As an FFXI player, thank you for Limited Jobs and BLU SE

[The_Distinguished_Anarchist]

Strange how all those bad AAA games have a habit of making money right of the gate too. Perhaps there's a correlation.

...eeexcept they don't. An underperforming release can easily wipe out a studio.

[The_Distinguished_Anarchist]

So you guys would rather have Blue Mage play like every other class in this game? In the same boring treadmill, in the same boring rotations, in the same boring meta? Heaven forbid we have something we have to think outside of the box for instead of the same 2x4 box we've been using since the game came out.

There is a ton of potential in Blue Mage as a regular duty job. The infliction of status ailments fills a niche that no other job has. Making interesting combos out of various disparate monster abilities. And there are plenty of people who would still play it over any other class just for the aesthetic.

If you find the end-game here so boring, then maybe this game isn't for you.

[splinter1545]

It was a niche title that never achieved any sort of significant recognition beyond the distinction of being the most widely-played Japanese MMO in the world.

The success it enjoyed was entirely due to the Final Fantasy IP, and having the (at the time) commercial juggernaut of SquareSoft be able to continuously throw money away to support it. It was well over a year after the game's initial release before it attracted enough subscribers to break even.
If that game had been released by any other company you would not even know it ever existed.

At this point, it sounds like you just don't like the game. It isn't objectively bad- in fact, upon release it received huge critical reception. And yeah, it was niche, just like any MMO was considered "niche" during that time. Either way, XI was not, or ever was, a bad game. You may have not liked the grind, or just the way the game progressed, but it is factually untrue that the game was bad.

Now, XIV 1.0 is something that was objectively bad.

[Ekimmak]

There is a ton of potential in Blue Mage as a regular duty job. The infliction of status ailments fills a niche that no other job has. Making interesting combos out of various disparate monster abilities. And there are plenty of people who would still play it over any other class just for the aesthetic.

If you find the end-game here so boring, then maybe this game isn't for you.

I'd be careful about that, though.

Niche will always get boiled down to two things: pointless gimmick that will get barred from endgame no matter what, or 3.0 WAR levels of necessity.

It can't turn out any other way, the community itself does this to every single facet of the game.

[RyuDragnier]

There is a ton of potential in Blue Mage as a regular duty job. The infliction of status ailments fills a niche that no other job has. Making interesting combos out of various disparate monster abilities. And there are plenty of people who would still play it over any other class just for the aesthetic.

If you find the end-game here so boring, then maybe this game isn't for you.

It's more that it's the same pattern every time, with the same classes, with the same exact things over and over. There's no variety, there's no uniqueness. Eureka was an attempt at shaking it up a little, but sadly fell flat.

I'd personally prefer BLU getting fleshed out more as a limited job through way of letting it be grossly overpowered in old content, and letting it serve as a fun way of going through old content by yourself. Allow it to solo the 8-mans, allow it to absolutely destroy bosses like they're insects, let it be our playground for just going crazy in the old stuff. Let the limited jobs be our power fantasies!

[Mikki]

If you want a game to be like FFXI, go play FFXI.

FFXIV ISN'T FFXI, STOP TRYING TO MAKE IT BE.

OP literally thanked them for NOT making it like XI.................... You ok there, buddy?


That said, I don't know that I'm exactly happy with this version of BLU, but it IS different...I guess.

[Elerus]

And yeah, it was niche, just like any MMO was considered "niche" during that time.

WoW would release just a little over a year and a half later. In NA they would release in the same year, 2004. WoW went on to be anything but niche with references and mentions from Jeopardy to South Park. The market was there, FFXI did not fulfill it.

[JunseiKei]

WoW would release just a little over a year and a half later. In NA they would release in the same year, 2004. WoW went on to be anything but niche with references and mentions from Jeopardy to South Park. The market was there, FFXI did not fulfill it.

WoW streamlined a lot of features found in older MMOs, that's part of what made it so popular and revolutionary (and something a lot of people look for nowadays, but you can't really streamline what is already streamlined). XI was a step back from that streamlining that made the niche MMO genre so much more appealing to a wider audience. Even the "XI-like content" (used loosely) is pretty much a stark contrast when you step back and consider XIV as the streamlined counterpart.

[The_Distinguished_Anarchist]

It's more that it's the same pattern every time, with the same classes, with the same exact things over and over. There's no variety, there's no uniqueness. Eureka was an attempt at shaking it up a little, but sadly fell flat.

I'd personally prefer BLU getting fleshed out more as a limited job through way of letting it be grossly overpowered in old content, and letting it serve as a fun way of going through old content by yourself. Allow it to solo the 8-mans, allow it to absolutely destroy bosses like they're insects, let it be our playground for just going crazy in the old stuff. Let the limited jobs be our power fantasies!

You need a more thorough qualifier on what counts as "uniqueness".

