Why its hard to play ff14

[Lozza]

What apparently makes the game unfun for you however is fun for a lot of other players. I've played many MMOs myself, and I still play several. In this era there is no need to restrict yourself to one game, most MMOs cater primarily to casual players who may play several games. However I wouldn't play several MMOs if they were all the same, offering all the same things.

GW2, BDO, Tera, ESO, and B&S all offer action combat. I've played all of them, and I still play ESO regularly and GW2 sometimes when I need the fix for more action combat. However when I want to play "stand and spam" FFXIV is there for me. Wildstar also had action combat, and was perhaps one of my favourite combat systems in an MMO - Wildstar however no longer exists.

The more subdued environment (art direction) is also something I like. I hate hyper saturated games like WoW it was one of the things that has turned me off the game literally every time I have tried to play it. Continuing on from the list above Tera, GW2, and B&S might appeal to you more since they are bright and colourful rather than the more subdued and pastel palette that FFXIV uses.

As for the story... The ARR is on par for the course in terms of MMO stories. Honestly I was surprised by how good the story started to get around 2.4. This is also another thing that keeps me playing the game.

I understand the desire to transpose one game you enjoyed on to your new game. I've seen it on literally every game forum ever but the things you believe to be "flaws" others like myself don't see as flaws, they are features that attract us to this game.

You say that people get bored and take breaks and that is bad, one thing that MMO devs have discovered over the years is that players tend to devour content many, many times fast than they can produce it. An expansion takes 18 months or so of work - players are done within 3 days of release. Players are always going to get bored. It's impossible to create content fast enough to satisfy them and on the occasion when FFXIV created content that was more difficult to complete than could be cleared in a few days it absolutely destroyed the raid community. Your desired changes are not going to change the time it takes to produce content nor the time it takes to players to consume it.

YouTube and Twitch views do not make a popular game - I never watch Twitch or YouTube for games I play, I frequently watch games I have no intention of ever playing though. I never even use Twitch or YouTube to inform my purchases. People who are enjoying the game are playing the game, not watching others play it.

Finally this game isn't "dying", and I say that as someone who has played many games that now no longer exist.

[Minro]

sorry dude but the game is gonna die if it doesnt fix the FLAWS, if you reread what I typed i have pet pieves sure but the flaws im pointing towards is mainly movement in general, why is the game so clunky when all i wanna do is run, why is gcd wonky as fuck, im pretty biased bc I played other games that I found fun and want to nick pick from them to put in this one but ive played all those and yes i liekd the combat and visuals but story was lacking and community was afk, also the community is irritating at most times bc I prefer to heal in dungs and when someone dies bc they pulled everything and didnt use buffs they all kick me, this has happened quite a few times (thats not a point I just wanted to throw that in there too)

Im sorry but you may not use it but youtube and twitch are a huge supplier of people being drawn in, just remember that if a huge twitch personality plays 14 and says its good then bam easily 5k people will play or at least around that and from my eyes thats a huge difference from having no push in the gaming community

Saturated content is good, thats what keeps players continue playing and if it takes a year and a half to make an xpac then us the remaining to upgrade the game and not use it to makes mounts (also I believe it was tera that allowed you to choose between its original combat and its action combat and wow 90% of the community chose action)

[HyoMinPark]

As a level 70 BRD, I don't ever feel like my combat is slow or boring. I have so many things I'm juggling - it's more than enough to keep me busy managing procs, manageig Foe's, managing MP, managing party resources, etc.

Leveling up things feel slow because of skill pruning, but it's not slow at level cap. Especially if you're doing high end content. I think you need to play the game a bit more before you start talking about how slow it is.

Though, you are welcome to feel as if ARR is boring. Because it is. HW is much better.

[Rufalus]

You need to take the time to reach current content before reviewing the game. At the moment you can only take a guess at what the combat is like because you haven't unlocked all of your job abilities. It's only slow and basic when you're still leveling. Reaching endgame raids and having your whole toolkit is a very different experience.

