Eorzea feels...Follow

Sadly most of my critical points on SE usually ends up on the official forums. You should see the rant I have about the different depictions of Midgardsormor through the languages and my call for unity there.

Even there, while I slip the occasional self-righteously snide comment from time to time, I really am trying to keep to my point and constructive criticism. I usually try to keep my attacks to logic, not people.

There are times when people's behaviors here are so uniform, that there's no other conclusion to be made than "You're just obsessed with disliking this game."

Keep in mind, the more you heavily critique, the less your critiques as a whole hold weight. When you habittiually explain why you dislike the game, it becomes a matter of a forgone conclusion that you habitually dislike the game. Your input seems to blur all together and ceases to add to anything of value to the eyes of the others.

Face it, if I ranted negatively about this game, and I do from time to time, it causes people to take pause. "Hyrist? The Fanboy? He dislikes this!? WTF!!!!"

All joking aside a bit of self analysis is needed when your feedback becomes uniform. Perhaps its time at that point to make an exit for your own sake.

Yes, you clarified it, with the worst tone possible. There's probably a hundred ways to go about it, yet you always choose the low brow route. I admit, I miss read ONE sentence and guess what? I've probably miss read several sentences on these forums over the years. I'll probably do it again, and I'll probably watch you erupt in anger, focus on that one point and ignore the rest of the post in it's entirety.

As I said before if you want to constructively complain about the game, provide the list, the OPs original message wasn't as clear as the second long message. And the posts seem more to hate the games fundamentals. As I said again before I have played other MMOs and there was no point me playing something I didn't enjoy and those parts were never going to change for me when the masses are happy.

Well XIII was almost completely a single path. In XIV, the dungeons are single paths, but each stems from a world that is very much open. So XIV is nothing like XIII.

Exactly.

The recent update is a prime example, all quests are not unlocked in the same area or require going to the same area. There is also new areas to go to with every update. Each big boss is totally different mechanics you have to learn and with each party that reacts slightly different (some more so) every fight isn't necessarily the same. Did a CT, ST and a WoD run last night and they certainly wasn't the same.. For WoD we wiped on fights we shouldn't have but won easily on fights that people tend to die on. And CT.. we wiped on 1st dragon almost instantly...

Still as Thayos has said XIII was essentially hold down forward, go a different slight way for a chest and return to going forward. It wasn't until the open area that it felt like FF. The fact the company admitted this problem well after sales really goes to show it was true.

Dungeons - XIV is an MMO I would see how the game is after 4-5 Years where most of the content if not all that is currently planned or even an idea scratched on a piece of paper is released. SE has listened to it's fans so maybe SE will release Dungeons that require you to split up and go down different paths or choose different paths. Come to think of it there is a few Dungeons that you get a sort of path choice.

On the topic of repetitiveness though, the dungeons in FFXIV are all the same, at least to me. Factoring some slightly more challenging end-game instances. But still, very repetitive.

I don't know how many of you played FFXI in the past, but FFXIV's dungeon runs, are essentially FFXI's Exp. grind parties. What you do for exp in FFXI, is essentially what you do in FFXIV's dungeon runs.

Except, there are pretty big differences:

1. FFXIV dungeons are mostly very linear, you get to Point A from Point B. Killing trash along the way and 1/2/3 bosses, with some minimal puzzle solving.

FFXI on the other hand, forces you to group up at a pre-selected open world area, where monsters free roam everywhere! Including your safe little camp! Monsters that randomly spawn on maps could very well walk into your camp area unknowingly, then wreck havoc on every single AFK tards on the spot.

When was the last time, you parked yourself AFK in a FFXIV dungeon and felt worried? Oh hell, better yet, when was the last time you logged into the world of Eorzea and actually felt a bit of fear of roaming? (A haunted house, ain't a haunted house when you got EXIT signs all over the place ok? How am I suppose to feel endangered when I see a goddamn teleport crystal every other 5 blocks down the map? What? Do I self hypnotize and just lie to myself that there isn't a teleport crystal there to save me? Help me out here...)

Theme park MMO doesn't offer that sense of adventure, there is no JOURNEY to the top, there is only ... a wait time with a right group to get to the top. But S.E. can certainly change this no? Says who that a Theme Park MMO couldn't have elements from FFXI? This is the part I am often confused about and probably one of the key reasons why I always argue with people on this forum.

It's like, a lot of folks on here are very defensive, towards any ideas that may improve the overall quality of the game. I know people on here don't like the term "White Knight", but I assure you that it won't be used as often if people stopped acting as if FFXIV is the next coming of Christ to them.... Like, as if they can find NO FAULT with this game... At the same time, they treat FFXI as if EVERYTHING is WRONG with that game. Like OH LAWD, FFXI must be the spawn of SATAN!! Sometimes the feeling for FFXI is so negative, that it makes me feel as if most people who currently play FFXIV were like.. rejects from FFXI that never made it, so now it's revenge time for anyone who played FFXI in the past.

