Exactly, Well said
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A big part of "it failed because it wasn't FFXI" is simply because look at FFXI 10 years later, if FFXIV released with that kind of foundation and built off of it while trying to appeal to the masses, do you really think it would have done worse than it did before?
There's MMOs with under 100,000 people doing just fine and if you don't know, FFXI was actually pulling in more money than any of their game simply because of the monthly fee alone, you can't call that 'mediocre'. People really have big number syndrome lately, because a stable playerbase will always be better than having millions of finicky players. The latter is better in terms of gross income that much is true, but really if you can sit there and say you've played with 1 - 6 million different people in your playtime, big numbers are indeed better.
Im all about happy compromises....
they went with an auto-attack (Like FFXI) but the battle system is still a lot faster than its predecessor
Also they left the action bar in instead of going towards a menu based battle system
All in all I LOVE the direction of the game... I just recognize that it's far from finished...
and even with jobs and combos... the battle system is still extremely vanilla
Battle regimen needs to come back (More robust and in depth, mind you)
Incaps need to frikkin matter (I know I say this a lot but I just can't say it enough)
You can even incorporate combos into incaps to allow for special incap objectives on NMs and bosses
More emphasis needs to be placed on damage types (Blunt, slashing, piercing)
And they were also pulling in a lot more money into continued development than ANY OTHER GAME
essentially.. the current FFXI has taken 13 years to develop...
that SERIOUSLY eats into all of those monthly fees
But I'm not saying it didn't make a profit... Its not that kind of comparison...
Im not comparing it to other games... I'm comparing FFXI with 500,000 players to FFXI if it had 2.5 million players....
thats what SE is looking at....
What company wouldn't want MILLIONS of subs?
Wall of text incoming, sorry for the ranting :)
I actually don't like the increased level cap idea, though I think it IS inevitable. That actually destroyed WoW experience, as the lower levels would be more and more irrelevant.
I played WoW from the very start all the way to the Wrath of the Lich King, coming back for two months when Cataclysm hit (pun not intended =D). At the start the game was very fun, but it was getting more and more boring, to the point of me simply quitting in WotLK because I had nothing fun to do in the game aside from talking to friends (and believe me, I was in an endgame guild, and doing the same stuff over and over again did get boring). I came back in Cataclysm because a few friends were saying they restored the beauty of the old times, and even though that was somewhat true, the game was still boring. Everything there is about leveling up as fast as you can to get to end game content. Lower levels became irrelevant, and Blizz simply chose to make leveling stupidly simple, with very little time spent learning the game lore and system. It took me some good 6 months of playing regularly (though not to the exclusion of everything else) to get my first character to level 60 back in the day; now, if you know what you're doing, you can rise a character from level 1 to 85 in one week, two tops. The game went from savoring the story to a mechanical chore. Not to mention you don't even have the option to experience some game content if you just happened to start playing after a level cap-increase: a few friends I brought to the game simply didn't get to like it the way I did, and I suspect it has something to do with me being able to run Molten Core 40-man back in the day and them not even having the chance to get a party to run something as simple as Upper Blackrock Spire! (Ehm, sorry if you don't know what I'm talking about =D)
Now, I'd hate to see that happening to FFXIV. The thing is, when you have a level cap such as 50, people automatically start to expect it to be risen, and rightly so. I'd prefer if they found a way to make things interesting/harder at the end of the game by awarding things other than levels. Actually, I'd prefer if there weren't even levels at all: the MMORPG that took the longest to get old for me was Ultima Online, and I think part of the fun was getting better in "professions" without making your character... How can I put this... Statistically stronger, only able to do stuff a newbie could only dream of. FFXIV's system does a pretty well job of emulating that, what with all the mixing-and-matching of the classes. Focusing on THAT would be more fulfilling than "being able to reach the next level cap".
That, of course, is just my humble opinion, and I expect most to disagree, and rightfully so.
I guess they could do any number of scientific things from crafting bombs, enfeebling, enhancing to even setting traps.
Could be cool.... I would also like to hear more about that
thats what its all about....
Im not saying dont learn from FFXI... we actually need them to learn from it
but at some point.... Yoshi is going to have to make something special for FFXIV
EVERY SINGLE FF TITLE has added something new to the series
Thats their legacy.. similar ideas.. and new ones that become part of the great pantheon of FF innovations
If Yoshi just continues to bite from the plate of Final fantasy then this game will contribute NOTHING to the series
While i do see your point, i believe there is a medium they should get too. There already spells and abilities with the indication of rising levels.
Remember we started with 50 then 55 then 60 then 65 then 75. 75 Was their medium and balanced EVERYTHING around 75. Several year it went like like (9-11 years?). I do believe it should of stayed like that and 99 should never have been released.
I think the reason we don't see many content things is because caps will be raised thus making them useless. I don't believe 50 is the End-game for FFXIV.