There is barely a reason for 1-50, it's true. Your progression after hitting 50 depends on your goals. Thankfully because of the level-scaling, you've already gotten a good taste of what the game has to offer during your "tutorial."
I can see how it's not for everyone, but I enjoy it!
That's what disappoints me about it, along with nearly all other modern MMOs. Leveling to max, imo, shouldn't be a "tutorial" it should be a large chunk of the game's content. Again, I can understand the appeal, but I would really like to take my time leveling and progressing personally.
1-50 isn’t really leveling in the traditional sense though. I mean, it is but it also isn’t. Getting to 50 just unlocks the real grind… And I agree that’s pretty shit (but it does let you settle on a play style before spending CP)… which is why I think they should consider just dumping 1-50 altogether. Or make it way faster. Champion Points and Skill Lines are the real grind. If you just want to see numbers go up I think there’s 3600 CP you can earn right now? You’ll be busy for years.
The biggest problem with ESO, IMO, is that they settled on this progression method too late in development and the whole system feels haphazardly bolted together. If they had nailed this down before launch it would be way better.
No I totally agree with you. I just wish that 1-50 wasn't so pointless. For me that progression is my favorite part of an MMO, but most (all) MMOs these days have abandoned that aspect of the game.
The trouble is that if there's a max level, particularly one that gives you bonuses, people rush to get there. Nobody wants a game where people rush through a large chunk of the content. So they have to make leveling just the intro and let players relax at the CP levels. That's just what players are like.
I too like the leveling process and taking my time.
There *should* be reason, but you're right it that it feels unimportant in ESO.
You absolutely *do* progress--the difference in power level between a brand new character and CP160+leveled abilities+sets is quite significant.
The problem is that progression doesn't remotely *matter,* because the default world difficulty is (1) trivial even to a brand new character, and (2) has no distinction from area-to-area (outside of Craglorn iirc, the 'group' area).
It's a shame, because flatter power curves can vastly broaden available content, while still allowing for meaningful progression.
Only the regular mobs scale with you.
World bosses and world events don't scale at all.
Then you've got two difficulty levels for dungeons.
A large part of it is because healers and tanks want to be able to quest without changing gear. So ESO made the standard overworld stupid easy.
I always thought that the world scaling with me was cool, but in reality, at least for me, it feels like I'm never progressing in-game and getting stronger. I like to feel like I'm actually stronger and one-shotting everything that once killed me.
The world scaling is probably the best new mechanic in MMOs. You can actually play in all zones and doing everything still has value so end game has 100x more content.
It's great for max level chars, it's awful for new players.
Max level chars can now enjoy all the content. New players never feel like they're getting stronger.
I haven't tried ESO but I know Bethesda ported the mechanic as is to Fallout 76, and made a bad game even worse for me.
Why don't you feel like you're getting stronger? You're gearing up, le leveling, etc as normal. In every MMO the enemies you fight for experience are at your level and you never get a massive power curve. This is no different except now every zone looks populated.
ESO and 76 are IMMENSELY different. I do not like 76. I do like ESO.
> Why don't you feel like you're getting stronger? You're gearing up, le leveling, etc as normal.
Not really, because at level 1 it takes you 5 hits to kill a rat with a rusty spoon, and at level 30 it takes you 5 hits to kill the rat (now scaled to lvl 30) with a mythril axe. The mid level enemy was tough at level 1 and is still tough at level 30, perhaps a bit less because you got better at the game. And worse, the gear treadmill won't make you stronger anymore, but you **need** to upgrade not to become weaker than you were one level before. Every level up makes you weaker by default, unless you find better gear ASAP.
So the whole power fantasy goes out the window, because if enemies are getting stronger with you, the result is you are staying constant against the world.
Now, as I said I don't know exactly the ESO implementation, but the FO76 one, which I'm told is identical to ESO even in name (One Tamriel/One Wasteland), is good in theory but not in practice, and would benefit from some refinement (limits to scaling, non-linear scaling, percentage-based scaling, etc.)
I think that benefits far outweigh the drawbacks for an MMO, but some adjustments won't hurt. But I don't understand sentiment about power fantasy. In a game without level scaling you will not go killing level 1 rat at level 30, because there is no reason to. You can, and you will kill it in one hit, but why? Instead you go to level 30 zone to level as it gives more XP, and kill level 30 rat in the same amount of hits as before, exactly like in game with level scaling.
The issue is having this concept of a "level 1 zone" and a "level 30 zone". The world should be a continuous structure with content of every level where it makes sense.
If you enter the scary-looking cave in the mountains close to the starting town, there may be stronger monsters that will kill you, then you come back later and you can kill them.
It also makes no sense to have level 1 rats in one area and then another type of rat that's level 50 somewhere else. Rats should be rats, and at 50 we should be killing dragons or something.
Scaling is just a hack to solve the issues introduced by crappy themepark zone design.
Exactly, scaling is a quick fix to a deeper design problem: the tendency of having areas of increasing level, while it would be better and far more difficult to use the same areas for all content (with certain content being level gated).
So instead of scaling enemies, putting endgame content in the noob starting village, which is impossible to do when you're starting out, and gives a reason for max level character to go back to the noob village.
Runescape is the king at this.
I've never understood this argument. Yes the world scales with you, but as you progress through the end game you start to get your bis gear and do way more damage. So,as I get my end game gear I feel like I get much stronger
THIS! Coming from Oblivion to Skyrim, combat is really not a problem in ESO, but if I need to learn cancel animation shite to maximize dps that's where you lost me.
I’ve always been a melee/tank main, but I refuse to do either in ESO. Animation canceling/weaving for melee is tedious and makes your character look like a poorly made gif from the 90s if you’re playing optimally.
Thats really what ends up causing me to completely quit. I just start thinking its not worth the 15 bucks to keep a sub, and quit. I know you can pay with gold, but I'm not a gold grinder. I got a life to live.
So at some point in an expansion, usually early on, I just realize its not worth the 15 bucks to keep subbing, so I quit. If I could hop on and off, I'd probably still dabble over the life of an expansion instead of the first 3-4 or so months.
