Thread: The WoW Factor

Hey Final Fantasy XI / XIV community! ,

Also not sure is this is the right area to post this is, but if not let me know.

For starters this post is not meant to bash on anyone, but to create constructive criticism, as I will enjoy to hear what you too have to say. To begin I have a concern to address you with. Why is this game becoming noob friendly? I feel like FFXIV is a great game with great graphics and mechanics but they're leaning more toward the "WoW" model of things. Incorporating things like Dungeons and raids and Max out leveling in less than a week oppose to FFXI, where things took time and effort and a sense of accomplishment to achieve(its not about the end, its about the journey). Also to add, a 2.5 second cool-down on most timers just make the game battles awful to sit through. Fights in FFXI were slow paced, organized and timed where weapon skills were nicely detailed and they looked badass when they went off .. But in this new model of combat there is so much going on with countless spamming of flashes and explosions at any given time that makes the game look as if it were directed by Michael Bay. I think its better to adopt the old system used in FFXI where appreciation played the bigger part of the game. Building up to that given WS, instead of WS's/Combos going off every 2 seconds to where it takes away from the beauty and fun of things. I think the way they're going with things will make the game to where it wouldn't be appreciated as much as the old model of FFXI, that many have learned to love. Why not be original and stick to your bread and butter instead of trying to mimic a different game? I think this game should be both noob and veteran friendly to bring in new players and cater to every gamer(casual or hardcore)in general. Again, Just my thoughts.

These are just a small list of concerns that I would like to have answered or even express your opinions upon. I do have more concerns which i am willing to address such as the HNM system(because we all know HNMs make the game challenging, and who doesn't like the feel of out-claiming an LS and rubbing it in their face when you get that prized low drop percent D-ring you've been drooling for all year, or even wiping to a 2% Cerberus to GOH when your stuns fail, only to be out-claimed by another ls, only to create drama.) Hell you might never even see that piece of equipment drop, which adds to the beauty of its rarity and scarceness. Its just what makes the game so great and memorable. What would be the fun if gear was so easily obtained, and max levels were easy to reach? There is no fun in that and that is what i'm trying to get at here. People complain that time sinks are a burden, but its actually the time sink that makes the game so much better. Lets face it, this game has amazing Potential but it just needs to incorporate more ideas from FFXI and merge it with this new one to create the best MMORPG possible.Why do People want everything handed to them?(Easy). If the game becomes noob friendly, in a sense there will be no diversification, no challenges, no fun, and every one will look the same. And to be honest when I play now its almost like no effort was put into gear detail. Everything is copy-paste-repeat. For example compare a Haubergeon in FFXI to a Hauby in FFXIV, its a HUGE difference as the FFXI hauby blows it away opposed to the half-a** appearance of the new one. Everyone looks the same, not to mention the only gear that looks good so far is the AF(and that's saying a little). Everything else looks like something I could put together on a budget at a thrift shop (no offense Yoshida & his team), oppose to the gear in FFXI which was so beautifully and thoughtfully designed. If things remain easy everyone will at some point have the same items without difficulty or consequence in obtaining them and we will essentially have nothing to flaunt or show to our friends, supporters, or haters that we put time and effort into obtaining. It is what ultimately sets apart the grinders from the whiners. It would be a blunt game, where equality is king and to quote "The Incredibles" -"When everyone is Super, no one will be."

-Thanks for chiming in

As you have obviously played XIV ARR to max level and participated in the end game, could you please tell the rest of us how difficult the dungeons and primal fights are and how the drop rates are?

According to Yoshi-P they will have a high difficulty on some of the end game fights at release, but you do not seem to find them that way?

Sustainability

Reading your post, I think you should change the name of the topic to "Not the FFXI factor".
I played and loved FFXI for years, but I can't be blind to all the boring, time consuming content.

You speak of the beauty of the journey, but levelling was, in my opinion, utterly boring. Pull a mob to camp, kill the mob, pull the mob to camp, kill the mob, rinse and repeat until you hit the level cap. FFXIV took a leveling-through-quest approach that actually makes you visit the world.
As for progressing through quests, FFXI was far too obscure so people HAD to rely on a guide to achieve pretty much anything. In FFXIV, the guide is simply IN the game.

