FFXIV Criticisms

[Aeula]

I hate that when unsubbed you don't get access to the free trial. Kinda makes me just play my second free trial account more than my main because sometimes I only want to dabble a bit in FF14 rather than commit to doing Endwalker conent (Which I generally dislike).

[Katchii]

I mean, on the one hand? Yeah, I do think that they need to make it so most things on the store need to be global to your account, especially for hard to get things that you'll have to shell out money for. On the other hand, what's the point of an alt in Final Fantasy XIV outside out playing things as a different race? The only time I've made another character myself was to go participate in a wedding and that was before the cross data center travel was a thing. The game itself isn't really designed with Alts in mind, unlike WoW, so i don't think stuff like that would we be done on a global scale.

I do it to see the story again as a different race. This usually serves to both scratch my story itch as well as test drive different race options without having to buy a fantasia so that I can decide if I actually want to buy one to switch races. This is aggravating though because hairstyle has a lot to do with how much I like my character and having access to certain cosmetic items help too....but you don't get any of those on alts.

I get FFXIV isn't really built for alts, but not having things like that be account wide is annoying. Nothing game breaking or anything, obviously, just annoying.

[MsSideEye]

I do it to see the story again as a different race. This usually serves to both scratch my story itch as well as test drive different race options without having to buy a fantasia so that I can decide if I actually want to buy one to switch races. This is aggravating though because hairstyle has a lot to do with how much I like my character and having access to certain cosmetic items help too....but you don't get any of those on alts.

I get FFXIV isn't really built for alts, but not having things like that be account wide is annoying. Nothing game breaking or anything, obviously, just annoying.

I can understand that. I do think it's a combination of old coding and design philosophy. It's the reason why a lot of store mounts that are just added to the store are account bound and anything that was originally in game isn't, because they were probably coded to be unlocked on one character once they went through the event while the store stuff was coded for the entire thing. Not really an excuse, just more an additional step that I don't think they've bothered taking just yet.

If, and that's a mighty big if, they ever decide to truly implement WoW's style of armory where we get constant access to the gear we've collected, then I could see them eventually making those an hair styles universal. Until then, however, it's probably VERY unlikely.

[Grinning Serpent]

I mean, on the one hand? Yeah, I do think that they need to make it so most things on the store need to be global to your account, especially for hard to get things that you'll have to shell out money for. On the other hand, what's the point of an alt in Final Fantasy XIV outside out playing things as a different race? The only time I've made another character myself was to go participate in a wedding and that was before the cross data center travel was a thing. The game itself isn't really designed with Alts in mind, unlike WoW, so i don't think stuff like that would we be done on a global scale.

Raiding and glamouring (without the use of verboten third-party tools) are the primary reasons, and while you might argue that raiders don't "need" their cosmetics, glamourers absolutely friggin do.

But Square knows glamourers are fool enough to whale on store cosmetics, so why change anything? Same reason they haven't made fantasia less ridiculous - change your race or gender, sure, but changing the appearance of your character (including face, skin tone, etc) should always be free. But if you can convince fools to pay $10 a pop to do that stuff, why wouldn't you?

Mounts being account bound but outfits not being account bound is just bizarre and irrational. If the system can ensure to always mail a new character your Fat Cat mount, why can't it also be set to always mail a new character your collegiate item set?

[Tomana]

Some achievements should be account-wide too.

[Ghost of Cow]

Some achievements should be account-wide too.

Yeah, but I just don't think XIV was built with any account-wide stuff in mind.

Not that they did that for any nefarious/tricky reason, it's just that the design of the game is such that probably 90% of people - if not more - simply don't bother with alts. So it's not a high priority for SE by any means.

The only reason I bothered with alts was to buy up some more FC housing. (and don't give me that crap, there's STILL tons of empty FC housing on my server. People aren't left out because I bought up some extras.)

[Tomana]

The only reason I bothered with alts was to buy up some more FC housing. (and don't give me that crap, there's STILL tons of empty FC housing on my server. People aren't left out because I bought up some extras.)

I have FC housing too, so don't worry ^^

[Yarathir]

You honestly won't hear me object to an all-account wide system similar to modern WoW. Even as someone who bears no love for like 99.999% of contemporary WoW, I think that is one of the best improvements they ever made in the game's history. If XIV can yoink it, that's only good.

[Tomana]

You honestly won't hear me object to an all-account wide system similar to modern WoW. Even as someone who bears no love for like 99.999% of contemporary WoW, I think that is one of the best improvements they ever made in the game's history. If XIV can yoink it, that's only good.

