In Final Fantasy XIV, players are offered 96 free hours, while the new PvE content is causing problems.
Square Enix is proud of Final Fantasy XIV. That’s why they showcase it regularly. Now Patch 3.1 is out, and they say:
Former players who have not had a subscription for more than 30 days can play for free for four days between December 1 and December 31.
Among the 4 days counted: The day you log in again, and the three subsequent days until 11:59 PM on the third day after the login day. So you should start “as early in the day as possible,” otherwise you’ll have only 80 hours or so instead of 96.
Problems with Mass PvE in Diadem
Meanwhile, there is a bit of trouble with Patch 3.1 regarding the new large event-like zones. They have tried a new concept with many different groups in open PvE instances, on the islands.
And the mass PvE there does not work as smoothly as usual in the “Exploration Missions” in Diadem. In the first and so far only group of islands, groups are competing for the same monsters – this leads to conflicts. Up to 9 groups, 72 players, can land on one island together.
Players are complaining that some groups only hit the mobs and then just run away, not really helping to take them down.
Furthermore, the 8 players within a group do not always have the same goal. In a hodgepodge thrown together by the Duty Finder, there are combat classes wanting to kill monsters, but there are also gathering classes who want to do their crafting there. The gatherers annoy the hunters.
Others say: Here are people in our group who play crafting professions, they play their gatherers – they don’t bring us anything. Why should we support them here? They aren’t hitting the mobs, we’re then doing too little damage to the creatures and going home empty-handed.
This topic has been concerning the FF14 community for some time now.
A problem noticed here within a group: Half of the group wants to “gather” special items with their crafting class, doing no damage to the mob. The other half of the group wants items from the mobs, but deals too little damage to get loot because other parties are dealing the main damage:
Auto-Matchmaking mixes fighters with gatherers – this leads to problems
There has already been a hotfix. Mastermind Naoki Yoshida spoke up last week, saying: It’s not that simple. If we come up with rules, they can be abused. This is a different concept than the content so far; everything is new now.
Yoshida assured that some problems would be solved “technically,” while for others, they hope for discussions within the group to find solutions. However, it is known that talking doesn’t always help.
Square Enix is working on it but needs a little more time. They are considering that simply “hitting” is no longer enough, but you also need to deal a percentage of damage to receive loot. They are still struggling with a “kick system” because it could mean that “bidders on an item” could be removed. Furthermore, the gathering professions should also be able to do something; they cannot just be removed for kicking. It’s all quite complicated.
The best solution would probably be to separate gathering and combat professions so that they do not end up together in matchmaking. However, this is technically difficult, at least in the short term with Patch 3.1. Those who are bothered by this are recommended by Yoshida to manually seek a group.
Well, hopefully, returning players won’t have to deal with these difficulties.
