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

[Verain]

4. You are literally the first person I've ever seen dog the professions in this game. They are so fleshed out and well done that you could play FF14 for months on end as crafting as your ''main'' and have plenty of content to keep you busy for the most part.

No man, he's gonna get one shot as a culinarian so it's broken. Never mind I have no idea what a culinarian is doing anywhere outside a city lol

[Sariengrey]

...OP plays FF14, skips all story and cutscenes...ok dude you skipped the literal reason to play this game and the whole thing its truly and heavily based around, unlike other MMO's, where the story can be lighter or not as deeply important as the gameplay.

This alone invalidated nearly everything you said. Its like saying you played Doom, but don't care about shooting or combat, and just ran for the end exit of the level every time. And then acted like you had a legit opinion about the game...

[Echo of Soul]

I don't think that example is very good. The structure of Super Mario is kind of built for you to go through levels with varying difficulties. Going to Ishgard would be like taking a boat from Stormwind to Azuremyst Isle or something. There's a level difference, but it's mostly arbitrary, and not built into the framework of the gameplay loop.

True, I'll use a better one. In Detroit: Become Human you can't skip from the start with Kara to the last cutscene.

- - - Updated - - -

...OP plays FF14, skips all story and cutscenes...ok dude you skipped the literal reason to play this game and the whole thing its truly and heavily based around, unlike other MMO's, where the story can be lighter or not as deeply important as the gameplay.

This alone invalidated nearly everything you said. Its like saying you played Doom, but don't care about shooting or combat, and just ran for the end exit of the level every time. And then acted like you had a legit opinion about the game...

The game should have a sticker on it that says "play this like if it's a video game, not like it's World of Warcraft". Sure sales would go down but I think it should have one regardless.

[BiggestNoob]

I don't really see any negatives to simply adding more options, and the only rebuttals I've found to this idea have been "that's just the way it is, deal with it" which isn't really an argument.

It's a story driven MMO, which means skips kinda break that immersion and spoil a lot of it, so they don't offer them in expansions like WoW, where most people don't care about the story or even know what's going on. EW is going to depend on those hundreds of hours of play. If someone wants to just buy the game and skip, because they don't care and just want to try out the new expansion and play with friends, the option is there, but for someone who wants to play EW when it comes out, who doesn't currently play, they should go ahead and start a trial now and play through ARR/HW, then if they like the game buy it and they'll easily be ready for EW, and on top of that get a game to play in the meantime.

They could add a skip option for new accounts, but in order for the game to make sense, they'd need to have a synopsis of the story up to that point. I think part of why they offer the free trial is that compromise.

[Akka]

Ahh ummm ok...

/looks left and right
OK peeps, just smile at katchii, back up real slow like, whatever you do, DO NOT make any sudden moves, just keep smiling like everything is normal then about 10 feet out run for your f'ing life...

You realize this applies much more to you than to him ?

[Wrecktangle]

...OP plays FF14, skips all story and cutscenes...ok dude you skipped the literal reason to play this game and the whole thing its truly and heavily based around, unlike other MMO's, where the story can be lighter or not as deeply important as the gameplay.

This alone invalidated nearly everything you said. Its like saying you played Doom, but don't care about shooting or combat, and just ran for the end exit of the level every time. And then acted like you had a legit opinion about the game...

Dismissing an opinion merely because you don't like what they did is silly. You can argue that they're missing core aspects or offer insight/expertise to refute their statement, but outright dismissal because that player doesn't find fun what you do is a dangerous take.

I don't ignore end users who are 70 years old on software because they "didn't get it", I figure out why they didn't get it and see if there's value in improving their concerns/issues. I don't just rely on people like me to give feedback, because it'll be biased and ineffective because we all already know how to use it because we built it/live it.

There's plenty of content in this game to enjoy even if you don't care for story. I for one very much enjoy the story, in bits and pieces (as someone who stays caught up), but I wouldn't really enjoy playing through 200 hours of near solo fetch quest content of VARYING degrees of quality/delivery as a new player.

The game should have a sticker on it that says "play this like if it's a video game, not like it's World of Warcraft". Sure sales would go down but I think it should have one regardless.

Which is ironic since Yoshi P literally said:

• "WoW was the game we looked up to"
• "Our goal was to create a Final Fantasy version of WoW"
• "WoW was the game we aspired to be"

Now don't misunderstand, I don't want the game to be literal WoW, but I do think there's value in easing a new players burden and improving the sign up functionality.

