Yoshi P's Ominous Statement About the Future of XIV

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Originally Posted by SupaCancerion

Nothing about this statement is ominous to me and I'm very happy to see Yoshi P acknowledging that the game needs to modernize. Lots of change is needed for FFXIV if it is gonna remain successful for another 10 years.

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Same feeling here, its a "Lots of change is needed" statement but people in this thread are deciding to pick what "An evolving market" means, if you actually take a look to what other MMORPG's have been doing.

1. Blizzard making the game very alt friendly, adding player housing, implementing lots of QOL that used to be only gotten by addons.
2. Old School Runescape getting its update with a new skill and also a quality of levelling in the form of gemstone crab.
3. Runescape 3 taking a step to decrease monetisation in its game to be less of a microtransaction eyesore.
4. Guild Wars adding homesteads and altering how its endgame works to make it easier for new players to get into higher level raiding.

We already know that for combat they want to go for a more transformative combat skill system, one skill changing into another vs more buttons. Viper is the largest example of this.

Yet for some reason because a mobile version exists and YoshiP has vaguely commented on pathfinding FFXIV is going to change into a mobile game.
FFXIV already has a cash shop with boosts, skips, cosmetics.

"Oh but the mobile version has pay walled features", the PC entire game is paywalled behind a non-optional subscription.

Doomers going to be doomers.

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Originally Posted by Underscore

The game doesn't need to modernize, it needs to improve. Modernity sucks.

Much of the improvement needed involves looking to the past and remembering what made this MMO and others great in the first place.

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Hm.

I don't know if you were around in the early days of MMORPGs, but modernity definitely has its advantages. I didn't play FFXIV in its early days. I'm a regular WoW player, though, and lots of people say the same things you do. Most of the time, it's just nostalgia talking. They forget the loooooong hours spent spamming in front of the capitals to find a player to do their one and only dungeon of the evening; the endless farming for certain items; the terrible writing of the quests; the unbearable drop rate (no, it's not fun to kill 30 boars to get one boar's tooth). There are some things I sincerely regret, I'll grant you that, but to say that modernity is ‘rubbish’ is a bit dishonest, I think.

Modernity has its problems, but it's not all bad. Games tend to be more fast-paced and engaging (you'd be yawning like 90% of players if we had mechanics like those of the first MMORPG bosses). And FFXIV desperately needs this modernity, because the game suffers from a rigidity that becomes almost cadaverous over time. In general, if the community were less resistant to innovation, it would be a very good thing.

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

Hm.

I don't know if you were around in the early days of MMORPGs, but modernity definitely has its advantages. I didn't play FFXIV in its early days. I'm a regular WoW player, though, and lots of people say the same things you do. Most of the time, it's just nostalgia talking. They forget the loooooong hours spent spamming in front of the capitals to find a player to do their one and only dungeon of the evening; the endless farming for certain items; the terrible writing of the quests; the unbearable drop rate (no, it's not fun to kill 30 boars to get one boar's tooth). There are some things I sincerely regret, I'll grant you that, but to say that modernity is ‘rubbish’ is a bit dishonest, I think.

Modernity has its problems, but it's not all bad. Games tend to be more fast-paced and engaging (you'd be yawning like 90% of players if we had mechanics like those of the first MMORPG bosses). And FFXIV desperately needs this modernity, because the game suffers from a rigidity that becomes almost cadaverous over time. In general, if the community were less resistant to innovation, it would be a very good thing.

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I think in the context of WoW, it's a little different. WoW went from what could be considered an actual difficult MMO open world to something resembling a theme park with a lot more of a focus on character stories than frankly WoW writers are capable of handling (though they are getting better!), which is why there was such a tectonic uproar for Classic around the time of the exodus. As someone who played from Wrath of the Lich King, watched the game evolve over years, then played Classic again, I am confident in saying that Classic is more of a better game overall than retail WoW is... though that's not to say there aren't things in retail that I like.

FFXIV doesn't have that problem. FFXIV never really changed after ARR, it just found a formula that worked and dug its heels in. 2.0 and 7.0 are no different in their gameplay flows, to the point where it has become a point of contention for some people. In fact, I think what little they have been 'modernizing' recently has been a net detriment for the game, that being the Trust-ification of every dungeon in the game. I will say it once and a thousand times: Large MMOs only die when their devs forget that they are supposed to be making MMOs.

