FFXIV is too simplistic and bland

[Daniolaut]

But it really doesnt have to be.

I also do not understand why wanting it to be more expansive and enjoyable would result in someone insulting a person for wanting otherwise.

Pointing out how its simple and bland, and offering just one example is what I think could be beneficial to stop this downward trend.

I know this is going to be received negatively, but I genuinely want XIV to consider making a more engaging experience. I will attempt to very expressly show how to achieve that without simply making it needlessly "time consuming" or "difficult."

I am astonished when people say FFXIV is the best Final Fantasy in years.

I have played every Final Fantasy title, and not even by a small margin, but by drastic measures, FFXIV is easily the most simplistic and basic Final Fantasy to date.

I will break down each part of it, and while some people will say "you cannot compare XIV to a single player" I will in fact utilize FFXI, which is also a MMO, and it also was created by the same company. So to make any trivial statements about "this isnt a single player" or other ridiculous arguments, I will show, by using facts from previous entries.

I want to enjoy this game, but the problem is they have continously homogenized each aspect, and continue to stay within the confines of repetitive "expansions." So much so, that it really has taken a toll on not only its quality of content, but now even the quantity.

Travel:
Traveling in FFXIV is more simplistic than even the first Final Fantasy, FFI.
XIV has walking, mounts, and what I call "black screen." What I mean here, is using the "airship" in XIV is not using a airship as it is in FFI. You buy your ticket and get a cutscene and thats it. Expounding on this, you dont even get a cutscene for a vast majority of interations. Going to the gold saucer on airship, there is no cutscene. Most all boats there is no cutscene. FFI was praised for its canoo, airship, boat, and its many forms of transportation. XIV has taken a step backwards, all the way before 1987, which is when this title was released. Sure they added swimming with 4.0, but that is not going to push it beyond the options and engaging aspects introduced in FFI.

I urge no one to try arguing "teleporting" is a form that pushes XIV past FFI, because level 5 black mages in FFI could teleport/warp to different parts of dungeons....

Questing:
This is the easiest to discuss. XIV quests, are all literally exactly the same quests from a level 1 quest to level 80 quests. There is little to no variation. Even FFII had key terms to give varrying dialog, and player choice. Its astonishing when people say FFXIII is so bad because of its linear nature. XIV is on harder straighter rails than XIII. XIII offers Cie'th stones, for varrying rewards and challenges. XIV provides no challenges in its quests, and the rewards are not varrying. I'll touch on more of this topic in other aspects such as dungeons, equipment and such. But at least in XIII you had choices, and had purpose to revisiting previous areas. XIV once you're done with a quest, thats it. There is nothing more to it. So it XIV struggles to combat XIII and FFII with its questing, I dare not pit it against FFXI....

Dungeons:
I just mentioned dungeons so I'll touch on this topic now. XIV is literally absolutely no less linear than XIII in its dungeons. From level 15 Sastasha, to level 80 Amaurot there is literally no variation. Absolutely every dungeon is a path with trash mobs, then to a boss, repeat x3. Some might try to argue thats what every dungeon is in any Final Fantasy, but that is the furthest from the truth. Even FFI had varying paths, with optional rewards. "But this is a MMO"... dont make me laugh. FFXI has some of the most expansive and engaging dungeons in the series. Not only do the mobs in FFXI have varying aggro methods such as noise, smell, blood (not being capped at full HP,) sight, just to name a few, but the treasure chests are RNG based, and the dungeons are all uniquely designed. Some requiring the player to light 4 candles to open the final boss door, to requiring to paint a picture with a paint brush obtained from a secret chamber and a secret box. LIke by far XIV's dungeons are the most straight and narrow and bland dungeons in the series. By far.

