[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Lane]

I seem to remember there being a statistic thrown about that the majority of people play MMO's alone, but I don't recall the specifics. It could be true, I suppose, that the idea of being required to play with others is a turn off. But I don't see how that would apply to many players knowingly going into an MMO and knowing what it involves.

There's an infamous quote by one of the Wildstar devs who said as many as 65% of MMO players prefer to play solo and that they're an under-served market.

I don't think I fit into any of those categories. I like a persistent world with continuous content updates, I like seeing other players in the world, I do not like being forced to group with other people. FFXIV has pushed me out of my comfort zone and I can't honestly say I've enjoyed it. Everything but the mandatory grouping I've liked, unfortunately there's no escaping having to do dungeons and trials (currently). Once I got to ShB I was absolutely thrilled I only had to deal with others for trials and duties in the MSQ became enjoyable rather than something I'd dread and sometimes put off for days.

I wonder if this means CT will no longer be mandatory. I don't see how you make FFXIV solo friendly and still thrust players into a 24-man raid.

That said, I really don't think this game is good when you compare it's gameplay/story elements against classic RPGs. Sure it's story is great compared against MMOs, but like I played FF13 and FF15 and honestly they were some of the worst and most misguided games SE has made that I've personally played. Just my opinion though.

I think HW and ShB were, the others not so much. I still think the devs need to work on ARR a lot, particularly when it comes to spreading out job abilities so you're not just hitting the same 3 buttons for 50 levels. I didn't like the story of ARR at all, that's subjective but I don't think ARR is a good enough hook to keep people engaged.

[Wrecktangle]

The one thing I've seen over years of playing this game, WoW, and various other MMOs is there is a staggering amount of people who play these games just for the social aspect - like hanging out in cities or their own venues, and really only participate in the absolute easiest content just to get things like glam etc...

For sure, but doesn't that support my argument (wasn't sure if you were agreeing or offering a differing viewp?

I seem to remember there being a statistic thrown about that the majority of people play MMO's alone, but I don't recall the specifics. It could be true, I suppose, that the idea of being required to play with others is a turn off. But I don't see how that would apply to many players knowingly going into an MMO and knowing what it involves.

I'd be curious what constitutes "playing alone" in this context and how it's measured/defined. Naturally we don't know, but it's an interesting point.

I'd expect that most of time spent in FF14 is solo playing by requirement. Things like MSQ, FATE's, leveling etc. These activities don't prevent you from grouping, but in my experience they're generally done solo. This extrapolates out into other MMOs too, where you'll probably only group for specific reasons and run solo the rest of the time.

Another interesting point. Speaking personally I will do everything I can solo simply to mitigate having to carry dead weight. Some players are just some comically bad at this game that it can be exhausting to carry them through content, no matter how trivial it is in actuality.

That said, I'm not sure solo-izing the game is the solution to THAT problem.

I think HW and ShB were, the others not so much. I still think the devs need to work on ARR a lot, particularly when it comes to spreading out job abilities so you're not just hitting the same 3 buttons for 50 levels. I didn't like the story of ARR at all, that's subjective but I don't think ARR is a good enough hook to keep people engaged.

While I personally enjoyed HW and ShB stories, I don't personally think they're of nearly the same quality as a stand alone RPG experience. Tales of Arise wasn't some amazing game, but as an experience I enjoyed it more than FF14 (I've been playing since 2.0 open beta). The characterization, story, combat, and experience were all IMO superior to my latest experiences with FF14 and this is as someone who basically got their dream come true with EW PLD.

Even games with silent protagonists, like P5, were leaps and bounds better experiences to me than FF14 as a whole. The last time a FF mainline game was actually impressive to me was FF9 (which was HARD carried by a handful of interesting characters/world).

FF10 is a very polarizing game. Lots of people love it and while I do think it was the perfect evolution of the classic FF combat system, it's far from even top 10 best turn based combat systems. I personally didn't care about the world or more than half of the characters in the game, and the ones that were good, were barely good. FF12 wasn't a good game to me despite being an absolute Ivalice fanboy. I couldn't stand the combat system at all. FF13 was pretty, but so bland and uninspiring. FF15 was comically bad.

[Lane]

More information about soloability changes to the game. I have to disagree with Yoshi-P's reasoning on trials that "the burden on each individual player is relatively diluted". When you get a trial where half the players are new, which happened to me several times, it's a miserable experience. Technically, yes, you can be carried, but it's not going to make for a positive grouping experience for someone who didn't want to have to group in the first place.

