Butchering it kills it, but harvesting eggs allows it to persist and continue to produce. It never quite got to the point where you could allow chicks to hatch, ect ect... Something that Pantheon could do. ;) However, I would NOT like to see the labor restriction that Archage had be incorporated with it.
Even the worst of games can have good features worth stealing, and FFXIV is by no means the worst of games. Nor is Archeage though it is far too pvp focused for me. I agree entirely with Silvanoshi.
FFXIV is essentially a Japanese game, ported over to the Western markets rather well. It differers from traditional Western games in a variety of ways which may be good or bad depending on perspective. Its seasonal events would be pathetic if they were larger and better done. But they don't quite reach that level. Most can be completed in half an hour and the rewards are underwhelming. A negative to me. Its story line is extensive, makes extremly effective use of cutscenes and is essentially mandatory. You don't unlock many critical features by gaining levels you unlock them by doing the story line. If you buy the expansion you can't get any benefit from it until you complete 100 - yes 100 on the nose - story line quests that come after the "you win" scene from the original game. Story line is a big plus to me - really well done. But the extent to which it uses "forced storyline" (as distinct from "forced grouping" discussed in another thread) is a negative. A bit more sandbox would have been nice. The game was designed for play by the PS3 and PS4 game machines as well as computers. This significantly limited features that would have been available if designed only for the computer. The advantages in terms of wider market are obvious. The disadvantages in terms of reduced features and more immature player base are also obvious.
FFXIV is pure subscription, not counting the ability to play under a free trial. I find this a major plus. With all due respect to the many people that prefer microtransaction games for reasons that make perfect sense for them, I have never ever played a microtransaction game (and this includes games like EQ2, DAOC, DDO, SWTOR etc. that mix microtransactions and stores) where the store emphasis wasn't too obtrusive and the community didn't have an excessive number of trolls and very immature people. Please note that I am not saying that the typical free player is any worse than the typical subscriber. I am not. But free play allows chat channels and guilds (that do not try to avoid it) to be dominated by the minority that don't care about the game, have no investment in the game, and get pleasure from annoying or outright griefing other people.
FFXIV has dungeons that are both great and horrible to me. Great in that you can get into them by dungeon finder fairly easily (not to be confused with the party finder discussed above - totally different feature) and even if you don't have much time many of them typically take under 30 minutes. Horrible in that few people talk to eachother (partly a language issue there are quite a few Japanese speakers on the North American servers) and by the time you hit high level they have relatively difficult and complicated mechanics typically found only in raids in many MMOs. Good to some bad to me I prefer more open world play and more emphasis on fighting the mobs and using my abilities against theirs, and less focus on "go to this pixel at precisely this time and do exactly that or you die, immediately and with no chance of survival".
To focus on a few features discussed above. party finder is a nice feature though the name is a bit misleading. People use it to advertise for groups but also to sell or buy things, look for or recruit for guilds, or (people being people) troll the channel and say annoying things just to be annoying. it is worldwide not by zone. Linkshells are private channels - only the name is unique many many MMOs allow players to create their own channels. All of this needs to be viewed in the context of FFXIV being far different from typical Western MMOs in how it handles chat. There is NO world chat channel of any type. The closest is the mentor channel but that requires an invitation to join and it boots you automatically after you reach a certain level of experience and are no longer a novice (unless you become a mentor). Even stranger there is NO zone chat channel in any zone although you can /shout to have others hear you. Private chat channels are good - I don't know if FFXIV has any particular features worth taking. Party finder can be helpful though if I was designing a game I wouldn't use it - I would have separate mechanisms for finding guilds, buying and selling, finding groups or raids etc.
Where party finder differs from dedicated chat channels for shopping, guild recruitment etc. is that it allows messages that stay up for a set period and don't scroll out of sight - if a lot of messages are on you have to scroll down to see the newer ones. I like that feature. Messages expire after a certain period, as they should. But if you have a party finder message up you cannot group with anyone else or do some in-game things (which includes doing many of the story line quests) which is a big negative.
This one is a bit selfish - but to get rid of people always asking "Camp check!?" and spamming chat LF1M [x][y][z]. I want it to work in a way that lets you see quickly if the zone is full so you can go somewhere else if it looks hopeless of finding a group anytime soon. Its kinda a quality of life feature that will help limit people wasting time. I can remember countless times I sat in a zone yelling "LFG" when I could of went to another zone and found a group quicker.
This would NOT be a worldwide feature. You would only be able to see the zone you are currently inside.
I could not disagree with this more, I love the chat and camp checks in zone chat. Have struck up many a conversation with people whom I met in chat. Makes the game feel more alive, more populated.
Yes, I'm talking about the very first Beta. I also played in the second Beta and for a while after launch. It was like two different games.
The point was more that they should have been willing to engage their audience more to begin with, which is something we take to heart.
