A decent MMO plagued by some serious problems that make it unplayable in the long run

[Azerate]

So much of this is so subjective

Almost everything in the world is at least a tiny bit subjective

2. You begin this point by saying you don't care about the story, and this game is so heavily focused on the story aspect of it that it seems counter productive to play the game if you are just going to ignore the main quality of it. And tell me what mmorpg exists where leveling alts isn't boring???

World of warcraft for example. Especially now after the scaling of low level zones, but even before then, you can take your alt through so many different zones each time, and you can actually do the quests again. There's great replayability here. And you have dungeons, bgs and all that on top of that world content. In FF14 you have those fates and levequests apart from dungeons and that's it.

3. I can only speak for myself, but I haven't experienced long ques for pretty much anything in over a year, even as dps. Tank ques are <5min, healer ques are instant half the time, and dps ques are 15min at worst from my experiences so far in shadowbringers. Hell the que even tells you what position you are in it real time so you can plan your AFKs, bathroom breaks, eating without worry of your que popping randomly and you missing it.

Maybe that's because I haven't gotten to the actual endgame stuff yet, dunno. For me Q times were around 30-50 min for most of the stuff I qed for. Those were usually during peak hours too. Edit: I am EU based so maybe that's where the difference comes from.

Honestly, if we are talking about gripes with FF14 then I would have to say my main complaint for the game is the slight input lag it has when controlling and moving your character. It's very minute, but after playing WoW for a couple hours and swapping over to FF14 oh man is it noticeable and jarring.

Yep. As teenagers these days say "big true". FF14 players usually retort with the amount of skill you have and the amount of skill off gcd you have, but it's not about that at all. The combat system won't get more fluid just because you have an overload of things to click and lots of ogcd skills.

I did not make it beyond level 35, and I have tried. Boring quests, even in the main questline, and slow, boring combat. Every class felt the same and the long GCD was awful. I would still love to play again, because the game looks good in terms of the world and the art direction, but I can't bring myself to. Some of the classes had a cool fantasy behind it, but were still boring to play, and felt the same as any other.

Funnily enough, I actually liked the quests and the low level portion of the game better than the latter part. Maybe it's because there was no rotation bloat yet, or maybe because there's more simple quests that I enjoy in an mmo, dunno. If level 50 was the cap, then I would maybe enjoy that state of the game more.

Guy plays FF14 and skips every cutscene. Ok this guys opinion isn't valid. Stopped reading.

I just don't play games for the story in general. And especially not MMO games. As I said though, I did not dislike leveling through MSQ so that is kind of beside the point. The game may be "story heavy" but you are able to skip all of that (aside from those awful level 50 msq dungeons) so that's not a factor that made me dislike the game at all.

The combat is not awefull, its slow in the start but every MMO is as well, on max level the actions per second is actually one of the higest of any MMO (this is not an opinion its a fact, OGCDs skills are a thing), specially if you are a Machinist.

So this is basically the default defense of the clunkiness in the combat system FF14 players provide. The number of skills doesn't make the combat more fluid man. It's how the system works which is the issue: weird delays where they shouldn't be which make the combat feel unresponsive.

OP's entire post reeks of a foregone conclusion that someone is grasping at straws to fill, when the reality is that they played a game they didn't like and have to believe that means the game itself is the problem.

I played a game for 3 weeks, got bored and annoyed, quit, and these are my thoughts. No, I don't start playing games in hopes I will dislike them, that's just your fanboy brain making excuses for me making valid points about what doesn't really work in that game. I also didn't really dislike it, I had some fun and it lasted for longer than with most single player games. It's just I don't have time to play multiple MMOs, so I won't play "the one I like 3rd most".

Their combat, while a tad slow, by far has the highest skill cap ceiling of any MMO I've played. Without question. You have to play perfectly to clear Savage content. And to be fair, if you dislike their combat system because of the 2.5second GCD, that can be a fair argument. But to call it bad, just means you weren't good at it.

Their alt system is the best ever imo. One character, can lvl EVERY CLASS. So never a need to make another toon. Ever. Every job/class on one toon? Sure.