Not including Aurum Vale is rough too since I know that's required for at least GC rank and it's a miserable dungeon to PUG more often than not. I wish they'd make squadrons available at at earlier level so you can use them. Unfortunately, you need AV to even unlock them.

It looks like new character creation options won't be happening while they're doing the graphical updates due to the workload.

While I personally enjoyed HW and ShB stories, I don't personally think they're of nearly the same quality as a stand alone RPG experience.

I've played some bad RPGs. :P Good ones, sure, they outclass anything an MMO offers, even FFXIV, but HW is one of the better RPG stories I've played. ShB is a bit more iffy since there's some context needed from previous content that I didn't feel was necessary with HW.

I loved FFX. Didn't care for FFXII. FFXV was weird, I didn't like the main cast (except Ignis) so I was rooting for Ardyn who was the only entertaining character.

[Igzorn]

Edit: I assume MSQ roulette is going away in 6.1, both Castrum and Prae are being turned into 4-mans.

Also impressed with the graphical upgrades, the models look the same just better as opposed to WoW where some of us didn't recognize our characters afterwards. >_>

just as a warning those pictures shown in the stream are not the final product, and/or prototypes and case study's. to show in waht direction it goes.

[Granyala]

Also impressed with the graphical upgrades, the models look the same just better as opposed to WoW where some of us didn't recognize our characters afterwards. >_>

Well lets wait and see. The initial preview images of WoW's model update looked very promising as well, until they completely changed the design ethos. The model update did what I would not have thought possible after playing 8 years: it completely disconnected me from my Draenei. It was no longer my character. Made it easy to drop WoW after that.

Needless to say, that I am super anxious about XIV's update and hope they don't repeat this. >.<

[Lane]

Oh, I know. I ended up having to completely redesign several of my WoW characters. Yoshi-P said he wants the models to look the same but "prettier", so I think they'll take more effort to maintain the originals as opposed to Blizzard who seemed to just say F it.

[kaminaris]

Color me super impressed, Yoshi-P is working on making FFXIV quite possibly the most solo friendly MMO on the market. Trusts will be available for all dungeons and eventually trials starting with ARR in 6.1. He said between speaking to Final Fantasy fans and market research, the main reason people aren't playing FFXIV is because they don't want to play with others.

Edit: I assume MSQ roulette is going away in 6.1, both Castrum and Prae are being turned into 4-mans.

Also impressed with the graphical upgrades, the models look the same just better as opposed to WoW where some of us didn't recognize our characters afterwards. >_>

Wow that is pretty good improvement considering nothing has changed in textures and models. Are they going to update global illumination too? For environment

[Dastreus]

warcraft has more content in its dungeons because dungeons actually have mechanics

bro what? Are we playing the same game?

[Wrecktangle]

More information about soloability changes to the game.

This is super interesting to me. While I'm actually in full support of solo-izing the MSQ, I'm VERY curious what the opportunity cost of this and the GFX update will be. He goes on and on about the team being overwhelmed by a significant margin and are they going to be expected to output the same quality going forward with these massive undertakings (per his own statements previously)? At the same time he's making commitments to longer patch cycles and giving the team more mental health breathing room?

It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

I've played some bad RPGs. :P Good ones, sure, they outclass anything an MMO offers, even FFXIV, but HW is one of the better RPG stories I've played. ShB is a bit more iffy since there's some context needed from previous content that I didn't feel was necessary with HW.

I loved FFX. Didn't care for FFXII. FFXV was weird, I didn't like the main cast (except Ignis) so I was rooting for Ardyn who was the only entertaining character.

Just for context got an example of a bad one?

[Poppincaps]

I've also played a lot of RPGs and JRPGs. I think purely in terms of story, JRPGs tend to be top tier, but in my opinion FF14 has the best story. It has one of the best villains in fiction with Emet Selch, it has a party of characters that I really enjoy and feel deeply attached to, and while I usually hate silent protags, I think your character in FF14 is a silent protagonist done perfectly. Mostly because it's an MMO so you're living your MMO life every day as that character so you kinda develop a head canon for your character. Plus the glamour and job systems really allow you to make your character look how you imagine them to be.

