At PAX East there was finally the release date of the new expansion for Final Fantasy XIV – Dawntrail. But the head of the MMORPG also spoke about a shift in the developers’ focus: away from optimization for solo content and back towards multiplayer content.
What was announced? During the PAX East presentation, Naoki Yoshida, the director and producer of Final Fantasy XIV, spoke about future plans for the MMORPG. He lists the following points on a Power Point slide:
These points should affect the upcoming content and patches of the updates after the release of Dawntrail.
Specifically, Yoshi-P is talking about new content like Stormbloods Eureka or Shadowbringers Bozja. This is content with a side story as well as its own instances and maps. Each instance holds up to 72 players, which still gives the impression of fullness on the smaller maps.
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What are Eureka and Bozja? Mobs, bosses and smaller group content spawn in Eureka and Bozja and need to be dealt with. Once the players, some of whom join together to form so-called FATE trains, have completed all the content, the end game is unlocked. This endgame can, for example, be a 48-man dungeon with extra tough opponents, at the end of which special rewards await.
The older content is popular with players for various reasons: In both, you have to grind levels, kill world bosses together with other players and cheer each other on. In Eureka and Bozja, Final Fantasy XIV really feels like a traditional MMORPG.
Bozja is also perfect for leveling secondary classes. You can also get lots of great items there and meet other players.
Why an MMORPG has to announce that it wants to bring multiplayer content
Why is this so exciting in an MMORPG? In the development of Final Fantasy XIV, the development team has focused on single-player experiences for the past two years or so. This meant, for example, expanding the trust system, where NPC companions could be taken into 4-man dungeons.
The background to this is that Final Fantasy XIV not only wants to appeal to traditional MMORPG players, but also to pure RPG fans:
The common thread that connects almost all of the game’s content is the strong main story that the game advertises. To make it easier for fans of story-focused games in Final Fantasy XIV, the development team is putting a lot of resources into single-player-friendly adjustments and content.
Theoretically, you can now play the game alone and view other player characters in the overworld as NPCs. Similar to Diablo 4.
The focus on the development of solo content repeatedly caused dissatisfaction in the game’s community. Content like Bozja was sorely missed in the current expansion, although of course there was simply other content instead. Nevertheless, there was always talk of a lack of content.
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However, if the focus in Dawntrail is more on multiplayer again, that should make the players happier all around: Now that the older content has been streamed for single-player, this will probably also be taken into account in newer content. Developing content types for both audiences will most likely run simultaneously.
In fact, it currently looks as if things will be quite tight in the game when Dawntrail is released at the beginning of July. When it came to digital pre-orders, the servers on the Square Enix website were broken: Better play this MMORPG now – in the summer it will be so full that you’ll complain about waiting in line for hours