Make FFXIV more like FFXI and less like WoW!

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

I'll do side content even for no rewards if the story/npc's are entertaining. But I don't see a problem with people wanting to be rewarded for a time investment. However what constitutes a worthwhile reward is purely subjective to the individual.

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Aye. So will I. The post I originally quoted insinuated FFXI had those and FFXIV didn't, thus I listed an example. To which another mentioned rewards. So I was just being snarky since it wasn't all about story anymore.

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Originally Posted by Iromi

I have never ever seen that omg lol. I only seen people ask for interesting stats and force pop NM's, maybe something like Dynamis I've seen as well.. basically the positives from XI. Although I don't read -every- post..but lmao who would want that junk in here...that stuff was pretty bad. I would never revolve my IRL around a game for some 72 hour spawns hahaha

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Yeah, one dude was all like "my buddies talked about how much fun they had camping these NMs" and others were agreeing. I'm just thinking, "ARE YOU NUTS?"

As some one who JUST loaded up WoW a few hours ago to see how it is these days... yep guys it's like we thought, FFXIV has way more in common with WoW than FFXI or any other FF game, in both the way the mechanics of the game play and also the way it incentivises you.

Simplest thing they could do would be to fill in the midcore gap, strengthen the hardcore end, and most importantly, give us more gear choices. If we got like 3 times as much gear each patch and all of it had the same ilvl and similar stats, I'd be way into that. Not that that would add on to optimising stats or anything, but we'd get more choices of ways to progress our characters. As it is right now, I enjoy the 6-ish hours a week I raid, and that's about it. For new gear my reaction isn't "oh sweet this body piece is dope," it's "oh it's the body piece that if I hadn't gotten it now I'd have gotten something as good or better in a month or two next patch."

Thing is if even FFXIV copied WoW's incentives I think I'd be satisfied with that. For all the boredom of long patch cycles, the way you replace your gear every 3-6 months in FFXIV really makes it mean like your character progression doesn't mean anything. If it were more than just numbers that would be interesting; if the bigger numbers came less frequently it would be more reward and less "oh I got bigger numbers, big surprise."

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Originally Posted by Lisotte

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WoW honestly releases the same amount of gear as FFXIV, its just that its usually done "updating" the game around 6 months into the expansion. So it really comes down to pacing tbh. Some people like to see something progressive every quarter while others like to have things thrown in their faces in a short period of time. Doesn't help XIV that the gear is more interesting in wow, but people are afraid that interesting stats will only lead to the dev team having to waste time with balancing said gear, so just avoid it all together, right?!?!

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Originally Posted by AnaviAnael

Yeah, one dude was all like "my buddies talked about how much fun they had camping these NMs" and others were agreeing. I'm just thinking, "ARE YOU NUTS?"

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Remember holding an HNM for twelve hours at a time, simply to move its respawn into your preferred time zone? Those were the days. XD

Also: 17 pages. Not bad for such an obvious troll post.

WoW or FFXI? How about neither? I loved FFXI... but this is not FFXI. Or WoW.

I don't know why people want multiple gear sets for certain fights like FFXI. Who honestly liked carrying multiple gear sets and weapons for one job? Making macros to switch just for one weapon skill or spell? This was just an exploit in FFXI, not a promoted feature. It accomplished quickly filling up my inventory space and had people making mules just to get any kind of inventory space they can. Even in this game, inventory/armory/retainer space is problematic if you level multiple jobs. So why in the world would we want a system like this? I am definitely cool with gear variety and make a BiS set from it, but not a "Ohh this monster is weak to this, need to wear my Water gear!" mindset.

A lot of the things that get asked for from XI are more in the spirit of having to rely on one another and build a community and aren't so individually based. Those 72 hour spawns, no we don't want that back but you built friendships and community doing those things, Dynamis involved relying on eachother, keeping eachother alive, rotating others in while you raised people and not having every mechanic memorized until it became rote. I can see how Diadem would have been successful if they had made the rewards worth it. There is a certain appeal to that type of play. There isn't much of a need to build a community or to have FC's help eachother or to do much that isn't solely individually driven on XIV. The reason a lot of people remember things with rose colored glasses in the XI camping realm are because it was a group mentality and that made it the most fun imho.

