[Stormblood Budget] Where all the money's gone ?

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Originally Posted by Talraen

I have to disagree, on all counts.)

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I think 2.0 storyline wasnt great but not bad either, it was between. Heavensward made it a whole better, however, the older FF games had more magical moments than the new ones. FF games had the best peaks before FF13. Well at least for me.

I imagine some of the money will be going to the new 24 man raid "Return to Ivalice" especially since they hired Yasumi Matsuno and others for it.

Then there the E-sports dream they have for the PvP

Marketing will have it's share, too. That WWE performance and SB banner comes to mind.

I wonder if the PS3 > PS4 campaign costs SE money?

Far to early to say where the rumored money did go, because we don't know everything from 4.0 yet and this is only the beginning of many more huge patches and maybe new content to come. We also don't know, if we get only 2 dungeons or more with every big patch as an example.

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No customization evolution planned.

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NOOO!!!!!!!!! D':

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Originally Posted by Fredco191

NOOO!!!!!!!!! D':

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Yeah the one thing I wanted far as QoL is concerned + no updated Character Creator for 4.x. Q.Q

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Originally Posted by Celef

ear me out, not saying it's useless but come one, we don't really need longer voiced cutescenes ! Once you've done them they become useless, we need things to actually do to not get bored :/

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I agree with you. This is simply no single player game that you might enjoy for the story, this is a MMO. They can go and focus on the story more than other MMOs but they should not forget that the most important part of a MMO is the gameplay and the rest of the content. Unlike single player games where you sell complete games, here you need people that pay for it each month to create more. And people will only stay if they have something interesting to do. And like you said, the story is something you only do once. (And some are not even watching it once) I mean each new patch you can go through the story in like 2 hours depending if you have a dungeon/trial in it or not and be done with it for the next three/four months. I really do like a good story (even though some story decision in HW really took me away from it in this game..) but I also know that I would not play and pay for this game at all if the rest was not there.

I really hope that with SB we will have more content that you can put your time in without it being too frustrating. For example in other games fishing is a mini game itself. You need to press certain combinations of letters to succeed and I kinda liked that. At the same time you could also just simply do nothing with the consequence of having a lower chance or worse fish. In FF14 you sit there, have enough equipment, the right bait with you, are there at the right time with the right weather...and yet getting the fish is still so much RNG..that it really does not feel much fun. And having fun is really important.

We will have main story, other stories (Hildibrand, etc), things related to (combat - gather - craft) jobs , dungeons 4 man, raids 8 man, raids 24 man, trials 8 man, hunt, treasure maps, Aquapolis additions or totally new one, Gold Saucer additions with Blitzball or separate from it, PVP additions, Relic Weapon, Glamour, Eureka (a kind of Diadem), a new PotD, Relic Armor (new),
And, with all of that, be sure to have other new type of contents (maybe 2-3).

It's certain, Stormblood have a good budget, more than Heavensward had.

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Originally Posted by Mydiel

Maybe there are great features but main of them which were annouced are not relevant to me... : /

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OP Said this, Disscussion over.

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Originally Posted by Nihonnick

OP Said this, Disscussion over.

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People are allowed to voice their opinions and concerns... >x>

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Originally Posted by Alleo

This is simply no single player game that you might enjoy for the story, this is a MMO.

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I also agree and I think the game should just be more about gameplay WITH story elements together: Afterall we have SWTOR to make a good comparison when it comes to storytelling, with their well-done dialogues and ALL voiced cutscenes, even for basic quests. Sure some lines are recycled but they get the job done. But here? For one thing, I haven't seen an MMO with such a lack of voice acting and when there is one, it's usually f2p made by small companies where they rather spend money on other things than voice acting. But this is supposed to be an AAA game...yet there's as much dialogue as a ps1 game? And even then, I'm all for voiceless games - heck I loved Legend of Dragoon and similar back in the day - but at this point, I'd say the dialogue could be just more fluid and better paced: I can't stand a para and half worth of text when it can summed it up in 10 words.

Still, this is also why I usually don't even bother discussing anymore and it caused me so much issues with the game's community in the past (especially in my server, wherein fear of harassment I just name changed for a good year) that I kept most of my opinions of myself, where instead of actually acknowledging the faults of having a "story focused mmo" they simply say "you're wrong you're just mental/hater/etc.

At this point I just "live and let live": if people want more FF story then I guess more power to them, since the stories in the latest games don't make a lot of sense anymore and since 12 (and partially 10) I just dropped them and moved on other franchises. Their plots are somewhat understandable at least.

But to sum up my thoughts, I want a deal between gameplay and story, but if the story is the one getting the most - and people are fine with it (because it's final fantasy, it has to have a story) then I suppose nothing will change and we'll get less and less content, but more and more story...which is good until it's over in those 2 to 5 hours of gameplay for what, 6 months of waiting?

Oh well, at least 1.0 had a great story and even if its gameplay sucked and it lived long enough thanks to it.

