SquareEnix : Please remake FFXI on XIV's engine.

Hey Everyone,

I recently switched from Final Fantasy XI to Final Fantasy XIV and I am trying it out for a bit because my friends and family called me out on a promise I made a year ago. But, here's the thing: I really don't like the combat job system in XIV. It kind of forces specific role and equipment on players and doesn't leave much room for trying out different strategies. In my opinion, Final Fantasy XI had a much better system for jobs and combat.

I think Final Fantasy XI should be remade using the engine from XIV. This would keep the main Final Fantasy series alive and make it easier for players to switch between both games. Since a lot of assets can be reused, it would be much cheaper and faster to develop the remake using an existing game engine. Plus, any upgrading the graphics for this engine would benefit both games. The story in XI is also better in my opinion, as you're just an adventurer, not a "Warrior of Light." The world and characters are fantastic, and remaking it would let both old and new players explore Vana'Diel and its stories.

Now, here are some changes I think should be made in the XI remake:

• Crafting should be more like XIV: I really enjoy crafting in XIV because it's more interactive, so the remake should bring over this system.
  
• Start with level cap at 99: This might sound strange, but it would make future content more gear-based and strategic. Plus, it would allow for more complex boss battles in the story.
  
• Housing in small towns and major cities: Players should be able to have housing in various locations across Vana'Diel, just like in XIV.
  
• Beastmen quests from XIV: These should be included in XI, allowing players to obtain beastmen-made items and learn crafting blueprints.
  
• More in-depth job quest-lines: Each job should have its own quest-line, making the experience even more immersive.
  
• Crafting classes should unlock blueprints through quests: This would give crafting classes more depth and variety.
  
• All XI jobs accessible in the base game: To make things easier, all jobs should be available from the start, with some adjustments to NPCs.
  
• Rhapsodies of Vana'diel as the main storyline: This should cover the entire storyline leading up to the end of The Voracious Resurgence, with new expansions continuing the story.
  
• Dual-wielding for all combat jobs: Certain jobs should get bonuses for dual-wielding, like Ninja, Thief, Bluemage, and Dancer.
  
• Ranged attacks like in XIV: Physical and mage ranged attacks should be updated to be more like XIV, with cool weapon skills for tomes, wands, and staves.
  
• Something like the Gold Saucer: Adding mini-games and activities would be a fun addition to the game.
  
• No forced party compositions: Players should be free to experiment with party compositions for events and battles.

So you want a FFXIV but with the lore of FFXI. Got it

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Originally Posted by Kranel_San

So you want a FFXIV but with the lore of FFXI. Got it

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No that is not what I am saying. You are being condescending by over simplifying.

Trust me you'd rather want a completely different engine than what FF14 is running on.

This spaghetti code is being held together by the collective dynamis of the fans and Yoshi-P's tears.

There is currently an Unreal 5 fan project for FF11 being called Project shadow which shows promise.
On a side note while it's outdated for me to fully sink my teeth into I quite like the slow methodical gameplay of FF11 and games like such as Everquest. It really lends itself to that nice open world adventuring and grouping aesthetic I admire in old MMOs.

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Originally Posted by Nadda

Trust me you'd rather want a completely different engine than what FF14 is running on.

This spaghetti code is being held together by the collective dynamis of the fans and Yoshi-P's tears.

There is currently an Unreal 5 fan project for FF11 being called Project shadow which shows promise.
On a side note while it's outdated for me to fully sink my teeth into I quite like the slow methodical gameplay of FF11 and games like such as Everquest. It really lends itself to that nice open world adventuring and grouping aesthetic I admire in old MMOs.

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I get what you are saying 100%, I have also kept track of that project. But they are mostly just making quick short videos with the assets. But outside of open source projects, what game or program isn't built on spaghetti code? Esspecially when companies like Squareenix don't want other companies copying or improving what they have built.

I think there is always room for a methodical combat experience in modern games. The main reason I suggest XIV's engine is because its much easier for staff to work with and stream lines alot of the process and development. They are already spending money on upgrading the engine for better shaders and lighting. I am more looking at it from a cost effective standpoint.