[Katchii]

It's a story driven MMO, which means skips kinda break that immersion and spoil a lot of it, so they don't offer them in expansions like WoW, where most people don't care about the story or even know what's going on. EW is going to depend on those hundreds of hours of play. If someone wants to just buy the game and skip, because they don't care and just want to try out the new expansion and play with friends, the option is there, but for someone who wants to play EW when it comes out, who doesn't currently play, they should go ahead and start a trial now and play through ARR/HW, then if they like the game buy it and they'll easily be ready for EW, and on top of that get a game to play in the meantime.

They could add a skip option for new accounts, but in order for the game to make sense, they'd need to have a synopsis of the story up to that point. I think part of why they offer the free trial is that compromise.

Point being, there ARE people who honestly don't care about the story yet still want to play the game with friends, or just want to see the content and do dungeons, trials, etc...

Who are we to decide that they HAVE to see the story in order for it to make sense? THEY don't care if it makes sense, they just want to play without being asked to spend more money on a game they've already spent money on (box price of the game plus subscription) or spend hundreds of hours slogging through a story they care nothing about.

And, you've really just proven my point. Your whole post is just another version of "that's just the way it is, deal with it."

[xpsync]

You realize this applies much more to you than to him ?

Sure whatever, i've no idea the context anymore and seriously don't care.

With recent events, my fav pod-caster is all over ffxiv (honeymoon stage), and well ffxiv is old news now that BLIZZ is FRONT PAGE EVERYTHING, (the old watch this hand, people forgot about the ffxiv hype train, it's over) anyway i re-subbed up to ffxiv in light of all that and to know for myself.

When i first started playing ffxiv like a week or two before it launched, pre order early access, i admit 7 years ago i was blown away at how different it was, my dude i was screaming from the rooftops how amazing this game was. But at that time i wasn't playing wow, i only came back to wow in BFA.

So i wanted to know, i mean everyone is all ffxiv is the new king, greatest game of all time, and although i made a couple attempts at a come back with the game i was always met with "meh", alright, that was a few years back, maybe the game changed into something spectacular, and i could not be more wrong by stating things like it's boring af, janky, sub par, it's a horrible convoluted mess...

but NOPE, i was right, i don't like the game, in fact i now despise the game, as when i now can compare it up against wow, there is literally no contest in which one is far more superior, wow is miles above any mmorpg not just ffxiv.

Do i regret throwing 12 bones at so i could know for myself and nope, no regrets, i already uninstalled after trying to figure out what all this new hype is about for several days, i mean the only change is it looks far more out dated, but the game is no different than 7 years ago at the core. Sometimes it's just have to know for yourself, cause hey maybe it changed in to some amazing world, now i know, most are or were in their honeymoon phase as i was 7 years ago.

The one great thing coming out of all this blizz scandal is that ffxiv is a long forgotten weapon used by haters, they got a supreme upgrade, unfortunately as i'd rather the news not be true and they just kept using ffxiv as their weapon of choice to bash on wow, but lets be real, there is no contest against polished af wow. (to me)

So, for everyone out there enjoying FFXIV, i could not be more happy for you all, play the the chit out of it, enjoy!

[Katchii]

Considering they directly stated they knew for sure that the reward structure was not why they kept playing, and that "Nope, they were just that good, simple as that..."

Yet their own complaints about FFXIV apply to the games they are talking about, which JUST SO HAPPEN to have a much worse reward structure ON TOP of their own complaints...

Nah. I stand by my statement, they are very much so not knowledgable about this subject.

Shockingly, different people like different things for different reasons.

You have no business telling someone they're wrong about their subjective opinion. That's ridiculous.

[Lane]

While I have other people that, to be honest, thought they wouldn't like the slower pace and they made it to Shadowbringers in less than a month because they ended up liking the story and other stuff (housing, gold saucer,etc)

Granted, I haven't been able to play every day, but I started in June and am not even through base ARR yet. It also took me at least a week just to watch through someone else's playthrough of Shadowbringers. Not doubting your word, but here I am thinking it's going to take me several months to get to ShB let alone EW.

Sure, but I've played 5 other MMO's and with all of them I felt a big urge to play them daily as they were so good and enthralling. Haven't felt that urge at all with FFonline. It's a nice game for sure, but meh, maybe it's just not for me I guess. It's so slow and so story focussed. I get it, that's a nice perspective. I just can't be bothered with the story, at least, so far. Only did ARR.

