Live Presentation Event: The Future of Final Fantasy XI (03/19/2015)

[Psion]

God the missions/quests are cringeworthy, most of them as some of them are decent. One of the first FF games I actually skipped the cutscenes in, can't stand their dumb accents/VA either.

they get more epic on average as you progress in the main scenario and establish yourself as a real warrior of light. as far as the accents, i hear the english acting gets better past 2.0 cutscenes, but yeah, i couldn't stand it either. so i went to the config options and changed the voice acting to japanese instead of english, with english subtitles. so much better. XD

[Spira]

as someone who does/did actually play both XI and XIV concurrently and has been keeping up to date with both, i'd have to say that XIV is not a bad game. it's a solid MMORPG, but in the post-WoW sense. although XI and XIV are both games within the MMORPG genre (for now), because they were conceived in different eras of MMOs, they're so different that any comparison made is almost akin to apples and oranges. but there are some points i think that are common..

gear progression:
XI for most of its life adopted a horizontal progression of gear. you had a variety of gear suited to a variety of playstyles. towards the 119 era, this is less obvious because the raw stat gains from 119 gear significantly overpower other pieces in general. but the variety is still there, and dominant in most jobs. the fact that you have gearswapping also takes advantage of this. you can gear according to what you feel you need. XIV doesnt have any of this because progression is strictly linear. most of the time you don't even have to look at stats - just find and use the highest ilvl you can find. because theres no gear swapping, all classes have 1 primary stat modifier, and the economy literally DISCOURAGES trade, and content have itemlevel-walls, you don't see any variety of gearing at all. its possible, perhaps, but is too much effort and not worth it when its easier to just play the way youre "supposed to", and nobody else either tries or is receptive of alternate builds anyway as it precludes you from DF. (in other words, you really need to have a community of friends willing to do shit with you in order to play differently - see all WAR / all SMN/SCH for eg)

community:
like i mentioned before. in XIV, everything is so convenient to do alone or with systems like DF in place, that people barely see a need to communicate with other players - the game is so sterile in that sense. you don't get people coming together to say "lets do missions together" because half the time, you can't actually do much together - and if you could, you better hope that your jobs fit well in DF if you're in need of a full party for instances, because otherwise that won't fly. XI's community is unparalleled afaik - we're so busy communicating with each other all the time - party / ls / shouts / yells. talking to random people you see in the zone. fishing and cracking rude jokes in Hall of the Gods. things like that make the world feel alive. cross-cultural relations - learning to communicate with JPs, or simply the way they prefer to do things. the community extended beyond the game - the forums right here and elsewhere - people discussing how to solve or clear content. remember the days of the mystery of sea? or when huge battle content systems were launched.. like abyssea? we worked together. crowdfunding someones mythic? yup that's been done too. XI has the social aspect down pat.

story:
XIV has a lot of work to do. it's subpar for FF standards. possibly average for MMO standards, but also inferior to XI, its predecessor. Lately it's been slightly better... but it still sucks mostly.

[Shenrien]

Idk if you could be anymore biast or not to XI or not, but I'm reading something posted by someone who had to have their dream weapon crowd funded, couldn't do it yourself. Where as everyone else including myself actually put in the effort to get what we wanted.

[dasva]

Idk if you could be anymore biast

I believe you can

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/...20090925090320

[Deader2818]

Crafting/Gathering is a hell of a lot better in XIV than in XI ill say that much

[Psion]

Idk if you could be anymore biast or not to XI or not, but I'm reading something posted by someone who had to have their dream weapon crowd funded, couldn't do it yourself. Where as everyone else including myself actually put in the effort to get what we wanted.

Spira was too busy being helpful to the FFXI community at large, he didn't have time for his dream weapon too!

(seriously i hope you're being sarcastic and not a dick)

[Spira]

Idk if you could be anymore biast or not to XI or not, but I'm reading something posted by someone who had to have their dream weapon crowd funded, couldn't do it yourself. Where as everyone else including myself actually put in the effort to get what we wanted.

red herring. of course i am biased, but the crowdfunded mythic has nothing to do with it. on the contrary, i would be less biased than anyone who funded their own RME because i have less of a vested interest.

also lol dasva. <3

[dasva]

red herring. of course i am biased, but the crowdfunded mythic has nothing to do with it. on the contrary, i would be less biased than anyone who funded their own RME because i have less of a vested interest.

also lol dasva. <3

I try not to spelling/grammar Nazi but when your misspelling leads to a real nm I'm going there!!!

