Moment of Truth: How do you really feel

[Azurymber]

1. How do you feel about the patch frequency?
2. How do you feel about the changes themselves?
3. How do you feel this game will fair against current upcoming titles?
4. Do you think this game will ever exceed niche popularity?
5. Do you think the changes are in the right or wrong direction?
6. Do you think the they have focused on the most important things historically with patches or should the focus have been elsewhere?

1. Slow and not enough useful changes in each patch
2. Meh. Nothing spectacular. I still had more fun @ release due to there being a lot more variety
3. no chance against SW: TOR unless drastic changes are made
4. no, never. I think it will actually alienate its niche market the way its headed
5. wrong direction
6. I think they have focused on the completely wrong things. The battle system should have been fixed first before any content was released.

[Fleur]

This is an interesting thread to read!

1. How do you feel about the patch frequency?
Very slow. I think if the game had been released more "finished" it would be fine, but that is not the case. I sympathize with the situation, but that doesn't change the fact that it feels too slow to me.

2. How do you feel about the changes themselves?
I like the little things that increase convenience (like setting home point), but I am ambivalent or unhappy about a lot of the bigger changes.

3. How do you feel this game will fair against current upcoming titles?
Not well, at least not in terms of attracting new players. And IMHO some people overestimate what others are willing to put up with "because it is Final Fantasy, and you can't get that feel in other MMO's!". Sure, that will keep some players, but I'm sure there are others that love FF but will still trade in their wands and chocobos for lightsabers and speeder bikes if TOR is just that much better (or GW2, etc).

4. Do you think this game will ever exceed niche popularity?
Unlikely. It is coming along too slowly and has too much competition and a poor reputation.

5. Do you think the changes are in the right or wrong direction?
I'm getting too many mixed signals to be able to figure that out. xD It is a matter of personal preference though.

6. Do you think the they have focused on the most important things historically with patches or should the focus have been elsewhere?
As important as it was/is to give players fun things to do like dungeons and events, I think they really needed to work on more basics. Linkshell management, mailbox, etc.

[Chezen]

1. How do you feel about the patch frequency?
2. How do you feel about the changes themselves?
3. How do you feel this game will fair against current upcoming titles?
4. Do you think this game will ever exceed niche popularity?
5. Do you think the changes are in the right or wrong direction?
6. Do you think the they have focused on the most important things historically with patches or should the focus have been elsewhere?

First off OP, it's obvious what your answers are, or you wouldn't ask these questions.

For myself:

1. It depends on what you mean by patch frequency. Obviously in this game, the patches need to come out as quickly as they can, because the game is pretty much being re-written. However, I wouldn't want anything released before it was ready, plus I think it would go much worse for them if they did so. The last thing this game needs is fodder for the trolls that gives them a leg to stand on.

If you refer to patches to a game that already has a good foundation, of course I like to have more content, but I hate it when patches are too much, too often. Rift changes every week it seems like, and I'm tired of trying to keep up with it. I've come to realize, I like this game because it it's not changing so often. I am glad I can log on and not find everything, especially to do with my character and abilities, changed every week. On top of that, content that has been worked on more, by definition, should be better content. I look for quality from Final Fantasy, not quantity. The patch rate is fine, maybe could be a tad faster once the fundamentals are done.

2. I haven't been personally happy with all of the changes, and I'm especially not happy with PvP on the horizon. But I do hope they will be able to do what I haven't seen any other mmo do, and keep PvP from killing the PvE. It's worth sticking around to find out, as there have been quite a few changes I have liked. Overall, I think the changes are good ones in the grand scheme of things, even if I personally don't care for some of them myself.

3. If they play their cards right, I think this game has just as good a chance as any, if not more.

4. I think some might underestimate, or maybe have forgotten, just how big that "niche" market may be. FFXIV was highly anticipated at launch. I have seen posts scattered over many forums, blogs, etc. , of people that might be willing to pick up the game they bought and give it another shot, once the word is given that it's fixed. There are a ton of people who like and/or have played FF. If even a fraction of those people will come play it, FFXIV will be very successful. They wouldn't even need to step out of their "niche", although previously non-FF players are certainly welcome.

