SE enough of the treadmill, please make the game more interesting!

I don't even bother with endgame. I just focus on the horizontal progressions. Level up to 50 with all the classes. Beastman dailies etc etc...
Still, on the FFXI comparison, Rise of the Zilart ~ Heavensward.

I agree with OP and a lot of posts on this thread. I really, really hope they stop raising the ilvl , bring back 1.0 stats or something similar and give all jobs different gear options. Blm/smn and whm/sch should not be sharing gear imho...

No matter what SE does, RPGs are a grind. FFXI was a xp grind, SWG was a skill grind, WoW/SWTOR/FFXIV a gear grind. The trick is to mask the grind into something people enjoy. Let's assume they make job stat gear in 3.0, well then you have to collect even more gear which means more grind.

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Originally Posted by Blissa

I played ffxi from 2004 to 2010 and you know what made that game great? There was always something fun to do with friends. The only thing you do in FFXIV is log in and grind armor and just when you get all your guys geared, they give you a new armor set.

The armor treadmill is getting old SE, please make the game more fun! I have had about all I can stand with the armor treadmill. I highly doubt that I am going to resub next month. There are so many great games coming out from now to well into the new year. More then enough to keep me busy over the winter!

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Instead of blanket statements for feedback why don't you tell SE what you actually want? How are they suppose to fix the problem if they have no idea what you consider fun.

People should stop using the term "horizontal progression" as it does not exist. Like choice and options, it is an illusion.

Edit: At least in RPGs.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

Adding horizontal gear progression to learn different abilities and enhanced abilities is a horrible idea. SE should add horizontal character progression instead.

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But...that's...exactly what horizontal character progression is.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Instead of blanket statements for feedback why don't you tell SE what you actually want? How are they suppose to fix the problem if they have no idea what you consider fun.

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Yeah I love how op is so vague on what he liked from ffxi. Me and my friends did a lot of fun things, you know, things. How the hell does op have so many likes? He only states what he doesn't like but not a single suggestion on what must be implemented. Everyone can do that, complaining is easy.

I tend to believe that if the game didn't have "Final Fantasy" in the title, people wouldn't tolerate it once they get close to endgame. It feels like a P2P game with sub-F2P quality. I'm holding on in hopes the expansion fixes this but I'm not terribly optimistic.

Amongst other things, the game suffers from:

- Not enough production value for a P2P subscription based game with an additional game purchase fee. Eg. There are F2P games with smaller dev teams that manage to have more dialog, BETTER dialog, and 100% -QUALITY- VOICE ACTED DIALOG. There is no goddamn excuse for the lazy lack of voice acting in a) towns and the open world b) boss fights c) bloody everything. It is appaling, in this day and age, that SE can't be assed to quality voice-act at LEAST the like... 5-10 lines of dialog in class/story/primal fights.
- Slowest/laggiest/weakest servers I remember seeing in a MMO.
- Rewards are basically worthless and 100% completely replaced every few months. Nothing is unique, special, or actually valuable.
- VERY excessive use of antiquated RNG-gated model in almost all aspects of play.
- Endgame is uninspired Simon Says where it's more important to know the fights' mechanics than it is to be good at your job unless they throw in a DPS check.
- Patronizingly easy content. Like... easy easy EASY. Players routinely reach high ilvl while still being clueless about how to play their class. All difficulty is artifical in the form of team-jumprope + OHKO.
- World pretty aesthetically but bland, static, and plastic with no threat or adventure. Not even S rank hunt mobs can kill you if you don't let them since nothing chases you outside of it's pathetically small nest-area. Virtually impossible to die outside.
- No risks taken with design. New content often feels like triage-mode development, trying to keep people interested.
- Near perfect class balance but non-existant content/reward balance (eg. Hunts giving everyone a rocket-pack to i109+)
- Zero-accountability status-quo development in keeping with SE's "you will play our game our way" mentality.
- Even overwhelmingly negative feedback from community largely ignored until it becomes an obvious financial liability. Eg. only time SE has every listened to feedback was when 1.0 threatened curbstomped the company.
- Negligible customer service combined with a buggy lagfest of a glitched up gaming experience. GMs mostly powerless. Server-lag remains the most powerful of endgame bosses.
- Never anything surprising or unpredictable in any aspect of the game. Nothing cool or unexpected happens to make this feel like a real adventure. Nostalgia is the best thing XIV has going for it and the devs know it.
- Instances are 100% completely scripted. Fights are Identical every time you do it to the point you can run them with your eyes closed after one clear, or less if you watched a vid.
- Dying has zero consequences.
- Terrible, toxic community, likely thanks to all of the above.
- Virtually no character customizability. Truly only one "best" way to play every job in the game.
- Fastest way for players to get something they want is to not play the game thanks to SE's overnerfing everything constantly. Eg. having access to better gear AND getting absurd amounts of echo AND having mechanics watered down to the point your greatest risk of failing a run, no matter your ilvl, is of suffering a stroke in real life.
- Content and grind designed to eat up as much of people's time as possible while being just okay enough they won't get fed up. Even stuff as simple as the movement speed is -just- fast enough for most people to not get annoyed.
- Garbage expositional nightmare of a script. Limited voice acting. Noticeably worse presentation and plot than any of the 1.0+ writing/cutscenes.

- Vertical progression game with a quasi-tedious horizontal progression style grind.
- Not a lot separating the different classes compared to pretty much any other game I can think of.

Don't get me wrong... the game has potential... it's just not as good as I expect a AAA title to be. Nexus PLD with all beastmen tribes capped, 250+ member FC, large FC house I paid for myself, almost re-capped DoH/DoL gear, all jobs capped 50, choco capped 20, etc etc etc so on and so forth. Often play with irl friends. I've sampled pretty much everything the game has to offer and everything after low lever dungeons is downhill, entertainment wise. No.. I'm not bored because I've already done everything. This has been an ongoing, developing criticism of the game in that it was always like "heh... while this is kinda easy/boring/frustrating/annoying... oh well... I'll finish this grind soon and the next thing'll be fun" and now I'm just left wondering "so... which part's the fun part?"

