What are you not enjoying about the game?

[Nurvus]

#1 - Crafting and Gathering has so much potential and yet it does not feel rewarding.
It simply fuels itself. You craft and gather... to craft and gather better.
It does allow you to make some HQ gear for leveling, which is at best equivalent to what you get from duties, but it doesn't really matter because the game is easy.
The time you spend leveling has nothing to do with how hard it is to do quests, but how much time you spend moving around or watching cutscenes.
At some point Crafting becomes relevant outside of itself, but that's for a small percentage of the game.
This might not bother me if the mini-game for crafting wasn't so enjoyable and interactive, but it is, and precisely because of that, my expectations for the system are higher, and so is my disappointment.
WoW crafting doesn't add to your experience while leveling either, nor does it have a cool mini-game, but it flows easily into your playtime because it is not excessively time consuming or disruptive.

#2 - The Class/Job design, despite all the improvements over the expansions - and it did improve a lot - still feels on rails and homogenized.
I like how the Abilities can be used outside the GCD of the Weaponskills, especially with Dragoon Jumps, and I also enjoy having positional requirements on skills.
But even with that, the numbers, the (often lack of) interaction between abilities, it's all so similar that when you change between Jobs of the same role, you're mostly changing aesthetics. Sure there is like one or two mechanics that stands out in terms of gameplay, like the Ninja Mudras, but it all runs on the exact same canvas.
I found this homogenization acceptable during the closed beta for ARR, but as expansions went by it's just been grinding down my enjoyment...

#3 - You can't really stand out among others of the same Job, apart from knowing the encounter/Job mechanics better.
3.1 - There is no customization - this is connected to #2.
You once had some degree of (bad) customization, but it turned out everyone used the same stuff all the time so they removed the "mandatory" stuff from the cross skills and now you have inconsequential choices.
3.2 - The skill ceiling is VERY low - cycling through a long pre-ordered list of abilities isn't skill.

#4 - If everything tries to feel special, nothing feels special.
Every ability is so flashy, down to the most basic ones. And the most powerful abilities aren't necessarily the most impressive either.

#5 - Story keeps telling me I'm special, powerful and chosen, but I'm constantly helpless, useless or forced to lose and be shown mercy or saved in the nick of time just to show how powerful my new enemy is; and every other quest I'm told to deliver a package.
Same issue that Crafting has - if the game didn't try to sell me on the idea that I'm special and powerful, it wouldn't bother me.
WoW has inherited this same problem since WoD and it's been getting worse.

#6 - Game still has some ridiculous limitations.
Loading screens between adjacent zones on an MMO with today's technology, despite PS3 no longer being supported.
Au'Ra horns and face can't be customized separately due to "memory", despite PS3 no longer being supported.

#7 - Nostalgia milking
Materia, Limit Breaks - all a bad joke of the original...
Materia are just boring stat gems - why can't they at least be ways to modify your combat with interesting effects?
Limit Breaks could easily be the highlight of the game as a way to express your Class/Job, but instead are just this pre-determined mechanic where the only variable is who pushes the button.
I guess at least 4 expansions later my fist-fighting Monk no longer has sword limit breaks anymore...
But seriously, if they like nostalgia so much, why not use the stuff that has potential?
FF7 support materia, proper personal limit breaks with different levels, timed input (Tifa LB)
FF8 skill junction, interesting GF passives, more timed input (renzokuken/gunblade shot on hit)
FF9 traits, skills/traits learned from gear.
FF10 sphere grid, interesting gear effects, more timed input (overdrive)

[Advent]

Just because something is subjective doesn't mean it's irrelevant or without benefit to discuss though. If you genuinely have examples of mechanics that were super obtuse without addons I'd love to hear them, because like I said I just genuinely can't think of any, so I'm curious where the floor is. I can easily think of examples in FF14, which again was my original point. If you don't want to then no need to respond to it, but again I will treat it as an admission that I am right (if that matters to you at all).

I can think of a recent one actually, though this might be a personal failing on my part. Council of Blood in Castle Nathria. I actually had to watch a video in order to understand what the game was trying to tell me to do for the dance because it didn't feel very intuitive at all.