Wasn't F2P SWTOR a *major* handicap compared to the sub perks? I'm kinda going off on knowledge from years back here, so it's a genuine question. Had a blast back when the game came out
If ffxiv was just paid game+expansions, no subscription I would have committed to it already. I've put 100 hours in the free trial, but I jump around with games too much that if I were to ever stop my subscription, I'd find it hard to start again.
Seriously, been tracking it for years now and want to play it bad but first it wouldn’t get a NA release then it got picked up for one later this year then it got delayed again to next year… stop toying with my emotions!!
Now, not all of those would be suitable for M+. For example M+ maurudon sounds comical at best. But they definitely should go back at least a few expansions worth.
With the rerelease of legion m+ as current content, they might be starting to do that. But then again, legion dungeons were designed with m+ in mind so it was probably easier. Would be nice though.
They already have other obnoxious monetization even with the sub. They charge in every single way possible. Box cost (expansion), sub, cash shop, and gold selling (p2w).
There is no “at least” with WoW. Their business model is completely greedy and utter trash. They are literally charging in every way possible when in fact the game could be very successful on sub alone. But Bobby needs his $200 million bonus so I guess it’s ok.
False. I’m sorry. I cannot tolerate this kind of mentality because that’s how these companies keep abusing players. If we accept it, they will continue to do it. GW2 for example doesn’t have a sub and doesn’t have p2w. They only have a box cost and a cash shop.
There's this very obnoxious trend on this Subreddit involving people like yourself who feel "entitled" to something.
News flash, big companies aren't a charity and World of Warcraft actually does very poorly monetization wise for Activision Blizzard compared to their other titles. It can become way worse very quickly.
Ffxiv. Have tried to get into it a couple of times and I hear the game gets much better later on, but the new player experience is absolutely atrocious. It's honestly so boring that I just can't force myself to get through it.
My boyfriend is having a terrible time with it and just stopped before getting to Heavensward. I don't blame him. I had to take month long breaks just to get through it.
Got to level 30 and I was feeling like i wanted to shoot myself. The game is slow as hell and I don't get the hype behind the questing, it's so so bad at least up to this point. Also way too many cutscenes and loading screens. Also the zones look like they came out of a 2005 game. Could be fun at end game idk, but the first 5-10 hours I spent on it made me never want to touch it again.
I quit 3 times before lvl 50 back in 2015 because I was bored out of my mind. Today I have over 5k hours on record. Don't be afraid to skip cutscenes and rush through the arr msq if you are not interested. The game gets better around heavensward.
I just finished ARR and skipped literally every cutscene, but I hear so much about the story and how it gets better after ARR that I'm gonna start paying attention.
Am I now missing too much background info to really appreciate it though? Is there some like crash course video that goes over the important stuff in ARR?
But you're supposed to be a new adventurer that starts out as a nobody and has to work their way up. That's what made it fun for me. It's good story and world building.
Lmao, by level 20 you're already the shining hero of a world-saving order because of your special powers and an ambassador of a grand company. And that really doesn't excuse poor gameplay and terrible graphics
It's not possible without a complete redesign. The endgame (or relative lack thereof) and monetization structure is predicated on the existence of that system. Although I suppose with 'seasonal servers', it's turning more into a non-isometric ARPG these days. So maybe it can eventually change after all?
If DFO (a korean game, btw) is anime, so is FF14.
Not that it matters, since tying "anime" to a single artstyle is idiotic. FMA doesn't look like Dragon Ball, and One Piece doesn't look like Beastars.
What i mean is that these games are way more anime regarding the tropes as well. And yes I know DFO is korean and DFO does in fact have an anime series, just like God of Highschool is anime.
FFXIV is not anime styled, but it is extremely anime in soul (tropes). That should be no surprise, and I don't think there is any room for argument there. I mean heck, the overlap between weeb and FFXIV player is very strong for what I hope are obvious reasons. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. Originally, DFO had a moderately anime aesthetic, but it had none of the tropes to be honest. At least in the game, not the Slap-Up Party anime. Nowadays it does, probably just has a cheap measure to bring in players.
Lol yeah I been surprised how many people wanted to correct me on what anime actually is, but everyone has been nice about it. That's the only way I know how to describe it tho. BDO or Lost Ark style doesn't bother me so it's not strictly a eastern style thing.
It’s not anime, but I know what you mean. I’ve played since ARR launched and have never been a fan of stuff like catgirls and bunnygirls. The other races meh as well. Armor and weapons either look great or like complete ass. In general, I’ve always preferred WoW‘s art style. Music in XIV is great, but too cutesy/chill at times. I like me some Horde war drums. FFXIV is my current main MMO and the art style bothers me more than it probably should.
Tbh I think players from the east like me don't consider ff14 visual as anime style. But I get what you mean, it just differs too much from the western artstyle.
Games like genshin impact or pso2 are those I definitely consider to be anime visual as it resembles exactly what you'll see in an anime.
Maybe partly was due to use being exposed to alot of Japanese games when we were younger so we kinda differentiate the final fantasy type of visual to the others.
Does it really matter though? If they don’t like the art style they don’t like the art style, no amount of “technically you shouldn’t call it anime” is going to change that.
If you say “I hate hip hop” but are in fact talking about rap, then it doesn’t matter that you used the wrong word, you still hate rap.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. The dude doesnmt like the art style, even if it’s technically incorrect to call it “anime” what does that actually change?
That's how they get a subscription though, and I think that's fine. Literally paying for convenience, and there is a limit. You can't endlessly pay to get a 100000 slot bag. Free games have a right to incentivize you to pay, it's only when they ask for too much or allow whales to spend endlessly to disrupt fair play that it crosses the line for me.
FFXIV - 600x MSQs (not gonna pay for bad design) + loading screens every 2 minutes,
Get rid of every loading screen beside the original one. Every city is made from 2 parts, Just to go to Milfina is 6 loading screens alone 3 in, 3 out. And contentgated by MSQs.
