FFXIV Bitter Sweet

[MistressAthena]

I can agree on wanting a bit of feeling like you are progressing. I enjoy the game still a lot, maybe in the first expansion when they announce it a level cap increase will happen and before that a bit of a nerf on exp for FATES and round exp up in different areas.

This is only a bandage on alot of the problems though. Like in 6-9 months after 3 huge updates happen, what's the game going to have? more fates? and what? more dungeons? All people truly have to look forward to is the same exact thing. Even if they raise the cap to 75 in 9 months it's going to take maybe 1-2 weeks tops to get that, then its back to grinding out those tomes.....

It also seems like they know this is an issue, and are trying to treat us like children by showing us a few flashy magic tricks while our mothers slip us some medicine we wouldn't normally like, but hey we don't care, this guy is doing a magic trick! (I'm refering to the fact that they are releasing the Golden Saucer with mini games, etc. and the Mog Houses. Granted they are cool additions, and I've been waiting very impatiently for the Mog Houses and FC HQ's, but that doesn't mean I'm not still totally aware of the complete lack of End Game content, when this game is supposed to be focusing on just that.. Ultimately the magic trick ruse isn't working for me...)

[Amiantos]

-snip-

Just curious if you dislike this game/direction it's going whats the point in continuing to play? I'm sorry if I'm misreading your stuff but from what it seems to me is you are not enjoying the game. I'm enjoying said magic tricks and I know others are but if you aren't why bother continuing to play?

[Mega_Man_U]

Just curious if you dislike this game/direction it's going whats the point in continuing to play? I'm sorry if I'm misreading your stuff but from what it seems to me is you are not enjoying the game. I'm enjoying said magic tricks and I know others are but if you aren't why bother continuing to play?

Also, going by that logic no MMO ever should have lasted more than six months.

[MomoOG]

I agree for the most part OP. I think Yoshi and SE missed an amazing opportunity. The reality is that FF11 did some things right and some things wrong. Wow did some things right and some things wrong. They had an opportunity of melding the best parts of both games into something amazing. Instead they decided to go full Wow. You never go full Wow.

[Azadross]

Just curious if you dislike this game/direction it's going whats the point in continuing to play? I'm sorry if I'm misreading your stuff but from what it seems to me is you are not enjoying the game. I'm enjoying said magic tricks and I know others are but if you aren't why bother continuing to play?

Or perhaps it is because they are passionate about the game and want to see it still running and healthy well into the future.

Whilst I am enjoying the game even I can see the shortcomings SE have created with a number of the directions they have chosen. One thing I didn't see SE comment about when looking to WoW for direction was "why is it in decline?", to which there is a number of different answers, but for myself and all the players from my guild it was the fact that Blizzard made everything so accessible/easy it became utterly boring. To many games have taken the euphoric feeling of achieving something that takes some effort and replaced it with a very deadpan "well that's done, what's next".

The other thing that I would point out is how many other games have followed WoW's manifesto only to have a large fall in player numbers after a short period of time due to racing people to this supposed magic end-game. I sometimes wonder why have levels at all in MMORPG's and not just create a lobby game if the "real" game starts at maximum level. The entire game from level 1-50 should be something everyone wants to partake in because it's interesting and has at least a modest amount of challenge rather than skipping to the end, currently it's like an author telling you to read the last chapter of a book first because the rest doesn't matter.

[Soukyuu]

can you farm AK like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-phgHzTbwuo
Don't blame the game if you play your job poorly.
have you practice your dps using the dummies
have you tried to improve your game play after each run?
it's your fault , not the game's fault

And your post just confirms what I was saying. First, you like to a video of a speedrun. Next, you ignore the part where I told you I know about the training dummies. Then you skip the rest of the post where I explained a new person can't even GET into a run because people want experience players right from the start. Lastly, you apparently still didn't read the thread as you're defaulting to the L2P stance.

