Good Criticisms about FFXIV Leveling for Newcomers

[Zojha]

Not everyone gets games is my major point.

That's not something exclusive to games - A great many people prefer to not think and understand and instead be told and learn. Studies are a great example of that - Most students simply learn whatever content the lecture has. Only few truly understand it and are able to apply it. Math lectures are notorious precisely because simply learning the stuff by heart instead of understanding it is prone to fail whenever the tasks are slightly altered.

I will grant you that these people will have a disadvantage at games like this, because you're usually not told. The game never tells you to learn the following skill sequence by heart: [Insert sequence here], nor how to react to certain situations (Like AoE). The game only gives you (most of the) the information to get to that conclusion yourself, via tooltips and/or visual indicators (like reducing your health after standing in an orange circle). And if you are unable to draw such conclusions, you're SOL until someone gives you something to learn by heart (like: step out of orange circles). The issue then becomes that the person will be unable to draw the conclusion that orange squares or triangles are bad as well and need to be told that separately.

[Gumbercules]

The guy in the video clsims to be a good and experienced player. If he is than he should be able so read a tooltip and find a use for the skill.

On another note. "WoW leveling. Cinematic and explosive"
Can I get paid by blizzard too to claim such garbage

lol haven't seen the vid but he actually said that!? LOL hell ive been everything from really pissed off with wow to being in love with it..the closest it got to cinematic leveling was....well never XD WotLK was pretty explosive I guess :P

Well guess he could mean how legion opens up those voiced portraits while you are doing things? But legion really drops the ball in overall storytelling as you level, admittedly out of necessity cuz its all "accessed" from the get go. IDK maybe ive just grown used to ff 14s "delivery" for story (and I actually like the dialogue) but wow since WotLK story wise has gone the way of tween fiction for the most part.

Should note that i do feel FF 14s current weakest state is in its "introductory" phase. I do not even think it is the gcd itself either just needs to skip alot of the passive "traits" off to the later levels so most classes get their "tool set" fleshed out by lvl 20-30. And for the love of the twelve! give GLA their shield oath really early XD In this comparison, wow is about as brain dead as a game can get when you start, but it gets you to lvl 10 really fast and you have a "functional" tool set by then, if not by your first instance. So while I personally do not like wows endgame combat as much as I like ff 14s end game combat, I have to admit that while leveling wow is considerably more engaging. (control wise not content wise, honestly first play through for 2.0 I didn't even notice my short tool set cuz story! story everywhere!)

[Kaethra]

This guy brings up some good points. And too many of you are fixated on his 'bad rotation'. Its not a bad rotation unless it gets you killed or wipes the group. He's doing Sastasha. The group could spam one button throughout and finish it only 5-10 minutes slower than a group of vets. And besides, its a newbie to the game, wait for judgments when they hit 60. Here's some of the points I agree on, with my own issues with them.

MSQ - He didn't call it that, but he referenced it quite a bit. There is far far too much dialogue thrown at you in this. Much of it could be condensed down. In addition due to the zoning of the game, they could handle MUCH of the travel needed within the cinematics. Too often are we sent from one city to another, to talk to someone for a few sentences and then we have to travel across the world again. Why not just make that part of the cinematic and not break the immersion, or waste the gil/time for that matter?

Ability Count - A lot of MMOs do this. But why do we start with one ability at level 1? Am I the only one who thinks pressing 1 1 1 1 1 1 over and over is boring? I'm going to say this. The abilities need to be shifted. Take everything 1-15 at least and make it available at level 1. Then shift everything 16-50 down. There's absolutely no reason the 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 rotation should exist. It makes the game way too slow for the new player.

Questing - The best MMORPG I've seen in the questing department was ESO. Dialogue was short but informative. And the actions themselves didn't feel like fetching and kill 10 boars. You actually felt like you were solving a problem. Even if you needed to kill a number of things or collect something. They kept it short. Rarely going above 5 of either. FFXIV is good about this too. Its issue is the lengthy dialogue that is unvoiced and there's just too many lines of it. We don't need the life story of every quest NPC in the game. If you want to tell a story make it an optional dialogue thing the player can ask if they so wish. Much of this could be applied to MSQ too. Oh and voice all that stuff. There's a reason ESO and SWTOR are some of the more popular games. They're entirely voiced.

