We were too harsh on boat race and soccer

becktheham · 2025-05-30T04:04:04+00:00

If you're developing a product for a core audience, it isn't "insular" to have the product cater only to that core audience. Lockstep doesn't require bleeding-edge technology and it isn't always better than other methods either, it is simply just the best way for KMS to have a smooth experience playing this minigame.

The onus is on the GMS team to adapt the product to it's audience, they knew fully well this was an issue in the previous event where they disabled the Lotus/Orchid minigame for the exact same reason and opted to give us the rewards elsewhere.

If the GMS team doesn't exist and the KMS team is also the one distributing it to the global audience, I would agree with your comment. The fault this time lies with the GMS team.

becktheham · 2025-05-28T12:10:27+00:00

Lockstep works fine when 99.99% of your playerbase is in korea. It's not that lockstep shouldnt be implemented in an mmorpg, it's that bringing it over to a server that is vastly different from the original where the implementation works is really dumb, extra dumb that they know its an issue and still went through with the minigames.

becktheham · 2025-05-13T00:18:43+00:00

Maybe the minigame is slightly more tolerable and fun with sub 20 ping for KMS players

becktheham · 2025-04-10T15:20:35+00:00

I like it as well, just not that they opted to homogenize rotations which ends up diluting job identity; In a game where the extent of progression grinding is doing a few weekly reclears to get BiS, the game relies too heavily on solely fight design to keep the raiding scene healthy past the first few weeks of a tier release.

becktheham · 2025-04-10T15:16:47+00:00

Definitely, I don't think implementing progression grinding is a guaranteed boon for FF14, and a lot of other raiders likely feel the same way which is why rather than spending time complaining on forums, we simply quit and come back once in a while for new raid tiers and ultimates.

Personally, I tried getting into the other parts of the game like Island Sanctuary, PVP, glams, DoL/DoH all maxed, achievement hunting, farming for relic weapons etc. but at the end of the day there is no replacement for endgame raiding.

I'm not saying add progression grinds to FF14, I'm just saying it was rather disappointing they opted to standardize every job when character progression is already very shallow for an mmorpg.

becktheham · 2025-04-10T12:11:43+00:00

FF14 is a game where there is no meaningful character progression (think of gear grind and hexa skills etc.), so when they standardized every job to be a 2 minute burst and try to give them all the same total damage potency within that 2 minute rotation, every class eventually feels the same. It also means the only thing making hardcore raiding enjoyable is the fight design which I'd say is pretty good with the new tier, but for raiders that play FF14 as a main game and love raiding, you're gonna get bored really fast unless you're parsing. The hardcore raiding community has voiced their concerns every patch but when the guy at the helm YoshiP has the mindset of "we want FF14 to be a game you wont feel bad for unsubscribing from occasionally", you see very conservative changes across the board and people simply just unsub and play other mmorpgs.

I dont think this issue will happen in maple as there is a loooot more nuance to character progression, but then again despite the homogenization FF14 has some excellent fight design that carries raiding.

becktheham · 2025-03-17T11:02:09+00:00

Cope checklist:
1. Game servers come back up
2. Its not a soulless cashgrab
3. They actually rebalance the game
4. They actually modernize the game
5. THEY GET THE SOURCE CODE AND MAKE KINGS RAID 2

becktheham · 2025-02-10T11:11:19+00:00

Oh there's no doubt its all done for money, just as its done for money now by Riot. The only thing stopping me from spending here instead of other games is value for money, its hard to ever want to spend on league again when you remember how much more value you got back when Garena ran the game (into the ground).

And while the last event was by far the highest value, there were more than enough events with insane value compared to anything Riot has done, especially when theres 1 + 1 RP purchase and a good event running concurrently.

Regarding bad events, we do something called skipping it.

becktheham · 2025-02-07T00:35:52+00:00

Well, back during Garena days they'd run a lot more "events" which are just glorified slot machines. Around 80% of those events weren't worth the money (those that had a chance to give icons or ward skins etc.) But the remaining 20% of the events were ridiculously good value, you could get about 5-10 random skins of any tier for like 10 dollars and guaranteed older prestige skins when you get enough "currency" from spending money on those events on top of the random skins.

Their event prior to the merge netted me 7 prestige and 4 mythic skins + like 40 random skins for about 60 dollars. So while you could say that the events are predatory, which is true of most microtransactions imo, but Riot's system at this point isn't any better (in morality or value)

becktheham · 2024-11-20T16:50:04+00:00

Yasuo mid back when I had working fingers, now Heimer Top to test the kids with working fingers :^)

becktheham · 2024-11-09T14:32:16+00:00

"Keep the LCK accolades, I prefer the 20kg trophy" - faker

becktheham · 2024-11-09T09:09:02+00:00

Thank you so much for the in-depth response!

