IS this the MMO to be played right now?

[Gandrake]

yeah its pretty dope

my friend just got back into it and we are playing a lot

i think its pretty impressive that this game "only needed" 500k subs to be a success and this is where it is now. it's pretty telling of the low quality of production coming out of blizzard for world of warcraft. fuck i couldn't stand playing that game anymore after all the welfare legendary bullshit and axing of 10 man heroic for no fucking apparent reason.

after getting on board man i just cant stand the way wow looks and the prices they charge for shit

the only thing wow is doing better than FFXIV right now is storage space and making dps classes feel unique

[Deleted]

You can do 10man heroic, not sure why you would though. More loot with more players.
And to prove I know what youre talking about is Mythic, the old heroic. Remember the balance issued it caused? You probably don't, that's why they removed it.

As someone who has played both games at the highest level, only now with Legion does WoW present more to do for a PvE player, due to M+. Before then, there is the weekly raid and you're done. WoW has PvP but comeon, lol @ that.

Why people trashtalk one game over another, especially one that has made more money than any other game known to the history of console/pc gaming (of the ones requiring a sub fee, I wouldnt know if loL/DOTA makes more money. Don't you want a better game for YOU to play? Trash talking games and how A copies B; when B copies C, when C copies A and B is a moot discussion. Its far better if one adds constructive feedback to make games better, never know what and where companies read feedback.

Both games are good in different ways, but youre arguing against logic. You want tstory to be #1, I know groups that have cleared content VERY early who A) Didn't know shit about lore and B) Didn't give a shit about the lore. Are they not proper FF XIV players and shud go back to <insert game>?


Making classes feel unique?`Not sure if you're serious. WoW is, and always has been bring best dps fuck the rest. Elemental/Enhancement/Unholy DK etc are benched classes that have no room in the game, they are that bad. FF XIV has relevant classes where all are more or less good.

[Toppy]

Oh these go back to your game if you dislike this are the best there is. You're aware if everyone drops the game and goes back, it hurts YOU more than them? If everyone does it, the game is dead. Returning players that may have lost accounts, such as me. Its fun to play the game, but when I remember the 215 run and talk to ABC across the world for ARR story, I lose the will to give a shit. So many friends I tried to get into the game during HW, when they ask how long till we can play? Im sorta afraid to answer, cos they all quit before then. If you love the story so much, you can do it - Forcing others to "enjoy" it is stupid. Old, outdated content should be optional for the story, not forced upon a player. In WoW as an example, you can do a ton of quests of the expansion you decide to do, all their daily hubs, and reputation grinds and bladibla. its there if you want to do it, its however not forced upon you to be able to play with your friends - do it later.

If you don't see how this is a problem, I can't help you. I can say that the devs themselves said its worth looking into a lvling/story skip potion in their shop. It costs them players, if YOU think that's not true, well, I can't help you. As you like to state, its a pointless argument, but the devs are leaning on the side of making a skippable option. Same goes for the topic of the new classes, they want you to level with them, not necessarily get to max level, then unlock them.

I like the XIV story, I think its great, but forcing it on others when we will now have literally multiple hours of catching up endgame of an expansion for HW & ARR, it only makes the gap wider and the problem bigger.

True, but there has to be room for a game to be itself. Just because something is more popular doesnt mean its the right choice. Go and make the combat more fast paced like WoWs, good job you got new people. How many people did you just lose? How many people that you got are just going to go back to WoW?

FFXIV should not be WoW. FFXIV should be FFXIV. The more like WoW it gets the closer it gets to just being WoW-lite and it cant compete with WoW.

[Deleted]

You just compared changing fundamental game mechanics, with making 5year old content skippable by choice? peoples friends cant be fucked playing the game for 2 - 3 weeks to catch up to play with their friends, how are you not getting this? Im not saying FF XIV is bad, in fact Id say its better than WoW with less content (they dont have to change it, game is great anyway)

Catching up:
Its not fun content, either. 200 hand in quests to get some text, some care, I care, but most of my friends flat out don't give anything resembling a fuck. These players you lose because you gate the game behind too much. Nobody is asking for a change of FF14 gameplay, just redundant story/lore some may not care about, and those that do...Do it all anyway.

[Gandrake]

Remember the balance issued it caused? You probably don't, that's why they removed it.

it was the mode people enjoyed the hardest content most on and made it easy for semi-hardcore players to raid casually. All of those players are gone lol there was nowhere left for them after ripping that from the game and giving them mythic and easy, easier easy, and afk for loot difficulties. which blizzard has the audacity to call "content".