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

I think in the context of WoW, it's a little different. WoW went from what could be considered an actual difficult MMO open world to something resembling a theme park with a lot more of a focus on character stories than frankly WoW writers are capable of handling (though they are getting better!), which is why there was such a tectonic uproar for Classic around the time of the exodus. As someone who played from Wrath of the Lich King, watched the game evolve over years, then played Classic again, I am confident in saying that Classic is more of a better game overall than retail WoW is... though that's not to say there aren't things in retail that I like.

FFXIV doesn't have that problem. FFXIV never really changed after ARR, it just found a formula that worked and dug its heels in. 2.0 and 7.0 are no different in their gameplay flows, to the point where it has become a point of contention for some people. In fact, I think what little they have been 'modernizing' recently has been a net detriment for the game, that being the Trust-ification of every dungeon in the game. I will say it once and a thousand times: Large MMOs only die when their devs forget that they are supposed to be making MMOs.

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Perhaps I am comparing two things that are too different, indeed. Let me rephrase that: in general, refusing to allow MMORPGs to evolve with the times is, in my opinion, a rather harmful mentality. In the case of WOW, for what I mentioned; in the case of FFXIV, even though it's more difficult for me to say, because the game should FINALLY evolve. It's not normal for a game to remain unchanged for over 10 years.

Simple example: please, free me from these Memoquartz.

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

Perhaps I am comparing two things that are too different, indeed. Let me rephrase that: in general, refusing to allow MMORPGs to evolve with the times is, in my opinion, a rather harmful mentality. In the case of WOW, for what I mentioned; in the case of FFXIV, even though it's more difficult for me to say, because the game should FINALLY evolve. It's not normal for a game to remain unchanged for over 10 years.

Simple example: please, free me from these Memoquartz.

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The problem with most of their attempts to evolve, especially in the case of XIV, is that they've been trying to evolve into other genres. Endwalker and its patch cycle, as per Yoshida, was the beginning of an attempt to turn it into a solo game. DT, as per Yoshida, has been an attempt to throw random shit at the wall and see if anything sticks. Neither of these cases give me the impression that CS3 knows what they're doing or make me optimistic about the game's future.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

The problem with most of their attempts to evolve, especially in the case of XIV, is that they've been trying to evolve into other genres. Endwalker and its patch cycle, as per Yoshida, was the beginning of an attempt to turn it into a solo game. DT, as per Yoshida, has been an attempt to throw random shit at the wall and see if anything sticks. Neither of these cases give me the impression that CS3 knows what they're doing or make me optimistic about the game's future.

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Dt has brought some good things, notably a revamp of the boss battles, which I think is worth highlighting (and has been well received).

I think we should be concerned when a game stops trying new things, not when it continues to experiment. In any case, what is the alternative? Staying stuck with an outdated formula that is repeated with every expansion?

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

Dt has brought some good things, notably a revamp of the boss battles, which I think is worth highlighting (and has been well received).

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Debatable, it has been well received by people who already enjoyed the ShB/Enwalker formula of bosses because all that Dawntrail has done is take that formula and crank it up.

It's less of a revamp and more of just doing the same thing but faster.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Debatable, it has been well received by people who already enjoyed the ShB/Enwalker formula of bosses because all that Dawntrail has done is take that formula and crank it up.

It's less of a revamp and more of just doing the same thing but faster.

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On the contrary, it seems to me that the design of the Endwalker bosses was widely criticised: very predictable (e.g. AOE on the entire group at the start). DT breaks this cycle of monotony by adding speed and nervosity.

That said, I'm basing this on what I've seen in-game and feedback on the forum. It should be taken with a pinch of salt, as many people remain silent. But I have a fairly clear memory of people being happy that we were finally breaking the boring Endwalker formula.

I was going to edit the previous message, but I'll just add this here I would just like to point out an example that I found rather sad "recently": Endwalker may have turned resolutely towards single-player gameplay, but the quest design was interesting... And it wasn't out of place in the context of FFXIV's MSQ (which has always been very solo-oriented anyway). That was a real modernisation: after entire expansions where the quests all worked in pretty much the same way, we finally had some worthwhile experiments.

It was very poorly received. Unfortunately, because we then went back to the old way. I think it's a pretty good example of an experiment that should have been more widely praised – because, in this case, the game really needs to address the issue of quest design.

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

Perhaps I am comparing two things that are too different, indeed. Let me rephrase that: in general, refusing to allow MMORPGs to evolve with the times is, in my opinion, a rather harmful mentality. In the case of WOW, for what I mentioned; in the case of FFXIV, even though it's more difficult for me to say, because the game should FINALLY evolve. It's not normal for a game to remain unchanged for over 10 years.

Simple example: please, free me from these Memoquartz.

