FFXIV: Different and Unique

[Besbeset]

For you, my friend, it may have been easy, but I am not the only one to attest to the hours of sitting, waiting to play. Perhaps if you played a more desirable job you may have not had these issues, but whenever I played THF or MNK, I sat for a very long time.

Forgive me, but I played FFXI from 2004-2010, in which, I took a few months of leave. I was very active in the community on Sylph for a long time. You do not need to apologize to me for having what seems to be the greatest luck of any player I've ever encountered. When I started the game, I had many, many friends who played, and did not ever have a hard time finding a party. Even in the last few months of play, I was in a still-active linkshell (now on Titan) and we grouped together all of the time.

Regardless of both of our experiences, the same cannot be said for everyone else. I know many, many people who were turned off to the game because of the difficulties of finding a party. The learning curve on XI was pretty high for the average gamer. Not everyone has the resources or the time to waste in front of their computer.

I can't agree with this, I'm sorry.

After many years playing many different games, and some of them MMO, I must say that probably my greatest and happiest moments playing any game were on FFXI experience points partys or any other FFXI stuff (Quests/Missions/High end PVE...) were you must set up a party to accomplish.

There must be diversity on games, all of them can't be a WoW style where you can level up playing alone. I don't enjoy online games that promotes the solo style against the group one.

You needed sometimes a lot of time to find a party? Yes, that's true, but the system can't be perfect, and in fact mainly it was the people who plays the game who makes the system fails. You had hard times finding partys because 70% of the base player were DD, and the rest 30% mixed between tanks and healers.

And if you turn the jobs to be more hybrid so people isn't forced to play with some fixed classes there will be complaints about lack of uniqueness (like actually on XIV) .... so there you have it.

About the time needed to play this kind of games.... well, not all the games fits with everyone's live and this is a fact. But you can pretend to change the whole game just because it don't fits with your actual free time. Let others enjoy it, and choose another one, there are plenty of them.

And I'm sorry, I'm not being rude with this, this is only my point of view about games and everyone's free time.

And as Skykho said, I had also no issues almost everytime I tried to build up a PT on FFXI.

And btw, we aren't in a race. If I really enjoy the experience, I personally don't care if I need 6 months to level up a job/class or whatever to his maximum level. The hardest the way, the greatest the reward.

Sorry if there are any grammatical mistakes.

[Anty]

All the people that are left like it, the other half a million who left, did not, so SE lost a lot by being too unique and having nothing!

i think its rather having nothing. FFXIV isnt unique, sadly it isnt. Its a copy of ffxi lacking 80% of what ffxi had without replacing it by other unique features. There is just nothing. IT HAS great potential but looking at the patches so far it might just turn easier every patch and get like all other mmos.

The only reason why im still checking on patches is... a tiny bit of hope, that it will not be changed into an average mmo, like there are many atm. I hope it works on strengthening the niche it was in instead of trying to appeal to the mass market. Not only it will become uninteresting for the ff players, but it won't be able to compete with all the other more polished mmos out there, which have tons more content. Even the best of the current wow copies have the problem with the huge competition... if ffxiv wants to fail, it goes the wow-copy way, the fail will be a 100% guarantee.
If it progresses and stays in the niche it is, it has a chance and might even turn out to be great in the future.

[Gundammeister]

The only reason why im still checking on patches is... a tiny bit of hope, that it will not be changed into an average mmo, like there are many atm. I hope it works on strengthening the niche it was in instead of trying to appeal to the mass market. Not only it will become uninteresting for the ff players, but it won't be able to compete with all the other more polished mmos out there, which have tons more content. Even the best of the current wow copies have the problem with the huge competition... if ffxiv wants to fail, it goes the wow-copy way, the fail will be a 100% guarantee.
If it progresses and stays in the niche it is, it has a chance and might even turn out to be great in the future.

Agreed

[kaboro]

All the people that are left like it, the other half a million who left, did not, so SE lost a lot by being too unique and having nothing!

They did not lose players because the game is unique, but because they released the game in an unfinished state.
Unfinished state is fixable, lack of originality is not, so i have a lot of hope for XIV.

