IS this the MMO to be played right now?

[Kyriani]

Cool community. So much for the super nice community, unless of course you fit into the clique yeah?

Was I being mean? No I do not believe I was. I was stating an opinion and that opinion was "If you don't care about the story, you shouldn't be playing FFXIV". That's not being mean, that's the same as me telling someone "If you don't like strawberries you shouldn't drink a strawberry smoothie".

My comment has nothing to do with not being nice or cliques and has everything to do with my opinion that, as a heavy story focused game, someone who doesn't care about the story will probably not find FFXIV a good fit for them, and asking to let those people skip... 90% of the game... just to get them to max level is a mistake. That's not being mean or clique-ish, I am merely stating an opinion based on the fact that FFXIV is a HEAVILY story-centric game. You're free to disagree with that opinion but don't try and disparage the community as a whole because you don't agree with my opinion.

Friends cannot do the MSQ with you. FATEs are not content. Leves are not content. That leaves dungeons and guildhests. Humor me Kyriani, how long does your average guildhest take? 40s? 1 minute? In what world is that fun for a max level player helping a friend? he could have done it solo with 0 change in his enjoyment.

I'll give you dungeons. That said, doing low level dungeons offers nothing of reward or enjoyment for said max level and is likely not fun, other than being with their friend.

You're correct friends can't do the msq with you... but they can join you in dungeons and trials when the msq sends you to them. That's exactly what I did with two friends new to ffxiv recently. I consider Fates and Leves content, you don't. That's a matter of opinion and we'll just have to disagree there. One of my lower lvl friends joined me doing fates when I was gathering Atmas for one of the old ARR relic weapons. We had fun, he got some xp, I got my atmas, and we both got some GC seals. I consider that content.

Guildhests are quick sure. But it is an activity that can be engaged in with friends regardless of level. If playing with your friends (whatever the content) isn't fun for you... then I don't know what to say. If you're saying you personally don't find guildhests or low level dungeons fun, well that's again a matter of opinion. Me and my friends had fun running guildhests, dungeons, and trials together. I find running them both fun and rewarding. At the very least I am getting GC seals which I find quite useful. In the best cases we're running the leveling roulette together and I am either getting tomestones if I am on one of my lvl 60 jobs or I am getting xp on a job I haven't maxed yet. Either way I am rewarded for playing with my friends.

The game very clearly starts at level 1. The end game clearly starts at level 60. Those are both undeniable facts. This will change with SB release. Endgame will then be 70.

I can't argue with this. I can only say that, in my opinion, "endgame" isn't the only part of the game that matters. I personally feel that FFXIV is as good as it is because of the heavy focus on the story and because those who play the game are required to go through it.

Now with that out of the way, i'd like to try and get back to square 1 since I think people have gotten off track.

As players, what do we think FF14 can do better? What type of content? What type of improvements? What techniques can we utilize to get new players into the game?

Anyone who thinks this game is perfect, or can't be improved upon would be very mistaken.

I do agree there is room for improvement... I just think that some people's ideas of "improvements" would be anything but, and instead hurt the game overall.

Personally I'd like to see more big story content that isn't tied to the MSQ. Stuff like the Hildebrand series but... less silly. I'd also like to see the ffxiv devs figure out how to change the glamour system without breaking everything so we can have a proper glamour log instead of having to tie up inventory with glamour items.

As for Stormblood, I have high hopes that the combat revamp makes the dps class rotations require less finger gymnastics to perform adequately with. I just don't have the physical dexterity to handle all the frequent different button presses, nor the mental acumen to keep track of multiple buff timers, dot timers, and procs.

Since Yoshi-P himself stated that "During 3.x, the action rotation for high DPS became very complex. We saw a large gap form regarding DPS from skilled and technical players and more casual players and so we wanted to bring up the bottom.", the devs do seem to be aware of the issue and will hopefully take adequate measures to address it without totally dumbing down the gameplay. I am particularly hopeful that RDM will not be overly difficult to play at a basic level so I can finally enjoy playing a dps job.

