Current Game Feedback.

[neoxdeciple]

I think the game actually provides more easy and HARD content but not a lot of the middle ground, (but that depends on your perspective I personally refer to ex primals as middle ground) while original coil was a good example to medium to hard content Alexander savage seems to be more of a Solid "this is hard" content, however they seem to have eased up on that difficulty with the new arm,

But the point made in this thread is that it wasn't that there's no reward in completing something hard for the challenge. But the rewards had already been seen in something of a easier version of the fight thus defusing any reward from the savage mode other than stats of defeating a harder boss, not a complaint of the actual difficulty but rewards. They have definitely done their job in catering for the people that wanted easy content and people that wanted hard content.

[NorthernLadMSP]

I'm starting to agree. I've played religiously since Jan. 2014 and I'm starting to get bored too. I was in a group with A1S and A2S on farm that ended up splitting right when Midas came out. So, I moved over to Gilgamesh in hopes of finding a new fresh group to join. Nope, nothing. The very few fresh groups I see are looking for tanks or melee, never healers or casters (my roles of choice) or they are fresh new statics who want hours that don't work for me (super late night, or middle of the day).

So, I said screw it. I'll get back into crafting. I had all but two of the crafters at 50, so I've been working on leveling/gearing them. Have GSM and LTW at 60, and WVR at 58. However, now that I'm finally starting to want to improve my gear for my 60s, I'm noticing how insane it is just to be able to craft 2-star items, let alone 3-star, and realizing it will take 9 weeks to obtain three main hands. Is it worth it? I don't know anymore.

I used to love doing relics. Now, I can't even make myself finish the first i210 I've been slowly working on for months and months. Main reason being extremely expensive HQ crafted items, and a lot of them. I try doing Diadem gathering in the hopes of building up spoils to get crafting materia to be able to make my own relic items, but literally no one does Diadem. PFs sit for hours on end with two people in them, yet it's blocked so you can't even enter to gather unless you have a full group of 8.

I totally know what the OP is referring to in regard to the state of this game.

If you're happy doing easy things like Midas normal and roulettes all the time, you're good. If you're in a hardcore static clearing Savage Midas, you're good too. But, if you're like me, wanting that midcore content, you might be really struggling to continue to log in everyday.

[Kaurie]

I've played since [it doesn't matter how long I have played since. Having played more/less doesn't make my opinion worth any different].

I currently am fairly displeased with the game. There were a lot of things in 2.x that I disliked, that I understood was because Square was 'just getting the basics down' and '3.0+ was going to spice things up'. I definitely misunderstood what this goal meant and it's been eating away at me ever since.

My personal issues with the game:

Crafting & Gathering - I dislike that you need to swap gearsets and use skills on these. I prefer a system like World of Warcraft, Wildstar and Guild Wars 2, where gathering is a simple activity you can do while you are out in the world questing or what have you, and that crafting is a simple leisure activity. The complexity of crafting makes it it's own mini-game, but the mini game is not fun or rewarding.

Character Progression- This game completely lacks trait paths, specializations and so on. This was, theoretically, handled by having multiple jobs on one character - but it doesn't work out quite that way. I feel very much the same as everyone around me, and the lack of choice takes away a significant part of the identity that allows me to immerse myself in the game.

Stats- Stats in this game are incredibly dull and inconsequential. We have 35 attribute points that we can put into a stat of our choosing, but there really is no choice. There is 0 benefit to adding STR / DEX / INT to my SCH, etc. Attributes could be made much more interesting, like in Guild Wars 1, every profession (class/job) had their own set of attributes to choose from. An elementalist could apply attributes to fire, water, earth, air - for example. Beyond this, stats on gear are incredibly linear and boring. There is no gear that changes out we play, or mixes up our rotations. Secondary stats are made so insignificant in comparison to WD and main stat that they are hardly worth thinking about.

Gear- Even if stats were made interesting, it would be a moot point, because we have 0 horizontal progression. There is only 1 220 item (outside of crafting, I guess) that I can choose for my legs, and 1 230 item I can choose. Due to the stats being as lame as they are, the 230 item is better.

