FFXIV has lost it's magic

[Scamperoo]

I loved FFXI and I love FFXIV especially the fact I can do content however much time I have available to play, however I do miss the time sinks and the thrill of the chase through the zones, running for my life while getting smacked in the back of the head by some mob that really should be too far away to touch me :} I hope they introduce some areas where there is some real danger of getting killed and where the mobs don't just give up and go home but chase you down with the objective of messing you up.

[Misaki]

I want 1.23 back....I know ARR got alot good stuff but meh. It's not the same...

Remember old coerthas! Huge map, dangerous monster,not crowded with people,... just a complete diff feeling.

Now you rush through that zone in case Behemoth is up...

And i still cant play musketeer ; ;

[Sunarie]

No, but it's still a stupid comparison. Saying that this game is somehow more successful than XI because it has more subs now than XI ever did is not a sound argument because the two games are separated by more than a decade.

I dunno about that really. I would say that whichever game makes SE the most money is probably going to be the most successful, regardless of what people say about it, and regardless of what time period it came out in. My personal definition would probably more have to do with how long the game stays afloat, and less with overall profit. In which case it's too early to tell, and XI has a huge head start. All subjective on what you view as successful though.

[Hyrist]

I should mention. That 1.0 did not have FFXI's magic either. It had its own, and it's over now. Part of the magic 1.0 developed was that it was a temporary thing, and one never likes to see things die, even when they are flawed and broken.

FFXIV:ARR is its own creature, always has been. It carries some of the old magic with it, but only in remembrance. When I approached the game I first decided to embrace it as a new character, go through a good bit of the story before introducing my Legacy character. I played classes in which I was unfamiliar with (Arcanist) as well as a different nation of origin. I played it like the game was new and fresh. THEN I went back for the nostalgia trip with Lin.

And boy am I glad I did. Playing Lin after playing Eric Verus was like a homecoming, the thrill sparked completely anew getting used to Dragoon again after so long playing a mage (Arcanist is the only DoM I like, btw.) and the subtle differences in story made me feel the continuation of Lin's story and the feeling of finally putting what felt like a long standing cliffhanger to rest.

And now, I enjoy playing them both, for different reasons. I look forward to doing things twice and wrapping things up for them in two different flavors of gameplay. Endgame isn't even a thought on my mind. I still have sub-classes and crafting and gathering classes. Determining who's going to take up what mantle. Figuring out what friends I want to co-ordinate things with as far as getting supplied back and forth. There's much to do before the endgame people are banging their heads against because they see progression as a single line that draws the shortest distance between two points.

I say, playing a game like it's a job is what loses the magic in a game. Not the game itself, not even in this state.

[Lexxuk]

I don't think people are looking for a grindfest, in fact, we currently have a grindfest in place, it's just a very short grind of repeated content, it's dull, it's tedious, it has no longevity (it's why DD was so popular till it was fixed). What people want in an MMO is a storyline that is longer than a single player game. You could start a new save on Skyrim and still have not completed the main story by the time you're level 50 with a relic in XIV.

MMO's like GW2 have reasonably fast levelling because the content at 50 is PVP focused, you want to get out into the world and kill people so getting you to 50 so you can participate in the PVP is a prime focus. With PvE focused games then it's the journey that is important and not the destination, you want your players to take their time getting to the end, especially if the end is as weak as XIV's currently is, and will be for an uncertain amount of time (4 months? 7 months? The next expansion pack?), so you give people things to do and aim for, you have gear at certain levels which last a long time, so you take time out from levelling to obtain that gear.

With a method like that you can start with weak end game content, with the current system you have people grinding away, getting their jobs gear maxed out or, worst case, logging on once or twice a week and then leaving the game to play another for fun.

FFXI did things right enough.