[G3istly]

You are right about the light bulb thing, you messed up the who though.

Derp Derp Derp.

So a vague statement at the beginning of my post makes my post about the game and not the community? No, I definitely didn't mess up on the who, but I did underestimate how dim said bulb is.

[Ravex]

So a vague statement at the beginning of my post makes my post about the game and not the community? No, I definitely didn't mess up on the who, but I did underestimate how dim said bulb is.

Yet nothing about my post had anything to do with the game itself. You're not a very bright bulb, are you?

Definitely not. Even if you ignore everything wrong with the game itself, the fact that it has the most overly sensitive "carebear" community I have ever come across makes it unbearable to play. I know World of Warcraft has a toxic, self-absorbed community so it's not exactly "better" but I'll take that over people reporting you for looking at them wrong. I couldn't help but laugh when I heard they didn't allow meters because they didn't want people to bully bad players.

I'm just gonna post that again, you know about how you said you did nothing of the sort but your post begun with the thing you said you did not do.

Followed with you trying to insult the intelligence of someone else.

I wouldn't repeat myself like this usually but it seems that point ended up flying way high up there.

[Resiak]

Outside of Mythic raiding, I didn't find anything about Legion all that impressive for fight designs. I've been more pleased with boss mechanics in dungeons, 24 mans, and what I saw of Bahamut's Coil more than any raiding I did in WoW through the years (exceptions being Vashj, Kael, and Lich King). But again, I wasn't doing Heroic/Mythic raid content.

FFXIV seems to be far superior to WoW for mid-level skill raid design to me. I wouldn't mind EX dungeons being tuned up a little more. They seemed a little harsher when first released in 2.x than they were in 3.x series.

I don't feel like FF's fights are all that intricate. Alex and Coil had some interesting mechanics. But fights like Ilgonoth, nightmare dragons, cenarius, xavius and managing your corruption, chronomatic anomoly and the all the time mechanics, elisandes time mechanics. They might not be difficult, but theya re interesting designs that FF lacks. The majority of ffs fights come down to staying away from the red circle/square/cone, kill adds, break or tag a tether, get away from the pulsing area. I'm not saying FF is bad at fight design, i just wish they went outside the box more.

[G3istly]

I'm just gonna post that again, you know about how you said you did nothing of the sort but your post begun with the thing you said you did not do.

Followed with you trying to insult the intelligence of someone else.

I wouldn't repeat myself like this usually but it seems that point ended up flying way high up there.

Once again, a vague statement that does not outline anything specifically wrong with the game most definitely qualifies as "nothing". However, if that's how you choose to spend your time on this site then you've only proven my remarks about your lack of intelligence to be true.

[Resiak]

I'm not an advocate for skipping the story, nor am I a fan of the "jump potion" idea. I do wonder what can be done to address situations where I have friends who would want to join the game and do stuff along with me, but they basically have to play a mostly single player storyline for dozens, if not hundreds of hours, just to get to the majority of the multiplayer content. It'll only continue to get worse, given the game's current design, as more and more expansions are released.

GW2 has a neat take on it. You can pretty much ignore the story outright and still level to cap and do all the dungeons and stuff, all without touching the story (I have at least 1 character with 100% map completion that's also still on their very first story quest/episode). Such a model wouldn't work in this game, though.

There is one alternative i thought about. Open up HW zones, and soon SB zones to 50s, and 60s respectively. Open up side quests, including the quests to unlock coil, alex, crystal tower, zoid ark and any of the side dungeons such as the hc dungeons in HW to anyone with the level and ilevel. But there is a penalty for skipping the main story. Any feature, dungeon, or trial tied to the main quest, is still locked until you play through the main story to unlock it. Including the roulettes needing those zones. This keeps the story intact, and important, but allows people to level up and play with their friends, and do the story at their own pace on the side.

