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

[Ranhansha]

----Disclaimer: This is my opinion and personal experience.----
I feel they are wasting resources on stuff that is not really necessary and that they take ideas from people, try to be original and create something new and end up with something weird that no one asked for.

One of the clearest examples is the Gold Saucer, which offers different minigames where people can do something else besides farming and raiding. The problem is most of these games are not fun and none of them have real impact on the "main" content and progression of your character. You can either get a couple of mounts, glamour and some cards for a really restrictive version of Triple Triad. Also, why is TT so restrictive? Let me play whatever I want after I overcome certain challenges and thresholds. Give us lots of cards even if many of them are clones with different images. That way I would be able to play the one I like the most. Let us create our own tournaments or choose the rules. Give us cards through different methods and not simply having to challenge the same character over 200 times.

I think minions are one of the most neglected features while also being related to what I have already mentioned. I mean, people wanted "Pokemon" and they gave us LoV, which took huge amounts of resources and is there to rot in a forgotten corner of the Gold Saucer because no one plays it. It is boring, slow and you don't really get to enjoy your pets. The way WoW did it allows people to go hunt creatures and explore the maps while battling them, plus you have short, dynamic, engaging minigames which can also be challenging. You can also create tournaments (pvp or pve) and you can fill the maps with npcs and minions. LoV is content no one seems to like or remember that doesn't even offer enough incentives to be played.

On the other hand, I feel things like the upcoming mannequin seem more focused on pleasing some Japanese players and the clothes sure look fancy on them, but how does that solve any of the issues the game has? How many people are going to enjoy that feature? How many of those are going to really enjoy it and not just have the mannequins because "meh, I have to do something"?
Perform is nice too, but what's the amount of players using it? Did we need so many instruments? I feel having a person playing the PotC theme in Limsa is not worth the investment.

Some of these features seem to be kind of related to role playing, but then again, how many people do really RP? How does it help to create a better game overall and help XIV compete with other games? Why don't they focus their role-playing efforts on filling the maps with npcs, stories, interesting side-quests, areas in dungeons with information, books, npcs, special creatures or whatever. I mean, it is a fantasy MMO and I think someone who joins this game to RP would be interested in adventuring and fantasy stuff. After all, you can tend to Habbo or Second Life to just sit there and talk to people about whatever you want.

I won't say much about the Diadem or Eureka because it has been discussed at length everywhere, but I think it's terribly boring and a failure as one of the main highlights of the current expansion. I read once again it wasn't what people asked for so I guess it received well-deserved backslash.

Finally, I totally agree with the op on the empty maps idea. I already mentioned minions (and NPCs related to those) but you can also add different NPCs to expand the lore or for RP purposes, fixed weekly auctions like the ones in Treno (FF IX), Triple Triad challenges, new and unique squadron members, caves with minigames or different encounters or small groups of monsters with special mechanics and fun content like they did with Uznair, treasure hunting similar to the on in WoW where you can get interesting gear , glamour, minions, materials, or cards. Right now you simply explore the map during the MSQ, to get the aether currents and sometimes for the sightseeing logs, which give you 10k exp and in the best cases a nice spot to take a screenshot. Make your world alive! If I level my chocobo (and my racing chocobo, which I had to breed) make them useful somewhere else. Make my effort meaningful. I just thought you could use it to find the treasures I have just mentioned. This is also stuff you can do with new players.

"A friend has just started playing? Go do this content and learn about the world together. Help them get some treasures with useful gear (Xp boosts, sets, glamour, whatever), minons to fight you, or cards for your TT duels. Try to solve cooperative puzzles or race against them in the Azim Steppe. Have snowball fight in Coerthas to unlock something, even if it's just a beautiful little cave with some lore where people can take hundreds of screenshots. FF has always been about the world, its story and its characters!
I would take any of these options instead of a mannequin I can dress or being able to glamour Kurenai.

All in all, I think many aspects of the game seem underdeveloped or "undercooked" and that devs just stopped halfway through the process because they didnt want to risk it, weren't sure about their job or want to give players a bit of everything while not refining anything.

Probably lots of typos and a bit confusing (sorry), but I'm really sleepy now and simply wanted to express some of my ideas.