But yeah could it have made your more biased? Sure... but it would've done so by proving the point about community. Bias isn't necessarily bad if it's earned

[gaira]

the one good thing that xiv's simplified loot system has going for it is that it takes extremely little time to get caught up to current standards if you aren't interested in playing every month, or are starting from scratch. xi is fairly easy to get caught up too, these days, but it certainly wasn't always that way.

in fact, even with completely different playstyles and gear standards, both games can be done from character creation to endgame capable in under a month now fairly easily.

xi will always have my respect for the gear swapping that allowed you to min/max every possible action your character could do, and it was fun as hell to make and improve sets. but i'm able to enjoy xiv without a similar system, at least for now.

[dasva]

I've noticed that a lot of the comparison between xi and xiv comes down to cutscenes/story.... and I can't speak for xiv but I thoroughly enjoyed most the ones in xi but sadly at times have had to have the sound off or spam enter and was wonder if there is some collection of all of at least the mission ones?

[Spira]

Youtube.

Kaoz has most if not all of the older ones.
Alternatively WotgAshiee
Finally for the newest stuff Kyrial

[Arthars]

when anyone of you tried to compare XI to XIV, you have a loose screw in your head

they are different game, with different strengths, comparing XI to any other MMO, not just XIV will net you the same result

except with 1 common thing in ALL MMO

NA community sucks

you guys are still salty/upset because you r too attached to XI and i understand that

but you got out of hand when you try to compare. Trust me be it XIV or any other MMO you MIGHT play from here on, you will always be comparing and salty

some of you even went that far to say "i will never try another MMO" just further justified what i said

ever heard of a break up? you move on from there, not cry under your pillow till ur mum wipes ur tear

most of us cared and sad about XI end of major contents, but none of us give a flying fuck if you had tried or will try XIV, or even any other MMOs

just stfu already

[Cesaria]

I much prefer the crafting/gathering in XIV... storyline in XI... music in XI but I don't like the ARR stuff much as a general rule in terms of style so that one's fairly subjective... XIV has a much nicer housing system and I've got so used to changing jobs on the fly that going to a moogle feels like a real hindrance now. XI at its height had a much stronger community than XIV does now even if you've got a good FC - but that's more a consequence of the duty matching and cross server thing meaning you can get away with being a dick and not being likely to see the same people again ever I think than anything else, plus the ease of name changing.

Different games basically with different strengths. How XIV develops now they've pulled off the reboot and can start taking it in the direction they've got planned out will be interesting to see but a heck of a lot of people I know in XIV do tend to say quite a lot that they really miss XI and switched because the server population had dropped and friends had quit more than anything else.

On a semi related note - a couple of friends have been doing world transfers in XI this weekend just gone (we've all come back to clear the remaining content together) and they've bugged out and not gone through so they've had to GM call them in to get pushed through and the GMs (well the one guy left in the broom cupboard) have been really pushing them with the "are you sure? it may well be that the servers get merged soon so you don't end up where you're asking to move to" line... this is moving onto Quetz so I reckon merges are coming very soon once the resubscriptions settle down a bit.

[Sechs]

I don't get how people can criticize FFXIV for its cutscenes.
Granted that there are quite boring/useless ones and that a lot of quests are just boring wall-o-texts with no c/s that nobody is gonna bother to read, the main story CS are simply gorgeous. They reach results (in terms of custom animations, custom dialogues, environments, 3D camera, direction etc) that FFXI never reached, despite the devs getting much better from vanilla FFXI to Adoulin, the instruments in the hands of FFXIV developers to create cutscenes are just THAT much better.

Only thing I could understand criticizing is the script/story approach. In FFXI you're just one of the heroes, most of the times you're just a whitness for the events that are unfolding. In FFXIV so far you've always been the deus ex machina hero, from level 30 already. Which has gotten kinda old, it became boring and kills the epicness.
But I reckon that's a highly subjective issue.