I like the LFR of FFXIV. The players aren't treated like second class citizens and given gear that looks like fucking dungeon blues... (which still look wayyyy better than wow's dungeon blues) They actually get a completely different raid with content in it for everyone to enjoy. If blizzard wasn't so busy doing the least for the most they'd abandon that fucking retarded ideology a lot of people have called them out for and actually make some real content.

the amount of effort they have made it require for you to even have the privilege to beat dragons up every week and take their purps is fucking atrocious. I gave up on wow after welfare legendaries and mythic. unless you are raiding mythic hardcore it is not worth the time it takes to maintain it.

it's for the birds.

plus the game is so ugly and every expansion they feel the need to completely shit all over your class and make it even more lame. like seriously, who designs these tier sets? fire them because they fucking blow dogs for quarters. I will never forget the ToT Death Knight set. What in the fuck was that? awful. Just fucking awful.

Making classes feel unique?`Not sure if you're serious. WoW is, and always has been bring best dps fuck the rest.

welllllllllllllllllllll

down here, where the other remaining 99.7% of players play(ed) wow there is a lot of diversity and classes did not feel the same where in ffxiv every class has dots, every class has a damage buff to keep up, every class has a 3 combo rotation and every class focuses on juggling multiple de/buffs in a rigid rotation.

but yes

having to do the main scenario quests is a little ridiculous. i remember when leviathan dropped it was like skipping cutscenes and the shit still took an hour and a half to complete. I didn't even start watching heavensward cutscenes until i started closing the chapter of the dragonsong war.

[Toppy]

it was the mode people enjoyed the hardest content most on and made it easy for semi-hardcore players to raid casually. All of those players are gone lol there was nowhere left for them after ripping that from the game and giving them mythic and easy, easier easy, and afk for loot difficulties. which blizzard has the audacity to call "content".

I like the LFR of FFXIV. The players aren't treated like second class citizens and given gear that looks like fucking dungeon blues... (which still look wayyyy better than wow's dungeon blues) They actually get a completely different raid with content in it for everyone to enjoy. If blizzard wasn't so busy doing the least for the most they'd abandon that fucking retarded ideology a lot of people have called them out for and actually make some real content.

the amount of effort they have made it require for you to even have the privilege to beat dragons up every week and take their purps is fucking atrocious. I gave up on wow after welfare legendaries and mythic. unless you are raiding mythic hardcore it is not worth the time it takes to maintain it.

it's for the birds.

plus the game is so ugly and every expansion they feel the need to completely shit all over your class and make it even more lame. like seriously, who designs these tier sets? fire them because they fucking blow dogs for quarters. I will never forget the ToT Death Knight set. What in the fuck was that? awful. Just fucking awful.



welllllllllllllllllllll

down here, where the other remaining 99.7% of players play(ed) wow there is a lot of diversity and classes did not feel the same where in ffxiv every class has dots, every class has a damage buff to keep up, every class has a 3 combo rotation and every class focuses on juggling multiple de/buffs in a rigid rotation.

but yes

having to do the main scenario quests is a little ridiculous. i remember when leviathan dropped it was like skipping cutscenes and the shit still took an hour and a half to complete. I didn't even start watching heavensward cutscenes until i started closing the chapter of the dragonsong war.

Well its not like the MSQ content takes all that long. And while you're doing that you're still getting EXP and leveling. It evens out well that if you follow the MSQ you'll hit level 60 right around when the level 60 quests start.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

If you have to ask other people if you should play a game you shouldn't play it.

[Berethos08]

I do however think that the story should still exist and should be streamlined as much as possible each prior to each new expansion to smooth the experience for new players.

Streamlining players being able to catch up should definitely happen, but there are issues with streamlining the story itself.

The first, and honestly more minor, is that you're potentially irrevocably changing the experience for future players compared to veteran players. A new player would come in and basically be told that they missed out on the original version of the story and get the cliff notes/2 hour movie adaptation of the book version instead. If they wanted the whole thing? Tough shit, out of luck.

Some aren't going to care, as they may not care about the story in the first place, but we should never change the story for their sake.

The second, and bigger concern, is that time is finite - time spent on this before every expansion (along with additional concerns, like what if the overall story experience, even trimmed down, has become too long? Do they then go back and trim again?) is time not spent on future content.

