Stuff we have lost each expansion since shadowbringers

[DPZ2]

Are you actually saying you're fine with a multi billion company encouraging players to play with NPC's instead of you know making the content fun ? You are not a white knight, but you dont know what an MMORPG is either, in an MMORPG you play with players, not with NPC's in dungeons. If you want to play with NPC's just play a single player game.

Final Fantasy XIV is about the only MMORPG I've ever come across that makes playing dungeon instances mandatory to advance through the story. I can play through the entirety of the World of Warcraft leveling experience without playing a single dungeon instance. Same goes for Guild Wars 2. Same goes for every other MMORPG I've played this century.

What makes you think that NPCs are out of place in those mandatory dungeon instances, other than your preference for playing with others? There are plenty of players who still play through the dungeon instances in random groups, despite the fact that NPCs are available. Who yanked the "I can't get anyone to play with me anymore because ... NPCs!" chain so badly that you'd even use this as an argument?

If, as the latest player survey infers, there are close to 1.5 million active characters, and each of them is paying $12US for subscription, that brings in $216US million a year in subscriptions. Yet somehow, the entirety of the MMORPG division of Square Enix Q3 Full Year results is closer to $384US million. (I suspect the player survey misses a number of subscribers, since it can't check that status).

Square Enix's current year revenues are at around $1.7 billion dollars. It doesn't make the majority of its revenues from Final Fantasy XIV, no matter how much certain players believe it to be true.

Complaining that a company spends its money on things other than the one game you want is pointless.

[Shurrikhan]

Final Fantasy XIV is about the only MMORPG I've ever come across that makes playing dungeon instances mandatory to advance through the story. I can play through the entirety of the World of Warcraft leveling experience without playing a single dungeon instance.

Sure, but only in the technical sense... and one which does not include post-leveling story... or even all parts of the leveling story.

Even in Vanilla WoW, while you could reach 60 without doing group content, most of your power progression came from gear and gold-purchased skill training, not from levels alone (as Crit, Haste, the relative value of MP5, etc., all devalued with levels). And from where did one tend to acquire gear and gold in any efficient fashion? From either gathering grind loops, for which one competed with other players (since nodes weren't individualized)... or from group content. Grouping up was miles more efficient and the game almost constantly encouraged it, from the recommended 3-player and 5-player quests to just the fact that even mob grinding was tremendously more efficient in groups.

The group content was, even back then, the core of the game. Its not being "required" was little more than a technicality.



Consider: If I call something a "gun game"... would you not expect at least one of those guns to actually be fired, designed, provide threat, or otherwise be leveraged, rather than just sitting in the background of something irrelevant to that?

In the same way, an MMO can fail to make any use of its being massively multiplayer and still technically be an MMO, but... that's a tremendous waste.



To be clear, I don't mind that XIV can be played wholly single-player (or, wouldn't, if only the Trust AI was better so that it wasn't even further detracting from player learning, with some other way, such as lower %damage from the Trust members, to incentivize grouping over Trusts). But an MMO that doesn't leverage being an MMO... isn't something we should aspire towards.

Since 2.1: original Pharos sirius was so hard healers would instantly quit and leave. Haukke HM had a soft enrage that was pretty tough to breach if you're into low gear (I had to leave once because my bard was undergeared). And Copperbell HM had a fun boss fight that actually required teamplay: the ranged having to deal with crystals and also untankable adds. It was later nerfed so now they're not as hard as they were, but they were Extreme Dungeons with the capital E.

I can go further though: Amdapor city had a fun final boss requiring memorization of doors, or else you'd die from the boss's mass AOE attack. Yes it was possible to wipe much easier before.

Gods I miss these...