A game for 4 year olds

[Cleretic]

Thinking that the next expansion needs to be about a world-threatening crisis is limiting in both the short and long term, as well as... honestly, quite boring.

In the short term it just makes 7.0 a retread of Shadowbringers or Endwalker, going on a world-saving crusade that spans nations, fight horrifying monsters (because not having time to set more local stakes means you have to go hard on more immediately understandable threats), probably go quell the thing that started it all, yadda yadda. Shadowbringers and Endwalker were very popular expansions, no doubt about it, but I think we've all had our fill of planet-threatening armageddons for the time being; doing something else feels much more interesting. (Which incidentally is part of why the Omicrons are a great storyline; basically the furthest possible thing from that, while still feeling useful and interesting.)

And in the long-term... well, 7.0 has the daunting task of setting the stage for what FFXIV does after the stories that have defined it thus far are done; there's no more war against the Empire, no more Ascians, no more primals (or at least, primals not causing the threats we know them for), so what does FFXIV look like after that? It's a difficult question to answer, in no ssmall part because of the stakes; whatever their answer is controls basically the entire game's future, not just for that expansion, but for the storyline that follows it, and whatever comes after that.

And I can tell you right now, answering that question with 'another apocalypse, literally right now' is the worst possible answer, because it establishes that the only state FFXIV can continue to exist in is 'stakes at maximum'. If they don't de-escalate somehow in 7.0, they'll never be able to.

All that's basically a recipe for seeing more localized, political and interpersonal conflicts in 7.0, I think; not only is that more interesting right now, it sets the stage much better for the future. People aren't against those sorts of conflicts in this game, we've just reached the point where the previous motivators and contributors are either dead, done or gone, so we just have to find new ones.

[sidurgu-12]

Thinking that the next expansion needs to be about a world-threatening crisis is limiting in both the short and long term, as well as... honestly, quite boring.

In the short term it just makes 7.0 a retread of Shadowbringers or Endwalker, going on a world-saving crusade that spans nations, fight horrifying monsters (because not having time to set more local stakes means you have to go hard on more immediately understandable threats), probably go quell the thing that started it all, yadda yadda. Shadowbringers and Endwalker were very popular expansions, no doubt about it, but I think we've all had our fill of planet-threatening armageddons for the time being; doing something else feels much more interesting. (Which incidentally is part of why the Omicrons are a great storyline; basically the furthest possible thing from that, while still feeling useful and interesting.)

And in the long-term... well, 7.0 has the daunting task of setting the stage for what FFXIV does after the stories that have defined it thus far are done; there's no more war against the Empire, no more Ascians, no more primals (or at least, primals not causing the threats we know them for), so what does FFXIV look like after that? It's a difficult question to answer, in no ssmall part because of the stakes; whatever their answer is controls basically the entire game's future, not just for that expansion, but for the storyline that follows it, and whatever comes after that.

And I can tell you right now, answering that question with 'another apocalypse, literally right now' is the worst possible answer, because it establishes that the only state FFXIV can continue to exist in is 'stakes at maximum'. If they don't de-escalate somehow in 7.0, they'll never be able to.

All that's basically a recipe for seeing more political and interpersonal conflicts in 7.0, I think; not only is that more interesting right now, it sets the stage much better for the future. People aren't against those sorts of conflicts in this game, we've just reached the point where the previous motivators and contributors are either dead, done or gone, so we just have to find new oness.

WoW seemed to answer everything with "lets cause another apocalypse" and as a result a lot of people gave up on it story wise. Though im not saying its not still popular. Personally id like to see a semi light hearted story for 7.0.

[MikkoAkure]

And in the long-term... well, 7.0 has the daunting task of setting the stage for what FFXIV does after the stories that have defined it thus far are done; there's no more war against the Empire, no more Ascians, no more primals (or at least, primals not causing the threats we know them for), so what does FFXIV look like after that?

I'm interested to see what sort of story appears when Yoshi-P and the writing team are mostly free of the chains that Tanaka's 1.0 brought to FFXIV. Everything up until now has been mostly a continuation of the original story, but expanded upon. Now it's all done and they can tell something new that takes place in the same world. Considering Yoshi-P himself said he thought Garlean gunblades that are just a gun with a sword on it is stupid, there's probably other things he didn't like about 1.0 that he was stuck with.