I just log on now to cap Poetics, water the garden, fish my last few Big Game fish, and do I'xal dailies because apparently grinding still equates to content in 2014. Sure, I could grind coil but when the fights are the exact same every goddamn time it's just the most boring thing ever, even if you always win... ESPECIALLY if you always win... and the effort will be completely overwritten in the next patch or so. No, taking a break does not fix any of the above issues... in fact it exacerbates them in that it really makes it hit home that nothing we ever do in the game is an achievement when the stuff you slow-grind is insta-acquired by a player who "took a break" or even just started playing. Prescribing the "take a break" cure-all works because, as above, the easiest way to get anything is to not play... players take a break -> come back -> see "ooo I can grind again!" -> get handed everything -> instant gratification.

The best parts of the game are a) Hildebrande cuz... holy shit they're having fun and taking risks and it's unpredicatle b) fishing... cuz you put controller on vibrate, alt-tab and i) watch a movie/show ii) work on renaming files or something iii) browse the interwebs iv) play another game that's fun.

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Originally Posted by Avarghaladion

Snip.

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With so many cons did you ever think that this might not be the game for you?

They keep slowly adding things to the game. What made XI so diverse was time, wasn't it? I too wish there was more to do, but with XIV only being out for little over than a year, you can't expect there to be much. Especially when it's trying to compete with other big name MMOs. Gold Saucer is coming with Chocobo racing, tripple triad, and other mini games. Hopefully we get more stuff though. What I would really love is some kind of rewarding grinding content...like maybe a bestiary that requires you to kill x amount of enemies for a book entry and a reward for it...maybe a picture frame of a monster or something...or a card for triple triad :D

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

With so many cons did you ever think that this might not be the game for you?

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If you think I'm wrong about any of it, provide a counter-argument. Like I said, the game has potential and I'm holding out for the expansion, as MMOs typically get better with time. That being said, it doesn't take the sharpest eye to see the games many faults, especially for a AAA flagship title. Fanboyism is the primary reason the game is even competitive because you get people like me, who enjoy Final Fantasy and are nostalgic, willing to give it the benefit of the doubt while they, hopefully, sort their crap out.

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- Not enough production value for a P2P subscription based game with an additional game purchase fee. Eg. There are F2P games with smaller dev teams that manage to have more dialog, BETTER dialog, and 100% -QUALITY- VOICE ACTED DIALOG. There is no goddamn excuse for the lazy lack of voice acting in a) towns and the open world b) boss fights c) bloody everything. It is appaling, in this day and age, that SE can't be assed to quality voice-act at LEAST the like... 5-10 lines of dialog in class/story/primal fights.

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First off, I'm not trying to attack any of your position, but I would like to rebut. I'm no FF fanboy (only really like a handful of them), and as someone who loved FFXI, i can say with great certainty I give XIV no breaks for the numbing casualisation of it (Yah, Casualisation is a word now).

Voice acting is a decent idea in MMOs, but alltogether one I don't consider a must have. I can take or leave it... if anything the chance of getting a squeeky lalafell will just throw me face first out of immersion way more than bringing me into it. I have an imagination and the ability to read just fine, and for a reason.

So I don't disagree with you, I just don't consider it a "Must have" for any reason at all.

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Slowest/laggiest/weakest servers I remember seeing in a MMO.

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I'm on Sarg too, and I have not once, a single time since I resubbed about 2-3 months ago, experienced any Lag or disconnection issues outside of the recent DDoS attacks... IDK if people actually experience this or are just parroting it.

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Rewards are basically worthless and 100% completely replaced every few months. Nothing is unique, special, or actually valuable.

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I agree with you 100% here... but thats the name of modern MMOs :\

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- World pretty aesthetically but bland, static, and plastic with no threat or adventure. Not even S rank hunt mobs can kill you if you don't let them since nothing chases you outside of it's pathetically small nest-area. Virtually impossible to die outside.

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Also, agree with you 100%. but I think most players would disagree with this... most modern MMOs have that very "safey" feeling open world thats more a decoration than a place for content.

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- Terrible, toxic community, likely thanks to all of the above.

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Welcome to humanity, honestly.

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- Garbage expositional nightmare of a script. Limited voice acting. Noticeably worse presentation and plot than any of the 1.0+ writing/cutscenes.

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I happen to enjoy it... FF has never been boss story telling (ease of fanboys, you know as much as I do its basically "blah blah Hero save us, Blah blah bad guy, blah blah crystals, blah blah hero wins", I still enjoy the games but its not exactly groundbreaking), but its sometimes the simplicity that has a few kernels of complexity that interests me in Final Fantasy storylines, the bits that make you want to know how the ending plays out, even if you know how its going to end (You win, duh). Still, I can say I'm thoroughly interested in completing Coil if only for the story. I mean, if I want to don my nostalgia goggles, nothing feels quite like CoP(FFXI) yet to me, but thats probably because in those days, going through an expansion opened up a world to you, not a dungeon.

I wish some of you got to experience Chains of Promathia when it first came out so you could understand what I mean when I bring it up... Ignoring that feeling of entering Promyvion, which was housed inside/alternate the Crags... a large mysterious structure that you had been exposed too since the games released... but that moment when you beat all 3 Promyvions, entered your cutscene and came out the other side in Lufaise Meadows... the melody of the land begins to play and you're now in a new area completely locked to you before, making your way to the Tavnazian Safehold. Theres even a place called "Blueblade Fell" where off in the distance you can see the ruins of Old Tavnazia, a place that was mentioned in the original game as well as show cased in the opening cutscene. It was a kinda magical feeling, you were also greeted with new enemy types, "Bugards". They also had different cloud/weather effects for these new areas, so it even felt like a new place.

The whole expansion was difficult, it was actually the center of a lot of complaints... I personally didn't find it so difficult that it was angering... it just felt all that more rewarding when I won. (I Imagine it much like how rewarding it was for a group to beat Turn 5 back when it first came out, with how difficult it was then). Its more of those feelings. Hard doesn't always have to mean "Impossible", and FFXI did not do everything right... but it really did do some things really right.

