Simplicity over complexity, time to change.

[Azurak]

SE not trying to attract the WoW crowd. They are extremely dumbing down WoW and putting a FF skin on it to attract the people who though WoW was too hardcore of a game to play.

They are targeting the ultra casual mmo playerbase and current console players.

It's true and it makes sense because the marketshare is bigger with 13 year olds and the moms and dads. Both, who want instant gratification and easy simple games like those iPhone app games.

Our money shouldn't be given to people who are more interested in making gaming a joke.

[Barimu]

SE not trying to attract the WoW crowd. They are extremely dumbing down WoW and putting a FF skin on it to attract the people who though WoW was too hardcore of a game to play.

They are targeting the ultra casual mmo playerbase and current console players.

While you may be right with the bolded statement, Yoshi himself has said in interviews that they are/were trying to attract the WoW crowd and WoW was one of yoshis favorite mmos in which he wanted to base ARR off of.

[Exstal]

SE not trying to attract the WoW crowd. They are extremely dumbing down WoW and putting a FF skin on it to attract the people who though WoW was too hardcore of a game to play.

World of Warcraft is so dated. It's such an ugly looking game.

[Grizzlebeard]

World of Warcraft is so dated. It's such an ugly looking game.

Fun Ugly is subjective, don't forget that.

Yeah.

/10 Marmosets

[Felessan]

Issue is though, our debuffs are "after the fact" deuffs. The only direct debuffs we have are from Warlo...Summo....Arcanist, everything else is on weaponskill use or a "combo" - Someone who specializes in it would go a long way to adding depth to this game.

We have debuffs that increases all type of damage, we have a number of ability that reduces damage from mob, we have slow/gravity debuffs, bind, evasion down, buff for magic resistance, several shields etc.
Yes, some of them have additional damage or included in combos, but they are still the same debuffs/buffs as in every other mmo.
And the only reason to include buffer/debuffer class is for someone who likes to play to buff/debuff only, and it has nothing to do with "complexity" of the game.

It's not even 'complex', it just ...makes the game not feel so mundane battlewise. I mean Maplestory has more depth to its gameplay in comparison and anyone who's played it knows that's just a spam fest.

You know, FF14 combat in depth has nothing with spamfest. You can spam, but you result will be below average.

You do realize this exists in XIV right now, right? It's not a 'FFXI situation" because FFXI was not the first nor last MMO to exist.

Ok, you can say it's a situation for oldschool MMO that only hardcore crowd played, that have a very little playerbase where all that "insane grind", "lockouts" and all-content-wide elitism considered to be normal, so no casuals would dare to step into this territory. It was proven that it is bad for general population and for game to be "success in masses".
And not, FF14 does not have anything like this outside fashion items and super ultra hardcore part of 0.0001% population. You don't need crafting gear to pass through T9, nobody forces you to make Novus with best possible stat. Nobody really cares about how much money you got.
The maximum you might be asked for is a food, but it's cheap and spending like 20k a week is a joke as SE did bothered to provide constant stream of money for everyone, even though it's rather small, but it's still enough for basic activities like repairs, teleports and minimal food.

[Malamasala]

nobody forces you to make Novus with best possible stat.

This part is always backwards in MMOs. If you don't want to put effort into the game, you'll get hard mode because you will have weaker gear. And if playing hard mode is not putting effort into the game, then what is it?

Meanwhile you always have hardcore people complaiing that wearing all the best gear with ten melds on each makes the game too easy and hard content should be added.

The company that solves this dilemma first, will probably become legendary in the MMO history.

[Nicco]

speaking of dangerous zones, i still remember one of my fondest memories in 1.xx was when i just gotten to lvl 30ish, somehow ninja'd my way up to m.d.'s aetheryte and was exploring dodging ehre and there. but i had set my home point cause i knew i was gonna die exploring the rest of the zone. well... yeah, no anima left, running out of gil due to deaths.. and i couldnt make it past the damned mobs gaurding a tunnel to get bk to uldah >.> finally broke down and had my fiance and ls members come and sac pulled me to freedom!! finally made it home safe and sound with a new found feeling of exploration achieved. now... only i can hope, one day, maybe one day i can get some of that back!

[Velhart]

I am just laughing that FFXI/FFXIV 1.xx is brought upon as this greatness of balance. Please tell me how many years it took for Puppetmaster to be viable in any end game content, or how long it took to make Dragoon viable, or how Ranger became undesirable after their major nerf, or how Ninja became a completely different role from it's original intent, or how BLM/PLD were never invited to burn parties and had to solo their EXP post lv.55 (Aht Urghan era), or how Beastmaster was never used for anything besides solo content, or how RDM's dominated other jobs, or how SMN's were never invited to EXP parties unless there was no WHM to heal. Now to 1.xx! Stack a job on a boss, then win. BLM only for Garuda/Chimera, MNK only for Mizer, Lancer only for Ifrit.

