Anyone Else Feel Betrayed?

[NefGP]

@ Kittra: Thank you. None of us XI vets wanted another rehashing of XI, only that XIV take some examples from what worked well in it (like the job system) and improve on it while maintaining its own identity. Lol, I only just discovered yesterday there was even a post limit so this is a much delayed response (I ended up losing a long thought out post to it @_@)



Getting the whole content debate aside for a moment, I was thinking about one of the things that kept me hooked to XI for so long and how XIV seemed to be getting right at first but then fell apart - the job system. Originally, Tanaka & Komoto had intended the base classes to be templates we could customize - wanted to be Caster wearing full plate? Go for it. Unfortunately it didn't really pan out so well. The initial reforms YP made around 1.17 were pretty good, giving us Jobs but still allowing us a fair degree of leeway when mixing and matching not just abilities but traits as well - it was the closes we've ever gotten to an FF5/FFT style job system. Now however it's very much cookie cutter carbon copying with no real room for meaningful customization. There's no merit points or situational gear with unique stats either to expand what we can do with our jobs (and I'm still not a fan of being locked into 1 weapon - I love being able to change my job at any time, but why couldn't it have been just a crystal or something like that?)


As an example, I'll use my favorite Job from XI - Samurai (SAM). Now, I'll just preface this real fast by acknowledging that XI has had multiple expansions and ARR, while technically almost 4 years old, has only been on the market in its current state for roughly 5 months so the comparison isn't entirely fair in terms of the sheer amount of options available but in principal I still think it is.


Now XI worked by having you select a main and support job (capped at half your main level) effectively allowing you to play 2 jobs at once, with 1 at half power. Sadly this was still quite limiting in its own right because this meant subbing a job for things your main didn't have skill levels for (Like WAR/BLM and elemental magic) meant that those abilities would suffer terribly and not be very useful (and something I'm grateful XIV corrected by removing skill levels entirely. Skilling up sucked anyway, especially Guard and Summoning Magic dear lord...) However, it was still useful depending on what you were doing to take seemingly less than optimal support jobs, such as RDM/DRK for spamming Stun with chainspell, or DRG/BLU for extremely effective magic even with the lower skill ratings that would also trigger the wyvern's heal breath.


But getting back to SAM. Generally the options were as followed: (any stats you would gain as that sub job were added to your main, and you kept the traits as well)

- WAR: Provoke to pull/steal hate in an emergency, Berserk & Double Attack for raw damage, and a nice fat chunk of extra STR and HP; the defacto SJ
- NIN: Mainly just for shadows on fights where the damage output of the mobs was just too much for Third Eye to handle.
- RNG: Another situational option great for fighting Birds and other flyers that took bonus damage to piercing. SAM had the 2nd highest Bow Skill and /RNG was needed to access ranged Weaponskills. It was crazy effective with the Soboro Sukehiro, a multi-hit great katana meant for spamming weapon skills by accumulating TP rapdily.)
- BST: Beastmaster was unique in that Charm actually worked according to your actual BST level, so if it was 75 you could effectively charm level 75 monsters as a 1/1 job with BST as support. Fun for soloing.
- DRG: This was primarily for using the wyvern earring which granted IRRC 5 haste (it was a lot) when subbing DRG. Jumps were also handy and it gave you access to the EX polearm WS.
- DNC: A very interesting sub option that worked in parties as well, with multi-hit weapons like soboro you could simultaneously dps and heal the party. Not quite as potent as a DNC main in terms of the healing but it had its uses and was a terrific soloing option.


Now why am I highlighting all this? To emphasize the sheer variety XI brought to the table, a game that for years was (rightly) derided for being too harsh and pretty much impossible to solo most things. But eventually the playerbase found creative ways such as those stated above to turn the system around on the devs, and it was fantastic. I'd love to see that level of depth in the armory system but it's not even close to that yet, and at this point in time I'm not so sure that adding a few new classes in the expansion will alleviate that. I am however, glad that XIV is much more solo-friendly. A bit too much, IMO, as I miss the grouping for EXP in XI because it fostered a strong community and forced players to learn their roles and how to skillchain and magic burst early on (partying should at least be a viable option in ARR like it was in 1.0. It doesn't have to be forced on us like XI did but it should at least be an option)

