Do You Want Revisions or a New Game?

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Originally Posted by Talraen

One question I have is, is it worth it for them to fix old problems? If they invest a lot of money into rewriting their server code, is that going to attract enough new users to justify that cost? I suspect the answer is no, and that's why they haven't done it.

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Servers upgrqades are done regardless, but fixing old problems would save times for implementations later if the system behind doesn't force them to do convulted things.
I wouldn't say it's a straight no answer, but as dualblade have said it implies that the playerbase is willing to wait a delay of contents for them to fix problems and knowing that things might break regardless of their best intents (there are many memes about fixing one bug to just have 100 more popping up for example)
I believe that this second part is actually what is really influencing their choice, we are not privy of what happens in the background of the game as such our informations are most of the times simply guess, heck for all we know there might just not be any problems and simply they beign lazy.

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Originally Posted by Talraen

Sure, why not? Why do we want to be playing the same game with the same engine forever?

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Um, I think you're missing the "/s" right there, sunshine.

Are you sure you're playing FFXIV?

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Originally Posted by Cerbolt

I mean, ideally, I'd love them to continue FFXIV indefinitely and update the graphics, ui, gameplay etc. But I doubt that'll ever happen. So the best I can hope for is a brand new ff mmo sometime in the future. Hopefully they've learnt a thing or two by then.

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This is pretty much my feelings on the subject. Hearing about limitations since the PS3 days is becoming tiring.

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Originally Posted by Azurein

This is pretty much my feelings on the subject. Hearing about limitations since the PS3 days is becoming tiring.

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Won't be before too long until people say "If they didn't have to worry about PS4 limitations, we would have better graphics!"

Oh man. Will I feel old.

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Originally Posted by TyrTry

Won't be before too long until people say "If they didn't have to worry about PS4 limitations, we would have better graphics!"

Oh man. Will I feel old.

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Haha I'm pretty sure we already have people going around saying such things.

TBF, thats probably true since the PS4 wouldn't be able to do as well as a high-end computer. Course graphics also ain't everything. :p

I'd prefer a new game of I had to choose... I'm in the minority (maybe) who's perfectly happy with this game and it's cycles... it's pretty much the only game I play (online or offline)... im not here for the innovative blah blah blah.... I don't play assassins creed and wish it was a fps...

I mean, there ARE other games for me to play, should I feel the need to play them. But I don't, so I'm perfectly happy playing ffxiv the way it is, and I do enjoy it a lot.

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Originally Posted by Talraen

What do you think - do you want them to change and improve FFXIV indefinitely, or steer towards an "ending" of sorts and start on something new?

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We're not going to see a new game. Not unless Yoshi-P decides he's had enough of us. The result will be the game will be shutdown and that's it. No more MMO's.

The reason is, the market is absolutely diluted with low-quality, Unity or Unreal engine-based, cookie-cutter games that you can't barely tell apart. All gunning for your wallet with microtransactions.

Designing and reusing their own game engine both screwed and saved FFXIV. It screwed the game in V1.0 because they tried to adapt a single player game engine (the same happens with Unreal engine games) to a MMO, when the PC specs for the average PC player were only capable of running PS2 quality games. However those high quality efforts (other than the general copy-pastaness of the overworld and reuse in dungeons) also made the game very expensive to just throw away. FFXIV started as a potential sequel to import characters from XI and thus it retains races and lore bits that would have allowed for that.

But, WoW came out and the market decided that casual ramshackle lore easy mode was the direction everyone was running for, so players abandoned XIV V1.00 to play other games that only lasted 3-12 months before shutting down. Ironically V1.00 outlasted many other attempts to copy it's visual look. V2.00 was certainly a downgrade, visually, and for animations, and zone sizes. But it made it a different game. We've also been shown both the technical limits of this engine (FFXV) and what it can't do (Kingdom Hearts III, and thus was switched to Unreal.)

Now at present, the market is rapidly switching to plotless F2P microtransaction-filled MMOShooter Battle Royale's, which will probably have a lifespan of 5 years before the next thing comes along. So if SE decided to release it's own MMO, from scratch, in this time frame, that market will be gone by the time it's out.

