FFXI Remaster - Remake

[Zenion]

I was referring to Pokemon, fourth-highest selling video game franchise, the largest intellectual property in the world. And undeniably part of the RPG genre, so like... any discussion of what, in a general sense, makes a good RPG should probably look at that because the money says that's the one to beat.

As far as changing FFXI's gameplay though... I mean, what we have now is good, yeah. I wouldn't want to see a version without skillchains and magic bursts - arguably I'd say they should be made more enticing to players in a remake. Bosses telegraphing their moves more wouldn't make the game easier so much as make it more playable. Gear swapping, which is at the heart of how we play FFXI now, is integral to the player experience but not to the play experience - a good remake would let you map sets of gear to specific weaponskills, job abilities, and actions and just swap in automatically without needing to concentrate on hitting the right macros at the right time (I still remember back in the day when I would hit, no word of a lie, ten macros to use a blood pact - that's not nearly as fun as just building the set and having it ready when you need it.)

Quests and missions... those need a lot of work. I know Mindartia better than I know the county I physically live in, but I'd never figure out what half of the older ones want without a guide. If that's the kind of challenge some old-timers want, that's fine, but for everyone else there should be some kind of help system available without having to rely on our crumbling wiki infrastructure.

Changes that make gameplay feel more active might not be a bad thing. Maybe a risk/reward tradeoff where you can turn off normal auto-attacks in favor of some kind of timing challenge to get -30% to +30% damage and/or TP - or maybe even trade damage for TP gain depending on if you hit early or late. Even in something that's designed around being "turn-based" it sometimes feels like there's not enough time to stop and think about what you're doing anyway (if it's not on a macro it's not an option) so why pretend it's a slow-paced game?

Zones absolutely need to stay the same or even be expanded - yes, there is a lot of open area that isn't "useful", but that makes Vana'diel feel like a world. I'm still finding new places and sights that I just never really noticed before; something that rewards sight-seeing might actually be a nice addition. If this is the point you're getting at with the "theme park" point, yeah, I whole-heartedly agree. Misareaux Coast is redundant, Sanctuary of Zi'tah is mostly wasted space, and we like the world because it has places like that, not in spite of it. What was it, Final Fantasy XIII that people tore to utter shreds for being a series of linear corridors? Nobody wants that. Even outside Final Fantasy, looking at Pokemon as a very successful example... the most recent games went open-world and that's like the one thing fans really like about them, after the painfully linear previous generation. Exploration is a good option to have. Let the players worry about how to most efficiently ignore all that lovely terrain, don't just bin it preemptively.

I think I might actually like to see FFXI get the A Realm Reborn treatment, now that I think of it: Our Vana'diel is already an alternate bubble reality anyway, why not give FFXI Remake players a different version to play in, where... I don't know, Bahamut scourged the land or the Shadow Lord was never defeated or any of the other disasters that were averted in this timeline happened, and then after some time in that version of the world they get to visit the one we have now, recreated in most of its glory? That would make a great excuse to purge some content that nobody will miss - there are so, so many old quests that nobody will ever do because not even the scraps of story they can provide - if any - are worth the trouble. Maybe you start the player off with a narrow job selection - one or two - and the original six are unlocked on the first visit to preserved Vana'diel.

Sorry, I'm all over the place here, but I'm honestly not sure what I'm supposed to be focusing on here to provide a counterpoint to the whole... thing... that has been the discussion so far. Very "too long didn't read" and the debate has been boiled down to just a couple of talking points. I think my point was supposed to be that there's a lot of room to simplify and adapt things without losing the essence of the game, and there are definitely ways it can be made easier for new players to get into without making it boring for returning players. If we want a remaster or remake to have a chance, it absolutely can not appeal to just the FFXI veterans, we need new blood in the game both to justify investment in a new version and... well just in general, honestly.

[Irimi]

Sadly, I do not think it would be feasible in today's market. The core base is aging.

