FFXIV Criticisms

[Yarathir]

Maybe once every few years you get an updated event that's meaningfully different from the one before. Maybe. Usually it's just a quickly thrown together excuse plot that consists of a few primitive cutscenes and some ad libbed dialogue that often hangs off the same skeleton the previous iteration used, and "different rewards" doesn't necessarily mean an improvement. I'm pretty sure they expect most players to just skim or outright skip the event narratives.

For example, Valentione's Day: 2020 rewarded players with a full set of dyeable gear with a fairly unique appearance that comes in three different base colors depending on which suitor you chose in the storyline. 2021 combined Valentione's Day AND Little Lady's Day and rewarded... a Moogle hat with a heart instead of the usual pompom, and a Moogle plushie housing item. 2022 rewarded chocobo barding and another housing item. Even if we excuse 2021 as a result of COVID (which is certainly why it was delayed and combined with the smaller Little Lady's Day event), 2022 has no reason to reward so much less than 2020 did.

You'll see this pattern repeatedly, for all of the holiday events. Every three or four years you'll get a cool outfit or a mount or something really notable, and everything in between is basically phoned in. The better rewards also generally coincide with a revamp of the basic quest structure or plot (2020 had you work for and promote one of three color-coded suitors, for example, making it far more involved than previous narratives, if only barely.)

That would still make it better than WoW's events **IF** you could also obtain rewards from previous years through the same event currency. But since XIV wants to gouge players for a few bucks, they get a Fuck Off / 10 in my book. It's not that WoW's events are good, it's that XIV just loses by default because they went with unadulterated greed over reason. It's a pretty bad look when even Activision-Blizzard looks reasonable next to you.

All I need to ask is: what does WoW give you? Years of spamming the same Valentine dungeon from 10 years+ ago for a 0.001% TCG rocket recolor mount?

And some events give less exciting rewards some years because they cycle it out. One year, Valentione gives better rewards, other years, it's All Saints' Wake. And there's always an associated questline with it. Your claim that "people just skim past it anyway" doesn't suddenly do away with that. It's a cop-out.

[Auxis]

Because wow is slowly adopting store glam, also some of the stuff in the mogstation its no longer obtainable in game as it came from past events

So, instead of keeping the rewards from past events ingame and putting an ingame price on them (achievements, gil, tomestones or w/e their called, etc.), they've gone and put them into the online store for real money.

I'm not the only one seeing an issue with that, right? Because someone missed out on an event, if they want the rewards they have to fork out cash while the people who participated got it for free.

Also, anything on the WoW store has exclusively been in the WoW store. Almost nothing in there cosmetic wise has been previously available in WoW and put into the store once removed from game.

Edit: I should clarify that I agree with and believe that people have the right to spend their own money however they want.

[Soikona]

It's anime art style, that's all I need to know. I never played it and I already know there is going to be cat ear girls.

It’s got fantastic gameplay, but yea, it’s so heavy on the weeb aspect I couldn’t get past it.

[MsSideEye]

So, instead of keeping the rewards from past events ingame and putting an ingame price on them (achievements, gil, tomestones or w/e their called, etc.), they've gone and put them into the online store for real money.

I'm not the only one seeing an issue with that, right? Because someone missed out on an event, if they want the rewards they have to fork out cash while the people who participated got it for free.

Also, anything on the WoW store has exclusively been in the WoW store. Almost nothing in there cosmetic wise has been previously available in WoW and put into the store once removed from game.

It's a combination of a trade off for the fact that, unlike WoW, they completely change the event in question every year and the fact that if you really be honest about it, WoW's holiday events are bloated with a bunch of massive time sinks that are just there to get you play for as much as possible. That said, the 'WoW expects too much time out of it's players' arguement is something we've gone down the road of before so I'm going to stop talking about it now.

I, myself, am not the biggest fan of having old event stuff on the store but I do feel like it's a good way of allowing people to support the game and while at the same time just not going and removing mounts and other items completely for the game, with only a select few being occasionally available on a black market auction house whose purpose is to be solely designed as a money sink.

That's one of the biggest reasons why I'm fine with the older stuff like that being put onto the store, honestly. The fact that it'll always be there, waiting, and I'm given the option to by it and if I do pay for it, I'm not going to be out what would be almost a full indie game or a dinner for the family to get it.

