XVI and XIV implications

[Jeeqbit]

Some of what we see in XVI makes you wonder why we can't get it in XIV. For example, solo hunts that... aren't a complete striking dummy. Combat without telegraphs in normal content. Perhaps even the combat itself. Universal voice acting (granted, they had 7 years to work on this whereas there's only 4 months for XIV). The graphics, which I know they want to scale down to PS4 for FFXIV, but still.

But a lot of things in XVI design are in the same style as XIV actually. The sidequests are pretty similar in design (some may disagree, but as someone that does the sidequests, they tell you about the life of the people in the area and how they are affected by MSQ events in XIV as well). The zones are, well, zones that have loading screens like in XIV. There are scenarios that the main story takes you into that are similar to dungeons in XIV and then there are boss battles that you can do a bit later, similar to trials in XIV. You teleport back and forth between areas and return to a home area regularly like in XIV instead of being forced to travel back and forth on foot.

Did XVI benefit XIV at all already? Yes. We see people biting apples in XVI and that technology was obviously brought over to XIV where we see the scions eating burgers and things. Also possibly the UI changes that XIV previously had such as quest display settings. Probably other things but I haven't thought about them yet.

[RitsukoSonoda]

I actually had the opposite opinion. I thought CBU3 was better at making MMOs than single player games. Not saying FFXIV is great, but between the two I would rather play FFXIV than FFXVI. Considering 16 has a lot of elements from FFXIV, it reinforced my opinion that it doesn't work for a single player game. Linear dungeons was one thing for an MMO, but for a single player too? That draws a line for me.

IMO FF16 has given me the opinion that CBU3 is better suited to making games that aren't RPGs as both this title and 16 are missing nearly everything expected of a title in the RPG genre. At the same time it could also mean that CBU3 isn't making the games they want to and instead are making the games that financial investors that have never played a game in their life say will make the most immediate profit.

[Jeeqbit]

IMO FF16 has given me the opinion that CBU3 is better suited to making games that aren't RPGs as both this title and 16 are missing nearly everything expected of a title in the RPG genre. At the same time it could also mean that CBU3 isn't making the games they want to and instead are making the games that financial investors that have never played a game in their life say will make the most immediate profit.

I think they are just using their experience of what people complain about. For example, people complained about having to travel everywhere on foot in FFXIV 1.0, so all the way in XVI they seem to have kept this lesson in their hearts and allowed you to teleport everywhere, taking away from the standard RPG experience of having to journey around on foot.

[RitsukoSonoda]

I think they are just using their experience of what people complain about. For example, people complained about having to travel everywhere on foot in FFXIV 1.0, so all the way in XVI they seem to have kept this lesson in their hearts and allowed you to teleport everywhere, taking away from the standard RPG experience of having to journey around on foot.

Abundance of fast travel points IMO is one of those things claimed to be a QoL improvement that really was just an appeasement for lazy gamers that chose to spend more time whining about it than just playing the actual game. It also essentially invalidates the effort in crafting the world since they're also making it so people don't see 90% of it because they're just bamf'ing all over the place like they're Nightcrawler. Having randomly interactable NPCs has also become pointless because they auto mark every quest NPC on the map for you even if you haven't gotten to that area to reveal the map yet and then auto mark every quest destination for you removing any need to actually pay attention to quest dialogue or details.

However it goes far beyond that to large amounts of literal game mechanics being removed like element factors, physical vs magical resistance, status effects, buffs/debuffs, equipment diversity and options, etc... For FF14 it's basically devolved to make numbers bigger while playing DDR with your fingers and pressing skill keys in a specific order. For FF16 it's essentially timing dodge key presses while hitting attack buttons when not dodging. What abilities you use don't matter mechanically because everything has the same effect on anything so it just boils down to which ones you like using.

[R041]

At what point do we use the guise of QoL to get rid of all game mechanics?

[Shinkuno]

At what point do we use the guise of QoL to get rid of all game mechanics?

Autoplay already existed in older F2P mmos and in mobile games nowadays.

[thevanguard]

It's weird to say, but I would almost prefer the smaller chunked XVI type maps over what we have in XIV now. It's clear they know how to make a visually stunning game with great mid-sized areas. Give me more of that in XIV.

XVI gutted a lot of what we expect from FF games in general, and that alone scares me for both future FF games, and XIV. It did introduce some sick boss fights, so if we ever keep anything from CBU:III I want it to be some form of boss DDR combat.

If you ignore that those mid-sized areas are vast stretches of void devoid of activity interspersed with small towns that you can explore in half a minute, sure.

None of the big cities are explorable just like in FF13, which started the trend of the franchise locking you out of cities to save time making assets.

As for those boss fights, it's probably a matter of taste but while the underlying base combat can be fun the boss fights are all spectacle and none of them give you a feeling of mastery unlike in Souls/Sekiro or the GoW Valkyries/berserkers, where by the time you win you truly feel like you earned it.

If this is the best CBU3 can do I'd rather they pivot to making TV shows.

[NanaWiloh]

FFXIV with FFXVI graphics would be a dream for many players. I know we already can't expect that, like you said, but to have FFXIV's graphics meet XVI's graphics even halfway would be a huge improvement. This is one of the updates that I'm looking forward to the most for 7.0.



I really hope not. Hopefully someone at CBU III eventually starts listening to player feedback.

It will continue to be a dream for the distant future. FF16 level graphics are not mmo friendly and would work against it more then for it. MMO seek to be accessible to as many players as possible. Graphics like FF16 would restrict how many can actually play the game. One of FF16s cut scenes in graphics mode has reported caused ps5s to overheat. Just think what a hunt with 50 players and FF16 level graphics would do..

[thevanguard]

Interesting xD. Yeah I can see where you are coming from, since my focus was on what's happening next on the story I never really paid attention to the linear surroundings as much as I do when I play an MMO. I feel FFXVI could have easily been a 10/10 game if they adopted an open world design, Witcher 3 levels of side quests and world depth and a decent gearing/attribute system instead of full on auto pilot. Really those were the elements that I missed the most. The rest was great to me.

I can only imagine they didn't do that because of the testing and Q&A + balancing work it would entail, which I don't blame them but.... You're not going to get 10/10 if you are not going to go the extra mile.

I seriously doubt they can pull a Witcher 3 type game off.

But FF16 is horribly balanced anyways. FF mode is about as easy as normal mode and exploration gives you crap that you aren't going to use and the only reason why finding treasure chests would even be worth it is for gil bugs and gil to complete the orchestrion roll (though even that seems pointless when quests just shower you in gil).

Also there's a reason people say Benedikta is a hard fight (it really isn't because you can just ungabunga and R1 your way out of everything) and it's because you only have one eikon at that time.

The moment you have three, you have enough CC that normal enemies even the minibosses are completely irrelevant. You are able to pretty much cycle primal attacks non-stop (saving them for stagger phase is a huge DPS loss btw) and just eat some damage to keep uptime because the boss will die sooner than it can deplete more than a single hi-potion. And once you get Titan it's gg really, just counter and keep uptime. It's really ridiculous and idk who made this system.

[thevanguard]

Autoplay already existed in older F2P mmos and in mobile games nowadays.

Might as well make FF14 and FF16 autoplay so I can eat dinner while watching the character run to point X for 20 seconds and watch another 8-minute cutscene or some shit