[Ruf]

----Disclaimer: This is my opinion and personal experience.----
I feel they arewasting resources on stuff that is not really necessary and that they take ideas from people, try to be original and create something new and end up with something weird that no one asked for.

One of the clearest examples is the Gold Saucer, which offers different minigames where people can do something else besides farming and raiding. The problem is most of these games are not fun and none of them have real impact on the "main" content and progression of your character. You can either get a couple of mounts, glamour and some cards for a really restrictive version of Triple Triad. Also, why is TT so restrictive? Let me play whatever I want after I overcome certain challenges and thresholds. Give us lots of cards even if many of them are clones with different images. That way I would be able to play the one I like the most. Let us create our own tournaments or choose the rules. Give us cards through different methods and not simply having to challenge the same character over 200 times.

I think minions are one of the most neglected features while also being related to what I have already mentioned. I mean, people wanted "Pokemon" and they gave us LoV, which took huge amounts of resources and is there to rot in a forgotten corner of the Gold Saucer because no one plays it. It is boring, slow and you don't really get to enjoy your pets. The way WoW did it allows people to go hunt creatures and explore the maps while battling them, plus you have short, dynamic, engaging minigames which can also be challenging. You can also create tournaments (pvp or pve) and you can fill the maps with npcs and minions. LoV is content no one seems to like or remember that doesn't even offer enough incentives to be played.

On the other hand, I feel things like the upcoming mannequin seem more focused on pleasing some Japanese players and the clothes sure look fancy on them, but how does that solve any of the issues the game has? How many people are going to enjoy that feature? How many of those are going to really enjoy it and not just have the mannequins because "meh, I have to do something"?
Perform is nice too, but what's the amount of players using it? Did we need so many instruments? I feel having a person playing the PotC theme in Limsa is not worth the investment.

Some of these features seem to be kind of related to role playing, but then again, how many people do really RP? How does it help to create a better game overall and help XIV compete with other games? Why don't they focus their role-playing efforts on filling the maps with npcs, stories, interesting side-quests, areas in dungeons with information, books, npcs, special creatures or whatever. I mean, it is a fantasy MMO and I think someone who joins this game to RP would be interested in adventuring and fantasy stuff. After all, you can tend to Habbo or Second Life to just sit there and talk to people about whatever you want.

I won't say much about the Diadem or Eureka because it has been discussed at length everywhere, but I think it's terribly boring and a failure as one of the main highlights of the current expansion. I read once again it wasn't what people asked for so I guess it received well-deserved backslash.

Finally, I totally agree with the op on the empty maps idea. I already mentioned minions (and NPCs related to those) but you can also add different NPCs to expand the lore or for RP purposes, fixed weekly auctions like the ones in Treno (FF IX), Triple Triad challenges, new and unique squadron members, caves with minigames or different encounters or small groups of monsters with special mechanics and fun content like they did with Uznair, treasure hunting similar to the on in WoW where you can get interesting gear , glamour, minions, materials, or cards. Right now you simply explore the map during the MSQ, to get the aether currents and sometimes for the sightseeing logs, which give you 10k exp and in the best cases a nice spot to take a screenshot. Make your world alive! If I level my chocobo (and my racing chocobo, which I had to breed) make them useful somewhere else. Make my effort meaningful. I just thought you could use it to find the treasures I have just mentioned. This is also stuff you can do with new players.

"A friend has just started playing? Go do this content and learn about the world together. Help them get some treasures with useful gear (Xp boosts, sets, glamour, whatever), minons to fight you, or cards for your TT duels. Try to solve cooperative puzzles or race against them in the Azim Steppe. Have snowball fight in Coerthas to unlock something, even if it's just a beautiful little cave with some lore where people can take hundreds of screenshots. FF has always been about the world, its story and its characters!
I would take any of these options instead of a mannequin I can dress or being able to glamour Kurenai.

All in all, I think many aspects of the game seem underdeveloped or "undercooked" and that devs just stopped halfway through the process because they didnt want to risk it, weren't sure about their job or want to give players a bit of everything while not refining anything.

