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

[justandulas]

What time zone are you in?

Just so the information is in the thread, Adamantoise is on the Aether Data center which is a North American Data Center.

I've had "long" queue times as well, but never more than 30 minutes as a DPS at non-peak times unless it was for Castrum Meridianum or Praetorium, which were excessively long.

East coast of the USA. I'd say on average it's under 30 min, but there are times where i've sat there for literally 100+ minutes wondering if the que was even working. The raid bosses after ARR before heavensword, in particular, are LONG wait times and they stand out way more than the 4 man dungeons which avg about 10-20 min wait which isn't TOO terrible

[mbit]

I just wish they would fix the way they do lvl scaling in low lvl dungeons. Scaling is a good idea but taking 90% of your skill bar away and forcing people into the mmo hell of lvl 10 experience press 3 buttons for 30min is insane and makes it painfull. Just scale the damage and let higher players enjoy the whole skill set. Its not like leveling is competitive.

[bloodwulf]

What time zone are you in?

Just so the information is in the thread, Adamantoise is on the Aether Data center which is a North American Data Center.

I've had "long" queue times as well, but never more than 30 minutes as a DPS at non-peak times unless it was for Castrum Meridianum or Praetorium, which were excessively long.

I play on Aether, Siren. I typically play during the evening and during the day occasionally during the week, the longest wait i have had while playing dps is 13 minutes. And that is not common.

[Ealyssa]

Is this bait?

It's not bait. The FF XIV community is just extremely defensive. They can't allow any criticisms, even founded ones like the obvious combat clunkiness.

But anyone who have ever played anything else knows that combat isn't the greatest point of XIV for sure. It's not bad, but it's also far from being smooth.

[Katchii]

East coast of the USA. I'd say on average it's under 30 min, but there are times where i've sat there for literally 100+ minutes wondering if the que was even working. The raid bosses after ARR before heavensword, in particular, are LONG wait times and they stand out way more than the 4 man dungeons which avg about 10-20 min wait which isn't TOO terrible

I play on Aether, Siren. I typically play during the evening and during the day occasionally during the week, the longest wait i have had while playing dps is 13 minutes. And that is not common.

I've seen long queue times during typical peak times too, but it's VERY rare to have anything greater than 30 minutes, and exceedingly rare for anything close to an hour. The only times I've seen queue times like that are during time periods like now; the lull between the last patch of an expansion and the release of the new expansion, as player numbers are just lower than normal because of the content drought. But even then, it's very uncommon. Though, it doesn't need to happen often to sour the experience.

[Binaris]

It's not bait. The FF XIV community is just extremely defensive. They can't allow any criticisms, even founded ones like the obvious combat clunkiness.

But anyone who have ever played anything else knows that combat isn't the greatest point of XIV for sure. It's not bad, but it's also far from being smooth.

It is total bait. Most of thier complaints show they have never even touched the game and are just trying to stir up nonsense.

FF14 in a nutshell.
Combat is slower. ON purpose because of boss design.
Everyone dpses. Dps is actually the hardest role to play if you are doing it right.
Professions are a huge side progression of the game. Not required to progress but on their own are a complete experience.
Story is the focus. This is a FF after all.
Queues are actually quick compared to other games for dps because of roulettes.

[zorkuus]

1) Clunky? FF14 combat is some of the most fluid combat of any tab target mmo I have ever played lol...

Look, I like FFXIV a lot but this is just patently untrue. The game has a built-in 500ms delay.

[justandulas]

Look, I like FFXIV a lot but this is just patently untrue. The game has a built-in 500ms delay.

I'll never understand that argument either. Sell ff14 for what it is, and what it does well. It doesn't need people to lie on it's behalf about the combat when new players will see/experience the combat anyway first hand.

The combat IS one of the weaker points of ff14, it is not fluid at all. Even launch SWTOR had more fluid combat imo.

ff14 does quite a lot right but anyone saying the combat is buttery smooth, or smoother than WoW.... are in need of a drug test

[zorkuus]

The combat IS one of the weaker points of ff14, it is not fluid at all. Even launch SWTOR had more fluid combat imo.

The funny thing is, the last time I saw people mindlessly denying clunky combat/ability delay was in SWTOR.
Oh... and the endless threads on their forum about how clicking is somehow better than keybinding.