But SE is a Smol Indie Company, so it's hard for them to code!

[Yarathir]

But SE is a Smol Indie Company, so it's hard for them to code!

Blizzard had plenty of troubles in the past with wrangling their old code and having to avoid upsetting the oodles of fickle, temperamental archaic code and accidentally making something in the vanilla zones glitch out by adjusting something in newer zones, lest you forget. This isn't a "wah wah square bad post," but an "I hope they eventually do it because it's an across the board improvement" post.

[Tech614]

But SE is a Smol Indie Company, so it's hard for them to code!

They have already coded store bought mounts to be account wide so they have done it in small scale. This is likely just a low priority for them because the % of players who play alts in a game where you can switch jobs at will on the same character is incredibly small and they probably make a killing off fantasia potions from people changing their own characters instead of making alts.

Their base game code is absolutely junk though, so let's not act like it's a bad excuse. This game was made off the backs of an engine that square enix discontinued when the PS3 was still a thing. An engine that was wasn't even built for MMOs hence the tiny ass areas separated by loading screens in 1.0 and ARR. They just frankenstein the fuck out of it to keep the game going.

[MsSideEye]

But SE is a Smol Indie Company, so it's hard for them to code!

Spoken like someone who doesn't know a damn thing about coding, much less code that was done over a decade ago, it's originally creators gone, and hasn't been touched for fear of bricking the entire damn system.

Codding isn't something you can just throw a whole bunch of people at and have it magically fix itself. It takes time, effort, and a LOT of testing to make sure you don't break everything. Add that to the lack of people who know that and live in Japan/speak Japanese, and something like that takes even LONGER.

Also keep in mind these same devs went and told us that they didn't know of Flying in ARR would ever work, at least not something they could promise up front, and then they went and did their best to develop it in their own spare time OFF THE CLOCK.

I get you're making a (bad) joke here, but as someone whose actually worked in the industry, give credit where it's freaking due.

[Grinning Serpent]

Spoken like someone who doesn't know a damn thing about coding, much less code that was done over a decade ago, it's originally creators gone, and hasn't been touched for fear of bricking the entire damn system.

Codding isn't something you can just throw a whole bunch of people at and have it magically fix itself. It takes time, effort, and a LOT of testing to make sure you don't break everything. Add that to the lack of people who know that and live in Japan/speak Japanese, and something like that takes even LONGER.

Also keep in mind these same devs went and told us that they didn't know of Flying in ARR would ever work, at least not something they could promise up front, and then they went and did their best to develop it in their own spare time OFF THE CLOCK.

I get you're making a (bad) joke here, but as someone whose actually worked in the industry, give credit where it's freaking due.

And they could fix that and more, if they actually gave a shit. But they'd rather rake in more cash so that the rest of Square-Enix can build bonfires with it (how much did Forspoken cost to produce?)

Like, I wouldn't want to operate an online game, or product in general, with a foundation rooted in old, archaic code that few people even really understand anymore. That sounds like a recipe for disaster and headaches. I'd throw the whole fucker out and rebuild it from scratch.

But that's me talking about making an actually competent, good product. Not doing the bare minimum to maximize profits. Yeah, CBU3 has done frankly amazing things with FFXIV and desires all kinds of accolades. But don't for one fucking second think that the problems in the game can't be solved - they absolutely can. They aren't solved because accountants have done the math and decided it would not be profitable to fix them.

[Katchii]

And they could fix that and more, if they actually gave a shit. But they'd rather rake in more cash so that the rest of Square-Enix can build bonfires with it (how much did Forspoken cost to produce?)

Like, I wouldn't want to operate an online game, or product in general, with a foundation rooted in old, archaic code that few people even really understand anymore. That sounds like a recipe for disaster and headaches. I'd throw the whole fucker out and rebuild it from scratch.

But that's me talking about making an actually competent, good product. Not doing the bare minimum to maximize profits. Yeah, CBU3 has done frankly amazing things with FFXIV and desires all kinds of accolades. But don't for one fucking second think that the problems in the game can't be solved - they absolutely can. They aren't solved because accountants have done the math and decided it would not be profitable to fix them.

You say this as if it's an absolutely horrendous, unthinkable, stupid thing that a business would do cost benefit analysis on what they should or shouldn't spend their limited time and resources on. Spend them on things that will make them more money or on things that may actually break their product and potentially end up making less money?

Of COURSE they're going to choose to spend them on making new shiny things and expanding the world and working around the coding limitations rather than on fixing the issues, potentially breaking large pieces of what they've built in the process, and limiting how much new content they can create to bring in old and new customers alike.

