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

[Stanelis]

Highest quality gear should undoubtedly go to the raiders who have earned it

I think that really MMORPG should walk away at full speed from this design, and I ve played MMORPG since FFXI, been in amongst the best guilds in wow during the TBC era (completing sunwell and parsing top 2 world in my spec on heroic content during WOTLK), completed wildstar raids, etc

MMORPGs have been far more reliant on gear for the last decade and forgot that what matter is more the gameplay than numbers on gear. Gearing is fine when the gear are merely a tool to achieve a goal but cannot be that goal, as it is nowadays in moderns MMORPGs. If you ask most FFXIV raiders I think most will tell you they do not really care about the gear in FFXIV (aside than maybe for the gear's skin) on a strictly numerical standpoint. There sure should be some sort of trophy at the end of high level raids (the specific weapon skins of ultimate raids or the Ozma mount are good ideas) but I don't really think there should be such a vertical hierarchy in the content and the gear.

I think the best gear design is the one where gear actually alters the gameplay to some extent. If you'd take a look at what were the most popular items in FFXI, you'd find that the most popular items were those who had an actual impact on the gameplay (such as vermillion cloack, Ridill, Kraken Club, etc). I also think that FFXIV's design teams have gotten better at adjusting the encounter's difficulty without relying on the ILVL to provide a fake sense of difficulty in the form of DPS checks.

[Kalise]

I think that really MMORPG should walk away at full speed from this design, and I ve played MMORPG since FFXI, been in amongst the best guilds in wow during the TBC era (completing sunwell and parsing top 2 world in my spec on heroic content during WOTLK), completed wildstar raids, etc

MMORPGs have been far more reliant on gear for the last decade and forgot that what matter is more the gameplay than numbers on gear. Gearing is fine when the gear are merely a tool to achieve a goal but cannot be that goal, as it is nowadays in moderns MMORPGs.

I think the issue is its far, far easier to churn out gear treadmills as a way to interest people. Since all you then have to do is take gear, slap a +1 on it and you've created a whole new tier of rewards to entice people to play it. Slap some RNG and time gates on there and you've just ensured a playerbase for a significant amount of time for very little work.

As opposed to ye olde MMO's of yore, wherein people played... To play the game. With gear merely being a way to show off the cool loot you found as well as opening the door to more content to play.

This may be where my seemingly odd attitude surrounding gameplay comes from, having started playing MMO's back in the days of Evergrind (Hehe). Where my goal is to get BiS gear to play content, as opposed to getting BiS gear for to have BiS gear and then sit around complaining about a lack of content.

It was one of the things to note about Vanilla WoW too, once you got BiS gear from raids, you'd then... Continue raiding for fun, or go do PvP because this was before the distinction of PvP and PvE gear so your BiS PvE gear was on par with the BiS PvP gear that was equally difficult to attain (There were some minor stat differences, such as PvP gear had more stamina on for example)

I think an example of implementing this would be by having BiS gear not actually come from the most difficult content in the game, but being a requirement in order to participate in it. So that the content is played because of the content rather than to chase the gear treadmill. However, this would be entirely predicated on having the time and effort put in to make content that is interesting enough to take on this role, as well as still having something to entice people into playing it in the first place otherwise it may end up the way of PotD/HoH which have interesting end levels wherein your gear is typically not an issue because you get +99/+99 so easily but the reward for actually getting to and completing those levels is non-existent so people don't do them regularly...

[Delmontyb]

I've wanted to see them bring back in the conquest system from FFXI into this game where the different grand companies "patrol" the zones and each week the grand company that did the best "work" gets the zone... I liked that Blue Mage got us out into the open world, but there isn't any real reason to keep coming back to it. Hopefully Shadowbringers helps address some of this.

[Slicedevice]

I've wanted to see them bring back in the conquest system from FFXI into this game where the different grand companies "patrol" the zones and each week the grand company that did the best "work" gets the zone... I liked that Blue Mage got us out into the open world, but there isn't any real reason to keep coming back to it. Hopefully Shadowbringers helps address some of this.

I've never played XI myself but that sounds like a good idea. The problem with Open world content like this is to make people do it regularly and keep the content "fresh". If the only way to keep a zone is to do quests, FATEs or dungeons, its gonna die out quickly. Also, something that plays a huge part is the reward. What does one get for holding most zones? Reduced teleport fees in those areas? another mount? I feel like they need to impliment some really huge and regular rewards for those who wanna do this kind of content, not just something you get once then never do it again.

Again i have no experience in XI so dont know how they did it there, but some overworld PvP could arguably be a way to fix it, granted it didnt affect those who just wanna PvE.

