How has it been going?Follow

This is not what I thought this thread would turn into.
Anyway.
For me FFXIV the world does not feel real and in a mmo it does need to feel real.
Pretty impossible to get killed, nothing really goes on, everything is on a rubber band. Having everything in the game instance just does not feel right. Lots of people play the game but they all seem bored of the instances.

There is so much content pouring out but it is always the same. When cool content is added like housing it is pretty much useless and seems like that may never change. Subdivisions are completely dead.

The game does allot right. It is easy to pick up. It has a very easy to use control and interface. SE stories and cut-scenes are great. Mission are pretty straight forward and easy to follow. Crafting is actually fun and this is the first MMO where I could say that.

I had so much fun with this game 0-50. Then WP AK runs hit and that stunk. I was getting on every night just to do this. Then the game did not change since then and is exactly the same. Think about it not much has changed. I get on to run the last 3 dungeons over and over it has not changed since endgame started. I liked coil and thought hey this is what the game needs till we hit turn 5.

I like the raids but it is only a distraction really, it gear is not the best but is nice filler gear but again it is over and over. This game does not lack content it lack original content.

When I left FFXI for this game I did not want it to be FFXI exactly. I wanted a game that took up less time. I hated WOW so I did not want this game to be that. Anyway the game felt really cool for a while.

You know I love spending time to get something too.. I like having hard to get items like the original relic was even thought that was stupid and was not much better than other gear, then they take it away.. If I am going to spend time grinding I want something that is worth grinding for and I do not wan it outdated in a patch or two. I think that is the biggest short coming in this, nothing in this game is worth grinding or working for. I mean there are allot of people that just come back for patches and why is that? Tesee and I pretty much have become that with FFXIV. We come back to keep up so if we ever comeback we are not to far behind. That is what our problem is there is not much to fill in the time inbetween, they hand you gear pretty much. That is the problem for Me and Tesee the meat is not there. What do we do for those weeks inbetween patches and there is nothing to do but run the same dungeons over and over for worthless gear. You need a reason to play the game other than just story, if you want story just play a RPG and not a MMO.

You know last night we were listing things we wanted to do in FFXI and FFXIV.
FFXIV
Open last dungeon and open deep dungeon.
(We are not even looking forward to running them)
Finish melding crafting set (Melding stinks too when you get 30 breaks and again not looking forward to it)

FFXI
I want my Lu Shang's rod.
(There is nothing like this in FFXIV and there should be. This would give people something to do in between patches)
We want to finish the fishing quest up.
I need to finish sky the last fight.
The last fight in Rhapsodies
Finish seekers of Adoulin.
Finish AF gear and relic gear. (Again this what they need to fill in the time. All gear set in FFXI are still up gradable to be useful in this game)
Continue monster raising.
Do the quest for new mounts.
Collect more Trust
The list goes on.



For us we probably be best to play both games because we have the time but it cost to much with mules and retainers.






Edited, Aug 1st 2016 11:18am by Nashred

I have to wonder why you're still playing FFXIV at all, Nash... it will never be the game you want it to be. It's ok to not play a game you don't enjoy.

I'm not going to go through and address all of that up there, but suffice it to say that FFXIV doesn't seem to be the kind of game you want to play.. so why are you playing it?

I don't want this to sound like "if you don't like it, leave" because it's not that. But you've spent like 3 years now playing this game and not enjoying the vast majority of it... at some point it has to be ok to just accept that it'll never be what you're looking for and move on.

Actually that's exactly what happened with SWTOR for me.

I loved the class stories, they were superb. Then the endgame was just kinda ... meh. So I subscribed to that game for about 2 months leveling characters up and enjoying the hell out of the stories and then I was done.



While the structure of the content may one day change, the nature of it won't. There will always be something to grind for an eventual reward. That's just how MMOs and other long-term games work. MMOs function on repetition... a lot of repetition. It's the nature of the beast and it has been for 20 years.

It's kind of like being a fan of a hardcore movie or band. If you have come to expect Heavy metal from Metallica for 12 years and they play Pop on one album, you hope they go back to the previous.


People always come back unless they hate a game completely or don't care for it at all. Even I can come back so often and I think the combat and ilevel system is the most horrid things in the industry. I absolutely detest that no concept of a skill chain system, gw2 combo system, ESO synergy system, LOTR fellowship maneuver system has made it's way into the game.