I have asked for something like a linkshell before. Something more than a firendslist but less than a guild, but it didnt get too much traction. People seemed to be worried about other people giving away raiding secrets and what not. So you should only be able to join one guild or group of fellow players.................... nevermind the fact that you could just whisper that info to someone if you were going to be a "spy". Anyway, I still think this could be good and could act like a home for those of us that dont want to commit to a guild (yet) or do but also want to keep in contact with friends outside the guild. But some people wouldnt understand this concept unless they played FFXI and saw how it worked. "Guild" loyalty was a thing, and very important.
As for FFXIV I agree with Zippyzee, devs should have listened, but I was very unhappy with the direction of FFXIV:ARR. I realize they had to do it to save the game. But I see it as nothing more than a WoW clone with FF skin more or less. I would have been far happier if they had just fixed FFXIV 1.0 and added content. By the time we got to FFXIV ver 1.23 it was pretty fun, despite the bugs.
Amsai said:I have asked for something like a linkshell before. Something more than a firendslist but less than a guild, but it didnt get too much traction. People seemed to be worried about other people giving away raiding secrets and what not. So you should only be able to join one guild or group of fellow players.................... nevermind the fact that you could just whisper that info to someone if you were going to be a "spy". Anyway, I still think this could be good and could act like a home for those of us that dont want to commit to a guild (yet) or do but also want to keep in contact with friends outside the guild. But some people wouldnt understand this concept unless they played FFXI and saw how it worked. "Guild" loyalty was a thing, and very important.
As for FFXIV I agree with Zippyzee, devs should have listened, but I was very unhappy with the direction of FFXIV:ARR. I realize they had to do it to save the game. But I see it as nothing more than a WoW clone with FF skin more or less. I would have been far happier if they had just fixed FFXIV 1.0 and added content. By the time we got to FFXIV ver 1.23 it was pretty fun, despite the bugs.
So linkshells were pretty much just player created chat channels? You could do that in EQ, password protect it and everything. Unless there is something I am missing here?
Nah you're not really missing anything, that's essentially what they are. Linkshells just had their own separate toggleable UI panel so you could quickly see the ones you had and stuff, and you could mute them ("equip" them). But yeah, glorified chat channels. I had one for rare mount farming and one for fishing, for example.
Jimmayus said:Nah you're not really missing anything, that's essentially what they are. Linkshells just had their own separate toggleable UI panel so you could quickly see the ones you had and stuff, and you could mute them ("equip" them). But yeah, glorified chat channels. I had one for rare mount farming and one for fishing, for example.
Oh well, personally Im not a real big fan of a million different chat channels. Besides group and guild I really really hate game wide chat channels....I prefer to keep everything restricted to zone
Well maybe they could put a reasonable limit on it? I wouldnt even want to be in 10 Linkshels. Thinking more like 2-3, and a Guild on top of that if you wanted one. I would also think guild membership should be unlimited, but something like a linkshell would be limited to say 20-30 folks? Most Linkshells (aside from Endgame) I was in were usually in the teens or low 20s as far as membership. Like I said before. Something more than a friendslist but less than a Guild in both population and features.
I would like the ability to set up one "Friends" chat channel outside of a guild channel, it comes in handy if there is a shortage of guild members on.
I don't like the idea of being able to join multiple guilds like in ESO unless they are just crafting related. The allegiiance to one guild I think is important.
Zahlhedren said:I would like the ability to set up one "Friends" chat channel outside of a guild channel, it comes in handy if there is a shortage of guild members on.
I don't like the idea of being able to join multiple guilds like in ESO unless they are just crafting related. The allegiiance to one guild I think is important.
Thats why I want Linkshells. You're still in ONE guild, but you can form up other groups aside from that. For instance in FFXIV right now - I have one for friends who are scattered across multiple guilds who are cool. One for Hunts. One for crafting and trading.
FFXIV became an amazing game by the end of 1.0. Sadly, by that point they had hurt the game too much from the original launch. I am one of a few, but 2.0 of FFXIV hurt the game. At least for players that are like me, and tbh, the kind of players that will be playing this game. Again though, 1.0 originally was not great, but by 1.3 or w/e it was the last major patch before 2.0, the game was in a respectable place (well, minus the action lock crap though it did bring an interesting level of reactivity awareness when they added move out of fire mechanics). That being said, I appreciate a lot of the things they added in 2.0, like the golden saucer. I like having more things to do than just hack and slash in a game without actually having to start up another game to play.
One thing I love is housing in games, but I hate it at the same time. The server I was on was the #1 FC on the server, so selling runs and being in a FC full of people from 1.0 provided us the opportunity to purchase what we would considerd the best spot for a house, and in the first instance. Sadly, I despise this system also. I prefer something like the mog house in FFXI, but with more features and some sort of outside place to run and and put stuff. I don't like having to fight with people over certain spots and just being SoL if you don't get it.
