Make FFXIV more like FFXI and less like WoW

[Max_Damade]

XI had a real feeling of community.
XIV you can play all day and never say a word to the people in your party and you're not considered rude. Everyone rushes through the dungeons as fast as possible with no time to talk. No one says anything unless someone isn't playing well.
XI allowed you to spend all day in the same dungeon if you wanted to. There was no direct path leading to boss #1, #2 and the final boss.

[Worm]

On the matter of gear-swapping, that was one of FFXI's flawed mechanics (from an immersion standpoint.. it was just silly), I was relieved that it was not an option in FFXIV 1.0-1.23.
And speaking of hyperbole.. you seem to run off to extreme lengths with your interpretations of my points. ("EVERY overworld mob... ALL aggro... murder anyone... etc. etc.".)

I'm using extreme examples because I really don't see how you'd do it in a few patches frankly, even after your post, it looks more like really slow vertical progression. What you've posted just seems to be turning the game Korean MMO and those types just don't do well in the US and there are a number of them you could play instead of this. I'm glad you've at least thought this through but I feel like there isn't a market for that type of game, you'd either have to put in 40 hour weeks or you fall behind, essentially.

Additionally, I really don't agree that making enemy abilities random or even semi-random is going to somehow require players to make decisions. Anytime I've done fights like that in past content it's been more an "either or" than a "we need to decide", splitting up things into a few memorized reactions based on boss behavior doesn't make a decision making process. How do minuses on food make it "decision making"!? It's the same exact thing you do with food now. You're saying you'd be happier with WoW style itemization and ilvl if gear just had some negative stats because it's more 'decision making'?

Honesty, a little humility would go a long way. I've half a mind to report you for being so condescending and rude. Every single post from you has been nothing but badgering and belittling the opinions of Legacy and/or XI players. We don't claim to know what's best, but we have seen what works and wonder why it's not being applied to XIV. You say it's silly to have a feeling of accomplishment in a game, and yet look at Xbox or Playtation and all the trophies/achievements that have been collected. Or how about E-Sports? You know E-sports is a huge thing now right? Starcraft is basically Football in South Korea. There's MLG & Game Battles holding regular tournaments for serious cash prizes.

I hate this esports mentality just as much as I hate people who try to trivialize games to support their arguments.

[TeaTimeBear]

When I played FFXI I didn't have the same experience as most of you posting. For the majority of my baby years while playing I found the game to be a very harsh mistress. I had trouble making any more due to everything being so inflated you couldn't buy much without losing much. And while I didn't mind making parties.. It was much harder to replace people of someone had to go during an exp farm. There's also NM monsters which were incredibly hard to get due to camping bots..

I dunno..the good I did take away from it I would like to see here for sure. A way for more social like get together and social activity would be nice.. And I'd never be against more difficulty open world stuff but I cannot relate with a lot of you praising XI...

You know I even recall a bunch of people leaving it when WoW was coming out. Maybe I just had a poor experience but this is what I experienced.

[ApolloGenX]

H. You say it's silly to have a feeling of accomplishment in a game, and yet look at Xbox or Playtation and all the trophies/achievements that have been collected. Or how about E-Sports? You know E-sports is a huge thing now right? Starcraft is basically Football in South Korea. There's MLG & Game Battles holding regular tournaments for serious cash prizes.

Just because video games focus more on cognitive prowess and reflexes doesn't make it any less valid than physical sports. Why is it fair to praise one but deride the other? Again, just because YOU see it as something silly doesn't mean everyone does.

How did this conversation get from playing a casual online game to professional careers?

Oh, and let's not justify anything with cash prizes and TV- Have you seen The Bachelor? (I don't just want to pick on Asian TV- which can certainly yield a wonderful crop of ridiculous shows for cash prizes) I am not saying that video games aren't a sport - but I'm also not saying they are. The truth is that for any activity, you can find people devoted to it, who spend their lives engaged in that activity.. whether itbe video games, football... sculpture.. or even hoarding.