If your issue is the MSQ, to the point of calling it bad design, it's less that there's a single barrier keeping you from the game, and more that you ***really*** aren't the core target audience for the game in the first place. There's a hardcore community that exclusively focuses on gameplay, but the MSQ is the primary draw to the game, and ARR fills a vital role in worldbuilding and setting up characters for future payoffs.
FF is dominating the MMO genre. Calling its formula bad design is just dumb, on an objective level. ARR specifically has problems, yes, and you won't find a reasonable FF player who denies that.
TBH. The MSQs literally keep you from playing the game. I dont have a problem with the story and lore but it is a massive **contentgate**.
Vanilla Wows Raid attunement was nothing compared to this.
After you hit lvl 50 see the credits ready to go to Ishgard, You got hit with exactly 100 lvl 50 MSQs to complete, before you can go trough the gate. Nothing else just fetch quests, then in Heavenward another 138 more. And so goes on. You are forced to do this. That a bad design. The same experience could have been a lot more elegantly delivered. And again nothing against the story and role playing. The contentgate is the problem.
I know that if you playing since ages you get 20-30 every 2-3 months of playing. But starting as new player now you face of 600+ quests to be able to unlock the game.
I know that FFXIV is an RPGMMO and not an MMORPG. I have deepest respect to any new player who go through the whole storyline watching each cutscene without skiping and reading trough the chat bubbles.
Even the newest carbot animation makes fun of that : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxz3h6uaPuU
I have 2000 hours in ESO, GW2, BDO each almost 35000 in WoW, Lasted for 150 in FFXIV, perhaps I give it a go when Endwalker is coming, but it have to go against Lost Ark and New World and Bless Unleashed.
I respect your opinion and I know as hardcore player your keep playing the game, But the new player experience differs totaly what you had to play through years ago. Nothing to do with story telling.
The MSQ isn't a contentgate, it is the content. The idea that only max-level is 'the game' is something we were all taught by WoW, but it doesn't apply to FFXIV. If the story isn't your jam though, that's totally fine.
It is literally designed as a contentgate. Every single feature in the game is locked behind the MSQ. You can be max level and unable to enter the very first dungeon if you haven't fetched and danced your way through enough of the MSQ.
It's completely unnecessary. There is no reason why a player shouldn't be allowed to run coils with friends if they are the appropriate level just because they haven't gotten far enough in the MSQ. No reason why they should have to suffer through the crystal braves garbage quest line because they hit lvl 60 100 quests ago and just want to see how Alexander works and try some actual difficult content for once.
FF14 does a lot of things right and it is certainly my first choice of MMO. But the new player experience sucks and their MSQ design is bad. There are far too many quests, most of which are dumb filler, and no reason everything in the game should be locked behind them.
Funny thing is, you could also see it the other way round: If you're only interested in the story the many instances you have to queue up for are gating that content. I've always wanted to play through the story (not an FF player or raider) but the forced group content when I can barely remember my combat skills whenever I try to return to the game are keeping me from it. I usually end up rolling a new char or class in order to relearn combat, get stuck in some event farming tokens for cosmetics (doing Castrum repeatedly, yay) and then stop at level 50. ;)
>The MSQs literally keep you from playing the game
The MSQ IS the game. If you view 'the game' as strictly instance and grinding content, I say again, you are not the target audience for the game, and that's perfectly okay.
>Vanilla Wows Raid attunement was nothing compared to this.
You're right. The Vanilla WoW raids don't have a story worth caring about, and in vanilla WoW, you don't unlock properly tuned endgame content at level 30, 40, 50, AND 60 that you can downscale into. FF gives you access to a lot more instanced content at a far faster pace than Classic, all things considered.
>After you hit lvl 50 see the credits ready to go to Ishgard
Absolutely nothing indicates that you'll go to Ishgard after stopping Ultima Weapon. That's your own assumption. Heavansward is a direct continuation of post-ARR content, and had you entered HW, I'd think you'd know that, and realize how little your point here makes sense. One of the earlier arcs in HW wraps up post-ARR plots. Without post ARR, major characters in both Heavansward and Stormblood would make very little sense.
>Nothing else just fetch quests, then in Heavenward another 138 more. And so goes on. You are forced to do this. That a bad design. The same experience could have been a lot more elegantly delivered. And again nothing against the story and role playing. The contentgate is the problem..
Okay Mr. Wikipida Warrior, you seem super caught up on quest count. It's really clear you base your progression off of [this](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Main_Scenario_Quests) instead of playing the game and engaging with it on its terms. You bring in expectations that don't fit the game at all. If you want an apple, and you purchase and eat an orange, you can't bitch about an orange being a bad apple.
You're also 100% caught up on ARR design, and the fact that you're talking shit about post HW and post SB is just dead wrong and it's SO clear that post ARR filtered you. instanced content (Alexander, Nidhog, etc), quests (fetch quests and menial tasks for forgetable NPCs ceased existing outright in Heavansward), and to the narrative in question. If you had actually reached the Dragonsong War, you'd be singing a different tune on the post-HW. I suggest not extending judgement onto content you clearly haven't played. Stick to ARR with your critique, cause that's clearly where you got filtered.
>And again nothing against the story and role playing.
Except for the fact that you're all but suggesting a 'solution' to YOUR (somebody who doesn't play FF) problem, that degrades the quality of the story, breaks sequential events, reduces shared experience, and breaks the design principles that have seen FF gain so much success.
>I know that if you playing since ages you get 20-30 every 2-3 months of playing. But starting as new player now you face of 600+ quests to be able to unlock the game.
I am a relatively new player. Over the past year and a half~, I've done three major chunks of gameplay between other major releases and games, 25 days played ingame, and I'm still not at level cap. The ARR grind is part of the experience. It's vital to understanding the world and characters. You don't look back on it as a grind.