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I can accept that. But like I said, the devs need to keep in mind they are making an MMO. Not a visual novel, not a puzzle game, not a single player RPG, not a gacha game, not Dance Dance Revloution.

With all the flaws WoW has introduced into their game as the years have gone by, it still feels like an MMO, probably because they started out as deep into the definition as a game can go. Can't really say that for FFXIV these days.

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

Dt has brought some good things, notably a revamp of the boss battles, which I think is worth highlighting (and has been well received).

I think we should be concerned when a game stops trying new things, not when it continues to experiment. In any case, what is the alternative? Staying stuck with an outdated formula that is repeated with every expansion?

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thats kinda what they have been doing though, feels like they should stop throwing out 2 new classes every expansion and put that energy into the game

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

I can accept that. But like I said, the devs need to keep in mind they are making an MMO. Not a visual novel, not a puzzle game, not a single player RPG, not a gacha game, not Dance Dance Revloution.

With all the flaws WoW has introduced into their game as the years have gone by, it still feels like an MMO, probably because they started out as deep into the definition as a game can go. Can't really say that for FFXIV these days.

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Honest question: wasn't FFXIV an MMO leaning towards theme parks from the start? The game has always seemed far removed from real MMORPG experiences to me (I wouldn't even classify WoW in this category: rather games like Star Wars Galaxies).

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

I don't know if you were around in the early days of MMORPGs, but modernity definitely has its advantages. I didn't play FFXIV in its early days. I'm a regular WoW player, though, and lots of people say the same things you do. Most of the time, it's just nostalgia talking. They forget the loooooong hours spent spamming in front of the capitals to find a player to do their one and only dungeon of the evening; the endless farming for certain items; the terrible writing of the quests; the unbearable drop rate (no, it's not fun to kill 30 boars to get one boar's tooth). There are some things I sincerely regret, I'll grant you that, but to say that modernity is ‘rubbish’ is a bit dishonest, I think.

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Ha, that's for sure. Some of the first MMOs I played included Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes, and Final Fantasy 11, and they certainly had their "quirks" that made them all but unplayable to most people because they had mechanics or shortcomings they didn't deem worth putting up with.

I'm sure some people will try act like "thems was the good old days" but two of those games have been shut down for years, and FF11 had to completely overhaul how it played (the introduction of NPCs for nearly all content) to make up for the lack of people to keep said content viable and playable.

Incidentally, Dynamis and Materia struggle even now to have enough people to do anything with, and yet people will still sit here and act like NPCs are the worst thing ever when they are literally the only way people on some worlds can advance parts of the MSQ at all.
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Originally Posted by NegativeS

I think in the context of WoW, it's a little different. WoW went from what could be considered an actual difficult MMO open world to something resembling a theme park with a lot more of a focus on character stories than frankly WoW writers are capable of handling (though they are getting better!), which is why there was such a tectonic uproar for Classic around the time of the exodus.

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I played WoW back when all we had was "Vanilla" and trust me, even back then it was the "casual" MMO everyone ran to when the actual difficult MMOs beat them up and took their lunch money, lol. I know because I was one of those who didn't get far in SWG and FF11, and while CoH/CoV was manageable, WoW was WAY easier to get into and make progress in.

I'll also say flatout that I never wanted "Classic" servers despite when I started, and them being made marked one of the reasons I departed from the game because it told me that Blizzard no longer had any faith in their game's future (and players didn't care about its future either), they only knew how to stew in their past.
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Originally Posted by Merrigan

Dt has brought some good things, notably a revamp of the boss battles, which I think is worth highlighting (and has been well received).

I think we should be concerned when a game stops trying new things, not when it continues to experiment. In any case, what is the alternative? Staying stuck with an outdated formula that is repeated with every expansion?

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Actually... quite a few people around here insist that Heavenward was the "true golden era" and do in fact think the game should have remained frozen in time from then onwards. And I don't just mean jobs and fights, some of them abhor all the quality of life we've gotten since then too.

Keep in mind of course that if HW was so "perfect" there would have been no reason for Square-Enix to have changed anything since that time, or they would have long since gone back to it, or how reaching HW's "peak" is going to involve a whole lot more people having to quit to get those subscriber numbers they claim made for a "perfectly fine" population even as we watch at least two different data centers wither away in real-time.

People can say what what they want about how advancements aren't perfect, and they would be correct that not all change is good and "change for the sake of change" can be a disaster. But wrapping one's self tight in nostalgia and refusing to budge brings its own "enervation and death" as a different kind of stagnation takes hold.