[justandulas]

The funny thing is, the last time I saw people mindlessly denying clunky combat/ability delay was in SWTOR.
Oh... and the endless threads on their forum about how clicking is somehow better than keybinding.

SWTOR was an absolute mess at launch, but the engine operated buttery smooth in SMALL doses like when you were alone in story missions. The moment you started adding other players into the mix, forget about it. Anyone remember the big pvp battles on Ilum after launch? It was legit unplayable and i say that KINDLY.

But, when it was solo story, instanced PVP and eventually (not at launch) instanced dungeons... it operated well.

That's on BW too tho for buying an engine that was in alpha. The company they bought it from, simutronics, is known for MUDs like gemstone i used to play as a kid on AOL. They eventually made the engine pretty good and games like ESO have bought it and taken pieces of it once it was good. Simutronics actually tried to warn BW that the engine was in basically alpha at best and shouldn't be used. EA just dumped a truck of money at their feet until they said yes, but it's a company of like 5-10 people who specialize in MUDs from the 80s-90s internet. That's one reason it took forever to fix anything broken at launch btw, is cuz the engine was so bad they actually had to bring in simutronics who helped them fix things in the hero engine code. BW should have used an in-house engine...

but i digress, i like ff14. it has a lot you can say to sell it to people, but we all don't have to lie to our fellow gamers and sell ff14 as this breathtaking MMO combat when it is not. it's combat is flashy and pretty, but it also feels incredibly outdated. it's just easy to overlook it's flashy 2005 combat because everything else is so well done in that game and it oozes passion from the dev team.

[rogoth]

What realm and at what time of day are you playing? Because the times you're stating are VERY out of the ordinary, unless you're playing at dead hours of the day for that server.

EU twintania server and the early dungeons i did were often at night for me (around 9-11 p.m.), the titan boss dungeon i queued for was around midday on thursday last week, between lvl 35-45 dungeons took an avg of 15-20 mins queue time as a dps, now that i'm lvl 52, doing some of the crystal tower stuff takes an avg of 25-35 mins queue time as dps, so you tell me what should be the norm based on your experience because so far my experience has been basically the opposite of what people claim to be normal for them.

[justandulas]

Being both in your time zone and on the Aether Data Center I can confidently say that this isn't the norm. Closer to 12PM I could rationalize this happening from time to time pending what it is you're trying to queue for, but it is far from the norm. The busiest times of our Data Center starts from about 4PM EST and runs up to 11PM - 1AM EST.

I'm not whining about it, or complaining. just stating how it is. And to be fair, i'm willing to concede my experience is the exception and maybe not the norm (and i know this because you can see the avg wait time and its like 10-15 min except for me)

[Katchii]

EU twintania server and the early dungeons i did were often at night for me (around 9-11 p.m.), the titan boss dungeon i queued for was around midday on thursday last week, between lvl 35-45 dungeons took an avg of 15-20 mins queue time as a dps

This is pretty normal, in my experience. 9-11 PM is kinda late (so it's not peak times, especially during the weak) and population is a bit lower during this time. DPS queue times of ~15 minutes isn't THAT bad. During peak times they'll get lower than that, with sub 10 minute queues being common.

now that i'm lvl 52, doing some of the crystal tower stuff takes an avg of 25-35 mins queue time as dps, so you tell me what should be the norm based on your experience because so far my experience has been basically the opposite of what people claim to be normal for them.

Alliance Raid queue times are longer than the Dungeon queues because it requires more people, especially if you're queueing for a specific one rather than doing the roulette. Specific dungeon or raid queues are always longer than roulette/ random queues.

All that said, queue times vary widely. I've seen DPS queue times lower than 5 minutes and I've seen them higher than 30 minutes. In my experience the average is ~10-20 minutes, with off-peak times being closer to 20 and peak times being closer to 10.

Data center population and peak server times obviously affect this greatly so it's impossible to say how it SHOULD be. So take all this with a grain of salt.

[Swnem]

EU twintania server and the early dungeons i did were often at night for me (around 9-11 p.m.), the titan boss dungeon i queued for was around midday on thursday last week, between lvl 35-45 dungeons took an avg of 15-20 mins queue time as a dps, now that i'm lvl 52, doing some of the crystal tower stuff takes an avg of 25-35 mins queue time as dps, so you tell me what should be the norm based on your experience because so far my experience has been basically the opposite of what people claim to be normal for them.

