Make FFXIV more like FFXI and less like WoW

[Skullcrusher]

Because WoW brought many improvements in the way MMOs work, have introduced mechanics that are now considered standard, and made it possible for an MMO to have millions of active players, rather than the couple hundred thousand, maybe a million if they are lucky before that.

You can argue for the drawbacks of some of these improvements (like the Dungeon Finder system that was the last nail in the coffin for the WoW community) but the benefits far outweighed the drawbacks, when DF was introduced in WoTLK, the number of players doing dungeons increased dramatically, and player retention rates soared.

The thing is, Ppl that wanted to run dungeons and raids before the df still did so, and often. All the DF did was get EVERYONE to run them, even the ppl that had no idea, hence why we are seeing all these bad gamers everywhere. Like life, you either want to do it or you find an easy way and stumble thru it not caring....

[Dyvid]

1. You can already get a group together and grind like FFXI

2. 2.1, please check it

3. Trials and Guildhest?

4. Does need to be looked at, maybe materia

5. AF is your starter for End Game, not the holy grail of gear

6. Binding Coil requires you beat all three HM Primals

[Randalthor]

1. Incorporate some kind of 4 and/or 8-person party grind option similar to those found in FFXI as an alternative to FATE and dungeon-grinding

2. Rather than Warcraft-esque "raids" like Binding Coil, why not bring back things like Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage, and Nyzul Isle?

3. Bring back BCNM, KSNM, ENM, ZNM, ISNM, etc

4. Make gear with lasting power. Adding useful set bonuses like increased radius on Flash or increased duration on Regen when you're wearing full artifact gear would be awesome

5. FFXIV needs a sense of community. It was a huge letdown to obtain all five pieces of artifact gear by myself over the course of 2 five-minute quests

6. Other honorable mentions include Sky/Sea-type areas that are only reachable after the completion of difficult missions; HNM camping for those of us with too much time on our hands; 2hr abilities or something similar; Race-specific equipment; Skillchains

There should be more viable options to lvl a 2nd character besides FATE grinding. Keep the "raids" like Binding Coil. Totally agree with +skill/spell effect/bonuses for certain items or partial to complete sets of gear (this is also WoW-esque) btw.

What would be good to see from SE is a vision of their future regarding content beyond what they have mentioned so far. I understand there is a fine line between promising players something and not saying anything, but it would be refreshing to get an in-depth look into their vision and roadmap for the next few months/1-year and understand if these things are in that vision.

I am all for waiting for content, I just want to know if this is even on their minds or not.

[amnie]

I never played WoW so I wouldn't know if this game was too much like WoW to begin with, but I have to say sometimes people whine about the most silly things.

take number 1 for example

chaining still exist in this game! and it is indeed a quite nice way to level. granted you don't get seals for it, but mob drops can sell quite well depending on the item.
you are being blinded by 99% lfg fate group shouts, nothing else.

and I'm fairly sure they will have all kinds of different dungeons for happy happy fun time in the near and far future, so not sure what there is to 'miss' at this point. (I for example would love to see some of the fancy mechanics the latest two operations in SW:TOR have, and I still have very fond memories of the 'mirror puzzle' in lotro after all these years)

sometimes I wonder if the only MMOs people in here ever played were WoW and FFXI.
and frankly the wha wha wha WoW whining is quiiite annoying at this point.

[Kazamoto]

I'm not quite sure why everyone here is saying FFXI is dead... its still going, has an active player base, and got its most recent expansion in March of THIS YEAR.

Someone above complained about having to get a party of 4 and how it sucked... but in FFXI parties were 6 people... so did that person even play the game?

As far as calling it archaic, it has had a huge number of updates over the years, and with macros, played like a hot bar game. Even with the release of Abyssea, they further modernized the game for more casual players.

On the Abyssea expansion, people who are against FFXI in general say that Abyssea alienated the original player base in favor of newer players. And then say FFXI knew it was old, look how they changed.

Which is it? Is it bad to adapt to the times, or a move in the right direction?

--
I don't often complain about casuals, since as I am no longer a high school/college student and have a wife, career, and house to worry about, I am becoming increasingly casual. But where is the difficulty? Why does casual have to mean pants on head stupidly easy. Titan was the first remotely challenging content so far, and the hardest part was not getting a group full of derps.

Archaic FFXI had you pre-make your parties like we do in Mor Dohna now, but if someone sucked, you could kick them from the party, have a BLM Warp2 them out of the instance. I think cross server duty finder is nice, but it does not create a sense of community.