Their professions are touted as some of the best of ANY Game available. Their jobs, and the jobs actually play a vital role in the market. Unlike again, most other crafters whos only purpose is to fulfil your own needs.

1. I never claimed to be an expert player, and in fact I am the first to admit I'm probably an average one. Yes, I think a rotation consisting of 25 skills is, among other flaws it has, simply too hard to master. Guess what though, being an average, or even a bad player, does not invalidate one's opinion on the game, because it's made for everyone, not just the highest skilled players.

2. Here's the thing: Does it even really matter? I don't really see the difference between switching your jobs on one character, and a system like in WoW, where you start new characters for a new class. The difference is...in wow you have to relog between characters, in ff14 you just change the weapon. I mean in some cases it might be a tiny advantage, but overall why would that matter?

The REAL difference however is your means to level those alt jobs/classes, and those are clearly inferior in ff14.

3. "are touted"...someone always touts something, and some other guy touts something else. Do you always enjoy things just because some people are saying you should?

[DakonBlackblade]

biggest problem for me is the content gets stale quicker and quicker the longer i play. there really is not much content in the game atm. most people that played on shb launch have unsubbed until something new comes out.

i will say that this has been the case for every x.0 patch so not surprised. might get better in 5.1

Thats not a problem, the game is designed that way. They give you a bunch of content you do it/exhaust it, unsub and go play something else until new content comes out. The game devs themselves say that's what they want ppl to do, they don't want to hog 100% of your life with their game, the game has 0 traps to keep you hooked forever like a drug addict to it. You wont find an endless Artefact Weapon grind with infinite World Quests that give no AP at all on FF XIV and thats by design.

@OP what wierd delays on the combat lol ? The combat is super fluid and class design actually makes sense (as in GCDs, OGCDs and your other skills are designed to line up properly and skills complement each other perfectly) and the jobs are all complex enought to keep anyone engaged but not too complex. Also you played up until lv 35 you had like 5 skills total, its like playing a class till lv 30 in WoW (or any other MMO) and complainning. The combat realy only shines on high levels, thats true for at least 90% of MMOs out there. You don't liek the game, great, ts not for you, but trying to convince ppl that one of the most praised MMOS on the amrket currently is bad and you are the only one who noticed it is insanity.

[threads]

Thats not a problem, the game is designed that way. They give you a bunch of content you do it/exhaust it, unsub and go play something else until new content comes out. The game devs themselves say that's what they want ppl to do, they don't want to hog 100% of your life with their game, the game has 0 traps to keep you hooked forever like a drug addict to it. You wont find an endless Artefact Weapon grind with infinite World Quests that give no AP at all on FF XIV and thats by design.

@OP what wierd delays on the combat lol ? The combat is super fluid and class design actually makes sense (as in GCDs, OGCDs and your other skills are designed to line up properly and skills complement each other perfectly) and the jobs are all complex enought to keep anyone engaged but not too complex. Also you played up until lv 35 you had like 5 skills total, its like playing a class till lv 30 in WoW (or any other MMO) and complainning. The combat realy only shines on high levels, thats true for at least 90% of MMOs out there. You don't liek the game, great, ts not for you, but trying to convince ppl that one of the most praised MMOS on the amrket currently is bad and you are the only one who noticed it is insanity.

its fine youre still in the fun phase of the game, but after you've played it for 6 years of the same content cycles it gets stale fast. and having content lulls every patch is not good design.

[VaiylSun]

Most praised MMOs on the market yet it can't retain more than 600k active Characters world wide. Simply because over half of the people playing only sub every half a year for the story and then quit.

OP said they got to lvl 75 not 35 reading is not your strength i guess.
The combat system is extremely slow and uneventful all jobs are currently designed in a similar way. Most rotations are not complex at all if you have basic understanding of MMOs and are a quick learner you can pick up any job and get 50percentile with relatively ease. I suppose Broil/Glare/Malefic spam is engaging gameplay. The fun part about 14 in terms of combat for me is to play around the clunky parts of it, server ticks are awful and funny at the same time, animation locks are also awful. Lots of Jobs in their current state have awful skills that are very rarely used if at all simply because the devs that you praise so much have no clue how to balance things or design "fun" job rotations. Pretty much every high end raiding player complains about this. Storm's Eye, Inner Chaos, Inner Release, Living Dead, Shoha, Anatman, Reprise are just a few examples of bad game design that could easily be fixed if they would let actual players test that shit. How long was warrior absolutely awful again in SB? Oh right just over half of the expansion until they bandaid fixed it.

