7.0 MMO to a Single Player Game

[Avoidy]

There're so many single player ff games
why are they trying to make the mmo one more single player oriented
just go play one of the single player ones if you want to play alone
like, what even is this lol

[Elissar]

There're so many single player ff games
why are they trying to make the mmo one more single player oriented
just go play one of the single player ones if you want to play alone
like, what even is this lol

Yep, by trying to do satisfy every audience they may ruin every good aspect of FFXIV.

[IkaraGreydancer]

Yep, by trying to do satisfy every audience they may ruin every good aspect of FFXIV.

Again, I'll never understand the hyperbole here. We have yet to see anything change or really effect the core of the game. I'd be on board with this if they were talking about adding trusts to things like Exploration Zones, Extremes, Savage etc. But this has not been the case. The solo peeps having their own little space doesn't hurt any of us. If they wanna run dungeons solo so be it. Let them. It's slower so they're choosing to spend more of their own time on it. That hurts no one.
If so many people are against solo having a space then that tells me there's that same amount who will still be here for group content.

The gatekeeping is mad weird.

[Ath192]

Again, I'll never understand the hyperbole here. We have yet to see anything change or really effect the core of the game. I'd be on board with this if they were talking about adding trusts to things like Exploration Zones, Extremes, Savage etc. But this has not been the case. The solo peeps having their own little space doesn't hurt any of us. If they wanna run dungeons solo so be it. Let them. It's slower so they're choosing to spend more of their own time on it. That hurts no one.
If so many people are against solo having a space then that tells me there's that same amount who will still be here for group content.

The gatekeeping is mad weird.

It does hurt everyone. I’ll use an argument that has been used against me plenty here when I suggest a feature. That the development time could be better used elsewhere.

They’ve invested heavily into making it a good solo experience, imagine all the other things they could’ve done for the multiplayer experience if all this wasn’t going on in the background.

At the end of the day XI started getting these crutches towards the end of its peak and so I hope they’re planning on the next FF MMO as XVII. The changes would make a lot of sense if they are planning on transferring a huge chunk of the population to their next title. As it happened with XI.

[Jojoya]

It does hurt everyone. I’ll use an argument that has been used against me plenty here when I suggest a feature. That the development time could be better used elsewhere.

They’ve invested heavily into making it a good solo experience, imagine all the other things they could’ve done for the multiplayer experience if all this wasn’t going on in the background.

At the end of the day XI started getting these crutches towards the end of its peak and so I hope they’re planning on the next FF MMO as XVII. The changes would make a lot of sense if they are planning on transferring a huge chunk of the population to their next title. As it happened with XI.

It might also be that they've decided that they want to leave FF as a single player franchise going forward and so they're trying to get current players used to a single player experience.

Let's face it: MMOs come with a set of problems that single player games don't face, with one of the big ones being the interactions within the player community and the frequent requests for changes to content style "because other MMOs do it this way". There's greater pressure to appeal to a wider audience to keep a steady stream of players online for the sake of the multi-player experience even if other players are sometimes just seen as background noise while someone plays alone. They may have decided internally it's just not worth it anymore.

Personally, I'm not certain how I feel about the announced plans for the game. It's their IP and their right to make the creative decisions they want for the game but I'm taking a wait and see approach. As long as I continue to have fun playing, I'll be here. If too much of the social aspect ends up feeling lost in the middle of the solo focus, I may not stick around. I've never played other FF games so I'm not carrying any emotional baggage that chains me to the game just because it's a FF title.

[Ath192]

It might also be that they've decided that they want to leave FF as a single player franchise going forward and so they're trying to get current players used to a single player experience.

Let's face it: MMOs come with a set of problems that single player games don't face, with one of the big ones being the interactions within the player community and the frequent requests for changes to content style "because other MMOs do it this way". There's greater pressure to appeal to a wider audience to keep a steady stream of players online for the sake of the multi-player experience even if other players are sometimes just seen as background noise while someone plays alone. They may have decided internally it's just not worth it anymore.

