If I wanted WoW...

[Cairdeas]

Urgh, that was mistake. Mindjack is a terrible game.

It was supposed to be Demon Souls with guns. It was not Demon Souls with guns.

[AntonyB]

Oh, so instead of decreasing the stamina costs for taunt and provoke, we should just automate and simplify the entire combat system to easy-mode. Good thinking, inferior batman.

Whatever history lessons you think prove your point, it does little to assuage the fact that FFXIV is decaying at the moment into pandering, soulless drivel.

Why should u care so much? You are raging on an MMO forums about an already known fact that the game needs improvement. Go out and get some air or something, its quite sad how people react to this situation, geez its like paid for the game to be made. Only people that should be raging is SE, at themselves because they have had to make this popular MMO title free and then rework the entire game entirely again cos it sux.

Just because it has an auto attack means that it will be easy? Like FFXI was sooooo easy, compared to WoW I think not. FFXI took atleast a decent brain cell inside instead of just mashing mindlessly at the buttoms(Which we do now) compared to WoW. So you yourself want this mindlessly smashing buttons just LIKE WoW? Yet you don't want this game to turn into WoW? You should think about what you want here.

[gifthorse]

No i meant waving at every single person on the street would look uh..bad, some npcs are in somewhat high traffic areas.

Though spamming the server for requests for an animation from that npc could also go badly.

Well, you see the NPC's exlamation bubble as you pass it by right? By that token, what's stopping the client from having the NPC perform an animation instead? (performing the animation to YOU and you alone, and not to anyone else). When you talk to an NPC and it looks at you, do you think everyone around you sees the NPC look at you? Of course they don't, it's client-side.

mmm, I can't say I know exactly whats going on at square, but I doubt they're eschewing game theory to cater to demands, I honestly hope they have sound logic behind their decisions. One thing you have to keep in mind is that they came across as thinking this game would be a golden goose when it went live, going so far as to laugh when asked questions about features like jumping or auction houses and saying no one would feel the need for these features, it really felt like they were out of touch all the way through and so they're compensating quite a bit to make it clear that they made a mistake that they want to correct.

I understand that change is needed, but they are way over-compensating. Or it seems like it.

But lets not forget that copycatting is symptomatic of the genre.

The MMO industry is filled with features that are copied from other games with their own spin on them for a number of reasons(Heroic opportunities> Fellowship Manuevers> Battle Regimens). Being different can be punished and rewarded, so the typical choice is to go "How can we fit this framework but put as much of our own into it as possible"(or in rift's case: ok lets take the best of what everyone else did and also put in massive zone wide public quests). Yes XIV is taking some things from the basic frameworks of other MMOs, but if its really going to be a complete copy has yet to be seen. Heck it COULD end up being a complete copy but we'll have to wait till they announce more things to see if thats true.

Edit: WOW THATS A LOT OF TEXT TLDR: they gotta make some concessions to the genre or really really go all the way, and its much safer to make the concessions and innovate in that framework as much as possible.

SE was very misguided when they developed FFXIV, and from the looks of things, they are just as misguided now, only in the opposite way. Earlier, they refused to listen to anyone, now it's like they'll listen to just about anybody.

Only a fool would say FFXIV is/was perfect. But there's change for the better, and then there's change for the worse. And SE seems intent upon changing things for the latter.

Being stubborn and obstinate didn't work for SE, so now they're taking the reverse approach. Their introverted development policy essentially hurt them badly. But their new policy is just as self mutilating. If they make too many concessions and appeal to every little demand, they run the risk of destroying the innovations they have already made headway with.

[gifthorse]

Just because it has an auto attack means that it will be easy? Like FFXI was sooooo easy, compared to WoW I think not. FFXI took atleast a decent brain cell inside instead of just mashing mindlessly at the buttoms(Which we do now) compared to WoW. So you yourself want this mindlessly smashing buttons just LIKE WoW? Yet you don't want this game to turn into WoW? You should think about what you want here.