By the looks of it you sound like an absolute fanboy of 14 and are just blindlessly defending it even though you know it has a lot of flaws. So many things simply can't be done for no reason like glamour changing on mounts, talking to npcs on mounts, not able to land everywhere with your flying mount, no Z axis in ARR zones, having to go through 5 menus to get to your retainers inventory, Market Board favorites wiped every patch, Marked Board favorites not working cross server and many more that i can gladly list for you that are wrong with your perfect game.

[TriHard]

I did not make it beyond level 35, and I have tried. Boring quests, even in the main questline, and slow, boring combat. Every class felt the same and the long GCD was awful. I would still love to play again, because the game looks good in terms of the world and the art direction, but I can't bring myself to. Some of the classes had a cool fantasy behind it, but were still boring to play, and felt the same as any other.

- - - Updated - - -



The story in FF14 is overrated, kupo.

Literally the biggest "what" I've ever given anyone, because its the best storytelling we've ever had in an MMO and the latest expansion even beat out some of the best single player games out there?
Dude, it's fine that you can't enjoy stories and you're only interested in pvp / pve, while you're entitled to your opinion, this time, you're wrong.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

1. The combat

...is awful. Much like Rift, Swtor and all the other usual suspects in the past, it just feels clunky. It's one of those things that are hard to put into words. It's just not as smooth and fluid as you'd like. It feels like there are unnecessary delays between you using a skill on your keyboard and the character actually executing the command.

The combat doesn't have the immediate responsiveness of WoW, but it is miles ahead of other tab target games, especially STO and SWTOR.

The other thing is that the rotations are extremely bloated as you advance your level. FF14 is a good example of what happens when you don't do the so called "ability pruning" that all the elitist players criticise so much in wow. At max level, or even slightly below the max level, your rotations include about 20-25 skills. And that is not including AOE skills, utility skills etc. It's just the single target rotation. I'm sure someone will argue that using 25 skills in a rotation is fun, but to me it's really not. It makes it hard to pick up a class because unless you're a gaming professor you will have a hard time learning it. It also makes it ridiculously hard to optimize your gameplay, let alone min-max, which is downright impossible. Using your actual rotation on anything outside of a dungeon boss? You wish. You'll just have to settle for using a couple random skills, using a fraction of your potential on those non-boss things.

Agreed, though there is one big caveat you are missing. The "button bloat" is quite deceptive. Indeed, there are far too many abilities in your spellbook to comfortable put on your bars, but you will never really use more than 2/3 to 3/4 of your total abilities. I use a controller setup and have five bars for my job actions (4 buttons per bar, so 20 abilities. My sixth and seventh bars are universal and contains my summon chocobo mount, summon Regalia mount, gyashl greens, return spell, limit break, and sprint), and that allows me to do pretty much everything I need to do. Take for instance, the Samurai job. How many times do you actually get a chance to use Meditation? Maybe once every dozen trials? Shoha requires meditation to use so you can throw that out too. Third Eye only provides a 10% damage reduction and is really only going to help if you are pushing savage, so you can drop that. You don't need Merciful Eyes either: if you're doing overworld content, you have your Chocobo to heal you, and if you're in instanced content either the MSQ NPC will heal you or your party members will. There is no reason to use Hagakure. Enpi is hardly used; if you're in range to use it, you're in range to simply dash to the target anyway. That's six abilities you don't need on your bar right there. I can fit everything else I do actually use on my bars and reach them quite comfortably, and that goes for pretty much all of my jobs.

