[Stormblood Budget] Where all the money's gone ?

[Berethos]

In most other games when an expansion hits we see drastic changes in gameplay but also content:

Which is a massive double-edged sword, and can easily lead to change for the sake of change, or leaving behind features made in one expansion because the development cost in terms of time to make those drastic changes every couple years means you have to be picky in what gets iterated on for future content.

As a player, it can mean getting a totally fresh experience every couple years...but it can just as easily (and with each set of changes this is more likely to happen) mean that the game you first enjoyed and even the version you really liked no longer exists.

The practice of making major changes with expansions has certainly been popularized by a certain other major name in the industry, but just how risky it is and how badly it can fail is all too often ignored.

In other words, drastic changes aren\\'t the de facto "right way."

[Berethos]

This is why WoW, very early, was talking about Mythic+ dungeons, Artifacts and open world legendaries. People want to be surprised, without surprise its hard to get people hyped.

At least one of those had its hype noticeably dampened by the same thing that leads to surprises - their focus on making major changes with each expansion.

One of the first questions after artifacts were announced was if we'd use them past Legion. That they are meant to be a single expansion feature killed a lot of the hype...

So as I said above...double-edged sword that cuts both ways.

@Alleo - they use the word revamp, not overhaul, as it carries a lighter connotation that is more about iteration than drastic changes. They were also pretty quick to clarify that it wouldn't be massive changes (esp in light of how many latched on to the idea of it becoming action combat for some reason) and have maintained that position since.

[Talraen]

That's my point: even with a huge name behind it, 1.0 failed because of what you said: the game sucked for various reasons, and the story also sucked: basically everything sucked. No offense of course.
Why do you think 2.0 became famous? Well, not for the story but because it was playable after a long time: it was the GAMEPLAY that made the game successful, not the story or the franchise itself because if it did, then 1.0 wouldn't be shut down. And I even recall wanting to give that game a shot and suffice to say, I was glad to have listened to my guts.
A big brand helps but even that couldn't help that misstep of a game and I'm fairly sure 1.0 learned that lesson the hard way.

And this is why I'm concerned: they're slowly making the same mistake they did with 1.0, focusing more on "fanservice" (in this case the franchise itself) instead of what actually made it good (the gameplay). Say what you will, but if this game suddenly begins to "fail" in the gameplay department, it will eventually do the same end of 1.0. I mean think about it: we're basically 2 expansions in and nothing really changed so far nor they mentioned any drastic changes: we might get some improvements over combat but for all we know it might be so little, it might as well be a patch. In most other games when an expansion hits we see drastic changes in gameplay but also content: new modes are introduced, new battle mechanics or even new and different methods for gaming itself (I remember WotLK and the introduction of the phasing, which was a pretty big deal).

What do we have with HW, beside the same exact stuff from ARR, that is actually new? ? Diadem? POTD? Aquapolis? Everything else is basically the same under a new coat of paint.

You're kind of all over the place here. While I actually agree that gameplay is what made 2.0 succeed, you're just asserting that without really backing it up. Would 1.0 have succeeded if the gameplay had been good (and the story still nonexistant)? Maybe? I have no idea. To have good gameplay, 1.0 would have been so fundamentally different that I can't even speculate.

But "fanservice" was distinctly not 1.0's problem. If anything it was the exact opposite. 1.0 used no FF classes, took basically nothing from FFXI, and was in every way trying to be a totally new thing. I mean, look at what was added by 1.23: quests, traditional jobs, primal battles, meteor, Bahamut. All of the fanservice was added in preparation for 2.0. I don't think it's why 2.0 succeeded, but the more fanservice-y version of the game is also by far the more successful one.

I don't know that we need any drastic changes. I quite like the game the way it is, and everything I hated about Heavensward (i.e., the changes to crafting and gathering) were drastic changes. I don't mind the continuation of the tomestone model, the hard vs. extreme primals, or any of that. My favorite change in Heavensward was adding an easy version of the raid, which was pretty drastic but is not the sort of thing people seem to be clamoring for. I never played WoW, so I can't comment on how they do things, but people on these forums are always pining for FFXI, and the expansions to that game never changed anything drastically except perhaps at the very top levels (which I didn't do). It was new zones, new jobs, new quests, and people seemed fine with it. I'm easy to please, though. Stormblood could literally just add Samurai and nothing else and I'd be excited for it, lol.

