FFXIV Criticisms

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Whatever happened to Bovinity? That person still around lol?

I think @Bovinity Divinity's account was deleted.

[Ghost of Cow]

Whatever happened to Bovinity? That person still around lol?

Why, I couldn't begin to imagine who you mean!

[Wrecktangle]

Why, I couldn't begin to imagine who you mean!

Oh was that you all along, I had no idea. The name tracks though. I do remember some people randomly lost their accounts here. Any back on topic:

I'm glad they reworked PLD's rotation and even snuck in one of the suggestions I had recommended (less HS spam, and more have it be a proc from combos). Obviously don't think I inspired it, but nice to know I was on the right track.

I'm still disappointed with the oGCDs available to PLD, but that's a battle for another day. They're bland and uninspiring IMHO. I still hate FoF as a CD, it's just so boring. DV change should have been made halfway though whatever expansion we got it (HW I think?).

[Ghost of Cow]

I'm glad they reworked PLD's rotation and even snuck in one of the suggestions I had recommended (less HS spam, and more have it be a proc from combos). Obviously don't think I inspired it, but nice to know I was on the right track.

My only issue is that it feels a lot like discount GNB now. Do your combo and oh now you have a special thing to press, except you can't even save them up as PLD the way you can with GNB.

Kinda sad that the weird Atonement spam still exists, too. Like...that's the best we could do? Really?

[Thestrawman]

It's like I said before...the old system let degens dominate by way of being online 24/7 and botting and whatnot, while the new system lets degens dominate by having armies of alt accounts and bots and whatnot.

Fortunately, my wife and I won a medium FC house, so that was nice. I guess we're evil 1%'ers now.

- - - Updated - - -



You and me both. I had multiple people in-game tell me that I was stupid and just hating on the game and didn't understand math (Because 1,800 is SO BIG, Bovinity) and blah blah when I said that the new wards weren't going to be a magical fix.

And here we are. :/

Back in the day you didn't even need alts or alt accounts, you could do it with just one character.

[Auxis]

My only issue is that it feels a lot like discount GNB now. Do your combo and oh now you have a special thing to press, except you can't even save them up as PLD the way you can with GNB.

Kinda sad that the weird Atonement spam still exists, too. Like...that's the best we could do? Really?

It would be nice if Sword Oath was also built through the AoE combo and had an AoE spender.

[mario710]

Conceptually, most of the zones are rather boring. Mongolian steppe, pacific islands, Turkish desert, a forest, etc. There are sometimes a cool landmark, like the magitek gates in Yanxia, but it's only one part in an otherwise mundane environment, and often times the fantastical stuff of the world is erased by plot progression (ie, the magitek gates deactivating, or the eerie light skies of the First giving way to normal day/night as you kill the Lightwardens). So there are very few imaginative fantasy zones. Even then, they held back by technical reasons, such as the lighting and the texturework and the engine flickering. Labyrinthos, Ill Mheg, Elpis, etc, look great in concept art but ingame they are unimpressive. And then on a gameplay level, the zones are very stifling. The world is broken up into zones that are separated from each other, and there are lots of invisible walls everywhere. The game never lets you jump off of Mount Hyjal, or see Sargeras' sword in the distance and go there to it seamlessly. There are no interesting navigational challenges like in WoW or GW2 where you are using your abilities to traverse the environment or to platform. And there isn't any reason to come back to a zone after you've cleared the MSQ there. You grind the FATEs at the start of the expansion to buy the minions you want and that's it, or maybe do FATEs as a Blue Mage when the BLU level cap is raised once every couple years.

This is precisely why I'm always drawn back to WoW.

Their terrains are simply leaps and bounds more impressive than the lifeless zones in FFXIV. As you've said, they are also seamless, making you feel like you're in a connected world. It is beyond annoying and immersion-breaking to hit a loading screen whenever I want to go somewhere because the zones are broken up into instances. I also had an issue with Shadowlands zones being separated by loading screens, and I'm glad Blizzard did away with that.

For the LOVE OF GOD, can we please remove the arbitrary invisible walls!? Why is that still a thing in this game? Labyrinthos and Mare Lamentorum are disgusting with the sheer amount of invisible walls in their zones. Why is it such a hard fucking ask to simply allow players to fall to their death!? It's just fucking weird to see a small chasm that you can clearly jump over but are blocked arbitrarily by an invisible wall.

Additionally, let's talk about NPC AI?

Every enemy NPC in FFXIV wanders around aimlessly like 2004 classic WoW enemies. It's baffling that they haven't implemented tech to at least give personality to their world?

FFXIV is not a good game, and thankfully this isn't a forum where you'll be silenced for having a negative opinion about it (**COUGH** REDDIT).

Hey Yoshi-P: BREATHE SOME LIFE INTO YOUR GAME WORLD. IT'S BORING.