All ranting aside, I believe S.E. is capable of fixing these problems. I mean, all you need to do, is maybe consider allowing the dungeon mobs to freely roam, and possibly respawn in there given a set amount of time.

Like for instance, if you were to wipe and go back from the starting point, the mobs would of all spawned back or be in different areas of the room now. So there is actually some form of punishment when the party isn't doing their jobs. You don't have to reset people back to entrance, it could be half way.. with mobs respawned half way, be creative here.

I mean, when there are repercussions to certain decisions you make, be it good or bad, doesn't that give you more sense of a thrill? V.S. what we have now? Oh, if you wipe, you get a nice little teleport that says, click here to skip through all the BUL*SH*T you just sat through for the past 30min, let me port you directly to the final boss -_-;, thanks S.E., maybe next time we should start with that... why don't we just skip all the trash crap, defeat an ultra super duper hard boss towards the end and just take a huge amount of exp after that? If you're gonna make a game for people with ADHD, why don't just go all out? What's the point of having people run through trash mobs anyway if there are no consequences for ******* around with trash mobs?

Or maybe better yet, RANDOM generating mob packs with RANDOM positioning and RANDOMLY allowing BOSSES to make appearance that breaks the norm... I don't know S.E., surprise me here.. Like, I'm suppose to fight boss #1 here, but because my party's damage rating is so kick ***, the 2nd boss appeared right after the first battle ended? Again, SURPRISE ME HERE...

2. FFXIV dungeons have bosses scripted like a ****. Part of the reason why everything seems so repetitive.

Yeah, I don't see how this part can't be fixed either.

If anyone played FFXI, and played a Summoner before, tell me how many times you've tried to get your Diabolos summon? I myself, must have tried at least 25 to 30 times or maybe many times more, to obtain him in the CoP era.

Why? Because the mother-effer was really really hard. Not in a sense where he's unbeatable, but in a sense that he uses a lot of super nasty AOE attacks that are totally random. He has a AOE Sleep attack that hits everyone with a special Sleep and BIO at the same time, he might do this ANYTIME he wishes. It could be right at the beginning of a fight or it could be towards the very end when you almost win, or he could do the same attack back to back! When you get hit with this, the party is pretty much game over.

The reason why I fought him like 30+ times, is because each time I fight him, he does something different. I even tried to go in with the same exact group of people with the same jobs several times, and each time we wipe, it was because he did something different, something we couldn't react well enough. This is a test to a player's skill level, where you have to react to certain things LIVE, ON THE SPOT, you actually have to use your brain to decide what to do next to ensure the best possible outcome.

In FFXIV dungeons, you don't have this. You just need to remember the bosses' "mechanics", and once you have it down, you can probably run it with one eye closed.

What they need to do, is allow the bosses to have more devastating attacks that occurs more random, more minor. Not so scripted, such as it will do XYZ when around 50% HP, and if you don't get away from the red circle or don't kill the add fast enough, you die... NO, the boss has to toss out minor random abilities that would also put the tank, healer and everyone else at so much risk that it kind of changes the entire game play, flow of the battle if you will..

It is much more fun, when the game is thrown into chaos, nothing and no one is acting according to a script, you analyze the current situation, tailor a set of moves and decisions right then and there. If you are good, you make it, you suck, you pick yourself backup, dust yourself off and try again.

You have no idea how retarded I felt, when I finished my first Ifrit/Titan fight with a pick up group. Because we won on the first try, everyone was amazed by this. We had 2 people in party (including myself) that were totally new to the game. Somehow they couldn't believe 2 random people that haven't played this game before was capable of passing the fight mechanics on the first try. I truly wanted to cry afterwards, I just couldn't believe how anyone can fail fights as easy as those. I've never fought those, but saw a YouTube vid for 30 seconds, pulled off the fight flawlessly. It's as if it's rocket science.... on a Roller Coaster, Theme Park MMO... It's so sad it's ridiculous.

EX fights and dungeons aren't that bad either, if you consider the fact that everything is based on "mechanics" in this game.

3. FFXIV instanced que system, GOOD and BAD.

Yes, party finder system is very good. Most FFXIV events are instances, so cross server que is a great idea but given the current Theme Park feel to all FFXIV events, the roller coaster ride type of play style, the Party Finder system causes the community to be really disconnected.

People don't talk to each other in parties, why would they need to? The instances lasts 30 min or so, if you ***** up, just take a 30 min hit and LEAVE. No such thing as player reputation comes into question.

What S.E. should do, is basically reward people for working and communicating together.

For instance, if the party really enjoyed playing together, why not offer them a choice to stick together and move on together to the next dungeon or next event? Or have the option of redoing the dungeon they just did together? With a shorter wait time or no wait time at all? If you want people to make friends, allow them the option to continue whatever they're doing together.

One of the most iconic things in FFXI was the fact that the game forces people to do activities TOGETHER! That's how you form this magical thing called BOND. You can't forge a life long friendship by picking up hitchhikers off the freeway that's getting off your car in the next 5 exits...

In FFXI, often a lot of times, whole parties of 6 people would travel the world together, going to different locations, finding the best Exp/Hr camp. Again, it's not the ending that's most important, it was the JOURNEY...

You wanted constructive criticism, not sure if this qualifies but yeah... my own two cents after like only a month or two of playing.

Oh, and two more things just popped up in my head.

4. FFXIV seriously need to consider implementing some type of gear check system for random ques.

How many of you played a Healer class in FFXIV and was basically screamed to death, yelled at for not being able to keep a tank alive?

How many times, when you were playing a healer, did people ask you to learn how to do your job? Only to find out upon closer examination, that your party's main Tank is wearing level 15 equipment Blood Tanking a Level 40 dungeon and is getting butt raped by any trash mob, basically ending their miserable Tanking career with merely two hits....

Seriously, you get ****** players in que because there is no system of cross checking. I mean, who's to stop someone from entering a dungeon with level 1 RSE? You somehow implemented a system where players with ilevel 55 items may enter a dungeon, but you incorporate no such bare minimum to low level/low man dungeons, very very weird mentality behind this...

You can't promote excellence by allowing people to do whatever the **** they want with their $14.99/month...

5. I forgot by the time I typed #4, but something along the lines of paying extra $5 a month, so I can get a quicker QUE time as a melee.

Tanks and Healers, you get the 1 to 5min que, I understand it.

But for us melee's, More than 30min every time?? How about I'll just pay a little more, and you give me a priority over others that don't wish to pay this premium?

XI EXPing isn't at all like dungeon running. Yes, some mobs wandered or spawned at night, but I can guarantee a large number of the popular camps were perfectly safe to idle in 24/7 while the party process itself was less difficult than fighting a pack of XIV trash since XI's were usually 1vs6 alongside the arguably broken enmity system making things harder for non-tanks than they legitimately needed to be. Of course, XIV isn't perfect, here, like how easily Regens can pluck mobs off a tank during big pulls.

As for barriers of entry on DF, uh... events are locked to item levels. Don't meet, you can't queue. The whole level 50 tank in 15 gear isn't a problem now unless that tank is deliberately trolling. As for healers getting harassed? Well, welcome to every MMO ever. Support roles: Something many like having around, but few enjoy playing. It's thankless. Styles don't always mesh. The people that don't want to play are always quick to tell the support how they should. Nonetheless, wipes aren't always the healer's fault. Sometimes shifts in tactics are required.

And all needing 20+ attempts on Diabolos told me was that you or your group weren't that good. I'm comfortable in asserting the extreme primal fights put most any XI boss encounter to shame, scripted or no. Heck, I'd argue Tonberry King was harder than most XI bosses. What XIV largely did, aside from a more reliable enmity system, is eliminate the issues related to TP feed. Did it make sense that some XI fights were easier with less people? Or why shadow tanking was so prominent? The game, bluntly, had issues that fed into a number of job problems over its run. I could certainly go at length over such affected RDM.

Am I white knighting XIV? Not especially. I think both games can be better than they are, or at least, were.

I think the biggest irony when people keep stating this is Yoshida even said he did Wanderer's Palace Hard in that fashion to give XI players a feel of nostalgia (read the translated interview on BG) and there's more assets from XI than I think any other FF has ever borrowed from a prior game before, XII being the exception as they wanted to make an "offline" XI to improve the battle system in ways they couldn't with XI's restrictions. So if anything, Yoshida is making XIV more like XI than players ever could. Did you know? ARR has more borrowed mechanics and content concepts than original ones?

It's also funny how people default to "you're tryin to make this FFXI!" when people compare it to XI - I bet you'd have zero qualms if people kept comparing to WoW (which Yoshi stated he basically based it off of for the JP playerbase) or DQX, SE's other MMO that Yoshi himself was lead design for.



Edited, Jan 27th 2015 5:20am by Theonehio

Again can't agree more - Spot on.

