MSQ Questing in response to Yoshida's interviews

[Raven2014]

They'll condense the msq going forward so get the next dungeon after 1 or 2 quests. They won't do overworld content which most people dislike already. Is fighting a wave of enemies in purple circles after every quest really going to improve the experience? No. Xiv has never had varied overworld content, much less during msq. The game that offers that is called Gw2.

It's not even about having actual content, but just ambience. And by that I don't means stuffs like lighting or visual, FF14 is great at those. But stuffs that make a zone feel alive, and not just a pretty pictures. And frankly it's not just GW2, most MMO I played does this better than FF14. For examples:

In WoW Wotlk, the Wyrmrest temple is a raging battleground that every time you visit you can feel the conflicting exploding around it.

In SW:kotor, go down to places like the undercity on Corrusant and you can witness various factions duking it out.


Another things is the expansion zones are often too big, pointlessly big even. This makes the few set pieces they have feel far and few in between. I feel 2.0 zones were much more focus and enjoyable because they were more alive. For example:

In Northen Thanalan, it feels like the bottom half of the map belongs to us, pushing to the top half and you got into empire territory. Same with Mor Dohna
In Eastern Shroud, most area is peaceful but going deep into Sylphic plan feels like a small expedition into a mystical land.
Samething for Aleport, despite being such a small map, it has two distinction when you're on the Maelstrom side of the gate or not.

Comparing that to the zone in DT and the DT just feels ... flat and static. Again, they looks pretty, but that's about it. There is no sense of ownership or large divide, they're just a big map with landmark scatter around filled with randomly placed monsters.

[Rekh]

It's not even about having actual content, but just ambience. And by that I don't means stuffs like lighting or visual, FF14 is great at those. But stuffs that make a zone feel alive, and not just a pretty pictures. And frankly it's not just GW2, most MMO I played does this better than FF14. For examples:

In WoW Wotlk, the Wyrmrest temple is a raging battleground that every time you visit you can feel the conflicting exploding around it.

In SW:kotor, go down to places like the undercity on Corrusant and you can witness various factions duking it out.


Another things is the expansion zones are often too big, pointlessly big even. This makes the few set pieces they have feel far and few in between. I feel 2.0 zones were much more focus and enjoyable because they were more alive. For example:

In Northen Thanalan, it feels like the bottom half of the map belongs to us, pushing to the top half and you got into empire territory. Same with Mor Dohna
In Eastern Shroud, most area is peaceful but going deep into Sylphic plan feels like a small expedition into a mystical land.
Samething for Aleport, despite being such a small map, it has two distinction when you're on the Maelstrom side of the gate or not.

Comparing that to the zone in DT and the DT just feels ... flat and static. Again, they looks pretty, but that's about it. There is no sense of ownership or large divide, they're just a big map with landmark scatter around filled with randomly placed monsters.

So you want fake destruction for the sake of it. That's worse than the current design. If you make an evironment that looks like it's going through conflict it better have the content to back it up. At that point you're asking for Gw2; it would be a completely different game; you'd have to sacrifice having leveling dungeons and more.

[Raven2014]

So you want fake destruction for the sake of it.

If you want to label having a better ambient and dynamic open world as "fake", then yes I want the fake. I think they're better than this real.

At that point you're asking for Gw2;

No, I'm not asking for GW2, I'm asking for what I think is a better experience.

it would be a completely different game; you'd have to sacrifice having leveling dungeons and more.

Idk, WoW had both open world and dungeon contents, sames goes SW:KOTOR, same goes for most MMO that I have played. Don't know why you talk like these things have to be mutual exclusive.

[Rekh]

If you want to label having a better ambient and dynamic open world as "fake", then yes I want the fake. I think they're better than this real.

You asked for a fake environment even if it doesn't have content in it.

It's not even about having actual content, but just ambience.
In WoW Wotlk, the Wyrmrest temple is a raging battleground that every time you visit you can feel the conflicting exploding around it.

Fake conflict without content.

No, I'm not asking for GW2, I'm asking for what I think is a better experience.

Then you're asking for Gw2, it's the mmorpg that does open world the best; of the big 4. world of warcraft doesn't even come close.
https://mmorpg.gg/mmos-for-explorati...mber%202014%20
https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comm...rld/?rdt=62199
https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comm..._has_the_best/

Idk, WoW had both open world and dungeon contents, sames goes SW:KOTOR, same goes for most MMO that I have played. Don't know why you talk like these things have to be mutual exclusive.

WoW? The mmorpg that had the exodus and only recently released a good expansion? If that's the quality you want; quantity over quality, then by all means, let's lower xiv's quality so we can have both dungeons and open world during the msq's launch. If you actually had a clue how a company's ran you'd know you can't just walk tell your workers they now have to add an extra project to their deliverables without removing something from it or by extending the project deadline. Clearly you're clueless how businesses are ran, much less about project management.

