"you can solo to end-game"; is what killed it!

[Argh]

it's what drove the game away from ffxi and into the mess it turned out to be. it is a simple line of thinking, really. just ask yourself. "how can you take the final fantasy mmo and make it a solo and casual game?". if this problem was assigned to you before development you would have turned out the same ffxiv that we got today.

they thought they knew how the mmo world has evolved. they thought the appeasement to the casual crowd would bring in more subs while maintaining a healthy ffxi player base. they tought wrong!

the reasoning behind the blunders and how they are tied to the solo-casual theme;

1] removal of classic names / classes.

you need the abilities of them all as tanking, dps'ing, and healing are a requirement to sustain a solo adventure. making a killing machine sounds cool but in a game like this with it's rich history behind ffxi, it got boring real quick playing by yourself. classic names cannot co-exist with the "create-your-class" system.

2] poor party system;

solo and casual play does not mix with being in a party. the party system took a back seat in development cycle to ensure the solo play was accurate. they could not simply copy the party system design from ffxi because it would interfere with the solo play mechanics. what we ended up with was a party system that was so broken that it discouraged you from being or seeking one and played a pivotal role in the lack of socializing in the game.

3] elimination of auction house;

with a killing machine comes the risk of solo farming all the best drops and mats. in a forced party-based battle system it would require a team to dominate sections of the AH but in this game a single person can do so. but i don't think this was the real reason they removed it. i believe there were 2 reasons behind this error. one reason was when they realized how afficient and quick solo'ing would be that they had to come up with a timesink to slow down the player. from everyone that played this game i think we all realized at how time consuming (and painful) it was to look through the market wards for even the simplest non-starter gear as you progressed through leveling your toon. the second reason was because of the lack of a party-based battle system and how it negatively effects socializing in an mmo. they thought that players would naturally find their social aspects through manually searching for items from bazaars and market wards, almost a face to face market transaction system.

4] removal of death penalty;

it would severly slow down a player in this faster-paced final fantasy mmo. in a single player game dying often is to be expected. xp loss is a timesink that casual play cannot withstand. the lack of a risk vs. reward system made the world lifeless. a plethora of innocent-looking wildlife that you slaughter over and over again with ease did not do much to help out, either. a world full of danger and a form of loss adds to the immersion, something that ffxi's xp loss penalty achieves.

5] teleport system;

the world is large and of course teleporting helps a solo player get to places instantly. it helps the casuals out that only care about level progression. what it really does is actually hurt immersion and adventure. the need for transportation systems, like chocobos, are not needed. it also hurts the socializing aspect further in that you do not have players in market squares advertising and capitalizing on this since everyone can do it from the begining. i don't know about you, but in ffxi i actually enjoyed running from my home city to the vulkrum dunes to level up while avoiding the tough mobs along the way. i enjoyed running back to my home town after the fights were over and feeling like i have been on an adventure. traveling through the world can add a level of excitement and danger. this is a good thing in an mmo.

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notice that i did not mention the UI or the lack of content. this is because those two are NOT what killed the game. these two are actually the two most easily observed symptoms of why the game, quite frankly, sucked. but again, they are the symptoms and not the disease. you have to fight the disease instead of treating the symptoms.

in a slower-paced and party-based combat system like ffxi has, the UI works. but when you give the player the freedom to take on multiple mobs at the same time and enforce a button-mashing combat theme, it works against the final fantasy control and UI scheme.

to further magnitude the troubles of the UI is the fact that the world is a copy-pasted narrow corridor system. what this does is allow too many scenarios of a very short step / elevation change in the terrain that creates impasses. this simply frusterates players. they will naturally blame the clunky UI system. yes it is clunky but it was never designed for a world of warcraft level of freedom and making the game solo-friendly you are obviously starting to tread in a certain direction, it's no secret. they can simply add a jump feature that allows to help aleviate some of these impasses but again you are treating the symptom when you should be fighting the disease itself. in this case the disease is a poorly laid out world / terrain design.

the lack of content complaint is not entirely derived from simply lack of content or veriety. it is a direct result of the lack of socializing. forcing certain classic aspects of an mmo are more beneficial than detrimental. guidance needs to be available at the start of this game; forced party-based combat system, forced traveling, forced trading hub (AH), an open and large world (even if they have to reduce zone size to limit the PS3 restrains in order to avoid the copy-paste), etc. if you simply put these together the lack of content complaint would never have reared it's ugly head at the ferocity that it has. you would have something to do like; people to meet, parties to form, traveling to do, and markets to browse, before you can advance your toon. these are all timesinks but then again an mmo is a timesink itself and that is why you play one.

i wanted to simply say this game sucks. i wanted to simply say the original devs did not know what they were doing or similar comments. i wanted to simply shout "MAKE IT LIKE FFXI!!!". but instead i wanted to take a more mature stand on this. to quickly state something like; ffxi did it right, and ffxiv did it wrong, is too simplistic. hindsight is always 20/20. but looking back is still a bit fuzzy with this game. if the current development team reads this i hope they treat the disease, not just the symptoms.

[Cornyboob]

I swear that every FF was Solo casual play before FFXI so whats the real big deal?

You solod to end game in every single FF game except 11.

[MiNuN]

You know, this thread is on core. I do not appreciate this being transfer to here for your own reasons, about you looking for comments or what?

[Gath]

I swear that every FF was Solo casual play before FFXI so whats the real big deal?

You solod to end game in every single FF game except 11.

Because 11 was the only other MMO. . .
I have to disagree on a lot of these things from the OP, the game is still young, mroe stuff is to come out, and I can assure the hardcore will dominate it.

[Krisan]

The game is a mess because it was nowhere near finished when it was released. You're kidding yourself if you think a few solo-friendly options is what's hurting this game more than anything else. (WoW being probably the most solo friendly MMO on the market is making a bloody fortune, so I somehow would think your logic is indeed flawed here.)

[Grit]

I swear that every FF was Solo casual play before FFXI so whats the real big deal?

You solod to end game in every single FF game except 11.

Every Single FF game except 11 and 14 were not online.. that's the big difference. Most people don't play an MMORPG for the solo aspects.

Is this Cornyboob from Remora? =D

[Abriael]

I'm sorry to burst one of the usual bubbles inflated by just another that would like for a developer to cater JUST to their playstile, and to say a big "screw you" to everyone else that might enjoy something different, but...

You can solo to end game in wow. It didn't kill it.

Quite obviously that's not the problem.

[zaviermhigo]

I swear that every FF was Solo casual play before FFXI so whats the real big deal?

You solod to end game in every single FF game except 11.

This is a massively multiplayer game, meant to played with people online, if you didn't know.

[rekijitsu]

The game is a mess because it was nowhere near finished when it was released. You're kidding yourself if you think a few solo-friendly options is what's hurting this game more than anything else. (WoW being probably the most solo friendly MMO on the market is making a bloody fortune, so I somehow would think your logic is indeed flawed here.)

Just because it makes a fortune, doesn't mean it's good in that regard.

[Cornyboob]

Every Single FF game except 11 and 14 were not online.. that's the big difference. Most people don't play an MMORPG for the solo aspects.

Is this Cornyboob from Remora? =D

Yeah its me im on Wutai in Diplomats LS