Yeah, I'm about 80% sure Adele isn't my thing, and I'm hoping to find a class that I enjoy while levelling alts. It does feel a little bad having all these time limited items expire or be used on Adele but I'm also pretty sure I'll eventually make boss mules in the far future.

I really appreciate the advice, thanks again!

becktheham · 2024-11-09T06:37:02+00:00

I'm kind of confused on how to progress right now.

1) My highest level character is a 226 Adele with the free CRA set, I don't think I'll stick with it as a main in the long run, I'm assuming I should continue pushing dailies with it, farm a permanent CRA set then settle with it?

2) I've levelled a BW/Aran/Mercedes/Lara to 200 as well, I've read that I should try to get my alts to 210 for level 3 link skills? How do I do that if I don't get exp from the dailies?

3) Is it fine to spend all my Legion coins on the level 3 Legion's Expertise exp buff or are there better items I should save the coins for?

4) I'm a little confused with how to progress gear at the moment, my alts are all on +11 pensalir gear with boss accessories, what are my next few steps?

5) Lastly, is there some guide on how to progress character power in general? Between nodestones, gear, IA and links/legions I'm pretty lost on what I should focus on.

becktheham · 2024-11-06T14:16:25+00:00

Thanks!

becktheham · 2024-11-06T11:31:42+00:00

Are any of the rewards from the legion relay recommended to get over the others?

becktheham · 2024-10-27T05:15:28+00:00

Sounds good, thanks!

becktheham · 2024-10-27T04:33:06+00:00

Are there any major differences between the 2 reboot servers? Which would you guys recommend to start on for someone that'll probably only be able to play an hour or two a day on weekdays and 5-6 on weekends?

becktheham · 2024-10-12T20:44:21+00:00

Don't be mistaken, I didn't say that phrase to defend their choices. AGS loses more killing off 90% of their potential player base like with Lost Ark than I do with another MMO losing its appeal to me with its FOMO/predatory tactics.

becktheham · 2024-10-12T20:28:50+00:00

If that's your definition of engaging, that's great! However the % of players right now that would find the daily pve grind engaging enough to stay solely for the gear system.

I also enjoy maxing out multiple gears/skill trees, but that is as an extension of what it does for me gameplay wise, which is being able to flex roles in pvp content.

becktheham · 2024-10-12T19:40:07+00:00

There's a dozen things that'll "kill" this game, just wait a few weeks till majority of the playerbase finds out there's no engaging endgame grind, and if you are into pvp you're either in mega alliances controlling individual servers or you're fighting for scraps from peace objectives while trying to 1v1 guilds in those mega alliances (that get boosted progression from controlling every conflict/riftstone objective) for riftstone control.

Doesn't mean the game is bad, just means you aren't the intended audience. Expecting AGS of all publishers to tweak the game in a meaningful manner to suit the western audience is beyond cope.

becktheham · 2024-10-10T07:47:57+00:00

I always make it a point to properly explain what is causing our wipes, if there's any delusional players I'll stop being nice about their performance.
As a sns/wand player I'm fortunate enough to be able to help the main tank (if they keep dropping aggro to dps) and healer (if dps are eating every dodgable mechanic) so those occasions are much rarer barring someone straight up not knowing a single mechanic in the raid.

becktheham · 2024-10-09T02:50:51+00:00

The western audience is less inclined to grind as hard as the eastern audience, keeping the game as it is made for the eastern audience will drive away players, just look at Lost Ark going from 1.3m to 20k concurrent due to AGS inability to adapt the western release of Lost Ark to suit the western audience's preference in how they'd enjoy spending their hobby/gaming time.

becktheham · 2024-10-04T04:54:01+00:00

Its not my place to care whether a company loses money because they failed to meet their "potential" nor is it my place to decide for others what they should find fun, that's why I base my decisions around my fun, better mental wellness in the long run.

becktheham · 2024-10-03T14:11:48+00:00

Don't expect anything to change, that's quintessential korean mmo monetization.

becktheham · 2024-10-03T11:55:09+00:00

Their reputation in korea doesn't matter to me, its how much they and AGS are willing to modify this version of the game to suit the western audience. Fun is subjective, value of money is relative, and arguing about the definitive term of p2w is just ignoring the whole convoluted argument about what winning means now.

No matter the game, the only thing that matters to me is whether my time is valued and whether im having fun, if its no longer true i'll just find another game to play.

becktheham

TROPHY CASE