Speaking of SC + MB, that's another thing. One my proudest moments in XI as a good SAM came to me when I realized that during campaign, with the right gear I was able to pull off a solo 7-step darkness skill chain by knowing which of my high level weaponskills to rotate in the proper order (the way SAM's WS were set up you could theoretically perform an endless string of level 2 chains, each doing more damage than the previous however this wasn't possible in practice due to TP limitations). The net result was a disgusting amount of damage provided I didn't get too many resists. It was just little things like that that added so much depth to what was essentially a very basic combat system with needlessly complex formulas.

All of this just makes me look at XIV and wonder "what happened to all that experience they supposedly got from running XI for so many years?!". At least gear swapping isn't a thing, that's another former gripe I had with XI that I am grateful to see discarded. By the time I quit (around lv 95 patch) I was using at least 2 or 3 macros for gear swaps and setting up job abilities in the proper order just to do a weaponskill or 2. I like complexity in a game, but this was too much for just a simple damage dealer class lol... I spent more time making sure I hit the right macros and staring at empty space (you blinked when you swapped gear in XI) than anything else on my SAM by the end >_<


To all the haters: Again, we don't want FFXI-2 or XI HD or whatever you want to call it. We just want to see the better aspects of XI incorporated into a game that everyone can enjoy, that we get the game we thought we were supporting/paying for during the development and that ARR goes on to be another big hit. The way things are looking now it might just be a flash in the pan and I'd hate for that to happen after all the effort YP put into it.

[Annie]

long story short, after the Dev team visit Blizzard, it no longer going in the direction of final fantasy, but with the titles Final Fantasy, game had been mix of ideas from blizzard company, and copy few idea from other games, like GW2.

Few things they did copy from FFXI are the race and few minor stuff, they didn't bring in what really hold the player down in FFXI, which in turn upset alot of FFXI player base, however FFXIV needed money, and so they turned the direction in where the most money MMO are.

If the team going to borrow idea, they better do a better job over previous creator. currently borrowed idea from other MMO are downgraded content,

[Duuude007]

currently borrowed idea from other MMO are downgraded content,

Psst... these forums aren't designed to discuss what WoW's business model is. Which is precisely what your above quote resembles.

I heard they are getting Level sync for dungeons too, how original!

[Lord_Zlatan]

snip

this is the biggest gripe for me as well. just going to expand on this a little bit, using FFXI PLD vs. FFXIV PLD

in ffxi, when the cap was 75, as a PLD i could sub:

-WAR for provoke, DA, berserk, etc. Defacto subclass for tanking
-NIN for shadows and dualwield/joytoy/etcto help DD or solo
-BLU for complete turtle build
-DRK for flavor (being Cecil from FFIV), but had its uses as well
-WHM as secondary healer. used with cover and other mitigation abilities u could really help keep people up with this
-RDM (my 'main') for jack of all trades and monster threat generator (esp if u had enfeebling magic capped).

just to build on your point, there is literally no variety for XIVs PLDs. The only difference I have ever enountered is:

-You have stoneskin
-you dont have stoneskin

massive disparity in what I can do with my character.

[nocturnal84]

Lord zlatan I know where you are coming from I made the same complaint in another thread and somebody tried to argue with me that ff11 only had 1 viable cookie cuttersub and that having a few cross class abilities was the same thing...
I dididn't even bother arguing as they're clueless
Ff11 had limitations to the sub job but you could stilll do some cool stuff

[Lord_Zlatan]

Lord zlatan I know where you are coming from I made the same complaint in another thread and somebody tried to argue with me that ff11 only had 1 viable cookie cuttersub and that having a few cross class abilities was the same thing...
I dididn't even bother arguing as they're clueless
Ff11 had limitations to the sub job but you could stilll do some cool stuff

right... alot of those builds were situational or solo friendly... others required you to cajole your partymates into proving its worth. I can tell you right now, no one complained about me PLD/RDM'ing. The sad this is that the OPPORTUNITY for awesome/fail builds or the argument/proving otherwise isnt even possible in this game.