What did FF14 have right, at launch?

[AsterBarnivere]

Me: *cooking*
(Aldgoats breathing down my neck curiously watching)
Me: "Guys I have the strangest feeling that I'm being watched... I'm scurrred."

[Denmo]

What strikes me about the issues this thread brings up is that most of the complaints we had about the game are now pretty much nixed, aside from the UI/game/server engines.

[Tricksy]

What strikes me about the issues this thread brings up is that most of the complaints we had about the game are now pretty much nixed, aside from the UI/game/server engines.

Thats because all those people stopped playing.

Whiteknights are going to ruin this game.

"Oh Yoshi! You have fixed everything! You are so amazing! Want a beer! "

2 months after 2.0

"Where'd Denmo go?"

"Oh he left FF14 and went back playing WoW and whiteknighting other shitty games"

[Tricksy]

It was bugs, lag and broken mechanics that people complained about for the most part. Sure there was some stupidity on the devs parts such as Fatigue, but I have yet to see one person in this thread say "I loved Fatigue!"

So when you say people have stopped complaining, (which they have not, I think you probably cherry pick the threads and posts you read) what you are really seeing is

a. people who were turned off by the bug, lag and general brokenness no longer playing, therefore no longer able to use this forum and

b. 1.5 year long attempt by first Tanaka and then Yoshi to remove bugs, lag and brokenness from the game, which

c. usually came at the expense of the interesting features we are talking about and with some generic mmo feature tacked on in its place

[Leyza]

The only thing I thought it had right at launch was combat. I thought it was pretty fun. I would say the graphics, but the engine is so unstable it's hard to say they got that right.

[Velhart]

Thats because all those people stopped playing.

Whiteknights are going to ruin this game.

"Oh Yoshi! You have fixed everything! You are so amazing! Want a beer! "

2 months after 2.0

"Where'd Denmo go?"

"Oh he left FF14 and went back playing WoW and whiteknighting other shitty games"

Why is having a positive opinion immediately brand someone a white knight? Everyone here has a clear understanding that the game has a lot of flaws. But that doesn't mean "everything" was bad, there are things people like, there are some that people don't. Denmo is right, most of the complaints do revolve around the UI, game, and server engines. If all of those were okay from the beginning, FFXIV wouldn't have gotten as harsh of treatment as it did.

Could the guildleve system work out? We won't ever know now, but besides the technical aspects, the worst thing about FFXIV was lack of content and the EXP/SP/Fatigue system.

[Tricksy]

Why is having a positive opinion immediately brand someone a white knight? Everyone here has a clear understanding that the game has a lot of flaws. But that doesn't mean "everything" was bad, there are things people like, there are some that people don't. Denmo is right, most of the complaints do revolve around the UI, game, and server engines. If all of those were okay from the beginning, FFXIV wouldn't have gotten as harsh of treatment as it did.

Could the guildleve system work out? We won't ever know now, but besides the technical aspects, the worst thing about FFXIV was lack of content and the EXP/SP/Fatigue system.

I dont think you understand what he was getting at.

He was stating that by removing all the features SE removed, they successfully stopped complaints. My opinion is that they could have stuck with alot of the things they had but actually fixed them and people would have been even more happy then they are now having received some generic MMO features in place of what was there before. It seems you also believe that the game wasn't all that bad besides being rushed.

Furthermore, its mostly due to the game having nearly no population besides whiteknights and fanbois that complaints are less common.

And from what empirical evidence do you two pull the theory that "most people just didnt like the UI, game and engine"? Think you need to remember that this is all just opinions back and forth. Also, please explain what "UI, game and engine" even means?

UI I understand, and from people I have spoken to its either due to actual lag that they did not enjoy the use of the UI or due to its being dissimilar to WoW. Lag is lag and thats SE's fault. But if the UI was not laggy and unresponsive many people would not have been so turned off by it. And people who cannot play a video game because its UI is different from another video game they have played are the epitome of spoiled brats who cannot be bothered to give a game a few hours to get themselves acquainted with it.

"Game and engine" Engine I understand and agree with. What does game mean? Im at a loss. Do you mean the whole game? A specific feature of the game? Or are you just throwing the word "game" into your sentence as filler to make it look more full.

There were tonnes of complaints because almost every feature was broken in some way. This thread is to point out the features we liked, that were either removed, altered or still in the game. I agree that if the game released with no lag, better servers and a better optimized engine that it would have done well.

Personally I have no problem with a menu based video game UI. But as long as SE puts in options so WoW players can have their mouse "point and click" playing, while others can still have their menus and screens clear of buttons and junk, well its win win for everybody.