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Originally Posted by JimmyDean

Yes. I went there.

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Probably better if you go back to FFXI then stay on FFXIV if you seem to like it more, and its still up and running, so great news for you!

they should make it more like WoW cause "WoW was the 1st MMO"
*throws smoke bomb and runs away"
huehuehue

The trouble is ,we all like something a little different then the person beside ya., impossible to please everyone no matter what they copy/don't copy from other games.

I always share my opinions, my personal hopes and dreams/ideas for the game regardless of what ANYONE else thinks , as should everyone.

I love many aspects of wow and many aspects of ffxi too, I think grabbing some ideas from BOTH is wise. this game should never be a ffxi-2 nor a wow-2 but a healthy mix of both and a dash of Rift housing and wardrobe added in ^^

A ffxi clone would only interest a set type of player, same goes for a pure wow clone, its mixing it up imo that will draw the most people and therefore the most $

Besides both still exist if I want a ffxi , I log into there, need a wow mount farming fix?...im there in 5 minutes...need to be creative and design gorgeous landscapes/homes/themes vastly superior to ffxiv design?, I jump to Rift.

FFXIV has a huge potential to be the best but its time to do so will be limited imo, they simply dont choose to adapt or include ideas that other games have mastered.

I do hope one day though they have the willingness and the resources to do so. All we can do is keep giving ideas to improve and hoping they actually hear them from this forum. :)

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

Make FFXIV more like FFXIV and not like any other game.

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Well what is FFXIV?
It takes so much from other games it doesn't even feel like it's own game and it keeps repeating the same pattern every patch.
It's also a watered down version of other games. :/ I'm not trying to knock the game
down but it really needs to get the ball rolling already.

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Originally Posted by Mugiawara

Well what is FFXIV?
It takes so much from other games it doesn't even feel like it's own game and it keeps repeating the same pattern every patch.
It's also a watered down version of other games. :/ I'm not trying to knock the game
down but it really needs to get the ball rolling already.

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And you would fix that how?

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Originally Posted by Lisotte

As some one who JUST loaded up WoW a few hours ago to see how it is these days... yep guys it's like we thought, FFXIV has way more in common with WoW than FFXI or any other FF game, in both the way the mechanics of the game play and also the way it incentivises you.

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wow had a 12 months of "NOTHING" and thats ok for blizz , but it killed the game for half the player base (just make sense...12 years of nothing while keeping the sub fee? come on...)

however the raids in wow are huge zones , with tons of bosses....highmaul had 11 bosses, BRF 10 bosses (last looks 1$!$ing epic ) , hellfire citadel 13 bosses.... some are "ok" others look way better (didnt raided in WoD at all ) ...but they have LFR , normal , and mythic , so non raiders , midcore and hardcore are kinda happy ...

FFXIV 4 bosses every 6 months .... so in the end for RAIDING and that means savage we get 12 bosses....for the whole "expansion" , thats 1 of the raids of wow....

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Originally Posted by Velhart

And you would fix that how?

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I was going to write a long list of suggestions but I'ma just tell you, my biggest thing
that might help with a looot of stuff is probably the rehaul of the combat.

I dunno how everyone else feels with the combat, but I ain't saying it's terrible...since I'm still on and off...more off than on with the game
but it's waaayy too simple. I feel thats why we can't play around with bosses as much without playing the memory game.
We could also reintroduce the Element Wheel and have 6 players party to add a support.
Bard can be a actual bard and not this...thing it is and made a Ranger instead...
I mean you can't kick them from trying, but they don't make supports well because of the combat...AST coulda been a support too honestly.
We learned that they can't make supportish type of things well without them being so situational or end up into a glorified version of another job or a DPS basically.
And make it more actiony. That's killing the games core though so I didn't really wanna throw it in there, but that's how I'd change stuff.
Hell, 1.x combat would do, and have them buff it up to make it better like Rena said a few pages ago.

