The Future of Serious Gamers in ARR

[Tinks]

Honestly, its not that I mind the casual/anti-grind/easy mode (whatever other ridiculous term you want to call them) gamers and their requests at all. My issue is that they're invading a Final Fantasy MMO and changing it from what the history of Final Fantasy MMOs have been. I realize that I'm in the minority. I'm of the opinion that the average player shouldn't hit cap before 6 months because of grind/gated content/quest requirements etc. Hell lets take a look at Final Fantasies in general. (Yes I realize there's a drastic difference between offline and online games so don't bother trying to explain this.) The purpose of a Final Fantasy game isn't to reach the end, its the journey along the way. In FFXI, it took me a year to hit cap. Why? Because there was SO much to do along the way, so many people to meet and help and do stuff with that I didn't care one bit if I was at cap yet.

I get it. I'm part of the minority, but just because we're in the minority doesn't mean we can't respectfully disagree with some of the drastic changes that are being made to a series that was not originally meant for those of you that are demanding these changes. The unfortunate part is that apparently, the series is no longer meant for us now. I really hope you enjoy the game being made for you, because I don't want to see the series fail.

[Jieddo]

best damn read I have had on this forum

[Reynhart]

Honestly, its not that I mind the casual/anti-grind/easy mode (whatever other ridiculous term you want to call them) gamers and their requests at all. My issue is that they're invading a Final Fantasy MMO and changing it from what the history of Final Fantasy MMOs have been.

"The history of Final Fantasy MMO" ?! You mean the one and only Final Fantasy MMO that existed before FF XIV. How come a single game defines a "history" ?!

Hell lets take a look at Final Fantasies in general. (Yes I realize there's a drastic difference between offline and online games so don't bother trying to explain this.) The purpose of a Final Fantasy game isn't to reach the end, its the journey along the way.

Right, let's take a look at Final Fantasies...where none required to hit the level cap except XI, and the journey was exploring the world, revealing the plot and meeting characters. Not mindless grinding like "Starting zone solo till level 10, then valkurm 10-20, qufim 20-24, yuthunga 24-28, etc..." FFXI was a terrible journey. If levelling required 6 months of quests, explorations, plot and reveals, a lot more people would be fine with it.

In FFXI, it took me a year to hit cap. Why? Because there was SO much to do along the way, so many people to meet and help and do stuff with that I didn't care one bit if I was at cap yet.

No, there wasn't. Capping was long because grinding mobs was long. You didn't take a single level meeting people and doing other stuff than grinding.

I get it. I'm part of the minority, but just because we're in the minority doesn't mean we can't respectfully disagree with some of the drastic changes that are being made to a series that was not originally meant for those of you that are demanding these changes. The unfortunate part is that apparently, the series is no longer meant for us now. I really hope you enjoy the game being made for you, because I don't want to see the series fail.

Once more, the series was never centered around leveling up, but exploring. And FFXIV, moving to a quest based leveling, if far closer to this aspect. Basically, the series was never made for you...only FFXI was.

[Meatdawg]

Good Post.

There is other underling issues here too. People that consider themselves hardcore but aren't. Mix that with a generation that loves social media and give every person a voice and the ambiguity of the internet and you have 10 different opinions on how to go about killing X and doing Y.

WoW pretty much killed hardcore in MMO's. Now it is about how much money you can make vs how hard can this content be. Hard games don't bring in the cash like shovelware does. You have to appeal to the masses and that leads to dumbed down content because your new market is anyone that can play a video game.

This is where we are headed, and sadly it looks like this is where ARR is headed too.

I just started playing Monster Hunter and it is quite refreshing to have challenging combat again. 1.0 animation lock actually trained me pretty well for MH

[Tinks]

"The history of Final Fantasy MMO" ?! You mean the one and only Final Fantasy MMO that existed before FF XIV. How come a single game defines a "history" ?!

FFXI & FFXIV. Thats two games. And no, FFXIV v1 did not fail because it wasn't catering to the casuals, it failed because it was terribly made. FFXIV v2 is an entirely different game.