I'm with you on how much it sucks that their old code is shitty, but it's working right now and I understand why they're choosing not to focus on fixing it. It makes complete business sense.

[MsSideEye]

And they could fix that and more, if they actually gave a shit. But they'd rather rake in more cash so that the rest of Square-Enix can build bonfires with it (how much did Forspoken cost to produce?)

Like, I wouldn't want to operate an online game, or product in general, with a foundation rooted in old, archaic code that few people even really understand anymore. That sounds like a recipe for disaster and headaches. I'd throw the whole fucker out and rebuild it from scratch.

But that's me talking about making an actually competent, good product. Not doing the bare minimum to maximize profits. Yeah, CBU3 has done frankly amazing things with FFXIV and desires all kinds of accolades. But don't for one fucking second think that the problems in the game can't be solved - they absolutely can. They aren't solved because accountants have done the math and decided it would not be profitable to fix them.

Breaking my 'not replying to ignored people rule' here for a moment because the comment here is so ass backwards that I've got have to spell out just how wrong you are.

First, Do you know how much work goes into the whole 'throw the fucker out and rebuild it from scratch'? We're talking three to five years to do something on FFXIV's scale. MINIMUM. That's not even considering the fact that it's going to be insanely difficult to port characters, items, progress, OR anything else that uses the old coding to the new coding, which means that everyone loses out on YEARS worth of progress and work because they're wanting to switch over to a good system. This is the exact same reason why we don't have a World of Warcraft 2 or replacement for all the old stuff, because you're asking people to more or less start from scratch for things they've had for almost a DECADE at this point.

Second, Bare minimum would be 'cutting out half the expansion because they failed in every way presenting it'. Bare minimum would be making a never ending treadmill that they never really touch outside of 'ooh, look, new effect that you're going to hate even MORE this week'. Bare minimum would going and begging players to stay subbed to their game for a year or more by getting a special mount if they do it. There are things to complain and criticize FFXIV, sure. But 'doing the bare minimum' isn't one of them.

Third and finally, the amount of times that we can go and say that FFXIV didn't deliver on something they promised on could be counted on one hand. To my own personal knowledge right now, the only thing we haven't seen with what they said was making old PVP track rewards available again for players to buy and I've honestly no doubt in my mind that will be added too. And you know what actually giving us what they say they would makes the game? That's right: a competent, good product. Can you decry FFXIV for playing it safe and offering us the same things over and over, or not offering us things like Bozja? Sure. That's perfectly understandable. But sticking your nose so high up into the air that birds can fly in unrestricted and going 'this makes the game bad for not living up to MY insane standards' is perhaps the most asinine things I've seen on these forums.

There's a distinct difference between a game that's doing it's best to please the players and do things for fun and one that's clearly trying to manipulate and deceive it's players in order to get the most money possible. The fact that you're unable to tell that differences frankly astounds me.

[Tomana]

Also keep in mind these same devs went and told us that they didn't know of Flying in ARR would ever work, at least not something they could promise up front, and then they went and did their best to develop it in their own spare time OFF THE CLOCK.

From what I understood, flying wasn't a coding problem, it was about going through all the zones and tweaking the borders and adding collision. So it's more of a 3D modelling issue than a coding issue (which doesn't change the fact they did an amazing job on it).

I get you're making a (bad) joke here, but as someone whose actually worked in the industry, give credit where it's freaking due.

Like all good jokes, there is only half a joke there XD
SE is capable of doing amazing stuff given their fairly limited resources. But all the rest is not average, it's in fact so craptastic it can't even be described.
Like, let's take the market board. Whoever designed this needs to be bonked on the head repeatedly and then made to play EvE to show them how a good market board should look like. It can't even be put into words: why do I have to buy the whole batch if I need only 1 item? ( and please don't tell me it's so difficult to code, because it's not ^^). Using the retainer system for selling, as well. The Company chest interface is craptastic. The contract system? We don't have one. All of the above makes for a better MMORPG.

- - - Updated - - -

You say this as if it's an absolutely horrendous, unthinkable, stupid thing that a business would do cost benefit analysis on what they should or shouldn't spend their limited time and resources on. Spend them on things that will make them more money or on things that may actually break their product and potentially end up making less money?

This is the same incredibly short-sighted market perspective that is the root of all the problems we have currently (and not just in video games, mind you).
Investing into a new client that will help the game be more stable for the next X years? Nah, screw that, we have next quarter's shareholder covenants to meet.