[Yarathir]

It’s got fantastic gameplay, but yea, it’s so heavy on the weeb aspect I couldn’t get past it.

I remember when we killed the final boss by flying up in the air and releasing a massive kamehameha blast in his face.

[MsSideEye]

I remember when we killed the final boss by flying up in the air and releasing a massive kamehameha blast in his face.

As it is, I never understood the some WoW folks whined about something being to 'Anime', as if anime hasn't actually been some of the best and more entertaining media in the last decade plus. And I get while there are some trappings in FF14 that can be seen as a bit more on the anime side... I point to other massive games like Genshin Impact and Persona 5 as something that kinda goes WAY further into the 'anime' style of set up and I've seen those same WoW players not bat an eye at those two.

[Yarathir]

It's a combination of a trade off for the fact that, unlike WoW, they completely change the event in question every year and the fact that if you really be honest about it, WoW's holiday events are bloated with a bunch of massive time sinks that are just there to get you play for as much as possible. That said, the 'WoW expects too much time out of it's players' arguement is something we've gone down the road of before so I'm going to stop talking about it now.

I, myself, am not the biggest fan of having old event stuff on the store but I do feel like it's a good way of allowing people to support the game and while at the same time just not going and removing mounts and other items completely for the game, with only a select few being occasionally available on a black market auction house whose purpose is to be solely designed as a money sink.

That's one of the biggest reasons why I'm fine with the older stuff like that being put onto the store, honestly. The fact that it'll always be there, waiting, and I'm given the option to by it and if I do pay for it, I'm not going to be out what would be almost a full indie game or a dinner for the family to get it.

Same. For me, it's like this

1. No store at all
2. Store filled mostly with items that were available ingame at some point and earnable by pretty much every player
3. Store filled with once available ingame items and low-effort recolors of ingame items
4. Store filled with once available ingame items and a few unique items but mostly recolors of ingame items
5. Store mostly filled with unique items but the game still offers you plenty of cool and unique ingame items
6. Store filled mostly with unique items, while the game offers you mostly recolors and reskins

XIV used to be 3, got to 4 and is now teetering perilously towards 5, and I'm very unhappy about it. WoW is on 6. They're not equal, but I'm happy about neither case at this point.

[MsSideEye]

Same. For me, it's like this

1. No store at all
2. Store filled mostly with items that were available ingame at some point and earnable by pretty much every player
3. Store filled with once available ingame items and low-effort recolors of ingame items
4. Store filled with once available ingame items and a few unique items but mostly recolors of ingame items
5. Store mostly filled with unique items but the game still offers you plenty of cool and unique ingame items
6. Store filled mostly with unique items, while the game offers you mostly recolors and reskins

XIV used to be 3, got to 4 and is now teetering perilously towards 5, and I'm very unhappy about it. WoW is on 6. They're not equal, but I'm happy about neither case at this point.

Honestly, using that metric, I'd say it's still comfortably in the 4 range. An old boss being turned into a mount and some glamors that don't fit into the game that well aren't enough to for me personally to push it to 5. Now, if we got mounts put into the store that were clearly designed for content in game and then were put into the store instead, I'd say we were in five and we've got a problem.

[ironware]

I have a few criticisms and kinda agree with the OP.

1. Arena Environment - I know this is a common one but they rarely utilize environment mechanics, the arenas could be a bit more diverse, Trials have more and newer interesting mechanics, while Savage has the same recycled mechanics in different orders with a few new here and there(They mask the same mechanic with a new animation. See:Towers in P4S. Ultimates tend to feel like a fast spectacle of mechanic vomit, usually the same mechanics you know just adding a few more to the dance at higher speeds. Savage fights are way too long. These 10 - 12 minute fights feel like Sylvanas.( See:Thancred fight from last expansion.) If you like endurance checks I guess this is for you? Lack of RNG on mechanics and specific role targetting mechanics kinda make every pull feel tedious and repetitive.

2. Gear - Extremely boring, from stats to how they look. No new cool effects for your skills to keep things fresh from tier to tier or expansion to expansion. Outside of Relic Weapon,Ultimate weapons, and I guess the exception of current tier weapons. They're usually extremely boring in design. Everything is just a stat stick. While I guess you could argue the unbalance in WoW comes from all the microsystems and tiers, its definitely one of the things that keep the game fresh and I rather have that.