If you are queuing specifically for old stuff as dps it is gonna take a long time. It's just how it is. No one queues for those things, so you have to wait for the roulettes to circle back to you.
This is not very different from WoW. What happens if you queue for Legion LFR raids when they are level relevant? Pretty sure you don't get a pop. Probably not even available. Blizzard does that. Rather than give you a level relevant experience they removed it so it doesn't make them look bad. Much like the "realm connections" and "shards" which just zone players in to make it look like it's busy when your server is beyond dead.

When you queue to relevant content the queue timer will be much reduced. You actually should be impressed you have a queue pop at all in old content. That is actually something FF does well. They don't just remove the experience from you.

Katchii gives good advice. If you are having trouble with a queue, queue at peak time. That is usually from 5 to 9pm.

[Forteofgray]

It's not bait. The FF XIV community is just extremely defensive. They can't allow any criticisms, even founded ones like the obvious combat clunkiness.

But anyone who have ever played anything else knows that combat isn't the greatest point of XIV for sure. It's not bad, but it's also far from being smooth.

I love XIV but I gotta agree. Once I said that it feels like all I do is log in to jump into the queue and my entire FC lit up insinuating I was just being dumb and had no idea how to play the game. XIV does have a better community in general than other MMOs but if you provoke them right, they can be just as nasty.

[Swnem]

I love XIV but I gotta agree. Once I said that it feels like all I do is log in to jump into the queue and my entire FC lit up insinuating I was just being dumb and had no idea how to play the game. XIV does have a better community in general than other MMOs but if you provoke them right, they can be just as nasty.

The thing in FF is there is a huge variety of content. If you are only doing roulettes/instances it's cause that is what you want to do.

I find it strange they would say things like you don't know how to play, unless you actually haven't explored all the game has to offer. It does have a lot to do, if you want to do it.

[Amnaught]

In reply to point 1: Ability pruning. ......why the fuck has no game, even WoW, embraced WoW's PVP Talent system as its primary ability list.

There a ton of different abilities, they can keep adding them, and it doesnt matter how many there are because you only pick like three of them and theyre utility crap not tied into your base rotation.

WHY CANT PALADINS HAVE EXORCISM AS AN OPTIONAL SPELL

[zorkuus]

There a ton of different abilities, they can keep adding them, and it doesnt matter how many there are because you only pick like three of them and theyre utility crap not tied into your base rotation.

WHY CANT PALADINS HAVE EXORCISM AS AN OPTIONAL SPELL

Exorcism wouldn't be just utility though, that's a straight up damage spell. Not that it really matters because that kind of a system would also fall prey to min/maxing meta game pretty fast.

[Graeham]

I don't think that FFXIV necessarily needs to prune abilities so much as they should be merged into one another. Much like as in PvP, combo abilities should be tied into one button.

[Subrias]

So to fill the downtime created by completing most of the activities in 8.2, as well as to clear the bad taste playing wow classic has left in my mouth, I decided to jump in and try out FF14. I've always been a great fan of FF games, so the thought of playing those old school jobs in an mmo setting and riding chocobos seemed kind of cool to me. One of my mates also plays it which gave me an additional incentive to try it.

I'm a person who gets a kick out of leveling things up, collecting stuff and all that, so every game that allows you to do that will provide me with some sort of entertainment. And I had a fair share of fun playing FF14 btw, about 3 weeks of fun to be precise. There's a lot of good things in the game, and overall it is an mmo, and everyone who enjoys that kind of gameplay will enjoy it to an extent. In this thread I will be focusing on the negatives, but that does not mean I hate the game. I wanted to make this very clear because fanboys are often unable to understand that.

At some point however, all the gameplay problems started to mar my experience to the point where I no longer feel the need to log in to play anymore. I stopped playing the game 5 levels away from the cap (at 75) because it's just unpleasant to play it now. It also made me realize how much I value some aspects of a game, ones that I normally don't think about. With that said, let me enumerate the biggest problems I encountered.

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 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. 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.

The funny thing is I didn't even think combat would matter so much, because I am mostly interested in other areas of an mmo, but it turns out that a bad enough combat system can turn you away from a game even if you aren't combat oriented.