Edit for 1000 count - With that said, I am no Developer but it's up to them to change the course of the game, or keep it as is. It's their game.
I understand this MMO was suppose to be Baby's first MMO and all too, but ya gotta start stepping it up...I guess VA2 was another nice step in that direction
in terms of difficulty so there's a glimmer of hope. The first being SoF which eventually got the nerf bat...
It seems like they are testing the waters on new side stuff, that ends up being a bust. [Diadem/LoV/SS/TT was okay for a while.]
Perhaps they need to stop with trying to add new stuff that people don't even give a Rat's behind about since it never ends well
and try and focus on stuff people want to do. THEN go back and see what you can do to fix side stuff.
Take the time to do what YOU, the devs, want instead of looking at our Neighbor WoW's backyard.
Just my outlook/opinion on it all.

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Originally Posted by Mugiawara

I dunno how everyone else feels with the combat, but I ain't saying it's terrible...since I'm still on and off...more off than on with the game
but it's waaayy too simple. I feel thats why we can't play around with bosses as much without playing the memory game.

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Do you mean how jobs work or how boss mechanics work?

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We could also reintroduce the Element Wheel and have 6 players party to add a support.

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Elemental wheels add nothing to the game and at best can be served as a crutch to the job system and create an awful imbalance from it. Please tell me how an elemental wheel actually makes the boss fight more fun.

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Bard can be a actual bard and not this...thing it is and made a Ranger instead...

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They sing songs and are DPS. What do you want a BRD to be? Just sit in the corner and play songs the whole fight? How boring.

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We learned that they can't make supportish type of things well without them being so situational or end up into a glorified version of another job or a DPS basically.

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Well yea they kind of have to. Role wise their function should be the same or one will get picked over another, which is kind of already an issue right now. Between BRD and MCH, it should be how they play with the support functions in tact. Like PLD and WAR, they both tank, but how they grab hate and mitigate damage is different, but the role they offer is the same.

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Originally Posted by Mugiawara

Well what is FFXIV?
It takes so much from other games it doesn't even feel like it's own game and it keeps repeating the same pattern every patch.
It's also a watered down version of other games. :/ I'm not trying to knock the game
down but it really needs to get the ball rolling already.

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As a Final Fantasy, 1.x felt like FFXIV was supposed to be. While it took inspirations, it was made original (I mean, see the Meteor Project about Dalamud which was inspired by FFVII's meteor and Sephiroth's plans) and felt like a main Final Fantasy title. As a game it really sucked though, mainly for having a bad engine, being unfinished and absurdly inconvenient at launch, but had some adventure in it even though the zones are copy-paste blah blah.

FFXIV 2.0 and onwards as a main Final Fantasy title doesn't feel original like it used to be and feels like a spin-off for having blatant copies of characters/places from other Final Fantasies but rewritten. As a game it was better than 1.x for having a fitting engine and being convenient that's for sure but I can see why people say it copies WoW so much. It doesn't have a sense of adventure anymore however, like a usual Final Fantasy game.

I'm like a broken record.

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Originally Posted by Tracewood

It took me some getting used to the whole idea of raids, in XI there really wasn't raids just open world hardcore content.

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KS99s, Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage, and Einherjar were all instanced endgame content, similar to raids, and that's just at the 75 cap.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Sure, if we were debating all the pros and cons of the old XI, I can see why that may come up - but why on earth would we be trying to adapt some of the negative features the game had?

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The issue is that a lot of the things that people request come with cons, and it's difficult or impossible to separate the two.

• Some people want gear that lasts longer, but that generally means that rate of acquisition has to suffer and/or the level of RNG involved in acquisition has to increase.
• Some people want the open world to feel more dangerous, but the majority of the time that just makes navigating the open world a huge inconvenience.
• Some people want interesting stats, but at best that comes with potential balance issues and at worst it just means you now have more stats but people don't care about the majority of them.
• Some people want to have multiple sets of gear be relevant at once, but that increases strain on inventory space.
• Some people want to have open world events that aren't cross server, but that means you have a smaller pool of available players to draw from.

