Anyone Else Feel Betrayed?

[NefGP]

Let me preface this by saying a few things:

I still like YP and commend him for taking what was a failure of a game and an utter PR nightmare and turning it around for the company. Good on him for all the hard work and dedication.


That said, I feel completely and utterly betrayed by him and the devs. I was in the original beta, back when Tanaka & Komoto were in charge and super excited since the original website and previews came out to play this game. It was looking like a real successor to FFXI, which at the time was growing stale as the devs were really dragging their feet on WotG and ignoring various issues.

Throughout the entire disaster I maintained faith that the game was salvageable, that the basic foundations were solid and it really just needed some TLC and a shiny new coat of paint. I argued to death with naysayers who said the game was crap and doomed - a total write off. It made me so happy when ARR finally launched to great success and the haters had to eat their words.


Sadly, it hasn't quite been what I and I suspect many others (particularly fellow XI veterans) really wanted or thought we'd be getting. There was a great deal more freedom in the original armory system with regards to customizing our classes/jobs, whereas now it's pretty much a sea of clones. There's nothing whacky like RDM/NIN, BLU/WHM or SAM/RNG doing stuff that was outside of the norm but worked surprisingly well.

There's barely any open world content outside of fetch quests and fate. Everything is pretty much handed to us from coffers or tokens, so there's no need for THF to even exist (not that I'm a big fan of the RNG, far from it, but it'd be nice to have at least some stuff dropped from NMs) and the game as a whole is pretty easy mode. Coil is challenging but only because the bosses are so grossly overpowered that you have to have perfect coordination and reaction times, as opposed to simply knowing how to play your job well (making smart use of enfeebling abilities, sleeping adds etc. It's basically just dodge, stun and silence in this.)

While the world is very pretty and the plot has just now gotten a little more interesting, there's still not a whole lot I find compelling about Hydaelin compared to Vana'diel. Part of that is the overuse of the Duty Finder - It was annoying how XI was always separated into zones, but it still have a very strong sense of uniqueness and exploration to it. Running around places like the Sanctuary of Zi'tah, Cape Rivern Site B or even early stuff like Crawler's nest, spotting little stuff like Zilart ruins inside it all added so much atmosphere. That seems to be lacking in XIV in spades. For a game so beautifully designed, it's a shame that there's no real incentive to go out and explore or just sit around and admire it.

The music too - Soken has done a wonderful job, but time and again the pieces just cut out after a minute or when you move too far into 1 spot (like a camp) and it's the same generic battle theme over and over and over again. At least in 1.23 we had different themes for each area. The dungeons all have cool music that plays when you enter... and then right back to that same battle music. Yay...


I dunno, just watching the recent live letter has left me feeling pretty depressed. This game has made so many improvements over XI, like removing gear swapping, skilling up, proper crafting and gathering etc, no buying scrolls etc. etc.

However everything I really loved about XI has been thrown out the window. The armory system is too restrictive with only 1 weapon type per class and very limited cross-class abilities (and the way it's set up, it pretty much means no Blue Mage ever). The whole point of it originally was for us to design our own classes - now we're stuck with a much more limited version of XI's job system bereft of real customization. It also hurts future job/class design (as we've seen with SMN and SCH) since you have to have a base class that and then any jobs that come for that class share those skills, and it's only 1 class per weapon so that kinda hoses RDM a bit (likely to be based on GLD).


Which reminds me, crafting and gathering were supposed to be major central aspects of the game. However it just didn't pan out that way. Endgame materials are too prevalent because tomes are so easy and so prices tanked. It would have been better to keep it all strictly to DoL, or at least make some of them NM drops so stuff is actually valuable. Furthermore, even with 2-star HQs it's prohibitively expensive to meld them properly and generally not worth the effort - especially now with new iLv stuff coming. Why even bother with gil in the first place then?! I spent a good 900k+ getting all my DoL and DoH tricked out (and they're not even fully melded just my accessories since those are all-classes unlike AF and tools) and now we're just going to get new gear in the next patch. Money well spent...

Even with good melds, it's marginal increase at best over the best drops, and just not worth the gil at all.