SE's best bet, is to continue to update and upgrade FFXIV until it makes no business sense to. Square's traditionally been very good about storylines and only started to stumble post Square-Enix merger. If they've started on another MMO, here's the wishlist of stuff that I would want that would make me happily switch from FFXIV:

1. I will not play a VRMMO. The technology is at present rubbish, and until safe non-invasive BCI's are invented I think this is the wrong tree to bark up. I would also not play a MMO that looks photo-realistic. Sorry the uncanny valley called from 2001 (The Spirits Within) and said "this is expensive and the audience won't appreciate it". I think the visual style of FFXIV actually looks about right and prefer a clean scifi anime aesthetic. Where we can improve with today's technology is by pointing a camera and microphone at the player and having the game translate the motions and voices into their character's motions and generated voice as a secondary way to communicate with players.

2. Adaptive and forgiving network code. There is no reason players should have delayed commands, rubber banding or 90k errors. Most MMO's absolutely suck for players who don't live within a few miles of the data center, and always suck for players on wireless connections. Design around. To this end, consider rendering the game in the data center and streaming the output so everyone has the same experience. Then you can literately charge more for renting from the 4K/8K render center instead of the HD center. Plus it eliminates the ability to cheat or datamine the game. If a player's connection becomes rubbish, their session is still running on the render system until specifically logged out.

3. A Seamless openworld with sandbox qualities (eg destructible environments, build your own house or prefab from a template and have it persist throughout the game's lifecycle unless neglected.) Players could literately create and manage their own cities if they can stop fighting with each other long enough to do so. You can come back a year later and it will still be there if you left the resources to repair it inside.

4. Instance-free world. Except where the population would make parts of the game unplayable, all world-wide players should be able to be in the same world at the same time. Sectorize the world into smaller and smaller parts to support this rather than trying to create instances.

5. Closed-loop economy, closed-cycle belligerents. The game does not generate infinite resources, you have to find them, and once found, they are gone. Enemies, monsters, animals are both resources and creatures who will fight each other if a resource becomes hard to find. Harvest all the trees, then the birds will attack players over the few remaining. Kill all the cows, milk shortage. Players decide what is actually valuable and discover and trade those. Resources expire if not used, and spoiled resources have to be found again to prevent hording. Even equipment and housing will decay if not maintained. Certain resources are pseudo-unlimited (eg water, soil, sand, clay, rock) so players can make bricks, glass and rock structures out of materials that just exist, as they exist in the field in large quantities.

6. Once created, you never actually logout. You can disconnect from your session, but your character is always in the game. They will be given a schedule/job to do when you're not connected. When connected, you can take over where they were in their schedule and go adventuring. When logged out, they will be set to jobs like "Guard" (for combat skills, also involved in tax collection), craft Merchant (will produce or repair equipment on demand for players if materials available), Politician (for players who are involved in how the city grows, and rules imposed), Banker (if you've built a vault), Gardener/Farmer, and so forth. Basically players who are not connected to their session = NPC's. Disconnected players without a job will play it safe and just go to sleep in their designated house. No house, player will go find an Inn if they have money, or will sleep outside if they have a sleeping bag.

7. Layered lore. The problem with a lot of games right now is that they just run head first into a lore gate, and players make no mark upon the world. Sure "you" might be the WoL in this game, but every player is a WoL from their point of view, nothing they do impacts your story. Rather let's create lore that is more about working together to a common goal. Hence players vs the environment and players vs players (politically) should be the guiding narrative rather than adapting a single player narrative. If a story calls for the merchants guild to come together to solve a water shortage, then all the players who are merchants must be involved, and those who don't want to be part of the story can literately go "no thanks" and they will be ejected from their merchant job until that storyline runs its course. What starts that water shortage can be a repeatable bit of story that happens when players neglect maintenance of the city itself. Combat oriented lore is also dynamically engaged when certain populations of animals, monsters, or even jobless players thresholds are met. For example if there are more homeless players than city guards, then the cost to the politicians is that taxes must go up to hire more guards, or if there is an insufficient number of guards, PvP become enabled in areas not patrolled by guards, and damage to property becomes possible. The guiding story for the world could be classic Final Fantasy of trying to save the world from destruction, but it requires the players to meet goals to progress rather than just defeating some big-bad and then waiting 6 months for more content. Sure, there will be combat "big bads" that are players (a career could be literately be "super-villain") and "big bads" that are AI controlled monster teams, but they will also work together to meet their own goals. Sometimes it may even result in players being aligned with villains to save the world.