[LisseyCrowe]

WoW? The mmorpg that had the exodus and only recently released a good expansion? If that's the quality you want; quantity over quality, then by all means, let's lower xiv's quality so we can have both dungeons and open world during the msq's launch. If you actually had a clue how a company's ran you'd know you can't just walk tell your workers they now have to add an extra project to their deliverables without removing something from it or by extending the project deadline. Clearly you're clueless how businesses are ran, much less about project management.

Yes. WoW definitely just had its first good expansion. The people before the exodus stuck around for so long despite every expansion being low quality trash, and somehow all had enough specifically in Shadowlands as well as around the same time we all learned how terrible a place to work at was Blizzard. It was all a coincidence and there's nothing at all to learn from WoW and all of its low quality content that totally did not lead to it being the king of the MMO landscape for so long.

I also struggle to understand what you mean by fake content. FF14's overworld is as fake as it gets. Nothing actually exists here. Any and all content is tied to stuff magically spawning out of thin air to be cleared, be it quest objectives or FATEs. Are you actually defending for the overworld to remain ... empty?

Like, seriously? And maybe if they spent more times thinking about quality overworld content, the quest design wouldn't struggle as much to give the player anything at all to do other than click for the next dialogue box.

[Rekh]

Yes. WoW definitely just had its first good expansion. The people before the exodus stuck around for so long despite every expansion being low quality trash, and somehow all had enough specifically in Shadowlands as well as around the same time we all learned how terrible a place to work at was Blizzard. It was all a coincidence and there's nothing at all to learn from WoW and all of its low quality content that totally did not lead to it being the king of the MMO landscape for so long.

I also struggle to understand what you mean by fake content. FF14's overworld is as fake as it gets. Nothing actually exists here. Any and all content is tied to stuff magically spawning out of thin air to be cleared, be it quest objectives or FATEs. Are you actually defending for the overworld to remain ... empty?

Like, seriously? And maybe if they spent more times thinking about quality overworld content, the quest design wouldn't struggle as much to give the player anything at all to do other than click for the next dialogue box.

Yes, let's dismiss the exodus and call Wow's continual decline "not a problem." It flat out hasn't had quality open world + instanced content in 3+ expansions until the most recent ones; hence the exodus.

It's not even about having actual content, but just ambience.

That's fake content. Why would I want tural to be on fire if there's no interactive content to make that meaningful?

maybe if they spent more times thinking about quality overworld content

I don't know who you're addressing with that but the conversation's about launch msq and open world. What are you willing to sacrifice for what you're suggesting? Longer development cycles between expansions? Less instanced leveling dungeons?

[LisseyCrowe]

Yes, let's dismiss the exodus and call Wow's continual decline "not a problem." It flat out hasn't had quality open world + instanced content in 3+ expansions until the most recent ones; hence the exodus.

Where did I say it has no problems, exactly? You always strawman your way out of discussions? Btw feel free to explain why the exodus happened exactly when it did (Hint: It's because Shadowlands was really, really bad, not because everyone suddenly had enough at the same time).

Also curious how you plan to justify WoW's open world being worse than FF14's. With an actual argument, possibly, instead of just "It's bad lol". WoW's open world has more enemies, better enemy placement, unique enemies, unique loot, secrets, achievements, secret quests, pets, and that's just the stuff I remember. What exactly does 14 have? FATEs? Hunts are okay, have their pros and cons. Uhhhh ... Sight-seeing log? If you want though, we don't even have to bring WoW into it, since the person you originally responded to talked about how ARR zones had a story to tell just from area and zone placement alone. Or was that just bad fake content, whatever that means, and ARR was a very naughty boy for designing their areas as such.

As for the last statement, it was a hook to other issues the game has had. Putting work here can then be used to make other work easier, so it's not overwhelming and won't require talent to be "spread thin". Which is also something we're supposed to assume just is, because you said it, I guess? You don't know the development, same as us. And this is Square Enix, not some indie company.

[Reimmi]

You asked for a fake environment even if it doesn't have content in it.

Fake conflict without content.


Then you're asking for Gw2, it's the mmorpg that does open world the best; of the big 4. world of warcraft doesn't even come close.
https://mmorpg.gg/mmos-for-explorati...mber%202014%20
https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comm...rld/?rdt=62199
https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comm..._has_the_best/



WoW? The mmorpg that had the exodus and only recently released a good expansion? If that's the quality you want; quantity over quality, then by all means, let's lower xiv's quality so we can have both dungeons and open world during the msq's launch. If you actually had a clue how a company's ran you'd know you can't just walk tell your workers they now have to add an extra project to their deliverables without removing something from it or by extending the project deadline. Clearly you're clueless how businesses are ran, much less about project management.

Just saying, but, ARR was made by having the devs LITERALLY look at wow and copy them.
You are playing a game made on the basis of WoW right now.

[Rekh]

Just saying, but, ARR was made by having the devs LITERALLY look at wow and copy them.
You are playing a game made on the basis of WoW right now.

10+ years ago, when Wow was actually great. Did you even read the post? Haha

[LisseyCrowe]

10+ years ago, when Wow was actually great. Did you even read the post? Haha

Soooo you won't have anything against them learning from WoW Classic then? Which still did many of the things that were brought up and immediately classified as "fake content".