Not all of them are sports... not all of them are art... and not all of them are popular. In a commercial game that caters to the market at large, we should be focusing on what is popular, imo. That is where the money is...unless the designers want to create a niche game- but that doesn't seem like the current goal.

[Evangela]

If FFXI really is that great, you people should be playing it at this moment instead of making 105 pages of complaining thread on the forum of other game.

[Battlewrench]

If FFXI really is that great, you people should be playing it at this moment instead of making 105 pages of complaining thread on the forum of other game.

I encourage you to actually read through the thread next time. This response has been addressed many many times.

[Renvalt]

-snip-

In regards to your class stuff, I'd like to add my own two cents. The class quests should not simply stop at 30 - they should continue beyond that. In particular, I'm interested in closing some of the gaps in the side stories that these classes left (or even pursuing new ones based off of those loose ends).

In particular:

-I'm interested in seeing Aldis's goal of silencing the rest of the Alacran to fruition. Only two classes really touch on the Alacran's full might (and we know they've got Lolorito on their side), and Aldis mentioned how even without Leavold, they'd still be able to regroup given time.
-I'm interested in helping Rurukuta gain more insight into the Way of the Fist. He left the Alacran after Weggfarr's treachery, and he decided to also leave Hamon and co. behind as well. If anything, he and Aldis might make a possible tag-team if their paths cross (alongside us, as well).
-Foulques was a sad Elezen with an even sadder history, but what irks me is that his accomplices were never discovered, nor brought to justice. Why can't the Lancer quests deal with that loose end? Or even more of Ywain's history as a Lancer?


This is only a few examples, but I think those class-based stories were cut too short. They need expanding - and explaining.

[TeaTimeBear]

^

I would love that. -throws like at you-

[NefGP]

It doesn't matter what you think of E-sports, it's here to stay and it's only getting bigger. I was just citing it as one example for what is really a core principal of any game.

Think about it, why even bother playing a game if there's no thrill or sense of accomplishment? It doesn't have to be getting the best gear in an RPG, it can come in almost any form, be it a hard-won match or maybe discovering an easter egg hidden by the devs. No one has the right to crap on others for wanting some sense of accomplishment, however small, in their efforts. Its what ultimately makes games fun and worth playing and when you start to diminish that as a developer you're effectively cutting the legs out from under yourself.


@TeaTimeBear: I'm very sorry to hear that, and I know that's what a lot of people had happen to them. A great deal of the blame for that was on Tanaka's shoulders for not including proper tutorials and making the game a little more user-friendly. Hell I didn't even discover what macros were until my 2nd or 3rd week of playing as a RDM in the dunes and I thought to myself "OH MY GOD THIS MAKES FIGHTING SO MUCH EASIER!" Sadly, a lot of the best reforms to XI (like fields of valor) came entirely too late to stop the emerging behemoth that was WoW. Did you know that XI was originally predicted by industry insiders to be the biggest game ever just because that's how popular the brand was in North America at the time? While XI did still do fairly well, they really did squander it in a way.

I may as well rant off now and make perfectly clear all the things I utterly despised about the game, because I'm tired of being accused of just being nostalgic. That's simply not true (well, not entirely - I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a factor, but it's not the most important one by far.)



The Good

- Diverse Job System with a wide variety of combinations. Many didn't work due to the skills system, but even weird things that you wouldn't think would work did like Dragoon/Blue Mage. Merit Points were also a tremendous boon, allowing you to further tailor each individual job to your liking so not everyone was identical at end game. The debates over which spells were best for RDM were endless. The later expansion jobs like Blue Mage, Puppetmaster, Dancer & Scholar proved to be some of the most diverse and fun in the game offering a plethora of playstyles and acting as surprisingly potent sub jobs as well as main. We also had a really diverse array of abilities, and it was cool to see WHM's for example offhanding a kraken club to build up TP for their nastier attacks like Hexastrike. Enfeebling magic actually mattered as well, with Paralyze and Slow being utterly crippling to most mobs (and later Addle for spell casters).