8. No finite end. The game should be able to persist even without the developers producing new content. This would require AI to actually determine what story bits should be played out when conditions are ripe for it. So some storyline may be submarined for a very long time since data miners would not be able to find it, even if they were staff at the publisher. Players can also make their own AI storylines when conditions are hit, even if they're not present when the conditions activate, and can then defer working on them until they connect.

9. If the player never logs back in, their character will continue to persist as long as they've been given some instruction to do something while not connected. Even if their subscription ends. Even if they pass away. I doubt most companies would be willing to run a game for decades, but that could be the thing that makes humans want "AI" to demand a right to exist.

Other than the last point where I was being a bit facetious, I don't believe any game publisher wants to put in the money to create a persistent world that is oriented around trying to solve humanities problems rather than some cheap microtransaction pew-pew-pew money grab. I think the above would likely have to come out of a deliberate AI research project that is adapted for gaming rather than the other way around.

But overall I think that gamers have grown up and don't want to just login to a repetitive grind. If you've been on the forums for any amount of time you will know that there are players who don't care one bit for the storyline and there are players who care more about the storyline than any of the combat that it involves. There is no way to please both audiences. What I propose above is meant to appease the former more than the latter, as the storyline is really optional by opting not to participate as the story unfolds.


tl;dnr version: I want a simulated world that has the story depth of a FF game, but not the grind of one.

New Game. With a way better engine to it that can handle more character options. Also like to see graphics updated to what black desert online has or better. That mixes game play from ffxi and ffxiv.

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Originally Posted by hynaku4494

Also like to see graphics updated to what black desert online has or better.

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If they ever did up the graphics, I'd hope they go about it in a more NieR: style.

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Originally Posted by TyrTry

Won't be before too long until people say "If they didn't have to worry about PS4 limitations, we would have better graphics!"

Oh man. Will I feel old.

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-Looks at PS1 that still works- ...Yeaaah, I feel you there. XDD

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Originally Posted by Talraen

So, given that you were turned off by major changes in FFXI, how do you think they should handle FFXIV? I don't think the game can remain the same forever (though hey, I could be wrong). But I don't think FFXI would have lasted much longer than it did if they had stopped innovating. There needs to be change at some point, doesn't there? And I'm not saying the time is now or even soon for FFXIV, just that it will eventually come.

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Like I was saying before, it is a single installment into the franchise. Similar to RPG board games, when an expansion comes out, it is fresh content that uses the same concepts, engines, and fundamentals. There's new weapons and gear, new dungeons, abilities, monsters, bosses etc. However, the way you play the game does not change. This seems to be the formula FFXIV is following, and it does not need to change so long as it is working. But this formula doesn't work for everyone, and for those that it does not who play FFXIV, they need something new, something fresh, something different. I totally understand this.

Is it fair to tell these players to just simply play another game if that is what they seek? I can't say for sure, but I do know that if they feel the same way about their time and investment into the game as I do, then it is equally fair to want the game to remain enjoyable. But I will continue to say that if you can't find enjoyment in the game anymore, then it might be time to leave or take a break; it would be the same for me should major changes come to FFXIV, and I would have to decide whether or not to keep playing if that enjoyment had left the game, as I did with XI.

I never did Diadem, and have yet to do Eureka. I also just recently started getting into PoTD, and loved doing Aquapolis runs prior to 4.0. I believe these were XIV's attempts to do something new and fresh, while keeping other content intact. I don't know why these were ill-received by some players, but if SEs attempts at trying to satisfy the side of the community that wants new and different things are constantly met that way, then my sympathy is quickly lost and will say, just go and play another game.

I'm happy to play this game as it is and also want a lot of improvements. The kind of MMO I'd want to play is the stuff made of dreams, and could only be done through an entirely new game.


I think starting over is a bad move right now (from the developers side, not ours). There's too many things they can and should work on for FFXIV that would at least prepare them for the next MMO.

