So Many Final Fantasy re-releases... Why not XI?

[Xilk]

I, like many long time Final Fantasy Fans, am enthusiastic about the new Final Fantasy Tactics release: The Ivalice Chronicles.

I've started playing Final Fantasy with the first game when I was about 8 years old.

I'm an adult w/ children and they have enjoyed many Final Fantasy games also. The level of quality is really fantastic throughout most of the franchise. It shows me that games don't need to be the latest and greatest to be enjoyed by the next generation.

However, of all the Final Fantasy games I have shared with them, Final Fantasy XI has had the least active reception. This is a contrast, because it is the Final Fantasy game I love the most. Its not that they are not interested, its that the entry is so difficult.

With so many successful "Remasters" and "Remakes" it makes me think: Why not XI?
The fact that so many players or former players have worked on Private Server projects is an argument in favor of an FFXI remake.

I understand such a project sound tremendously expensive and demanding, and it might be hard to sell to the business leadership.

However I think that can be mitigated by not trying to make everything new.
The Final Fantasy XIV engine seems perfectly suited to migrate XI to. the basic design of 14 was very much based on 11. When I first played 14 I was constantly thinking, OH I wish we had this in 11!!

Wouldn't the 14 engine eliminate all the technical difficulties which tempt players to use 3rd party tools? I'm pretty sure if SE examined all the 3rd party tools they could easily make a list of which things would be good features vs which things are just cheating.

I would directly transplant the entire map, and music (sure someone might want to remaster the music score, but I don't think its necessary, and many such things could be done later). Obviously there would need to be alot of remaking of textures.



I don't know how hard it would be to remake the battle mechanics in the 14 engine, but it should not be that far off.

Ofcourse I don't think a 100% copy/paste would be the best idea. Final Fantasy XI has been a long experiment of things that worked great and things that did not.

The most controversial change in XI history I think would be how fast leveling became during the level cap increase above 75 and release of Abyssea.

I think the only major downside of this time was how fast and lazy it became to level up. Primarily because it made all the wonderful mid-level game content obsolete. People rushed thru levels, had no need to craft or quest or gear themselves until they reached level cap.

Therefore, If a remake/remaster/re-release like this were made, I suggest reviewing the pacing of leveling up. The original leveling pace was too slow, but perhaps it would not be if trusts were still an option. Slower leveling is why middle-game content can be enjoyed.

If you had trusts, keeping the level caps on Chains of Promathia areas would not be a bad thing.

Final Fantasy XI does a wonderful job of balancing the options for casual gameplay and hardcore gameplay. Largely this limitation is a social one more than a technical one. If you can make it thru content with solo or trusts, but need player community to excel, you have a winning formula in my opinion.

This is why I think the Duty Finder in Final Fantasy 14 went too far. It automatically selects players and throws them into dungeons and players don't have to strategize, coordinate or communicate at all. I think that makes dungeons in 14 very boring. There is too little problem solving and effort on the player and party side for it to be sufficiently engaging. Which is why I cannot really keep interest in 14 gameplay, despite all the wonderful things that ARE in that game.

Despite the fast leveling issue and history around Abyssea, I did absolutely love Abyssea for other reasons.

Primarily, you can easily team up in a pick up group to reach various objectives. A certain Abyssea NM will drop gear that one player wants, upgrade items for armor for another, Upgrade items for Empyrean weapons or fulfill a quest requirement. This is absolutely brilliant design which makes a rich and fulfilling gameplay experience.

I also want to comment on the lackluster results for PvP in Final Fantasy XI )
Ballista was popular with some crowds of players for a long time. However players for Ballista or Brenner NEVER actually played the events for how they were designed. Players just wanted to fight each other. Direct combat. I don't even think you need to balance the jobs with each other for pvp, though I'm sure many would whine and demand it eventually. Also locking up gearswapping in PvP is quite wretched. Its a core battle mechanic and a player would need to rework all their macros and gearsets for pvp from what they usually use. This is rediculously cumbersome and discouraging to pvp gameplay.

There is a very simple setup which would satisfy most players: Just allow dueling.

I approach another player, and have a duel option, just like a trade option from the menu. IF the opponent accepts the dual, we can attack each other.

Of course there are many things that can be added to this which would be wonderful. However a simple mechanic for voluntary duels when in field or dungeon zones would not adversely affect the normal cooperative gameplay. It WOULD add an easy tool for players to have fun, resolve conflicts, gain status, and test various abilities and combinations.

1. Victory Terms for a duel: ex> first player to hit red hp loses, or death, or a status effect like sleep or stone, etc.
2. You could even have handicaps, such as no gear swapping as a "balancing" tool.
3. Betting stakes: maybe there are no stakes at a duel, but wouldn't it be fun if we could bet gil, or equipment or materials to the winner?
4. A dueling Leaderboard (that does not reset each month) to show who is the most successful to all players.



A party vs party colosseum style PvP where parties fight other parties would be more balanced form of pvp and fun, but more challenging to implement in my opinion.

Better leaderboard systems across the whole game would be fun and interesting: ie, highest dps players, longest no death record, most hp cured, most deaths, most damage ever dealt. most achievements in game for content completion, etc. Having an in-game place recording top 10 or top 100 on the server would be really interesting for the competitive types. Maybe not just fastest completion of a battlefied, but first completing with various jobs or best completions with different job and party combinations would be interesting. It could encourage players to create different approaches to battlefields. Ambuscade Leaderboards would be awesome on a monthly basis. Let it flash the leaderboard every time you enter and Ambuscade battle.