And the biggest issue I have with FFXIV... the video author didn't touch on this because he played solo. This game is severely multiplayer unfriendly. MSQ outside Praetorium and such can NOT be completed in a group. The game actually throws up an error when you try to do a duty. I'm playing a MMO and the damn thing is telling me to go solo for a quest. That is literally the most asinine thing I've ever seen.

If I bring a friend to this game. They're going to want to play alongside me. How are they supposed to do that with 2 hours of cutscenes and dozens of solo duties right off the bat?

Now there are things I disagreed with the video author about. Things like character textures and lighting. I thought this game handled that well. I dunno if his settings were maxed out or not. Mine are and the game looks beautiful. Sounds are great as well (minus MCH weapons).

He mentioned the game being a dungeon diver. If only. There's a number of dungeons for sure. But having played through 2.4-3.5 MSQ in the last month, 90% of this game is outside dungeons and solo. This is not a group friendly game. Especially at endgame (only 2 expert dungeons). But in his defense he only got to level 18 so his experience is limited.

[MomomiMomi]

Ability Count - A lot of MMOs do this. But why do we start with one ability at level 1? Am I the only one who thinks pressing 1 1 1 1 1 1 over and over is boring? I'm going to say this. The abilities need to be shifted. Take everything 1-15 at least and make it available at level 1. Then shift everything 16-50 down. There's absolutely no reason the 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 rotation should exist. It makes the game way too slow for the new player.

I'm level 60 and that's still my rotation. But this really doesn't bother me at the start of the game. You're level 1 for all of 30 seconds.

And the biggest issue I have with FFXIV... the video author didn't touch on this because he played solo. This game is severely multiplayer unfriendly. MSQ outside Praetorium and such can NOT be completed in a group. The game actually throws up an error when you try to do a duty. I'm playing a MMO and the damn thing is telling me to go solo for a quest. That is literally the most asinine thing I've ever seen.

This was my biggest issue with the game as well when I started. I wanted to play with my friend and that amounted to them joining me on dungeons. And then dropping party every time I had to do a solo instance. It's an MMO and not only is it asking me to do things solo, it's forcing me to drop party to do it. This was extremely disappointing.

[Miste]

8 hours to get to Satasha and claims the game is really slow paced due to that.

But no one should take 8 hours to get to Satasha on a fresh character....unless they were very relaxed and purposefully taking their time, but if they are choosing to take their time and pace themselves slower then it isn't the game that is slow paced...it's the player?

It took me 3 hours and 12 minutes to get a fresh character from 1 to 15 and unlock Satasha (you can probably minus 20 mins in there somewhere due to breaks like bathroom or getting a snack also). I didn't skip any cutscenes...the only variable not taken into account is reading speed which varies person to person and can't really be used to measure.



So why did it take him 5 hours longer? That's a massive difference.

He claims to be a very experienced gamer...but it took him that long? AND he didn't read tool tips so he never used proper abilities...idk how experienced he is then.

[dragonseth07]

Its not a bad rotation unless it gets you killed or wipes the group.

You make a lot of really good points. But, we all know this one is bogus. :P

[SenorPatty]

Most of that review was not trying to be objective. I could clearly tell his gaming style didn't match the game. Especially when he talks about how long it took him to get to a dgn. An objective reviewer would've said "The game is initially very linear. This may or may not suit your tastes."

Instead he keeps making references about how WoW trumps the game in several aspects because WoW matches his gaming style.


Good for him, I guess? What he should learn to do is how to review something and try to be as objective as possible. Obviously, no review is 100% objective but a reviewer as to try to be as close. This was far too biased and he unfortunately outed himself by directly pointing out his personal preferences from pretty much start till finish.


There are some points I agreed with him on a graphical and technical standpoint though.

[xxvaynxx]

8 hours to the first dungeon? Talk about over exaggeration...