- Top-Tier story telling and lore. Vana'diel absolutely bled immersion out of every orifice, from the quests to just plain exploring the world; being able to point out land marks such as the Crag of Holla while riding an airship to Jeuno was amazing. Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urhgan and Wings of the Goddess all had amazing story telling and characters. Zilart and the original game were just OK, but the music and beauty of some of the areas like Al'tieu and The Sanctuary of Zi'tah made up for it (not to mention the cross-interactions of CoP & Zilart)

- Loads and loads of content at all level ranges. The devs made a point to make gear last, and rather than just straight up replace existing gear, introduce new stuff with comparative stats to help entice players into trying new content. If you didn't like one event, no one was forcing you unless you absolutely had to have that item.

- A real community. Since XI placed such a heavy emphasis on grouping (maybe too heavy in some cases) it meant that each server's population was fairly close knit. Your reputation really mattered, so people were less likely to be total jerks (though there were still many lol... Tigue comes to mind. I miss Seraph...) and there was a real sense of cooperation. You knew you needed friends to get what you wanted, so it was only right that you help them get what they did as well. Skill chains and magic bursts were also a critical strategic element (less so after Aht Urghan but that was in part due to mobs getting increasingly resistant to them) that encouraged players to learn what attacks chained into what, and carry multiple weapons. Abyssea really drove this home with the weak points.

- The music and art were perhaps some of if not the best of any PS2 game. The starting areas weren't the greatest (though I still like Gustaberg's theme) but as we got into the expansions things really got cool. It wasn't just all the overtly pretty stuff like Sky either, but the little details like Cactrot Rapido whizzing by in Alteppa (and only being able to aggro him by linking) or the random auroras that could be seen in Qufim and Sky. Eorzea is absolutely beautiful as well, but it's all ruined (for me) by the fact that it's just a curtain for the duty finder - there's no exploring ancient ruins like the Alzadaal (sp?) under sea ruins that as it turned out, were the remnants of Alexander's original body. Coil is freaking cool as all Hell, but again it's an instance...

- The summons were freaking amazing. Not only were they integral to the world itself and not just the plot, but running around with Fenrir or Diabolos out was awesome. It was also pretty fun to do the daily runs on their proto crystals to challenge them for their drops and/or the right to summon them in the first place. Odin's battle in particular was epic, requiring you to /kneel before him or die to Zantetsuken. The egi are just lame in comparison, even if they don't bleed MP like Avatars did.


The Bad

- Difficulty was often too high, and this came in various forms. Monsters in general just had entirely too much HP. Level correction penalties severely hurt physical DDs, especially 1 handed weapon users. Drop rates were AWFUL (in some cases like Kraken Club, less than 1%) and worse yet these were often compounded by nonsensical timed spawns - 24 hour respawning NMs (or in the case Kings, weekly) that not only had a place holder mob, but could take anywhere from 1~3 hours to pop making camping them a complete pain in the ass. Many times I wondered if Tanaka truly understood the difference between a genuine challenge (CoP) and artificial time sinks (timed spawns etc.). And while grouping for EXP was fun with good party, the grind really was too long. I think XIV's is a bit too short in contrast, especially since it's mostly soloable, but XI's was certainly too extreme. it didn't really get better until Abyssea.