From a business perspective the game itself is not designed to retain newer or returning players that haven't already established themselves. Suffice to say most gaming today is quick and short. FFXI's main issue is time. Most players that spend do not have 9hr's a day to play as they did back in Era. I know the biggest reason i could not get friends to play cited was they didn't want to invest the time the game demands, and from what i have seen the developers do not want to fix the core problems with Retail XI. The game makes most korean MMO's tame.
What FFXIV did right that XI continues to do wrong comes down to one thing accessability. FFXIV makes it so you can achieve things in a reasonable time. FFXI in endgame tends to bottleneck certain area's (e.x. Voidwatch, Mythic.) Newer players will run into a sheer cliff/mountain

Do not mistake, I think the grind is fine. Aspects of the game just leads ripe to people just running into burnout.

Remake would be hard without changing the core aspect of the grind. REMA would have to be reworked from the ground up. After all, even I am hitting my limit while trying to farm the 100M gil I need just to complete Empy dagger. I am looking at other jobs to and just shaking my head.

I love XI, even so much more than XIV, I was disappointed when the Remake got cancelled. SE would have to find a happy medium for the old people we have become and new youth. I would hope there is a future chance for it, but not sure without them making drastic changes to retail. Honestly, I think they should of worked to re-release it back to consoles to revitalize the game.

[Dihlyte]

Honestly, personally, the only things I would change.

1.) Fix the game so it’s more playable.

-Gamepad useable without needing to be plugged in.

-Fix the camera so it doesn’t bounce off the walls.

2.) Fix the game so that trusts and enemies do not “get inside” of the player so that you can always “see” the enemy to perform a weapon skill. (And trusts don’t sit and spin on top of your character.)


3.) Make the UI 100% customizable.

-Everything needs an option to be turned off and can auto-hide.

-Damage numbers should be able to be adjusted so you only see your numbers popping up, including auto-attacks.

-Allow me to turn off any “indicators” or “telegraphs” as well as “New Challenge” text, and sound, and revert it to the chat log only. Also allow me to turn off the glowing stuff on the floor for quest markers. (All of this stuff is okay for a person that is brand new to video games, but they are a major eye sore to me and 100% unnecessary.)


4.) Maybe (big maybe) include just a proper quest journal to keep track of where I am in a quest.

5.) An option to toggle which NPC’s offer quests, and having a quest marker. Constantly seeing a quest over a NPC’s head is also a major eye sore. But knowing which ones could be useful to everyone.

6.) Fix enemy “can’t draw weapon to attack” animation lock.

-This doesn’t really “bother” me, but it would be nice if when enemies are attacking you, you can at least always draw your weapon without having animation lock. It’s simple enough to draw your weapon while still moving then stop and draw quick before you’re overwhelmed (how I currently deal with this issue) but learning that took some time, and it is kind of silly you get locked at all from drawing your weapon.

7.) Add a crafters hall.

-A place where you can access all crafters guild items, ephemeral moogle, Mog garden monster shop, and Auction house so crafters have a central place to craft.


I think that’s it.


I enjoy everything else about the game.

I enjoy the massive REMA grinds, I appreciate how not everyone has one, I appreciate literally everything else about this game, and it’s why I enjoy it so much.

I don’t actually think they are doing a remaster or remake, just saying why I like this game over what else is offered in the current world.

If I wanted to play other “not FFXI” games I would, but I don’t cause FFXI is almost exactly what I’m looking for in a game. It’s nearly perfect.

[Zenion]

Can we add the wheeling monster issue to that? If I'm engaged, auto-attacking, and locked on to a monster, and actively trying to move to face it, it shouldn't be possible for it to constantly shift in such a way that I am never able to actually attack it. Yes, that's mostly a problem with larger crowds of monsters, but those are a thing which players will potentially deal with in the game as it is presently played. Fix monster AI so they settle in place and don't make constant 1-yalm movements just to mess with auto-attack and weaponskills, or make area of effect weaponskills not require line of sight, or let the player automatically be faced toward a target that moves less than ten degrees out of their field of vision.

Minimaps would be nice too. Sure, if we want to stop, open the menu, then open up the map screen, and find the indicator showing where we are on that map, then we're able to look up where we are in a zone, but... if that information is already available to us, maybe it wouldn't be game-breaking to be able to just have it in a convenient place without having to either stop running or blindly blunder into danger by auto-running while blind?

Also, you know what phrase should be dead and buried after a remake? "PS2 limitations." Macros should be allowed to be longer than seven lines. Much longer. Fifty lines with tenth of a second wait increments instead full second - that's three full sets of gear and two actual commands with precise timing, because that is exactly what is necessary to utilize blood pact delay and quick magic equipment effectively; equipsets in their current form don't cut it. More than eight mailbox slots. Wider auto-translate dictionary. More auction slots.

