Current State of End-Game Contents - A Blog Post from A Japanese Player

[Souljacker]

.
It's not the system that turns player on one another, it's players lack of patience. FFXI CoP was a fine example of this because it had the same issue as FFXIV end game does. Outside of an LS or Static it was very tough for a player to progress due to the difficulty. Do you honestly think there was a difference from FFXI Diabolos wipe and Garuda EX wipe? It's still frustrating no matter how you wipe and you still have the blame game.

I had this conversation with one of the leaders of my FC not too long ago. He was comparing XI to this game, and how it was so much better and harder and this game was so easy... Then he started talking about his wipes in various trials and some of the grind, and at one point I stopped him and asked, "so what exactly is different from XI then?"


I think that the differences between the games are related to player perception rather than actual difficulty. People got stuck on CoP because no one would even TRY promy without at least two summoners and two war\nins. Later fights had similar makeup requirements or people wouldn't "waste" their time. It was ridiculous. We don't have that kind of roadblock here with player mentality (mostly) because the systems aren't as complex, but folks are still stuck on some fights because the design is now "throw ground poo at them until someone's network lags and wipes the group". 6 of one, half dozen of another, I agree... But that doesn't score points for EITHER game in the grand scheme of things. SE still needs to step it up a notch with complexity, genuine challenges, and tone down the insta wipe stuff a little. There's no easy answer, but that's why it's called professional game development.

[Atomnium]

I love how everyone says FFXI was the best system, yet they aren't playing it....
snip****
So in short every MMO has it's share of frustration in end game arena and FFXIV is no different.

snip**** "so what exactly is different from XI then?"
I think that the differences between the games are related to player perception rather than actual difficulty.

You re actually both correct and also partially wrong there, of course the comparison of both FFXI and FFXIV battleground/challenge could be done in the same way and would totally look alike,
the difference there would be a new generation of players and how they actually play the game...

> BUT < there is a massive difference between the two games and an huge one when you have to compare FFXI battlegrounds (Missions, stories or even side quests stories) and FFXIV case
and lot of people actually fails to describe it...

2 words : Duty Finder
Yep. FFXIV actually traded a very important part of any Final Fantasy old school legacy for our *ready to get feed by a silver spoon" aka duty finder.

I'm talking about open world trips when having to reach any battleground (anything you can actually find in the duty finder).

It was challenging, people who didn't played FFXI can't imagine a dangerous open world stuffed with riddles or/and tough fights leading to what we were calling "BCNM" (current ffxiv dungeons or boss fights).

You had to socialize, build a team and go into the wild for a long trip, most of the time it was deadly and you had to be very careful of your steps, dealing with mazes and getting lost (for real) and more before reaching your destination.

Special reminder for ffxi's players : do you remember the very first time you had to climb a promyvion tower? to finally reach the boss chamber and defeat it, this could actually take some hours but do you remember the incredible pleasure right after?

There you go about both games difficulties, Duty Finder act like a shortcut that would skip any challenging/entertaining open world content before a dungeon or a boss.

[ZReport]

I love how everyone says FFXI was the best system, yet they aren't playing it....

This is not a good arguing point. You disregard the fact that FFXI is a 12 year old game now, and that people have moved onto the more WoW-like FFXIV instead. FFXI is in the unique position of having a newer game in the franchise outdating it. Same thing happened to Ragnarok Online, as well as EverQuest.

Despite this fact, people are usually arguing from a point of nostalgia, because FFXI of 2002~2009 offered a much more unique experience that revolved around a battle system that was mostly based on auto attacks. They also had the NM system which was highly competitive. It terms of pure gameplay, FFXI was easy to get into but had a high skill gap when it came to recovering from wipes, as well as exceptionally heavy gear/equipment requirements (before gear syncing) in level capped areas. Outside of that, the game was very easy to play, you waited for 100 TP, spammed WS as DPS. No flank or back attack checks unless you were THF, /THF or BLU. If healing, you throw on what minor debuffs you could, and spammed a simple healing macro. If tank, you stuffed your abilities full of enmity bonus equipment and mashed a macro, or had the THF Trick Attack a large chunk of enmity onto you.

