Development Team Downsizing and Justification Makes no Sense

[Sp1cyryan]

What a doomer

Is that so?

[Pixela]

An mmo is built on perceived permanence or at least a good remaining lifespan.

Very much as if I was told I had 3 months left to live I would stop working out and doing may other things, when players start to worry there isn't a good lifespan left they clock out.

I played another fairly big game that got a 3 month notice and it turned into a ghost town almost instantly and to a shocking level, and this was a free to play game with no barrier to entry. It remained that way for the 3 months, the only players left were taking videos and screenshots in solitude. The only time the server was full again was hours before server close.

It is important that Fujito promotes lifespan (which btw is a thing because they have stated they are buying new servers, and you don't do that unless you plan to keep it running for many years) even if he can't promise updates, and people like you and I also do the same. Because the demoralization effect from what you and others above posted is one of the biggest game killers you can imagine. I know that because I've experienced it.

The game above had masses of things being run like special events, dungeons with high drop rates and all manner of other things and there was nobody doing any of it.

[Haldarn]

Fujito says about next half-update "I hope you enjoy seeing with your own eyes what that means for the world of Vana’diel."

I am waiting for the vindication that on completion of TVR my client reloads in HD and we are left with the FACT that the next XIV expansion will be Vana'diel and that somehow our XI characters are do a thing that means we can play all of XIV from lv1 but with XI rules. Joint sub. Same server. Gearswap horizontal progression with different stats coming out of our ears.

Can be the only possibility, yes?

[Alhanelem]

I don't understand what it is with people and "horizontal progression." the only real difference between the two is one makes you lug more crap around at any given time to achieve the same results. I suppose it can be argued that it gives more content purpose at any given time but other games make up for that in other ways to still offer the same amount of content in the end for the people who want to collect everything.

Games generally moved to "vertical progression" because the prospect of making bigger numbers do bigger things drives content to help retain players vs the next sidegrade that doesn't really advance your character measurably, which makes it harder to get excited about it. The only issue I have with the way games like WoW and FFXIV do it is they don't vary the formula a lot from one content release to the next. But that's not a fault of the progression style, it's lack of creativity on the content creator's part.

The "horizontal progression" is primarily what deters me from playing many jobs to the same level, because I don't want to deal with mules and inventory management aggravation. It does allow stats on equipment to be more interesting and unique, which is fun, but it can be frustrating in a game that really wants you to play many jobs/classes.

[Pixela]

Horizontal progression is about valuing the effort your players put into a game, it allows the developers to add longer grinds to get your rewards and it allows you to take a break and come back and still be able to do stuff in your gear. It is aimed at proper RPG players.

Vertical progression is about constantly resetting you back to the start. You are fully aware you are on an assembly line akin to building a sandcastle on the beachfront, they can't add difficult achievements because they are going to be destroyed soon, if you leave for a year and come back your gear is literally worthless.

With FFXi you're building something, I can login today and work on something and it's permanent progress. This means if I only have 2 hours to play today and then I'm going to be taking a 6 month break, that 2 hours of progression is still worth doing because it's permanent.

If you log into XIV and work on something, it will be deleted and gone in 6 months and I'll come back and the gear is worthless and you have to start again from scratch.

XIV is basically aimed at low attention span having casual players, who would never engage with a long or difficult achievements to get gear. So they give them short and easy achievements to get the best gear, then wipe all the gear and start again in a never ending cycle.

It is literal trash ass garbage if you're used to XI.

The main reason people play XIV is for the modding, erp, dancing in mog hosue basemens, role play, buying cash shop items to show off real life wealth and other second life activities and not the progression system because it's shallow garbage.

XI is like building a diorama from match sticks in your room with glue, it's fiddly and difficult but eventually you'll have this massive castle and buildings and it will look insane.

XIV is like building a sand castle on the beach, it will be pretty easy and look cool an it's gone tomorrow.

[BobbinT]

The main reason people play XIV is for the modding, erp, dancing in mog hosue basemens, role play, buying cash shop items to show off real life wealth and other second life activities and not the progression system because it's shallow garbage.

Agree to disagree. Have you looked into FF14's achievement list? It's HUGE! Can't even finish in your lifetime, & this is from another achievement hunter here.