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Originally Posted by Tanathya

People doing ARR relics is a tiny, insignificant portion, and it's not relevant, that's the point. And yes, I've been in FFXI exactly since the day it was released in NA, up until 2015, and things barely changed per se with ToAU, except maybe with the fact that people didn't want BLMs in their parties due to colibris mimicking. That was the biggest change/imbalance, period, the rest was content added to what was already there.

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It's relevant to them. That's why they're doing it. I would also wager that the side of the playerbase that wants ground breaking changes to also be the minority. Perhaps the devs see them as tiny, insignificant, and irrelevant much like you do with players who are still exploring old content. Should they be ignored in the same fashion?

And what do you mean nothing changed? Certain mechanics such as skillchains and magic bursts became for the most part unused as TP burn parties became the thing. RDM went from being one of the busiest jobs in the game to a refresh/haste bot. General leveling became brainless. BCNM instances that used seals were no longer being run. The list goes on and on of all the changes that came with ToAU. Aye, they did add a lot. But to think that the brunt of the changes was BLMs not getting into parties is completely false. The fact that you feel otherwise is why I even asked if you were around prior to ToAU because your views reflect those who came after.

I can't speak much for what happened to FFXI after ToAU. I wish I could say it was a bad dream. But I remember the overwhelming number of upset players. I remember all the LSs that disbanded. The server population decline. The endless "OMG FFXI is dying" threads on the forums. Believe me, I wish I could say I was full of it.

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Originally Posted by Mahrze

So, because the story ends for you, we should just move on to a new MMO? lol ok.

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did i say anything about anyone besides myself? and you realize 2 expansion past Garlemald is like 2025 right? that's even assuming Garlemald is the next expansion.

It's not like 14 has to be shut down for them to make a new MMO... 11 and 14 both exist at the same time... and people still play both... maybe 17 or 18 will be an MMO while 14 is in 6.0 or beyond... it's not a one or the other situation... might not even be the same team working on the next one...

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Originally Posted by Gemina

It's relevant to them. That's why they're doing it. I would also wager that the side of the playerbase that wants ground breaking changes to also be the minority. Perhaps the devs see them as tiny, insignificant, and irrelevant much like you do with players who are still exploring old content. Should they be ignored in the same fashion?

And what do you mean nothing changed? Certain mechanics such as skillchains and magic bursts became for the most part unused as TP burn parties became the thing. RDM went from being one of the busiest jobs in the game to a refresh/haste bot. General leveling became brainless. BCNM instances that used seals were no longer being run. The list goes on and on of all the changes that came with ToAU. Aye, they did add a lot. But to think that the brunt of the changes was BLMs not getting into parties is completely false. The fact that you feel otherwise is why I even asked if you were around prior to ToAU because your views reflect those who came after.

I can't speak much for what happened to FFXI after ToAU. I wish I could say it was a bad dream. But I remember the overwhelming number of upset players. I remember all the LSs that disbanded. The server population decline. The endless "OMG FFXI is dying" threads on the forums. Believe me, I wish I could say I was full of it.

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It's Square who devalues their own content in FFXIV by doing this kind of patch cycles and the endless, massive item level progression. I, for one, wish older content was relevant, so you're very wrong there too.

Mechanics such as magic bursts, and not skillchains, were gone because of what I said before: parties killing colibris, these mobs mimicking magic. TP burn parties were a thing way before ToAU existed, such as in Boyahda Tree with RNG TP burn pts, or Cape Teriggan BLM pts. General leveling didn't change the pattern with ToAU, at all. BCNM instances were, in fact, ran; many of them dropping high value items, such as the Kraken Club BCNM, for example (I don't know where you got that from anyway, amongst a myriad of things being discussed here). I can attest to that. As you can see, I didn't "come after". I was right there since the very beginning, so you might as well start thinking that you're actually wrong, perhaps?

The overwhelming amount of backlash was almost exclusively restricted to Besieged, which was literally unplayable.

If there is something we can agree on is the fact that they're not gonna change much, as those who want it are in the minority. I personally don't hold any hope for this game, I just don't care if they change it or not, they've shown their cards many times over.