To set an example:
- it wasn't about me playing my job poorly. Head over to the SCH section and check if I was crying for it to be buffed. Spoiler: I was not.
- yes, i did practice as a mnk
- yes, whenever i get the chance i do try to improve upon my mistakes
- i'm not saying the game is too hard, i'm saying it introduces you to hard content the wrong way

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you there. Many of the mechanics present in things such as HM primals are present in way earlier dungeons. AoE-dodging circular kiting used in Garuda is the very same strategy used against Aiatar, adds with priority linking are present the fight against Galvanth, the diremite boss in Toto-Rak is the first fight with a 'heart phase' (the tail, also present in the golem boss in Qarn) as well as having a smaller version of HM Titan's bomb boulders (don't people ever friggen notice it dropping the toxin bombs on the party?).

People simply don't CARE about earlier fights and forget them almost immediately.

I might have worded that post badly, the mechanics themselves are basically the same, the point was, the implications of messing up are suddenly much more punishing. Meaning, if you had room for error, now you suddenly don't. A better way would be, imho, to reduce the room for error steadily while going through dungeons, not in "tiers"

[Mattatron]

You never go full Wow.

Lol! OK that was pretty funny. Wasn't expecting random tropic thunder reference there.

[rabbitzero]

This game is just a Bum Rush to 50, while when you get there, its 1 endless grind after another for "Better" armor, but nothing ultimately new. This alone makes End Game empty, as there is nothing truly "new" besides a new cosmetic piece with a few better stats, while you end up grinding the same exact thing again and again and again and again....

I disagree with pretty much everything you said, but this even more than most. No game, not one i've played and i've been playing mmos since mid 90s, has been different. Any game with levels, and gear that gets better (both carrots on the stick), doesn't do this. They can't do anything else. It's not the games fault, it's the players really. They will see "best in slot", and chase the dragon, doing what gets them there fastest and easiest. If an mmo had "end game" that had no gear, either stats or vanity, from it, would anyone run it? No. Just look at any mmo that has end game raids that can be considered fun, but when cap goes up almost no one touches them anymore.

The only way gear wouldn't matter is if a level 1 piece was just as viable and look as good as a level 50 raid piece, and that just isn't going to happen in any game, because then no one would want to do it.

I feel as though they chickened out, and started kissing Blizzards feet with FFXIV which does make me quite sick. I'm especially angered at Yoshi for destroying what FFXIV could of been, and instead making a semi WoW rip off with FF elements, and doing 1 of the worst decisions ever possible.

If this makes you sick, you really need to check your priorities. It's a game. One that first launched to such a disaster they didn't let subs kick in for about a year. It did things differently, seemingly in a vacuum, and almost all were just not fun at all. I was there, i played it. It was an unmitigated disaster. There was no kissing of Blizzards feet, they needed people to want to play it and have fun, mission accomplished. According to the live letter, they have a million players, there weren't even close to that for 1.0. Some say "good", but if it had stayed that way, it probably would have just shut down. This may have been a "worst decision ever" to you, but to Square? They are thrilled it exceeded expectations.

I will also say, i have friends who pretty much stopped playing MMOs a year or two ago, and had tried 1.0, and hated it, but are having a great time here and are glad they came back.

[Marael]

One thing to point out, where you talked about larger zones, etc. 1.0 did have larger zones. The problem with making one gigantic megazone rather than a bunch of smaller ones is this: Every single thing in every single zone has to be animated by the server. When you have a gigantic zone with two thousand trees that sway in the wind, that is a hell of a lot more strain on the server than four smaller zones with five hundred trees each. It was creating a lot of lag and undue strain on the servers, so in 2.0 they chopped zones up into smaller pieces to keep the lag to a minimum. It was a sacrifice where, in my opinion, you gain more than you lose out on. Would you rather have larger zones with a ridiculous amount of lag, or would you prefer smaller zones that run smoothly? Personally, I'll take the one that doesn't lag like a sunuvabish.

[Soukyuu]

Marael, you're wrong. The reason why we had copy pasted environment is because they had to fit everything into PS3's low memory, and the engine they used was way too memory-heavy. Hence the redesign of both the maps and the engine. The server renders absolutely nothing, nor does it animate, it's all client side. The server is in charge of storing your character data and synchronizing your actions with other players. Even in 1.0 the "big, seamless" zones were actually multiple small ones, with small limbo areas between each, so you saw monsters and players disappear. That was because you were actually loading the next zone.

Seamless worlds can be done, look at Bless for example. It just requires a faster machine for fast loading and a lot of memory to keep the world unique.