Skill based fights..

[TrystWildkey]

Hate to burst your bubble but the same arguement can be used for those. Each fight had a "gimmick", "order", or "strat" attached to it. The fights were kited, tank/spank, "burn", or range only. FF11 is not the holy grail of skill-based fights as people clouded by nostalgia think it to be.


Aside:
This will sound elitest, but if people aren't capable of clearing EX primals/T5 easily each and every week (farm mode) then they can't really complain too much as they are part of the issue mechanics don't get more complicated. I.E. if a larger percentage had T5 clears it might raise alarms at SE that content is beyond too easy. Thus we can't really blame the dev team for the majority of the community just being... bad, thus catering to them.

I think people aren't mentioning XI so much out of a sense of nostalgia, but as an easy/familiar game to compare and contrast with. They're not saying it was the best thing ever, just providing a contrasting example.

Also, your aside doesn't sound so much eliteist as it sounds dismissive of people who don't play games the same way that you do.

This is probably going to be long, but please, hang in there with me.

I wasn't good at playing Mario, Sonic, MegaMan, Street Fighter, or any of the other games that required great motor skills and pattern memorization. However, when I discovered turn-based RPG's, holy crap was I happy! Finally, something I could play for more than just the first few easy levels. Something that made me think, and challenged me to figure out strategies. RPG's also gave me a story, how fantastic is that! So, I happily started playing RPG's instead of the action games everyone else was playing.

Jump ahead in time, and Halo happens. Friends of mine had LAN parties where we played Halo. I went, more to socialize than play the game since I SUCKED at it, but hey, fun with friends is fun with friends.

Then, a different friend introduced me to a different game, FFXI. This was fun AND strategy with friends. This was something that involved thinking and some basic motor skills. Nothing that was out of my reach, it just might take me a bit longer. Then I found out that there are OTHER MMORPGS, holy freaking crap! I tried out a couple, but didn't like them all that much and stuck with XI. Then XIV came out, it had some slowness issues, but the core game mechanics I enjoyed. Then 1.23 and OH MY HOLY GOD this is so good!! Ok, same dev team that gave us 1.23 is going to give us a revamped game, great!

Then I got slapped in the face and shoved back to the days where I couldn't get past the water stage in Mario.

It's disappointing. I play RPG's because their pace and depth really appeal to me and I suck at action games. Now, it seems as if all RPG's are turning into action games. Forgive me if I'm not very pleased with that.

Sincere question: Are all MMORPG's more action oriented than strategy? Are there any with a slightly slower pace to combat that might appeal to me? (please don't tell me to go back to XI, it's doing the vertical progression, item level crap now too and I don't like that)

[Haprimac]

Sincere question: Are all MMORPG's more action oriented than strategy? Are there any with a slightly slower pace to combat that might appeal to me? (please don't tell me to go back to XI, it's doing the vertical progression, item level crap now too and I don't like that)

The only other mmo I've played before FFXIV was Lord of the Rings Online. It was much much more slow phased and more about planning and teamwork than "avoid this and that aoe". I had massive lag back when I played it because of a very old PC, but I managed to go through raids as a healer (while facing the wall so I'd have as little happening on my screen as possible ).

I have many fond memories of the game for the 2-3 years that I played it. I would recommend it, if it weren't for the fact it went F2P and how that pretty much destroyed it. :S The classes aren't as fun and free as they used to be. They're now forced into stupid skill trees where you have to choose what you specialize as. The beauty of the game was how you could do multiple roles on one class depending on situation. Another thing that annoys me is that it's like the creators of the game don't care about it anymore and don't fix annoying bugs. And everything has to be bought from the LotRO frigging Store. </rant>