Have we gone too far?

[Luvbunny]

I consider the mercenary system a good one to help new players progress through low level content. FFXI has such a system if I recall from back when I played it too. WoW I think has also introduced a mercenary system I believe though I haven't played that in a decade. I do not believe it will make players clueless about anything using mercenaries at lower levels. I think your comment about that aspect is a bit melodramatic to be honest.

I agree that system is great to help lower level players, and shield them from rude abusing behavior commonly found on duty finder party. The clueless players syndrome however, will become a major thorn on this feature and you will soon see countless of threads here complaining about it. It is the same issue that plague FFXI when everyone is able to leech to 99 in matter of hours, and endgame is suddenly flooded with a bunch of clueless players. Granted if one is serious about their role, these players will wiki everything, read forum, watch youtube videos, test their rotations, and fully ready and know what to expect when they hit level 50. Assuming every newbies are like that however is like hoping for a unicorn and double rainbows lol.

[gzuscry]

Mindless grind is pinacle of nolife hikokomori. You are not better in any way, anybody can do many of the thing op stated. Majority just get bored very soon if its too repetitive. After all this is supposed to be a game, something that relaxes your mind, get you blood pumping in a while. I have yet to see a mmorpg where you could do things from get go. No utter idiocy called time sink required in aquiring a better gear, where its all player, just your skill. In this era where there is softargeting and skill always land and accurasy is based on rng, no mmorpg ever has been yet made till this day where endgame, middlegame and startgame is any different in except stats of the gear you are wearing. Thats all.

[Noshpan]

I have no desire to play a game where it takes me nearly a year, or longer, just to get to max level on one single class. I've been there. I've done that. Twice. With original EverQuest back in the day and vanilla areas of WoW (pre-Cataclysm).

What we have here is a case of "Special Snowflake Syndrome".

[KrenianKandos]

Because the hardcore games like Wildstar did exceptionally well...

Oh wait.

Albeit there are a couple things I missed, the list drafted stinks of FFXI wishes. Just the tone I get when I read it. And to those who say "worst reply ever" when one answers "go back to FFXI", no offence, but that's exactly how I felt reading the OP's post too. Everything he describes is FFXI to a tee.

Don't be hating because people call it how it is.

[KarmaCha]

BREAKING NEWS! FFXIV is a casual MMO

[Meier]

BREAKING NEWS! FFXIV is a casual MMO

No actually. Every time someone says this I will continue linking this lol.

The director himself called FFXIV hardcore, and DQ MMO for casuals.

Source: http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/07/...0-or-20-years/

So yeah...totes hardcore. I don't feel its hardcore at all. I agree with OP all the way.

If they want this to be so hardcore, some changes need to be made. Its okay to have accessible things, but we need hard content. Not team jump rope.

[Eye_Gore]

No actually. Every time someone says this I will continue linking this lol.

Its says a UI aimed at hardcore gamers, nothing about the actual game itself

[Balipu]

Its says a UI aimed at hardcore gamers, nothing about the actual game itself

Plus the "director himself" was the PRODUCER, of Dragon Quest X, Yosuke Saito, who is totally not the same person as Naoki Yoshida the Director of Final Fantasy XIV.

[Yukiko]

The director himself called FFXIV hardcore

Yosuke Saito is the producer of DQX and he tries to promote his game with pointing at the weakness (he thinks its a weakness) of having a more complex UI in FFXIV.
Jin Fujisawa is the director of DQX...
Naoki Yoshida is designer of DQX...

Naoki Yoshida is the director of FFXIV and said clearly what he wishes that FFXIV should become...
Naoki Yoshida is also the producer of FFXIV...

In order to keep up with the times and cater to changing lifestyles, large-scale MMORPGs such as FINAL FANTASY XIV need to offer a more casual playing experience than before. Mind you, that’s not to say that the entire game should be casual. Rather, there should be elements that can be enjoyed in a lighthearted way, for example, after coming home tired from work or school, with mobile phone or refreshing beverage in hand. To elaborate, content that can be enjoyed with little fuss, that doesn’t demand large time investments—up to an hour, say—or require a party to be formed.

But come weekend, players have the choice of undertaking more elaborate adventuring, forming parties with linkshell members and/or likeminded adventurers to accomplish mutual goals. Light parties can exploit the versatility offered by classes to conduct forays into beast tribe settlements, something that a lone adventurer would find grueling. Full parties, on the other hand, can immerse themselves in fine-tuning job configuration in preparation for their bid to obtain rare items in advanced battle content. Disciples of the Hand can outfit the battle-inclined with equipment boasting the requested attributes. And last but not least, Disciples of the Land can set about gathering ingredients based on current class and materia crafting demands.

We still have some ways to go, but FINAL FANTASY XIV will gradually shift from being a grind-centric game to one that offers enjoyment for all playing styles and circumstances with its ever-expanding variety of content.

Online games have a hierarchy to them, or at least that’s what I like to call it. It’s often described using a pyramid, the width of the pyramid being representative of the number of players. At the peak are the hard-cores—the minority of players who completely immerse themselves in the game, playing day and night and often forgetting their biological imperatives. As you work your way down the pyramid, players become increasingly casual. It bears mentioning that this model illustrates the quantity of players only, not quality.

In the first generation of MMORPGs, the pyramids were skinny and tall. In the current generation, while I think the peak should still stay way up there, the slopes projecting down from it should be less extreme. What I want to make is a theme park where both casuals and hard-cores can exist and play together. That’s the minimum requirement I think a modern MMORPG should fulfill.

I hope you heavy gamers out there will hurry to clear the game’s latest contents. I hope you beat Ifrit before anyone else and get those new weapons. I hope other players will see you and want to do the same. I hope you try and clear the beastman strongholds with less than the maximum number of players. And I hope you post on the forums about all your accomplishments.

I hope you more casual players will enjoy traveling around Eorzea by chocobo and airship with your in-game and real-life friends while working your way up to end-game content like the Ifrit fight. By then, the battle strats will be worked out, and you’ll be able to fight at your own pace. There’s no need to rush. Both play styles have their place. Should the need arise, we’ll look into adjusting the level of difficulty, or introducing a system that lets you set it yourself.

For any given content, the difference in the amount of time players need to figure it out and get the loot will unavoidably vary.

Hard-core gamers are hard-core gamers because they are always leading the charge. Following close behind their trailblazing are the “mid-cores.” And then there’s the casual gamers making progress at their own pace.

To realize the ideal we have in place, we need a powerful matching system capable of connecting all of these players, whatever their rates of progression might be. We plan to study what other MMORPGs have achieved here, and make it one of our main tasks as we move forward, together with add-ons and the UI.

Speaking of the UI, we are well aware that there are still difficulties with the mouse/keyboard interface. I’m a mouse/keyboard man myself, so believe me when I say I plan to continue making both little and big improvements with global standards in mind.

The ideal we’ve put in place may be a bit up there, but we have every intention of achieving it, and will do everything in our power to do so.