Make FFXIV more like FFXI and less like WoW!

[Sandpark]

The reason a more dangerous world would be an inconvenience is because mobs that can kill you fast if they're not related to a quest or have nothing to drop is just more busywork the average player will have to do just to avoid it and get where they need to be. Having dangerous monsters for the sake of it isn't really good to begin with. People want everyone to engage in the open world more, but this would make people do all they can to avoid it. Didn't FF11 players do a whole bunch of things to avoid getting aggro all the time? So much for open world danger if you go out of your way to avoid everything.

The big point missed is can avoid not will avoid. Ever played a sneaking game like Assassin's Creed or Thief? It feels rewarding to choose whether to engage or avoid using in game systems. But in way you are right. What is the point of sneaking systems in an open world that wants you encased in instances.

I am more afraid of running into quest givers in modern mmos that running into Tiamat in the open world. So much busy work.

[Velhart]

The reason a more dangerous world would be an inconvenience is because mobs that can kill you fast if they're not related to a quest or have nothing to drop is just more busywork the average player will have to do just to avoid it and get where they need to be. Having dangerous monsters for the sake of it isn't really good to begin with. People want everyone to engage in the open world more, but this would make people do all they can to avoid it. Didn't FF11 players do a whole bunch of things to avoid getting aggro all the time? So much for open world danger if you go out of your way to avoid everything.

It was exactly that. Almost no one traveled through the open world like you should. Most people used oils to sneak past enemies to not fight them or used a Chocobo if allowed to. Stuff like that is fun at first, but if you need to get somewhere, it becomes inconvenient extremely fast. No one enjoyed walking back from the jungles trying to sneak past Goblins that could kill you.

Not to mention people were willing to pay WHM and RDM's gil just to teleport them to certain locations. Mages made bank off that. That is because people did not feel like travelling through the world since it took so much time. Even myself paid mages to port me. No one wanted to walk to Xarcabard.

[Skivvy]

It was exactly that. Almost no one traveled through the open world like you should. Most people used oils to sneak past enemies to not fight them or used a Chocobo if allowed to. Stuff like that is fun at first, but if you need to get somewhere, it becomes inconvenient extremely fast. No one enjoyed walking back from the jungles trying to sneak past Goblins that could kill you.

That's a bit of a slippery argument. While trying to survive sneaking through dangerous areas was probably not something that people looked forward to specifically, it adds to the challenge of the game. Adds another layer if you will.

The viewpoint of "it's inconvenient, we don't need it!" can be applied to many things in an MMO. For example, we still have to run quite a bit in this game. It's inconvenient and takes time. The mob packs that we run through barely bat an eye, so what is the point? Perhaps we should be given bot location hacks? Obviously I'm taking that argument to the extreme, but where exactly do you draw the line with things being time wasters and adding to the feel of a game?

Shouldn't the journey be part of the adventure?

[RubyCirha]

Well I meen if we're going there then you could say that wow stole it's stuff from ever quest it's a mmo system that works so people use it nuf said end of story can we close this thread now

[Velhart]

snip

That would only be the case if you had no means of getting past. It is human nature that people want the most convenient way possible to get a task done as efficiently and as fast as possible. People would in fact get sick of traversing through and people rather spend the gil they barely have on oils and powders just to not deal with it.

Content in this game is built upon accessibility, which is a very good thing. Note that accessibility does not mean easy. It means the content is present to those without having to deal with unnecessary crap to engage it. You don't have to go through three zones and kill mobs with 99 Kindred Seals just to do one fight you will likely die to in Ifrit's Cauldron. No, its accessible via Duty Finder, which in turn allows developers to make the fights themselves more interesting and hard. FFXI was a challenging game in it's own right, but the inaccessibility was a huge part of that challenge.

Accessibility means more players can get in on the content. Taking that away will lose customers, absolutely guaranteed.

[Ibi]

The big point missed is can avoid not will avoid. Ever played a sneaking game like Assassin's Creed or Thief? It feels rewarding to choose whether to engage or avoid using in game systems.

In Assassin's Creed or Thief the sneaking around is the actual game play. That's a big part of why people are playing the game in the first place and the game as a whole is designed around it.

In an MMO, having to sneak around is usually just put there as an obstacle to make it take longer to get to the actual game play.

That's a bit of a slippery argument. While trying to survive sneaking through dangerous areas was probably not something that people looked forward to specifically, it adds to the challenge of the game. [...] The viewpoint of "it's inconvenient, we don't need it!" can be applied to many things in an MMO.

FFXI is a poor example of that though, because the only challenge it added was "Do I have enough Silent Oils/Prism Powders/etc. in my inventory?" You'd just put up Sneak and Invisible and ignore the mobs completely.

And as far as inconvenience goes, there's a difference between dealing with inconvenience that's already present and specifically requesting to be further inconvenienced. You can pretty much guarantee that whatever inconvenience someone is requesting, there's going to be a substantial portion of the player base that likes that aspect of the game just the way it is and would really rather not have it be made more difficult/time-consuming/etc.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

That's a bit of a slippery argument. While trying to survive sneaking through dangerous areas was probably not something that people looked forward to specifically, it adds to the challenge of the game. Adds another layer if you will.