PS: yes that was sarcastic.

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

Oh well, at least 1.0 had a great story and even if its gameplay sucked and it lived long enough thanks to it.

PS: yes that was sarcastic.

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Not for nothing, but 1.0 at launch had very little story (there were like half a dozen story quests for the entire game, plus three per class), and that was one of the many early complaints. Leves were intended to replace typical MMO sidequests, and people hated that, and demanded quests. Indeed, quests were one of the first things added when they started revising the game. The good parts of 1.0's story were also all added well after the game had already failed. So, sarcasm or no, 1.0 did not fail in spite of a good story at all. It failed in pretty much every respect at launch. (Except crafting... I miss the overly complicated, insanely detailed original crafting. /sigh)

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Originally Posted by Talraen

Not for nothing, but 1.0 at launch had very little story (there were like half a dozen story quests for the entire game, plus three per class), and that was one of the many early complaints. Leves were intended to replace typical MMO sidequests, and people hated that, and demanded quests. Indeed, quests were one of the first things added when they started revising the game. The good parts of 1.0's story were also all added well after the game had already failed. So, sarcasm or no, 1.0 did not fail in spite of a good story at all. It failed in pretty much every respect at launch. (Except crafting... I miss the overly complicated, insanely detailed original crafting. /sigh)

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I miss the gear and materia it had back then about it /sigh

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Originally Posted by Talraen

(Except crafting... I miss the overly complicated, insanely detailed original crafting. /sigh)

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I really liked that too, when I made my first chain mail I felt like "I JUST MADE MY FIRST CHAIN MAIL!!!" lol. Now, meh, next item. I would like some of the exp growth to change if they kept that system but I did really enjoy the complexity of making said items. Although I'd probably also be begging much harder for the ability to craft from retainer's inventory then or some sort of GW2 material system lol.. so many items :P.

Still, agreed the recipes were pretty cool.

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Originally Posted by odintius

I miss the gear and materia it had back then about it /sigh

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The materia that shattered your gear if it failed? Or something else about the system?

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I really liked that too, when I made my first chain mail I felt like "I JUST MADE MY FIRST CHAIN MAIL!!!" lol. Now, meh, next item. I would like some of the exp growth to change if they kept that system but I did really enjoy the complexity of making said items. Although I'd probably also be begging much harder for the ability to craft from retainer's inventory then or some sort of GW2 material system lol.. so many items :P.

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lol yeah I had a very similar experience. Some random guy was like "can you make me a hempen cowl?" and after crunching numbers and drawing flow charts for 10 minutes, I determined that... no. I mean I had a ton of hempen cloth (since it was like 2 moko grass for 12 yarn and 2 yarn for three bolts of cloth or something), but some of the pieces were like, taupe, and others were slate gray, and you could only find the appropriate bugs in two different continents. So I went on a world-wide quest for dye bugs, leveled up my alchemist to make them into dyes, and eventually completed my epic level 5 body piece. It's still my favorite memory of 1.0.

Also, no lie, my bewilderment at needing wood chips to make leather caused me to research how leather is actually made. It was educational and fun! Well, educational at least.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

The materia that shattered your gear if it failed? Or something else about the system?

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No the stat it gave were better and varied like magic attack pontency + 9 the system back then to create them can go away. What we currently have is a joke the gear increase that they newly introduce in stats should be were you sprit bond it once 100% you can chose to allot stat points into repeat it until it max given a reason for it to sprit bond in the first place and the materia I mention as a bonus option but meh it is what it is..

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Originally Posted by Talraen

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That's my point: even with a huge name behind it, 1.0 failed because of what you said: the game sucked for various reasons, and the story also sucked: basically everything sucked. No offense of course.
Why do you think 2.0 became famous? Well, not for the story but because it was playable after a long time: it was the GAMEPLAY that made the game successful, not the story or the franchise itself because if it did, then 1.0 wouldn't be shut down. And I even recall wanting to give that game a shot and suffice to say, I was glad to have listened to my guts.
A big brand helps but even that couldn't help that misstep of a game and I'm fairly sure 1.0 learned that lesson the hard way.

And this is why I'm concerned: they're slowly making the same mistake they did with 1.0, focusing more on "fanservice" (in this case the franchise itself) instead of what actually made it good (the gameplay). Say what you will, but if this game suddenly begins to "fail" in the gameplay department, it will eventually do the same end of 1.0. I mean think about it: we're basically 2 expansions in and nothing really changed so far nor they mentioned any drastic changes: we might get some improvements over combat but for all we know it might be so little, it might as well be a patch. In most other games when an expansion hits we see drastic changes in gameplay but also content: new modes are introduced, new battle mechanics or even new and different methods for gaming itself (I remember WotLK and the introduction of the phasing, which was a pretty big deal).

What do we have with HW, beside the same exact stuff from ARR, that is actually new? ? Diadem? POTD? Aquapolis? Everything else is basically the same under a new coat of paint.

