So... why aren't you playing Final Fantasy XIV?

[Atomic_Skull]

So... why aren't you playing Final Fantasy XIV?

Two reasons.

1. It's just a blander less interesting version of Vana'diel populated by blander less interesting versions of FFXI's races. (Miqo'te are just human women with cat ears and they will never, never be as visually interesting as mithra)

2. It's a terrible, terrible game.

[Arcon]

Very misleading thread title. Are you expecting only the people who don't play it to post, or are you making an assumption that no one reading this is playing it or are you just trolling? In either case, I'll bite.

Many people are playing XIV, my XI linkshell has a XIV section and has officially over 50 members, ~15 of them playing regularly (including me), and several of them migrated there from XI, some are playing both. I've had the same issues that many people here mentioned, and honestly I have to say most people don't seem to give it the chance it deserves. I myself was an alpha/beta tester and was disappointed at first, I didn't play it till about a month ago, for the same reasons: hardware issues (and consequently forced low settings), UI issues, no AH, no auto-attack, etc.

While I do agree that SE released it too soon, as an incomplete game, it always had great potential and I saw that from the first alpha test. It already fixed a lot of these issues, especially network stability and UI issues, AH probably won't be added but it has something that I find almost better, market wards and item search. It's basically a central bazaaring place, and you're able to search for an item, it will show you who has it in their bazaar for which price. And it's not an actual person standing there, having to bazaar all the time, but a free bazaar mule everyone gets, called a Retainer, which can hold 80 items and bazaars for you all the time. It's simply a different system, one I personally find great.

The UI has been improved a lot, and that was just the start. It's not nearly as laggy, more intuitive and better accessible. It even has some features I wished for ages FFXI would have (seperate chat windows for example, fully adjustable HUD, showing remaining time on status effects, show status effects of party members, not to mention a minimap, and several other things).

Auto-attack doesn't bother me by now (and that alone was the reason I stopped testing in the alpha, because I was annoyed having to press a button all the time), once you realize what kind of game it is. You're much less likely to attack all the time, because of how the game is designed. There is one basic attack, but you're not nearly as likely to use it as the normal attack in FFXI because there's several other attacks you can use in its place, that will often vary throughout the battle. AoE attack moves, high damage moves with higher delay, lower damage moves with certain additional effects, etc. All of these can be used instead of the "basic" attack move that's native to each job (which also differs from job to job) to build TP, and auto-attack, forcing to use that basic move would prevent you from using the others. True, you could find some way to automate it, you even can do it with macros to some degree (since this basic attack is also an ability), but who knows, maybe they'll add some support for that eventually, but once you get to know the game you'll realize that's not how it works.

They even improved on the hardware, the game is running a lot smoother than it used to, I can even run XI and XIV at the same time now when I could barely run XIV alone before. I still have the occasional hardware lag moment, but nothing that would hinder gameplay in any way.

And personally I find its story superior to XI. XI had some nice elements, the Shadow Lord thing was kinda foreseeable, still nicely done, the Bastok rank 10 storyline was kinda lame, Windy was nice, Sandy was excellent with the Lightbringer and the truth behind the explosion in Tavnazia. the original SL stuff I didn't really enjoy much, but if you look at it, that's the stage XIV is right now, and it's a lot better so far. The Echo as a gift to certain people and this mysterious Path of the Twelve have great storyline potential, trying to uncover a greater truth to the world. I can't say too much without spoiling, but people who say XIV has a lame or no story sound like disappointed alpha testers who haven't touched the game since then.

Graphically it's kinda like the argument of VII vs. VIII, the first having more cartoonish graphics, the latter being more realistic. Same thing with XI vs. XIV, and again, both their graphics are great in their own right. The races may seem blander, but again, it just fits the style of the game better, it's a slick, more realistic depiction of the the FFXI models. And these races were also designed after the XI races to make the game feel more like home to migrating people, and so they could roughly play the races they knew before.