The 'spaghetti code' thing is just a silly meme nowadays (based on ignorance about how games really function and a mistaken belief FFXIV ARR still uses 1.0 engine or code components in whole or in part, which it does not), so just ignore it.

Having said that, it's clear SE are only keeping FFXI on life support at this stage and that they are simply not interested in remaking FFXI at all (after all the planned mobile phone port/remake sank without a trace). FFXIV for better or for worse, really is FFXI's replacement. And I suspect this is why we're getting the upcoming FFXI-crossover raid 'Echoes of Vana'diel' in Dawntrail, it's FFXI's last hurrah basically and a way of celebrating FFXI.

I've never played 11 but I would like to try it.
However, this seems like a pretty big ask and I can't see SE wanting to use the resources to remake it.

I don't understand why they can't just make a FFXI spinoff set in Vana'diel. Their excuses for not making another FFXI game is always "we can't get the online feeling". They don't have to make an online game. Make an offline game based on FFXI lore.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

The 'spaghetti code' thing is just a silly meme nowadays (based on ignorance about how games really function and a mistaken belief FFXIV ARR still uses 1.0 engine or code components in whole or in part, which it does not), so just ignore it.

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If you don't believe that code from 1.0 still exists in modern 14 that's laughable. It's more of a matter of how much modern 14 is affected by legacy code and it's all backend stuff most likely. You can't build a fresh new MMO in a year and some change.

You can find very old Windows code in Windows 10 if you know where to look.

Starfield most likely has Morrowind code in it somewhere due to the Creation Engine being a Gamebryo derivative.

But I digress.

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Originally Posted by Mosha

If you don't believe that code from 1.0 still exists in modern 14 that's laughable. It's more of a matter of how much modern 14 is affected by legacy code and it's all backend stuff most likely. You can't build a fresh new MMO in a year and some change.

You can find very old Windows code in Windows 10 if you know where to look.

Starfield most likely has Morrowind code in it somewhere due to the Creation Engine being a Gamebryo derivative.

But I digress.

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Except the game was built from the ground up on an entirely new engine and doesn't use 1.0 code at all, (and that's straight from Yoshi himself too who stated that it does not feature 1.0 code at all, who seemed to be getting a bit annoyed at the constant claims it was) - 1.0 used the same engine FFXIII and it's ilk ran on, the infamous Crystal Tools, that was useful for rendering pretty real time movie sequences.... and not much else. ARR on the other hand, uses a completely new custom engine based on the same engine used with FFXV (aka Luminous). It's not the same as FFXV's engine but shares components.

ARR does use equipment and character model designs from 1.0, but again these have been remodeled for the new engine (for instance there was the infamous butt window for miqo'te tails WHM AF1's body piece had in 1.0, which doesn't exist in ARR at all).

It 'only' took them a year and a half to make ARR because the groundwork for design had already been done, namely planning, storyline, character designs etc, and 1.0 served as a test bed in that time for new ideas and concepts that may or may not be used in ARR. There was some corner-cutting though, with how the game was ultimately designed ended up being like a closed system whose basic components are difficult to expand or modify (item ID/appearence being an example of that), but that has nothing to do with 1.0 'code' at all and was simply a symptom of SE being more concerned with ensuring the base game was at least stable and ran properly, at the expense of future proofing it.

bro our engine can't even put a glamour dresser in a house without the entire game imploding
how bad is 11's engine where you would wish for this? genuinely curious.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

The 'spaghetti code' thing is just a silly meme nowadays (based on ignorance about how games really function and a mistaken belief FFXIV ARR still uses 1.0 engine or code components in whole or in part, which it does not), so just ignore it.

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XIV running on 1.0 code might be a meme, the engine being a mess however isn't.
Remember how they had major issues with expanding the glamour dresser? Or how they had to delete belts to reallocate that inventory space for weapons and accessories because they can't just increase our Armoury Chest?