This original statement means nothing in the grand scheme of things until they've actually shown proper evolution in game. As it is it reads like more useless umbrellas and emotes for the limsa enjoyers.

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

But I have a fairly clear memory of people being happy that we were finally breaking the boring Endwalker formula.

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I'll be happy when we will finally break the boring Dawntrail formula... but will we ever?

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Originally Posted by Daralii

The problem with most of their attempts to evolve, especially in the case of XIV, is that they've been trying to evolve into other genres. Endwalker and its patch cycle, as per Yoshida, was the beginning of an attempt to turn it into a solo game. DT, as per Yoshida, has been an attempt to throw random shit at the wall and see if anything sticks. Neither of these cases give me the impression that CS3 knows what they're doing or make me optimistic about the game's future.

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I don't think Dawntrail had anything new, or "random shit at the wall" as you said. In fact, everything introduced (with the exception of the outer space crafting) was a rehash of something they've already done before. Exploratory Missions aren't new. V&C dungeons aren't new. Endless Dungeons aren't new. It's all the same old stuff but slightly tweaked.

The problem was that none of it was *FUN*. Eureka was fun, Bozja was a regression, Occult Crescent was even more of a regression. It was like they had the blueprints and peed all over them and tried without the feedback of the community. South Horn and Forked was, well, f**ked.

The real problem with Dawntrail is that the developers are either not seeing all of the feedback we give them, they simply don't care and do what they want, or Yoshi P has given up trying.

I hope they get their act together for the next expansion, but I don't see anywhere where the devs are saying they're listening to our feedback.

Feedback is the real problem right now.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

I don't think Dawntrail had anything new, or "random shit at the wall" as you said. In fact, everything introduced (with the exception of the outer space crafting) was a rehash of something they've already done before. Exploratory Missions aren't new. V&C dungeons aren't new. Endless Dungeons aren't new. It's all the same old stuff but slightly tweaked.

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I agree, but it's something he said in an interview during 7.0. I remember plenty of people scratching their heads at it back then.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

I don't think Dawntrail had anything new, or "random shit at the wall" as you said. In fact, everything introduced (with the exception of the outer space crafting) was a rehash of something they've already done before. Exploratory Missions aren't new. V&C dungeons aren't new. Endless Dungeons aren't new. It's all the same old stuff but slightly tweaked.

The problem was that none of it was *FUN*. Eureka was fun, Bozja was a regression, Occult Crescent was even more of a regression. It was like they had the blueprints and peed all over them and tried without the feedback of the community. South Horn and Forked was, well, f**ked.

The real problem with Dawntrail is that the developers are either not seeing all of the feedback we give them, they simply don't care and do what they want, or Yoshi P has given up trying.

I hope they get their act together for the next expansion, but I don't see anywhere where the devs are saying they're listening to our feedback.

Feedback is the real problem right now.

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Honestly, I would argue that even Space Crafting isn't necessarily new... It's still just an amalgamation (with slight tweaks) of features, e.g., Fetes...

I would also say it is a regression over Ishgard Restoration (Which is what it effectively aimed to succeed), sure, it had some fun recipes, and it was 'server progression', but in terms of actual collaboration, it just felt like everyone was off doing their own thing because it was just so incredibly reliant, versus Ishgard where I felt I was collaborating more with players... Perhaps that experience of mine is skewed because I was churning out experts, but was my experience all the same.

It's insane absolutely insane how much of a regression Occult Crescent actually is.. I felt like travelling to FATEs took longer than actually killing them (when doing it on an alt, it felt really impractical to do them without the riding map), more egregious than Zadnor Z3 farming., and the fact that it was just 1 FATE and CE at a given time (even if CEs were a regular occurrence) just made Occult seem so empty and lifeless.

I think they are 'listening', but they clearly aren't getting the intended message from the feedback.

Anyone who states HW was the "good old days" just baffles me. Unless you were an MSQ Andy on certain jobs, I can't grasp it as a player that was there for the entirety of HW while current.

I had to give up playing SCH because of button bloat being to overwhelming on controller. I swapped to AST when it's card system was the most overwhelming and unbalanced (heh) it ever was. I watched players crumble underneath Alexander.

But people were insanely enthusiastic about the story of Heavensward and the new regions, and flight! It was the first "real" expansion to FFXIV's world and it was cathartic to legacy players to finally get into Ishgard. It was absolutely a different time as a player.


And then Stormblood came through with a mountain of QOL that is completely forgotten because "Story bad."

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

Anyone who states HW was the "good old days" just baffles me. Unless you were an MSQ Andy on certain jobs, I can't grasp it as a player that was there for the entirety of HW while current.

