A Simple Lack of Fun

[Xoo]

I really don't want this to turn out as a full-blown rant, but I suppose some things can't be helped. I started this game at release, dealt with and accepted every negative aspect within at that time, and every one since. But, I feel that this patch is the breaking point.

Before Oct. 4th, I really felt I had the option of doing things my way, solo, without the help of anyone else if necessary. Given, this was a more gradual approach in progression opposed to grouping up, still, I could solo efficiently for acceptable losses. Always before leaving Ul'dah I would attempt to form a group to grind with. I would put up recruit, shout for 30min or so, ask every one of my five linkshells, send tells to every person online in my friend's list of 140 people. Fifty percent of the time I could get people to go out. The remainder was all solo.

Come October 5th, I can no longer solo for anything near worthwhile EXP, and I feel it directly related to the linking system. My targets are always ranks above me because I enjoy the challenge of seeing what I can chain for the best EXP. If I try this today, what I get is a large, compact grouping of target mobs who range in level from 25, which is also my own, to level 29. I can defeat the Lv29's with difficulty, but certainly not when they are suddenly accompanied by 4 others.

I heard someone in my LS say that the new system now requires skill and planning, and the linking mobs make it more difficult. I chuckled, because at that moment I was in a successful group killing crabs in La Noscea, and found it to be more hack-and-slash than ever before. Mobs all over the place, damage all over the place, and most importantly, enmity flying everywhere. No skill, no difficulty, just spam.

It makes me wonder why we have all of these abilities that we gain as our character progresses if we only need AoE weaponskills, Curaga and Siphon MP.

[Neptune]

Soloing used to be very challenging, but then the devs decided to make the game like this.

[TunaTime]

Looks like SE want's to make FFXI-II. A shame really seeing how MMO's evolved since FFXI.

MMO's should atleast have solo content when leveling. I've tested solo leveling in the early and mid 20's since the patch and you can still make 12k EXP / hr. Compared to group EXP it's crap! (heard stories about 20k + exp in less than 30min - and even 100k exp / hr in the mid 40's).

[Malakhim]

...MMO's should atleast have solo content when leveling.

Just because you could solo all the way to end-game in WoW, which took the MMO part out of the MMORPG, hardly means every other game should do it too.

[Khal_Drogo]

Looks like SE want's to make FFXI-II. A shame really seeing how MMO's evolved since FFXI.

MMO's should atleast have solo content when leveling. I've tested solo leveling in the early and mid 20's since the patch and you can still make 12k EXP / hr. Compared to group EXP it's crap! (heard stories about 20k + exp in less than 30min - and even 100k exp / hr in the mid 40's).

It's a shame how nonchalant your response is to this post, given that you, unwittingly, disagreed completely with what the OP was trying to get across to everyone. If SE was TRYING to make XI-2, then AoE spam, Cure spam, and button-smashing wouldn't be a **core** part of the battle system, as it is now. The problem with this game right now is that there are so many ignorant people, like yourself, out there that refuse to acknowledge how good XI is/was; and because of that community's irrational "hatred" of XIV's predecessor, anything to do with FFXI is considered "taboo" around the SE "drawing table." Sure, they may have made a couple of compromises here and there, but for the most part, SE is trying their best to distinguish XIV from XI.

Unfortunately, all they end up doing is failing at two games, instead of succeeding at one. XI's battle system is the one that requires skill and strategy, not XIV. And it is XIV's battle system that has been an onslaught of endless spam since day 1, not XI. Get your facts straight dude...and please keep your unhelpful, anti-XI bs comments to yourself. Was XI perfect? Hell no...not even close. However, XIV isn't even close to on par with XI, and even, I (a die-hard XI fan), despised a great deal of the XI content. SE needs to embrace the good from XI, and bring it to the table for XIV before they bankrupt their company with this failure of a game.


And, by the way, I never did it much myself, so I don't remember how good the exp/hr was, but I thought it was a really innovative way to solo: in XI, you could find high lvl mobs that "tugged" high-lvl pets around. They had extremely low hp, but were still high lvl mobs, so you could get the same exp from them as normal mobs if you knew which to fight. And it was very challenging trying to pull a pet w/o it's master seeing and following...and a lot of fun. There's nothing challenging about hordes of monsters linking with one another for no reason, sleeping them, and then spamming them in various moves one by one 'til all 3428342 of them are dead....

It feels like halo w/ swords...gotta empty 3 damn "clips" into something just for it to die. WSs should be like "rocket launchers" -massive dmg, "tide-turning" occurrences. No more of this 3000 tp in 5 seconds crap, and then losing it all in less time than it took to gain it. I remember going into fights w/ "300% tp" in XI b/c it could be the difference in winning a fight, or getting owned in one....there's nothing satisfying about battles in XIV.

[Aistaraina]

*snip*

Congratulations on necroing a 1 month old thread.

[Khal_Drogo]

Congratulations on necroing a 1 month old thread.

lol sry, that wasn't my intention, but I did a search for materia threads, and somehow this one came up in the list. I saw the title, and it seemed interesting, so I started reading further, then saw that one dude's post about XIV being "XI-2;" and attributing XIV's current "failure" to that association. So, I felt that it was my duty to set 'em straight :P

[Bearforce]

Unfortunately, all they end up doing is failing at two games, instead of succeeding at one. XI's battle system is the one that requires skill and strategy, not XIV. And it is XIV's battle system that has been an onslaught of endless spam since day 1, not XI. Get your facts straight dude...and please keep your unhelpful, anti-XI bs comments to yourself. Was XI perfect? Hell no...not even close. However, XIV isn't even close to on par with XI, and even, I (a die-hard XI fan), despised a great deal of the XI content. SE needs to embrace the good from XI, and bring it to the table for XIV before they bankrupt their company with this failure of a game.

a typical response from a fanboy. XI is hardly a good game example taken from. while lvling you do not use SC in exp party,s . you do not use SC at all in endgame-sky. sea at all. endgame BCNM party's do not need theif's because of their low damage and the con list goes on. now when abbysea released,Yoshida made every weapon available at hand to fix issues about class balance,s making drops that easier if you hit the weakpoint of a certain pop item Nm. iam sure why Yoshida went interviews around the world based on the majority and not the *mindless sheep* who defend the game vehemently saying its a *good game*. the picture we saw for V2.0 is far from being FFXI-2.

[Betelgeuzah]

MMO's should atleast have solo content when leveling. I've tested solo leveling in the early and mid 20's since the patch and you can still make 12k EXP / hr.

So you have your solo content and its worse than group EXP as it should be.

What's the problem here? You people amaze me sometimes.

[Xoo]

So you have your solo content and its worse than group EXP as it should be.

What's the problem here? You people amaze me sometimes.

Supposing you didn't read the OP?