Quote Originally Posted by Halivel View Post
FF14 always was "1-2h per day" game, though. Since 2.16 when I startet to play till today. And most likely will be like this until its last day.

It's not only about mainstream. There was an interview and I will find it, but for now will just exlpain Yoshida's statements in my own words: yes, MMO demands time. But biggest part of community has not this time anymore. Very same players who in 2000 came home from school and just played, now have work, families, friends with whom they go drink sake in izakaya, etc etc etc. The amount of time that players can spend in games without moving is much less than it was 10 years ago. Because the main auditory is mostly the same as 10 years ago and it gets older and has less time to play in comparison to students. (Especially when we talk about Japanese players, who work much more than average European or American. And even if they are not the biggest part of playerbase, they are homemarket and set main course for the game.)

Position "if you don't have time - don't play" will just kill the game online in the result.



See nothing negative in these changes. Button bloat would be insane already in 4.0 without removing old skills from 2.0 and 3.0 and it would be another hot topic for hassles right here on OF with every-day thread "why so many skills". And if jobs do not change - playerbase, again, will start whine "why nothing new in playstyle!?" In fact, players just always will find something to be mad about, and it doesn't matter if you did something or if you didn't do something.
Remember the days where publishers used to state that 200k active player base was enough to maintain a mmorpg?.. Yeah the good old days, now if its not 3mil+ its a failure and should be shut down... Ugh.. lets not get there, a whole different topic.

As for button bloat, there are other ways to address this issue. For example a combo-system/skill evolution system, similar to warrior skills. You activate infuriate and your fell cleave gets transformed into a inner chaos. Both staying on the same slot position on your hot bars, not needing additional one or the devs could make more use of the combo-system which we have in pvp, maybe with some slight changes to it too..