What Mosha meant with legacy code isn't actual 1.0 code, but code they cobbled together in a very short timeframe because they had to cut corners to get ARR out in time, code that might have been completely stable in 2.0 but is now biting them in the backside.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Except the game was built from the ground up on an entirely new engine and doesn't use 1.0 code at all, (and that's straight from Yoshi himself too who stated that it does not feature 1.0 code at all, who seemed to be getting a bit annoyed at the constant claims it was)

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They have already admitted, that the game still uses 1.0 code in some parts of the client, sorry. :)



Cheers

Imagine asking them to make XI worse.

I agree it should be transferred to the XIV engine, but a quick glance at it on a technical level and you realize this would be very difficult because of how different they are. Trying to transfer the quest and cutscene work to XIV for example when it uses a completely different system from decades ago would be a big undertaking. That's most likely why they haven't done it and why they abandoned the attempts to port or change it.

As a company they have to ask what there would be more money in. Doing it or not doing it? The answer is probably not doing it.

I did prefer certain things about FF11, such as killing enemies to level and certain things about the battle system (other than the battle speed and it being designed for controllers).

But once you have played FF14 for a while you will come to appreciate all the convenience over older MMORPGs. It saves you so much time and frees up your life to do basic things... like eating and showering.

Once you've played FF14 long enough, it's hard to go back, because I tried. No hotbars? Ultra slow combat? Designed for controllers? Barebones lackluster graphics? No quest markers? Map not disappearing and being easy to access with keybinds? More complicated menus and systems?

When you see how much of your life is freed up and the convenience, it's hard to go back to all that stuff.

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Originally Posted by ultimoore01

It kind of forces specific role and equipment on players and doesn't leave much room for trying out different strategies.

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I agree. It did used to have a cross-class system actually, but it didn't work very well, it forced people to level classes they didn't want to play to get required role actions and wasn't maintained, so it was changed to Role Actions that don't require you to level anything but your main.

Blue Mage may interest you though. That is the only job in the game where you can change your abilities to create different strategies. Healers can alter the balance between tank, heal and DPS abilities. Tanks can alter the balance of defensives vs heal/DPS abilities, depending on the incoming damage. You learn lots of abilities but you can only choose a fixed amount, so not all blue mages take the same things.

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The story in XI is also better in my opinion, as you're just an adventurer, not a "Warrior of Light."

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I agree that I don't like the idea that we are the most famous hero in the world. I like the idea of just being "a person, making a living" in this fantasy world. But the developers considered all this carefully and decided to do what they did, so that's just how it is.

I'm pretty sure SE doesn't use XIV's engine at all anymore. FF7R is on Unreal and XVI is on a different engine entirely.

If they did a big budget remake they'd likely not go for the dated xiv engine that caused them so much headache already

Didn't they come out and admit all the error 2002 issues at the beginning of ew was due to some old 1.0 coding?
I recall seeing that at some point.

And I don't see this happening. Why would they spend ressources on remaking an online game that's still active on top of the fact they have another more successful MMO aside from that.

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

bro our engine can't even put a glamour dresser in a house without the entire game imploding
how bad is 11's engine where you would wish for this? genuinely curious.

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Every engine has its issues. The reason is that I want FFXI moved to this engine is because XI still runs on the PS2 Devkit. All their current work now in XI is done through a emulator. Its a mainline title that needs to either be moved to a offline experience remake or be rebuilt with this engine and integrate the subcription to include 11 and 14.

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Originally Posted by Thurmnmurmn

Didn't they come out and admit all the error 2002 issues at the beginning of ew was due to some old 1.0 coding?

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It was simply due to a lack of server capacity to process logins. To solve it, they setup additional login servers using their dev testing machines to process logins faster.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

What Mosha meant with legacy code isn't actual 1.0 code, but code they cobbled together in a very short timeframe because they had to cut corners to get ARR out in time, code that might have been completely stable in 2.0 but is now biting them in the backside.

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I do mean they used code from 1.0 they might have changed and updated it, but it wouldn't be very cost-effective not to use anything from the 1.0 codebase. I should also clarify reusing code isn't inherently a bad thing nor is it an uncommon practice.
In practice, the game is held back by the initial rushed development of 2.0 rather than the code they reused from 1.0.