FFXIV is too simplistic and bland

[Seddrinth]

FFXI is terrible. I hear some people say how good it was so I tried it. I was really bored. I'll stick with 14 thanks.

[Wyakin]

Before I go back and read the rest of your post I want to point out a quick thing about linearity in FF games specifically 13. 13 is known and linear because it feels like a corridor game, but you compare it to EVERY other FF and you realise they’re all equally as linear. Let’s use 10 as a direct comparison. It’s the definition of linear... what makes 10 better? It has towns/hubs with NPCs you can interact with making it feel lived in. 13 however does not have this. So to finish my point, all FFs are equally as linear. 13 just feels more so because it is empty and void of anything living

[Wyakin]

FFXI is terrible. I hear some people say how good it was so I tried it. I was really bored. I'll stick with 14 thanks.

Trying 11 now is like eating soggy weetabix. They’re nice when you first make em but gross when soggy. 11 was amazing during its 75 era, not so much now in 2020

[SilverObi]

I definitely agree that certain parts of XIV have become stale but that sort goes with the territory of ongoing games like this, and while XI does have certain aspects that are absolute gems they're still bogged down by the outdated systems that it can't grow out of without a full reboot. My main complaint is the class/job system in that I feel we could have so much more variety but they refuse to put in the effort that would be required to make more jobs with unique identities that aren't just different flavors of DPS/Tank/Healer, and yes I know of the technical limitations on some things since they've been discussed for years but at some point you have to make people feel like their money is being well spent. XI and XIV are just too different to adapt many of the ideas from the older game to the newer (as Eureka showed us) but if the effort is put in, many of those good systems can be used to liven up XIV.

That being said, I've been playing this since 1.0 and I'm mostly happy with my experiences and don't see myself leaving XIV, I just go play XI or other games if I start getting bored/burnt out which honestly is probably what OP should do.

[File2ish]

To preface, I am a fan of and appreciate both FFXI and FFXIV, and FF as a whole. This post is merely to dissect the differences between the two games design choices, which I don't think is fair to directly compare the two. I love both games for different reasons and have spent too many hours on either. They're just very different games with very different ideas for player engagement.

As another stated before in terms of FFXI vs FFXIV, you're comparing apples to oranges, The Grand Duchy of Jeuno to Revenant's Toll, Meat Chiefkabobs to Meat Mi'qabobs. You are comparing two different games with different designs of MMORPG. With the general terms (not entirely accurate all the time), we have more Sandbox style (FFXI, FFXIV 1.0) and Theme Park (FFXIV 2.0 an on) styles. Sandboxes have some structure, but you go about make your own fun (like forming parties to hunt an NM for a 1% drop on a 24h respawn timer, do BCNMs, leveling, Dynamis, etc.), theme parks are very structured you go for a ride (point A, point B, dungeon, move on, etc. Or queue in duty finder and play with randoms). The design philosophies of those generic labels aside, FFXI was built to demand more of your effort and time (whether it be forming parties in Jeuno for an hour to do some content, or raising a stalwart chocobo, or even just getting from point A to point B). FFXIV, conversely, is structured to require less work on the player's part, and be more time efficient in basically all aspects.

To elaborate: in the comparisons between FFXI and FFXIV you are comparing an 18 year old game to an 8 year old game (I am purposefully 1.X time period, as 2.0 was a full rebuild). In that decade between the two games launches the MMO space evolved in many ways, and design philosophies in the video game space as a whole changed in that time. I'm sure you know what happened with XIV 1.0, but I'll still say it. The design philosophies between FFXI and FFXIV 1.0 were basically the same, as the same director did both games. However, because 1.0 didn't change with the times (and in some ways had more archaic designs than XI), it flopped and had to be rebuilt from the ground up by a new director/producer. If it flopped again, SE may have gone fully bankrupt.

Traveling in XIV is simple, yes. To go so far as saying it's simpler than FF1 is a stretch to me. With the airship points, it's more of a time saving thing. In prior FFs with airships it was basically your flying mount. In FFXI specifically, you had to sit on it for like 15 minutes to go from say Jeuno to Kazham (or 30mins by boat from Selbina to Mhaura). XIV's design was more "do most players want to wait X amount of time to fly from Gridania to Limsa to do this required quest? Probably not."

In terms of questing, FFXIV 2.0 and on takes a more modern video game approach to appease those with shorter attention spans where it basically spoon feeds you what to do and where to go. It gets a wider audience people to play the game. FFXI took a very different approach, barely any information is given to the player. And many players wouldn't have figured these quests out without guides written by other players who figured out what to do, where to go, who to talk to, and/or what to kill to get the drop. More modern games will tell the player exactly what to kill to get a drop for a quest. FFXI basically says "I need this" and you gotta figure it out (like I didn't know where to get the matching subligar for the Rapparee harness for the Brygid quest, it doesn't tell you what to kill or where to go if I recall. Without a guide I wouldn't have known to go kill fomors in the aqueducts). Current FFXIV has a very different player base than XI and XIV 1.X had, and the FFXI quest structure would turn many away if it were the norm.

