Final Fantasy XIV limits you to 8 hours levelling a week - why that's a good thing

Only the subscription fee spoils a great move

[Saryk]

But why 8 hours? Oh well, I call my self casual, but I play more than 8 hours a week. Won't be playing this even if I can switch professions.

[Clipper13]

I agree with you man, I did have some interest for this game up until I started hearing about this crap.

[Abriael]

it's NOT 8 hours. Goodness. IT's not even near that. This article is based on a COMPLETE misconception of the system. As a beta tester I'm laughing HARD to see how this guy completely bit on some misleading articles and created an editorial that stands over nothing.

In a few minutes I'll have an article up that explains how it works in depth (it's being proofed right now), and you will notice that it's nothing like this or other misinformed articles tried to paint it.

edit: lol at the disagree. funny to see how some people really would like this game to fail, even at the point of supporting completely false info.

[Chris399]

This article isn't really about the mechanics of system itself anyhow, its the play-style that this system encourages. It's my understanding that you can change jobs and earn experience in those, but my personal contention is that the game should be built in a manner that you don't have to swap specialties all the time if you don't want to.

The point of an MMO is to give you as many choices (well 'illusions' of choice) as possible. I don't like the fact that I can only play as my preferred profession for 8 or X hours a week (well, I could play ALL week as one profession, but there's no benefit). The player should be able to choose however long they would like to play in that style for. That's the point of an MMORPG.

I also read the producer's recent twitter/ explanation of the system, and it still leaves more questions than answers.

Anyhoo, I'll check out your article in a bit, perhaps it will provide a bit more illumination.

And we'll all find out in September when the open beta starts. But you have to understand that to moderate or dedicated players, anything that sounds as if it might interfere with their choices, freedom or amount of hours that they want to log, is just begging for nerd-rage. Look at the recent Real ID fiasco.

P.S. The disagrees aren't from me :) I prefer a civilized chat! (sometimes, unless the individual is a complete troll)

[Abriael]

Not only you can change jobs and earn experience in those, but doing so will also recharge your previous job.
Basically there's no limit, as long as you play a couple or more classes, it's entirely possible to never see the "fatigue system" in action on your character.

Now, I'm sure some will say "I want to level just one class!". Unfortunately (for them) that would have detrimental effect even before the fatigue system. Leveling up a single class has the same effect as leveling up without a subjob in 11, your stats will be much lower and you will lack indispensible utility abilities.

[InfectedDK]

I think it's ok to limit it however I think 8 hours is too limited..
It should be 16 hours a week.. I myself will not play it that many hours, maybe one or two weeks, if the game is great, but it should be possible to game for 16 hours.

[Abriael]

The funny part is that it's not 8 hours, it's not 16, it's not X hours. Depending on how you play (and I don't mean how much) you can easily avoid the system altogether even if you play the whole week.

[Chris399]

So you're saying that you can play the whole week while gaining XP, but is that AS ONE CLASS (profession/ whatever) or by rotating classes?

That's something that I'm still not clear on.

Edit: You answered my question above.

[Abriael]

By rotating classes. But you can go back to your original as soon as it's recharged, even many article that are including the detail that you can change class and restart from 100% are still omitting the crucial detail that your original class recharges while you don't play it. So basically you can juggle back and forth and go on the whole week. I did in the beta, for several hours a day, and it's not even difficult to do.

As for playing a single class, it's discouraged by the system much before fatigue comes in place. Making a viable character in FFXI means integrating your main class abilities with abilities from one or more classes, also leveling a single class will result in a low physical level = low stats.
It's pretty much like Final Fantasy XI, in which you HAD to have a main class and one or more subs. Here it's just more elastic since you can mix&match at will.

Luckily my proofreader is almost done. So my article will be in the pending section in a few minutes minutes, and hopefully dispel some more misconceptions.

Obviously the system isn't perfect, or even finished. They're still working on it, and making changes, so all this outrage is clearly premature other than misinformed.

[SolidSystem]

you have 16 hours of XBL a week, thanks for paying for this service. but you wont get any benefits for subscribing and basically be a silver member after doing so.

