FFXIV A Realm Reborn

[OmnysValefor]

You forgot to mention that with loosing Second wind, you also gained access to paladin only skills, weapons and armor, an ability that would heal others when you recieved healing, your own heal that you could cast on your self, or it would heal you for half the hps healed if you used on someone else, hallowed ground, nullifies most damage (wouldn't block astral flow type moves), cover, and the best emnity generating weaponskill in the game. Your Af armor returned mp whenever you blocked with your shield, your relic shield had refresh, and your relic sword proc'd mp back, so it was very difficult to run out of mp, meaning not having second wind wasn't that big of deal, and they said jobs were more party based, classes were more for solo, so if you were tanking in a group, you would have had a healer there anyway.

Sounds like PLD certainly improved after I left.

Still, losing an instant cast powerful ability like that sucked, but I guess Paladin made up for it later on.

[Vizzer]

Those were the abilities paladin always had, the only thing that wasn't added in same patch as the job itself were the relic sword and shield. Warrior was just so overpowered as a tank/damage dealer when they implemented it that the community shyed away from paladins, and very few people saw how good they actually could be until the relic quests were put in, and Warrior's steal cyclone was brought down to where it should have been from the start. I never tanked Coincounter on Warrior, it worked just fine, you just had to dodge the big moves, but with paladin, you could stand there and block it, and that fight, having the mages out of aoe range and away from slugs was helpful, so the less the boss moved, the more stable the fight.

[Trumpy]

Linkshells were always intended as a chat system only. Players used them to make up their own end game systems for lotting and such (so thats where your tyrant end game Ls leaders come from). Other games have guilds and a system with in them, but i havent played many other MMOs.

[Kaisha]

Only thing XIV has that I want in XI is a functional Sprint skill.

XI's had a /sprint command for years courtesy of Conflict, but the devs never bothered letting us use it freely on a cooldown outside.

[Kincard]

There are a good chunk of people who want to jump ship from WoW but can't because contenders are either rushed into release (under the old "they'll put up with the game until we can get all the features in post-release" developer fallacy), fail to live up to the hype, have a crapton of other issues aside from missing systems (TOR), or are simply built on weak IPs. It's not as black and white as you seem to think it is.

I dunno, LOTRO, Guild Wars 2, and many other MMOs are very high-quality games, IMO. The problem has always had more to do with the nature of how MMOs work (designed to be played to the exclusion of everything else, people want to stick with their friends, etc) rather than anything especially wrong with what the games are doing.

I mean, I'm not really embarrassed to admit that part of the reason XI keeps drawing me back despite many other gmaes is because I've put so much time to my character that I've become "connected" to the little chipmonk-dwarf. That'll really help their XI players transfer over to XIV, but I dunno how well that'll bode for XIV in the general market.

[Deifact]

While I think in total ARR is an improvement on 1.0, I can't help but feel the battle system lost some strategy.

Most of the time I feel like I'm spamming abilities almost mindlessly (on monk anyway) because battles move so fast, there's no time to stop and think "what skill would be really effective here?".

I also find it difficult to really notice some enfeeble effects. For example Archer can Venom an enemy but whether this does any noticeable damage I have no idea because again the battles are so quick I can just spam my hot bar until it dies.

I think this system is appealing at first, it looks flashy and cool but what I love about ffxi is that with some battles you have to make important decisions and in some cases a bad decision will make you die.

[SqEnisfilledwithgeniuses]

I see people hung up on XIVs battle system. Let's look at XIs flawless system real quick. Take the current highest tier content, delve.

Paladin > Stand and get knocked around for 45 minutes.
Healers > Pro/shell/cure/erase/haste
DD > Auto Attack until 100%tp then ws.
Corsair > Hunter's Roll, Chaos Roll, Evoker's Roll, 7 minute nap
BRD > Minuet/Madrigal/March Elegy pull, lullaby.

Things that are missing: Skillchains, magic bursts, weaknesses, etc, etc.

In reality, all anyone is really clinging on to is "I've spent 'X' many years in this game."

I've played the beta last weekend and this weekend. I'll be switching to XIV in August. XIV has potential, XI is bleeding out.

[Vizzer]

While I think in total ARR is an improvement on 1.0, I can't help but feel the battle system lost some strategy.

Most of the time I feel like I'm spamming abilities almost mindlessly (on monk anyway) because battles move so fast, there's no time to stop and think "what skill would be really effective here?".

I also find it difficult to really notice some enfeeble effects. For example Archer can Venom an enemy but whether this does any noticeable damage I have no idea because again the battles are so quick I can just spam my hot bar until it dies.

I think this system is appealing at first, it looks flashy and cool but what I love about ffxi is that with some battles you have to make important decisions and in some cases a bad decision will make you die.

First you are basing an entire game off of 20 levels of a beta, and second what battles in XI require you to make important decisions, the biggest decision I see people making during delve content, is what to watch on TV while they are there.

[SqEnisfilledwithgeniuses]

First you are basing an entire game off of 20 levels of a beta, and second what battles in XI require you to make important decisions, the biggest decision I see people making during delve content, is what to watch on TV while they are there.

Not really true...My biggest decision was to level THM or CNJ on the beta while in delve. TV is overrated.

[Daemon]

I'll admit I border on breaking that rule since XIV to me is SE's second chance at getting RDM right instead of f*cking it up royally like they did here, but still.

Lol sad to say this but I know how you feel about RDM, however, did they even implement RDM in 14? O.o