I'd be okay if they took an entire expansion and gave us a complete cinematic, graphical, technical and mechanical overhaul. And maybe an epic story set in the areas we already have. I realize my opinion is in the minority, but game physics. I love and play this game so much I become amazed when I play others and see things blowing in the wind. XD

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Originally Posted by Tanathya

It's Square who devalues their own content in FFXIV by doing this kind of patch cycles and the endless, massive item level progression. I, for one, wish older content was relevant, so you're very wrong there too.

Mechanics such as magic bursts, and not skillchains, were gone because of what I said before: parties killing colibris, these mobs mimicking magic. TP burn parties were a thing way before ToAU existed, such as in Boyahda Tree with RNG TP burn pts, or Cape Teriggan BLM pts. General leveling didn't change the pattern with ToAU, at all. BCNM instances were, in fact, ran; many of them dropping high value items, such as the Kraken Club BCNM, for example (I don't know where you got that from anyway, amongst a myriad of things being discussed here). I can attest to that. As you can see, I didn't "come after". I was right there since the very beginning, so you might as well start thinking that you're actually wrong, perhaps?

The overwhelming amount of backlash was almost exclusively restricted to Besieged, which was literally unplayable.

If there is something we can agree on is the fact that they're not gonna change much, as those who want it are in the minority. I personally don't hold any hope for this game, I just don't care if they change it or not, they've shown their cards many times over.

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You're not wishing for older content to remain relevant though. You want the drops in this content to remain relevant. You want something like an ARR or HW relic to be a viable, if not BiS for endgame, am I not correct? If so, that goes back to XI progression vs XIV progression. There is another time, and another place to talk about that. And there will be a lot that I will agree with you pertaining to that, I am sure.

We can argue all day about what we experienced with ToAU, as it really sounds like we experienced completely different things. Which is fine, but one thing you need to get straight is I am not saying you're wrong about anything. What I will never agree with you on though is that nothing changed with ToAU, and I can attest to the very same things I claim.

I will agree with you on besieged, it was horrible. Campaigning also wasn't a whole lot of fun either, unless you were maxed out and could feel like you were actually contributing, which kind of defeated the purpose of it. What it really sounds like is you are in favor of drastic changes, and are every bit as biased as I am when it comes the current state of FFXIV. That is fair, and I respect that. At the end of the day, I am fine with the game as is and you are the one who has to decide if there is enough enjoyment in it to continue. Should drastic change come, then that predicament shifts over to me assuming the changes are favorable to you and other players. The cards they've shown many times over is a struggle to find balance, and the playerbase isn't making it any easier for them.

I remember, at times of 2.0, that someone on devs side said that relic was intended to be best alternative to the current raid BiS weapon.

But, patch after patch, relic kept behind by a long run, and the new steps to get it were so much more grinding than a Korean mmo (I'm sure some of you remember the Atma farming madness when it were implemented, and what it was the successive step…), with the result now the relic is just sorta of glamour for people that have some time to spare. Relic weapon was a nice idea but now is a dead thing.

Make that alive again may be a nice thing.

They can get a lot more mileage from this game by just injecting new ideas. There are definitely things that cannot be done without starting from scratch on a new game but I don't think we are close to desperately needing that yet. With a new game we could get more advanced character creator, overhauled combat system (faster GCD, no more tab-target style?), different game design that doesn't gate the whole game behind MSQ story progress, etc. Personally I'd probably be on board with another 10 years of XIV though.

Square Enix is not a small studio that can do one thing at a time. They are fully capable of having a team continue working on FFXIV, another team (or teams) working on single player games or games like FFXV and yet another team working on a completely new MMO.

FFXIV is unique in how it plays, but it is "trapped" by this as well. As a result it's a game that just doesn't have the kind of impact it have a potential for, and some of those "faults" aren't even really big or hard to change. But it does fill a most desired niche and I see no reason why it should stop.

I WOULD want an MMO in the Final Fantasy universe that does try to offer something more however. An entirely new game developed in parallel to FFXIV. With horizontal gear progression among others, either a GOOD class/job system (the one used in FFXIV was absolutely destroyed by the very people that made it...which is quite hilarious when it was literally only a title change from the beginning) or lack of it thereof from the get-go (of course I WANT different jobs). No "holy trinity" design, giving the team a choice in how to approach tanking with all classes having some basic means of healing (possibly a based on a choice, maybe make classes chose between a "healing tree" a "tank tree" and "DPS tree" while inside the dungeon which would change several skills, not all). Stuff like that.