[Abriael]

@SolidSystem isn't it lucky that it doesn't really work like that?

Full explanation here: http://n4g.com/news/593091/...

[SolidSystem]

how am I wrong? you start to loose things as time continues. it might not be time, and in this case experience. which is still limiting how we can play. i dont get the class system cause i havent been following the game, but if i have to switch over to an alt to keep playing, thats just bull.

[callahan09]

It's not anywhere near as bad as some are making it out to be. Firstly, it's not 8 hours, it's 8 thresholds. And what that means is that the developers did testing to see what the optimal amount of experience earned can be if you spend an hour doing only things that grant experience, and that's what a threshold is. You can play for 8 thresholds within 7 days at full experience. Then you can play for 7 more thresholds at less than full experience. If you play the game but are doing stuff that doesn't grant experience, then your threshold draws back so you have more experience you can earn within the 7-day period. You can switch classes anytime you want and each class has its own threshold counter. Sounds you like a ton of options to play for as long as you really want, to me. You either have to do non-experience earning things for some time, or you have to switch classes, but there's stuff to do. Anyway, I personally can't wait for this game. It looks awesome!

[Terarmzar]

When you buy something and it's rightfully yours
it's NEVER a good thing!

[darkziosj]

and that's other reason why i preffer guild wars 2

[Newtype]

if the game was free online this wouldn't be a problem.

[Apotheosize]

This is terrible. Not only do they limit you to their own time, youre paying for a whole month, but only getting 32/700ish hours. Why is it a monthly subscription again? Make it charged on every hour if this goes live. Hopefully they get so much hate mail they'll remove this completely.

[Acquiescence]

then what's the point?

[Myst]

8 hours a week. Hmm, I could STILL go over that amount just by playing in between my free time of classes. I guess I could use the other time just to make stuff..? :/ I'll probably slip to another game for a bit then.

[Fierce Musashi]

Alot of RPG gamers I know play eight hours in one day.

[Zachmo182]

Well thats good then....Maybe people could actually go outside then...Oh yea i said it!

[Spaghett]

Champagne kisses, hold me in your lap of luxury. I only want to fly first class as long as your my limousine. So elegant the way we ride our passion just multiplies. There is platinum lighting in the sky.

[SolidSystem]

look, i understand they want core and casual players to get along, but it wont happen. even if they limit the time, Core players will be better. they will understand the mechanics, they will understand strategies that the casuals just wont play enough to understand.

this is ensuring square gets more money. they can make it so that we have to play for 5 months to get to max level, and find out the end game sucks.

instead of hardcore players zooming through it in a month.

Dont hurt the guys who will make or break you.

[Simco876]

If I am going to pay for playing this game online, why should have I a limit on what I can do?

I wouldn't buy this game period

[koehler83]

It's actually not based on time, but approximately the amount of EXP you can gain in an hour, multiplied by 8. So if you can get 5000 EXP in an hour (I really have no idea), then you'd get 40000 EXP before diminishing returns.

And YES, changing disciplines allows the Fatigue to wear off at any time, even mid-week. The 1 week timer clears all fatigue regardless of anything else.

Your fatigue doesn't build while you run around or do anything other than gain EXP or Skill Points.

[evolution54]

They want to charge a monthly fee *in addition* to telling us how long we can play the game for? WOW....

[Whatever123456]

Shame the game isnt even out yet and people are already bashing it. I myself "Will" get this game and ill be enjoying it while the rest of u are complaining about it. In the end who wins? I do & to those of you who are saying you wont buy it, THEN DONT!! Why should I care? I honestly dont want people like you ruining my experience anyways, so go cry somewhere else as I couldnt care less ^-^

BTW; Cant wait 4 this game :D

[hazelamy]

if they want to even the playing field between casuals and hardcore, although they're always gonna be playing separately if every other mmo on the planet is any indication, then have something like wow's rest mechanic, give xp bonuses to players who are offline more, don't punish players who actually want to play your game.

seriously, in which design meeting did they decide to punish their most dedicated players?
it's frakking retarded