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

[HyoMinPark]

If we take real life oceans in this, then we could also argue that it would be fine if they released a whole desert zone without anything in it too. The problem for me was, that the benchmark showed a ruby sea full of life. A kraken breaking free and "chasing" the player with its arms, small crabs around the mining points that look curious. It just felt so alive and beautiful..and then you get into the game, see the shipwrecks, the corals and one (or two) lonely sharks. Sometimes a little swarm of fish but nothing more. I am not saying that they should have added more structure. But it just feels so liveless.

Basically this.

With regards to swimming, it feels very much like fluff content, and I almost wonder if that was the intention. What with Yoshida’s more recent interview about how they feel they have done most of what “modern MMOs” can do in terms of features, so they want to start working on more RP-like features to make the world feel more lived in. I don’t know, but that sounds almost like flying and swimming will never see any sort of engaging aspects added to them.

[Claviusnex]

Basically this.

With regards to swimming, it feels very much like fluff content, and I almost wonder if that was the intention. What with Yoshida’s more recent interview about how they feel they have done most of what “modern MMOs” can do in terms of features, so they want to start working on more RP-like features to make the world feel more lived in. I don’t know, but that sounds almost like flying and swimming will never see any sort of engaging aspects added to them.

Swimming should have had more integration with land based activities beyond gathering. It is almost like they couldn't figure out how to allow combat in water with the way they force players into bubbles.


Yoshida's comments about having done everything implies to me neither he nor the development team has any fresh ideas on where to take the game. This more or less reinforces my opinion the only way forward for FFXIV is for Yoshida to step down for new blood from outside. I'm not sure Yoshida was the visionary everyone thinks he was and that he was more or less someone who could successfully plagiarize other games. Now that those sources have dried up he has nowhere to go. Yes he took a badly broken game and fixed it but that was largely done by using other game's formulas. If he truly wants to keep the game moving forward I think he needs to get back to having engaging and full story lines that integrate open world and instanced content as these were always the game's strong points. Allowing for them to be non-linear and multi-path would be a plus.

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Vast oceans tend to not have much in the way of anything besides ocean and the odd island or in this case an archipelago. Even a real world globe would show that.

That is true but why force combat into bubbles of dry land? It should not have been that hard to figure out how to support combat in water.