For job design, it's a very different style of game. I wholeheartedly agree with you how they are getting homogenized in XIV, and wish they were as unique as FFXI had for job structure. But the two games have very different philosophies when it comes to job design and game content. FFXIV wants EVERY JOB to be viable, which means making everything balanced so any job can do any content reasonably. FFXI was very unforgiving for some jobs, both due to the design of the job and the players perception of what was a viable Job/Subjob combo. On top of those, how the players decided how certain jobs should play. FFXI had much much more freedom with job choice, but the players dictated what the function was (i.e. "RED MAGE HEAL, HASTE, REFRESH ONLY!!!!" or getting declined from a leveling party because X/Y job/subjob was unacceptable, or because you didn't have a certain spell on X caster for whatever reason; you get declined or booted from a party). XIV, on the other hand, in trying to make everything viable sacrificed things for balance. This is the reasoning behind going with the Tank/Healer/DPS category approach. The content in the game was designed around this. I don't agree with everything being done to FFXIV jobs, as many jobs are losing the identities they used to have or are shifting in less than desirable ways (SCH DPS getting gutted, AST card changes and removal of buff extension/spread/enhance, etc.).

In terms of zone design, I disagree with you. FFXI zones were just as uninteractable, and were far more linear in terms of design. Yes, there are some little off shoots and secret areas on occasion, but like XIV's current ones were basically worthless unless you were either a high enough level for it (assuming enemies about) or had a quest specifically taking you there. Both FFXI and FFXIV zones have landmark areas, both have little offshoots and on occasion a "mini dungeon". Both also have zones that are basically squares in shape (Xarcabard, Zi'tah, Misaraeux Coast, Gustaberg, etc.), though some of FFXI's "overworld" zones are objectively more linear in where you can traverse. Dungeon zone structure is obviously very different, modern FFXIV's is stupid linear in design like FFXIII, whereas FFXI has many branching areas to get lost in. But FFXIV dungeons are meant to be spectacular theme park rides. Not to say I prefer XIV's dungeons (in some ways I do, in others I don't), but more spectacle is easier to do in more linear set ups.

Comparing the quantity of content is also irrelevant. FFXI in 2013 had far more content than FFXIV 2.0 did in 2013. It's fair to say FFXI still has more content than FFXIV in 2020 since it's been out a decade longer, as FFXI is still a game getting some content updates (albeit usually small, aside from Seekers of Adoulin expansion and if I recall a new story addition in the vein of Rhapsodies of Vana'diel). FFXIV at the rate it's going and it's still growing popularity will overtake FFXI in content quantity eventually, as XI isn't getting many new players, if any. New content is still being made for it though, which is good to see.

[tymora]

I would blame WoW and mobile games for proving that $ comes with simple games.
Tough games = fewer customers = less $

[tymora]

different kind of mmos. In fact since you seem to have forgotten, ff14 1.0 had the ff11 style and it was one of the major factors that it flopped, it was only after that, that they took inspiration from Wow that 2.0 came to fruition..

1.0 didn't flop because it was FF11 style. It flopped because of other game design flaws, none of which were in FFXI.

1. Skilling up was random, which was retarded - 4 people go in with the same level, 1 person can hit level cap while the rest didn't progress much
2. No central market place - We had to spend hours looking MANUALLY through every retainer in the bazaar...sheesh
3. Super laggy UI
4. Oddball recipe ingredient requirements - A level 10 recipe needing an ingredient made by another craft at Level 20.
5. Laggy servers - Because all in Japan.
+ Other weird gameplay elements that were just super inconvenient and don't add much to gameplay.

I do enjoy certain aspects of 1.0 though.
1. Random boss skills save for a few triggered by HP %.
2. Because there were no local servers, I enjoyed interacting with people from all over the world, lag notwithstanding.
3. Dungeon speed runs for better rewards
4. Able to change jobs in Dungeons + Mobs with damage resistance - Change to mnk to turn skeletons into power than to slashing to cut through plant mobs...etc
5. Cross class skills
6. Crafting can level up your damage dealt (forces everyone to craft). Some people don't like it but I do.

[Payadopa]

We all know that the forum is an echo chamber and the moment you dare criticise XIV people tell you to go play somewhere else and take your ball with you. Especially when you mention either XI or WoW. Imagine players from 1.0 said tthat. Come to think of it, they did. But that defines a fanboy. Been playing since closed alpha so I should know. haha

I personally think OP makes some very valid points that are well articulated. I won't deny it, I really like XI and I'd wish for XIV to revert a few changes back to how it used to be. It's become a really boring game outside of the story and doing a dungeon/trial for the first time.