Ideally, streamlining the process of getting to level cap and playing content with friends should be streamlined as the game moves forward - ungating having access to the content from story step completion is one way of solving this - a new player can use the systems available to them to level quickly and start doing end-game dungeons and raids with their friends while choosing to go through the story at their own place, perhaps with "check points" you can skip to when you've reached the appropriately level (with a warning that the story skip is permanent). Once implemented, such a system takes less time to keep updated than having to potentially rewrite (can't just cut stuff out after all) and retest and (in a worst case scenario) get new voice work done.

That the other option, jump potions, is currently on the table is unfortunate, though I can see how both a system of profit and a measure of control over skipping past things (more for the boosting of jobs rather than the story skip I'd imagine) is attractive to a company.

That being said, Yoshi-P did say that if there was enough feedback against the implementation of jump potions they would not do it in this region, so there's always a possibility a more elegant and *free* solution will be devised for the NA/EU/JP regions.

[Queen of Hamsters]

it was the mode people enjoyed the hardest content most on and made it easy for semi-hardcore players to raid casually..

I'll take Mythic being as tightly tuned as it is any day over catering to people labeling themselves as "semi-hardcore casual raiders" and caring more about raid team sizes than the actual content...

And for all your shitting on WoW to make yourself feel better about playing a different game, I can let you know that Blizzard DID abandon the WoD attitude towards LFR-players. They went back to the idea of LFR having the same appearance on gear as the other difficulties, just recolored.

As for the rest, your opinions so not much to be said. It's a good thing that there are different MMORPG's on the market to please a wide range of players.

[Deleted]

Why not just have the entire storyline there, in the game, but not be mandatory to do the next expansion? You ding 50. Heavensward opens, you can go back later and see how you get there, alternatively you can do the route to not skip. Problem isnt removing content, nobody ever mentioned delete content. Problem is a long ass time of doing stuff friends of many players don't care about.

Just the way they force you to do it, just make it optional, not mandatory. Leveling experience is there, and should be there imo... But doing EVERY SINGLE MENIAL TASK and lets face it, most of them are literally go a b c a b c a b c ok done. Do you actually read all that text? I do rarely, but a new content patch for me is spam numpad 0 or escape skip cutscene, unlock new boss. Not everyone should do this, but those that want to, should be able to. I still don't know what happened with that entire betrayal why we were forced to Ishgard, I don't care. We went there, we did shit, we went home.

I have this option, why can't others have the option, who dont care about the why's, just skip to get to where they want to be?

I understand the whole storydriven action everyone is pumping, but those people don't seem to understand that some simply don't care. You're alienating these players, more players in FF XIV makes us all winners, do you seriously care if that retard wiping you 24/7 in your pug did, or did not read all the story? I certainly don't give a shit

[Queen of Hamsters]

Problem is a long ass time of doing stuff friends of many players don't care about.

I always thought that FF is something one plays if one cares for the story, isn't every single new piece of content focused on the story as well? I don't think I know a single person playing FFXIV whom does not care about the storylines or felt discouraged from picking it up due to it being focused heavily on said storyline...

[Aruhen]

Not to be an ass but I really don't get this obsession people have that they feel that a game has to change to fit their particular needs. There's many many other games out there that might fit you better. I play FFXIV because of how its structured. I love how everything has a story related to it and its mandatory so when I get into a dungeon on day one of a patch we're all usually excited to see how the story progresses.


Having said that I'm not completely against the trimming of some of the 2.0 quests. I do think there's some fluff there that isn't entirely needed.

[Berethos08]

But doing EVERY SINGLE MENIAL TASK and lets face it, most of them are literally go a b c a b c a b c ok done. Do you actually read all that text?

Twice - I realized I missed a ton of the optional things NPCs that aren't the quest giver/receiver say, and went back through it (current patch was 3.1 at the time) to see what they had to say.

Which is why I pretty much suggested what you just did - I want the story content in the game to be left untouched, but a means for new players to skip sections (the way you might skip a season of a TV show if you heard the first one was maybe a bit rough and just to skip to X episode or Season 2 - could even do this on a patch by patch basis, and let a new player skip straight to 2.4 if they want for example) while having access to the gameplay portion of the content.

- - - Updated - - -

Having said that I'm not completely against the trimming of some of the 2.0 quests. I do think there's some fluff there that isn't entirely needed.

Why would you want to deprive a future player of experiencing the story content as it was originally intended, if that is what they want to experience?

[Toppy]

I just dont get the need to skip the MSQ. Its not that long and you level during the whole process.

[Senistian]

FFXIV isn't like other mmos honestly. You can't just "skip" part of the story and still have a reason to play. Unlike other mmo's xiv isn't really all about the "end game"

[Kyriani]

If you're the type of player that "doesn't care about the story" you shouldn't be playing FFXIV imo. The story IS the game. Skipping it is basically paying to not play.

