My suggestions to improve FFXIV

[Clouse_Cleyra]

I would love to see more in depth to pvp. Something like castle siege or stuff like that would be awesome. With real prices, like pvp gear for teams who mantain a castle weekly.

[MelnaMilos]

I understand resources and devs are not coming from a bottomless well. It sounds like it all relies on getting more money to higher more devs to produce such content. I will reiterate, if -some- effort was spent to bring back some of the hard core players they alienated, like me, and I know entire discords of 1.0 and XI fans, there'd be more money coming to them so that they would expand to produce content for both sides of the opinion. I myself, would be subscribing way more than I have been if the game had some more content for oldschool/hardcore players. There is a reason MMOs are considered "Trash" and "Dead" these days. Theres currently a push for classic or old school servers. Just a few months ago, there was a boom in XI streaming, showing the game and its principals are not dead. Even Square attempted to put more 11 inspired content in the game with Eureka. One of my favorite additions to the game. I was watching a very popular XIV and XI streamer the other day, Mr. Happy, who was talking about adding more dangerous lands and eureka style content to the game. Even these casual players are starting to sound like they are getting tired of the same concepts being done over and over. You seem to imply that noone would enjoy such content. Again, Not to sound stuck up, but look at the thumbs ups my original post is getting. There IS a market for this stuff. People are willing to throw more money at Square for this. Not just my ideas, but in general.

My point was; Lets not disturb what you guys are enjoying, let's find some ways to add more content other people are craving currently to the game. Im not arguing to add the lengthy grind sessions, or the removal of the party finder from XIV. I just want more content where players have to team up and tackle stuff that isn't the same old instance raid boss fight over and over again.I'd like to see a larger world to explore, more party quests and content. Like fates, open world bosses, non-linear dungeons, deep dungeons, etc. I wanna play WITH people, not a mostly solo MMO. Not take out what is in the game already, just give us more options.

[MelnaMilos]

I would love to see more in depth to pvp. Something like castle siege or stuff like that would be awesome. With real prices, like pvp gear for teams who mantain a castle weekly.

Same here! I dont want to disturb the PVE players either, so having it take place in it's own area would be ideal. Like ESO does.

[Alucard135]

We need more open world group content
Dangerous World
Non-linear dungeons

These are the reasons why I liked Eureka and BA. And add to that no flying in the zone, which encourages exploration (I know some would say if you don’t like flying then don’t fly. But when you’re racing against 100s of players for a hunt, then you have no other option other than to fly from one hunt to another). I could remember every corner in all Eureka maps, but not the open world maps.

I also understand that there is a significant number of players that like linear dungeon designs, which is why I understand why the devs are making them. That’s why I look forward more to Eureka like content that they will make and hope for more BA style dungeons.

Bigger zones

SHB maps and the Crystarium are excellent. It seems like finally getting rid of PS3 and 32bit support is paying off.

[Krotoan]

I understand resources and devs are not coming from a bottomless well. It sounds like it all relies on getting more money to higher more devs to produce such content. I will reiterate, if -some- effort was spent to bring back some of the hard core players they alienated, like me, and I know entire discords of 1.0 and XI fans, there'd be more money coming to them so that they would expand to produce content for both sides of the opinion. I myself, would be subscribing way more than I have been if the game had some more content for oldschool/hardcore players

This is not the case. FFXIV is one of the most profitable things Squeenix does right now, but the budget for the devs seems to have varied very little. More money incoming has been shown to influence development rates little to none. Before any talk of extra content beyond the current cycle is even considerable, they need to fulfill at least the previous expansions rate and volume of content for it's current users, which they are barely able to do. It is highly unlikely they will splurge on the resources needed to support MORE content before having more income. Just saying that people might come if they make stuff for them means very little to an SE exec.

. There is a reason MMOs are considered "Trash" and "Dead" these days.

I've not heard this. In fact even WoW is doing well, without counting the classic wow fad. By it's previous standards it may not have the lions share of the pie anymore but WoW is by no means anything but one of Blizzards biggest moneymakers. People who say MMO's are trash or dead are probably just getting older and realizing they don't have the time to spend on that kind of stuff anymore.

