We Need that Feeling back of "CoP"(first release)

[Keyln]

Yeah, but you're wrong ^ ^

No, I'm right. Notice that line never goes above 500,000. It hits and stays at 500,000, but never goes above it.

And to add some perspective.

Have you ever considered that the reason why FFXI did so well was all those "bad parts" you keep referring too?

Right, and it would have done better if they got rid of those "good parts" too, amirite?

[Lienn]

FFXI beat 1M players for a while. They even posted an official announcement at POL when it first happened.

Trying to find it at archives...but since it's only up to 2005 so it might not be there.

[Hyrist]

FFXI beat 1M players for a while. They even posted an official announcement at POL when it first happened.

Trying to find it at archives...but since it's only up to 2005 so it might not be there.

Sorry to say. That announcement meant characters, not active subscribers. That's why it's not in any data-points.

FFXI had a stable population, but a small one comparative to a good number of MMOs that came in the age after it (As seen in Keyln's graph above.)

500k subscribers isn't a success in today's MMO market. We should by no means be shooting for that sort of cap. We should go higher, and IMO that sort of difficulty barrier you're looking at fondly is as much of a limiter as it was an asset.

Then again, so is the Final Fantasy name at this point. Yoshi and crew are taking on a massive uphill climb. The major problem is here though, we're now competing against FFXI as well and no matter what, you'll never get a 1/1 double subscription. We're going to have to pull people from different sources. Ideally from some of the other high-end-yet-aging MMOs in the market.

[Frein]

But again, this point is moot. Yoshi has already told us his approach on this matter. "Main Storyline" quests will be single-player capable. Grand Company quests are supposed to be designed for party content. It's a good compromise, though I still beleive that creating a difficulty meter in order to allow players to progress at their own pacing (A note to Zakku, you're full of it when you state they can't balance difficulties on fights. They did it easily with Leves, they can do it for instanced fights as well. Heck, there's already two versions of Primals guess what - you fight the weaker version for the story, and the harder version for the loot. The system already exists!)

Let's be honest here, do you consider the laughable main story quests interesting as far as gameplay goes? I don't. I also don't consider them mandatory. I think it's a great tragedy that the quest to save the free nations from the Garlean invasion is so easy your black mage could auto-attack through it. To be honest, a lone character produces such one-dimensional gameplay any "solo challenge" would simply be a gear check, which is the problem I have with soloing in MMOs. They're just terrible single-player games and trying to cater to players who try to play them as such is, I believe, one of the most significant causes of early MMO decline we see so often these days.

Also, look at Ifrit: We have the easy mode Ifrit, so that everyone can "beat" the story, but are you really satisfied with your triumph over a weakling that dies in 10 seconds? Is anyone? I don't think so. The L40 Garuda at least lives long enough for you to see her, but I'd be surprised if anyone has ever wiped fighting her in a L50 group. And there are a lot of very bad players in this game. It just really dilutes the epicness of a boss to have an easily trampled noob mode available. Even though Garuda 2.0 is a longer fight with more phases and the stats are obviously much higher, it's still the same thing you already downed easily.

Since very early in its life WoW has had content that only a small fraction of the playerbase is able to complete (though not really sure how it is since WotLK). Sure, they make their old content obsolete all the time, so players progress through it faster than they did through CoP, but there is always that hardcore boss most people only get to see in videos until much later. My point is, FFXI isn't the only successful MMO to introduce content designed to be very difficult for most players.

[Exn]

I did CoP under the caps and back before level sync but it wasn't my favorite. Yet, I do miss the challenging progressive quest lines from the XI expansions. By quest lines I specifically mean the encounters and open world, because I literally button-mashed through most of the CoP storyline wall-of-text. I remember something about a Prishe and a song they kept playing over and over.. looked really pretty I'm sure it was a great storyline but I just was focused on "where to next!?!?!" that I didn't pay it much attention unfortunately. XIV hasn't had a chance to... 'expand' yet, but so far I haven't really seen anything to suggest we'll see harder content of the type that seems to frustrate some players in this thread. Honestly, it seems that the majority (at least the vocal majority) find XIV's current content challenging and sustainable at it's current level. For XIV, the Dev's this time around seem pretty focused on the numbers and trying to emulate the style of what's popular in the genre. Although it would be great to see challenging quest lines that progressed through level cap (and level syncable) areas from the mid levels up to/through endgame, I don't really expect it since the Dev's don't seem to care too much about what worked in XI.. or catering to the XI playerbase period for that matter..