[Ravex]

Once again, a vague statement that does not outline anything specifically wrong with the game most definitely qualifies as "nothing". However, if that's how you choose to spend your time on this site then you've only proven my remarks about your lack of intelligence to be true.

noth·ing
ˈnəTHiNG/Submit
pronoun
1.
not anything; no single thing.
"I said nothing"
synonyms: not a thing, not anything, nil, zero, naught/nought; More
adjectiveinformal
1.
having no prospect of progress; of no value.
"he had a series of nothing jobs"
adverb
1.
not at all.
"she cares nothing for others"

Funny, that doesn't seem to include "a vague statement that does not outline anything specific"

Spend my time? As opposed to what? A poster coming into a games forum and shit talking the game and its community.

You are right I have proven you right in every possible way.

Jesus man.

[G3istly]

Funny, that doesn't seem to include "a vague statement that does not outline anything specific"

Spend my time? As opposed to what? A poster coming into a games forum and shit talking the game and its community.

You are right I have proven you right in every possible way.

Jesus man.

Saying a game has flaws is not "shit talking the game" you overly sensitive baby and as for the community? You've actually gone out of your way to prove me right. You, of course, refuse to acknowledge this because either you're too stubborn/egotistical or too stupid. You can pick which one you prefer but either way, neither shines a positive light on you. And yes, there is nothing in there about the game itself other than stating that it has flaws.

[Deleted]

Absolutely disgusting art style

[Ravex]

Saying a game has flaws is not "shit talking the game" you overly sensitive baby and as for the community? You've actually gone out of your way to prove me right. You, of course, refuse to acknowledge this because either you're too stubborn/egotistical or too stupid. You can pick which one you prefer but either way, neither shines a positive light on you. And yes, there is nothing in there about the game itself other than stating that it has flaws.

Again, and again.

You don't know what that word means. Sure is a lot of crying coming from the guy calling me a baby though.

I'm loving your post history though, nothing but insulting other people and crying about video games you play. Kind of like what you are doing here. Then again you don't do that right?

Feel free to look at mine, it's mostly back and forth with people like you.

[G3istly]

Again, and again.

You don't know what that word means. Sure is a lot of crying coming from the guy calling me a baby though.

I do, but apparently you think cherry-picking parts of my post validates your argument. Funny, because between the two of us, you're the only one crying about me being a "meanie" toward the game/community.

[Ravex]

I do, but apparently you think cherry-picking parts of my post validates your argument. Funny, because between the two of us, you're the only one crying about me being a "meanie" toward the game/community.

Nah, I could give a shit what you think about the game and community.

I just think your an idiot for doing it here and your grasp on basic English words.

I'm done polluting this thread with pointless back and forth talking with a wall though.

Feel free to post 1 more time to "win" the internet war though.

[G3istly]

Nah, I could give a shit what you think about the game and community.

Yet you've been responding to me non-stop--actions speak louder than words.

I just think your an idiot for doing it here and your grasp on basic English words.

The irony here is more delicious than a four course meal at a five star restaurant.

I'm done polluting this thread with pointless back and forth talking with a wall though.

Feel free to post 1 more time to "win" the internet war though.

You could've done that to begin with by just messaging me. Sorry, but you're not the "bigger man" you think you are.

[Faroth]

Watch the personal attacks, folks. This is going in the wrong direction to be a constructive discussion.

[Wrecktangle]

The problem is that some of us look at as sacrificing quality for quantity. The MSQ works as a bit of a filter. Do we really want players that can't be bothered to take two or three weeks to play the game, and need to be max level right away? Those type of players tend to be the power gamer types that want to rush everything, talk down to less skilled players, and act like assholes. Yes, there some of those still currently in the game, but I'd rather not make it easier for those types to get into our community.