[Dragon]

It was bugs, lag and broken mechanics that people complained about for the most part. Sure there was some stupidity on the devs parts such as Fatigue, but I have yet to see one person in this thread say "I loved Fatigue!"

So when you say people have stopped complaining, (which they have not, I think you probably cherry pick the threads and posts you read) what you are really seeing is

a. people who were turned off by the bug, lag and general brokenness no longer playing, therefore no longer able to use this forum and

b. 1.5 year long attempt by first Tanaka and then Yoshi to remove bugs, lag and brokenness from the game, which

c. usually came at the expense of the interesting features we are talking about and with some generic mmo feature tacked on in its place

And don't forget that people either don't understand the difference between a broken engine and features used in a broken engine or refuse to just to push their own agenda (AKA the auction house supporters).

[Arcell]

It's the Miqo'te companion.

Actually it happened with the female Hyur companion too.

A lot of the ideas at launch had potential but were unfinished and poorly implemented. Some of them could be good if tweaked or actually finished but the game was pushed out in the state we got it in. They made some incredibly stupid decisions in how to implement the half-finished systems though and a lot of them were made even worse because of it.

Fortunately or unfortunately this is now Yoshida's game and he's going to do with it mostly as he sees fit. 2.0 is going to be where we all have to decide if it's the game we want to play.

[Velhart]

I dont think you understand what he was getting at.

He was stating that by removing all the features SE removed, they successfully stopped complaints. My opinion is that they could have stuck with alot of the things they had but actually fixed them and people would have been even more happy then they are now having received some generic MMO features in place of what was there before. It seems you also believe that the game wasn't all that bad besides being rushed.

Some things were just necessary to remove and should of never existed in the first place. Primarily the Fatigue system, which almost no one was for. How did they fix this? They remove it and put common sense EXP mechanics in. Not to mention, they made it even better with the rested EXP bonus system. Instead of being punished for playing too much, you were rewarded if you rested from the game for a period of time. This is how the system should of worked before then.

You also have to acknowledge for 2.0, it is a whole new approach to the game and some features currently in the game right now just simply won't work for it and has to be removed, rather people agree with it or not. Just how it is.

Furthermore, its mostly due to the game having nearly no population besides whiteknights and fanbois that complaints are less common.

A large amount of threads in this forums are all based around complaints towards the current version. The only people complaining are the fan boys, because the people who don't care about the game just quit and went to something else.

And from what empirical evidence do you two pull the theory that "most people just didnt like the UI, game and engine"? Think you need to remember that this is all just opinions back and forth. Also, please explain what "UI, game and engine" even means?

UI as in your basic menu interface and "go to" buttons. Game mechanics such as battle flow and abilities. Engine as in server engines that are keeping the game up and latency.

UI I understand, and from people I have spoken to its either due to actual lag that they did not enjoy the use of the UI or due to its being dissimilar to WoW. Lag is lag and thats SE's fault. But if the UI was not laggy and unresponsive many people would not have been so turned off by it. And people who cannot play a video game because its UI is different from another video game they have played are the epitome of spoiled brats who cannot be bothered to give a game a few hours to get themselves acquainted with it.

Its a matter of opinion here, but I like quick drag and dropping more than the current system. I don't like to take a long time to sell my items, I would just like to right click on it and it sells to the vendor. This is a standard today. FFXI, that is just how the standard was then, especially working with a controller based interface.

While the controller interface isn't that bad, the keyboard+mouse setup is not that great, and it will be a big turn off for newer players, since a lot like using the mouse+keyboard interface, and it was a big turn off for players at FFXIV's original launch. So I believe the new interface will help more than hurt. Not to mention, 2.0 has two completely different interfaces. One based on controller mechanics, and one for keyboard+mouse mechanics. You might like the new setups better, so lets see what happens in the coming months.

There were tonnes of complaints because almost every feature was broken in some way. This thread is to point out the features we liked, that were either removed, altered or still in the game. I agree that if the game released with no lag, better servers and a better optimized engine that it would have done well.

It may as well worked out in the end, who knows. SE believes this is the better route, and I have faith in them.

Personally I have no problem with a menu based video game UI. But as long as SE puts in options so WoW players can have their mouse "point and click" playing, while others can still have their menus and screens clear of buttons and junk, well its win win for everybody.

Yep, that is what he aims for. He put it in a great way in comparing it to FPS's. When people play an FPS, they expect a certain familiarity with it, and once you get comfortable with that, then you bring along the unique features to that familiarity that spices things up. That is the approach for 2.0 it seems like, and so far, it is looking well. People can say "WoW clone", but it is just following a standard like FPS's have been using since the early 90's. It is just how I look at it, and why I welcome it.