I mean, I teared up at the end of Chains of Promathia, that final cutscene where Distant Memories played? seriously, Man tears... it was saying goodbye to all the friends you made on the way... and this took me over a year to complete, so it really felt like I came to know these NPCs well, and seeing them all go their marry way while that beautiful song played? *shivers*, even typing about it brings me back to it.

I know some of you have experienced what I'm saying... maybe not in an MMO, but an offline game, or a movie.. that was what was great about CoP... it could make you feel things most MMOs can't.. emotional attachment to NPCs. I felt kinda similar at the end of Wings of the Goddess, though not as strongly. For those who never experienced or know CoP, just watch this and try to imagine yourself adventuring for a year or more with these NPCs, and this is the final cutscene you get when the story is done and settles: Has a foreign singer trying to sing in English so if you want to hear the song better, just youtube Distant Worlds

Edit: HEre's a fan made video - but the version of Distant Worlds is much more listenable - BOOTIFUL

http://i.imgur.com/AdiBPrO.jpg

Seriously, for those who never played XI, I'm sure you feel this way about something from your childhood, or a game that reached you emotionally... thats how FFXI felt to some of us, so unless you happen to be an emotionless imhuman drone, I hope you understand what type of FF MMO we've come from, and what emotions it was able to pull from us despite its outdated graphics and sometimes clunky Cutscenes... in a game significantly more advanced, it should be easier to portray these emotions.

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Instances are 100% completely scripted. Fights are Identical every time you do it to the point you can run them with your eyes closed after one clear, or less if you watched a vid.

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What would you suggest? I'm no fight designer, so while I could brainstorm some ideas, I can't imagine them being completely random.

Edit: I EDIT SO MUCH IM SORRY

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Originally Posted by Fornix

And as SE was sending me out as an errand boy for the Sylph still as I was closing in on endgame, it was enough for me. The story in this game has been utter crap straight from the start and all way through to that point, it is very unlikely to get any better beyond that. So I stopped reading.

If SE wants their story to be enticing and worthy enough to read, they should actually have given a damn about it.

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I see this argument about the story quite a lot. It's typically from people that actually don't give it much thought - but not always.

In most good stories, the hero tends to do quite a lot of menial shit. Seriously, pick up near any critically acclaimed book in the genre of your choice and see for yourself. This is because a story that only focuses on action or epic shit ceases to be a story at all. If you want an example, look at any of "The Expendables" movies. Or anything at all by Michael Bay, really. Is there a lot of epic shit? Yes. Do the heroes ever do anything menial? No. Is the story good? ...what story?

The Warrior of Light in the story of FFXIV is portrayed to be a helpful and humble hero. Somebody that understands some of the inner-workings of politics and understands it's not just about fight this, fight that, fight more. The "errand boy" stuff will always be there in near any MMO. Why? Because they're easy to make.

The thing is, if you actually bothered to pay attention to the entire story, there are very good reasons for you to be the one running those errands. It not only fits with the story, but it embellishes it. It makes the story seem more like a story, and that your character is an actual person, rather than just some walking silent death machine.

In the end, the story shows that true heroes get where they are by doing whatever they can, helping in any way possible. And yes, that means being sent to the Sylphs because of your relations with them. That means talking to political figures about bullshit. And while you are running around, being an "errand boy", the game is foreshadowing events to come.

However, most people can't see this. Why? Because they're the ones that have to do it. And they find it irksome because they refuse to see the reasoning behind it. The story that SE crafted is much like the story in a book, and it involves a lot of epic nonsense as well as political/menial stuff. Not saying you have to like it, but please don't call the story "utter crap" just from your own lack of understanding.

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Originally Posted by Fayto

People should stop using the term "horizontal progression" as it does not exist. Like choice and options, it is an illusion.

Edit: At least in RPGs.

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You hit your head on your way to this thread, son?

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Originally Posted by BlaiseArath

First off, I'm not trying to attack any of your position, but I would like to rebut. I'm no FF fanboy (only really like a handful of them), and as someone who loved FFXI, i can say with great certainty I give XIV no breaks for the numbing casualisation of it (Yah, Casualisation is a word now).

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I called myself a fanboy but that'd be the category I fall into as well, especially with all of the latest FF titles. Loved XI and played it until just before the last expansion but in general it's the older NES/SNES titles I'm nostalgic about. Noting the casualization is an astute observation. Even coil feels casual, just less so.

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Voice acting is a decent idea in MMOs, but alltogether one I don't consider a must have. I can take or leave it... if anything the chance of getting a squeeky lalafell will just throw me face first out of immersion way more than bringing me into it. I have an imagination and the ability to read just fine, and for a reason.

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Another good point. I went off the rails a bit there about voice acting and I think my rage at the VA is because of the bad writing and that there is VA in some places and not in others. Find it jarring and inconsistent and it bothers me. Feels very half-assed. I don't really care about the non-combat VA so much but when they have an actor for a character and they don't do the few combat lines they have, it's a piss off. More immersive to have VA combat dialog as opposed to an annoying pop-up window or chat log entry and I do feel that immersion should be a priority in a MMO.

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I'm on Sarg too, and I have not once, a single time since I resubbed about 2-3 months ago, experienced any Lag or disconnection issues outside of the recent DDoS attacks... IDK if people actually experience this or are just parroting it.

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It's certainly not gamebreaking anymore in that outside of the DDoS I don't have issues at all in combat, even on tethered cellphone internet or crappy rural hotel internet. My point here was more about how the server capabilities seem very limited for a AAA P2P title. Take DCUO for instance. It's a F2P with millions of users but it's still able to put everyone pretty much on the same server in a given region and it's combat is vastly more fast-paced and reactive. In comparison, XIV can get chuggy as balls if you get too many people in the same area and it feels to me as though the servers are pretty baren, even Sarg. I mean Sarg's one of the busiest ones and I hear from FC members coming from elsewhere that some servers are just ghost towns with nearly useless PF participation.