Two or three weeks to get from 1 - 60 end game? LOL Maybe if you skip all cutscenes and play 3-4 hours a night. That's a hardcore player, likely one who would be one of these power gamers.

It took me and 2 IRL friends a month of casual playing to just get to ARR 50. That's not counting anything after that. Technically speaking wouldn't these types of players be the best ones? The ones who watched cutscenes, read quest dialogue etc. A lot of players like this just can't stomach all that at once. I'm fine with it, but then again some of my favorite RPG's are text heavy games, but I also understand the frustration that a new player experiences.

How can you say that your community is so good and inclusive, if your main goal is to restrict new players coming in for fear that they may be these ultra super scary bad guys known as power gamers.

What exactly is a "power gamer"? Mind defining that for me?

One of the biggest things people talk about when it comes to FF 14 is the community. Theres bad eggs, but overall, its much better then wows. And i believe a big reason for that is the MSQ requirement. I love the entire final fantasy franchise. But if the community started trending more towards the wow player base, I would move on. And a lot of others probably would too. Is that worth it to SE?

My experiences in WoW were all very pleasant. Why were yours so bad? Mind citing some examples?

I don't consider a player that is lacking in skill a bad egg. They need some guidance. But they arn't bringing down the community, unless they also act like an asshole. My post was more about the MSG filtering out the instant gratification crowd. People that can't be bothered to go through the leveling process, because they need to get right to end game and get that phat lewt. If the MSQ is able to filter out a portion of this crowd, then more power to it. I personally don't see the point in playing ff 14 without going through the story. Every thing in this game is tied to the story.

You don't think a player doing 1/3 a tanks DPS is a bad egg? What if you offered him advice and he raged at you and threatened to report you? That attitude is more toxic than anything I've seen in WoW, and it's barely an uncommon occurrence in DF.

What about the guy who tells me I should be doing X instead of Y with my Job, despite me parsing in the 95% on FFlogs? Like this guy doesn't even have a level 60 DRG and he's telling me I should be using ring of thorns instead of doomspike. I casually explain to him why I used Doomspike and he calls me an elitist fag. That happened once. Or how about the time this one healer downright raged and quit because I stood in 2 AOEs. I have Life Surge, Bloodbath, and Second Wind. I'm fine. I don't need your heals. I didn't even get to respond before he started raging and calling me bad. Despite him doing 0 DPS as a healer in a dungeon, and me doing more than the tank and other DPS combined. That happened once too. I never even dropped below 50% HP, so I don't even know why he's mad?

I can count on 1 hand how many times someone in WoW tried to tell me what to do. 0. You know why? Because they can look and see I'm #1 by 20% and go ok he knows what he is doing.

And as a stand alone mmo, if you take out the story, and the connection to the ff series as a whole, there are a lot of games that do raiding and dungeon running much better. I love this game, but I also recognize that when it comes to fight design, wow blows it away. Theres just so much more about wow that turns me off now.

I actually find a lot of FF14 fight designs to be more engaging than WoWs. Some of my favorite experiences were day 1 EX's back in ARR. Blew my mind how much fun they were and how engaging they were. Haven't seen fights get my blood pumping like that in a long time.

FFXIV seems to be far superior to WoW for mid-level skill raid design to me. I wouldn't mind EX dungeons being tuned up a little more. They seemed a little harsher when first released in 2.x than they were in 3.x series.

I echo this statement entirely. I did find a lot of enjoyment in Legion too, but that was mostly a by product of very high tyrannical keys making things not easy to deal with and required us getting very creative to survive. Much fun!

[Gandrake]

What a shocker, you have to enjoy World of Warcraft

nah you dont have to enjoy wow

you have to love it

like some real serious relationship type shit. it's completely ridiculous.