Despite this, I will say that the buttons could indeed be simplified... which FFXIV already sorta did with PvP. In PvP, your rotation-combo is just one button. On Dragoon for example, rather than having three buttons to execute your combo of True Thrust -> Vorpal Thrust -> Full Thrust, you just have the one ability on your bar that cycles through each ability, so when you press it once it becomes Vorpal Thrust, press it a second time it becomes Full Thrust, and press a third time it becomes True Thrust again. GW2 also did this and it greatly simplified button bloat. I'm not sure why this isn't the default standard in FFXIV. Red Mage's button bloat could be cut down if Verthunder became Verfire when Verfire procced and Veraero became Verstone when Verstone procced. Same for the AoE rotation.

As far as the number of skills, combat below level 50 at best feels okay, afterwards it's just too much filler stuff in your rotation.

Combat below level 50 feels terrible, because you don't get the core mechanics that make your class fun until Heavensward, after nearly a dozen hours of playing that one job. DRG doesn't get their Dragon gauge until HW. WHM doesn't get their Lily gauge until HW. Samurai doesn't get their Sen gauge until HW. It's just really slow and boring until you hit HW, at which point you get your gauge and it becomes really fun. Really, the player should get the gauge way earlier on.

However, the real problem is the leveling of your alt jobs. Now some people will probably scratch their heads and start telling me how fast it is and all that...okay, I don't disagree, it may be fast, but fast does not equal entertaining or interesting. Quite the contrary, leveling alt jobs is pure pain in FF14. You use your main character for all of the jobs, and you can only do quests once per character, which means that you are pretty much left with the following methods for leveling up your alt jobs/classes:

-levequests (incredibly boring repetable quests, which are also capped hourly to make it even worse and stop you from doing them all the time)

Never, ever do levequests on a combat job. Only do them on gatherers and crafters.

-doing dungeons over and over (only really viable for tank and healer jobs)

You can get instant queues and solo dungeons as a DPS job with your AI squadron.

-a dungeon crawler mini game that you can do over and over for levels

A different flavor of dungeoning.

You missed another way to level up: FATEs. All you have to do is open up Party Finder and hop in FATE train. It's really fun to just go around with the group, obliterating everything in sight, and have a comfy time in the world.

I've never felt like leveling was a "chore" in FFXIV. That's because there is no rush to reach level cap to start "endgame". Endgame pretty much starts in ARR, when you unlock raids, alliance raids, roulettes, PvP, and beast tribe dailies. No matter what level my job is, I always feel like I'm accomplishing something. Even when I'm killing Ravana for the dozenth time, I still feel like I'm making progress because I'm leveling up and I got Hive totems, which I can use to acquire more stuff. Even when I'm doing Labyrinth of the Ancients for the hundredth time, I still feel like I'm making progress because I'm leveling up and I got tomestones, which I can turn in for job gear or mats. I'm not doing anything at level 80 that I wasn't already doing at level 50.

Otherwise, this is a MMO. Yes, it's a solo friendly MMO, but it is nonetheless a MMO. You are going to get far and away the most enjoyment out of this game if you play with other people. If you don't have friends, make them! Join a Free Company, or join a FFXIV Discord and join groups with the regulars, and get to know them.

3. Queues are ridiculous, even during the peak hours.

It's no surprise that playing DPS results in long queue times, but even trying to queue up for a trial from the current expansion, that is required for a MSQ quest can take up to an HOUR. The game is only playable if you have a friend who can tank/heal for you, otherwise you have to wait for like an hour, and your best bet is to just do something else (but that something else can't be playing an alt job, because the best way to level that up is doing dungeons, and you can't queue for another thing at the same time).

It's pretty funny, because while I never believed all the talk about FF14 killing WoW, all the voices make you think and consider the possibility that the game is pretty active. Again, reality turns out to be different than the forum rhetoric. If you have to wait up to 1 hour in queue as a dps for current obligatory MSQ content, that means barely anyone is playing it.

Hahaha...





I've had zero problems getting into MSQ required instances. When I queue as a DPS, I never had to wait more than half an hour, if that. Usually it's five minutes tops. When I play as a DPS, I get instant raid queues. In fact, I end up having to wait several minutes if I queue as a tank or healer. I only see long queue times if I'm queuing for niche content no one is doing like Bismarck Extreme, where I had to wait two hours. As a healer.