I don't need a new game if XIV updates itself in the areas it struggles. XIV is heavily outdated on some MMORPG aspects it shouldn't.
Graphics, Character Creation Screen, Maps, Gameplays and UI features.
The 1.0 disaster still hurts the game even now because they had to use the same crappy coding and graphics engine.
They never expected XIV to become so massively successful. They just wanted few thousand players in the launch to make back they money the lost with Dalamud falling down.
Instead they got millions of players and years of enduring success.
This is good indeed as the game revived and is healthy.
The problem is that now its struggling to grow and advance more because it hits the 1.0 walls again and again.
No HD textures, broken shadows, no AA methods, bad and super limited Character Creation choices (lol 3-4 faces and options at most categories), can't log in back to houses, took years to add housing plots and all of them taken again, glamour system is still in infancy, still no number values on the TP bars, horrible object culling for housing objects (hard limit 40 interactive items), and PCs/NPCs (can't view them despite having the hardware to do so), the game is still using ~2GB of RAM, bad audio engine (unstable and can't switch output device while in game).
All those have an effect on gameplay formula as well. For example they can't add interesting overworld content since the game engine and servers can't handle more than ~100 ppl in one place.
They always hit walls of limitations everywhere and this is the reason we can't have cool things such as castle sieges or large scale battlefield type of content.

I don't even know where to start. My opinion isn't so much on the current status of the game, but why so many people have rose-tinted glasses or nostalgia goggles when talking about XIV in comparison to any other MMO. Times change, and MMOs change too, as dictated by the times. Using XI as a reference, there are as many people saying XI was/is better, as there are saying XI sucked until a lot later in its life. But XI was made at a time when slow paced MMOs were common, and today MMOs need to be fast paced, like XIV. I'm not daying XIV is without its flaws, but the player base needs to use a bit more tact than just saying "start over".

Also keep in mind tgat as technology advances, games get harder to produce, and companies don't always pay their employees well. The "realistic" qualities we expect come at the colt of time, and the quick solutions come at the cost of quality. That's why no butts, and clipping are a thing. Though I don't have a butt, so that's real to me, lol

Besides, while I am not a veteran MMO player, what I have heard from those that are is that, XIV isn't doing anything completely different in regards to its patch cycles. Its always various forns of familiar content mixed in with hints of new.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

You're not wishing for older content to remain relevant though. You want the drops in this content to remain relevant. You want something like an ARR or HW relic to be a viable, if not BiS for endgame, am I not correct? If so, that goes back to XI progression vs XIV progression. There is another time, and another place to talk about that. And there will be a lot that I will agree with you pertaining to that, I am sure.

We can argue all day about what we experienced with ToAU, as it really sounds like we experienced completely different things. Which is fine, but one thing you need to get straight is I am not saying you're wrong about anything. What I will never agree with you on though is that nothing changed with ToAU, and I can attest to the very same things I claim.

I will agree with you on besieged, it was horrible. Campaigning also wasn't a whole lot of fun either, unless you were maxed out and could feel like you were actually contributing, which kind of defeated the purpose of it. What it really sounds like is you are in favor of drastic changes, and are every bit as biased as I am when it comes the current state of FFXIV. That is fair, and I respect that. At the end of the day, I am fine with the game as is and you are the one who has to decide if there is enough enjoyment in it to continue. Should drastic change come, then that predicament shifts over to me assuming the changes are favorable to you and other players. The cards they've shown many times over is a struggle to find balance, and the playerbase isn't making it any easier for them.

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There you go again. I've always wished they did away with item levels so the older content was still relevant, so you couldn't be more wrong. It isn't about XI vs XIV progression, it's the fact that FFXIV vertical progression is so aggressive, their own content gets irrelevant after a couple of patches.

Again with ToAU, that didn't change things as much as it added new content. By the way, Campaign came out with WotG.

And you're wrong again, I don't want things changed for FFXIV. Like I said, I don't hold any hope for this game, I barely play it, and it's been stale for around 3 years. Whenever they've tried to change it by adding something new a la Diadem, they failed hard, so no, I do not want nor do I expect any changes. Had you asked me a couple of years ago, I would've said probably.

