I hope this game doesn't follow WoW's expansion routine.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

The first part of this post (in italic) is somehow subjective and reflects my opinion.

It's true ARR is trying to implement designs akin to Blizzard's, but:

• Some of these designs have become standard for theme-parks / vertical progression (aka 'tier/iLv based') MMO's, and many actually come from older games such as EQ or traditional single-player RPG's. Another way of saying this is that WoW made this genre enter the mainstream, such as Doom did for FPS, or Street Fighter for fighting games.
• Said 'staple' designs are found in so many theme parks that at some point we have to stop calling all these games "WoW-clones" and admit that each genre has staple features, such as weapon enhancement in FPS, resource management in RTS or guarding in Fighting games. Doesn't mean you can't do otherwise, but 99% of a genre market can't be clones, or the notion of 'cloning' loses its meaning. I'm all for originality, be we should have realistic expectations about it —that is, observe the diversity of a market, and call features 'originality' based on their discrepancy with said market, not based on some ideal that doesn't exist or is rather marginal, and/or has never been well executed.
• FF XIV ARR does has some specificities that sets it appart from many other games, some of which are rather praised for their originality whereas others are rather missed by many seasoned MMO players. Overall, I think it's certainly not a strict clone of most theme parks, it does stand out in many regards (armoury system, crafting system, level scaling…); yet it retains a good chunk of the staple mechanics found in MMORPG's (classes, races, quests, instances, gear…).

Therefore when analysing MMO's I usually prefer to focus on the differences when they stand out, and on the commonalities or lack thereof when they are missed.


That being said, let's try to see what a typical ARR expansion would be, compared to WoW's. (This second part is objective and exposes facts.)

• WoW is based on a class+specialisation system that effectively gives 3 paths for each class. ARR follows a comparable logic, where specialisations are called 'jobs'. It is my contention that, like the Arcanist, most classes will end up branching into several jobs, at least 2.
  → It would therefore be equivalent that, when WoW adds 1 class (thus 3 specs), ARR would add 1 class + 3 jobs (2 of which could be directly tied up to the new class, and the last one complementing an existing class).
• WoW's expansions tend to render most existing maps obsolete as they are tied to a level range of ~5 levels (in Vanilla) then 2 levels (in expansions adding 10 levels to the cap) and recently 1 level (in expansions adding 5 levels to the cap). ARR's maps are also tied to a level range (also ~5 levels).
  → Therefore we can assume that the same pattern of obsolescence will be observed. WoW's expansions usually bring 7 new maps at release, so it is expectable that ARR will do the same.
  → However in terms of landscape, ARR divides the same landscape into sub-zones (northern, southern etc.) and has notably less different landscape than vanilla WoW, so we should expect only 2 or 3 new landscapes for these 7 new maps (divided in 2 or 3 subs) per expansion.
• WoW's expansions usually pack ~6 dungeons at release, and a few more with patches; dungeons are also tied to a level range akin to maps, as is ARR; these dungeons have a 'heroic' version meant to be run by max level characters, and ARR follows a comparable system called 'hard mode' which is being rolled out progressively as we speak.
  → So I'd expect ~6 new dungeons for an ARR expansions if they all pack a hard mode at release, or ~12 (6 for leveling, 6 for max level chars). The first option being more likely in my humble opinion, perhaps also in a progressive roll out.
• WoW's expansions usually come with 2 raids at release (~15 bosses) and end up with ~5 after patches (30 to 40 bosses). Vanilla WoW had 10 bosses + 1 single boss raid + world bosses (open world) at release. ARR's release packed much less: 4 bosses + 3 single boss raids (and I don't think FATEs can be likened to WoW's open world bosses since they're a zerg without much 'raiding'/difficulty to them).
  → So we would expect about 7 new bosses at launch and 20 to 30 by the end of an ARR expansion, along with FATE'd open world bosses (should SE keep making these).
  → WoW usually packs about 3 raiding-level tiers per version (1 at release, then 2 more in subsequent patches as more raids are released). It is hard to foresee how many tiers will constitute the average ARR cycle in a given 'version' (or expansion, from [n].0 to [n+1].0), as there is only 1 so far (iLv90), but there's no reason not to assume there won't be as many until 3.0 is released.
• Let's not forget crafting: WoW's expansions have brought a bit less that 1 new 'profession' per expansion on top of new recipes for all existing professions (and a new cap), but crafting is less of a focus in WoW.
  → We can therefore probably expect on average 1 new crafting class per expansion in ARR and a new level cap with new recipes for all existing classes obviously.
• The resource systems are a bit different since WoW's leveling put a definitive obsolescence mark on lower level ingredients and bring in 2 new 'tiers' + one 'rare' (2 kinds of metal or cloth + 1 rare metal spawn or cooldown'ed cloth for instance), whereas ARR tends to make all ingredients somewhat relevant if only as intermediary reagents.
  → So I'd expect new ingredients to gather and farm in an ARR expansion, roughly 2 tiers also, and 1 daily spawn, but not a strict obsolescence of the older ones.
• WoW added 3 races over the course of 4 (soon 5) expansions, a bit less than 1 per expansion in average. Yoshi already stated there's a new race planned fo 3.0.
  → It's reasonable to assume that ARR will follow a comparable schedule, given that races variety are an integral part of the FF lore.