Out of all the MMO's I have played in my years with them, FFXI/1.xx were definitely by far the worst balanced jobs in the game. The saddest part is that developers for FFXI never did anything unless it was something they were cornered to do. Ninja a once DPS job became a tank due to one little loophole in the system. At a player perspective, Ninja tanking was awesome. On the developer side, they should be embarrassed that happened. Developers today would of immediately fixed it to not be the case anymore. Don't want to hear the excuse of "Developers let us be more free with how we do these jobs." I can tell you right now, almost no MMO developer is in that mind set when creating a class. If a class goes out of it's way from it's original design to a great extent like Ninja, then it needs to be fixed before it is exploited too much. WoW may of had their own balancing issues, but at least they always were adjusting the balance every major patch to make everything viable. It was once every blue moon that the FFXI development team actually did something.

Now lets go to ARR! Name me one job that is considered not wanted in end game yet. Because I haven't found one. At worst the only segregation you might find is when people ask for BLM's only in Brayflox speed run parties. Desire to stack jobs is pretty much gone and the only thing people desire to stack are good/well geared players.

Rose tinted glasses folks. There is a lot of good you could bring from FFXI to this game, there were some great ideas that came from it that I believe would work (like a Nyzul Isle style dungeon with a light party). I wouldn't mind seeing some jobs return with a FFXIV take on it. The ideas I hear in here are just outdated and extremely archaic just for the sake of so called "complexity". I think Hunts itself shows pretty well how archaic elements from a previous game don't work well without adding modern touches to it. This is from someone who has a strong preference for retro style games and played and loved FFXI from 2003-2010.

On the argument of 1.xx looked better graphically. Yes I can agree on that. However, you do know that intensity on the graphics was one of the reasons that 1.xx failed right? By doing that, it cost a lot in return like server instability and insane requirements to just run it at mediocre settings on your PC. Whats the point of a game looking that pretty when the game play suffers for it? ARR is able to make the game look good and keep things stable. Being smart and using other practical effects to make things look more fleshed out. ARR is still one of the best looking MMO's out there, and does not suffer for it like 1.xx did. I mean, one pot in 1.xx had just as many pixels as a NPC did...

On terms of difficulty between FFXI and ARR. Both have their hard moments. ARR has the Coils and Savage, and AV/PW for FFXI. They both had their difficulties in their own way. ARR has the harder fights, but in doing so they increased their accessibility. FFXI content if your party died, the consequences were more severe. In that game if you lose in a BCNM or KSNM, you pretty much had to go back out and collect all the items again and then you could try the fight again. FFXI used severe consequences to create longevity in the content. So it boils down to preference in taste here. Its more understandable though if you go the ARR route if you are trying to appeal to both casual and hardcore players.

I am going to get pitchforks hurled towards me for saying this, but I am glad they decided to use WoW as a blueprint to create this game. It was I was hoping FFXIV 1.xx was going to be before it came out and it did become what I want in ARR for the most part. Trying too hard to be original is not always a good thing *stares at 1.xx* unless you have something you know will work.

[Kazama]

Snip

*Lights torch and hurls pitchfork at Velhart*

Actually I agree with a lot of what you said. I don't want people to think I'm saying roll back to 1.x or make this FFXI-2. Both of those games were riddled with issues of their own flavor. What I do think can and should be brought over aren't defining features either. They basically boil down to this: Horizontal gear progression and alternate stat paths to open up antiquated content, some open world danger (Every other MMO has this), some endgame that carries consequence for failure (BCNM) and the same with the story missions (PM Missions). I think every suggestion there would be beneficial for both aisles of this debate.

I've always been an advocate for NMs and in 1.x they solved the XI problem. Then they added hunts in ARR and completely broke it again. I don't think hunts are an archaic feature because what they did is add a content that gives a generic reward that everyone and their mom wants. Think about it, Glamours, housing and Chocobo items for the casual/cosmetic crowd. Relic gear for those catching up to endgame. Sands and oils for the progression/hardcore crowd and money for everyone? It was a massive oversight not anticipating that something added for everyone would get overrun and abused and they are taking a ton of public heat for it. They need to stop adding generic farming content and add a little specificity to it. People always bash the "Collect 10 rat pelts" type of quests and for good reason, but that's basically what we have on a large scale, instead it's "collect XXX Tomestones" then do it again.

One of the larger issues here is that they keep generalizing every single piece of content to make it both accessible and desirable to everyone. When that happens it trivializes all of the content instead of one small aspect.

The one thing I will criticize though is your comparison of Coils (Savage is pointless) to AV/PW in XI which were ultra endgame and also not launch content. Coils vs. maybe Dynamis? Even that required something like 500k pop item, was 18 man, timed and hard for a lot of people, dropped gear that was viable from 2003 all the way to 2010 and even included a weekly lockout. That's just one comparison that was available at NA launch. There are at least 10 other things that were on the level of coils and every single one of them posed just as much challenge and remained viable all the way until cap increase.

I don't mind that they made XIV follow the WoW formula, many Korean MMOs did the same yet still managed to provide a game with much more depth and longevity. If SE weren't completely attached to the subscription model FFXIV would already be free to play. Out of 140 FC members about 1/4 haven't logged in in over a month, 1/4 in 2-3 weeks and the remainder only login 1-2 days a week and the most of them are comprised of FC statics, officers and newer players. Those don't include people who actually said they were leaving, left the FC and quit the game. This is after many left to try ESO and Wildstar and most of them quit those already, a lot of people are giving up on MMOs all together and if FFXIV's expansion doesn't address a lot of things it's looking like I might as well.