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Originally Posted by Eloah

I don't even know where to start. My opinion isn't so much on the current status of the game, but why so many people have rose-tinted glasses or nostalgia goggles

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Can we please stop belittling others by wrongfully overusing this reference to those damn glasses? Can we accept the fact that people may actually, objectively think that something is far better despite being old?

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Originally Posted by Tanathya

Can we please stop belittling others by wrongfully overusing this reference to those damn glasses? Can we accept the fact that people may actually, objectively think that something is far better despite being old?

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It's not belittling, it's just the realization. People are mentioning what is great about so many other games, which is fine, but they aren't mentioning their faults either; faults that most likely mimic the issues people have with XIV. Now, this is my first MMO, so I have no frame of reference besides what others have said, but I've seen just as many people praise XI and WoW as I have people showcase their flaws in comparison to XIV. Is XIV flawed, sure, what game isn't in some way, but you have to consider everything on both ends.

A good example for this is FFVII. VII is a good game no question, but it has some glaring flaws too. One being its story telling, not it's story, it's story telling. That is most likely a result of the 2D to 3D transition.

I'm not trying to start anything since, as I mentioned before, this is my first MMO, so I don't know anything else. But it is frustrating to see the same complaints without any context.

I do think Yoshi-P needs to give us player polls again at the mid life of the current expansion to get a feel of where the community is and where we want to go. It worked great for to build 2.0 so it was a great idea they should have kept using.

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Originally Posted by Tanathya

There you go again. I've always wished they did away with item levels so the older content was still relevant, so you couldn't be more wrong. It isn't about XI vs XIV progression, it's the fact that FFXIV vertical progression is so aggressive, their own content gets irrelevant after a couple of patches.

Again with ToAU, that didn't change things as much as it added new content. By the way, Campaign came out with WotG.

And you're wrong again, I don't want things changed for FFXIV. Like I said, I don't hold any hope for this game, I barely play it, and it's been stale for around 3 years. Whenever they've tried to change it by adding something new a la Diadem, they failed hard, so no, I do not want nor do I expect any changes. Had you asked me a couple of years ago, I would've said probably.

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And there you go again. "You're wrong". "Wrong again.". "Nope still wrong". How about we just agree to disagree as your stubbornness is quite tiring. Too bad you couldn't get what you were looking for through FFXIV. Maybe the next one. Or just try playing a game that suits your tastes. Perhaps go to back XI, or just stay away from SE altogether as they seem to continuously disappoint you.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

And there you go again. "You're wrong". "Wrong again.". "Nope still wrong". How about we just agree to disagree as your stubbornness is quite tiring. Too bad you couldn't get what you were looking for through FFXIV. Maybe the next one. Or just try playing a game that suits your tastes. Perhaps go to back XI, or just stay away from SE altogether as they seem to continuously disappoint you.

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When I reiterate how utterly wrong you are is when you assume what I want. This isn't about my stuborness, it's about you twisting what I'm saying. So yes, you are, indeed, wrong, I do not want those things you say I want. If you don't like people pointing out the fact that you're wrong, maybe start reading and stop assuming? I never said I want FFXI things in FFXIV either, so what do you know about what I'm looking for. I'll play whatever I want, complain about what I want, and go back to FFXI if I so desire.

How can we have rose colored nostalgia for ff14 when we are currently playing it... that's not how nostalgia works... no matter the color

I think revisions would be fine, I think a new game would be fine. The key thing is, Yoshi-P has to go. He's clearly unwilling to take risks and go in new directions, and that's painting XIV into a corner.

I would rather revisions at this point. I'm fairly certain this is my last MMO.

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

I think revisions would be fine, I think a new game would be fine. The key thing is, Yoshi-P has to go. He's clearly unwilling to take risks and go in new directions, and that's painting XIV into a corner.

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Yup, he can step down(still be part of the team) and let someone else be a director. Unpopular opinion sure but come on, imagine how stressful it is.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

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This sounds alot like Chronicles of Elyria......

It's hard to say. At what point do "revisions" become, by systems and design goals alone, a "new game".

I don't think what I want from the game would be incompatible with what exists now, but there is almost certainly a world that could be constructed to slightly better suit the ideas within, even if the parts I most desire don't require much context beyond their given expansion.