[Zyph]

Even though Garuda 2.0 is a longer fight with more phases and the stats are obviously much higher, it's still the same thing you already downed easily.

Wasn't that essentially what Divine Might was to Ark Angels?

IIRC Divine Might was an epic optional content fight, and it produced a very satisfying feeling.

[Zaaku]

No, I'm right. Notice that line never goes above 500,000. It hits and stays at 500,000, but never goes above it.

LMFAO but it DOES go above 500k between 2004-2005. Then it stays steady at 500k for nearly 6 years straight.

FFXI was a great game and did very well. Despite its supposed "Bad parts" which you seem completely against in this new MMO for some reason. If your personal preference is an easier casual MMO that is fine but don't say that we have to carter it your way to be successful.

[Ramesses]

Awesome thread and it brought back a lot of bitter-sweet memories.

First off, thanks for reminding me of the FFXI comic "Level-Up"... I actually used to follow it judiciously for a couple years. Wish we had something like that for FFXIV.

As for CoP, I actually loved and hated it in equal measure... I thoroughly enjoyed completing it, but at the time if you asked me if I would run through it again, I would likely have tee-peed your house.

I loved it for the truly excellent and epic storyline... and as a few people mentioned above, that was what really kept people playing because most of the rewards weren't that great. The scenes and the NPCs (Tenzen, Prishe, Selh'teus etc) were VERY well written and the challenging battles really brought out the very very best of your gaming skills... you did NOT progress through CoP if you were a crappy player... simple as that.

In those days, you beat battles like Ouryu, the Mammets, the dreaded airship battle in chapter 6.4 and you held your head up in town with enormous pride. Heck, not to boast but our static on Garuda server were so organized, we beat Promethus himself on our first dry run, right after beating the pots.... and I tanked.

But CoP had its issues. What I really hated about CoP were three things:

One, the horrendous drop rates for certain mandatory key items to progress the storyline... they were NOT fun. Getting items like yellow liquid, or the (teak?) wood that Cid needed, or those stupid Cyan/Grey/Carmine chips from Pso'Xja... I could go on and on. Perhaps we were sometimes unlucky during the middle stage of the whole quests but for me, hunting for a couple days to make sure everyone got their items was sometimes annoying.

Two, places like the trip up the hill in Attowa chasm (somewhere in Chapter 3?) was a candidate for the top ten "WTF" moments in MMO history... heck, even the quest was called "Comedy of errors". The ability to lose your footing due to bad camera angles or not walking slow enough...and then fall all the way down to the base of the hill to start over was NOT funny. People spent weeks... yes WEEKS... trying to finish that particular quest. I hated that experience like a plague and honestly would not want to see crap like that in FFXIV

Three, the alienation of players to be able to participate in the quest... shouting for months to get just the promies done was not pretty, and that's how SE actually lost over 70% of their casual players base to WoW and a couple other MMOs. People must understand that you tube was still relatively NEW at the time so information and video guides were very limited... and less and less people had the precious time to allow CoP to become a vicious time-sink in their real lives. Thus, many quit and that's why SE wanted the TOAU expansion to address some of the player dynamics difficulties that CoP had.

The level of difficulty did indeed bring the element of challenge... but in a world where your bottom line profits actually revolve around the casual players, its highly HIGHLY advisable to have your really challenging stuff at the end game level and not between level 30 to 50. That is how SE should think of addressing expansions in 2.0 and not making early or mid-level content to be a CoP reincarnation.