[Yarathir]

This is precisely why I'm always drawn back to WoW.

Their terrains are simply leaps and bounds more impressive than the lifeless zones in FFXIV. As you've said, they are also seamless, making you feel like you're in a connected world. It is beyond annoying and immersion-breaking to hit a loading screen whenever I want to go somewhere because the zones are broken up into instances. I also had an issue with Shadowlands zones being separated by loading screens, and I'm glad Blizzard did away with that.

For the LOVE OF GOD, can we please remove the arbitrary invisible walls!? Why is that still a thing in this game? Labyrinthos and Mare Lamentorum are disgusting with the sheer amount of invisible walls in their zones. Why is it such a hard fucking ask to simply allow players to fall to their death!? It's just fucking weird to see a small chasm that you can clearly jump over but are blocked arbitrarily by an invisible wall.

Additionally, let's talk about NPC AI?

Every enemy NPC in FFXIV wanders around aimlessly like 2004 classic WoW enemies. It's baffling that they haven't implemented tech to at least give personality to their world?

FFXIV is not a good game, and thankfully this isn't a forum where you'll be silenced for having a negative opinion about it (**COUGH** REDDIT).

Hey Yoshi-P: BREATHE SOME LIFE INTO YOUR GAME WORLD. IT'S BORING.

I feel like all of this is a really huge leap to come to the conclusion that FFXIV is not a good game.

[Arlette]

I feel like all of this is a really huge leap to come to the conclusion that FFXIV is not a good game.

They can't screech nonsense in a lot of other places without being infracted for being as equally unconstructive as they are here, so they just come here and do it because the mods let them get away with it.

MMO-Champion just lets them say random unfounded bullshit that doesn't contribute anything to the topic at hand without punishment, and in fact, will infract people calling it out.

Because this is a very good website.

[Ghost of Cow]

They can't screech nonsense in a lot of other places without being infracted for being as equally unconstructive as they are here, so they just come here and do it because the mods let them get away with it.

MMO-Champion just lets them say random unfounded bullshit that doesn't contribute anything to the topic at hand without punishment, and in fact, will infract people calling it out.

Because this is a very good website.

Criticizing a game isn't an infractable offense, no. No matter how much you like the game in question.

[Arlette]

Criticizing a game isn't an infractable offense, no. No matter how much you like the game in question.

Yeah we all know that's not what 85% of the people on this subforum are doing.

But as someone who occasionally does it as well, I get how you can miss that.

[Auxis]

It would he nice if they could incentivise alliance raids other than CT. I the amount of times I've seen something besides a CT raid is minimal, having a weekly event every once in a while for the other raids (Void ark set, Ivallice set, Copied Factory set) may help with queues which certainly exist. CT is required for MSQ progression so naturally all the lil sprouts are going there. The other raids rely on people wanting glam, gear or unlocking the wings if each raid.

Having tomestones or something similar rewarded as an event would bring people back to them.

Edit: Maybe have CT raids under their own separate roulette like how there is the MSQ roulette for Castrum Meridianum/Praetorium/Porta Decumana.

The have the other alliance raids lumped together on their own roulette? Give people another roulette to utilize - people will still queue for CT because it's a roulette and rewards wanted resources.
Gives the other alliance raids a better chance in hell of being picked by the Great Roulette Claw.
Win-Win situation, right?

[Auxis]

I've got the Void Ark set and the first wing of Ivallice (which I want to complete to unlock Bozja >:-( ) and Copied Factory. I've only seen a non CT once in the last 3 weeks. Sure, my pool of non CT isnt large but it's still 5 wings against 3.

[zealo]

CT doesn't need to be removed from the roulette so much as just having a much tighter ilvl sync imposed on it with some minor balancing changes to encounters to account for potency creep.

There are mechanics in many of those fights barely anyone ever sees now, and would go a great deal towards disincentivizing ilvl cheese with gear if it were brought more in line with what most of the other alliance raids are like.

[Wrecktangle]

Yeah we all know that's not what 85% of the people on this subforum are doing.

But as someone who occasionally does it as well, I get how you can miss that.

Hyperbole isn't doing yourself any favors here. That said, if they're (as in this mythological/hypothetical 85%) not criticizing the game what exactly are they doing? For instance - Mario above is clearly criticizing the game, fairly I might add, even if both they and their point comes across rather abrasively. Invisible walls and loading screens are in fact widely discussed and known detractors from immersion across multiple games/genres.

I’d take this even slightly seriously if WoW wasn’t your high-quality comparison point.

In the context of world/area design, what about WoW's isn't high quality?

It would he nice if they could incentivise alliance raids other than CT. I the amount of times I've seen something besides a CT raid is minimal, having a weekly event every once in a while for the other raids (Void ark set, Ivallice set, Copied Factory set) may help with queues which certainly exist. CT is required for MSQ progression so naturally all the lil sprouts are going there. The other raids rely on people wanting glam, gear or unlocking the wings if each raid.

