The game needs to open up

[radpeepo]

Love when people get bored of a game, and they decide that the best idea moving forward is to suggest the game become an entirely different game, instead of like, playing a different game. May as well ask them to turn it into a flight simulator.

to be fair, many players do get bored with the game, and i think the devs/designers could add more to the game to make it more interesting, AND without drastically changing the game....

cmon, the whole "play a different game" argument is as dated as the mechanics OP is asking for
people wanna see change for good reason. people who ask for change are the ones who don't want to play a different game

[Ath192]

to be fair, many players do get bored with the game, and i think the devs/designers could add more to the game to make it more interesting, AND without drastically changing the game....

cmon, the whole "play a different game" argument is as dated as the mechanics OP is asking for
people wanna see change for good reason. people who ask for change are the ones who don't want to play a different game

I'm down playing new games. I just don't necesarrily want to quit this one, but considering it more often. And I think this conversation is being shoe-horned into old MMO's style of gameplay when this is wrong. I mean, we can look beyond the context of MMOs and look at open world games that don't lock everything behind the MSQ and are modern and successful.

Believe me, if there's something I have a lot of is free time to play other games when this one only releases 4 fights or an alliance raid every 4 months with some miscellaneous items sprinkled here and there.

I mean, breath of the wild, red dead redemption, GTA, Elden ring. Of course, not all the mechanics in an offline game can be implemented in an online one. But some of them can, like simply designing the new expansion with no geographical locks in the MSQ, introducing underwater combat/adventure and or mechanics to use the underwater system they already spent resources implementing.

The fact some older MMOs did some of this doesn't mean they are the only ones that do it and new games also do some of this and are wildly successful doing so.

I'm hearing a lot of ppl say "This is modern design" "It has to be this way" "Other mechanics won't succeed". I am pretty confident that "Keep doing what they are currently doing" is not succeeding either. And to me it is better to design content people may hate and love than releasing content so stale everyone is indifferent towards it.

The problem strictly stems from the design philosophy of the team. And I'm just saying, it doesn't have to be this way. Things can change, and hopefully for the benefit of the player and not the content cadence of the developer.

[radpeepo]

I'm hearing a lot of ppl say "This is modern design" "It has to be this way" "Other mechanics won't succeed". I am pretty confident that "Keep doing what they are currently doing" is not succeeding either. And to me it is better to design content people may hate and love than releasing content so stale everyone is indifferent towards it.

in my opinion, there are definitely elements of specifically MMOs that people just don't want to see. not all modern designs are good, and not all "old-style" designs are either. i only say that some of your ideas in your OP are dated because you will see a lot of it in older games (i.e. no quest marker), yet you won't see this in more modern games for a reason; people like quality of life improvements

and likewise, not all "old-style" mmo designs are bad, especially ones that encourage exploration or encourage communicating with other players. you're totally right that the game could change and they honestly should be more open to try different things that people may or may not enjoy. your OP had some ideas that i feel like they 100% could implement, or at the very least improve on (like dungeon design for example)

[Ath192]

in my opinion, there are definitely elements of specifically MMOs that people just don't want to see. not all modern designs are good, and not all "old-style" designs are either. i only say that some of your ideas in your OP are dated because you will see a lot of it in older games (i.e. no quest marker), yet you won't see this in more modern games for a reason; people like quality of life improvements

and likewise, not all "old-style" mmo designs are bad, especially ones that encourage exploration or encourage communicating with other players. you're totally right that the game could change and they honestly should be more open to try different things that people may or may not enjoy. your OP had some ideas that i feel like they 100% could implement, or at the very least improve on (like dungeon design for example)

Makes sense. Although the no quest marker, while true of older games, was mostly taken from Elden ring in my case, a modern success story. Questing in that game was not easy but people seemed to love the game for it.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Makes sense. Although the no quest marker, while true of older games, was mostly taken from Elden ring in my case, a modern success story. Questing in that game was not easy but people seemed to love the game for it.

It's also a very different type of game. You don't see people saying xiv should adopt the much fewer button attack rotations of Elden ring.

[Ath192]

It's also a very different type of game. You don't see people saying xiv should adopt the much fewer button attack rotations of Elden ring.

