Why is Yoshi P turning his back on the playerbase that loves this game the most?

[Velhart]

I think Abyssea could work very well in XIV concept. A vast zone, popped targets that drop some tokens and an item to go up in the NM pyramid, until you reach the top for great rewards.
And it would change from the endless token grind.

After all, Abyssea is widely acknowledged as "the day FFXI became casual"

Are they not trying to do this with Diadem?

[Sparktacus]

I think Abyssea could work very well in XIV concept. A vast zone, popped targets that drop some gear tokens and an item to go up in the NM pyramid, until you reach the top for great rewards.
And it would change from the endless daily roulette tomestone grind...

After all, Abyssea is widely acknowledged as "the day FFXI became casual"

It could if gear differentiation and horizontal enhancements were a thing. As of now the best comparison to Abyssea would be Diadem, as much as it is also a comparison to Dynamis.

Unpopular opinion from me... I thought Abyssea was the best thing to happen to that game as someone who would take year long breaks. Not only did it allow catching up with no time-gates, it was fairly easy to solo many things (if you wanted to, like me), and even challenging and fun to solo the harder stuff (or Brew the crap out of it).

[Reynhart]

Are they not trying to do this with Diadem?

I hoped they would, but in Diadem, you have no real structure, no personal objectives. Everyone just go to Dinosaur Island and maul the high level target while secretly hoping the others parties will fall behind to ensure their reward.

In Abyssea, you'd have specific chains of NM for specific rewards, so you planned your expedition with your team. Monsters were popped and claimed only by your alliance, so, no competition and no backstabbing.

I think they could make Diadem it's own Duty Finder category. You could register for a specific isle, up to a full alliance. You could also make sure that each job would at least need one token for each top NM, and those token would be 100% drop. Those tokens could be used to upgrade tome gear, as Relic Materials, crafting meterials...

Basicallly, an open-world 24-man raid with multiples Hunt objectives and no "end" apart from the time limit.

Unpopular opinion from me... I thought Abyssea was the best thing to happen to that game as someone who would take year long breaks.

Abyssea came when boredom was fairly high and it completely shifted the game. It was fresh, it was "fair" and less frustrating than anything FFXI did before.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

It could if gear differentiation and horizontal enhancements were a thing. As of now the best comparison to Abyssea would be Diadem, as much as it is also a comparison to Dynamis.

Unpopular opinion from me... I thought Abyssea was the best thing to happen to that game as someone who would take year long breaks. Not only did it allow catching up with no time-gates, it was fairly easy to solo many things (if you wanted to, like me), and even challenging and fun to solo the harder stuff (or Brew the crap out of it).

I was long tern player and I loved Abyssea

[Pintsized]

I think Abyssea could work very well in XIV concept. A vast zone, popped targets that drop some gear tokens and an item to go up in the NM pyramid, until you reach the top for great rewards.
And it would change from the endless daily roulette tomestone grind...

After all, Abyssea is widely acknowledged as "the day FFXI became casual"

It's also likely that the addition of that 'casual' content so many in this thread seem to despise was the reason FFXI's servers are still going and there is still new content every month, albeit small-scale.

[Reynhart]

It's also likely that the addition of that 'casual' content so many in this thread seem to despise was the reason FFXI's servers are still going and there is still new content every month, albeit small-scale.

I would have stopped FFXI far earlier without Abyssea.

I've posted a full explanation on how this system could be applied to FFXIV (with maybe a few tweaks, I just did that out of boredom at work )

[Athlir]

There are a lot of people who refer to FFXI as a bad game and don't want to play that kind of game.

FFXI is not this kind of game anymore where you're standing around and wait for several hours, or you try to do stuff and fail.
It's a completly different game nowadays. Everything you hated about that game was changed. Movementspeed and traveling is really fast now, they added Home Points to every zone and you can travel between them.

In XI you also grind for the ultimate weapons, but these weapons are unique and have stats which are only found in this specific weapons. For Example: Tizona, the BLU Mythic weapon: It has a 30% chance that 30% of the direct damage you're doing goes directly to your MP --> no MP issues anymore.
In XI it is still worth grinding for ultimate weapons, because they're unique and will NEVER EVER get outdated or useless.

[Athlir]

The Ilvl in 11 is only to reach level 119, the game system allows only lv.99 so with the item level you can level up to 119. And these item levels only affect weapons and Head/body/hands/legs/feet gear. So your Novio Earring from Sea is still valuable nowadays.

There are a lot of people who say they don't want it to be like FFXI for good reasons, but all that bad stuff in FFXI is long gone.
The battle system is much faster nowadays. With my BLU, i can hit as fast as monk's hundred fists with normal attacks.
I just want to point out what FFXI is nowadays. the last expansion "Seekers of Adoulin" is soloable or duoable, like almost all content before SoA. So if you miss a horizontal progression game, go try FFXI nowadays. It's really solo friendly if you just want to relive the old content.

I totally agree with the first post in this thread... there is nothing to do in the game, and with every patch you start grinding again.

[Felis]

I don't think Yoshida is taking the "safe" route, he's taking the "short" one.
Let me explain...and recall some painful memories of my time in XI...

Once upon a time, I was a new player. Like all new players, I reached level 10 and made my way up to the dreaded Valkurm Dunes. It took at least 20 minutes to reach the place, probably dying once or twice in the process (Thus losing XP), 20 more (When lucky) to join a full party, for a one-hour grind (before anyone ragequit and the party dissolving completely), with several more deaths...

In the end, I needed 2 hours, to, maybe, lose progress because the XP loss might be higher than the Xp gained. That's the harsh route.
Now, you add Aetheryte teleport, you remove the need to grind in a full party, you remove the death penalty, and suddenly, I could have gained the same Xp in a mere 30 minute session. That's the 'safe route'.

Aetherite teleport, no full party grind to max level (Leve system -> a full party only made it faster, but was not required) and no death penalty (except equip duration down and weakness status) were ideas that Tanaka brought into XIV
Yoshida only reused it in ARR

[Chalbee]

The thing is with the current content, it not rewarding as what you do is outdated as soon as next patch comes out. A person could even skip a entire patch and play the game like that other content didn't even exist.

I like this game overall, but this is true. I was very slow at gear progression, and I never finished my Lore gear set. Now that the Scripture gear is here, I don't have any reason to. I saw it brought up on another thread, but the way it is now, there are MULTIPLE tiers of obsolete gear, several of which require a tome grind. It is frustrating. I feel kind of bad for the sprouts in my FC because they now have so much work ahead of them to reach a relevant iLvl. SE has set up a moving goal post and I feel that every group of new players has more work ahead of them than the previous group.