Synergy 110.

[Dihlyte]

Can we add the wheeling monster issue to that? If I'm engaged, auto-attacking, and locked on to a monster, and actively trying to move to face it, it shouldn't be possible for it to constantly shift in such a way that I am never able to actually attack it. Yes, that's mostly a problem with larger crowds of monsters, but those are a thing which players will potentially deal with in the game as it is presently played. Fix monster AI so they settle in place and don't make constant 1-yalm movements just to mess with auto-attack and weaponskills, or make area of effect weaponskills not require line of sight, or let the player automatically be faced toward a target that moves less than ten degrees out of their field of vision.

Minimaps would be nice too. Sure, if we want to stop, open the menu, then open up the map screen, and find the indicator showing where we are on that map, then we're able to look up where we are in a zone, but... if that information is already available to us, maybe it wouldn't be game-breaking to be able to just have it in a convenient place without having to either stop running or blindly blunder into danger by auto-running while blind?

Also, you know what phrase should be dead and buried after a remake? "PS2 limitations." Macros should be allowed to be longer than seven lines. Much longer. Fifty lines with tenth of a second wait increments instead full second - that's three full sets of gear and two actual commands with precise timing, because that is exactly what is necessary to utilize blood pact delay and quick magic equipment effectively; equipsets in their current form don't cut it. More than eight mailbox slots. Wider auto-translate dictionary. More auction slots.

Synergy 110.

I’m for it.

The first one you listed was in my list.


As for the mini-map, they are actually adding an option to open the menu with a single button, so that’s an improvement.

I don’t mind either way if there is a mini-map. The map works just the same. A mini-map is just redundancy at that point. (In my opinion.)

[Stuzey]

Kind of changing topic, but also on topic... Would you sooner see the game continue on for another 10+ years, as it is and do you see youself playing it, all this time, or would you sooner they introduced an end to vana'diel story which would lead to game ending?

I know rhapsodies was supposed to be the end, but the game continues, I also understand this thread is mostly talking about improvements we would like to see.

The danger of just continuing with minimal investment is that it all fizzles out, although the reverse could be, the final storyline could bring a lot of players back, but then it all ends...... Unless it doesn't.....

[Dragoy]

This one slithered slightly sizeable as well. :]

Probably even forgot some parts I wanted to reply to... o whell!

I'm sorry to inform you, but the focus of the forums, is to leave feedback to Square-Enix. It is not a debate forum for people to argue. In fact, if you look at the forums, the English NA team doesnt even respond to us because this is all we do. Go look at the JP or even sometimes the French/Dutch forums. You can see their teams responding to the players much more frequently than the NA/English posters, because we are doing what you think is what should be happening here. Unproductive debating. This right here, what we're doing is not productive, and nothing something SE can respond to. If I'm telling you that I'm not even really able to or wanting to respond to this, then why do you think, when SE is literally avoiding the NA/English forums, that it's what SE wants? This is something that is completely beyond me. There is literal proof on the FFXI and FFXIV forums both, that this behavior is common, and SE wants no part of it.

Well, going by Welcome to Forum: General Discussion! [1]:

The purpose of this forum is for players to discuss various topics on FINAL FANTASY XI with other players.

As for the forums in general, here's a quote from Welcome to the official FINAL FANTASY XI forums! [2]:

These forums are a venue for players of FINAL FANTASY XI to communicate with each other and submit feedback on the game, as well as being a centralized location for the development and operations teams to gather user suggestions concerning current and future game content.

I remember they would set up specific threads to gather feedback on specific topics. I don't remember that they really picked anything up from any other topics back then.

At some point, or maybe it did happen from around the start, we had community representatives gather posts and submit them to the developers (or so the legend says).

That stopped happening, or at least we got no confirmation otherwise.

Then they did the "digest" videos for the non-Japanese speaking crowd in addition to the Japanese crowd, and would even reply to posts in the digest threads.

The replies on those also stopped happening, and eventually, so did the digests. (That really was a nice thing of them to do, and I might imagine it wasn't easy to get permission for the time used for them.)