And I'm saying this because I liked 2.0: it was my first final fantasy after a long pause that made me dislike the entire franchise and pretty much any of their games: they just lacked quality and weren't fun anymore. I remember seeing 2.0 and thinking "Wow they're finally listening to their fans, I'm surprised...maybe they're not that bad".
But now it's a repeating of the same thing and, once again, I'm moving away from them: the reason why I'm here ranting about this aspect it's because I truly hoped for the best and finally started to care about their products.
But at this point, I will just call it a day and move on better games.

Thank God I skipped their latest games at least...a shame considering people say Nier Automata is good, but I'm just too scared to try it.

So true Voltyblast. I would love to have a nice mix of a good storyline and good gameplay and I really hope that SB can do that. But not only will the story be split between two big conflicts (and after the Uldah and WoD situations I am quite skeptic about it), we also dont really know about any new long lasting content. (Maybe Eureka but we also dont know much about it) At least right now it looks like either its less than HW, or a lot like the older content. Yoshida himself also stated that we wont get more difficult dungeons and that there wont be a true overhaul with skills (yet they still love to call it that..stop using words that are not describing the change..you will only give a false sense of hope and will receive lots of backlash if its not that way)

In the end I wish that they would work more with the community (and the whole community too not just mostly their Japanese player base). They could introduce ingame polls about wishes and improvements of the game. With a little bit of an reward people would take part of it. With that you will get the opinion of more than the people that are posting on the forums.

At the same time if you have a certain concept for new content in the game, post some ideas of it in the forum and see how we react to it. I am quite sure if they asked us if we want the LoV system that we have now or maybe something more simpler like a pokemon version that we would have probably chosen the second option and maybe LoV wouldnt have been such a failure..

And maybe have beta testers for your stuff that are at the same time players from your game. Because I am not sure if content like Diadem would have been approved if more people had tested it.

The least you could do is have a survey some time after the release of a new patch that will question us about the content. Maybe asking what we liked about a certain content or what we would improve. This will certainly costs SE money but IMO this might also be the best way to get to know how we like the content and maybe even give them better ideas for future stuff.

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Originally Posted by Mydiel

I sure know that making a game is a lot of work, but I don't understand why Stormblood seems not good as ARR or the hype of the Heavensward launch.

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Usually, people will be very hyped for an MMO before it's release.
They hype tends to slow down after each expansion because there are some players that MMO jump. Meaning they get so excited at first, then they say bad things about it like "It's just another MMO" then move on to the next new thing.

For me, I'm very hyped about Stormblood. Many of my friends returned back to play after they saw the full trailer and fan fest live. So I don't think hype have died from people who are faithful to this game.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

Usually, people will be very hyped for an MMO before it's release.
They hype tends to slow down after each expansion because there are some players that MMO jump. Meaning they get so excited at first, then they say bad things about it like "It's just another MMO" then move on to the next new thing.

For me, I'm very hyped about Stormblood. Many of my friends returned back to play after they saw the full trailer and fan fest live. So I don't think hype have died from people who are faithful to this game.

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The problem is that SE is too tight lipped about information until the last possible moment, and the info that we get points to the expansion being the same as we already play.

For example, had they announced that the Omega raid would be a 16-person hardcore raid and showed some of its gameplay, people would be discussing that to heck and back.

But we know that it'll be just like Gordias, so there's not much to discuss (or get hyped about).

This is why WoW, very early, was talking about Mythic+ dungeons, Artifacts and open world legendaries. People want to be surprised, without surprise its hard to get people hyped.

I don't think it's because of MMO hoppers, but rather because we veterans already know what to expect.

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Originally Posted by Ririta

The problem is that SE is too tight lipped about information until the last possible moment, and the info that we get points to the expansion being the same as we already play.

For example, had they announced that the Omega raid would be a 16-person hardcore raid and showed some of its gameplay, people would be discussing that to heck and back.

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I'm going to reserve my judgement on this until next week. I'm giving SE this upcoming live letter to give us a tonne of surprises. At fan fest they only have a limited amount of time, and they covered a very basic overview - the announcement, the lore, the locations, the jobs, and very light information about gameplay and features. This upcoming live letter will be their first opportunity (other than interviews) to really delve into the gameplay meat.

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

In most other games when an expansion hits we see drastic changes in gameplay but also content:

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Which is a massive double-edged sword, and can easily lead to change for the sake of change, or leaving behind features made in one expansion because the development cost in terms of time to make those drastic changes every couple years means you have to be picky in what gets iterated on for future content.

As a player, it can mean getting a totally fresh experience every couple years...but it can just as easily (and with each set of changes this is more likely to happen) mean that the game you first enjoyed and even the version you really liked no longer exists.

The practice of making major changes with expansions has certainly been popularized by a certain other major name in the industry, but just how risky it is and how badly it can fail is all too often ignored.

In other words, drastic changes aren\\'t the de facto "right way."