Eureka was nothing more than an attempt to combine the EXP Party from Final Fantasy XI with the AEGIS system from the Kaidan zone from The Secret World. It was two of the worst aspects from their respective games, and for some reason people are surprised that the place failed to appeal.

Your version of a fun playground is literally every job at the level cap. All of them are grossly overpowered in old content, capable of soloing what used to take eight players. I fail to see the need to relegate a much-requested job to a gap that doesn't need to be filled.

[The_Distinguished_Anarchist]

At this point, it sounds like you just don't like the game. It isn't objectively bad- in fact, upon release it received huge critical reception. And yeah, it was niche, just like any MMO was considered "niche" during that time. Either way, XI was not, or ever was, a bad game. You may have not liked the grind, or just the way the game progressed, but it is factually untrue that the game was bad.

Now, XIV 1.0 is something that was objectively bad.

No one should like that game.

By every single reasonable metric, it fails as both a piece of art and entertainment.

Final Fantasy XI is primitive and slow, and those were two of its best qualities. Even diehard fans cannot mince words on this. And it's not just the sluggish combat, either. Everything takes forever. Before acquiring a chocobo license, airship pass, or Teleport spells, it can take you 30-40 minutes to run from one place to another on foot -- and that's if you're avoiding combat and not regularly getting jumped by orcs, goblins, yagudo, or quadavs. You have to wait for shops to open, wait for the best in-game day to craft items, and wait for people to buy your swag at the auction house. You sit around and wait for you HP/MP to recover when you hit the "heal" command, you wait for people to invite you into their parties, you wait for your party members to run off and get Signet, you wait for somebody to come and cast Raise on you when you die, you wait two hours to use your special ability again, you wait one hour (in real time) between the five feedings in the chocobo license subquest. Roughly 75% of the Final Fantasy XI experience is waiting for the Final Fantasy XI experience.

I fully understand that some people love game like this. They love a game that requires time, patience, and dedication in order to accomplish things. Some people even enjoy the game's leisurely (now I'm mincing words) pace, as it makes Vana'diel more realistic and immersive.

The problem in Final Fantasy XI's case is that none of this is actually fun. During your stay in Vana'diel, you are constantly level grinding, crystal harvesting, doing NPCs' fetch quests, and spawn camping like you're on somebody's imaginary payroll. As I mentioned above, you have to take the same approach to Final Fantasy XI as you would a personal project such as building a model ship in a bottle, taking a martial arts class, or writing a novel. It is an arduous, time-devouring, and often frustrating process.

Exploring Vana'diel is a thrilling experience. Indeed. On the rare occasions you're actually exploring, anyway. Most of the time, you're spawn camping and level grinding on the same map for hours on end. Depending on how often you play and how much focused time you spend on leveling up and keeping your character's equipment and spells up to date, it can be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks before your character can cross over into a new zone without fearing swift evisceration at the hands of the first gob you encounter. Until then, you're stuck running back and forth between your home point and the local EXP party hotspot until you put in enough time to become sufficiently leveled up to move on -- on to the next EXP party hotspot.

Final Fantasy XI's battle dynamic is structured such that every individual player is a limb of the greater organism in the party. Watching the party's various skills efficiently mesh together to blast a mob to hell is definitely a sight to behold. Actually being a participant in that process is like working a post at a factory conveyor belt. You're doing the same thing, standing in the same spots, hitting the same macro keys over and over and over again, until the monster dies or otherwise turns the tables and kills everyone. The game isn't designed to let you do anything else. The engagement strategy never changes.

Is the game an entertaining diversion? No, not really -- it's too great a time devourer. It's not a game you can hop on and play for an hour or so at night before dinner. There is no point in playing for an hour. An hour is how long it takes to log on, check your Mog House delivery box, peruse the auction house, hit up a special NPC to cast Signet on you, start or join a party, and walk halfway to wherever you're trying to go. If you can only play Final Fantasy XI for an hour at a time, you're better off not playing at all. Are the battle and character customization systems what carry the game? Not really -- combat is slower than molasses, and the Job/Subjob setup is a drag, especially in light of how many hoops the game expects you to jump though in order to unlock new jobs and level them up to the point at which they become viable. Does it give its player any new ideas to think about? No -- unless we're talking about how it might inadvertently trigger OH MY GOD IS THIS ALL THERE IS TO LIFE existential crises in frequent players. Does sitting alone and entering a level-grinding trance night after night for a period of months or years enrich your life in any way? No. It does not.

Final Fantasy XI is a useless game. If our lawmakers wanted to be consistent, they'd outlaw video games like that on the same professed grounds as marijuana prohibition. Chronic use of Final Fantasy XI will make you dull, reclusive, unmotivated, unthoughtful, and detached from reality -- and unlike cannabis, it isn't even fun. And that, for a video game, is the greatest crime of all.