[kaboro]

Regardless of what we want this game to be, it's obvious that it's not working the way it is.

I understand the nostalgiac feelings most have for what an inspiring game FFXI was. I, too, believe that FFXI was great. However, FFXI was, in essence, a giant time-sync, and it does not have any place in today's market for MMOs. When the game came out, it was the cream of the crop, but that was ten years ago. FFXI was out when the PS2 was still a new system. For all of its wonders, FFXI has many flaws.

The "party content" (not including end-game content) consisted of mainly mindless grinding, which is hardly any different from the system many complain about in XIV. And for most jobs, that was the only way you could progress. On top of that, the party system in FFXI (until it went under quite a few changes over its long span of existence) required a giant community of active players. Come on, don't tell me you guys didn't sit in Jeuno or Whitegate for hours looking for parties after 2005. I was just in the game a month or two ago, and as you can imagine, it's even worse now.

MMOs have evolved a great deal since the debut of FFXI. I do believe XIV needs more party-involved content, however, I would not like to sit for hours and hours and hours, killing crabs in Valkurm Dunes again. If you found that fun, go play MapleStory, as I hear the weather is nice this time of the year.

It would be great to see some dungeon content with bosses and an active storyline. Take for example, the large, expansive instances World of Warcraft had when it first came out, like Mauradon and the original Sunken Temple, that took hours (sometimes an entire day) to complete. No one wants the sort of: "Here's your free cookie" game that some MMOs have become today, but XIV cannot afford to go back to old conventions.

Best post i read on these forums, *bows with respect.

[Nilheim]

There's no guarantee that it will turn into a WoW clone, in fact I'm pretty sure Yoshida understands we don't want that. But WoW works well for a reason, and using MMO functions that have proven to work in all situations seems like a good idea as far as I'm concerned.
We all want to have a "FF" feel, but where I can't agree with what some of you guys say is how by changing the game they will make FFXIV lose its strength. I'm really sorry and I'm not trying to flame anyone but what is FFXIV's strength at the moment? You guys keep talking about its uniqueness and its strength but I fail to see them, so I'm just asking cause I really wanna know what you guys mean by that.

[Shikyo]

For you, my friend, it may have been easy, but I am not the only one to attest to the hours of sitting, waiting to play. Perhaps if you played a more desirable job you may have not had these issues, but whenever I played THF or MNK, I sat for a very long time.

Forgive me, but I played FFXI from 2004-2010, in which, I took a few months of leave. I was very active in the community on Sylph for a long time. You do not need to apologize to me for having what seems to be the greatest luck of any player I've ever encountered. When I started the game, I had many, many friends who played, and did not ever have a hard time finding a party. Even in the last few months of play, I was in a still-active linkshell (now on Titan) and we grouped together all of the time.

Regardless of both of our experiences, the same cannot be said for everyone else. I know many, many people who were turned off to the game because of the difficulties of finding a party. The learning curve on XI was pretty high for the average gamer. Not everyone has the resources or the time to waste in front of their computer.

My life is extremely full atm but with some of my downtime i would enjoy playing ffxiv if it were fun, challeging, strategic had a nice sized community or any of the staples ppl who play the mmorpg genre have come to know as the basics of what makes a mmo good.

Saying that i dont have as much time now as I did when i played XI but that doesnt mean i would accept a game that lacks so much just so it can be played by the casual player, I mean they made a terrible game that even a person that doesnt play alot wouldnt enjoy.
I seriously cant stomach this game for more then 20 mins at the most.

I guess some wanted a dumbed down massively multiplayer rpg with no challange i didnt though.
Sure XI required a little skill and some effort, it wasnt for the lazy gamer that really didnt have the time or patience to play.

It just seems this game cant please both the casual player and serious player, I think they have to choose.

Who would make them more money if all i had was 1 hour a day to play i probably wouldnt be willing to pay a monthly fee for a mmorpg... The MMORPG genre and casual players just dont mix.
The serious/hardcore players are where they will make their money longterm IMO,
I would think thats what they need to aim for that group of players, and this "FF for dummies" isnt what will keep the majority of that group playing, thats not opinion as you can see now with the empty servers, ls's, and them neededing to regroup with a new team and try to make it better.