The viewpoint of "it's inconvenient, we don't need it!" can be applied to many things in an MMO. For example, we still have to run quite a bit in this game. It's inconvenient and takes time. The mob packs that we run through barely bat an eye, so what is the point? Perhaps we should be given bot location hacks? Obviously I'm taking that argument to the extreme, but where exactly do you draw the line with things being time wasters and adding to the feel of a game?

Shouldn't the journey be part of the adventure?

Not if I have to go through the same area for the millionth time and avoiding the same mobs for the millionth time. Journies are fun as a first experience, not as a chore as routine as your day job.

[Welsper59]

It was exactly that. Almost no one traveled through the open world like you should. Most people used oils to sneak past enemies to not fight them or used a Chocobo if allowed to. Stuff like that is fun at first, but if you need to get somewhere, it becomes inconvenient extremely fast. No one enjoyed walking back from the jungles trying to sneak past Goblins that could kill you.

Not to mention people were willing to pay WHM and RDM's gil just to teleport them to certain locations. Mages made bank off that. That is because people did not feel like travelling through the world since it took so much time. Even myself paid mages to port me. No one wanted to walk to Xarcabard.

Keep in mind that you are talking about the extremes of travel time. When it takes you about 30min just to run from a city to an almost mandatory leveling zone (referring to the first hurdle of getting to Valkurm Dunes), that's when the argument about it being too much trouble holds significant weight. For as much hassle as sneak/invis was to bother with, it was a part of what made the game feel "alive", something you can't quite say the same for others of the genre anymore. Some would argue that a game feels alive when there are a ton of players, and while that is true to a degree, that argument is short sighted because of the fact that it's not a distinguishing factor for the game itself.

If someone were to say XIV is "alive" when there's a ton of people on, then it is the same as saying an old AOL chat room is alive when there's a ton of people. Without the people, can it still feel like the world has a memorable identity for itself? Things you need to watch out for, things you need to do in preparation, etc. XIV doesn't have much ground to hold on that. The lore behind MSQ, dungeons, side quests, etc can be memorable, but that's not exactly what you experience whenever you go out into it.

I mean, think about the introduction of Godbert. There's evidence of his strength, but one particular trophy kill stood out. Why would it stand out for many of us? Because we've encountered the danger behind that monster we've fought in the game (particularly the FATE). The underlying point of having such dangerous mobs in the world is to help build immersion into it. Before the huge nerfs in difficulty to mobs in XI, we never really questioned why people would fear the monsters outside of the safety of the city walls, simply because of the fact you would experience that danger at all times. In a game like XIV however, that sort of thing is ridiculous to the point where it'd be like someone fearing for their life at a typical fly being around.

Being forced to spend time traveling isn't always fun, admittedly, but there are some degrees of necessity out of it. If the entire point of it all is to simply avoid wasting time, we should be allowed to pinpoint locations of the map to travel to. I think that's something that people generally agree is unreasonable. Ask yourself "why?" though. Why do we need to spend time killing trash mobs in a dungeon when there's almost no reason for it at max level? Why make us waste a few minutes pointlessly between bosses over and over? Shouldn't we be able to just skip directly to the bosses once we've already done a dungeon? Likewise to just instantly skip to the point of a map in the game without wasting the minutes going from A to B? It'd help people save a lot of frustration getting to timed gathering nodes, for example. That's all the positives you'd need to justify it, right?

Side note on the Teleport services in XI: That's humorously more attempts at socializing and building a social environment than most servers experience here.

[Velhart]

Not if I have to go through the same area for the millionth time and avoiding the same mobs for the millionth time. Journies are fun as a first experience, not as a chore as routine as your day job.

Not to mention, SE did a pretty fantastic job on the first experience with you having to explore to find the ports for your flying accessibility, the main scenario taking you from place to place. Used narration and certain light incentives for you to explore the areas. Definitely one of Heavensward's better features and what makes Final Fantasy a great series.

snip

What defines "alive" is highly subjective. I think Eorzea feels quite alive. NPC's, FATE's, small towns within large areas, quests, discovering lore. These to myself make a world feel alive. FFXI had some nice areas of it's own and memorable ones, but I feel FFXIV took it to the next step. Alive to me isn't how many dangerous mobs you can put in a area.

Again, it is a subjective opinion. Not saying yours is wrong, but that is what I define as "alive".

[odintius]

Not if I have to go through the same area for the millionth time and avoiding the same mobs for the millionth time. Journies are fun as a first experience, not as a chore as routine as your day job.

People could make the same argument over doing dungeons though, how often we do those for tomes it as much as a chore and as routine as your day job sure it fun first few times, but after millionth time you want in and out as fast as possible. Although the only difference here is you have to fight those mob each and everytime you run it at least in open area you Get an option to avoid them possibly. Adding more to the open world would help add more content though it would be allot and need careful designed and implement properly. /shrug