Getting back to this day, I guess you were referring to the German/French forums (I don't think Dutch was ever a thing here), and further, the FF14 side, because here they archived those parts of the forums back in 2014, when the language support for those ended happening for the game client.

I don't think them not posting here has anything to do with the content of our posts, but rather that they are no longer being allowed to do so on their paid time (and/or they are no longer emplyed for doing that).

Action games offer an even more deeper level of game design over the previously mentioned games, and offer another level of time investment over more simple games.

RPG"s are the highest of both complexity and time investment, and people who would naturally gravitate to this genre expect a deeper and more time investing style of gameplay.

Turning RPG"s into simpler action games, or low time-investment games, takes away from the very aspect RPG gamers are seeking in a form of entertainment.

I suppose this is at least in part why people came up with categories such as Action RPG, which the FF7 remake definitely is more like than an RPG (not my thing even though FFV7 is one of my first and favourite RPGs on systems that are not the Commodore 64).

Honestly, personally, the only things I would change.

1.) Fix the game so it’s more playable.

-Gamepad useable without needing to be plugged in.

Gamepads don't work wireless? I only recently got one that can do that, but haven't actually tried it wireless yet (a DualShock 4, which I'm not liking as much as my DualShock 2 from ~20 years ago which is finally starting to literally /show/ wear... but the DS4 is actually making my hands hurt...). That said, I also play on Linux so things might not be 1 to 1 in this regard. Will test it soon regardless.

-Fix the camera so it doesn’t bounce off the walls.

Curious about this one. What exactly do you mean by bouncing off the walls?

Like, if you stand close to a wall, turn the camera, and it gets closer to you?

If yes, I think that would be very difficult to change. If you wanted the camera to stay were it is, it would need to quite literally go through the walls, and then you would see the void that is behind the scenes... I think. You've probably had a glimpse of that when your camera is close enough to a wall in certain angles.

2.) Fix the game so that trusts and enemies do not “get inside” of the player so that you can always “see” the enemy to perform a weapon skill. (And trusts don’t sit and spin on top of your character.)

I kind of like the fact that we actually need to face the enemy... the thing I don't like is how the lag I have to the servers can make it... well, something I need to take into account for when I do things. ^^;

3.) Make the UI 100% customizable.

-Everything needs an option to be turned off and can auto-hide.

-Damage numbers should be able to be adjusted so you only see your numbers popping up, including auto-attacks.

Is it not already possible to hide them via Chat Filters?

I did not test just now, but as far as I can remember, and look at the list of them, it should be doable? Maybe I am missing something.

On that note, it would be nice to be able to pick more colours for more different things to separate them more from each other.

-Allow me to turn off any “indicators” or “telegraphs” as well as “New Challenge” text, and sound, and revert it to the chat log only. Also allow me to turn off the glowing stuff on the floor for quest markers. (All of this stuff is okay for a person that is brand new to video games, but they are a major eye sore to me and 100% unnecessary.)

I always found that "New Challenge" weird, and... unnecessary. On our face. Doesn't feel like FFXI.

For the shiny spots, I think I kind of appreaciate them for logging and mining and harvesting points for example.

Unnecessary, perhaps, but I'm not sure I'd turn them off. Would not say no for the option to be there either though!

Also, if only they did not cancel the New User Interface [3] project... I think the person working on it got moved to FF14?

I played using it on the test server, and it was quite fun, even if very incomplete at the time.

6.) Fix enemy “can’t draw weapon to attack” animation lock.

-This doesn’t really “bother” me, but it would be nice if when enemies are attacking you, you can at least always draw your weapon without having animation lock. It’s simple enough to draw your weapon while still moving then stop and draw quick before you’re overwhelmed (how I currently deal with this issue) but learning that took some time, and it is kind of silly you get locked at all from drawing your weapon.

Is this the issue where you start combat, but your character just stands still while getting bombarded?

I believe you actually do draw your weapon, but since you can't move, if you are not facing the enemy, you can't attack so it seems like you did not draw the weapon yet, and... to some extent, you did not... but! I've noticed that if I am facing the enemy, and this happens, I do claim the enemy and they will take damage from my attacks, even though to me it seems I have not drawn the weapon yet, and can not move.

It's almost like my game client did not get that information yet, however, since I can't use any weapon skills for example.