2. Leveling and alts

MSQ Leveling is a bit weird, but it's fast and varied, which is good. Myself I am not a plot-person so I don't care at all what the game's story is about and thus I skipped every cutscene ever. Somewhat enjoyed all the leveling of my main job still, because at least it took me around the world, through all the zones, and it was close to the questing/leveling experience I know from other games. No problems here.

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)
-doing dungeons over and over (only really viable for tank and healer jobs)
-a dungeon crawler mini game that you can do over and over for levels

While those methods may be quick, they are an absolute and complete pain. I managed to level an alt tank job to a level of about 40 or so through dungeons which is where I felt I am done with it and can take no more of the same dungeons over and over. The whole system seems to be designed with blocking grinds in mind. You are supposed to just do a daily roulette once per day and level your alt job that way, over the course of like 100 days.

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.

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). 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?).

There were some other minor things that got on my nerves, many of those probably more subjective so I won't be talking about them too much. Dungeon encounter design, un-obvious boss mechanics, UI bugs, the horrid TRUST system (doing dungeons with NPCs which takes like 1 hour longer than a normal party), retainers instead of a regular deposit place, market interface, confusing housing system.

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.

1) Combat:

there has actually been a lot of ability pruning. There's at least 10 abilities I czn name off the top of my head that don't exist anymore. You didn't get to max level and that kind of causes an issue for combat the way it does in wow. Most classes aim for a certain amount of skill or spell speed to hit an exact number so that the rotation becomes EXTREMELY fluid. Paladin for example gets enough skill speed so that when they get to the point where they use their bleed ability, the previous one fell off less than a second before so have an extremely minimal amount of time that it isn't up. The fluidity example I will use to explain how combat works for most melee is the gunbreaker continuation combo. It's 3 gcd abilities with 3 ogcd abilities in between them. So you end up using 6 abilities within 7 seconds ish which is a vastly larger amount of abilities than wow. But yeah, skill and spell speed make the game much more fluid. The one thing I will say is the somewhat clunky avoiding ground abilities lag but that isn't something that can be avoided. That is an engine thing.

2) leveling:

Leveling alts is a joke. You get about a 3rd of a level per dungeon for the max one you are capable of, levequests, beast tribe dailies, side quests, fates, deep dungeons, etc... and thats ignoring roulettes. Your argument of doing the same dungeon over and over to level is lackluster because that's what most people do in almost every mmo of this genre. I mean.. how many times did you do like.. ubrs, black morass, mythic+, for instance to get gear? That's the same thing except instead of leveling the goal is gear.

3) queue times:

While I'm not exactly going to argue q times may be ridiculous, that's kind of normal. I've waited in dps q at max level in wow for 30+ minutes before too. Forget mythic plus as a dps.. I was a top 20 m+ monk on my wow server so not only was my raider.io score super high, I was meta AF. I would still spend over an hour a lot of the time applying to multiple runs while I sat fishing. So saying long q times are aweful is a bad argument because that also happens in most of the "holy trinity" games.

4) Professions:

I actually hate professions in this game... well.. in all games really.. but thats a huge selling point for a ton of the ffxiv community lol. People love the way professions are in this game. It just isn't for me. You get experience for crafting items, you never have to leave town so the possibility of being one shot isn't a thing. The gathering professions have abilities that make you invisible to monsters so you don't get attacked so there is also no way to be one shot there unless you screw up. The rotations for crafting and gathering is weird to me too, but most people like it apparently.

You talk.about unobvious encounter mechanics? This game is the most telegraphed one I have ever played until you get to harder raids. You mentioned ui bugs? I've honestly never had a ui bug. Can you elaborate? The trust system was implemented this expansion and is far from perfect, but its meant for people who don't want to wait in the q or want to learn the mechanics without having to deal with the anxiety of failing in front of other people. The reason it takes longer with them is because they don't aoe and they don't do wall to wall pulls. It usually only takes me roughly 30 minutes a run with the trust (and I haven't leveled them). Normal groups usually take 20 on average. So.. if you combine your complaint about 1 hour queues.. a normal group would be an hour and 20 minutes per, vs 30 with the trust. That makes the trust a net increase of almost 3x faster.

The rest of your things I can't really comment on as I don't usually partake in those aspects of the game.