[purgatori]

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Hello I was also around during the Evercrack days. It's really difficult to compare MMO's of that vintage with something like FFXIV, I find, because I suspect a lot of things that were the big lures for us back then would simply not translate to a modern, mass market MMO. I never had more than a rudimentary grasp on gear in EQ, or even what progression meant for my character (I was pretty young at the time, in addition to being a Western RPG neophyte). For me, the appeal of the game was that it was a massive open world to explore, and my imagination just ran wild with the possibilities upon booting it up for the time---even though most of said possibilities were just that: imaginary. I remember that first experience, not knowing what on Norrath I was doing, and happily running into a veteran who showed me how to set up camp, prepare provisions, and slay bugs for XP. It was an atmospheric, organic experience that I can't imagine how any game now could recreate without torpedoing its chances of attracting a large audience.

The pre-made content in EQ was, let's face it, mostly rubbish. I don't even know if the game had a main story, but if there was one I never came across it. The 'story' for me was the banding together of the 'evil' races to defend Neriark and the surrounding forests from the butchering thugs continually issuing from neighboring Freeport... And maybe carry out the odd reprisal or two, wherein we depopulated said neighbour of all its human denizens :P

But as great as those times were, I have to take a step back and reckon with a few facts: 1) a game like EQ was then would not meet the expectations of the vast majority of modern gamers, 2) I'm no longer a tween with theoretically-infinite time to invest in bringing a game world to life through interacting with other players, 3) over the longer haul, I actually invested way more time into modern MMO's like SWtOR and FFXIV.

For me, I think where FFXIV could learn a lessons is not so much FFXI---which they seem to learn the wrong lessons from anyway---but maybe something like ESO, which effectively straddles that line between a modern themepark MMO and something more sandbox-y. I don't personally love ESO, because the setting, story, and combat really don't do it for me, but its de-emphasis on vertical progression in favor of just enabling people to do whatever it is they enjoy doing, and rewarding them regardless of how they choose to spend their time. I would hate to see FFXIV cease to offer anything for the uber-skilled players to do, but I do wish they would make everything else as accessible as possible without being pure faceroll. BLU is a perfect example: they could have made the challenge consist of finding creative ways to learn abilities in the open world and then figure out ways to exploit these in the masked carnivale, instead of throwing up a barrier that requires players invest a substantial amount of time into finding/organising and running parties to learn spells from extreme primal fights.

In fact, I kinda wish FFXIV were more like The Secret World of old, where the hardcore content never intruded on your play experience unless you decided to challenge, and then were subsequently able to beat, a particularly difficult optional boss that stood completely apart from the story and everything else. For everything else, there's just no real need to keep throwing up "you must be x tall to ride" signs all over the place.

[Physic]

Hello I was also around during the Evercrack days. It's really difficult to compare MMO's of that vintage with something like FFXIV, I find, because I suspect a lot of things that were the big lures for us back then would simply not translate to a modern, mass market MMO. I never had more than a rudimentary grasp on gear in EQ, or even what progression meant for my character (I was pretty young at the time, in addition to being a Western RPG neophyte). For me, the appeal of the game was that it was a massive open world to explore, and my imagination just ran wild with the possibilities upon booting it up for the time---even though most of said possibilities were just that: imaginary. I remember that first experience, not knowing what on Norrath I was doing, and happily running into a veteran who showed me how to set up camp, prepare provisions, and slay bugs for XP. It was an atmospheric, organic experience that I can't imagine how any game now could recreate without torpedoing its chances of attracting a large audience.

The pre-made content in EQ was, let's face it, mostly rubbish. I don't even know if the game had a main story, but if there was one I never came across it. The 'story' for me was the banding together of the 'evil' races to defend Neriark and the surrounding forests from the butchering thugs continually issuing from neighboring Freeport... And maybe carry out the odd reprisal or two, wherein we depopulated said neighbour of all its human denizens :P

But as great as those times were, I have to take a step back and reckon with a few facts: 1) a game like EQ was then would not meet the expectations of the vast majority of modern gamers, 2) I'm no longer a tween with theoretically-infinite time to invest in bringing a game world to life through interacting with other players, 3) over the longer haul, I actually invested way more time into modern MMO's like SWtOR and FFXIV.

For me, I think where FFXIV could learn a lessons is not so much FFXI---which they seem to learn the wrong lessons from anyway---but maybe something like ESO, which effectively straddles that line between a modern themepark MMO and something more sandbox-y. I don't personally love ESO, because the setting, story, and combat really don't do it for me, but its de-emphasis on vertical progression in favor of just enabling people to do whatever it is they enjoy doing, and rewarding them regardless of how they choose to spend their time. I would hate to see FFXIV cease to offer anything for the uber-skilled players to do, but I do wish they would make everything else as accessible as possible without being pure faceroll. BLU is a perfect example: they could have made the challenge consist of finding creative ways to learn abilities in the open world and then figure out ways to exploit these in ...
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eureka is designed to be niche, thats why it can do what it does, that said eureka is no where near as grindy/time consuming as ffxi or everquest. That claim is highly overated, and mostly based on people never learning how to do things effeciently there. I would say leveling from 1-60 can be done in a week, a few hours a day, if you got at least 3 friends working together.