It's just sad that instead of true successor to XI, and a real FF game, we got a mesh of WoW/GW2 with FF themes thrown in for fan service because that's what sells these days I guess. I constantly see people saying that XI is still running and that we should just shut up and go back to it - No, that's not going to fly. First of all it's incredibly insulting and condescending. Second, XI has had the same thing done to it that this game has being "modernized" if you will. Lastly, I really don't want to go back to dealing with the dated mechanics and everything I hated about XI (heavy use of the RNG, skills that take forever to level up etc.) that XIV fixed.

I genuinely still like this game, I just don't agree with or care for the decisions being made as to the direction of it and I think many others feel the same way. We didn't necessarily want FFXI HD/2.0 but at least a similar JRPG experience with reforms to the dated, annoying mechanics XI employed. Well, we got some of that in this game but too much of what we don't want as well. At least if the job system was fun and engaging I could possibly overlook it but I can't. There's no real incentive to try and gear multiple classes (the game actively punishes you for trying to do so via the caps and lack of a smart drop system) and content just isn't made to last anymore.

It used to be that events were meant with fun in mind and gear second, like Assault & Nyzul Isle. That was some of the most fun I ever had in XI, with all the crazy different objectives. The gear you could get was just icing on the cake. Before Abyssea came along and destroyed everything, there was a good 7+ years of content at all level ranges, not just endgame, and all of it was perfectly viable. Now we simply live from patch to patch, forever chasing after the next shiny end game items. It's *all* about the gear, not the content itself.

I mean why even bother going back to do older stuff unless there's some artificial barrier in place that requires you do it? You can just spend whatever excess of the current new tokens are to gear your alts.


Now I don't begrudge the people who like this - I'm glad folks are enjoying the game. For me personally, I just feel like YP didn't totally deliver on what the people whom XIV was originally made for, fans of XI, wanted.

[faris]

Wow, this was long. Apologies if I didn't get your point properly, but I'm seeing this as a vanilla release. There wasn't much whacky stuff/ iiiinteresting job variation in XI vanilla. It was... well, like this. 50 cap, therefore variation in your subclasses weren't a great idea. Right now, we've classes that fulfill basic roles, like XI's original classes of THF, WHM, BLM, RDM, MNK, and WAR.

I'd give it time, expansions, new classes, the development of niche (fun!) classes before coming to any sort of judgement about the game, personally. But that's just me.

[Cordelius]

Haven't been on the general discussion forum in a long time. I thought the massive whining would be over by now. I guess that was pretty dumb of me to assume that.

[Imapooonu]

No, I don't feel betrayed. I also don't think FFIV was made for fans of FFXI. I believe FFIV was made for fans of Final Fantasy.

Just because someone/something doesn't live up to an expected standard doesn't mean it's necessarily betraying anything/anyone.

I'm pretty content with the content. I'd like to see some additions/improvements/changes, but it's nothing that makes me feel betrayed.

[dayspring83]

Betrayed? Dude.... It's just a game.

[Beetle]

Why did I pay for 1.19~1.23b monthly fees and supported the game for ARR when its this bad...
Yeah sure reset my relic progress/gimp coil/gimp all crafting and class leveling... remove ton of content from 1.0~1.23 such as chocobo cavarvans, hamlets, areas etc...

yeah just replace every patch with the next patch and recycle same dungeon and boss fight from the last patch... tired of this game.

Edit:

Yeah just take same model enemies from other FF games such as 11,12,13 like noone would find out... real creative.

[Starlord]

As much as I loved FFXI, I don't want FFXIV to be like FFXI, same goes with it being like WoW.

[Shyluv]

People will probably just say "you know XI is still going, right? If it's XI elements you want, just go back."

The XI I loved is gone. I would go back in a heartbeat if they changed it back to how it was at 75 cap.

I do also miss the exploration and hope they do something more to address that. In the meantime, I just try to limit how much I use teleports and just ride my mount around, taking in the scenery.

Unfortunately, the MMO market has changed beyond what XI was. Holding out for a similar but touched up version of XI just doesn't seem likely any more.

I do think though, that given time and a few expansions there will be more job/class customization.

[Kluya15]

This game was not made for fans of XI. Sorry to bring that to your attention OP. Fans of XI just wanted ARR to be XI-2, and that's not happening.

[fixitman]

ARR isn't even 6 months old yet, so it is still in it's "toddler" stage as far as MMOs are concerned. How often do you hear of a "toddler" with adult skills and abilities? The only major issue this game has is a lack of patience among a small portion of it's players. SE can't do anything about that, and I'm glad they aren't wasting resources trying to.