Risk Factor. Can I have it?

[Darkillumina]

@Malachite
Thanks for being so horribly reasonable, it's rather offsetting coming from these forums.

I can empathise with some of what you're asking for, but I generally just assume that it'll come into effect with the addition of more abilities and content. It does, however, require GOOD balancing of class roles and perceptions (perception being key) - A party is not at its best sitting around forever waiting for a Conjuror to log on as the only "healer" in the game. (Not that I think healers are necessary in a FF14 experience party, but to make a successful exp party without them requires that nonexistent "skill" you're talking about.) The pace of FF11 was so glacial, as a non-red mage, you spent large amounts of your time staring at the floor (this is before level cap raises), which is hardly engaging.

Pigeonholing people into class roles actually paradoxically limits dynamism and causes another plethora of problems by throwing the player onto the mercy of public perception. Remember pre-Colibri Dragoons? The joke was they had the job ability "Auto-Leader", because there certainly was very little of a snowflake's chance in hell they'd get a party otherwise.

You fail to recognize that FFXI's ideas could be implemented without the weaknesses. None of us are advocating for a identical copy of FFXI. Instead we are looking at some of the things that the game did very well and looking at ways to implement them successfully in this game. The battle system in FFXIV as it stands, lacks an identity besides spam as much as possible to kill as fast as you can.

For instance, the linearity of leveling in FFXI (Robber Crab or bust) could be changed in FFXIV by the utilization of skill-chains. Certain enemies could be very susceptible to certain skill-chains each of which is done by utilizing different classes/jobs. No matter the party makeup, people would then have options to level but in a challenging way. It would also ensure that people weren't leveling on robber crabs for 10 levels. This would prevent the 'staring at the floor' disease that you seem to have such issue with.

By the way if you were staring at the floor in FFXI, you were doing it wrong. This is coming from a DRK. Also every functional MMO needs certain class roles. Deal with it. FFXIV can attempt to avoid this by having more than one class/job being able to fulfill a role. Sure one job could do it better, but it can be perfectly viable for other classes to accomplish certain roles.

I personally prefer the structure and order of early FFXI's battle system to the wandering whirlwind of death we have now. I enjoyed finding a camp, settling in and pulling mobs as well as the excitement of dealing with an unplanned add. Again, it doesn't have to be as painful as it was in FFXI but you are simply ignorant if you think FFXI was a total detriment to the player base.

[Catharsis]

Yoshi P is the only reason why I'm still here, game's not complete yet but based on all of the outlines and all of the interviews I truly believe he has a vision. Recent FFs seemed very shallowly put together, like they were put together using a template rather than employing deep thought and originality. I think Yoshi P is different and he'll make XIV into a good game just not the game most of their users wanted.

And about your FFXI comment, it's a ps2 game it's 10 years old, there is no bringing it back even if tanaka is back on the project. It would be one thing if the games were the same age, but they made 14 look like it would be the next FFXI. Then they changed their target audience. XI was one of the most successful games of all time, my question is where is our game at if you want a new audience? They should at least make the game a little harder and more like XI for us. Doesn't mean make it a clone but why take it so drastically in the casual direction?

Is it so unreasonable to want a death penalty for XIV? You can solo a mob for 1k exp, even if it's 10%/level exp loss like XI was, you can get that back in 5 fights. Die several times, do 1 leve solo and you recap. If leveling was as long as it was in XI I could see you not wanting exp loss for dying but exp is so easy in this game it's so easy to get back.

FYI, Tanaka was largely responsible for getting FF14 into the huge mess it was in in the first place. They shifted him over to FF11, where he could do less harm. And as for why take it so drastically in the casual direction - please explain to me how it makes any logical or ecological sense to make two games that fill the exact same niche in the market. FF14's chance to lure a larger market audience actually partially depends on it being significantly different from FF11. What's the point of marketing FF14 to people who are already enjoying FF11 and paying S-E every month for the privilege of playing it if it's going to be identical?

but you are simply ignorant if you think FFXI was a total detriment to the player base.

