Empty Promises and what needs to be changed in FFXIV

[Zezlar]

Now I probably will be the first negative nelly on these forums but this HAS to be done because I really want to love this game. Square-Enix you are my favorite game company and you have been for a very LONG time but this game is NOT Square-Enix standards. I'm not going to hold your hand and make excuses for you anymore.

There are just so many things wrong with this game and were constantly hearing. "Sorry, Sorry" "Please give us more time" "Hold on a little longer"

Square, you had 5 years of development. 5 YEARS. Now it's been over 5 months since the launch of the game and you're STILL telling us that. This game is really HUGE step down from FFXI which was made with passion and love. FFXIV is certainly not, at least it definitely doesn't seem that way.

Now i'm asking you the community along with me to tell and help Square-Enix in the time they need it the most. We need to point out the problems and give them guidance. I'll start and boy this will be long. This is only some of my problems.

Missions - The actual Missions (I have no idea why you named them Quests, it's awful so fix it) are great. The voice acting isn't half bad and the story is pretty decent for what I have completed so far but we only get like 8 per city state? Seriously? Come on, offer more, and LOTs of them. We want story, this is Final Fantasy that's why most of us are here!

Sidequests - You did exactly what most of us wanted you to not do and you blatantly lied in our faces. "These quests will be diverse and vastly different while offering story to give insight in a seemingly dead world" is basically what you said. Well SE these Quests are no way in HELL vastly different. Collect and kill X and X is the same no matter what way you want to spin it. Also where's that story that we wanted? A small excerpt of text is NOT what we wanted. Go back and look at a standard XI quest. THAT is what we want, not this.

Graphics and Animations - The graphics for FFXIV are GORGEOUS. There's nothing else that can be said about that so one would expect really cool animations with those shiny graphics. WRONG. The animations are extremely poor and bland. The FFXI animations from 8-9 years ago look better. You need to re-do almost every single weapon skill and magic animation in this game. They are poor and there is no excuse for this.

Chocobos and Airships - Where are they? We're still waiting

Zone Size and Copy/Paste - This is probably one of my biggest issues with the game. I'll start by saying that it is absolutely un-acceptable and it makes me want to gouge my eyes out. These zones are way to large. Once I have stepped out into a zone and walked a few squares I have basically seen everything give or take a few decent view spots. There is so much copy paste in these zones. Things are just turned and moved around. There are two and utterly useless camps (ex. the silver bazaar) in these huge zones. There are aetheryte camps all over these huge maps but what's the point? I don't want to explore them, they are boring.

Make zones smaller and add LOTS of variety. I want a desert, a volcano, ice caves, castles, catacombs, etc.... What we have now is just bad. I don't really even care if you need to go back to FFXI zone sizes and make me load every time I switch to a different area. It is a necessary sacrifice.

Class Distinction - Every class feels the same. I can hop on a Gladiator and feel like i'm playing a Lancer. There's just no feel to it. It doesn't feel different in the way XI did.

(This one below is my personal opinion and I know many people will not agree with me but I would like to say it)

Physical Level Bonus Points / Physical Level - Do me a favor and eliminate them. In an effort to make classes more distinct make certain stat builds per class for each level like you did in XI

Auction House - Your efforts in the Market Wards shouldn't go unnoticed because they actually have improved a lot. However an Auction House is still that much better.

Party Search Command - I will kiss everyone at Square-Enix if you just PLEASE bring back the /sea all command

Crafting - I know you wanted to make a player driven economy but there is seriously too much of an emphasis on it. Everything you do in this game requires a crafter for some reason or another, even the holiday events (which is next). Please tone it down a little with the heavy crafting emphasis.

Holiday Events - I thought your events in XI were bad and that they couldn't get any worse. You guys surely did prove me wrong. Bells in every event. Ring a bell.... Woo!! Nothing like the spirit of Christmas by ringing a bell! I'm EXCITED!!!! In terms of XI, these events are (No Thanks)

Battle System - To put it simply - it's extremely boring. I don't really feel like sitting around mashing the X, A, or 1 key over and over. There is no strategy it is simply button mashing. Monsters are either really over powered or extremely easy. The poor animations and the mashing just makes me want to vomit. I am on the side that is in favor of the Auto-Attack (which I know is controversial).

I know that you wanted to make XIV strongly different from other MMOs including World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI but you aren't really doing so. You're holding onto certain FFXI elements while basically copying WoW ones as well. You wanted to move away from FFXI, but did you really have to take all the love and passion for your game away as well? You took everything that was great with FFXI and turned it away. I know there are a lot of people out there who doesn't want this game to be FFXI-2 but guys FFXI is on a level that FFXIV can't even hope to achieve in its current state. I have high hopes for you Yoshi-P but so far all I feel is empty promises.

What are your guys/gals thoughts? What needs to change?