Modernizing Final Fantasy XIV

These are suggested modifications for FFXIV to make more in line with other modern MMOs like Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2. There are several areas that, in my view, should be upgraded to keep FFXIV more in line with a better user experience and to make the new user experience better. These three MMOS are all approximately the same age and yet ESO and GW2 have modernized, or were created in a modern way that prevented some problems that with its older design FFXIV now faces.

The Leveling Experience

FFXIV is facing a severe problem with regard to leveling. The static, vertical leveling model has gone way past a reasonable limit. The amount of work that a new player faces to catch up to the current “End Game” is too daunting to expect a casual player to invest that amount of time and effort. Also the current design of the game locks the new features – new Jobs, new Zones, new Allied Races, etc. – behind this long progression. To bring FFXIV more in line with the current state of other modern MMOs changes should be made. For years now we have heard that folks must just push through A Realm Reborn and the game will get better. Well it may get better after ARR, but you are just nearing the tree line of the huge mountain you must climb to get to that class you want to play or that dungeon you want to do or that story you want to experience. “I’d like to meet the Loporrits”. Well in a few weeks you can do that.

Many MMOs that are now, sadly deceased, have tried to address progression by making the game just much easier. And this appears to fail most often. None of the suggestions here are attempting to make the game “Easier” or “Progress Faster”. The total time to play the entirety of the FFXIV game should take about the same amount of time. After more than 10 years there is a huge mountain of game play and world out there. The suggestions here are intended to add choice not make things easier. Tera changed things to make things easier. Made the game all about End Game and then after a few years died. Anyway, after many years playing Tera that was my observation.

Changes have been made to FFXIV but they miss the mark for addressing these core issues in the game:

  • New Game Plus allows replay of previous Main Scenario Quest lines – the main story. But the problems is not Replay of things I’ve played, but ability to play things in another order.
  • Duty Support allows dungeons to be played with NPCs rather than other players. The problem with this feature is that the NPCs are not good players and so it’s painful to play this way. If one wants to run a dungeon one is much better off just to queue for the dungeon and play with real players. If duty support were popular it might take longer to queue for dungeons.
  • The Trust System to allow NPCs to play dungeons with a player has the same problems as “Duty Support” plus the additional problem of having to “Train” your NPCs by repeatedly running dungeons to level the NPCs up. But no one can see your progress since only you can see your Trust NPCs in a dungeon by yourself.

Here’s an example of how the leveling experience might be changed to upgrade it to solve these problems:

  1. Keep the current leveling experience the same until level 20 when the Warrior of Light [WoL] joins a grand company. At this point the WoL has the choice of continuing with A Realm Reborn or to start any of the other MSQ quest lines: HeavensWard, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, End Walker or Dawntrail or any future expansion.
  2. When starting any of the expansions the level of the WoL max level job[s] is/are scaled to 20. For all appearances the level cap of the game is 20. This allows the WoL to immediately transfer to any of the expansions and to complete them. At the end of any quest, the WoL might start another MSQ and the progression in an expansion is saved and the new expansion can be played.
  3. This scheme means that all of the game zones are available by doing a few quests in each of the MSQ segments to open up those zones. The current scheme of locking zones behind quest progression in the MSQ is not changed. Rather the change is to start all the expansions at level 20.
  4. Dungeons are scaled to level 20 including all higher level end-game dungeons. The apparent difficulty does not change only the numeric level of the dungeon.
  5. Job skill progression is earned by doing the Job Quests as they are now. While the level of a job only progresses from 1 to 20, the job quests continue past that point to allow the WoL to learn the new skills.
  6. The Jobs have a Skill Level as they progress, and dungeons may be locked so that a WoL playing a job below a given Job Skill Level may not queue for or enter a dungeon.
  7. Working with Allied Races might be locked to a given job skill level. This means that at least one job must progress to a required job skill level in order to meet an Allied Race and do it’s quests.
  8. Jobs that are added with expansions are all available to any player at level 20 or above. The skill progression for that job can be started at 20 and progresses from there. All the base jobs start at level 1 as they do now.

This scheme works. It is exactly the scheme that GW2 does only the level cap for GW2 is level 80. But the levels in GW2 go by much faster. In FFXIV the MSQ quest count to finish ARR is about 180 and to finish Endwalker is about 740.

In GW2, you don’t need to do the Personal story or any of the other stories to progress your Level to 80. You can just play each of the zones. All the base zones are available by just walking there. Zones of the “Expansions” and the Living World Seasons are locked behind a quest or two since these expansions and seasons are sold for a small fee. Of course all the expansions and seasons assume you have reached level cap.

Bank Space, Retainers, and Companions

In FFXIV, the concepts of Bank Space, Retainers, and Companions are confused. There are several problems in this area:

  • Retainers appear to be companions, but no player except the WoL can see them.
  • There is no apparent value to leveling retainers up with the retainer ventures. No change in the behavior of the WoL occurs as the retainers level up and no other Player Character can see the retainers.
  • There is only one type of “Companion” – the Chocobo.
  • There is no account accessible or shareable bank space and therefore no way to share items of any kind among characters on the same account. Of course, a friend or simply an acquaintance can easy pass items or Gil [game currency] between characters. Many items in FFXIV are not “Character Locked” so many items can be passed. But all other games have account wide shared storage so passing items is easy. Not even mail works between characters in an account on FFXIV.
  • Selling Items on the auction house and the concept of Retainers is confused. Why not make another item in the Hotel Room that is access to the Auction House. Make this completely decoupled from Retainers. The number of items that can be queued for sale is a rather large fixed number rather than being based on how many retainers are available.
  • Grand Company Squadrons are a related problem. An alternative way to view “Companions” is to consider how they might interact with Squadrons. Again, Squadrons are completely invisible to other players and so it’s not possible to know how many players use this feature in it’s current form.

