Make FFXIV more like FFXI and less like WoW

[Hyrist]

With such a great resource like FFXI to draw ideas from I hate seeing so many more similarities to Warcraft

I sternly disagree that FFXI was a great resource of anything but a good example of what not to do.

It was a congregation of ideas that, while seeming good on paper, were poorly implemented and usually impossible to implement correctly. Those that stuck were actually improved upon by later games anyways and actually gets accused of being more 'wow like' when seen in other games.

I can disseminate critical game crippling flaws from every age and expansion of FFXI, without even citing it's overarching problems that, instead of addressing, they decided to compound upon.

In short, the game was cripplingly slow, unrelentingly punishing in all the wrong ways and continually compounded upon problems that it chose to ignore until it was way too late to fix the stigmas they imposed. There's a reason why the game did not break a million subscriptions while even games nowadays that are considered failures hold onto double or more.

We are already triple FFXI's once stable subscription numbers with all indications that we will continue to climb. Let's not alienate the base we've already established by making changes back to an Era in which MMOs were heavily niche minority. We have what was good out of FFXI - a gripping story, a world worth enthralling in, and a set of diverse races near identical to the game before. There are many other Final fantasy titles we can take inspiration from, and many other successful mechanics from other, non Final Fantasy MMOs that we can have our own spin and improvements upon. Harking back to FFXI continually will severely limit the scope and draw of this game.

[Redemption]

*snip*

Could not possibly disagree more with pretty much every single thing you said.

[Divinemight]

I sternly disagree that FFXI was a great resource of anything but a good example of what not to do.

You also have to take into account that it is also because people bored by WoW's retardness. FF11 is slow because it is using first generation MMORPG concept and it does not mean for casual playing. It is also more fun for a real gamer.

[Hyrist]

Could not possibly disagree more with pretty much every single thing you said.

And I'm more than willing to engage you on any point you may raise. I loved FFXI, but it was very fundamentally flawed game on a multitude of levels. The rose-tinted glasses that players have over it when looking at it most often stem from nostalgia and/or ignorance of the field as a whole. It was an incredibly niche game that appealed only to a very small crowd, and was often out-shined in many ways by even its own peers of its era.


What it was, however, was Final Fantasy's first ever online game, and that was enough to endear roughly half a million players past it's absolutely abysmal learning curve. There are indeed positives to FFXI, but most of them have already been adapted in one shape or form in my opinon, and any further steps stem dangerously on the level of repeating the same flaws that kept the game down where its community had to insult WoW as some low-quality game (Akin to how McDonalds is a low quality food establishment) in order to justify their fandom of FFXI in the sight of its success.

And I don't even like WoW. I've never held a paid subscription. I'm just able to view this situation a tad more objectively.

What FFXI managed to craft is a community of Final Fantasy fans. As hotly as we may disagree some times, we all share in the love of the passion for storytelling that Final Fantasy enthralls its fans into. FFXI did this much right without question. FFXIV captured this as well. The rest of the 'social' aspects that stemmed from FFXI are still there in FFXIV, it's not as predominant because FFXI instilled a LOT of downtime into its mechanics, things that both FFXI players bemoaned for years, and that FFXIV endgame players actually hate as well. The rest of the community success? That was the community itself, not anything the developers created. We looked for one another, we spoke up, we explored - especially when we were bored. The community filled and fueled itself in shared interests and commiseration.

Granted, that same community had its own flaws, but such is human nature.

The FFXI Developers did not make this. The FFXI players did, and it seems like many have forgotten that. Those that loved the game in spite of the flaws, filled the void produced by those same flaws, much like FFXIV Legacy players did. Thats why we have players that remember camping Fafnir/Nidhogg fondly, while others abhor it. That's why there are good memories of the hard Chains of Promithia battle successes even though they were poorly executed and heavily bottle-necked.

You also have to take into account that it is also because people bored by WoW's retardness. FF11 is slow because it is using first generation MMORPG concept and it does not mean for casual playing. It is also more fun for a real gamer.

"Real gamer" betrays your bias, which I wholeheartedly disapprove of.

By what credo does any individual, community, or culture have any right to claim the title of 'real gamer'? It incredibly egotistical to even assume that even if there was a set archetype, that that archetype actually was appealed to by FFXI's mechanics. And it is a thinly veiled insult to anyone who did not like the game for whatever reasons you don't approve of.

