The WoW FactorFollow

Hey Final Fantasy XI / XIV community! ,

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

Edited, Aug 7th 2013 8:36pm by Wint Unlock Thread

Well the way I see it if a game gives you "early access" to its content its not noob friendly.

But even if it was I don't mind! I mean I come from Eve online that is one of the most challenging games out there, where everything takes time (a sh*it ton of time to be exact). The result is that its a 10 year old game with 500k subs only (and many of those are players with 2 or 3 accounts, I know because I was one of them as well) it is going well I agree but I doubt it will get to 1mil subs.

What I mean with this is that ARR also wants to undress a larger group of people. Lets be honest not many people played XI. Don't get me wrong FF fans played it and it still has a community but SE doesn't "want" an XI-2 but a new game to get more players.

Besides that we still haven't seen any end game raids (or have we, cause I haven't looked into much info the past month) so I can't say if it is easy or not.

Dungeons need to be accessed early. In my opinion you need early access on them and also have a good variate. I mean..why not? Yoshi kept saying that you get the first levels quite fast but it slows down a lot after 30 level. I can't be sure about it of course but you can't be sure it won't as well so it wont be that easy to get on the end level.

I was playing l2 back in the day and boy....how much I hated the leveling there. When you reached 70+ (or 75 to go to 78) it was near to impossible since only a few mobs gave you exp and that was like 0.06%.

So to sum it up I do not agree with you. FF might be easy now but there is a high chance it won't be in higher levels if we believe Yoshi. Besides that I've never played XI (well I did the trail to be honest but that was for 15 days) and I believe a lot of people that now play ARR have. At least 4-5 of the friends I got into it never did (actually none of them even knew XI existed). But by what I hear from other XI players it's super hard and I do not agree with the "farm those monsters for 4 months" and you "might" get the drop you want.

I want my game to be complex, I want the game to give me new challenges new goals etc. Eve did it right that's why I had 3 accounts in there and played so much but I do not want things in the game that are there simply to slow you down. I do not know if ARR will be that way we will see I guess in a few months.

That's my 2cents in this matter.

In 2004-2005 I played at a beyond hardcore pace, and it still took me at least 10 months to get my MNK to 75. My coworkers hated me, and thought I was doing drugs. But all things considered, that was probably the best gaming experience of my life. Nothing was more relaxing than to sit in a camp and pull mobs for 12+ hours at a time. It was fun to chat away with people, and gain tons of xp. The game was slow paced, and difficult, but it was all worth my time and effort.

I'm gonna miss a lot of what XIV doesn't have, that XI did, but I guess it's a sacrifice I'm gonna have to make. For some reason I'm also very disappointed that magic spells don't come in the form of scrolls we can buy, or have to acquire as a drop, and are instead learned automatically upon attaining a certain level. I was actually looking forward to farming specific mobs for a spell.

So I dunno, maybe it is noob friendly, compared to what XI was, but the big difference is impatient kids won't even be interested in a game like this. I fully expect the XIV community to be vastly mature, responsible, and level headed, which is something you don't see often in a gaming community. So even if it is rather easy reach max level, the content will be difficult enough such that the game won't be noob friendly, nor should we expect to have to deal with the kinds of crowds that noob friendly games attract.

Leveling your first class will be easy heck maybe even your 2nd or 3rd will be decently easy but this game is built around the factof leveling most if not all jobs.

Sure you can lvl 1 class to 50 and not do jobs but than your gimped. In order to do jobs u need 1 30 and 1 lvl 15. So say I want to be the best healer I can be. Cnj to 30 than acn to 15 than lvl either cnj or whm to 50. Than I would want to level acn to 30 so I can unlock scholar and than lvl to 50 for cross abilitys with acn. THAN do it all over again for THM.

If players want all the ability to choose from they will be leveling ALOT of classes so once you use all your quests up and only have fates leves and instances it will slow down. So I reserve my judgment till than on the leveling speed.

If you remember ffxi is still a game but not what it used to be. It needed to change to get subs. Why would ffxiv set it self up like the old ffxi if it would struggle in the long run? Also saying they need to be fresh and new is funny because that's what ffxiv 1.0 was and it was way to out ta the box and failed.

Sounds to me you want the old ffxi back but those days are long gone. Times have changed and its time to move on and experience the new generation of MMOs. I personally can't wait for this game.

Cause 6 years ago I (like many other people) could spend 12 hours playing FFXI sitting in one spot killing mobs all day and part of the night changing out people as they went to work/school and then getting some japanese people over and over.

Today I can't do that and since the average gamer is 33+ years old no one really can. The stereotypical "basement no lifer" are not real. We have jobs/lifes and can not spend 5+ hours camping/killing HNMs.

It's not that they are making the game this way, it's the fact that we need the game to be this way.

I played FFXI for 6+ years. I loved the game while I was playing it, I really did. But I absolutely do not want XIV to be like XI. You say you enjoyed the slow pace of combat and building up to WS and I did too... in that game. In XIV, I like how melee characters have more to do than just wait for 100 tp and WS, or occasionally hit a cooldown when it's ready. I love that tanks do more than just spam utsusemi. I also love how the classes actually feel relatively balanced so far.

