FFXIV Bitter Sweet

[Kuikkusu]

I have to say that I have to, begrudgingly, agree with the OP on this.

I played FFXI for a long time and stopped playing it about a year ago due to RL commitments. I picked up this game expecting somewhat of a similar take on the WoW formula whilst hoping many of the Final Fantasy elements would remain. It hasn't quite happened that way and the only things that make it feel like a Final Fantasy game are the Primals, Chocobo's and Cid. Very little else is present.

This game was very enjoyable for the first few weeks. I could not sing its praises enough. But it is now starting to stagnate and become ordinary very quickly. Spamming the same FATES over and over is just far too easy and no challenge is presented except to dodge the occasional AOE.

The immersion is slowly drifting away and it's only the beauty of the zones and the fact that I have yet to fully max out a battle class and take part in most of the endgame dungeons that keeps me going.

I've subbed for 3 months in the hope that the update will stabalise a few issues (notably the economy) but I can't help but feel SE likes this WoW model they've created - especially if it brings in more money than FFXI ever did.

We shall see.

[Cruxus]

i totally agree with the OP , right now its just all the way till 50. why ever spend gil and materia to gears from 1-40 when its just plain easy till end content? would it be harder achieving that, then i assume it would be more of effect getting those better equips.
there are so many ways to correct that miserable situation, but like the OP got it right, it wont happen with those people right now in the development section of ff14..

this community is so passionate about this game, have so many good ideas for the game mechanics which are possible to be set up, but nobody over there listens. these cries are getting less loud and someday completly silent. those who stay will be those dumb mediocre players which likes to pay every month for some game, which has no depth, just waiting for a further content .. with cutscenes with "sometimes synchronisation" :S thats such a no-go nowadays.. with a p2p game!!!

[CaZx]

This game was very enjoyable for the first few weeks. I could not sing its praises enough. But it is now starting to stagnate and become ordinary very quickly. Spamming the same FATES over and over is just far too easy and no challenge is presented except to dodge the occasional AOE.

The immersion is slowly drifting away and it's only the beauty of the zones and the fact that I have yet to fully max out a battle class and take part in most of the endgame dungeons that keeps me going.

I've subbed for 3 months in the hope that the update will stabalise a few issues (notably the economy) but I can't help but feel SE likes this WoW model they've created - especially if it brings in more money than FFXI ever did.

We shall see.

I felt the exact same way about this game when I first started playing. I can remember having very high praise for this game following my time spent on the beta because it felt refreshing and I enjoyed my time spent running around Gridenia. That said the experience was obviously limited and we could not level our characters all the way to 50, so the experience was not complete. Then as I started fresh I still enjoyed the game quite a bit, however, I sit here about a month into the game and I have to say that the new game shine has worn off a little. I am sitting at level 44 and its already starting to feel like a chore to login and to level because my time has been reduced to joining the DF and hoping that I find a good group or fate grinding which for me is an absolute snooze fest.

I also subbed for 3 months, at a fair legacy price, and now I am content giving the game a chance and hitting 50 here soon..whenever I can brig myself to put the time in. I just can't help but feel that the game is missing something that would make it feel more complete and that is a little bit of a let down because I want this game to be successful as a FF fan.

[MistressAthena]

I felt the exact same way about this game when I first started playing. I can remember having very high praise for this game following my time spent on the beta because it felt refreshing and I enjoyed my time spent running around Gridenia. That said the experience was obviously limited and we could not level our characters all the way to 50, so the experience was not complete. Then as I started fresh I still enjoyed the game quite a bit, however, I sit here about a month into the game and I have to say that the new game shine has worn off a little. I am sitting at level 44 and its already starting to feel like a chore to login and to level because my time has been reduced to joining the DF and hoping that I find a good group or fate grinding which for me is an absolute snooze fest.

I also subbed for 3 months, at a fair legacy price, and now I am content giving the game a chance and hitting 50 here soon..whenever I can brig myself to put the time in. I just can't help but feel that the game is missing something that would make it feel more complete and that is a little bit of a let down because I want this game to be successful as a FF fan.

It certainly is missing that something...

[eremonxi]

Having arrived in coils, with Relics and whatnot and having spammed out 2 crafting classes and 1 gathering class to add to the 1.0 classes I can say - I enjoyed much of it and I have been feeding of the progression I was able to make and yet.... not much remains. I love you for writing this up, you do speak out what's been slowly dawning on me the past week. This game IS beautiful but most of the rest is ALOT of eyewash.

I can take my time and enjoy completing Fishing Logs - but for exactly the reasons you spoke of, XIV is missing the mark and I just wish there was a way for us to start improving on it, before its all to late.

[Minya]

I agree with OP. I don't think this game is as bad as WoW as I feel like none of the content matters until you hit 90. Literally everyone just wants to get to cap as fast as possible. At least in this game I feel like I can take my time more and not want to jab my eyes out when leveling.

[ArcheustheWise]

*snipped due to length*

You sir nailed it hard. And i MEAN hard. This is exactly what im thinking now. And the sad thing is, the game seemed to be VERY cool at the beginning. I was going to take my time on this game and enjoy the ride then it was like: Woah wait im 43 already? k well might as well try the rest.. wow 50?! O.o Well thats fine, they said they wanted us in the endgame anyway.. um...

