How Square Enix should salvage FFXIV

I have it! After watching the latest FFXIV official opening cinematic, I know what Square Enix can do to salvage the garbage that is FFXIV online! Make FFXIV an anime series. That is, keep all the storytelling and CG aspects of the game but take out the interactive bits. I'd gladly pay $50-$60 for a set of FFXIV anime DVDs that feature the eye candy and the storytelling that's synonymous with FF, instead of $50 for a shitty game. I actually think they might make more money in the long run if they just released "FFXIV: the anime series", instead of "FFXIV online: the shitty game that plays like it's from the '90s".

"How to fail at producing a competitive product", by Hiromichi Tanaka

The development of Final Fantasy XIV occupies all my time, so I do not have time to play other games. I am therefore sorry to say that the last game that pleased me as a player is Final Fantasy XI.
- Hiromichi Tanaka (exerpt from the interview below)

This is like saying, "We want to build the best car in the world. No, we did not test any other cars currently in the market. But, the car that pleased me most as a driver was the last one we built."



Translation below:

"I worked on Final Fantasy XI for 8 years. I was able to collect a lot of feedback and testimonials of MMORPG players. But I also heard many moving stories from the players. A lot of things happened between them. So I had a great pleasure in working on a new MMORPG and I will be able to hear many new stories written through the game. We do not try to compete with World of Warcraft. We really want to convince the fans of Final Fantasy who have never played an MMORPG. But also show to casual gamers that MMORPGs are very exciting to play. We really hope that Final Fantasy XIV will be a good first experience for those new players.

With this title we want to bring new players to the MMORPG experience, so we spent a lot of time to manage the play time. We know that MMORPGs can consume a lot of time for players. We have therefore created the "Guild Leaves" and an armory which will allow players to use their playing time effectively. This is one of the main novelties of this Final Fantasy XIV. We really wanted to make quests less repetitive as possible for players. In Final Fantasy XI, when you were done with a quest, it was not meant to be repeated. Instead in Final Fantasy XIV we really want the players to repeat them as many times as they want. Attempts are being made to make these quests as pleasant as possible so that players do not feel bored.

The development of Final Fantasy XIV occupies all my time, so I do not have time to play other games. I am therefore sorry to say that the last game that pleased me as a player is Final Fantasy XI.

We have not yet anything in mind to the Playstation Plus members. You'll have the traditional achievments for all players, but nothing special for Playstation Plus members. "

Source

I think FFXIV would be a better product if someone with more relevant production experience was at the helm, and Tanaka had the role of Lead Designer instead of Executive Producer. I'm going to assume that FFXI purists will be happy with FFXIV. But, if you have enjoyed other games, it will be unlikely that the things you enjoyed in those games will be in FFXIV. I further speculate that despite an initial spike in subscriber numbers, the game will struggle to expand its market (especially in the first few years) and settle somewhere close to current FFXI subscriber numbers; basically migrating players from older Final Fantasy games to FFXIV.

FFXIV alpha: not pleased

Due to the NDA I can't say much, but I'll say that it was incredibly disappointing to see very basic issues (in Alpha and with low population no less!) when the game is slated to be released in a month. It is making me suspicious of Hiromichi Tanaka's competence. I found out that he is the producer of the FFXIV game so I looked up his resume and began speculating. Most of his experience seems to be in game design, so I'm sure he's a brilliant/solid game designer. But does he have experience leading large-scale software projects? Developing massively-multiplayer games? Working on games like Chrono Cross or Seiken Densetsu does not qualify someone to develop MMOGs, since they are on a different order of complexity. So, the only real MMOG experience he has is from FFXI. Has he learned enough from FFXI?

Not having comprehensive technical expertise is not a dealbreaker for a leader, as long as he is humble and wise enough to identify what is important, recognize his shortcomings, then hire and manage the right talent to fill in the gaps. But then I wondered: what if Tanaka-san doesn't get it? Is there someone else overseeing the production of the game that has the influence to change his mind? Someone who could keep Tanaka honest or redirect the heading of the game? Since Tanaka produced FFXI and was brought back for FFXIV, I am thinking not. He's probably the best guy that Square Enix has for the job, and has even more influence in FFXIV than he did in FFXI.