Theres currently a push for classic or old school servers.

Because people have nostalgia stained glasses. I have friends who are playing who swear up and down they're enjoying it.. however when I sit in their Discords it's just constant complaints and the only reason it's fun is their friends are there to suffer with them. It's hilarious to me that Blizzard has managed to squeeze so much more money out of people by releasing old content again and nobody's called them on it. It's the same jazz that happened last time. It isn't changing, it isn't even that much better, they've even made sure to put in the old bugs and issues to make it feel right.. however people are paying to sit and fight over trash mobs in the overworld because hey "was fun the first time right? or why else did I pay so much money for so long". WoW is fun for a certain type of player, I played for 6 years in fact.. you couldn't pay me to go back now, I realized I was only playing for my friends and my smarter friends have moved on.

Just a few months ago, there was a boom in XI streaming, showing the game and its principals are not dead. Even Square attempted to put more 11 inspired content in the game with Eureka. One of my favorite additions to the game. I was watching a very popular XIV and XI streamer the other day, Mr. Happy, who was talking about adding more dangerous lands and eureka style content to the game.

Great.. NO. Eureka was a disaster. It's dead content now and it was a horrendous grind that embodied everything I hated about FFXI and why I left. The only reason I even tried to play through it was they locked the relic in it and by forum evidence this was usually the only reason a LOT of people did it. Yes there were people who enjoyed it and extolled how it was this grand throwback to XI with "dangerous" lands and rewards for grouping up and how the community in there was so strong. The content was so crazily repetitive and group necessary that people got bored and HAD to talk to each other to amuse themselves. There was nothing else to do between fates. I hear Baldesion Arsenal was great but I never got to it because it now takes HOURS of investment just to grab a couple levels in progression, something I left FFXI for. I don't have time, I don't need progress threatened by some random monster aggroing me while I try to complete an objective or a fate. You can't even really party with friends unless they're within 1-2 levels unless you want to be a glorified babysitter or a giant burden. FFXI is still very much alive and it has players, but I left that game and don't need it smushed into the game I like now at the cost of other content I might actually enjoy. While I can appreciate you liked that content please understand it represents MANY things I left FFXI for.

Even these casual players are starting to sound like they are getting tired of the same concepts being done over and over. You seem to imply that noone would enjoy such content.

Never said that. I'm sure some would. However SE would do better to cater to it's large playerbase that it already has.

Again, Not to sound stuck up, but look at the thumbs ups my original post is getting. There IS a market for this stuff. People are willing to throw more money at Square for this. Not just my ideas, but in general.

Sure a few people liked your post, not to sound arrogant but: 10 people does not make a compelling argument. Sure there's a market for it, they play FFXI and other old school grindy MMO's, games like BDO or EVE would be dead without those kinds of players. Again: why should we , the established and mostly content playerbase of FFXIV support the introduction of what is ALREADY PRESENT IN OTHER GAMES while we have so much of what we are provided and enjoy?

My point was; Lets not disturb what you guys are enjoying, let's find some ways to add more content other people are craving currently to the game. Im not arguing to add the lengthy grind sessions, or the removal of the party finder from XIV. I just want more content where players have to team up and tackle stuff that isn't the same old instance raid boss fight over and over again.I'd like to see a larger world to explore, more party quests and content. Like fates, open world bosses, non-linear dungeons, deep dungeons, etc. I wanna play WITH people, not a mostly solo MMO. Not take out what is in the game already, just give us more options.

And my point is we have established over and over that FFXIV's dev team does not simply add on content. They have a limited pie and making one share bigger makes the other smaller. I will always oppose introducing content I have left other games for.

[DynnDiablos]

Wait, gaming on pc makes you an elitist now, too?

Not at all, but many who do have that mentality and think the game should cater strictly to them and no one else.