4. Professions are done horribly

So with this one I don't have much hands-on experience, because after researching how those things work in FF14 I decided not to even try. Profession skills such as mining, cooking etc. work as a separate class, so they lower your level to 1. It is an interesting concept, but also means you have to switch jobs whenever you want to partake in those activities (because you will get one shot by any mob otherwise).

No, you won't get one shot. Crafters have no business being out in the wilderness, and gatherers can't harvest materials out of their level range. A level 5 botanist won't get munched on by a level 40 mob in Coerthas because there is nothing the botanist can harvest there at that level, and thus no reason to be there as a botanist. Furthermore, gatherers are given the stealth ability early on.

To pile up onto that, you have mining rotations, which you have to use correctly, or you risk failing the mining activity (I mean really?).

Yes really! Because that is far more engaging gameplay than the tacked on, tediously boring menu crafting systems of WoW and its imitators. FFXIV has far and away the most entertaining crafting system I've seen in a MMORPG.

the horrid TRUST system (doing dungeons with NPCs which takes like 1 hour longer than a normal party)

You're not meant to play with the Trust system repeatedly. It's there for first timers if they don't want to queue with other players blind, or if they want to see some story tidbits.

It will just make you appreciate and enjoy the proper MMORPG more once you go back to it full time.

Have fun in BFA!

[Akasha64]

You are 100% incorrect about everything you said. You skipped all the cut-scenes and didn't experience the story. You didn't experience the professions. You pretty much came into this game with a WoW mindset and expected to enjoy it. Go back to the drawing board, kiddo.

[agentsi]

I don't think anyone that actually does the endgame content in more than one game would agree with this.



Probably my favorite thing about XIV, yes. Although leveling them all can be a bit of a slog, naturally.



As I said before, the market is really nice. It's super broad, you can make money in a ton of different ways. But the actual crafting design is nothing special. It just takes a lot longer to craft each item, that's all.

I've raided mythic in wow, and ffxiv savage at the same time. FFXIV was harder in every way you could think.

[Rexosaurus]

Well, this seems like a highly subjective thread. You'd probably get less blowback if you had just titled it "Reasons that I ended up disliking FFXIV", or something like that.

There's very little in here that suggests that the game is actually "plagued by serious problems". It sounds more like it just doesn't mesh with your personal wants/desires and you wanted to blog about it. That's totally fine, but when you try to state something subjective as a fact rather than as an opinion, it usually sticks in people's craw just a little bit.

[Irian]

Well, this seems like a highly subjective thread. You'd probably get less blowback if you had just titled it "Reasons that I ended up disliking FFXIV", or something like that.

There's very little in here that suggests that the game is actually "plagued by serious problems". It sounds more like it just doesn't mesh with your personal wants/desires and you wanted to blog about it. That's totally fine, but when you try to state something subjective as a fact rather than as an opinion, it usually sticks in people's craw just a little bit.

That's the only reason I even replied negatively to this thread tbh. I honestly agree that FFXIV has flaws but those are my gripes with the game, personally. These are OP's, as a WoW player, trying to get into the game and it shows. That's fine, and it's valid for him, but a lot of the things he considers "flaws" are a lot of the reasons I love the game and I'd probably leave it if this game went on to attempt to emulate WoW instead of being its own thing. He gave almost no facts at all and in fact a lot of the stuff he did state that wasn't just opinion pieces were factually wrong.

[Swnem]

1. The combat



2. Leveling and alts




3. Queues are ridiculous, even during the peak hours.


4. Professions are done horribly


In the end...it's just one of those games. It's fun for a while to take a break and play it. It will just make you appreciate and enjoy the proper MMORPG more once you go back to it full time.

This is a very interesting post and i'd like to share my take on it as a WoW player of more than a decade now playing FFXIV for the last 3 months. The tldr is: It is not a perfect game, but it does a lot of things right.

1. Combat
I know where this comes from but it is so different from person to person that it's really difficult for me to understand. Now, for sure WoW is very responsive, but i definitly cannot agree that SWTOR isn't. SWTOR feels almost as good as WoW in this regard, but this "feel" comes, i believe simply from how bouncy the WoW animations are and people get used to them.

