Should FF14 take a new route? Discussion

[KaivaC]

Like many of you here in the forums, and the active subscribers out there, I very much enjoy my time in FFXIV. I think that in the crowded MMO market, this one stands out above others because of its approach to combat and story telling. But...it seems that the innovations have sort of stalled - the game feels like its stuck in this limbo that it cannot break away from.

Call it lack of support from Square or call it fear of trying new things, but something just feels like it doesn't click. There was a point where I thought about FFXIV maybe needing a new director - not that Yoshi P. hasn't done a good job with what he has, because he has been great for FFXIV and personally, I'm happy with how he managed to salvage FFXIV and turn it into one of the top MMOs on the market. That being said, I can't help but wonder if a new director would be able to take FFXIV into a new direction. Obviously, if Square is being unsupportive of one of their biggest draws, that's one thing (and we all know what happens when a game company does to a product if they don't support it a la Konami).

So food for thought: Do you think FFXIV would be able to innovate and go to greater heights with a new director? Or is the issue solely Square itself? Or maybe it's something else entirely that FFXIV needs.

Let's discuss.

*edit on April 14
With the new live letter on 4.14.2018, I feel this warrants more consideration now.

[NovaLevossida]

While I have unsubscribed as of today (I looked at Eureka as the last hope for interesting content) and don't have much time remaining before I can no longer post here, I'm not sure it's going to get any better while YoshiP is in charge. He's against interesting stats on gear and doesn't want to deviate from the formula that worked for relaunching the game in 2.0. There was a large amount of vintage MMO content to take inspiration from, and he just repackaged Diadem and took inspiration from leveling camps rather than endgame activities.

I have no plans to resubscribe until 5.0 at the earliest (if I do at all), and I think it's going to take YoshiP stepping away to get anything truly interesting to happen. I'm just not going to pay them anymore for cutting back the amount of content, delivering the same stale content cycle, and repackaging Diadem again. So I think we need someone else. YoshiP gets all the credit in the world for turning FF14 around with ARR. It just never evolved since then.

[silentwindfr]

While I have unsubscribed as of today (I looked at Eureka as the last hope for interesting content) and don't have much time remaining before I can no longer post here, I'm not sure it's going to get any better while YoshiP is in charge. He's against interesting stats on gear and doesn't want to deviate from the formula that worked for relaunching the game in 2.0. There was a large amount of vintage MMO content to take inspiration from, and he just repackaged Diadem and took inspiration from leveling camps rather than endgame activities.
the formula that worked for relaunching the game in 2.0. There was a large amount of vintage MMO content to take inspiration from, and he just repackaged Diadem and took inspiration from leveling camps rather than endgame activities.

I have no plans to resubscribe until 5.0 at the earliest (if I do at all), and I think it's going to take YoshiP stepping away to get anything truly interesting to happen. I'm just not going to pay them anymore for cutting back the amount of content, delivering the same stale content cycle, and repackaging Diadem again. So I think we need someone else. YoshiP gets all the credit in the world for turning FF14 around with ARR. It just never evolved since then.

i will be blunt i don't see anyone take over yoshi-p able to do better...
yes FF14 is classical in the form and need evolution. however, in the form of 1 patch with a lot of content every 3 month they are forced to take decision. plus is not a game that have a huge team of hundred person behind, if you remember while the fanfest of tokyo we did seen the whole dev team... they was like 20+. and they can still produce far more content than WoW or any other mmorpg outside.
without forget that for a long time FF14 didn't receive the support needed, forcing even the hand of yoshida to create the mog station, even if i'm not happy of this move, most of the cash earned for it stay in FF14 what is not the case of the sub.

yes, FF14 need changement.... but do it means we need to change the director that have already take soo many risk and have time after time expand the game with the little support he did receive? clearly no... i'm scared to imagine anyone able to take is place. since SE is not a company that is specialized in mmorpg, worst, mmorpg as genre is declinning for age.

why? because of the dev AND player! yes dev was lazy to try new thing, but player are the one at fault, let me ask if tomorrow they decide to not focus on raid as much as now, what do you think will happend? people will scream and say that is not a true mmorpg if is end is not raiding. and that what did lead to that situation and why the mmorpg genre is slowly dying... because player refuse changement, refuse to acknowledge that end game can be something else than raiding. even pvp community have a hard time to survive because of this and they still receive a very big support...
and on other hand no real midcore content, no real challenging content for small group and such... yes FF14 need to change, no yoshida don't need to go and yes, player need to accept that if thing change, some of them "favorite" stuff will not be the center of the game, if not...we can discuss all day... nothing will change.

