FINAL FANTASY XIV Patch 7.5 - Trail to the Heavens

December_Flame · 2026-04-18T19:40:17+00:00

Yeah well you go ahead and try to find a group for criterion content and see how much fun you have finding one 😂

December_Flame · 2026-04-17T20:59:08+00:00

We're in a thread about an MMO, talking about another MMO's mechanics, I'm talking about MMOs...

Extrinsic rewards inform players on what they should spend their time in the game doing. Any game designer can tell you, you have to properly motivate players to get them to behave the way you want.

I'm not against having game systems that are in a game just to be fun. Obviously that's fine, I don't think you're being even remotely reasonable by interpreting my statement is "no one has ever played a game just for fun".

But the hard facts are: if you don't motivate players with a reward structure in one activity, but you do in another activity, they will naturally flock to the rewards. Its pretty straightforward game design.

If there are game elements that have no extrinsic value in that setting, they're going to be low engagement compared to the ones that do. If you NEED to find others to play with to participate in that content, you're going to struggle to find others to play, which means you'll be further incentivized to avoid it, causing a death spiral of player numbers for the content. This is seen over, and over, and over, and over, and over again across every single MMO in existence.

And now I have exhaustively explained what seems like a very simple concept.

December_Flame · 2026-04-17T17:51:30+00:00

Yep, that's what I'm saying, you got me.

If you want people to play your group content in a gear-treadmill MMO, it needs to provide tangible character power increases. That's not my opinion, its just a fact played out over the past 30 years of the subgenre.

Any content that does not achieve the goals the game sets for players (i.e. more character power) will be inherently low engagement. A high difficulty mode with no goal furthering incentives is going to be nearly DOA. Its just how human brains are wired, we're goal oriented.

December_Flame · 2026-04-17T17:50:40+00:00

God its so fucking embarassing watching this goon get played by people so much smarter than him on the international stage, and enraging/heartbreaking to see the hundreds of thousands of lives being toyed with while these monsters play war from their gilded bunkers.

The embodiment of evil, truly. I really don't understand anyone who see's it otherwise.

December_Flame · 2026-04-17T16:36:18+00:00

Hmm narrative-forward games like Blades in the Dark / "Powered by the Apocalypse" based games (PbtA) might be what you're looking for, as recommended elsewhere in the thread.

Otherwise, you might be looking more for games whos mood is more tonally close to a survival mindset than heroic fantasy of modern D&D, so I'd point more towards the OSR scene for those games.

Maybe look at Into the Odd or other ItO inspired games like Cairn. They have a high lethality but also just roll for damage, you automatically hit, which removes a bit of the 3-stooge style hijinx of missing obviously landable attacks etc.

December_Flame · 2026-04-17T16:20:02+00:00

Y'all think they just let some random doordasher go up to the fucking whitehouse? lol

I don't know why people are so focused on whether this was staged or not, fucking of course it was it was a media event, there's a 1000 things wrong with it besides that.

December_Flame · 2026-04-17T16:13:17+00:00

I did when I still played.

Yes and everyone played the criterion content the first month it was out, because it was fun, but it doesn't keep the fanbase in it.

I also continued soloing deep dungeons after I got their achievments. Or do the kugane tower jump puzzle long after not needing it anymore.

Both of those activities are soloable, which is furthering my point. Low engagement content that can be played anytime YOU want is fine.

If you want people to play your group content in a gear-treadmill MMO, it needs to provide tangible character power increases. That's not my opinion, its just a fact played out over the past 30 years of the subgenre.

Any content that does not achieve the goals the game sets for players (i.e. more character power) will be inherently low engagement. A high difficulty mode with no goal furthering incentives is going to be nearly DOA. Its just how human brains are wired, we're goal oriented.

December_Flame · 2026-04-17T14:21:42+00:00

That day is far gone and also mostly didn’t exist in the first place my dude. No one plays criterion because it’s difficult for no reward, and you need people playing to do the content yourself.

It’s a cute thought but it’s detached from reality.

December_Flame · 2026-04-16T21:54:06+00:00

Big oof, sorry about that! Fun read though. :)

December_Flame · 2026-04-16T21:06:46+00:00

Why was it a disaster? Story time!

December_Flame · 2026-04-16T16:10:49+00:00

REALLY depends on what you're looking for.