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I agree with you 100% here... but thats the name of modern MMOs :\

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This is definitely true, but in my experience other moden MMOs with a vertical progression model don't make you grind as hard for it. I'd have no problem with the disposable nature of rewards if it wasn't for the comparatively excessive grind. We either eat mega-RNG in coil or we get an item a week with Poetics =/ There's Nexus and beyond... but it doesn't look like they'll ever be that much better than the disposable stuff. I resent when what amounts to a never-ending stream of trash drops is gated as a time-sink that, really, makes up the core gameplay.

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Also, agree with you 100%. but I think most players would disagree with this... most modern MMOs have that very "safey" feeling open world thats more a decoration than a place for content.

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You could be right but I'm not totally convinced. Again, in DCUO, if you let your guard down you can get curbstomped in seconds in PVE open world and mobs chase and CC you. A solid glass cannon build with some CC can survive pretty much anything but it's certainly never a guarantee. Path of Exile, another F2P, does throw armies and armies of trash at you but it's punctuated by the occasional randomly generated mob that -will- get your blood pumping, especially in hardcore mode where death is permanent. Also in PoE hardcore I'd never feel safe AFKing outside of town.

To me, in XIV where death is completely meaningless, there really should be some sort of sense of peril... I shouldn't be able to literally slow-walk into the heart of beastmen/empire strongholds without fear of death. Hell, even Star Trek online has threatening trash. I can't think of another game where I'd feel totally safe running buck naked through a lvl 50 zone as a naked lvl 1.

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Welcome to humanity, honestly.

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Unfortunately, though in my experience XIV's been uglier than other MMOs I've payed.

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I happen to enjoy it...

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Yes, coil's story is decent, I will agree. In general though I find the story quality is nothing compared to XI. Like you said, CoP was very masterful and heartfealt in both script and execution. Gameplay served to enhance the plot and it was very immersive. To me it really just feels like they don't care about the XIV story much at all.

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What would you suggest? I'm no fight designer, so while I could brainstorm some ideas, I can't imagine them being completely random.

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Doesn't have to be completely random but some degree of randomness is required. In XI I'd look up what barspells I'd expect to use but I'd certainly never be able to memorize a whole fight by glancing at a paragraph of text or watching a 5min video.

Right now, every encounter is based on a set move rotation. Every mob uses the exact same abilities at the exact same times every single time you fight it. The simplest way of spicing things up without breaking them, which is what I believe pretty much every other RPG in existence has always done, is instead create move-lists with action use probabilites with checks and balances in place to keep things fair. Basically, checks and balances should exist to keep a mob from doing something back to back that isn't survivable but everything else should be fair game. Examples: You can't let Titan Mountain Buster twice in a row, or do back to back to back Tumult, but there's no reason he shouldn't be able to Landslide randomly or drop back to back bombs. Same for every mob: If attack = Cleave or heavy AoE, add delay before next cleave or heavy AoE. Anything that's forgiveably survivable a mob should be allowed to spam. Additonally, they could randomize the duration or cast time of certain attacks (ie. make Raffie's Blighted Boquet cast time vary from 4-8 seconds or something like T7's voice timers). Anything to keep players more on their toes.

Really all I want is a reason to have to play with my eyes open. Fights can have some scripted moves but the fewer the better. Also, if we had a probability based attack system like I described, mobs could have more moves and fights'd get a lot more interesting. The flipside is they'd actually have to test and QC content more but it's what I expect in a game for which I'm paying a monthly fee.

Edit: Additional complaint. Being charged unneccesary fees for basic account admin that's free in other games.
Edit 2: You -could- let a mob cleave or heavy-AoE back to back as long as the programmed rules provided sufficient time for a healer to make it recoverable. Again, the key here is quality battle programming. Thingfs need to be programmed to be fair but fun and clean. It needs to flow. It needs to feel unpredictable but still natural.

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Originally Posted by Avarghaladion

If you think I'm wrong about any of it, provide a counter-argument. Like I said, the game has potential and I'm holding out for the expansion, as MMOs typically get better with time. That being said, it doesn't take the sharpest eye to see the games many faults, especially for a AAA flagship title. Fanboyism is the primary reason the game is even competitive because you get people like me, who enjoy Final Fantasy and are nostalgic, willing to give it the benefit of the doubt while they, hopefully, sort their crap out.

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It's not about being right or wrong, but whether you are having fun playing the game. The whole point of gaming is enjoyment. It's been a full year now and fanboyism has it's limits, see SWTOR, so millions aren't playing because they are just waiting for the xpac but are doing so because they are actually having fun with whatever they are doing in the game.

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Originally Posted by WinterSolstice

I see this argument about the story quite a lot. It's typically from people that actually don't give it much thought - but not always.

In most good stories, the hero tends to do quite a lot of menial shit. Seriously, pick up near any critically acclaimed book in the genre of your choice and see for yourself. This is because a story that only focuses on action or epic shit ceases to be a story at all. If you want an example, look at any of "The Expendables" movies. Or anything at all by Michael Bay, really. Is there a lot of epic shit? Yes. Do the heroes ever do anything menial? No. Is the story good? ...what story?

The Warrior of Light in the story of FFXIV is portrayed to be a helpful and humble hero. Somebody that understands some of the inner-workings of politics and understands it's not just about fight this, fight that, fight more. The "errand boy" stuff will always be there in near any MMO. Why? Because they're easy to make.

The thing is, if you actually bothered to pay attention to the entire story, there are very good reasons for you to be the one running those errands. It not only fits with the story, but it embellishes it. It makes the story seem more like a story, and that your character is an actual person, rather than just some walking silent death machine. XIV's numbers are hardly jaw-dropping to begin with and they really don't jive with the visible in game population and participation rates.

In the end, the story shows that true heroes get where they are by doing whatever they can, helping in any way possible. And yes, that means being sent to the Sylphs because of your relations with them. That means talking to political figures about bullshit. And while you are running around, being an "errand boy", the game is foreshadowing events to come.

However, most people can't see this. Why? Because they're the ones that have to do it. And they find it irksome because they refuse to see the reasoning behind it. The story that SE crafted is much like the story in a book, and it involves a lot of epic nonsense as well as political/menial stuff. Not saying you have to like it, but please don't call the story "utter crap" just from your own lack of understanding.

