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Durations too short.
What? How are 1-5 minute durations too short when compared to the 20 second durations in XIV? At first I thought you meant maybe the ratio of downtime, but even that on average is shorter in XI than XIV. The only exception I can think of is Warcry, and one-hours but they're obviously special cases with no actual equivalent in XIV to properly compare them to. So this is just bullsh*t.
I was indeed thinking more in ratio with a side of on-offs like ES. But let's look to how others have described playing a melee in XI in that it's basically just wait for TP then WS. Positioning may occasionally matter, or if you're a DRK, maybe you'll have to Stun from time to time, but depth isn't there. On the other hand, one be hard pressed to find many combat abilities in XIV with a cooldown greater than 3 minutes. Yes, I may also agree that some associated durations there are too short, but I'd rather 2:50 to do something again instead of 9:50.
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Gobs of useless abilities
I'm feeling like you're just projecting XIV's flaws onto XI now... I mean even Mijin Gakure, the 'most useless ability in the game', has a very strategic use of removing Weakness.
Barstatus spells, a large chunk of BLU's spell library, most Dark magic, ************* Stymie, and more if I felt compelled to refresh my memory of the entirety of JAs available. Channeling the last point, sometimes it's a duration thing, others cooldown, and even more about potency. Sometimes these deficiencies also led to conflicts in job identity, like SMNs forced into healer roles or any poor RDM who ever wanted to melee. Yeah, some of you knew that was coming. :P
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Class imbalances out the wazoo, terrible macro system, and quite arguably perhaps one of the worst records in handling third-party tool use, for better or worse.
That said how does any of the above prove that XIV somehow has more depth in it's systems than XI?
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XI is also lacking in a number of more modern features, like better in-game radar, quest indicators, more robust quest details, party finders, cross-server matching, and so on.
Some might consider the stuff like windower's extended macros okay, but they're still things console users couldn't do. It wasn't uncommon to see builds revolving around the existence of such, though, and not having it available obviously made a player gimp. Then we could go into more insidious things like botting, move speed, and position hacking. It wasn't uncommon to feel totally helpless seeing the same exploiters flourish in the game despite GM reports.
That said, the comparison is more the belief that "more" automatically equals "better" for the game. If we trim the fat of all those useless or underpowered abilities I alluded to earlier, how different might things really be? The common goal of combat is to still get mobs dead, get loot, repeat. This is actually where I'd call into question flipping out over how games nowadays are of the Kill X, Fetch Y, Go to Z, Defend/Escort Q-type activities. All those are present in XI, too. Is it just not having a counter on the side? Hell, even XI had counters going on with Magians for a while there. Is it more a case, then, of not wanting to have your "hand held" as a commonly used statement of downplaying? Ideally, a game should let one disable or grossly minimize UI elements they may find displeasing, but I know that's not always the case.
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Party Finder would be a nice addition as well. But @#%^ cross-server matching. I'd rather wait longer to play with people I have a chance of seeing again. Friends make even sitting in a parking lot fun, why don't MMOs use that to their advantage anymore?
There is a middle ground here. A couple, actually. The less hands on one is to set a check box to only automatically group with people on your server. The more involved version is let people set up parties for an advertised purpose that only people on your server can see, which XIV presently does.
Understand, however, that not everyone playing these games is out there to become your friend. We're all means to an end. Yes, the more socially capable will be more pleasant to be around, but trying to ostracize those who aren't good at communicating by removing or demanding such systems not be present isn't something I'd call for the betterment of a game. These folks are filling gaps for incomplete friend parties, greasing the economic wheels in their own ways, and even influencing the behavior of others they encounter out in the world, even if indirectly. Conversely, more restricted systems do not prevent people from being asshats. In my own XI experience, those the server came to collectively hate just wound up forming their own group, and they thrived in their own ways. In turn, the best we can hope for is a dev to instead minimize ways people can grief others through game mechanics.
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This is a question out of genuine ignorance and not any sort of trolling. But will it?
Content has a lifespan. For some, it's the moment it stops being fun. For others, it's the moment they have nothing left to get from it. Sometimes these align, sometimes they're miles apart and someone may begrudgingly partake because something they're after has no alternative source. I didn't like setting aside 2 nights a week for Dynamis for 2 years, in part to guarantee my place for a Duelist's Chapeau when my turn eventually did roll around. In fact, demanding that kind of time commitment was very much one of XI's old issues.
And believe it or not, there is also a point where there is too much content, especially if it winds up feeling compulsory for progression. Lockouts don't help here, especially for something like dailies where missing one means you lose out on progress forever. Pre-Adoulin XI was wrestling with this problem, making players farm Dynamis to try and be relevant in the construction of a relic or diverting the currency to gil for other purposes. This also carried over into Salvage, and by proxy, Assaults. Things like Einherjar and Limbus was then a lighter layer, but still on the clock. I'm not a fan of daily/weekly stuff, myself, and have been arguing against them in the XIV section, too. The more responsible players are their own moderators of content consumption. So, part of the issue of lacking content is more a matter of having content someone wants to participate in. In XIV's case, and for me, this isn't spamming dungeons for all time. Them being instanced or not isn't even really a factor.
Anyway, I see Hio is gonna Hio now.
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...it won't change the fact it's an MMORPG from a more (better) era.
This is EXACTLY the kind of nostalgia I'm trying to point out. MMOs were NOT better back then. What you're pining for is that first love you're never going to find again because you've now been in the scene long enough to have seen all the good and bad that has transpired over the past decade. The following, however, are some irrefutable facts of how MMOs are now "better" these days:
- The internet and server infrastructures have improved.
- Graphics have significantly improved.
- The possible prowess of the user's PC to enjoy things have significantly improved.
- Developers have a carbon footprint to view of games both successes and failures, resulting in systems to be replicated, refined, or outright avoided.
- Like it or not, the market no longer being sub-only further stimulates competition and innovation.
- The gamers of yesteryear have aged, with that their demands and expectations also rising.
- MMOs aren't for basement dwelling nerds anymore.
Could we veer into subjectivity over story qualities across games? Sure. My tl;dr opinion on MMO plots, though? They're high school level at best. Coincidence? Maybe. Yeah, I prefer the XI and XIV style of story delivery with a mix of cutscenes and shorter text bubbles over giant blobs of tiny text plastered into a pop-up.
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All quest markers really do is tell you a quest is there and tells you which NPCs to ignore, rather than talking to every NPC and stumbling upon a quest.
And in XI's case, that NPC you talked to and had nothing important to say now suddenly has a quest because you made a hidden fame level or completed some non-obvious related pre-rwq.
Saving people time from wandering around aimlessly is not a bad thing. "But then they're not stopping and smelling the roses! They're totally not getting the full game experience!" And some people need to smoke weed to get the most out of life. Your fun != Their fun, nor should we pretend the presence of markers has suddenly deprived you of meaningful content. But you know what? There are also games with "stumbling over" quests out there despite the presence of markers, too. Things like finding a clickable out in the field or a unique mob drop. Sure, the quest trail may put you in these vicinities, but let's not pretend a sense of randomness has vanished. This even exists in things like FATEs.
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Not even XIV ARR, a 2013 MMORPG, has a proper cross-server matching system.
You won't see me calling it perfect (I'd give that title to Rift), but it's better than XI's non-existent option. Don't play in NA or JP prime time? Good luck getting anything you can't solo done. Coincidentally, this is why many hated CoP on top of the level caps and job discrimination it fostered.