These problems could be solved with the following changes. I’m sure there are other ways, but these are examples of what might be done:

Bank Storage

  • Separate the concepts of Retainers and Bank Space. Instead make a Bank item in the Hotel Room that accesses all the storage for the account.
  • Add a storage group that is account wide.
  • Make purchase of bank space a One-Time purchase rather than a Monthly Rental. Additional retainers currently cost $2 USD per month. So after a year that is $24 for 175 bank slots, but only accessible on each player character separately.
  • It would seem better to provide both character private and Account shared space. Trying to combine current separate bank slots into a common shared space would be too confusing.
  • As an example, GW2 sells only account wide bank space at the cost of 480 Gems per tab of 30 additional slots up to a maximum of 18 tabs. One tab is supplied to the account. 480 Gems is about $5 USD. ESO provides only account wide shared storage as either Bank Storage [Purchased and Upgraded with Gold], or Storage containers [Purchased with Crowns].

Companions

Currently the only type of companion in FFXIV is the Chocobo. As a companion, this NPC fights with the WoL and levels up gaining power and new skills. With a change of the role of retainers away from Bank Storage and Auction House, the retainers are available for companions.

As an example of what is possible, ESO provides Companions, which are NPC that are Hired with a simple quest line for each one and then these NPCs fight along side the Player and level across the entire account. While the Companions are recruited by each Player doing a quest, the leveling and glamour is account wide.

What if Retainers became like companions in ESO? They would be created the same way as they currently are. The functions of the Retainer Vocate would be the same. And the summoning bell function would remain in the Hotel Room. However bank functions and auction house functions would be removed from the retainers. If the retainer is not actively doing a Venture, then the retainer is at that moment available as a companion to fight along side the WoL out in the world, or in a dungeon. Of course leveling restrictions would apply to retainers. Their assigned job would have to be leveled to the appropriate skill level either with Ventures or by playing with the character. Other player characters would see the Retainer Companion just as they see the current Chocobo companion, both in the world and in dungeons. Of course if the party is full of players, no companions would appear.

Also, when a Retainer companion is summoned and we mount up and fly away, the companion should do the same and not just disappear until we land. Have a way to set which mount the companion uses from the mounts available to the player.

Isn’t it time we retired the idea of Fresh Gysahl Greens and companions timing out. It seems silly to continually feed them a head of lettuce? Seriously. Nobody is gonna miss this if it were removed from the game. We might have to change the quest that introduces the Chocobo as a companion rather than just a mount, but this is easy enough and the quest needs to admit that Retainers can also be summoned as companions.

Another difference between the Retainers as Companions idea and ESO companions is that in FFXIV currently retainers are different for each Player on the account and so must be glamoured and leveled separately. In ESO companions are Account Wide and so progress and glamour across all your characters in common.

Squadrons might be integrated with companions by allowing companions to train with the squadrons. That is perform Ventures with the squadron. It is not clear why both squadrons and retainers exist. Perhaps squadrons should just disappear if retainer as companions were added.

Duty Support and Trust Systems

The Duty Support and Trust systems need to be revamped, combined or eliminated. They aren’t a useful way to run dungeons to level up since the Trust NPCs aren’t good players. Apparently the Trust system suffers from confusing or missing glamour options so you can’t control how the Scions look. And of course, only you can see the Trust members because they can’t participate with more than one member in the party.

Jobs Added with Expansions

The current practice of adding jobs with expansions but locking them behind the Huge Mountain of Progression required to get to the current End Game is another aspect of the problems in FFXIV.

  • Dark Knight, Machinist, and Astrologian were added with Heavensward and start at level 30.
  • Samurai and Red Mage were added with Stormblood and start at level 50.
  • Blue Mage limited job was added after Stormblood and starts at level 50.
  • Gunbreaker and Dancer were added with Shadowbringers and start at level 60.
  • Reaper and Sage were added with Endwalker and start at level 70.
  • Viper and Pictomancer are to be added with Dawntrail and start at level 80.
  • Beastmaster limited job will be added after Dawntrail.

As you can see, new jobs are added on top of the huge mountain of progression that is the entire game at the point where these jobs are added. Good luck to new players dealing with that. Viper and Pictomancer look like interesting jobs to play. Too bad it will take you more than sixty hours of game play to get to where you can play them. Let’s just make all of these jobs available at level 20.

This means adding job skill leveling between 20 and the current start of the jobs. We don’t have to add quests in this range. Also if the player waits to activate one of these jobs until they have another job at the levels above then the job does not start at 20, but starts at the level originally used. For example, if the WoL starts as a Lancer at level 1 and then levels to level 40 before picking up Machinist, then the Machinist starts at level 30, not at level 20. But if the player picks up Machinist at level 20 – the earliest that any of these added jobs can be started – then the Machinist starts at level 20 and after the initial job quest at level 20, there are no more job quests until 35- the next normal job quest. This allows anyone at level 20 or above to start one of the added jobs, but we don’t need to add a pile of new Job Quests to the game. The new job, for example Pictomancer, just progresses automatically until the current start level is reached. This is not extra work for the game since all jobs are able to De-Level to run lower level dungeons.

Summary

These suggestions are merely pointing out some of the changes that might be made to modernize FFXIV. I’m sure that any careful design would be different than presented here, but it seems to me that the current linear path of FFXIV progression is unsustainable, both for current users who like Alts and for new players.

All the other games that we’ve talked about have made changes to address these issues or were designed in the first place to avoid them. Wow, ESO, GW2 are all currently designed to avoid these issues. As one of the most popular MMOs currently being played, it seems clear that FFXIV needs to address these issues too.

Thanks for listening.
:ww