Frankly, if FFXIV did what WoW did and started new players in Shadowbringers I can't imagine people not getting hooked just from one of the intro quest lines. I was not enjoying the ARR story and decided to skip to the end to see if it really does improve like people said or if I was wasting my time with a game world that's just not my cup of tea and Shadowbringers was effing amazing. I went into it thinking there's no way an MMO is going to make me cry. Well, it did, not just once, and that was with little context from post-ARR to ShB.

I still maintain that ARR isn't imperative to enjoying later expansions and you're not missing much with a story skip, however, doing the later expansions gives you more appreciation of ARR which is possibly why veterans seem to remember it being better than it is. I was kind of drudging through ARR, but now I'm excited to get to the good stuff.

[Katchii]

And yet usually, if someone likes something for a reason, they would like another thing for the same reason, not dislike that thing for the same reason.

Where you're getting "different reasons" is beyond me, since no different reason has been stated.

Maybe things aren't a noticeable or apparent in one game vs another. Who knows.

I have plenty of business telling someone that what they say doesn't make sense, and thus, they are unknowledgable.

Not making sense does not mean they're unknowledgeable. That's you insulting or calling someone else out because you don't understand something they said.

More importantly, you have no business jumping into a conversation to tell me what business I have responding to someone else.

This is a public forum genius.....

[Maljinwo]

Granted, I haven't been able to play every day, but I started in June and am not even through base ARR yet. It also took me at least a week just to watch through someone else's playthrough of Shadowbringers. Not doubting your word, but here I am thinking it's going to take me several months to get to ShB let alone EW.

This mad lad finished Heavensward on July 18 and he's already on Shadowbringers
https://twitter.com/Milpalaf

[BiggestNoob]

Point being, there ARE people who honestly don't care about the story yet still want to play the game with friends, or just want to see the content and do dungeons, trials, etc...

Who are we to decide that they HAVE to see the story in order for it to make sense? THEY don't care if it makes sense, they just want to play without being asked to spend more money on a game they've already spent money on (box price of the game plus subscription) or spend hundreds of hours slogging through a story they care nothing about.

And, you've really just proven my point. Your whole post is just another version of "that's just the way it is, deal with it."

That's the problem, it's not solvable with a simple boost. The game isn't WoW. You boost, play some with your friends, then put it away and want to come play EW, but you still have to do all the MSQ you missed to get to that point, probably including going back and doing CT raids. The frustration from people who don't want to do story is always going to be there because they will ask: "why must I do this?" but to everyone else who's playing the game as intended, it's obviously because of the story.

The story is the prime focus, once you get to a certain point in the story, content becomes available, and then you can do that with your friends, but they're not going to change that to appease to launch andys. They've done a lot to make this less of a problem for people. You don't need multiple characters, and you can replay the old story. You used to have to create a new character to play with people on other servers in your DC. They added DC visit so you don't need to redo all that effort. They're doing the same thing now for cross-DC. It's a one time investment, once you finish ARR, you never have to do it again. Now you can play through more than half of the game without paying a cent and keep that progress when you pay for the game. They've even started pruning old stuff to clean it up so that investment isn't as bad for new players, and that'll probably continue.

WoW's model for a long time has been "ding level, you can go to new expansion", because it's a story optional game, instead focusing on dungeons and raids, rather than a strong RPG with dungeon and raid content. They're inherently different and there isn't an easy fix. The simplest thing is to just accept that difference. "That's the way it is" is a statement of fact, not an argument, because the arguments against it are that it should stop being a story game and become WoW.

Perhaps people who want to play with their friends should create new characters and level with them and experience the story with them, fully embracing what FFXIV is instead of pestering them to get to endgame faster? Who cares if you're doing the latest raid? It's not WoW, that's not the only relevant content in the game. You could spend the entirety of that 100+ hours enjoying the game with them, not just once they hit cap.

[Katchii]

WoW's model for a long time has been "ding level, you can go to new expansion", because it's a story optional game, instead focusing on dungeons and raids, rather than a strong RPG with dungeon and raid content. They're inherently different and there isn't an easy fix. The simplest thing is to just accept that difference. "That's the way it is" is a statement of fact, not an argument, because the arguments against it are that it should stop being a story game and become WoW.

No one is arguing for it to become WoW, at least not in the context of this particular point. People are just asking for options that will allow them to play with their friends in end-game content without having to spend hundreds of hours pushing through a story they care nothing about. Especially since if all you're trying to do is get to end game and focus on going through the MSQ from level 1 to current....it's honestly not great. Even for a lover of story, there's only so much I can take of just reading and running around before I want to actually PLAY my character instead of just watch them wordlessly nod their head or pump their fist or whatever. Aside from the dungeon and trial portions of the MSQ, the quests that require you to fight something are not even close to enough to sate someone looking for combat...putting DoT's up on 1-3 people and then hitting 3 more GCDs to finish the whole quest is not great combat.