If they don't de-escalate somehow in 7.0, they'll never be able to.

People aren't against those sorts of conflicts in this game, we've just reached the point where the previous motivators and contributors are either dead, done or gone, so we just have to find new ones.

This is why I was hoping that after EW was dealt with, the WoL would be depowered.

It would solve 2 problems: The problem of being too strong for more mundane threats. And the problem of new players coming into the game. While it was necessary to power up the WoL at first because the Garlean Empire and the Ascians were WAAAAY too strong for Eorzea, if they depowered the WoL after it was all over then not only could existing players who have already completed the story start fresh, but new players could use this as a new launch pad into the game without needing to complete all of the story that happened from say HW-onwards.

While on one hand, it's kinda awkward to play an MMO known for its story and skip it all, but on the other it's a lot to ask new players to do hundreds of hours of it in order to catch up to their friends who invited them to the game in the first place and get established and not burn out without reaching the part of the game everyone else is having fun together on.

[RyuDragnier]

This is why I was hoping that after EW was dealt with, the WoL would be depowered.

It would solve 2 problems: The problem of being too strong for more mundane threats. And the problem of new players coming into the game. While it was necessary to power up the WoL at first because the Garlean Empire and the Ascians were WAAAAY too strong for Eorzea, if they depowered the WoL after it was all over then not only could existing players who have already completed the story start fresh, but new players could use this as a new launch pad into the game without needing to complete all of the story that happened from say HW-onwards.

While on one hand, it's kinda awkward to play an MMO known for its story and skip it all, but on the other it's a lot to ask new players to do hundreds of hours of it in order to catch up to their friends who invited them to the game in the first place and get established and not burn out without reaching the part of the game everyone else is having fun together on.

That's why I'm a fan of the idea of 8.0 throwing a monkey wrench in things while being in The New World. At the end of 7.0, we will be at level 100, normally the stopping point for levels in Final Fantasy. But FF14 doesn't do horizontal grinds well. So how do we keep a vertical grind while "resetting" the levels (not the skills) and the WoL's power level in story? We lose our body, possibly through some form of death at the hands of the 8.0 expansion villain early on (who may have been testing out a weapon on some random stranger, ie the WoL). However, due to our soul being strong enough, we end up grabbing a body (possibly without a soul due to villain's evil magic testing) and are forced to basically train this body up after having made it change shape into our former look. It de-escalates our power (kind of considering how souls work), and gives us a threatening villain.

[Cleretic]

This is why I was hoping that after EW was dealt with, the WoL would be depowered.

It would solve 2 problems: The problem of being too strong for more mundane threats. And the problem of new players coming into the game. While it was necessary to power up the WoL at first because the Garlean Empire and the Ascians were WAAAAY too strong for Eorzea, if they depowered the WoL after it was all over then not only could existing players who have already completed the story start fresh, but new players could use this as a new launch pad into the game without needing to complete all of the story that happened from say HW-onwards.

See, I think this is an attempted solution to something that's not actually a problem, and just makes more in the attempted fix. We're not actually so strong as to completely invalidate all non-apocalyptic comers; we're exceptionally capable in a fight, no doubt about it, but we've been laid out flat plenty of times and don't actually do a lot of those tremendous victories alone; Shadowbringers and Endwalker did well by making that abundantly clear in the text itself, and giving us a way to bring in a group even when that's difficult through the Azem crystal, but it's always been there. We might be the among top of our respective fields, but that peak is by no means above the concept of there being believable competition or us needing help to throw down with a big beastie.

The story doesn't need to de-power us to make future content a challenge; they can just make that content a challenge and have us accept that we'll sometimes get our asses handed to us no matter how big our biceps are. No part of the game's text or mechanics says that's not completely possible; hell, Bozja told us that a guy with an axe and no shirt was our combative equal, and I don't see anyone arguing with that.

