My Review of Pagos: An Uninspired Disappointment

[Solarra]

I agree, I was really looking forward to this but it's been very disappointing so far.

It feels like the devs listened to the criticisms we had of Anemos and decided to take a 'corrupt a wish' approach.

We asked for dailies and solo/small group-friendly content - they gave us the Challenge Log which is weekly and best done with a full group.

We asked for something to do besides fates (treasure hunting was suggested), and we asked for exploration to be rewarded - they level-locked the Aetherytes (again), introduced the XP Penalty right from the start, but they did give us the 0 XP bunny fates, and the frankly pitiful rewards if RNG favours you and you get a bunny.

We said it was too slow opening all those lockboxes - now we get one per fate (after they'd already fixed the issue in Anemos)

We asked for a level-synch so we could help our friends - No attempt to give us this, more of a doubling down. Trying to chain mobs in a party where people aren't all at the same level means you don't gain as much xp (according to some reports I've seen, even a difference of one level has an effect), anything over 2 levels difference and you might as well forget it.

The nerf to the NM spawns is the worst.
I liked the fate-train; the best groups for me were the chatty ones; I met some great people in Anemos. If we had low-level players, ferrying the new people on the two seater mount and making sure they got rezzed and were left somewhere safe(ish) in the high level areas was fun, too. You don't get a lot of chances to help people out in this game or have much reason to talk to them, so the social aspect was very appealing. There was also enough down-time so you could goof around a bit, chat, or just give your hands a break.
Now, we grind huge amounts of mobs and the NMs spawn so infrequently that it feels really punishing. Grinding demons all night and not getting the NM is a complete waste of time, I've done it twice now and from what people are saying, the train is dead or at the very best on a complete go-slow.
I'm not sure how people with limited time (this is casual content after all) are supposed to progress fast enough to get their relic before it's outdated.

[MuseTraveller]

I'm not sure how people with limited time (this is casual content after all) are supposed to progress fast enough to get their relic before it's outdated.

^ This. As someone who can play 2-3 hours after work, my progress is abysmall and I have to skip any and all dailies if I want to do any progress in Pagos which is also questionable. In Anemos you could catch up when you were behind cause of the NM trains, here I'm questioning how will I get exp when one falls behind level and no NM trains to hop on? > >;;;

[Kazrah]

Where? You'll have to elaborate. All you did is mention how it made you feel.

Just within the first 10 second I can already see that the number of people on screen is extremely different. The number of enemies as well. The number of button presses is about 50x less. The pace is nothing alike. And the goal of killing those enemies is killing the enemies in and of itself, not waiting for something else to happen.

I saw one group killing mobs one at a time, just like how I've been seeing it in Pagos since usually pulling more than one mob means dead or dying party. I saw a pace of gameplay that, while slower, was still just as mind-numbing as Pagos. Lastly, the goal of killing the mobs for the sake of killing them is something we have in Pagos as well: the Challenge Log. Yes, there are less button presses, but this is irrelevant due to the systems of FFXI being substantially slower. Everything is accelerated now, from the gameplay to the boredom from how bad such gameplay is.

All of this was what I saw in the first 10 seconds because that's about how long I was able to watch it before going back to thinking about letting my game subscription lapse until 4.4 when we can (hopefully) get content made by developers who don't appear to hate their customers.

I liked the fate-train; the best groups for me were the chatty ones; I met some great people in Anemos. If we had mixed level players, ferrying the new people on the two seater mount and making sure they got rezzed and were left somewhere safe(ish) in the high level areas was fun, too. You don't get a lot of chances to help people out in this game or have much reason to talk to them, so the social aspect was very appealing. There was also enough down-time so you could goof around a bit, chat, or just give your hands a break.

Now THIS is probably the only positive takeaway from Anemos (at least for me). Sure, there was a lot of downtime, but that downtime allowed for that precious social interaction capable bringing more players together than any other kind of content. It may not have been doing anything, but it was that increased social activity that could reach players and connect them across whole datacenters that makes Anemos fun, and I'm almost positive that takeaway was lost somewhere in the development of Pagos.

