Game Design Concepts that the Devs and Playerbase has Forgotten

[KisaiTenshi]

Someone seems to have forgotten though that the Final Fantasy series is famed for story more than gameplay (and that this is a Final Fantasy game first and foremost.).

This.

People are playing this game because it is firstly a "Final Fantasy" game with "Final Fantasy" names attached to it. If this game was "Generic MMORPG with Lore I do not care about, and characters gated behind gacha mechanics" people would not be pulled into it.

Like it's amazing that people are complaining that FFXIV is a Final Fantasy game. If you want to skip everything and play a gacha, play "FF7 Ever Crisis", the story is nerfed, you can pick whatever characters you want to do the story with, and you aren't compelled to play it in order.

If you cut the entire story from FFXIV, then the rest of the game is just a generic grindfest and you can get that from all the the hands-on-your-wallet F2P MMO games.

People who come from WoW, either are amazed there is a story at all, or decry having to do the story just to play with their friends/RP. For the latter there are skips. Thank you for buying the game twice, your impatience fuels future development on content you're going to skip too.

The point I'm making here is that if this was not a "Final Fantasy" to begin with, you need look at all the other trashfires Square-Enix has put out in the mobile space that has had poor uptake and they shutdown almost immediately. See what happened with Chocobo Racing GP, they basically gave it 9 months. Most of the people who heard about it's shutdown didn't even know it existed! And those that did saw it for being an evil monetization game and spent their time somewhere else. Remember what happened with version 1.0 of FFXIV? Square-Enix has a VERY VERY poor track record on listening to global feedback. What works in Japan (mobile-centric gacha games) does not work outside of east asia because the commuter culture is different. If you want a game to do well in the West, it has to have a PC port. A mobile-only game will fail unless it only has a 90 second gameplay loop.


The most important rule for getting people to play a game, is making it accessible (regardless of skill level) enough so that players and their friends can play it together. Regardless if you gate the content behind gacha, 300 hours of cutscenes, or a 79.99 price tag, that still means some players AND their friends are going to skip playing the game and play something that doesn't have the "fun" part gated.

Smash Bros, Mario Party and Mario Kart are the most successful "party" and "multiplayer" games entirely because you only NEED the game. You do not need a subscription, gacha for characters, or have to sit through hours of cutscenes to start playing with your friends. You only need to own the game and the very-expensive console. A more successful game would need to eliminate the console and initial game cost. So go look at the PC, there's a handful of free games that clone the basic way Smash Bros, Mario Party and Mario Kart work, but they don't have the traction those games have because the gate the content behind gacha or grind. If you want to play with a friend, well you have three characters in the "free" mode that rotate every day. Good luck learning how to play the game when you keep changing the rules. That problem exists in Dissida NT, and exists in a handful of other "free" fighting games.

Meanwhile Nintendo tried all these mobile phone games, just like Square did, and also failed. Not because they made "mobile phone" games, but because they didn't put the games on the PC. Nintendo must hate money so much that they never want Mario Kart on the PC. Square-Enix likewise failed to do so.

FFXIV is Square-Enix's only "successful" multiplayer game, and had it not been a "numbered" FF game, they would have killed it back in 2010 after a few months too. That is the only, single reason, why this game still exists. The company was embarrassed that it put it's big brand marquee on a game that was incomplete and performed poorly.

People want this to be a Final Fantasy game. Not a copy-paste of another game reskinned with FF characters.

[Malthir]

This.
People are playing this game because it is firstly a "Final Fantasy" game with "Final Fantasy" names attached to it. If this game was "Generic MMORPG with Lore I do not care about, and characters gated behind gacha mechanics" people would not be pulled into it.
The point I'm making here is that if this was not a "Final Fantasy" to begin with, you need look at all the other trashfires Square-Enix has put out in the mobile space that has had poor uptake and they shutdown almost immediately. See what happened with Chocobo Racing GP, they basically gave it 9 months. Most of the people who heard about it's shutdown didn't even know it existed! And those that did saw it for being an evil monetization game and spent their time somewhere else.

FFXIV is Square-Enix's only "successful" multiplayer game, and had it not been a "numbered" FF game, they would have killed it back in 2010 after a few months too. That is the only, single reason, why this game still exists. The company was embarrassed that it put it's big brand marquee on a game that was incomplete and performed poorly.

People want this to be a Final Fantasy game. Not a copy-paste of another game reskinned with FF characters.

Here's an example of where you're wrong.

in FF8 you beat the boss at the top of the satellite dish, the player is then chased through the town by a giant spider bot, you as the player are running from this thing, getting in fights trying to escape, you feel connected, there are 2 cutscenes, one when the player moves from one screen to the next the bot has a 4s cutscene smashing a car as it run, then another roughly 10s cutscene at the end when you jump onto your ship to get away. this is excellent use of cutscenes to heighten the story but leaving the bulk of the actions to the players.