[NessaWyvern]

I agree with a few of these. I would like to see more critters and birds in FFXIV that aren't things that you can kill.
More love into PvP is desperately needed, they only get the bare minimum of crumbs each expansion, and it's depressing.
I like both PvP and PvE, and would rather not pay a full sub to another game just for PvP.
I would also like seasons in Ishguard, I don't get where they are growing food there. Plant life does not grow well in winter :V

My own minor wish is a range of options for stances with the weapon drawn. I haaate the way Conj/BLM sprint with staves, and the way GNB runs normally looks so stiff and awkward. Plus, I would love the option to hold the gunblade the way Squall or Lightning does (Or even the way Seifer or Laguna does). This "On the shoulder" thing just isn't doing it for me.

[MelnaMilos]

This is not the case. FFXIV is one of the most profitable things Squeenix does right now, but the budget for the devs seems to have varied very little. More money incoming has been shown to influence development rates little to none. Before any talk of extra content beyond the current cycle is even considerable, they need to fulfill at least the previous expansions rate and volume of content for it's current users, which they are barely able to do. It is highly unlikely they will splurge on the resources needed to support MORE content before having more income. Just saying that people might come if they make stuff for them means very little to an SE exec.



I've not heard this. In fact even WoW is doing well, without counting the classic wow fad. By it's previous standards it may not have the lions share of the pie anymore but WoW is by no means anything but one of Blizzards biggest moneymakers. People who say MMO's are trash or dead are probably just getting older and realizing they don't have the time to spend on that kind of stuff anymore.

Because people have nostalgia stained glasses. I have friends who are playing who swear up and down they're enjoying it.. however when I sit in their Discords it's just constant complaints and the only reason it's fun is their friends are there to suffer with them. It's hilarious to me that Blizzard has managed to squeeze so much more money out of people by releasing old content again and nobody's called them on it. It's the same jazz that happened last time. It isn't changing, it isn't even that much better, they've even made sure to put in the old bugs and issues to make it feel right.. however people are paying to sit and fight over trash mobs in the overworld because hey "was fun the first time right? or why else did I pay so much money for so long". WoW is fun for a certain type of player, I played for 6 years in fact.. you couldn't pay me to go back now, I realized I was only playing for my friends and my smarter friends have moved on.


Great.. NO. Eureka was a disaster. It's dead content now and it was a horrendous grind that embodied everything I hated about FFXI and why I left. The only reason I even tried to play through it was they locked the relic in it and by forum evidence this was usually the only reason a LOT of people did it. Yes there were people who enjoyed it and extolled how it was this grand throwback to XI with "dangerous" lands and rewards for grouping up and how the community in there was so strong. The content was so crazily repetitive and group necessary that people got bored and HAD to talk to each other to amuse themselves. There was nothing else to do between fates. I hear Baldesion Arsenal was great but I never got to it because it now takes HOURS of investment just to grab a couple levels in progression, something I left FFXI for. I don't have time, I don't need progress threatened by some random monster aggroing me while I try to complete an objective or a fate. You can't even really party with friends unless they're within 1-2 levels unless you want to be a glorified babysitter or a giant burden. FFXI is still very much alive and it has players, but I left that game and don't need it smushed into the game I like now at the cost of other content I might actually enjoy. While I can appreciate you liked that content please understand it represents MANY things I left FFXI for.



Never said that. I'm sure some would. However SE would do better to cater to it's large playerbase that it already has.



Sure a few people liked your post, not to sound arrogant but: 10 people does not make a compelling argument. Sure there's a market for it, they play FFXI and other old school grindy MMO's, games like BDO or EVE would be dead without those kinds of players. Again: why should we , the established and mostly content playerbase of FFXIV support the introduction of what is ALREADY PRESENT IN OTHER GAMES while we have so much of what we are provided and enjoy?




And my point is we have established over and over that FFXIV's dev team does not simply add on content. They have a limited pie and making one share bigger makes the other smaller. I will always oppose introducing content I have left other games for.

