Yoshi-P on Character Growth

[Reynhart]

That's a big part of why he has been cautious.

Interesting analysis of FFXI.

However, the reaction to this analysis should be exactly the opposite of what Yoshi-P does. FFXI players were not furious because everything changed. They were furious because everything they did was made irrelevant.
After spending a lot of time to earn the most powerful lvl75 weapon, you're pissed because a new player can buy a lvl85 weapon better than yours.

That's exactly what happens in FFXIV for every content...

[Alahra]

FFXI players were not furious because everything changed. They were furious because everything they did was made irrelevant.

These are, for the purposes of discussion related to FFXIV, functionally the same thing. The reason why players would be angry if they changed the core model in FFXIV would be different than they were in FFXI, but the root cause—that the game's core model was now drastically different—would be the same.

I can assure you that there are players who are happy with the current model, who like having regular updates with new gear to chase, and they would probably not be happy with spending a year at the same item level (which is largely what requests to make gear last longer like FFXI would mean), just as one example of how making the game more like XI could cause problems.

Moving to a model where gear had significantly lower obsolescence would necessitate either more grindy content, or more content that was dubious in value, with incentives to run new content being there only for the players most dedicated to optimization (those players are a relatively small sample of the population, for what it's worth).

Some players would be okay with that and enjoy it, but XIV's new content is already seen both as too grindy and frequently not rewarding enough, so it would be difficult to not make that worse. When you throw in the fact that there is resistance to the idea of more avenues for players to get max-level gear, the team has to walk a very delicate tightrope here.

Which, again, underscores the need for caution.

As I've said before, I do think there is room for expansion within the game's current model (I've long been an advocate for more max-level gearsets and can think of several ways the team could achieve that even just using the content we have available to us now), and I even think it would be possible to have slightly longer raid tiers (if they can manage to get a bigger team, at any rate).

Yeah, I don't care... I'm struggling to see a point in anything beyond i220 at the moment, and the game is very quickly going to be forcing i260 on me the same way it forced i230 on me...

I don't mean this flippantly, but rather sincerely: you probably don't really enjoy vertical progression games! And that's actually perfectly okay. There are other games on the market that are more sandbox and/or horizontally oriented. Heck, even FFXI gets content updates just about as often as XIV does and definitely has more long-lasting appeal for its gear and the like.

But I don't really think it's ever likely that FFXIV is going to differ significantly from its present structure—the most I can envision is moving from 6 month raid tiers to 12 month ones (and that would be pretty hard to pull off while also maintaining regular, worthwhile content updates). Even that is unlikely, I think, and at most see 9 month tiers as theoretically possible.

[Reynhart]

These are, for the purposes of discussion related to FFXIV, functionally the same thing.

That's the catch, it's not.
You can't justify "changing is bad" because one change was bad.

This is the same twisted answer that Yoshi-P did recently. When asked if we can have something different, he basically replied "If we give you less, you'll be pissed, so this proves our formula is good"
What ? Of course we'll be pissed if you give us less...what kind of proof is it ?!

The worst part is that he used the "if we give you one dungeon instead of two"...conveniently forgetting that before HW, every patch gave us three. And you can look at the previous patch notes, they were as big as current patches...much bigger, in fact, if you look at 2.1.

[Alahra]

You can't justify "changing is bad" because one change was bad.

That's not what I'm saying at all, actually. It's not that change is in and of itself bad, it's that large scale changes can have very serious consequences. As another example, from FFXIV itself, look at how poorly the large shift in raid difficulty for Gordias worked out in the end, how harmful it was to the game's community. SE's history with MMOs and indeed, the history in XIV itself, gives the team a lot of reason to favor caution over taking big risks. This does mean that change tends to be incremental and gradual, which I understand can frustrate some folks. Personally, after years of knee-jerk changes in WoW, I like that the team's cautious, though.

As for the answer about less, you're missing something key about why we have 2 dungeons now instead of 3. We have 2 now so that the team can try to introduce other types of content—that is, expand the game in the way so many people want. If we still had 3 dungeons, we wouldn't have Diadem or Deep Dungeon or a second raid difficulty, and while they haven't been perfect (and Diadem far from it), new content types are always going to carry some risk of failure.

If you want 3 dungeons back (and I submit that most of us probably do), we'd have to give up the potential for the team to innovate and introduce other types of content. So long as the team is the size it is, that is the reality of the developer's capabilities at this time.

[Iromi]

Very disappointing. I agree with most of the stuff posted on the first two pages.

Stop playing it safe and put in some longevity in the damn game and some horizontal game play.

I notice some people talking about retaining subs and what not...well, this game isn't. At least according to the lucky bancho and that other census taken recently...it keeps dropping. It used to be 500kish people completed the main scenario, then it was 320k or so...now its down to 200k.

So something isn't working..playing it safe is counterproductive. :/ I am the last person to say GAME ISD YING!!!!! its not dying but the subs are dropping at a steady rate, that is for sure. So can we please change things up Yoshida a little? ._.

[thegreatonemal]

Very disappointing. I agree with most of the stuff posted on the first two pages.

Stop playing it safe and put in some longevity in the damn game and some horizontal game play.

I notice some people talking about retaining subs and what not...well, this game isn't. At least according to the lucky bancho and that other census taken recently...it keeps dropping. It used to be 500kish people completed the main scenario, then it was 320k or so...now its down to 200k.

So something isn't working..playing it safe is counterproductive. :/ I am the person to say GAME ISD YING!!!!! its not dying but the subs are dropping at a steady rate, that is for sure. So can we please change things up Yoshida a little? ._.