Sheesh, I still have pics of entire alliances lying decimated at the first 3 promies. Seemed funny at first, until three weeks pass by and you're still trying to get past some lvl 30 dungeon that was insanely hard... then you find out that your two beloved lvl 50+ jobs that you slaved so hard to level are not a right fit for the lvl 30 party.

So yeah... CoP was great and it honed my skills to unbelievable levels but I won't run through some parts of that madness again. Many people have to remember that the Zilart and TOAU tales are actually just as epic in their own unique ways (beating Divine Might, Shadow Lord @ Xarcabard, the Bahamut battle, Apocalypse Nigh, and Alexander were ALL an insane head rush with their respective epic music).

That's the type of excitement I'm looking for in FFXIV 2.0

[Monzcarro]

Let's be honest here, do you consider the laughable main story quests interesting as far as gameplay goes? I don't. I also don't consider them mandatory. I think it's a great tragedy that the quest to save the free nations from the Garlean invasion is so easy your black mage could auto-attack through it. To be honest, a lone character produces such one-dimensional gameplay any "solo challenge" would simply be a gear check, which is the problem I have with soloing in MMOs. They're just terrible single-player games and trying to cater to players who try to play them as such is, I believe, one of the most significant causes of early MMO decline we see so often these days.

Also, look at Ifrit: We have the easy mode Ifrit, so that everyone can "beat" the story, but are you really satisfied with your triumph over a weakling that dies in 10 seconds? Is anyone? I don't think so. The L40 Garuda at least lives long enough for you to see her, but I'd be surprised if anyone has ever wiped fighting her in a L50 group. And there are a lot of very bad players in this game. It just really dilutes the epicness of a boss to have an easily trampled noob mode available. Even though Garuda 2.0 is a longer fight with more phases and the stats are obviously much higher, it's still the same thing you already downed easily.

Since very early in its life WoW has had content that only a small fraction of the playerbase is able to complete (though not really sure how it is since WotLK). Sure, they make their old content obsolete all the time, so players progress through it faster than they did through CoP, but there is always that hardcore boss most people only get to see in videos until much later. My point is, FFXI isn't the only successful MMO to introduce content designed to be very difficult for most players.

It's odd to me that you brought up WoW, because that game seems like the perfect example of balancing casual and hardcore content. The bulk of what could be compared to FFXI's storyline is gathered through questing as you level, and is virtually all soloable. Then when you get to the more challenging content that requires grouping (dungeons and raids), apart from a few exceptions they all have normal (aka easy) modes and heroic (aka hardcore) modes.

It's hard to talk about WoW in comparison to other games, because it's success is pretty unique, but I'd say WoW has gotten to where it is by remembering that not all gamers play at the same level. Casual gamers want to see the game too, and instead of locking them out from huge chunks of content like pre-updates CoP did in FFXI, the WoW team provided a way for players of all types to progress through the story, while allowing a way to increase difficulty for those who sought the challenge.

Yes there are still raids at the very top that most casual players will not have access to, but those amount to a very small portion of the game, and comes no where near the complete fun-block that was CoP. Long prep-times involving farming rare items, long travel times to every corner of the world for a CS telling you to go back to where you started, long periods sitting in Jeuno begging and pleading for people with the specific set of jobs you needed to have a chance at completing the fight, only to lose because of a tiny mistake or an unlucky encounter with the RNG, which meant you had to repeat the entire process again. Sure the story was great, but many times I felt more enjoyment out of never having to do a certain fight or mission again, as opposed to enjoying clearing the content. If I wanted to beat my head against a wall there are far more efficient ways to go about it.

In all my time playing WoW, I never had a moment where I felt I couldn't progress in some way. I wish I could say that about FFXI, and I hope I can in FFXIV.

[Alise]

I like the idea of pop NM item, but I don't like FF11 camping style.

I also like an idea to require some rings from NM in order to get into Ishgard.

and I agree FF14 nowadays are all about repeat content. so boring.