Simplicity over complexity, time to change.

[Felessan]

I don't care about the success of the game, we are discussing here the quality.

I care, because it is the only really objective measurement whether game good or bad. EQ was good, FF11 was good, WoW was good because they had (for their respective times) large and stable population base. And something like AoC where population just falls off the cliff - was not good.
And besides - the more successful game in terms of people, the more money it gets. This means more content of higher quality.

I'm sure his complete vision for FFXIV would have been a blast and not only for FFXI loves, but for everyone. If you look back for his interviews and the info we got before release, he was aiming to do something different to XI, and he wanted to made it accessible

FF14 needed a completely redo to make it "accessible". We were in WoW era when 1.0 came out and it was total mess not in regards of copypaste and lack of content, but overall mechanics was just straight from 90s.

not everything has to be clogged up, there can be wild areas with dangerous monsters that are not civilized

You want a world how you like it. It's understandable. But from core design perspective making some area a difficult and dangerous is a bad choice. You are locking some of the crowd out of content, and it is bad as it creates "elitism" for some and frustration for some others.
I still hate all those "sky"/"sea" locked out zones concept, because if you are casual - you don't have a chance to look at them. And those "die 20 times to explore" zone are as bad, because when i play casually - I still want to see everything at some point of time.

Also, SE has the money and the artists.

SE is a commercial company, so it wants return on investment.

I don't recall Yoshida ever saying this game was made for casuals, ever, and I've spent more than enough time looking at interviews and producer letters. What he did say was that he wanted to cater to both the casuals and the hardcore, oh and also that he was and still is a hardcore mmorpg player himself, so of course he doesn't want ARR to just be a casual game.

And he do, casuals have their own fun, hardcore have theirs. And only people who wants to go back to FF11 still want to mess everyone else game.

He also said that he intentionally created the combat and content to be simple in the game, and how I interpret he meant this is that if you start out with a solid foundation then it will be easier to build off of it in any direction, and in that sense the game is full of potential!

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.

It may be basic now, but I'd say it has great potential, and that's how you could sum up most of what's in the game right now.

Combat is already quite complex to properly master to give headaches. To unleash a full potential it requires a constant attention, very good knowledge of mechanic and some dedication. Together with "theme park" style, where boss structured in the same way (although I would agree that less strictness rotation would be better) gives you a hard time even with its "simplicity"

I doubt SE would be too unhappy if FF14 managed to have 500k subscribers in 2023. Especially considering that the last time SE even told us how many subscribers this game had, it was 600k only a few months after release.

We have 2 million players banner just on the main page. And FF14 will have more than 500k subscribers in 2023, you can just take a look at graph for any more or less successful MMO like eq, ff11 or wow - just how much they have players compared to their peak numbers at 10 years point of time.

[Grizzlebeard]

And FF14 will have more than 500k subscribers in 2023

Can I have some of what you're smoking please?

[Dannythm]

I care, because it is the only really objective measurement whether game good or bad. EQ was good, FF11 was good, WoW was good because they had (for their respective times) large and stable population base. And something like AoC where population just falls off the cliff - was not good.
And besides - the more successful game in terms of people, the more money it gets. This means more content of higher quality.

I redirect to you again to Argumentum ad populum, something popular doesn't mean something good (and most usually it's right the opposite), also, it doesn't mean that something not popular must be good, so it's always fallacious in both directions to argue the quality of something based on it's popularity.

FF14 needed a completely redo to make it "accessible". We were in WoW era when 1.0 came out and it was total mess not in regards of copypaste and lack of content, but overall mechanics was just straight from 90s.

What part of "the game wasn't finished when it released" you didn't get? Yoshida decided to redo the game from scratch, we don't know if that was really needed, or just a change of engine and refinement of the original mechanics and completion of Tanaka's vision with the MMO suitable engine would have sufficed.

You want a world how you like it. It's understandable. But from core design perspective making some area a difficult and dangerous is a bad choice. You are locking some of the crowd out of content, and it is bad as it creates "elitism" for some and frustration for some others.
I still hate all those "sky"/"sea" locked out zones concept, because if you are casual - you don't have a chance to look at them. And those "die 20 times to explore" zone are as bad, because when i play casually - I still want to see everything at some point of time.

Any human activity can lead to elitism, I don't see how you intend to have a point there.

