FFXIV: ARR becoming TORtanic

[Balbanes]

Pay no attention SE, you're nowhere near the problems TOR had. Seriously, Final Fantasy has never even been a PvP MMO. Look at how popular it was in XI (read: not at all).

If you want PvP so badly, Mortal Online is the game for you.

[Steeled]

The thing I liked about XI's stance on PVP is that it never once affected PVE. If you PVP'd in XI, you knew that some classes dominated other classes. Some classes, properly played, dominated all.

Moreso, when PVP did require a spell changed, they changed it separately from PVE. For instance, in PVE, Utsusemi was 100% reliable (save for certain abilities meant to ignore it). In PVP, it behaved like blink. It might absorb the next attack, it might not.

[Altanas]

YoshiP, look at it more like producing an ongoing television series and less like an MMO, in that respect. Tell an amazing story. Let us feel like we're part of it while you hide the grind in Final Fantasy story up to our ears.

Yoshi had the perfect opportunity to do this were he to start ARR soon after the conclusion of version 1. We could have seen destroyed versions of various zones and cities leading to patch long community rebuilding efforts accompanied with related stories. (sadly he copped out on destroying/redesigning the cities anywho...). This would have enabled the zones as well as the stories to evolve over time and would be the perfect hook to keep subscribing as the areas would be different each patch. We should have got to experience losing part of Bloodshore to the Garleans, but then next patch SE got our hopes up by saying "Hey lets build Costa Del Sol lolz"


A problem with version 1 was that it started in a cold war of sorts. It was boring and the battles referenced in the CS prologue were much more enjoyable. ARR has more or less done the same thing. When your in character theres no risk involved. The Garleans are just there. Theres no concern or reason to protect any settlements or towns.

Little incentive to do a max level alt class, leveling them is entirely dependent
Upon mindless Fates grinding and minuscule leve quests, seriously why shouldn't
former low lvl quests reset for a low level alt?

The good thing about SWTOR is that you could level just using your Class quests and a run of each dungeon and forget about the World quests once you have levelled your first class (especially during bonus xp weekends or using xp boosts or rested xp). The problem with ARR is the sparse amount of Class or Job quests. I would not want generic quests reset. I would want more Class quests.


Strangely I must say ARR seems to be a carbon copy of SWTOR, even though it has tried to copy WOW. A lot of players cling to SWTOR because of the hope of the vague "Super Secret Space Project". I'm not really sure what we will expect to cling our hopes on, "Super Secret Airship Project" perhaps?

[Marael]

The reality of the current MMO landscape is that an MMO can exist without crafting, but it can not exist without PVP, you said it yourself, crafting wasn't fun, the degree of its simplicity or complexity is irrelevant, the point is that crafting isn't fun and downright boring, Many would rather clash swords with another player than carry a pickaxe

Really? Cannot exist without PvP? Well, uh, I've been playing MMOs for about 15 years now AND NEVER PLAYED PVP EVEN ONCE BECAUSE I DONT CARE!!! MMOs can exist without it easily. I don't give a crap about fighting other players, and I don't understand why you think it's so vital to every single MMO in the world, period, the end Mr. "I'm internetjesus you must all agree with me because you are clearly retarded if you don't." And, uh, I kinda enjoy the crafting system of this game. True I haven't done much with it, but it's still fun. Maybe you should give it a try before bashing the hell out of it as if you're internetjesus and everything you say is scripture regardless of your personal inexperience.

[Chrysania]

Chrysania, did someone piss in your cereal this morning, or do you always have this winning personality?

You should see my bad side if 'charming' isn't to your liking.

This makes it all the more ironic when you proceed to go on ranting about what makes games good and bad.

Not really. You just don't seem to understand what objective/subjective actually mean. Or 'Ironic' for that matter.

Mooooving right along.

Considering that the social component is an integral part of the MMO experience, you’re dead wrong. Take the social aspect out of Eve, and you remove the corporations, alliances, the political intrigues and the great wars that involve tens of thousands of players at once, and affect hundreds of thousands. Game mechanic is only part of the equation, how that can be utilized by the players in a MMO and the resulting impacts are not something you can simply cast out the window as irrelevant.

Take the social aspect out of EVE and you're left with a very intelligent box of digital Lincoln logs that was initially designed, and has since been endlessly optimized, to facilitate those things you named. Pure sandbox games are like that. Its kind've their thing.

But this is not a sandbox of any sort. Its not even a little sandboxy. There are no particular tools here in ARR for people to basically build their own game out of. That is not, in fact, a component of MMO's with any commonality at all. So, while you're being dead wrong by dint of confusing 'sandbox' for MMO...

/thumbsup.jpg on being an obnoxious DB Oh, and since when did you became the authority on deciding what is good or bad, or how and why people enjoy doing anything? Here, let me make it as simple as possible for you:

Making tons of money trading in a single player game like X3: guaranteed results, zero competition, ultimately pointless


Making tons of money trading in a MMO like Eve: success is not guaranteed, you’re competing against thousands of other humans, the money you make can actually be used in meaningful ways – pvp, reinvestment, subscription etc.