And I'm saying this because I liked 2.0: it was my first final fantasy after a long pause that made me dislike the entire franchise and pretty much any of their games: they just lacked quality and weren't fun anymore. I remember seeing 2.0 and thinking "Wow they're finally listening to their fans, I'm surprised...maybe they're not that bad".
But now it's a repeating of the same thing and, once again, I'm moving away from them: the reason why I'm here ranting about this aspect it's because I truly hoped for the best and finally started to care about their products.
But at this point, I will just call it a day and move on better games.

Thank God I skipped their latest games at least...a shame considering people say Nier Automata is good, but I'm just too scared to try it.

A lot of people hate on the latter Final Fantasy games, but they still all sold well, and I happen to love them. 12 might be my favorite, 15 was the most emotionally satisfying, and I love 13 and think the main criticism ("it's so linear") is ridiculous because it applies just as much to 10, which everyone seems to like. (Honestly I suspect the reason so many people didn't like 13 was because it wasn't fanservice-y enough.) 13-2 in particular seemed inspired to me, though Lightning Returns turned me off early enough that I never got very far. Tastes vary, but Final Fantasy is still popular. It's not at its PS1-era peak, but it's hardly dying.

And it's not all gameplay or story in these games, either. 12 and 15 both have kind of terrible gameplay mechanics, but the story and storytelling are top-notch in both. 13's mechanics are super fun and unlike anything else in the series, but the story turns super dumb in the latter half. 13-2 took 13, made it less linear, and added an interesting story that goes to places I didn't expect it to.

Plus, a lot of people who claim to hate the story in 14 also admit they skip the cutscenes, and a lot of people who hate recent FF games admit they didn't play them. So...

[Yeol]

snip

The fan fest gave us a lot of new information. New jobs and their roles, new areas (including under sea), primals, 8 man raid and 24 man raid, beast tribes, player housing, battle system, swimming, some early dungeons.

Now, this all was given without getting into deep details. Fan fest run on an extremely tight schedule, details are coming in live letters (hopefully).

Knowing that we are getting RDM and SAM is a big hype on its own. But some players are always thinking negatively and stared complaining about two new jobs being dps. SE already said they want to fix tanks and healers before adding new ones, which in my opinion is a good thing.

[Voltyblast]

Snip

Yes, 1.0 would've been better if it had better gameplay: not only it was bad from a fun perspective (slow combat, clunky menus, etc), but it was also bad from a technical and design standpoint (graphic were so high yet unstable nearly no pc could play it, and areas were copy&paste mess with basically no thought process). 2.0 was a success not only because it was a more recognizable game (it's basically your usual Wow-clone with tab targeting: everyone knows that) but also because it WORKED, it actually worked for most computers and believe it or not, there are people who have low-end pcs because of budget problems. I'm one for example!

So while I have no basis to confirm my point, this is called "an educated guess": if 1.0 played similarly to 2.0 it would've at least succeeded to stay afloat.
If anything, if my guess is wrong and 1.0 would always be bad regardless, then there was something else that was fundamentally broken to begin with, beyond graphics and technical issues.

On top of that, 1.0 was somewhat fan-servicy...why? Well it tried to recapitulate the shadow of its previous game, ffxi. Again this is all "educated guesses" but think about it: the gameplay was slow, clunky, very menu based, the travelling was mostly on foot despite the anima thing and the world was more seamless...while I haven't played it at all from those videos I saw, the game really looked like FFXI-2 rather than a new installment. The problem was it didn't cater enough for those old school fans either and only the true hardcore fans remained to the end...I mean, I saw people defending that game for how "truly final fantasy-ish" it was. What does that even mean, besides trying to be similar to their old flame FFXI? And look no further than these forums: how many people CONSTANTLY bring up ideas that are taken from FFXI?

Once again this all an educated guess, but FFXIV in both the old and recent incarnation, were always somewhat fan-servicy to some degree. It just failed on a very fundamental level (both gameplay and technical) to actually be any good on its own.

