FF14... a MMO without any XP?!

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Seems interesting but I'm unsure if Square can pull it off without pissing off 90% of their fanbase.
 
J

JCM

Cat said:
Seems interesting but I'm unsure if Square can pull it off without pissing off 90% of their fanbase.
Actually, every FF does more or less try new stuff. Sure DragonQuest was first console game to use turn-based battle/XP levelling up, but Final Fantasy was about experimenting.

FFII was the first RPG to level up what you used, not have XP and a class change. FFIII was the first to allow you to change your class. Dragonquest Monsters used monster levelling, while the Slime series was Zelda-like, you just got better weapons. Tactics had a Chess-like feel. Crisis Core/KingDom Hearts used a real-time menu fighting system, Vagrant Story used weapon creation and levelling, and so on.

So Square's fanbase (nice to meet you too) pretty much are used to having different fighting-levelling systems, and try and keep up with the ATBs, CTBs and ADBs.
 
J

JCM

Cat said:
That's a good point, I tend to unjustly generalize JRPG fans as levelup grindwhores.
To be fair, while Final Fantasy has experimented a lot, most Japanese do buy Dragonquest over Final Fantasy, and with Dragonquest having the same levelling/battle system since the first game, that technically does make them grindwhores.

However, most DQ players just find where Metal Slimes are, then kill 20-30 of them and not have to grind after.
 
Oddbot said:
That's just the way mmos were pre-wow. Everquest really wasn't much different.
EQ didn't even have HALF the masocism of FFXI, not by a mile and a half. That's because I even raided the Planes in EQ, I knew what a swift kick in the teeth it could be. FFXI on the other hand was in a league of it's own.
 
G

Gadzooks

FFXI's biggest flaws for me were.

PC version could not upgrade the graphics.
PlayOnline
Controls were fucking horrid
Options Menu was ridiculous

and i never even got into combat really.
 
Shegokigo said:
Oddbot said:
That's just the way mmos were pre-wow. Everquest really wasn't much different.
EQ didn't even have HALF the masocism of FFXI, not by a mile and a half. That's because I even raided the Planes in EQ, I knew what a swift kick in the teeth it could be. FFXI on the other hand was in a league of it's own.
This. EQ was pretty unforgiving (I played for 3-4 years), but FFXI is still probably the roughest MMO I've ever played, and I was a Cleric in EQ.
 
Shegokigo said:
Oddbot said:
That's just the way mmos were pre-wow. Everquest really wasn't much different.
EQ didn't even have HALF the masocism of FFXI, not by a mile and a half. That's because I even raided the Planes in EQ, I knew what a swift kick in the teeth it could be. FFXI on the other hand was in a league of it's own.
Wasnt there a Boss in FFXI that couldnt be killed even after they fought it for more then 24 hours?
 
The fun part, was that most of the end game bosses, were on a spawn timer of exact hour respawn (24hrs, 48hrs, etc) so the JP playerbase uber guilds, would set it up so that the epic bosses would only spawn during their peak hours, which would be almost impossible raid times for US raiders.
 

doomdragon6

Staff member
Anyone who says the menu system was the worst thing about FFXI never actually played FFXI.

It's how the game punishes you for EVERYTHING.

I died! And I deleveled! I can't wear my armor anymore! It'll take hours to get back to where I was, provided I don't die again!

I need to bring 50 pickaxes because they break every 2-3 uses! (If I'm lucky)

Oh boy! After fishing for a week straight (again, buying 50+ fishing rods) I FINALLY have enough money to buy the UNBREAKABLE fishing rod! *buys it* *7 casts later...* *Fishing rod breaks* WHAT THE FUCK, FFXI??

The monsters can attack me while I run away, but I can't attack them while I'm moving at all!

I can't actually HEAL my party! That's suicide for me!

I can't actually NUKE this creature! That's suicide for me!

I've been waiting 3 hours for a party because you cannot solo in this game!

I'd be good at crafting if it didn't FAIL ALL THE TIME! Oh well, back to farming crystals, lol.

----

Seriously, I liked the game's environment, system, etc... But really, whoever said the game designer found a way to put true loathing of gamers into pure code couldn't have said it better.

-- Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:11 am --

Thing is, there was a bit of addictiveness to it.

Like, if we were to set up a Halforum guild on FFXI, I might be willing to give it another go. (My main problem was finding groups.)

At some point I realized that Quadav Shells sold for a decent bit and I farmed them for like 8 hours a day to make money.

Again, took forever and was bullshit.

I hate this game. And yet, I can't overcome its goddamn charm.
 
Z

zero

Necronic said:
God damned right my man! You should listen to a couple of the podcasts where I talk about EvE as being the best MMO in existence right now. My only beef with it is that its too good. (...) It doesn't reward drunken/high/wasted play, and in fact will reward good understanding of complicated math and management concepts(...)
Ah, but here's where we disagree. Yes, it is indeed a very complex game, and not only on the obvious aspects (it has the most sophisticated and cutthroat economic model ever to appear on a game, for instance)...

... then again, our late night sessions of "one kill, one shot" hunting on scalding pass are probably one of my fondest memories of eve online :rofl:
 
doomdragon6 said:
Anyone who says the menu system was the worst thing about FFXI never actually played FFXI.

It's how the game punishes you for EVERYTHING.

I died! And I deleveled! I can't wear my armor anymore! It'll take hours to get back to where I was, provided I don't die again!

etc...
That is actually a very good detailed description of the problems playing FFXI, and reading it made me think of 2 questions:

1. With no experience points, how will Square Enix "punish" the players for dying in FFXIV, do you think? I doubt they'll use the same system as WoW. They tend to think very differently than Blizzard.

2. It's probably this feeling everyone gets that Square Enix is always trying to screw over its players in FFXI which inspired the blogger who created the "[GM] Dave" persona (bannable offenses blog) - where he basically blogs as if he were a GM working at SE, talking about how he hates all the players, etc. Are there any other games that have inspired a similar kind of fanfiction, where the company hates, and is always trying to screw over, its own customers? I can't think of any, myself.
 
LordRendar said:
Shegokigo said:
Oddbot said:
That's just the way mmos were pre-wow. Everquest really wasn't much different.
EQ didn't even have HALF the masocism of FFXI, not by a mile and a half. That's because I even raided the Planes in EQ, I knew what a swift kick in the teeth it could be. FFXI on the other hand was in a league of it's own.
Wasnt there a Boss in FFXI that couldnt be killed even after they fought it for more then 24 hours?
Yup, let me see if I can find the story, it's crazy.

Aha.

http://kotaku.com/5036371/final-fantasy ... rs-to-beat
 

Shannow

Staff member
Uuuuuugh...FFXI....never again. For some strange, masochistic reason, I reactivated it again like 8 months ago. And then i remmebred why I quit it. What a terrible, horrible game. So much wrong. So very much.
 
Shannow said:
Uuuuuugh...FFXI....never again. For some strange, masochistic reason, I reactivated it again like 8 months ago. And then i remmebred why I quit it. What a terrible, horrible game. So much wrong. So very much.
I did the same thing during some downtime in WoW about 10 months ago too. The 30fps cap alone was enough to dissuade me, even though I still had all my characters and millions of gil (which is pretty much worthless these days).
 
Sldghmr said:
2. It's probably this feeling everyone gets that Square Enix is always trying to screw over its players in FFXI which inspired the blogger who created the \"[GM] Dave\" persona (bannable offenses blog) - where he basically blogs as if he were a GM working at SE, talking about how he hates all the players, etc. Are there any other games that have inspired a similar kind of fanfiction, where the company hates, and is always trying to screw over, its own customers? I can't think of any, myself.
Yes, and way before that too: ImaNewbie. In this one specifically, look at this image: (I hope it links here fine)

Given how early in the game this was made (year 1 or 2) the image is even more ironic.
 
S

Selgeron

I was lucky and able to play FFXI with a dedicated group of about 5 people that I knew in real life... The combat in that game was actually really fun, I liked how there were combos on doing one element and then another and rewards for fighting more than one monster, and fighting them one right after another. Much more exciting than WoW's grab one monster, beat the crap out of it, drink, grab another one fest...

The problem with FFXI was the player base. Which of course stemmed from the game.