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Originally Posted by Ririta

This is why WoW, very early, was talking about Mythic+ dungeons, Artifacts and open world legendaries. People want to be surprised, without surprise its hard to get people hyped.

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At least one of those had its hype noticeably dampened by the same thing that leads to surprises - their focus on making major changes with each expansion.

One of the first questions after artifacts were announced was if we'd use them past Legion. That they are meant to be a single expansion feature killed a lot of the hype...

So as I said above...double-edged sword that cuts both ways.

@Alleo - they use the word revamp, not overhaul, as it carries a lighter connotation that is more about iteration than drastic changes. They were also pretty quick to clarify that it wouldn't be massive changes (esp in light of how many latched on to the idea of it becoming action combat for some reason) and have maintained that position since.

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

That's my point: even with a huge name behind it, 1.0 failed because of what you said: the game sucked for various reasons, and the story also sucked: basically everything sucked. No offense of course.
Why do you think 2.0 became famous? Well, not for the story but because it was playable after a long time: it was the GAMEPLAY that made the game successful, not the story or the franchise itself because if it did, then 1.0 wouldn't be shut down. And I even recall wanting to give that game a shot and suffice to say, I was glad to have listened to my guts.
A big brand helps but even that couldn't help that misstep of a game and I'm fairly sure 1.0 learned that lesson the hard way.

And this is why I'm concerned: they're slowly making the same mistake they did with 1.0, focusing more on "fanservice" (in this case the franchise itself) instead of what actually made it good (the gameplay). Say what you will, but if this game suddenly begins to "fail" in the gameplay department, it will eventually do the same end of 1.0. I mean think about it: we're basically 2 expansions in and nothing really changed so far nor they mentioned any drastic changes: we might get some improvements over combat but for all we know it might be so little, it might as well be a patch. In most other games when an expansion hits we see drastic changes in gameplay but also content: new modes are introduced, new battle mechanics or even new and different methods for gaming itself (I remember WotLK and the introduction of the phasing, which was a pretty big deal).

What do we have with HW, beside the same exact stuff from ARR, that is actually new? ? Diadem? POTD? Aquapolis? Everything else is basically the same under a new coat of paint.

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You're kind of all over the place here. While I actually agree that gameplay is what made 2.0 succeed, you're just asserting that without really backing it up. Would 1.0 have succeeded if the gameplay had been good (and the story still nonexistant)? Maybe? I have no idea. To have good gameplay, 1.0 would have been so fundamentally different that I can't even speculate.

But "fanservice" was distinctly not 1.0's problem. If anything it was the exact opposite. 1.0 used no FF classes, took basically nothing from FFXI, and was in every way trying to be a totally new thing. I mean, look at what was added by 1.23: quests, traditional jobs, primal battles, meteor, Bahamut. All of the fanservice was added in preparation for 2.0. I don't think it's why 2.0 succeeded, but the more fanservice-y version of the game is also by far the more successful one.

I don't know that we need any drastic changes. I quite like the game the way it is, and everything I hated about Heavensward (i.e., the changes to crafting and gathering) were drastic changes. I don't mind the continuation of the tomestone model, the hard vs. extreme primals, or any of that. My favorite change in Heavensward was adding an easy version of the raid, which was pretty drastic but is not the sort of thing people seem to be clamoring for. I never played WoW, so I can't comment on how they do things, but people on these forums are always pining for FFXI, and the expansions to that game never changed anything drastically except perhaps at the very top levels (which I didn't do). It was new zones, new jobs, new quests, and people seemed fine with it. I'm easy to please, though. Stormblood could literally just add Samurai and nothing else and I'd be excited for it, lol.

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

And I'm saying this because I liked 2.0: it was my first final fantasy after a long pause that made me dislike the entire franchise and pretty much any of their games: they just lacked quality and weren't fun anymore. I remember seeing 2.0 and thinking "Wow they're finally listening to their fans, I'm surprised...maybe they're not that bad".
But now it's a repeating of the same thing and, once again, I'm moving away from them: the reason why I'm here ranting about this aspect it's because I truly hoped for the best and finally started to care about their products.
But at this point, I will just call it a day and move on better games.

Thank God I skipped their latest games at least...a shame considering people say Nier Automata is good, but I'm just too scared to try it.

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A lot of people hate on the latter Final Fantasy games, but they still all sold well, and I happen to love them. 12 might be my favorite, 15 was the most emotionally satisfying, and I love 13 and think the main criticism ("it's so linear") is ridiculous because it applies just as much to 10, which everyone seems to like. (Honestly I suspect the reason so many people didn't like 13 was because it wasn't fanservice-y enough.) 13-2 in particular seemed inspired to me, though Lightning Returns turned me off early enough that I never got very far. Tastes vary, but Final Fantasy is still popular. It's not at its PS1-era peak, but it's hardly dying.

And it's not all gameplay or story in these games, either. 12 and 15 both have kind of terrible gameplay mechanics, but the story and storytelling are top-notch in both. 13's mechanics are super fun and unlike anything else in the series, but the story turns super dumb in the latter half. 13-2 took 13, made it less linear, and added an interesting story that goes to places I didn't expect it to.