If this was done by theses writers, there would be no gameplay section, you would leave the satellite tower, and the a cutscene of you running through the town would play and then end with you getting on the boat, then while on the boat you would have 6 different 1m cutscenes where the character would speak about the escape 6 times to each character talking about the exact same plot points that have just been covered; Without the gameplay there's not really a game, you're watching a movie with extra steps, and it's a rather boring story where everyone stands still and monologues.

That's the difference. While FF was always a story heavy game, you had alot of gameplay to break up the story beats, individual dialogue ingame cutscenes were rarely longer than 1m broken up heavily by more gameplay.

[KisaiTenshi]

If Square Enix made a "FF17" and was just a reskin of Genshin Impact, people would rightfully decry the greed. Sure, it might have a cool story, but because all the characters are locked behind gacha, and you can't progress without certain element-aligned characters you can only get from gacha, and can only upgrade characters with gacha-supplied trash loot, that's not how final fantasy works.

So compare the WoW players who hate story coming here demanding less story, to players coming from gacha-hell games asking why they can't just pay-to-win every piece of gear in the game without actually doing the fights they are rewarded from. You have two opposing gameplay styles. One only wants to do the "Gameplay" and the end goal is fashion, and the other's end goal is fashion and is somehow happy that gameplay is gated off without spending money.

I feel that "Final Fantasy" as it is now, has the right balance, TO Final Fantasy players. We can't have exactly the experience from FF7-X2 because pre-rendered content can only be used once. There is no pre-rendered content in the game other than the opening video. Everything is done in-engine (to various degrees of success.) A newer game than 14 (Eg 15 and 16) may improve the engine, but these games can not repeat VII's success. And to bean counters and business managers, if the "newest" thing doesn't do better than the previous one, then they see it as a failure when it should not be.

[Magikazam]

If Square Enix made a "FF17" and was just a reskin of Genshin Impact, people would rightfully decry the greed. Sure, it might have a cool story, but because all the characters are locked behind gacha, and you can't progress without certain element-aligned characters you can only get from gacha, and can only upgrade characters with gacha-supplied trash loot, that's not how final fantasy works.

Nah people would buy it and play it all the time, Gacha game are one of the most popular and profitable type of game currently. People don't care if there a predatory greedy system to roll for character as long as the game is good. Also as someone who don't love gacha that much. Ive still played a few never seen one that litteraly block you in the story or main content if you lack certain element aligned characters. As much as I hate Genshin, I can't critic their puzzle since they are doable with your MC and free characters, and you know, doing those puzzle is a f2p way to roll the gacha.

So compare the WoW players who hate story coming here demanding less story, to players coming from gacha-hell games asking why they can't just pay-to-win every piece of gear in the game without actually doing the fights they are rewarded from. You have two opposing gameplay styles. One only wants to do the "Gameplay" and the end goal is fashion, and the other's end goal is fashion and is somehow happy that gameplay is gated off without spending money.

Nice Strawman and nice way to say you never played both of those game. WoW player don't hate story, they just love the fact that game don't force them to go trought the whole story to unlock every contents of the game, They prefer having the option to ignore the story if they choose so, whitout paying real life money. I also quite litteraly never seen anyone ask seriously for a way to p2w and get every piece of gear in the game.

A newer game than 14 (Eg 15 and 16) may improve the engine, but these games can not repeat VII's success.

Final Fantasy 10 sold more than 7.

[KisaiTenshi]

Nah people would buy it and play it all the time, Gacha game are one of the most popular and profitable type of game currently. People don't care if there a predatory greedy system to roll for character as long as the game is good.
...
Final Fantasy 10 sold more than 7.

The forum ate have the message and I just didn't bother rewriting it. Every time people say they come from WoW, here, they say they don't want to do the story. They just want to get to the endgame immedately, P2W. The other side of this is Gacha oriented games like Genshin Impact where you can access the story, but it's gated by P2W gacha mechanics. You can not finish a gacha game unless you either get lucky in the "Free" gacha rolls, or you are impatient and drop thousands of dollars on 0.2% gacha drops. If you like that stuff, fine. But that IS NOT a Final Fantasy game, and asking for that stuff here just makes the asker look like a fool at worst.

Final Fantasy X sales include X and X2. FF7 is 14m alone, FF16 alone is 10m

https://www.jp.square-enix.com/compa...6c8715511.html

In 2003, "FINAL FANTASY X-2," the first story sequel in the FF series, was released, and the two games together have shipped more than 14 million copies worldwide.

Gacha games you can't play after the publisher decides to shut it down. Which is why you should never play them. Don't get invested in it.

[Magikazam]

Every time people say they come from WoW, here, they say they don't want to do the story.

I came from WoW when I started playing back in ARR and I wanted to do the story. I still think it bad to force it down people throat since it not something everyone want. Locking contents behind the story also make it harder to play with friends who are just starting. People can already skip most cutscenes while doing the story anyway so it just feel weird that you can't just...skip the whole thing whitout paying yknow.