FATEs- FATEs lack any sort of immersion or involvement, I barely ever know what is going on with them and they are incredibly boring to complete. I am going to be honest, I don't know exactly what is wrong with them, but when I compare these to Dynamic Events in Guild Wars 2, the range in level of fun I experience is staggering. It would help a lot of FATEs also gave some sort of significant reward, to provide a reason for open world involvement at max level.

Hunts- These are either insanely hard or insanely easy, depending on how many people are present. The mechanics that make you sleep for 40 seconds are just dumb - and the openworld nature resulting in zerg fests are also quite dumb. There are many ways to adjust these so they are challenging, but Square has done nothing to address this.

Dungeons- These used to have some sort of puzzle solving and mechanics that involved thought; however, every new patch of dungeons seems to be more linear and straight forward than the last. They're obviously being specifically designed as a mindless daily farm, as opposed to fun and involved content. Too linear, too basic, too easy.

Duty Finder- This needs to have some sort of option to select your type of play - way too many conflicting playstyles are placed together, so that they are aggravated. It would be great if you could select, 'casual play' 'serious play' etc, so that you are matched with people with similar play styles to your own.

Add-ons- The complete lack of add-on support is frankly disappointing. The user base often can help create a lot of great QoL addons that the dev team just doesn't have the manpower to do (or maybe the knowledge of the problem to address). Addons can help customize your experience to yourself, as everyone has different preferences. Parsers, in particular, is a major concern. I do not understand how DPS checks can be so prevalent as a mechanic, with 0 way of an officially support way of addressing it.

Harassment- Adding on to the note of parsers, it seems to be a big deal that we don't have DPS parsers to prevent harassment. Yet, despite this, negative behaviour is seen constantly with very little done about it. At least, nothing publicly visible is known.

RMT- The solution to this is quite simple. Allow players to create a chat filter that blocks certain text. Guildwork is an app for PC that already does this - it's not a difficult thing to implement.

Raiding- Bringing in a normal raid mode has really lowered the meaning in raiding. Reaching higher levels of the tier was in part to see the story unfold. Further, we are now experiencing the same bosses and areas twice - by the time we get to Savage the 'awe' factor is lost. We're left with an enjoyable fight, but something is missing. It also sucks that we have so few raids per tier, and that they raids themselves are quite short.

Primals- Primals are turning less and less from fights that are all about coordination and teamwork into a dance that everyone needs to have remembered to pull off. It's less about coordinating damage/buffs/mechanics with your team and just making sure that your team doesn't derp and goes to A at the appropriate time.

Story- The main story is easily the best thing about this game, but there is 0 replay-ability. It would be awesome if we could use our journal to reactivate old story quests and replay them.

Housing- Limited housing plots is a very frustrating experience, I'd personally much rather have instanced plots than what we have now, if it meant that everyone could have a house if they wanted (think Wildstar).

Marketboard- I really prefer other games where you can sell and buy from the same location, rather than having to sell via a retainer and buy via board

Gold Saucer- Unfortunately, I find all of the gold saucer content to be quite boring. Choco racing, triad and verminion all have different issues. Choco racing was like Mario Kart, but more static and awkward feeling, it had potential but it didn't deliver. Triad, I never really liked the idea - so I will chalk up my disappointment to that. Verminion is way too complex for what it is - this should be a simple minion battle game, but instead the rules were so lengthy and complex, I didn't even finish the tutorial before quitting it completely.

Currency- There are way too many currencies in this game that take up inventory slots. All of these should be moved to your wallet

Glamour- This game definitely needs a glamour wardrobe, so that you do not need to hold onto all of your glamours and waste inventory/server space

Direct X 11- While the game looks prettier, there are so many surfaces which now look like mud or jelly

Exploratory Missions- The name and marketing for this really did not set us up for what it actually is. There is 0 exploration that goes on during these missions - I have more of an exploratory journey when I wander through Idylshire. These were mindless zerg fights that last for a ridiculous amount of time. If you want people to keep their attention for a long time, you need something that requires thought process.

