Can Final Fantasy XIV be saved, again?
17How are we feeling about Final Fantasy 14 these days? Are you like my friends who all quit because there was nothing to do? I'm about to start the Final Fantasy XI private server campaign to get people to come over to the nostalgia side and grind some crabs in the dunes. #finalfantasyxiv #ffxiv #ffxi #mmorpg
In order to course correct the game, Yoshi-P should take more inspiration from the gameplay mechanics of Final Fantasy XI and 1.0 of FF14.
Final Fantasy 14 is doing so bad that Square Enix wants you to play Final Fantasy 11.
It’s been a weird time in 14. Everyone was waiting for patch 7.25 to save 14, to give us something to do. A meaningful grind. Well we kind of got that with the first relic weapon, but then it devolved to tome farming for all the rest.
Then we have the 48 player raid content, the Forked Tower, which demands you schedule a run through discord because the system is impossible to use to get a random group.
Player numbers have been on the decline and the company knows.
Square Enix President Takashi Kiryu recently talked about the decline in player count since the launch of the most recent expansion, Dawntrail, and responded that they are aware, to questions about the decline in quality since then.
FF14 is a great game… until it has to be an MMORPG. New players are regularly invested in the story and derth of content… right up until they catch up and have to wait around for something to do like the rest of us.
Yoshi-P has said time and again that it’s OK to play other games between major content patches, and this comes through in the way the content is delivered. Content patches can mostly be completed in a day or two and then there are long months of waiting for the next drip feed.
In 11, you’re never done. There is always someone on the server you can be jealous of and it pushes players to never stop improving their gear. And somehow, much of your gear is forever pieces. Even at lower levels, you can get an item that will stay on you for most of your time. It makes getting a drop a very exciting moment because you can check off a slot and know it’s one of the best forever.
This is where I do an aside for people who don’t know… In 11, a relic would take you YEARS of grinding in retail, doing twice weekly runs of endgame raids plus making the gil to fund the items to upgrade your relic.
Outside of the only attainable the non-grass touchers, there was always a way you could upgrade your job, your gear, and your playstyle. There was never a time that, if you just wanted to play XI, you couldn’t find something to do in a meaningful way.
So how can any of this work in 14? It’s pretty obvious that the tomestone gearing system is engrained in the core of 14, but it would be nice to have some of the thinking back into it. Outside of materia melding, which still barely gives choice since some stats are capped on gear by default, I would love to find some unique gear that altered playstyles. For example, 11 has some weapons that will hit multiple times per swing and eventually they added the Magian weapon system that were long grinds you could do solo to customize a weapon on a branching upgrade path to add varying effects and attributes.
14 doesn’t need to copy any of this, but it does need to add long term goals, and achievements that are awe-worthy and long lasting. Ultimate Raids and the glamour weapons you can get from them are a great start, but like mounts, they only matter to people who care about glamour and looks.
14 has very few, if any, long term chases for players who want power, outside of savage raiding but that power is quickly replaced. There’s hardly any reason to play between patches except to hunt fashion, and players are feeling that even more in Dawntrail where the story is struggling to have any weight after such a heady conclusion in Endwalker.
Louiscool and Stone are duo-streamers. We play MMORPGs together and disagree on everything.
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