Questing is boring, combat is clunky and bloated. Quests suck shit. The engine is terrible. Why do I have to dismount to speak to someone? Dungeons are boring. It’s all just pretty boring.
For me the pacing always felt a little slow but the path they were walking was alright. Then after a certain point.. I think it was like expansion 2 or so (I cannot remember exactly) the game started to have this really strange combat rotation. At least for me it did. If I had to put a word on it than it probably would be bloated. Then I had some RL stuff come up and I had to step away for an expansion. When I came back that bloat was so large I was pretty lost.
Honestly I probably would really love this game if I had played from the start and never stopped. But that pause kind of got me out of rhythm and thus kind of smashed my interest.
Like so many of you, I absolutely love Final Fantasy XIV. Some of the most fun I have in gaming is when a new expansion drops. The world is gorgeous, the zone design is beautiful, the characters and story is top-notch. That said ...
The end game is my #1 problem with the game. Retail WoW's end game just run circles around it, and then some. If you're an end game focused player, extreme trials only really matter in the first tier. After that, it's 4 bosses for 6 months, with the occasional Ultimate thrown in, if you're down for that. Dungeons are boring after a handful of runs. Eureka / Diadem / Borzja is so grindy, and it doesn't hide that at all. I hate having to cap currency every week, even when I was doing savage. It just feels like a chore. Then if you are clearing savage, you don't progress for very long because the content isn't hard, and then it's login on Tuesday and done for the week.
All of that is why I never stay subscribed longer than a month. FF XIV is such a good game that does everything right, but end game is just done so poorly, there is too little end game content, and there is too many chores and grinds. Honestly, without doing anything else, if they'd combine 8-player and 24-player raids into one tier every 6 months, along with providing meaningful character progression rewards from extreme trials, and then had real difficulty increases within this hypothetical 8-10 boss raid, it would be so. much. better. It wouldn't fix all the problems, but having an actual robust raid tier, instead of 4 bosses for 6 months, and then joke-tier 24-player raids, it would go a long way to fixing end game issues.
What really grinds my gears is the amount of unnecessary complicated systems the game has. Look at glamour system for example.
Those kind of stuff I believe is one of the major barriers of entrance in the game.
Arukas
The biggest thing is the input delay and way longer GCD. After a decade of wow, FF14 feels unplayable.
I wouldn't say "unnecessary." I would say "unfortunately necessary."
They inherited a ton of garbage, and the jank of their origins shines through all too often. You can see how many workarounds they have, but it is indeed a barrier when you're trying to introduce someone new.
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I think that your issue is by design. And it's also been why FFXIV has been a success story.
No one is going to beat WoW at WoW. Nothing that has tried to beat - or even keep up to - WoW has failed, utterly. The thing is... the loot treadmill endgame is all that WoW has. And some people are simply tired of that treadmill. Some people can't even manage to get on it anymore.
I much prefer the breadth that FFXIV provides than just getting another MMO that tries and fails to beat WoW, and spends the majority of its development resources making content for the audience of a different game.
I can play for months without killing a single thing and make legitimate progress in other ways, and I find that to be a little wonderful.
the pacing just feels very slow to me. I tried it several times, last being very recently. I've gotten the farthest last time too. but.... it just... felt too slow, too languid, to dreamy almost, from the aesthetics of it, to the way playing it felt. just.... not really my thing, well unless I needed something to help me get sleepy. and I have subscription free options for that. I have no idea what end game is like, this was just my experience leveling.
So, i would definitely like to see the questing experience have a bit more variety. Maybe some more single player duties in there would help.
I would really like a dungeon mythic+ system. As you say the mid-core endgame content.
I would also like to see the raids be flexible as in WoW. I hate the concept of "statics".
Oh i gave up on it, but if the GCD could be shorter i would like it. But, i know there are technical reasons for it.
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I found the input delay was much improved in the December patch. In terms of skill activation. But, movement still has a delay of sorts. You always have to be a bit early moving out of stuff in the game. The combat itself feels more responsive to me since that patch though.
That is because you are forced to catch up on the content of several past expansions. When playing those things for the first time, they are the patch story content and takes a couple of hours at most (except for expansion launches ofc). But, yeah. The only cure to that is to enjoy the story. But, it does get better imo. I felt the same way, and it was when i was mid-way through stormblood that the story started getting interesting for me and my class finally stopped being so boring. Started getting more abilities and off gcd abilities. The classes are designed for max level where they are enjoyable, but the game wants you to experience the story and is not so worried about speeding the combat up for first time levelers.
Honestly, my main gripe with the game are the playable races
Everything is a human. And the Lion dudes just don't do it for me
This world don't give us nothing. It be our lot to suffer... and our duty to fight back.
I loved the theme of ff14 but gameplay....had major shortcomings imo that made it unplayable in the long run. Just to be concise about it:
-combat is stiif, clunky, doesn't flow like wow's, rotations are bloated and boring
-leveling alt jobs is a complete pain and is heavily timegated - only the daily dungeons etc. are really worth doing, after that you barely have means to gain exp on alt jobs because your quest campaign is done already
-queues are really bad, especially considering the above, and the fact that the story actually requires you to go into dungeons sometimes
Also, here's my old thread where I talked at length about my issues with this otherwise interesting title https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...n-the-long-run
I generaly play for the stories and I even get sucked in by some of the narratives in WoW. its literally just the pacing of said story. everything feels so... incredibly..... languid. one of the habbits i have is listening to voice overs/reading the quest text and watching the cutscenes. and Final Fantasy has the same issue that I have with a lot of narrative games that originated in Japan. everything takes incredibly long amounts of time to get through, explanations, conversations, exposition, everything just... takes its sweet time. I'm pretty sure its a cultural thing. I think i'm just too western for it. I constantly caught myself going please just get to the point already!
and I'm not saying that they should change the game, on the contrary, there is obviously a demand for it and having variety available is GOOD. its just... not really my thing, you know?
I know what you mean. I remember playing MGS4 then playing FF13 and realizing I was burnt out on JRPG mechanics and melodrama. Same with FF14, I get burnt out chipping away at MSQ. It's taken me years but I'm finally almost done with Stormblood. My goal is to finish Shadowbringers before Endwalker and play ff14 current content FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!
The game needs a client overhaul: a new glam system, BETTER NETCODE, perhaps some HD Models. Also, fix the damn Viera hats, SEPlx.
Second most important thing: fix the healing model. Making healers heal less with the difficulty increase is pants-on-head levels of absurdity.
Which basically boils down to one thing: the game is terribly underfunded compared to the amount of money it brings in.
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Weird, for me it's the other way around. Having a lot of buttons to press and planning OGCDs weaves feels a lot better after more than a decade of Flash of Light spam :P
MMO player
WoW: 2006-2020 || EvE: 2013-2020 // 2023- || FFXIV: 2020- || Lost Ark: 2022-
More varied endgame is really the big one for me.
I have cleared savage, I've cleared an ultimate.
I'd love challenge dungeons or something to throw into the mix
It is set in the Final Fantasy universe and is therefore extremely unappealing
Which is a shame as it is apparently decent