Plus, a lot of people who claim to hate the story in 14 also admit they skip the cutscenes, and a lot of people who hate recent FF games admit they didn't play them. So...

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Originally Posted by Ririta

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The fan fest gave us a lot of new information. New jobs and their roles, new areas (including under sea), primals, 8 man raid and 24 man raid, beast tribes, player housing, battle system, swimming, some early dungeons.

Now, this all was given without getting into deep details. Fan fest run on an extremely tight schedule, details are coming in live letters (hopefully).

Knowing that we are getting RDM and SAM is a big hype on its own. But some players are always thinking negatively and stared complaining about two new jobs being dps. SE already said they want to fix tanks and healers before adding new ones, which in my opinion is a good thing.

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Originally Posted by Talraen

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Yes, 1.0 would've been better if it had better gameplay: not only it was bad from a fun perspective (slow combat, clunky menus, etc), but it was also bad from a technical and design standpoint (graphic were so high yet unstable nearly no pc could play it, and areas were copy&paste mess with basically no thought process). 2.0 was a success not only because it was a more recognizable game (it's basically your usual Wow-clone with tab targeting: everyone knows that) but also because it WORKED, it actually worked for most computers and believe it or not, there are people who have low-end pcs because of budget problems. I'm one for example!

So while I have no basis to confirm my point, this is called "an educated guess": if 1.0 played similarly to 2.0 it would've at least succeeded to stay afloat.
If anything, if my guess is wrong and 1.0 would always be bad regardless, then there was something else that was fundamentally broken to begin with, beyond graphics and technical issues.

On top of that, 1.0 was somewhat fan-servicy...why? Well it tried to recapitulate the shadow of its previous game, ffxi. Again this is all "educated guesses" but think about it: the gameplay was slow, clunky, very menu based, the travelling was mostly on foot despite the anima thing and the world was more seamless...while I haven't played it at all from those videos I saw, the game really looked like FFXI-2 rather than a new installment. The problem was it didn't cater enough for those old school fans either and only the true hardcore fans remained to the end...I mean, I saw people defending that game for how "truly final fantasy-ish" it was. What does that even mean, besides trying to be similar to their old flame FFXI? And look no further than these forums: how many people CONSTANTLY bring up ideas that are taken from FFXI?

Once again this all an educated guess, but FFXIV in both the old and recent incarnation, were always somewhat fan-servicy to some degree. It just failed on a very fundamental level (both gameplay and technical) to actually be any good on its own.

However, when I meant fan-service in my post, I meant in FFXIV 2.0: lots of stuff in here are obviously made to attract old-school FF fans...I mean we got that ff6 boss fight, we got odin, somes bosses that come from older ff games (I didn't know calcabrina was from one!) we got jobs that while some are completely off (MCH, AST) we have MANY that are from the FF world (ninja, warrior/berserker, Red mage, Samurai, etc). Not only that but we got "other" kind of fanservice: we got cat girls, cute lizard girls that shouldn't exist and most of the races are quite literally rip offs from ffxi. In addition, we got many references from previous games: those galrean dudes are obviously the judges from ff12, the bipedal mount (i forgot its name) it's from ff6, a lot of costume rewards are from older FF games (Cloud, cecil, tidus, yuna, etc) and the list goes on.

And before you say anything, I'm totally fine with fan service: I honestly don't care about any FF related stuff but I know people like it - I liked persona 4 dancing all night for crying out loud. But, if the fanservice gets priority over gameplay, then problems will start to arise because only those few will really truly enjoy it, but being niche doesn't bring money anymore. Look at Wildstar to see what I mean.

So to answer also at Berethos about drastic changes, what I mean is to take what made ARR good and improve on it: things like tome grinding should be tweaked in order to improve itself but instead it's a carbon-copy of ARR without any changes. Dungeon works the same way but how about additional objectives like timed runs, an achievement for specific actions and additional reward for that? Dungeons don't have to be hard to be fun: they just need a reason to be re-run. Need a proof? Just look at EX primals: they have mounts that promote re-runs constantly. You think they would be alive to this day if they hadn't? I just want the same kind of treatment for the rest of the game, that's all I meant!

PS: while the taste is subjective, just because final fantasy is popular it doesn't necessarily mean it's good. CoD is popular and it's pretty much filth. However, I have played games that deliver better in both storytelling and gameplay that, Final fantasy now seems mediocre to my eyes: I loved the Shin Megami Tensei since Digital Devil Saga (not just persona), but also other games like the Atelier series (they looked like fables, which is nice) and the Ar Tonelico trilogy (very interesting lore and characters), as well as older gems like Suikoden and Shadow Hearts (No koudelka unfortunately, but SH2 is my favorite of all time).