Crafting to cap took a lot of time and a lot of expense, not 1 day to get from 1-50.
Enforced breakpoints (limit break quests you had to complete, with Maat being either a wuss or a monster depending on your job)
Levelling currently is too fast in XI, you can go from 1-99 in a day if you have the boredom.
Gear, there could be 2 BiS items, one for TP one for WS, you would spend a while obtaining the items to maximise your job, in XIV it's.... yeah
Things to actually do, this could be a weakness of XI, there is so much you can do that it sometimes feels overwhelming

With XIV, knowing the number of subscribers is only half the knowledge, knowing how many people are logging in 4+ times a week would be useful (a lot of people may have gone for the 180 day subs for the items, and now don't really play as there is bugger all to do). So yeah, MMO's keep people subscribed by giving them plenty of stuff to actually do, if people find they log in to a game and can either grind up another job to 50 because there really isn't much else to do, they are not likely to keep spending money to play.

[Battlewrench]

Helping a friend with some PLD stuff I believe. So fun. Should've heard us laughing on skype, memories. Granted this is after we rejoined after abby to try to get back into it....didn't work. (cause of aby)
Came into this thread not expecting so many positive posts about wanting an MMORPG again instead of hub worlds like the O, so many ones we have now. +1 OP

[Hyrist]

Helping a friend with some PLD stuff I believe. So fun. Should've heard us laughing on skype, memories. Granted this is after we rejoined after abby to try to get back into it....didn't work. (cause of aby)
Came into this thread not expecting so many positive posts about wanting an MMORPG again instead of hub worlds like the O, so many ones we have now. +1 OP

There were some things that were fun, like that. And I would not mind more open world quests and events that weren't just a simple spawn of mobs already tagged for you. There are some, but they can more or less be stealthed or ran through.



It's not to say FFXIV cannot be improved. But I feel it should continue to grow naturally, into its own identity, with it's own fun memories, instead of simply trying to reconstruct memories those people who've played other games remember fondly.

This may mean continuing to pull itself away from FFXI's type of memories - which is fine, so long as there are new ones, different ones to craft that we enjoy.

Some people seem to think that FFXIV is responsible for their nostalgia or separation anxiety from old games, especially old versions of games that have changed. All I can say to that is, just because you miss a game, or what a game was, you should not let it prevent you from enjoying new games or different games. Worse, you should not misuse that nostalgia to wrongfully place expectations on a different game. This goes for 1.0 as well as FFXI when addressing ARR.

We all have to remember, some of us hated FFVIII, some of us loved it. Some of us will always argue that Kefka is a better Villain than Sephrioth, or that Kuja had more style. We should not expect these separate titles to be what the previous one was, regardless if they were an MMO or not.

[Shiyo]

If people do not have enough time... those people need to expect to get left behind. THAT IS HOW IT SHOULD BE. Ultra casuals and casuals need to stop wanting handouts, it is ruining/has ruined the genre for the rest of us.

Best post, all my thoughts in one single post. It's baffling MMO dev's have not learned from a decade of constant failures that the WOW model DOES NOT WORK AND IS NOT SUSTAINABLE.

Agree with the OP, I miss MMO's feeling like SAO/Log Horizon, actual scary living worlds with danger around every corner. Right now they feel like a facebook game with a gear grind and fun bosses, yay.

[odintius]

The grind in this game is a joke also it takes how long to get to max level after 3 months of release and what is the topic's you see <their nothing to do I'm bored> go figure... That's the topic on pretty much every new mmo that has came out in recent years I wonder why and also that is it's biggest problem. The time sync's are their for a reason not to make content more challenging but to prolong it so developers can create new content. But instead they make theme park type content make it so that it's fast and easy to do and then cannot keep up with players demands brilliant. Also add insult to injury players then rush to endgame expecting something grand and end up posting topics about nothing to do after they complete it a vicious cycle in the mmo industry to be sure...

[Babydoll]

Best post, all my thoughts in one single post. It's baffling MMO dev's have not learned from a decade of constant failures that the WOW model DOES NOT WORK AND IS NOT SUSTAINABLE.

Agree with the OP, I miss MMO's feeling like SAO/Log Horizon, actual scary living worlds with danger around every corner. Right now they feel like a facebook game with a gear grind and fun bosses, yay.

This! This is exactly my thoughts on the game atm >.<

Also...I'll never understand why companies think copying something instead of being innovative is a good idea. It doesn't work that way! Being successfully innovative is the key to a successful MMO...