I consider endgame to be progression to keep the game from ending, perpetual long term progression. A game that uses dailies and short life gear cycles to keep me there fails. When I think of longterm, I think of 9 month-1.5 year gear cycles, ESO champion like systems, merit point systems, adventure zones like FFXI Abyssea or ESO Craglorn, Open World Dungeons like Sky and Sea, areas with short term goals and long term goals. The key is flexible grouping and persistent goals.

I do not mind grind, I played FFXI for a long time and Tesee longer than me so I understand grind. I just want a reward for the grind that is not outdated in a month.
I appreciate your input too, everyone has been pretty civil.

I just am having a hard time deciding what to do.. If we did not need another computer for FFXI it would not be a issue or if the game was less to play then again if we were completely happy with FFXIV it would not be a issue. Playing ESO you do realise how much good is in FFXIV.

Swtor. In my opinion, the best class stories of all time if you like on rail story, 50 hours worth per character on 8 classes. ESO feels way more realistic on one initial character with open quest, better quest, but less variety per playthrough.

I agree on repetition and the nature. Something has to be there to keep people subscribed. And I have yet to see any mmo create enough reasons to stay subscribed due to content unless the content is heavily gated or pinned down in exuberant amounts of slow progress.

I've tried a couple of times with ESO and I can see what you're saying with the story being cool (it really is) but I hate the gameplay so... yeah...



There can be a valid complaint here without the hyperbole. High end gear stays that way for 6-8 months depending on content release scheduling. Even when it's "obsolete" though, it's still every bit as good as it was, there's just something better available. What do you think people farm for the best gear with? They farm with the gear that used to be the best and is now "obsolete." Can't be THAT bad if it still kills bosses.



Vertical games don't work like that. The idea is that you're always moving forward, not farming content from 10 years ago because it's still somehow your best in slot. Horizontal progression is valid when that's the game... but that isn't FFXIV.

Which brings me back to things about this game that aren't ever going to be what you're looking for.

That's what drove me away from the game eventually--I hung on for as long as I could, hoping to make peace with it. And having wonderful friends from XI that moved over to form a FC helped a lot, because at least it was fun to talk to them. But when they started leaving and I started looking at how my gear would be replaced every few months I just couldn't take it, I despise that system. That and the combat change was by far the hardest things to accept coming from 1.23 for me, and it's probably why, to use the analogy someone did a bit ago, I kept hoping they'd get away from "pop" and go back to the heavy metal I signed up for originally. Eventually I simply realized the game was not for me, not in the way that XI or 1.23 were.

That's what happened to most people and it's why the game crashed as hard as it did.

I'm still salty about how it all turned out for SWTOR. Probably the game I looked forward to the most, ever.

It doesn't actually matter whether or not vertical or horizontal progression is better or worse than the other. What matters is, if you heavily prefer one of them over the other, you need to look at which one the game you're playing is designed with. Expecting a game to radically shift its entire progression system just because you think it should is ridiculous.



Btw while this is a totally valid complaint about FFXIV that I completely agree with, it actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the vertical progression system.

I see it the same.

If I can't go sideways and grow my character beyond one role and one spec, or customize current skills or traits or utilize different stats on gear to perform differently in content, then that to me is what I consider going upwards or vertical.

Where as in FFXI, I can go go sideways and grow my character beyond one role and one spec with subjobs, I can customize my skills or traits with free cross class, and I can customize my builds on gear to perform differently in various content.

This is why I love Elder Scrolls Online Vanilla. I can pick a class,morph my skills, pick a weapon, pick an attribute, level my champion points, put different traits on gear with crafting, armor and weapons have their own traits, race adds even more sideways variety, unlocking guilds adds more customization.

You say you don't like the combat. I absolutely adore it. It is an mmo version of Dark Souls with it's maneuver finesse system. Synergy provides a skillchain type system yet is more simplified and more boring than Renkai. NO GCD, the one thing I despise most in XIV. GCD dictates what skills you use and what order.
My problem with ESO is I notice it is starting to lose some of it's Horizontal magic with imbalance and performance issues.

I still like XIV alot. Because while not as grandiose as I would like. Most of the systems work so fugging fluid and with good performance.

The cross class system in XIV needs to be eradicated completely and Jobs just given their own versions of the abilities (WAR and DRK getting their own Provoke, etc)

It's a relic from 1.0 that was never fully fleshed out. Shouldn't be in the game at this point.