Mythic raiding is more than worth it. The people whining about it taking too much time are creating mountains out of mole hills, it's more than possible to be a casual player and still see Mythic bosses go down.

you've clearly never had to be an officer in a mythic raiding guild. it's like taking on another job that you aren't being paid to do. you should really go and thank your officer core for it because it's totally not worth doing and they are doing it anyway.

when we were recruiting for mythic in WoD was more stressed out playing a fucking video game, something i am supposed to enjoy, than i would ever get at work. compared to "playing" wow, and by "playing wow" i mean "sitting in trade spamming recruitment 2 hours a day after working 12 hours when i just want to run some old raids and getting shit all for it. oh hey look now it's raid time and it's time to go to bed after that" going to work was fucking relieving.

all that bullshit

just to kill some fucking dragons lol. it makes me scoff now whenever people take pride in their PvE achievements.

[Resiak]

Two or three weeks to get from 1 - 60 end game? LOL Maybe if you skip all cutscenes and play 3-4 hours a night. That's a hardcore player, likely one who would be one of these power gamers.

It took me and 2 IRL friends a month of casual playing to just get to ARR 50. That's not counting anything after that. Technically speaking wouldn't these types of players be the best ones? The ones who watched cutscenes, read quest dialogue etc. A lot of players like this just can't stomach all that at once. I'm fine with it, but then again some of my favorite RPG's are text heavy games, but I also understand the frustration that a new player experiences.

How can you say that your community is so good and inclusive, if your main goal is to restrict new players coming in for fear that they may be these ultra super scary bad guys known as power gamers.

What exactly is a "power gamer"? Mind defining that for me?

Using a recent friend we converted as example, he got to 60 in about 3 weeks, maybe 4. A bit optimistic. 4 to 5 weeks? How fast should someone be able to catch 4 years of content in? And frankly i'm not saying it's all inclusive. In fact I would say there other mmos willing to lower the bar for the speed run players. I prefer when developers stick to their vision. They want people to experience their story. They put a lot of time and work into those cut scenes and story lines, I would be pissed to if people just skipped everything.

And my idea of the power gamers are the "gogogo" types. The ones that will throw a fit if you stop and watch a cut scene. The ones that harass someone learning to tank because their not pulling fast enough. Or a new healer because their not able to keep up with huge pulls. Or the ones that harass a dps because their doing 50 less dps but everything is dying and the dungeon is moving fine, maybe a couple minutes slower then usual. If these people are filtered out because they can't be bothered to play through a story line, then hey, theres a win for our community.

My experiences in WoW were all very pleasant. Why were yours so bad? Mind citing some examples?

I personally cant think of being treated bad. But I was a good player. My only complaint is spending hours in the group finder trying to get mythic dungeon groups and getting passed over because I played a warlock.

But join any lfr run. Watch how many people get harassed because their dps isnt the greatest even though lfr is a push over. Or a tank/healer makes a mistake in a dungeon and a wipe happens. If you play to the best of your ideas, make no mistakes you will have a good time. Make one mistake though?

You don't think a player doing 1/3 a tanks DPS is a bad egg? What if you offered him advice and he raged at you and threatened to report you? That attitude is more toxic than anything I've seen in WoW, and it's barely an uncommon occurrence in DF.

What about the guy who tells me I should be doing X instead of Y with my Job, despite me parsing in the 95% on FFlogs? Like this guy doesn't even have a level 60 DRG and he's telling me I should be using ring of thorns instead of doomspike. I casually explain to him why I used Doomspike and he calls me an elitist fag. That happened once. Or how about the time this one healer downright raged and quit because I stood in 2 AOEs. I have Life Surge, Bloodbath, and Second Wind. I'm fine. I don't need your heals. I didn't even get to respond before he started raging and calling me bad. Despite him doing 0 DPS as a healer in a dungeon, and me doing more than the tank and other DPS combined. That happened once too. I never even dropped below 50% HP, so I don't even know why he's mad?

I can count on 1 hand how many times someone in WoW tried to tell me what to do. 0. You know why? Because they can look and see I'm #1 by 20% and go ok he knows what he is doing.

