FF14 - What was wrong with it?

[Yoshimiko]

Now, I don't agree with a lot of mainstreams opinions of games, and I'm trying out FF14 (when it gets here in a week), but I want to know what was the general issue many players had with it?

I know that whatever it was, it was bad enough to get AN ENTIRE DEV TEAM fired, along with anyone who helped make it...I know that the game now sits at somewhere around 100k subscribers, and cannot be bought in stores - only online, and the game is f2p because square was too embarrassed by it, but I have to ask - what exactly made it so bad?

I've played every other FF(including 11 - before it was easy to level, which was one of my favorite mmos to play, only behind Ultima) and I figured I should give it a shot. I don't really like easy games(like wow) where everything is given to you for free - or very little time invested(crafting in FFXI, then crafting in WoW... physically painful to go 1-525 JC with under 2 hours worth of farming - gold - and mining done in less than 3.).

So yeah - why was FFXIV so bad?

[Kalier]

at the original launch, the game felt like we only had 10% of the finished product and it was far overhyped. by the time of the relaunch coming though, it has actually gone through a rather large upgrade to be worthy of play. But still not everyone will like it.

To clarify, at launch there was really no content past level 20, dungeons were crap(for the...1? we had), Jobs were poorly balanced, threat was so out of whack that there was no such thing as a tank, Cure and other such healing abilities were incredibly overpowered, spells did damage that was too high, it was almost impossible to judge whether something had a chance of killing you or not(the "conning" system was incredibly screwed up), Levequests had a lot of bugs and were really the ONLY way to level. Crafting professions were so freaking complex, with no in game crafting lists, that it was near impossible to craft anything without just seeing what would work and what wouldn't.

There were also many bugs that would cause graphical glitches or game crashes, there was no way to sort your inventory, no way to search player shops for an item(so you had to spend an hour going through all the player bazaars to find it), Airships and Chocobos weren't in yet and the teleports were overpriced so that after about an hour you had to run wherever you wanted to go.

[Pachurick]

I read a lot about that too, which unfortunately turned me and my fiancee off from giving it ago... Hoping someone who has played it can give a more first-hand view of what "went wrong".

I don't really like easy games(like wow) where everything is given to you for free...

Im not too sure if you've played it, but Aion seemed much like a game you'd like in a sense... Its a whole lot of grinding and requires a lot of gameplay hours to advance through.

[Kalier]

I actually had bought the collectors edition at the original launch, and while what I edited in my last post is pretty accurate, there was so many problems with the game at launch that it is really hard to describe how bad it was. the only real way to get an idea? Picture the worst game you've ever tried. now picture a game that was 10 times worse than that, and you might be close to how bad XIV was at launch.

However, as of a few months ago, when I tried it again, it is rather enjoyable now, and that was before the complete overhaul to redesign the game to take advantage of all the changes they made, plus all the new changes they came up with that couldn't be done with the current design of the game.

[Yoshimiko]

at the original launch, the game felt like we only had 10% of the finished product and it was far overhyped. by the time of the relaunch coming though, it has actually gone through a rather large upgrade to be worthy of play. But still not everyone will like it.

To clarify, at launch there was really no content past level 20, dungeons were crap(for the...1? we had), Jobs were poorly balanced, threat was so out of whack that there was no such thing as a tank, Cure and other such healing abilities were incredibly overpowered, spells did damage that was too high, it was almost impossible to judge whether something had a chance of killing you or not(the "conning" system was incredibly screwed up), Levequests had a lot of bugs and were really the ONLY way to level. Crafting professions were so freaking complex, with no in game crafting lists, that it was near impossible to craft anything without just seeing what would work and what wouldn't.

There were also many bugs that would cause graphical glitches or game crashes, there was no way to sort your inventory, no way to search player shops for an item(so you had to spend an hour going through all the player bazaars to find it), Airships and Chocobos weren't in yet and the teleports were overpriced so that after about an hour you had to run wherever you wanted to go.

Hrm, Looking at these issues, I think these are overall things I could overcome. Thanks kindly!

I read a lot about that too, which unfortunately turned me and my fiancee off from giving it ago... Hoping someone who has played it can give a more first-hand view of what "went wrong".

Im not too sure if you've played it, but Aion seemed much like a game you'd like in a sense... Its a whole lot of grinding and requires a lot of gameplay hours to advance through.

I had a few major problems with Aion. Overall, It boiled down to I didn't like the graphics - through and through. It LOOKS like a Free MMO, with a slightly better graphics engine. All around I was pretty disapointed. Graphics are a major thing for me(and don't get me wrong, I don't mean quality so much...as style. I enjoy WoW's graphics - but I hate aions.)

[Edge-]

I had a few major problems with Aion. Overall, It boiled down to I didn't like the graphics - through and through. It LOOKS like a Free MMO, with a slightly better graphics engine. All around I was pretty disapointed. Graphics are a major thing for me(and don't get me wrong, I don't mean quality so much...as style. I enjoy WoW's graphics - but I hate aions.)

Wait...what? Aion has SIGNIFICANTLY better graphical fidelity than WoW and is still (especially after the engine update to CryEngine 2) one of the best looking MMO's around. If you're talking about art style than yeah, it's got an Eastern art style to it compared to WoW's decidedly western aesthetics.

Back on topic: It launched in an alpha state basically. It was devoid of basic features such as a properly functioning broker/AH system, a tutorial that actually told you anything, and the combat put most people to sleep.

[Kalier]

Wait...what? Aion has SIGNIFICANTLY better graphical fidelity than WoW and is still (especially after the engine update to CryEngine 2) one of the best looking MMO's around. If you're talking about art style than yeah, it's got an Eastern art style to it compared to WoW's decidedly western aesthetics.

Back on topic: It launched in an alpha state basically. It was devoid of basic features such as a properly functioning broker/AH system, a tutorial that actually told you anything, and the combat put most people to sleep.

All that too, plus the UI was clunky and slow, would often take a minute just to navigate through your menu to do anything.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

There was practically no content at launch. It honestly felt as though the dev team spent their entire time making the graphics pretty and, somewhere along the way, forgot that they were developing a game, not a movie. The graphics were gorgeous, the cutscenes were nice, but the gameplay was just... non-existent. The UI was plagued by poor response times and poor navigation. The process for setting up an account and subscription was ridiculously convoluted.

I played it again a month or two ago and, while improved, it still feels vastly incomplete. I'm hoping the re-launch coming in the semi-near future actually makes the game enjoyable. I want to like it, I really do!

[Grym]

Which is a shame really.

I played FFXI, and liked it a lot. Some of the things that turned people off were already in FFXI but it was OK as it was part of the game, like the complex crafting system. In FFXI it was the same, you have to really KNOW your receipes instead of relying on a in-game list. And your craft could fail and lose all the raw materials that you put in, but it was OK as it has always been the way it was, crafting gives you no stat bonus like in WoW so you don't really lose out on anything for not having a craft, I played FFXI for 4 years and didn't have a single max craft.

Level I agree need some sorting. In FFXI there is no exp in questing, you sololy gain exp by killing monsters, and most of the time you level by having a group of 6 people and constinuously killing monsters for 2-3 hours, which I agree need changing, but they instead of making it better sounds like they have made it worse in FF14.

Late FFXI they brought out instancing, which I am surprised they didn't fully make use of in FF14. FFXI had some really nice raid though, funny to say, while WoW have more interesting boss mechanics, I would say FF has the better raid mechanics. Savage and Nyzul, and Limbus are a good example of it.

Another thing I really like about FF11 was, it was VERY story driven. Each expansion has a unique storyline that you have to play through if you want to access all the latest raids, not just wait for a patch day and suddenly everyone get access to it, you have to get to a certain mission on the storyline in order to enter as they are usually part of the storyline as the expansion pack goes on. I still remember the hell of the CoP mission (2nd expansion pack), need to get to mission 7 in order to enter Sea. The raid grind in FF11 was hell but was very rewarding in the end, and you can really feel the storyline being progressed.

If they could have keep the class system in FFXI, add exp to questing and less grinding leveling, more intersting boss mechanics (while keeping the interesting raid mechanics), and slightly better drop rate (some boss I killed for 3 months straight and not dropped a thing, yes, boss doesn't guarantee a drop in FF, you can spend 30min downing a boss and get nothing out of it), more up to date graphics engine (FFXI had horrid CPU usage and bad frame rate too), making crafting slightly easier than in FFXI but not as easy as WoW, keep the interesting style of quests and keep the expansion storylines as they are, and may be a more futuristic settings (like FF7 and 8), I think that would have done a lot better.

[Kalier]

I played FFXI, and liked it a lot. Some of the things that turned people off were already in FFXI but it was OK as it was part of the game, like the complex crafting system. In FFXI it was the same, you have to really KNOW your receipes instead of relying on a in-game list. And your craft could fail and lose all the raw materials that you put in, but it was OK as it has always been the way it was, crafting gives you no stat bonus like in WoW so you don't really lose out on anything for not having a craft, I played FFXI for 4 years and didn't have a single max craft.

The problem wasn't exactly the lack of a list in FFXIV. it was the fact that almost anything you crafted required you to craft 6-8 OTHER things first to be able to craft it, and each of those other things often took either 2-3 things crafted, or a large list of stuff. Overall you would often craft about 25-35 things before you finally got to the end product. that combined with the lack of a list is what made the crafting disliked by a lot of people.

Also in FFXI some NPCs would tell you how to craft certain things. at launch in FFXIV, they didn't even have that. Crafting leves would give you the "recipe" without actually telling you how to make it, or how to view that recipe.

[Yoshimiko]

Wait...what? Aion has SIGNIFICANTLY better graphical fidelity than WoW and is still (especially after the engine update to CryEngine 2) one of the best looking MMO's around. If you're talking about art style than yeah, it's got an Eastern art style to it compared to WoW's decidedly western aesthetics.

Back on topic: It launched in an alpha state basically. It was devoid of basic features such as a properly functioning broker/AH system, a tutorial that actually told you anything, and the combat put most people to sleep.

Specifically the way names over targets heads were handled REALLY bugged me, but the overall graphical style is what I'm talking about. I enjoyed it far less than the cartooney style of WoW. Same reason I disliked Rift and SWTOR, but FFXIV's graphics really have me interested.

[Aoyi]

There were a lot of UI issues early on. The game really didn't have a good means of transportation established and still didn't by the time I stopped playing. I had gotten the collectors edition shich was suppose to come with a special "onion helm" which if you didn't enter a code a specific moment of installation process, you no longer were eligible to get. The levequest system was the only real way to level and you were limited to only a couple per day. Crafting was intentionally confusing in the tradition of ffxi. There were just far too many strikes against it for a game I really wanted to like. I played ffxi from the American beta until around 5 years after launch, so I was hoping for some of the best parts of FF mixed with improvements that had been made in the mmo genre. Perhaps even some leasons learned from wow's success, but with Square's polish. Sadly it just didn't live up to its potential.

[Edge-]

Specifically the way names over targets heads were handled REALLY bugged me, but the overall graphical style is what I'm talking about. I enjoyed it far less than the cartooney style of WoW. Same reason I disliked Rift and SWTOR, but FFXIV's graphics really have me interested.

Don't say graphics when you mean art style. When people talk about graphics they are talking about things like the number of pixels, shading/lighting effects, AA/post processing ect, graphical fidelity. You're talking about the artwork and art style, something entirely different. Sadly people use "graphics" to mean both things many times but it's not the correct term : /

[cleveland4life]

I was an early beta tester, and played a bit of release and wrote a whole review of it back then, feel free to read. http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/22525...79#entry368479

[Aman08]

I don't normally hate on games but when you ask what is wrong with FF14, all I can say is dear God what isn't wrong.

Aside from the pretty graphics (which are really good BTW), there is nothing else going for that game as it stands.

If you like:

Menus. Lots and lots of menus. From equipping gear to resting to combat. You will go through many.
Extremely tedious and brutal combat harkening back to old EQ days where you need 10 guys to kill a garden snake.
No recipe lists. Having a wiki page open to alt-tab to for anything.
The most horrible gathering mini-games ever. Yes, gathering materials requires a mini game that is so boring it just boggles the mind why they added it.
Walking. Across huge areas. You will do this a lot.
Having to tab when typing so <Japanese><Players> will understand what you're saying. <Jerkin><Meat><Puppet><Can I have it?>

God, so much more I could go on about if I loaded it up and took the time but just loading the game is a task in itself.
Oh, and have fun setting up your account. Talk about a mess.

[Deleted]

Well, at the state it was when I gave it a go.
The graphics were AMAZING, that's the good thing.

What killed it for me was it really didn't give you any advice as of what to do next or where to go. I completed the first quest and felt like I was left hanging.
Or maybe that's just me being stupid.

Anyway, a little first aid to the controls/operating menus, use a gaming pad. The game works alot better with that, almost feels like any FF game if you use a controller
instead of mouse and keyboard. Because that game isn't designed for mouse and keyboard, at all.

The funniest part of the whole FFXIV experience for me was the email I got from square telling me how the game wasn't how they wanted it to be, and how they changed most of the dev team to fix what is wrong with it for console release. Now, this is just my experience and it was some time ago, I'm not sure if they've managed to patch it up to being a game worth playing.

[Riathy]

I don't normally hate on games but when you ask what is wrong with FF14, all I can say is dear God what isn't wrong.

Aside from the pretty graphics (which are really good BTW), there is nothing else going for that game as it stands.

If you like:

Menus. Lots and lots of menus. From equipping gear to resting to combat. You will go through many.
Extremely tedious and brutal combat harkening back to old EQ days where you need 10 guys to kill a garden snake.
No recipe lists. Having a wiki page open to alt-tab to for anything.
The most horrible gathering mini-games ever. Yes, gathering materials requires a mini game that is so boring it just boggles the mind why they added it.
Walking. Across huge areas. You will do this a lot.
Having to tab when typing so <Japanese><Players> will understand what you're saying. <Jerkin><Meat><Puppet><Can I have it?>

God, so much more I could go on about if I loaded it up and took the time but just loading the game is a task in itself.
Oh, and have fun setting up your account. Talk about a mess.

Pretty much this, also alt tabbing isn't supported in FFXIV because it crashed if you do. I wouldn't recommend it and afaik they are also asking money for the abomination next year.
I'd say you wait until 2.0(?) comes out and check back. It is really dreadful. I did like fishing in that game though :P

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