And you are simply passive-aggressive with your choice of words, and judgmental if you think I was simplifying things to that absurd statement.

Edit: re: Yet another one of your cherry-picked statements-
DRKs aren't reliant on their MP. Unfortunately, not all jobs happen to be melee jobs which could function off autoattack and TP. If you were suggesting that Mage classes (other than RDM) could somehow be productive throughout any reasonable event without needing to take advantage of Healing MP/Dark Staves/Clear Mind, I'd like to suggest you go back to FFXI, as there's an entire world of different experiences awaiting you (although maybe not now that the level cap isn't 75)

[ArnoMorley]

FYI, Tanaka was largely responsible for getting FF14 into the huge mess it was in in the first place. They shifted him over to FF11, where he could do less harm. And as for why take it so drastically in the casual direction - please explain to me how it makes any logical or ecological sense to make two games that fill the exact same niche in the market. FF14's chance to lure a larger market audience actually partially depends on it being significantly different from FF11. What's the point of marketing FF14 to people who are already enjoying FF11 and paying S-E every month for the privilege of playing it if it's going to be identical?

Because they already changed FFXI, they already turned IT into a more casual game too. There's NO going back to the old things we liked about it because they're gone. They nerfed the entire game and then implemented a brain dead alliance exp system. It doesn't satisfy their CoP/ToAU era customers who supported it at it's peak anymore. Making 14 too casual is satisfying the same "niche".

And it's OLD, maybe we want to play a game with graphics like 14?

In regard to FFXIV being a mess I would guarantee you that very little of it was Tanaka's doing, it was probably 80% SE's CEO Yoichi Wada. Force a release date and limit funding and things happen. 14 wasn't the only FF they botched, when it's multiple teams botching projects you have to look to who's in charge of those teams.

Can anybody honestly say they've enjoyed 14 as much as they did XI? Nobody's expecting a straight up clone, but asking for a few things that made XI great is not unreasonable.

[Darkillumina]

They won't lure a larger market. Those who play more casual mmo's like WoW, DCUO and TOR will stick with those games. This is where MMO devs fail to grasp the futility of trying to lure casuals over. The casuals will by and large stick with what they know. FFXI at its peak had a base of over 500000 which was/is nothing to scoff at. They are waiting for a reason to come back/play FFXIV. The devs should give this built in player base that instead of reaching for the unreliable. Again, there is a group of people who enjoyed launch FFXI but who are not playing FFXI due to the changes and are not playing FFXIV. Give them a reason and they will come back. Instead of offering a similar experience to the 9000 mmo's on the market they should work at creating something different for the people dissatisfied with the current offerings.

Your edit makes absolutely no sense. I never went in-depth about mp or reliance by a DRK on mp or anything even remotely resembling that. You must be hallucinating. For posterity's sake, GOOD DRKs were reliant on their mp. If you weren't stunning and absorbing the relative stats from a mob you were a terrible DRK.

Again, you seem to have an issue with class roles. This is unavoidable in any MMO. I offered ways to attempt to circumvent this but you have to realize when you pick a mage class that you are creating a certain role for yourself. This doesn't mean that mages are limited. Just as different damage dealers could potentially create new skill-chains and open up new battle possibilities different mage combinations should be able to do certain things. Opening up access of offensive skills to white mages for instance, could lead to different bursting opportunities while other mage classes could possess the ability to heal or do something different. One more time, roles are unavoidable, but a little creative thinking and implementation by the devs can go a long way in ensuring that people don't stick to cookie cutter party solutions while at the same time promoting class diversity, teamwork and class knowledge all while offering a challenging system for the players.

Alternatively you can run around half asleep, watching tv while shaving and level with little challenge. Hmmm....

Edit: Myself and others are offering valid solutions to various issues. Yes they may be flawed in certain respects but all you appear to be doing is putting down our ideas as archaic while offering nothing new.

[Rokien]

as I've said, there is only one FFXI, many WoWs.

