FFXIV better stop doing what WoW's doing, because its losing millions of subs.

[Miya_Carbuncle]

I tried the game again a few months back, because unlike in FFXIV ARR, I can turn into a kitty in WoW lol. I love animal morphing powers.

The story was... awful and hard to understand (which is a shame because the cinematics on youtube really hyped it up for me), the novelty of sending my NPCs out and waiting for them to come back was lost on me pretty quickly, the garrisons are uninteresting because there's little to no customization (I expected it to be kinda like a housing system), and I don't care at all for the LFG system. Incredibly easy boss battles for weak gear. I prefer FFXIV ARR's duty finder way of doing things, especially when I work retail (usually nights) so having a static raid group is almost impossible for me with my schedule.

I didn't and still don't care about the gating system, so I can assure you it's not why I quit. If anything it has always made sense for me to gate content with gear. I also find it ignorant that people are brushing aside the actual reasons as to why people quit WoW pretty much with, "Oh well people are just bored from playing so long." I only played for about a month or two after being away from the game for a couple years or so, lol. It's not from playing too much or a need to play something new.

[Riardon]

WoW is pretty pretty old now. It's too old and tired. It's near the end of the product life cycle. I don't say it will completely die it won't. But it won't be the same from now on. FFXIV is newer prettier has more frequent updates an increasing healthy and stable population, devs are listening to customers and there is communication. No they didn't got everything right but who ever did in the gaming industry? Nobody. There will be always issue here and there. I think FFXIV has great potential and already proved that. I personally think they need to ramp up the development and increase a bit their budget. PS3 is holding the game back. It's a too weak console and modern Desktop PC's and PS4 are capable of great things. Till now I'm really happy with this game and I always recommend it to my friends. Till now we got many patches, a great storyline which is currently the best of all MMORPG's, a great Expansion, DX11 on PC's, EU datacenter is officially confirmed and coming soon.

[Cakekizy]

I stopped playing WoW when I started FFXIV, but what made me finally cancel sub was the flying debacle.

[Perilos]

The Gating is removed from WoW. I played it for 10 years. FFXIV is like Classic/BC WoW. And it is incredible fun.
If you remove the gating, people can get everything asap. And people want everything asap. This leads to less time sink and people quit faster. It's in a perfect spot at the moment.

The moment everyone can have everything in the lowest time as possible, they will do and get bored.

[Havenae]

They removed things ppl enjoyed and made comments that ppl don't know how to have fun and only our way is allowed.

You mean like Square Enix kind of does?
Minus the arrogance and the comments that's kind of what I gather from this game. You're supposed to subscribe to what they think is fun. not the other way around. Which is a stupid way to design any sort of game.

I'm sorry but I tend to agree with the OP here. Yes this is a themepark, and with that there comes a certain degree of controlling your experience. But SE has things a little too tightly controlled I think. There has to be a balance of freedom and things that are 'on rails' so that you do what you are interested in and perhaps you get a nudge in that direction but you can't make the player feel forced into it. In FFXIV I feel as if I'm forced quite often into a certain direction.

The Gating is removed from WoW. I played it for 10 years. FFXIV is like Classic/BC WoW. And it is incredible fun.
If you remove the gating, people can get everything asap. And people want everything asap. This leads to less time sink and people quit faster. It's in a perfect spot at the moment.

The moment everyone can have everything in the lowest time as possible, they will do and get bored.

Gonna disagree. Vanilla and BC WoW, while some what gated were nothing close to the extent that FFXIV does it. Also timesink != good game. If your design is so shallow that once you give people freedom they quit playing, then you didn't have much of a game to begin with. Gating and time sinks aren't necessary to retain a playerbase. There are plenty of games that prove this.

WoW being one, they had nearly 13m subscribers at the time of WotLK and pretty much nothing was gated...
EvE Online being another, full on sandbox, been around for years. Gives players untethered freedom to do as they please still maintains a healthy playerbase.
SWG another full sandbox, complete freedom. closed because they lost their license with Lucas Arts but was successful until that point.
Everquest, FFXI, and so on and so on...

Some of these have some hefty timesinks in some places, I'll grant you. Most have very little if any gating. But FFXIV is the only MMROPG I've seen in nearly 20 years where they think players should do timesinks AND be extremely gated with content.

This whole idea that if you dont keep players on a short leash, they'll quit... is bullshit. It's rubbish and it's extremely short sighted. It just doesn't add up to what else is out there.

[Gilthas]

You mean like Square Enix kind of does?
Minus the arrogance and the comments that's kind of what I gather from this game. You're supposed to subscribe to what they think is fun. not the other way around. Which is a stupid way to design any sort of game.

This isn't a defense of SE, but rather a defense of all game developers.

Read the forums and you'll easily find players that want things that are the direct opposite of what other players want. So it's not exactly easy for developers to see in which direction they should take the game in. Then there's also the issue that there can also be things that a lot of players want but that are detrimental to the game. Basically, stuff isn't that simple.

[Felis]

snip

Almost every content in FF VII is locked behind mainstory procession. Look how many boxes got sold and will be sell with the coming remake.

Locked content / areas behind mainstory procession is nothing new in FF games.

Want to cross that broken bridge? Process in the story until it get repaired (most time you have to rescue someone for it, be it a princess or a goblin).
Want to do some mini games? Process in the story until you reach the area where you learn it.

[Kuwaitum]

Positive or Negative is a perspective thing depends upon the players themselves as Morticia Addams said: “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

For instance, for players with limited 2-3 hrs a day, the lockout won't be an issue. In fact its a blessing that they can keep a step or two behind mid-hardcore players.
As for players that play 12-16 hrs a day, the lockout is a disaster! an obstacle that holds them at bay from a dream come true.

Everything is designed to be a 'grind' in this game; leveling, gears, gathering, crafting, achievements, and relics. its a method of extending the game life as the income (subscription).
Yes, SE is balancing between nerf/buff content in perspective of the players inflow and feedback.

I'm not defending SE, but how can we ask SE to do more content if we wrap up a 3, 6, and 10 months patches/expansions in mere few days?

[Waliel]

WoW is just plain boring. Even to "casuals" like myself. Leveling felt pointless because you were rushed through it so fast. All these pretty zones and interesting characters? No time to do those because it's time to go to the next zone!

That was the biggest complaint my friend had when he tried WoW. He outleveled the current zone and half of the next one after only getting to midway point in the quest chains, and some of those chains are very good.

I actually don't understand why FFXIV community has the mentality that every dungeon and story trial has to be finished on first try, this is probably the first MMO where I don't wipe in new dungeons when they release them.. and honestly it feels bad. I want to wipe more, not only on savage raids.

To quote another friend of mine: "Everything should be very hard, but I should still be able to beat it on the first try. Getting gear should take very long, but I should still be able to get it in a day. Me. Memememimimimimi."

[Reynhart]

To quote another friend of mine: "Everything should be very hard, but I should still be able to beat it on the first try. Getting gear should take very long, but I should still be able to get it in a day. Me. Memememimimimimi."

And the Dev Team yields...
Look at Steps of Faith... At last, a trial that required a little more thinking than "Kill the big bad guy !".
"Waa, waa, too hard ! Nerf ! Nerf ! No, I don't know the strat but I don't have to, I'm paying !"