Roulettes- There are way too many roulettes, and more just keep getting added. The bonus rewards on these are so large that they feel necessary to complete, and thus logging in usually results in making sure you get them done. It's less about, let's log in and do a fun dungeon! and more like "I better make sure I do my expert before reset". It's a chore instead of a fun activity.

Obtaining Gear- This is done almost exclusively through tomestones. The few methods where you don't get it via tomestones are slowly moving in that direction (midas/gordian manifesto, hive token etc etc.). Getting your gear through a currency at a fixed rate of play is boring. There is very little satisfaction from obtaining your reward. Picture it like going to a fair and there is a game where you need to toss rings on pop bottles (or whatever fair game you choose) and if you get a high score, you get a prize. Obtaining that is rewarding. However, if they changed it that once you throw 10 rings you get a prize no matter what, it's all of a sudden a lot less fun. That's what this is - to me at least.

Difficulty- So much of this game seems to cater to the lowest common denominator. We shouldn't be nerfing things liek Steps of Faith. It was quite easy to begin with and anyone who put any effort and time into it would be able to clear it in no time. By reducing everything to faceroll easy, you make most of the game content boring. It leaves the only interesting part to = raids. There needs to be more content that is less difficult than savage and more difficult than almost everything else.

Open world end-game zone- The complete lack of a level 60 zone is rather sad as well. I enjoy in games like Guild Wars 2, WoW and Wildstar doing daily activities in the open world with challenging monsters. Azys La is sort of this, but has not been taken advantage of (it's also a very ugly zone that I wouldn't want to spend time in). Daily Quests/Challenges are a great way to incentive people into the area. FATEs could also act as this function, if improved.


That is all I can think of atm, but honestly, I feel I touched on everything except Dragonskin maps and Sightseeing Log (which I have issues with as well, but not enough to write up about).

Before any of you say, yes, I am planning to unsub and have resubbed to another game.

[Kaurie]

Your statement comes off as elitist to me. How can you judge what is hard for someone? I'm pushing 60 yrs old and no longer have the reflexes to do certain levels of content no matter how hard I try. Does this mean I should be cutoff from the end game storyline and the full game content? Or could it be that the easier levels you call a faceroll are actually no less challenging and an accomplishment for a good portion of the player base.

This is one thing I see across MMO's and that is the lack of empathy of many of the players. Maybe if more folks took into account that not everyone is young or healthy some of the disparagement and blaming of easy content as ruining the game might go away.

While their post comes of as elitist (it doesn't), your post comes off as selfish. You are suggesting that because you are older that the game should be less interesting for the majority to cater to your specific circumstances.

[Tint]

a lot of text

sadly, i have to agree almost 100% :x but i have to say: i like the chocobo race o.o/

[Yukiko]

I still do not understand their refuse of element wheel...
In add i dont get it why they keep relying on onehit mechanics with little to no recovery possibility!
As Example if they like to keep weakness then at least give the players a chance to survive for those minutes they have weakness...
If you ask around even japan players do not like group rope jumping!

[Claviusnex]

While their post comes of as elitist (it doesn't), your post comes off as selfish. You are suggesting that because you are older that the game should be less interesting for the majority to cater to your specific circumstances.

Not selfish or to use the more common term entitled at all. The age reference was purely a way to counter the "git gud" comment implied in the update as it doesn't take into account a person can be good within a different context than the originator of the comment. I personally don't care that SE, Blizzard or any of the other companies make higher level content. I don't care that they get higher level gear. Yet whenever threads arise someone talks about how easy content ruins the game and makes people lazy as if it will fix the reality that not everyone cares to progress or has the ability progress to the harder levels of content. It is natural that the available player pool will decrease the harder the content and nothing will change that. The end result of all of this is people being accused of being elitist or entitled when the game has an ability to accommodate both and in general what is good for one group is good for the other.

Personally I much prefer this game over WOW and have found the in game community here to be much better than I saw in WOW (been there for close to seven years). I like the different ways I can gear up with FF XIV. I am more oriented to the storyline and questing. I was running normal level raids in WOW and to be honest after seeing a boss for the umpteenth time I reached a point I didn't care anymore. Here while I primarily do instanced content as part of the storyline I have alternatives to get decent gear that don't require me to run a raid a 100 times. Much less boring in my mind not to mention alternatives are good.