Probably lots of typos and a bit confusing (sorry), but I'm really sleepy now and simply wanted to express some of my ideas.

I also think that, in ff7 the basketball machine was super awesome i do not quite think its nearly as enjoyable on xiv, I had hopes that triple triad would allow us to exchange cards in between players (win or lose in between two agreeing persons) & that we wouldnt get soo many deck limitations.

Lord of vermillion? I would be one of the first players to play if it was somewhat fixed but the only time i ever tryed it with a gamepad \controller i got stuck on tutorial for the whole duration untill it timed me out (30minutes) because buttons wouldnt work & I did not understand how to play it.

Chocobo races could also be different to make it more exciting & as far as ff9 goes for treasure maps i feel that while xiv system already did something nice with treasure maps, chocobo digging could of been part of it just as I wish we could fight while on chocobo saddles with mount actions on a real scale instead of some rare occasions (Althought chocobo jousting would be great if an event was created for it).

[Alleo]

----Disclaimer: This is my opinion and personal experience.----
I feel they are wasting resources on stuff that is not really necessary and that they take ideas from people, try to be original and create something new and end up with something weird that no one asked for.

On the other hand, I feel things like the upcoming mannequin seem more focused on pleasing some Japanese players and the clothes sure look fancy on them, but how does that solve any of the issues the game has? How many people are going to enjoy that feature? How many of those are going to really enjoy it and not just have the mannequins because "meh, I have to do something"?
Perform is nice too, but what's the amount of players using it? Did we need so many instruments? I feel having a person playing the PotC theme in Limsa is not worth the investment.

I agree with you, it just often feels like they need to reinvent the wheel again which often makes things complicated. LoV, chocobo dyeing and TT are quite good examples. (TT more about how tedious it can be to get all the cards, especially since many are behind content that has nothing to do with playing the game and restricting our decks while the NPCs have none such restrictions)

People did want mannequins for the houses but I am not sure if they have wanted such a deep system with the ability to buy them. IMO it was more about having something in the house that you can use to show some gear. I mean its cool but how much work was put into the extra part of being able to buy it there? Especially since you can only do that if you own a house.

Perform is another feature where even Yoshida said that a bit too much work was put into. Like Soken wanted it to be perfect. Its nice to have such a feature in it for all those that like doing music but I am still a bit surprised how they released it and then one patch later already patched it up because it was not good enough and continue to work on this. Cant we just have a complete polished mini feature that is good enough when it releases and after that does not need even more time on it? Because who knows what got moved to be able to take all the time for that.

Again I am not saying that we should not have such features but they should not be the main point of a patch or take too much work, especially if big points like Longliving fun content, glamour catalogue, better housing and other parts are still not solved.

[Ruinfeild]

Some of these features seem to be kind of related to role playing, but then again, how many people do really RP?

There are a lot of us out there. Sure we may not number the amount of just pure PvE players but we are just as passionate about the game.

How does it help to create a better game overall and help XIV compete with other games?

This could be just from how I see it, but RPers tend to be pretty passionate when it comes to how gear looks, the story, decoration, lore, etc. As for being able to compete to other games, I like to believe that a good number of those subs are from people who RP and from what I noticed in my time with games like WoW, Tera, Guild Wars, etc, Rper's tend to stick around longer (more so when they find a good group of people) than those who just do PvE, complete the content, then have nothing else to do otherwise.

Why don't they focus their role-playing efforts on filling the maps with npcs, stories, interesting side-quests, areas in dungeons with information, books, npcs, special creatures or whatever. I mean, it is a fantasy MMO and I think someone who joins this game to RP would be interested in adventuring and fantasy stuff. After all, you can tend to Habbo or Second Life to just sit there and talk to people about whatever you want.

I am gonna assume you don't RP. Filling the map with NPC's, side-quest's, and everything else you listed doesn't really do much for us who role-play. Yes they are fun to do and they add stuff to the world but that is all temporary. Even for those who don't RP won't care after everything is said and done with those areas. At best they will be mentioned for backgrounds or lore reasons and at worst just treated like PvE NPC's or areas with nothing interest to go back to. At the end of the day, we either role-play in our houses or one of the major cities. Rarely do people go out into the world to do their RP.