How does FFXIV differ from other Japanese MMOs?

[CYoung187]

I'd hardly call the mostly scripted fights to be reactionary. More about memorization.

[Bluevann]

Hello, I did reply your question in that other thread, but the short version of it that I can give you here, is that (among other things that go from housing to poor animations and "cheap" cutscenes), they are unhappy with vertical progression and to how the game doesn't really force you to "learn your job".

They made an example of how tanks tend to grind through FATEs up to 50 without never touching a low level dungeon, thus arriving to endgame with no real tanking experience whatsoever (FATEs is more of a whack-and-run system). They enjoyed the various and strategic mechanics from FFXI (and other MMOs I do not know), where jobs felt actually useful, and not just copies of each other just with different animations. Magic bursts, skillchains, in short... team work. They are not happy with how hand-holding the game is and of how easily players get to endgame before they've actually learned a thing.

In short, NAs.

[silverhope]

when i lvl my tank class i onyl do dungeons cuz the fast ques. >.< so here we have jp saying its to easy and a whole thread about how its to hard for NA players (have to do story line oh no!). lol cant make anyone happy it seems.

[Bluevann]

when i lvl my tank class i onyl do dungeons cuz the fast ques. >.< so here we have jp saying its to easy and a whole thread about how its to hard for NA players (have to do story line oh no!). lol cant make anyone happy it seems.

If you are referring to the "jobs gated behind 2.55" thread, people are not complaining about doing the storyline. They are complaining about not being able to do the storyline as the new jobs.

[Kallera]

Thank you for both of your answers, Bluevann. This seems related to the streamlined stats.

[FJerome]

I was under the impression the JP fandom didn't like the game as much as we do but then I just got back from Japan and I could buy time-cards for FFXIV in any convenience store but only a few carried the cards for the Japanese-only Dragon Quest X.

It may just be that the JP fandom has a pretty vocal complaints faction?

[LineageRazor]

It may just be that the JP fandom has a pretty vocal complaints faction?

Wait a minute - are you suggesting that in Japan, there's a loud vocal minority that complains at length on the forums?

Man, that's like a whole different culture over there! Nothing like our forums, amirite?

[Kallera]

It would be cool if there was a contest where the players could design a boss battle. Harder to implement than the kick starters do, but a fan can dream.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

It would be cool if there was a contest where the players could design a boss battle. Harder to implement than the kick starters do, but a fan can dream.

Most people would just make coil 2.0 styled boss fights.

[Firepower]

I can't think of any other major JP MMO's other than FFXI and Phantasy Star Online and PSO2. Neither which are or were as popular as FFXIV.

As far as I can tell the major differences between this and FFXI is the speed of the game, which I don't believe is a factor simply because if you ever been to an Arcade in japan and watched them mash on Street fighter they love their twitch mechanics, or the size of the grind which in comparison to old FFXI you probably could level all jobs to 50 in FFXIV in the time it takes to get 1 to 75.

Another difference was the global servers but the JP/NA/EU generally kept to themselves in most cases, whereas this game tends to cram them together with the duty finder (even if partially isolated due to the 6 data centers)

You can't blame developers for bad player skill, the issue with tank's fate leveling to cap and sucking was most likely before the FATE exp nerf and Dungeon exp buff, but forcing tanks to run dungeons won't make a bad tank better, if you increased the grind to get to 50 it still wouldn't make a bad tank better (it might make a few quit the game before getting to endgame) but it doesn't fix the problem.

More likely than all the above is just the fact its the usual vocal minority, if you go and look at FFXIV reviews on any languages website you are likely to find almost every complaint under the sun from some other unsatisfied person.

FFXIV's success should indicate that it is hitting a rather big target audience and doing a good job at being a good game, but it's impossible to please everybody so there will always be someone somewhere who isn't getting the game they always wanted when they picked up FFXIV.

BTW strategic mechanics from FFXI:

Shameless plug from many years ago.