FFXIV is not a "starts at max level" game. It starts at level 1 and continues on from there. Even if you have friends at higher levels they can still do stuff with you. Fates, Dungeons, Guildhests, many Leves, can all be done regardless of level disparity or perhaps your higher level friend has low level classes they haven't leveled yet. While I do think there's room for some editing of the 100 quests between the end of ARR and the beginning of Heavensward, I don't like the idea of people just skipping it. FFXIV just isn't the kind of game where that sort of thing should allowed. The story IS the game.

[Aruhen]

Why would you want to deprive a future player of experiencing the story content as it was originally intended, if that is what they want to experience?

Maybe removal is not the best option but there there are parts of 2.0-2.5 that while they do add to the story aren't really needed and add bloat. One of the ideas I've had is that maybe they can add a new type of MSQ called MSQ side quest or something. It would basically take those more menial quests of the story and add them as optional MSQ story quests that you could do if you wanted to know more about the world.

FFXIV is not a "starts at max level" game. It starts at level 1 and continues on from there. Even if you have friends at higher levels they can still do stuff with you. Fates, Dungeons, Guildhests, many Leves, can all be done regardless of level disparity or perhaps your higher level friend has low level classes they haven't leveled yet. While I do think there's room for some editing of the 100 quests between the end of ARR and the beginning of Heavensward, I don't like the idea of people just skipping it. FFXIV just isn't the kind of game where that sort of thing should allowed. The story IS the game.

It would be cool if you could invite a friend to help you with the scenarios. That's one of the few parts were you cant play with someone else.

[Gandrake]

Well its not like the MSQ content takes all that long. And while you're doing that you're still getting EXP and leveling. It evens out well that if you follow the MSQ you'll hit level 60 right around when the level 60 quests start.

and then after you hit 60 you still will have to do all the post heavensward quests to get into stormblood the same way you have to do 2 hours of leviathan shit to get to heavensward

I'll take Mythic being as tightly tuned as it is any day over catering to people labeling themselves as "semi-hardcore casual raiders" and caring more about raid team sizes than the actual content...

well congratulations on being like 1% of the playerbase lol

mythic is garbage and the worst thing about me saying that is that it has nothing to do with the actual content. it is completely not worth the amount of time it takes to raid at a mythic level. you have to love world of warcraft to play it anymore.

If you're the type of player that "doesn't care about the story" you shouldn't be playing FFXIV imo. The story IS the game. Skipping it is basically paying to not play.

then why were we not made to clear all the coils of bahamut to continue on to heavensward? no one is going to know what the hell alisae is talking about when she says something about braving the coils.

[Deleted]

All the challenging content starts at max level. All the hardmode/extreme primals of their respective expansions start at max level. Vast majority of the gear is max level. All hunts started at max level of respective expansion. Savage raiding starts at max level. 24man raids start at max level of their respective expansion. Materias are the best at max level. Weekly tome cap is at the max level....

Do I have to go on? You can tell yourself the game starts at level 1 from now until infinity, but the facts are the facts. The game is designed around playing the endgame, there is no new game+ to re-do the story once you've completed it.

I understand what you're saying, but this is an MMO, that means end game is where the game "really begins". FF franchise is renowned for its amazing stories, and that is no different in XIV, however, forcing that story on people who just want to play the MMO is one thing that costs some players. You all being able to say "well fuck them then, they shouldnt play" is not helping in any way, all you're doing is hoping there are no new players coming to XIV unless they love the story? More people playing = better for everyone. If you re-watch all the cutscenes every single day, that's your choice, but hoping theres actually less people playing makes no sense.

Please dont come with the argument that you learn to play your class during the stories, so skipping them would "give worse end level players". I fully agree that starting a char at boom 60 is a bad thing. I do however think that SKIPPING content that is IRRELEVANT factually should be an option would you so desire as a new person.

Either way, I'm done with the topic. I'm just sad to see people are flat out telling some players its better they dont play the game cos they dont enjoy the story. Fuck the story, the game is still good. If the gameplay is shit, nobody cares about the story. See how interesting that is? FFXIV 1.0 had the same story, yet the game was a steaming pile of dog shit, why aren't you all defending it and wanting 1.0 back?

[Anzaman]

Then why were we not made to clear all the coils of Bahamut to continue on to Heavensward? no one is going to know what the hell Alisae is talking about when she says something about braving the coils.

There still was some MSQ changes based on your progress in there.

My FC had plenty of people interested in going back to Coils just to unlock those bits of change.