Have we gone too far?

[Moqi]

I think that's the point - IIRC in spite of things like teleport stones and ships (and airships - it's Final Fantasy!) after you unlock them, you still had to traverse the overworld to get to most of the dungeons (though you could turn off random encounters if you wanted, removing that bit of challenge or irritation...)

I was thinking more of porting to a random aetheryte and having to walk to wherever you want to vs fast traveling to the continent you want and then flying to the dungeon you want. It's actually even faster in BD since the world map is very small and it only takes a dozen of seconds to travel a continet.

I thought BD was a weird example to bring up since it's got difficulty slider, random encounters slider, auto-attack, one hand button configurations... it's even more catered towards casual play than FFXIV. I mean I hated that game but FFXIV could take a few things from it lol.

[Luvbunny]

How about actual support jobs for one. Two, a more complex battle system. Horizontal progression instead of this weird verticle thing they have going.

I wonder, have you ever played FFXI at all? They have TONS of support jobs. Do you know what happened in that game? NOBODY wants to play support jobs. Everything takes way way way too long to get done, things takes hours to gather people (and guess which are the jobs missing on the party set up? yup, no one wants to play support jobs). The typical shout would be "veteran whm - must know how to heal, bard with relic/empy/three songs - veteran only".

The developer of FFXI is having such a hard time balancing the content - most players DO not want to play support jobs. And out of the many of them, only Bard is regarded as the must have by players - yet most people will rather quit than being told "you play bard ok, or we won't invite you doing any endgame content". The same goes for healer roles or Scholar Stun Lock, player just do not want to play any of them. As for tanks, lolololololol, pretty much DO NOT exist, because general consensus deemed that tank is a wasted party spot. Party set up for endgame usually consist of DPS, healer, and support job. The developer had to create contents that specifically will insta kill players unless you bring a PLD (veteran only please, newbies need not apply, go play WoW you noob).

FFXI also have "LOL random" boss move, which you know, typically goes like this, DPS just auto attack the boss, hit macro when their TP is 100, hit more macro for a few cool down, repeat, sit tight whacking the boss, no need to move anywhere or pay attention to anything. You can have long conversation typing a short story while hitting macro. There is no such thing as telegraphed move, or any order that makes sense, bosses just spew moves as they please. This has changed with the latest expansion though, where deadly moves are more structured like FF14 (translation - so many great things from FF14 are being assimilated to FF11 now, which is a good thing).

Guess what the healer and bard/support must do? Yeah you can guess by now why so very few people bother to play as support jobs. "HEAL !!! OMG Curaga 3!!! Esuna!!! Paralyna!!! Viruna!!! Stona!!! Songs please!!! Hello, gimme songs!!! I only have 2, Ballad!!!!!! HASTE me!! Haste songs are off!! Scholar need haste! Stun that move! Bard help heal, and status removal!! YO, stop hitting me with MP songs dammit - songs wear off".

[Meier]

^ Yea I played. Support jobs were my main. COR, BRD, DNC.

In Aion, I played support, same with L2.

Everyone and their mom played the support jobs, IDK what you are talking about lol. I had so many BRD, COR and RDM friends. EVERYONE leveled RDM.

Are we talking about the same game? Did YOU play FFXI?

[TheRogueX]

Yeah how the eff are you gonna level a full support class? You buff yourself and autoattack ladybugs to death? Oh no no no no no.

Wow, I never thought of that! There have never been full support classes in any other MMOs ever, have there? Because they could never be leveled!!! /sarcasm