- Skill levels sucked. There's just no way around it, skilling up after every level up blew chunks. Losing EXP on death sucked even worse, though I'd almost prefer it now to gear damage since we don't have merit points to blow excess EXP on. Leveling up Guard, Summoning, Enhancing and Parrying was the worst most painful exercise in futility in the game I swear. There were times where I wanted to just gouge my eyes out trying to cap Guard on MNK, especially since it was such an insanely useful skill to have capped. Oh, and then there was the whole nonsense with blood pacts getting stronger but only if your skill was over your current cap (merits, gear). Um... what? Who's bright idea was that?! Also really wasn't a fan of having to buy scrolls and dice. Jobs like NIN & COR while awesome, were prohibitively expensive to play their maximum performance (Shuriken were just ungodly expensive even if you could craft your own)

- Haste & Utsusemi ruined game balance. One of the biggest mistakes was when the devs embraced the use of shadows to tank damage. It was meant as a "Get out of jail free" card for Ninjas in case they got hate, not to deliberately soak damage. And Haste was just such an all-encompassing super stat affecting tp gain, recast timers and damage output it really warped things as we got into the higher tiers of it. It prompted the devs to reduce the haste ceiling from 90% to 80% because Apocalypse-wielding Dark Knights were utterly unstoppable fully buffed attacking at 10x their normal delay. With Soul Eater + Blood Weapon up it just got completely out of hand, even for a Relic owner it was absurdly OP.

- Crafting and gathering were too random. There was literally no control over these activities as a player. To some extent your skill level could influence your chances of an HQ but otherwise crafting required no input from the player other than click and pray. Gathering was infuriating, especially because of the RMT as resource nodes spawned randomly and could disappear after just a single use. There were no gathering skills apart from fishing (which was surprisingly interactive and fun compared to XIV. More useful too.) and you had to bring entire stacks of pickaxes or hatchets to gather efficiently as they could break on you. I much prefer how it's handled in XIV, even with the lame HQ rate caps.

- The devs were a little too reluctant to add better gear. It was great that they made things relevant for so long, but it presented them with a monumental problem when abyssea came along. 7+ years of endgame became null and void in a single patch. That's just as bad as what myself and others have been decrying over this game with nullifying gear after each patch. There needs to be a healthy balance.

- Summoner was broken for years (as was RNG though it eventually got "fixed"). While the blood pact system was OK (and I still prefer it to what we have now) avatars simply were too expensive. You could do nice fat spikes in damage with Predator Claws, and I loved how every avatar had a tonne of different abilities, but having all of them on a shared recast sucked and the fact that they consumed MP on top of the avatar itself constantly bleeding your MP (and preventing you from resting at the same time) meant that you'd be out of MP very quickly, which reduced them to simply being called out for 1 move and then dismissed. In XIV we have the exact opposite scenario and I hate it just as much; They can stay out, but they look like garbage, are nowhere near as useful in terms of the utility they had in XI and they just feel underwhelming as a whole. I'd much rather see proper summons with less emphasis on lame spells ACN was given and more on controlling the pet, even if that means paying MP for their commands (but not keeping them out).

- The overall pace of combat in XI was pretty slow. This was in part due to mobs being too strong (purely in terms of stats, not so much the cheap nonsense moves like Landslide in XIV), but also because TP took a while to build up, and using a single weaponskill consumed all of it. I never did like that, especially when Samurai was all about skill chaining. Having to sit down and rest to recover HP & MP sucked as well and I'm glad that got nixed.

- And last but not least, Gear Swarpping. May that ridiculous sailormoon-esque nonsense never see the light of day again. While I dearly miss situational gear and wish it would come back (like having a counterstance set on MNK or a nuking & melee set on RDM) I don't want to ever see gear swaps in mid-battle ever again. Besides the blinking, it just made macros and combat needlessly complicated and really broke the immersion. By the time I quit I was using at least 10~15 lines of macro codes for gear swaps and abilities between weaponskills on my Samuari and it was just silly.




So there, I probably missed some stuff and I could go on about this for pages and pages but as a summary it should suffice. XI had a lot going for it that I'm sad to see has been ignored almost entirely. We don't want XI-2, we'd just like to see SE keep what worked instead of trying to fix what wasn't broken in the first place.

[Gandora]

Sounds like you have an inferiority complex and/or you just had a very harsh time in XI for whatever reasons.

I just fail to see why its relevant. The rest of your post isn't either.