[Wrecktangle]

My best example for where mods the needed is coordinating stubs and interrupts.

That's weird. I just don't know why they're needed except in ranked PVP.

I stuck around in toxic environments because I don’t have a solid enough schedule to go higher than that and wow pushes you to go as high as you can go.

Fair enough. I get that. I always struggled finding a guild to raid with because I want top 100 quality, but only want to play only Ret and only 6 hours a week. That only leaves on average 1-2 guilds a tier, and they're NEVER looking for melee.

The reason I’m confused by your scalable content thing is because FF14 already has such an extensive amount of scaling compared to wow, so this is a weird thing to ask for IMO. Virtually all content scales. It sounds like what you are asking for is more hard modes, which is a different ask.

Scalable content is kind of 2 major pieces for me. Features that can be used and grown upon as you move from patch to patch/expansion to expansion and gives room for different player styles to enjoy it rather than something created for the lowest common denominator. Looking at WoW is stuff like the transmog or mount collection systems. Stuff like flex raiding, or Mythic+.

In FF14 sure we have stuff like Palace of the Dead -> Heaven on High, but then that got left behind to rot. We had Eureka, but it was nothing but a glorified hunt train, which is some of FF14's most derivative content or worse, just grinding mobs casually in the outworld. FF14 does a good job of keeping most of it's old content rewarding, but then fails miserably in other aspects of it.

I don’t think your dps comparisons are valid. Different specs perform differently at different levels of play. WoWs balance is all fucked up at the level of the average player, because it relies so heavily on meta knowledge to compete. Anyone with the “wrong” talents and gear is at an extreme disadvantage. The level of balance you are describing in wow is only when looking at players who get logged which is the players most likely to make the “right” meta choices. Look at the player with the wrong legendary and the wrong talents. He’s 50% behind the guy with the “right” stuff.

You're comparing a different metric than I am though altogether though. I wasn't comparing the dude who only does world quests against the #1 ranked raider. I'm comparing the #1 ranked raider against his peers, the other raiders across both games demonstrating that the ACTUAL balance isn't that far off.

You want me to compare uninformed players vs. informed players? Why for what purpose? Even at the median %'s comparing BLM across savage vs. normal there's a 35% DPS disparity among their players. For Ret median %, it's a 37% DPS differential across mythic to heroic. It's a 28% DPS differential from Heroic to Normal for Rets. ilvl muddies the waters a good bit here though.

GW2 has better better netcode than wow

Fair enough only ever played it casually.

The comment being made about the DPS classes being varied is fine for FF14 though...the classes are set to be at certain levels based on the amount of personal damage vs. utility they bring.

The ranged DPS bring less damage but more utility (except Black Mage which brings literally nothing other than explosions) while the melee deal more damage with a bit less utility (admittedly also because they have to follow the boss around so they get more damage for that). In each category of damage dealer you have the greedier versions (BML/SAM/MCH) and the more utility oriented ones (RDM and DNC come to mind). It's planned out that way.

While I generally agree with all of your points and the thrust of your argument.

I think it's important to point out some amount of FFXIV's variance is the built-in utility tax which wow explicitly does not do. There will always be some amount of variance between a BRD and a BLM because SE wants it to exist.
Again not saying you're wrong or I disagree with you just that is a factor that needs to be considered when comparing /spec/job performance between the two games.

For sure, but like what utility do they bring? Anything damage oriented flows into rDPS calcs, so they're already accounted for in these equations. I genuinely think if LB and party design wasn't forced some jobs would be excluded based on their performance since a lot of utility isn't necessary/useful.

You know what's really annoying about this?

There is a XIV plugin/addon that fixes a big problem with the netcode that you can just use freely (Yoshi has said he does not care about addons, it's also not detectable or bannable unless you tell people in chat), but the devs don't care to fix the real underlying problem because when they design the game they don't care about EU or NA players. Only JP who all live on a tiny island next to DC with 10 ping.

Send me a link with more info on this. I want to check it out.

I can think of a recent one actually, though this might be a personal failing on my part. Council of Blood in Castle Nathria. I actually had to watch a video in order to understand what the game was trying to tell me to do for the dance because it didn't feel very intuitive at all.

