My thoughts and experiences during the past few months.

[Quoc]

I've recently picked up FFXIV:CE after hearing about the changes and revisions to the game and staff hoping that the improvements that have been brought to the game would make it better than it's badly reviewed counterpart back in 2010. Here are my thoughts from the past few months of playing through XIV. These thoughts have been in part conceived through a post by fellow forum member.

With the new leves reform, these will be more centered to solo play, but the most of time we play in party (it's funnier isn't), now without leves to do in party we don't have the main way to get SP.

"guildleves will be reborn as solo-oriented content that can be enjoyed with minimal time and fuss."

Do you think dungeons will be the new main way to rank up or there will be a new content?, I think we need a main content to rank up, but in XII letter yoshi-p wrote:

"In my mind, central content isn’t a static thing. Rather, it’s new content that we continually develop for our fans’ enjoyment, with no one item indefinitely bathing in the spotlight."

Before I get into my thoughts, let me reply to the above post.
If the dungeon instances are going to be limited and timed too than I'm throwing XIV out the window. It's kind of hard for your fans to "enjoy" your content when they have to wait; in the context of guildleves, 36 hours each time they finish the allowed amount. "Minimal time and fuss."? The only sane way of ranking up is through leves, and I can only do 8 of them before I have to wait a day and a half to get my next batch? What sort of content is that? What do you want me to do? Go and enjoy your "other" content for 36 hours? Why force me to take up gathering or crafting? I want to rank up my Pugilist not play your mini games for 36 hours. Why put in restrictions to limit people's desire to play through the game as they see fit? It's not as bad now since XIV is going through a free trial period but when the subscription fee rolls back, I'm not even going to think twice about not paying $50 to play "this" for 180 days. When I have to wait a whole day and 12 hours to even partake in a leve. I understand SE is working on new content to pass the time but if your going to put a timer on that new content as well, than where is the improvement? Putting timers and restrictions in a game, in an MMO; that is already lacking in worth while content is stupid and is exactly the reason why 3/4 of the players quit. Not to even mention the people who cancelled their pre-order when they heard about the timers and fatigue.

I personally appreciate Yoshi-P's letters and the fact that they do listen to the players but how many topics have been created to address issues like the ones I've just stated and many others that I have not? Transportation. What benefit would it have to the players to limit how many times they can teleport to where they need to go? Something I've come across is the fact that picking your starting city basically effects the next several hours of your experience with the game. I chose Gridania, which is known as "the ghost town" of Eorzea. Which is sad because it's a very lush and beautiful place, but I digress. The only way I can attain new equipment without crafting; which is very time consuming by yourself, is through other players, but what happens when the market ward within your starting city is literally empty? I have to travel to another city, Ul' Dah in this case since it's the most populated city out of the 3. But what happens when I've already used up my 100 points of anima? I have to walk. Walking from gridania to ul' dah takes a good 20-30 minutes. And for those 20-30 minutes, I have to sit there and guide my character through twists and turns to get to the city. Time waster, energy waster, and for what? So that we can enjoy the scenery?

I'm pretty sure when subscription fee's come into play, people are going to want to be actually getting something done rather than walking to where they need to go. I know that chocobos are planned for the future, but if that system requires "points" and or has restrictions as with everything else within the game, then whats the difference? One thing that I enjoy is the behest quests. Going out on a hunting party with other players every half hour that rewards players with SP/EXP and gil is good, and it's a bit of fun. But once that fatigue kicks in, what now? Also, every half hour is sensible, waiting 36 hours for a leve is not. My suggestion, take out the 36 hour cool down time and refresh the leve selection upon acceptance of a leve.

Instead of the Anima and transportation concept, give the Aetheryte Crystals the ability to transport us to that region's city only; not other camps, or if we're already in a city, transport us to other cities or a camp within that region. That makes so much more sense and does away with useless travel. Back to the fatigue system *I apologize for the random jumps to different topics* why, oh why, would you decrease the amount of SP/EXP players get when they spend more of their time playing the game in the context of grinding or crafting? So that the hardcore don't surpass the casual? How does that concept even work in games? Cause I sure know it doesn't in the real world. Common sense should dictate the more time you put into something, the more you should get out of it. Not the more time you spend, the less you get. Real world situation: a boy practices on piano for 6 hours, while another boy practices the piano for only 2. The boy who practiced more should be better than the boy who practiced only 2. That's how things work. Instead of making it harder for a player to play longer, you should be making it easier.