Also I completely support who said the Crafting/Gathering thing is so much better in FFXIV. Absolutely. It's actually fun, there's a lot of depth and there's even "end-game" for that.
Sadly so much depth is completely out of place in a theme park type of MMO like FFXIV, and their attempts to make craft/gathering matter (Materia, steps for Relic/Zodiac weapons, the ugly Desynth) partially managed to make them still matter, somehow, but at the cost of accessibility, which is the main goal in a non-sandbox game like FFXIV.
The majority of game elements in FFXIV feel very coherent and streamlined towards the same direction (that of a simplified, accessible, theme park MMO game), yet there are some elements, often remnants from 1.0, that still feel... clunky.
Like they don't belong in FFXIV, like they have no purpose or meaning or create issues.


Which is probably exactely the reason why I'm disappointed/unhyped by Heavensward.
I was hoping for them to take the chance with 3.0 and fix all those things that they couldn't fix with ARR.
Yet they seem to have taken the approach of not even wanting to bother.
Heavensward looking more and more and more like a "more of the same".
I guess that's super fine for people who already feel satisfied from FFXIV, but that won't probably be enough for the rest.

[Deader2818]

I wouldnt expect Heavensward to change much of the status quo. Rise of The Zilart hardly did either. The 3rd and 4th expansions will likely be the game changers.

[Kincard]

There is some charm to how mysterious the crafting in XI was which led to all the endless debates about weather, Vana'Diel Days or which direction you face, but crafting itself was pretty boring. Crafting is definitely way better in ARR and it's the best crafting system of any MMO I've played. You have to figure out quite a few things to get good at it instead of just sitting down, crossing your fingers and watching a crystal spin. Only shame is that because of the itemization in XIV there's little actual use for it aside from leveling your low level jobs, but I guess its useful for people who like playing dressup since it has some unique models of gear. (My understanding is that Heavensward will also force players to specialize in one specific craft in some way to force interaction, which is great)

Gathering in ARR is boring but that's sort of just the nature of gathering. 1.0 had that hot-and-cold game and personally I wish they kept that and instead just increased the amount of items you get per strike or something. Also it was a huge mistake in making you just run between 4 predetermined points for gathering as if they're a bunch of constantly restocking vending machines you kick for free candy instead of actually feeling like you were gathering materials from the wild. Obviously XI also has a bunch of preset points as well but since it randomized at least it kinda makes you feel like you were exploring- the issue is that aside from a few select cases like Khroma Ore during TOAU and whatnot (which just got teleport/botted to hell anyway) gathering was a huge waste of time.

As far as the lore/cutscenes go, I never played far enough into 1.0 to know much about it there, but for me most of the XI cutscenes feel like they're there for their own sake as compared to XIV where a lot of the time NPCs will use a lot of words to tell you a whole lot more nothing. It's part of the reason I also really don't like the three story addons they had for XI which were just long excuses to sell a piece of gear to players for $10 each. Another thing is that I feel like XI's lore was more clearly defined before they pushed the game out. I can understand the general progression of societies in Vana'Diel during the different Ages but I don't have a very clear understanding of what happened during Hydaelyn's different Eras (granted, part of that is intentional). XI has some "bottom up" sort of lore as opposed to some of the lore in ARR which felt like it was written just so they could have a quest (Like one random daily quest for the Amal'Jaa will inform you that they are buried with their weapons and its a great insult to steal these weapons, but outside the context of the game it's basically only there so you can have a fetch quest, I never saw it come up any other time).
Also I'm sure this is also the case for XI even though I've never played on the Japanese client (if only because of dumb things like that All Your Base reference during WOTG), but in ARR if you listen to the Japanese dialogue like I do you'll quickly find that the translation changes quite a bit. They usually get the general thrust of what people are saying correct but often the tone of voice is completely different, or its missing/adds information that was originally there. Guess they decided to go for more of a localization instead of a faithful translation.

[Damane]

@sechs the story has gotten better with 2.4 the player isnt anymore the deus ex machina. The story is getting better alot so i think heavensward will definitly deliver story wisr. also final coil story delivered too and gave conclusion to something.

