Is "Traditional" a cop out?

[Gicker]

You didn't offend me. If anything you gave me a chuckle. Just wanted to let ya know, wow-heads can be converted.

Haha good to know, and yes, I am playing WoW with my brother during FFXIV's downtime

[napalmninja]

...I'm going to assume you're talking about actual game content, as most people will agree that an active combat system, the armory system, and things like insta teleports are pretty great.

If you actually mean gameplay... Well, like I said, I'm pretty sure most people will disagree with that point.

I respectfully disagree with you.

A combat system where you spam button one and sometimes 2 is hardly active. insta teleport is nice, except anima doesn't recharge fast enough to consistently use it as a form of travel. And the armory system may seem nice, but it needs some serious tweaks.

I agree with Wolfie if these things were great, then Tanaka would still be in charge and we wouldn't be under going massive reconstruction.

[Malakhim]

No, I literally mean gameplay.

Combat is awful (which is why it's been a major focus of change since like early Feburary). Menu system was a disaster at the start, now it's passable. Leve system still sucks. Crafting is boring. Gathering is boring and slow. Early market wards were for masochists, now they're simply annoying. Controls are unintuitive and awkward for keyboard. LS system blows. Can go on for centuries.

In fact, these are the things people most common things are complaining about. Do you even read the forums or play the game? Or do you just assume that since you're alright with current gameplay that everyone is as well?

There's hardly any need to be snide.

I've been reading these forums since they opened on day one, and one thing that I'm surprised to see(due to reading other forums) is a consensus among A LOT of players that they enjoy several of these things, and as such, would disagree with your original point.

I don't recall any other game in the main FF series having a system as active as this. Maybe FFX-2's was faster and more interesting with the combo mechanic, but you still had to wait on commands and turns. There are also several pages worth of people saying they don't actually "spam 1" all the time. That's an argument I'd rather leave in that thread. You should read it some time.

[Gicker]

Well I think they just tried to break the mold, and in trying new things, or old things with a new twist, they didn't succeed in as many areas as they liked. That being said I'm glad to see they are focused on doing what they can to get the game to a state where most reasonable people can accept. As for me personally, I've had fun with the game since the beginning. The biggest change for me has been the market wards... I don't find them annoying at all anymore, I think they work quite well. What's the difference between having to run to the proper ward to buy it and having to run to your mog house to pick the item up?

I even think battle is doing fine, though I agree with those who are requesting an autoattack, mainly because I find the animations are too laggy.

I believe the developers are for the most part junior developers or new to MMORPG development, right? I agree that it does show, but I think the game, in concept, is good, and the combination of that concept with player expectations will leave us with a well polished game after a couple of years of updates.

I maintain my position from other forums that the game was not broken from the get go. It had the normal bugs expected from any release, which were quickly fixed, and the rest was simply a set up that a large portion of people simply didn't like. They took a chance and failed. The fact that people didn't like how things worked didn't mean it was broken... it's simply a case of people not liking the way the system was set up. And though there were certain aspects of the game that seemed unbalanced, again, this is common to new game releases.

At the end of the day the many squeaky wheels are getting their grease, and much of that is making our game better whether we were raging our displeasure or simply enjoying the game offered to us and trying to work within and understand that system. Ultimately I am looking forward to what is on the horizon. The game's depth beyond combat and crafting is lackluster, but nothing unexpected from a new game.

To me the best thing for this game, in an ideal world, would have been to have fun with the game that was given to us, and let all of the development time and efforts go toward improving that system and adding content. However this world isn't ideal, and given that, I think what we're seeing from feedback from the fanbase and SE's response is what's best for the game, I only wish more people would realize that and be a tad more respectful and tolerant in their posts and suggestions.

However when you're dealing with teenage and tweenage angst en-masse, that's another reality of our imperfect world. Though on the flip side, teens and tweens also bring passion and fervor, so I think ultimately the game is in good hands and is heading in a good direction.