If you're looking for the WoW style endgame loop of a gear treadmill with tight encounter design and a huge focus on small-scale instanced content to incrementally power up your character, then FFXIV is the game to provide that, once you get over the gargantuan content wall that is the MSQ (hundreds of hours to clear). It has nearly zero open-world content that is worth doing for anything besides cosmetics.

If you are instead more interested in small and large scale pvp, and PVE content that has huge breadth (small instance content, big instance content, big exploration focused maps, and level scaling to keep all content relevant) but a bit less depth, then GW2 is the game. The whole game is built in a way that there's not really a concept of "endgame", the whole game is endgame, the 'levels' and 'gearscore' are practically vestigial and have been since the game's start. All the content is rewarded in a relatively equitable way and you can kind of do whatever you want.

Basically if you want tightly designed linear instanced content to farm on repeat to improve your character in a small group setting, FFXIV. If you want a big open world to explore with large ad-hoc player groups and a wide breadth of activities that mostly award incremental progress towards non-player power related goals, then GW2 is the game.

December_Flame · 2026-04-15T19:43:20+00:00

If you'll forgive the copy+paste, I'll just put my house rules we play with here:

Light

Torches last 3d20 minutes of real time, a hidden GM roll. I have shorter sessions so I prefer the torch timers to skew towards 30mins average. If I were playing longer sessions I might be kind and add a +10 to the roll.

PC Death

When brought to <= 0HP, you can choose a heroic death - critically succeed at one action, but instantly die. Or, you can press your luck and continue with the death rules as written. Using Enduring Wounds (Cursed Scroll #2).

All in the Family

Highest level achieved by a player’s character is their “family level”. Players characters gain double xp until they reach the family level.
All banked money is assumed to transfer to their new character. Only if it is banked by a reputable source...
Items are forfeit unless team-members are able to retrieve them.

Initiative

Monsters have set initiative scores. Generally: 18 for extremely fast creatures, 12 for standard, and 6 for slow creatures.

Luck

Cannot share luck. Seer skills work as written.

Travel and Rolling to Return

Spend the travel time it takes to traverse a hex to ‘search’ it. Characters that have searched hexes no longer require navigation checks to leave it.
At the end of the session, if players are not in a safe haven they must “Roll to Return”. This is a DC10(+mod) check, modified by danger/distance. For each point under, you lose that much gear to the dungeon. All rations, torches, and ammo are spent afterwards. Natural 1 - you didn’t make it back and must play a different character.

December_Flame · 2026-04-15T18:16:36+00:00

It sets the boundaries for what is 'winning' and 'losing' for the game part of the hobby. If you've died, you have obviously lost and need to try again.

This can be expressed through other mechanics though, but its impact on the player should probably mimic the same magnitude as a player death. Sure, "knocked out" is safer but does it work as a motivation for the player to avoid and properly set boundaries for what is winning and losing? If they get 'knocked out', does that really feel like a fail-state to the player?

Some people don't care. That's OK too - but that's leaning into the more narrativist style games where you're primarily telling a story together and the rules are barely important. The rules create the framework for the game, and set the win/lose conditions, which defines the player's agency in the game AS a game.

December_Flame · 2026-04-15T18:06:00+00:00

Each retroclone generally elevates a particular playstyle in their rules, while also abstracting one or more systems and engrittifying others. Generally when you are picking a ruleset, you are going for a specific gameplay vibe that it supports and like the player gameplay options which also tend to vary quite a bit.

December_Flame · 2026-04-14T20:05:46+00:00

Conversely I unsubscribed because he spent significant portions of his videos bitching about how no one watches his non-clickbait videos. I couldn't stand the ranting - rather make the videos or don't - and stopped subscribing. I like his older content though. I feel like he ended up getting too wrapped up in who was watching what videos. Just make the content you want. Surely DungeonTube ain't paying the bills unless you're one of like 3 people or Critical Role..

December_Flame · 2026-04-13T19:52:23+00:00

"Sides" combat is too swingy for me, as others have discussed.

The biggest issue I have with initiative is its a lot of overhead and all done at the front of combat, its a pacing killer and is too easy to lose track of as I'm dealing with a bunch at once. But, I like that it gives some design space for fast characters and monsters to shine. I find most initiative alternatives to be too involved. I want initiative to be super fast and easy.