And that's just dealing with the issues in a vacuum and ignoring that while some people may consider something to be a positive, other people may dislike it.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

The issue is that a lot of the things that people request come with cons, and it's difficult or impossible to separate the two.

• Some people want gear that lasts longer, but that generally means that rate of acquisition has to suffer and/or the level of RNG involved in acquisition has to increase.
• Some people want the open world to feel more dangerous, but the majority of the time that just makes navigating the open world a huge inconvenience.
• Some people want interesting stats, but at best that comes with potential balance issues and at worst it just means you now have more stats but people don't care about the majority of them.
• Some people want to have multiple sets of gear be relevant at once, but that increases strain on inventory space.
• Some people want to have open world events that aren't cross server, but that means you have a smaller pool of available players to draw from.

And that's just dealing with the issues in a vacuum and ignoring that while some people may consider something to be a positive, other people may dislike it.

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Oh yeah, that is definitely true! I can only imagine how hard it is to find a good balance, I just wish this game could somehow add some decent depth. I'm a bit jaded with the game at this time, so take this with a grain of salt, but XIV doesn't seem to really excel at anything. Nothing really makes it stand out against the competitors (IMO). Sure, it's pretty, but half the time it just feels like a glorified lobby while you're waiting for your DF to pop.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

• Some people want the open world to feel more dangerous, but the majority of the time that just makes navigating the open world a huge inconvenience.

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Navigating the open world is suppose to be an inconvenience to some extent, thats the whole point of it. Plus we already have plenty of aetherytes that I don't see why they can't comprise on this with people who actually want a vast open world with danger.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Navigating the open world is suppose to be an inconvenience to some extent, thats the whole point of it. Plus we already have plenty of aetherytes that I don't see why they can't comprise on this with people who actually want a vast open world with danger.

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The reason a more dangerous world would be an inconvenience is because mobs that can kill you fast if they're not related to a quest or have nothing to drop is just more busywork the average player will have to do just to avoid it and get where they need to be. Having dangerous monsters for the sake of it isn't really good to begin with. People want everyone to engage in the open world more, but this would make people do all they can to avoid it. Didn't FF11 players do a whole bunch of things to avoid getting aggro all the time? So much for open world danger if you go out of your way to avoid everything.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

The reason a more dangerous world would be an inconvenience is because mobs that can kill you fast if they're not related to a quest or have nothing to drop is just more busywork the average player will have to do just to avoid it and get where they need to be. Having dangerous monsters for the sake of it isn't really good to begin with. People want everyone to engage in the open world more, but this would make people do all they can to avoid it. Didn't FF11 players do a whole bunch of things to avoid getting aggro all the time? So much for open world danger if you go out of your way to avoid everything.

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The big point missed is can avoid not will avoid. Ever played a sneaking game like Assassin's Creed or Thief? It feels rewarding to choose whether to engage or avoid using in game systems. But in way you are right. What is the point of sneaking systems in an open world that wants you encased in instances.

I am more afraid of running into quest givers in modern mmos that running into Tiamat in the open world. So much busy work.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

The reason a more dangerous world would be an inconvenience is because mobs that can kill you fast if they're not related to a quest or have nothing to drop is just more busywork the average player will have to do just to avoid it and get where they need to be. Having dangerous monsters for the sake of it isn't really good to begin with. People want everyone to engage in the open world more, but this would make people do all they can to avoid it. Didn't FF11 players do a whole bunch of things to avoid getting aggro all the time? So much for open world danger if you go out of your way to avoid everything.

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It was exactly that. Almost no one traveled through the open world like you should. Most people used oils to sneak past enemies to not fight them or used a Chocobo if allowed to. Stuff like that is fun at first, but if you need to get somewhere, it becomes inconvenient extremely fast. No one enjoyed walking back from the jungles trying to sneak past Goblins that could kill you.

Not to mention people were willing to pay WHM and RDM's gil just to teleport them to certain locations. Mages made bank off that. That is because people did not feel like travelling through the world since it took so much time. Even myself paid mages to port me. No one wanted to walk to Xarcabard.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

It was exactly that. Almost no one traveled through the open world like you should. Most people used oils to sneak past enemies to not fight them or used a Chocobo if allowed to. Stuff like that is fun at first, but if you need to get somewhere, it becomes inconvenient extremely fast. No one enjoyed walking back from the jungles trying to sneak past Goblins that could kill you.