Equipment:
FFXIV's gear is absolutely braindead. You get the bigger number. Thats it. Its all item level. Sure there are small instances where you can take a sub stat weight thats "better" than a higher item level, but thats still just "a bigger number." I can pick about just any Final Fantasy in recent years, and there are entirely different boss' requiring varying gear sets. Certain fights players will want high speed, others where you want high defense, I could literally go into grave detail about any other Final Fantasy's customization and gear sets for numerous fights. They all require you to use your brain, and think things through. XIV, its just your item level. Nothing else really matters. Dont even try to argue "well in such and such Final Fantasy I can defeat mobs by pressing just X." Well cause guess what, in FFXIV you can defeat mobs at a higher level than your character, refuse to move (as in take extra damage from the mobs "AoE" indicated attacks" and never once press a weaponskill/spell (GCD) and ... defeat the mob. So XIV takes the cake, where you can literally press nothing except the initial engagement to "start" auto attacks and defeat enemies by entering no commands. Which that brings us into our next topic.

Battle:
FFXIV's battles are all ... every last one of them, are scripted. No i'm not going to count subsequent ultimates. Even older Final Fantasy games, the boss' attacks are randomized. XIV's are all cut dry, straight out of the safe and simple script box. XIV did finally start making fights like Chaos, in the Omega raids, have parts of the scrips randomized, but that is them ... at level 70, only finally starting to take pages from the very first Final Fantasy. Isnt FFXIV supposed to be newer, more advanced, and more engaging, than a 30+ year old single player game?

Zone design:
Here is where we start getting into the "FFXIV 1.0 was so bad" argument. I think they went a little overboard though. Outside of 2.0 zones, so 3.0+ the zones are all quite bland. What I mean here, is they are not engaging, or unique. They are all just about a giant square, and you go from point A to point B, in a straight line. Especially with flying, you literally go in a straight line. Lets take a look at Il Mheg. There are only a few hills, a partial lake, and 2 caves, all of which are pushed to the edges of the giant square. There is a castle in the middle, but its not interactive at all. Other than that, there is just 1 entry area. One entry area. Just let that soak in. No I'm not going to include the instanced beast tribe pixie area either. (Lyhe Mheg.) I'm talking about the cabin just south of Good Jenanna's Grace. There is no reason to ever re-enter a zone outside of Hunts, maps,gathering and FATE grinding either. There are no special mobs that spawn (A rank hunts are time based) no unique events, nothing engaging or unique. This is how all the zones are designed too. Giant squares, with any semblance of a "unique" area pushed to the edge of the giant square. Quite possibly the most unique zone of all zones after 2.0, would be the Lochs. It has a sort of "mini" dungeon, if you can even pretend to call it that, on the North West end, a sort of town, on the South East end, a pretty neat cave area on the South West end, and a huge lake in the middle that you can dive into. If only all zones were this filled with even mildly interactive areas. I might not had to have created this section if that were the case. But its not, the other zones are simple and bland in regards to engagement.

Monsters:
Just like any other "safe and simple" route XIV has taken with XIV as whole, monsters are no different. Every mob outside of boss' react exactly the same. They auto attack and occassionally drop an indicated attack. Thats it. They die fast, arent difficult in the greatest stretches of the imagination, and yield pitiful rewards. (We already discussed boss' they are all fully scripted.)

Job Design:
Here is where things actually just barely slightly deviate from the "Safe and simple" choices XIV has to offer. With that being said, with each new expansion the jobs are becoming more and more homogenized. Right now there is no reason to play any other job from another. The only reason you play the job you play is because its the most fun to you, but in reality the job itself serves no function execpt to do damage. This goes for healers too, and the community argues at how boring healer classes are to play because of their simple "damage rotation" design. Literally every job's function now, is to just do damage. Tanks have now many mitigation actions? Not enough to warrant any real engagement. As with the boss' all being scripted you push the same buttons at the same times when it comes to healing and tanking. The only redeeming factor in job design, is they are midly different from each other in their execution of damage. Ninja has its ninjistu, Dark Knights juggle their MP, Dark Side, and timing of their attacks with buffs, and how each job varies in potencies and flow. When you pit this kind of uniqueness against say FFIII or even overwhelmingly FFXI.... its not even really worth mentioning. FFIII and FFXI jobs do far more than their "rotations" and "deal damage" they each serve unique and purposeful functions in battle. Sure you can try to argue how XI was so hard to balance each job, and how some jobs were completely shunned, but that would all be opinion and "optimization" which when you start to consider XIV, the same holds true, its just much more magnified. Instead of one job being completely useless in a fight, you have "MNK is not part of the meta" arguement. Or whatever job at the time. XIV is narrowing down on "deleting the meta" but with each step they take to accomplishing that, they dismantle the purpose or role of each job, and push closer and closer to homogenization.