Myself being a long-time beastmaster and pet style- player I must say: STOP NERFING IT! the exp penalty to a party for having a bst w/ charmed pet was ALWAYS a bad idea. the balances were already inherent in the class. this just made social problems. If you have slower leveling, you also have players more married to their class. Yes many players will have many jobs, but there was something really nice about that sense of identity with a specific job.

Crafting is probably the last item I want to address in this post. The crafting recipes and disciplines in 11 are all very interesting and wonderful. The crafting process however is boring and tedious. I think the crafting process in 14 is really fun and brilliant. However in 14 I always felt like crafting was useless and meaningless because anything thats crafted was easily obtainable thru quests. I think having equipment, potions, food, etc be exclusively available from crafter players is a very good thing. Creating crafting jobs in XI would be a major change and demanding, but making a minigame resembling 14's crafting system might be alot more accessible.

I think if a remake were made with the game engine from 14 and a return to the original leveling pace, but with trusts (and job mechanics and balance more resembling the current game) It would be incredibly attractive. It would also be the best opportunity for attracting new players. Current 14 players or other players who like the franchise but too intimidated by the difficulty of staring up XI. Also the players who fled after 75 and chased after private servers would be intrigued.


I hope for some interesting discussion. Also I hope this idea is viable, profitable and carried out. XI would be wonderful to have a re-release of.
By all means, doing a remake as cheaply as possible with the 14 engine would show how much interest and profit would be possible. Then if it can attract new players it could actually justify more development money.

The thing about a really great work of art is that it becomes classic. The experience doesn't die. So I would plan on how to keep the game alive instead of how to bury it a grave. As a long time player, we all knew when SE was planning or preparing to end XI since 14 ws in development. However, they are not the same game at all. The fact the remakes are successful should be an indicator of the value of remaking an mmo (which brings in better profits than standalone games). The art should be preserved and shared with the next generation. They are classic.

[Xilk]

I had another thought about the difficulty of entry for XI.

I think a pruning would be really helpful. Additional systems were added for "guidance quests" to help new players learn new stuff. I think the technical limitations restrict this. In a new engine, I would have a help icon pop up for a tutorial for systems, but players can easily ignore it if they want to try to figure it out themselves or refer to it in a tutorial menu page if they want to come back an review it. I think menus like that would be better an can reduce the confusion and complexity of participating in various events.

For example, running back and forth to get status for campaign battles. Status and menus for brenner and ballista, and Beligerency in Monstrocity.

Running back and forth to NPC's to understand the strange statuses or KI purchases to enter events like Assault missions and Nyzul Isle. simplifying the entry process would be tremendously beneficial to new user experience.

However, I also would not implement the ff14 quest journal in XI. the XI quest log is a bit lacking, but the 14 quest journal is too much. Its such a guided tour than players ignore all the wonderful content of the quests in 14.

The only thing I would do the the 11 quest journal is let it take notes on your quest progression. It wouldn't tell you where to go next, it would only tell you the last hint you received, and who and where you recieved it form.

This way I don't have to run back across the map and retrace which npc I talked to to try to remember what the quest was or where I left it off if I stopped it 3 years ago an come back to finish it later.

[Alhanelem]

well if they re-released it today, they could easily just use a more modern quest system and dial back some of the more cryptic elements like actually pointing people at least to the specific area and telling them what they're looking for so you don't need a guide on a second monitor up 24/7.

[Splat]

I started a few days ago playing FF XI for the first time but I have been around to see re-releases, remasters, remakes.
I can understand and respect different opinions like people wanting a re-release or remaster for FF XI, I'm more on the side that some things are better left untouched.

[svengalis]

Probably because it would take as much effort as them making a brand new game.

[radar]

Because you would be a re-interpretation of XI, with modern game design and you probably wouldn't like it.

[Ultimoore]

well if they re-released it today, they could easily just use a more modern quest system and dial back some of the more cryptic elements like actually pointing people at least to the specific area and telling them what they're looking for so you don't need a guide on a second monitor up 24/7.

Whaaaat?! No waaaay! Everyone loves having a wiki open at all times. lol kidding. I agree. a more modern Questing system but not completely hand holding is good method to bring into a remake.

[radar]

A remaster/remake has positives and negatives, and people really need to keep in mind the negatives.

Here are some negatives:

Unless you play 100% vanilla, all those "things" you use would stop working and the community does not have the same drive it used to to make them work again.

They could have to censor the script of the game in many places, including completely redoing some characters. Bare minimum they would have to make some characters look older, since laws in japan have changed.

Many graphic assets would be demanded be changed by the ethics dept (a good example would be DRG and RDM armor, which is different for female players). Even in the past 10 years the ethics dept has gained more power, this would impact even FFXIV if it was "remastered" in this way, let alone a game twice its age.

Decisions they originally made, that ended up being a major headache would be changed. The importance of gil for instance has been often said to be a massive headache, that would change. They do not like dealing with rmt and the economy, so they would nolt do that in a remaster / remake (xiv is a good example, where gil is intentionally near worthless and they did this due to headaches dealing with it on xi).

The important thing is to remember they would not do a 1:1.

[Alhanelem]

Unless you play 100% vanilla, all those "things" you use would stop working and the community does not have the same drive it used to to make them work again.

The need for those "things" could easily be addressed in a new version/engine. We use those "things" because the game's default UI is lacking, pretty much the weakest point of the whole experience.

[RichLester]

I think Final Fantasy XI has so much content that it would take years to remake FFXI with the latest graphics. SE is bound to think there's no point putting in the resources & energy into remastering it. The game is also built on an engine set in the Win XP days so it's just easier to keep tweaking it. FFXIV is basically this game's replacement for the modern era.