Perhaps people who want to play with their friends should create new characters and level with them and experience the story with them, fully embracing what FFXIV is instead of pestering them to get to endgame faster?

Who's pestering who? Some people aren't people pestered by anyone and just want to do the end game content, whether they're with friends or not.

Who cares if you're doing the latest raid?

They do..? I'm not seeing where you're going with this.

It's not WoW, that's not the only relevant content in the game.

Relevant is kind of subjective here. Some people find story to be irrelevant and just want to focus on and play the combat focused content, why is that wrong?

You could spend the entirety of that 100+ hours enjoying the game with them, not just once they hit cap.

The 100+ hours you're referring to are story content they don't care about so there's nothing to "enjoy" for them.

[BiggestNoob]

No one is arguing for it to become WoW, at least not in the context of this particular point. People are just asking for options that will allow them to play with their friends in end-game content without having to spend hundreds of hours pushing through a story they care nothing about.

But you are though. That is WoW, you are asking FFXIV to be WoW when you want just to do the latest raid. There's no reason to do this. When a new raid releases, the rest of the game doesn't become irrelevant and dead content. You don't get something special for doing the latest raid right when it releases. 2 of the hardest fights in the game aren't even level 80.

[Katchii]

But you are though. That is WoW, you are asking FFXIV to be WoW when you want just to do the latest raid.

No. They want to play FFXIV content, not WoW content.

I'm honestly not seeing why you're so confused.

There's no reason to do this.

Why not? Because you said so?

When a new raid releases, the rest of the game doesn't become irrelevant and dead content.

No one is asking or arguing for that to happen so I don't even know why you're saying this.

You don't get something special for doing the latest raid right when it releases. 2 of the hardest fights in the game aren't even level 80.

Who's said anything about latest raids and the hardest fights?

[Raysz]

And yet both of those games, I recall having:
a) Less abilities
b) Significant downtime between abilities
c) The worst reward structures the games have ever tried

GW2 had a great world... until you realized that the "random" things that could happen were not, in fact, "random" and were just as predictable as every other thing in every other game (See: FFXIV Fates), the avoidance mechanic just proved to be a hard stop until you spent FAR too much time in earlier parts of the game to craft items which were not NEARLY good enough for the effort put in, and the world... ultimately didn't grab me. Everything was just generic fantasy in the end.

And Swtor? Lol. I didn't even feel immersed. I couldn't find anything worth doing in Swtor. Imagine every complaint about FFXIV, except magnified to 20x worse than it was - And you've got Swtor. Slow GCD, useless abilities, EXTREMELY clunky combat... Then it takes the things FFXIV did RIGHT and ruins them too. Reward structure that rewards your spending habits, expansions that don't EXPAND the game, lore which doesn't fit with lore in the Star Wars canon, re-naming every stat so nobody can understand what each one does...

Like, just say you never played FFXIV, or that you hate it's animu style, dude. You clearly aren't knowledgeable about this subject.

So you asked 'Was that why? Or was it that you were tempted by a reward structure that trapped you into playing every day, thus "urged" you to play daily?'
And I replied, I just like something different and think is good and your reply was that I don't know what is good, basically. It's subjective, as others have stated.
Dear god, give it a rest.

On another note, it sometimes, emphasis on sometimes, feels as if FFonline players get really defensive, you can't criticize the game or disagree with it without someone jumping on you. I do enjoy FFonline, it just hasn't had the same impact on me as other mmo's have had when I first started playing them, but that could also be due to me getting jaded or having played too many.

[BiggestNoob]

No. They want to play FFXIV content, not WoW content.

I'm honestly not seeing why you're so confused.

Why not? Because you said so?

It's a mindset. You don't install Counter Strike to play with your friends, then only play 1 map, only terrorists, only using pistols, do you? Or Mario Kart, but only 1 track? Do you only do the last puzzle with your friend in Portal 2? Also consider carefully the idea that this friend may also be new to the game and know nothing.

