Will this game differentiate itself from other MMOs, post-changes?

It is hard to argue that the game isn't in a better place now. However, I'd like to play devil's advocate since I've been thinking about this recently.

We have seen that the focus of the game has changed in order to revive it. Fixed-sized dungeons(raids) are displacing scaling guildleves as the game's main content(while guildleves being more targeted towards solo play) and more importantly the combat system is changing from stamina management for manual attacks to auto-attack(where attack speed will likely become the most important stat for melee, in time). There are also a bunch of smaller things, like trying to define class roles for party makeup and equipment. Now I personally think of all of these ideas were poorly implement(e.g. the attack system coming down to spamming 1 because of very plain encounter design/player vs monster interaction). Still FFXIV was quite unique, if also broken.

Now it seems the best strategy is to scale back FFXIV's "weirdness" in order to make it a more traditional MMO(maybe even more so than FFXI, in its earlier years). I wonder if this is a good thing, considering how many MMOs on the market look alike mechanically. It is hard argue that it isn't a better idea, since very few, if anyone, liked the older design(whether it was truly flawed and just very poorly implemented is also impossible to say). Why would anyone who isn't already playing play FFXIV if it isn't very different? It is going to have a handicap no matter how you slice it(and a poor reputation). I guess graphics comes to mind.


P.S. I bet this game could really benefit from being released on the Vita, assuming that takes off in Japan and elsewhere. That would at least get a platform-based quirk, which I believe helped FFXI a lot before and after the MMO popularity boom.

I feel square is making a huge mistake trying to copy western mmos atm, they are digging their grave deeper and deeper.

Beings its own game, being different, and offering an experience that is not western mainstream was this games best chance at survival.

I have to see the updates first but atm the game seems to be becoming more and more of a WoW clone (Quest based leveling, real easy casual content, content which is being replaced every 1-2 years, more xp for not playing, low work high reward, no feeling of accomplishment, focus on instanced content, focus on Solo/low man gameplay). And like all the WoW clones before it only bad things are in its future... no way this game can out WoW WoW.

Atm there is two things making this game different then other:

1) really High def graphics
2) 1 character for all the classes.

Everything else that made it unique is being stripped from it.

it does look like the overall vision, or plan for this game is, make it like a standard MMO, which i dunno sounds like it will probably fail, but i guess it depends what hooks they have planned.

As best his strategy is going to be standardize it as a normal MMO, then try to final fantasy ize it. It could work, but its not the standard features that well sell a new MMO

I've been worried about this since I heard cries for "Class Uniqueness."

The best thing this game had going for it was the ability to literally make your own class, Rift did it too, just more WoWed Honesty I liked FFXVI's implementation better though.

The second best thing was combat was Engaging. I got the same High as I did in my FFXI BLM, in a Melee class here because I wasn't just waiting for "tatical Points" to use an ability, I loved it. The changes of these two elements have me -Very- scared, to the point I stopped playing when I heard about it. I'll give it a try after the new patch but.. I just don't know anymore. The game is moving away from something I'd WANT to play into another MINDLESS game where you don't HAVE to think.

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Originally Posted by Jasmine_Aurelia

I've been worried about this since I heard cries for "Class Uniqueness."

The best thing this game had going for it was the ability to literally make your own class, Rift did it too, just more WoWed Honesty I liked FFXVI's implementation better though.

The second best thing was combat was Engaging. I got the same High as I did in my FFXI BLM, in a Melee class here because I wasn't just waiting for "tatical Points" to use an ability, I loved it. The changes of these two elements have me -Very- scared, to the point I stopped playing when I heard about it. I'll give it a try after the new patch but.. I just don't know anymore. The game is moving away from something I'd WANT to play into another MINDLESS game where you don't HAVE to think.

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For me its kind of the other way around. I despised having to mash normal attacks waiting for enough tp to use the attack I need to use. Having the need to mash be replaced by auto-attack feels like an improvement to me.