As for the combat system, some people love slow paced combat, others prefer faster one. I don't think one is ultimately really better than the other. As for my personnal opinion, the delay of weapons in FFXI was really too high, especially for 2-handed weapons.

You can't really criticize FFXIV for mimicking WoW when suggesting it should mimick FFXI. FFXIV is neither WoW or FFXI and this is a pretty good thing. As for the challenge, I don't know yet how difficult ARR will be, but I was fairly pleased by the challenges on v1, even for the storylines.

You also mention HNM and drop rate. Please...I'm sorry, but I don't understand how people could appreciate such a system. Random supremacy is an heresy. You could be the best player in every server, with the best armor, weapon, etc...the game will punish you on a simple dice roll. And please don't tell me that "random = difficult", it's totally unrelated.

"The Raven Nevermore" in v1 was the very definition of a fair challenge. An extremely difficult fight that will always reward you if you're good enough to beat it.

As for the skins, when the cap in FFXI was lvl 50, you didn't have that much choice too. The game is still pretty young compared to its predecessor, and I'm sure it will give us a lot more option in stuffing and content.


As a last point, you should think about the people who played FFXI at the beginning. It's eleven years from now, and these people have grown up. Some of them, like me, have children now, and can't really spend hours of grinding, camping, not-dropping anything and waiting for a group. I think it's important that FFXIV don't forget those people in their target.

OP,
I only read a fraction of what you said and it wasn't to be an ass but I've seen this topic 1,000 times before so I am going to explain something to you that you're not understanding just based off of what I read.

Innovation. Some companies beat other companies to the punch with certain innovations. Such as the wheel for example. Now it's how you take that innovation and use it to your own liking that can stand out from others. There's not much more you can do to improve the wheel, but there's a lot you can do using the wheel. That goes for a lot of things.. even food. There's tons a variations of the burger that all have the same basic concept, but then there's a few that vary from just a plain burger. You may like cheese, or not and you can choose to have cheese on your burger or not while Joe has cheese on his. You can enjoy the same burger, but catered to your liking. Just like in games you can choose how you want to play it because developers give you that option.

Now as for games. They're changing and there's a different demand for what is wanted and needed in games than there was 11 years ago. Companies can't stick to old methods because those old methods are dying off among new, and yes even old, gamers. Do you still have a flip phone? Doubt it. It's called progression, adapting, evolving. It has to be done to be relevant. Yes, a lot of people still play old games for fun and nostalgic reasons, but with the growth in popularity of gaming the numbers of people who want companies to stick to the old ways isn't high enough to warrant them to stick with those. Games like FFXI, EQ, DAoC, Star Wars Galaxies, etc were fun and great, during their time, but games with those mechanics are a things of the past and they need to stay there.

Which brings me to WoW. When I started playing WoW I came straight from FFXI maybe about a year before the BC expansion. It was not easy to level in WoW, and it was not easy to beat raids. It was, though, easier to level than in FFXI and that's because FFXI was a time sink. Fighting mobs and progressing wasn't hard, and it was decently fast, but what made it harder to level up was looking for a party. How many of us here searched for hours to get into a party that disbanded in 10 minutes? I bet if I was speaking to you all in front of a room everyone would raise their hands. How many of us here tried to solo mobs for crappy EXP just to quit? Yeah. It sucked.. There was no solo progression and that didn't make FFXI harder, that made it annoying. There was nothing hard about fighting mobs for progression, it was finding people to fight mobs with.

WoW did introduce a new way of progression. You CAN solo from 1-max if YOU wanted too, but not every quest was soloable, and eventually you needed to group up to do the more challenging stuff which IS challenging. If there's one complaint I see that has people making their WoW clone judgement, it's the progression. "It looks like WoW!" Yeah.. it's going to if you use WoW as an example. All MMO's have a minimap, a hotbar, a character in the middle of the screen, a world that lives without you so why is it the deciding example? Because it stands out more because it is popular. As well as GW2 with dynamic events which have been around since EQ. You just don't know it because 1. you never played or 2. you just didn't think of them as dynamic events. Ever been in a random invasion at Free Port by Orcs in EQ? I have. It was just like when "Clever girl" FATE starts in Gridania. Granted they weren't frequent, but by definition they're still dynamic events.