Hmmm. I cant say you are wrong. This is clearly a matter of opinions here for us both. We will just to agree to disagree. I think the game should cater to ALL, not just what casual gamers find fun. I also sort of find it kind of dismissive to claim that anyone enjoying Classic WoW, or other old school MMOs, are just enjoying it because of nostalgia. Noone would force you to enjoy the content I suggested, I was asking to make it optional stuff or offer ways to get around it if it isnt enjoyed, like more aethernet points if the larger world was included. I personally wish the MMO genre would return to its roots and stop being so catered to casual players, alienating the people that made the genre what it was. I blame WoW for this, but thats a different topic. Us older gamers have to play much older games and dont get to enjoy the games with the fancier graphics that much cause they are just too easy or arent enjoyable for us. We're kinda shoved into a corner. I also find it just baffling that you'd actively oppose adding anything to your game that you may not enjoy, but others clearly do. Anyway, you've been very polite and pleasant to debate with, Thanks for giving your opinions!

[LauraAdalena]

Hi there. I'm glad to see you're open to criticism and other thoughts. I'd like to share mine on your ideas, if you don't mind.

Mount Improvements

Devil's advocate: animations in FFXIV often have animation locks or stuff like that. I feel like instead of increasing the number of animations for mounting and dismounting, we don't do that. This sounds like a weird thing, but when I need to mount to get quickly to a node for gathering, or quickly to a hunt/fate having to wait for an animation could slow me down. Now, it's not much, but it still slows me down enough to complain.

Logging in and out of the game

Always log in and out of an Inn then. Or, request they add that to housing somehow where if you have a bed installed it does the animation for logging in/out.

User Interface is sorta boring
More Interface ranting

While I agree, I don't think this needs much priority. As long as we get these UI skins I'll be fine with them so far. Honestly, I don't really see a reason to do a UI overhaul, but if that fabled graphical overhaul is real then maybe we can hope for something slightly better.

Battle effects and animations

As much as this sounds weird, I'd actually say it would feel weird if this wasn't here given this is the series where: One game had fights on the moon in medieval times, another had you face mad clown god, another a man with 6 arms who constantly said nonsense fight you while holding a weapon in each hand, 12/13 knights going ham on a single opponent, a planet being used as a weapon in an attack, a giant robot who shot lasers at the enemy then blew up the place, a chain demon's lower-half going "ORA ORA ORA" on an enemy, and a summon from 12 where the tiniest summon launches a laser into the sun and causes a super nova. At least... I think that's what that animation is in the last one...

yeah honestly, It'd feel weird if the game didn't feature those given this imo. And I actually think many animations in this game carry a lot of impact because of that.

Seasons

That... would be neat as long as they don't tie gathering items to that.

Graphical enhancements
1.0’s graphics were debatably better. We can all agree.

Debatable better, we can all agree. Sorry, just like... Contradictions are funny to me. Honestly, I didn't want to say anything else, I feel like you mention the possible graphical overhaul then get a little redundant talking about how we need to improve the visuals is all.

Cosmetics with glasses and hats

I feel like this is a "spaghetti code" reason right here.

Monster stuff

If they brought that in, I hope they;d have the option to turn that off. That sounds nauseating.

We need more open world group content

Maybe it's because I just don't play that many online games and most of my favorite and most played games are JRPGs but I'm split on this. I'd like it, I also don't particularly care for the idea. I'm fine with it the way it is, but I'm also a little upset there's not much to do outside of the city-states

Dangerous World

The world doesn't "need" to be dangerous again. At least, I don't think it needs to be since right now we don't really have a reason to be out into it. I also think this can be rolled into your above point to be concise. Also, XIV does have that "some could see you, hear you," kind of thing, it's just that outside of Eureka and POTD you don't have much reason to abide to these aggro kinds. Also, I don't like the ambush idea I feel like that's an old MMO idea that wouldn't work today but that's just me.