However, when I meant fan-service in my post, I meant in FFXIV 2.0: lots of stuff in here are obviously made to attract old-school FF fans...I mean we got that ff6 boss fight, we got odin, somes bosses that come from older ff games (I didn't know calcabrina was from one!) we got jobs that while some are completely off (MCH, AST) we have MANY that are from the FF world (ninja, warrior/berserker, Red mage, Samurai, etc). Not only that but we got "other" kind of fanservice: we got cat girls, cute lizard girls that shouldn't exist and most of the races are quite literally rip offs from ffxi. In addition, we got many references from previous games: those galrean dudes are obviously the judges from ff12, the bipedal mount (i forgot its name) it's from ff6, a lot of costume rewards are from older FF games (Cloud, cecil, tidus, yuna, etc) and the list goes on.

And before you say anything, I'm totally fine with fan service: I honestly don't care about any FF related stuff but I know people like it - I liked persona 4 dancing all night for crying out loud. But, if the fanservice gets priority over gameplay, then problems will start to arise because only those few will really truly enjoy it, but being niche doesn't bring money anymore. Look at Wildstar to see what I mean.

So to answer also at Berethos about drastic changes, what I mean is to take what made ARR good and improve on it: things like tome grinding should be tweaked in order to improve itself but instead it's a carbon-copy of ARR without any changes. Dungeon works the same way but how about additional objectives like timed runs, an achievement for specific actions and additional reward for that? Dungeons don't have to be hard to be fun: they just need a reason to be re-run. Need a proof? Just look at EX primals: they have mounts that promote re-runs constantly. You think they would be alive to this day if they hadn't? I just want the same kind of treatment for the rest of the game, that's all I meant!

PS: while the taste is subjective, just because final fantasy is popular it doesn't necessarily mean it's good. CoD is popular and it's pretty much filth. However, I have played games that deliver better in both storytelling and gameplay that, Final fantasy now seems mediocre to my eyes: I loved the Shin Megami Tensei since Digital Devil Saga (not just persona), but also other games like the Atelier series (they looked like fables, which is nice) and the Ar Tonelico trilogy (very interesting lore and characters), as well as older gems like Suikoden and Shadow Hearts (No koudelka unfortunately, but SH2 is my favorite of all time).

What I'm trying to say is, FF and SE in general don't really inspire me to buy their games anymore (FFXIV is pretty much my first and last game from them ever and I don't even think I might try the expansion either) because of their quality drop: I rather spend 90 euros in CE for a series I know that is good because of their previous titles like Atlus (not just persona, but Etrian Odyssey is amazing and Shin Megami Tensei games are top notch games despite their difficulty) or even Gust (Atelier games are often hit and miss but Ar Tonelico is one of my favorite trilogy around but I can't wait for Blue Reflection and Nights of Azure 2) than any latest SE games, considering what they've done (not just 1.0, but also many bad spin-offs like Theatrhymn, Dissidia, World of Final Fantasy and final fantasy explorers).

Call me narrowminded or stubborn or whatever, but I have only so much money that I can spend and I don't want to make a crapshoot anymore: I'll just stick with what I know.

[Talraen]

On top of that, 1.0 was somewhat fan-servicy...why? Well it tried to recapitulate the shadow of its previous game, ffxi. Again this is all "educated guesses" but think about it: the gameplay was slow, clunky, very menu based, the travelling was mostly on foot despite the anima thing and the world was more seamless...while I haven't played it at all from those videos I saw, the game really looked like FFXI-2 rather than a new installment. The problem was it didn't cater enough for those old school fans either and only the true hardcore fans remained to the end...I mean, I saw people defending that game for how "truly final fantasy-ish" it was. What does that even mean, besides trying to be similar to their old flame FFXI? And look no further than these forums: how many people CONSTANTLY bring up ideas that are taken from FFXI?

You admit you're making educated guesses and speaking from assumptions and guts, and there's not really much I can say to that. But I do feel the need to point out that you are very, very wrong about your perceptions of FFXI vs. original FFXIV. The only real elements FFXIV took directly from FFXI were the races (minus Galka tails) and the ability to play every class on a single character. But a big part of what made FFXIV unique was that you could change classes at any time just by changing weapons (in FFXI you could only do so in town), and that the crafting and gathering professions were classes with their own gear and minigames.