In an MMO, you want people to play your game, so why are you making it harder for them to? This is a very sad realization but the only one that I can come up with to explain the timers, the fatigue, and the limitations. Square Enix wants money, but that comes as to no surprise since any and every business strives to make profit. I believe that Square Enix Product Development Division 3 and it's management wanted to make money. With a subscription based game, one must pay a fee to access the service. Now, depending on the longevity of that service, it may take days, months, or even years before that service becomes unprofitable. So what did they do with Final Fantasy XIV? They threw in the timers, the fatigue, and the limitations. So the more time we "have" to spend playing the game, the more money we'd "have" to pay. Now look at where it's brought us? A user population that has nearly been cut in half and a game that was so badly received and reviewed that people have completely stopped talking about it therefore causing Square Enix to go down in sales. Forcing a new management team to be implemented and the current state of the game to be free to play.

Ironic isn't it? In the pursuit of profit, one has failed to gain any while losing money. Honestly, if this game was free of all restriction, it would be a totally different story. A game where we didn't have to time our schedules around the guildleve timer and a game where we could play as much as we wanted while still getting what we deserve. A game where one doesn't have to hold down the "W" key for 20-30 minutes to travel to a city where he can buy a knew pair shoes. A game where people can play all the want, as much as they want and still come back for me. A game worth paying to play.

I've noticed the "T" on my collectors box but even though this is a T-Rated game, no "teen" I know of would even try to sit down with this game for a night just to figure out that everything he can and wants to do is on a timer. Freedom is the keyword here. Look at every successful MMO out there and try to figure out what they have in common, it's usually a F2P game with a micro transaction system or it's a P2P game with freedom and content. Because if I wanted to be told what to do and when to do it, I would've moved back in with my parents. *Joke* Look at it this way, if your going to disregard everything I've said then go ahead and keep the game the way it is but get rid of the subscription fee. On the other hand if you want to keep the subscription fee, get rid of the restrictions and limitations. But if you look at the former, notice how this game is already F2P with all the restrictions and limitations in place. It's still a horrible MMORPG. I want to see Square-Enix try the later option and see how many complaints and problems they get.

Players should never be forced to try something, they should be able to do whatever they want within the game as much as they want. If I want to do leves all day, I should be able to. If I want to run dungeons all day, I should able to. Don't force a player to try this or that just for the sake of content exploration. All of the content should be presented to the player with equal opportunity. Don't make it so that after someone finishes their 8 regional leves they "have" to move on to dungeons, and after they finish their daily 2 dungeon run they "have" to move on to grinding or crafting, and after the hit the fatigue wall, the "have" to log off for the day. This game is just a conjunction of "bad", it doesn't attract new players, and it's also lost many of it's old ones.

Don't misinterpret my thread as a rant or hate thread against Final Fantasy XIV or Square-Enix. It's suppose to be an honest and unbiased piece of what I think and what I've experienced during the past few months of playing FFXIV and what they could do to improve it. Other players may have experienced something absolutly different, a completely flawless game that makes sense in every aspect of gameplay. But this is about the many flaws that I experienced that limit the game from being a "decent" MMORPG. Honestly this isn't even worth calling a MMORPG much less a Final Fantasy game.

[viion]

Are you SERIOUS? Please, please, print this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph, 100 times, then head butt it for me.

[Chezen]

I'm probably going to be the only one who read that wall of text.

A few points I agree on, more I didn't.

Mostly all I can say is "work in progress."

[geniusprime]

Can you edit your post to improve legibility?

[Quoc]

Are you SERIOUS? Please, please, print this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph, 100 times, then head butt it for me.

Sorry about that, my topics are a little all over the place, I'll go back and indent.

*EDIT* Sorry I couldn't indent, I've reached the 10,000 text limit. I did try to space it out though.

[Cendres]

I think you may perhaps be jumping the gun a bit. Let's see what these dungeons are like and what else they offer group levelers. What we know so far is only a part of what they are working on, Yoshi in his letter said he wanted to say more but it was getting late? Hopefully we get more info on this soon.