Plus, I think MMOs are unique poised to create amazing stories due to the fact that they are persistent worlds that evolve over time. It's like the video game equivalent of Naruto or One Piece. You grow attached to these characters and the world and get to see it all develop over real life years.

[Ghost of Cow]

Plus, I think MMOs are unique poised to create amazing stories due to the fact that they are persistent worlds that evolve over time.

I dunno, I've always viewed that in the opposite way. That MMO stories often suffer because they must keep going at a pace that's dictated by the gameplay content, regardless of how much inspiration the writers actually have or how good the result is.

[StrawberryZebra]

There's an infamous quote by one of the Wildstar devs who said as many as 65% of MMO players prefer to play solo and that they're an under-served market.

I don't think I fit into any of those categories. I like a persistent world with continuous content updates, I like seeing other players in the world, I do not like being forced to group with other people. FFXIV has pushed me out of my comfort zone and I can't honestly say I've enjoyed it. Everything but the mandatory grouping I've liked, unfortunately there's no escaping having to do dungeons and trials (currently). Once I got to ShB I was absolutely thrilled I only had to deal with others for trials and duties in the MSQ became enjoyable rather than something I'd dread and sometimes put off for days.

It may have been the Wildstar quote I'm thinking of. Though I do seem to remember Carbine talking some mad shit at times too, so I'm still taking it with a grain of salt. On the surface it seems plausable, but what hoops they've jumped through to reach it we'll probably never know.

To be clear, I didn't mean to imply that everyone who plays solo fits in those 3 broad catagories - Only that they seem to be the most common ones I come across. There are people who fall outside of them for one reason or another. I don't fit neatly into any of them either. I find myself having very little common ground with FF14 players outside of the fact that I also play FF14.

Which is why I've got exactly 0 in game friends, no FC and pretty much just ignore anything said to me at this point. I like playing the game - I don't much care for the people. I pug everything I need to in silence and thats that. I don't object to the idea of playing with other players, but I've long since accepted that I'm never going to be anything more than a spot in their pug.

I'd be curious what constitutes "playing alone" in this context and how it's measured/defined. Naturally we don't know, but it's an interesting point.

Developers being what they are, it could also be anything on the spectrum from never grouping with anyone under any circumstance all the way to logging on intentionally to hang out and socialise with friends but never actually doing group content with them. One of them is far more alone than the other.

If, as @Lane suggests, it was a marketing quote for Wildstar than its likely been put through more spin cycles than a laundromat tumble drier before being pushed out to the public to fit whatever demographic it was trying to appeal to that week.

Another interesting point. Speaking personally I will do everything I can solo simply to mitigate having to carry dead weight. Some players are just some comically bad at this game that it can be exhausting to carry them through content, no matter how trivial it is in actuality.

I tend to do what I can solo. I also think of players in LFG, Roulettes etc as being incidental allies more than people I'm playing with. Everyone is pretty much doing their own thing anyway and outside of the occasional call out on an interrupt or an M+ route being shared. I don't usually care that people are playing badly, as long as they're not intentionally handicapping the rest of the group or are so bad we're unable to complete it. At this point in time, as long as I get the key done for the week, timed or not, I'm fine with it. As long as I get my roulette completed I can go on my way and never see the rest of the group again.

As much as I hate to phrase it this way, most of the time I tend to think of other players as being interchangable and expendable. I'm almost certainly never going to see them again, I can ignore them and move on.

I usually only group with people I know beforehand for raid content. Part of that is the logistics of it, they've got play patterns that don't match mine. part of it is convenience because it's faster and easier to power my way through dailies without having to wait on other people to catch up. The idea of having to group up for every little piece of content has long since been outmoded and replaced by more solo friendly content.

[Lane]

Just for context got an example of a bad one?

It's subjective, of course, but I didn't like Suikoden 3. The first two Suikodens were great and then 3 just butchered everything I loved about the franchise. It's the one that most sticks out in my mind, although, a few late gen Sega and early gen Playstation RPGs weren't particularly good or, even if they were enjoyable at the time, wouldn't stand up to to today's standards of RPGs. I played Beyond the Beyond, one of the first JRPGs available in the west for the original Playstation and critically panned. I didn't think it was that bad, but it'd still be blown out of the water by HW or ShB.

