What problems do you have with Final Fantasy 14?

[Haidaes]

And most of the classes don't "click" until you get some of the level 60/70/80 abilities.

As much as I love FFXIV, I can fully admit that it makes a really bad first impression for genre veterans.

I'm a bit torn on the last bit, after all WoW doesn't give you all the nice toys while leveling either. No game actually does, even Guild Wars only does if you skip the whole leveling process straight to endgame. Low level tanks in WoW often don't get their taunts until the late 10s or even later either for example. And if you go back then there is obviously something to be said about the system actually scaling you down and keeping the balance intact (otherwise high level characters would steamroll the content solo and new players wouldn't learn anything either). I think for what they intent here it works (getting high level players to fill spots in low level groups to keep the queus short), I'm just not sure if the intention is the right goal to strife for and if they shoudl balance it differently, but then the balance effort becomes more and more difficult as time goes on as you constantly need to revisist all old stuff. It's difficult, but I definitely agree, suddenly getting a lvl <10 dungeon is such a fucking pain when you absolutely can't do shit anymore.

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A M+ system and better pvp would probably make me put down WoW forever.

I have to admit, them not giving a toss about PvP is probably the best thing for me, as I rarely miss out on stuff

[Irian]

Shadowbringers was a horrendous expansion that oversimplified the game to a mind-numbing degree and since they had to make it engaging otherwise, the newer fights just feel like stack-spread-clocks mechanic vomit.

Don't get me wrong, I really liked Shadowbringers on a storytelling level, the MSQ was great. But the expansion itself has been half-baked PvE content and...crafting leaderboards???
We got no deep dungeon, Bozja feels half-baked on the best of days, and a lot of classes were reduced to skeletal frames of what they used to be. Almost every tank has a combo despite never actually having a way to deviate from that combo. Things like individual party buffs and AST cards got reduced to a mind-numbing level of simplicity that just isn't fun to me at all. I see no reason to level every class for the first time in an expansion just because half of them are basically cosmetic reskins of another class.

In general I'm just really disappointed at the direction of the game this expansion. This expansion made me lose my interest a lot and yet it feels like I'm the only one bothered by these things.

[Hobotripin]

In general I'm just really disappointed at the direction of the game this expansion. This expansion made me lose my interest a lot and yet it feels like I'm the only one bothered by these things.

That's because the majority of the playerbase doesn't do actual content, they play dress up, they play sims with their house, or they just macro afk craft for "fun".

[draugril]

That's because the majority of the playerbase doesn't do actual content, they play dress up, they play sims with their house, or they just macro afk craft for "fun".

And that's fine...? Let FFXIV be FFXIV. This is the "actual content" of this game. The loot treadmill is not the only legitimate avenue of gameplay in the genre, contrary to what WoW has conditioned people to believe.

[Eli85]

I maintain a subscription to both.

When I started playing around in this genre, I had a surplus of time and very little money. Twenty years later, I have the opposite situation - a surplus of money, but very little free time. WoW does that core gameplay loop that originally hooked me better than anything else, and anything that came before. Unfortunately, that's all they do. Every system implemented is in service of chasing a higher number. Even the geography of the world itself is informed by the needs of the gameplay systems rather than systems being designed to suit the world. They have become so laser-focused on that endgame gameplay loop that they have excluded all else. And unfortunately... I literally cannot organize my time in such a way that I can engage in that loop to my satisfaction. Worse yet is that, with scant drops and more RNG, I will often spend time in game that goes entirely unrewarded. WoW does not respect my time.

FFXIV does respect my time, however. And unfortunately, this is an outcome of its admittedly meagre endgame. You can focus elsewhere, and indeed, content 'elsewhere" actually exists. Even if FFXIV were to shift around its resources to match WoW... I wouldn't want it to. It would no longer be a game that I could feasibly enjoy. It serves a different audience from WoW. It has its own niche. And that's okay. It doesn't make it a bad game, no more than WoW no longer suiting my changing lifestyle makes WoW a bad game.

They're different. And that's a good thing.

I get this argument. I really do. I don't play MMOs as much as I used to, and my larger problem with retail WoW is the time investment required to be competitive and do content at the highest level. Then FF XIV for me is really the polar opposite: not enough hard content. I think it's why I just can't into either game; one requires too much time, the other requires too little. If one of them came in the middle, I'd be exceedingly happy. But c'est la vie.

They are different games, and while that is a good thing, I just feel that the game does not provide enough challenging content. I don't want the WoW time investment, but I also don't want to be bored out of my mind because only 4-5 fights provide any challenge for months at a time, and it's not even all that challenging at that. This isn't even just a comparison to WoW either. I've raided in a lot of different games, and FF XIV savage is really ... not hard. Ultimates? Yes. But those are going to be phased out; not that S-E has confirmed that, but the writing is on the wall.

Basically I just wish that S-E would give a little more content to the people who want challenging MMO content. That would give me a reason to play more.

[Kelduril]

Graphics look very dated.

I saw the CGI trailers on youtube and they... aren't good. The pop music with English lyrics clashes seriously hard with the Asian aesthetic. It just... looks like a very generic asian game that tries to be Western at the same time. All in all pretty cringy.

The British accent in the Shadowbringer trailer clashes hard with them wielding katanas and doing the whole samurai draw.

[draugril]

I get this argument. I really do. I don't play MMOs as much as I used to, and my larger problem with retail WoW is the time investment required to be competitive and do content at the highest level. Then FF XIV for me is really the polar opposite: not enough hard content. I think it's why I just can't into either game; one requires too much time, the other requires too little. If one of them came in the middle, I'd be exceedingly happy. But c'est la vie.

They are different games, and while that is a good thing, I just feel that the game does not provide enough challenging content. I don't want the WoW time investment, but I also don't want to be bored out of my mind because only 4-5 fights provide any challenge for months at a time, and it's not even all that challenging at that. This isn't even just a comparison to WoW either. I've raided in a lot of different games, and FF XIV savage is really ... not hard. Ultimates? Yes. But those are going to be phased out; not that S-E has confirmed that, but the writing is on the wall.

Basically I just wish that S-E would give a little more content to the people who want challenging MMO content. That would give me a reason to play more.

That's fair as well. Personally, however, if I had to make the call to choose between more raid content, which I've already had my fill with in a multitude of MMOs, and whatever other weird system that they want to implement, be it ranked crafting or Mah Jong, I'll take the weird oddity. FFXIV is not going to beat WoW at being WoW.

Furthermore, this actually allows me to play with a wider variety of people. In WoW, other players have been relegated to simply being obstacles for your personal goals. It turns off a lot of newcomers because of that, and not all players are competitive at all. FFXIV allows my wife to get her Animal Crossing-esque fix. It allows my daughter to "play dress up." It allows a cousin to do... whatever he does all day long with Chocobos in the Gold Saucer. It allows me to passively craft while I work from home. There are so many ways in which to engage with this world, which are overly supported by ongoing development, and being able to check in to see what everyone else is up to is so gratifying.

Whereas in WoW... there is one path to take. All content is designed to funnel you onto that loot treadmill. Nearly all "alternative" content, such as collections, are just systems left in the wake of that treadmill. I recently got the wife to try WoW again, but she put it back down pretty quickly. It just isn't the game it used to be, and we're not the people we used to be. It just isn't for us anymore. And again, that's not a knock against WoW - it does what it does very well. That just isn't all that engaging at this point in my life.

[AryuFate]

That once you complete the story, the game is just a lobby for queuing into dungeons and raids. I want good Open World content.

[draugril]

That once you complete the story, the game is just a lobby for queuing into dungeons and raids. I want good Open World content.

That's a fair desire. I find it pretty ironic how the MMO genre has transitioned back into having a focus on small-scale content separated from the rest of the world. Just like the lobbies from those pre-MMO online games.

[StrawberryZebra]

The one thing that really bothers me, that hasn't already been mentioned, is the UI. It's absolutely awful. I stand by what I said in the Megathread - It's over designed to the point of being none functional in parts. The fact you can't fix it with addons is just infuriating.

Job Gauges exemplify this problem for me - They're pretty to look at, but very unclear in the information they're intended to convey to the player at times. Even in simple mode some of them, like the Black Mage, are very overloaded and don't always present things as well as they should.

[gobio]

FF14 is fundamentally broken.

Initially due to budget or connection or server or design choice whatever, they made a slow paced MMO with 2.5 second GCD. That means they have 2.5 second to make fancy animation for character skill.

But that is a problem, rightfully or not, so they add 'ogcd', but unlike wow, that 'ogcd' has its own cd... Which leads to double weaving... the animation never keeps up with this, or they don't even bother at this point. so my character during opening in which I do multiple 'double weaving' back to back to back, my character looks like a total idiot on screen.

FF14 has given up that aspect of gameplay entirely.

[Forteofgray]

the leveling process is atrocious. it's too slow, fates give very little experience and the side quests do as well. doing dungeons with 2-3 abilities is enough to put me to sleep.

there are too many keys to press.

some of the raids can be really confusing with all the mechanics. it gets to a point where it's visual noise and I feel sensory overload.

there is next to nothing to do outside crafting and standing in capitol cities waiting on queues to pop.

Other than this stuff, the game is good but those are some serious problems. The aesthetic and cool jobs keep me coming back every few months but then I end up standing around thinking "okay, what now?" and I log off after a couple dungeons. Sometimes I go hang out in my FC house but I can't think of much to do. it just doesn't have enough open world stuff. the entire core of the game relies solely on queuing for stuff.

[Rootsbum]

The graphics: It looks washed out, bland and nothing REALLY stands out

The UI

I Leveled to 50 and just logges out and un-innstalled. It was way to slow and the classes didnt give me a feeling about how it would be in the end

Felt more like Habbo hotell with extra steps

[Sorrior]

Shadowlands was a horrendous expansion that oversimplified the game to a mind-numbing degree and since they had to make it engaging otherwise, the newer fights just feel like stack-spread-clocks mechanic vomit.

Don't get me wrong, I really liked Shadowlands on a storytelling level, the MSQ was great. But the expansion itself has been half-baked PvE content and...crafting leaderboards???
We got no deep dungeon, Bozja feels half-baked on the best of days, and a lot of classes were reduced to skeletal frames of what they used to be. Almost every tank has a combo despite never actually having a way to deviate from that combo. Things like individual party buffs and AST cards got reduced to a mind-numbing level of simplicity that just isn't fun to me at all. I see no reason to level every class for the first time in an expansion just because half of them are basically cosmetic reskins of another class.

In general I'm just really disappointed at the direction of the game this expansion. This expansion made me lose my interest a lot and yet it feels like I'm the only one bothered by these things.

Nope as a war main i felt it last xpac and even worse this one

[Pakheth]

The graphics: It looks washed out, bland and nothing REALLY stands out

This is my nr 1 critique of the game. It's just so ...grey. And honestly it doesn't look like the characters belong in the world they are in, at least not the same way they do in WoW. Characters all have nice smooth textures while the world textures are all gritty. It just clashes for me.

[Malix Farwin]

FFXIV is an objectively terrible game. Everything you mentioned is why it's a failure of an MMORPG.

Kudos to dat boi Yoshi P & his gang of hooligans - they gave it an honest shot. Unfortunately though, they picked up a polished turd.

The nail in the coffin was the laughably & irrefutably terrible Bozjan Southern Front.

People asked for a reimagining of Eureka that accurately captured the spirit of it while bringing forth new ideas and instead were served a dull and lifeless zone littered with soulless mobs that serve no other purpose than to chase you for miles before their aggro leash breaks.

I pray to our father in heaven, Jehovah, that FFXIV is shut down to protect innocent gamers from having their MMORPG experience sullied with a half-baked experience.

I guess me and you have widely different definitions of what a failure is.

It makes a ton of money.(so much so that it is helping them fund other games)

Has a healthy player base.

Has seen steady growth.

While you may personally dislike the game i am confused as to why you think its a failure. Are you confusing what a failure is instead of failed to capture you specifically?

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FF14 is fundamentally broken.

Initially due to budget or connection or server or design choice whatever, they made a slow paced MMO with 2.5 second GCD. That means they have 2.5 second to make fancy animation for character skill.

But that is a problem, rightfully or not, so they add 'ogcd', but unlike wow, that 'ogcd' has its own cd... Which leads to double weaving... the animation never keeps up with this, or they don't even bother at this point. so my character during opening in which I do multiple 'double weaving' back to back to back, my character looks like a total idiot on screen.

FF14 has given up that aspect of gameplay entirely.

I mean by your same argument i could say any X MMO is fundamentally broken because of x reasons. Your reasons for why its broken falls flat because those were intentional design choices they made for the game. Rather you disagree with them or not does not however make them "broken".

[Deneios]

The one thing that really bothers me, that hasn't already been mentioned, is the UI. It's absolutely awful. I stand by what I said in the Megathread - It's over designed to the point of being none functional in parts. The fact you can't fix it with addons is just infuriating.

Job Gauges exemplify this problem for me - They're pretty to look at, but very unclear in the information they're intended to convey to the player at times. Even in simple mode some of them, like the Black Mage, are very overloaded and don't always present things as well as they should.

You do know you can modify the ui like you would use bartender mod in wow. Everything is moveable and job gauges can be set to simplified so they wont take screen space.

[Kathranis]

Biggest issue for me is that, compared to WoW, it feels clunky. Movement is floaty and has weird momentum. Telegraphed enemy attacks are out of sync with the actual attack animations, meaning you can be hit by something because you were where the reticle was when their cast bar finished, even if you dodge the explosion by a mile. Everything has noticeable input delay, which is especially obvious when you're doing anything that involves platforming.

Just a couple examples, but there's a lot of light jank in the way the game plays where WoW is extremely responsive and finely tuned.

I also feel like its abilities and rotations go too far in the opposite direction of WoW. Lots of buttons to press which could be consolidated, and generally long cooldowns on a lot of the fun stuff. Character playstyle customization is (or at least was) pretty nonexistent beyond maybe gearing for enough Haste to affect your rotation. Maybe it's changed a bit since last I played, though.

In terms of story and presentation, it's excellent, and it does a lot of stuff well that WoW doesn't do well, or doesn't do at all. But in terms of actual core gameplay, it just feels worse.

For me, it's just a game I jump into every couple years to play through the story and maybe mess around a bit to get a cool looking glamour, and then dip because the moment-to-moment gameplay and endgame doesn't really interest me.

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You do know you can modify the ui like you would use bartender mod in wow. Everything is moveable and job gauges can be set to simplified so they wont take screen space.

Yep. It's a bit of a pain in the ass to get the UI setup, but when I came back to the game a few years ago I even messed around until I got something pretty close to the default WoW UI.

[HighlordJohnstone]

The game isn't alt friendly, especially since you can legit be any Job in the game, therefore pinning your main to a standard above all others.

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Shadowlands was a horrendous expansion that oversimplified the game to a mind-numbing degree and since they had to make it engaging otherwise, the newer fights just feel like stack-spread-clocks mechanic vomit.

Don't get me wrong, I really liked Shadowlands on a storytelling level, the MSQ was great. But the expansion itself has been half-baked PvE content and...crafting leaderboards???
We got no deep dungeon, Bozja feels half-baked on the best of days, and a lot of classes were reduced to skeletal frames of what they used to be. Almost every tank has a combo despite never actually having a way to deviate from that combo. Things like individual party buffs and AST cards got reduced to a mind-numbing level of simplicity that just isn't fun to me at all. I see no reason to level every class for the first time in an expansion just because half of them are basically cosmetic reskins of another class.

In general I'm just really disappointed at the direction of the game this expansion. This expansion made me lose my interest a lot and yet it feels like I'm the only one bothered by these things.

Kinda agree? But uhm, I think you mean Shadowbringers bud. Not Shadowlands lol

[Halyon]

The engine is ancient so the mechanics and graphics could be a lot better, but they ain't. It's lifeless and boring-looking because it's limited. Spell effects are ok, but it just points out how much the rest sucks by now.

I don't care about raiding atm, so can't say as such, but in principle, not standing in the circle when it poofs to move right back into the area of the death nuke that then does nothing is just...strange. WoW does that better.

I don't expect cutting edge stuff, but this is just outdated.

MSQ is fine. Just fine.