Thread: 7.0 MMO to a Single Player Game

Originally Posted by Ath192

It does hurt everyone. I’ll use an argument that has been used against me plenty here when I suggest a feature. That the development time could be better used elsewhere.

They’ve invested heavily into making it a good solo experience, imagine all the other things they could’ve done for the multiplayer experience if all this wasn’t going on in the background.

At the end of the day XI started getting these crutches towards the end of its peak and so I hope they’re planning on the next FF MMO as XVII. The changes would make a lot of sense if they are planning on transferring a huge chunk of the population to their next title. As it happened with XI.

It might also be that they've decided that they want to leave FF as a single player franchise going forward and so they're trying to get current players used to a single player experience.

Let's face it: MMOs come with a set of problems that single player games don't face, with one of the big ones being the interactions within the player community and the frequent requests for changes to content style "because other MMOs do it this way". There's greater pressure to appeal to a wider audience to keep a steady stream of players online for the sake of the multi-player experience even if other players are sometimes just seen as background noise while someone plays alone. They may have decided internally it's just not worth it anymore.

Personally, I'm not certain how I feel about the announced plans for the game. It's their IP and their right to make the creative decisions they want for the game but I'm taking a wait and see approach. As long as I continue to have fun playing, I'll be here. If too much of the social aspect ends up feeling lost in the middle of the solo focus, I may not stick around. I've never played other FF games so I'm not carrying any emotional baggage that chains me to the game just because it's a FF title.

Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Again, I'll never understand the hyperbole here. We have yet to see anything change or really effect the core of the game. I'd be on board with this if they were talking about adding trusts to things like Exploration Zones, Extremes, Savage etc. But this has not been the case. The solo peeps having their own little space doesn't hurt any of us. If they wanna run dungeons solo so be it. Let them. It's slower so they're choosing to spend more of their own time on it. That hurts no one.
If so many people are against solo having a space then that tells me there's that same amount who will still be here for group content.

The gatekeeping is mad weird.

It's statistically impossible to make a game that appeals to everybody. Yet CBU3 has shown to continue with the pursuit of futility. Essentially the only thing they've really succeeded in doing is dumbing down this game along with FF16 to the point it requires a dozen or less functioning braincells to progress in it. You could argue that is well and fine for the offline singleplayer title FF16 except they basically forced everyone to play the game on preschooler mode just to access a somewhat normal difficulty setting on a second playthrough instead of letting us play it that way right out of the box. In terms of this game the issue is that these people progress the game and MSQ while not learning anything about how to play the game or do mechanics then jump into EX/Savage content and drag everyone else down diminishing the experience for those that did learn the game as they're just dead weight hoping to leech rewards because they want all the shiny stuff handed to them while refusing to make any effort to earn it. The frequency of this happening increased when easy mode was added to solo MSQ instances. The only reason the addition of duty support really didn't impact this is because those people were already using others to carry them through the 4 player and story mode trials before it was added. They're now taking it further and homogenizing older duties that had unique layouts or zone mechanics that made them stand out from every new duty they've added over more recent years.

Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

It's statistically impossible to make a game that appeals to everybody. Yet CBU3 has shown to continue with the pursuit of futility. Essentially the only thing they've really succeeded in doing is dumbing down this game along with FF16 to the point it requires a dozen or less functioning braincells to progress in it. You could argue that is well and fine for the offline singleplayer title FF16 except they basically forced everyone to play the game on preschooler mode just to access a somewhat normal difficulty setting on a second playthrough instead of letting us play it that way right out of the box. In terms of this game the issue is that these people progress the game and MSQ while not learning anything about how to play the game or do mechanics then jump into EX/Savage content and drag everyone else down diminishing the experience for those that did learn the game as they're just dead weight hoping to leech rewards because they want all the shiny stuff handed to them while refusing to make any effort to earn it. The frequency of this happening increased when easy mode was added to solo MSQ instances. The only reason the addition of duty support really didn't impact this is because those people were already using others to carry them through the 4 player and story mode trials before it was added. They're now taking it further and homogenizing older duties that had unique layouts or zone mechanics that made them stand out from every new duty they've added over more recent years.

If anything, its harder with NPCs than it is with players, because everything relies on you to take initiative and nobody can explain things to you, so you have to figure it out or fail. Also, reworked all dungeons of past have been not dumbed down, but actually turned into something that teaches players mechanics. They actually use markers that appear in later fights consistently now, making sure people have opportunity to learn what they do early on, which is a great change. It's the very fact that those older duties relied on 'unique' mechanics that made actual learning curve so steep, because all that early content did nothing to prepare players for mechanical aspect of later content. Its still not perfect and you still sometimes see players running away with stack marker in some lvl 50/60 duties, but generally, I've found all the early revamped story dungeons to be much better at demonstrating specific mechanics in non-overwhelming way by having one or two per major bossfight. Isn't that what people always asked for, early content that actually prepares people for later, more involved and difficult content? And now its terrible because its 'homogenized' in attempt to implement consistent mechanics?

If they are going to continue to adjust trusts to do more content then my only request would be to let us do a mix of players and trusts. Let me take 2 trusts and a friend, or let my 3 many party fill that last spot with an NPC if we want.

After XVI I kinda lost hope that 7.0 will revert anything back. XIV removes the MMO aspect and XVI removed the RPG aspect. Both are very stale to me at this point once the MSQ is over. CB3 outdid themselves to make me loose interest in an IP I've been following for decades at this point. Well done? lol

My guess is once they finish the dungeons with Trusts they are going to go back and make all the MSQ trials trust compatible as well. Then in 8.0 they will tackle the crystal tower raids to be trust compatible and in 9.0 they will go back and do all the side quest dungeons and trials. Then in 10.0 they will just give us open world companions for boss fates and hunts.

They've hurt older dungeons already. Things are different purely because duty support NPCs were unable to execute certain mechanics, or perhaps the devs decided they'd be too demanding for a solo new player to figure out alone, like throwing the switch on Keeper of the Lake's old endboss.

Regardless of whether we agree that certain encounters are thus improved or worsened, they are now different for this reason.

Where CBU3 could have implemented altered duty support versions of these duties for their NPCs, they elected instead to make the change for everyone, solo players and group players alike.

This design will affect all of the game's encounters going forward, and likely already has given it's been around since 5.0.

Originally Posted by Post

They've hurt older dungeons already. Things are different purely because duty support NPCs were unable to execute certain mechanics, or perhaps the devs decided they'd be too demanding for a solo new player to figure out alone, like throwing the switch on Keeper of the Lake's old endboss.

This is why I'm not a fan of making trusts for older content. Otherwise I'd be indifferent to it, but changing the old content exclusively because poorly coded AI can't handle it is something I'm not on board with.