However, I remember shouting for a party in XI for 7 hours in Jeuno because that was the life of a BLM and I don't want to experience that again. lol

Overall, though, I'm leaning toward XI with just a few QoL improvement but I share a lot of OPs views on the subject.

It's like in XIV you're not even allowed to think for yourself. You get a equip best gear button, every quest tells you exactly where you need to go, you can access pretty much the whole game without leaving your house, and thanks to raiders we aren't allowed to have synergy with classes anymore. And don't get me started on AST cards (my main).

And talking about shallow things, the overworld... /sigh Itself an actual crime. The way it's underutilised I mean. Apart from being blatantly undergeared there is no threat there. Like none. I don't want to call 5 friends only to be able to traverse a map but c'mon. I can chocobo through everything. Eureka was such a good step in the right direction. I have high hopes for the Bozja front or whatever it's called.

I could go on for longer but I'm at work. (damn lol)

[ElciaDeiLinus]

I am astonished when people say FFXIV is the best Final Fantasy in years.

I have played every Final Fantasy title, and not even by a small margin, but by drastic measures, FFXIV is easily the most simplistic and basic Final Fantasy to date.

No other FF has nearly as extensive crafting/gathering system, to the point where they are full jobs here each with full ability sets. Yes, people have optimized it to an insane degree to where there's very specific ways to do these jobs 'the best way'. But guess what- that's the case with all games and certainly all FF games. How many of which can you get through almost every encounter with just vanish and doom? FFXII you can basically afk for an hour and accomplish as much as if you were actually playing, there's considerably more focused and linear stories that rarely diverge- FFXIV is one of the few if only games that considers consequences of heroic actions as well as the mindsets of your allies. Just look at the crystal braves- in every other FF or game in general that group of rebellious sidekicks would have some 2D dialogue then die fighting the empire- queue Returners, Avalanche. Meanwhile, the braves go for years, and stray pretty far from the good guy code of ethics to reach their goals.

I'd have to really question how anyone could consider this game to be the most simplistic and basic FF game when most of the early games you could get through with half your party using literally one ability- attack.

Travel:
Traveling in FFXIV is more simplistic than even the first Final Fantasy, FFI.
XIV has walking, mounts, and what I call "black screen." What I mean here, is using the "airship" in XIV is not using a airship as it is in FFI. You buy your ticket and get a cutscene and thats it. Expounding on this, you dont even get a cutscene for a vast majority of interations. Going to the gold saucer on airship, there is no cutscene. Most all boats there is no cutscene. FFI was praised for its canoo, airship, boat, and its many forms of transportation. XIV has taken a step backwards, all the way before 1987, which is when this title was released. Sure they added swimming with 4.0, but that is not going to push it beyond the options and engaging aspects introduced in FFI.

I urge no one to try arguing "teleporting" is a form that pushes XIV past FFI, because level 5 black mages in FFI could teleport/warp to different parts of dungeons....

Travel in every FF game is simply pointing in one of four directions and moving- or in FFVII in additional directions. And in FFXIV you also have verticality. That you can jump over a chair or barricade within maps in FFXIV actually makes it one of the most advanced 'travel' games in the series. True, you can't waste time by taking a boat over an ocean with otherwise nothing in it- but FFXIV does have underwater areas to swim in with content (albeit limited amounts), and areas to fly to. Much like in those other games you still have a method for travelling in the air, but unlike those other games there's actually something to do with it- at most previous games use a boat/ship as a gate to a location, and for the most part once you get an airship other methods of travel become obsolete unless you hit an area you can't land at.

Ultimately though- the only 'travel' FFXIV removed is the types that are large wastes of time, which admittedly is surprising, having played BDO and WoW where FPs and riding from one zone to another can take up half an hour it is abundantly clear that MMOs are usually designed to intentionally waste massive amounts of your time, and if FFXIV came with airship/boat rides that took hours away from you every week it would not be a shock.

But I will never say that the half hour trip to AQ40 or riding from Grana to Valencia are good uses of my time- travel in most games is an utter waste of time, it's not fun- most of the time I do something else. So if anything you've convinced me that the easy to use, rapid, non wasting of my time travel system in FFXIV is one of the best ones ever made.

Questing:
This is the easiest to discuss. XIV quests, are all literally exactly the same quests from a level 1 quest to level 80 quests. There is little to no variation. Even FFII had key terms to give varrying dialog, and player choice. Its astonishing when people say FFXIII is so bad because of its linear nature. XIV is on harder straighter rails than XIII. XIII offers Cie'th stones, for varrying rewards and challenges. XIV provides no challenges in its quests, and the rewards are not varrying. I'll touch on more of this topic in other aspects such as dungeons, equipment and such. But at least in XIII you had choices, and had purpose to revisiting previous areas. XIV once you're done with a quest, thats it. There is nothing more to it. So it XIV struggles to combat XIII and FFII with its questing, I dare not pit it against FFXI....