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It's the same thing they did in XI but in XI they did it well. The "I am an adventurer on an aduous journey" aspects were well punctuated via intelligent applications of seemingly simple but iconic fights, as should be expected in a RPG. Where there weren't fights there were actually involved quests involving new and mysterious facets of the game, like having to scale the side of a mountain, run a maze, sneak through hyper-deadly zones to acquire specific items etc. XIV is go from point A to point B -> repeat. In XIV we get the same "arduous journey" but the punctuation is in the form of riems of politcal dialog and trash content "encounters" that are over as fast as they start. Yes, the errand boy aspect is important but so is the way it's presented. The politics doesn't have to be an expositional nightmare. It never was in XI or any other RPG I've played.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

It's not about being right or wrong, but whether you are having fun playing the game. The whole point of gaming is enjoyment. It's been a full year now and fanboyism has it's limits, see SWTOR, so millions aren't playing because they are just waiting for the xpac but are doing so because they are actually having fun with whatever they are doing in the game.

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Or they're caught in the grind. Not like human beings are suckers for repetition or anything... and XIV content is carefully calculated to that effect. Ideally, a game wouldn't have multi-page threads like this but it does and there are enough people who take issue. The alternative to intelligent feedback and rebuttal is the slow dying process experienced MMO gamers are used to seeing.

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Originally Posted by Avarghaladion

were well punctuated via intelligent applications of seemingly simple but iconic fights, as should be expected in a RPG

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What iconic fights would those be, exactly? I'm having a real hard time thinking of any except the main hitters like the Zilart brothers and Promathia... Treasures had it's fair share throughout I guess. Actually, Treasures was great in that regard, but then again it was its own independent story. Final Fantasy XI up to Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promathia was a beginning/middle/end sort of deal, as is the existing A Realm Reborn story, and I'd say what we've gotten in this game so far is much better than vanilla XIs "So this is your nations story OHNEVERMINDGOKILLTHESHADOWLORD where were we..." followed by "Lets retcon the ending to that Shadow Lord stuff" for Rise of the Zilart...

Yes Chains of Promathia was amazing, but it was the ending. It's meant to be amazing. The beginning is not, it's meant to establish the world and all it's players. I can honestly say I've enjoyed the Primal fights far more than I enjoyed Rank 2.3 or Rank 5.1 in XIs original story, both in terms of memorability (dem songs) and overall enjoyment, and while I find shit like "Go get Tataru her pickaxe" to be annoying, I find it orders of magnitude less annoying than that thrice damned Sacrarium mission, and all the other Chains missions like it (were they meant to build the world up? They made me hate it, that's all I can say), though that isn't a fair comparison, but I still prefer looking for Tataru more enjoyable than The Rescue Drill and other such awful missions in XI. Most of Chains of Promathia felt like I was trying to read a great book, but the author kept punching me in the face to be honest. Was it a great feeling to finally be done with such awful places as Sacrarium? Sure. I'm sure captives with Stockholm Syndrome also feel pleased when their captor praises them instead of beating them, too. Such places did not enhance the story, they ruined it as far as I'm concerned. I look back on the (handful of) amazing fights and finale with nostalgia, but I brush the rest of it away simply because of what a damn pain it was. Not once have I thought back to Sacrarium and smiled, if I wasn't a bored teenager I'd probably never have passed it, or any of the other such dull pieces of mission fluff XI had to offer.

Only issue I have with A Realm Reborns story is the small map means we end up treading the same places fairly often all the damn time, which sucks, but hey, they did rebuild the world in an astonishingly short amount of time, so I can forgive them for that.

I don't mind the weapon and armor treadmill so much, but there is a lot of grindiness in the game that often makes me dread logging in.The relic quests can be a drag, but aren't as ridiculous as they once were, with the exception of Novus and retuning the stats after Nexus; materia prices are out of control IMO. The relic quests do lack any epic feeling, to the point that they really can't be called a quest, rather a list. A quest starts somewhere, takes you on a journey, challenges you, then ends with you defeating an adversary, finding the "thing", and growing as a person/adventurer. The current grind for Oaknots is really unwelcome. I spent months grinding the beast tribes to finish them and be done with them so I could focus on other things. Now I have to grind Ixal quests everyday for the rest of my Eorzean experience, because the sealants are needed to make the new crafting and gathering gear, and will take a total of 108 day to get enough just to make my set before I can make any gil. It has been suggested I should just buy the stuff...I don't have the gil for these things. The devs obviously subscribe to the "Log Horizon" economic model, but there is a glaring flaw in it. The malaise that players had in LH was cured by them learning to make food with flavor, which cost more time, rffort, and currency, but they can't log out. They are stuck living in their game. There is no escape in LH. The devs tell us we should just grind more to sell more, or do more dungeons, put in more effort, because that is how we can make the make hundreds of millions of gil needed to buy houses, buy materia, buy sealants. I could do that, or I could find something fun to do. FFXIV is my entertainment and not my career. The sort of effort and time they think we should be exerting is what I reserve for making IRL money to support my IRL family.

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Originally Posted by Avarghaladion

It's the same thing they did in XI but in XI they did it well. The "I am an adventurer on an aduous journey" aspects were well punctuated via intelligent applications of seemingly simple but iconic fights, as should be expected in a RPG. Where there weren't fights there were actually involved quests involving new and mysterious facets of the game, like having to scale the side of a mountain, run a maze, sneak through hyper-deadly zones to acquire specific items etc. XIV is go from point A to point B -> repeat. In XIV we get the same "arduous journey" but the punctuation is in the form of riems of politcal dialog and trash content "encounters" that are over as fast as they start. Yes, the errand boy aspect is important but so is the way it's presented. The politics doesn't have to be an expositional nightmare. It never was in XI or any other RPG I've played.

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Hopefully once (if) they decide to move away from the simplistic style of game-play that's friendly towards people new to the genre, that will open up ways in which the filler content of story lines is presented. Or even sooner, since they technically can if they have the creative power behind it.

However people need to absolutely understand exactly the point that you stated: The errand boy aspect is important. Just recognizing this fact makes the tedious bits not as tedious (for most).

