Is SE really going to repeat the foruma from 2.0 and 3.0???

Someone tell me you aren't expecting a new atma farm? Someone! ;) ;) ;)

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Originally Posted by YitharV2

Yeah, I really wanted to love this game. My friends sounded like they were having a lot of fun playing this game. So I tried, but I was disappointed. See, I played TERA for a couple years. I started playing FFXIV in late February. I'm spoiled by TERA. :(

I just don't find the combat in this game that interesting. My friend (who's also talking in that clip), states how he reads manga or watches youtube while healing. I personally think there's something wrong when you can watch Youtube while playing a game, but that's just my opinion. I also doubt anything fruitful will come out of this discussion or that SE will change things, but at least I can say I tried.

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This resonates a lot with me. All of my friends and FC members who still play this game actively, all play it whilst doing something else. Like reading manga, watching anime/YouTube/Netflix/whatever. This is a subscription based MMO and should not be played passively as if it's some social media game like FarmVille or Candy Crush. Where all you can do is gather, recycle, rinse and repeat, until your "energy cap" runs out and you're forced to wait X amount of time until it resets. Obviously in FF14's case that "energy cap" is the tomes and weekly lockouts.

Now as I say those mechanics would be fine when applied to the right game type, such as free to play social media games. That you only hop on to play whilst on a boring bus/train ride. But when a game is subscription based and part of a AAA multi billion dollar company. That means it has a certain level of quality it has to adhere to. But instead all FF14 chooses to do is ride on it's franchise name. Final Fantasy. As long as it carries that name, certain people will always praise it. No matter what manner of quality the actual product is. I wonder how many would be so quick to jump to this games defense if it was not called Final Fantasy. If it had no part in the FF franchise.

I know this to be true because I'm guilty of this myself. The main reason I've put up with the current state of this game for so long was because it was "Final Fantasy". But the other thing that I know to be true, is that if you were to remove all trace of "Final Fantasy" from this game. You'd be left with a game that is no better than most free to play Korean MMO's. Which is why I say the MMO elements of FF14 just simply are not good enough. All the good things about it are things that are carried by the franchise name/universe and would benefit far more from a single player/semi multiplayer title at this point.

I played TERA for a few years, and other than the janky flash based UI that was awful, I really enjoyed the combat... to a point. After a bit, it just felt the same as anything else. It lost its luster after getting to max level and doing some of the harder content. And while yes, you can watch netflix while playing XIV, its also the cause of much frustration for me when other players do that in harder content thinking "Oh the game is easy" and then they mess up and wipe the raid/alliance/what have you.

I'm glad the formula hasn't been drastically altered. There's no reason to reinvent a perfectly good wheel. I play FFXIV because I like the formula the formula it uses.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I played TERA for a few years, and other than the janky flash based UI that was awful, I really enjoyed the combat... to a point. After a bit, it just felt the same as anything else. It lost its luster after getting to max level and doing some of the harder content. And while yes, you can watch netflix while playing XIV, its also the cause of much frustration for me when other players do that in harder content thinking "Oh the game is easy" and then they mess up and wipe the raid/alliance/what have you.

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Well, my opinion is subjective, but I personally found tanking in TERA to be the most fun and engaging PvE out of any MMO. And of course it isn't perfect. I don't think any MMO is perfect. Optimization is one of the facets where FFXIV beats TERA. Well, obviously one shouldn't be doing it if it's going to wipe the party, but I still think it's quite possible to do without wiping the party, in the majority of the content in this game. Then again, it's probably a little unfair to use my friend as an example, given his skill level.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

It's 5 million accounts created. A number that means nothing. It's just there to look impressive to the masses.

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It means they were created and didn't stick around...

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Originally Posted by Critical-Limit

It means they were created and didn't stick around...

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Welcome to every MMO in existence. Black Desert sold something like two million copies. They don't have remotely close to that active a playerbase. WoW boasted over ten million and have less than a third of those numbers. They could change the system a hundred different ways and still lose accounts by those numbers because that is how all MMOs operate. People pick them and move on. Hence why accounts created is a worthless estimation.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Welcome to every MMO in existence. Black Desert sold something like two million copies. They don't have remotely close to that active a playerbase. WoW boasted over ten million and have less than a third of those numbers. They could change the system a hundred different ways and still lose accounts by those numbers because that is how all MMOs operate. People pick them and move on. Hence why accounts created is a worthless estimation.

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Not the fact it bleeds, but the rate obviously

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Originally Posted by Critical-Limit

Not the fact it bleeds, but the rate obviously

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Aye. However, this is not unique to FFXIV. In fact, XIV is often cited the second strongest MMO on the market in terms of player activity. The only other game that some argue gives it a run has been ESO. No one is saying XIV is a flawless game, but you can't use accounts created as a basis. They just aren't an accurate representation.

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Originally Posted by SoloWingMetatron

This resonates a lot with me. All of my friends and FC members who still play this game actively, all play it whilst doing something else. Like reading manga, watching anime/YouTube/Netflix/whatever. This is a subscription based MMO and should not be played passively as if it's some social media game like FarmVille or Candy Crush. Where all you can do is gather, recycle, rinse and repeat, until your "energy cap" runs out and you're forced to wait X amount of time until it resets. Obviously in FF14's case that "energy cap" is the tomes and weekly lockouts.

