Square Enix has postponed the first season of rankings for Crucible of the Unbroken, the roguelike mode built around Final Fantasy XIV's new limited job, Beastmaster. The developer announced the delay in a post on the game's official site, PC Gamer reported.
In its statement, Square Enix said that many players had been enjoying Beastmaster and its challenges since the job's release, but that it had also received considerable feedback on the job's combat balance, along with reports of issues with certain gameplay mechanics that it is working to address. The developer said that if rankings began under those conditions, it would be difficult to tell whether results reflected the intended balance of the job and its mechanics, which would affect the fairness of the ranking process. PC Gamer's report did not include a new start date for the rankings.
How the rankings were set to work
According to PC Gamer, reaching the Crucible leaderboards requires clearing a board on its "third degree" difficulty. A Tourmaline Golem Mount was set to go only to players who finish a season within the top few hundred, with the exact cutoff varying by region size.
Scores are raised through board bonuses. PC Gamer listed bonuses tied to mechanics, damage taken and the degree cleared, as well as bonuses for using only three familiars instead of the permitted 15, sticking to a single familiar type, and not using campsites, feeding, spending coins or acquiring gear.
PC Gamer's writer argued that this scoring pushed players chasing the mount to avoid the systems that make the mode interesting, such as building a roster of familiars suited to each fight, and reported that players had been looking for ways to cheese the mode as a result. The outlet's headline described the leaderboards as accidentally encouraging players to min-max the fun out of the mode.