People rag on the grind parties in FFXI, but one thing they did, is give you a time to meet other players on your server, make friends, and connections. As well as force players to learn how to play their characters properly. (Abyssea kinda nuked this).

Everything Pre-WotG in FFXI required work, some degree of personal investment. There is none of that in FFXIV. No personal responsibility, no reason to ever try harder than the bare minimum.

--

Community is something that keeps an MMO going far longer than content. EvE rakes in subscription fees from people who shoot lasers at rocks all day, as long as they are in a good player corp to talk to.
FFXI forced people to work together, and meet people. EvE forces people to work together or get blown up.

WoW and FFXIV as they are now supports leaving and rejoining raid/duty finder, because maybe the next group will be up to my standards.

[Arriverderci]

This again? FFXI sucked, let's move past it.

Meanwhile the game has been alive and p2p for over a decade.
Yeah it sucks.

I never played WoW or XI, but I read about Skillchains, and I demand this to be implented in this game!
Makes combat more fun.
If anyone has played Tales of Xillia, think Link Artes. I think that what Skillchains do and I bet it'll be hella fun in this game.
XIV is kinda a straight line...Needs more curves!

Also I agree with Axe.

I think they were playing it a little too safe with the relaunch but if housing is any indication, there will be many exciting and unique features to come.

They probably didn't wanna go too big and bad because it's the 2nd time around...Hopefully we get more fun things around the corner.

[yukikaze_yanagi]

Meanwhile the game has been alive and p2p for over a decade.
Yeah it sucks.

I never played WoW or XI, but I read about Skillchains, and I demand this to be implented in this game!
Makes combat more fun.
If anyone has played Tales of Xillia, think Link Artes. I think that what Skillchains do and I bet it'll be hella fun in this game.
XIV is kinda a straight line...Needs more curves!

Also I agree with Axe.

They probably didn't wanna go too big and bad because it's the 2nd time around...Hopefully we get more fun things around the corner.

The problem is, reading it's a thing, executing is another. There's a good reason why nobody use skillchain in ffXI since 10 years now, and it's because they're slow, they do poor damage, they take too much to execute and generally speaking it's much more convenient spamming skill when avaiable because they do more damage. Also, FFXI have a combat system in slow-motion, there's really no way that kind of mechanic could work here. We are no more waiting tp to build before using 1 skill

[KraggyKor]

With such a great resource like FFXI to draw ideas from I hate seeing so many more similarities to Warcraft

FFXI was SE's 'take' on EQ2, they said so, no MMO developer in their right mind would release one like that today.

Also, your OP's extensive list of XI content not in XIV totally ignores the fact it took over 5 years for all that stuff to appear, for the first many months of its life XI had LESS content that XIV has now; if you only played the NA release from '04 onwards you have no idea how basic XI was on its release in '02 in comparison.

[Arriverderci]

The problem is, reading it's a thing, executing is another. There's a good reason why nobody use skillchain in ffXI since 10 years now, and it's because they're slow, they do poor damage, they take too much to execute and generally speaking it's much more convenient spamming skill when avaiable because they do more damage. Also, FFXI have a combat system in slow-motion, there's really no way that kind of mechanic could work here. We are no more waiting tp to build before using 1 skill

I want fun. I don't care how much damage it does, as long as it's fun to watch and use?
Healers LB, I never use it. 25% HP is crap, but it's fun to use..if I ever did use it.
I seen how slow Skillchains are they can rush it up of course on here.
Here is a video of Tales of Xillia's, Link Arte's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFtCSzBJu-c

So for example: WHM and PLD can use a skill together, and it turns into like a Buff up Defense Skill when used together.
SCH and WHM together in the 8mans - Heals and creates a bigger shield for more defense.
Like uhnm...One of the Twelve comes out and prays above the shield thing and heals a bit.
Or something. I'm not good with thinking up things but y'know lol. Maybe a certain skill for a boss mechanic. You need to charge up both peoples skills and use it to break off a piece of a boss or something. Maybe BRD and BLM, A huge Fire arrow that shoots from the sky and breaks defense off the enemy and causes AoE explosion. xD Just something to spice up the system is all.

[Korbei]

Hey! Great news everybody!

Final Fantasy XI is still operating!

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml

There you go! Your wish fulfilled.


Please take a minute to absorb the irony of criticizing A for being similar to B and demanding it be fixed by making it similar to C instead.