I dunno, I've always viewed that in the opposite way. That MMO stories often suffer because they must keep going at a pace that's dictated by the gameplay content, regardless of how much inspiration the writers actually have or how good the result is.

This. As much as I love Emet, his character development and storyline is absolutely hamstrung by being in an MMO and revolving around the player character. There's only so much they can do with any character who interacts with the WoL lest they make the players uncomfortable.

It may have been the Wildstar quote I'm thinking of. Though I do seem to remember Carbine talking some mad shit at times too, so I'm still taking it with a grain of salt. On the surface it seems plausable, but what hoops they've jumped through to reach it we'll probably never know.

The irony is Wildstar wasn't a particularly solo friendly game, at least not at end game (I suppose most MMOs are solo for leveling at this point), so the statement was odd since they weren't serving the under-served market either.

[Ghost of Cow]

The irony is Wildstar wasn't a particularly solo friendly game, at least not at end game (I suppose most MMOs are solo for leveling at this point), so the statement was odd since they weren't serving the under-served market either.

I think - and someone murder me if I'm wrong - but that statement was made late in Wildstar's life as a sort of "Excuse why our game didn't do better."

This. As much as I love Emet, his character development and storyline is absolutely hamstrung by being in an MMO and revolving around the player character. There's only so much they can do with any character who interacts with the WoL lest they make the players uncomfortable.

Yep. It's the same with the Body swapping sequence in Garlemald.

By all reason, that should have been a huge event. Just imagine the incredible personal, political, and other ramifications such an event could have possibly had. But because the player-centric story demands that nothing really happen...well, nothing really happens.

[RampageBW1]

So I purchased the Endwalker OST the moment it became available on my preferred digital music store and... listening to the music is just making me remember all the emotions I had playing the expansion again.

Hopefully Endwalker gets added to NG+ in 6.1.

[Poppincaps]

I'm starting to dislike playing a lot of the jobs in this game at a high level. The class design is so much more rigid than it is in WoW that is more based on a priority system that can change due to procs. In FF14 when you get to high end optimization the jobs can be optimized down to the exact GCD. The encounters themselves were fun to prog, but now that I've got it all on farm, I'm finding the jobs aren't satisfying to play.

I really appreciate the freedom that FF14's endgame gives me and I definitely won't be going back to WoW or playing Lost Ark due to the large time investment those games require to play at a high level, but the gameplay of FF14 just isn't hitting for me. Like, I clip a GCD and now my entire rotation is fucked, because in 4 minutes I'm not going to have enough resources to do my burst with everyone else's CDs. That's just not fun for me. I appreciate that Reaper has some flexibility in it's moment to moment gameplay but the overall loop is very strict if you want to parse well.

Bard was more my speed in Shadowbringers at least but even then I find it is still more rigid than I'd like and I also really don't like that Ranged Phys is dependent on other people doing well.

[KrayZ33]

I'm starting to dislike playing a lot of the jobs in this game at a high level. The class design is so much more rigid than it is in WoW that is more based on a priority system that can change due to procs. In FF14 when you get to high end optimization the jobs can be optimized down to the exact GCD. The encounters themselves were fun to prog, but now that I've got it all on farm, I'm finding the jobs aren't satisfying to play.

I really appreciate the freedom that FF14's endgame gives me and I definitely won't be going back to WoW or playing Lost Ark due to the large time investment those games require to play at a high level, but the gameplay of FF14 just isn't hitting for me. Like, I clip a GCD and now my entire rotation is fucked, because in 4 minutes I'm not going to have enough resources to do my burst with everyone else's CDs. That's just not fun for me. I appreciate that Reaper has some flexibility in it's moment to moment gameplay but the overall loop is very strict if you want to parse well.

Bard was more my speed in Shadowbringers at least but even then I find it is still more rigid than I'd like and I also really don't like that Ranged Phys is dependent on other people doing well.

What kind of class plays like that?
Usually, the encounter allows for f-ups and certain rotation adjustments can be made to get back in line again.
Like SAM's filler GCDs (which you can extend or cut short) or simply boss mechanics that don't allow you to attack depending on what kind of debuff you get or what position you play or add phases etc. etc.


Also.... 4 minutes?
That has to be SMN or something? Who has 4 minute cooldowns or a rotation that is so strict that it has to consider what happens in 4 minutes.

