Make FFXIV more like FFXI and less like WoW

[Magis]

They are treating us like children, they are afraid it will be too complicated for us....
So we are getting this simpleton no brainier system.
They are completely scared that any game event causing stress will drive all the players away (well drive their target audience away)
It's a sad state of affairs really

Or they don't want to do the extra effort of balancing a more complicated system. Pigeon holeing classes/jobs into 3 roles and no elemental wheel comes to mind.

[Aki_Ren]

That's a lie, RNGs are all over this place
That's a lie, you can't craft anything worth while
That's a lie, lag on this game is 10000xs worse than on ffxi
That's a lie, I liked Play Online a lot
That's a lie, I hate the ui, loved FFXis ui way more
Why don't you want longevity?
IT'S A FREAKING MMO!!!! SOLO SHOULD BE SECONDARY NOT PRIMARY!!!! MMO!!!
This game is ALL about grinding! Have you even played this game...
Why can't we have a good death system...

Same with me =D

With playOnline security was better btw =)

[NefGP]

That's a lie, RNGs are all over this place
That's a lie, you can't craft anything worth while
That's a lie, lag on this game is 10000xs worse than on ffxi
That's a lie, I liked Play Online a lot
That's a lie, I hate the ui, loved FFXis ui way more
Why don't you want longevity?
IT'S A FREAKING MMO!!!! SOLO SHOULD BE SECONDARY NOT PRIMARY!!!! MMO!!!
This game is ALL about grinding! Have you even played this game...
Why can't we have a good death system...

Logic?

-I said "over-reliance" not removing it entirely. The RNG is a necessary evil, but it's far less prevalent in this game than it was in XI.
-The relative value of crafted items is irrelevant - my point was you can actually control the process now and it's more engaging as opposed to just put the items in the boxes, sit and hope that 10% automatic failure chance doesn't bite you/hope you get an HQ since you literally have no direct influence over that only pure reliance on the RNG
- Your connection/pc sucks then. FFXI was hard capped at 56k, that's not a "lie" that's an actual fact look it up. At this XIV makes proper use of broadband.
- You're one of the few people who liked PoL then. It was a horrible interface that took ages to update.
- XI's UI was awful. The fact that you had to basically write in all your abilities into macros to be anywhere close to efficient says it all, nevermind the silliness of gear swapping.
- I don't even know where the longevity argument is coming from... you sound like an overly nostalgic kid who can't take off the rose-tinted glasses. I played XI for 9 years and loved it, but I had a lot of gripes with the game over those years that never got fixed but did in XIV.
- Uh, duh? Being solo-friendly doesn't mean making everything easy mode. The game's done a decent (not great) of balancing solo vs party play, at least compared to pre-abyssea XI where it was just overly punishing. One extreme isn't better than the other, and too often XI simply life too frustrating without a full group. Also you've clearly never seen Avesta or Kanican... those two have pulled off some insane solos on RDM & BLM respectively. Kanican managed to solo freaking Salvage, and this was before Abyssea and the level cap increase. And you're clearly forgetting how brutal it was for many jobs to get parties (remember lolDRG, lolDRK, and lolPUP? I do. Or how about BST before SE buffed it? Yeah those were just GREAT TIMES! Or BLM once ToAU came out and they stopped getting invites altogether because of stupid Colibri reflecting magic hmm?)
- XIV is much less of a grind fest than XI was. Of course it's a grind still, it's an MMO, but it's a much easier game by comparison. I'd put Titan Hard Mode on par with about, say, Promyvion in terms of difficulty lol... Coil is fairly ruthless, but that's also in part due to the horrid job design in this game compared to XI's.

And Vandark, I'm a legacy - I played since original XIV beta, I know how the game was 1.23 and while I agree I liked some aspects of the combat and job design better (especially WAR & DRG) it was still garbage compared to XI's job system. I've never been big on healing in MMOs, but when WotG came out I was all over Scholar. The options that job offered both as a main and a support job were insane, as were DNC's. Heck, it helped make BLU, which was normally a damage dealer, a viable healer as Light Arts gave you a B+ skill rating in healing magic, which stacked with your blue magic skill to enhance BLU's already potent (albeit limited) healing spells.


There's nothing like that in XIV - we don't even have job traits or super skills anymore (except maybe Hallowed Ground which got nerfed hard in ARR) and can't sub traits anymore... I dunno, sometimes I wonder if we really would have been better off with an HD XI 2.0. I love YP and commend him for the effort put into remaking this game, but it just doesn't feel like an FF game anymore. A lot of the nostalgia/references feel tacked on.

