We Really Need To Talk About The State And Path Of FFXIV

[Bourne_Endeavor]

a) Yes you can. People have been playing some games for decades and even centuries now. As an example, chess does exist since 1200 after JC. Also, even today, people play old school video games that were very well designed, despite not having any "rewards".

You do realize Chess is a complete different game? Can we stop with these asinine apple to orange comparisons. If my "vision" is so uninspired, why can't yours actually provide examples from the genre we're playing in rather than making pointless strawmen?

b) As already stated in my previous post, there must be various situations with various ways to tackle it. Because there is only basically only one gameplay situation in the current FFXIV, there can only be one matched solution (eg homogeneized classes). But it is a misconception to assume alternatives aren't possible, especially by making the game less battle centric than what current FFXIV is.

Care to posit a few? You have sprouted plenty of hot air but I see nothing tangible except "FFXIV is boring. Change it to what I'd like!" Furthermore, I have never said an alternative approach didn't exist. I merely criticised your ideas. And I'll criticise another seeing you mention gameplay. Focusing less on battle content will inevitably drive away people who came to FFXIV for it. Considering virtually all successful MMOs rely on combat as their core feature, I sincerely doubt reducing it will have positive results. Unless you wanted FFXIV: The Sims.

c) Fates have always been terrible in FFXIV and the only reasons people used to do it were xp and atmas, but it support what I m basically saying : in FFXIV, nobody would do anything if there weren't any reward because the gameplay is lacking. Would you see people in pagos if there weren't any rewards ? No you won't, and that's why there is a problem.

And you don't think people play games to achieve something. To borrow your Chess example earlier, the "reward" is beating your opponent. If FFXIV made a decent PvP system in lieu of gimmick garbage, they may have something worthwhile. You cite Pagos yet ignore the chief complaints. People aren't saying "less battle content!" They want more varied objectives—many of which include killing things. Quests, leves, hunting log and frequent NM spawns. FATEs are considered boring because FFXIV's combat itself is basic at its core. Once you incorporate mechanic, that's where it begins to shine. Unfortunately, the devs have focused less on those and aren't innovating the way they ought to. Curiously, the most popular request from players is Mythic+ styled dungeons. Funny, that's battle centric. It's almost like people want good battle centric content not less altogether.

d) there are several ways to do that, by making daily quests asking you to find one particular monster accros the lighthouse, by making the lighthouse some sort of places where players would have to complete various quests, etc. There would be endless ways to accomplish that, ways that used to exist in games such as FFXI, FFXII, everquest or more broadly tabletop RPGs. And regarding your concern about the so called "time efficiency" of exploration, it could be easily solved by getting rid of that "hamster wheel" reward structure.

And then people have no reason to touch it. Putting quests to find a specific monsters with nothing but the "fun of exploration" isn't going to work. Look no further than Diadem. The whole concept was designed around an area we could explore. No one cared to. Removing the "hamster wheel" isn't going to make them care. It will simply have them quit. Quests are all well and good, but they lack longevity. Once you complete a quest, it's over. A MMO requires content to last months. None of your suggestions take this into account. Likewise, you once again assume it would have a huge turn around on entertainment. If so, why has Perform fallen out of favor? Here you have something purely roleplay driven. No rewards, just a side activity you can partake in at your leisure. And it's less popular than Ultimate.

e) FFX is indeed a single player games, but FFXI isn't. And FFXI is built upon a very strong battle system, gameplay wise. It would have been possible to make a game like FFXI without all the associated timesinks that were implemented in order to artificially make the players subscribe. As an example, the depth of the group centric battle system can be preserved with the trust system, that allows players to progress as if they were in a group but without having to wait hours to find one.

No, it wouldn't. FFXI existed over fifteen years ago. That style of gameplay has long been considered archaic, so much so even SE themselves shifted towards more action oriented gameplay since. At its basic core, FFXI was an extremely grind heavy MMO, and coincidentally boasted less active players than FFXIV does currently at its peak. FFXIV is hardly without flaws, but turning it into FFXI won't accomplish anything except a further disgruntled playerbase. We've been how people respond to grind heavy content. And your example essentially describes Duty Finder except the hassle of trying to find people on my server has been removed.

f) there are no such thing as "old school" or "modern" design when it comes to game design. It is a forgery coming from the PR teams of blizzard when they started to decide game design was overrated (but it did eventually backfire, and hard). Furthermore, I didn't suggest anything, as it is pointless to give any ideas here because SE doesn't give a damn.

That is flat out false. If it weren't, games wouldn't move away or entirely abandon systems which worked in the past. For example, Halo revolutionized the matchmaking system to such an extent, it's tantamount to career suicide if you were release a competitive FPS without some variation of it. You see this in all forms of media, be it sports, video games or film. What worked several years prior won't necessary capture audiences the same way it once did. Blizzard's mistake is they went too far away from their core design—something you ironically are advocating SE do with FFXIV. WoW's two recent expansions, Legion and BoA have both been incredibly well received despite being "modernized." They kept what worked and innovated.

And by the way, WoW is practically all battle centric. Seems to be working quite well for them.