FFXIV is too simplistic and bland

[DrWho2010]

And did the existence of those pieces of content and their limitations prevent people with less than two hours at a time to spend from enjoying the game on the whole?

If I've spent my two hours i have to play that day and accomplished nothing I consider that a complete waste of my time and thus reduce my enjoyment of the game that day (and possibly sour the next time i'm able to play as well).

Did never hitting cutting edge raiding prevent your typical player from enjoying the game?

What the "typical player" wants is entirely too subjective a idea to assign enjoyment of the game and encompasses too many variables to gauge said enjoyment. That being said if i was a savage raider and was forced to step back from the scene because of other obligations my personal enjoyment factor would be affected.

Is a journey so impossible to enjoy satisfactorily so long as its ending isn't easily accessible to everyone?

Again a very subjective thing.

an enjoyable process and a sense of accessibility aren't even mutually exclusive

IMO they are very intrinsically linked.

so long as you don't mistake enjoyability for a matter of percents and quotas.

again this is your opinion, which not everyone else would share.

[KayRadley]

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.

...so why are you popping off? It's clear you enjoy one game more than the other. Go enjoy the game you like and let us enjoy the game we like.

[linayar]

But it really doesnt have to be.

Most of your complaints just don't resonate with me at all.

Travel, questing, zone design, and monsters serve their purpose, so they don't diminish my enjoyment of the game.

And I love FFXIV's dungeons, equipment, and battle designs and I want them to remain relatively the same.

That leaves only job design, where I can understand some of the criticisms on homogenization. Yet at the same time, I think it's overblown as I see enough differences that makes me personally choose one job over another in a given role.

[RicaRuin]

The argument by OP that baffles me the most - saying that FF XI had more zones and bosses and is thus better.
Yeah, but it has been around way longer? You can only compare the numbers from FF XI at the point where it had the same lifespan FF XIV has now...

[Penthea]

The argument by OP that baffles me the most - saying that FF XI had more zones and bosses and is thus better.
Yeah, but it has been around way longer? You can only compare the numbers from FF XI at the point where it had the same lifespan FF XIV has now...

Honestly I think OP is upset that XIV isn't XI.

XI was a product of its time. The mmorpg audience isn't the same as before. Every game genre evolves. It's completely normal. Not saying it isn't okay to dislike how genres change, just saying that it's a thing that has happened in every genre, and will continue to happen.

And personally a lot of what I heard about XI turned me off. I had some friends who wanted me to play it and when they tried to convince me how much fun it was they only ended up convincing me that I wouldn't like it. I had a busy job at the time so the idea of everything taking so long to do, and needing to find people pretty often to do a lot of those things, just made me feel I wouldn't have had the time to even try to enjoy it.

[Kiurai]

The problem here is you're arguing these points to a community that is simply media illiterate. As someone who has played many games, especially JRPGs and Final Fantasy, it's really not hard to see that the design philosophy of XIV is vastly inferior to XI and arguably a disgrace to its namesake. That being said though, I think it's still worth playing as it is a spectacle in many ways, and the systems in themselves aren't necessarily bad, they just have no semblance of JRPG design. Overall though I think your main mistake was presuming the community cares about game design lol. Financially speaking, moving away from a design rooted in the core experience of the FF franchise was the smartest move they could have made, consequently however the player base is now comprised of casual consumers with incredibly low (if any) expectations.

I dont think insulting people your arguing your opinion to will ever make them agree with you. No matter how right you are. Youre stating a completely subjective opinion as objective fact, don't act all high and mighty about game design and philosophy when enjoyment of those things vary from person to person anyways

[Penthea]

The problem here is you're arguing these points to a community that is simply media illiterate. As someone who has played many games, especially JRPGs and Final Fantasy, it's really not hard to see that the design philosophy of XIV is vastly inferior to XI and arguably a disgrace to its namesake.

Wow, stating opinions as facts while insulting people for merely having a different preference. Nice.

Well speaking as someone who has been playing jrpgs for most of her life I strongly disagree that XIV is a disgrace to the FF series. It's easily one of my favourite FF games but with that said I rarely very directly compare it to the others I have played because they were single player games. Totally different experience to a mmorpg.

As for XI I can't speak much on it as I have not played it, but what I can say is in their quest to convince me to play it my friends ended up convincing me I wouldn't like it. I don't know if they just painted a very poor picture, but what they said made the game seem like little other than a dull grind. And I'm no stranger to grinding given that I near obsessively complete every scrap of content the jrpgs I play have to offer and have done so since childhood. I am more curious about XI now but that is only because I would like to personally see how different it is to XIV, not because anything about the game actually appeals to me. I don't begrudge those who enjoy XI, good for them if they do. But from what I know it doesn't seem to be my jam.

[EtherRose]

Ah yes, the Lvl.25 Gladiator alt forum account. Obvious troll, hmm maybe.

[DrWho2010]

Ah yes, the Lvl.25 Gladiator alt forum account. Obvious troll, hmm maybe.

not necessarily. just probably doesn't want anyone to figure out what their main character name is to avoid harassment in-game for their views.

[DPZ2]

The problem here is you're arguing these points to a community that is simply media illiterate. As someone who has played many games, especially JRPGs and Final Fantasy, it's really not hard to see that the design philosophy of XIV is vastly inferior to XI and arguably a disgrace to its namesake ... moving away from a design rooted in the core experience of the FF franchise was the smartest move they could have made, consequently however the player base is now comprised of casual consumers with incredibly low (if any) expectations.

For you other 'media illiterates', here is a great run-down on how to build a JRPG:
https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com...--gamedev-6676

The first two paragraphs (under Genre Talk) will give you all you need to know about the design philosophy that makes an RPG a JRPG. You will note that Final Fantasy XIV has everything there except "combat is often turn-based" ... which must be what the author is referencing when opining "the design philosophy of XIV is vastly inferior to XI".

To validate my own experiences, just like the author of the quote above: I have been playing computer games since there were computers to play them on. I have played console games where the console consisted of two rheostats attached to a logic board.

I have played Final Fantasy XI. It's design philosophy (if you can call it that) appears to have been "provide a Final Fantasy-like experience through a hodge-podge of aimless wandering with incredibly boring grinding in the least efficient manner possible." Not bad for a late 20th century MMO - but not especially timeless. This was the way that game designers approached MMO RPGs at the time: minimal story line, maximum grinding to keep players paying engaged.

This design philosophy was updated when World of Warcraft burst onto the scene several years later. Here was a story; here was [relative] ease of movement between one area and another; here was conflict between players [Alliance/Horde] which would lead to a PvP element; here was ..... you know, just go read a history of MMOs and figure out how much that design philosophy changed when WoW was released.

Final Fantasy XIV had to compete with WoW, not with Everquest or Final Fantasy XI.

I take issue with the idea that the 'core experience' of the Final Fantasy franchise was abandoned. The aesthetics are spot on, the story line is no less epic than any of the single-player games, the references to the other games are in line with those of other MMOs.

I also take issue with the absurd attitude about 'casual consumers', as if players are somehow duped into enjoying the game.