5. I think Yoshi-P has a direction in mind, but I haven't seen enough of it to know if it's right or wrong for me. So far, however, I see no reason to think it's gone in any wrong direction that will continue to make it unpopular.

6. They have first focused on exactly what was voted on by the players, and filled in the inbetween time with whatever they could get done. No matter what they worked on first, I guarantee this exact same question (interrogation) would have been brought up.

[User201109011315]

1. How do you feel about the patch frequency?
The frequency is not as important as the substance of the patches. Which leads me to the next point.

2. How do you feel about the changes themselves?
Most of the changes are a waste of time or just end up breaking something else. But give credit where credit is due. I think the garlean attacks are good, and the enmity changes were an improvement. But by and large, a lot of the changes are pointless. I do like the grand companies and the instances were fun, but when I think what was sacrificed for these features, they are a poisoned joy. I look forward to beastmen strongholds, chocobos and airships, but aren't those sort of expected features anyway? I mean whoop-de-do, finally.

3. How do you feel this game will fair against current upcoming titles?
I don't think it will do too well. I mean, what does FFXIV have to offer? Compared to upcoming titles, FFXIV still has better graphics. But, despite that, it lacks a lot of innovative and revolutionary features which new MMOs are releasing with.

For example, combat in Blade and soul is really fun, especially the PvP! And I know many people who left FFXIV for Korean TERA due to the combat system. However, while I can't speak for TERA, I must say that Blade and Soul is intolerably linear in the early environments.

B&S does however have very high quality quests and cutscenes, all voiced. Similarly, SW:ToR, TERA, and GW2 all have higher quality quests than FFXIV. So FFXIV falls short in that department too. Basically FFXIV lacks quality combat and quality quests. The lore behind the game is the strongest of all MMOs, but the delivery is poor.

I think FFXIV's strongest selling point was the idea of freedom, but ArcheAge looks to overshadow FFXIV in that respect, not to mention the fact that SE are downplaying the freedom side of the game anyway. So in conlusion, I think FFXIV will not fair too greatly against future titles given the fact that it lacks almost anything to set it apart, and is not acknowledging its own strengths.

4. Do you think this game will ever exceed niche popularity?
Not unless it becomes more ambitious.

5. Do you think the changes are in the right or wrong direction?
Wrong direction.

6. Do you think the they have focused on the most important things historically with patches or should the focus have been elsewhere?
They have wasted so much time destroying rather than creating. Change is not always synonymous with improvement.

[Altera]

1: Taking into consideration on just the huge task on hand for Yoshi-P and his team, I would say im pretty satisfied with the rate patches is coming out. People constantly mention other MMOs so it would be nice if they could mention the names of said MMOs. Theres also a big difference in putting new stuff in, compared to what SE does and totally revamps current mechanics. ANd if you all look at WOW, and how much money they hoard in every month, they are pretty slow releasing content or fixing class balance / bugs. The entire Cataclysm has been a major letdown, and they might get back on trackwith patch 4.3, but that is 12-14months maybe more since Cataclysm was released last december. And thats going to be the last content patch until the new expansion comes out.

2: Personally I have been satisfied with the changes so far.

3: Shouldnt matter how 1 game fairs against another one tbh. People will play what interests them the most. Simple as that. And from what I have experienced in the past about overhyped games, is that they have been a major letdown. Aion, Warhammer, Rift, Age of Conan has all been said to be WOW killers cause they would be so much better.

4: Hard to say. Most people in EU/US may have become too accustomed to how WoW/Rift etc plays, and may be too scared trying something thats pretty different from what they are used to.

5: I would say it moving in the correct direction. Who knows what the future will bring once they are done with the overhaul`?

6: Mixed feelings, but I am just gonna take a big chill pill and wait until the game has undergone its revamp before judging too much. I also think instead of just slandering SE and Yoshis team constantly with negativity, I think everything would run smoother if people could try cheer em on so they feel more motivated to satisfy us. Just try to have patience folks

[Fensfield]

Curious thread.. hm.