I had to give up playing SCH because of button bloat being to overwhelming on controller. I swapped to AST when it's card system was the most overwhelming and unbalanced (heh) it ever was. I watched players crumble underneath Alexander.

But people were insanely enthusiastic about the story of Heavensward and the new regions, and flight! It was the first "real" expansion to FFXIV's world and it was cathartic to legacy players to finally get into Ishgard. It was absolutely a different time as a player.


And then Stormblood came through with a mountain of QOL that is completely forgotten because "Story bad."

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I think a lot of the HW being the 'good old days' just stems from the fact it was the first expansion, and it introduced a lot of wander and curiosity for players, which will in a lot of cases simply trump how well designed it was (or was not)... I'm in the mindset of... HW was good old days for me, simply because it did capture that wander.

I think even in bad design you can still capture a lot of 'character' from the content... But when you overdesign, make something too formulaic, too predictable or too stress-free, then you end up really stripping a lot of character, excitement and wanderlust out of the game features... Like we can argue all day long whether certain features were good or not good at the time... But the current design? What am I doing differently from what I done 1 or 2 expansions ago? Or most people for that matter..

Stormblood was best, but it simply didn't capture that same level of curiosity, nor satisfaction... Gear progression for crafting I found very satisfying in HW... Even ARR years later, doing capstone gear progression (Without progressing into HW) there offers far more satisfaction than what crafting currently could ever hope to accomplish... Cool... I did Crested (i750 gear)... Cool I melded it? The gear progression and material composition has followed the same formula since, what? 2018, which was 3 expansions ago... That's 3 expansions doing the exact same thing, following the exact same steps.

When you realize how disappointing that is... You will probably start to understand why some people can view HW as the 'Good old days', despite having many clunky and failed systems.

I will also say as an aside, there is a time and point where you start to QoL the soul out of a game... Now I am not saying all QoL is this direction, but there are points where it just makes the game hollow...

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

On the contrary, it seems to me that the design of the Endwalker bosses was widely criticised: very predictable (e.g. AOE on the entire group at the start). DT breaks this cycle of monotony by adding speed and nervosity.

That said, I'm basing this on what I've seen in-game and feedback on the forum. It should be taken with a pinch of salt, as many people remain silent. But I have a fairly clear memory of people being happy that we were finally breaking the boring Endwalker formula.

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That's where we probably just disagree. Yes, casual Endwalker bosses were very boring, but Dawntrail bosses aren't any less predictable once you actually look at what they're doing. You still have the AoE on the entire group at the start, you have bosses that telegraph their attacks with animations or the arena but so did Endwalker. You still deal with lines, point blanks, donuts, half-room cleaves, etc.
Dawntrail increased the frequency and expects you to adapt to it, that much is true. If you had to dodge a single line AoE in Endwalker then Dawntrail wants you to dodge two, most likely hitting the safe spot you were just in. But you're still just dodging line AoEs, it's not asking you to do something you haven't already done for 30+ levels.

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

I was going to edit the previous message, but I'll just add this here I would just like to point out an example that I found rather sad "recently": Endwalker may have turned resolutely towards single-player gameplay, but the quest design was interesting... And it wasn't out of place in the context of FFXIV's MSQ (which has always been very solo-oriented anyway). That was a real modernisation: after entire expansions where the quests all worked in pretty much the same way, we finally had some worthwhile experiments.

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Even here I don't think much has changed. Dawntrail's MSQ, just like Endwalker's, has you mostly walk from NPC A to NPC B to read some dialogue text, you get the occasional mission where you play as an NPC, you get the occasional mission where an NPC follows you while you run from A to B to talk to someone, you get the occasional mission where you need to tail an NPC without being detected, all that Dawntrail lacks in terms of quests compared to Endwalker is an infamous solo instance like "In From the Cold"...and the ridiculous hype.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

Anyone who states HW was the "good old days" just baffles me. Unless you were an MSQ Andy on certain jobs, I can't grasp it as a player that was there for the entirety of HW while current.

I had to give up playing SCH because of button bloat being to overwhelming on controller. I swapped to AST when it's card system was the most overwhelming and unbalanced (heh) it ever was. I watched players crumble underneath Alexander.

But people were insanely enthusiastic about the story of Heavensward and the new regions, and flight! It was the first "real" expansion to FFXIV's world and it was cathartic to legacy players to finally get into Ishgard. It was absolutely a different time as a player.


And then Stormblood came through with a mountain of QOL that is completely forgotten because "Story bad."