Also, they really seem to be getting better at presenting the story line as time goes on. There is a nice amount of humor in 2.4's main scenario...hopefully it's a sign of better things to come?

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Originally Posted by Nalien

What iconic fights would those be, exactly? I'm having a real hard time thinking of any except the main hitters like the Zilart brothers and Promathia... Treasures had it's fair share throughout I guess. Actually, Treasures was great in that regard, but then again it was its own independent story. Final Fantasy XI up to Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promathia was a beginning/middle/end sort of deal, as is the existing A Realm Reborn story, and I'd say what we've gotten in this game so far is much better than vanilla XIs "So this is your nations story OHNEVERMINDGOKILLTHESHADOWLORD where were we..." followed by "Lets retcon the ending to that Shadow Lord stuff" for Rise of the Zilart...

Yes Chains of Promathia was amazing, but it was the ending. It's meant to be amazing. The beginning is not, it's meant to establish the world and all it's players. I can honestly say I've enjoyed the Primal fights far more than I enjoyed Rank 2.3 or Rank 5.1 in XIs original story, both in terms of memorability (dem songs) and overall enjoyment, and while I find shit like "Go get Tataru her pickaxe" to be annoying, I find it orders of magnitude less annoying than that thrice damned Sacrarium mission, and all the other Chains missions like it (were they meant to build the world up? They made me hate it, that's all I can say), though that isn't a fair comparison, but I still prefer looking for Tataru more enjoyable than The Rescue Drill and other such awful missions in XI. Most of Chains of Promathia felt like I was trying to read a great book, but the author kept punching me in the face to be honest. Was it a great feeling to finally be done with such awful places as Sacrarium? Sure. I'm sure captives with Stockholm Syndrome also feel pleased when their captor praises them instead of beating them, too. Such places did not enhance the story, they ruined it as far as I'm concerned. I look back on the (handful of) amazing fights and finale with nostalgia, but I brush the rest of it away simply because of what a damn pain it was. Not once have I thought back to Sacrarium and smiled, if I wasn't a bored teenager I'd probably never have passed it, or any of the other such dull pieces of mission fluff XI had to offer.

Only issue I have with A Realm Reborns story is the small map means we end up treading the same places fairly often all the damn time, which sucks, but hey, they did rebuild the world in an astonishingly short amount of time, so I can forgive them for that.

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Don't get me wrong, it's getting better, like WinterSolstice said, and non-main scenario plot is decent. I think the primary issue with the main scenario aside from the tedium is the ludonarrative dissonance. Plot says "zomg we need to fear this swarm of evil" -> character procedes to single handledly decimate hundreds of thousands of said evil's minions. Aside from that I'd agree with you that it's thus far at least on par if not better than vanilla XI. That being said, I do expect a P2P game to learn from it's own company's past experiences and they should know how to make it at least on par with XI expansions, presentation wise.

It would help immensely if instead of the same generic "the person you need to talk to is beside an overturned wagon/is a traitor/needs help/is unconcious" -> get ambushed by the same 3 humanoid trash NPCs that always ambush you they'd just give the errand boy encounters some flavour. The last trash encounter in 2.4 I thought was alright thanks to them giving it a battleground feel and the addition of ninjas in the mix and all. XI errand boy encounters were kept fresh and fluid though. We rarely got generic mobs, we'd get special quest NMs like the Opo threesome or the pots, or the Manticores, and such. They put care into making sure it didn't get stale. My experience with CoP was opposite your though. It felt challenging without being overly difficult and I never felt frustrated. It goes with my earlier comment in XIV that our world is just waaaayyyy too safe. If they'd find a middle ground where players need to at least pay a little bit of attention when they run errands I think everyone could be pleased. The addition of sneak/invis, for me, would be welcome.

Yes, you're right that another big part of it is how tiny our damn sandbox is. Even with our (imo) disturbingly slow movement speed, it's way too small.

Edit: So yes, to rephrase, it's only the main scenario script I find to be lacking. Most of the class/DoH/DoL stories are very well done, Hildebrande is awesome, beast quests are pretty good, coil is good (and should be more readily accessible to everyone considering how fundamental it is to the plot) and CT/ST story is quite good. Come to think of it I'm surprised Main Scenario storytelling isn't as on point as it could be. The secondary plots are actually one of the reasons I'm holding out for future improvements and I especially like that all of the class quests are left wide open for future development with a wink to the audience.

So many interesting things have been announced already for the months ahead. You just need to patiently await implementation.

• Chocobo racing and breeding
• Card game collecting and battling
• Other minigames (basketball / casinos)
• Eternal Bond / marriage
• New PvP rules and maps
• Build airship in collaboration with FC
• New GC ranks implementation
• Completion of relic/zodiak weapons
• Raised level cap with new job skills
• Large new zones and flying mounts
• New playable race and jobs

Plenty of new story content too.

FFXI is still running, no one need to miss it, just logon XI and have fun! ^^;

I agree.

I was finishing my weathered armor and now a new set of armor appears, I feel like the game is a couple of quest, few missions and only armor after those other two run out then grind levels.

I wish they would drag the quest on, say take quest, send me to fight a strong monster, maybe 2-5 strong monsters to finish one quest, not talk to this person then that person and done.

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Originally Posted by Nicobo

FFXI is still running, no one need to miss it, just logon XI and have fun! ^^;

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The thread is still up, you could try actually reading it and making a relevant post! ^^;

horizontal progression is duuuuuuuuuumb. no one wants to spend all that time on gear that is a sidegrade. if you are one of the few people that do then FFXI is right there, go play it. FF14 is far more successful than 11 was they have no reason to go back to the model when the one being used in 14 is a proven success.

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Originally Posted by jars

horizontal progression is duuuuuuuuuumb. no one wants to spend all that time on gear that is a sidegrade. if you are one of the few people that do then FFXI is right there, go play it. FF14 is far more successful than 11 was they have no reason to go back to the model when the one being used in 14 is a proven success.