I don't know why people like to bash XIV so much, again, I know it was released too soon, but what of it now? Why not see how it develops first? Right now it has already been refined to a stage where I would release it commercially. And it's still improving, a lot. In fact, I'm pretty sure I can find more things that annoy me about XI than XIV, and have so for years. If you wanna see what, just browse this General Discussion forum and look at the threads people make about stuff that annoys them. XIV doesn't have many of these issues, I'm still hoping XI gets some features from XIV, in fact, a while ago I made a short list of features XIV has that XI could use (without changing the game itself):
1) Linkshell embles/shield crests
2) Retainers/bazaar mules
3) Better crafting system
4) More teleport points (although admittedly moving around is a lot easier on XI by now)
5) Show status effects of party members
6) Show remaining time on own effects
7) Multiple linkshells equipped
8) Better chatlog filtering/organizing, customizable tabs, different log windows
9) Minimap on the screen
10) Customizable HUD
11) Using the numpad to input numbers
12) Built-in IME support
13) No POL, better/faster login and updates
14) Specific market wards
15) Designated bazaar area
16) Searchable bazaars

And those are just general tips I could think of off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more.

To the people who say it should be more like XI and say things like "if it ain't broke don't fix it", then why even release another game? Admittedly, that actually was a valid question, at first I didn't even want another MMORPG (although mainly due to time constraints, not because I thought it was an inherently bad idea). But if you look at FF titles, they have always been drastically different, and almost always very good in their own right. It's the same with this. It's still a game in development, but it has great potential and already realized much of it. It should in no way be a FFXI clone, and yes, while some features of XI would be nice to have there, it doesn't make or break the game. If you're willing to look past the prejudice and dub it a bad game because it has features you think you won't agree with, give it a chance and see for yourself, you may end up liking it more than you want to admit.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

1) Linkshell embles/shield crests

They were all ugly, so no.

3) Better crafting system

I don't know what you're on, but craftign should NEVER be a mini game. It was horrible in FFXIV.

9) Minimap on the screen

SE already stated that this was impossible.

11) Using the numpad to input numbers

You can already so this.

[Arcon]

bla

1. Your opinion.
2. Your opinion and I never said that.
3. Not the point, it's a feature that's better in XIV.
4. No.

Already replied to that in the linked thread.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

1. Your opinion.
2. Your opinion and I never said that.
3. Not the point, it's a feature that's better in XIV.
4. No.

On 3, true you never said anything about it being a mini game, but you did say it was better. Which it is not. You should never have to take 30 steps to do one craft that will still fail in the end.
As for 4, yes you can. And before you say no again. I just did it.

[MarkovChain]

I tried FFXIV, I really tried, from beta start till january. 5 months. Various things that made me stop temporarely :

* Leves. In one word, they are useless. The exp reward is mediocre compared to solo or even party exp. They give some gear, but all gears in the game matter very little. They are basically a waste of time especially if you don't travel with teleports and/or try to do them in party.

* Market wards. The most facepalm I have ever seen. It's as if the guy that thought about them never thought of making a search system. Even with a search system it boring as hell to use. Auction house is what every one wanted, and I notice that it's not yet implemented (8 months after) even though it was highly ranked in the survey.

* LAG. Jesus, how could I play for so long with that lag. At first you lagged for anything ranging from 5 sec delay when talking to a reseller, then a few second for each item you sell. It went better over the months but it was still here on january. For instance combat lag, you never know if your JA was used until a few seconds after.

* Party. It nigh impossible to make a party because the UI is one the most unusable one I have seen. Party exp is fun though, it's a pity.

* some people say because of the "no content", but for me grinding is necessary content, though it would definitely be better if you could quickly build a party for it or get variety.

[Tamoa]

The idea of starting from scratch in a new FF game, being level 1 and not having a clue, never appealed to me at all. Too much work and TLC has been put into my FFXI character, I am not abandoning her until I'm forced to.

[Runespider]

So... why aren't you playing Final Fantasy XIV?

A charmless game, made seemingly on the cheap, with no content, no fun, horrible ideas, terrible community, extremely low player numbers...around 1/4 of what FFXI has and most of all, a game that could die before FFXI. The fact it's still around at all is due to Square throwing money at it, any other company would of pulled the plug on it or the company would of gone bust at such a catastrophic failure.

It's just boring and terrible to play, I don't play it for the same reason I never played any other of the worst games ever made. To my shame I bought the game at release but I will never disgrace my pc by running it again.

[Urteil]

Its the same reason you don't ever answer the door for a clown at 3am.

[HFX7686]

I'm not playing FF14 because I'm playing FF11. It's almost impossible to play two MMOs at the same time and play them well, especially at an end game level.