Your thoughts on the direction of this game?

[Colt47]

The only time I feel threatened in FFXIV 2.0 is the Morbol fight while doing Alexandrite Maps, and Coil. Heck coil isn't really "threatening", I am just following a step dance. There isn't a feeling of "wow we pushed real hard and barely made it", rather "ok, who screwed up procedure 2 in phase 3".



Huh, interesting review. Video for anyone: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...th-Square-Enix

In terms of raiding at end game, many MMOs have taken a Visual Novel style approach to progress, which is to say that no matter how smart or fast someone is, the fight is designed so that the only way to survive a specific point is to die at that point first. Often, a player may have to die repeatedly before they learn exactly what they are supposed to do at that step in the encounter. It's not a bad system, but the system is definitely not for everyone as I can think of more than a few people who got fed up with it. In fact, the only place where I've seen this system embraced in all aspects of the game is Dark Souls and Demon Souls.

As far as the Jimquisition video, that is a problem with more than just Square Enix. There are a ton of overdone designs from a number of big name publishers in the east when they really need to simplify and get some kind of identity going. The classic armors in Final Fantasy XIV are actually better done than some of the newer styles from Coil, and the new divine war set has a few too many angles on it, making it look weird when viewed from the front. My mithril armor set at level 40 is still the most knightly armor I have.

Actually, the end game weapon designs have been ludicrous across titles, recently. I've had to mod my Skyrim just to make my swords not look like giant paddles, and as much as I like my glowing swords in FFXIV, They still seem ridiculously cumbersome.