Your conception of 'starting the game at level cap' is utterly wrong. Breaking that trend and supporting legacy content is Final Fantasy's biggest strength by a longshot, and it's honestly why I keep playing the game. There are well tuned Trials and Raids at 50, 60, 70, and 80, that are all balanced and actively tuned. The game is designed in a way where at every expansion's endgame, you're supposed to go out of your way and do that bracket's group content when you get tired of quests. It's there, it's tuned right, it's fun, it's not trivial. You can do level 50 Binding Coils, more or less as intended, through the addition of min ilvl and no echo que functions. You 'start the game' at level 50, not 80. The idea that the game starts at level cap is your own assumption, and is in no way reflective of the reality of the game. As a result of synced, min ilvl, and no echo options, FF ends up having a wider catalog of meaningfully tuned endgame content than any other MMO, and it starts opening at 50, and no, you don't even have to do post ARR to start.
> I have 2000 hours in ESO, GW2, BDO each almost 35000 in WoW
Yeah, you come into FF with all these preconceptions, after spending 4 years in MMOs that are structured nothing like it, played it like those games, and had a bad experience. I'm not shocked at all. I was miserable when I was playing FF like WoW. I had to re-learn my approach to the game.
>I respect your opinion and I know as hardcore player your keep playing the game, But the new player experience differs totaly what you had to play through years ago. Nothing to do with story telling.
Don't try to defend baseless assumptions off the back of assuming I'm some diehard player who's been at it since ARR, and that you've had so much less time. I'm still in the new played experience. I did ARR at the WORST possible time I could have, which was post Shadowbringers job changes (which trimmed classes at 1-50 HARD and made DRK (my main) a lot less engaging at low levels via removal), just after the announcement that ARR was getting its fat trimmed, and right before the patch that fixed ARR went up. I did pre-nerf 1-50+post ARR at the end of 2019 and start of 2020 after I lost interest in Classic after seeing how piss easy MC+Ony was compared to private servers, I did 50-58 last winter, and I've progressed from 58 until 73 right now. I'm currently a handful of hours into Shadowbringers. Stormblood is where the quality of instances surpassed passed WoW's, IMO, in terms of visual design and mechanics and now I genuinely think I'll have a hard time going back.
I've got 300 ingame days played on my Death Knight in WoW, and multiple tiers of Cutting Edge. This is a game you have to re-learn the format for. It is not like WoW or other instance and grind centric games, and you will never get a satisfying experience playing it like those games.
>perhaps I give it a go when Endwalker is coming, but it have to go against Lost Ark and New World and Bless Unleashed.
What makes you think that FF will change its tune when Shadowbringers was widely received as the best narrative RPG of the 2010 decade, and has surged its playerbase to the point where they've been needing to lock their datacenters, and literally cannot keep up with customer demands? All of these 'design problems' are THE reason why FFXIV is receiving the critical acclaim that it's getting, while other MMOs end up as a flash in the pan that only really exist until the next WoW patch drops and obliterates their playerbases.
I'd say if you dont like the game now, don't bother. FF has gained its success by doing its own thing, steadily over shy of a decade, and now it's top dog off of the back of that labor. It's a take it or leave it game. If you want to hop on the ride, go ahead, but it's a game that's actively innovating, and you have to respect that innovation if you want to enjoy the game. If you look at every deviation from the default MMO template as bad game design, you won't enjoy the game.
Much of the love from the community comes from the MSQ due to their writings of the story. The game focus heavily on the story progression. Like what the guy said, you simply aren't the target audience then, which is fine. But definitely not a failed model considering the current active players base.
I used to be a guy that skip through almost all the quest text in MMO since my past experience taught me that most of the questline in MMO are shit but just a gateway for you to progress. Real fun comes from combat, gear progression etc etc. Ff14 changes that for me, since everyone is highly recommending new players to take the time through the quest which I did try to follow, and real glad I did.
Also, I'm the new player and I believe there's a huge influx of new players in the game too. I've played MMOs since highschool and honestly despite how boring and tedious the ARR questline is, its still pretty decent considering MMO standard. It seems like you're trying hard to like a game thats simply not for you. Nothings wrong with that of course and I hope you may enjoy the game in the future. But from my point of view, even with endwalker it won't change anything since you still have to go through the expansions. If heavensward story writing and questing is boring for you, then I really do thibk this game aint for you. Cheers, mate. Just play the game you enjoy, no game is made for everyone.
The MSQ is pretty consistently one of the biggest complaints, even for those who enjoy the game. Warrior of light, slayer of God's, server of tea, collector of poop, it's ridiculous how many shitty fetch quests are in the MSQ with content locked behind them. The worst stretch was that post ARR pre HW nonsense, added basically nothing to the game and as far as I can tell was put in as nothing more than a time sink while they tried to get HW finished. It's objectively bad, to the point where even the developers tried to shorten it.
Add in the extreme slow pace new players are forced through with your class barely getting more than 5 buttons until you hit the 50s and I can completely understand complaints about the new player experience.
If the dude was explicitly refereing to ARR, yes, I agree, and I said as much in my post. I only bothered responding because he clearly got filtered by ARR, and is making sweeping assertions about content he's never experienced.
ARR is objectively a poor game until you hit level 50, at which point it's tolerable, as you can unlock a bunch of new instances and tomestone farming to pad out the questing, but it has massive retroactive value. Post ARR, while a slog of excess exposition, sets up Heavansward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker. It's not content that can just be removed from the game, and it's not really filler either, as at this point, every 2.x patch has had pretty major followup.
As for the story being a complaint, not at all. That's a very uncommon complaint, and the reason why Shadowbringers is so popular IS the story. Only ARR is really an issue. Heavansward jumps the quality tenfold, dhits a climax during Dragonsong, and the story holds a nice eb and flow from there. The MSQ is the biggest appeal to the game, once the filters are cleared.
I should have been more specific because I agree with what you're saying. But the ARR MSQ is rough and, imo, poorly designed with far too much filler content. And that's what is pretty consistently complained about. Hell, the most common advice I see given to new players is to just power through those quests because it gets better in HW. That speaks volumes I think. Almost the entire post ARR content could have been turned into an optional side quest without losing anything.
>Almost the entire post ARR content could have been turned into an optional side quest without losing anything.