Right, let's take a look at Final Fantasies...where none required to hit the level cap except XI, and the journey was exploring the world, revealing the plot and meeting characters. Not mindless grinding like "Starting zone solo till level 10, then valkurm 10-20, qufim 20-24, yuthunga 24-28, etc..." FFXI was a terrible journey. If levelling required 6 months of quests, explorations, plot and reveals, a lot more people would be fine with it.

FFXI was SE's most profitable
Final Fantasy ever made. Obviously, more people liked it than you're willing to give it credit for.

No, there wasn't. Capping was long because grinding mobs was long. You didn't take a single level meeting people and doing other stuff than grinding.

Right...nothing to do but grind? So the subjob quests, Chocobo passes, Kazham keys, main storyline quests, airship passes, limit breaks, NM hunting, BCNMs, KSNMs, Zilart missions, CoP missions, Artifact armor hunting, Avatar fights and the myriad of other things the game offered BEFORE you hit 75 don't count? There were also a TON of side quests. No, they didn't give you a ton of exp or gil, but they were great for story. Just because you choose not to do content and want to rush to cap doesn't mean the content isn't there. I met people on my way to 75 that I still talk to regularly even though we quit FFXI years ago. When we hit 75 we simply had more content open up. Never once did I want to rush to 75 so I could FINALLY do endgame stuff. I agree with you, the purpose is to explore and meet people. Not going to be doing a whole lot of meeting people in the 3 weeks you take to cap out.

Once more, the series was never centered around leveling up, but exploring. And FFXIV, moving to a quest based leveling, if far closer to this aspect. Basically, the series was never made for you...only FFXI was.

The series was never centered around leveling up? What Final Fantasy game have YOU played. Every game (with the exception of perhaps 13) essentially requires level grinding to a point if you want to comfortably access the content because otherwise the mobs are going to wipe the floor with you. I have not played a single FF game where I didn't hit a point that I needed to grind some levels. That's just how Final Fantasies, and most RPGs in general, are made. If you don't realize that, then you're deluding yourself.

Yes, the series is about exploring. I never once said it was about leveling up, but there IS an element of leveling that Final Fantasies have at their core. I said simply that the rush to level cap in today's MMOs is ridiculous. Why even have levels if the majority of your content is going to be post cap from launch. I understand when the game is years old and you want to develop more content for those at cap, but if you're designing a system so that people can get to cap just to experience it then I find that sad.

[Reynhart]

You can't count FFXIV in your "history" since it's basically the game that doesn't "fit" the history.

FFXI was the most most profitable only because we have to pay a monthly fee...and not because people acclaimed it as much at the other ones.

Ok, you're right, FFXI had other things than dumb leveling...dumb farming. And people tends to level up to the top (Limit breaks along the way) then crush those lvl30 NM to equip their lesser jobs. As for the side quests, it could really be immersive if you didn't have to check a guide step by step to know what to do.

Apparently, we didn't play the same FF. You can do every game without running in circles grinding Xp providing you didn't flee too much random encouters. FF VIII and XIII are the best proofs, since in the former, levels don't mean anything, and in the latter, you gather enough Xp to cap every crystarium chapter without backtracking...except after the end of the game.

Maybe you grinded to kill optionnal bosses, like Omega Weapon in severals games, or the Dark Aeons from X, but that's not required to finish the story. (Ok you had to grind a little in FFIV to survive the Moon part). You're aware that you can finish FF IX and XII with a starting level party, right ?

In offline FFs, monsters are obstacles you had to kill to progress, and the reward was that your characters gained Xp. In FFXI, mobs were THE goal.
People rushed to the cap because in FFXI :
1 - Leveling is ultimately boring, so they try to get rid of it quickly
2 - Mandatory content required the level cap (Missions)
So, the good thing to do, in my opinion, is give Xp as a reward for doing something interesting, and put the level cap far higher than the required level to do all the missions.

[Orophin]

In offline FFs, monsters are obstacles you had to kill to progress, and the reward was that your characters gained Xp. In FFXI, mobs were THE goal.

I can't like that quote enough. Yeah, I know there was story content and other diversions, but once those were done, what else was there to do but grind monsters and level up jobs?

[Kallera]

I can't like that quote enough. Yeah, I know there was story content and other diversions, but once those were done, what else was there to do but grind monsters and level up jobs?

Its not like you'll have infinite content in 2.0 either. You'll still be killing mobs en masse.