What I'm trying to say is, FF and SE in general don't really inspire me to buy their games anymore (FFXIV is pretty much my first and last game from them ever and I don't even think I might try the expansion either) because of their quality drop: I rather spend 90 euros in CE for a series I know that is good because of their previous titles like Atlus (not just persona, but Etrian Odyssey is amazing and Shin Megami Tensei games are top notch games despite their difficulty) or even Gust (Atelier games are often hit and miss but Ar Tonelico is one of my favorite trilogy around but I can't wait for Blue Reflection and Nights of Azure 2) than any latest SE games, considering what they've done (not just 1.0, but also many bad spin-offs like Theatrhymn, Dissidia, World of Final Fantasy and final fantasy explorers).

Call me narrowminded or stubborn or whatever, but I have only so much money that I can spend and I don't want to make a crapshoot anymore: I'll just stick with what I know.

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

On top of that, 1.0 was somewhat fan-servicy...why? Well it tried to recapitulate the shadow of its previous game, ffxi. Again this is all "educated guesses" but think about it: the gameplay was slow, clunky, very menu based, the travelling was mostly on foot despite the anima thing and the world was more seamless...while I haven't played it at all from those videos I saw, the game really looked like FFXI-2 rather than a new installment. The problem was it didn't cater enough for those old school fans either and only the true hardcore fans remained to the end...I mean, I saw people defending that game for how "truly final fantasy-ish" it was. What does that even mean, besides trying to be similar to their old flame FFXI? And look no further than these forums: how many people CONSTANTLY bring up ideas that are taken from FFXI?

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You admit you're making educated guesses and speaking from assumptions and guts, and there's not really much I can say to that. But I do feel the need to point out that you are very, very wrong about your perceptions of FFXI vs. original FFXIV. The only real elements FFXIV took directly from FFXI were the races (minus Galka tails) and the ability to play every class on a single character. But a big part of what made FFXIV unique was that you could change classes at any time just by changing weapons (in FFXI you could only do so in town), and that the crafting and gathering professions were classes with their own gear and minigames.

FFXI is very much about picking a job and picking the right subjob for that job, whereas FFXIV was about absolute control of character customization. When you leveled up a class, you gained its abilities for use with any class, and they weren't even assigned automatically on that class. Like, if you unlocked conjurer you'd get the six elemental spells, but you could only put three (I think) abilities on your hotbar. You could pick three of those spells, or three abilities from some other class entirely. Conjurer and thaumaturge did have unique abilities (each could toggle AOE mode for spells, in different shapes), but basically the game didn't care what class you were. Any class could use any gear, though it would be less optimal if it was not "recommended." Instead of leveling by forming a party and killing the same monsters over and over, you were expected to level with leves. You had separate class and overall "physical" levels which determined your stats.

I could go on, but the point is, none of this is anything like FFXI. The game shared none of the same jobs/classes, didn't really have a similar visual style, had an icon-based interface with no support for macros (which were the primary interface for FFXI), allowed you to teleport around without being a high-level white mage. There were no quests, no auction house (despite the general expectation that all gear would be crafted by players), and no recycled FFXI monster models. Indeed the game was filled with totally new monster ideas like coblyns, spriggans, phurbles, new beastman tribes, and so on. It was specifically designed to be completely unlike FFXI.

So, feel free to hate on Final Fantasy if you want, but please at least slightly educate yourself on 1.0 before making grand conclusions based on it.

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Originally Posted by Talraen

So, feel free to hate on Final Fantasy if you want, but please at least slightly educate yourself on 1.0 before making grand conclusions based on it.

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Sure, alright, but it doesn't change that 1.0 failed for "reasons": those are just my guesses as of why it failed, trying to cater from the success of FFXI (which is kind of the same for FF7, if you think about it) but I'm not surprised if none of them are right. But one thing is right for certain: 1.0 failed, hard, almost bankrupt-like, and 2.0 was a success, bringing them back to its proper place. Why? I just tried to make a guess and connect the two games. Am I wrong about the guesses? Then it could mean that 1.0 was going to fail from the very beginning because nothing of it worked at all, as if they had no clue on what to make: even my friends told me why it failed and that's how I "know" some of the game's details. I said that if 1.0 had the 2.0 gameplay it could be a better game, but for how long? Would it be as success as now? I just don't know at this point, and frankly, I don't care either: feel free to make assumptions or guesses at this point.

With that said, this topic is closed for me: moving back to budget issues.

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

So to answer also at Berethos about drastic changes, what I mean is to take what made ARR good and improve on it: things like tome grinding should be tweaked in order to improve itself but instead it's a carbon-copy of ARR without any changes.

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That would really be iteration rather than drastic changes, and I'd like to see more of it as well.

Other MMOs, notably WoW, often bring in features wholesale for just that expansion, make it super integral, and then drop all but maybe 10% of that element for the next expansion. That's more an example of drastic changes, which is why I'm critical of them.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

I'm going to reserve my judgement on this until next week. I'm giving SE this upcoming live letter to give us a tonne of surprises. At fan fest they only have a limited amount of time, and they covered a very basic overview - the announcement, the lore, the locations, the jobs, and very light information about gameplay and features. This upcoming live letter will be their first opportunity (other than interviews) to really delve into the gameplay meat.