Are there things I wish could be improved? Yes. One area is crafting where I have similar feelings about it as you do. I also don't care for the way banking seems to be a mishmash of store one type of item here, another there and yet another someplace else. Lastly not to digress but the way RMT is handled which has made me quit once before and just might do it again.

[Mjollnir]

Narrow, vertical progression. Burn the old gear, in with the new on every single patch. It's insulting to expect players to jump on that hamster-wheel. And what is there to do with it once you have it? One raid, one trial? For three months?

Also, not enough places to explore. Not enough quests to explore with, missing an opportunity for a ton of lore. Not enough (any) challenging solo PvE content for when your friends aren't online. Not enough MSQ, which is slow-paced and so very very standard fare.

Want to keep people logging in? Trickle-release every Tuesday another 30mins of MSQ then set a goal for the week to complete to be able to unlock the next week's.

So much wrong atm, and so little right. Seems the game's design ethic shifted from innovative to uninspiring as soon as we got Heavensward.

[Kaurie]

Not selfish or to use the more common term entitled at all. The age reference was purely a way to counter the "git gud" comment implied in the update as it doesn't take into account a person can be good within a different context than the originator of the comment. I personally don't care that SE, Blizzard or any of the other companies make higher level content. I don't care that they get higher level gear. Yet whenever threads arise someone talks about how easy content ruins the game and makes people lazy as if it will fix the reality that not everyone cares to progress or has the ability progress to the harder levels of content. It is natural that the available player pool will decrease the harder the content and nothing will change that. The end result of all of this is people being accused of being elitist or entitled when the game has an ability to accommodate both and in general what is good for one group is good for the other.

Personally I much prefer this game over WOW and have found the in game community here to be much better than I saw in WOW (been there for close to seven years). I like the different ways I can gear up with FF XIV. I am more oriented to the storyline and questing. I was running normal level raids in WOW and to be honest after seeing a boss for the umpteenth time I reached a point I didn't care anymore. Here while I primarily do instanced content as part of the storyline I have alternatives to get decent gear that don't require me to run a raid a 100 times. Much less boring in my mind not to mention alternatives are good.

Are there things I wish could be improved? Yes. One area is crafting where I have similar feelings about it as you do. I also don't care for the way banking seems to be a mishmash of store one type of item here, another there and yet another someplace else. Lastly not to digress but the way RMT is handled which has made me quit once before and just might do it again.

Indeed, and just to clarify - it was mostly that you called him elitist that I retorted to your post. He was simply expressing his feeling that he doesn't feel any sense of reward for beating easy content.

I agree with you that there needs to be something for everyone. The issue with FFXIV is that 90% of the content caters to casual or easy-play, and the 8% is catered to very difficult play - with only a very small margin of what many people call 'mid-core' content.

[neoxdeciple]

I'm liking some of the feed back.

Crafting & Gathering .

While I understand that you dislike the system and prefer a simpler system for crafting such as your games listed, I do beleive its an opinion and not a problem of sorts, yes its essencially its own mini game but i think its important to understand its class actions, from a class system where you gain exp and gear up and level up just as you would a battle class, thus its really not justifyed to be a simple system, but its also important that crafting also contributes to the main objective to the game, which is gearing, potions, food. I dont have a problem with this system at all.

Character Progression.

I dont completely disagree, more options is always a good thing, but again its important to remember the games fairly young in its life cycle, first expansion and the likes, I wouldnt expect any changes with a patch at all and I fully expect to see more options in the future. but as a starting point I dont think they have done bad in the slightest. The beauty of having mutiple class's just gives you more to do, and experience content in the game from a different perspective.

Stats.

Same reply as the above.

Gear.

I touched on this in my first post, The game its literally built on a linier gear progression model. Which people frequently argue about, I think its down to opinion which is better linier or horizontal. That being said I dont mind the linier model, it means Ive constantly got a new gear set to work toward. which in a way is its own form of entertainment, that being said I would love to have horizontal progression for more. Either works.

FATEs.