That the game tanked so badly when it was first released we can at least draw the conclusion that trying something new or different is better suited for smaller projects. They're going to implement more familiar mechanics for a smoother experience. The world will still be unique and everything you expect from a Final Fantasy title.

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Originally Posted by lun4tic

That the game tanked so badly when it was first released we can at least draw the conclusion that trying something new or different is better suited for smaller projects. They're going to implement more familiar mechanics for a smoother experience. The world will still be unique and everything you expect from a Final Fantasy title.

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But will I still be able to play "Myself" myself being defined as the person I want to play, because I know I can't go around walking in full plate armor and throwing fireballs IRL, but in FFXVI, I was perfectly able to make a heavy tank that was fully capable of letting loose with a good fireball. That's what I loved about this game. You could make ANYTHING...it may not of always worked the best, but you could DO it. You could be...yourself the way you wanted to be, without anything saying you couldn't do something...that's what I'll miss the most.

The things they are changing are 'standard' yes but they make sense, they are foundational gameplay mechanisms which should not have been screwed around with in the first place. i.e. auto attack.

Let's also not forget that the game world, the way its graphics are rendered, the design of it is also a big source of 'uniqueness'.

Most MMO's out there are based on Lord of the Rings and a table top board game called Warhammer.
I.e. World of Warcraft, Rift, Even Everquest.

Final Fantasy XIV and FF XI are the only fantasy MMOs on the market that are not under the Lord of the Rings overall art direction and world design, other then Age of Conan.

This is uniqueness already and I dare say, enough for many of you whom are posting complaints on the forum to still hang on to hope.

Let's not complain about standardized mechanics and features that should have been in the game from the start.
Don't play with what is not broken (i.e. instanced dungeons, auto attack.) , and trust that the 'feel' of FFXIV's world is already unique.

Horo

Eh, I'm still against Auto attack, but I'll live. Until I get the ability to make my Own MMO.

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Originally Posted by Horo

The things they are changing are 'standard' yes but they make sense, they are foundational gameplay mechanisms which should not have been screwed around with in the first place. i.e. auto attack.

Let's also not forget that the game world, the way its graphics are rendered, the design of it is also a big source of 'uniqueness'.

Most MMO's out there are based on Lord of the Rings and a table top board game called Warhammer.
I.e. World of Warcraft, Rift, Even Everquest.

Final Fantasy XIV and FF XI are the only fantasy MMOs on the market that are not under the Lord of the Rings overall art direction and world design, other then Age of Conan.

This is uniqueness already and I dare say, enough for many of you whom are posting complaints on the forum to still hang on to hope.

Let's not complain about standardized mechanics and features that should have been in the game from the start.
Don't play with what is not broken (i.e. instanced dungeons, auto attack.) , and trust that the 'feel' of FFXIV's world is already unique.

Horo

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AA is not a foundation of MMOs, it is just a mechanic, which is common, because people are biters in general. It never had to be a way of life. They could go with manual attacks, turn based attacks, or any other number of attack mechanics. I believe the manual/stamina type system was probably a good direction to go, i wont say evolution, because it is a seperate path from AA, leading in a different direction and with a different type of strategy.

Problem is they failed making this game in other ways, so they threw out the baby with the bathwater. Its clear that their plan is to make FFXIV a standard MMO with a few FF tweaks. They as much as said so in marketing speak in the battle reform. Their idea is people didnt like the game, so lets make it like other stuff they liked. Big mistake imo, it might have worked if it released like that, and was extremely polished, but it didnt, and its not, and it wont be extremely polished for a long long time.
By the time the game is polished enough to be well executed clone, they will have lost to more polished clones, and innovative new titles. They should have went the opposite direction, and tried to fix and expand on what they had. Because lets be honest, your not going to beat WoW at wowing, and your about 2 years behind rift in making a very polished standardized MMO.

If the game brought something unique, it could carve out a new niche, or attract different gamers, if its a standardized MMO it will be judged by standard MMOs


The only way i can see this standard MMO strat working, is if they standardize it in terms of MMO mechanics, and totally come new with heavy HEAVY offline jrpg level story/adventure charachter driven stuff.