But, what about his subordinates? Surely someone lower in rank can raise concerns or influence some change. I recalled Tanaka-san's resume. If his resume is any indication of how it is in the game industry, there is probably a lot of inbreeding and incest. Tanaka started out as a programmer for games, and went on to being a designer for game after game. He has little professional experience outside of the game industry, and now he's on top of the totem pole. So, if someone like Tanaka-san cannot recognize problems in the development, and everyone in the organization is similar to him, it's very likely that no one will be able to steer the ship away from any impending doom or toward better methods/technology. This would be particularly so because of the Japanese work culture.

The other concern is that Tanaka has tons of experience designing games. While this is good news for the PVE content and gameplay in FFXIV, it could be bad if he allows himself to get too distracted or consumed by the game design components that he is so fond of. This is a common pitfall for managers that have come up from the trenches --- they tend to see things from the point of view that they are most familiar with. He is a producer after all, and at some point he needs to detach himself, assume a more global stance, delegate, and give fair attention to the other important parts of the game.

I hope that I'm wrong about the FFXIV production, despite FFXIV (and FFXI under Tanaka's leadership also) having succumbed to sloppy scheduling, undefined-deadline releases, basic/fundamental issues in Alpha, and Beta testing only less than a month before release! If a real company producing Operating Systems, CAD tools, microprocessors or even online tax software were run like these game companies, they would most certainly not be successful. Somehow gaming companies are held to a different standard, or have more room for error. Please prove me wrong, Tanaka-san!

Final Fantasy XIV: PVE > PVP?

If you asked me a year or two ago, I would have scoffed at the idea of playing a Final Fantasy game. But the way games have been going lately, I am expecting a PVE-centric game like Final Fantasy to be a nice change of pace, even for the PVP fan that I am. My rationale is as follows.

Fewer design constraints
If PVP is excluded from the picture, many constraints are removed from the equation, and there is less pressure for the dev team to get things right. I.e., there are fewer ways for the dev team to screw up. This allows them to focus on other parts of the game instead of tinkering with and breaking this and that (optimization is a more difficult problem than adding PVE content and an amateur dev team will typically fail).

It's okay if classes are not balanced
In a PVE game, classes do not have to be balanced for the game to be healthy. As long as each class is fun to whoever plays it, the game wins. In a PVE game, no one will complain if a rogue class is able to stealth indefinitely, if a glass cannon class has no way to get out of stuns, if a healing class can also do decent damage; or about something more detailed like "melee class M has 3 CCs while ranged class R only has 2 counter-CCs".

Everyone is allowed to be "overpowered"
In a PVP game, if one class is ever allowed to 1-shot another class by design, many people would be disappointed. It's like the phrase from The Incredibles, "when everyone's super, no one will be". In a PVP game, no matter how powerful your abilities may seem on paper, you can bet that your opponents will have equally powerful abilities. You will never get the feeling of superiority that you thought you would, even as you hurl fireballs from your finger tips and shoot lightning from your ass. This is because a PVP game will never allow you to "overpower" your opponent. You are never supposed to fight 10 enemies by yourself and expect to win. In a PVE game, however, your opponents are allowed to be lesser beings, and you are allowed to feel... "super". Isn't this why people play RPGs in the first place? To feel awesome?

No gear grind?
MMORPGs typically offer a gear progression and reward players with better gear after a 'grind'. This necessitates a grind in order to be competitive in PVP. The people who don't (or cannot) grind as much will always be at a disadvantage to the people who grind more. Thus, an invisible "bar" is set by how much effort everyone in the game is willing to grind (or pay for someone else to grind). If you fall below this bar, you will almost certainly have a worse gaming experience than everyone above the bar. Also, note that the bar always rises and never falls, since everyone is always upgrading their gear. Leave for a week-long vacation? Get bogged down by RL commitments? The invisible bar would have inched higher and you are a little less powerful than you used to be, relative to everyone else. In a PVE game however, no one suffers for the benefit of another person's enjoyment. The "bar" would have been set by the game designers as a prerequisite to PVE content, but it is static. Fall a little behind because of RL? That's alright --- the content is waiting for you exactly where you left off --- you're not going to suddenly get facerolled by noobs who grinded more than you.

What I'm looking out for now is either a PVE game, or a PVP game where skill > gear. I'm definitely going to check out FFXIV since my girlfriend's a big fan. We'll find out if I'm right about a PVE-centric game being a nice change of pace. They're supposedly upgrading their PVP experience, but I'm actually hoping that they stick to their bread-and-butter and keep it PVE, for the reasons above.