Here is what I actually said in this thread, notice the lack of references to WoW and FFXI.

How come TERA and Guild Wars 2 managed to captivate audiences with the promise of a combat system without autoattack? How come FFXIV thinks falling back to the status quo and never improving the genre is going to help them gain customers, let alone help them improve their game?

[Malakhim]

We need more information before we shit on the game for being too copycat and bringing back Auto-attack.

Of course the devs are being pretty coy about giving any new details on everything.

Personally I think that before Matsui mentioned bringing back an auto-attack, he should have told us more so that we could have potentially avoided a shitstorm.

[AntonyB]

Here is what I actually said in this thread, notice the lack of references to WoW and FFXI.

Never thought about playing either, so why the hell should I care about TERA & Guild Wars 2 battle system? This is Final Fantasy made by SE, if u like there stuff then go right ahead and play them and quit moaning on an FFXIV forum.

When FFXIV was released they expected alot if not most of the FFXI player base to switch over, which 85%? of them did not and just went straight back to FFXI. If you can't keep your existing customers happy about a new game you have spent a fortune on to develop, how are u supposed to target a wider audience?

FYI I was refering to mainly your childish post on the first page:

If I wanted WoW...

...I would go and play it.


Aggro indicators, raids, instanced dungeons, meaningless quests, exclamation points, auto-attack

[Kirith]

What an excited thread.

Indeed i think the WoW similarity isn't that dire yet, but it may not be the worst idea to worry in advance. I wish the devs explained more concretely with what reasoning they are releasing "adjustments."
Which is all the problem really, they are doing ambiguous things and justifying them by saying even more ambiguous ones.

It's the old "we are making it better, just wait" song, yet they listen to some things, ignore many more and then pull out some that no one wanted or asked for as there was nothing strange with it.

In the end they are just doing what they think is the best strategy. We should stop arguing over every single point without having a clear idea ourselves.

Do you want a WoW clone? Do you want FFXI-2? Or do you want a different game entirely?

Well, if it's the latter good luck delivering the point across between thousands of other voices. You'll just get fired about it now and disappointed in the end.

If you still don't see it, my point is: we won't ever have the control over the whole direction the game is taking, we can only ask or refute single features or small groups of features.

Many people didn't like the aggro icon: fine, they said they will allow us to turn it off (even though theres no use in doing that)
Many people fear they won't like auto-attack: fine, if they(we) are many enough SE will allow us to turn that off too.

Do you see the pattern? It's as good as it will get and it's what we have already. No point arguing about subjective points of view about the game's direction. That's up to SE.

Me? I want FFXI-2, but i know it won't happen~

[gifthorse]

When FFXIV was released they expected alot if not most of the FFXI player base to switch over, which 85%? of them did not and just went straight back to FFXI.

Oh, I see now, you're telepathic and know what the developers were thinking... in the past. Now I get it.

If you can't keep your existing customers happy about a new game you have spent a fortune on to develop, how are u supposed to target a wider audience?

Um, can I just ask: and how exactly are you supposed to target a new audience by targetting an old one?

FYI I was refering to mainly your childish post on the first page:

Well I mentioned nothing in that post about FFXI's battle system so I don't know why you took the liberty of using that as a launching platform for my arguments.

[viion]

Why must we compare features to wow, who did not invent them first

[AntonyB]

Quit crying about meaningless points about the game, it just makes u look even more childish that u come on here and cry so much about the game. If you don't like it so much, noones holding a gun to your head and making you play it. I bet more people would rather play other games than to come here to check how FFXIV is doing to see a bunch of moaning children just post whoring all over the place. Which in end, will keep more players from coming back. "Oh look all people are doing is complaing, game must still be like it was in Alpha" This type of attitude will keep more NEW players away rather than tempt them to put that game into there drive and fire it up I can assure u that.