I can continue to slightly touch on each topic, but I want to really point out why I'm dissatisfied with XIV in a clear picture. I will continue to play it off and on, as its the cheapest in the series to play, so its "value" is high, due to its amount of content vs price tag, and the crafting system, but I really am disappointed with it, and there is no way in its current state, and trajectory path, would I consider it even among the upper half of "good" Final Fantasy games. Which they are all, in my opinion very good games, but in terms of what I consider when I think of "Final Fantasy" quality, XIV hangs at the bottom.

So instead of touching on every detail, including how not even the User Interface is customizable, to meet even the standards of a typical Final Fantasy entry, but not a single thing casts even a match's worth of light in the shadow of another entry to the series for me.

I will directly compare one aspect of FFXI and FFXIV.

This should hopefully drive home the point I'm making, as from when 2.0 was released and the steps they continue to take to reduce the game and with each expansion water it down more and more.

The most iconic feature of a Final Fantasy is a chocobo.

In FFXIV for raising chocobo's you just "get" one in the gold saucer. You get a piece of paper, a retirment form or card, (wow you actually had to do something to get something in 2.0) you take it to the chocobo stables (wow in 2.0 they still gave reasons to go to places) in central shroud. You talk to the chocobo handler (wow interactive dialog, even if only some) then the screen goes black (nope, not very interactive still) and you wait .. I cant remember, 1 hour? (so one in game day? wow, it actually is almost kind of interactive) then the chocobo is born, and ready to ride. (Ehhh not so interactive afterall.)

Thats it. You then take it back to the Gold Saucer, register it, and feed it to sklll up and such.

So overall, the chocobo raising in FFXIV is pretty basic, but not so basic that you just click a button and boom its a chocobo. Which is the route they have been taking since 3.0. The game is not interactive, its not engaging, this is not difficult to wait 1 hour to start racing your chocobo again. Its not even a long wait.

They could easily add a small cutscene of the egg hatching, then they could add features where you can visit the chocobo daily to increase its moral or something to make it more interactive. Something so simple can make it feel so much more "real" and engaging, and this does not make it time consuming just for the sake of time consuming, nor does it make it difficult.

The biggest probelm here, is the only reward for any of this effort, is MGP, and MGP in itself is mostly meaningless. To correct this, they could add features such as adding stat boosts for reward from MGP. Like STR +1 or DEX +1. This is not going to break balance, but will give incentives to players to play the game more, and to be more engaging and fun.

So now for FFXI.

Of course anyone will say FFXI's chocobo raising is far too demanding, and I wouldnt disagree. There is a balance that needs to be had when it comes to MMO's but this is why I'll only touch on the parts that stand out, without being a burden.

In FFXI, you can choose to interact with your chocobo every day, or choose not to. Obviously choosing not to, you can still get your mount, but your chocobo will be worthless when it comes to all the bonus' reaped from a stalwart chocobo. When you interact with your chocobo, there is a small cutscene for each interaction. You can take it on a walk, and it gives you free stuff, when you return from the walk. You can feed it, and there is a small cutscene of it eating. You can care for it, which varies based on the chocobo's age. Such as the egg, baby chick, adolescent, adult.