Essentially the game needs something special about it, MMOs arent disposable, you cant just make a standard MMO and be successful, there is only room for like 2 of those at once, and they are already on the market.

It's hard to see people try to make valid arguments here for keeping the game the way it was: broken and boring. This game was beautiful, but that's all it had going for it. Now the developers are really adding new content and more refined features and you guys want to keep it shackled to poor design for the sake of being different? I'd consider myself an even-keeled kind of guy, but it's frustrating to see more and more of you work under such grand assumptions that haven't been substantiated. The game is changing for the better. I hope the dev team keeps pushing ahead with its agenda.

Putting to much effort into updating the game made by the original DevTeam and Tanaka, now it's a copy cat MMOut... Start charging and see how many player will switch back to just playing FFXI or maybe WoW.

I'm not even playing that much anymore... I have FFXI already, with my jobs at high level.

I think its funny that a lot of the people who didn't play XI, don't understand SE limitations. That's one of the only things XI was good for it made you understand why you were getting what you were getting. This game is classic SE to me. Even in XI they tried to half ass westernize stuff at times. That's what this game is and still is, a half ass westernization attempt. I do think under tanaka they had a eastern expansion planned out though. But for now we're stuck with something boring its the beginning of the game. Just like XI's first year, which is not an excuse.

As much as I hate to admit it, I don't think any amount of fixing, whether FFXI-like or WoW-like, will be enough to pull them out of the hole they got in. First impressions have a profound impact, and as we all know, they didn't have a good one. Even with a release on PS3 being like a second first impression, the initial bad taste will still be in the mouths of those who tried and hated it back in September.

As much as I would like to see FFXIV become a big player in the MMO market, I just don't think it's possible at this point.

If anything, auto-attack seems to be less important now more than ever. Consider Tera and Guild Wars 2 and the general direction towards more action based combat in MMOs of the east. Manual attacking doesn't need to be spamming "1". For example they could have made single attacks more meaningful(slower/tactical) or made using a variety more important or added a combo system. But that's neither here or there. Whether going auto-attack is good or bad isn't the issue here.

What they keep saying is that the foundation will be traditional, while the additional layers (like BR and positional aspects, the job/class system and character stat growth) will make it stand out.

All MMO devs say things like this, though. What makes me optimistic, though, is that they can't exactly turn the game completely around and create something exactly like any other MMO. They can try, but I doubt they could pull it off. The game still has and will have a certain unique feel to it.

What helps is that nothing is a pure rip-off (from outside the franchise at least) and in a traditional SE fashion everything that is borrowed is implemented in a way unique to this game. Yes, we have features like an exclamation mark now, but it's not a huge, yellow cartoonish one. It's the FFXIV exclamation mark. The job system won't be called 'talent tree', and even the combat, when AA is taken into account, still is something of it's own rather than an exact copy. It's all speculation at this point, but I see normal attacks still having a larger role in this game than other games where it's just little extra DoT. Their "raids" have a time limit which already create completely different, arguably superior or inferior atmosphere. Hopefully the concept of "trash mobs" is also left for other MMO's.

At the end of the day I think it comes down to content and the special quirks they will work on in the future like solo combos and positioning. plus the focus on creating a compelling world with a huge potential. Even if players only care about epic lewtz in the long run, IMO a world and a story that draws you in and make you actually care about advancing until you get hooked is just as important.

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Originally Posted by Riposte

It is hard to argue that the game isn't in a better place now. However, I'd like to play devil's advocate since I've been thinking about this recently.

We have seen that the focus of the game has changed in order to revive it. Fixed-sized dungeons(raids) are displacing scaling guildleves as the game's main content(while guildleves being more targeted towards solo play) and more importantly the combat system is changing from stamina management for manual attacks to auto-attack(where attack speed will likely become the most important stat for melee, in time). There are also a bunch of smaller things, like trying to define class roles for party makeup and equipment. Now I personally think of all of these ideas were poorly implement(e.g. the attack system coming down to spamming 1 because of very plain encounter design/player vs monster interaction). Still FFXIV was quite unique, if also broken.

