Game dumbed Down a little to much

[Dyvid]

The biggest flaw I see is people thinking this game is going to be FFXI from 2005.

FFXI Titan vs FFXIV Titan

[Autymnfyres]

How many bosses have clear attack patterns? All the primals at least. If you memorize when the boss does each move, it completely trivializes that content. SE should actually unleash the RNG monster on primals. Take away their predictability, keep players on their toes, and force them to react and adapt in seconds or they die. Would make bosses more challenging and fun to be sure.

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Interesting proposition Lucke, but then there would have to be mechanics, skills and abilities at the access of the players to be able to react to an a-i which in some other games is able to change things up. That ain't in the picture here. ;o(

[KraggyKor]

Is that why fate grinding teaching you absolutely nothing about how to play a MMO, this game, or your job? All I learned leveling WHM to 50 was that aero is effective for tagging enemies.

Your choosing to avoid learning to play doesn't mean the game is at fault.

[Asiaine]

Your choosing to avoid learning to play doesn't mean the game is at fault.

There is an important difference between 'choosing to avoid', and 'not going out of your way to learn unrequired ways'. As it is, 1-50, does not in any way encourage, let alone prepare you, to be strong with your characters.

1-20 should be the introduction-training on how to play the game.
20-30 should be getting used to your class and game mechanics and party interactions.
30-40 should be you learning your class skills well.
40-50 is where you perfect and hone your skills and all aspects of battle.

If done correctly, the boss battles should not require you to learn any new skill/mechanic to play that you did not already learn. It should just be 'more' of the same, but more intense, and more tougher.

Here, we have thrash mobs that we can do in our sleep until level 50. Then a boss where, once we memorize the pattern, can do in our sleep.

[Lumiin]

My thoughts exactly. Veteran MMO players might think the game is (too) easy, but a player who new to the genre might think otherwise.

I would suggest doing every dungeon you can. One of the reasons why is that I thought that the Sunken Temple of Qairn was very tricky, but also very fun to do.

I've met loads of first time MMOers in this game that finds it way to easy. Everyone keeps saying this is how modern MMOs are, but truth is, it isn't. No newly released mmo aside from this one is this easy and the ones coming out aren't this easy either.

[Anapingofness]

So yes, the game is dumbed down... a lot. But the average 'IQ' (or game-hardiness) of players has also gone down, as more 'casual' people play now than before.

Casual players are not stupid as you suggest. Instead, casual players only have a limited amount of time to play during each play session. For example, 2hrs vs 6hrs per day. Playtime has nothing to do with how "dedicated" or "skilled" a player is.

Secondly, you are mistaken in thinking that FFXI was "hard". XI was *very* time consuming. That doesn't make the game "difficult".
Yes, certain fights were a lot of fun and they were hard but most of the game was spent leveling or camping NMs (which btw also wasn't difficult). However, if you knew people who would stick with you you could even cut the leveling grind down enormously. I knew a person who went 1-75 on thief pre exp nerf in three days.

In XIV the leveling grind isn't nearly as long. Yes, you could take several months to reach 50 but that has nothing to do with your skill as a player and everything to do with your play time. XIV also has fun fights, some of which are very difficult some of which aren't.

Overall, XIV has it's faults but it's not nearly as bad as certain people make it out to be but if you ask me, it is an improvement over XI. People need to stop looking at XI with rose tinted glasses already. It was a good game but it wasn't the holy grail of what MMOs should be like.

[Mattia]

The biggest flaw I see is people thinking this game is going to be FFXI from 2005.

FFXI Titan vs FFXIV Titan

Eh XIV may be more flashy but sucks when you know exactly what he's going to do.

[KogaDrake]

First off, 1-50 isnt the same difficulty, (well if you just zerg fates it is, but that isnt what is expected). Once you hit 32 difficulty of dungeons start to increase, more mechanics are involved in bossed, and players should be learning their roles more and more in these areas. the issue was that the difficulty went up so did the chance of failure, but exp did not go up so everyone stuck to FATEs and only did dungeons required by the main story.


This has changed, and people are running dungeons to level much more now (since 2.1) and from what I have seen recently, fresh 50's tend to understand the game alot more then they used to when it was all FATEs.

Once 50, the game still progresses in difficulty CM/Prat < AK/WP < HM dung / CT < PS < Coil 1-4 << Coil 5. the difference is rather than gaining levels we progress with gear, leaving out the exp grind and just letting you get gear at whatever pace you want. The issue is really that you can too easily skip too many tiers of gear and difficulty levels by doing so that it hurts progression. Doing the dungeons at the ilv they were meant for has some challenge and makes you learn your class better, but gear is given out to keep those who cant farm every ilv set for days/weeks to progress, and thus you skip tiers and this leads to people out gearing and not needing to learn how to do their rolls.

[Asiaine]

Casual players are not stupid as you suggest. Instead, casual players only have a limited amount of time to play during each play session. For example, 2hrs vs 6hrs per day. Playtime has nothing to do with how "dedicated" or "skilled" a player is.

Here, I use 'casual' to mean someone who just wants to be distracted for a couple hours but has no real interest/ability in actually learning the details of a game. Not 'casual' in the sense of 'time-limited' people. We should really be using 'casual' in its original sense of a player who doesn't want to spend more than 2-5 minutes to learn how to play a game, and then gets instant gratification form playing for a couple hours. Versus 'time-limited' players who will spend the time needed to learn a game and do it well, but not spend more than a couple hours/day or whatnot playing.

This game leans more towards the 'Casual' than the 'Time-Limited' people.

[TomTom1968]

The biggest flaw I see is people thinking this game is going to be FFXI from 2005.

FFXI Titan vs FFXIV Titan

Damn, it seems I should have played FF11, the speed of the fight fits more to my old man reflexes lol.