3. Dungeons - While the story is miles ahead of what WoW has to offer, and I enjoy the first few times through a dungeon. At the end of the day doing 2 "Expert" dungeons for 3-6 months is extremely boring. Especially when they're stale because the difficulty is static. Higher difficulty is supposed to come soon so we will see how that plays out. As it stands though its extremely boring.

4. VPN/Lag - Having to VPN on the East Coast is annoying. Don't understand how games like Guild Wars/Warcraft got their servers right but this game still has things like having to pre-emptively dodge and not being able to do anything reactionary. Stood in a circle and got out with 1 second left and now you're across the arena dead? Like what. Yeah it's awful.

I've been playing on and off between WoW breaks since ARR was released and have had my fun with it but like I can't see past this stuff anymore. With the Hyd/Zodiark saga complete I don't know if I have any reason to go back. Might give it a few years and 1 -2 expansion full of content before I delve into a new story maybe?

I will say this, I just like dungeons and raiding in these games. So the things outside of that are actually pretty great ...if you enjoy that stuff. They give you a lot of options, but the combat portion of the game I just feel is lacking.

[Toppy]

Best part of this Final Fantasy 14 subforum is now how you just have burner accounts dishonestly shitting on the game while propping up Warcraft.

A lot of people quit mmo-champ with the exodus to FFXIV, whats left are a lot of sunken cost cultists and people who got chased off of other games for being too shitty. Theres some good people, but they're losing the battle to the shit.

Look at WoW posts that feature shit thats just, clearly bad decisions from blizzard, and you'll find some AGGRESSIVLY defensive people.

- - - Updated - - -

So, instead of keeping the rewards from past events ingame and putting an ingame price on them (achievements, gil, tomestones or w/e their called, etc.), they've gone and put them into the online store for real money.

I'm not the only one seeing an issue with that, right? Because someone missed out on an event, if they want the rewards they have to fork out cash while the people who participated got it for free.

Also, anything on the WoW store has exclusively been in the WoW store. Almost nothing in there cosmetic wise has been previously available in WoW and put into the store once removed from game.

Edit: I should clarify that I agree with and believe that people have the right to spend their own money however they want.

Its kinda shit but I'll gladly take it over the WoW alternative of giving you items you just plain cant use outside of 1-2 weeks, and having the ones you can use year round being an aggressively small drop rate.


Funnier still that flying mounts are all being invalidated in DF with the dragonflying system being better in every way to normal flying.

What was FFXIV's answer to one type of mount invalidating others? Letting them all fly so as not to cheapen players past work.

- - - Updated - - -

As it is, I never understood the some WoW folks whined about something being to 'Anime', as if anime hasn't actually been some of the best and more entertaining media in the last decade plus. And I get while there are some trappings in FF14 that can be seen as a bit more on the anime side... I point to other massive games like Genshin Impact and Persona 5 as something that kinda goes WAY further into the 'anime' style of set up and I've seen those same WoW players not bat an eye at those two.

The big irony is and always will be that WoW is significantly more "anime" and over the top than FFXIV has ever been. When they say "Anime" they just mean "Its japanese and everything japanese is anime". A bit of it is just racism even if they wont admit to it.

[Yarathir]

Honestly, using that metric, I'd say it's still comfortably in the 4 range. An old boss being turned into a mount and some glamors that don't fit into the game that well aren't enough to for me personally to push it to 5. Now, if we got mounts put into the store that were clearly designed for content in game and then were put into the store instead, I'd say we were in five and we've got a problem.

I don't know. Feels like it's every week now that something that was never and will never be available ingame gets added to the store. A mount, a glamour set, an emote. It's straining my tolerance.

[MsSideEye]

I don't know. Feels like it's every week now that something that was never and will never be available ingame gets added to the store. A mount, a glamour set, an emote. It's straining my tolerance.

I can understand that. Everyone has different levels of tolerance when it comes to that stuff. Though in the case of emotes, those are probably the lowest of worries I've got.

[Toppy]

I don't know. Feels like it's every week now that something that was never and will never be available ingame gets added to the store. A mount, a glamour set, an emote. It's straining my tolerance.