[Imuka]

I liked that Blue Mage got us out into the open world, but there isn't any real reason to keep coming back to it. Hopefully Shadowbringers helps address some of this.

I liked the Idea of the Bluemage on Paper, but not that they again needed to use RNG to strech the thing.
Also farming Mobs for Hours was not fun for anybody. Considering, that a large Part of the Community used exploits to Level him faster, because a large Part of the Community is sick of trash mob Grind seen as the "greatest achivement of MMO History", from Yoshidas viewpoint.

Getting the Skills on the Worldmap was fun, and everytime, I remembered a Mob in a certain Zone, to get a Skill was fun.
It was fun to travel around and try to find the right Enemies.
But the Dungeons and Primals were not fun at all. It was streched with RNG, to prevent people from Steamrolling it.
But it also punished the slower Players, by forcing them, to redo fights like Leviathan for Hours and always need to ask around if FC Members help them.
This is not fun. Sitting there and hoping, that FC Members will help you to get Progress for a Single Player Class.
It could have been fun to combine it with the Grand Company Commando Missions, to get those Skill.

Changes...I dislike sounding so negativ, but my guess is, that we will not see any changes. 5.0 won't change anything and 6.0 will also not change anything.
We expected changes based on the Heavensward Feedback for certain Stormblood things and nothing changed.
It became so much easier for the Devs to drive on the same lane forever, instead of trying something, because 14 is the Cashcow of SE, to pay for other Games to develop.

eureka is designed to be niche

Not really. Ultimate Fights, Feast, Lord of Verminion, Mahjong. Those are niche Content for the Game.
They are there, but pretty limited.
2 Ultimate Fights
Lord of Verminion is a Minigame...nobody asked for in this Version, because the people wanted FF14 Poke-Minionmon...but hey, there it is.
Mahjong is a Game for the small Part of the Community, that knows the Rule of it or are interested into the Game.
None of it is made for a large Audience of tries to make a large Part of the Playerbase play it, with Giant Carrots on Sticks.

But Eureka appeared 4 times in a row now, and will likely appear again in 5.x with nearly every Patch.
Calling it niche Content is like calling the second Dungeon per Patch niche Content, because you don't need to play it for the MSQ.
And it is not about effectivly grinding through this Content, it is about having fun.
Even if it would just take 10 Hours to Level 60, as long as it is not fun to do it, it is not well made.
And there is nearly nothing more boring, than fighting Trash Mobs in this Game, because the Combat System, was never designed for this at any moment.

But people praise it because they can spend hundreds of Hours in that place.
Going from that, we would need to say, that "The Last Jedi" was much better, than "The Empire Strikes back", because it was longer.
3 hours of "great" are better than 30 hours of "okay".

With a strech I could call the Design Idea on Paper being made for a Niche Audience, but the Devs put dozens of Carrots into it, to lure as much Players as possible in this Skinner Box in a Skinner Box, to call it a success for the Masses, while at the same time, not doing a lot outside of it for the Game.

[Wolf_Heartnet]

And yet there doesn't seem to be enough asian sets in the game. Samurai only get one set of non-glam "Samurai Armor" and it's this over-designed asymmetrical nightmare. I want better options than this:

Say what u want but I LOVE that samurai outfit

[Daniolaut]

FFXIV currently is doing the best it’s ever done.

I’m not worried one bit and having the most fun with the game in a long time.

[Imuka]

FFXIV currently is doing the best it’s ever done.

I’m not worried one bit and having the most fun with the game in a long time.

For me, it feels like the exact opposite on the side of the Dev themself.
The Artists and Composers were always really good and they are still doing great work, but the Dev Team works for me on the Game like it is something they call MVP in the Game Buisness (minimum value product).

2.x was a bit rough, but we know, that is was a revive of a Game on the Graveyard of another Game.
3.x was still a bit rough around edges, but it felt like the Devs put in some love for things and tried to improve of 2.x.
4.x is so calculated and repetetive, things got even worser than 3.x, a lot of classes feel more boring to play, the Story felt rushed, the Mechanics feel repetetive and the Fanservice got to a level of "Just throw that in and ride the Nostalgia Train" without making something a real Part of the World.