[ApolloGenX]

Yeah... the Final Fantasy franchise carries its own brand identity (or did before XIV).... although ARR is beautiful, they are really compromising the brand identity in trying to copy so many elements from WoW, which had/has its own strong brand identity.

WoW brought that brand to the market and through changes has associated a LOT of gaming systems and mechanics with the brand. Pulling that into another game, really evokes that other brand...which loses out on a lot of brand capitalization SE could be doing and alienates some of the FF diehards.

It's true this does have a wider appeal than going with a more FF history based approach. But that strategy basically trades in on the branding of FF and goes for the wider market. If they were going to do that, I wonder why they made the game a FF title? Why not just create a new game?

The only thing I can think of is that they wanted to salvage the damage they had done with 1.0... and decided that an eroded brand was better than a failed one. So.. they went the generic route... lose some of the FF brand identity... but have a somewhat successful game instead of a failure.

[Ceinwyn]

I see the gerne of mmoprg's in a dieing slot, wow will remain the most populated game due to its awesome advertisement, good starter position and because its a quite good game for newcomers, while all other games will go free to play or will substain a (low) population, however i see the numbers of subscribers decreasing in alle games, mmoprpgs arent as apreciated as they supposed to be due to several reasons.... i think ffxiv will have a nice amount of subscribers if they can keep the content incoming but that might be hard because u can finish this game quite quick i dont see ffxiv as a mmorpg to say the truth its more of a quick journey to 50 and then u can grind itemslevels until ur'e bored of it and i dont see this changing and probably it wont they could have stayed with the early ffxi system and use a niche of the gerne but they decided to create a wow with final fantasy elements what will never be more as second option for bored wow Players, for me, i enjoyed ffxi in his early days and a realm reborn isnt a game i would sub for more than a few months until i've have "finished" it

[Aki_Ren]

here is the rest of my reply:

FFXI is a game we loved and enjoyed
but why SE changed it using aby?
lol it is coz SE is going after casuals monies. the started to kick the hardcore (The fans of FFXI) to please the casuals.
with what they did they killed the old areas completely, lol, now it is hard for new players to play because old areas are dead. no low lvl parties no one sells or buys low lvl armor.. etc.
if a person doesn't have a high lvl friend he/she would quite and it happened right b4 my eyes more than once.
and as for the 400-300 players at peak time LOL
that's not accurate, i checked a couple of servers including mine 1500-2000 players and at north America part time it is 700-800.
and that's not coz FFXI is old
it is coz the way it is now it is not welcoming new players
and it is hurting its fan base
with each update they hurt their original fan base more and more

when Aby came out, the armor we loved and we had fun getting and using became useless
the armor we were satisfied with for 11 years now is meaningless
and all SE does it throw more flashy armor in the game to keep the players interested but this is not what the players really want.
the SoA expansion was SE promise to FFXI players to bring back the old play style, if u say ppl were sick of that game play why did SE make that promise?

tbh, I don't think this game will live long if they keep doing this
and Like Dannythm, i loved Tanaka san game more than the Yoshi copy past game =)

[LiadansWhisper]

and Like Dannythm, i loved Tanaka san game more than the Yoshi copy past game =)

Apparently there weren't very many people who agreed with you, since Tanaka's game was a huge flop, and Yoshi's is, thus far, quite successful. I'm really not sure why anyone believes that SE would go back to a model that tanked the original incarnation of this game...based on a few forum posts. >.<

[Canddi]

I'd say the original FFXIV tanking had more to do with the unplayable, glitchy mess upon release than the actual style of game. Of course it did get better but how many people, myself included, never bothered to try it again after the first month or two?

[gadenp]

Just to state what has been said.

You guys know you are a minority right. I have seen what a loud minority can do to a MMO and it ain't pretty.

Guys any MMO that caters for the hardcore does not last or sustains a small population. Majority of the people hate games in which only the minority holds all the good stuff.

It is one thing to have a minority have tons of rare vanity items. But a whole different ball game to make top tier weapons super hard to get.

I agree that FF14 has ways to go, but making it harder and harder will just drive more and more people away.

[Vandark]

Just to state what has been said.

You guys know you are a minority right. I have seen what a loud minority can do to a MMO and it ain't pretty.

Guys any MMO that caters for the hardcore does not last or sustains a small population. Majority of the people hate games in which only the minority holds all the good stuff.

It is one thing to have a minority have tons of rare vanity items. But a whole different ball game to make top tier weapons super hard to get.

I agree that FF14 has ways to go, but making it harder and harder will just drive more and more people away.

Except casuals don't stick around anyway they move onto the next best game when it comes out and when that happens FF14 will die off faster than you can say WTF HAPPENED and there won't be any real MMO players around to keep it alive because SE is pushing us away.