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That's a bit of a slippery argument. While trying to survive sneaking through dangerous areas was probably not something that people looked forward to specifically, it adds to the challenge of the game. Adds another layer if you will.

The viewpoint of "it's inconvenient, we don't need it!" can be applied to many things in an MMO. For example, we still have to run quite a bit in this game. It's inconvenient and takes time. The mob packs that we run through barely bat an eye, so what is the point? Perhaps we should be given bot location hacks? Obviously I'm taking that argument to the extreme, but where exactly do you draw the line with things being time wasters and adding to the feel of a game?

Shouldn't the journey be part of the adventure?

Well I meen if we're going there then you could say that wow stole it's stuff from ever quest it's a mmo system that works so people use it nuf said end of story can we close this thread now

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

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That would only be the case if you had no means of getting past. It is human nature that people want the most convenient way possible to get a task done as efficiently and as fast as possible. People would in fact get sick of traversing through and people rather spend the gil they barely have on oils and powders just to not deal with it.

Content in this game is built upon accessibility, which is a very good thing. Note that accessibility does not mean easy. It means the content is present to those without having to deal with unnecessary crap to engage it. You don't have to go through three zones and kill mobs with 99 Kindred Seals just to do one fight you will likely die to in Ifrit's Cauldron. No, its accessible via Duty Finder, which in turn allows developers to make the fights themselves more interesting and hard. FFXI was a challenging game in it's own right, but the inaccessibility was a huge part of that challenge.

Accessibility means more players can get in on the content. Taking that away will lose customers, absolutely guaranteed.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

The big point missed is can avoid not will avoid. Ever played a sneaking game like Assassin's Creed or Thief? It feels rewarding to choose whether to engage or avoid using in game systems.

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In Assassin's Creed or Thief the sneaking around is the actual game play. That's a big part of why people are playing the game in the first place and the game as a whole is designed around it.

In an MMO, having to sneak around is usually just put there as an obstacle to make it take longer to get to the actual game play.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

That's a bit of a slippery argument. While trying to survive sneaking through dangerous areas was probably not something that people looked forward to specifically, it adds to the challenge of the game. [...] The viewpoint of "it's inconvenient, we don't need it!" can be applied to many things in an MMO.

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FFXI is a poor example of that though, because the only challenge it added was "Do I have enough Silent Oils/Prism Powders/etc. in my inventory?" You'd just put up Sneak and Invisible and ignore the mobs completely.

And as far as inconvenience goes, there's a difference between dealing with inconvenience that's already present and specifically requesting to be further inconvenienced. You can pretty much guarantee that whatever inconvenience someone is requesting, there's going to be a substantial portion of the player base that likes that aspect of the game just the way it is and would really rather not have it be made more difficult/time-consuming/etc.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

That's a bit of a slippery argument. While trying to survive sneaking through dangerous areas was probably not something that people looked forward to specifically, it adds to the challenge of the game. Adds another layer if you will.

The viewpoint of "it's inconvenient, we don't need it!" can be applied to many things in an MMO. For example, we still have to run quite a bit in this game. It's inconvenient and takes time. The mob packs that we run through barely bat an eye, so what is the point? Perhaps we should be given bot location hacks? Obviously I'm taking that argument to the extreme, but where exactly do you draw the line with things being time wasters and adding to the feel of a game?

Shouldn't the journey be part of the adventure?

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Not if I have to go through the same area for the millionth time and avoiding the same mobs for the millionth time. Journies are fun as a first experience, not as a chore as routine as your day job.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

It was exactly that. Almost no one traveled through the open world like you should. Most people used oils to sneak past enemies to not fight them or used a Chocobo if allowed to. Stuff like that is fun at first, but if you need to get somewhere, it becomes inconvenient extremely fast. No one enjoyed walking back from the jungles trying to sneak past Goblins that could kill you.