A player doing bad dps alone? No, not a bad egg. An unskilled player yes, but not a bad egg. Now, once that player refuses your help, and rages out, he is now a bad egg. He's a weak link to the community and i no longer want to have anything to do with them. But I don't judge a player just because they do bad dps, or have issues tanking or healing, if they have a good attitude and can be helped.

Your confusing unskilled players with bad attitude. I'll take a bard doing half the dps of the tank, but willing to accept advice and grow as a player any day over someone thats melting bosses, but berating the group the whole time any day.

I actually find a lot of FF14 fight designs to be more engaging than WoWs. Some of my favorite experiences were day 1 EX's back in ARR. Blew my mind how much fun they were and how engaging they were. Haven't seen fights get my blood pumping like that in a long time.

I'm not sure if i'm making me case good here. There are some good fights in FF. And some difficult ones. I'm really not knocking FF here as I do love the game. I'm thinking more of some of the ideas wow uses. Time manipulation stuff. More environmental mechanics, sanity meters. I'm not saying rip these ideas off either, I just wish FF would reach a little out of the box and really push it's limits. Break away from some of the standard formulas.

[Deleted]

I agree Wrecktangle, I currently only play WoW for its M+ but even that is starting to get stale, it's just not that much fun. Its still weekly chore of raids, mythic key and you're done for the week. I somehow still enjoy FFXIV more from the sheer amount of content it launches with, and somehow doing stuff feels better/more fun, even though its a lot more clunky in FF14. I won't lie, Im a simple man and the Warrior animations are fucking phenomenal. That's right, used a fucking for effect. I also love Summoners even though I suck ass on it in raids, I do fine in dungeons.

I feel the dungeons overall feel "better" in FF14, where as in WoW they have more depth... I'm not sure if that makes any sense. Mechanically wow is light years ahead, but the environments and such feel better in FF14. Even though Neverreap was ASS, I can't say I wasn't in absolute love with the scenery, and to me that is very important.

Atherochemical Lab? One of the best dungeons in games I've seen. Its so well done on the interior, lots of attention to detail, and I dont remember the other one that was with Neverreap, Fractal something? Also a fascinating dungeon. I just feel when they start re-using them to make hard mode versions of them, is that they sort of make the dungeons bad.

[Kyriani]

I just feel when they start re-using them to make hard mode versions of them, is that they sort of make the dungeons bad.

See I find how FFXIV handles Hard Mode dungeons far superior to wow's heroic mode. Consider WoW's heroics, they are the same exact dungeon, with the same exact scenery and the same exact bosses with the rare occasion of a bonus boss. In FFXIV however, the dungeon layout changes, the bosses are different, and there's an actual story reason why you are going back and some sense of why things inside are now different. To me, the FFXIV way of reusing their assets is far superior to WoW's.

[dope_danny]

See I find how FFXIV handles Hard Mode dungeons far superior to wow's heroic mode. Consider WoW's heroics, they are the same exact dungeon, with the same exact scenery and the same exact bosses with the rare occasion of a bonus boss. In FFXIV however, the dungeon layout changes, the bosses are different, and there's an actual story reason why you are going back and some sense of why things inside are now different. To me, the FFXIV way of reusing their assets is far superior to WoW's.

Opinions are opinions but this is one thing i absolutely cannot imagine anyone having a problem with. One of the neat things about WoW's redone Scarlet Monastery was actually seeing your actions from earlier influence the Scarlet Crusade now and change something you ran as a wee babby character for years. I remember getting Copperbell HM and thinking "well heres the hp/damage increase to something i've run already....yay" then you zone in and see different music and see its not the same dungeon at all. Its the sequel.
Its not always perfect and i'm sure its also to save on designing entirely new dungeons to save recourses but making the hard mode of an existing dungeon a continuation of its story at a chronological later date is something WoW really needs to steal from FFXIV.