Horizontal progression is the illusion of choice people really need to get off the FFXI nostalgia bandwagon. Census does not mean much all it really states is that x number of people have gotten through all of the main story which is a massive amount from start to finish btw. News flash people don't play this game every day nor do they bum rush to the end game. Secondly other games come out given that wow came out with a new expansion which draws people to the shiny new thing. those people will be back while they wait 8 months plus for the next wow expansion after the shiny wears off. Third its the fall gaming season a whole bunch of games will be dropping in the next two months which will also drive people away from this game for a short time (hell no one would even care about 3.4 if FF15 was not delayed). Once the shiny wears off of other mmos and other games people will come back the numbers fall and rise like this all the time

[Iromi]

Horizontal progression is the illusion of choice people really need to get off the FFXI nostalgia bandwagon.

There is no "illusion" and how do you assume I was referring to FFXI? wat? I never mentioned that in my post lol. I literally got to choose which gear I wanted...how is there an illusion? As opposed to forcing one piece of gear on me, I got to choose from endless pieces (Kinda like how diadem drops were) until I felt like I found a BiS with relevant stats. Stuff like...well, an example in this game would be "Contagion duration +5 sec, Enmity -4, etc"

I was more so referring to other games I have played like Tera, or Aion where you can run dungeons multiple times and get really amazing stats on gear..or get medicore stats, or sorta good..etc.

As for your news flash...no, I know tons of people who burn through stuff..plenty of people in my own FC did that when HW came out and then quit 2 weeks after. While my BF and I were still working on the story..they were off doing Ravana EX within a week. Most people I knew did that who came back to try the expansion. So what are you talking about? It is not like the patches last that long anyway...do the content a few times and get burnt out within a couple weeks, that is how this game is atm. The whole point of my post was to show how people sub for a month and then unsub..and usually don't come back, and those census reflect that.

If you really want to bring up FFXI, ok. I can say the same thing I said on reddit...in other games I have played like XI, L2 and such sure..I got burnt out on those slightly..but the thing is..myself and ALL of my friends (I was Cesil in FFXI, so I pretty much knew everyone lol) would ALWAYS come back. In this game they _NEVER_ come back, at least in my own experience. They got bored..quit, then realized they weren't really enjoying playing copy/paste formula and never came back. Lot of them went back to XI, WoW and console games..

The rewards in this game are too mediocre, and everything is friggin glamour. Why not take advantage of making so many instanced content and make all the gear relevant and let us choose? I don't get the hate for more options. Narrow minded.

[Khemorex]

snip

Are u sure thats really FFXIV fault though?"that ur friends never come bk"? Maybe they are just burned out from playing MMOS , ive raided pretty long in EQ2 with progress raids , waiting for randomn world bosses to spawn to get a shot for a kill etc etc , then i stoped playing eq2 , then ive tryed all other mmos there was like age of conan , rift , start wars etc etc , and i never got to max lvl on them,simple coz i was jsut bored of the mmo formula to quest and kill randomn shit to lvl up all the time, then i took a long break from mmos :P

until i started to play ffxiv wich is kinda fun for me and a lot of others that dont have much time to play :P

[Zumi]

If you really want to bring up FFXI, ok. I can say the same thing I said on reddit...in other games I have played like XI, L2 and such sure..I got burnt out on those slightly..but the thing is..myself and ALL of my friends (I was Cesil in FFXI, so I pretty much knew everyone lol) would ALWAYS come back. In this game they _NEVER_ come back, at least in my own experience. They got bored..quit, then realized they weren't really enjoying playing copy/paste formula and never came back. Lot of them went back to XI, WoW and console games..

Why is it that you must only play one video game? I have enough time to play FFXIV a few hours a day and play other console games. Yoshi P even said if you get tried of doing the content and a patch has been out for awhile play other games and come back when a new patch is out.

But I think FFXIV is the best MMO I have ever played, and its up there in the best video games ever. I like how there is new raids and dungeons every 3 months. I almost never run out of stuff to do in FFXIV.

[Iromi]

Why is it that you must only play one video game? I have enough time to play FFXIV a few hours a day and play other console games. Yoshi P even said if you get tried of doing the content and a patch has been out for awhile play other games and come back when a new patch is out.

But I think FFXIV is the best MMO I have ever played, and its up there in the best video games ever. I like how there is new raids and dungeons every 3 months. I almost never run out of stuff to do in FFXIV.

Lol one more time..for funsies - where did I say I only play one video game? Huh? What is up with the inability to read on these forums ; ; Is it just me that this happens to? lolol

Please show me where I said "I only play FFXIV" In fact I pointed out in my post my OP was about Tera and Aion LOL oh and Lineage 2! That is 3 other games in itself...with XI that makes 4.

Yo..if you are going to debate with me , please at least follow the conversation..I am not trying to be rude, its just how can you expect me to take this seriously when you cannot even read what I say and put words in my mouth?

This is great for you, if it is "up there in the best video games ever." there was also people who thought getting a mythic in FFXI was the greatest thing and game ever, also people who thought grinding in Lineage II for nobelesse quest was "the best game ever" you are entitled to your opinion but with the way subs are dropping I do not think many agree with that sentiment. ^^; It is an opinion and does not make it true.

So if we can manage to read properly - again, my point is not that the game is dying or its horrible, it is that Yoshida needs to try some things and stop playing it so safe and give us some more in depth stuff. For someone to not want more diversity and so forth I would say is rather close minded and shallow.

It all comes back to the producer suggesting you to unsub and play something else..