[Tezz_Xivectro]

tl;dr, but...

we get it, you have an opinion about FF14. Whooptie doo. Everyone knows this game is going to take like a year to MAYBE be decent enough for more of the mainstream crowd to enjoy.

Please don't cry about dungeon timers(while inside the instance), they keep you on your toes & prevent d/c(etc). If however they limit re-entry to the dungeon, then you can whine about that.

Finally, "wahhhhhhh"... at childish threats about "quitting" the game if XYZ does not happen the way someone envisioned it. There are plenty of games out there to get your fix of XYZ feature if it's not put into FF14. Play the game for the game, christwagons!

[Quoc]

tl;dr, but...

we get it, you have an opinion about FF14. Whooptie doo. Everyone knows this game is going to take like a year to MAYBE be decent enough for more of the mainstream crowd to enjoy.

Please don't cry about dungeon timers(while inside the instance), they keep you on your toes & prevent d/c(etc). If however they limit re-entry to the dungeon, then you can whine about that.

Finally, "wahhhhhhh"... at childish threats about "quitting" the game if XYZ does not happen the way someone envisioned it. There are plenty of games out there to get your fix of XYZ feature if it's not put into FF14. Play the game for the game, christwagons!

I'm assuming since you didn't read you didn't understand what I was trying to get at with the timers. I'm not upset about how long you have to finish the instance, I'm upset at the fact that you can only run the instance a few times before you have to wait "x" amount of time to do it again. But that's only if the dungeon system follows the guildleve model. No where in my post did I threaten to quit. I'm not forcing the game to be in a way that I envision it, I'm suggesting ways they could improve the game as a game, not as what I want it to be. The things I suggested would not make it mainstream, it makes it a playable game. What "underground" MMORPG do you know of that has restrictions on how many times you can "quest" or how long you can grind before grinding becomes obsolete? Last time I checked, FFXIV was meant to be a mainstream MMORPG, not an exclusive to "certain" players who can handle a broken game and still enjoy it. Because I personally don't enjoy a broken game.

There are plenty of games out there to get your fix of XYZ feature if it's not put into FF14. Play the game for the game, christwagons!

Which is exactly why 3/4 of the player base from September of 2010 quit. Final Fantasy XIV is an MMORPG as stated on Square-Enix's site, but when you compare it to past, present, and future MMORPGs look at what it's doing wrong. Play the game for the game? I wish I could because I love Final Fantasy. But play the game "that restricts your gameplay in every aspect" to play game? I can, but it's a pain.

[Tezz_Xivectro]

I'm assuming since you didn't read you didn't understand what I was trying to get at with the timers. I'm not upset about how long you have to finish the instance, I'm upset at the fact that you can only run the instance a few times before you have to wait "x" amount of time to do it again. But that's only if the dungeon system follows the guildleve model. No where in my post did I threaten to quit. I'm not forcing the game to be in a way that I envision it, I'm suggesting ways they could improve the game as a game, not as what I want it to be. The things I suggested would not make it mainstream, it makes it a playable game. What "underground" MMORPG do you know of that has restrictions on how many times you can "quest" or how long you can grind before grinding becomes obsolete? Last time I checked, FFXIV was meant to be a mainstream MMORPG, not an exclusive to "certain" players who can handle a broken game and still enjoy it. Because I personally don't enjoy a broken game. Which is exactly why 3/4 of the player population from September of 2010 quit.

My post wasn't entirely directed at you 100%. Sorry if it was misleading. Too many posts pop up with such childish threats and such.

[SuzakuCMX]

ITT: Whining about imaginary stipulations on things yet to be released.

There has been no talk about limiting how often you can enter the dungeons, just that you have a limited amount of time inside them.

Furthermore, lots of stuff is planned. We don't know a whole lot about what's coming but we do at least have a general idea:

-Quest hub settlements to "expand" the world
-Ifrit battle
-Job system
-Moar sidequests
-Guildleves reworked
-Materia system
-Dungeons
-Battle system reform
-Recipes being remade
-Fatigue abolished
-Airships
-Chocobos
-Classes being balanced
-Classes being diversified
-Tutorials
-UI remake
-Seventh Umbral Era
-New storyline quests
-Grand Companies
-Behest adjustments
-Stat adjustments
-Beast tribes

And this is all planned to be implemented, on even the most basic level, within the next 3 months.

EDIT: I forgot about XP chains. The battle system revision covers a lot :X