They just want to get to the endgame immedately

Some people like trials and raids. Sadly while not impossible, it kinda rare finding people who want to do prog or bling prog on old contents. This create a situation that even if you, let say, like the story but want to do endgames encounter, you need to go trough 10 years of story b4 getting access to the most populated endgame contents. Remember, that hundreds of hours of story just to get the right of unlocking the things.

The other side of this is Gacha oriented games like Genshin Impact where you can access the story, but it's gated by P2W gacha mechanics. You can not finish a gacha game unless you either get lucky in the "Free" gacha rolls, or you are impatient and drop thousands of dollars on 0.2% gacha drops.

That depend on the games. The only gacha I play, limbus company, can be completed whitout even rolling in the gacha. People have proven you can even complete the hardest content of the game (wich is optional btw) With the weakest team possible, wich often include characters that are weaker than the base stuff the game give to you.

Final Fantasy X sales include X and X2. FF7 is 14m alone, FF16 alone is 10m.

From what I've seen, as of 2023 FF X sales come up to 20M wich is bigger than og FF7 wich stand at 14m and the remake that stand at 12m. idk why you added FF16 in there, but remeber that the game had kind of bad sales at launch and also it often come ''free'' with PS5 consoles. That how I got mine, I worked at Gamestop during it launch.

Gacha games you can't play after the publisher decides to shut it down. Which is why you should never play them. Don't get invested in it.

Just like every live service game, wich btw include FF14. Don't get invested in this game please.

[KisaiTenshi]

I came from WoW when I started playing back in ARR and I wanted to do the story. I still think it bad to force it down people throat since it not something everyone want. Locking contents behind the story also make it harder to play with friends who are just starting. People can already skip most cutscenes while doing the story anyway so it just feel weird that you can't just...skip the whole thing whitout paying yknow.

I'm sure I could find hundreds of forum posts here where people literately go "(I came from WoW.) I don't want to do the story, how do I get to playing with my friends/RP immediately" and at the time people were floating the idea of the skip pots and a lot of hostility against having them because "Why are you spending money on a game you are not playing?"

Like I understand the premise of why you want to play with your friends or RP with them, but why pick FFXIV when you apparently had that back in WoW. Like that is the thing I find head-scratching all the time when people bring up other "MMORPG's" doing something better and my mind goes straight to "So go back to that game then."

Square-Enix doesn't always do everything right, and that's okay. But if we are treated to an experience that seems to run away from the formula that we want, we should complain about it. Not bring features from other games that work there because they were part of their game experience. This is why Gacha stuff does not belong in any game, it turns the game into a skinner box and you lose as soon as you run out of real money.

Some people like trials and raids. Sadly while not impossible, it kinda rare finding people who want to do prog or bling prog on old contents. This create a situation that even if you, let say, like the story but want to do endgames encounter, you need to go trough 10 years of story b4 getting access to the most populated endgame contents. Remember, that hundreds of hours of story just to get the right of unlocking the things.

See in my view, if you want to play the FFXIV endgame, but don't actually care about the "lore" or the story, you just do what players do now, they get their friend who has the 45 dollar 8-player mount and uber your entire friend group from objective to objective. That turns ARR from a 30 hour experience into probably 5 if all the cutscenes are skipped. Unfortunately, as you said, there's 10 years of content to get through, and a "level skip" option only makes sense for the people who are only there to RP with their friends.

That depend on the games. The only gacha I play, limbus company, can be completed whitout even rolling in the gacha. People have proven you can even complete the hardest content of the game (wich is optional btw) With the weakest team possible, wich often include characters that are weaker than the base stuff the game give to you.

From what I've seen, as of 2023 FF X sales come up to 20M wich is bigger than og FF7 wich stand at 14m and the remake that stand at 12m. idk why you added FF16 in there, but remeber that the game had kind of bad sales at launch and also it often come ''free'' with PS5 consoles. That how I got mine, I worked at Gamestop during it launch.

Again as I said, the sales of FFX include X and X-2.

Just like every live service game, wich btw include FF14. Don't get invested in this game please.

That's different in that Gacha games shut down and take all the waifus and husbando's with them, leaving nothing for the player but an empty wallet and no memories.

You know what one Gacha game did? The minute they shut down the english version, they copyright claimed every single video of the english version on youtube so that it's not even possible to see what the english version of the game was like. They then updated the game so that none of the "Waifu and Husbando" content was even viewable. It's absolutely ridiculous that a company would destroy the game months after it was published. They could have updated the game to strip out the "online store" gacha mechanic and there would have still been a game. But no, better destroy all the good will of the customer so they don't get invested in your next game.

That is why I will never touch a Square-Enix gacha. They have done it multiple times, I do not trust Square Enix to leave me with a game I can still play, so I'm just going to skip any game that comes out on mobile first.