Good Criticisms about FFXIV Leveling for Newcomers

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

It doesn't matter on what you agree on, it is criticism for the Dev team to take back to think on. You are already a fan, the Dev team wants to net more players.

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Oh I forgot only youtubers and other media outlets who know barley anything about the game are the only ones the devs should listen too! Most of the time those people want changes that would change the game completely. I totally forgot there opinion is more important than the fans!

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Oh I forgot only youtubers and other media outlets who no barley anything about the game are the only ones the devs should listen too! Most of the time those people want changes that would change the game completely. I totally forgot there opinion is more important than the fans!

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The opinion of outsiders is extremely important to an MMO. They already have your sub. They need more, as long as they don't lose too many existing subs.

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Originally Posted by dragonseth07

The opinion of outsiders is extremely important to an MMO. They already have your sub. They need more, as long as they don't lose too many existing subs.

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Yawn** talk to me when you people have some other answer other than "they need more!" thats all I hear now. Games been active since 2013(2010 technically) and we are still getting content every 3 months to 3.5 months. The cash shop was added and we will soon have those precious little lazy I mean jump potions that will earn SE some more! Its us the ones that stick through it thick and thin that are sustaining this game, without us there wouldn't be much.

Its getting old now with the clueless gamers and youtubers that talk about the game and the blind followers that follow them that ruin games. Either you like it or you don't, don't say things that most of the time aren't true just because you spent a whole 2 minutes playing the game. Give me a break.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Yawn** talk to me when you people have some other answer other than "they need more!" thats all I hear now. Games been active since 2013(2010 technically) and we are still getting content every 3 months to 3.5 months. The cash shop was added and we will soon have those precious little lazy I mean jump potions that will earn SE some more! Its us the ones that stick through it thick and thin that are sustaining this game, without us there wouldn't be much.

Its getting old now with the clueless gamers and youtubers that talk about the game and the blind followers that follow them that ruin games. Either you like it or you don't, don't say things that most of the time aren't true just because you spent a whole 2 minutes playing the game. Give me a break.

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I'm not saying he's right, or that SE is strapped for cash. I'm telling you that the MMO business model means that outsider opinions are of critical importance. That's it.

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

So you don't want to help newbies at all? Newbies are just suppose to know? How many people have you helped in this game?

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The guy in the video clsims to be a good and experienced player. If he is than he should be able so read a tooltip and find a use for the skill.

On another note. "WoW leveling. Cinematic and explosive"
Can I get paid by blizzard too to claim such garbage

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

To be fair, the tooltip flatout says it "increases damage dealt by 15%" and lists duration. It shouldn't be hard to figure out. I agree, XIV doesn't do a great job teaching players their rotation, but at some point, we have to fault the players for simply being lazy.

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I really think people have a hard time imagining having zero gaming sense. This sort of logic is pretty default to any person with a gaming sense, oh a buff I can keep up forever that will forever boost my stuff by a substantial amount?? Sign me up for eternity!!!!

That sort of stuff isn't going to naturally play out for those new to MMOs and gaming in general, candy crush background not counting. I've played with people who are intelligent (general capacity, comparative capability within studied fields) but easily fail "gaming intelligence". I mean to say, I think for some its less about being lazy (at least for a while) and just that the game is basically congratulating you endlessly for not learning your role and you won't need to if you don't do certain content. Unfortunately pop up tutorials are like EULA/ToS for some people and will be closed even when they should be read, which is why I believe job quests and Halls should be pushed, polished, and expanded to teach what the game doesn't teach and what people ignore through the easy dungeons and pop up text. Basically taking away the ability for people to learn it wrong, as the game definitely lets people do (which is why I don't think its because everyone is lazy, I believe many know no better).

The game gives you enough info, usually, if you're a natural. I disagree with people, in any sort of to be fair scenario, that the game teaches you well enough if you're truly an untouched new person.

Games that make you figure it out yourself, that works fine when you narrow down your audience to the incredibly perseverant and the naturally adapt; however, it will work less fine in FFXIV's case because you don't really need to be perseverant until much later and can easily be carried through much of the content. So 100 hours in you could/should have learned 100 hours worth of mastery but only really effectively learned 5 and making matters worse depending on what content you do you'll never have to improve either (or the real push either, since you're already used to people doing it for you).

This game isn't hard enough, and focuses on too large of a audience, to be "just learn it as you go". A tooltip is not enough if you want everyone to learn, some people starting FFXIV will be incapable of comprehending what the tooltip means for their gameplay (until a scenario forces them, through testing, interplayer actions, or too difficult content) and will likely focus on the most immediate return actions especially as the response the game will give you for doing short sided choices is "good job! next dungeon!" (since the game won't challenge you to the point you need to do it, at least until much much later and usually only optionally so).

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Originally Posted by Baci

On another note. "WoW leveling. Cinematic and explosive"
Can I get paid by blizzard too to claim such garbage

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Not sure I'd say explosive, but I did find significantly more interesting quests, both in quantity and intensity of said mold breaking style, and the combat is a bit smoother (very responsive and fluid, some abilities are also more movement based as well). Fluid/responsive != pretty, of course FFXIV's is far prettier lol.

(Although WoW has had a lot longer to polish, Vanilla WoW was much slower and less explosive than 2.0 Vanilla FFXIV).