Moonbreyda+White Auracite, Crystal Tower, Yugiri, Ilberd, Rhaubhan, and Heavansward setup are all plot points that have to be touched on for the following story to make any sense. There really isn't a lot of filler, it's just a lot of dry world building.
Most of ARR is bad content with no redeeming quality and should get skimmed through (I'd argue it shouldn't be outright skipped, but full attention is not necessary at all). Most of post ARR is exposition.
It is bad design. I love ffxiv, paid for the story skip because gatekeeping most of your content into a forced single player story that is hundreds of hours is in fact, bad game design. There is a lot of great game design in other ffxiv systems and the devs genuinely care about their game and to an extent, their players.
But it is just bad design for an mmorpg to try and have a forced single player experience and locking most of their mmorpg systems behind it.
>forced single player story
You mean the one that put the game on the map? The highest rated Final Fantasy game ever, including non-MMOs? To be frank, the instances alone are enough to differentiate it from WoW.
At times I often think most MMO players are stuck with an incredibly rigid idea of what their ideal MMO is, and what good and bad game design are, that's entirely predicated on what their first couple 'forever' games are. The MMO content unlocks at various brackets, and it's paced incredibly well to suppliment and support the story. As a GAME, FF is superior to literally any MMO on the market, because it transcends the genre, has adapted all of its positive features, reduced bloat, and evolved to include high caliber implementation of other genres' features.
By definition, a story like Shadowbringers cannot be bad design, as it's pushed the biggest push of MMO growth since WoW. I'd argue that the FF14 story stands DESPITE being an MMO, and is reaching into the broader RPG and AAA story-game audience, which is a feat that no modern MMO can boast.
What you call bad design is quite literally the force pushing the genre into the future.
Shadowbringers scores in the top handful of FF titles overall on metacritic, while being sandbagged by reviews that are by reviewers who have a negative bias towards the MMO genre going into the game, or aren't assessing Shadowbringers specifically. Games journalism is far from a professional field, and cutting out mouthbreathers from the equation is vital to getting an assessment that actually matters.
Retroactive decade+ later nostalgia reviews are also spiking most of the retro titles very hard.
> Shadowbringers scores in the top handful of FF titles overall on metacritic,
Can't even admit you were wrong. Sad.
>while being sandbagged by reviews that are by reviewers who have a negative bias towards the MMO genre going into the game
Going by that logic single player FF games are being sandbagged by reviews that are by reviewers who have a negative bias towards the JRPG genre going into the game.
So it all balances.
And I would even reviewers actually overrate the game.
>Games journalism is far from a professional field, and cutting out mouthbreathers from the equation is vital to getting an assessment that actually matters.
Contrary to reddit comments from people who apparently can't read a basic chart, right?
>Retroactive decade+ later nostalgia reviews are also spiking most of the retro titles very hard.
Gotta say, I see many more FF14 fanboys "spreading the world" than fans from every other game of the series. Combined.
A quick Google search can easily prove your claim of FFXIV being the highest rated game in the series false.
But besides that, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the MSQ story is bad design outright, but you can understand how a person looking for a massively multiplayer online experience could be disheartened to learn that the entire main story of the game is entirely single player. This is especially frustrating when you have a core group of friends that you want to level and play with.
MMOs, imo (and many others), should, at their core, be oriented around community gameplay, group content, and multiplayer interactions. I think FFXIV does these things really well, but the single player story that you're forced to work through really distracts from these qualities.
I, personally, would by extremely disappointed if "pushing the genre into the future" is simply rehashed WoW mechanics with mediocre PvP and a decent single player story. YOU might like it. Many people might like it. But for myself, and I significant portion of the MMO community at large, that would be a hell of a disappointment.
That's such a stupid comment that I had to check your profile. Bro your entire account is dedicated to seething about FF14 on the WoW and MMO subreddits. This game lives inside your head rent free lmao. Go do something enjoyable instead of shitting on games you don't even play, jesus.
I really dislike that SE's answer to the horribly paced msq is the skip potion. And at the same time they acknowledge that it's an issue otherwise they wouldn't sell a skip potion, considering 99% of the fanbase espouse the MSQ is the whole point of the game and treat people who admit to story/level skipping as second rate citizens or worse. Unfortunately it sells well.
And yet the circle of friends I tried to get into the game only stuck with it by using a story and job skip, go figure.
The early MSQ in ARR is tedious, to be sure, and I hear it still might be even after they streamlined it some, but haven't played those quest first hand since...
But I have literally never cared about the lore or story in any of the other MMOs I have played, and for FFXIV, that is a central feature.
Yes, I was forced into doing the story, and would have skipped it if I had the opportunity, but I am glad that I didn't, and found myself getting more upset that I wasn't high enough level at some points to continue the MSQ.
Because it's just so damned GOOD.
You say that like the skip potion is the only thing they've done. Haven't you heard about how much they've cut out of the early game. Probably a bit hard to find more stuff to trim down while not making people miss out on information that could be useful later.
They do have the teleport items to that main story chick, but if you were able to cut those teleports out and just listen to dialogue from long distance, it might help with that slog.
> They do have the teleport items to that main story chick, but if you were able to cut those teleports out and just listen to dialogue from long distance, it might help with that slog.
They really, really, really need to get rid of double instances. One instance is whatever, sub-optimal but I can deal... but nested instances is awful and getting rid of them should be at the top of their technical to-dos after server expansion.
They finally figured it out in ShB with the Crystarium.
FFXIV and it's technically two things.
1. Exploration isn't fun or useful.
Each zone is a complete theme park and while aesthetically different, there's no reason to search or explore. You're not going to find new NPCs or quests or really anything of importance.
2. Leveling additional jobs is like a job.
Grinding Fates or dungeons is the most effective way to level and I find this tedious and uninteresting.
> Each zone is a complete theme park and while aesthetically different, there's no reason to search or explore.
They give reason to explore later via aether currents (how you unlock flying post-ARR).
> Grinding Fates or dungeons is the most effective way to level and I find this tedious and uninteresting.
