FFXIV Criticisms

[Katchii]

I agree. But that's also why I don't give a fuck how nice Yoshida is on screen, and why I think the hero worship people have for him is akin to a cargo cult at this point. FFXIV is a business, not a game or work of art or whatever. The decisions made, in regards to development paths and such, are made from a "will it make us more money?" standpoint, *not* a "will it make this a better product/experience?" standpoint. They often coincide (because to an extent, better products sell better), but when they conflict, they invariably fall on the side of "we want more money."

I think the decisions are made from a what will players enjoy and appreciate more standpoint. As you've alluded to that often coincides with what will make us more money, but if the decisions were ONLY about making more money, we'd have significantly more end game systems focusing on grinds, a much larger and more predatory cash shop and a director that hasn't gone on record saying "if you want to unsub, go ahead and come back when you're ready."

I think the code could use some updates, yes, but not at the expense of what they're building with it. The systems that most people complain about would result in quality of life upgrades and that's about it. They ARE making small strides here and there, and they'll eventually get there. But the systems they have now for working around the dated code are "fine," as in they're functional and they know how to work with them.

Spending time and resources completely fixing and changing it to end up with a POTENTIALLY better system isn't worth the business risk. The work they do could break untold numbers of systems and starting from the ground up is completely impractical.

I am not disagreeing with your sentiment, but I accept that from a business perspective AND a players perspective (as in, a player who wants to continue playing the game, seeing it updated with new stuff, etc...) that what they're doing makes complete sense.

They'd need a completely separate but similarly sized team to do what you're suggesting while also keeping the current live game appropriately supported. That's completely impractical.

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I have at least one of every combat relic. None of them are especially onerous. The slowest part about ARR relics is the books, and only then because you have to do specific FATEs. If it was just do 5 or even 10 FATEs in this zone, it wouldn't be very stressful (and that's probably how it should be now that ARR isn't the end-game.)

The worst grinds are probably Ishgard pteranodon and the Luminary gatherer tools (each requires like several ten thousand gathers...)

The original Atma grind, when it was first released was a fucking train wreck potentially taking hours to get a single one because the drop rate was so low. Many of them, as they were first introduced, felt like this.

[Arlette]

I'm sorry, but how is having to play the game an "issue"? At that rate, having to plough through the MSQ to access end-game content in FFXIV is an issue as well.
The key is to not overdo it, and by what you are describing (I haven't touched WoW since mid-BFA), WoW does exactly that.

Because you cannot tell a story well if you're chunking it into 45 minute increments every week or two. I'm not sure how this is really even a point of contention since its been one of WoW's biggest weaknesses for years at this point. Shadowlands and BfA had this problem particularly badly.

People love to bang on about the "MMO" aspect of FF14 but the "RPG" aspect of WoW has been a huge low point of it for a long time.

[Arlette]

lol no it doesn't.

Sorry.

Even the shortest patch possible is not like that.

As usual you are incredibly exaggerating about 14.

[Arlette]

...exaggerating about what, exactly?

You always seem to forget that when you start doing this, the person you're talking to is going to expect some meat on that bone. Not just a defensive knee-jerk flailing about.

The funny thing is that you can't even agree with "the games are just different and different people like different things". It still has to be this weird competition/fight over it.

Because you cannot seem to help yourself from lying about FF14 constantly. Especially when it comes to WoW. And every single time, like clockwork, you then follow up your nonsense by crying that people call out your lies.

Its funny that your knee-jerk response was to (as usual) lie about FF14 but especially in this regard you try to do so by bringing up FF14 patch content when compared to WoW. Even in the base expansion for WoW, they do the 45 increment chunks for its story. Whether its Artifact Power or Azerite Power or, now, Renown, WoW has been cutting its already limited story into chunks to feed to you over months at a time for years now. At best with WoW, with its expansions for at least a decade now, you get the prologue of the story and maybe a chapter or two. And then you have to spend months just to get the next few chapters of the same story, and its not even finished for a good 2-3 years.

Say whatever lies you want about 14, but when you buy an expansion, you get a beginning, middle, and ending to a story. The patch content might continue the plot as a sequel to a story might, or add more context or bring up more characters that were included in that original story, but the original story gets told and has an ending. You get a completed story. You know, the whole "RPG" aspect to "MMORPG" that y'all love to drone on and on about regarding how 14 isn't one. The RPG aspect is just as important to the formula as the MMO aspect.

That is not true whatsoever with WoW and it sure speaks to your intentions in this subforum, as you've done all along, that you tried to pretend the two are the same in this regard.

[Arlette]

This entire post boils down to, "They're different but I like one and not the other and everyone else has to agree or they're mean and dishonest and stuff."

Welcome to the internet, I'm sure you can get over the fact that people might disagree with you lying.

[Ghost of Cow]

Never mind. I promised I wouldn't get into this personal bullshit, so have at it.

If you want to discuss games/topics, I'm all for it. If you want to keep discussing people, you do you.