This is how I would picture a foreseeable ARR expansion in terms of amount and type of content, if we are to roughly 'translate' the elements of one to the other.

On a personal note I think that would be pretty acceptable.

[Rhindas]

I think zilart came with samurai, dragoon, ninja? Can't remember what cop introduced, jobs wise (summoner?) but I know for sure toau introduced blue mage, corsair, puppet master. Then wotg introduced scholar and dancer, while adoulin introduced geomancer and rune knights.

So that's 3, 1 (unsure), 3, 2, 2? Hopefully ARR expansion starts with introducing 3 new jobs, or a major update introducing 1 job and then 2 jobs at expansion.

Now that I think about it, that's quite a few jobs pre zilart (6 basic, 5 unlocks). Maybe some of them were from updates.

It's been too long...but I think Summoner was before Zilart. I vaguely remember it being close to what Arcanist is now, a Carby Wrangler. At the very least I know you can unlock the job without the Zilart expansion activated. Chains of Promathia had *zero* jobs added, it was all story and it wasn't very well received at first, depending on which crowd you were in. You're right about the others.

[Nahara]

So 1 job in wow is like 5 jobs in ffxi and 3 in ffxiv. Due to how shallow jobs are with an utter lack of customization in ff mmos.

That's because the classes in a game like WoW HAVE to be customizeable. You can't change your class in WoW. Once you pick it, you're stuck in it forever unless you make a new character, so they give you different ways to play your class so it doesn't get boring. In XI and XIV, you don't have that same limitation, since you can freely switch your class.

In WoW, you change the fighting style, but you can't change the class. In XI/XIV, you can't change the fighting style, but you can change the class.

[sharazisspecial]

That's because the classes in a game like WoW HAVE to be customizeable. You can't change your class in WoW. Once you pick it, you're stuck in it forever unless you make a new character, so they give you different ways to play your class so it doesn't get boring. In XI and XIV, you don't have that same limitation, since you can freely switch your class.

In WoW, you change the fighting style, but you can't change the class. In XI/XIV, you can't change the fighting style, but you can change the class.

You cannot change jobs where it matters.
Those who level alts gets an extra 300 myth per week and 5 coil turns. Due to alts bypassing restrictions. Armory system is flawed and penalizes secondary classes.

[Toystore]

Don't know what you mean, because TBC was heaven. FIVE raids at launch, one intro raid, two small raids, and two full blown raids. The introduction of Heroic dungeons. All culminating in probably the most fun and cool MMO fight I've ever taken part in, Kael Thas in Tempest Keep.

If FFXIV can launch expansions like that, they've got my subscription back.

[Slaxx]

FFXIs second expansion (CoP) introduced NO new jobs. ToAU (#3) brought in 3, WotG (#4) was 2 and SoA (#5) was 2 as well. I won't comment on Zilart (#1) as I got the game with that expansion (like everyone else outside of Japan) and I realy don't feel like doing the research right now (look for Elmer the Pointy - possibly on the Allakhazam FFXI wiki?). Point being saying that "Most expansions gave 3 new jobs in XI." is flat out wrong. The average was 2 (assuming Zilart was 3 - Dragoon/Samurai/Ninja) and one expansion brought no new jobs at all.

Edit: And to be fair FFXI did start with 12 jobs, the 6 basic jobs and then 6 advanced jobs you could unlock once you got any base job to level 30.

[Toystore]

It's worth noting that there was so much to do when TBC came out that virtually nobody complained mid expansion when Hyjal and BT were end game for an entire year before Sunwell. There was just something to do for everyone except maybe the top .01% who had Illidan on farm. I remember it was huge news when a guy sold a warglaives rogue for $6000.

[Nihility]

It's been too long...but I think Summoner was before Zilart. I vaguely remember it being close to what Arcanist is now, a Carby Wrangler. At the very least I know you can unlock the job without the Zilart expansion activated. Chains of Promathia had *zero* jobs added, it was all story and it wasn't very well received at first, depending on which crowd you were in. You're right about the others.

Zilart was Samurai, Ninja, and Summoner just in case anyone's curious
Base game did have 12 jobs though
warrior, black mage, white mage, red mage, thief, monk
paladin, dark knight, dragoon, beastmaster, bard, ranger

[ZohnoReecho]

You cannot change jobs where it matters.
Those who level alts gets an extra 300 myth per week and 5 coil turns. Due to alts bypassing restrictions. Armory system is flawed and penalizes secondary classes.

You level an alt to bypass a cap that will be removed in the future and to get 5 more turns in coil, losing the possibility to lot something that maybe is for your alt instead of your current char job (if you run with a static obviously)? Not counting the necessity of redoing the whole main story for each alt and all the levelling to get cross-class skill, some of which are required by multiple jobs. And farming AK to get the equip for your alt that maybe already dropped on your main.

Thanks but I'll keep my single char.

[LTEvil]

It's worth noting that there was so much to do when TBC came out that virtually nobody complained mid expansion when Hyjal and BT were end game for an entire year before Sunwell. There was just something to do for everyone except maybe the top .01% who had Illidan on farm. I remember it was huge news when a guy sold a warglaives rogue for $6000.

Agreed. SE needs to take notes.