No wonder new players aren't that impressed

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

Ahhhh! Flavor text.

"The aldgoats have been trampling over my crops for weeks now. The Brass Blades seem to think I am not worth saving since I am a refuge from Ala Mhigo. These crops are vital to our survival! We... [continue into a story depicting hardship, duty, family, and triumph after three more paragraphs.]"

vs. "Kill six of them soul staring aldgoat sumbiches."

[SuzakuCMX]

So, my problem with starting out...

#1: Progression is solely through grinding. Not even leves anymore; nobody wants to party at low levels, even with the new (flawed) party search and doing leves at a low level (not sure about 25+) gives you less EXP per kill than straight-up grinding, even with the (pathetic) 100 EXP at leve completion.

#2: Quests are all over the place. You have to grind between the (sparse and horrible) mainline quest because quests/sidequests give an insignificant amount of EXP. And even then, the mainline quest is mostly walk for 5 minutes, watch a cutscene, kill 3 things, watch another cutscene, walk back to the city, watch a 3 minute cutscene, take 4 steps, watch another cutscene....etc. And the main quests (Non-GC) do nothing to expand the world....we already know the Garleans are coming to kick our asses, we don't interact with any of the story NPCs or events outside of the instanced quests, we don't get anything useful out of the quests besides some gil.

#3: The world doesn't feel alive. Everyone is just...standing around. Doing. Nothing. You will, occasionally, see a PC running around, but NPCs stand there and shift their poses slightly and wave their hand to talk. They don't make noise, they don't talk to each other, they don't move anywhere....they're boring.

#4: Going back to #2, when you start the game you get thrown into half an hour of cutscenes and taking 4 steps and talking to the two same NPCs over and over and over. And then you grind until you get to do it ALL OVER AGAIN!

EDIT: Oh and battle is boring too. Especially at a low level; all you do is press 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 or watch your character auto-attack until you gain the ability to press 3. The monotony is only broken up by having to /sit to regen HP/MP every 2-3 monsters.

[Murugan]

So, my problem with starting out...

#1: Progression is solely through grinding. Not even leves anymore; nobody wants to party at low levels, even with the new (flawed) party search and doing leves at a low level (not sure about 25+) gives you less EXP per kill than straight-up grinding, even with the (pathetic) 100 EXP at leve completion.

#2: Quests are all over the place. You have to grind between the (sparse and horrible) mainline quest because quests/sidequests give an insignificant amount of EXP. And even then, the mainline quest is mostly walk for 5 minutes, watch a cutscene, kill 3 things, watch another cutscene, walk back to the city, watch a 3 minute cutscene, take 4 steps, watch another cutscene....etc. And the main quests (Non-GC) do nothing to expand the world....we already know the Garleans are coming to kick our asses, we don't interact with any of the story NPCs or events outside of the instanced quests, we don't get anything useful out of the quests besides some gil.

#3: The world doesn't feel alive. Everyone is just...standing around. Doing. Nothing. You will, occasionally, see a PC running around, but NPCs stand there and shift their poses slightly and wave their hand to talk. They don't make noise, they don't talk to each other, they don't move anywhere....they're boring.

#4: Going back to #2, when you start the game you get thrown into half an hour of cutscenes and taking 4 steps and talking to the two same NPCs over and over and over. And then you grind until you get to do it ALL OVER AGAIN!

EDIT: Oh and battle is boring too. Especially at a low level; all you do is press 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 or watch your character auto-attack until you gain the ability to press 3. The monotony is only broken up by having to /sit to regen HP/MP every 2-3 monsters.

/sit?

100 exp for completing guildleves?

I think you might be playing the wrong game. Sometimes when you go to type in a website address you miss a letter and find yourself at some fishing scam's website instead. Double check and make sure you aren't playing Flinal Fantsy X Ivy, and you should also check your credit card statements because they may have stolen your identity already.

[Elexia]

I believe he is playing the wrong game lol.

(Completes the leve revenge of the dodos)

"You gain 1,230 extra experience points for speed and difficulty setting"

Where is this "100xp for completeing a guildleve? lol, maybe if you're level 50 doing level 10 leves sure you won't get a damn thing for xp, but if you do them 5 levels below or at the level you get no less than 400 bonus exp if you do more than 1 star and don't lollygag.

[SuzakuCMX]

I believe he is playing the wrong game lol.

(Completes the leve revenge of the dodos)

"You gain 1,230 extra experience points for speed and difficulty setting"

Where is this "100xp for completeing a guildleve? lol, maybe if you're level 50 doing level 10 leves sure you won't get a damn thing for xp, but if you do them 5 levels below or at the level you get no less than 400 bonus exp if you do more than 1 star and don't lollygag.

Level 1-10 leves give 100-250 bonus EXP.

And I don't see the problem with /sit

[Kaizlu]

So, my problem with starting out...

#3: The world doesn't feel alive. Everyone is just...standing around. Doing. Nothing. You will, occasionally, see a PC running around, but NPCs stand there and shift their poses slightly and wave their hand to talk. They don't make noise, they don't talk to each other, they don't move anywhere....they're boring.

THIS!

It was the first thing I noticed when I began playing a couple of months ago. Every NPC is just...there. I began playing XI a few weeks back and I've seen at least some NPCs (even the Chocobos!) move around a spot.

I suppose the explanation would be "engine restrictions" or server, or something that might or might not be changed in 2.0. I hope SE makes the NPC go around the city, even if you can't talk to all of them (like in FFXII).

[Elexia]

THIS!

It was the first thing I noticed when I began playing a couple of months ago. Every NPC is just...there. I began playing XI a few weeks back and I've seen at least some NPCs (even the Chocobos!) move around a spot.

I suppose the explanation would be "engine restrictions" or server, or something that might or might not be changed in 2.0. I hope SE makes the NPC go around the city, even if you can't talk to all of them (like in FFXII).

Nope, NPCs are active in FFXIII-2 and it's the same engine. The explanation would be the client design which is VERY limited in even character display, so if it's limited in just showing, it would be limited in everything else.

[fusional]

game is like X, people complain and ask for Y

devs change game and give it Y, people complain and say it should have X

cool how this keeps happening, right?

[Burn]

SE is setting up everyone for massive disappointment with 2.0

Its really almost no different than people saying "JUST YOU WAIT! IT WILL BE FIXED BY THE TIME THE GAME GOES RETAIL!"

[Elexia]

SE is setting up everyone for massive disappointment with 2.0

Its really almost no different than people saying "JUST YOU WAIT! IT WILL BE FIXED BY THE TIME THE GAME GOES RETAIL!"

Let's point out how these situations are different.

1. 2.0 is a brand new client, engine and server design.
1.a XIV retail was the same engine, client and server setup.

2. 2.0 is after all foundation systems are overhauled.
2.a FFXIV retail had zero foundation overhauls.

3. 2.0 will also usher in the PS3 version
3.a XIV retail did not.

4. 2.0 is how the game should have been after beta.
4.a MMOs after beta are generally updated to "release state", i.e post launch patch, thus people saying it'll be better at retail because by logic, it should have been.

5. 2.0 will be better than 1.x.