And on the design perspective, dangerous don't mean inaccessible, just not a walk in the park like it is now, even if areas pose a challenge, everyone, including casuals, could access eventually to all content.

I get the impression that you are making your argument in your head, because I've never said that ARR should be exactly like 1.0 or XI were, jsut that it could take ideas and concepts from them and include them in the game to add depth to it, not make it harder or more difficult.

SE is a commercial company, so it wants return on investment.

And they would've got it, I don't see your point.

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.

The game should not be oversimplified either.

[Gilthas]

A big logical fallacy that people keep spouting over and over in this topic is that FFXIV is losing a lot of subscribers because of it's current mechanics (which can be true) but that this wouldn't be happening if said FFXI/FFXIV 1.0 mechanics were in the game. Not only is this impossible to prove, I'd say that it's very unlikely to be true. We dealt with those mechanics 10 years ago because they were the only thing we knew. The world has moved on.

[Tupsi]

The world has moved on.

By continuing to mimic an MMO released in 2004. I get what you were trying to say, but the reality of the situation is...sadly nope, MMOs stagnated because of that.

[Gilthas]

By continuing to mimic an MMO released in 2004. I get what you were trying to say, but the reality of the situation is...sadly nope, MMOs stagnated because of that.

That's like saying that the world has stagnated because wheels have been round for hundreds of years.

On the other hand, if we went back to FFXI's standards, we'd get something worse than stagnation, we'd get regression.

All the negative and useless comments i'm seeing have one thing in common, FFXI and FFXIV 1.x hate, as i have already said several times, this is a feedback thread, i want it to last and be helpful, and because of this, hateful posts like yours are not welcome here, post feedback or leave please, if you want to stay and discuss leave personal attacks and hate at the door.

I think we can all do without the spite, but what if our feedback is "we don't want to go back to FFXI"? Because when you tell people who disagree with you to leave it leads to this kind of nonsense:

As you can see 99% 1.23/XIV players love XI/1.23 & don't like ARR/WOW clone.

At most "99% 1.23/XIV players that didn't quit the game love XI/1.23 & don't like ARR/WOW clone." is much closer to the truth.

[Redemption]

That's like saying that the world has stagnated because wheels have been round for hundreds of years.

On the other hand, if we went back to FFXI's standards, we'd get something worse than stagnation, we'd get regression.

No it wouldn't, WoW is not an 'evolution' of FFXI it is a completely different path entirely. An EVOLUTION of FFXI's mechanics would be finding a way to keep the MMO an online world but remove some of the problems, WoW instead chooses not to be an online world entirely but more of an online meta-game about rolling through gear progression with friends.

To make sure the point is clear, I do not believe FFXI used "outdated" systems but rather was a different kind of game. Some people like the WoW style gameish style, thats fine and there are lots of mmos like that (its the most common type of mmo around today) but its not what everyone likes or wants.

[Gilthas]

No it wouldn't, WoW is not an 'evolution' of FFXI it is a completely different path entirely. An EVOLUTION of FFXI's mechanics would be finding a way to keep the MMO an online world but remove some of the problems, WoW instead chooses not to be an online world entirely but more of an online meta-game about rolling through gear progression with friends.

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean that you can label it as something else and pretend it's not an evolution of the genre.

EDIT: And to make my point clear, yes, FFXI did use a lot of outdated systems because the ye ol' MMO's were based on making you waste as much time as possible in order to get stuff done so content would last longer and you'd keep on paying monthly fees. Hence why teleports were so limited, gear had severe lockouts that puts FFXIV to shame, why the vast majority of content required groups, etc, etc.

[Tupsi]

That's like saying that the world has stagnated because wheels have been round for hundreds of years.

On the other hand, if we went back to FFXI's standards, we'd get something worse than stagnation, we'd get regression.

Ironically enough XI has more depth to certain content systems and even WoW does...ARR kind of already regressed - People only see it "better than 1.0" more than anything because as an MMO in itself, it's nothing special, other MMOs have done similar systems better..especially in the itemization. Heck, the fact FFXI was an EQ Clone never crossed people minds as much as "x mmo is a WoW clone" because they had the creativity to at least do certain things differently, you know?

Point more was if you are still doing the content, you are having some fun in it.

I hope you love every day you go into work - as in having your dream job. Never once having to think: "aw man I gotta go to work instead of x" or "I wish x was different about my job."

[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.