Quote Originally Posted by Soukyuu View Post
Why not? I don't see how balancing is a reason for that. Yes, it makes things more difficult if you have to think about tactics, positioning and synergy at the same time. But it's much more rewarding if you achieve it, so simply saying "it's not possible because it would be too hard" is not an argument for me.
Balancing is a very important factor. A MMORPG to be successful needs to be accessible, so the level of challenge needs to stay within some rather precise parameters. Most MMORPG, for better or for worse, offer pretty much the same level of challenge.

I guess I am, what do you mean by "gating"?
It's the process of regulating how fast the average player will get to use up any given content of the game. By "gating" it behind gear checks, you know it'll take the average player a certain amount of time to burn that content, giving you time to make more.

Excuse me? I was under the impression we were having a discussion here.
There are things that are simply fact. If someone disagrees with fact, that's pretty irrelevant.

Server farms are not running on a DSL-lite type connection, and Bluehole did make it possible. Team Bloodlust seems to have done better, not concentrating only on making combat appealing, at least so far.
Server farms also don't run on physically impossible bandwidths, and need to be able to serve very high numbers of players at the same time. Bluehole and Bloodlust did part through optimization and part through streamlining mob behavior by quite a lot, especially boss encounters-wise = less tactics involved.

Even assuming B&S does just as bad as TERA, using those 2 games to say action combat = less complex encounters is generalizing. If it's not possible atm, it will be possible sooner or later. TERA and B&S did a step in the right direction, others could simply expand on it and learn from the mistakes they did.
They did not make mistakes (not in this at least), they had to compromise in order to make the action approach even possible.

We're talking about the present or the foreseable future here, not some remote future that doesn't apply at all to FFXIV: ARR.

Mind you, Korea is already way into the future compared to us, since their average connection speed and bandwidth is the best in the world, and by a long shot.

Meanwhile target-based combat is getting more and more stale with each game that is using it.
is it? According to who? Some people say that turn based combat is "stale". XCOM is there proving them wrong. Basic gameplay mechanics are just a mean to an end. There are way more important factors to the success of a MMO.

It's not clear whether the majority prefers it or just settle for it because the majority of the games come with target-based gameplay because it's the current norm. TERA didn't fail because of it's combat, but because of failing publishers (EU) and the game not giving you anything interesting except for the combat.
Besides some of the best graphics in the industry and way oversexualized visuals (which sells, a lot), it had plenty to go for it, but the combat lost its novelty for many quite fast.

Saying that people that disagree with you do so just because they "settle" for something is a tad of a copout.

Anyway, I'm not claiming TERA/B&S are better than FFXIV, but this thread is about SE settling for the norm, which is not the way to go imho.
And this thread is based on a false assumption. If SE was settling for the norm, there would be no ARR, and this game would be a F2P throwaway by now.

There's plenty way for a MMORPG to distinguish itself without reinventing the wheel. A square wheel may be original, but it simply doesn't roll as well.