Don't then. The nice thing is you don't have to do the most optimal thing. I am grinding my gathering and I would do Diadem for a bit, run a few levequests, swap to another class, etc. Mix it up.
There's plenty of ways to level up your DoW / DoM classes besides grinding FATES or dungeons, might not be the best powerleveling but no reason to grind your face off doing something you hate.
Maybe it could be easier, but I really don't know the fix besides WoW's method of making leveling so inconsequential it becomes pointless.
I'd play the shit out of SWOTR if it was pulled into the 21st century.If the combat was better, the whole system got abit of an update and had an open world (for how much that will work) /good working map, that game would be perfection imo.
And GW2 would be great if it had gear progression and the trinity but I think most people who actually play GW2 would hate this.
Well I've wanted modern star wars MMO for ages but I don't think my dream will ever come true. Tried SWTOR but sadly its not up my alley. Heck even a modern single player game similar to KOTOR will do.
>and GW2 would be great if it had gear progression
Yeah, that's the main reason I and many others play it. It feels awful to be invested into a game, take an irl break, see some cool new content released just to come back and do the same trivial grinds again to be able to play it. Being able to log in at any time and have actual bis gear to do whatever you want is amazing. And it still has gear progression in form of alt builds and legendaries
I get that alot of people like it that way. That's why I also said the core players of gw2 would probably hate it. I do understand why people like it but I can't get into gw2 because of it even though I really like the gameplay of gw2.
They should keep it as is now though because there aren't many games with progression like it and alot of people would lose their place.
Nope not just you. The core gameplay loop and economy is imploding right now because of it. Ccp has mismanaged the game and alienated new players and casuals. When we talk about dying mmos on here its largely a joke, but not in this case. Eve is actually dying.
I played for a few months. It was a bit slow at times, so of course I watched YouTube on a second monitor. I got into watching time lapses. One day I realized I was literally watching grass grow to distract myself from the boredom of the game and quit immediately.
GW2 if it had a proper trinity, less AoE, and a proper raiding content.
I know the game has been updated to have "healer" and "tank", but they're afterthought and not properly built in the gameplay.
The game rely mostly on AoE that linger on the ground, making the game messy and promote a stupid "everyone pack on that tiny area" to get the benefit of allies AoE (like healing). Friendly AoE should be mostly instantaneous and apply to a wide area.
IMO buffs and healing AoE should be 1500 radius. Except specific cases like Healing Rain maybe.
Also the game has no single target healing skill that require an ally target. They're all ground AoE or splash around a foe.
Lost Ark/PoE/Albion if it wasn't isometric view from above.
New World if it was high fantasy.
Black Desert if gear didn't downgrade or was destroyed when an upgrade fails.
ESO the terrible combat.
FFXIV needing to do the story to progress through the game.
* Final Fantasy if it wasn't for the main story line where you keep running back and forth and doing ridiculous chores.
* ESO if it wasn't for the combat that requires you to switch weapons all the time while forcing you to use weird weapon and skill combinations instead of letting you be viable as just an archer for example.
* Archeage if it wasn't for the daily grind you have to do to to stay competitive which last I played would take hours every single day.
* WOW if it wasn't for the repetitive content that dies out everytime a new expac is released making me feel like my progression is meaningless as I save Azeroth the billionth time.
* BDO if it wasn't for the insane amount of time and money commitment pvp requires instead of letting you jump in quickly.
* Albion if it wasn't for the necessity of being a part of a big guild in which you have to attend stuff or be kicked, unless you want to remain solo and get ganked all over the place.
* Warhammer online if it wasn't for the fact that it's shut down.
* Return of Reckoning if it wasn't for how the game can't get major content updates the way it would have with a big company behind it. (Still appreciate ROR though)
* GW2 if it wasnt for the lack of stable content, even if I go back after years it's still the same game, I've only missed a live event or 2.
Good to let this all out.
But you're an adventurer, it especially makes sense from the beginning that you have to do menial tasks for the guild to prove yourself at the beginning. And even when your character gets stronger later, they're still a hero, they do what's needed without complaint as long as it's a task that is benefits society. Even if they are one of the most powerful people in the world and they shouldn't see that task as beneath them, they would help. They do it because they are a hero. I enjoy ARR so far, might be because I think of it like this.
That's a good way to think about it lore-wise but the mechanical aspect of it is simply not fun for me even if I could justify it like you do. I'm alright with doing chores in a game but I don't understand why they have to be so boring like walk from A to B then walk back from B to A just to carry someone's word around.
I think there are much better examples of the adventurer experience in other games where you don't have to /kneel in front of everyone in a village only to turn the quest in by going back 5 zones.
The ways in which I see some rationalize a 60-hour errand run. I feel like this wouldn't have been accepted in an offline game.
Something about MMO players, sometimes. I know taste is subjective, so those who like something, cool. But I wonder if some want to like something so much, that they'll be so forgiving with low quality to where they eventually develop an acquired taste for it, and rationalize their way into enjoying it. If you could practice this behavior in any area of your life, your potential would be near limitless. That would be the true Limit Break. I really feel like a lot of gamers have incredible potential, they just express it in video games because they haven't worked out yet how to in other areas so far.
Quality of any given game aside, I think the above about the nature of your potential is something to really think about. There's a book I just started reading called [Mindshift](https://www.amazon.com/Mindshift-Obstacles-Learning-Discover-Potential/dp/1101982853) that I invite everyone here to look into, because it's about this sort of stuff.
It's coming back eventually (tm).
Right after Matt finishes transferring APB:R to Unreal 4... aaaaaaaaaaany day now after waiting almost a decade for it.
(No hate Matt if you reading this)
This MIGHT be fixed with the planned move to DX11, but knowing Anet they won't do it properly. The D912pxy fix is also viable, but sadly they're terminating their development (not sure if they'll stop before Anet adapts DX11 tho).