The game was hard, very challenging and it punished you for dying. This made a playerbase of people who were paranoid about dying, angry at you for any tiny mistake that was made, and who refused to take risks. WHAT No of course a redmage can't heal. We might have a 2% chance of dying! We need to wait for a whitemage... How boring. Public groups were by far the worst. Either they were filled with paranoid people who would kill a low level monster once every five minutes, or people who just got you killed, proving the paranoid people correct. And if you weren't a standard class and happened to play a hybrid or something, good luck.

Then there were the japanese players. When the game first was released the japanese players purposely bought out every single item from the shops and then put them on the auction house for over 100 times their price. Every single time they spawned. They would train monsters on you, and the GMs would do nothing. Not to mention the economy was so broken and so terrible that it was just impossible to play. The fact that it took me over 8 hours of farming to buy anything on the auction house was just a terrible thing, and I'm sure the japanese players made it worse because they felt angered at the 'intrusion' of a bunch of stupid americans.

What was SE thinking anyway about that. Not only did mixing a bunch of people who had played for a year with a bunch of new players cause a lot of hatred between the two groups, but for the new players going out and discovering and exploring and being on an equal setting was half the fun.

I feel as though if they had seperated the japanese and american servers from the get go, everyone would have had a better time getting gear, getting items and getting groups and learning instead of being harassed and overcharged, this would have made the game easier and the whole game would have been better.

I hope they dont make the same mistake again. Also let everyone join whatever server they want on release.
 
I always said, that the easiest way to fix the problems with FFXI back in the day, was to make all rare items EX (undroppable) to kill off bots/farmers, make a Gil sink to get your xp back on death (some kind of spirit healer ala Aion), US servers, dropping PS2 support and going pure PC and finally changing ALL rare npc spawns to a RANDOM timer between 6-12hrs instead of a guaranteed 24hr spawn.

That alone would have saved the game on the States side.
 
I'm not going to touch any Asian MMO unless pigs start to fly. I've already tried their most popular ones and they've all been utter crap, from the first to the last. Quests are just excuses to grind, crafting is horrible without exception and they all come down to furious item hunting with lots of gold farmers and dull locations & game worlds.

I'm not a big Final Fantasy fan though. I've played FFI, II, III, VII, VIII and IX. The first ones were typical JRPGs that I've grown tired off due to the repetitive combat. VII & VIII were a lot better but you still had the random combat. The story was good, I agree, but too much of the game is spent in combat. I just prefer my combat to be more dynamic. With 90% of all combat being identical (keep hitting them with the occasional heal), I just don't get a kick anymore after a while.

Then again, I prefer my RPGs to allow more freedom in tactics. Fallout and Baldur's Gate had a lot more depth to the combat for example.
 
Please read my review in the Aion thread. They're bringing in an "American Localization" crew on release to bring the Stateside release to a more quest and story orientated and less grind/forced pvp style.
 
AngelofBitterness said:
I'm not going to touch any Asian MMO [...] Quests are just excuses to grind, crafting is horrible without exception and they all come down to furious item hunting with lots of gold farmers and dull locations & game worlds.
Woah, woah, hold on there...

World of Warcraft is an Asian game??
:zoid:
 
David said:
AngelofBitterness said:
I'm not going to touch any Asian MMO [...] Quests are just excuses to grind, crafting is horrible without exception and they all come down to furious item hunting with lots of gold farmers and dull locations & game worlds.
Woah, woah, hold on there...

World of Warcraft is an Asian game??
:zoid:
Let me tell you a little story: Once upon a time in a place called The Land of the Rising Sun, a big, famous game company saw it's profits being threatened by people renting their games instead of buying them. They didn't like this practice, so they used money and political clout to get the practice of renting games outlawed. This helped them for awhile, but then a new loophole arose: people were selling back games for money and then others were buying these pre-owned games, denying the game company a sale. There was no way they could make it illegal for someone to sell an object they own, so the game company and it's friends came up with a different solution... they would simply drag the game out as long as possible by inventing grinding and filling the games with pointless collectibles, as well as other techniques to artificially inflate the play time. Now they could delay someone selling their game for weeks or months, ensuring more people would buy it from them instead of used!

WoW uses these old-school JRPG conventions to keep people paying each month, just like every other MMO.
 
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