Likely has to do with how Square cut funding to FFXIV 2 or 3 years ago.

Because Square is ran by morons.

[Yarathir]

I can understand that. Everyone has different levels of tolerance when it comes to that stuff. Though in the case of emotes, those are probably the lowest of worries I've got.

It's quickly approaching the point where I can't actually give a reason for not totally hating it. When I started playing, it wasn't nearly as bad. Most of the stuff on there was past event items and recolors like the different Magitek Reaper mounts that nobody likes, anyway. The only reason I can still say I don't dislike it as much at that other MMO's store is because at least XIV still awards plenty of unique looking, cool mounts, glams and emotes and not just bear reskin #522 locked behind paragon reputation chests or 0.1% rare drop rates in the new zone.

- - - Updated - - -

Likely has to do with how Square cut funding to FFXIV 2 or 3 years ago.

Because Square is ran by morons.

Myeah. I like XIV and I think CBUIII is generally doing a good job....... in spite of Square Enix.

[Toppy]

It's quickly approaching the point where I can't actually give a reason for not totally hating it. When I started playing, it wasn't nearly as bad. Most of the stuff on there was past event items and recolors like the different Magitek Reaper mounts that nobody likes, anyway. The only reason I can still say I don't dislike it as much at that other MMO's store is because at least XIV still awards plenty of unique looking, cool mounts, glams and emotes and not just bear reskin #522 locked behind paragon reputation chests or 0.1% rare drop rates in the new zone.

- - - Updated - - -


Myeah. I like XIV and I think CBUIII is generally doing a good job....... in spite of Square Enix.

This doesnt make it any better but I am fairly certain the recent influx of more cash shop items is mostly the doing of the higher ups at Square forcing it.

that said I am somewhat sick of it being the go to complaint from WoW peeps. Its the main unquestionably bad thing about FFXIV and they act like that alone makes FFXIV worse than WoW, and its MOUNTAIN of bad (including cash shop).

[Aucald]

This thread is about criticisms of FFXIV, it's not about WoW nor is it about comparing WoW to FFXIV explicitly. I'm aware some comparisons will need to be made for the purposes of argument, but let's pivot away from pure "Game vs. Game" debate and refocus the discussion on FFXIV itself.

[Yarathir]

This doesnt make it any better but I am fairly certain the recent influx of more cash shop items is mostly the doing of the higher ups at Square forcing it.

that said I am somewhat sick of it being the go to complaint from WoW peeps. Its the main unquestionably bad thing about FFXIV and they act like that alone makes FFXIV worse than WoW, and its MOUNTAIN of bad (including cash shop).

It mostly bothers me when it's items that could and should have been ingame. Like a goofy item like the Fat Cat outfit? Whatever, put that on the shop. An NPC set? Fine. But stuff that fits in the game like the Pagaga emote that should've been from a sidequest/questline? That stuff irks me.

Especially so when the past few event emotes and the future ones seem to be variations of the same /eat emote, just with a different item.

[Grinning Serpent]

Best part of this Final Fantasy 14 subforum is now how you just have burner accounts dishonestly shitting on the game while propping up Warcraft.

Says the account with 2 posts? Really? My account name is the same as IGN, go ahead and Lodestone me if you think I'm some kind of sock puppet.

I don't know, but you are the one who said classic is more complex.

I find FFXIV to be harder to play than classic for sure mostly due to the fact that it actually IS a strict sequence instead of a priority system. SAM is pretty strict because you will eventually drift out of damage windows and CDs won't line up anymore if you use "Meikyo Shisui" poorly.
Same thing with "Ikishoten" or not using "Hagakure" properly and not taking into account how many GCDs you couldn't attack (depending on the encounter). Same thing with Higanbana. I can't just reapply it whenever with a click of a button, I need multiple GCDs to reapply the dot if I mess up and that in turn delays my DPS/Cooldown window which you then have to readjust to get back in line.

I mean... I cleared everything by scrolling my mousewheel for 5-10 minutes in BC in each boss figh. It's not even a meme... it was the best way to play my spec.

Could be that I remember classic being more complicated than it is. I do know that no one raided on Frost, though.