Not to mention people were willing to pay WHM and RDM's gil just to teleport them to certain locations. Mages made bank off that. That is because people did not feel like travelling through the world since it took so much time. Even myself paid mages to port me. No one wanted to walk to Xarcabard.

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Keep in mind that you are talking about the extremes of travel time. When it takes you about 30min just to run from a city to an almost mandatory leveling zone (referring to the first hurdle of getting to Valkurm Dunes), that's when the argument about it being too much trouble holds significant weight. For as much hassle as sneak/invis was to bother with, it was a part of what made the game feel "alive", something you can't quite say the same for others of the genre anymore. Some would argue that a game feels alive when there are a ton of players, and while that is true to a degree, that argument is short sighted because of the fact that it's not a distinguishing factor for the game itself.

If someone were to say XIV is "alive" when there's a ton of people on, then it is the same as saying an old AOL chat room is alive when there's a ton of people. Without the people, can it still feel like the world has a memorable identity for itself? Things you need to watch out for, things you need to do in preparation, etc. XIV doesn't have much ground to hold on that. The lore behind MSQ, dungeons, side quests, etc can be memorable, but that's not exactly what you experience whenever you go out into it.

I mean, think about the introduction of Godbert. There's evidence of his strength, but one particular trophy kill stood out. Why would it stand out for many of us? Because we've encountered the danger behind that monster we've fought in the game (particularly the FATE). The underlying point of having such dangerous mobs in the world is to help build immersion into it. Before the huge nerfs in difficulty to mobs in XI, we never really questioned why people would fear the monsters outside of the safety of the city walls, simply because of the fact you would experience that danger at all times. In a game like XIV however, that sort of thing is ridiculous to the point where it'd be like someone fearing for their life at a typical fly being around.

Being forced to spend time traveling isn't always fun, admittedly, but there are some degrees of necessity out of it. If the entire point of it all is to simply avoid wasting time, we should be allowed to pinpoint locations of the map to travel to. I think that's something that people generally agree is unreasonable. Ask yourself "why?" though. Why do we need to spend time killing trash mobs in a dungeon when there's almost no reason for it at max level? Why make us waste a few minutes pointlessly between bosses over and over? Shouldn't we be able to just skip directly to the bosses once we've already done a dungeon? Likewise to just instantly skip to the point of a map in the game without wasting the minutes going from A to B? It'd help people save a lot of frustration getting to timed gathering nodes, for example. That's all the positives you'd need to justify it, right?

Side note on the Teleport services in XI: That's humorously more attempts at socializing and building a social environment than most servers experience here.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Not if I have to go through the same area for the millionth time and avoiding the same mobs for the millionth time. Journies are fun as a first experience, not as a chore as routine as your day job.

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Not to mention, SE did a pretty fantastic job on the first experience with you having to explore to find the ports for your flying accessibility, the main scenario taking you from place to place. Used narration and certain light incentives for you to explore the areas. Definitely one of Heavensward's better features and what makes Final Fantasy a great series.

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

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What defines "alive" is highly subjective. I think Eorzea feels quite alive. NPC's, FATE's, small towns within large areas, quests, discovering lore. These to myself make a world feel alive. FFXI had some nice areas of it's own and memorable ones, but I feel FFXIV took it to the next step. Alive to me isn't how many dangerous mobs you can put in a area.

Again, it is a subjective opinion. Not saying yours is wrong, but that is what I define as "alive".

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Not if I have to go through the same area for the millionth time and avoiding the same mobs for the millionth time. Journies are fun as a first experience, not as a chore as routine as your day job.

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People could make the same argument over doing dungeons though, how often we do those for tomes it as much as a chore and as routine as your day job sure it fun first few times, but after millionth time you want in and out as fast as possible. Although the only difference here is you have to fight those mob each and everytime you run it at least in open area you Get an option to avoid them possibly. Adding more to the open world would help add more content though it would be allot and need careful designed and implement properly. /shrug

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Originally Posted by Velhart

It was exactly that. Almost no one traveled through the open world like you should.