- - - Updated - - -

First, Do you know how much work goes into the whole 'throw the fucker out and rebuild it from scratch'?

CCP games has done that, at the fraction of SE's resources. And yes, it would take a few years of backburner work, but guess what - they should have started it around Stormblood and not right now XD

Bare minimum would be making a never ending treadmill that they never really touch outside of 'ooh, look, new effect that you're going to hate even MORE this week'. Bare minimum would going and begging players to stay subbed to their game for a year or more by getting a special mount if they do it.

You are saying like these are bad things ^^
Yes, it's important not to overdo them (hello, WoW ), but currently, FFXIV doesn't give nearly enough incentive to stay subscribed between patches. And I can't say that SE isn't aware of that fact, because they are always launching the pony circus called "moogle tomestone event" 1 month before each major patch. So they are trying, but these attempts are so weak they are not even funny.
But personally, I think you should have a character development treadmill that gives you something to show for it, rather than an island sanctuary that doesn't.

Third and finally, the amount of times that we can go and say that FFXIV didn't deliver on something they promised on could be counted on one hand.

That's 100% a fact. Unfortunately, the amount of times they fixed an old system that was not working properly can also be counted on one hand.

The problem isn't that SE is not delivering on the core content (aka MSQ and instanced content). If they didn't, one could simply throw it away and move to another one. The problem is them not delivering on a lot of things that make a top MMORPG (aka open world, player economy, character development and content that keeps player busy between patches). Some people like YoshiP call that "working as intended", and that's where, IMHO, his main error is.

[Yarathir]

"just rebuild ur live service game's engine 4head" is all I see here.

[Katchii]

This is the same incredibly short-sighted market perspective that is the root of all the problems we have currently (and not just in video games, mind you).

Investing into a new client that will help the game be more stable for the next X years? Nah, screw that, we have next quarter's shareholder covenants to meet.

If the current client were literally unusable, had horrendous issues preventing any and all changes to be made and was causing players to quit or leave in droves I'd agree with you. It's not.

The vast majority of the issues with the client itself (not the game) are annoyances and fixing it or changing it would give us QoL improvements. I don't know of any that are breaking the game.

Because of that it's a waste of time and resources to dedicate them to fixing this stuff vs using them to build upon it and give us new features.

[Tech614]

but currently, FFXIV doesn't give nearly enough incentive to stay subscribed between patches.

I still don't get what your obsession is with this talking point. Do you really only ever want to play 1 game and want it to have endless bad farms to incentivize staying subscribed for?

When you don't feel like playing the game, unsubscribe and play something else. This is absolutely working as intended and Yoshida is a realist for recognizing this instead of adding endless chores to the game to try to lock players into only playing a single game instead of focusing development on the strengths of his game.

Go watch netflix, play other games or anything. Just because a game is an MMO doesn't mean it can't have natural stopping and starting points. You seem to have this irrational definition that an MMO must be an endless grind when really it just means you are sharing a world with a large amount of other players.

[Tomana]

I still don't get what your obsession is with this talking point. Do you really only ever want to play 1 game

Yes? O_o
I guess I must be too old at this point...

and want it to have endless bad farms to incentivize staying subscribed for?

No, I want to have good farms to incentivize staying subscribed. Bad farms (aka borrowed power WoW have been forcing on us) are a bad idea and can be deleted from this world ^^

When you don't feel like playing the game, unsubscribe and play something else. This is absolutely working as intended and Yoshida is a realist for recognizing this instead of adding endless chores to the game to try to lock players into only playing a single game instead of focusing development on the strengths of his game.

Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaah, EXCEPT it leads to depressing periods of empty servers and dead social tissue because all your friends are playing another game. And it is immediately noticeable and is a kind of publicity one would rather avoid. Of course, it's a matter of striking a fine balance to create the impression for the players to stay of their own volition and not because they feel obliged to stay.

And again, you can clearly see that SE realizes that because of the moogle clown circus. So they are trying. But they are trying so badly that words fail me to describe how bad they are. Okay, they don't want to do power farming and so on. But why on earth aren't they adding more tribe-like content? More outdoor events (or heck, even indoor events). We got 1 more jumping puzzle in MGS and we are about to get one more, whoopdeedoo. Why not add rapports with NPCs like Lost Ark? Throw in some random drops that launch quests into the world, as well. If D4 programmers can do it, I'm sure SE can too XD

But nooooooooooo, let's sink a ridiculous amount of time to develop Variant Dungeons that go empty 3 weeks after release instead. This is moronic.