With that said, i do agree. FFXIV's combat feels a bit unresponsive. This seems to be due to the long animation and how the game is built to check everything with the server rather than let the client do it's thing. I confess i don't know all the technical details, but it is true it does feel slower, but it does have off GCD abilities that break animations. So, i am really confused as to why they built it like that, but alright.

What i can tell you though, is that you do get used to it with time and i do find the rotations quite enjoyable.
I also think that the bloat issue you talk about would be easy to solve and what's mind boggling is that they already do it in pvp. Your basic combos just have to change into the next skill on the same button. The so called bloat is not because you have a lot of skills but cause the combos take up a lot of slots. Think of it like the GW2 auto-attacks that cycle several skills.
Also, i don't agree in general. I think the classes are quite boring still by level 50. It's only to the tail end of the 60s that they coalesce for me. It is quite meh before. But pulling off a flawless rotation with positionals and all feels great.

2. Leveling

I agree the leveling experience is odd for alt jobs. What annoys me the most is that they are making new game + to allow you to repeat the MSQ but are giving no rewards!! I find that completely dumb, and i saw how nasty the FF community can get when you dare to disagree with the devs. That is the worst of the FF community btw. They can't take criticism, even though it was that that saved the original game. Cause it motivated it's re-development. It boggles the mind.

Anyways, there is also a bit of rushing like in WoW syndrome here.
There is a system on your grand company called adventure squad. You level these NPC's up and can do dungeons with them much like the trust system, wich gives you instant queues for DPS jobs.
But, the most efficient way is through roulettes, yes. It puzzles me a bit why you think an mmo telling you to run instanced content daily is a bad thing.
Also, is this really different than WoW telling you to level AP daily or any other mmo that has a max level grinding system? Difference being you will eventually get to the goal here and it gives you a sense of accomplishment. In some games you get crates, or +10 stats. In FF you level other classes. I actually like this cause i hate infinite grinds.

This is where i point out my greatest realization playing FFXIV. We have been indoctrinated by WoW mostly on how we perceive leveling should be. FFXIV presents a different method. It is not as bad as you make it sound here. I do my roulettes daily and i have been leveling my jobs pretty easily. Again, it's another syndrome of WoW indoctrination to want everything to happen quickly, to rush through everything to get to end-game.
That is not the game that FFXIV is. This is a game that goes slowly and makes you apreciate the journey rather than just the destination. It greatly extends to the story. As WoW players, we skip all that text, it's boring! But underneath, it hides a deep narrative and character development.

Story is seen as one of the strong point of FFXIV and it really is. The game is not to be played like WoW rushing through, it's to be played like you would a JRPG on console. The main questlines tend to be 30-40 hour games. Literally like a JRPG. The mmo part comes on top of it.

3 Queue times

Have you tried queing for low level dungeons as DPS in WoW? It rakes a hell of a long time. It is not really a fair comparison but i will explain why it happens and it can be worse at times in FFXIV.
The main reason is simply like WoW. That is not where most players are anymore. Even the trials from shadowbringers are no longer end content. People have ran them hundreads of times already in the first few weeks.
Now, i don't know if you actually beat Titania, but if you tried, you likely wiped. Why? Because trials do start to get more challenging when they are from the current expansion. So, high likelyhood of fail groups and little reward at this point end up with a less populated event.
With that said, i did do Titania as DPS and i most certainly didn't get a 1 hour queue, though it was a good 20m. But really, this is not that different from LFR queues.

Now, yes, i don't think their system is good and it does hurt queue timers. I also agree that it's a bit silly how they don't let you level jobs by replaying the story. Really annoying. Game breaker though? No. The high level roulettes are populated, heck the regular roulettes are populated as well. It's only when you want to do a specific encounter that problems might arise.
But the game is in fact active. But only on the end-game or relevant stuff. For example atm PvP is bursting with popularity due to the moogle event and you got 72 player maps popping in less than 10 minutes, wich is much better than BG timers in WoW.