Then i saw the light that i had seen at the end of the tunnel, but it wasnt glorious.. it was one big loot grind. Not a big fan of that tbh, i was expecting more from a dev group that touted the reason you leveled so fast was they wanted everyone to get to the end....

I know its still a bit early in the game life but if this is the devs team "vision" of an endgame i think ill pass. Or at the very least do something else...

Gear grinds are not "good" content, they are skinner boxes. (look it up if you dont understand the term)

[Bluetaro]

I have to agree with the OP, he has many good points which I have come to the conclusion of myself.

Some additional things that I wish SE would look at..

1. Item uniqueness is lacking in the game.

Every single weapon or armor piece you get in the game focuses on the same exact stats, nothing unique about them at all. You know which piece is better simply by looking at the item level. You got a new robe? Okay cool we'll give you some more vitality and intellect until you get the next piece. What happened to stats being more difficult to find on armor? In FFXI you had Leaping Boots which gave you 3 dex and agi, which could be used for a very long time because they were the only boots that gave those stats. Why can't we add some flavor to the current bland design of items?

Also, AF gear not having any ability modifiers? Does anyone else miss having +movement speed on their ninja AF boots? How about increased duration on berserk? Why does my class defining armor set in FFXIV only give me more base stats?

2. End game centered on instances narrows the scope of the game world.

With the lack of NMs to hunt and the lack of coffer keys/treasure to seek, I find myself sitting in town or in the Mor'dana crystal just looking for a pick up group shout. I have no incentive to explore the world at all when I hit level 50 because I just have to sit in the camp and get a group, then teleport to an instance using duty finder. It seems like such a waste of beautiful world that I'm stuck sitting in a camp all day because that's how end game was designed. Can we get some world dungeons or more monsters to fight that get us out there in the world?

And I don't think the solution to this issue is through adding more NM Fates like Behemoth or Odin, because those quickly become zergfests that require absolutely no strategy and cause massive latency issues to the server and players' computers. We need meaningful encounters outside of instanced duty finder. A good example of this would be re-introducing monsters that are spawned with rare drop items, or implementing world dungeons/caves/towers that we can openly explore without having to use duty finder.

3. No cool items to find.

So to get the best crafting materials in game I just have to spam Praetorium runs and buy it from a vendor. What happened to killing tough monsters to get rare crafting drops?

4. No threat of death while exploring the world.

There are no monsters in the game world that pose any threat. I can just ride my chocobo through entire beastmen camps and not be stopped. The heavy debuff you get from being hit? Pointless when monsters hit for next to nothing even on my caster classes and they just deaggro a few seconds later. This waters down the world experience because there is no danger at all when exploring.

[M4Fade]

SNIP

Wow. Amazing post Zanfire. I completely agree.

I still wish they would of BUILT off of what they had in 1.23 instead of trashing damn near everything. Fuck. :/

[MistressAthena]

I have to agree with the OP, he has many good points which I have come to the conclusion of myself.

Some additional things that I wish SE would look at..

1. Item uniqueness is lacking in the game.

Every single weapon or armor piece you get in the game focuses on the same exact stats, nothing unique about them at all. You know which piece is better simply by looking at the item level. You got a new robe? Okay cool we'll give you some more vitality and intellect until you get the next piece. What happened to stats being more difficult to find on armor? In FFXI you had Leaping Boots which gave you 3 dex and agi, which could be used for a very long time because they were the only boots that gave those stats. Why can't we add some flavor to the current bland design of items?

Also, AF gear not having any ability modifiers? Does anyone else miss having +movement speed on their ninja AF boots? How about increased duration on berserk? Why does my class defining armor set in FFXIV only give me more base stats?

2. End game centered on instances narrows the scope of the game world.

With the lack of NMs to hunt and the lack of coffer keys/treasure to seek, I find myself sitting in town or in the Mor'dana crystal just looking for a pick up group shout. I have no incentive to explore the world at all when I hit level 50 because I just have to sit in the camp and get a group, then teleport to an instance using duty finder. It seems like such a waste of beautiful world that I'm stuck sitting in a camp all day because that's how end game was designed. Can we get some world dungeons or more monsters to fight that get us out there in the world?

And I don't think the solution to this issue is through adding more NM Fates like Behemoth or Odin, because those quickly become zergfests that require absolutely no strategy and cause massive latency issues to the server and players' computers. We need meaningful encounters outside of instanced duty finder. A good example of this would be re-introducing monsters that are spawned with rare drop items, or implementing world dungeons/caves/towers that we can openly explore without having to use duty finder.

3. No cool items to find.

So to get the best crafting materials in game I just have to spam Praetorium runs and buy it from a vendor. What happened to killing tough monsters to get rare crafting drops?

4. No threat of death while exploring the world.

There are no monsters in the game world that pose any threat. I can just ride my chocobo through entire beastmen camps and not be stopped. The heavy debuff you get from being hit? Pointless when monsters hit for next to nothing even on my caster classes and they just deaggro a few seconds later. This waters down the world experience because there is no danger at all when exploring.

These are many points I saw, and wish I had put into the Original Post. I agree completely as well.