FUTURE OF FFXIV - I hope different from now

[Bizniztyme]

I totally admit to being in the minority.

But, popularity almost never reflects quality. Rather, it just means you've hit the lowest common denominator -- eg. 'Frozen', Two and a Half Men, Miller Lite, Taco Bell, Wallmart, Dr. Phil, Public Education, etc.

Case in point: Zynga games have far more popularity than ARR. Would you prefer SE adopt their business model for the future of ARR?

LOL, the HIPSTER mentality. Too funny. Go on with your bad self. Who's better then you?

[Zantetsuken]

There has to be objectives that people can do at end game that are rewarding experiences. Yet gating all meaningful rewards behind the hardest content were only a very select few can tackle it the first month is a not the answer to longevity. Nor is it making all secondary and meaningless rewards a painful grind that feels like a punishment..

I'd even disagree with the idea that ARR provides players with meaningful rewards. If the game DID actually provide meaningful rewards, it would take much of the sting out of grind, RNG, or punishingly difficult content.


But gear rewards in ARR can neatly be summed up as = iLvl

To use (75capped) FFXI as an example, it was a total pain to camp, claim and defeat mobs that dropped items like Joyeuse, E-bow, Kraken club, etc.. but at the same time, those rewards were powerful, prestigious, and well worth the effort when you finally got them. They didn't have an expiration date either (at least not for many years). The time you spent would pay off in making battles easier and allowing for more creative builds.

What gear is worth the effort in ARR? Not only is it all iLvl vanilla, but every bit of endgame gear in ARR is one patch away from obsolescence. Furthermore, the even the work you put into obtaining it will be completely diminished by the subsequent nerfing of the content. Does it help in battles? Not much. In fact, depending on the fight, excessive DPS can actually make it worse.

So ARR really doesn't have any meaningful rewards... and all of it's rewards have an expiration date.



BTW, I'd add the following to your list of EC videos:

DEPTH vs COMPLEXITY, PERFECT IMBALANCE

[Zantetsuken]

Pablo Picasso's Old Woman (1901)



Bouguereau's Meditation (1901)

Bouguereau's work was ridiculed as being old-fashioned by the art community of his time. It took half a century after his death for his sublime brilliance and mastery to be recognized (his works now fetching $10mil+)


Picasso, on the other hand, was highly regarded in his own lifetime and still is today -- even with stiff competition from similar works like:

LMAO. You think Frozen isn't quality?

I'll give it marks for quality in production (the snow simulations are impressive), but that's it. The movie is full of terrible plot holes, lazy writing, disjointed musical numbers, and obvious merchandising ploys (Trolls, anyone?). It's as though the film never made it past it's first draft before the Disney marketing team was given control of it.

'Tangled' was a far, FAR superior movie, in cohesion, writing, plot, artistry, an even *gasp* music (esp. when soundtracks are taken as a whole). Nice comparison HERE

[Hewenttojared]

If you were a long-time fan of a band. (Nickelback, in your case), had purchased tickets to see them live, and only found out after the concert had started that the entire set list was repeating a cover of "Let it Go" 14x (because its SOOOO popular right now!!) , I think you'd find yourself in the same situation.


I've enjoyed the FF series since the FFI on the NES. I stuck through the entire FFXIV 1.0 debacle because I believed in SE's commitment to the FF franchise and to its fans. Trust me, If I didn't want this game to be better, I'd wash my hands of this whole mess and walk away.

As I've already paid for my time, I thought I'd lobby the community here to see if other people were interested in things like exploration, adventure, discovery, and meaningful decision making in this game. *Or have all those people already left?

TBH, I'd re-sub today if any of the following were even announced, as it would indicate a step in the right direction:

1) The addition of a true 'support' role. (with corresponding classes/jobs)
2) A ceiling on iLvl and subsequent introduction of gear with ability boosts and other interesting stats.
3) Significant randomness introduced into all boss fights, dungeon runs, drops etc.
4) New, more wide open zones populated with mobs with levels higher than the cap.

Any of these changes would signal to me that the developers want to take the safety-rails off of this game and make it a place for adventure and exploration -- a wild and living MMO fantasy world rather than a sanitized theme-park for team jump-ropers.

Sorry, the sentence of my first post was structurally whack. I'm saying that while I would regard Nickleback as the same level of garbage as the content of your list, I choose to spend my time listening to things that I don't think are horrible. Obviously there is a difference in that you have loyalty for this series as a whole, but it still seems that you simply don't like this game. I'm not saying that I don't want to see it improved or that I'm afraid of change, but I don't wish it was a different game.

I totally agree with your wishlist, but I still think a lot of people found the whole jump-roping term a little overly-profound after they read that blog. Don't get me wrong, random stuff is fun and I want more, but I don't know why people are acting like they've never seen a boss move in patterns. I've been been fighting scripted bosses since my first Bowser kill in '91. It's been pretty common ever since...

