Worried about where the game is going

[EmeraldHill]

Please note i'm not saying the game sucks.

It's mostly due to the FC airship feature they announced. I got to thinking of how instanced the world is compared to most modern MMORPGs (The cities are split into two instances, I find that just silly). What can they even do with these airships? The most i thought of was there'd be entirely new zones just for airships, which seems lame to segregate the airships from the rest of the game. In general, I feel there is a lack of world in the game. And while it was amusing at first, the pop culture references just bug me now. Feels out of place in a game that wants to focus on the story.

[EmeraldHill]

It's so painfully easy to level up as well that I'm almost to where I don't need to participate in the market as I'll be self-sufficient with all crafts to 50. In 1.0 the sheer grind kept you from leveling all of the crafts to 50 and a devoted crafter was just that.

Alongside from that the only market crafters (mostly) have is other crafters. You don't need to buy gear since quests hand them out like candy, nor do you even need good gear since FATEs are the best way to level and if you do do dungeons you're getting gear from that regardless.

[EmeraldHill]

I don't like nor am interested in doing the gear-treadmill. (I'm not asking gear to be handed to me. I just dislike the power-creep it brings and as more dungeons get added new players have to drudge through the then old and abandoned dungeons to play catch up. I just dislike the gear-treadmill as a system of progression).

The way Guild Wars 2 does it is: You can get the basic max level gear relatively easy (think relic or darklight) but the upgrades are minor in terms of stats but still take a long time to get. The real end-game in GW2 is getting awesome looking cosmetics from the new dungeons that come out. I think FFXIV would do well to at least implement some awesome looking things that would take months of grinding to obtain. As opposed to the stupid luminary things that are normal looking tools with a decal on them.

[Impurrrsive]

maybe FC airship can go to unknown floating island for open world raid XD
open world pvp ground, backstabbing on ur way to the boss

[Ryios]

First, You can edit your post to get past the 1000 character cap. Second I think GW2 is an AWFUL game and I hope this game never strides to be like GW2.

However, I do agree with you about the gear tread mill in a sense. At the current pace, it looks like FFXIV will release expansions like World Of Warcraft did. Where each expansion basically makes the previously expansion irrelevant. I don't want FFXIV to go that route. I want expansions to come out without killing previous content.

However I am fine with getting gear throughout the whole process. But they need to add content to previous expansions as they release new expansions to keep things balanced.

E.g. If they release a new expansion that's IL 100, then they need to add hard mode dungeons to launch content that are il 70, and add turns to BCB that are IL 100, etc etc. In essence, each expansion should bring new high level content and add the same high level content to previous expansions to keep them all relevant.

[Platinum_Disco]

Then play Guild Wars 2.

[Vinroke]

I'm hoping we can use the FC airship to sneak in to Ishgard.

[EmeraldHill]

Overall, I'm just not feeling anything special for this game anymore. It feels like every other MMO out there right now but new and shinier. On top of that the game feels like it's being hindered by the consoles, which is probably why the world zones are so instanced, why the inventory is split into so many tabs, why the game feels the need to stop rendering people when there is more than twenty of them, etc.

[StarMarmot]

Not a fan of all the instancing and walling-off either. Any sense of exploration is effectively dead and done for, because you can clearly see where the invisible walls are on your mini map.

On the other hand this is all kind of a first experience thing. As much as I like that thrill when the game is fresh, when I've checked all the areas out in a more open ended kind of game, it's not like it will stay exciting and might as well be instanced and walled-off for all I would care personally.

Comes down to being able to have PS3 players here or not I guess. It's probably better to have the extra people in the long run.

[Grundy]

I guess I'm kind of lucky in that I stopped playing 1.0 just before they introduced the Ifrit fight. I've had lots to keep me occupied since 2.0, but I'll probably have all DoH complete by next week and quite possibly all DoL done the following week leaving my 4 classes left to level up. Last night literally everyone in my FC from the 1.0 crowd were bored, had nothing to do, complained a bit, some logged out, some ran WP. A lot of people are losing interest, a lot of people I know from 1.0 only log in to do coil, it's a problem.

Perhaps it's comes from an uneven start, so many people could begin 2.0 with a lot of 50's, and by design the game levels fast so others are not left behind. I wonder if the playerbase has surprised development by exactly how fast they've levelled though? Having the Crystal Tower as a next instance but progression wise placing it between HM Primals and Coil seems .. strange. The majority of people who are finding the game unappealing now are those on Turn 5, so why give them new content that is not level appropriate to them?

You have ESO, Everquest Next and Titan on the horizon and I'll admit right now I'll try out Wildstar (I've applied for Beta), I love this game, but I loathe running constant dungeons; I only do it under duress as it's the only way I can get better gear. Right now I use crafting and gathering as an excuse not to spam WP and AK, soon I'll not have that option and I may find myself saying "Why should I login today?"