The leveling experience is very slow and gentle which is good for people who are new to the genre but offputing to people who make snap judgements and want instant gratification. You're still playing through 2013 stuff. They got way better at battle design and storytelling since then. This game has actually been around for a while now and it will still be going for many more years.

[milovan]

...

you’re in the wrong game. please go back to playing fortnite.

/kthxbye

[Minro]

alright since you didnt read what I said, what about my rfiends who say the combat is exactly how I described it, I know the combat gets better bc more class design but im talking the actually fluidity of the combat, gcd is wonky and even jumping feels like im playing adventure quest, kinda disappointed that they havent fixed it since launch when I first played

[SannaR]

As I stated before they're doing another combat change that until mid may-ish no one will know how it'll effect the combat while also adding things. They're making mp and tp into one thing and beyond that no one knows how that'll effect the skills that use either of them. Also I think you're stretching when you say the game will die just because of how slow or not the combat is. Again look at XI which is still going has much slower combat and has PS2 graphics and just announced something big is going to happen for it's 20th anniversary in three years. Sure it could die in that time, but according to some people it died when Wings of the Goddess came out and again when Abyssea came out and I'm sure something else came out that killed the game.

[HyoMinPark]

alright since you didnt read what I said, what about my rfiends who say the combat is exactly how I described it, I know the combat gets better bc more class design but im talking the actually fluidity of the combat, gcd is wonky and even jumping feels like im playing adventure quest, kinda disappointed that they havent fixed it since launch when I first played

I apologize. It’s hard to read any constructive criticisms you may have through your insistence that this game is dying/will die soon because you dislike the combat system.

As for these problems—I’m saying what I’m saying because the “problems” you see are not ones that a lot of other people see? At least, not when you go off of complaints here and on Reddit. The most common problems I see individuals complaining about for this game are housing (big one here), button bloat for some jobs like SMN/SCH/PLD, the glamour plate system that was just put in, the simplicity of most content outside of Savage/Ultimate, and job balance (check out the tank and healer subforums—particularly the latter). Not that it needs to go from tab-targeting to something else. There are plenty of people who are fine with the combat system as it is—it’s unlikely that that will be the death of the game.

I’m curious what kind of content are your friends doing? Are they just doing Dungeons? That’s the baby content of this game—catered to the lowest common denominator. Do they do normal mode raids? 24-man raids? What about Extremes or Savage or Ultimate? If they want “more” in terms of gameplay—if they want something “less boring”—then they should try Savage/Ultimate. The “slow” combat is more than made up for by the mechanical dance you do in those fights. And, as I said, this is not something you can directly experience just from watching Twitch streams (FFXIV actually had its highest Twitch viewings when the two Ultimates were released this expansion—they were a huge success).

That being said, you should form your own opinion instead of just basing it off of the opinions of your friends. And you can only do that by actually getting to level 70 and experiencing the combat system when it is well-rounded for your job of choice (which, according to your profile, is SMN).


Personally, I don’t have any issues with the way this combat system works. I don’t find the GCD to be absurdly slow, especially since it can fluctuate once you get to higher levels and start stacking Skill Speed/Spell Speed (I honestly prefer my current BRD GCD of 2.47 seconds, because you need about a second to wave in an oGCD, and BRD has a lot of oGCDs to weave and double-weave, so this GCD makes gameplay comfortable for me without GCD clipping). I think development time should be spent on balancing jobs against other jobs—like the healers. Not revamping the combat system.

[Minro]

im pretty sure they do the actual endgame hightier content and still have the same opinion on it, its kinda sad to see a community only defend a game when there are fundamental flaws inside the game, negative feedback is supposed to be taken in a positive way so the game can grow and be better, all im reading now is "get to max then talk" when in reality arr makes up 50 of the 70 levels in game and bc the story is the main choice for exp that makes it most of the game so we have to step back and look at it from the standpoint that arr is bad and that means half the game is bad

I know watching content is different from doing but i was a heroic/mythic raider in wow which is highest tier content and it seemed the same from consumer bias and viewer bias

[Dualgunner]

What's the highest tier content your friends do?