What is so bad about FFXI?

[AdvancedWind]

Just a little question to leave out in the air:

After reading most of the posts since my last posts earlier on the thread, that's really the only thing I wanna know from the XI vets.

Was Final Fantasy XI so perfect that the only hope Square Enix has is to take as many "concepts" from XI as possible, maybe add a minor spin / improvement on them and call it a day?

Because I still stand to what I've said earlier; Yes, Final Fantasy XIV should take plenty of stuff that worked on XI and put it in the game ASAP, specially when it comes to more general systems such as mail or auction houses. Yes, Final Fantasy XIV needs to invest more into fleshing out it's lore and make the storyline more involved, like XI. More nods to XI (and the series in general) are always good a thing; For example, I have no idea why the hell XI Mandragoras aren't here yet, it should've been the third monster they designed, right after Cactuars and Tonberries.

But no, Final Fantasy XIV should not fall back into merely picking up something from XI whenever a new idea fails. I want to believe Yoshi-P is able to deliver us content that is innovative, lasts for a long time, offers meaningful rewards and lore, indeed like XI; But, with they being nothing like XI. The FFXIV team as a whole should be able to make us new systems and concepts that work as well as XI's systems without being the same thing.

Not because XI was "bad", not because putting anything from XI is a bad idea, but because this game CAN turn into something better than it's predecessor without being incredibly similar to it.

[Jennestia]

Just a little question to leave out in the air:

After reading most of the posts since my last posts earlier on the thread, that's really the only thing I wanna know from the XI vets.

Was Final Fantasy XI so perfect that the only hope Square Enix has is to take as many "concepts" from XI as possible, maybe add a minor spin / improvement on them and call it a day?

They'd be doing pretty much this by adding what's "standard" and being creative with it, so either way you look at it, it's exactly what they should have done.

Since this seems to get ignored and people will continue to say soandso wants a FFXI-2:

No one wants a FFXI-2, but what's being stated is there was zero reason to not use the basics and build off of it, making it better, like Square usually did with their games.

this game CAN turn into something better than it's predecessor without being incredibly similar to it.

That's the problem though -- it has to be better than it's predecessor, yet it wasn't simply because they threw out everything they've learned, since in reality, XIV's predecessors were Final Fantasy XI and Front Mission Online, meaning not only did they produce and operate 2 MMOs prior to XIV, they also had the basics present and shown between just those two MMOs they've learned something (FMO's launch was a lot smoother than XI's and the basics were a lot more stable.)

Then comes XIV...which felt like they've learned nothing at all. XI wasn't a perfect game, but the simple fact remains: They could have easily took what worked with XI and made it better, like a lot of people were expecting them to do. Innovation is fine, but even Edison basically took something that already existed and made it better which is still thought of as innovative -- You can't innovate if you don't even properly incorporate the basics.

The only people who fear XIV being "like FFXI" should also fear XIV being like every other MMORPG if they incoporate the standards, because there would be absolutely no different. MMOs uses Instances as a main form of content these days, XIV is starting to incorporate them, that basically means it's copying every other MMO, yet people seem to be ok with that.

The ONLY WAY FFXIV could EVER become FFXI-2 is if Eorzea vanishes and we're brought back into Vanadiel.

[Shipp]

They'd be doing pretty much this by adding what's "standard" and being creative with it, so either way you look at it, it's exactly what they should have done.

Since this seems to get ignored and people will continue to say soandso wants a FFXI-2:

No one wants a FFXI-2, but what's being stated is there was zero reason to not use the basics and build off of it, making it better, like Square usually did with their games.



That's the problem though -- it has to be better than it's predecessor, yet it wasn't simply because they threw out everything they've learned, since in reality, XIV's predecessors were Final Fantasy XI and Front Mission Online, meaning not only did they produce and operate 2 MMOs prior to XIV, they also had the basics present and shown between just those two MMOs they've learned something (FMO's launch was a lot smoother than XI's and the basics were a lot more stable.)

Then comes XIV...which felt like they've learned nothing at all. XI wasn't a perfect game, but the simple fact remains: They could have easily took what worked with XI and made it better, like a lot of people were expecting them to do. Innovation is fine, but even Edison basically took something that already existed and made it better which is still thought of as innovative -- You can't innovate if you don't even properly incorporate the basics.

The only people who fear XIV being "like FFXI" should also fear XIV being like every other MMORPG if they incoporate the standards, because there would be absolutely no different. MMOs uses Instances as a main form of content these days, XIV is starting to incorporate them, that basically means it's copying every other MMO, yet people seem to be ok with that.

The ONLY WAY FFXIV could EVER become FFXI-2 is if Eorzea vanishes and we're brought back into Vanadiel.

For once, I actually agree with you. They just tried way too much to make players know that this isn't anything to do with XI, yet they failed in obvious places. Adding the exact same races, yet renaming them was a stupid decision. Yeah, those Lalafells are nothing like Tarutarus...

In other aspects, they DIDN'T copy needed aspects, like a working and intuitive party search system. It was apparently much more important to copy the races over and rename them (so nobody would think this was a sequel) then to copy over basic aspects like a party search function that actually is worth a crap like XI's and then expand upon it and make it even better.

They spent too much time on making the graphics and copying aspects of XI, yet none of the important aspects. Honestly, if this game would have featured nothing but humans as the only playable race, yet brought over all of the expected basic functions - AH, mailbox, party search (that is actually worth using), fun combat, quests, intuitive UI - this game would have been 100x better.

I'm glad Yoshi took over, because instead of reinventing the wheel and the outcome being a square, he seems to be chiseling that square so it eventually becomes a circle that everyone can finally cycle on. I don't know what happened in the 5 years XIV was in development before launch, but Tanaka or whoever was ordering him around must have been comatose or severely deluded to think they were ever going to be successful.