FFXIV has about as much quest variety as one can get- within the first ten hours of playing you'll have had ample opportunity to do the heavily story based MSQ, together with basically all the MMO staples- kill quests, fetch, gather x of y items, timed leves which tend to be a mix of all those types. Take some time to gather/craft and they have their own quest and job variety, including quests to locate certain items, use your skills to create HQ items, etc... You'll have hit your first dungeon and tutorial, showing you how to work as a team. And you'll have been introduced at the bare minimum to the overarching story of the game, some major characters, and even job specific quests all of which create a purpose and explain the world.

And importantly, you're given direction and map hints so unlike several older JRPGs you're not spending chunks of time talking to every villager in a town hoping to get the 'event trigger' with little to no direction.

Now, if you want to argue that it'd take longer to do all the quests in FFXI nobody will question that, but being able to do the entire variety of FFXI's questing in FFXIV within the same time it'd take to do one boring FFXI kill quest doesn't make FFXI superior- it actually makes it grossly inferior, in just about every way. Because FFXI quests don't change at any point, and they certainly don't become interesting. They're slow, ugly, standard mmo fare.

Being on rails only means something is linear- which yes, all FF games are linear for the most part- but saying that FFXIV doesn't have variety in its questing but FFXI does seems like a joke.

Dungeons:
I just mentioned dungeons so I'll touch on this topic now. XIV is literally absolutely no less linear than XIII in its dungeons. From level 15 Sastasha, to level 80 Amaurot there is literally no variation. Absolutely every dungeon is a path with trash mobs, then to a boss, repeat x3. Some might try to argue thats what every dungeon is in any Final Fantasy, but that is the furthest from the truth. Even FFI had varying paths, with optional rewards. "But this is a MMO"... dont make me laugh. FFXI has some of the most expansive and engaging dungeons in the series. Not only do the mobs in FFXI have varying aggro methods such as noise, smell, blood (not being capped at full HP,) sight, just to name a few, but the treasure chests are RNG based, and the dungeons are all uniquely designed. Some requiring the player to light 4 candles to open the final boss door, to requiring to paint a picture with a paint brush obtained from a secret chamber and a secret box. LIke by far XIV's dungeons are the most straight and narrow and bland dungeons in the series. By far.

To a degree, this is something I can agree with- FFXIV dungeon lay out is very manufactured, other FF games have considerable variation, some of which isn't particularly great but some is. FFVI comes to mind, with cities including varying ways to get by guards, a phantom train, an ancient floating continent including a timed portion, even the rafters of an opera house with foes to avoid. The lay out differs greatly. But, FFXIV has hardly the most bland dungeons, that title belongs to the bore that is FFXI- FFXIV has the most cinematic dungeons, with massively differing backdrops. Even in some fairly early FFXIV content bosses have mechanics forcing you to do things- whether its cleansing poison in Aurum, curing doom in Qarn, or the far more movement based fights of avoiding being sent off a cliff by Titan.

MMO dungeons in general aren't too interesting in terms of lay out, with one exception- DDO, a game where every single piece of content was a completely different adventure. Alas, it had its own problems, and such lay outs would do poorly in today's rush and grind playerbase. If you end up getting the Pit of Despair in the roulette you can bet everyone's going to take the leaver penalty to avoid it.

Let's compare that to FFXI bosses, where the strategy is to... stand there, and slowly use abilities. For basically all of them. I mean, I guess we can complain about how scripted FFXIV's mechanics and movements are while singing the praises of FFXI, a game where you don't have to move at all... since technically there's no script if there's no depth at all.

FFXIV's gear is absolutely braindead. You get the bigger number. Thats it. Its all item level. Sure there are small instances where you can take a sub stat weight thats "better" than a higher item level, but thats still just "a bigger number." I can pick about just any Final Fantasy in recent years, and there are entirely different boss' requiring varying gear sets. Certain fights players will want high speed, others where you want high defense, I could literally go into grave detail about any other Final Fantasy's customization and gear sets for numerous fights. They all require you to use your brain, and think things through. XIV, its just your item level. Nothing else really matters. Dont even try to argue "well in such and such Final Fantasy I can defeat mobs by pressing just X." Well cause guess what, in FFXIV you can defeat mobs at a higher level than your character, refuse to move (as in take extra damage from the mobs "AoE" indicated attacks" and never once press a weaponskill/spell (GCD) and ... defeat the mob. So XIV takes the cake, where you can literally press nothing except the initial engagement to "start" auto attacks and defeat enemies by entering no commands. Which that brings us into our next topic.

