The disapointment that is Alexander

[DukeBurden]

It's not, but we can do this all day,

If it was a wow clone, pretty much every MMO after wow was created is also a clone, and anything new will also be, in addition to being an FFXIV clone, you see the pattern?

You may just be used to WOW if you played it for so many years, and everything you play after will seem like a clone, it happens to a lot of gamers.

I played the free trial of WoW 3 weeks ago. 20 levels was ENOUGH to see where the entire layout for FFXIV was pulled from.

[Blood-Aki]

I played the free trial of WoW 3 weeks ago. 20 levels was ENOUGH to see where the entire layout for FFXIV was pulled from.

Really? 20 whole levels? you must be so proud. they level up the same...and they have HP bars.. omg it is a clone! how on earth did i NOT see this, omfg.

Sarcasm aside, like i sad, we can do this all day, but you're free to believe whatever you like. i don't want to merry go around again with this.

[Psychosamm]

I agree on pretty much all of your points. The look and feel of Alex is pretty bland to me, i'm sure there are people who are into the whole steampunk thing, but i personally am unimpressed. The boss arenas are very monotone and uninteresting, aside from A3, and the bosses themselves are forgettable, again, aside from A3. The general feel as well is disappointing, I don't feel like i'm in some Fantastical place, I feel like i'm in some bland, industrial factory.

I also wish that these fights were less focused on stalling progression with DPS, and more focused on mechanics. A1S's difficulty is amlost entirely dependent on DPS. I'm a WHM so I am handling a large portion of the healing, and honestly it just takes practice. It's pretty tight at times, but like learning to heal all fights you just need to experience it. The DPS check however, is a bit much. My old group, as well as a friend's group wiped at 1% countless times.
It also sounds like this is the case with A3S, however it has much harder mechanics on top of the intense DPS checks. There is still no group on my server that has downed A3S, and the one group that was closest, at ~7%, broke up.

IMO SE made these fights this way to simply extend how long these fights will be relevant. It is honestly lazy design to me.

[TouchandFeel]

IMO, the proliferation of dps checks as the difficulty barrier in fights stems from the feedback on raids/trials in 2.XX. People continually complained about the fights being too mechanics heavy and just a game of "team jump rope" and that it was "lazy design" and no fun.

I guess this could be a good example of "be careful of what you ask for, you just might get it".

[DukeBurden]

Really? 20 whole levels? you must be so proud. they level up the same...and they have HP bars.. omg it is a clone! how on earth did i NOT see this, omfg.

Sarcasm aside, like i sad, we can do this all day, but you're free to believe whatever you like. i don't want to merry go around again with this.

Yes, 20 level was enough to notice where the foundation for FFXIV was influenced by. From the hot bar and GCD functions to the way we queue up quests, are notified of them on the map and mini map, key enemy names high lighted, the mount quest is on the same level, same dungeon matching feature, etc. Even though I NEVER played WoW before FFXIV, when I played it, it literally felt like I was playing the SAME game just WoW now instead of FFXIV. I don't know if you can't see this or refuse to admit it, but it's true.

[Kazama]

It's not, but we can do this all day

It's not, it's worse.

What FFXIV has taken from WoW:
Vertical progression of replacing gear every few weeks/months for higher ilvl.
Standard cookie cutter UI and combat mechanics.
One single progression path for endgame content.
Cross server Dungeon Finder.
Hand holding quest system that leads you to your objectives.

I'm not saying other post WoW games also didn't copy these formulas but in some of those cases, it wasn't the primary mechanics of the game. What SE didn't copy they actually did rather well. By that I mean story and.... story? They did literally nothing new in FFXIV, nothing, not a single new or unique thing in the MMO genre. There is no reason outside of story to play it over another MMO and actually plenty of reasons not to. Broken features like housing and PvP are enough to dissuade a lot of players as it basically means your only side content available is chasing minions, mounts and glamour. There is virtually 0 open world content outside of gathering and crafting which do nothing but maybe make you some money to spend on nothing because again, unless you're chasing minions and glamours there is nothing to even buy. Housing was their attempt at a gil sink and even that they screwed up.

You can defend and argue your point til you're blue in the face, fact of the matter is, XIV is incredibly shallow for a game already in it's first expansion. By this time in XI there were 100s of things to do that would progress your job/character that were not just cosmetic or related to leveling another job and that is why it is always used as a comparison to what should have been it's successor not it's bastardized illegitimate child. They had the entire foundation of 1.0 and years of feedback from legacy players in addition to the two years of ARR to do something new with Heavansward and it ended up as an identical repetition of ARR.

[DukeBurden]

^ this +1 (that's HQ, btw)

[Ibi]

By this time in XI there were 100s of things to do that would progress your job/character that were not just cosmetic or related to leveling another job.

FFXIV 2.0 (and onwards) has been out for a little less than two years. FFXI launched on May 16, 2002. By May of 2004, based on this page, there were the following end game events:

- Dynamis
- Sky
- Ground Kings

Dynamis could be done twice a week, King were on a spawn timer, so the only thing there was to do with no limitation was Sky (though even that had timers on all the NMs to drop the pop items for gods).

[KMFDM_Kid2000]

ITT: People giving commentary on Alex Savage who've barley managed to dip a toe into the first fight. Precious.

For the record, I disagree with nearly all sentiments by the OP. Good raid, even normal mode, thoughtful and fun to run with competent people.

[Alipoprocks]

IMO, the proliferation of dps checks as the difficulty barrier in fights stems from the feedback on raids/trials in 2.XX. People continually complained about the fights being too mechanics heavy and just a game of "team jump rope" and that it was "lazy design" and no fun.

I guess this could be a good example of "be careful of what you ask for, you just might get it".

Totally this ^
I chuckled when I read dps check complaints. It's just sad - poor SE can't get anything right. And also, dps checks will be nothing after everyone is i200+