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Well to be fair, FFXI came out back when MMOs weren't very popular or well known, that didn't happen til around WoW... and once WoW came out, it attracted pretty much everyone, and very few people would break away from WoW. While WoW still exists, you can see the discontent many of its fans have for it (at least vocal minority blah blah), and its popularity has dwindled a bit... plus, a MMOs are high in popularity these days and a lot of people "MMO hop" to the next cool thing. Plus, the absolute failure of 1.0 actually gave the game a lot of publicity, so believe it or no that benefited 2.0's release, as people wanted to see if it had improved. The stars aligned for XIV to become the success it is really.

The problem with is, XI wasn't very new player friendly for the longest time, so when it came to the point MMO popularity was being picked up, new players weren't helped to reach endgame and grew bored quite quickly, stunting the games over all growth. At its peak it did reach 500k subscribers and is still survived by a modest player base as people like to bring up.. pretty good for a game with "Dumb" progression system if you ask me.

FFXIV is by no means bad though, thats not what I'm getting at :D - nor do I think infinite side-grades is the best model (which is why XI did release newer, best in slot pieces often enough, the idiots will quote the same tired crap of 1-2 body pieces across 20 jobs being "the best" for a while meant the other 15 slots apparently never got upgraded?).

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Originally Posted by jars

horizontal progression is duuuuuuuuuumb. no one wants to spend all that time on gear that is a sidegrade.

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Sooo.... Spending all that time on gear just for it to get entirely replaced is better?

We could have a branching storyline with different dungeons for that story path. (These would be unlockable as "Optional" Dungeons to players who picked another path.) Let's say Rev Toll becomes a city state... Minfillia and the others offer you a permanent stay with them and dealing with certain other primals, or you could continue with other stories concerning the Garlemald Empire, etc. It would be an innovative step in an MMORPG... that's for sure.

This game's shitty gear treadmill is at complete odds with its accessibility to new players and one of its strongest features, job changing.

In other MMOs it's actually been pretty exciting to see seniors in high level gear. When I dinged 75 RNG back in XI one of my party mates had full relic gear including the rifle and it was totally awesome. I remember thinking some day I'll have that stuff and after enough dynamis I finally did. The level 50 moment in FFXIV was just disappointing. I got out of Aurum Vale, did the Bard artifact quest but was crushed to learn it was literally half as strong as it needed to be in order to be relevant. It's super awkward to ding in this game and have your first meaningful power spike be meaningless.

It sucks even more if you level multiple jobs and you are basically punished with shitty busy work every time the ilevel is raised. The worst part is that the game and community don't actually gain anything from an ilevel increase.

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Originally Posted by Almalexia

You hit your head on your way to this thread, son?

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Using a personal insult because you can't counter the truth, eh? Choice is an illusion, deal with it. It is a fact of life you should accept.

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Originally Posted by Fayto

Using a personal insult because you can't counter the truth, eh? Choice is an illusion, deal with it. It is a fact of life you should accept.

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http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...blue_pills.JPG

Though, I think we're all choosing the blue pill by being on MMOs :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by jars

horizontal progression is duuuuuuuuuumb. no one wants to spend all that time on gear that is a sidegrade. if you are one of the few people that do then FFXI is right there, go play it. FF14 is far more successful than 11 was they have no reason to go back to the model when the one being used in 14 is a proven success.

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If you think horizontal development was a negative in XI you do not know the genre. People did not flock to WoW and XIV because of vertical progression they flocked to them because it was a mmo that you could play without dedicating 30-40hrs a week to it. XI was not as popular as XIV because you needed at least 6 ppl to do anything. (Almost no solo content). The activities took on average 2-4hrs at the min to do on a night. Vs XIV's 30-50min raids. Aka it was not casual friendly at all, XI was a hardcore game to its core requiring massive time commitments to do anything. With vertical progression in XIV now what would happen to the population if you needed to be able to play for the min of 4hrs a night to do 1 dungeon or raid and there was no solo content past level 10? most the population would quit.

People would want to spend the time to get something if it never goes away. Right now think about it we spend 100s of hours in coil, millions to get better gear. And what happens in 6 months.... it is all vendor trash every bit of it. Where is the incentive to get stuff today when it will be garbage gear tomorrow.

As for going back to XI. You realize XI is almost the same as XIV in content now right. Low Man, Item Levels, little to no guild focus, single gear pieces that are BIS for almost everything. SE killed of XI, even if the XI fanboys wanted to go back the game is gone. XI-2 is not XI. just like Star Wars Galaxy was not the same when they redid the whole thing.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

The thread is still up, you could try actually reading it and making a relevant post! ^^;

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If you have read OP carefully and if you know XI well, you would know what I was saying was relevant.

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Originally Posted by Sho86

Sooo.... Spending all that time on gear just for it to get entirely replaced is better?

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Better than having an unhealthy attachment to gear while wanting to snuff the concept of progression as much as possible to keep said gear relevant.

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Originally Posted by Nicobo

If you have read OP carefully and if you know XI well, you would know what I was saying was relevant.

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Nah, the op simply stated that it was great that XI had plenty to do, not that they wanted to play XI.

They then made the point that XIV's gear ladder is a poor design choice, not just compared to XI but to the point that it may very well prevent them re-subbing to the game (something SE desperately needs their players to do to keep this game running), many others have come in and given reasons as to why this is the case.

To simply say "Well XI is there you can go play that!" is completely irrelevant to the very real issues people are bringing up when it concerns the ladder form of vertical gear progression, and contrary to popular belief there are more MMOs out there than just XI that have come up with alternate ways of dealing with the problem.

It's like back in 1.0 when people suggested adding jumping like in WoW to the game and the response was "Well go play WoW if you want jumping", i guess it's a good thing the devs didn't take those comments to heart eh?

Wanting the game to take inspiration from the systems that worked in other games is not the same as wanting to play those other games, but rather wanting the game to adapt these ideas and grow instead of becoming stale and stagnant. But i shouldn't have to make this point, as you would realize this if you had actually read the thread ^^;

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Originally Posted by Ryel

These are often the players you may hear complaining about adding Echo / nerfing content so soon because they enjoyed / just learned the normal difficulty once it was unlocked and added to duty finder, but are now robbed of the experience because content in this game jumps straight from hardcore lockouts to free for all casual duty finder without anything in between.