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Not sure who exactly calls Heavensward the golden age either, but I give it credit for actually trying new things.
The first teasure dungeon, the first field exploration (even if that fell flat on it's face), the first savage, very specialist-centric crafting and expanding on the job design from ARR but making it even more reliant on working together as group. Dps was shared responsibility, mitigation was shared responsiblity, enmity was shared responsibility.

Of course that didn't come without it's issues. The gulf between a player who understood how XIV worked and someone who didn't was massive, which I'd argue is also what caused the raiding issues in Gordias. If you were a tank that still thought parry was a good stat to invest in you were hitting a wall, same with healers that thought their only job was to heal.

Stormblood is really the one derided by MSQ Andys. It made the jobs less cryptic while still keeping a high ceiling, removed a lot of arbitrary roadblocks or busywork, refined the content introduced in Heavensward and gave a bunch of things to do every 3 months. The initial story may have been mediocre but it improved massively over the patches and was probably the best time for people wanting gameplay instead of just watching cutscenes.
Of course it helped that everything was still rather fresh, as it mostly iterated on things they had already tried before.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

Anyone who states HW was the "good old days" just baffles me. Unless you were an MSQ Andy on certain jobs, I can't grasp it as a player that was there for the entirety of HW while current.

I had to give up playing SCH because of button bloat being to overwhelming on controller. I swapped to AST when it's card system was the most overwhelming and unbalanced (heh) it ever was. I watched players crumble underneath Alexander.

But people were insanely enthusiastic about the story of Heavensward and the new regions, and flight! It was the first "real" expansion to FFXIV's world and it was cathartic to legacy players to finally get into Ishgard. It was absolutely a different time as a player.


And then Stormblood came through with a mountain of QOL that is completely forgotten because "Story bad."

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It was a similar thing with WoW where people would always make a fuss about how "XYZ expansion was the best" usually while saying nonsense like "until XYZ casualized everything" forgetting, or not being around to know it was always the casual MMO.

I too have what I considered the game's peak: Wrath of the Lich King, made worse by how I was underwhelmed (but not overly negative of) Cataclysm, and then felt things were going up again with Mists. It wasn't until Warlords that things started falling off hard for me because even putting aside the premise of the expansion... I didn't care about visiting other worlds, and as a long time Horde main, being told "oh yeah, they were always evil, we were just BSing about the demon blood thing" was a slap in the face (to say nothing of how much the Forsaken had been ruining the Horde's cred for two expansions already), this was also around the time Blizzard sounded like they were going to (and ultimately did) cave and make Classic Vanilla servers AND you had the first louder whispering of their company-wide sexual misconduct. That's three strikes, I was out, and I haven't been back since.

Sure enough, Blizzard has supposedly made "Classic" servers locked in time for Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, and I think Cataclysm is on the way too now, despite it being the first critic and player panned expansion, somehow there were enough people yearning for it to become a thing. FF14 is much the same though where everyone has what they considered the "best" version of FF14 and of course that's what leads to the countless arguments over job, fight, and overall content design. Ask any 5 people what their favorite patch version of a job was and you'll get 6 different answers.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

I played WoW back when all we had was "Vanilla" and trust me, even back then it was the "casual" MMO everyone ran to when the actual difficult MMOs beat them up and took their lunch money, lol. I know because I was one of those who didn't get far in SWG and FF11, and while CoH/CoV was manageable, WoW was WAY easier to get into and make progress in.

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The scoffing by the "real" MMO players of Everquest. It's like that meme with art about how the masters were the best. By that logic then cavemen were the best artists since they are the first masters.

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

I think in the context of WoW, it's a little different. WoW went from what could be considered an actual difficult MMO open world to something resembling a theme park with a lot more of a focus on character stories than frankly WoW writers are capable of handling (though they are getting better!), which is why there was such a tectonic uproar for Classic around the time of the exodus. As someone who played from Wrath of the Lich King, watched the game evolve over years, then played Classic again, I am confident in saying that Classic is more of a better game overall than retail WoW is... though that's not to say there aren't things in retail that I like.

FFXIV doesn't have that problem. FFXIV never really changed after ARR, it just found a formula that worked and dug its heels in. 2.0 and 7.0 are no different in their gameplay flows, to the point where it has become a point of contention for some people. In fact, I think what little they have been 'modernizing' recently has been a net detriment for the game, that being the Trust-ification of every dungeon in the game. I will say it once and a thousand times: Large MMOs only die when their devs forget that they are supposed to be making MMOs.

