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@Seriha; How've you been? Not sure if you even remember me (I quit I guess nearing a couple of years ago). The news of FFXIV is all that brings me back. Anyway, good points all around.

FFXI did have a lot of problems ingrained in its core design, much bigger than the constant cries of job/race inbalance would have let on. I'm cautiously optimistic that SE has learned from its mistakes with XI, and then at the same time, I can't help but look back at all the problems that it took them years to fix, or that were never fixed at all. And all that development time wasted on content that saw about a week's worth of use, oy, forget about it. There's no doubt that they've improved at improving though.

So I just want to vent out some things that I would not like to see return in XIV.

A. This one should really go without saying, but SE will be in the stone age if they don't allow for more customizable character creation. I really have no doubt that they will, and for this I hope only two things. 1) That there will be ample customization, and that it will be mostly cosmetic (no significant stat differences that encourage people to sacrifice what appeals to them aesthetically and fantastically for a gameplay advantage). 2) That the customization doesn't stop anywhere near cosmetics.

B. The job/subjob system. The jobs don't have a great deal of depth to begin with. Throwing a half a shallow job onto a full shallow job does not a rich experience make. Jobs are too linearly defined and don't have enough unique qualities.

Here's another area where customization would help. Think of merits. Now imagine if all abilities, traits, spells, and WSs were merited (of course you don't get access to enough merits to have them all active at once, and perhaps some merits preclude others). Now imagine if instead of having to grind through monster after monster to unlock these, you earned many of these through adventurous quests, fun minigames, and challenging battles.

This is the kind of character development that upcoming MMOs need to have. Truly customizable characters, down to the skill sets. We have the technology. If the thought of that makes your brain buzz with worry over how such mechanics would affect game balance, then squash the notion, because I promise you that your concerns are unwarranted.

C. The combat system. You want to know the definition of salt in the wound? Being bored for hours getting a group together, farming for pop items, camping, and then finally getting the chance to fight in a boring battle. Enemies have very little interactivity to them. There's not a whole lot to react to, especially if you know what you're doing. Even if a battle is difficult to win with your group, it doesn't mean that you are being challenged as an individual. How many times have you bit it even though you did everything you could have done? Sure, part of that is just teamwork, but a big part of it is Engage->sit back and watch until you get TP or a recast.

This has been improved slightly in recent expansions, but it needs a shot of steroids. Enemies should require you to think. Maybe it looks like any other bunny, but this one is faster than most, it has different moves, it has a different AI. You'll have to actually think about how to beat it. Maybe there will even be more action elements, like timing and aim. Don't get me lyin'.

Encounters should be a bit more fluid in general. Going to an area where there's nothing but a couple of monster types and nothing else leads to no risk of anything unexpected happening.

D. There's this word "merit" that means one thing in the real world and pretty much the opposite in FFXI (In the real world: you earned it. In FFXI: you wasted hours of your life for -this-?). Ok, simply put, if you kill the monster, you should get the drop. Basically always. Now I'm sure that some dragons, big as they are, wouldn't be found with such elusive items as "Dragon Skin" and "Dragon Skull" every time, uh, right? Some days when I leave my cavernous dwelling I forget to bring my vital organs. Happens to the best of us.

Oh, but where's the challenge in that? Let me tell you a story. Last Winter I played FF: Crisis Core for the PSP (made by none other than SE). Ambitious as I am, I decided to play my first time on Hard mode. It took me 24 attempts to beat the first boss, and then another 50 to do it again (if only I had gotten that damn Fire Armlet). So let's distinguish between a test of skill, and a test of patience (in this case, it just happened to take both). No More Heroes for the Wii, it has some pretty tough boss battles even on Normal mode. You don't have to beat them 20 times to progress through the game, either. Oh, but you can just over-level in an MMO, right? Then there's still no skill involved. Unless of course the boss scales to your level.

Nothing wrong with a few random drops here and there, but farming for items, especially rare ones, puts the "Massively sucks" in MassivelyMORPG. Camping also needs to go. SE seems to have learned a valuable lesson about instanced battles and monsters that you pop claimed. I hope they don't forget it.

E. PVP. There really needs to be more of it. A simple duel system in FFXI would have worked wonders to pass the time. Player A Challenges. Player B Accepts. Duel begins. Somebody dies. Auto revive.

F. Speaking of death, XP loss really isn't necessary. Sure, there needs to be a risk involved in dying. But XP loss is really just the risk of lost time, and you already lose a minimum of five minutes even if you get a Raise. Then you still get to wait for healing ticks, and that assumes that you have a Raise handy. How about if monsters show you a little mercy? After they kick the crap out of you, you get one chance to escape back to your home, no harm done. If you instead choose to wander around hemmoraging parts of yourself in your weakened state, then you can die for really realz. Isn't it otherwise penalty enough just to have to wait to recuperate?