Having tomestones or something similar rewarded as an event would bring people back to them.

Edit: Maybe have CT raids under their own separate roulette like how there is the MSQ roulette for Castrum Meridianum/Praetorium/Porta Decumana.

The have the other alliance raids lumped together on their own roulette? Give people another roulette to utilize - people will still queue for CT because it's a roulette and rewards wanted resources.
Gives the other alliance raids a better chance in hell of being picked by the Great Roulette Claw.
Win-Win situation, right?

For me, alliance raids are a waste of time because they don't offer meaningful end game rewards for me as a savage+ tier player. They're also painstakingly boring due to being near impossible to fail if just a handful of players try. The problem is that on any given run you're guaranteed to be hard carrying a few players who are maliciously lazy and will weaponize the ToS if you call them out on it (doing HW era DPS despite not dying due to frequent AFK).

Nothing about that is fun to me, and you would have to offensively reward me to get a player like me to participate. I generally do them once and then never again if I can avoid, or in the case of Ivalice I did do it to get the armor sets as I am a big FFT fanboy.

CT doesn't need to be removed from the roulette so much as just having a much tighter ilvl sync imposed on it with some minor balancing changes to encounters to account for potency creep.

There are mechanics in many of those fights barely anyone ever sees now, and would go a great deal towards disincentivizing ilvl cheese with gear if it were brought more in line with what most of the other alliance raids are like.

This is such a slippery slope and an interesting one to consider when you think about the MSQ design. It feels like a huge bit of tech debt to have to maintain each raid/dungeon at a time to offset potency creep. Is that a precedent we want to set for the devs? Any time spent on that would likely impact newer content release/quality. Is CT being trivial that large an issue? It's an interesting discussion for sure and I don't know where I stand TBH.

[zealo]

This is such a slippery slope and an interesting one to consider when you think about the MSQ design. It feels like a huge bit of tech debt to have to maintain each raid/dungeon at a time to offset potency creep. Is that a precedent we want to set for the devs? Any time spent on that would likely impact newer content release/quality. Is CT being trivial that large an issue? It's an interesting discussion for sure and I don't know where I stand TBH.

I'm not sure I would call it much of a tech debt to just slap the instances with a much tighter ilvl sync using systems already in the game, with a slight HP bump to bosses afterwards if it still isn't enough to get bosses to have enough time to put the full range of their moves on show that are already in the game.

[Yarathir]

I don't think CT being trivial in terms of difficulty is that bad considering it's basically compulsory content, anyway.

[Myradin]

When I think of impeccable world design, I’m more inclined to get excited over dark souls, deus ex or good ol’ fallout. Not gonna defend the disconnecting feelings of ff14, but wow being the “it just does world exploration so much better” rings rather hollow.

Note the games you mention are all primarily single player games that aren't built around PVE/PVP in seperate instances being the intended end game.

[Thestrawman]

I don't think CT being trivial in terms of difficulty is that bad considering it's basically compulsory content, anyway.

I'll take nothing but CT raids if it means I never have to worry about getting a Nier raid.

[Wrecktangle]

Disconnected “flight path loading screen” shit was a big part of shadowlands, large parts of dragon isles are empty unless a WQ pops there, most parts are one-and-done hits for story or just meandering about for ticking off a checklist.

When I think of impeccable world design, I’m more inclined to get excited over dark souls, deus ex or good ol’ fallout. Not gonna defend the disconnecting feelings of ff14, but wow being the “it just does world exploration so much better” rings rather hollow.

Mind you I agree with your examples for sure (esp. on the Fromsoft side). The caveat I have for the Dragon Isles though is that I very frequently see mobs interacting with other mobs, dragons flying around, etc. It certainly feels alive in that respect. I often see other people flying around to WQs, dungeons, or gathering. IMHO enemy placement has always felt more natural in WoW than in FF14, but I recognize that might be subjective, but I'm open to discussion on that.

To use your Dark souls example, you look out over a cliff and there's an astronomically high chance if you see something you can meaningfully visit it. This is true of WoW as well, and I can't say it's as true for FF14 barring very specific examples, but they're almost always instance base which is further to Mario's point.

There's a staggering amount of criticism I have for WoW, but they generally nail it on world design and I certainly believe it's fairly high quality.

I'm not sure I would call it much of a tech debt to just slap the instances with a much tighter ilvl sync using systems already in the game, with a slight HP bump to bosses afterwards if it still isn't enough to get bosses to have enough time to put the full range of their moves on show that are already in the game.

The concern I have is there's a lot of raids and dungeons and they'll have to be looked at every expansion at a bare minimum, sometimes more. Is that a better trade off than focusing on new content?