Attitudes like that lead to a growing divide between gaming communities. We're all 'real' gamers. I don't think I can continue a discussion beyond that point if you're elevating one group above others so blatantly.

[Divinemight]

Attitudes like that lead to a growing divide between gaming communities. We're all 'real' gamers. I don't think I can continue a discussion beyond that point if you're elevating one group above others so blatantly.

You are perfectly knowing what I am referring to. The gaming mechanics like Duty Finder (LFG and LFR) gradually destroying the gaming community from the root. Do we really need Duty Finder? No, we do not. It is a tool created for casual playing, those who are not willing to invest time into mmorpg and to live into a virtual gaming community.

You can not ignore that fact that Blizzard and WoW has created a generation of gamers that want everything to be hand to them on a silver plate. This post WoW generation of gamers create very unpleasnt gaming experience for others. Self-proclaim to be a casual gamer with actual hardcore gaming mindset.

[Hyrist]

You are perfectly knowing what I am referring to. The gaming mechanics like Duty Finder (LFG and LFR) gradually destroying the gaming community from the root. Do we really need Duty Finder? No, we do not. It is a tool created for casual playing, those who are not willing to invest time into mmorpg and to live into a virtual gaming community.

You can not ignore that fact that Blizzard and WoW has created a generation of gamers that want everything to be hand to them on a silver plate. This post WoW generation of gamers create very unpleasnt gaming experience for others. Self-proclaim to be a casual gamer with actual hardcore gaming mindset.

If you think Blizzard and WoW created that generation of gamers, you're sorely mistaken and ignorant of the larger picture. You neglect to acknowledge the fact that the gaming community has exploded in population in the last fifteen years, and MMOs are not the sole culprit to this. Matchmaking existed in Halo, and other FPS and grouped multiplayer games as well.

You paint a very dangerously broad brush about the varying and complex issues about entitlement and declining maturity in the gaming community. And that you try to pin anyone who grew up previously to that generation as 'true gamers' it's quite frankly appalling to me because I feel that this accusatory attitude you take with it means you wash your hands of your contributions to the problem as well. This is our community, and if you wish to speak for the community then we also need to take responsibility of the community. This means assuming a conduct that's productive to the community. This looking down thing is not helping the problem you're citing. The fact that you're supposed to not wash your hands of this due to disliking features such as the duty finder, and try to actively participate in making such encounters as pleasant as possible is in fact contributing to it.

What Square Enix could do to help is offer more easily accessible social tools to enable players to engage one another better, not remove tools that make the game more accessible. What we can do is engage the community in a positive manner and get people out of their social shells. Our self-defensive reflexes from being part of the older generation of games keep wanting us to push away from something we should have been welcoming guiding towards for years. We perpetuate this problem as well, and rather than stare at it bitterly, we need to be proactive in helping turn it around.

[VahnValbosce]

Harking back to FFXI continually will severely limit the scope and draw of this game.

Many people fail to realize that the OP is not talking about completely overhauling the battle mechanics of XIV to be like XI's. Hyperbole seems like a common thing nowadays so let me elaborate.

FFXI Had great, I repeat GREAT endgame tiered content (which had nothing to do with Battle Mechanics). There were a Multitude of things to do that were all worthwhile. (Pre-Abyssea Expansion) Many of the people here who bash XI probably saw videos of the combat system and said "Oh, that looks boring and doesn't appeal to me. The whole game and everything about it must be complete garbage"

If Yoshi-P is smart, which we know he is, he will draw on inspiration (keyword there, don't skim over it) from FFXI to design endgame content. Things like Nyzul Isle, Sky and Besieged are great forms of content that can be implemented in XIV if Yoshi wanted them to be. Not looking back to draw inspiration from FFXI, WILL actually severely limit the scope of this game, so if anything this quote is backward in it's intent.

On a side note: Many of you probably don't know this, but BlueGartr, the FC that worked their butts off to get World First kill on Twintania have their roots in FFXI. They wouldn't have stayed for so long if XI was such a crappy game as most of you seem to think so.

[Cynric]

And why does it matter that Order of the blue garter played FF XI?

That's like saying, Obama drinks Pepsi so clearly it tastes better than Coke. o_o