Honestly a great example! I died to it like 3x and everyone was like what the fuck was wrong with you, run to the spotlight. After the first time I died, I spoke up said, hey why did I die? I followed the prompts the NPCs said. They said do it better. The next time I died they just kept me on the floor. The third time I died I said okay what the shit am I doing wrong and everyone was like dude go to the fucking spotlight. I'm like what fucking spotlight, I was like guys I've never seen this spotlight and I streamed it and showed them and they were all like wow you're right what the fuck. I restarted my PC and it worked fine LOL.

I wonder if I would have been fine had I seen the spotlight. I'd like to think I would have been like shit yeah we have to do that, but agree it's still a good example.

[shadowmatrix]

Why can't we talk to NPCs while mounted?
Just did the archer targeting quest, why does my character need to stop moving just to put their weapon away?

Probably said this before in this thread but wireless communication. The scions use it several times but I keep hearing return to HQ so we can give you a quest to go somewhere else. Pray return to the Waking Sands.

Forgot about this one, Deep dungeon leveling. Seems good but its all or nothing. You either beat the tenth floor of your set or you get nothing. Not worth the trouble when it comes to a job I'm not familiar with.

[Ringthane]

How about the fact that I can't even download and play the trial because the launcher is garbage? Good thing I didn't actually pay for this drivel.

[Katchii]

How about the fact that I can't even download and play the trial because the launcher is garbage? Good thing I didn't actually pay for this drivel.

While I can't argue that the account management and download stuff for this game is pretty bad, there are numerous guides online as well as instructions on the website itself that tell you how to manage all of it. If you cared about playing, you could spend the time reading that stuff.

Again I agree, it shouldn't be needed, but the resources to help you through this problem ARE there.

[Graeham]

It's a fair point, though. I wonder how many just never bothered trying the game due to how needlessly awkward it is to create an account in the first place.

It's still worth trying, nevertheless - it is a good game. It just isn't perfect.

[Ragnarocket]

Why can't we talk to NPCs while mounted?
Just did the archer targeting quest, why does my character need to stop moving just to put their weapon away?

Probably said this before in this thread but wireless communication. The scions use it several times but I keep hearing return to HQ so we can give you a quest to go somewhere else. Pray return to the Waking Sands.

Forgot about this one, Deep dungeon leveling. Seems good but its all or nothing. You either beat the tenth floor of your set or you get nothing. Not worth the trouble when it comes to a job I'm not familiar with.

Usually the quests will start a small mini-cutscene so the default is just to get your character in a regular standard position, no mount no weapon, so that the animations play out properly for everyone.

Yes...the ability to use linkshells and yet still "Pray Return" is one of the dumber things. At least nowadays people can use their little vouchers or flight to get there but back in ye olden times we just teleported to Horizon or Limsa to get there quickly. All of us agree that the "Pray Return" period is dumb and annoying.

Deep Dungeons are there to assist in learning the class progression up to 60. If you're worried about not progressing and getting your EXP are you going in with a matched party? Tons of people run 1-10 or 51-60 all the time...and lately there are tons of people running all of the 1-50 as far as I've seen. You're not meant to solo it originally. Heck I tried soloing with my monk who has full +99 Weapon and Armor and just the lack of sustain was a problem on the final boss of 10.

Just gonna move this over from the megathread, since it's a gripe:

Well, finally got around to unlocking Bozja. It seems effective for leveling, but I was there 30 min and got sick of it.

I keep wanting to like this sort of content that they've been doing each expansion now - Eureka, Bozja - especially since it seems to be something they want to continue into the future. But it just...feels so uninspired and basic. Like running around a zone in EQ and camping spots to grind.

For me, it's just Eureka all over again. I see it, and I instantly start entertaining the idea of unsubscribing. It sucks, because there's so much I like about the game, but this is clearly where they want a lot of development time, story, and ultimately rewards to go.

I can't even bash it as low-effort, since it's clear they put work into it. It's just...so offensive. I dunno. And I hate that the feeling seems to hit me so hard, so fast. I go from, "Just havin' a good time here." to "What is this crap, where's the MogStation link, I'm out." in minutes. Maybe it's just because it really embodies all of the worst of the MMO genre to me.

