This game has WAY bigger issues than some server problems.

[Rivalda_Kreissieg]

Damn, forgot all about Aegis Boon.. that would be great.

[Gramul]

Sorry, but I'm not going to stop opposing people who want to derive accomplishment from things that will adversely affect others for the sake of their own egos.

Then we can be opposition buddies.
Let's hate hug.

I like dangerous exploration. It's one of the thrills I get from gaming. You may think a dangerous overworld adversely affects a player base and their fun, but having a soft world adversely affects me. So no matter what, someone's getting screwed and I hope you understand that I prefer it not be me.

[Raze]

Agree with OP, +1.

Also, what's with stats now? VIT = HP only is so ridiculous, it really makes me just feel like I'm railroaded into melding these bland stats (or mostly useless off-stats) to cap and just waiting for the next piece with more of the same. I'd like to see some more variety as well, but I'm willing to overlook it for now because I like the new shields

I hope that with the P4 beta being so short and the next update coming (relatively) soon they'll realize that maybe people aren't really looking for stat boosts of the simplest kind. They could be laying a very basic groundwork for something bigger, but saying that is a big leap of faith I doubt I'd take at this point. Even worse, this could be actually what people want and I... I just don't understand the world.

Even the most basic layer of complexity if added would really improve this game, and I really don't care how it comes (although like I said VIT should be physical mitigation imho, pet peeve). Just make it so I don't have to climb a straight statistical ladder, I can climb a tree, and branch out my class a bit more (see what I did there?).

With that said, I'll be subbing 180 days right away anyway. ^^

[Dozer]

SE spend vast amounts of time, energy and money to rebuild FFXIV and the game image. They sent press releases, talked to community leaders, promised the community a great game and did so much to try to build faith back into their product. To their credit, I think it worked - people are/were listening and waiting.

And on the weekend of the early access, all hell broke loose. They risk losing, or have already lost, significant amounts of community faith because of this lobby/instance server debacle. We can debate the merits of in-game items and tactics, but there is nothing more threatening to FFXIV at this point in it's rebirth than the massive server instability for the entire NA/EU cluster. If they don't act quickly, and drastically, they are going to lose so much of that faith they worked so hard trying to reclaim.

[skulldead86]

Op you're right, the game is way to freaking easy right at low level that everything seem artificial, the skill, equipment, quest... there no point to do these because i can breeze through everything.

Only challenging part i got was lvl 20(or 25 don't remember) glad story and the lvl 20 dungeon whit agro everywhere and Fun sub-boss. Other then that i just Flash/Provoke all the time without really paying attention to the healing and HP....

And Fate is a really bad idea, zerg fest that just spam AOE and don't see what i'm doing...

[Skarith]

Agreed that it's way too easy. There's no getting around that. I'm certain that even if this was the first video game I had played in my entire life I'd be of the same opinion.

However, I'm still enjoying the game alot. I'm hoping endgame won't disappoint, I'm still only level 20.

If it does, I'm out

[Gerkargeo]

...The design of FATEs are crumbling under the weight of two+ dozen players spamming AoEs and getting gold medals for not thinking at all...

This right here is so awfully true. To get a gold medal in most FATEs all you need to do is get several hits (several being 6 or more) and bam...you get a gold star. People with AOEs think they have to kill every last one of the enemy to get a gold star, while I can kill 3 and get the same exp, gold and seals as they did for far less work. Not to mention I'm not killing everyone's framerate by doing a one-handbutton mash in one spot while I drink a pepsi.

[MilkyJoe]

Agree with you OP

This game has very little challenge involved

The skills are poorly done ( I can only speak for the CNJ class though )

And the loot is as about exciting as a slap in the face

[Xo1o]

Now this thread isn't about making the game more like FFXI or whatever. It is about design choices developers made that are hurting the game when looking at it from within the context of FFXIV: ARR.

The problem is, that the problems of FF14 are some of its design choices, and those are deeply embedded into the game at this point. Making combat interesting will take months at the very least, making the UI more PC friendly will take months as well, provided SE actually acknowledge these things as problems, which they didn't do in beta, despite feedback being loud and clear. A release date had been set already long ago...

FF14 is essentially a hardcore game, that's what it's good at, but it's alienating players looking for this kind of experience with trying to appeal to people who never touched an MMO before. Shallow combat with boring, bad skill design, streamlined itemization, streamlined quests and events (those are OK with me, but they're streamlined nevertheless), lack of character customization, etc.. On top of that, one of the strong points of the game, which is the fact that it's really trying to tell a story, is buried by the lack of voiceovers in ALL quests, not just the main story line. I think it's safe to say that even players genuinely interested in FF lore will at some point just give up trying to read all the walls of text flying at them.

Finally, not really a design choice, but an economic one: no dedicated EU data center, forcing the whole of EU to play with 200ms latency upwards on NA realms. I consider this decision just plain dumb. It's a slap in the face for FF fans in Europe, especially since SE seem to try to get PvP going in FF14 at some point in the future.

[Duelle]

I like dangerous exploration. It's one of the thrills I get from gaming. You may think a dangerous overworld adversely affects a player base and their fun, but having a soft world adversely affects me. So no matter what, someone's getting screwed and I hope you understand that I prefer it not be me.

I'm rather quick to adapt, but I do know people like the aforementioned friend who paid good money for an expansion he ended up not getting anything out of. He knew his stuff when it came to combat but could get lost in a closet, while on /follow.

We're talking in context of playing A Realm Reborn. You know... That game we talk about on these forums?

Since you can't read between the lines: I find people who abuse and misuse the word "accomplishment" like the person I quoted in the context of minor parts of a game to be silly.

Seriously, go pick up Touhou 7 and try to break that world record. If you do, you've accomplished something. Round-abouting a lv80 pig with true sight only to see the pretty lake on the other side of the brush =/= accomplishment. It's a neat thing to find, but that's pretty much it.

Edit: Even better, go and get world-first clear of hardmode Coil of Bahamut. I'll let you gloat about your accomplishment because you'll actually have accomplishmed something then.