[Inactive]

when anyone of you tried to compare XI to XIV, you have a loose screw in your head

they are different game, with different strengths, comparing XI to any other MMO, not just XIV will net you the same result

except with 1 common thing in ALL MMO

NA community sucks

you guys are still salty/upset because you r too attached to XI and i understand that

but you got out of hand when you try to compare. Trust me be it XIV or any other MMO you MIGHT play from here on, you will always be comparing and salty

some of you even went that far to say "i will never try another MMO" just further justified what i said

ever heard of a break up? you move on from there, not cry under your pillow till ur mum wipes ur tear

most of us cared and sad about XI end of major contents, but none of us give a flying fuck if you had tried or will try XIV, or even any other MMOs

just stfu already

Amen. Play XIV if you want, why there are 20 pages of people going on about what you find best in one game or the other doesn't really serve any purpose other than to hear yourselves speak. I think we've all come to the conclusion that if you're looking for an FFXI replacement you aren't going to find one, especially not in XIV.

That said if you aren't able to beat and fully gear from the new content in a weekend, then FFXI could still have some life left. I mean how many years were we camping kings and farming sky (even abyssea lasted a while)? If they're just going to release a few new battles to upgrade current gear a few more items levels then, yeah, the games dead. I've played on for almost 12 years now, but if the game sucks then I'll gladly move on.

[Sechs]

@sechs the story has gotten better with 2.4 the player isnt anymore the deus ex machina. The story is getting better alot so i think heavensward will definitly deliver story wisr. also final coil story delivered too and gave conclusion to something.

I'm up to date with the story, and the game.
I'm just ignoring Golden Saucer which is cool but not my cup of tea.
Yes there have been slight differences in the story which lead me to think Heavenward will do things better.
But either way I criticized the "You are the hero" thing of FFXIV from a very very personal point of view, I'd never dare to say it's a deficiency of FFXIV, it's just a... choice they made, that someone may like and someone might not.
Aside from these personal opinions and aside from the unbalancement of the watering down (a couple of things are way too fast like the ending of the original Story, everything else has been watered down waaaay too much with useless parts), the cut-scenes are technically so much better in FFXIV, and that's because of the better "direction" instruments the devs have in their hands compared to the FFXI ones.

The point of my previous post was that I can understand criticizing several aspects of FFXIV's story (watering down, plot, you-are-the-hero etc), but the cut-scenes themselves are technically really awesome.


@Kincard
The latest patches have incurred into serious translation issues. Dialogues from dragons, from Midgarsorrmr, the things Iceheart says etc.
Granted that they are subtle things, they change quite a lot of shades and as a result a lot of information gets lost. Dunno why they went that route for the last patches. There are quite a few reddit discussions showing the original text and the translated, cut and changed english version.
Shame, really.
Also makes me wish they could have released only English/Japanese voiceover instead than also French/German ones. That way they could've focused on the quality and quantity of english/japanese voiceovers (since they don't have infinite resources and have to accept bigger compromises with 4 voiceovers to make compared to what they would've with just 2)

[Draylo]

when anyone of you tried to compare XI to XIV, you have a loose screw in your head

they are different game, with different strengths, comparing XI to any other MMO, not just XIV will net you the same result

except with 1 common thing in ALL MMO

NA community sucks

you guys are still salty/upset because you r too attached to XI and i understand that

but you got out of hand when you try to compare. Trust me be it XIV or any other MMO you MIGHT play from here on, you will always be comparing and salty

some of you even went that far to say "i will never try another MMO" just further justified what i said

ever heard of a break up? you move on from there, not cry under your pillow till ur mum wipes ur tear

most of us cared and sad about XI end of major contents, but none of us give a flying fuck if you had tried or will try XIV, or even any other MMOs

just stfu already

Why not, XIV players been bashing XI since 2.0 came out and didn't see this post then lol. I didn't wanna get into any debates but a lot of people seem to agree XIV's story in quest/missions are pretty garbage. Some of them are good like Ultima arc but they did CS a lot better even in 1.0. I still remember that Nael van Darnus CS with him fighting the good guys or w/e, that was cool and they don't do anything like that now.

On a semi related note - a couple of friends have been doing world transfers in XI this weekend just gone (we've all come back to clear the remaining content together) and they've bugged out and not gone through so they've had to GM call them in to get pushed through and the GMs (well the one guy left in the broom cupboard) have been really pushing them with the "are you sure? it may well be that the servers get merged soon so you don't end up where you're asking to move to" line... this is moving onto Quetz so I reckon merges are coming very soon once the resubscriptions settle down a bit.

They said that to me like four months ago when I moved, it doesn't mean anything.