WoW for what, a decade or so, has been deprecating all content every time a new tier is released. In most games, you have a ton of content to do. If your goal is to play with your friends, I don't see any good reasoning behind doing just one tiny portion of the content, specifically the latest end game, unless you're being forced to. It makes sense when you have deprecation of content. In WoW, once you get new gear, everything else in the game becomes trivial and the current tier is the only thing to do. That's further reinforced with systems. You can't even play with a friend, because if you try to go do a BC raid when you do millions of damage to everything, there's no way to actually enjoy that. That happens in PoE or D3 as well -- a new player isn't going to have fun with you pushing high GR levels or maps coming in and playing with them, because everything dies instantly. That doesn't happen in FFXIV. You have a whole ass game with 3 expansions to play through, all of it relevant. Asmongold has been playing for a month and he's still in ARR doing extremes.

I'm arguing that the mere fact that the goal is "must play the latest raid" in an MMO is a WoW-oriented mindset due to the design failure in that game. A reasonable ask there is to be level capped or nearly level capped immediately with an easy way to jump into the latest raid, because nobody else is doing anything else, and you can't very well have an MMO or play with friends if it's a ghost town. So my point is that because that's the hangup here with the hypothetical person who wants to do this in FFXIV, they're just trying to play WoW and that mindset isn't applicable to FFXIV.

What's the reason behind wanting to do this in FFXIV? Challenge? Then that's wrong, because clearly that's not the only challenging content. Because you're sitting around and have cleared all the other content and you've been waiting for the new content? Your friend who is new to the game hasn't... so how is that relevant?

This seems a lot like going to the movies with your friend, but ducking in at just the last 30 minutes of Endgame when you've watched every Marvel movie and your friend has never seen a single one or read a comic. Why?

[Advent]

It's a mindset. You don't install Counter Strike to play with your friends, then only play 1 map, only terrorists, only using pistols, do you? Or Mario Kart, but only 1 track? Do you only do the last puzzle with your friend in Portal 2? Also consider carefully the idea that this friend may also be new to the game and know nothing.

WoW for what, a decade or so, has been deprecating all content every time a new tier is released. In most games, you have a ton of content to do. If your goal is to play with your friends, I don't see any good reasoning behind doing just one tiny portion of the content, specifically the latest end game, unless you're being forced to. It makes sense when you have deprecation of content. In WoW, once you get new gear, everything else in the game becomes trivial and the current tier is the only thing to do. That's further reinforced with systems. You can't even play with a friend, because if you try to go do a BC raid when you do millions of damage to everything, there's no way to actually enjoy that. That happens in PoE or D3 as well -- a new player isn't going to have fun with you pushing high GR levels or maps coming in and playing with them, because everything dies instantly. That doesn't happen in FFXIV. You have a whole ass game with 3 expansions to play through, all of it relevant. Asmongold has been playing for a month and he's still in ARR doing extremes.

I'm arguing that the mere fact that the goal is "must play the latest raid" in an MMO is a WoW-oriented mindset due to the design failure in that game. A reasonable ask there is to be level capped or nearly level capped immediately with an easy way to jump into the latest raid, because nobody else is doing anything else, and you can't very well have an MMO or play with friends if it's a ghost town. So my point is that because that's the hangup here with the hypothetical person who wants to do this in FFXIV, they're just trying to play WoW and that mindset isn't applicable to FFXIV.

What's the reason behind wanting to do this in FFXIV? Challenge? Then that's wrong, because clearly that's not the only challenging content. Because you're sitting around and have cleared all the other content and you've been waiting for the new content? Your friend who is new to the game hasn't... so how is that relevant?

This seems a lot like going to the movies with your friend, but ducking in at just the last 30 minutes of Endgame when you've watched every Marvel movie and your friend has never seen a single one or read a comic. Why?

Whether or not you think it's a design failure of wow is irrelevant. They want to experience what exists at the conclusion of leveling, because to them, leveling and story isn't likely what they play the game for. They're probably gameplay-oriented, which means anything at max level where they have access to the full class kits is what they're after. The people who likely share that mindset and goal are probably at max level as well, so spending an inordinate amount of time (Hundreds of hours) playing the part of the game that keeps those players the least engaged is not ideal.

[BiggestNoob]

Whether or not you think it's a design failure of wow is irrelevant. They want to experience what exists at the conclusion of leveling, because to them, leveling and story isn't likely what they play the game for. They're probably gameplay-oriented, which means anything at max level where they have access to the full class kits is what they're after. The people who likely share that mindset and goal are probably at max level as well, so spending an inordinate amount of time (Hundreds of hours) playing the part of the game that keeps those players the least engaged is not ideal.

In the mind of a WoW player, because they've been conditioned to do that.

Why should anyone care if players who want to skip the entire game (e.g. not play it) aren't engaged?