And if that means both halves of WoW are garbage, then that just means both games are garbage and are afraid of giving players interesting/involved DPS cycles. Because Endwalker took the dumbing down from Shadowbringers and made it even dumber. No more thinking or planning involved, just vomit everything during 2 minute raid buffs and then everything lines up automatically from there because all of your oGCDs are divisible by 30 anyway. There's very little room for real optimization anymore, especially since Abyssos decided to make every fight have a boss with a room-wide hitbox so that melee never had to worry about trying to figure out if they could afford to greed a GCD or not.

All I need to ask is: what does WoW give you? Years of spamming the same Valentine dungeon from 10 years+ ago for a 0.001% TCG rocket recolor mount?

And some events give less exciting rewards some years because they cycle it out. One year, Valentione gives better rewards, other years, it's All Saints' Wake. And there's always an associated questline with it. Your claim that "people just skim past it anyway" doesn't suddenly do away with that. It's a cop-out.

You're welcome to go through wikis and find out that you're viewing this with bias. There's entire years where the events were all duds, and there's been years where every event gave us something really cool.

Likely has to do with how Square cut funding to FFXIV 2 or 3 years ago.

Because Square is ran by morons.

I've always said that XIV is a fantastic game hamstrung by being tied to Square-Enix. I wonder what they could do if not for Square-Enix siphoning off their profits to go make a bonfire out of a Marvel license or something similarly retarded.

This thread is about criticisms of FFXIV, it's not about WoW nor is it about comparing WoW to FFXIV explicitly. I'm aware some comparisons will need to be made for the purposes of argument, but let's pivot away from pure "Game vs. Game" debate and refocus the discussion on FFXIV itself.

Except, comparisons between two similar things are one of the most effective ways to discuss anything. There's some XIV fanboys in here that are trying to do the GRR WOW SADBOYS bullshit but you can just ignore or ban them, they aren't saying anything intelligent or useful. I think it's just that a small number of people here are incapable of understanding that criticism of one thing is not praise of another.

[Wrecktangle]

Likely has to do with how Square cut funding to FFXIV 2 or 3 years ago.

Because Square is ran by morons.

Source? Pretty sure Yoshi P is on record as recently as Shadowbringers saying that SE loves the work he does and gave him more funding than ever before?

[KrayZ33]

Says the account with 2 posts? Really? My account name is the same as IGN, go ahead and Lodestone me if you think I'm some kind of sock puppet.



Could be that I remember classic being more complicated than it is. I do know that no one raided on Frost, though.

And if that means both halves of WoW are garbage, then that just means both games are garbage and are afraid of giving players interesting/involved DPS cycles. Because Endwalker took the dumbing down from Shadowbringers and made it even dumber. No more thinking or planning involved, just vomit everything during 2 minute raid buffs and then everything lines up automatically from there because all of your oGCDs are divisible by 30 anyway. There's very little room for real optimization anymore, especially since Abyssos decided to make every fight have a boss with a room-wide hitbox so that melee never had to worry about trying to figure out if they could afford to greed a GCD or not.

Did you ever consider playing a different job then?
A BLM for example? Mapping out the fight properly is something they have to do and you can do for yourself.

And what are you exactly criticising here.
Cooldowns line up for a reason. In WoW as well.
0:30, 1, 1:30, 2, 3, 5.

etc.
What did endwalker even change in that regard.
And I don't know about that hitbox thing. That too didn't really change.
It's about mechanics were you lose uptime, honestly though, it's not even something I want to have because it's actually bad to have forced downtimes.
something like Hunger in P5S isn't exactly something I like. If you are 1 GCD late or early it's always awkward, especially since you are reliant on other people's buffs, like a dancer might still dance and you are already sitting on the 1000+potency finishers. I can fix all of that alright, but it is still something I have to think about if I care about DPS (which I don't, in most cases because it's not like enrage is whats holding my people back)
But still, compared to what I did in classic or actually even do in retail for example it's hardly different.
Popping CDs as they come up or as a dps window allows it. It's a cooldown, there is not much about it.

I still feel priority lists are easier to "maintain" than proper rotations, especially when they are quirky like SAMs or BLMs due to movement and server ticks or slidecasts, or simply due to how the "combat-point" system is designed etc.. Sure, we can blame the game for the latency, but I actually think it's kinda cool to be able to slidecast - although I'm aware that I'm a minority here, feels good though.