Now as I say those mechanics would be fine when applied to the right game type, such as free to play social media games. That you only hop on to play whilst on a boring bus/train ride. But when a game is subscription based and part of a AAA multi billion dollar company. That means it has a certain level of quality it has to adhere to. But instead all FF14 chooses to do is ride on it's franchise name. Final Fantasy. As long as it carries that name, certain people will always praise it. No matter what manner of quality the actual product is. I wonder how many would be so quick to jump to this games defense if it was not called Final Fantasy. If it had no part in the FF franchise.

I know this to be true because I'm guilty of this myself. The main reason I've put up with the current state of this game for so long was because it was "Final Fantasy". But the other thing that I know to be true, is that if you were to remove all trace of "Final Fantasy" from this game. You'd be left with a game that is no better than most free to play Korean MMO's. Which is why I say the MMO elements of FF14 just simply are not good enough. All the good things about it are things that are carried by the franchise name/universe and would benefit far more from a single player/semi multiplayer title at this point.

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Yeah, I know many will disagree with me, but I agree that it rides on the coattails of its Franchise name. IMO SE is just resting on its laurels, because the fact is, they're making money. You take away the name and it's not really all that better than most f2p Korean MMOs. If I look back at Aika (it's kind of interesting because I was just looking for a random video but those are all people I played with; so nostalgic), the first MMO I played, I actually think that was more fun than FFXIV, probably due to the lack of a global cooldown. And PvP was really fun. If I look at tanking in Aika, the design has the same problem as FFXIV. Stuff just auto attacks most of the time, while doing tankbusters every so often, but it still looks more fun because more responsive inputs/no GCD.

And as a result of the simple combat system, there are so many gimmicks. As stated here, it's basically team jump rope. Fights are easy if you get people who know to do. And really hard if you're pugging and people are bad and don't know what to do (I think a DRK in my FC said he pugged Sus Ex on a Saturday and tried all day and didn't get one clear). "The current "mechanics-driven battle system" is considerd bland by the hardcore gamers (the biggest problem here, I think), frustrating by the mainstream gamers, and actually prevents the casual crowd from playing altogether." Basically you just get 7 other people that can do the dance, and the mechanics are boring. If you get people who can't do it, then it just becomes frustrating. I think this is actually why I dislike a majority of the content in the game. I do think mechanics have a place in fights, but I just dislike how mechanic-driven fights are.

Those are my two major complaints of FFXIV, the combat itself and the gimmick-driven nature of fights.

Hopefully for their next MMO, could be FFXVII, XIX, XX.. I hope they take the depth and diversity of FFXI, inspiration for combat from Dragon's Dogma (minus the climbing monsters, don't need that really lol), as well as Elder Scrolls Online (morphing abilities), character creation from Final Fantasy XV Comrades (such a refreshing character creation, after seeing games like Division call their thing character creation lol). You mix all of that, with the great lore of the FF universe, you'd have yourself a pretty tight and diverse MMO.

As I'm playing FFXV Comrades, I'm thinking how awesome would it be, if their MMO looked more like this, and had a bit more fast paced combat like this.. I haven't played FFXV for awhile, but getting back into it due to Comrades, I'm looking at the enemy designs, and even the weakest enemies look and feel very threatening.. Some like the Cockatrice are adorable (the baby ones that hop on you lol). I don't want to see a repeat of anything from XIV for their next MMO, save the awesome work put into the music, the events which I will say are fun and awesome.. Other than that.. Nope.

"At first, they complained about the taste in 3.x, but eventually, they ended up eating the same crap from 2.x. Let's put it in a red box for 4.x and hope they don't notice."

Yeah, it seems that way sadly. I am hoping to see very different things for this expansion, giving it a chance.. But it looks so far like it will be just more of the same, if it is.. I think this game will really start to hurt, especially as newer MMO come out. I kind of feel like they have trapped themselves in a box with the way this game is, and how it keeps going.. I don't think it will last as long as XI did at all.

The new PVP arena suffers from the same problem the other PVP arenas suffer from, it is too large. There is a pointless underpass for some reason, it is an ARAM(all random all mid) map, just make it a small one lane MOBA map that skirmishes in the middle.

Square needs to remember the writing principle, KISS; Keep it Simple, Stupid!

I love the current system. As someone said, it lets you take breaks, or even do like me and level alts (I love alts). It's not true you are forced to sub just to do the weekly stuff, because in the end you aren't going to need a huge ilv for the next path, unless you plan to go to the big raids. The other dungeons ask for a moderate ilv that's not difficult to obtain if you have tried at least a bit. There are also tons of things to you. It's just up to you to do them; the game doesn't force you.

Other games I played in the past force you to give up on your life just to get some numbers in your character's stats; that's not something I consider a good way of investing my time. I for one am more interested in the creative sides of the game than its stats, so being forced to care too much about those and having to waste most of my time and effort on them isn't fun for me. And that's just one of the many things I love about this game: it's friendly, it understands my needs, and it doesn't punish me constantly like other games do.

PS: I love the PVP arena and there isn't any pointless underpass. The map having different (and some hidden) paths is a part of the fun.