I'm the authority on what I think. You disagree? That's nice. Do you expect me to respect your opinion because you had the temerity to have one, but couldn't quiiiiite evidence genuine thought backing it? Nope.

Yes yes, you can’t actually address the point, so you resort to mass ad hominem, how smart of you! Here’s a cookie for effort!

Incorrect, my malapropic fellow forumer. See, there was no oppositional target there. You're one of those lads that discovered logical fallacies on a forum somewhere and thought they sounded very witty, I surmise? 'Mass ad hominem'. Keep your cookie, you need it more. The term you're looking for is 'hyperbole'.

Didn’t you just say that, and I quote “There is no such thing as an objective metric on what makes a good game anyway.” ? Hello foot, meet mouth

There isn't. I am absolutely, 100% correct. There is no such thing as an objective metric to determine such, and WoW proves itself to be a good game to play along many objective metrics. Do the objective metrics make it good, or do they simply serve as systems of measurement by which its 'goodness' can, in fact, be identified?

I think the latter. You can't make a game good with a magic metric, but you can use metrics of various sorts to identify good games from bad, to some extent or another.

So...yeah. I have nothing to retract. Methinks you were trying so hard to find a mis-step that you made one of your own instead.

And since when has popularity ever been a metric to judge the quality of, well, anything?* Oh yea, that’s right, only when it suits your arguments

Quality? Never. But here's a coup de grace on the matter for you; the quality isn't here in ARR in several key places that it absolutely needs to be if any hope for a bright future could reasonably be held by anybody regarding the matter perspicaciously. Popularity is quite important to the possibility for success. Quality that remains obscure, or too indelibly associated with mediocrity, is often quality that adds nothing to the actual value of the product in question.

ARR has lots of quality in it. The music's high quality, the art style and world design; all quality. But those aren't enough and will not be substantive factors to sub retention. They will offset pretty much nothing of the dissatisfaction existent due to server lag, dearth of quests, tedium of the gear-treadmill endgame, etcetera, so on, so forth.

My argument is rather simple, all things considered: ARR doesn't have the quality where it counts to hook and retain the people it will require to succeed financially.

My position: People should damn well make noise, ceaselessly and tirelessly, to make sure SE knows what they want. SE will have to be trusted to sort something out of the noise, but damn well make that noise, or by your silence acquiesce to whatever they feel like giving you, whether you wanted it, like it or don't.

I didn’t guess, I made an observation. I have no way of knowing what you actually like or not, nor do I care.

I like Mass Effect, T.S Eliot and earl grey, with or without bergamot. Also, theme park MMO's that actually entertain, like a good theme park should.

Too bad for you then. While I actually do agree with many of the ideas you brought up in the other wall-o-text, I do not agree with your claim that ARR "sucks".

While it is, to some extent, a poor thing for me in regard of my general hopes for ARR, I'd dare think it worse for you, as you seem to be a valiant defender of something here. I'm not sure what, but you're valiantly defending it, whatever it is.

And it won't help. I'm not consulting tea leaves, my pineal gland or astrology charts by which to formulate my opinions and speculative observations. 1.0 was a financial catastrophe for SE; a genuine financial catastrophe. The general reputation it secured for itself was probably worse than the monetary cost though, for that fiasco's actual cost in sum.

If you think ARR will magically be weighed by the world neutrally, you're wrong. It would be wise for SE to reach out to Final Fantasy fans and give them a Final Fantasy game. Not an Everquest/WoW hybrid with 'Final Fantasy' somewhat awkwardly glued to its forehead, such as they have here done.

Its depressing, to me. Bioware's abysmal showing with SWTOR was as well, for not incomparable reasons.

They could have done amazing things. They had the technology. All the pieces were there.

Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare.

[SolviteSekai]

If they put in vanity gear I will truly be upset.

How can anyone truly look forward to seeing 1.05 million people running around in immersion breaking swimsuits while fighting dragons?

[Naberrie]

The reality of the current MMO landscape is that an MMO can exist without crafting, but it can not exist without PVP, you said it yourself, crafting wasn't fun, the degree of its simplicity or complexity is irrelevant, the point is that crafting isn't fun and downright boring, Many would rather clash swords with another player than carry a pickaxe

I hate pvp. I won't play any game, let alone an MMO, that is dependent on it. If FFXIV required pvp I wouldn't play it. I would not rather clash swords with another player. I'd rather craft something.

Don't assume you speak for all of us.

[coffeepotz]

If they put in vanity gear I will truly be upset.

How can anyone truly look forward to seeing 1.05 million people running around in immersion breaking swimsuits while fighting dragons?

Prepare to be upset.

[oda]

The reality of the current MMO landscape is that an MMO can exist without crafting, but it can not exist without PVP, you said it yourself, crafting wasn't fun, the degree of its simplicity or complexity is irrelevant, the point is that crafting isn't fun and downright boring, Many would rather clash swords with another player than carry a pickaxe

Nope. And when has a Final Fantasy title ever been about PVP?

[SolviteSekai]

Prepare to be upset.

I'll be fine with it in 6 months when they put it in.