you want change, yes! but accept changement. is not yoshida that need to change is the way player see mmorpg that is slowly killing it that need to change. mmorpg =/= raiding! mmorpg is a game where you encounter and go to adventure with different people, with small or large group... but raiding was never the goal of mmorpg nor must be what define it! mmorpg is an adventure, a chance to experience a world and face different challenge! more important different form of challenge! right now for over 10 years the mmorpg = raid only, what did make it rot slowly. until people accept that the end game can be many thing and not only raiding we will not see changement.

you want changement, begin by change the way the player see the mmorpg and maybe is possible

[Granyala]

because of the dev AND player! yes dev was lazy to try new thing, but player are the one at fault, let me ask if tomorrow they decide to not focus on raid as much as now, what do you think will happend?

Sorry, honey, but after 8.5 years of raiding in WoW, all I can tell you that releasing 4 raid bosses every 6 months can hardly be called "a focus on raiding".

If you want to see what "focus on raiding" really looks like, go and play WoW as a non raider.

[Okamimaru]

The only way I see it changing directions is if they decided to completely rewrite the combat system from the ground up...

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The only way I see it changing directions is if they decided to completely rewrite the combat system from the ground up...

Pretty much this. They would have to remake the game... again... Likely not happening.

[Liam_Harper]

The only way I see it changing directions is if they decided to completely rewrite the combat system from the ground up...

They need to re-do the entire game really on a new engine.

It's amazing a game nearly a decade and a half old like WoW can manage smooth combat where any number of abilities register instantly, and in FF Ninja's have to take server lag into account to use Ninjitsu properly. Unfortunately they probably didn't expect ARR to be a success at all and were given a tight budget and as a result the servers and game engine are simply incapable of decent combat.

FF14 is just far too limited by its game engine. They can't give us lots of bag storage or make fully fleshed glamor systems or support proper vehicle quests or cope with large amounts of characters attacking a boss or anything fancy like other MMO's with good quality game engines can pull off. As a result the game never advances or develops, we just get variations of the same things. If they were serious about ARR, they should have invested right from the start. But they didn't.

[Remedi]

They need to re-do the entire game really on a new engine.

It's amazing a game nearly a decade and a half old like WoW can manage smooth combat where any number of abilities register instantly, and in FF Ninja's have to take server lag into account to use Ninjitsu properly. Unfortunately they probably didn't expect ARR to be a success at all and were given a tight budget and as a result the servers and game engine are simply incapable of decent combat.

FF14 is just far too limited by its game engine. They can't give us lots of bag storage or make fully fleshed glamor systems or support proper vehicle quests or cope with large amounts of characters attacking a boss or anything fancy like other MMO's with good quality game engines can pull off. As a result the game never advances or develops, we just get variations of the same things. If they were serious about ARR, they should have invested right from the start. But they didn't.

^This, the game problems lies at it's roots

[SinisterJoints]

They need to re-do the entire game really on a new engine.

It's amazing a game nearly a decade and a half old like WoW can manage smooth combat where any number of abilities register instantly, and in FF Ninja's have to take server lag into account to use Ninjitsu properly. Unfortunately they probably didn't expect ARR to be a success at all and were given a tight budget and as a result the servers and game engine are simply incapable of decent combat.

FF14 is just far too limited by its game engine. They can't give us lots of bag storage or make fully fleshed glamor systems or support proper vehicle quests or cope with large amounts of characters attacking a boss or anything fancy like other MMO's with good quality game engines can pull off. As a result the game never advances or develops, we just get variations of the same things. If they were serious about ARR, they should have invested right from the start. But they didn't.

absolutely nothing in your post has ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the game's engine lol.....just sayin

[Stanelis]

The only way I see it changing directions is if they decided to completely rewrite the combat system from the ground up...

I think the current combat system could be salvaged. If only they added a fourth party role and implemented more utility spells/status effects. However they really do need to increase the party sizes a bit to make it work (and they re going to have to do it anyway if they plan to keep adding new jobs).

As for the topic of new routes for FFXIV, they need to drop the current extreme vertical progression we have on gear (it feels silly when any given ilvl threshold only makes for like 4 bosses) and capitalize on horizontal progression over the course of an expansion.