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What they should have done with Second Coil:
1. Put in DF fine. But no other changes. People can gear up Poetics and try running it over geared.
2. After a few months, add a non-stacking 10% echo, still with no changes to the raids.
3. If for some reason people are still having problems, then I dunno. Change ONE mechanic only at a time, over a period of several more months.

Especially with new poetics, them making all the changes this soon at once was a big mistake in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by jars

horizontal progression is duuuuuuuuuumb. no one wants to spend all that time on gear that is a sidegrade.

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And yet a lot of people spend a tremendous amount of time on gear that provide zero statistical benefit whatsoever. Glamours.

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Originally Posted by Mykll

What they should have done with Second Coil:
1. Put in DF fine. But no other changes. People can gear up Poetics and try running it over geared.
2. After a few months, add a non-stacking 10% echo, still with no changes to the raids.
3. If for some reason people are still having problems, then I dunno. Change ONE mechanic only at a time, over a period of several more months.

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Honestly i would have preferred if they added 3 separate versions of coil instead.

Normal Raid: First patch release, standard rules apply, drops gear.
Savage (Hard) Raid: Released with the x.5 patch, drops gear, awards titles.
Story (Easy) Raid: Released when the normal level raid hits Duty Finder, adds Echo, mechanics adjustments, no gear, no titles, awards story progression for next raid.

All the players who simply said they wanted to see the story and we shouldn't care about the gear anymore since it's just vanity anyway can get their wish and get story progression through the DF, the midcore players who are still working on normal can do so undisturbed and won't feel robbed by a nerf, and the hardcore players can do the newest released normal raid or come back for titles in savage.

Everybody wins.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Better than having an unhealthy attachment to gear while wanting to snuff the content of progression as much as possible to keep said gear relevant.

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Unhealthy attachment? And wanting to do the same grind over and over again for the same job with slightly bigger numbers is healthy? Right... Also, content progression is NOT "snuffed" in any way. Just because your hitting for bigger numbers does not mean the same scenario could not be done with a couple digits less. Name any current dungeon, raid, coil, whatever that we are doing now - and it could be done with Lv10 gear, if they chose it to be done at that level. The difficulty would still be the same as the scenario would be scaled to it. Titan EX could have been Titan SM and so forth.

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Originally Posted by Sho86

Unhealthy attachment? And wanting to do the same grind over and over again for the same job with slightly bigger numbers is healthy?

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That's how progression works. Out with the old, in with the new. When you resist you're showing you a) don't understand the concept of progression and b) are unwilling to move forward because of unhealthy attachments/nostalgia. Which is no different from the nonsense I saw on the FFXI boards when the developers wanted to move content in a certain direction and the people with relics/mythics/empyreans started crying that their time spent and the gear that came from it wasn't cream-of-the-crop uber elite. Which by extension is also no different from the WoW players in Naxx gear who complained that their gear wasn't going to matter once The Burning Crusade hit.

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Also, content progression is NOT "snuffed" in any way.

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I said this because when your main intent is making old stuff relevant in the same scale as new stuff, you're either making concessions in gear design, content design or character growth. I'm not about to sacrifice any of those just because someone is upset their breastplate from final coil will become obsolete.

For the record, I've done more gear grinds than I can count. The only thing that ever bothered me about disposing of old gear was that I liked the design of some, especially as looks varied depending on the tier/gear level. Lo' and behold, systems like wardrobe, transmogrification and glamours come into existence and pretty much do away with the only problem I ever had with sharding/tossing/selling outdated gear. Gear is tangible, yes, but like everything else there will come a time when it has to be replaced. That's why I'll cling more to my memories raiding or the odd weapon/gear that makes sense for my character's concept (my gnome's favorite weapon in WoW was an axe I got while questing in deepholm, nothing from any raid) over the current top gear.

What I'd like to see is the gear refresh be streched to 12 months with multiple side-by-side ways to get gear in the next ilvl range. Now what I mean:


1) HARD 4 man dungeons - this should drop gear equiv to tome gear without upgrades and without an upgrade path - but this should be hard - tank, dps, healer checks and mechanics checks and coordination checks(I'd say 2 per patch is what I'd like to see here)

2) 8 man raid(aka coil equiv) - this would still be top tier gear - possibly expanded to 8 tiers instead of 4.

3) 16 man raid - this would be something that would be a stepping stone to the 8 man raid - showing off some of the mechanics in the 8 man while at the same time making it slightly less of a challange - this should drop gear equiv to half upgraded tome gear(i.e. if max is 130 and tome is 120 this would be 125) - this should be between 8 and 24 man in terms of difficulty - a few checks here and there but something that 2 good teams can work through if they communicate - and spliting teams and so on I think is a must here - let's say same lockout as the 8 man - i.e. once cleared no more loot for you - but you can help others - this should possibly be 3-4 tiers to progress through - and I'd throw in mazes, puzzles, riddles, finding items, etc... in here(RNG heavy on what you need to find, where to find, etc... multiple riddles and puzzles that get picked from a larger pool - not just the sastasha nm you read the note and pick that colour but actually something that is lore related or world related to figure out)

I think an interesting idea for 16 man would be exploring the eorzean subterra or other cave systems, maybe some castrum as well, a dragons lair etc...

4) 24 man raid - this would be the current casual raid - this drops gear equiv to tome gear without upgrades and without an upgrade path - same lockout 1 piece of gear per week

5) tome gear + upgrades
6) crafted - this works as it is

But all of these should be alive side-by-side(as much as possible - I could see staggering the 16 man and 24 man by a month or two to keep people interested and not bored - as much as I hate catchup I think with 12 months cycles it would be needed)); and all but the 8 man have a tiny tiny chance of dropping upgrade catalysts/weapon token for the tome gear. The 8 man like now will drop it after a certain tier is reached.

I'd also love less stack on arse and burn fights. I love t7 it requires positioning and coordination as does T9. T8 and T6 are probably the most boring fights out there sit still and burn for the most part(shiva ex is a lot like this as well sadly).

I'm sure others can add more input on such things. Just wanted to be constructive.