Wear the best gear- how to do well in FF games. Sure, you can bring along sets of absorption gear against elemental bosses to trivialize them, or evade gear on physical bosses to trivialize them- and I'm sure people would love needing dozens of sets for every job as they become required to trivialize them (either that, or these fights would be impossible without them). This is what WoW did with resist sets in Vanilla, you had to use your brain and put on FR gear in the area with the fire things.

I'm sure that'd be fun- oh, this is a fire boss trial, sorry BLM but you're not welcome in this fight. Whoops got Ifrit in the trial roulette but I forgot my FR set in the bank, guess I'm just going to get one shot by every move.

I'm very curious though as to how far you plan to get just auto attacking in FFXIV- because I don't think you're going to manage particularly well in most content. Meanwhile, in most FF games you will be spamming attack for non bosses and there's probably a few bosses you can beat doing that too- either that or just vanish doom them, what's the gear needed for that one again?

A complex gearing system where things like procs, set bonuses, passives, etc... has worked so well in WoW recently, if by well we mean creating collosal gaps on DPS charts between those that have the best corruptions and those who don't, a system that rewards patch reset grinds or RNG luck massively over player skill, where you can parse 90+ one patch then be sub 50 the next solely due to luck. A system that can't be balanced and is universally despised.

Battle:
FFXIV's battles are all ... every last one of them, are scripted. No i'm not going to count subsequent ultimates. Even older Final Fantasy games, the boss' attacks are randomized. XIV's are all cut dry, straight out of the safe and simple script box. XIV did finally start making fights like Chaos, in the Omega raids, have parts of the scrips randomized, but that is them ... at level 70, only finally starting to take pages from the very first Final Fantasy. Isnt FFXIV supposed to be newer, more advanced, and more engaging, than a 30+ year old single player game?

Yes, they are scripted, so that you have to follow a certain rotation and do specific things to get through content. Because this is a newer, more advanced, more engaging game than the previous 30 years of 'do whatever you want and you will do just fine' content from SP games. SP games are, largely, not based on optimization, so they're completable without optimization. You can beat FF1 with any class, you don't need to use specific abilities at certain points, and there's never a part where if you don't react in one second in a FF game Titan throws you off a cliff. Randomization works just fine when you have all the time in the world to react and there's a hundred ways to mitigate the random thing. It doesn't when that random thing instantly kills everyone that doesn't react right- that's why FFXIV fights have to be so scripted, to give people a chance to learn a fight. That's another thing- yes, previous FF fights have lots of randomization... but you don't have to learn them, because you'll never encounter it again and you're not expected to have a chance of failing beyond a few generally optional fights.

I'm not sure how this is 'safe and simple'- most of those random bosses are just thrown a bunch of abilities and randomly use them, that's simple. Creating a sequence of abilities meant to test players who have optimized the game to an extreme is considerably less simple than just assigning random abilities to each boss. If previous FF games were optimized to the point where they were aimed at being a challenge to the most knowledgable players then the vast majority of FF players who just bumbled through the games would have never completed any of them.

Imagine if Amon just randomly did final curtain, and randomly did his frost ability, or if behemoth did its meteor and rock spells at random- you'd have the chance of just dying due to bad luck- and there were foes who could get a bad string of RNG death abilities in other FF games, where if you didn't know it was coming could quickly wipe you out (FFVI's mage tower is a pretty good example of when RNG can go wild). Most of the mechanics in this game are designed either to make it so you will always have a way to survive the next mechanic, or to make it so you have a very punishing time handling two mechanics in a row, something that happens with many bosses who show you two mechanics separately early in a fight before putting it together at the end.

Think about it this way- if mechanic one is meant to give you one second to react to mechanic two, and then another for mechanic three- you have to keep those tight. I you have such a small reaction time it needs to be scripted- if it isn't, then you're both given too much time between (which RNG requires, you need a period in which something can happen but might not), and too little time to react.

Think about the Eden Titan car mechanic- if you're on one line of the ground you get knocked back and stay on the platform when it happens, anywhere else and you're thrown to your death. Between the time the mechanic indicator shows up and occurs there's about one second. Meaning if you're standing anywhere else before it happens you're almost certainly dead. Now, it happens on a script, so people know to prepare for it. But imagine if it happened completely randomly- can you, for certain, be always standing in the right place for every possible random mechanic for every fight? Probably not- unless they were to greatly increase reaction periods or reduce the effects of failures.

