Have we gone too far?

[KarmaCha]

BREAKING NEWS! FFXIV is a casual MMO

[Talia_Hailwind]

[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

[Cyrus-Wallace]

I played Warlords of Draenor and your list applies there too.

[Dervy]

-0 death penalties.

-Anywhere in the world accessible within a teleport and 30 second run.

-No claiming systems.

-0 difficulty story quests.

-0 difficulty leveling systems.

-Completion of 98% of the game's content without having to make any friends.

-98% of open world content solo'able with minimal gear and minimal effort.

-Access to all the game's instances and dungeons within two clicks of a button.

-No use for trade currency aside from vanity and minor quality of life perks. 1

-Abolition of pure support roles.


..How far the pendulum swings.

I have to actually agree with OP in this one, and I rarely ever agree with OP in General Discussion.

There definitely needs to be more open world content in this game with a high risk/reward. Imagine this, an open world zone near the area of Dravania. It's a harsh, barren wasteland. It's dark, it's gloomy. No water in sight. Tree's dead. Extremely powerful and harsh monsters that must be taken care of in groups (I'm talking just trash mobs). No aetheryte teleport in sight as no human has ever been able to set-up camp here for too long, before they get wiped out by a Dravanian Hoard. It takes 10 minutes of travelling to actually get to this zone.

But as civilisation has never been able to set-up camp here, there are many untouched treasures to find, caverns to plunder, extremely rare resources to make extra-ordinary weapons and armour. The further you dwelve into this zone and its many caverns, the rewards get better and better, but of course, monsters get stronger and the risk of death becomes even greater.

This zone could literally become an extra-expanding zone, with amazing content possibility.

Let's see what we've checked off:

• High Risk/Reward
• Difficult Content
• Content which requires a group of players to tackle
• More content in general
• More "skill" based content
• Use for Currency
• More gearing options other than token system, coil system and crafting
• Endless Possibilities for Story/Side Story
• Deeper Pockets of Lore for those who love this kind of thing

In all honesty, something like this would solve A LOT of complaints that the game currently has.

I'd love for this game to slowly become a "Themebox" or a "Sandpark" - Open World content with instances would be amazing. And the best part about it? The extremely deep area's of these open world zones and dungeons can be just as hard as our 8-man raids with rewards just as good and/or valuable. Re-playability is what this game needs if it really wants to push itself and be up there with some of the greatest MMO's around.

[odie]

I'd love to see truly difficult content....skill based progression.....and I'd love to see more armor options, such as maybe something like an armor that you have to collect the pieces to just to make one part of it. But really hard to find and wouldn't be zerg farmed. I'd love true rares....The problem, tons of people will complain that everyone should have these things. I wanted race specific quests to give us new race clothing and armor but didn't take long for people in the thread to disagree and say that even lala's should be allowed to wear the roegadyn race stuff. I'm tired of all of the stuff being for everyone.

[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.

[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.

[Accolade]

Hmm I thought Yoshi from the outset said that XIV was to be a very casual MMO to bring in bigger crowds, or appeal to fans of the previous single player FF series (some brand new to MMOs) .

I dont have a source for this, so you can take it or leave it.
Sadly if you want a super hardcore/grind MMO, you are in the wrong place.

Not sure how far the OP has got in terms of raid content, but if he/she is farming t13 on a weekly basis, then they are well within rights to say this game is too easy. If not, then they still have some content left to challenge them.