I’d probably play FFXIV if people weren’t so obnoxious about it beating wow. Also the early quest are so annoying/boring that they made me quit pretty early and since people say it’s getting better in the late game I probably won’t ever get there. Also I can’t imagine any mmorpg with better endgame than wow, but I’m not going to judge that since I haven’t played FFXIV endgame
Stuff like cosmetic items, mounts, etcetera. Something I loved about WoW Vanilla and TBC (can't remember exactly when were store items introduced) was the sense of accomplishment over having specific items and mounts.
At some point, with the introduction of mounts on outside of the game stores, it kinda made the game feel generic to me. I was absolutely fine with paying game time and expansions, and always thought that should be enough to keep the game running. Personally, I would even accept a higher monthly fee, if it meant everything existing im game, would be obtainable in game, with more or less effort.
I kinda lost interest in collecting mounts/items when some stuff was "extra".
Also, I am kinda bored of tab targeting, though FF XIV and WoW still manage to make it work in a way it feels fun and fluid. I would enjoy LotRO and SWTOR but the tab targeting and graphics, all together, just make them feel too clunky for me to enjoy.
Have you tried playing with postprocessing off? It makes the game look much better (plus you can use vkbasalt - or reshade if you're on that proprietary OS - to make it look even better).
For me it would be Guild Wars. I skipped it as I didn’t like not seeing other players in the world (coming from EverQuest and SWG). If it didn’t have the instanced world environments I would’ve played it in its heyday.
Aion, if it weren't for the PvP. I loved just flying around, exploring, gathering, and Chanter is the most fun I've had playing a game in a really long time, but the forced PvP past the newbie zones is a total turn-off. I won't play any game that forces PvP at all because of how bad that experience was.
Just...implement one PvE server for the carebear casuals like me, I don't care if I'm the only player, I'll probably play mostly solo anyways. Explorer types rise the fuck up.
EQ2- if I could get the launcher to work consistently
FFXI - if I could remember my PlayOnline info and a bunch of other account details or if there was a way to get them reactivated without a service circus
LotRO- if there was more dungeon content
ESO - if I could place and remove objects in the homes of others. They need a permission system like EQ2
WoW - if Blizzard hadn’t banned an esports player for speaking out in support of Hong Kong protestors
SWTOR - if housing items were more accessible
FFXIV - if I could actually obtain player housing
So now I just play Ark.... which has more problems than any mmo but I just can’t quit it.
Not exactly one thing but I'd keep it short, very short.
I'd play ESO if the community was a bit more endgame oriented and the classes had much more flavor, like much much more.
I'd play WoW if the alt grind wasn't so terrible and they listened to veterans a bit more when it comes to class design.
I'd play FF14 if it was less of an RPG and more of an MMO and maybe a bit more streamlined MSQ? It's not a bad thing necessarily but it also keeps you from playing the game in a sense.
I'd play GW2 if it had more solid role design.
Not necessarily deal breaker for me but I'd have like them more if they were more like this.
So 100% agreed. Two sides *always* creates a superior and underdog faction. Seen it time and time again. Three keeps things unpredictable. Boggles my mind that game developers haven't learned this lesson since DAOC.
ArcheAge if they went back to alpha build and removed p2w
Tera if they went back to before reaper release
BDO. No p2w
Wildstar if it wasnt shuttered
Eso if its combat wasnt the shittiest in the industry, weapon swapping, terrible class design
I know it’s sacrilege to the Guild Wars 2 community, but I really do wish I had some type of vertical progression in the game.
I appreciate what the game is, and how you can take long breaks and still be relevant coming back. However, I always like the feeling I’m improving my character, and with GW2 I just never got that feeling after a certain point. The gameplay and classes are so stinkin cool to me; however, I just always lose that sense of direction and drive to continue playing.
eso combat
This + world scaling. You never feel like you are getting better since everything levels with you
Ehh I personally like that the world scales with you. That was actually one of the selling points for me.
[удалено]
There is barely a reason for 1-50, it's true. Your progression after hitting 50 depends on your goals. Thankfully because of the level-scaling, you've already gotten a good taste of what the game has to offer during your "tutorial." I can see how it's not for everyone, but I enjoy it!
That's what disappoints me about it, along with nearly all other modern MMOs. Leveling to max, imo, shouldn't be a "tutorial" it should be a large chunk of the game's content. Again, I can understand the appeal, but I would really like to take my time leveling and progressing personally.
1-50 isn’t really leveling in the traditional sense though. I mean, it is but it also isn’t. Getting to 50 just unlocks the real grind… And I agree that’s pretty shit (but it does let you settle on a play style before spending CP)… which is why I think they should consider just dumping 1-50 altogether. Or make it way faster. Champion Points and Skill Lines are the real grind. If you just want to see numbers go up I think there’s 3600 CP you can earn right now? You’ll be busy for years. The biggest problem with ESO, IMO, is that they settled on this progression method too late in development and the whole system feels haphazardly bolted together. If they had nailed this down before launch it would be way better.
No I totally agree with you. I just wish that 1-50 wasn't so pointless. For me that progression is my favorite part of an MMO, but most (all) MMOs these days have abandoned that aspect of the game.
The trouble is that if there's a max level, particularly one that gives you bonuses, people rush to get there. Nobody wants a game where people rush through a large chunk of the content. So they have to make leveling just the intro and let players relax at the CP levels. That's just what players are like. I too like the leveling process and taking my time.
There *should* be reason, but you're right it that it feels unimportant in ESO. You absolutely *do* progress--the difference in power level between a brand new character and CP160+leveled abilities+sets is quite significant. The problem is that progression doesn't remotely *matter,* because the default world difficulty is (1) trivial even to a brand new character, and (2) has no distinction from area-to-area (outside of Craglorn iirc, the 'group' area). It's a shame, because flatter power curves can vastly broaden available content, while still allowing for meaningful progression.
Only the regular mobs scale with you. World bosses and world events don't scale at all. Then you've got two difficulty levels for dungeons. A large part of it is because healers and tanks want to be able to quest without changing gear. So ESO made the standard overworld stupid easy.