To put it simply, I don't think it needs to be a new game, but I do think it needs to aim -- by each step that can be excused as (and fully function as) playing around with what already mostly exists -- for a further, more ambitious, and more cohesive goal (continuing to add to the game without delays, but where every addition prototypes a later goal, accumulating the tech and influencing the player community towards what development ultimately intends). It feels like the cohesion of this game, it's defining traits and so forth, are essentially just a summary of design inhibitions. The game is most defined by incongruous leveling, weekly currency and loot, and predictable content schedules only because there's so little else to define it by. While the post-cap MSQ progression over patches is less common, they're far from unique, and hardly hold any impact on the hours spent or overall play experience.

All I remember from FFXI was, a certain lv 99 update came out, and all the Whale players who spent up to 2000 dollars or so buying gil to get their relics, suddenly heard an entire chorus of this kid doing what he does best, straight at them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX7wtNOkuHo Rage ensued, mountains of salt created, many players stopped playing.

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Originally Posted by Tiaque

This sounds alot like Chronicles of Elyria......

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I looked it up, other than being a cookie cutter Unreal Engine with fixed server capacity, it seems to tick most of the other boxes other than visual aesthetic. So I might give that a try in 2019 if it comes out.

Though as I've mentioned elsewhere, pretty much every MMORPG based on Unreal or Unity is kinda doomed from the beginning, and many of them don't last more than three months before being wrecked by bots. Chronicles of Elyria appear to be charging per "life" so to speak.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Contrary to what many think, the majority of players are satisfied with the current state of the game.

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Source? Keep in mind you need to account for players who have tried the game and quit. They may not be current players, but they are players nonetheless. If they've had 10MM+ created accounts and only ~1MM of them are active, they are in fact NOT the majority.

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Originally Posted by Talraen

This is Final Fantasy, a series that has always been known for reinventing itself with each new entry. I'm beginning to think that having an evergreen MMO isn't the best use of Square Enix's talents. I know the idea of winding down an MMO that isn't dying seems ridiculous, but is it perhaps worth considering? What if Square Enix were to embrace what makes Final Fantasy Final Fantasy and give us something new?

To be honest, I don't think this will happen for the same business reasons that prevent fundamental changes - don't rock the boat. But I wonder if, despite the impracticality, this is an idea that appeals to more than just myself. What do you think - do you want them to change and improve FFXIV indefinitely, or steer towards an "ending" of sorts and start on something new?

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Speaking strictly personally - I just officially took a break from FF14 starting yesterday. My static and I were making decent progress on UWU (good bit through Ifrit after just 2 days), but I really can't commit to the 3 day a week schedule they wanted (I'm too casual LOL). I love FF14 and FF in general, but this game is not the game I wish it was.

I'd wish the combat was more dynamic and organic. I wish the world was less instanced, segmented and bland. I wish sub-systems made sense and interacted/synergized together. I wished itemization wasn't trivially boring and insanely vertical.

I'm at a point where I really want a game that marries the ideas of Dark Souls with an MMO. Like I imagine taking me and 3 buddies through Dorter Trade City (FFT reference - not an instance) where we're having to manage being pelted from above by Archers, not grouped up to get melted by Black Mages, and protecting squishies from Knights.

Stuff like enemies with AI that will try to CC me to get to the back line, enemies reacting to decisions I/we make as a party maybe with active defensive elements, etc. It wouldn't be just an AOE group fest. If you saw the BLM charging, and you were worried you couldn't interrupt/kill him in time, you'd spread out to minimize damage, utilize defensive cooldowns, etc. Real decisions in real time, within a FF universe with MMO elements? That's what I want to play.

Really I want to see the level design and danger aspect of Dark Souls married with the exploration, mechanics, and camaraderie that MMO's typically provide. Proper spacing and resource optimization, with lots of dynamic encounter design.

It's one reason I'm pretty excited to see how the Islands in WoW BfA turn out. Might be a really neat start to developing battle AI that isn't scripted in a binary fashion.

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Originally Posted by Riardon

The 1.0 disaster still hurts the game even now because they had to use the same crappy coding and graphics engine.

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I don't know how it is with the codes, but the ARR engine is not the 1.0 engine