Simplicity over complexity, time to change.

[Aylis]

You may be right.

I once thought FF immune to this, but it looks as though 'Final Fantasy' will follow in the footsteps of every great AAA franchise that sacrificed artistry and vision on the altar of marketing, gimmicks, and "summer blockbuster popularity". (I'm looking at YOU, Resident Evil, Castlevania, Silent Hill, Tomb Raider, Tony Hawk, Sonic, Metroid, God of War, etc, etc... )

Something my friends and I have dubbed "The Elder Franchise Syndrome" Even with the greatest games, the wheel can only be re-invented so many time and ideas can and do get exhausted.

[Zantetsuken]

. It has all the potential in the world to be the best but in its current state it will run out of gas. Many of us like myself have been waiting since 2010 through the nightmare launch of V1 to the end of 1.23b which turned out to be a starting foundation. All that magical wind that built up those 2 years after 1.23b then into 2.0 crashed my hopes. Why do these topics keep popping up people ask? Because people are tired of waiting for empty promises.
.

I have to disagree with that last line. We haven't even been given any promises (empty or otherwise) on a change of direction. Have you seen anything in the live letters/blogs/interviews/etc that indicates a move towards a more authentic fantasy world?

I try to cut them some slack because they had to rebuild and balance a MMO in record time, but the whole themepark/treadmill plan at this point seems to be the long-term goal of the designers rather than a mere stop-gap.

Something my friends and I have dubbed "The Elder Franchise Syndrome" Even with the greatest games, the wheel can only be re-invented so many time and ideas can and do get exhausted.

Final Fantasy has far greater opportunities to re-invent itself compared to other franchises, as none of the games are directly tied to the previous ones. The only thing that carries over is themes and lore.

FFXII was a fantastic game, as was FFIX, FFT, FFIV, FFVI, FFXI, etc.. None of them played much like the others, and they each had their own fantastic worlds, stories, characters, etc.

FFXV might be equally superb, if they get the proper 'FF feel' in the game. (though I am a bit nervous after experiencing the corridor-shooter that FFXIII was)

[Zileth]

We might so more of this in the 3.X updates and once ps3 support is dropped

[Velhart]

"Multiple secondary stats"... right. Please, you probably don't even believe it yourself. FFXIV terrible gear progression and boring stats distribution is particularly infamous at this point.

Infamous? More like standard procedure pretty much. Nothing out of the ordinary. Skill/Spell Speed, Accuracy, Critical Hit, Determination(pretty much Expertise), Parry. Eeeeyup the standard MMO set up is all here. Only argument to make here is that bonus distribution is near pointless since people stack the main stat. I wouldn't hold a candle to FFXI either just because you stacked two stats instead of one and it's secondary stats were pretty much the same. Also to note that devs said they are trying to make certain things like "Enhances xx" due to popular demand without shaking the way the current system works.

[BlackHaloJT]

[QUOTE=Zantetsuken;2311099]I have to disagree with that last line. We haven't even been given any promises (empty or otherwise) on a change of direction. Have you seen anything in the live letters/blogs/interviews/etc that indicates a move towards a more authentic fantasy world?

I try to cut them some slack because they had to rebuild and balance a MMO in record time, but the whole themepark/treadmill plan at this point seems to be the long-term goal of the designers rather than a mere stop-gap.

This is what I meant by empty promises - something you said in a earlier post. "So many left XI and migrated to 1.0 -- we were disappointed with its flaws but we stuck with it and began to see the game we were looking for in 1.23.

Then ARR happened and SE pulled the rug out from under us a second time."

[Aylis]

Anyway, in response to the OP and things I would like to see changed.

1) More diversity in character development. Skill trees, talent trees, multiple roles in ways people can choose to play a particular class. Do I want to be a dps bard or do i want to focus more on utility and so forth while giving the tools to match. I know a lot are going to argue "cookie cutter builds" to this etc but I would ask to look what we have now. Show me different people that don't have the same cross job skills equipped, sounds pretty cookie cutter already huh?

2) Set lines in player demographics and play styles. Poll the players, find out the content they prefer and work with that. Don't just assume all players want to live in dungeons and raids 24/7, if some do? Well great! Not everyone is like them though. Tune rewards and difficulty to each demographic so as a player in one tier has little benefit to do lesser tiers simply because there's no real benefit to them to do so. Everyone is set into the content they wish to do without being funneled and pressed into raids and dungeons and that's it.

3) Set developers for set tasks. My knowledge of the SE hierarchy as I was told. If I'm wrong correct me please. Each dev I'm told is responsible for multiple game areas which if it is true it showing because everything feels like a mess in its presentation. Keep devs structured in the areas they know best. Weither it be questing, pve content, pvp content and so on.