Job Design:
Here is where things actually just barely slightly deviate from the "Safe and simple" choices XIV has to offer. With that being said, with each new expansion the jobs are becoming more and more homogenized. Right now there is no reason to play any other job from another. The only reason you play the job you play is because its the most fun to you, but in reality the job itself serves no function execpt to do damage. This goes for healers too, and the community argues at how boring healer classes are to play because of their simple "damage rotation" design. Literally every job's function now, is to just do damage. Tanks have now many mitigation actions? Not enough to warrant any real engagement. As with the boss' all being scripted you push the same buttons at the same times when it comes to healing and tanking. The only redeeming factor in job design, is they are midly different from each other in their execution of damage. Ninja has its ninjistu, Dark Knights juggle their MP, Dark Side, and timing of their attacks with buffs, and how each job varies in potencies and flow. When you pit this kind of uniqueness against say FFIII or even overwhelmingly FFXI.... its not even really worth mentioning. FFIII and FFXI jobs do far more than their "rotations" and "deal damage" they each serve unique and purposeful functions in battle. Sure you can try to argue how XI was so hard to balance each job, and how some jobs were completely shunned, but that would all be opinion and "optimization" which when you start to consider XIV, the same holds true, its just much more magnified. Instead of one job being completely useless in a fight, you have "MNK is not part of the meta" arguement. Or whatever job at the time. XIV is narrowing down on "deleting the meta" but with each step they take to accomplishing that, they dismantle the purpose or role of each job, and push closer and closer to homogenization.

I'm not sure if this is serious- yes, the purpose of dps jobs is to do damage. But acting like previous games did it differently is pretty absurd. The purpose of jobs is to dish out damage, in basically all the FF games. The one variation are those more focused on CC, but that's a pretty stark difference between an MMO and a SP FF game- most of that CC would trivialize bosses, so bosses are immune, but because they're immune those jobs becomes useless against those bosses. And this is something you can test by just playing these games, go and test some of these older FF games, where certain jobs aren't dps focused, and you can see very quickly how they can be either way too useless or way too powerful depending on the situation and immunities of foes. That was fine in those games because balance meant nothing to people in old single player games. Jobs being shunned due to being useless is a pretty big problem in a MP game, and FFXI handling it poorly isn't a good thing, that's not something it should be proud of, it's something that it should be ashamed of.

FFXIV tries to balance, and that requires in the damage/tanking/healing trinity there to be a fairly standard result- which there mostly is. And keep in mind its players asking for more homogenization, it's players complaining that the tanks have different invulnerabilities so they should be made more similar. The results have to be close, if they aren't the job isn't taken and people really, really don't like being stuck with a job that can't find groups to play the game, it's a miserable experience.

What they can change is how you play the game and just to use even four jobs in the same specific type of role. Bard, Red Mage, SMN, BLM- all ranged dps, all very different. SMN relies on an extremely long series of phases, which includes a massive number of buttons, a very strict following of timings, lots of weaving, keeping up your dots and maximizing the use of your CDs- and boss invulns wasting a summon is your biggest foe, you have high aoe dps but switching targets who are too far to spread your dots to is a dps loss. BLM is about being still, managing your enochian while sticking in your leylines, you can switch targets, but movement phases can mess with your damage. Thunder procs start to add a bit of randomness. RDM has a repeating rotation which builds to a burst, with predictable procs in between. Then there's the mobile Bard, with varied buffs, considerable instant casts, lots of procs and a far more reactive playstyle.

When I play WoW, I think of job homogenization because I can pick up ten different dps specs, set up my hotkeys the same way with the same spots for my CD abilities, proc abilities, and spam ability, and play them virtually the same way. Bard, SMN to me play fairly differently, look very different, have a different feel- and with about 30 abilities, most of which I could easily use in a dungeon on my SMN, I don't really feel like there's a big risk of it feeling too simple.

The biggest probelm here, is the only reward for any of this effort, is MGP, and MGP in itself is mostly meaningless. To correct this, they could add features such as adding stat boosts for reward from MGP. Like STR +1 or DEX +1. This is not going to break balance, but will give incentives to players to play the game more, and to be more engaging and fun.

The Saucer is meant to be a place of side games, for non gameplay cosmetic things, that's the incentive for players. The stat min/max crowd is never going to find that engaging- but then again, I'm pretty sure most players outside that group don't find STR/DEX min/max grinds to be fun or engaging. I'm not going to question you on what you find fun here, but the optimization playstyle is a really tired, grindy, boring part of games like FFXI, WoW, EQ that many of us wish had stayed in the past. Those incentives to play the game more are just a chain to the stat grind, and while I don't get why people enjoy that treadmill, and think its just because people with lots of time to grind like having more stats than those who didn't rather than any actual enjoyment of the process itself- I can't deny that its both made a massive amount of players addicted to endless grind games like WoW... while also making them loathe seemingly every minute they're stuck in those grinds from the sheer amount of complaining about it.