[Alhanelem]

Horizontal progression is about valuing the effort your players put into a game, it allows the developers to add longer grinds to get your rewards and it allows you to take a break and come back and still be able to do stuff in your gear. It is aimed at proper RPG players.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with valuing the effort of your players. Modern MMOs value your efforts by making the game about collecting things without having to carry it all around with you everywhere you go. If FFXI instead of making you lug around 200 pieces of gear to play your job correctly, dropped items that unlocked permanent skill enhancements i.e. <insert item here> that enhances <insert ability here> is a permanent enhancement instead of having to macro 398743 gear swaps)

I would be a lot more inclined too play many jobs if I could use all my equipment regardless of its location simply by it existing. No need to move stuff back and forth constantly- like the glamour dresser except the stats are still there. Making macros and shuffling gear around isn't a skill, it's just work.

XIV is like building a sand castle on the beach, it will be pretty easy and look cool an it's gone tomorrow.

The reality is, and its even true in FFXI now, that players value their look and style as much as they value anything else. There's more to FFXI and more to most any game today than simply killing stuff. You gotta look good doing it too.

And if you think FFXIV and other MMOs today are simply easy, well you haven't played them. Please go beat FFXIV's ultimate raids and get back to me. Beat the deep dungeons solo. I have tons of accomplishments in FFXIV that are not easy feats and they have absolutely nothing to do with gear at all. There's more to game progression than fancy attributes on items.

All MMOs, including FFXI and pretty much all others out there, are glorified collectathons on a grand scale. The only difference between FFXI and most games today is you have to lug your entire collection around with you just to make your job functional.

[Pixela]

The difficulty in XIV is mainly in positioning to avoid telegraphs, and because content is insanely predictable you're going to beat it with repetition with guarantee across the board. You don't really feel massive pride in beating something, because you can feel it's designed for you to win with a high %.

The difficulty in XI is mainly linked to progression to withstand the strength of the enemies and in the randomness of encounters, you feel more pride in beating something becasue you feel they actively try to make you fail with mechanics such as <20% fu modes, unable to calls trusts in combat (for solo players) and randomness such as back to back charms, aggro resets, sleepga, silence/ga if mage was too close etc.

Being a good tank or healer on XI means you put a lot of work to engage with progression, understand mechanics and practiced a lot.
Being a good tank or healer on XIV just means you queued as tank or healer and do some dps.

[Alhanelem]

The difficulty in XIV is mainly in positioning to avoid telegraphs, and because content is insanely predictable you're going to beat it with repetition with guarantee across the board. You don't really feel massive pride in beating something, because you can feel it's designed for you to win with a high %.

The extent to which this is true varies greatly with the content, and the only thing you're really making a case for here is that FFXI has more RNG. Which is certainly true, but FFXIV has it as well, the boss isn't going to attack the same people with the same skills every time, everyone has different capability with positioning and timing and DPS performance and a bunch of other factors,s so you're drastically oversimplifying. The reality is, both games have their own challenges and both games have content that is predictable and content that is unpredictable.

The difficulty in XIV is mainly in positioning to avoid telegraphs, and because content is insanely predictable you're going to beat it with repetition with guarantee across the board. You don't really feel massive pride in beating something, because you can feel it's designed for you to win with a high %.

Being a good tank or healer on XI means you put a lot of work to engage with progression, understand mechanics and practiced a lot.
Being a good tank or healer on XIV just means you queued as tank or healer and do some dps.

These statements just say how uneducated you are in BOTH cases. You drastically overstate how involved being a healer or tank in FFXI is, and you drastically understate how involved being a good tank or healer is in FFXIV.

And again, it all depends on the content. FFXIV has plenty of dynamic content that won't play out exactly the same every time, and FFXI has plenty of straightforward, predictable content. Especially with FFXI, more than you would care to admit.

And all of this barely has anything to do whatsoever with progression style. FFXIV having less vertical progression wouldn't change how battles play out or the strategies employed. FFXIV having less horizontal progression likewise wouldn't either. Really all it changes is how much gear you have to keep on your person.

You keep pretending to act like an expert on a game you don't even play.

[Pixela]

If ff14 was a living entity, evolutionary pressure being applied to it are as follows

Making the game easier and easier to appeal to the casual players they have successfully attracted over the years, this includes making tanking and healing faceroll easy.
Trying to take attention away from raiding because it's insanely expensive to develop with the gear reset systems, and promoting other types of things to login for.
Trying to design and release less impressive armors from content to promote cash shop outfits.