[dev1002] The entire world lacking as a battle environment.

[Kazimir]

Fantastic 1st post. I agree completely. I had so many friends from FFXI that played the game for many many years. We all came to XIV hoping it would be just as thrilling of a game. I'm currently the only one left playing. SE has completely alienated their Final Fantasy player base and they are ruining the game by listening to the casuals and the players from XI that never even got a job to 75 because they wanted to solo in a multi-player game.

The reason why the game is failing isn't because it didn't have aggro & level icons nor is it because things take too long, nor is it because there's not enough solo play. It's because you've made the game too easy. You went from a world in FFXI full of danger, excitement, and adventure into one full of monotony and combat so easy that there is no fun to it. That is why the people who played your last MMO for 6 years left. Stop hand-holding us and getting rid of everything that could possibly mean a players death. Death is a part of the game. Survival is a part of the game. It makes the game funner. There are supposed to be dangers throughout the world yet there are none. We kill nothing but insects, rodents, and puks in the same bland environment every single day for hours on end. A new battle system isn't going to change that nor is a new class system. Not even dungeons and raid environments tucked away in an obscure area will change that. It may make the higher-levels stay a little longer, it will surely make me stay longer, but it's only delaying the inevitable. Even after those fixes the world will still be boring and the game will still continue to lose players.

What saddens me is to think that there aren't many chances that your suggestion will be heard where it should. There are good suggestions, great ideas, truly heartfelt opinions on these forums, yet they go unnoticed over the background noise.

Agreed. I would like some sort of acknowledgment that well thought out threads as well as ones about our feelings towards the game are actually being noticed by the community team and the devs. The only thing they seem to comment on are petty threads about aggro icons, rolling for loot, and storage space. I mean seriously the last 2 comments we've gottin from the community team was 3 days ago and it was on a "what do you look like" picture thread. What. The. Hell.

[Dragonhand]

To sum it up in a very simple way, when playing FF XI, I felt like playing a final fantasy game, more then that, I felt like being one with the game itself, almost like an alternate reality where I actually belonged. Where we would end didn't matter, it was all about the journey, it was magical and great and amazing. It was the best on line game I've ever played.

When I played FF XIV I felt like playing WoW, and trust me on these words, I hate WoW. It has no challenge, everything is offered and the only difficulty it has is being forced to play in strict schedules because everything is caped, time limited on a perfectly rigid script. It lacks history (even if it has a huge lore, it was all sent to garbage), learning, everything, raiding in wow i fell like an automaton, following a list of instructions that only fail if some one does not follow it.

In eliminating failure from your game you have also eliminated success.

One can not exist without the other.

[Steggun]

Well said DarthTaru. I really hope SE can implement some challenging content in FFXIV, because as it stands now there is no real sense of accomplishment or danger in this game like there was in so many aspects of FFXI.

[Anty]

I do agree 100% to all you wrote! very nice post, and i do hope it gets attention.
But as said before, seeing what matters are discussed most or "what do you look like" posts from the devs do increase my doubts if this game will go into the right direction.
If we want a wow clone with good graphics, i think rift is the way to go atm and its very well done. But Final Fantasy please stay a final fantasy game... The reason for ffxi success was its uniqueness.

[SogiYa]

it was a lovely fan fic ...

for the record: not everyone is a diehard fan of FFXI.

[Roaran]

I think the OP outlines a few points very well.

The Death Penalty- Everyone's first reaction is negative. Noone liked losing experience when they died, as a result, people avoided death. When you remove this penalty you remove the incentive to stay alive.

So the real choice isn't between losing SP or XP or not. But instead, its between having a game that encourages survival or not.

[Kazimir]

it was a lovely fan fic ...

for the record: not everyone is a diehard fan of FFXI.

That wasn't even the point of his post. You don't have to be a fan of FFXI to know that the elementary game play we've been given so far ruins important aspects of the game for anyone that doesn't like hand-holding.

For the record: A huge percentage of the FFXIV players are from FFXI.

[Krausus]

what suggestions? the only suggestion I see and it really isn't a suggestion is xp loss on death, or do you all mean listening to the song answers?

I mean dont get me wrong its a nice post but I dont see any suggestions that you all talk about. Does the world need more adventure, danger? Sure. Does SE not already know this? I doubt it.

[Shiyo]

I see so many posts like this everyday now, so many people saying this game is too easy, make it hard, stop catering to WOW players/casuals, blah blah blah. More and more people keep saying they want a harder game, yet they keep making this game easier. They don't understand, they don't want this game to be harder, this game will not get any harder and will just get easier and more newb friendly.

I've lost all hope at this point tbh.

[SogiYa]

to expand on my previous comment:

it's great that your a big time fan of FFXI and all, but not everyone else is too. FFXIV IS NOT FFXI-2, it never was and it never will be: no amount of mutilation can change that. bad marketing played it out like it was going to be a direct sequel/disconnected expansion pack, but management and the developers never intended it to be that. in developing FFXIV SE altered every single fundamental aspect of FFXI that people (that is, THE people who didn't enjoy XI) complained about.

FFXIV is not FFXI-2, it is "Final Fantasy: Online (for the people who didn't like Final Fantasy XI)."

SE was trying to EXPAND it's mmo library with a title catering to a different audience. (see how that works? you make a game that isn't identical to the old one, that way you get new customers added into the old ones you already had.)

I know this because I'm one of them (a new one), and I'm enjoying the s*** out of FFXIV. I loved everything that is shared between the two titles, but absolutely hated EVERYTHING in FFXI that was altered for FFXIV. Sure, lots of what those elements were altered into aren't exactly perfect ... but I am quite happy that they AREN'T the same as what they were in FFXI.

look, SE has heard all you guy with your requests for a direct sequel to FFXI, that much is quite clear. SE likes money and you have said "I will pay for FFXI-2" so your going to get your god damned FFXI-2 ... eventually! but first they need to sort out this mess of what happens when you rush the development of a MMO and then release it 1/2 assed. I'm real sorry that we (the non-fans of FFXI) got a HD-era game before you guys did, but thats how it happened, and unfortunately SE needs to clean up this mess before it can get started on something else.

so please: shut the F*** up and go back to the game you enjoy, all your doing right now is potentially F***ing up OUR game. your never going to like FFXIV, but this constant whining about "make it FFXI-2" is just going to screw it up worse, so that WE dont like it either.

it was a false alarm people, false alarm ... this is not YOUR next game. SE is going through some growing pains of learning how to expand it's mmo catalog: poor planing, hurried releases, mismanaged comunication ... these are all things that every company birthing it's second mmo goes through. yeah, it's kinda painful to watch and you'd like to scream "no, god damn it! do it like this" but doing it wrong is actually a prerequisite for getting it right.

So go back to you much beloved FFXI, you've got 25 more levels and a S*** pot of other content coming out over the next year ... and be thankful that this happened in our Final Fantasy game because it's going to make the next one (yours) all the better for it.