FFXI is very much about picking a job and picking the right subjob for that job, whereas FFXIV was about absolute control of character customization. When you leveled up a class, you gained its abilities for use with any class, and they weren't even assigned automatically on that class. Like, if you unlocked conjurer you'd get the six elemental spells, but you could only put three (I think) abilities on your hotbar. You could pick three of those spells, or three abilities from some other class entirely. Conjurer and thaumaturge did have unique abilities (each could toggle AOE mode for spells, in different shapes), but basically the game didn't care what class you were. Any class could use any gear, though it would be less optimal if it was not "recommended." Instead of leveling by forming a party and killing the same monsters over and over, you were expected to level with leves. You had separate class and overall "physical" levels which determined your stats.

I could go on, but the point is, none of this is anything like FFXI. The game shared none of the same jobs/classes, didn't really have a similar visual style, had an icon-based interface with no support for macros (which were the primary interface for FFXI), allowed you to teleport around without being a high-level white mage. There were no quests, no auction house (despite the general expectation that all gear would be crafted by players), and no recycled FFXI monster models. Indeed the game was filled with totally new monster ideas like coblyns, spriggans, phurbles, new beastman tribes, and so on. It was specifically designed to be completely unlike FFXI.

So, feel free to hate on Final Fantasy if you want, but please at least slightly educate yourself on 1.0 before making grand conclusions based on it.

[Voltyblast]

So, feel free to hate on Final Fantasy if you want, but please at least slightly educate yourself on 1.0 before making grand conclusions based on it.

Sure, alright, but it doesn't change that 1.0 failed for "reasons": those are just my guesses as of why it failed, trying to cater from the success of FFXI (which is kind of the same for FF7, if you think about it) but I'm not surprised if none of them are right. But one thing is right for certain: 1.0 failed, hard, almost bankrupt-like, and 2.0 was a success, bringing them back to its proper place. Why? I just tried to make a guess and connect the two games. Am I wrong about the guesses? Then it could mean that 1.0 was going to fail from the very beginning because nothing of it worked at all, as if they had no clue on what to make: even my friends told me why it failed and that's how I "know" some of the game's details. I said that if 1.0 had the 2.0 gameplay it could be a better game, but for how long? Would it be as success as now? I just don't know at this point, and frankly, I don't care either: feel free to make assumptions or guesses at this point.

With that said, this topic is closed for me: moving back to budget issues.

[Berethos]

So to answer also at Berethos about drastic changes, what I mean is to take what made ARR good and improve on it: things like tome grinding should be tweaked in order to improve itself but instead it's a carbon-copy of ARR without any changes.

That would really be iteration rather than drastic changes, and I'd like to see more of it as well.

Other MMOs, notably WoW, often bring in features wholesale for just that expansion, make it super integral, and then drop all but maybe 10% of that element for the next expansion. That's more an example of drastic changes, which is why I'm critical of them.

[Katana190]

I'm going to reserve my judgement on this until next week. I'm giving SE this upcoming live letter to give us a tonne of surprises. At fan fest they only have a limited amount of time, and they covered a very basic overview - the announcement, the lore, the locations, the jobs, and very light information about gameplay and features. This upcoming live letter will be their first opportunity (other than interviews) to really delve into the gameplay meat.

I don't have a source so don't quote me on this, but didn't they say they aren't going to discuss the meat until May? This upcoming live letter is still in April and to top it off, it's a Q&A so we're relying on the community again... I hope I'm wrong to be honest so feel free to correct me.

Some very important things we need to know still, what are they gonna do with casters? The current state of slashing and pericing down, and how will they balance PLD and WHM, and much more.

[AstralKaos]

I don't have a source so don't quote me on this, but didn't they say they aren't going to discuss the meat until May? This upcoming live letter is still in April and to top it off, it's a Q&A so we're relying on the community again... I hope I'm wrong to be honest so feel free to correct me.

Ah, my favourite - the Q&A. They choose the safest and not revealing of info questions, or ones that have already been answered numerous times, as well as the worst questions - the "what's your fave colour, Yoshi!?" and "can you high-five the screen!?" and so on... made even worse by the number of these "questions" they waste time answering. It's a complete waste of time, and utter farce.