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I don't have a source so don't quote me on this, but didn't they say they aren't going to discuss the meat until May? This upcoming live letter is still in April and to top it off, it's a Q&A so we're relying on the community again... I hope I'm wrong to be honest so feel free to correct me.

Some very important things we need to know still, what are they gonna do with casters? The current state of slashing and pericing down, and how will they balance PLD and WHM, and much more.

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Originally Posted by Katana190

I don't have a source so don't quote me on this, but didn't they say they aren't going to discuss the meat until May? This upcoming live letter is still in April and to top it off, it's a Q&A so we're relying on the community again... I hope I'm wrong to be honest so feel free to correct me.

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Ah, my favourite - the Q&A. They choose the safest and not revealing of info questions, or ones that have already been answered numerous times, as well as the worst questions - the "what's your fave colour, Yoshi!?" and "can you high-five the screen!?" and so on... made even worse by the number of these "questions" they waste time answering. It's a complete waste of time, and utter farce.

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Originally Posted by Katana190

I don't have a source so don't quote me on this, but didn't they say they aren't going to discuss the meat until May? This upcoming live letter is still in April and to top it off, it's a Q&A so we're relying on the community again... I hope I'm wrong to be honest so feel free to correct me.

Some very important things we need to know still, what are they gonna do with casters? The current state of slashing and pericing down, and how will they balance PLD and WHM, and much more.

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Battle changes, combat and stuff related to jobs are not allowed to be asked, that info will be next month. Their excuse is most likely "It's still in development." Whether you believe it or not is up to you.

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* Please note: Information pertaining to job actions, action adjustments, and the battle system revamp is planned to be released during a Letter from the Producer LIVE scheduled for May. Please hold onto any questions related to those topics until then.

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April's will probably be a recap summary on all the stuff coming, maybe a live demo of a character running around in some of the new areas, swimming demo, showing off the new housing area and stuff like that is possible. Then again it could just be nothing.

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Originally Posted by AstralKaos

Ah, my favourite - the Q&A. They choose the safest and not revealing of info questions, or ones that have already been answered numerous times, as well as the worst questions - the "what's your fave colour, Yoshi!?" and "can you high-five the screen!?" and so on... made even worse by the number of these "questions" they waste time answering. It's a complete waste of time, and utter farce.

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Meanwhile if someone does ask a major question about game play, we basically get, "Please look forward too it."

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Originally Posted by Berethos

@Alleo - they use the word revamp, not overhaul, as it carries a lighter connotation that is more about iteration than drastic changes. They were also pretty quick to clarify that it wouldn't be massive changes (esp in light of how many latched on to the idea of it becoming action combat for some reason) and have maintained that position since.

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Well a revamp is still more than just combining skills together and such stuff at least in the eyes of the players. Also they used that word on an official presentation and only much later when Yoshida was asked about it he said that it really wont be a revamp. I just believe that you should not use such words on marketing if its not even true. If I remember it correctly even after saying to us that it wont be quite the big change they still used that word. They simply could have wrote that there will be some changes to the skills. This would still leave enough space open for interpretation.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

The fan fest gave us a lot of new information. New jobs and their roles, new areas (including under sea), primals, 8 man raid and 24 man raid, beast tribes, player housing, battle system, swimming, some early dungeons.

Now, this all was given without getting into deep details. Fan fest run on an extremely tight schedule, details are coming in live letters (hopefully).

Knowing that we are getting RDM and SAM is a big hype on its own. But some players are always thinking negatively and stared complaining about two new jobs being dps. SE already said they want to fix tanks and healers before adding new ones, which in my opinion is a good thing.

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But new jobs, new areas, the raid and some little words on dungeons is not really that much new. We already expect that those things are in the expansion. They also did not give much information on the new battle system and I do believe that swimming is not a true selling point. (Its really interesting that their announcement for housing killed any hype that I still had at that time..since they decided to stick with their bad system)

What the person you replied to wanted was more information about stuff that is completely new content, not content that we already have in some kind of way in a different paint. Would anyone truly get hyped for the expansion if they would show us a presentation of the fates in the new countries? Probably not.

The problem at least for me is: We are not that far away from the expansion and other than maybe Eureka we dont know about anything truly new. They dont really talk about the changes to the skills and every time they say something, you get the feeling of: Please look forward to it. For me this creates the feeling that either they wont have much new content at the beginning of the expansion (which would be bad because not everyone wants to wait for some 4.x patches for new things) or that they dont feel confident in the content and thus wont show much of it, which would also be a bad sign for me. (And like I wrote in the last post: If you talk more to your customers about the content with polls and beta testing than maybe you would not have implemented so much stuff that would fail so badly like LoV or the two versions of the diadem..also next to new content it would have been nice to see improvement of old content like chocobo racing. Even if its just two new races and small changes..but they throw these things out and often leave them be.)