Have MMO's become too easy in a grab for casual gamers? Heeeh, yes. But what was gaming originally about? Sitting on the couch passing time. When did it become a job you didn't get paid to do? Schedules, rules, strict guidelines, requirements SUBMITTING APPLICATIONS. They're supposed to be fun not a tedious time sink. Yoshida has explain time and time again that the game will cater to both people but that doesn't seem to be sinking in. One mistake is allowing thousands of people to beta test who treat their games like a demo and not a test. That's a problem. I've seen countless "endgame" posts about the beta when there is no endgame to make judgement calls about. I also think there's a certain level of selfishness coming from people who want the game catered to their playstyle, and also those same people have a secret sense of competition where they don't want others to progress faster than them.

The challenge will be there guys, but the challenge isn't in finding an EXP party anymore. That's how it should be. This game also has to evolve with what is demanded today and a casual gamer market is what is demanded. Finding the balance for both demographics is on the devs, and they know that's what we want especially with most of us being FFXI players. It's going to take time and even WoW had to struggle to get to where it is today. FFXIV having some familiarity from other MMO's, WoW most notably, isn't a bad thing.

I just got home and i see that i don't need to make a detailed post anymore because the people above me have basically mentioned everything i wanted to say.

Thanks people. (^_^ )

Especially Reynhart and Pwnagraphic, you guys really hit the nail on the head:

Originally Posted by Reynhart

As a last point, you should think about the people who played FFXI at the beginning. It's eleven years from now, and these people have grown up. Some of them, like me, have children now, and can't really spend hours of grinding, camping, not-dropping anything and waiting for a group. I think it's important that FFXIV don't forget those people in their target.

Originally Posted by Pwnagraphic

Have MMO's become too easy in a grab for casual gamers? Heeeh, yes. But what was gaming originally about? Sitting on the couch passing time. When did it become a job you didn't get paid to do? Schedules, rules, strict guidelines, requirements SUBMITTING APPLICATIONS. They're supposed to be fun not a tedious time sink.

Originally Posted by Pwnagraphic

The challenge will be there guys, but the challenge isn't in finding an EXP party anymore. That's how it should be. This game also has to evolve with what is demanded today and a casual gamer market is what is demanded. Finding the balance for both demographics is on the devs, and they know that's what we want especially with most of us being FFXI players. It's going to take time and even WoW had to struggle to get to where it is today. FFXIV having some familiarity from other MMO's, WoW most notably, isn't a bad thing.

This is what i've been saying as well, but i couldn't have said it any better. (^_^ )-b

I was never able to participate in Dynamis runs in FFXI, or doing Primal battles and getting relic weapons in FFXIV 1.0. Simply, because i didn't have the time to do it. Look, like i've said before:

A player should be rewarded with loot, based on the effort (s)he has put into obtaining it.

I still have a looooooong list of things i want to do in the game, for instance getting relic weapons and defeating Primals. I'm willing to invest the time need to achieve that. Even it if means that it will take me 10 times longer then someone who has more time on his/her hands.

You want me to go and farm 1000 fish? Sure... Just give me time to collect them.

On average i have 2 to 3 hours of play time per day, so i don't want to waste that waiting for a party to form or an HNM to spawn.

About the level of detail in the gear you mentioned about earlier. Where everything felt like it was just "copy-paste-repeat". It is true that in 1.0, the gear was always based on a specific set of appearences. Just with a little extra detail or some other colors. The gear in 1.0 was designed to be more realistic rather then "magical" or "fantasy".

However, in later content updates and now with 2.0, more different types of gear were/are being introduced into the game. Things which have a more "fantasy" feel to them, for instance like the gear you see in the latest "Character" Benchmark:

RSE Gear:

Level 20 (Foestriker):

Level 30:

Level 40:

Level 50: