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

[Tojara]

When you get to play as an NPC it's good to take 2 minutes to read what their spells do. They only added lower difficulty levels to these duties because some people complained about it.

I'm really sorry but I really don't understand why it's so hard to learn how to press 4 buttons.

I don't really mind them, my only issue was with the Thancred one in ShB in the sand area, and only because it seemed to take forever. All the other ones were fine. If you really hate them just do them on the lowest difficulty possible so you can get them done faster, while experiencing the story.

[Kazgrel]

I don't really mind them, my only issue was with the Thancred one in ShB in the sand area, and only because it seemed to take forever. All the other ones were fine. If you really hate them just do them on the lowest difficulty possible so you can get them done faster, while experiencing the story.

That one stunk a bit because the opponent you fight has a bazillion hp, even if you're losing next to no uptime hacking away at him.

The "play as X NPC" battles are welcome, IMO, since they offer some bit of variety, even if it's dumbed down to "here's 3-4 buttons". The presentation of it is key (see: Sapphire Weapon).

[Tojara]

Without any knowledge, I was a little bit concerned when I did the Sapphire Weapon section of the weapon series questline. Not because it wasn't enjoyable (it was) but because I figured it was foreshadowing doing the suit battle thing for multiple battles afterwards as well. As a stand alone it was different and fairly fun, but I would've hated doing it for all the other weapon series fights TBH.

The ones at the end of ShB are pretty fast by comparison and it's just kind of a change of pace. If they weren't in the game I don't think anything would truly be lost, but they're kind of short so they didn't really bother me. I get more annoyed by the back tracking quests in some sections of the games than playing as other characters in FF14 (granted, 90% of the bad backtracking takes place in ARR).

I can't remember if you get the option to pick the easy version of it from the start or not, but I know from watching other people play the game afterwards that you certainly get the option to lower the difficulty if you fail. Regardless, if you don't like those sections you can always just instantly lose to make it a lot quicker.

[ippollite]

ah, sorry folks, once again, i just wanted to moan about it.
But i still want to make it constructive so as long as the following condition is met i shan't ask for it to 'never happen again'.

Condition 1: Let me change the key binds for the spells once ive read the tool tips so i dont spend my time randomly mouse clicking because ive forgotten what the tool binds said the second i saw them in the wrong keybind (and muscle memory really wanted me to press them according to the system ive spent 16 years using).

[Cosmic Janitor]

That one stunk a bit because the opponent you fight has a bazillion hp, even if you're losing next to no uptime hacking away at him.

The "play as X NPC" battles are welcome, IMO, since they offer some bit of variety, even if it's dumbed down to "here's 3-4 buttons". The presentation of it is key (see: Sapphire Weapon).

I kinda hate that you have to read all the tooltips (which does usually not include multi tier single button spells until you use them) while there is RP happening around you. I'm always frantically looking all over the screen in hopes that I don't miss the interesting bits while I see what the abilities even do.

That being said, it's less annoying than dying to the one troll attack right near the end of the scenarios in which you play with your actual character. Usually to that one attack(combo/pattern) you last saw 2 expansions ago once and they think you still should remember the exact dodge pattern..

.. then there is also the issue that you can often not estimate what you actually need to dodge and what not. Like the echo is keeping you somewhat alive through some of the biggest attacks and then suddenly it is not. Did I fuck up 3 attacks ago or the last? Especially coming back after a break I tend to run into that issue often. All of that wouldn't be much of an issue either, if the general delay between server, client, animation and actual hit-check wasn't as atrocious as it is.

[FFXIVuseryo]

Don't expect changes to be anytime soon.