[Tech614]

The WoW story would be over in 10 hours if they didn't gate it, the games have different priorities. Story has never been a priority in WoW no matter how much lore nerds want it to be so. In XIV it's absolutely the top priority. Again a different games doing different things that aren't really comparable.

This is also a good thing, if either game tried to be a clone of each other I would simply drop one of them forever.

[Tomana]

Because you cannot tell a story well if you're chunking it into 45 minute increments every week or two. I'm not sure how this is really even a point of contention since its been one of WoW's biggest weaknesses for years at this point. Shadowlands and BfA had this problem particularly badly.

Sure, but you can still add stuff to encourage people to log in for example at least once a week to make a story progress. Or their character progress. Or make a world event progress.

I won't defend WoW (it is indefensible XD), but SE puts the cursor too far in the opposite direction, by making essentially possible to quit it at any time and coming back to instant catch-up.

[Ghost of Cow]

The WoW story would be over in 10 hours if they didn't gate it, the games have different priorities. Story has never been a priority in WoW no matter how much lore nerds want it to be so. In XIV it's absolutely the top priority. Again a different games doing different things that aren't really comparable.

This is also a good thing, if either game tried to be a clone of each other I would simply drop one of them forever.

The sad part is that - some 20 years ago - WoW was setting the standard for storytelling in MMOs.

Granted, the bar was low at that time. MMOs prior didn't really even try telling a story, the focus was more in dropping you into a world. Just a shame that WoW sort of let that fall by the wayside over time.

[Tomana]

The sad part is that - some 20 years ago - WoW was setting the standard for storytelling in MMOs.

Yes, I was persuaded that WoW told the story well. Then I bought FFXIV and realized how trash WoW's storytelling was XD

[Arlette]

by making essentially possible to quit it at any time and coming back to instant catch-up.

...good? That's what I love about the game. That I can set it down and come back and not be punished for it.

If you want to grind in the game you still can do it, they certainly offer multiple grindy things if that's what you're looking for. It's just not a requirement to see new content.

[Tomana]

...good? That's what I love about the game. That I can set it down and come back and not be punished for it.

I guess I must be too old at this point. Must be a different generational mentality

If you want to grind in the game you still can do it, they certainly offer multiple grindy things if that's what you're looking for.

Not really, no. It's all cosmetic stuff and nothing that improves the character's power.
I like what they did in Lost Ark with all the possibilities of skill points/tripods/etc. (minus the stuff being P2W, of course).

It's just not a requirement to see new content.

And it shouldn't be, I agree. But it should award "skill points" (using that term loosely here) or any other form of character power.
But the problem is, raiders would complain and YoshiP can't have that.

[Arlette]

Not really, no. It's all cosmetic stuff and nothing that improves the character's power.

Again, awesome. That's one of the best parts of the game, that there's not a dumbass artificial eternal (or feeling eternal) grind for tiny increments of increased power.

Also you still can get things like relic weapons or if you want to grind out tomestone gear or raid gear for weeks.

Again...you just don't HAVE to do that in order to see the next part of the story.

[Ghost of Cow]

Both games have good mechanical catch-up mechanisms - as in, you won't be hurting for gear in either game as a returning player.

The difference in the rest is how the games are built. XIV will have mandatory MSQ progress that you have to complete before getting to the newest content, and WoW will often have an expansion-specific mechanic that you have to work on before being endgame viable. (Not sure what Dragonflights is, haven't played DF yet.)

Now you might say, "But Bov, I like story content, that's not a grind at all, it's not the same!" and sure, but some people just like jumping straight into character progression and enjoy that and don't see it as a grind either.

As always, it's just about what you like in a game personally. In either case, you can generally be endgame-ready in extremely short order, so it's largely moot anyway.

[Tech614]

WoW will often have an expansion-specific mechanic that you have to work on before being endgame viable.

DF doesn't have anything but optional grinds to complete the campaign or for cosmetic shit. The only barrier between you and current end game content is gear.

The fact even WoW ditched the shitty grinds for player power is telling of how bad it is.

[lunariancultist]

To be fair, I and many others (possibly also some users on here) have seen people drop faulty nukes on their favourite MMOs, coming from fans of another all the time. It's hardly just WoW, and it's not fair to act like FFXIV is the only victim of this. It's not even necessarily always from FFXIV fans, even if from my own anecdotal experience WoW tends to be a boogeyman brought up by FFXIV fans more often than WoW fans. Either way, I've witnessed people speak of WoW as if its own zones and major cities are deadzones with little to no population counts and that's not particularly accurate neither. Personally I feel as though if you wanna stop this constant WoW vs. FFXIV vs. whatever else its gotta start with you.

As an aside, how and why did Guild Wars get involved lol. I LIKE that game, no interest in comparing it tho. IIRC it even has horizontal progression instead of vertical like FFXIV, so not sure why that bomb got dropped in all honesty. Suppose it doesn't matter regardless.