It's not my cup of tea either, but they've stated in the past they made Eureka and Bozja with older school MMO gameplay in mind for the people who do enjoy that idea of "grinding it all up". I have to take Bozja and Zadnor in exceptionally small doses in order to not go crazy. It was the same with Eureka which I'm only just now trying to get through Pyros which I just learned about Reflect Farming which is kinda hilarious for the first like 10-15 minutes and then excessively tedious.

[Ragnarocket]

Yeah, and I would just dismiss it as side content that I don't care to do, but it feels like they've been packing more and more into it. Enough that it starts feeling less like side content and more like...well, the main content.

I would argue that was Eureka for sure - and I think they learned their lesson. At least with Bozja/Zadnor and the Resistance Weapon progression they have methods that don't necessarily need to be done inside those areas. Honestly I'd have preferred if the memories could have been farmed a bit more effectively in those places instead of outside with the raids/FATEs.

I definitely feel like I could get something more by utilizing it but I definitely don't get the feeling its the "main content" these days.

[Wrecktangle]

We had something similar happen to a Shaman back on Nefarian progression once.

They kept dying on the phase transition to the platforms and we're like, "Please just swim onto the platform, ok?" several times and they're all, "....swim? The fuck you mean swim, bros?"

Turns out, the lava wasn't rendering on their screen. At least that's what they said. Platforms would go up and they'd just see an empty arena while they died to the burning damage.

OMG I forgot about that one too! That STILL happens to me if I re-run that raid. I actually still can't go to Thunderbluff either. WoW just turns off if I do. I remember I had another one where the ground effect in some dungeon still doesn't load on my PC either. I remember it being green, but can't remember what dungeon it is.

[xpsync]

Overall it's a good mmorpg for super casual players and rp'ers.

My first encounter with the game was at launch and i was on dead server (my fault didn't research), but it just launched and a dead server already?, anyway i hit a road block as there was a dungeon i needed to progress, and that would be my first complaint is the game is on hard rails. No freedom to just do what you want.

A couple years'ish later i returned and they had fixed the issue by incentivizing people to run dungeons, and i didn't last as long as the first time, i prefer much more freedom in an mmorpg.

Third return just in the last 2/3 years was to play with a friend who was on the latest xpac, so i paid to skip all the content up to that point and for me it's kind of like ordering a nice steak dinner, then pay the restaurant so i can throw it out before i eat it, it's so f'ed up, like seriously f'ed up, like i can't even play it now, at all. Normally when you boost you can still have the freedom to do old content.

Anyway we lasted about a week and just went meh, just wasn't clicking for us.

I can not express how much i enjoyed the game at launch though, all the flash, new systems, new world, but as time went on it just became boring af. Housing, please, EQ2, SWG, that's housing, these room things with eso, ffxiv, swtor are a joke on the player, and all so they can just check mark housing, a storage closet is closer to the truth.

I love alts but at that time i was totally into the one toon to rule them all coming out of SWL, i thought it was all that, but the fact you can't take on the world from a fresh perspective, a new toon, a brand new adventure, started to become another thing i hated about the game. Sure i switched jobs but it was still the same old character, tried to actually do an alt and that felt so futile, literally a waste, was way to pointless.

Then this was about the time i started to look and take wow more seriously. Massive amount of freedom, excellent top shelf content, solo'd all of BFA was incredible immersion in to the world, solo'd first 4 months of SL, and compared to BFA wasn't as good, as it did the ffxiv BS on rails content, luckily after that the game opened right up and was great again.

Then met the right peeps and started raiding in wow first time ever, was in top raiding guild in EQ2, and SWL, normally i just let the wind take me wherever and let fate decide, sometimes i meet the rights peeps, sometimes i don't, but when i do look out.

All in all i was floored that raiding is hard af, omg finally an mmorpg not afraid to NOT casual the game into stupid'ness. I never knew, i bashed the game hard for a decade cause it killed good hard af content, EQ2 went fully stupid af (rip EQ2 2004-2008) then played wow late BC and all of wrath, with the my boys who got along just fine in wow as little kids lmao, yeah you could imagine my impression of the game, even a 4 year old can play, great job wow you f'ed over the entire genre. We did have fun not denying that.

