Quote Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart View Post
And I can see why FF14 is rising up. It doesn't waste my time.
That's right and there are several reasons for this actually.
  • In 1.0, the original version of the game which failed, people attacked it for wasting their time (making them run everywhere when teleporting exists, but teleporting could only be used rarely).
  • Yoshi-P, the new producer and director after 1.0 failed, had played other MMORPGs for years and understood the psychology and what people liked and didn't like.
  • From the start, 2.0 was designed with ideas such as only killing 3 enemies for quests, which shows how they get these things.
  • Over time, things were made more convenient in response to player feedback. For example, the job system inherited from 1.0 required you to level 2 classes first, so you had to play a class you didn't care about and then level other classes to get cross-class skills. This was all removed because it was a chore.
  • In Stormblood, it seems like they began to notice how the majority of people are just casual players and don't have time for grindy content like Eureka, so it shifted even more to "you can do the new patch in a day" then work on goals. The developers can relate - they don't exactly have too much time because they are busy developing.