As far as dungeons and raiding, are you trying to say you'd rather have HNM's and content like sky where it's nothing but endless competition, grind, and trying to beat out botters for claims? If so, I just can't agree with you. I like having a lot of instanced content, so that it's not so exclusionary like XI was. I like being able to do stuff when I want to do stuff, as opposed to being forced to do it during a certain window, or having to wait for a group of 12-18 for basically anything involving endgame.

It sounds like you still enjoy the hardcore, grind it out, constant competition style mmo, and if so, XIV is probably just not the game for you. I'd reccommend looking into Korean mmo's, as many of them tend to be focused more on the grind and content that consumes a crazy amount of time as compared to games like XIV.

In the end, it's all a matter of opinion. You aren't wrong for wanting what you want, I just think you might be interested in the wrong game. Good luck to you with whatever you decide.

Please don't >_<. The beta forum is filled with people that are waiting for things to rage about.It would be a massacre!

Even FFXI isn't like FFXI any more.

First of all, I played FFXI for 5 years and loved playing my WHM but the endless grind with little progression got old. Most of the reasons you listed in your overly long (my opinion) post are the very reasons I ended up leaving FFXI and went to WoW. I am glad that Yoshi-P has decided to take the game in this direction and hasn't given into the "I want FFXI-2" crowd because I just don't have the time to play like I did when I played Ultima Online and then FFXI.

FFXI had some great qualities, it did, but at this point in time in the MMO industry you are asking to be disappointed with the numbers you will get if you made a game that is that big of a time sink. Put yourself in SE's shoes, would you want to go the route that gets you a solid product that has the potential to attract a huge number of subscribers (and thereby, profits) or do you want to go the route that creates a product that will only appeal to a small nitche in the MMO subscribership?

I want SE to succeed with this game because I have been playing thier games since well before the two companies merged. I love this company (not to imply that I'm fan girl, I don't look at SE through rose colored glasses) and the games they put out and I want them to do what is going to make them the most money so that they can continue to put out games that I like.

I'd say years worth of subscription income is justification.

The problem with FFXI was that it was designed in a way that to get anything done required a significant time investment. This whole time players are paying their fees. It's not that XP parties were difficult, it just took thousands and thousands of kills over months worth of time doing pretty much the same repetitive task to level up so that you could go do other content. It was full of time sinks designed to slow the player down to keep them subscribed longer. Every little thing had a "gotcha" attached to it. What looked like a simple task on the surface ended up being a 5 part chore that would take months to complete. There's plenty of examples of this in FFXI. Sure it had challenging elements, bit it was mostly just trying to work around game design meant to slow down the player. To this day I feel that FFXI was an accidental success. It was terribly designed, yet it had a certain charm.

With that said, SE would be fools to model anything in FFXIV around FFXI. It became clear years ago that people were tired of the old game mechanics and dated graphics. Thats why FFXI changed, and why FFXIV shouldn't have anything to do with its predecessor.

Completely agree, and find it pretty annoying when people like Callinon make troll comments like "go play FFXI then".

Edited, Aug 6th 2013 9:07am by Killua125

It is a troll comment though IMO. Especially with FFXI being a very dated game now, very hard to get into, very different from its original self, etc.

I mean, FFXI can't be updated in a lot of ways because of the "PS2 limitations", it's pretty trollish and ridiculous that if someone wants the new Final Fantasy online to have something in common with XI that they should just go play that.

Yes XI is different. No Yoshi-P didn't have to pretend it doesn't exist (like he did, got 100% "inspiration" from World of Warcraft, RIFT, and Korean MMOs)

Edited, Aug 6th 2013 9:17am by Killua125

Nothing in FFXI had a sense of accomplishment to it, just something to check off your to-do list.

There, I said it. I'm absolutely tired of FFXI players making this argument.

I played FFXI for 7 years, and I only felt accomplishment on my first year of playing. Those accomplishments were beating Maat as RDM, getting level 75 for the first time, learning how to tank, and defeating the Ark Angels with my linkshell when they were still considered hard. You wanna know what happened after that? I realized none of that **** mattered, because you don't get anything out of it. And then from that point on I simply went to endgame events for the community, and what I get out of it was just a bonus. Eventually the friends I made over the first year quit either due to RL or getting burned out, and I continued playing on and off.

If you attempted to create FFXI-2 within FFXIV, the game would not succeed. And it's not because of what I said before. It's because the best thing about FFXI was the community. The game's combat was so mindnumbingly slow that you had to do something else to fill the void, and that usually goes to talking to other people. FFXIV's combat system does not permit this, especially not in boss battles. You cannot have long-winded conversations because you're constantly pressing buttons to keep your rotation going. FFXI players would notice this and either adapt, or leave. And non-FFXI players will have to do the same. In a market full of MMOs, especially ones that are F2P, I have no doubt that the newcomers would immediately become fatigued of the game and stop playing.

FFXI is a game for a niche audience, an audience that had the time and patience to grind content for years and years and years. I don't mind it's existence, and I don't regret playing it. But I played it long enough to know that the game has a massive number of problems, and that also includes the tedious, unfulfilling grind. Yoshi-P made the right call in avoiding that.