I wouldn't mind FFXIV becoming a WoW clone in the casual/hardcore appeal if...

[XxOstiaxX]

Now yes drop rates are a tad rediculous right now, but when it comes to fights, plain and simple XI's and XIV's are more dynamic and challenging. It is wow who has AI with the intellegence of Texas instrument calculator from the 80's, THeir solution is to through in rediculous amounts of HP and random triggered actions. IF you understand how the databases work, you know that.

Taking gear achievements from various MMO's is a better choice, not just wow's simplified approach. It would ruin the challenge, and a balance is needed.

If you follwo a crowd based on numbers, you will be left behidn in outdated titles.

Even a majority of WOW players are looking for somethign new rather then sittign aroudn bull talking all day becuase they are bored.

Wow subscriptions started a decline in 2011 once again, To lock in players they offered Diablo 3 free for a year commitment. Stocks shown across new as declining. Yet one site shows an increase in accounts? ODD humm.

If you want wow play wow. FF fans don't want wow. Simple as that.

We don't care how many subscribers there are on WOW. We are blidn sheep following a flock. We want an actual story. A better community.

We want Ai that isn't simply a matter of beatign high HP down with AI that iisn't very dynamic (WOW).

OR drop rates so easy everyone gets geared fast as logn as they progress evenly. We don't want to current reduculosu rates either but a balance.

If FFXIV becomes to much like wow, it will become a mediocre game like WOW and there will be no need to change. IT has to be different, like XI was. Continue the story like FF is about. Enough familiar for new subscribers of other games, but remain true.

XI was harcore face it, and the "It's too hard" complaint even at lower levels was the number one complaint we heard from WOW only players. Eventaully XI was made easier. THen declined as a result to please those complainers.

Please share some of the weed you are smoking, because XI was as bland and 90% of it's boss where Tank & Spank's zergs.....

Please share that purple shit

[Ashenspire]

FFXI was harder because it was more of a timesink in the endgame? That's not difficulty. That's just dumb.

I prefer things to be challenging, and to be interesting and difficult as opposed to taking forever to accomplish anything or use cheap mechanics to be considered "difficult." (I'm looking at all the god damn hate resets in this game currently).

[Priya]

They however do not report non paid subs like BLizzard sdoes hince why the site you choose has incorrect data.

I see my MMO champion link went unread. I will re-link:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...to-9-1-Million

ENdgame in wow wasn't hard. With the right groups it was easy to get your gear, add on slots, and max out.

WOW bosses are nto dynamic. THe AI is very simplified, they had hudge pools of HP. SO basially you had to slap them down slowely.

Go let Paragon (top guild) know that what they're doing here isn't hard or dynamic. You should also tell them they obviously didn't max out their gear first before doing this brainless fight, because those skeletons mean they've died a lot already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez1pRo1sywY

By the way, every bit of fire you see in the video can kill you.

It was harder to get end game top gear in XI (well for awhile at least) . You had to spend endless months gettign the items to have it made, or endless runs for basic end game gear (not the better gear).

The saying goes time = money, not time = difficult.

TH UI is much more dynamic (check reviews).
There is alot that can be taken from RIft.

Rift's base UI was definitely better. Wow's base UI is complete crap. People get rid of it with addons, so Blizz just doesn't change it. Why do you think you never see screenshots or videos with those space consuming, useless bird borders?

No body markets them self as a WoW-Killer. People like you claim that games are going to be WoW-Killers and then bash them when they don't hit multiple millions of subs.

Your an Idiot. Of course they are going to target WoW players and compare themselves to WoW. It is the only MMO in the World that has become a house hold name.

They never said "Oh yeah, we're gonna take all of WoW's Subscribes, that's for sure!"

This is on the verge of being contradictory, but Fusional already covered this area of nonsense.

Log onto a HIGH pop wow server nw, Log onto a high pop RIft server now. Do a tally and see how there are on adverage a higher pop of rift (they handle more total). With there free content and upcomign large expasnion, the game is doign better then wow did it's first 2 years.

Comparing a single server of one game to a single server of another game is a very poor method for examining total population distribution. I'm willing to bet that WoW's server list contains more servers with a high pop than Rift's list, so I don't quite understand your point.