In FFXI, you can choose to interact with your chocobo every day, or choose not to. Obviously choosing not to, you can still get your mount, but your chocobo will be worthless when it comes to all the bonus' reaped from a stalwart chocobo. When you interact with your chocobo, there is a small cutscene for each interaction. You can take it on a walk, and it gives you free stuff, when you return from the walk. You can feed it, and there is a small cutscene of it eating. You can care for it, which varies based on the chocobo's age. Such as the egg, baby chick, adolescent, adult.

For example, as I mentioned above. Finding a balance.
Do a quest. Get an egg. Wait 1 hour, for the egg to hatch. In that 1 hour, the player can choose to "care" for the egg or not. 1 hour for each stage of the chocobo's life. Then you proceed back to the gold saucer as normal. With cutscens for "caring" for the chocobo "feeding" it, and other small interactions. The rewards could be purchased buffs (not a scroll to take up inventory space.) For example, like sanction, which I'm sure almost none of you even know about. When you go to the Grand Company there is a NPC there that grants you sanction, which correlates to Grand Company gear. So I dont want to hear any gibberish about "this is too difficult to implement." I'm so sick of these types of arguments, when FFXI is far more advanced than XIV in regards to these types of things. Anyway, going to the Gold Saucer a player can add "Resilience" or whatever the buff you would like to call it. It could say grant +10 Crit hit, or +1 STR as some examples.

This really just sounds like a mobile game or one of those daily log in facebook grinds. The thing is- you keep calling these long, boring grindy mechanics 'advanced' and lamenting that FFXIV doesn't have them. But most of us are tired of these 'advanced' methods of wasting our time that other game rely heavily upon and are very, very happy that we aren't spending a month doing log in boredom tasks- basically a modified rep grind- just to get a chocobo. I don't want to have to spend a bunch of time doing this daily quest nonsense just for a capable chocobo, I'm much happier getting him and going off to adventure. My chocobo does get stronger by the way, learns more abilities, etc... by helping me adventure, because that's what I am- an adventurer, not a chocobo babysitter.

If they put a side chocobo babysitting game at the saucer so be it, maybe have some sort of pokemon breeding/tournament system there for various FF beasts that implements such things- but I wouldn't consider such a blatant time waster in our base adventuring experience with said chocobo companion to be 'advanced', ever. And it's kinda tiring hearing that FFXI is more advanced than FFXIV because FFXI wastes considerable chunks of your time with stuff most people don't take any enjoyment from. If you enjoy it, fine- it's alright to enjoy what you want, but acting like MMOs putting massive, grindy, boring timesinks into their games to get players to play longer and to put long boring blocks of play between the actual fun parts of the game is 'advanced' is so absurd.

FFXI vs FFXIV quantity.

Boss'
(For Boss, I dont count each "version" of a battle in FFXI, but I do count each boss of a dungeon as a "boss" for FFXIV. I do exclude "hard" and "Extreme" versions of a boss for XIV.)

FFXI
(This is every BCNM, Voidwatch, Unity, and Hightier. This does *not* include Ambuscade or any other enemies such as NM's, or bosses from Skirmish, Delve, Dynamis etc.)
290

FFXIV
171
(This *does* include raids, ultimates, dungeons, trials.)

These numbers *do not* include repeats. Such as "hard/extremes/savage" for XIV, but also do not include all versions of "tiers" in FFXI. If I were to include all tiers of XI and extremes and such for XIV, XI would absolutely blow XIV out of the water like no other.

Zones:

It's not hard to make hundreds of bosses with no mechanics, and FFXI is basically a series of tank and spank fights. FFXIV has fewer bosses, but even early, simple ones start to have mechanics to them requiring players to do something other than sit there and use abilities. When you can put 10 FFXI bosses against one FFXIV boss and the FFXIV boss still requires more movement and mechanics driven action, I wouldn't really care if there were five thousand FFXI bosses. Of course, I'd always want more bosses, but if that means reducing the quality of bosses from FFXIV quality to FFXI quality in order to churn out more- I will very happily stick with FFXIV mechanics over FFXI tank and spanks.

FFXI:
43
(This count is *****only**** the original FFXI zones, and Zilart zones. This *does not* include dungeons zones. So this is excluding literally every expansion for FFXI after the first one. No Chains of Promathia zones, no Wings of the Goddess, no Adoulin, you get the picture.)

FFXI ("all")
63
(Excluding dungeons and not counting each sub zone such as "Southern San'doria".)

FFXIV:
38
(This ******does include****** every FFXIV expansion, and all areas. This does not include dungeons or any other areas.)

FFXIV: ("additional")
54
(This is going off the typical expansion count for "new" zones, of 8 new zones per expansion at 2 more expansions.)

If I were to include every expansion for FFXI and even decided to split and count every zone as an individual such as "Bastok" now being "Bastok Mines" and not combining some of the smaller FFXIV zones such as Middle La Noscea and Outer La Noscea" FFXI again, would absolutely blow FFXIV out of the water so hard and fast it would be utterly ridiculous.