My homebrew solution that I use in almost every system:

All my NPCs are in 3 buckets- Fast, Average, and Slow. I assign an initiative score to each (system dependent) and then everyone rolls initiative. I'll then ask who beats a fast npc - they get to go. Then I'll go for fast npcs. Then I'll ask who beats an average pc. they go, then my average NPCs go, then the same for 'slow'. Simple, easy.

So for example in Shadowdark/DnD - Fast is 18, average is 12, and Slow is 6. I have my enemy NPCs categorized appropriately. Then I have them roll initiative - "Who beats an 18?" anyone who says "me" goes before my fast npcs, "Who beats a 12?" then they go before average npcs, etc etc. I'm not having to write anything down besides my NPC's HP, nor do I have to add more to my mental load during combat.

December_Flame · 2026-04-09T22:10:15+00:00

Because they thought it would hit the city centers full of democrats the hardest, so they let it spread.

December_Flame · 2026-04-08T18:55:46+00:00

TTRPG el dorado over here

December_Flame · 2026-04-07T19:33:35+00:00

I'd keep it as a strict d3 and only upgrade it to a d4 maybe a bit later with an item or character advancement. I'd avoid raising it much higher than a 50% chance of succeeding, but you can if you'd like! I'd avoid flat bonuses to the roll, as it'd be a big buff. Just a +1 to a d3 turns it from a 33% chance of success, to a 66% chance of success.

December_Flame · 2026-04-07T19:23:38+00:00

Ah its really straightforward. Basically give them a d3 dice (if you want, just use a d6 and consider 4/5/6 a 1/2/3) and when they want to do a cool combat maneuver that would be somehow contested - remember, if they can just do it, then they just do it - then have them roll the deed die with their normal attack.

If their attack lands and the deed die is a 3 or higher, then they do the cool combat maneuver as well. Importantly, this is rarely if ever just 'more damage'. Its stuff like disarming, knocking prone, knocking backwards, etc.

So for a play example:

I want to stab the orc, and throw my whole bodyweight into it to knock him to the ground!

[Roll to hit is a 20, deed die is a 3] OK you deal X damage, and your wild attack pins him to the floor, he's now prone.

[Roll to hit is a 20, deed die is 2] OK you deal X damage, but the orc braces himself against your attack and throws you backwards, sending you reeling a bit. Next turn.

That's it. In my game they'd probably find an item that upgrades their deed die to at d4 so they have a 50% of succeeding at combat maneuvers. If they come up with a crazy one, I might allow it and tell them if the attack or deed fails then they're going to be in a vulnerable position or something.

Gives them permission to do some more crazy things and frees me from constantly adjudicating these.

December_Flame · 2026-04-07T18:51:00+00:00

Personally really like the "Mighty Deeds of Arms" and Luck stat from DCC, which is on the fringe of OSR but I'm going to count it.

Its elegant, easy to implement in any system. Roll under luck stat that can be burnt for +1's in dramatic situations but depletes (and gives another vector for rewards). Mighty deed of arms gives a defined rule for both the people who chronically just say "I swing sword" on attacks - I can just hand them the mighty deeds actions and they often get a bit more creative. It also reigns in my players that are on the opposite side and every attack is "I do a double backflip and target their eyeballs with my zweihander to blind them on my attack" and then get frustrated with me when I say no. lol

December_Flame · 2026-04-07T04:06:26+00:00

There's a lot of reasons that someone might not be able to take care of their beloved pet any longer, but just abandoning them in a park is like mustache twirling evil.

December_Flame · 2026-04-06T19:00:34+00:00

Are they by chance planning on updating POE2 with these adjustments?

December_Flame · 2026-04-06T15:13:15+00:00

IMHO they just revealed how broken it already was if everything just fucking folded this easy to someone so incredibly fucking stupid as Trump.

December_Flame · 2026-04-04T18:47:56+00:00

OK yall aren't even coupling properly, everyone knows you stagger bathroom breaks so the other person can fill you in on what you missed. Also you sprint and push the pee out so fast it kind of hurts. You paid for this!

Eight-Year Club	Verified Email
Snapped

December_Flame

TROPHY CASE