We want an actual story. A better community.

Yes to story. Final Fantasy always had story over WoW, simply because you could learn everything you wanted/needed to know within the game. A lot of WoW's backstory comes form previous games and outside reading material-- something I never liked, but many people who were involved in the entire Warcraft series enjoyed the inclusion.

No to better community unless you mean XI's. XIV's is proving to be far less analytical and more "this makes it so because I said it."

THey are draggign people and it's outdated engine out as long as they can and fans blindly givve in with their over priced exapnsions with limited improvements. Cataclysm was MEH at best. Other then soem minor tweaks, it's still old looking.

No one has said WoW's graphics are ZOMG SO TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED!!!! It's an aged and ugly game. Graphics aren't in debate here, content is.

[neorei]

well United we stand and Nael fights are all yoshi-p concepts, if they keep it like that, then most likely you'll still have that feel of accomplishment.

[NefGP]

FFXI was harder because it was more of a timesink in the endgame? That's not difficulty. That's just dumb.

I prefer things to be challenging, and to be interesting and difficult as opposed to taking forever to accomplish anything or use cheap mechanics to be considered "difficult." (I'm looking at all the god damn hate resets in this game currently).

Thank you, this is exactly the point I was making and why for all the damage it's caused with the super-fast leveling, Abyssea is still my favorite piece of content in XI (at least post-ToAU). You can get a small group of dedicated friends and get stuff done, or run with a large group for the bigger challenges/more efficient farming. I wouldn't necessarily take all the elements from it and apply it elsewhere like they have with Dynamis and Voidwatch, but the principals were all fine - give players something they have to actively concentrate on and adapt to (weakness targetting, strange AI behavior, and other misc quirks you don't always see) and give everyone incentive to join in (good drop rates, good loot in general really, abyssite, quests, high exp rates in full alliances where job descrimination largely no longer applies)


Yeah, Matsui clearly knew what he was doing - far more than Tanaka has shown in his last years. I'm a little sad to see that he's taken over XI now that Tanaka is gone, and thus left the XIV team (probably, they haven't said anything about a new battle director but working on 2 diff MMOs at the same time is probably too much for 1 guy).

But they're all in the same company - I'm sure Matsui still shares ideas with Yoshi, and hopefully 2.0 will have some really awesome content. We've already got individual loot pools, which is a step up from XI - but they should really add in options to donate R/EX gear that drops to one person who's already got it/doesn't want it.

[Maxwell]

TL;DR Make content casual accessible, but not easy/short. Make endgame content exceedingly difficult to keep players in long-run; like WoW but harder.

Stonewalling everyone with "exceedingly difficult" content does nothing to keep players in. Its equally, if not more discouraging to fail an event 50 times in a row then to win it 50 times with no drop.

On the matter of WoW-cloning, we need to get rid of the cognitive bias behind that. Everytime a new MMO comes out, its labeled a wow clone just like Apple & Fanboys getting their panties in a bunch each time Samsung releases a new phone. I could not care less where thier concepts came from as long as their implementation makes the game better.

... the principals were all fine - give players something they have to actively concentrate on and adapt to (weakness targetting, strange AI behavior, and other misc quirks you don't always see) and give everyone incentive to join in (good drop rates, good loot in general really, abyssite, quests, high exp rates in full alliances where job descrimination largely no longer applies)

Bingo ! Triforce piece for you my friend.

[kazaran]

Since some (a few) think WOW's end game is so spanned an good, why are you wastign time on these forums? Play wow. IF we want WOW like action we would settle for it.

THere are better MMo's, newer MMO's. IT's time to advance, not go backwards in developement.

[fusional]

hey priya. let's blow this joint and hit up some raids.

[fusional]

Since some (a few) think WOW's end game is so spanned an good, why are you wastign time on these forums? Play wow. IF we want WOW like action we would settle for it..

idk man, why don't you go play rift with your 200k friends?

[XxOstiaxX]

Since some (a few) think WOW's end game is so spanned an good, why are you wastign time on these forums? Play wow. IF we want WOW like action we would settle for it.

THere are better MMo's, newer MMO's. IT's time to advance, not go backwards in developement.

Excuse me good sir.... ARE YOU MAD ?