Disappointments and regrets of FFXIV

[Chayala]

When I started playing FFXIV when it first came out I noticed many things off the bat that were terribly wrong. I thought they would fix it. I had faith after FFXI and how well it held my attention with a good story and indepth jobs and combinations(Although many were not accepted by the larger community LS's and smaller groups did unusual things at times despite what people say about only war/nins and such). 1.0 was never truly fixed, but then ARR came out and I hit beta. I hit it and enjoyed it. It was fun. A little small but I thought that it would be expanded for release. Not much was expanded, and a great many things came to light as the game went on that made myself and others upset and angry with how it handled. These are the things I've noticed that are pushing players away.

1) Grouping - Everyone has a right to group and do their own things. You can't monitor their dps or tell them what to do and you can't control your own groups. You could preform before but now with crystal tower and daily roulettes they are doing everything they can to take the abilities out of players hands and force everyone to group with everyone. In FFXI you did not need to group with everyone. In every game you never needed to be forced to group with "everyone" as this game makes you do. You could pick and choose who you grouped with if you decided to. Adding on to the fact that people get geared up excessively quickly and aren't required to do much if ANY learning while leveling to 50 and you have a whole mess of idiots running around expecting that other people will group. I've never seen a more toxic group of people than the general population here because of the entitlement that SE fosters. No control of alliances, loots, groups or anything? Even FFXI when it was released had better management. And add to the fact that you can get banned for trying to control your group's dps or target who's not doing their job? Why even give people the group leader ability in the first place. Just make EVERYTHING random que up since that's what you apparently want anyhow.

2) Content - I thought it was threadbare to start. Out of all the games i've played this one has had the least content on launch. Nevermind that it is a second launch. The size of many zones has been trimmed down massively. What felt like a world to explore feels like FFXIII online. A pretty experience with some story but with no real "Ending" at the end but one hell of a hallway to walk down. Yes FFXIII opened up after you got through the first 15-20 hours of the game, that caused many people to dislike it. I liked the game, although I had my gripes with it. But that is not how an MMo is supposed to be done(Which is probably why they had to do the come back for free weekend. Most the people I know who came back stopped playing already).

On top of all this there just isn't enough to do content wise, the zones are small and the fates aren't anything that hasn't been done before. Rift and Aion both did it better. The size of zones and complexity of things seem to be limited because they wanted to tether it to a last gen console to max the amount of people they can get and it shows in a lack of depth. The world feels too small and limited.

3) Player base - If you get angry at what i'm about to say look at yourself and consider if my words hit too close to home. It's nice having a secondary console to play this game on, and get more people. More people is more fun right? Not really. In most cases whenever people in my FC have trouble with people it's PS3 players. Either they're rude, can't perform well or suffer "lag" all the time and will add 10-20 minutes on to a daily main story roulette from making us "wait" for them. Although at this point unless half my team is PS3 I just go in since I can tank it all anyhow. With a few exceptions, most of the people who myself or others in my FC that haven't quit have had trouble with are PS3 players.

Another note about the player base, is that the game is too easy to hit 50. Then it starts requiring people to not suck sometimes. This leads to people who are able to get to 50, gear up and then look mostly like they can do their job. With mythologies they can even get their Ilevel 90 gear for all but 1 ring. I can't say I’ve ever met a more "Entitled" playerbase than the one I've met here. I've heard the excuses "you can't boot me, this group isn't yours" or "I can do what I want, I pay for my account!" more often than any other game I’ve played. They don't seem to get that the other 7 people in that 8 person group ALSO are paying for their account and therefore are not required to do anything for someone who won't listen and doesn't care.

4) Crafting. It's a joke. We all know it. Aside from a very few pieces(Such as a highly materiaed Griffon skin ring for tanks or the like, it's not useful at all and not worked into the game. Why bother having it except for cooking?). Nothing more to say here.

5) Old hat - This game has fallen into all the same molds of most of the free to play or failed MMo's of recent release. Artificially cap rewards(Mythologies) that allow people to get the highest end gear so that everyone can get the best gear. Now you might think, "Well why can't everyone have the best gear?". My answer? I think they should if someone finds the right balance. But most people I know only log in for coil, and to cap out their mythologies now and are done after that. Philosphy stones are good for darklight but not worth getting. The economy is stagnating and housing has no useful purpose. I mean, even FFXI had housing serve a useful purpose. Even EVERQUEST has housing serve a useful purpose. EVERQUEST. That game from 1999? Yeah that. I'm not saying I want FFXIV to be either of those games but it should take notes when they do something and either improve it or not bother with it. I don't think there should be a "secondary" class of gamers. But I do think that there should be a little bit of effort required to get to cap level and geared. Get some gratification for your effort. And not stabbing your eyes out from fate grinding or dealing with idiots in random dungeons does not count in that regard.