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The thrill of dangerous open-world was you didn't go somewhere unless you *could* go. Which usually meant being with a party. And yes stealth was a pain, especially if you were trying to reach a specific leveling spot that was really out of reach. Some locations were ridiculous, that doesn't have to be replicated, but a zone like Zi Tah, the lowest floors of crawlers nest, ranperre's tomb, they had appeal because you rarely would ever bother going down there unless you had a group that could survive it.

And your first time peddling it to Jeuno? Felt like trying to climb Mt Everest.

Was it perfect, no. But just because FFXI didn't do it perfect doesn't mean it's not something that could be implemented successfully in FFXIV.


Sorry but IMO the real break of the novelty for a zone is when you spend 99% of the time flying 500 yalms above it with a un-adjustable game-engine Draw Distance that leaves mobs, players, environments and props not rendering adequately for a 2016 game. The most prominent visual in the HW zones is the wind-trail sprite FX of your mount. Then there's a beautiful zone like Azys Lla where there's like, no reason to ever go there ; ;

I wouldn't miss flight one bit if 4.0 zones didn't have it.

Regarding open-world, I don't know if 'being like XI' is the right way to look at it. What XI did have working for it that XIV is underperforming in is the need for open-world social interaction. XIV doesn't haven't it. In XIV a new player could go until lvl 60 without ever communicating with someone on their server. And every attempt SE has made to force social interaction server-side has been transparent failures (Specialty system, favor mats, diadem).

In XIV you can do almost anything with no one, but in XI couldn't do anything without being with someone.

That's the contrast as far as I care to describe it.

The arguments you guys are bringing up are kind of making me cringe.

Like, the main reason the overworld is as static as it is isn't just to make the game "easier," it's to accommodate several different type of players by allowing them to go at their own pace.

And considering the potential challenge of duty quests/dungeons, there is already potential challenge in the game as is. The difference, here, is that the challenge is shifted into the right areas.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

. I, personally, do not want a game where I have to be social in order to progress. Few people will organize groups for content. They'll merely play something else. Hence why MMOs do not force social interaction; only encourage it. A big turn off back in FFXI was being required to party at early levels lest I get annihilated by a buffalo. I'll make friends at my own leisure, thank you.

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May I ask why play a Massive Multiplayer Role Playing Game then? I am not trolling or trying to be rude/attitude, I am genuinely curious. I find it to be like me with my work..if I told the director "I want to act in this play, but not in front of people, only people I choose at my leisure. " >.>

I do like encouraging social interaction though...but hmm, being social to progress...

I find a lot of the people in these games struggle with that, so I don't think many would progress. As for me I love being social, it comes naturally and super easy to me. As an extrovert I'd love for more social content but this game really lacks that aspect..and the linkshells I am in really show that. 90% of the folks in this game I have come across are extremely socially awkward. I always feel bad for them but dunno how to help them..anyway, sorry to ramble but yea I am curious...

And anyway I wouldn't expect a game to help someone overcome their social issues. But who knows..anything is possible?

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Originally Posted by Windi

The arguments you guys are bringing up are kind of making me cringe.

Like, the main reason the overworld is as static as it is isn't just to make the game "easier," it's to accommodate several different type of players by allowing them to go at their own pace.

And considering the potential challenge of duty quests/dungeons, there is already potential challenge in the game as is. The difference, here, is that the challenge is shifted into the right areas.

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It does not really accommodate me..and my friends we kind of enjoy having to fight our way to places and work together. There could be some serious strongholds with good rewards and chests in there that you have to farm keys for. That would be fun.

Sure, some places can be ezpz, but we need a few zones where you need a group to get through, or at least 2 of ya. I think the main reason the overworld is boring (or low level mobs that do nothing rather) is because of the money. People would unsub if they had to actually work together or try to get somewhere. I wouldn't want the whole world like that..that would be annoying, but at least sometimes...yeesh but this game has 0 of that!

I think Yoshida realizes that the majority of people who play this game aren't very social and can get uncomfortable in those situations so keeps it to a minimum. In DF you barely have to communicate. Can you imagine if people had to work together in the open world for something? Oh well..I guess that is what real life is for.