[isomy]

I don't believe that exp losses or massive death penalties as you guys are advocating at all add any bit of difficulty to the game. It only serves to make the game much more of a grindfest. You're asking for increased difficulty and are instead asking to be forced to go back and grind on those lame 10+ link monsters you can already kill so easily, what for? How does that add to your immersion?

Monsters need better AI and abilities and stats that actually scale to our overpowered characters. Take for example the moogle fight, each moogle has it's own attributes and abilities that make each annoying in their own way and have to be dealt with in a way that reduces your risk of failure through eliminating more troublesome moogle first.

I believe parties of beastmen in strongholds or dungeons should be organized in a similar manner and use tactics like real players would use. For instance a mob taking too much damage could call or help and a GLA type mob can run in and and cover them, flash your group and hit sentinel. Or maybe your party runs in and tries to attack a THM type mob, but it decides to blizzara and bind everyone, run away and cast sleepga, while the other mobs run in and start killing you off one by one. Have CNJ mobs that actually heal the others.

Different kinds of beastman should have varying degrees of weakness and resistance towards different kinds of attacks and enfeebles. Like GLA's strong vs arrows and melee but weak to magic. PUGs highly evasive. Archers and mages weak to physical attacks but resistant to magic. Other melees maybe take on the middle ground. Which would make you want to balance your party more evenly instead of running everything with archer spam.

I think that if mobs could fight us on equal ground the game would be much more engaging.

[Arcell]

as I've said, there is only one FFXI, many WoWs.

One FFXI is enough, let's have an FFXIV for once. Also the game is already heading in its own direction, anyone wanting FFXI-2 with better graphics should really just move along at this point. The FFXI you all knew and loved is dead and FFXIV is not going in the same direction. Time to let FFXIV be FFXIV, not a successor to FFXI.

That being said, getting back on topic yes we do need more challenging content. Fights with normal enemies that last for more than a few seconds and can't just be AoE'd into oblivion. Jobs seem to at least discourage the Archer class stacking that's been so rampant and making content that much easier, however that issue is a monster of its own and nearly impossible to tackle for every single fight. We can't really ask for things that require positioning or dodging like Ifrit until 2.0 comes due to server issues and all that.

[charlemagne]

Many times on these forums I've seen people saying they don't want to see a return to the grind that was xi. I actually find the grind in this game to be more of a chore. The reason is that you really had to learn in xi. You had to know your role in a party, what others roles were and how yours interacted with them. Knowing which ws you could pull off with which of the other jobs, having to judge that hate threshold because getting it wrong really hurt, these things kept us actively involved and challenged.
Okay so this game was intended for more of a casual gamer, but being a final fantasy mmo means that it has attracted mostly former xi players. Pitch the game at the audience you have rather than the one you wanted but didnt get.

[AdvancedWind]

Good things to do:

Better enemy AI
Increased power for attacks that can be avoided by simply moving away (example: Raptor Breaths)
More enemies with different kind of moves (debuffers, healers, etc).
Increase difficulty in non obnoxious ways (IE, doubling enemy HP and calling it a day)

Bad things to do:

Forced parties to do any XP progress at all (IE: FFXI). This doesn't mean parties shouldn't make more XP than solo, this just means that a solo player shouldn't have to level up several times slower than a party.

Deleveling on death. IMO, they should increase the current durability loss when you reach higher levels to a point where 2-3 deaths would be enough to make an item go from 100% to 0.

Long cooldown timers on content, other than few, very specific battles (and counter that with higher drop chances.)

[Rokien]

One FFXI is enough, let's have an FFXIV for once. Also the game is already heading in its own direction, anyone wanting FFXI-2 with better graphics should really just move along at this point. The FFXI you all knew and loved is dead and FFXIV is not going in the same direction. Time to let FFXIV be FFXIV, not a successor to FFXI.

Hmmmmmm, you know, thousands and thousands of people wanted an ffxi-2, whats wrong with making this game more like ffxi? Why don't you complain about every other game coping WoW..... come on now. Also this game is being more like all the other games........ you should open your eyes a bit...