What's more funny is that he calms to be experienced in games period and doesn't even read the tooltips of his new skills, guess he was expecting hand holding in that as well :P....did anybody see him do heavy thrust from the behind like 5 time or just not use it...I normally wouldn't fault a new player for that but he did say he was "experienced" in games so I would assume~

He has a right to voice his opinion even though I don't agree with him, even more so with the graphic's. I feel he's more use to fast pace spammy mmo's where you mash a single attack in rapid succession.
I actually like the "slower" pace of FF combat though. FF14 is my first major mmo so what I think is a bit biased.

[Shougun]

That's not something exclusive to games - A great many people prefer to not think and understand and instead be told and learn. Studies are a great example of that - Most students simply learn whatever content the lecture has. Only few truly understand it and are able to apply it. Math lectures are notorious precisely because simply learning the stuff by heart instead of understanding it is prone to fail whenever the tasks are slightly altered.

Excelent way of putting it. I've met a lot of intelligent people that are incapable of learning through some of the school's more experimental self taught styles - but could easily be told, retain, and use something if they were guided. Simultaneously some people loathe being hand held when it doesn't help them.

Having very cleverly designed tutorials is a big plus for both parties, as if you make things optional or text box then it'll probably be skipped even if the group of people who should have read it as it would have been helpful didn't but at the same time it being designed in an interesting way makes it not soul crushingly boring for the other group.

As for the video in OP, since I didn't really respond before (although still a cursory listen):
The noob zones that WoW has is sort of convenient in really guiding people down a particular path (although due to lack of job system, can be annoying once you want to make an alt lol), and I haven't tried all of the startings in WoW but my personal imo is that SE does have some things they could learn in comparison to their own. There are a number of unique mold breaking quests, faster into combat/action, and some of the starting stories are actually pretty neat - as well there is something special about going from bigger and better things especially earlier on (going from a small area to "first time I'm in the big city"). From trying it long ago, and now, they just modified the flow and added a few things to break and spice it up. I see people laughing like it isn't unique or different, but imo FFXIV's start could definitely be improved quite a bit. Game's job system is a massive (freaking massive) draw for me, but thats not really something you get to really feel and understand how great right away and you don't want to overwhelm new players either so that's a good thing.. I wouldn't say its bad but I would agree with this point that its not as memorable as it could be, the great things FFXIV has to offer don't really shine until much later.

I am confused on some of the things he didn't understand or failed to complete since he is used to WoW and its not like SE is pulling a fast one on him, a number of his issues just seemed like bagging on FFXIV because he could (meanwhile WoW would be utilizing and behaving very similarly). It did feel like he either didn't want to have patience, had it out for FFXIV, or was just expecting something ground breaking - as the first 20 isn't bad but he complained endlessly and much of it is stuff that he should probably have not had issue with (like 8 hours thing lol). But I still think its valid to listen to his feedback since I do think the intro is one of SE's weak points, specifically in comparison to other games.

I would say the combat in certain jobs don't feel slower, and imo feels much more explosive in some, than WoW (like BLM is /amazing/ in terms of boom, fireworks, pow compared to WoW's mage lol) but I would also say that if you were playing SMN or were getting to later skills like the tank ultimates/LB, or lack of movement abilities that feel smooth.. then I would start to agree that's something Blizzard has perfected. The movement abilities feel very smooth in WoW, and things really snap in response - especially the pets. Demon Hunters sweeping attacks and Monks rolls feel very responsive and either don't exist in FFXIV or are much slower/locked down.

Some of his points seem to be played out as factual negatives rather than subjective preference, but I still believe SE has quite a bit to learn from their Western competition. The beautiful graphic style (like in everything, all things lol) and job system is enough for me to still personally recommend FFXIV over WoW, but I would strongly suggest that FFXIV's western competition still has some things FFXIV could learn from (and why shouldn't they, WoW is much older and has had a lot more money to toss around to try and fail/succeed at things).

The big issue remaining, I think, is I imagine he is using an entire history of experience with one game (WoW) to compare with the repetitively short and 1% of the iceberg experience of another (FFXIV). But I would still suggest SE improve it's beginnings :P.