@Iromi: It could just be me being below level 50 but you hardly need to be "social" in this game to progress anyway. I don't even understand that complaint.

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Originally Posted by Windi

@Iromi: It could just be me being below level 50 but you hardly need to be "social" in this game to progress anyway. I don't even understand that complaint.

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Yea you don't really need to be social at all to do anything in this game :( When I first played MMORPG in 2004...I did so because of the social aspect it offered. Playing with friends made things so much more fun then sitting at home, in my dark room playing a single player game alone. We got to tackle difficult things, get rewards and have a clan..it was pretty awesome (Lineage II) :D But now it just feels like I play with random people I'll never see again most likely...and there isn't any familiar faces to struggle to get rewards with at all..:( Its just que, silence, win, leave. Very dull...

I mean, I don't use these games to replace social interaction in my life, no no I have a pretty big social life off the computer..lol it is just not as motivating to do things anymore without that aspect of mmorpgs anymore..

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Originally Posted by Iromi

It does not really accommodate me..and my friends we kind of enjoy having to fight our way to places and work together. There could be some serious strongholds with good rewards and chests in there that you have to farm keys for. That would be fun.

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Really, I think this is where Diadem could, and likely was intended to shine. A large, open world area with more difficult (at the very least Dungeon level) monsters, with powerful boss style monsters as well as more islands to explore. However, because it was mechanically more efficient to just grind mobs on a single island, that's what people did. With some improvements, it could satisfy the "Explore dangerous areas with a friend" (especially with level/ilvl sync or a system like Deep Dungeon), while keeping the overworld and game itself solo-friendly. I feel like that could be a good compromise. Maybe even a "Diadem-like" mode that doesn't require as many people would be perfect.

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Originally Posted by Windi

@Iromi: It could just be me being below level 50 but you hardly need to be "social" in this game to progress anyway. I don't even understand that complaint.

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There are plenty of RPGs out there if people don't feel the need to socialize. I don't get why it's a negative to want to try and encourage gameplay that requires a group in an MMO.

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Originally Posted by Iromi

But now it just feels like I play with random people I'll never see again most likely...and there isn't any familiar faces to struggle to get rewards with at all..:( Its just que, silence, win, leave. Very dull...

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That's actually a legit low-point, yeah. I have mixed feelings on it since I'm a pretty shy, introverted person both irl and in mmos and it at least gets the job done, but it doesn't help in building a sense of a community.
On the other hand I find this refreshing over the toxic bickering I've seen playing MOBAs these days.

XI was VERY social dependent you needed a lot of time and friends to do stuff in the game, and I will admit I said before XIV came out that I hope it was more casual friendly then XI but not to the point of casual face roll friendly.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

In Assassin's Creed or Thief the sneaking around is the actual game play. That's a big part of why people are playing the game in the first place and the game as a whole is designed around it.

In an MMO, having to sneak around is usually just put there as an obstacle to make it take longer to get to the actual game play.

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In FFXI sneaking around and pulling enemies was the actual gameplay(combat oriented versus quest hubs). And the big part of why people played the game in the first place was the "Open World".

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Originally Posted by Ibi

FFXI is a poor example of that though, because the only challenge it added was "Do I have enough Silent Oils/Prism Powders/etc. in my inventory?" You'd just put up Sneak and Invisible and ignore the mobs completely.

And as far as inconvenience goes, there's a difference between dealing with inconvenience that's already present and specifically requesting to be further inconvenienced. You can pretty much guarantee that whatever inconvenience someone is requesting, there's going to be a substantial portion of the player base that likes that aspect of the game just the way it is and would really rather not have it be made more difficult/time-consuming/etc.

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You didn't have to even touch sneak or invisible. You could strategically move around and weave between most enemies to pull amazing feats.

To me hundreds to thousands of quest littered throughout the world is more inconvenient than actually participating in events and combat. Should they remove quest givers to convenience people who feel as I do? It's the same issue I have with the combat in this game and gathering in Dragon Age Inquisition. Busy work(multiple thousands of button pushes versus strategic button presses in reacting or enacting) that takes me out of the core of an mmorpg which is combat. I am not saying crafting and other things are not important.