[Wolfie]

There's hardly any need to be snide.

I've been reading these forums since they opened on day one, and one thing that I'm surprised to see(due to reading other forums) is a consensus among A LOT of players that they enjoy several of these things, and as such, would disagree with your original point.

I don't recall any other game in the main FF series having a system as active as this. Maybe FFX-2's was faster and more interesting with the combo mechanic, but you still had to wait on commands and turns.

"A lot" is an extremely vague term in this case, because "a lot more" people would agree with me.

I'm arguing with cold, hard numbers here, that you can see in the poll results that SE released:

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...16083b634f7678
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...98e4034b898102

Only 6.6% of the people polled thought of gameplay as the most appealing part of FFXIV. Auction house, a fix for market wards, was the 2nd most requested addition to FFXIV. 72% of the people expected overhaul to FFXIV gameplay. The 2nd most requested fix was the combat system, behind lack of content, and ahead of market wards. Only 16% of the people like the current bonus point system.

Seriously, I'm not trying to be a douche here, but you're clearly looking at this from a very biased standpoint. Gameplay is the WORST thing about FFXIV. It's broken and crappy and needs fixing. It's been criticized up and down about it since release, by professional reviewers, amateurs, current players players, former players, prospective players, trolls, cats, whatever. Even SE and Yoshi themselves released information that this is true.

[Malakhim]

"A lot" is an extremely vague term in this case, because "a lot more" people would agree with me.

I'm arguing with cold, hard numbers here, that you can see in the poll results that SE released:

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...16083b634f7678
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...98e4034b898102

Only 6.6% of the people polled thought of gameplay as the most appealing part of FFXIV. Auction house, a fix for market wards, was the 2nd most requested addition to FFXIV. 72% of the people expected overhaul to FFXIV gameplay. The 2nd most requested fix was the combat system, behind lack of content, and ahead of market wards. Only 16% of the people like the current bonus point system.

Seriously, I'm not trying to be a douche here, but you're clearly looking at this from a very biased standpoint. Gameplay is the WORST thing about FFXIV. It's broken and crappy and needs fixing. It's been criticized up and down about it since release, by professional reviewers, amateurs, current players players, former players, prospective players, trolls, cats, whatever. Even SE and Yoshi themselves released information that this is true.

These numbers are what led me to believe that nobody liked the stuff in the first place, but then I waltz in to the appropriate threads here, and to my surprise, plenty of people(at least those who have posted) enjoy things like the aforementioned combat and such.

Keep in mind that all those results are the combined percentages of all regions. If you look at the combined numbers for each region separately, then things aren't so obviously unanimous. There's still a wide margin of people who don't agree on all the issues you're presenting or at least not huge numbers pointing in any direction. Using those polls won't give you the best picture for that reason and several others.

[Scobill]

I don't think there's anything wrong with SE borrowing from "traditional" Final Fantasy games. But I don't think it's lack of traditionalism is why the game is failing.

I don't think anyone except maybe Abrieal would argue that FFXIV was released too early and in an unfinished state. [It's a joke dude, don't flip out if/when you decide to take a break from playing house (Read: domestic disturbance) with Rolf and read this.]

But in my opinion, a main flaw in their design was their approach of originality. Originality is a fantastic thing and I applaud developers who aren't too afraid to explore new ideas. The problem is, SE seemed to think that originality for originality's sake was enough. Just because something is original doesn't make it a good idea. Are market wards with a half-assed search function (only recently added mind you) better than a fully functional AH? I certainly don't think so. There are plenty of examples of SE attempting to utilize original ideas in the game that just haven't panned out.

Borrowing ideas from successful MMOs doesn't necessarily mean you have to sacrifice originality. (God I'm using that word a lot!) Having a fully functional AH takes nothing away from FFXIV. Especially if used in tandem with the market wards. Having a clean neat PC UI that follows MMO traditional standards, there's nothing wrong with that. Again, I don't think most would argue that the UI is pretty fail. I actually play with my 360 controller for windows and the UI still seems clunky to me. I've mastered switching between the 3 rows of abilities I can equip but it's a pain in the ass. I only 'like' (Read: Tolerate) it because I've managed to memorize how many button presses it takes to get to any given ability on any given row. And I'll never try to use the mouse and keyboard with this interface. I've got enough to stress me out already.