[DragonFlyy]

If you say something like that means that you do not know what the Raid Finder.
Blizzard have complex mechanics for PVE, or at least more than FFXIV, but in any case are made to ensure that we can deal with in the Raid Finder. I'm not talking about weakening the second Coil, who would do normally could do it, who in the raid finder too, but dropping weakened objects.
However, we do not bring the conversation to other games,and in any case the ones you mentioned have much more user than FFXIV.

The raid finder in WoW was a joke. All they did was take already easy to do raids, and make them faceroll (ie. so simple, it only took about 5-6 people to pay attention in a 25 man "raid"). Duty Finder is the exact same thing except it doesn't nerf the content so the lazy can complete with little to no work.

[BlackHaloJT]

[QUOTE=Zantetsuken;2229205]
ARR's player toxicity is a largely side-effect of the devs creating an overly "accessible" and simultaneously an unforgivingly rigid game.

This game design is cheap fodder for the masses. It attracts the most uncreative and self-entitled types of players, and then spoon-feeds them a regular diet of gaudy trinkets to reinforce their pathetic delusions of grandeur.

Even for all of the shortcomings 1.0 had, I always had faith that SE would make good on their promise and deliver a fantastic FF MMO experience (at least on par with FFXI). ARR had tremendous promise, the graphics are gorgeous, the UI fantastic, the world is rich and detailed... but in the process of fixing FFXIV Yoshi P gutted the game of any sense of exploration, adventure. and meaningful decision making.

FFXIV was transformed from a massive and relatively immersive (if flawed) FF world, into a theme-park parody of it's former self.


This is the truth people do not want to hear.
They want things sugarcoated like this game has turn out to be a Candy land theme park. I had high hopes for ARR after sticking around since 1.0 until the end. Yoshi-P the savior that started turning this game around back then became Yoshi-P the corporate puppet.

This game is predictable and flat out boring. They took a working in progress game from 1.23 then gutted it slapped some new IU, graphics and called it a day. Like I said from day 1 of ARR launch until now I would love for them to prove me wrong. Prove that this game is indeed the future, a game with immersion, exploration, adventure, and a sense of purpose. But instead they proved me right with their stale innovation. Wait for it wait for it.... yea keep waiting for expansion.. I am sick of waiting. I have been waiting since 2010.

[Bizniztyme]

This game is predictable and flat out boring. They took a working in progress game from 1.23 then gutted it slapped some new IU, graphics and called it a day. Like I said from day 1 of ARR launch until now I would love for them to prove me wrong. Prove that this game is indeed the future, a game with immersion, exploration, adventure, and a sense of purpose. But instead they proved me right with their stale innovation. Wait for it wait for it.... yea keep waiting for expansion.. I am sick of waiting. I have been waiting since 2010.

Again, let me reiterate. 10k players compared to a few hundred thousand. There is a reason people are playing this version and many considered the previous a pile of dung. You were not right about anything but they were right about scrapping that pile of dung.

[CrystalRainbow]

I play with my wife and we have no issue progressing through content.. We never static and rarely use voice which our FC uses all the time.

So sorry the game doesn't fit your play style, but the fact that you have almost all jobs at 50 kind of put you in the minority of players.

[BlackHaloJT]

Again, let me reiterate. 10k players compared to a few hundred thousand. There is a reason people are playing this version and many considered the previous a pile of dung. You were not right about anything but they were right about scrapping that pile of dung.

I could really care less about your 10k figures and 2 million player stats. Reiterate that. Scrapping your so called pile of dung and making a bigger pile of dung is all they did. Take your 10k when it was only playable on pc compared to now and cry about it. I don't care. 35% are probably RMT, 35% more are probably inactive. Then you have the rest of your toxic percent left in your rehashed pile of dung game.

[Rex]

I'll give it marks for quality in production (the snow simulations are impressive), but that's it. The movie is full of terrible plot holes, lazy writing, disjointed musical numbers, and obvious merchandising ploys (Trolls, anyone?). It's as though the film never made it past it's first draft before the Disney marketing team was given control of it.

'Tangled' was a far, FAR superior movie, in cohesion, writing, plot, artistry, an even *gasp* music (esp. when soundtracks are taken as a whole). Nice comparison HERE

It's one thing to favor Tangled over Frozen. I just might like Tangled more myself. But it's in the numbers and Frozen has been compared to Lion King in popularity. Because you don't enjoy it does not mean the movie is unsuccessful. It is truly a work of art. The amount of work put into the snow and ice is outstanding. The animation is beautiful (It's the same team that did Tangled and Wreck-it Ralph, after all) And the music is a sensation across the world. Not to mention "Let It Go" got an Oscar, and the entire soundtrack as a whole went thirteen non-consecutive weeks at number one. A record held by Titanic since 1998. I mean come on.

And man, I just noticed your sig now too. I hope you're not actually that conceited...