FFXIV Bitter Sweet

[Xayoc]

Rabble Rabble Rabble Rabble

This one agrees with a great majority of what is said in this post. Part of the awesomeness of XI was how long it took to get max level, and it has always said how XI derps/PUGs were > 80% of 'skilled' WoW players because of how much they had to know their class to level. This game kinda loses that and you get players in nearly full DL that do less DPS than a skilled tank...

[Vyrthur]

I totally agree with you. Since 2-3 weeks I've logged in maybe 5 times, the endgame right now is such a boring grind that keeps me from login in, there's just no fun at all spamming the same dungeons over and over again and still progress really slow. Currently I have decent gear and have to do titan for the relic quest, but I don't even really bother to do it.

Leveling another job? Boring, and because I already done a lot quests because I didn't grind trough fates to 50 the first time, I'm gonna be forced to do them or spam dungeons.

Crafting is also just a huge grind, I don't even want to talk about it.

There's just no feel of achievement what so ever.

I really try to love this game as it is right now, but I can't. I think I'm gonna take a break until the next patch comes out with hopefully good content. I really hoped for a good FF MMO finally, because I'm a huge fan of the FF universe, I pretty much grew up with it, but all I got is a huge grind fest with no diversity.

[Altanas]

You know the OP is on to something when it takes longer to get from one end of Windurst to the other than it does to get across the entire game world in ARR

[RyuShikari1]

I'd like to expand on a point the OP made if I may.

The biggest 'turn-off' I found was the fact that 1-50 was too fast, a point the OP mentioned. Now, I'm a sucker for a good quest line and you have to credit ARR's main-story line but the side-quests are VERY lackluster.

Using WoW as an example (sorry), you have countless areas which overlap one-another in terms of their Level requirement which is an amazing thing for levellers among us. WoW gives the incentive to roll alts as it's very possible to Level 1-60/70/80/85/90 in very unique ways and experience 60-80 quests in a zone telling a mini-story.

Levelling a second DoW/M in ARR offers no incentive to explore new zones as the fact is the quests simply are not there to enjoy and FATEs/Hunting Logs just are not particularly fun. Levelling a second character also offers no variation in play-through as the main story quest will never change after the first 20 or so levels.

In short, this game got boring fast.

[Princey]

I really wish elements had a role in this game. It would make it stand out more from other games. I mean this is an FF game can we please have element-affinity monsters and certain elements be weak to them? It'd be so much more interesting than just spamming the same skill over again.

[Datu]

The OP put into words exactly what I am feeling in my gut. I've tried to explain it in a coherent manner to my friend and failed. Instead I will direct them to this post.

I like the game but I am not in love with it. It is an enjoyable but shallow experience.

[Leowilde]

I don't know... I don't agree with all of this. Those who rush to the end will obviously get there quickly. Those who read the text in sidequests and take in the scenery will get a deeper experience. It's all in the playstyle. But i definetly agree that the zones/areas are too small - so far, I haven't felt like I'm in the wilderness even once. There's a rooftop around every corner. And THAT bothers me.

[MistressAthena]

I don't know... I don't agree with all of this. Those who rush to the end will obviously get there quickly. Those who read the text in sidequests and take in the scenery will get a deeper experience. It's all in the playstyle. But i definetly agree that the zones/areas are too small - so far, I haven't felt like I'm in the wilderness even once. There's a rooftop around every corner. And THAT bothers me.

This is one of the biggest immersion breakers. I do read the quests, I do read everything, and I don't grind Fates, but its still to fast. That being said, reading the quests and getting into the Lore is in and of itself immersion breaking. Which is terrible.

It's terrible to have a story that's so immersion breaking when you try to get into it, it should be the exact opposite, but with NPCs talking about how they have to "rebuild" from the calamity and you see rooftops around every corner, and outposts in every inch of everywhere, really leads you to believe that there is no rebuilding needing to be done. Having NPCs tell you "Can you go Deep into the woods for me, and obtain a few boxes I dropped? I'd do it myself but its far to dangerous for me", only to realize that those boxes deep in the woods is literally 5 feet from the crystal area, and you can literally see the boxes from the outpost... yea.. Total immersion breaker.

As for the smaller area's, the excuse that it had to be ported to console and the PS3 couldn't handle it, is a complete bogus excuse. If the PS2 could handle FFXI area's, the PS3 can handle the same sized area's and bigger. The only problem FFXIV 1.0 had was that it was poorly scripted and executed, and not properly streamlined which is why the PS3 was having issues with it. If they fixed that, there is no reason why the area's couldn't be as big and open ended like 1.0's were.

[roohan]

I dont know taking FFXI as a reference... The initial release of FFXI it had much less content. The city story mission were nothing compared to later content like Chains of Promethia. In my opinion it's way too early to judge over the game. Also, leveling one job can be fast in the game but I take that as a chance to finally level more than one job at the same time. That was a problem in FFXIs earlier days, because crafting was damn expensive and took many hours. Not to mention that crafting was no fun. That's why I think the pace of the game is fine. The only thing I agree is that the game doesn't force people to play together. I don't want FFXI dumb XP parties back but it could be a bit more community play

[Soukyuu]

As for the smaller area's, the excuse that it had to be ported to console and the PS3 couldn't handle it, is a complete bogus excuse. If the PS2 could handle FFXI area's, the PS3 can handle the same sized area's and bigger. The only problem FFXIV 1.0 had was that it was poorly scripted and executed, and not properly streamlined which is why the PS3 was having issues with it. If they fixed that, there is no reason why the area's couldn't be as big and open ended like 1.0's were.

The devs themselves said their main problem with the PS3 was memory. Also, FFXI might have bigger areas, but the game was made with PS2 in mind, meaning the details of the maps, textures etc were adjusted to that. And to be honest, FFXI does look a bit bland, from what I saw, compared to FFXIV. You have to keep in mind, that the PS2 was next gen at that time, though, while the PS3 now is already last gen. If you can't imagine what it means, try to get your hands on a 7800GT and play any game@720p/1080p. You'll see the performance limit immediately, and that chip is the same that the PS3 uses. So it's a miracle the devs managed to squeeze out 30fps out of it.

The whole talk about a separate DX11 client/PS4 version is so that they can go wild with the effects on more modern hardware. They can't make the clients too different though, so map size have to be set to the least common denominator - in our case the PS3. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not saying they have to keep the world small. The maps will stay the current size, but they could make more of them, and they will make more of them with expansions. That's why the comparison with FFXI is not really fair, as people said before.