It doesn’t matter. You can borrow ideas from many types of games if they are good. For example sanctuary island was a poor implementation of animal crossing.

I think you’d agree that is a very different game don’t you? And they didn’t have to turn XIV into animal crossing or adopt all of its ideas. So I think it’s disingenuous to suggest that.

So a good implementation of ideas of successful games would benefit the game.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

It doesn’t matter. You can borrow ideas from many types of games if they are good. For example sanctuary island was a poor implementation of animal crossing.

I think you’d agree that is a very different game don’t you? And they didn’t have to turn XIV into animal crossing or adopt all of its ideas. So I think it’s disingenuous to suggest that.

So a good implementation of ideas of successful games would benefit the game.

That's kind of my point though, many would consider that a "good system" in the context of Elden ring.
But because it works there doesn't mean it would work here. Or would it?

I know half the player base on these forums would act like their dog was killed if they gave us the same number of attack buttons as in Elden ring.

[TaleraRistain]

Makes sense. Although the no quest marker, while true of older games, was mostly taken from Elden ring in my case, a modern success story. Questing in that game was not easy but people seemed to love the game for it.

You're comparing apples to oranges. Elden Ring is a singleplayer game that appeals to a certain demographic of players. That sort of player looks for things like no quest marker.

Do you know what would happen if XIV took away the quest markers? In no time flat after expansion drop, someone would have a mod putting them back in. There would be websites with coordinates so players could get their questing done quickly and easily. XIV players and a lot of modern MMO players in general like QoL features. MMOS were very niche 25 years ago. The thing that made them more widespread was accessibility. So the things that old school MMO designers put in to lengthen the time someone had to play the game, like difficult travel or obscure quest references and no map markers, fell to the wayside because that wasn't what was going to make their MMO attractive anymore.

[Ath192]

You're comparing apples to oranges. Elden Ring is a singleplayer game that appeals to a certain demographic of players. That sort of player looks for things like no quest marker.

Do you know what would happen if XIV took away the quest markers? In no time flat after expansion drop, someone would have a mod putting them back in. There would be websites with coordinates so players could get their questing done quickly and easily. XIV players and a lot of modern MMO players in general like QoL features. MMOS were very niche 25 years ago. The thing that made them more widespread was accessibility. So the things that old school MMO designers put in to lengthen the time someone had to play the game, like difficult travel or obscure quest references and no map markers, fell to the wayside because that wasn't what was going to make their MMO attractive anymore.

I played elden ring, everyone I know that plays FFXIV played Elden ring, except 1 person actually. Plenty of older MMOs didn't have quest markers either as people have pointed out. Did you play elden ring?

We can extrapolate the following information from this:
1. Elden ring appeals to a similar demographic of fantasy RPG players since even Yoshi P released Dawntrail by 1 week after Elden ring so his playerbase could have time to play it.
2. It's clear players are no longer enjoying FFXIV being so accessible it no longer has any difficulty or engaging content or interesting jobs
3. Things have changed, QOL features no longer make this MMO attractive and instead players are clamoring for gameplay and depth

Simply put, they have made the game so "convenient" you don't even have to play it most of the month you pay your subscription for it. Nothing is static, and tastes change, even in the MMO world.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I played elden ring, everyone I know that plays FFXIV played Elden ring, except 1 person actually. Plenty of older MMOs didn't have quest markers either as people have pointed out. Did you play elden ring?

We can extrapolate the following information from this:
1. Elden ring appeals to a similar demographic of fantasy RPG players since even Yoshi P released Dawntrail by 1 week after Elden ring so his playerbase could have time to play it.
2. It's clear players are no longer enjoying FFXIV being so accessible it no longer has any difficulty or engaging content or interesting jobs
3. Things have changed, QOL features no longer make this MMO attractive and instead players are clamoring for gameplay and depth

Simply put, they have made the game so "convenient" you don't even have to play it most of the month you pay your subscription for it. Nothing is static, and tastes change, even in the MMO world.

OK, here's a counterpoint. I played Elden ring. 1 of my friends played Elden ring. The friends I have who played XI did not play Elden ring.



Therefore, players who like old school mmos didn't like Elden ring.
Same line of thought.