I understand what you mean, and we understand why they exist, the nessisary evil for leveling a dps class! XD but sillyness aside mechanics and the like would be fun. and what i took away from your comment was there is ZERO reason to farm fates at level 60. i dont think 20 or 30 eso's would hurt or a currency for glamour for each area, just some ideas, (stolen from behemoth and odin fates) but i dont understand why they havn't made any large scale fates like those of primals in each respective beast tribe zone. Thats a fate I would go out of my way to do!

Hunts.

Hunts is one thing I havn't done too much of. for the exact reasons you have given (except when required for progression) I think the problem you outlined is an exact cause and effect from wether or not they are relivent to content at the time. the only thing i can think of that makes them worth while to do outside of progression at present is the mount. thats it.

Dungeons.

Sunkun temple is the only temple that comes to mind when you say "some form of puzzle" as much as a puzzle every now and then would be nice. i dont nessissary think its a manditory for it to be a good dungeon. Mechanics are always good on the other hand. but primaryly i think they need a good back story. but thats my opinion.

Duty Finder.

I wouldnt say i have an Issue with the way it is. it does its intended purpose. the change you suggest just filters players into different cues. whcih defys the point of a duty finder. its just a quick way of finding a team, nothing more.

Add-ons.

They arnt a part of the game so i dont really want to discuss them here. My threads about the current game as it stands.

Harassment.

I do beleive that the report feature is there to be used. While I cant say all complaints are delt with i do feel square does their part or it wouldnt exist. This things going to happen in any online mmo.

RMT.

Although annoying as hell, not what threads about.

Raiding.

I've said my 2 cents :P but yes, more would be amazing.

Primals.

Il have to disagree with you on this one. I feel they have always been the ay you mentioned. a dance you all have to remember depending on your roll. but i think all content revolves around like this.

Story.

Yes. Replay value. good idea.

Housing.

I think squares aware of this (hence apartment housing is planned to be released)

Marketboard.

I agree, listing from a retainer is annoying a tad, but im sure a list item from market wouldnt be hard to impliment if enough noise was made about it.

Gold Saucer.

I touched again on this in mini games, while i may not have the same veiw's as you. I enjoy the majority of the content its just lacking some form of purpose for such large scale minigames besides killing time before a duty.

Currency.

Im all for this, or at the very least key items.

Glamour.

I do believe we have already heard a response to this, which was (correct me if im wrong) something to do with the amount of server space needed to store the extra data or something. but it would be nice.

Exploratory Missions.

While your not wrong, square did say that the way it was being used wasnt as intended. however. When it offered the main currency i did see teams go looking to complete objectives, but thats about it. I feel the only mistake was that monsters droped the rewards directly. Perhaps if they droped some sort of item to then search for what it unlocked or filled a visable bar to unlock a "hidden" location we may have seen the intended result.

Roulettes.

Again I agree to some extent. The rewards of current roullettes are very large, and only justifyable by large content grinds such as the relic. (because lots of tomes helps with that ALOT however as you stated its VERY easy to cap. i finish my lore cap every tueday as tuesdays I have a free day. what do i do? Do my Roulletes left over from monday, and alexander grind, void arc, reset Roulletes and then some pvp. very little. i also understand it has to be this way, some people dont play as much as I can. I've seen this mentioned somewhere on the forams before but a roullette roll over would slow speed capping and cater the needs for people with less time.

Obtaining Gear.

however again this is a verticle progression model game as such thats the method we are stuck with. If its ever to move to horizontal progression we most likely will see a change. However getting gear from methods other than tomestones would be great. Just very unlikely to be implimented. Hence the lesson from Diadem. (which i personally loved)

Difficulty.

While I agree that the Steps of Faith wasnt hard and i actually enjoyed it on release i can see why they nerfed it (maybe a bit too much) it essecially was STORY mode content. (I still dont understand why story mode trials/ Aetherical reasearch arn't in Main Scenario roullette XD)

Open world end-game zone.

While techniquely we kind of have them as you said, unfortunately with linier gear progression I'm not sure a true end game area could be implemented well unless the area monster's were like diadem difficulty, because after a few content patchs you end up steam rolling everything. More activitys? SURE but what rewards could be available for doing such a thing. Thats the major problem.