I started reading his post and realised he is complaining about the fundamentals of the game just like the OP. This isn't XI and this isn't ever going to be XI, I did play on XI - No wait. I lived on XI, I remember the DRG, RNG and BLM nerfs. I remember the weeks I would spend just to get a few levels (back when Exp needed was much much higher). I also remember when they cut down the exp required and strangely enough the servers was being hacked in to - unofficially it was JP people unhappy over the whole exp drop required.

Lets look at the XIV complains I am spotting:
- AFK in a XI dungeon compared to XIV....... Sorry this made me LOL
- Telecrystal every where in sight..... Well not really you obviously don't pay much attention... Are you unhappy that you no longer get the VD fun times? which stopped years ago in XI when they altered the way people lose/gain hate.
-Journey.. This game is not XI Journey it is XIV Journey, I do feel like I am travelling at times - not always because I am able to get on with something in a short time. Sorry this game is not just aimed at children who can spend 6 hours a night, this game is also aimed at teenagers who have homework and adults who have a family.
-People people defensive You are attacking (yes attacking) with little to no constructive feedback on the problems you have with the game. In fact you are attacking the fundamentals of the game and you are not helping SE to give them what you want. This is NOT XI, this is XIV 2.0 a successful MMO in a world where there is plenty of competition, plenty of cheaper games available and F2P games on the market.
-Free roam Mobs in Dungeons ... Finally actual useful feedback, only took me half way in to your entire post. This is actually a GOOD IDEA, shame it took me a while to get through your post. Perhaps you should post this in a lot less whinny post on the SE Forums.
-Form of Punishment for Failing It is there, its called wasting other peoples time. I don't want to lose EXP every time some one fails to do their job, this also prevents people from experimenting to do things different. To Zerg mobs e.g. Garuda HM - There was a time when people didn't take risks and I have seen 1 risk fail with a wipe.
-Sense of a Thrill That's what things like Coil are for, Titan Ex, Garuda Ex, Shiva Ex, PVP. Looking through your post you are not mentioning any type of end game here. Although I too loved XI's End Game with Kirin, running around with 24 people and another 10 on Standby ready to switch in and out - Losing about 20K exp every run. JUST in the hope of 1 good drop that me and 10 other people may have to compete for...... The entire time to farm just to get to the 1 fight ... I wont go there. The sense of thrill is there but again that's for End Game. Go complete all of Coil and tell me you don't get a sense of thrill.

What I also find interesting you sit there and say you don't want to run through "All The Trash Crap" there was a time when half the Sky Gods and Pop Items were considered as Trash just because people wanted Kirin and nothing more. The item for Nobles and Kirin Osode plus the Hecate piece was in high demand when the rest of the drops were wasted. XI has its fair share of "Trash".

Diabolos Summon - Took you 25-30 times to win? To be honest looking back I don't ever remember trying more than 2-3 times for a win on anything in XI. In Fact Titan Ex/Coil 5 have been my biggest repeats just for a win in all FF games. Titan Ex took me 20+ just to learn it and that's with the other Titan modes to help. Coil 5 took me two whole evenings of LS assist and only 3 of us were new. Probably a total of 6 hours of non stop spamming and this was with people who knew what they were doing.

In your Random chatting you are forgetting one very important thing - Lag. Due to the game requiring more compared to XI, you don't move when the boss uses his mechanics you actually at times move before because you remember the previous move. More random may just cause more problems. BUT SE has already talked about adding randomness and they are considering. This game is too young to complain about the above.

FFXI Journey finding the Camp... Yes because I enjoyed spending 2 hours just in the hope of finding a camp when I only had 2 hours of game play time...

Players Gear Check - So you are complaining about the Journey on other things but not the journey of peoples gears? XI last i checked had a lot of players with low gear and still got hammered.

Melee's have slower Q times because there are not enough healers/tanks to go around. So you want XI back ? One of the core fundamentals of that game was Seeking for 6 hours as a DRG, DRK, THF. I thought you said this game was about JOURNEY but you want your life made easier as a DPS?

Sorry this is going to be a bit mean but i am sensing hypocrisy here.

In all fairness, there isn't much in the line of healthy skepticism either.

It all depended on favoritism and DKP, but mostly favoritism.

If you got a drop or not from a monster (if it dropped) depended purely on:

1) Do you know the linkshell leader personally?
2) Are you in a relationship with the linkshell leader?
3) Have you been nice to the linkshell leader recently?
4) Have you attended 100% of the raids recently, otherwise other people are ahead of you in points.

I, for one, much prefer the current method of Need, Greed and Pass. As well as the personal drops you can exchange for stuff not dependant on what your party members get. Even though point 1 through 4 were always favorable to me, this is far FAR more fair to everyone. Too much drama over the other system.