There are a hundred ways to make death better than it is in FFXI though, so don't focus on that one suggestion.

G. Actually fun minigames. No matter how good a game you make, a game that you're going to log hundreds of DAYS playing has to have many varying elements of play if it wants to maintain a happy longevity. Card games are hip these days, you know? Gotta catch em all! I'd waste sooo much money on a Final Fantasy card game (not talking any Triple Triad or Tetra Master either... give me the good stuff!). It would be awfully nice of you to just put one in your MMO, so that I don't have to pay $3 for 11 pieces of cardboard.

PVP's a part of this too, of course. Capture the flag and all that... they've already got the idea on this one. Really they've got good general ideas all around, just ****-poorly implemented. Chocobo racing and digging, Pokemons, gambling, etc. They just need to once again inject it with some Square-roids (TM).

And don't let that fool you. I have a thousand other suggestions, specific ones. This is just an outline of some fundamental problems with the game as it is. Of course identifying problems is just a precursor to finding solutions, so don't take this as whining. Game design concept is just a hobby for me, like fixing up an old car. So mainly I took the time to write this up because I enjoyed it.

tl;dr-- I wish I could be a consultant for game developers :c I would make games so much better. I would even work for peanuts! (but I really put out for cashews)

Also under the 'information' section on the FFXIV site, it says "Subscription fee: TBA"

So I expect it's decided already.

Here of some of my questions that I would have hoped they would have answered.

1: Is SE still going to hold the same stance as FFXI with regards to RMT in this game, and if so what measures are you taking that would more effectively flag and track offenders?

2: How much character customization can we expect? What templates are standard and what templates can we customize if there is a function.

3a: Are the servers going to be internationally mixed or are there going to be servers set for areas of the globe?

3b: If the servers are internationally mixed, and they have vocal communication capacity, how might we bridge the language barrier, is there going to be some sort of an “Auto-Translate” function?

4: A lot of players have mentioned the lack of PvP in FFXI, are there going to be systems in place to accommodate those that are interested in this endeavor?

...nix my question 3a. I just reread the blog and they answered it. Wasn't paying attention.

I would feel awful if they left FFXI at such a low, with the unsucsefullness of the Add ons, I would be just as excited if they released a new expansion now as before.

The game deserves its dignity. I would love for them to go out with a bang, so to speak. A real expansion that will make you never ever forget about the fun you had in FFXI. Something like a CGI finale with another vocal track like distant worlds. One that brings together the era of the conquest and makes you feel complete and contempt with the game from a storyline point of view.

And in the end I really think we should finally get some credits, to see the people who have been there working their asses off for us day and night behind closed doors.

It's been a long time since I've posted here, and a long time since I've played FFXI as well. That being said I don't remember Tarutaru ever having horns. If you look at the picture provided earlier, you will see a short humanoid to the far left standing between the Mithra and Elvaan male. This humanoid has horns. If you look at the near the center in front of the "White Mage" you will see a Tarutaru, and he has no horns.

http://home.comcast.net/~necrosis/forums/Allakhazam/FFXIV.jpg

Maybe the one on the left is a new race for this game, but I doubt it would be a playable race since it's only seen once in the picture. Then again the Tarutaru is only shown once in the art as well... Or it could just be messed up art work.

Heh, it's rare seeing an old name that doesn't rub me the wrong way. As for how I've been, it certainly varies from day to day, but it's usually a safe bet to assume I'm often my cynically silly self.



More on topic, it's been kind of interesting seeing ideas thrown around. It's obvious people have stuff they dislike about XI. It's a bit numbing seeing people shooting down ideas solely because they don't want the game to resemble another thanks to some trivial mechanic that by no means represents the whole. Really wish we could get some more basic information to mull over, but perhaps a beta could be sooner than we think.

Sounds pretty promising. I quit FFXI a long time ago, but had a love of some of its mechanics and nostalgic FF feel. Hopefully they'll improve on alot of things (solo viability for all classes and cheap ammunition would be an awesome turn on for me personally).

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/991/991483p1.html

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/990/990578p1.html

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/990/990829p1.html

:( did anyone see this.

Edited, Jun 4th 2009 6:23pm by gaiaxzero

That doesn't say that FFXI will be closing after a year: they say that they have content planned for at least another year, and then will continue based on player demand. The future of FFXI is in the players' hands, for all practical purposes.

SE also said that Rapture would not be a Final Fantasy title and we now know that they were lying to us. They don't even have the excuse that they didn't know until recently, it's been planned as a Final Fantasy title for at least 4 years now and SE was lying about this all along.

They said it would be different than FFXI, but to all appearances it looks like FFXI-2. And again, they knew this all along and lied to us about it.

So why should we believe what they said about Rapture not replacing FFXI?