Game was hard to progress if you were virtually friendless or couldn't plan runs (or boss fights) well. Game was also sorely based on how well you could mitigate one-shot and severe attacks (hence why NIN was so good) and/or how efficiently you could recover from wipes. From there it was pick the job of the month/year to do max DPS. There was really no skill outside of that. Game was heavily gear based and your "skill" directly related to how well geared you could get your jobs for both auto attack DPS/Weapon Skills/Healing/Nuking/Tanking. FFXI also had a good deal more events that was based on how many people you could bring to your alliance (Dynamis, Limbus, HNMs, Einherjar, Skirmish). In most of these events, only numbers mattered -- there were no tight DPS checks unless it was a final boss, and even those weren't very tight (unless it was Dynamis Lord or Odin).

The good thing about FFXIV is that, despite what people will complain and cry about, making friends is not enough. You have to intricately learn how your role performs so you can contribute to your party (esp. as DPS). You also have to learn the various patterns of instanced fights so you can effectively dodge telegraphed attacks. There's very little handholding for these fights unless you are rolling with very over geared people. Fights require some semblance of knowledge and [dodging] skill.

[Cynric]

Difference between FFXIV and FFXI, that made FFXI special is indeed what people say. Dangerous open world, Lots of grind and tedium, parties required to even level up on simple enemies. Those aren't all bad things with proper moderation, which frankly FFXI didn't have, but what it did do was forced people to meet people and play with them. In the end this was the only really good factor about FFXI that separated it from XIV. None of those systems would be right to force on a player though. There is also no difficulty involved, just tedium, Taking 6 hours to get to a city you have to go to because you're dying to same level mobs and taking 20 minutes doesn't make the adventure any better. But having to make friends to get there does. Certain things like a vaster world, and more open world content would help 14. Things that just increase the tedium and make your average gamer frustrated would destroy 14 and frankly most games in this day and age.

What FF14 needs is more things that make you socialize with other players but with proper moderation unlike FFXI. The battle system needs slight improvements but it's fine. More actually difficult content would also be nice. Taking months or years to hit max level wont help, taking hours to reach a town because you're dying wont help. Monsters only one single party can fight that they must sit in the same spot for 1 - 2 days to touch it in order to fight it and lock out everyone else camping wont help. Making the battle system less reflexive and more gear based wont help. Making Flash have a bigger radius because you want to trade 80 str for a level 2 item that helps you have to move less wont change anything about gear.

We need variety, we need more reasons to party, we need improvements in a lot of places. But this game is bare bones and was created in a very short amount of time. So being bare bones is expected for now. Aside from more open world content, maybe stronger open world monsters for 50 players(not hunt mobs) that actually give some real kind of reward. Open world dungeons, more stuff like maps, more community related events, less invisible walls, more places to explore that aren't on the map. Those things can be taken from FFXI. But that's it. The battle system, the leveling system, the tedium of the need to party to get past low level creatures the same level as you, the need to be Xjob/Yjob and only X job / Y job or be forced to be that combo to participate in party content which is required. Every quest having no marker, and battle content being basically skill less. Please leave those things in the past where they belong.

[Zarzak]

The difference pre and post WoW?

1. a M.MULTIPLAYER.O was ACTUALLY MULTIPLAYER. Not "solo to level cap in about 30 /played hours"

2. The world was acually MASSIVE. Run from one end to the other took well over an hour easy. Entire regions in WoW+ games are the size of single zones.

3. There was a reason to do something besides sit in town afk once you were level cap. Being "ready for raids" did not translate into "anything besides raiding will offer nothing to your character"

4. The world was actually dangerous. Run through a level 50 zone at level 40? Suicide. WoW+? "EL OH EL I RUNZ THROUGH ALL THE THINGS! Whole zone beating on me? Eh /shrug afk"

5. Raids actually fulfilled the definition of a raid ("a type of mission in a video game where a very large number of people combine forces to defeat a powerful enemy") instead of just another group event. In games prior to WoW what is considered a raid these days was "/shout hey our group spawned a named that we can't beat can we get some help".. actually you prolly ended up with more people that way.