So in this comparison, FFXIV only "barely" reaches the zone count of FFXI when FFXIV has all expansions (2 more after 5.0) and FFXI is reduced down to only its first expansion.

And what is there to do in those FFXI zones? Gripping questlines and stories, lots of variety, hunts/fates/various job and MSQ requirements to return to them, to unlock new parts of them? Or a bunch of unimportant kill quests? Zones aren't even the strong part of FFXIV, but they're definitely not for FFXI, and at least FFXIV has the one thing FFXI is missing- a massive, cinematic storyline together with characters that mean something to the WoL, as well as job quests, dungeon questlines, etc... to give reasons to be in those zones.

And what weakness there is for zones here has nothing to do with quantity- but a lack of interesting things to explore. In regards to visual charm FFXIV blows just about everything away, but there's definitely not much purpose to exploring in either dungeons or zones in FFXIV, so I can agree that this is a weak point, especially as exploration has been a big part of previous SE games. But FFXI was an example of a game doing everything FFXIV does but far more poorly and I don't get why it sees so much praise beyond the nostalgia thing.

Which is fair enough, I played Vanilla WoW as a little girl, and went back to Classic WoW- and enjoyed parts of it. But I've not deluded myself into thinking spending half an hour on a FP is good 'travel', that massive, numerous zones are good for size alone despite having broken stories and the high level ones utilizing at best a third of the space, that the time wasting RNG behind BiS gear is anything but time wasting gear grinding.

I really dont grasp why FFXIV gets so much praise, as so far to say its one of the greatest, if not the greatest "Final Fantasy" of all time, when reality and facts say completely the opposite.

To me Final Fantasy XIV, is by far the most simple, the most small, and the most basic in the Final Fantasy franchise, that I would argue it is more of a spin off smaller branch game for a alternate universe for FFXI. But that would be tying it to FFXI, and FFXI is by far much more advanced and engaging, and glorious than FFXIV.


Edit:
Oh and I know someone is going to say "then go play XI"... I do. I play both lol. I just want XIV to step its game up.

FFXIV is massive compared to everything but FFXI, and unlike FFXI, FFXIV is full of varied, interesting content. FFXI is basic, unengaging grinds upon grinds, with flat monsters, bosses and other content.

There's a bit of irony that you took time to complain about how FFXIV gear is all about stats, while most of your comparisons between FFXIV and FFXI favour the latter based just on some stats.

But it's not hard to grasp- most of the things you praise as wonderful in FFXI are things that people playing FFXIV find grindy, boring, repetitive and unengaging. You aren't talking 'facts', you're being entirely subjective in what makes FFXI more fun for you- which is fine, you can do that, but you can't try to tell people that your subjective enjoyment of something is a fact. Quantity- sure, you can say that there are more numbers of things in FFXI, that it takes longer to travel, that it takes more time to accomplish something, that there are more of x- that can be a fact. I can't argue against FFXI is a factually bigger world- but when all those quantities are boring, I can definitely say that FFXIV has far more interesting and fun things to do.

If both games have a kill 5 sahagin quest, between the cutscene, reaching the area, killing them, returning I may have spent 5-10 enjoyable minutes in FFXIV. In FFXI I'll be lucky to have reached the area in that time, and while I can't possibly dispute that the massive expanse where these things spawn, the trip to the area, etc... have taken far more time and space, I can very easily say that this is the reason FFXIV gets so much praise.

FFXIV cut out most of the boring, MMO BS, the years of 'oh you can't make a good story in an MMO it has to be all about grind grind grind', the predatory methods to keep players playing nonstop, logging in every day for fear of missing a daily, this sense that its not enough for players to play and enjoy the game for a while they have to invest an unhealthy amount of their lives into it. They made instead a game that you can just play and enjoy, with a story that's so far thought out its still connecting to points several xpacs later that started in ARR (or earlier), rather than doing WoW's xpac reset where they just randomly come up with a time travel plot or some sort of shadow land that can only be revealed when an undead elf snaps a dude's hat in half (I wish I was joking on that one) bringing in a series of new villains that basically didn't exist until suddenly they did.

And that's why people enjoy this game, call it the best- because sometimes being advanced means getting rid of the BS. A computer that can fit in my lap is far more advanced than one that took up half a gymnasium decades ago, even though by quantity the latter seems the victor.

Saying that FFXI wins because it has a lot more bulk, when most of that bulk is in boring things that most people hate, is a pretty clear indication as to why you can't figure out why most people enjoy FFXIV considerably more than FFXI.

[Penthea]

6. Crafting can level up your damage dealt (forces everyone to craft). Some people don't like it but I do.

That appears strange to me. I can't fathom the logic behind "I can craft really well therefore I do more damage with a combat class". It doesn't make sense to me. How did this particular mechanic work?