Maybe they will release information in the next few weeks that will have me completely hooked on the expansion. And I in the end really hope that there is content in SB that I truly and deeply love because I want this game to have great success. But thanks to all the stuff in HW and the behavior of the devs..well I am way more skeptic and negative for SB.

silly people, we all know that the money that is made from 14 and/or should go to 14 goes to all other games but 14...

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

Thank God I skipped their latest games at least...a shame considering people say Nier Automata is good, but I'm just too scared to try it.

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It's worth checking out because Nier games and Drakengard are objectively bad games with a few good ideas but this game in particular is getting praise all across the board where as before a Nier/Drakengard game getting a 80+ score on metacritic was literally the definition of "when pig's fly" what an age we live in when a Yoko Taro game gets favorable scores.

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

but also many bad spin-offs like Theatrhymn, Dissidia, World of Final Fantasy and final fantasy explorers).

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bad

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spin-offs

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u wot m8? Those are the best ones.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Well a revamp is still more than just combining skills together and such stuff at least in the eyes of the players.

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Revamp: give new and improved form, structure, or appearance to.

That's what a revamp is. Refining the abilities, getting rid of useless stuff, adding UI elements where it makes sense - that all fits in the definition.

It's the responsibility of the player not to look at that word and take it to the most extreme conclusion...which is how you get people thinking that when they said revamp (which is what they are doing) they somehow meant overhaul (which is what they aren't doing).

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Originally Posted by Yeol

Now, this all was given without getting into deep details. Fan fest run on an extremely tight schedule, details are coming in live letters (hopefully).

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They didn't go into "deep details" because there's none. We've played this already.

I guarantee if you anything that you listed was going to be any different from what we already have, we would know. It makes no sense to hold information that will get people talking about your expansion.

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Originally Posted by Berethos

At least one of those had its hype noticeably dampened by the same thing that leads to surprises - their focus on making major changes with each expansion.

One of the first questions after artifacts were announced was if we'd use them past Legion. That they are meant to be a single expansion feature killed a lot of the hype...

So as I said above...double-edged sword that cuts both ways.

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http://i.imgur.com/Hib74kl.jpg

Can't miss the taste of nice things if you never eat nice things.

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Originally Posted by Vaer

Battle changes, combat and stuff related to jobs are not allowed to be asked, that info will be next month. Their excuse is most likely "It's still in development." Whether you believe it or not is up to you.

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Given how "in development" by their definition could include the number crunching/balance passes and tweaks (and based on how they don't talk details much until its implementation ready, I'm inclined to believe that "in development" for them includes everything up until it's ready to be added), and most MMOs I've seen with more transparent development are often doing that particular phase of things up until the month or so before a launch?

I'd actually have a harder time believing that they've finished all that - art, effects, UI elements (since those are getting added), testing of those, and the initial balance passes - and are just sitting on it for...reasons?

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Originally Posted by Ririta

Can't miss the taste of nice things if you never eat nice things.

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Missed my point entirely.

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Originally Posted by Berethos

Given how "in development" by their definition could include the number crunching/balance passes and tweaks (and based on how they don't talk details much until its implementation ready, I'm inclined to believe that "in development" for them includes everything up until it's ready to be added), and most MMOs I've seen with more transparent development are often doing that particular phase of things up until the month or so before a launch?

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They've always been very secretive so I'm inclined to believe it is just the way they do things. We'll never know really, they could be holding back because it's not ready (this is more likely, since they are literally trying to cram an expansion out the door in 6 months which is actually really quick IMO), or because PR said they are going to do it this way. Actually on many different occasions, Yoshi's replies was something on the lines of "I'd like to tell you, but PR."

Blizzard for example just does things differently. They usually have a huge info drop at one point, not the slow vague drip that SE does, and then they allow people to test some of it on the PTR sometime down the line. Eventually the fansites get all the info and most of it is known, and anytime they change anything and iterate the information is made available if you know where to look. I think most MMOs have some sort of alpha or beta period for expansions before they release where people pull info from.

Personally I think it's a calculated decision to have this info out right before the release, since the game will be in a lull where there hasn't been a substantial update to the game in a while. It'll be a "Hey guys we're still alive, here's some stuff" hype infusion. Certain competitors will be releasing updates around that time (at least 1 expansion) as well.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Well a revamp is still more than just combining skills together and such stuff at least in the eyes of the players. Also they used that word on an official presentation and only much later when Yoshida was asked about it he said that it really wont be a revamp. I just believe that you should not use such words on marketing if its not even true. If I remember it correctly even after saying to us that it wont be quite the big change they still used that word. They simply could have wrote that there will be some changes to the skills. This would still leave enough space open for interpretation.

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Sadly, it's typical PR practice. Look at the supposedly "challenging" dungeons. Yoshi later rephrased it in MrHappy's interview to imply they would only be challenging because people are relearning their abilities.