The nice part about LS if something is created here is it allowed players to more easily do World event type content. Odin popped? Spam it in LS so you can try and get the entire server there. It made content in a sense more enjoyable, though the server overload... at least that originally existed, wasn't fun. Another issue with this though is it promoted laziness. I don't want to walk both ways up hill in snow because people were doing that 20 years ago, but am somewhat saddened by the idea of people just sitting in town and not exploring etc because they know someone in a LS will just yell at them when something shows up. Of course I took advantage of this however.
The party finder system they had is interesting on paper, but also lead to what I would consider poor community ethics. It resulted in a lot of abusing of other players. And I don't mean "elitests" telling all the bad players they are bad, though this happened also. It also made groups sometimes rediculously difficult to make because people would constantly jump around multiple parties doing the same thing hoping to land in the best one. I know you can't prevent this, nor is it really any different than just removing the system all together and making people shout. I just wonder how you could combat some of these problems, especially when there is a community of people who are so opposed to dungeon finder type tools.
As I speculated in my earlier post - it is the details that will make or break these ideas. With regards 'Link Shells' a.k.a multiple (potentially configuerable) chat channels, there are obvious down-sides that would have to be considered before they could ever be implemented.
1. Population limit
If they were unlimited, what is to stop somebody creating a 'global' channel? Now we have circumvented the idea of 'zone-wide' channels without the retriction 'only if you are a Guildy'!
2. Geographic limit
Again, if viable across an unlimited number of zones - even if there was a 'cap' on active/subscribed channel members, what's to stop you setting up a 'World-Wide Global Dungeon Finder channel' for each dungeon? Not as bad as a 'Dungeon Finder UI', but is a step in that direction. You are increasing the use of 'decision making' without the impact of reputation or social interaction. You have not seen these guys before, fighting in the zone. You have had no interaction with them, received no buffs, given none to them... not even heard of them before. Decision making at a distance is less social the further that distance is. Join the 'Guk' or 'Chardok' channel while in Freeport to see how many people are there... only 2 of them - forget it. If I had run over there, might have found those 2 with a third who also ran over. Now you have four and start clearing some trash pulls to see if others might arrive.
Without running over - you get the same 'MOBA-esque' scnario where the population rises and falls as people join for a few minutes then leave. 0-1-2-3-4-3-4-3-2-3-4-5-4-3-4-3-2-1-0. Here 9 people considered going to the zone. In the end, none did. Had they gone, there would be 2 groups fighting there now - having fun. This is the potential downside to geopraphically unlimited channels.
3. Numeric Limit
If you can have a large number of channels - perhaps not even large, merely a dozen - that cover the entire geography of the world (or a major proportion of it) between them - we now have 'catnip for gold-sellers'. A global chat channel by proxy - even if they need to copy/paste the spam a few times. Something external automation (don't need scripting/in-game-macros) could do in a heartbeat!
My (potentially lunatic) suggestions:
1. Don't have a global chat channel
2. Single Guild membership
3. Heck, make Guilds build multiple guildhouses (can only guild-chat up to 3 zones from one)
4. Ancillary channels should be awarded by NPCs (crafting for eg) with limits on use
5. Languages (personally, I don't speak 'trollish' ... or 'gnomish')
6. Heck, whisper chat update frequency inversely proportional to distance!
7. Details shown on 'friends list' proportional to 'time grouped with them'
Errrrm, thats enough for now .... back to the eggnog!
Haven't read through everything yet but just going to reply to the OP and edit after.
Linkshells -
They both work and don't work. If simple chat channels with a pw and moderator are in game this would serve the same purpose. Which the chat channels should be a thing in game. Maybe have a vendor that allows you to purchase a channel. Giving you ownership of that channel for a set time frame. Apart from the usual ones, trade/lfg etc.
Group finder -
What you described is basically the LFG tool in EQ1. It was a window that showed groups looking for people and people looking for groups around the world with settings so you could search for your level range, etc. This is what I want in. But in no way shape or form should it be automated. This should only give you a list of people looking so you can talk to them.
Housing -
Literally the most useless thing I can think of. The only thing housing has ever done is make games more convenient and I am totally against that. Being able to have crafting stations all in one spot, vendors, etc makes people lazy. This game is all about going back to our roots and those roots mean that we may have to gather mats from around the world to make 1 piece of equipment as a crafter. I shouldn't be able to go to one place and get everything I need.
Evoras said:As I speculated in my earlier post - it is the details that will make or break these ideas. With regards 'Link Shells' a.k.a multiple (potentially configuerable) chat channels, there are obvious down-sides that would have to be considered before they could ever be implemented.