This one really is quite annoying, detrimental even, and I hope they can put some time into fixing it up.

7.) Add a crafters hall.

-A place where you can access all crafters guild items, ephemeral moogle, Mog garden monster shop, and Auction house so crafters have a central place to craft.

Little unsure if I'd like this one. I mean, It would be super convenient, and I would not have to use it, so I wouldn't be against it either. :]

Can we add the wheeling monster issue to that? If I'm engaged, auto-attacking, and locked on to a monster, and actively trying to move to face it, it shouldn't be possible for it to constantly shift in such a way that I am never able to actually attack it.

This one is probably made a lot worse due to the lag we play with.

I wonder if people in Japan are able to attack enemies while running behind them... without running ahead of them. I watch a lot of Japanese streamers but haven't been able to compare, as far as I remember... but I do also play with some, so perhaps I should maybe test it out one of these days and/or nights!

There's also that weird targeting issue that... I don't think was always happening. Have a lot of enemies in front of you, and one, perhaps a black mage further ahead, and your auto-target picks that one next. I saw it mentioned somewhere around here some time ago, and I though it did not work that way, but I have seen it a lot recently...

(I do pick black mages down first so that was a bad example, but you know...)

Oh, one very nice thing would be having alter egos actually count as party members when it comes to auto-target. That is, if an alter ego has the attention of an enemy while you finish up with another, you should not just call it quits right there and then. I've been meaning to create a stand-alone thread for that request for some ages past, but someone got to it just before I did [4].

I do prefer individual threads for feature and other requests, just like I do prefer one bug report per issue, but I do like this one for the discussion. :]

1. https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/117 - Welcome to Forum: General Discussion!
2. https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/67 - Welcome to the official FINAL FANTASY XI forums!
3. https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/36908 - [dev1156] New User Interface
4. https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/61772 - A needed addition for trust aggro

[Alhanelem]

I just... I have to step in here right quick and set everybody straight on something.

Y'all know what the single most successful RPG franchise of all time is? I'll give you a hint, it's got terrible graphics for whatever generation it appears in, a basic rock-paper-scissors battle system that gives the player an astounding four options per turn, and a story that can generously be described as "there" - but somehow it became the very best, like no-one ever was.

I dunno, maybe the secret sauce isn't challenge, graphics, or story?

That mystery game has a lot more depth than your description conveys, even though there is some accuracy to it.

[Alhanelem]

I'm sorry to inform you, but the focus of the forums, is to leave feedback to Square-Enix.

While you certainly can leave feedback on these forums, it in fact is NOT the primary focus. The focus is to give players a place to talk about the game to ANY end. Not just feedback.

If Square Enix only intended the forums to be for feedback, they would have just used an email box or survey form instead.

By posting here you are inviting anyone else who has an account for the game to respond to your comments, whether you intended them only as feedback for SE or not. Again, if it was only for feedback, there would be no need to see and reply to other people's feedback, it would just be sent directly to SE. This forum section itself is called "General Discussion," not "Game Feedback." It is for discussing things- it is in the name. The fact that a community rep sees feedback here and reports it doesn't mean discussion isn't the focus lol.

[Zenion]

That mystery game has a lot more depth than your description conveys, even though there is some accuracy to it.

Sure, there's a whole lot of still that a player can choose to do with it that isn't strictly necessary to the core game experience. I think that's what makes it work - it's as deep as you want it to be, because the top layer is ridiculously simple and the complexity is buried a little under the surface.

Which is kind of the opposite of how FFXI works. Here, you've got all kinds of choices up front, lots of stuff you could do... but experienced players know that there is in fact one specific right choice in almost any given situation, and anything beyond that is largely ignored.

I'd try and do some kind of compare-and-contrast analysis and bring it back to what might make a better remake experience, but I'm freakin' tired right now. I wanted to be settling in to sleep like three hours ago but the guild point item of the day is Sea Zombies and apparently the age of piracy has come to an abrupt end. This is something that could really use some work: respect for the players' time. Don't make us wait 15 minutes for a chance of being able to do an activity, over and over again; offer some kind of direct path to being able to take the necessary action. Don't lock a fish behind a four times an hour something percent chance to attempt to fish for it and then say "that, we need you to bring us that, you have 24 hours."