Make FFXIV more like FFXI and less like WoW!

[Ibi]

It took me some getting used to the whole idea of raids, in XI there really wasn't raids just open world hardcore content.

KS99s, Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage, and Einherjar were all instanced endgame content, similar to raids, and that's just at the 75 cap.

Sure, if we were debating all the pros and cons of the old XI, I can see why that may come up - but why on earth would we be trying to adapt some of the negative features the game had?

The issue is that a lot of the things that people request come with cons, and it's difficult or impossible to separate the two.

• Some people want gear that lasts longer, but that generally means that rate of acquisition has to suffer and/or the level of RNG involved in acquisition has to increase.
• Some people want the open world to feel more dangerous, but the majority of the time that just makes navigating the open world a huge inconvenience.
• Some people want interesting stats, but at best that comes with potential balance issues and at worst it just means you now have more stats but people don't care about the majority of them.
• Some people want to have multiple sets of gear be relevant at once, but that increases strain on inventory space.
• Some people want to have open world events that aren't cross server, but that means you have a smaller pool of available players to draw from.

And that's just dealing with the issues in a vacuum and ignoring that while some people may consider something to be a positive, other people may dislike it.

[Skivvy]

The issue is that a lot of the things that people request come with cons, and it's difficult or impossible to separate the two.

• Some people want gear that lasts longer, but that generally means that rate of acquisition has to suffer and/or the level of RNG involved in acquisition has to increase.
• Some people want the open world to feel more dangerous, but the majority of the time that just makes navigating the open world a huge inconvenience.
• Some people want interesting stats, but at best that comes with potential balance issues and at worst it just means you now have more stats but people don't care about the majority of them.
• Some people want to have multiple sets of gear be relevant at once, but that increases strain on inventory space.
• Some people want to have open world events that aren't cross server, but that means you have a smaller pool of available players to draw from.

And that's just dealing with the issues in a vacuum and ignoring that while some people may consider something to be a positive, other people may dislike it.

Oh yeah, that is definitely true! I can only imagine how hard it is to find a good balance, I just wish this game could somehow add some decent depth. I'm a bit jaded with the game at this time, so take this with a grain of salt, but XIV doesn't seem to really excel at anything. Nothing really makes it stand out against the competitors (IMO). Sure, it's pretty, but half the time it just feels like a glorified lobby while you're waiting for your DF to pop.

[bass9020]

• Some people want the open world to feel more dangerous, but the majority of the time that just makes navigating the open world a huge inconvenience.

Navigating the open world is suppose to be an inconvenience to some extent, thats the whole point of it. Plus we already have plenty of aetherytes that I don't see why they can't comprise on this with people who actually want a vast open world with danger.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Navigating the open world is suppose to be an inconvenience to some extent, thats the whole point of it. Plus we already have plenty of aetherytes that I don't see why they can't comprise on this with people who actually want a vast open world with danger.

The reason a more dangerous world would be an inconvenience is because mobs that can kill you fast if they're not related to a quest or have nothing to drop is just more busywork the average player will have to do just to avoid it and get where they need to be. Having dangerous monsters for the sake of it isn't really good to begin with. People want everyone to engage in the open world more, but this would make people do all they can to avoid it. Didn't FF11 players do a whole bunch of things to avoid getting aggro all the time? So much for open world danger if you go out of your way to avoid everything.

[Sandpark]

The reason a more dangerous world would be an inconvenience is because mobs that can kill you fast if they're not related to a quest or have nothing to drop is just more busywork the average player will have to do just to avoid it and get where they need to be. Having dangerous monsters for the sake of it isn't really good to begin with. People want everyone to engage in the open world more, but this would make people do all they can to avoid it. Didn't FF11 players do a whole bunch of things to avoid getting aggro all the time? So much for open world danger if you go out of your way to avoid everything.

The big point missed is can avoid not will avoid. Ever played a sneaking game like Assassin's Creed or Thief? It feels rewarding to choose whether to engage or avoid using in game systems. But in way you are right. What is the point of sneaking systems in an open world that wants you encased in instances.

I am more afraid of running into quest givers in modern mmos that running into Tiamat in the open world. So much busy work.

[Velhart]

The reason a more dangerous world would be an inconvenience is because mobs that can kill you fast if they're not related to a quest or have nothing to drop is just more busywork the average player will have to do just to avoid it and get where they need to be. Having dangerous monsters for the sake of it isn't really good to begin with. People want everyone to engage in the open world more, but this would make people do all they can to avoid it. Didn't FF11 players do a whole bunch of things to avoid getting aggro all the time? So much for open world danger if you go out of your way to avoid everything.

It was exactly that. Almost no one traveled through the open world like you should. Most people used oils to sneak past enemies to not fight them or used a Chocobo if allowed to. Stuff like that is fun at first, but if you need to get somewhere, it becomes inconvenient extremely fast. No one enjoyed walking back from the jungles trying to sneak past Goblins that could kill you.

Not to mention people were willing to pay WHM and RDM's gil just to teleport them to certain locations. Mages made bank off that. That is because people did not feel like travelling through the world since it took so much time. Even myself paid mages to port me. No one wanted to walk to Xarcabard.

[Skivvy]

It was exactly that. Almost no one traveled through the open world like you should. Most people used oils to sneak past enemies to not fight them or used a Chocobo if allowed to. Stuff like that is fun at first, but if you need to get somewhere, it becomes inconvenient extremely fast. No one enjoyed walking back from the jungles trying to sneak past Goblins that could kill you.