My (potentially lunatic) suggestions:
1. Don't have a global chat channel
2. Single Guild membership
3. Heck, make Guilds build multiple guildhouses (can only guild-chat up to 3 zones from one)
4. Ancillary channels should be awarded by NPCs (crafting for eg) with limits on use
5. Languages (personally, I don't speak 'trollish' ... or 'gnomish')
6. Heck, whisper chat update frequency inversely proportional to distance!
7. Details shown on 'friends list' proportional to 'time grouped with them'Errrrm, thats enough for now .... back to the eggnog!
+1. Yes, to all of these, and for the reasons Evoras listed above. I made many new friends by joining a guild and 'working with what I had' there. People from all over the world, that I would not otherwise have met if I could screen each one through various chat channels. By adding in to many global-esque chat channels, you risk removing many of the reasons for being in a guild. Guilds will become a place to sign up for raids only. And if a guilds main function is for raid sign ups, well, I imagine there will be little policing of who enters a guild aside from how they are geared.
I know I sound like an alarmist here, and perhaps I am. But I believe that allowing so many global-esque chat channels, you risk losing out on the formation of good, strong relationships. Instead, relationships will become more... vapid.
Hey Evoras, how's the eggnog? Save some for me...
FFXIV has linkshells... at the expense of having no global channel (unless you count Novice channel abuse). I cannot tell you how much that irks me. You can have your private chat channels but PLEASE. Let there be global chat, or at least open channels on a regional basis. The segregation has produced some profound xenophobic degradation. If you're not in the "right" ones you get massively screwed over.
Global channels can be spammy, but since hardly anyone speaks out in /say I don't have a good means to gauge personal character in the silence. I don't want to be a guild-hopping floozy and hope I strike gold with the people I encounter in that blind stumble. That's not the way I've made friends. Not by hanging out at exclusive clubs that are reputed to be cool yet ihavenoidea.
I met my closest friend in FFXIV so far doing one of the few things that is open world: hunting. She also turned out to be among the most capable people that I know of skill-wise, incidentally, she didn't have to advertise herself. At least Pantheon will have the world to facilitate those natural encounters, thank goodness.
You truly don't know what you have until you don't have it anymore. I thought I mostly hated the predisposition for pointless prattle over global in some games. … ...I fully regret that naïve assessment. Fully. Do not abolish global chat channels. If I absolutely need to outsource to an out of game sub-Reddit to find people to play the game I'm currently logged into right at this very moment, something is woefully wrong.
So actually, I'm at complete odds with the latest replies here haha. I wouldn't want to be hemmed into "what I have to deal with", I wanna mingle! You don't have to like me, but I'm a curious little sucker. I can try! It might turn into something wonderful! ...Or you can just tell me to bugger off and I'll respect that.
Anyhoo, ah-hah, and the Party Finder that is mostly "NO BONUS!" or "GOOD DPS OR ELSE!" or the cherry on the top "U FAIL, WI KIK!" perhaps it's just my server, but that's what I'm greeted with when I log in there. That's not a fault of the game though, that's a community problem. I guess the tool itself is a'ight. It does lend itself to pickiness for content that doesn't even require that level of pickiness. Not like that hasn't happened before, but in there it's really flung more at your face, and as a general stance. Case in point Raid Finder.
There are... not many things the game has done right in retrospect, just imo ofc. The gathering is a tight little circuit of 4-or-something pitstops per node type, and riddled with time-limited "rare" materials in between. If your queue pops close to that time "do I... don't I, do I?!" which it has an uncanny knack of doing. I normally take gathering to be a rather pleasurable downtime activity. That's another wayward niggle that came to mind. There's so much else, but this is not a topic about "what to avoid that was present in FFXIV".
There was one thing sans what I'm about to say, that isn't totally flippant, that I regarded as "good". For the life of me I can't remember what that was now. OH! Yeah. Not having to rely on lady luck's spin of the wheel of loot fortune when it comes to securing shinies.
Yep, it's a bit overboard with the various tomestone grinds, but I'm talking about the raids. I think it's great knowing that eventually I'll get something for my time. No longer am I glancing around with sad puppy eyes as one by one others loot something while I'm going empty-handed. My resolve and morale remain intact knowing there's a clear end in sight. Phew. Enjoying the content for what it is can only take you so far in these sorts of games that push loot to be a "thing".
Oh, as for the silly thing I can praise this game for. The emotes. Seriously. The emotiveness of the characters is great. I don't expect this game to have the variation that one has, but I just thought I'd throw it out there as a plus side. I adore my character and it'll be hard to fully break my ties with him once "I'm done". Completely done that is. I've soft-quit for now.
...the story i.e. the genuinely RPG part of the game is nice too, that's kind of a given though.
Please 'scuse the wall-texting, I can get pretty passionate and crassly frank once piqued~. Sorry.