PVP

HARD disagree with almost everything here. I think PVP is not fine and has a lot of minor problems. One of my biggest ones is that you can't use what you've learned in the main game to PVP, you have to learn a whole new system and way of your classes working. In STB I played next to none of the classes I liked in STB to play in dungeons, raid, and etc. My most played class in STB PVP was Machinist, which just goes to show you how little the skill learned outside applied to the main game back then. Once I figured out WAR again I went back to PVP to do Seal Rock... and only Seal Rock. IMO, it's the only game mode that I really enjoy and the rest get minor excitement to groans out of me. It's the one where team work most matters and knowing/predicting your enemies movements gives a nice feel of tactics.

As for gear and open world PVP one of the reasons I don't do many MMOs is how many have overworld PVP and that worries me I'll end up just a low level being killed by someone just cuz. The gear used to not be a thing in HW and you used to have to equip gear for PVP... but next to nobody actually did that unless you liked The Feast and did that a lot. But most just used what they equipped at the time and didn't care, so how is this any different than when gear did matter?

Bigger zones

I don't dislike the idea of bigger zones because of what you said. I dislike them because that means more zone, but less stuff in the zone. Here, let's quickly look at the zones for ARR vs. HW (the worst of the open expansion zone design philosophy, imo). Go into an ARR zone, let's say... Upper LaNocea. One side of it has a bunch of ruins, a path filled with Kobolds on one side and a cool overlook to the other side down the other path, a thin line of water, hot baths to help people get better from illness, and a narrow way into that side with a fate that spawns where the Mamool'Ja try to block your path and make travel difficult for merchants. That's just one side, the other has just as much.

However, notice how all of that is in a small place making it feel smaller, but also like there's more world building in that small area. Contrast that with Western Highlands. The place is so barren and spread out that I can't think of too many landmarks. I know Dusk Vigil's there. I know there's a set of bones somewhere. A statue. And the most interesting thing I can think of is the ship frozen in the ice. But, it just makes the place seem more boring, less to do, less going on.

What I'm putting forth is for a compromise between these two ideas. Make it dense with things to remember, but make it not bigger but smaller than SHB's zones. If I needed one more thing to put my reason into why is imagine how many treasure maps in the game you can get that are hard to tell at a glance and require lots of time and detail attention to find between ARR and HW +.

Non-linear dungeons

People will still find ways to make it so that it's just as linear as it is now by finding the optimal way through. What I'd prefer are dungeons that feel non-linear but are linear more like Haukke Manor. But that's just my idea.

Attributes, Stats, Skills, Customization

Many people feel the way you do. However, the same thing can be said as the reason above for dungeons. People will optimize. However, unlike the previous, if you don't fit into that perfect mold you won't go anywhere in the game without being criticized by those people who want a fast run.

Squads and NPC allies

Devil's Advocate: My sister plays this game and doesn't learn mechanics well being told them then told to execute and does better when watching others do it right. So, Trusts and stuff work better for her for her first time through dungeons since it helps teach her without feeling as stressful as me shouting at her, and less like she did nothing by me carrying her through the dungeon. This works for her and I so I don't have to feel guilty for yelling at her stuff and all of that. Plus, if it keeps people out who don't want to participate in group content I don't see how this hurts. (especially since trusts/squadrons are nowhere near as good as 90% of players)


I tried not to go with the ones other people had and avoided arguments I'd already seen as to keep my post somewhat short... it didn't help lol.

[MelnaMilos]

I agree with a few of these. I would like to see more critters and birds in FFXIV that aren't things that you can kill.
More love into PvP is desperately needed, they only get the bare minimum of crumbs each expansion, and it's depressing.
I like both PvP and PvE, and would rather not pay a full sub to another game just for PvP.
I would also like seasons in Ishguard, I don't get where they are growing food there. Plant life does not grow well in winter :V

My own minor wish is a range of options for stances with the weapon drawn. I haaate the way Conj/BLM sprint with staves, and the way GNB runs normally looks so stiff and awkward. Plus, I would love the option to hold the gunblade the way Squall or Lightning does (Or even the way Seifer or Laguna does). This "On the shoulder" thing just isn't doing it for me.

I dont see why they dont add a few different battle stances for holding your weapons that you can swap between, like they do with the idle stances and the drawn idle stances. I agree.