Few close friends quit FFXIV, one wants to explain why, hopes SE improves the game

[Hamada]

My friend that wrote this thread is a bit upset it seems a few did not really read what was said (since it feels like nothing was read) just the idea of "i want change" then put words in their mouth. It is that or they put an odd spin on what was not being said, and as others replied to these posts, my friend's reply fits on that same theme, so ty Dzian and Dualgunner.

Change is always risky. I can recall many games which turned off their player base with changes.


I recall Dark Age of Camelot and its Trials of Atlantis expansion. In the past, you simply hit max level, obtain a set of crafted equipment and you are basically set for pvp. However, with the release of the Trials of Atlantis expansion, players hated the power imbalance brought by relic items, the grind to farm scrolls to activate the relics, the grind to level up the activated relics, the time investment to go through the master levels (while complaining how imbalanced the master level skills were). I also recall the developers re-designing the open world pvp in their New Frontiers content. Alot of people hated the re-designed New Frontiers and wanted the old, familiar pvp fights (Emain roaming/ganking, mile gate fights, etc).

For other games like Star Wars Galaxies, there were also changes that went too far. Whisper Combat Upgrade to Star Wars Galaxies former players and you would likely see rage. However, the developers Sony Online Entertainment defended the change as something necessary to revitalize the game and subscription numbers.
Hence, whenever I see people saying "We need changes to FFXIV", I am of the view we should not change for the sake of change. Just like companies from other industries, I believe Square-Enix should learn from best practices in the MMO industry. If a change has been proven to work, then sure, by all means, let's take a look to see if its success can be replicated in FFXIV. Square-Enix should not turn to radical unproven changes to the main parts of the game which appeases the few but turn off the many. Just because players think a certain change is good doesn't mean anything. Afterall, if they are so good at improving the game, they would already be running a game that rival FFXIV.

I hate part of this complaint that xiv does the same thing over and over. That's ever game on the world. No game changes its core gameplay with every add-on. Cod doesn't turn into sonic. Sonuc doesn't turn into fallout. Fallout doesn't change into Alex kid and that doesn't change into streets of rage. Games have always done this even wow. And when we DO get different things thay break up the mode people don't play them. So with that said what are they posed to do cause gamers in general don't know what they want.

Deep breath I hope my wording is not to strong but I really got shocked seeing these 2 posts and am greatly confused. My first reaction is an "AVGN" rant of "what where they thinking" but ill try explain why I feel this way.

First off, Ko, no, not every game in the world does that, far from. The only thing I can really comment on is sonic, as I have no interest in those other games. Lets take sonic 1 for the sega. You where given a platformer like mario, but it was NOT a mario clone. you had different power ups, different ways you needed to approach things, so on.

Sonic 2 came with a new character, new obstacles to deal with, new power up (I think? or was it sonic 3 that only had the different shields) regardless sonic 2 to 3 was vastly different, from the power ups and adding the sonic and knucles on top of that, added a lot of stages and a second upgrade to super sonic/ tails / etc.

What you did, how the game was presented, and other things felt like a new game, there was different presentation and (at times) different puzzles to deal with and things to figure out. It was a platformer but there was still areas to explore here and there and secrets to find.

So i was viewing random youtube videos and I came across something interesting. It talked about escalation issues like what exists in dragon ball Z. In terms of writing each new thread of a story needs to be new and step up in severity from the last. Other genres get around this by horizontally. It is like a good MMO vs a bad one. The easiest way to release new content is to release stuff that is the same strength as what you already have, just packaged different and new way(think ffxi, or least ffxi before abyssea) That way it is still interesting because you never seen it. A bad MMO on the other hand (FFXIV) messes that all up by raising numbers (ilevel,dbz power level, etc) Because they know people will buy it to keep up.

I am not asking for change for the sake of change. I am asking for change because I do not want to be playing HW reskinned (what stormblood is) 3.3 is LITERALLY 4.3, this is not an over exaggeration. Even with crafting, did you take a look how ironwroks crafting set was made? what you do to make the 340 set is the EXACT same thing. there is an item you get from tribes that goes in each set, both use gold ingots (ARR material, this is another thing getting old, once 5.0 comes out, im sure inventory issues will be worse because stuff will be taking materials from the new area + SB+HW+ARR just like SB did with taking HW and ARR stuff and part of the reason inventory space is so strained for crafting)

so when you have 4.3 being a complete copy of 3.3, or 4.4 being a complete copy of 3.4, there is very glaring issues to make one question is the game being properly funded with the money we pay.

All they are doing is reskinning what they done for years, it gets insanly boaring after a while. EVEN YOSHI-P is aware of this, as the quote I used in the first post here was used a few times over to explain the reference better. Despite saying he needs to do something different or people will get tired of it, we got HW resskinned only to be called SB. I know of NO GAME that did this, ever.

All you are doing at this point is taking the DBZ apporch, goku does not die, fights something stronger then the strongest being in the multiverse because he needs to get those 10ilevels for the next patch.