6. Group play in general? Random and dynamic. Another group could wipe and chain aggro your camp. A named could randomly spawn on your face. A giant could path by and stomp your face in. A goblin could walk up behind you and throw a bomb at your face. WoW+? "oh look the EXACT same thing every time. Around this corner there will be 2 couerl and 1 goblin black mage standing in a triangle pattern, next is the boss who will do 2 backflips then throw candy in a 360 degree radius before landing in a hand stand. And guess what!?!?!!/ Soon as we kill it we will zone out. Click the queue button again and do the EXACT same thing again!! YAY!!!!"

[Cynric]

snip

Over simplification. WoW did good and bad things to the genre. Streamlining features would of happened with or without WoW, because MMO's started streamlining things that WoW made popular before it existed. I don't really like WoW much, but I wont pretend it made the genre much worse. It just changed up the formula a bit and that was successful. The types of players that started playing (a lot more than before) are what changed things . Of course if you have tons more people playing you'll have people with different ideals on what is and isn't a good idea in a game.

[Zarzak]

Over simplification. WoW did good and bad things to the genre. Streamlining features would of happened with or without WoW, because MMO's started streamlining things that WoW made popular before it existed. I don't really like WoW much, but I wont pretend it made the genre much worse. It just changed up the formula a bit and that was successful. The types of players that started playing (a lot more than before) are what changed things . Of course if you have tons more people playing you'll have people with different ideals on what is and isn't a good idea in a game.

WoW released in the age when a 12 year old could actually convince their parents to put their credit card online for a game. Pretty much explains everything that happened. Now there are no MMOs for anyone over the age of 12.

[Cynric]

snip

Most MMO's are for teens and up and always were for teens and up. You're just mad or disappointed. I understand that. It doesn't change facts though.

Quests were streamlined with markers before WoW. Skills were placed on hotbars without the use of macros before WoW. Leveling through content was eased in many games before WoW. These things all happened because that's what people complained about at the time. Extreme death penalties were also removed before WoW existed because people didn't find that fun.

You wont find many games even back in the day where a level 1 monster would kill a level 1 character even a level 2 monster usually wouldn't kill a level 1 player solo. I've seen far more people complain about leveling taking too long back then, than I have seen people complain it being too fast now.

WoW just became popular and introduced all those things people wanted from different MMOs in one at the time for them fun, theme park package. Thus standards for the genre were born.

[Zarzak]

Quests were streamlined with markers before WoW. Questing wasn't even a thing in WoW terms before WoW. Prior to WoW it was "I want this really special item so I'm going to do this 1 quest that will spawn several parties/days to complete for this reward" WoW questing is "THE ONLY THING YOU WILL EVER DO IF YOU WANT TO BE AT ALL EFFECTIVE!!! YOU WILL DO 100000 QUESTS WHICH WILL EACH TAKE 30 SECONDS AND BE TOTALLY MEANINGLESS OR YOU WILL SUFFER THY WRATH. Oh and PS. Half the time if you attempt to group up to do said quests... They will take LONGER because half of them you have to compete for quest objectives."

Skills were placed on hotbars without the use of macros before WoW. Never mentioned hotbars as a problem?

Leveling through content was eased in many games before WoW. Such as?
You wont find many games even back in the day where a level 1 monster would kill a level 1 character even a level 2 monster usually wouldn't kill a level 1 player solo. 1v1? At that level? Likely not. Beyond level 10? Prolly.

10characters

[Cynric]

10characters

Last response to you because you wont listen no matter what I say. Which is fine, believe whatever you want to.

There are quests that take longer than 30 seconds to complete post, pre, and during WoWs popularity in many games. There are also quests post, pre, and during WoWs popularity that are fairly quick to complete. I can tell you for sure that whether it was 30 seconds or 2 weeks, not a lot of players cared to read the flavor text. The only thing they cared about was the reward. You even said it yourself, they do it for some item they want. You don't need that item to be relevant usually. Just like you can ignore every quest in pre or post WoW era and level however you want. It wont be as fast. But that's basically the same. Just like how pre/post WoW there were quests which have stories which you need to complete to progress further in those games.

As for games I can't name all of them, but I can tell you I played most of the MMO's out back then. FFXI is probably the only game that took you years to hit max level before the level cap was even raised.

Also no not just at level 1. Levels 10's aren't usually killed solo by 11-13, and this trend usually echoed though most games and all the way to level cap. There are and were very few games(if any) with as dangerous an open world as FFXI. This has nothing to do with WoW at all.