Personally, I'm not certain how I feel about the announced plans for the game. It's their IP and their right to make the creative decisions they want for the game but I'm taking a wait and see approach. As long as I continue to have fun playing, I'll be here. If too much of the social aspect ends up feeling lost in the middle of the solo focus, I may not stick around. I've never played other FF games so I'm not carrying any emotional baggage that chains me to the game just because it's a FF title.

I don’t think so. Both XI and XIV became the franchises most profitable games. A business mission is first and foremost to make money above all else. Now I don’t think this outcome is impossible but highly improbable.

Companies don’t tend to kill their most successful products, not intentionally anyways. Some do tend to coast on them to maximize profit or water them down to maximize appeal which makes them lose their special touch however. I do believe this to be happening here in terms of gameplay.

The issue with this approach is that the game accelerates burnout. You can quickly beat everything once and since there is no complexity there’s hardly a reason to return so people move on. New players aren’t generally infinite though so I’d prefer it if they invested in a loyal player base that is heavily invested into the games complexities instead of chasing the easy come, easy go cash.

It is such a tragedy that poor technical execution was also irrevocably tied to the highly interdependent and social experience FF MMOs were known for. They chucked out all of it when imo an FFXI 2.0 would’ve worked just fine if the game wasn’t a technical and underdeveloped disaster.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Again, I'll never understand the hyperbole here. We have yet to see anything change or really effect the core of the game. I'd be on board with this if they were talking about adding trusts to things like Exploration Zones, Extremes, Savage etc. But this has not been the case. The solo peeps having their own little space doesn't hurt any of us. If they wanna run dungeons solo so be it. Let them. It's slower so they're choosing to spend more of their own time on it. That hurts no one.
If so many people are against solo having a space then that tells me there's that same amount who will still be here for group content.

The gatekeeping is mad weird.

It's statistically impossible to make a game that appeals to everybody. Yet CBU3 has shown to continue with the pursuit of futility. Essentially the only thing they've really succeeded in doing is dumbing down this game along with FF16 to the point it requires a dozen or less functioning braincells to progress in it. You could argue that is well and fine for the offline singleplayer title FF16 except they basically forced everyone to play the game on preschooler mode just to access a somewhat normal difficulty setting on a second playthrough instead of letting us play it that way right out of the box. In terms of this game the issue is that these people progress the game and MSQ while not learning anything about how to play the game or do mechanics then jump into EX/Savage content and drag everyone else down diminishing the experience for those that did learn the game as they're just dead weight hoping to leech rewards because they want all the shiny stuff handed to them while refusing to make any effort to earn it. The frequency of this happening increased when easy mode was added to solo MSQ instances. The only reason the addition of duty support really didn't impact this is because those people were already using others to carry them through the 4 player and story mode trials before it was added. They're now taking it further and homogenizing older duties that had unique layouts or zone mechanics that made them stand out from every new duty they've added over more recent years.

[Heroman3003]

It's statistically impossible to make a game that appeals to everybody. Yet CBU3 has shown to continue with the pursuit of futility. Essentially the only thing they've really succeeded in doing is dumbing down this game along with FF16 to the point it requires a dozen or less functioning braincells to progress in it. You could argue that is well and fine for the offline singleplayer title FF16 except they basically forced everyone to play the game on preschooler mode just to access a somewhat normal difficulty setting on a second playthrough instead of letting us play it that way right out of the box. In terms of this game the issue is that these people progress the game and MSQ while not learning anything about how to play the game or do mechanics then jump into EX/Savage content and drag everyone else down diminishing the experience for those that did learn the game as they're just dead weight hoping to leech rewards because they want all the shiny stuff handed to them while refusing to make any effort to earn it. The frequency of this happening increased when easy mode was added to solo MSQ instances. The only reason the addition of duty support really didn't impact this is because those people were already using others to carry them through the 4 player and story mode trials before it was added. They're now taking it further and homogenizing older duties that had unique layouts or zone mechanics that made them stand out from every new duty they've added over more recent years.