Then did the pinball in a pinball machine bouncing around mmorpg's, shiny new mmoropg every other week it seemed.

Played various titles since, sometime meeting the right peeps like in SWL, took that game to the top, super f'ing hard content, but eventually you get so good, so op, it's not much of a challenge anymore and Funcom abandoned the game once again so, was in the wind again, fiddling with wow, F76... to where wow won me over with the help of mediocre titles such as swtor, ffxiv, eso, i mean my gawd do they ever make wow shine bright!

[Graeham]

mahjong in the golden saucer. I really want to learn this game.

Tried it last night, had no clue what I was doing so just followed the suggested tile moves and snagged second place. I'm only pushing as far as grabbing the orchestrion roll for my collection.

[Lex Icon]

Tried it last night, had no clue what I was doing so just followed the suggested tile moves and snagged second place. I'm only pushing as far as grabbing the orchestrion roll for my collection.

there where suggestions? i was just clicking them randomly til i got bored and canceled :P

[Graeham]

there where suggestions? i was just clicking them randomly til i got bored and canceled :P

One of the buttons at the bottom of the window during a game allows a toggle to show suggestions, though from what I gather they're not always the best move and don't really guarantee a victory.

It's both fascinating and frustrating to me. I want to understand it, but even after watching a video on it I'm just not grasping it at all.

I don't think it's because I'm dumb, either. Or at least I'd like to think so.

I can play chess, at least. I'd like that to be added someday.

[Lex Icon]

One of the buttons at the bottom of the window during a game allows a toggle to show suggestions, though from what I gather they're not always the best move and don't really guarantee a victory.

It's both fascinating and frustrating to me. I want to understand it, but even after watching a video on it I'm just not grasping it at all.

I don't think it's because I'm dumb, either. Or at least I'd like to think so.

I can play chess, at least. I'd like that to be added someday.

heh ok i was just looking at the tiles and thinking "how am i supposed to know what this chicken scratch means?"
also it seemed to be no end to it as i was clicking on them(only my score was getting lower).

[StillMcfuu]

I can think of a recent one actually, though this might be a personal failing on my part. Council of Blood in Castle Nathria. I actually had to watch a video in order to understand what the game was trying to tell me to do for the dance because it didn't feel very intuitive at all.

I'm curious as to what you found unintuitive?
Granted I have thousands of hours into Sid Mier's Pirates so I'm a dance simulation expert, but of all the mechanics in Nathria, the dance portion is extremely straight forward.

[meowfurion]

Retainers are a wonky version of a bank.

Lalafells exist.

100% this is my entire issue with FFXIV.

Oh.......and lots of weebing. Must EVERYONE be a cat dude or a bunny girl in skimpy clothes in Limsa looking exactly the same?

[dizzzave]

I strongly dislike that they have a ton of non-fantasy cosmetics in a fantasy MMO.

I really don't like being dressed like a badass knight or wizard and then coming into town and seeing a bunch of people in baseball hats, jeans, and skate shoes. I don't need a game that takes its self 100% seriously all the time, but I want a coherent look and feel.

I'm at like level 18-19 so I'm in the oldest areas in the game. I'm hoping that the visual fidelity gets better when I get into new content. A lot of the areas I'm in now look like PS3 graphics.

Those are my main complaints. The 2.5s GCD feels slow but I'm starting to get spells that aren't on the GCD and it feels better.

[Rogalicus]

I really don't like being dressed like a badass knight or wizard and then coming into town and seeing a bunch of people in baseball hats, jeans, and skate shoes. I don't need a game that takes its self 100% seriously all the time, but I want a coherent look and feel.

At least you haven't seen car mount yet.

I'm at like level 18-19 so I'm in the oldest areas in the game. I'm hoping that the visual fidelity gets better when I get into new content. A lot of the areas I'm in now look like PS3 graphics.

It gets worse. ARR zones are compact and filled with interesting vistas. From HW onwards maps get three times bigger (because of flying) and six times less detailed. Textures are very low res even in the newest content.

[Poppen]

is there an auto-run button? I always keybinded my 10 to autorun in wow and I'd like to do the same for FF14.