That's a bit of a slippery argument. While trying to survive sneaking through dangerous areas was probably not something that people looked forward to specifically, it adds to the challenge of the game. Adds another layer if you will.

The viewpoint of "it's inconvenient, we don't need it!" can be applied to many things in an MMO. For example, we still have to run quite a bit in this game. It's inconvenient and takes time. The mob packs that we run through barely bat an eye, so what is the point? Perhaps we should be given bot location hacks? Obviously I'm taking that argument to the extreme, but where exactly do you draw the line with things being time wasters and adding to the feel of a game?

Shouldn't the journey be part of the adventure?

[Welsper59]

It was exactly that. Almost no one traveled through the open world like you should. Most people used oils to sneak past enemies to not fight them or used a Chocobo if allowed to. Stuff like that is fun at first, but if you need to get somewhere, it becomes inconvenient extremely fast. No one enjoyed walking back from the jungles trying to sneak past Goblins that could kill you.

Not to mention people were willing to pay WHM and RDM's gil just to teleport them to certain locations. Mages made bank off that. That is because people did not feel like travelling through the world since it took so much time. Even myself paid mages to port me. No one wanted to walk to Xarcabard.

Keep in mind that you are talking about the extremes of travel time. When it takes you about 30min just to run from a city to an almost mandatory leveling zone (referring to the first hurdle of getting to Valkurm Dunes), that's when the argument about it being too much trouble holds significant weight. For as much hassle as sneak/invis was to bother with, it was a part of what made the game feel "alive", something you can't quite say the same for others of the genre anymore. Some would argue that a game feels alive when there are a ton of players, and while that is true to a degree, that argument is short sighted because of the fact that it's not a distinguishing factor for the game itself.

If someone were to say XIV is "alive" when there's a ton of people on, then it is the same as saying an old AOL chat room is alive when there's a ton of people. Without the people, can it still feel like the world has a memorable identity for itself? Things you need to watch out for, things you need to do in preparation, etc. XIV doesn't have much ground to hold on that. The lore behind MSQ, dungeons, side quests, etc can be memorable, but that's not exactly what you experience whenever you go out into it.

I mean, think about the introduction of Godbert. There's evidence of his strength, but one particular trophy kill stood out. Why would it stand out for many of us? Because we've encountered the danger behind that monster we've fought in the game (particularly the FATE). The underlying point of having such dangerous mobs in the world is to help build immersion into it. Before the huge nerfs in difficulty to mobs in XI, we never really questioned why people would fear the monsters outside of the safety of the city walls, simply because of the fact you would experience that danger at all times. In a game like XIV however, that sort of thing is ridiculous to the point where it'd be like someone fearing for their life at a typical fly being around.

Being forced to spend time traveling isn't always fun, admittedly, but there are some degrees of necessity out of it. If the entire point of it all is to simply avoid wasting time, we should be allowed to pinpoint locations of the map to travel to. I think that's something that people generally agree is unreasonable. Ask yourself "why?" though. Why do we need to spend time killing trash mobs in a dungeon when there's almost no reason for it at max level? Why make us waste a few minutes pointlessly between bosses over and over? Shouldn't we be able to just skip directly to the bosses once we've already done a dungeon? Likewise to just instantly skip to the point of a map in the game without wasting the minutes going from A to B? It'd help people save a lot of frustration getting to timed gathering nodes, for example. That's all the positives you'd need to justify it, right?

Side note on the Teleport services in XI: That's humorously more attempts at socializing and building a social environment than most servers experience here.

[Xenosan]

It was exactly that. Almost no one traveled through the open world like you should.

The thrill of dangerous open-world was you didn't go somewhere unless you *could* go. Which usually meant being with a party. And yes stealth was a pain, especially if you were trying to reach a specific leveling spot that was really out of reach. Some locations were ridiculous, that doesn't have to be replicated, but a zone like Zi Tah, the lowest floors of crawlers nest, ranperre's tomb, they had appeal because you rarely would ever bother going down there unless you had a group that could survive it.

And your first time peddling it to Jeuno? Felt like trying to climb Mt Everest.

Was it perfect, no. But just because FFXI didn't do it perfect doesn't mean it's not something that could be implemented successfully in FFXIV.


Sorry but IMO the real break of the novelty for a zone is when you spend 99% of the time flying 500 yalms above it with a un-adjustable game-engine Draw Distance that leaves mobs, players, environments and props not rendering adequately for a 2016 game. The most prominent visual in the HW zones is the wind-trail sprite FX of your mount. Then there's a beautiful zone like Azys Lla where there's like, no reason to ever go there ; ;

I wouldn't miss flight one bit if 4.0 zones didn't have it.

Regarding open-world, I don't know if 'being like XI' is the right way to look at it. What XI did have working for it that XIV is underperforming in is the need for open-world social interaction. XIV doesn't haven't it. In XIV a new player could go until lvl 60 without ever communicating with someone on their server. And every attempt SE has made to force social interaction server-side has been transparent failures (Specialty system, favor mats, diadem).

In XIV you can do almost anything with no one, but in XI couldn't do anything without being with someone.

That's the contrast as far as I care to describe it.

[RubyCirha]

Well I meen if we're going there then you could say that wow stole it's stuff from ever quest it's a mmo system that works so people use it nuf said end of story can we close this thread now