If anything, its harder with NPCs than it is with players, because everything relies on you to take initiative and nobody can explain things to you, so you have to figure it out or fail. Also, reworked all dungeons of past have been not dumbed down, but actually turned into something that teaches players mechanics. They actually use markers that appear in later fights consistently now, making sure people have opportunity to learn what they do early on, which is a great change. It's the very fact that those older duties relied on 'unique' mechanics that made actual learning curve so steep, because all that early content did nothing to prepare players for mechanical aspect of later content. Its still not perfect and you still sometimes see players running away with stack marker in some lvl 50/60 duties, but generally, I've found all the early revamped story dungeons to be much better at demonstrating specific mechanics in non-overwhelming way by having one or two per major bossfight. Isn't that what people always asked for, early content that actually prepares people for later, more involved and difficult content? And now its terrible because its 'homogenized' in attempt to implement consistent mechanics?

[vetch]

If anything, its harder with NPCs than it is with players, because everything relies on you to take initiative and nobody can explain things to you, so you have to figure it out or fail. Also, reworked all dungeons of past have been not dumbed down, but actually turned into something that teaches players mechanics. They actually use markers that appear in later fights consistently now, making sure people have opportunity to learn what they do early on, which is a great change. It's the very fact that those older duties relied on 'unique' mechanics that made actual learning curve so steep, because all that early content did nothing to prepare players for mechanical aspect of later content. Its still not perfect and you still sometimes see players running away with stack marker in some lvl 50/60 duties, but generally, I've found all the early revamped story dungeons to be much better at demonstrating specific mechanics in non-overwhelming way by having one or two per major bossfight. Isn't that what people always asked for, early content that actually prepares people for later, more involved and difficult content? And now its terrible because its 'homogenized' in attempt to implement consistent mechanics?

Because the mechanics themselves are boring. 'Boring' is not a word you want applied to your videogame. And it quite literally has been dumbed down, because unique mechs that used to require a bit of thought were replaced with the boss running to center and casting 'dodge this' or 'stack this', which requires none.

It would have been a coup to update the markers to convey the common mechanics better while retaining the unique flavor mechanics that make the fights interesting in themselves. Instead, all of the interesting older work was gutted and the fights made repetitive, because the game was already running on a skeleton crew and then they were given FF16 to work on alongside so it's all they had time to do. And it's still so forgiving and power-crept that you can ignore tankbusters and soak AoEs. What do you learn as a new player if a tankbuster marker appears for the first time and then the boss attacks your tank for not much more HP than he was already autoing for? Nothing.

[Heroman3003]

Because the mechanics themselves are boring. 'Boring' is not a word you want applied to your videogame. And it quite literally has been dumbed down, because unique mechs that used to require a bit of thought were replaced with the boss running to center and casting 'dodge this' or 'stack this', which requires none.

It would have been a coup to update the markers to convey the common mechanics better while retaining the unique flavor mechanics that make the fights interesting in themselves. Instead, all of the interesting older work was gutted and the fights made repetitive, because the game was already running on a skeleton crew and then they were given FF16 to work on alongside so it's all they had time to do. And it's still so forgiving and power-crept that you can ignore tankbusters and soak AoEs. What do you learn as a new player if a tankbuster marker appears for the first time and then the boss attacks your tank for not much more HP than he was already autoing for? Nothing.

Such unique mechanics as Ichorous Ire's 'literally just sit and wait for the lever cooldown because the entire fight is waiting for lever'. Just because something is unique doesn't make it interesting. Several fights that were basically non-fights are now actually fights, both because of adjusted scaling (looking at you, Aetherochemical Research Facility) and because of changed mechanics. I disagree that any fight became more 'boring' because most fights that were changed had basically no mechanics or had even worse mechanics before. I honestly actively prefer the switch from 'unique' boring mechanics to the 'consistent' boring mechanics that at least do barest minimum of teaching for new players throughout the story.