[Poppincaps]

What kind of class plays like that?
Usually, the encounter allows for f-ups and certain rotation adjustments can be made to get back in line again.
Like SAM's filler GCDs (which you can extend or cut short) or simply boss mechanics that don't allow you to attack depending on what kind of debuff you get or what position you play or add phases etc. etc.


Also.... 4 minutes?
That has to be SMN or something? Who has 4 minute cooldowns or a rotation that is so strict that it has to consider what happens in 4 minutes.

I'm mainly talking about Reaper here. Reaper has a negative soul rotation which means that as the fight goes on it will be harder to not let Gluttony drift and you won't be able to generate 3 Shrouds like you are able to earlier in the fight. This is exacerbated if you either miss GCDs or have to disengage from the boss and use your ranged spells. Keep in mind I'm talking about high end parsing. Sure, on basically every job you can yolo, but you're not going to do well if you play that way.

Also I dunno what you're talking about with SAM. It's probably more strict than any job because it needs a very specific amount of Sen at certain points in the fight. Like, sure you can fix it but you're going to end up drifting your CDs away from raid buffs which is a big deal for high aDPS jobs like Samurai and Reaper.

[Wrecktangle]

It's subjective, of course, but I didn't like Suikoden 3. The first two Suikodens were great and then 3 just butchered everything I loved about the franchise. It's the one that most sticks out in my mind, although, a few late gen Sega and early gen Playstation RPGs weren't particularly good or, even if they were enjoyable at the time, wouldn't stand up to to today's standards of RPGs. I played Beyond the Beyond, one of the first JRPGs available in the west for the original Playstation and critically panned. I didn't think it was that bad, but it'd still be blown out of the water by HW or ShB.

For sure. I also didn't like Suikoden 3 (or 4), despite loving 2. I don't remember 1 very much these days as I haven't ever replayed it since I played it as a kid.

I'm starting to dislike playing a lot of the jobs in this game at a high level. The class design is so much more rigid than it is in WoW that is more based on a priority system that can change due to procs. In FF14 when you get to high end optimization the jobs can be optimized down to the exact GCD. The encounters themselves were fun to prog, but now that I've got it all on farm, I'm finding the jobs aren't satisfying to play.

It's been a core complaint of mine. Every single pull I'm at the exact same GCD at the exact same mechanic at the exact same with with no variation at all (PLD). My job is so strictly GCD mapped out that we have excel calculators that tell you the exact GCD order to get the best parses in a given fight.

While I LOVE the direction the job has gone in aesthetically (FFT Hype), there are some CRITICAL failures:
1) Not being able to wear the hood from the AF set in the EW trailer. Honestly, Yoshi-P is lucky I'm not prime minister of JP. Straight to jail.
2) Rigid gameplay with no variability.
3) Not enough oGCDs or duplicate function oGCDs for slightly different niche purposes.
4) Relatively useless job gauge.

[Poppincaps]

An example I can give for a specific fight is Reaper on P2S. You use the early gluttony opener and you basically have to keep Gluttony on CD using a modified Shroud rotation during your 2 minute burst. If you do it correctly you can use Gluttony and Gibbet and Gallows before the boss becomes untargetable and starts jumping around the room. This is very tight to the point where if you delay it by even 2 or 3 seconds you won't be able to fit it in. Not doing so really screws your Soul generation for the rest of the fight.

It's something that you probably won't notice at first but once you play a job a lot, you'll notice that you're at the exact same GCD at the exact same time on each fight and if you're not, it's because you screwed up and it might ruin your rotation down the line.

- - - Updated - - -

For sure. I also didn't like Suikoden 3 (or 4), despite loving 2. I don't remember 1 very much these days as I haven't ever replayed it since I played it as a kid.



It's been a core complaint of mine. Every single pull I'm at the exact same GCD at the exact same mechanic at the exact same with with no variation at all (PLD). My job is so strictly GCD mapped out that we have excel calculators that tell you the exact GCD order to get the best parses in a given fight.

While I LOVE the direction the job has gone in aesthetically (FFT Hype), there are some CRITICAL failures:
1) Not being able to wear the hood from the AF set in the EW trailer. Honestly, Yoshi-P is lucky I'm not prime minister of JP. Straight to jail.
2) Rigid gameplay with no variability.
3) Not enough oGCDs or duplicate function oGCDs for slightly different niche purposes.
4) Relatively useless job gauge.

lol yeah, not being able to pull the hood up is criminal