Its very hard for me to understand why they would make a "mmorpg" that has so very little group party play aspects and seems to encourage a person to go it alone w/o a decent story.

Why make a online game like this? Its obviously this not what the majority of the fans wanted or we wouldnt be disscusing any of this right now.

[Anty]

Instance fantasy, the uniqueness

i really hope they get rid of all the instanced stuff for EVERYTHING you do. This adds a lot to the lifeless world (in a negative way ofc). Why is almost everything, every quest, a lot of mobs, etc. etc. instanced? (might be an engine issue i dunno) - not talking about leves here - This takes away the the adventure feeling completely.

I know that in ffxi many people complained about the fact that you had to wait for stuff like dynamis and such because it wasnt instanced. But thats another story. I sometimes think they misunderstood it completely.

There is no need to make every content instanced. The upcoming dungens is something different (comparable to dynamis one could say). Even quests where i have to kill like 2 mobs are instanced... if i have to kill beastmen, why isnt there a proper beastmen place where i have to go and kill? enough for everyone? or at least with decent repop rate. NMs Bosses, etc. something a story could be woven around.

That would make sense and give a feeling of adventure if you had to go deep into a beastmen outpost of some sort...

But noooo, you go around in the desert and a suddenly "enter the instance yes/no" pops... 2 lolbeastmen pop out of nowhere...

Its not a pop nm ... its just 2 beastmen... Why is everythign so random and lovelessly put into place?
The game sure is unique in all its "instanced-ness" ...

Make it unique with story, a consistent storyline, nice written quests, voice acting, etc... I really hope (though idoubt it) that the upcoming quest hubs are not just leves-2, i really hope they put more efford in creating content for these...

If not they rather stay nice landmarks without a function.

[Shikyo]

Agreed

I dont think any true fan of FF and FFXI in particular want XIV to be anything at all like wow....
I think thoes that played XI know that XI was not like any mmorpg out there when it was released not at all like wow and thats why I loved it.
Most wanted XIV to be an advancement of the unique and brilliant world that was XI, Not WOW... why do ppl keep saying that final fantasy fans wanna see a final fantasy game be anything like wow? O.o;
To me WoW and FF are like oil and water.
Most that i know that loved XI wouldnt touch wow with a 10 foot pole, we saw wow as a niche over hyped kiddy game built for the masses and XI was the opposite a deep rich mmo for the mature player that had a certain amount of sophistication and took a certain amount of skill to play.

[Firon]

Instance fantasy, the uniqueness

i really hope they get rid of all the instanced stuff for EVERYTHING you do. This adds a lot to the lifeless world (in a negative way ofc). Why is almost everything, every quest, a lot of mobs, etc. etc. instanced? (might be an engine issue i dunno) - not talking about leves here - This takes away the the adventure feeling completely.

I know that in ffxi many people complained about the fact that you had to wait for stuff like dynamis and such because it wasnt instanced. But thats another story. I sometimes think they misunderstood it completely.

There is no need to make every content instanced. The upcoming dungens is something different (comparable to dynamis one could say). Even quests where i have to kill like 2 mobs are instanced... if i have to kill beastmen, why isnt there a proper beastmen place where i have to go and kill? enough for everyone? or at least with decent repop rate. NMs Bosses, etc. something a story could be woven around.

That would make sense and give a feeling of adventure if you had to go deep into a beastmen outpost of some sort...

But noooo, you go around in the desert and a suddenly "enter the instance yes/no" pops... 2 lolbeastmen pop out of nowhere...

Its not a pop nm ... its just 2 beastmen... Why is everythign so random and lovelessly put into place?
The game sure is unique in all its "instanced-ness" ...

Make it unique with story, a consistent storyline, nice written quests, voice acting, etc... I really hope (though idoubt it) that the upcoming quest hubs are not just leves-2, i really hope they put more efford in creating content for these...

If not they rather stay nice landmarks without a function.

God i played PSU on Xbox and everything being instanced is fkin lame to the 10th power AND SO WAS THE CHAT BUBBLES >_<