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I always hated this game for the forced solo content ALWAYS I think solo duties just shouldn't exist but at the same time things like prae and level 20 bowel of embers should not exist as forced group content.

I'd say have a little more XI in it again (since 1.0 was developed by the same team and ARR borrowed from it too), but... the game is fundamentally different.

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Originally Posted by ExESGO

The scoffing by the "real" MMO players of Everquest. It's like that meme with art about how the masters were the best. By that logic then cavemen were the best artists since they are the first masters.

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TRAIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNN

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

Anyone who states HW was the "good old days" just baffles me. Unless you were an MSQ Andy on certain jobs, I can't grasp it as a player that was there for the entirety of HW while current.

I had to give up playing SCH because of button bloat being to overwhelming on controller. I swapped to AST when it's card system was the most overwhelming and unbalanced (heh) it ever was. I watched players crumble underneath Alexander.

But people were insanely enthusiastic about the story of Heavensward and the new regions, and flight! It was the first "real" expansion to FFXIV's world and it was cathartic to legacy players to finally get into Ishgard. It was absolutely a different time as a player.


And then Stormblood came through with a mountain of QOL that is completely forgotten because "Story bad."

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HW is good old days for me because it still had a lot of the gameplay systems from that ARR/HW era that I care about, as well as a lot of different encounter designs, dungeons etc. People that will tell you that the game was perfect back then are obviously suffering from a severe dose of rose tinted glassium, but that doesn't invalidate that the gameplay basis was highly satisfying and what made me in part become hooked into XIV's pve.

My chocobo for actual battle mechanics, yes

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Originally Posted by Valence

HW is good old days for me because it still had a lot of the gameplay systems from that ARR/HW era that I care about, as well as a lot of different encounter designs, dungeons etc. People that will tell you that the game was perfect back then are obviously suffering from a severe dose of rose tinted glassium, but that doesn't invalidate that the gameplay basis was highly satisfying and what made me in part become hooked into XIV's pve.

My chocobo for actual battle mechanics, yes

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I've been assured by people that started in EW that nothing about HW was good, and all of them keep bringing up Gordias.

I do think that a lot of the "Good old days" feels that are gotten either from FFXIV or other MMORPG's are no longer possible to achieve except in very niche titles.
Back then your average MMORPG player was a different breed to now.
"Can I play it solo" is asked of every title these days, heck a solo mode request was even brought up for Arc Raiders an extraction shooter.
I am quite sure that if you had a option to "Fill encounter with Bots" mode that did the same dps as players that PF would be barren, why try farm with other players that can mess up when you can just farm with bot ones which dont."
Guides remove all variety from an encounter and we live in a goal based min max culture.

MMORPG's used to be about people interested in meeting others, now they're just a means to an end that cease to exist when you leave the instance.

Please nooo not the Gordias argument I yield DT design best design especially PCT in FRU-

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Originally Posted by Valence

HW is good old days for me because it still had a lot of the gameplay systems from that ARR/HW era that I care about, as well as a lot of different encounter designs, dungeons etc. People that will tell you that the game was perfect back then are obviously suffering from a severe dose of rose tinted glassium, but that doesn't invalidate that the gameplay basis was highly satisfying and what made me in part become hooked into XIV's pve.

My chocobo for actual battle mechanics, yes

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Conveniantly forgetting Bard and TP.

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Originally Posted by TBerry

Conveniantly forgetting Bard and TP.

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Can you elaborate?

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Originally Posted by TBerry

Conveniantly forgetting Bard and TP.

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I mean sure, we can argue these things were absolute grim things(alongside many other things), especially TP when you were doing AoEs, but let's face it, when a game 'evolves' from this to being something that is largely 0 thought consequence in the majority of cases, then is it really any better? Or are you just simply opting to go for something more convenient with less thought process.

Many things were bad, but this whole situation where I AoE a trash pack for 2 minutes, pretending that I'm actually playing the game and not just watching Netflix on my second screen/TV, isn't exactly a good design either.

I want to be clear I am not saying TP is good, just pointing out that having a situation where there is no thought or consideration process is just as bad, to be honest.

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Originally Posted by TBerry

Conveniantly forgetting Bard and TP.

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I assume they aren't anymore. I've seen at least two different people that adored Bowmage and claim Machinist's problems are the anti-bowmage people's fault since it destroyed the intended job identity.

Wasn't changing Attributes also a thing? Where you had to do it yourself after job/classchange by visiting an NPC?
Cross-class abilities?
The team just generally seeing how much shit they can get away with in Raids?