The first impression I got from this new player is he doesn't read tutorials, doesn't take the time to actually learn his class and just presses all the pretty buttons. Why?

Well... at 0:19 the "Clearing Instanced Raids" help window shows up, and he closes it immediately... and again at 5:38, he ignores the help window prompt entirely and just clicks random stuff.


Now I'm going to go through his points:

1. Initial cutscene and text: He says it should not be there... he also states that there is too much text, well FF is really heavy on lore.
2. Initial leveling: He says WoW drops you right into a climactic situation, except it really doesn't. (I realize he mentions Cataclysm but who compares a base game to an expansion?) WoW and XIV do the same thing, where essentially you need to hit a certain level to move on and also tells you to attack a few mobs, etc. He ends this by saying WoW is freer and much easier to get into, so he himself is biased. Perhaps GW2 would be a better option to base it off of.
3. First dungeon: Dude said it took him 8 hours to get into his first dungeon. It would have taken less than that if he READ HIS TUTORIALS.
4. Graphics: He blatantly stated "Maybe it's the PC Master Race in me", but yes, the graphics got a massive overhaul to make it useable on PS3. But it's not like PS1-era graphics... he's acting as though it's so ugly to look at. Yes, his only valid criticism in this case is textures, I'll give him that. Then he just burps...
5. Instancing: He compared XIV instancing to WoW instancing, where WoW instances an entire continent while XIV instances half a city. Dude... have you seen the graphical fidelity of XIV to WoW? Imagine an entire continent of those graphics with at least 100 or so people in the region... it'd be 1.0 all over again.
6. Controls: He says the Gamepad controls could be done much better. But he never gave any examples to back up that criticism. It feels a lot more of a "I just wanted to play Gamepad because I wanted to criticize the game for it being on a PS3/PS4 as well." Because he also goes on to say that the game doesn't feel like a "Big open MMO.", it just feels like he's ripping into the game just because it's also taking into account console technical specifications.
7. Wholeness: He says that XIV's battle effects are just "ethereal" and not physically there. This is just being ignorant because he's focusing on the "visual effect" being the actual hit and not the physical motion that the player takes... I mean I know a LOT of people who feel REALLY good when they cast a Fire II, which is a level 18 skill... he also states that the art style isn't all there... I guess that's subjective to everyone, I'm not gonna outright state he can't feel that way.

In conclusion, this video feels, mostly, like a rip into how it is so visually and mechanically unappealing due to its constraints to PS3/4. He also stated that leveling took a long time, but I can assure you it wouldn't if he'd had paid attention to the live help windows, which he totally ignored. He also did not pay attention to what his skills did besides the flying text, which doesn't help outside of debuffs placed. Overall, his first impression was more of a "I'm playing a single player game that will 100% hold my hand", and also felt a bit on the "high standards" side...

While overall he had criticisms, I would not say they were good, they were fair but not good. The only good ones are the graphics and the instancing in regards to cities, but not entire continents. Textures definitely need to be upped and there needs to be a lot less instancing in regards to cities, but going into dungeons... every MMO I've played so far has an option to enter a dungeon without needing to be physically there.

As far as him being absolutely new to XIV, I disagree. He stated he had already played the intro to XIV a few times, as well as wanting to play the expansion as well as 60, so he clearly knows a bit of the game already.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I really think people have a hard time imagining having zero gaming sense. This sort of logic is pretty default to any person with a gaming sense, oh a buff I can keep up forever that will forever boost my stuff by a substantial amount?? Sign me up for eternity!!!!

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On the contrary, I remember being a youngin and picking up my first games. Pokemon and some PS-era FF titles are what I think back to. In both, I had the sense to read what the abilities did and figure out how to use them. Frustratingly, Pokemon never did a good job telling you how much buffs and debuffs did. I remember being upset about that, wishing that was clearer. FF was always bad about that, too, actually...

Anyway, yeah, I do remember being young and brand new to games. And it's not like I went around hitting random buttons.

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Originally Posted by dragonseth07

On the contrary, I remember being a youngin and picking up my first games. Pokemon and some PS-era FF titles are what I think back to. In both, I had the sense to read what the abilities did and figure out how to use them. Frustratingly, Pokemon never did a good job telling you how much buffs and debuffs did. I remember being upset about that, wishing that was clearer. FF was always bad about that, too, actually...

Anyway, yeah, I do remember being young and brand new to games. And it's not like I went around hitting random buttons.

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Not everyone gets games is my major point. For every "I picked it up just fine" I can come up with people who didn't, not because they're incapable but because they don't understand it yet.

Like the sterotypical older person getting tossed a smart phone for the first time, their difficulty isn't because of a lack of intelligence its just too foreign and if they don't have to learn specific things they wont (and because you can easily be carried until much later optional content, its like the old person never learning to set up their voice mail).

People's expectations are too high is what I'm saying, but I generally agree in conversations about DF that moving the baseline up would be great (part of that would be not letting people be carried so easily, partly through halls/job quest/tests and the like - although they have to be fun too since this is part of the first impression cycle).

Normally I'd say "I don't care people are failing" if this was like Dark Souls or EQ or something, since that game is pick it up or don't - but FFXIV is not designed just for those who just get things. They've clearly said and attempt to design in a very "open to everyone" sort of way, bit like WoW.

i dont read such reviews , they are usually very biased and pure hate ^^