FFXIV has lost it's magic

[Azurymber]

One of the great things about old MMOS like EQ and XI was that when you went into a zone, it felt like an adventure. There was danger around every corner. You could die. Further, many zones felt like they were a wild rarely-traversed place. When you were trying to run through Yuhtunga/Yhotar jungle, it felt like the middle of nowhere. Getting to Xarcabard felt like a journey. The non-instanced dungeons made the game feel huge and like a massive world.

XIV on the other hand has some sort of "camp" and "crystal" about a 2-4 minute run from every point in the game. There aren't really any areas that are just a wide open expanse without civilization. And there is essentially 0 open world difficulty.

You never get that feeling of running through a deadly temple and sneaking past things to stay alive. Or being chased across the zone by something that can actually kill you. Instead, wearing minimal gear, I can run into almost any group of mobs and kill them all without any real worry.

MMOs used to be great because they created emotion, tension and anxiety, in a good way. You were in a dangerous world, and you had to survive. There were things to explore, hidden coffers and nms to find, isolated places to level or farm, etc.

Now the open world (probably the best part of XIV) is more like an interactive instance selection menu. The real game is in a few instances (which have gotten really boring).

Put another way, I had more difficulty and died more often in the lvl 1-10 zones in ffxi, than I have in the highest level most "difficult" areas in XIV.

I realize that modern day gaming is just a series of repetitive instances for e-peen status. But that's not a real game. That's a trick to keep people paying.

XIV has one of the most beautiful open worlds of any game i have ever played. And after you get level 50 on a job, it all goes to waste.

[Argent_Wings]

Put on your flame vest. It's about to get ugly in here.

[Bossycow]

Here we go!

[PSxpert2011]

I understand you well ma'am,
The structure and design of FFXIV wasn't to replicate the experience of FFXI it seems(though in previous interviews SE claims to use what they've learned from pass experience), with FFXIV it doesn't seem to be the case.

FFXI: you logged in from Play Online> to the lobby server>character select>game.
After this, if you were in a city or town(safe zone), this technically is the glamorized chat, shout,yell, tell area for all(even though you can do it anywhere).
TheGame: It begins when you leave the safe zone and good luck to you!

FFXIV: Logged in from the launcher(and I appreciate that, FFXI needs this,srsly!)> title screen>lobbyserver(character select)> (BAM!)in game!
After this, pretty much everywhere is a safe zone excluding "high level" area where everone camps out at..."camps". Dungeons and groups battles are instances and that is tech. the MMO GAME experience for FFXIV.

Where is will continue and end is to yet be seen. Take as you will with a grain of salt. the game poses no challenge, nothing new to the experience but it's kinda fun(but forgettable). In FFXI for the first 3~4 years trying to clear some content, I made an uncountable amount of friends and also loss some unfortunately due to IRL.
FFXI was THE GAME, you either lost(after leaving town) or you won. Success was memorable. Friends made the difference! In FFXIV, you really don't need "friends"... I say that sarcastically... everything is solo-able and nobody really cares about anyone. I'm lucky to make encounters with people who do care and I add them to my small friends list and invite them to my linkshell. I try to keep the social part of FFXIV alive for me. That was what FFXI influenced the most and was pretty successful hence why the MMO is still up and running.

Hopefully people who care would double subscribe to FFxi aswel because the game needs saving. New Generation is killing it and we need feedback to counter the ridiculous evolution its going through. I still play FFxi, it's still hard and even harder when gear seems to be the only incentive to play now.

[Orophin]

And every mob doesn't have to die in 5 hits to make a game fun

Every mob doesn't have to be so powerful that's it's a certainty that you will die if you try to fight an "Even Match" (or even Easy Prey from FFXI's days) nor does it need to take 5 minutes to kill a random overworld mob.

Many of the conventions used in FFXI would only serve to make FFXIV a niche title, and SE can't make a profit off of that in this day and age. It worked years ago when there was no alternative like WoW, but if FFXI were to release today it would flounder.

[Kailea_Nagisa]

the main problem with these types of discussions is that some people do not realize that people in general do not have as much time to play MMORPGs, it is why the "WOW" type work so well.

[Yurikitty]

When people first said the world was to tiny, I said, just wait, Yoshi promised us 80 or so zones. It was quoted, it was in a live letter, so I waited. I have to say, maybe there are 80 zones but it depends on how you class a zone. In my head a zone was a map, a separate map that you "zoned into". Pick any MMO, it doesn't have to be 11 or EQ or WoW, any MMO and the world is so much bigger than this one. It seems that SE now defines a zone as the name of the place you are in. So take for example North Shroud, it is one big zone (big is a relative term here) and you have little zones within the zone, like Fallgourd Float or Peace Garden. My problem with this is all of these zones can be reached in less then 2 minutes, even by foot!

I played 11, to get to Jueno was a trek, and not a very safe one. It took over 30 minutes of walking, and you just had to pray you didn't die on the way. You had to take a boat from windy, the boat ride was 15 minutes alone.

People can say what they want about white knighting and nostalgia but this world in ARR is TINY! And I for one hate it. Nothing is hard, nothing is not 100% safe, I can teleport any where I want in a blink of the eye. I didnt work for a "flight path" I didnt have to farm the scroll for my teleport points, I didnt have to walk anywhere... If this is what they meant by 80+ zones I think they need to redefine the word zone, cause I dont think it means what they think it does.

[Sfarzoso]

Cool story bro

[Loki]

the main problem with these types of discussions is that some people do not realize that people in general do not have as much time to play MMORPGs, it is why the "WOW" type work so well.

The funny thing is that i have often heard people who said they didn't have enough free time for a MMO so it justifies devs create some shitty things like FATES and reduce challenge in their games, but in another hand these same people say they play to another mmos at the same time....

[cotti]

FFXIV has lost it's magic

There's something wrong here...

FFXIV has lost. It's magic!


There you go, now it follows the context.