AF gear - handed to you for dinging 45/50

[LoLo]

Oh what did you do that for? I was hoping for atleast some effort in getting this, now we all look the same. There is nothing wrong with getting it in Dungeon or through difficult Quest. I feel like FFXIV is too solo friendly now, I just wish we have more stuff to do in party instead. I play this game with my friends, and I feel like I'm solo through almost everything. This is an MMORPG it is not? We play with each other and friends through team work and fun time?

Next we will have whiners about the Hard Primal being Hard?

Have you tried playing FFXI? not all games have to play the same if it did then FFXIV should be renamed to FFXIHD.

[Sidious]

Because it is crap gear. It is only for you to feel like you are finally a full fledged (insert job). Just cause its blue doesn't make it good.

If people feel full-fledged, then what's their incentive to stay subbed?

No one is going to keep paying to play a ultra-shallow casualfest. Just look at post-WotLK WoW-- not a single positive quarter for sub retention in years.

I felt completely underwhelmed by the AF "quest", which consisted of walking up to some boxes with no danger presented to me at all.

[KyteStones]

This thread again? Its very rewarding for the people who spent 100+ hours already doing EVERY.SINGLE.QUEST. up to that point. Perhaps you haven't seen the work it takes to get all your endgame gear. Stop bitchong because you blazed through it. Create another character and do every little thing. Maybe then you'll appreciate the AF gear a little more. Besides AF gear is only good for Ifirt HM anywaysm. Seems the duty finder likes to throw people in level 50 dungeons under geared anyways.

[Meimei]

Because shouting for hours for a single piece of AF in 1.0 was so much fun. (If you'd dare suggest "get some friends", consider how many friends quit due to the broken state FFXIV 1.0 was in.) Everyone else had to either be on the same fight or help you out of the goodness of their heart, as there was nothing in it for them.

It was archaic, time consuming and dull. We don't need that again, there's plenty of better gear in endgame to waste time on.

If you disagree, well, feel free to go back to FFXI. The rest of us actually want to evolve. ♪

[Hiruke]

I don't know why folks think being "handed" AF is a big deal. It almost instantly becomes trash gear. Even all the drops from Amdapor Keep quickly become trash gear. As soon as you hit 50, you need to progress in gear several times as quickly as possible if you want to continue doing more and more content. It's not like you're going to be wrecking Titan hard mode in your hand-me-down AF, because you're not, and that's like the 3rd quest after the main scenario ends. Good luck!

[Synfrag]

If people feel full-fledged, then what's their incentive to stay subbed?

I felt completely underwhelmed by the AF "quest", which consisted of walking up to some boxes with no danger presented to me at all.

By full fledged I mean they finally reflect their job, they have all the actions/spells and look the part. They are ready to start endgame, NOT face roll the hardest content in the game.

People reference 1.0 as being strides better, it wasn't. Most of it could be soloed or was as hard as getting 4 people to run you half way through a dungeon and then group up for a jokingly easy final fight for the body. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QGw6aBln2c (Fisherman FTW)

I know at least personally I had better gear in pretty much every slot by the time I even finished my AF. Melded Tights, GC Head and Body, Melded Spruce Pattens, Melded Ringbands etc. In 2.0 you can buy better than AF for maybe 30~50k and if not you will get drops that are better as soon as you enter AK. FFXI was pretty much the same, most AF was macroed in depending on situation. AF never has been nor will it ever be great gear, it is intended to fulfill the "Look" of the job based on FF lore and history and as such should not be difficult or time consuming to achieve.

[xanj]

ffxi and ffxiv 1.0 players just cant understand or don't want to understand that af is endgame starter gear not top teir

[PikachuLink]

Umm AF Gear is total crap...if your worried about AF handout...then you got another thing coming endgame...

[Orsnoire]

The reward matches the difficulty. Cheap throwaway {mostly} appearance set a reward for finishing the line of class quests.

Sounds about perfect to me.

[Riposte]

Yeah, and you know the way ffxi and ffxiv 1.0 did it was correct because of their booming popularity... Oh wait...

And if this game goes F2P like most WoW-clones after 1 or 2 years (compared to FFXI's +11), only then will I be retroactively correct? Let's wait until the launch hype dies down until we talk about booming popularity. I'm sure it is not hard to notice the negativity surrounding the terrible (yet forgettable) leveling experience on secondary classes (FATEs) and the tomestone grind is catching up.

FFXI did a great job at keeping players invested in a game and building a community throughout (let's not even begin to talk about ARR's "community" lol). Levels 1 to 50(or 74) wasn't just throwaway, it was an important part of the game's content cycle: leveling your character and their other jobs with others was something everyone did even after hitting endgame. FFXI content wasn't always amazing, but people put up with lots of grinding for over a decade - meanwhile, "modernized" WoW killers would rise and fall in short order (meaning the EXACT type of game ARR is now). The reason why this is should be appealing to all MMO developers.

FFXIV 1.23 never got to escape the shadow of the 1.0 launch (where AF quests didn't even exist), nor were developers trying to reestablish it yet. People didn't begin playing ARR because they saw that interesting AF quests were removed and it was like every other MMO they've been playing since WoW. They are giving it a shot because SE spent a lot of PR dollars escaping the shadow of the original launch. 1.23 (or whatever good qualities it had that may be absent from ARR) was never given the time of day. Moreover, high level quests was hardly where 1.23 had its faults (although you certainly felt the lack of content production then). During the 7th Umbral Era story arc (GC quests), they spent all of their effort on level +30 content, rather than fixing the low level game or guildleves (the main way to level since 1.0). This is reasonable enough when you are not trying to sell the game to new gamers (as they are now with ARR), but rather keeping a small niche entertained until a relaunch.