I guess my point is, one of SE's major flaws in my opinion is that they're too afraid to borrow commonly accepted and mind you, successful concepts from other successful MMOs. I don't want a WoW carbon copy by any means and I'm all for FFXIV retaining it's own original ideas.

One prime example I can think of is from a previous thread I was viewing. Discussing the idea of adding tech trees that would allow us to transform our current classes (think of them as base classes) into advanced jobs. And with the basic idea of a tech tree people talked about sphere grids, materia and license boards in place of traditional tech trees. Don't fool yourself, all those forms of progression are nothing but unique takes on traditional ideas. That's what I think SE needs to focus on.

My point being, there's no harm in borrowing from traditional ideas as long as it's not a copy/paste situation. I would love to see the return of Paladins and Dark Knights, White and black mages, Dragoons and all the classic Final Fantasy classes. Does this mean they have to be exact copies of FFXI? Absolutely not. I loved Vana'diel and I loved the jobs I played in that world but Eorzea is not Vana'diel, nor is it Ivalice, Spira or Gaia. I'd love to see a new take on these traditional classes and an evolution of sorts.

So as long as it's done with care to the series and with care within the world they've created, I'm all for it.

[Wolfie]

These numbers are what led me to believe that nobody liked the stuff in the first place, but then I waltz in to the appropriate threads here, and to my surprise, plenty of people(at least those who have posted) enjoy things like the aforementioned combat and such.

Keep in mind that all those results are the combined percentages of all regions. If you look at the combined numbers for each region separately, then things aren't so obviously unanimous. There's still a wide margin of people who don't agree on all the issues you're presenting. Using those polls won't give you the best picture for that reason and several others.

I'm not really sure you understand how this works.

You pretty much just contradicted yourself here. Of course that when you walk into the "appropriate" threads, people will be praising certain parts about FFXIV's gameplay. Those threads are made BY that 6.6% that like combat, FOR that 6.6%. You are not going to find more people that dislike combat than people who like combat, in a topic praising combat; and vice versa.

The polls are pretty much the best, most unbiased, and definitive statement on what's the status of the game; because the polled population has a gigantic sample size and is representative of the ENTIRE USERBASE. There is no better picture than those polls. Certainly not doing fuzzy counting on how many topics you saw about how "combat is awesome".

[Malakhim]

I'm not really sure you understand how this works.

You pretty much just contradicted yourself here. Of course that when you walk into the "appropriate" threads, people will be praising certain parts about FFXIV's gameplay. Those threads are made BY that 6.6% that like combat, FOR that 6.6%. You are not going to find more people that dislike combat than people who like combat, in a topic praising combat; and vice versa.

The polls are pretty much the best, most unbiased, and definitive statement on what's the status of the game; because the polled population has a gigantic sample size and is representative of the ENTIRE USERBASE. There is no better picture than those polls. Certainly not doing fuzzy counting on how many topics you saw about how "combat is awesome".

I haven't been walking into any threads titled "petition for no auto-attack", that's for sure.

There also is a much better tool to use than polls, and that's actually talking to people instead of getting non-descriptive multiple choice or true/false style questions.

[Wolfie]

I haven't been walking into any threads titled "petition for no auto-attack", that's for sure.

There also is a much better tool to use than polls, and that's actually talking to people instead of getting non-descriptive multiple choice or true/false style questions.

That's not a better tool.

I can't believe you're saying that polls with a gigantic sample size and PURPOSELY NON-LOADED questions are more biased than a person going on a forum, reading "appropriate" topics, and mentally tallying up the differences in opinions.

Are you trolling me?