[Grinning Serpent]

On the one hand, I wanna say beast tribe stories aren't that important so it isn't as big a deal as locking main story stuff behind it.

On the other hand, the Omicron story was pretty cool and kind of serves as a good continuation to Ultima Thule after the MSQ, even giving you an indication of the fate of its "inhabitants" post-Endsinger's death, and if you liked the Loporrits at all, seeing more of them and what they do after Endwalker is probably worth your while.

The same applies to a lot of tribes. You learn a lot about the people you meet in the MSQ and what they're up to/what some of them do after you finish your business with them.

I admittedly didn't pay *that* much attention to DF's story, but the nuggets you get from renown are more about those individual factions than the main plot. I think only the dragon accord faction is kind of a direct continuation of the plot, and it's practically impossible to play the game and *not* get tons of that rep since you get it from just about everything. Really, I think the Renown system is pretty fucking great and I wish XIV would copy it (along with the current iteration of WQs and a lot of other things that keep players involved in the actual game world and not just sitting in a city waiting on PF or DF.)

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I think the decisions are made from a what will players enjoy and appreciate more standpoint. As you've alluded to that often coincides with what will make us more money, but if the decisions were ONLY about making more money, we'd have significantly more end game systems focusing on grinds, a much larger and more predatory cash shop and a director that hasn't gone on record saying "if you want to unsub, go ahead and come back when you're ready."

I think the code could use some updates, yes, but not at the expense of what they're building with it. The systems that most people complain about would result in quality of life upgrades and that's about it. They ARE making small strides here and there, and they'll eventually get there. But the systems they have now for working around the dated code are "fine," as in they're functional and they know how to work with them.

Spending time and resources completely fixing and changing it to end up with a POTENTIALLY better system isn't worth the business risk. The work they do could break untold numbers of systems and starting from the ground up is completely impractical.

I am not disagreeing with your sentiment, but I accept that from a business perspective AND a players perspective (as in, a player who wants to continue playing the game, seeing it updated with new stuff, etc...) that what they're doing makes complete sense.

They'd need a completely separate but similarly sized team to do what you're suggesting while also keeping the current live game appropriately supported. That's completely impractical.

When a game is raking in profits hand over fist, I don't have much sympathy for them. I understand all the reasons why they don't do the hard thing (having to be the credit card Square-Enix uses to fund all of their wastefulness elsewhere is probably the biggest problem the project faces), but that doesn't mean I will give Yoshida a free pass. They could be doing a *LOT* more than they are doing right now. But they *choose* not to (again, probably because Square-Enix would not survive if XIV reinvested most of their profits back into the game, as opposed to funding their most recent garbage.)

The original Atma grind, when it was first released was a fucking train wreck potentially taking hours to get a single one because the drop rate was so low. Many of them, as they were first introduced, felt like this.

Yeah, I do remember reading about that. I should specify that I think the *current* version of ARR, HW, etc relics is in a pretty agreeable place.

[Tech614]

I understand all the reasons why they don't do the hard thing (having to be the credit card Square-Enix uses to fund all of their wastefulness elsewhere is probably the biggest problem the project faces),

This is false. The MMO division is separated from the normal gaming division on their finances. They have their own margins and budgets. XIV money is not being spent on forspoken. This was the 2nd time I saw you mention it so I wanted to bring it up before you or more people keep preaching it as gospel.

Also, XVI earned square enix's gaming division earned $210+ million in less than a week. Let's not act like XIV is the only thing that earns them money and funds the entire company. It self sustains itself and much of it's profits are invested back into the game or into future MMO R&D. The gaming division doesn't need to steal money from it, this isn't the PS3 days when Square Enix was in danger of bankruptcy largely because of 1.0 all their divisions are healthy and profitable after they sold off the only anchor they had which was the western studios they dumped on embracer group.

[Grinning Serpent]

This is false. The MMO division is separated from the normal gaming division on their finances. They have their own margins and budgets. XIV money is not being spent on forspoken. This was the 2nd time I saw you mention it so I wanted to bring it up before you or more people keep preaching it as gospel.

Thanks for the correction. That makes it even more of a black mark against CBU3 that they ignore so many necessary updates and QoL adjustments to the game, then.

[Moralgy]

Yeah, I think the problem is just that it's kind of a snowball thing.

It didn't really get its bearings the way it should, therefore nobody went to play there except people who really were clamoring for that DC (and even those probably left) and new players. The fewer people there are, the fewer there'll stay. Dynamis really needs a kick in the ass to get a chunk of people to play there to make it a server you can actually play on, then others will surely join. Maybe 7.0 will give it that kick, maybe not.

For my DC and servers, however, it's seemed as active as always.

Dynamis failed simply because we didnt need a new data center... but people wanted houses. Insane early burst of activity and the moment people realized they couldn't que for anything cause there was no party finder activity it died ;_;. If they made party finder cross data center you would see dynamis far more populated tbqh.