1. How do you feel about the patch frequency?
A little slower than I'd hoped, but alright. It's hard to come to proper conclusions without better information.

2. How do you feel about the changes themselves?
This is not the game I paid coming up on £50 to gain access to. I'm waiting to see whether the new direction can be as good or better than the intent laid out by Tanaka's team originally, but at this point, I'm at least a little skeptical.

3. How do you feel this game will fair against current upcoming titles?
I'm a little worried. It's slipping into a format that, in my opinion, is about to fall out of fashion beside much more dynamic and/or player-driven models beginning to emerge in the face of less restrictive technologies.

4. Do you think this game will ever exceed niche popularity?
Perhaps. It depends heavily on how it is handled along the road. Proper marketing, optimisations, and so forth, and I believe it will have success comparable to its predecessor (which is, in the modern MMORPG climate, very respectable, but no longer the record breaker it once was).

5. Do you think the changes are in the right or wrong direction?
In my opinion, the wrong direction. Bang me over the head with 'the sandbox is gone' all you like, but pre-scripted quests and raids and so forth are an answer to a technological limitation that no longer exists. The future is either in dynamically generated content or player-generated content, all that remains now is for the 'successful MMORPG' template to catch up. When it does - Guildwars 2 might do it, perhaps - static-content games will start to have a very difficult time.

6. Do you think that they have focused on the most important things historically with patches or should the focus have been elsewhere?
I believe their focus has, generally, been in the right areas (except for that ruddy monster resize). Unfortunately I believe the way the developers have chosen to respond to these areas is short-sighted, if perhaps significantly less resource-intensive in the short-to-middle-term.


We'll see.

[VeranRamaden]

only one person liked my post...I thought it was clever
*sad panda*

[Gramul]

1. How do you feel about the patch frequency?
Wish it could be faster. But I can deal with it as long as the end result is good.
2. How do you feel about the changes themselves?
Looking good so far. I know some people are upset by the auto attack, but I feel it makes the gameplay much smoother.
3. How do you feel this game will fair against current upcoming titles?
Don't know, don't really care.
4. Do you think this game will ever exceed niche popularity?
It will probably get a good boost at the PS3 release, but it won't ever reach WoW levels.
5. Do you think the changes are in the right or wrong direction?
The right direction. Every time I discuss the changes with someone who hasn't played it in a long time, phrases like "oh thank God" and "About time" often come up.
6. Do you think the they have focused on the most important things historically with patches or should the focus have been elsewhere?
I feel like they could have focused more on preventing lag and making it easier for people who use keyboard controls but the changes that have been made are a good base on which to add more entertaining content.

[User201109011315]

Yeah, balancing combat in a game like TERA or Call of Duty or something takes a lot of time because those games involve many more parameters than cooldowns/dmg which is basically all FFXIV combat boils down to. It's weird it took them so long to tweak certain parameters and add in autoattack.

[Azurymber]

Yeah, balancing combat in a game like TERA or Call of Duty or something takes a lot of time because those games involve many more parameters than cooldowns/dmg which is basically all FFXIV combat boils down to. It's weird it took them so long to tweak certain parameters and add in autoattack.

exactly. the difficulty in FFXIV shouldn't be the battle system at all. thats like the easy cake. The hard part is server-related and they are still completely out on that. FFXIV was supposed to be a bunch of large seemless zones (and was like that at launch) but now we have fake-seemless zones where you can go from one to the other but have to wait 20 second for npcs and mobs to spawn when you cross the barrier (note: they dont tell you when it happens). That is seriously ridiculous. I've died so many times running into a group of agro mobs while they werent on my screen or radar yet.

So far it seems like its taken a year to do what should have been a weeks worth of tweaks. But it also sounds like they re-wrote a bunch of code so that might be why. Like they mentioned the old battle codes were completely convoluted and messed up and they simplified them. While that -is- easy, if the original code wasn't commented well, changing something can mess up other things and you spend weeks just trying to find and fix errors.