...plus, the notion of de-powering the character faces an insane amount of issues both with reflecting it mechanically and story-wise. We have dozens of different possible power sources, from the high-concept Summoner to the 'just angry and beefy' Warrior, how are you going to sell an in-universe de-powering that hits every single one of them? Even when superhero stories do that they don't try to make it one-size-fits all, because when they do it it's not to knock The Flash or Thor down to size, it's usually a story arc just set up around the concept of 'oh yeah Batman and Hawkeye aren't affected by this, we'll tell a story about that'. Metroid can de-power Samus no problems, because Samus is one person with a very specific power source; to depower the WoL, you need a concept that wipes out twenty different possible power sources and combat techniques in one. And you can't actually miss a single one, otherwise Monks or whoever you miss are gonna complain they should be the exception and should be the Batman in a 'depowered Justice League' story.

And it's a beat that's not going to feel like it means anything at all if it's not mechanically reflected, but reflecting it mechanically would kinda just mess up the rest of the game. If you've decided after Ultima Thule that we should be depowered to a degree where we can no longer compete in Ultima Thule... well, if you don't change things mechanically nobody will think we've been de-powered anyway and it'll feel like nothing, but if you make it so that we can't you've messed up all content in that zone.

[Lyth]

Power is relative. You really just need a sufficiently menacing villain. The problem is if that confrontation occurs too early, then they lose their impact. It's easy to fall into the trap of introducing a character and then immediately wanting to bring about a showdown. But then it quickly turns into monster of the week. This is the best time to start investing in an arc villain, for a payoff several expansions down the line.

I like the idea of removing players' sense of 'safety', but that's difficult to do in an MMO. Traditionally the way to do this is a point of no return. One of the best parts of the transition between ARR and Heavensward was the lonely journey to Ishgard, as a wanted fugitive on the run. But you also can't take away the player's ability to teleport back to Ul'dah and carry on there as normal. In comparison, imagine the impact of Cecil being stranded on Mysidia, only to be able to teleport back to safety to visit earlier shops at will.

I think the difficulty right now is that most places on the three great continents are going to welcome us as heroes and cheer us on. It's very different being stranded in a hostile environment as the underdog and trying to win people over. But I think it's tough to convey that in an MMO.

It would be fun to see some of the Ivalice related regions in southern Ilsabard, and I'm hoping that one of the 'other names' for Locus Amoenus turns out to be Archadia. But I'm in no particular rush to get there.

[Iscah]

[Depowering] would solve 2 problems: The problem of being too strong for more mundane threats. And the problem of new players coming into the game.

The only way that could assist new players is by reducing the character's actual numeric level, and that would be such a massive can of worms. Why did any of us go to the bother of levelling additional jobs above 50 if they're going to get dropped straight back down there when we hit a certain point in the MSQ? Where would that leave the role quests, and indeed any sidequest requiring higher levels? It would completely defeat the structure of the game so far, and existing players would be rightly unimpressed.

And if you're not meaning to reduce levels, then I can't see it helping newcomers at all.

The simpler route is to get them up there quicker. If the devs want them to get into the new storyline immediately, that can be achieved in the current system by including one free story skip to the beginning of 7.0 and a level boost to 90 in the purchase of the game, allowing players to jump into "season 2" without having to compromise the linear structure of the storyline. Beyond that, boost the armoury bonus if it should be easier for them to catch up on additional classes.

[Alleo]

The simpler route is to get them up there quicker. If the devs want them to get into the new storyline immediately, that can be achieved in the current system by including one free story skip to the beginning of 7.0 and a level boost to 90 in the purchase of the game, allowing players to jump into "season 2" without having to compromise the linear structure of the storyline. Beyond that, boost the armoury bonus if it should be easier for them to catch up on additional classes.

Fully agree on that. If someone that comes to the game does not want do to the old expansions they can skip them. Otherwise SE would need to write two storylines at the same time...after all our character has a history with this world. If someone starts a new one and gets a new beginning at 7.0 they lack that. Which means that any interaction with any old NPC needs to be rewritten. And yes for a short while they could write that we only meet new people but that does not happen forever.

Why bother with that if people simply can skip.

If we are done with exploring our planet we still have the shards and the whole universe left. Places that could easily have other rules thus making us weaker by default.