Yoshi rides his personal Nostalgia Train by taking old Games, like FF11, Diablo, Wizardry from the NES and other old Games and throw some of their Gamedesign into 14, without even looking what made it interessting back then. His Vision of 2.x was fine, but now he does not much to improve it, instead he tries to revive old Trends.
I remember the 4 Points from this old Picture.
3: "always aim to amaze". Trash Mob Grinding that is more Basic than 11 and then call it a 11 Nostalgia Content is not a step forward.
4: "dont forget your Roots". From my View, this does not mean, to just repeat what was done in the past.

With 2.0 the classes felt a bit rough around the edges, not bad, but some were a bit repetetive.
With 3.0 we got new Abilities and suddenly a lot of them fels quite good and rewarding.
Then with 4.0 some were streamline to a point that they start to feel boring or weird to play.

The DRK got super boring, because now he is just spamming DASE forever.
The Monk got this super stupid Riddle of Fire SKS debuff...because...yeah, Monks love to feel slow...
The MCH is a RNG Class, with a RNG Focus for his substasts. So he is RNG Show. Which fits from my View 0% to the Machinist.
Machines should be reliable and not work and then not. Imagine you PC would just start with a chance of 50% or your Keyboard would just recognize 50% of the Input.
The only Machine is the Player, redoing the same 60 Seconds for a 14 Min fight.
The Summoner was interessting in HW as a Dot management Class. Now it is a Ruin Spam.
So many Classes now gear around spamming something. Pizza is nice, but Pizza 3 times a day every day is horrible. No matter how much you like Pizza.
And when they get the Feedback, that a Class feels not enjoyable to play their either:
- just raise the DPS a bit
or
- tell the Players, that they play the Class wrong, till they 6-12 Months later see that the Community was right the whole time and they were wrong. (I remember how Yoshi told the Bard Players, that they all play the Class wrong just to see, that the Players were right the whole time.)

Omegas Story was so much weaker from my View compared to Alex and Coil.
Coil felt like a real Part of the World and the Story of the Game.
Alex was just there, standing outside. They had this small Backstory of both sides and the mix of Goblins, Goblin Machines and the Alex Machines themself was fun from my View.
Both came with great Arena and Area Designs, to give the place some scale how big it is and they were not shy to do things like Alex2 with the Gobbie Walker and the large Trash Mob Boss or do a fight against a Sentai Mecha with the fitting Music.
Omega was just Fanservice for the sake of Fanservice. Just throw in old Bosses and ride Nostalgia. There was no real reason for their appearance except "Omega made them.".
If we compare it to other Fanservice like Bismark, Zurvan, Sophia, Ifrit, etc.
All of them were seen as a real Part of the World. They were handled like they were in this world, before we entered it.
Other NPCs know of their existence and they are mentioned in the Lore of the World.
Omega is more or less: There are those Tales from other Universes on my Harddrive, lets throw them all into a Shonen Anime Tournament Arc and see who wins in the end.
Which can be okay in a Shonen Anime, to make all Characters throw all their Abilities around and create some kind of Powerlevels to compare them all later and show how much they improved in a second on maybe 20 Books later.

The Dungeons got streamlined to the Point of: Give them what they want and let them rush with all the Mob till they see a wall and then punch them down.
The damage of the Trash Mobs is so low, that it feels like a Joke.
Instead of creating engaging Dungeons with Mechanics and different Types of Mobs, like Healers, Debuffers, etc. we just got a bunch of Trash Mobs, who just want the be punched out of the Ring.
From my view those Dungeons underchallenge everybody in this Game.

The MSQ is okay, but 4.0 was so rushed just for the sake of getting the Story done in "200 Pages".
Instead of using the liberation of Doma and Ala Mhigo a central Part of the whole Stormblood Storyline, they pushed it into the 4.0 Version of the Game.
Imagine how great it would feel to rush the Castle of Doma with 24 Players at the end of 4.2. and then moving to Ala Mhigo and fight in that Palace with this large Party at the end of 4.4.
It would feel like the whole liberation took a lot of time and not just 1-2 Days.

Imagine they would have done Star Wars this way:
A new hope: the Deathstar is destroyed after 30 Minutes. The Movie builds up to this big Moment. You don't push that into the first 30 Minutes of the Movie.

I really loved this Game around 3.x even with its own Problems.
But Stormblood felt like we move Backwards more and more with the Game.
Things in this Game feel like they took negative examples you find in Game Design Book right into the Game, to create the Illusion of Engagement. The Game is not alone with this Design Strategy, but from my View, this is nothing you should try to achive with your Game.
We got one of the biggest Skinner Boxes in a Game that is literally a Skinner Box, layered with RNG to strech the Content as long as possible.
And the news of more Eureka with 5.0 even made me stop playing the Game.
A Game i visited nearly every day in Heavensward and since Eureka became something like the main focus of the Devs, I maybe log maybe 3-4 times per Month.
Finished the MSQ, maybe do a bit of Savage or the new Primal and then leave for weeks.