Some of the features, such as a mounts being locked behind such an expansive feature is not something I recommend. Even Square-Enix has corrected this with the "Raptor" mount quest. But simple things like a quick cutscene of the egg, and caring for it, and feeding it, and the varying foods, and buffs and bonus' are all great, and not overly cumbersome. Making the player wait 29+ days to fully reap the rewards is a big ask, but such a thing can still be utilized in XIV without the extensive nature.

For example, as I mentioned above. Finding a balance.
Do a quest. Get an egg. Wait 1 hour, for the egg to hatch. In that 1 hour, the player can choose to "care" for the egg or not. 1 hour for each stage of the chocobo's life. Then you proceed back to the gold saucer as normal. With cutscens for "caring" for the chocobo "feeding" it, and other small interactions. The rewards could be purchased buffs (not a scroll to take up inventory space.) For example, like sanction, which I'm sure almost none of you even know about. When you go to the Grand Company there is a NPC there that grants you sanction, which correlates to Grand Company gear. So I dont want to hear any gibberish about "this is too difficult to implement." I'm so sick of these types of arguments, when FFXI is far more advanced than XIV in regards to these types of things. Anyway, going to the Gold Saucer a player can add "Resilience" or whatever the buff you would like to call it. It could say grant +10 Crit hit, or +1 STR as some examples.


So in closing FFXIV really has the potential to be better and more advanced than FFXI, but it simply chooses not to, for whatever reason. The most disappointing fact about all this, is FFXIV doesnt meet the quality or standards of a MMO that is 11 years older than it, but it also fails to deliver in terms of quantity too....


FFXI vs FFXIV quantity.

Boss'
(For Boss, I dont count each "version" of a battle in FFXI, but I do count each boss of a dungeon as a "boss" for FFXIV. I do exclude "hard" and "Extreme" versions of a boss for XIV.)

FFXI
(This is every BCNM, Voidwatch, Unity, and Hightier. This does *not* include Ambuscade or any other enemies such as NM's, or bosses from Skirmish, Delve, Dynamis etc.)
290

FFXIV
171
(This *does* include raids, ultimates, dungeons, trials.)

These numbers *do not* include repeats. Such as "hard/extremes/savage" for XIV, but also do not include all versions of "tiers" in FFXI. If I were to include all tiers of XI and extremes and such for XIV, XI would absolutely blow XIV out of the water like no other.

Zones:

FFXI:
43
(This count is *****only**** the original FFXI zones, and Zilart zones. This *does not* include dungeons zones. So this is excluding literally every expansion for FFXI after the first one. No Chains of Promathia zones, no Wings of the Goddess, no Adoulin, you get the picture.)

FFXI ("all")
63
(Excluding dungeons and not counting each sub zone such as "Southern San'doria".)

FFXIV:
38
(This ******does include****** every FFXIV expansion, and all areas. This does not include dungeons or any other areas.)

FFXIV: ("additional")
54
(This is going off the typical expansion count for "new" zones, of 8 new zones per expansion at 2 more expansions.)

If I were to include every expansion for FFXI and even decided to split and count every zone as an individual such as "Bastok" now being "Bastok Mines" and not combining some of the smaller FFXIV zones such as Middle La Noscea and Outer La Noscea" FFXI again, would absolutely blow FFXIV out of the water so hard and fast it would be utterly ridiculous.

So in this comparison, FFXIV only "barely" reaches the zone count of FFXI when FFXIV has all expansions (2 more after 5.0) and FFXI is reduced down to only its first expansion.

I really dont grasp why FFXIV gets so much praise, as so far to say its one of the greatest, if not the greatest "Final Fantasy" of all time, when reality and facts say completely the opposite.

To me Final Fantasy XIV, is by far the most simple, the most small, and the most basic in the Final Fantasy franchise, that I would argue it is more of a spin off smaller branch game for a alternate universe for FFXI. But that would be tying it to FFXI, and FFXI is by far much more advanced and engaging, and glorious than FFXIV.


Edit:
Oh and I know someone is going to say "then go play XI"... I do. I play both lol. I just want XIV to step its game up.