PVP- What can I say about PVP? What indeed? I don't mind PVP if it's fun. This game has worse PVP than WoW. That's a challenge to set. And I'm not talking about the giant battles in AV when it didn't have a time limit and was gutted. I mean like Lich King PVP +. Why couldn't they have 'Mock battles' between the different factions to hold areas in preparation of siege/defending against the beastmen? This would work just as well justification wise as the current pvp which is 4 people go in spam attacks and then repeat. They could have worked their PVP to have so much. Hell, they even said that the PVP was going to have separate abilities so that nothing from PVE and PVP would overlap and need nerfing. We saw how that actually happened, right?

Recycling - This game has to be the greenest game on earth. Because they just LOVE recycling. I've never seen a game at release reuse the same stuff over and over again within the first few months. Normally it takes a game company YEARS to run out of ideas but apparently they were tapped from the beginning. You can't tell me that's not the case as you have 4 bosses in the "end game" that are just rehashes. 3 of them are rehashes TWICE. How many of the new dungeons are rehashes? Oh right, two. How many of them stole gear from another dungeon which then got one pack removed and then downgraded 5 levels. Right. The new patch didn't expand. It added things that probably should have been in at launch. The highest item level items that weren't from the "Extreme(see recycled) Primals) are 80. That's below the baseline for coil 1/2 which are easy enough to beat and the mythology stuff that is easy to get. It makes you wonder how they're going to keep up with the content that an MMo community can demolish if they try and make it so Joe everyman can do everything...

So in summation, I'm going to say this. I love the art style, I think this game had a great potential but it was squandered and left mediocre at best. Personally, I'm just about done with this game and you can tell me to quit. That's fine. But the more subscribers quit the more likely you run into all the problems that entails(Hi SWToR). The points I bring up are not to just "Complain". I'm here pointing out specifically what the problems I see with this game and why so many people I know are gone or leaving. Why my friends list is increasingly empty and why my friends list is the only thing holding me here. But how long until we move to another game? Or just keep playing games on steam together(L4D2 for free on steam has brought much happiness). So flame me if you're going to flame, or put in some of your thoughts on what I'm wrong about, or if you think I missed something. Or if you think I don't understand a dev's reasoning for it. I'm not "angry" or "Mad" i'm just sick of the game. No accountability, no control, little content, terrible pvp and no real direction other than "let's attach quests to random popping fates and throw dailies into the game because people love dailies and faction grinding". To me this makes even archaic games feel like they are a step ahead of this one in understanding how to make a game. If this game didn't have Final Fantasy in it's name I doubt it would have half the players it does right now.

Did not know that i could edit past the max post count.

[Daenerys_Sedai]

Regrets? I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention.

[Remi_Tsukiko]

Can edit your original post to get past the character limit.

[AmnesiaHaze]

my biggest and only disappointment is housing and the prices , they made me very upset because i will not be able to experience the house feature due to the astronomical cost compared to what can be earned by playing the game

[Chayala]

While I feel for you on the housing prices(And as stupid as they are), what purpose does having a house serve? A gathering place to teleport for raids and buff up? Nope. A bonus to crafting depending on the elemental affinity of the furniture? There isn't anything except "Hey look I have WAY too much gil to throw away, or the FC as a whole does!". This shows a lack of effort in my mind. They add in a whole housing feature which does nothing but take your gil but can't make a social armor tab or armor change since people MIGHT want to look different than everyone else who looks exactly the same especially the iron maiden tanks(Dark light)

[YarozeX]

"In FFXI you did not need to group with everyone"

Stopped reading after that..... You never played FFXI pre 75 level cap then. Anything past level 15 you had to have a party.

[Royze]

sums up what many of us have been saying for weeks.
9/10 of my friends have quit. The ones that haven't just log on to say hi and do coil on monday, cap mythology an hour later, then log off for a week.

[Royze]

"In FFXI you did not need to group with everyone"

Stopped reading after that..... You never played FFXI pre 75 level cap then. Anything past level 15 you had to have a party.

You chose who you invited to your parties, and chose who's invite you accepted.

[Chayala]

Royze has it right. In FFXI you could kick the people in your party, hold them accountable, check their gear. You couldn't check food, but you could see if they were doing things right. You could see their subjob(Oh warrior 30 1 monk. No.). You had the right to group with people, although a red mage, thief or beast master could hit 75 without ever touching a group. Don't believe me? Look up the guides. Red mage could do it with some effort as could thief. And I played through all the 75 content in FFXI. I never was "Required" to group with that retard sitting in qufim in level 10 dunes gear with a level 7 sword saying that they can tank just as fine as the ninja or warrior or paladin in a beetle or bone set.

On the log in then log out for a week that's an epidemic. And with people only logging on that often a lot of people have unsubbed and are riding their days because honestly they can't think why they should pay for a service they use once a week.

[YarozeX]

You chose who you invited to your parties, and chose who's invite you accepted.

If this is what she is saying you still have this option in FFXIV.

You are not required to do the same in FFXIV either.

And for the Red Mage and Thief yes. you could solo easy pray for 100exp with a Ninja sub-job but at what cost?