4. professions

Look, i'm gonna come out and say crafting sucks on all mmo's. It is always boring for me. But 2 mmo's do it best. Swtor is the best cause you just delegate to your companions and FFXIV cause it's super deep.
It sounds like you made mistakes and didn't gear up. When mining and harvesting, you got a stealth option so you don't get agro if i mob is close. You can set up gear sets and drag them into hotbars to quickly change jobs. That was only neglicence from your part.
Either way, they are revamping skills in crafting cause if you thought combat jobs have bloat, you've seen nothing.

Completely disagree on Trusts. They are as slow as you make them be. You control how much they pull and what level they are by leveling them up. I think they are a great way to learn dungeons before jumping in with a group. They also fit the storytelling much better.

Finally, raid design i also disagree. The mechanics tend to have more visible queues than other mmo's. Only found an exception to this in the first boss of the world of darkness when a 10 second doom debuff was placed on me. Turns out i had to move to a circle.
But in most mmo's this is a comon occurance. You getting a debuff and not knowing what it does. It is not common in FF. The visual queue tends to be obvious.


PS: Time for mine!
For me the greatest problems are the bot epidemic and the community. Tends to be very defensive in forums not accepting criticism even when justified and it is difficult to find a mature and active guild in the game. Also, guilds and raid groups are kind of torn apart with linkshells and the concept of statics.
So, it's not unique to FF but the community and how it organised is my biggest complaint. It's also a more elitist community than you'd might think.

[Musta]

lolololollollolololol opinions opinions

[Swnem]

lolololollollolololol opinions opinions

Opinions in an opinion forum. And you find this funny? /puzzled

[Musta]

Opinions in an opinion forum. And you find this funny? /puzzled

i find it funny when ppl think their opinion is the only one that is valid.

[Thage]

Jumping back in to say, I feel like OP has an odd metric of 'unplayable.'

[Yoshingo]

Completely and totally subjective, especially the part about Professions, which blow WoW out of the water.

Also Trust is an amazing system and you can make it as fast or slow as you want if you're good enough. And makes the storytelling far less jolting when you're doing what is essentially a single-player game and then have to pause and group up to do dungeons.

[lucred]

My biggest gripe with the MSQs was the fact that 1/3 -1/2 of them (that are not just "Go across the street and talk to X") REQUIRE you to NOT be in a party. It is bad enough that you can't do a major part of an MMO as a group (not just don't have to, but CAN'T) but instead of just placing you in a different phase than your party member(s) you have to actually drop the group, do the quest, and reform the group. Fix this and half of my issue with the game are gone.

[Soluna]

Nah, I've talked about it several times in this very forum, and I've seen a few others.

Ultimately it's because there's all these buttons and each craft takes as much as a full minute, but you're not actually using any decision making or deep knowledge to do any of it. You're just going through the motions - or macro'ing it, generally.

The actual economy is nice because while it's shallow it's extremely broad and you can make money in so many different ways it's crazy. But the crafting itself? Meh.

Maybe you find it boring because you use guides, but as someone who is a level 80 omnicrafter in FF XIV, creating my own rotations for the hardest crafts, and planning my melds, the crafting and gathering endgame is very engaging. There are however some issues in FF XIV. It is not a perfect game, and neither is WoW. Both fill in different niches, and it is completely okay to prefer the one over the other. I usually hop between the two whenever I want things to change a bit.

[Swnem]

i find it funny when ppl think their opinion is the only one that is valid.

It is for them. They can only talk about themselves. Why feel so challenged by it? He may and in my opinion has some legitimate points.

[Irian]

It is for them. They can only talk about themselves. Why feel so challenged by it? He may and in my opinion has some legitimate points.

It might've helped to not have a thread title stated as if it's a fact while having no real backup for his points than subjective opinions based on comparing the game to WoW.

It's less about people being defensive and more about someone pushing their poorly formed opinions as if they have any substance behind it, when they spew all sorts of info that is simply either opinions of flat-out wrong.

If they phrased the thread title or the content within as if it was his opinion, that wouldn't be a problem and I seriously doubt a lot of people would say things like this.