Now it seems the best strategy is to scale back FFXIV's "weirdness" in order to make it a more traditional MMO(maybe even more so than FFXI, in its earlier years). I wonder if this is a good thing, considering how many MMOs on the market look alike mechanically. It is hard argue that it isn't a better idea, since very few, if anyone, liked the older design(whether it was truly flawed and just very poorly implemented is also impossible to say). Why would anyone who isn't already playing play FFXIV if it isn't very different? It is going to have a handicap no matter how you slice it(and a poor reputation). I guess graphics comes to mind.


P.S. I bet this game could really benefit from being released on the Vita, assuming that takes off in Japan and elsewhere. That would at least get a platform-based quirk, which I believe helped FFXI a lot before and after the MMO popularity boom.

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The game offers nothing worthwhile for a subscription once battle changes and progression changes go through. It's sad that the majority of the playerbase is too stupid or blind to realize it, but whatever.

I sure as hell won't pay a sub for what they're giving us.

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Originally Posted by Seikninkuru

The game offers nothing worthwhile for a subscription once battle changes and progression changes go through. It's sad that the majority of the playerbase is too stupid or blind to realize it, but whatever.

I sure as hell won't pay a sub for what they're giving us.

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What is "worthwhile for a subscription"? The game itself should be good enough to justify the initial cost, but longevity will determine whether it's worth paying a sub for.

Simply said, if you give a damn about the game growing in size and scope (meaning you enjoy something about the game enough to give a damn in the first place), then it's worth the sub fee until you no longer do.

As much as "gameplay" is put on a pedestal these days, it's a flawed mindset to assume it's the "end-all" objective of an MMO to have great gameplay. People are rarely satisfied with just the "gamey" aspect of games, and this holds true for MMO's especially. Bayonetta didn't sell much even though it's gameplay is considered top-notch (few million I think? Still.) And let's not even mention Vanquish. On the other hand "games" like FlOwer and Journey are praised although they're not games at all really.

It's especially true considering MMO's don't offer much of a good gameplay until you hit the level cap. Something has to make you want to get there, and the 50-80 level "tutorial" gameplay catering to the lowest common dominator is hardly enough. Not to mention it's telling that mobs outside boss battle are called "trash", and people always talk about the bosses when they praise an MMO's gameplay. That's a lot of crap to go through to get to the "good gameplay".

Sadly, XIV is more or less trying to imitate that mindset. Thankfully Yoshida can't take it all the way even if he wanted to.

It doesn't need to differentiate itself from other MMOs.... It already did that and failed miserably at it. All the dev team can do is push forward and add changes that the playerbase want. They got all kinds of feedback from players during beta and when the game first launched. I'm sure that all of the changes since launch have been based off what players have been asking for.

As for the game being a WoW-clone, aren't most MMOs? Also what are you referring to? The UI? Instances? Raids? EXP from Quests?

I don't see a problem with wanting to implement a UI that WORKS and players LIKE, compared to WoW wanna-be, but wanna be a unique snowflake POS UI we have now. If people want some EXP from doing quests, is it really that bad?

Get out of the old FFXI mentality of doing a whole lot of working for little reward. Even FFXI itself is/was moving away from that. But I agree having items (like relics) that are hard to obtain or missions that are hard to get through (CoP post nerf), but not everything has to be hard and give the player nothing for their work.

I don't think this game will ever recover from its miserable launch though. The image of FFXIV is too tainted. As an example it'll be about a year before we get (watered down) Chocobos; something that should of been in the game at launch. Not to mention the game was released for PC but the controls catered to using a controller and the mouse/keyboard controls were clunky and laggy, which are also still not fixed in about a years time.

So whocares if FFXIV is DIFFERENT. It's about getting the people who playing now to start a subscription when the time comes, this game will hardly seen an increase of players anytime soon, even with a PS3 release.