[TheGrimace]

This wasn't made to be casual content, no matter what SE or anyone says.

[Deceptus]

At some point you really have to ask yourself are we confident with this current development team.

What iteration of disappointing content is this? 4 or 5?

Why does it seem that they never learn from their missteps despite valid and constructive criticism?

Why does it seem they make their content worse instead of better?

[Souljacker]

At some point you really have to ask yourself are we confident with this current development team.

What iteration of disappointing content is this? 4 or 5?

Why does it seem that they never learn from their missteps despite valid and constructive criticism?

Why does it seem they make their content worse instead of better?

They don't listen to any feedback. I remember a translation from one of the live letters or something where YoshiP had said something to the effect of: "NA players are always talking, like 'look at me!'" - The translation might have been off but that statement was very clear in any language - he's dismissing us as noise. No one cares about our feedback. They don't even ask for it if you cancel your sub and every other mmo I've ever played does. There's no PTR, there's no representatives here that engage with the community, there's absolutely no one from SE at the wheel so to speak.

The developers have isolated themselves from any and all criticism and use sheer numbers to determine whether or not content is popular. So because everyone did Anemos a whole lot, they concluded that the players really enjoyed it. But we weren't playing it the way they wanted us to, and so we must be punished.

15 years ago I was a lot more forgiving of this kind of developer behavior. Now that I'm a developer myself, I couldn't imagine not listening to the requests of my clients and still having a job. And with days until Blizzard drops a new xpac, no less. It's like they don't even look around to see what their competition is up to.

They are going to pay for this misstep in subs. No question. There's too much choice out there and they can no longer rely on those of us who were hardcore enough to sub to XI for nothing more than hanging out with our friends and watching the moogle spin. Those days are over.

[Riko_Futatabi]

This is meant to be like FFXI

If I wanted a rendition of FFXI, I would play FFXI. Now I can only speak from hearsay as I never played that game, however many have highlighted content like Eureka and other aspects since lifted were implemented far better in FFXI than their FFXIV interpretation.

This needs to stop being said, it's simply not true and insulting to FFXI.

The truth is: FFXIV's Eureka makes references to FFXI but by no means comes anywhere close to FFXI content that many enjoyed in the past such as Dynamis, Limbus, Sea, Sky and even Abyssea. It's...not...even...close.

But what Eureka seems waaay more like is FFXIV during 2.0 with FATE trains to level to 50. It's disgusting that this is what it turned out to be, at least in Anemos...it was boring as F!

[Rockette]

They don't listen to any feedback. I remember a translation from one of the live letters or something where YoshiP had said something to the effect of: "NA players are always talking, like 'look at me!'" - The translation might have been off but that statement was very clear in any language - he's dismissing us as noise. No one cares about our feedback.

I tell you what, sometimes its really hard to comb through these threads and look at legitimate feedback without getting bogged down with things like "No more rathalos because I didn't like it" or every single thread getting derailed by one person with a parser vengeance. Look at the subreddit right now. Sure it has its toxic moments but right now people are sharing screenshots and ideas with the new content.

This forum gets really, really toxic and very much a bubble with a lot of the same people always complaining about stuff. I would eventually start dismissing it as noise as well.

[Kai_Lee]

I don't understand how hard can be to create something enjoyable? You don't need to reinvent the wheel after eureka anemoes but make some slight changes and add a bit of new additions. Take it one step at a time. Pagoes seem like they walk back a mile???

[347SPECTRE]

I tell you what, sometimes its really hard to comb through these threads and look at legitimate feedback without getting bogged down with things like "No more rathalos because I didn't like it" or every single thread getting derailed by one person with a parser vengeance. Look at the subreddit right now. Sure it has its toxic moments but right now people are sharing screenshots and ideas with the new content.

This forum gets really, really toxic and very much a bubble with a lot of the same people always complaining about stuff. I would eventually start dismissing it as noise as well.

There's also the fact that most NA players probably don't even read, let alone post in the official forums (Speculation but there's possibly some truth to it.) So it ends up being an echo chamber.