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Originally Posted by TBerry

Wasn't changing Attributes also a thing? Where you had to do it yourself after job/classchange by visiting an NPC?
Cross-class abilities?
The team just generally seeing how much shit they can get away with in Raids?

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Yeah switching between scholar and summoner using a keepers hymn and having to change the INT/MND stats accordingly lol.

Bards LB3 used to be a rez than DPS before HW, seems funny to think about.

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Originally Posted by PaulH

Yeah switching between scholar and summoner using a keepers hymn and having to change the INT/MND stats accordingly lol.

Bards LB3 used to be a rez than DPS before HW, seems funny to think about.

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Back before phys ranged was a "real" role. I think job-specific LB3s in general were an HW thing.

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Originally Posted by ExESGO

The scoffing by the "real" MMO players of Everquest. It's like that meme with art about how the masters were the best. By that logic then cavemen were the best artists since they are the first masters.

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Well, I never played Everquest so I can't attest to its difficulty personally, but yes that's another example of people trying to act like WoW was so "big and tough" when it was in fact "babby's first MMO". Even RuneScape was more demanding and grindy at the time, lol.

But yeah, while's there much to glean and learn from the past when it comes to game design, there's also a reason why some of those mechanics have been left behind or were tweaked into their current form. Everything new isn't the best thing ever or guts things too far, but patches exist to alter things until they're ideal, not to keep a game in one state forever while only fixing the occasional bug. That's literally what "maintenance mode" is and yet some people wish FF14 had entered that state back during whatever patch or expansion they considered the best ever.
+++

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Originally Posted by NaoSen

I do think that a lot of the "Good old days" feels that are gotten either from FFXIV or other MMORPG's are no longer possible to achieve except in very niche titles.
Back then your average MMORPG player was a different breed to now.
"Can I play it solo" is asked of every title these days, heck a solo mode request was even brought up for Arc Raiders an extraction shooter.
I am quite sure that if you had a option to "Fill encounter with Bots" mode that did the same dps as players that PF would be barren, why try farm with other players that can mess up when you can just farm with bot ones which dont."
Guides remove all variety from an encounter and we live in a goal based min max culture.

MMORPG's used to be about people interested in meeting others, now they're just a means to an end that cease to exist when you leave the instance.

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In that sense, we're already treating each other like NPCs, so some would make the argument of removing the pretense and make the "MMO" part optional content.

Alternately, the mentality has to change from people viewing each other as "friction and pain points" when it comes to game progress, but that's impossible with the current design where it literally only takes one person messing up to cause a domino effect of a party wipe, people don't want to put up with others having to learn a fight, and everyone is rushrushrushrush with everything else. Even basic communication is hobbled by the looming ToS or people opting to use Discord to such a degree that FF14 feels more like the "third-party app" in that relationship.

Even the realm of RP, arguably the most social element of all, is mired in its own issues with the use of frequent modding that would put even Skyrim to shame, or how they have even less wholesome ties to gambling and RMT.

Sounds like to me Woke Lmao is going to be the new CEO and everything is going to be run by A.I.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Back before phys ranged was a "real" role. I think job-specific LB3s in general were an HW thing.

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They were, yeah. Before HW there was just three generic ones. Felt REALLY weird to use Final Heaven as a DRG back in ARR. Though using Braver and Bladedance is still quite jarring even today.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

I mean sure, we can argue these things were absolute grim things(alongside many other things), especially TP when you were doing AoEs, but let's face it, when a game 'evolves' from this to being something that is largely 0 thought consequence in the majority of cases, then is it really any better? Or are you just simply opting to go for something more convenient with less thought process.

Many things were bad, but this whole situation where I AoE a trash pack for 2 minutes, pretending that I'm actually playing the game and not just watching Netflix on my second screen/TV, isn't exactly a good design either.

I want to be clear I am not saying TP is good, just pointing out that having a situation where there is no thought or consideration process is just as bad, to be honest.

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Agreed. I also want to point out that our current MP model is literally the same as what old TP was for multiple reasons:

- Regens fast
- Everybody has the same (10k instead of 1k, same round number)
- Applies to spellcasters instead of physical classes

The big difference is that they have over time made every rotation MP neutral or positive. In ShB when TP was removed and the old MP reworked into what we have now, we still had some spellcasters with negative MP rotations, and people had to meld piety. And that's my point, TP couldn't be helped with melds, and having negative rotations is what made people mad ultimately. Nobody complains about MP today because it's an afterthought and it doesn't matter for anything beyond, at best, gating raising (and even then, parties tend to snowball and wipe before anyway).

It's depressing when I think about it.