4) A more 3-dimensiona over world. Seriously I think we have more then enough dungeons to last the game years. A more open and sandbox'esq world would be absolutely fab. Hidden things to find, reasons to explore the world and I'm not talking about things limited to 18 hours and content that feels like its just something to do while waiting for a dungeon que to pop.

5) A little more exciting and involving dungeon content. No I'm not talking about difficulty and mechanics. I'm talking about how all dungeons follow the same copy paste formula as the dungeons before them. Trash monsters >mini boss > more trash monsters > another mini boss > more trash monsters > final boss. Call it a day, done in 10-15 minutes. Make us want to play dungeons and not have them feel like a mindnumbing lesson in repetitiveness. Sure they're fun the first couple of times. After run number 50? Not as much.

[Zantetsuken]

This is what I meant by empty promises - something you said in a earlier post. "So many left XI and migrated to 1.0 -- we were disappointed with its flaws but we stuck with it and began to see the game we were looking for in 1.23.

Then ARR happened and SE pulled the rug out from under us a second time."

Yeah,

Sadly, I was faced with canceling my sub as the only real option.

I'll certainly keep an eye on the game as it develops -- the storyline and the cutscenes are fantastic and are really the only draw for me at the moment. But when the core of the game isn't fun or engaging, there's no point in paying for it. Especially when I can watch the story cutscenes free of charge and hassle on YouTube.

If things change, I may come back and give it a second chance. But I think it would take a cataclysmic change on par with the Seventh Umbral... The story provides possiblities for it as well: The Ascians have mentioned "returning Eorzea to it's natural state", and the storyline inside Coil adds other interesting potential to change things up again.

Main things I'd prefer to see:

• Overhaul Classes/Jobs/Abilties - more options, less hard-coded rotations. True Support Classes/Jobs, Battle system that rewards teamwork and coordination. Either make classes really relevant or ditch them all together.
• Spectacle Reset (kill the huge volume of glowy stuff in the game)
• Damage/HP re-calculations (At this rate, lvl 60 cap will have people with 100k HP... lvl 100 = millions of HP?.. yeah..)
• Frontier Zones (larger more open zones with dangerous higher level mobs)
• Horizontal Gear system at lvl caps. (A diversity of specialized gear drops would fix some of the main issues with Hunts)
• Open up all dungeons for exploring (populated by different mobs/FATEs/loot than their instanced counterparts.)

As I said, I'll stand back and keep and eye on things for now.

[Estevo]

Maybe you should not interpret others words how you like and just get them as is? Simple doesn't mean bad, it's a common sense that you should not overcomplicate things when it's not necessary.

I never meant to make his words what I want, Yoshida has a vision of what he wants in the future, and pretty deep into the future too from what I've heard. So with this in mind I thought about why he would want all these systems to be simple right off the bat. If you go watch his talk at GDC 2014, you'll see that he said "innovation begins with proper planning and design." So to start out simple now to break off into innovation would be the best way to look at it to me.

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020797/Behind-the-Realm just go watch it if you have to time, it's really interesting.

[BlackHaloJT]

Yeah,

Sadly, I was faced with canceling my sub as the only real option.

I'll certainly keep an eye on the game as it develops -- the storyline and the cutscenes are fantastic and are really the only draw for me at the moment. But when the core of the game isn't fun or engaging, there's no point in paying for it. Especially when I can watch the story cutscenes free of charge and hassle on YouTube.

If things change, I may come back and give it a second chance. I really hope it does

Speaking of YouTube I remember back in 1.0 days groups would gather and fight the primals, even dungeon bosses without the requirement of YouTube. I can't even count how many fights we lost through experimentation but still had fun. Was is frustrating sometimes? Yes, who likes to lose lol? But when you did win and figured out how to win consistently and even teach others you felt a accomplishment.
Did I watch YouTube strategies, sure but it wasn't like it is now where it seem the requirement before you even attempt a fight. Bosses seemed tougher and more random back then maybe because there was no Ilvl? I don't want to get off track from the topic forum just something I noticed.

[Zumi]

OP you haven't even beat coil 1 or even tried coil 2 according to the lodestone profile. Those fights are much more complex then anything that was in 1.0 Before complaining about 2.0 content I would suggest you actually try and do it.

I think 2.0 is great it doesn't need some complex stat system what we have is fine. If there was a super complex stat system someone would still just figure out the BiS set for every job and everyone would use that, thus you would have a complex system that leave the casuals even farther behind because they don't know what gear to use because the system is too complex and they don't want to read a guide where someone mathematically figured out what gear and stats are optimal.