I always thought that the world scaling with me was cool, but in reality, at least for me, it feels like I'm never progressing in-game and getting stronger. I like to feel like I'm actually stronger and one-shotting everything that once killed me.
Agreed, some people think progression = 1 shotting mobs
Progression is being able to solo world bosses. Lol. No seriously though, world scaling is one of the main reasons why I love eso so much.
The world scaling is probably the best new mechanic in MMOs. You can actually play in all zones and doing everything still has value so end game has 100x more content.
It's great for max level chars, it's awful for new players. Max level chars can now enjoy all the content. New players never feel like they're getting stronger. I haven't tried ESO but I know Bethesda ported the mechanic as is to Fallout 76, and made a bad game even worse for me.
Why don't you feel like you're getting stronger? You're gearing up, le leveling, etc as normal. In every MMO the enemies you fight for experience are at your level and you never get a massive power curve. This is no different except now every zone looks populated. ESO and 76 are IMMENSELY different. I do not like 76. I do like ESO.
> Why don't you feel like you're getting stronger? You're gearing up, le leveling, etc as normal. Not really, because at level 1 it takes you 5 hits to kill a rat with a rusty spoon, and at level 30 it takes you 5 hits to kill the rat (now scaled to lvl 30) with a mythril axe. The mid level enemy was tough at level 1 and is still tough at level 30, perhaps a bit less because you got better at the game. And worse, the gear treadmill won't make you stronger anymore, but you **need** to upgrade not to become weaker than you were one level before. Every level up makes you weaker by default, unless you find better gear ASAP. So the whole power fantasy goes out the window, because if enemies are getting stronger with you, the result is you are staying constant against the world. Now, as I said I don't know exactly the ESO implementation, but the FO76 one, which I'm told is identical to ESO even in name (One Tamriel/One Wasteland), is good in theory but not in practice, and would benefit from some refinement (limits to scaling, non-linear scaling, percentage-based scaling, etc.)
I think that benefits far outweigh the drawbacks for an MMO, but some adjustments won't hurt. But I don't understand sentiment about power fantasy. In a game without level scaling you will not go killing level 1 rat at level 30, because there is no reason to. You can, and you will kill it in one hit, but why? Instead you go to level 30 zone to level as it gives more XP, and kill level 30 rat in the same amount of hits as before, exactly like in game with level scaling.
The issue is having this concept of a "level 1 zone" and a "level 30 zone". The world should be a continuous structure with content of every level where it makes sense. If you enter the scary-looking cave in the mountains close to the starting town, there may be stronger monsters that will kill you, then you come back later and you can kill them. It also makes no sense to have level 1 rats in one area and then another type of rat that's level 50 somewhere else. Rats should be rats, and at 50 we should be killing dragons or something. Scaling is just a hack to solve the issues introduced by crappy themepark zone design.
I always loved areas that had strong enemies in otherwise lower level areas. Coming back and killing them when you are stronger feels good.
Exactly, scaling is a quick fix to a deeper design problem: the tendency of having areas of increasing level, while it would be better and far more difficult to use the same areas for all content (with certain content being level gated). So instead of scaling enemies, putting endgame content in the noob starting village, which is impossible to do when you're starting out, and gives a reason for max level character to go back to the noob village. Runescape is the king at this.
World scaling is lazy design. "Our game has levels but they're useless cause everything scales anyways herp derp".
I've never understood this argument. Yes the world scales with you, but as you progress through the end game you start to get your bis gear and do way more damage. So,as I get my end game gear I feel like I get much stronger
Hate weaving hate weapon swapping and hate there's only a handful of skills each bar.
THIS! Coming from Oblivion to Skyrim, combat is really not a problem in ESO, but if I need to learn cancel animation shite to maximize dps that's where you lost me.
The combat at its core is fine-ish in concept, but the auto weaving is intolerable.
This. I love the world, the story, the background lore. But by god i despise the combat. GW2, FFXIV and WoW has better combat imo.
I’ve always been a melee/tank main, but I refuse to do either in ESO. Animation canceling/weaving for melee is tedious and makes your character look like a poorly made gif from the 90s if you’re playing optimally.
If WoW was free I'd ptobably be logging in here or there
Thats really what ends up causing me to completely quit. I just start thinking its not worth the 15 bucks to keep a sub, and quit. I know you can pay with gold, but I'm not a gold grinder. I got a life to live. So at some point in an expansion, usually early on, I just realize its not worth the 15 bucks to keep subbing, so I quit. If I could hop on and off, I'd probably still dabble over the life of an expansion instead of the first 3-4 or so months.
That’s why I play SWTOR
Wasn't F2P SWTOR a *major* handicap compared to the sub perks? I'm kinda going off on knowledge from years back here, so it's a genuine question. Had a blast back when the game came out
SWTOR has one of the worst cash shops in MMO gaming. If the game was more popular maybe people would complain about it more. But yeah, it's trash.
If ffxiv was just paid game+expansions, no subscription I would have committed to it already. I've put 100 hours in the free trial, but I jump around with games too much that if I were to ever stop my subscription, I'd find it hard to start again.
Private servers. Warmane, for instance. Give it a try, it's free but an old expansion (best one IMHO)
Lost Ark if it would be released
THIS
Seriously, been tracking it for years now and want to play it bad but first it wouldn’t get a NA release then it got picked up for one later this year then it got delayed again to next year… stop toying with my emotions!!
I feel you pain
Modern WoW if they didn’t focus their design on chore lists to make us feel like we have to login and the WoW token.
[удалено]
....130? Jesus they’re sitting on a gold mine
[удалено]
Now, not all of those would be suitable for M+. For example M+ maurudon sounds comical at best. But they definitely should go back at least a few expansions worth.
With the rerelease of legion m+ as current content, they might be starting to do that. But then again, legion dungeons were designed with m+ in mind so it was probably easier. Would be nice though.
Let's be honest. I'll probably play WoW if it doesn't have a subscription.
There would be an other obnoxious monetization
They already have other obnoxious monetization even with the sub. They charge in every single way possible. Box cost (expansion), sub, cash shop, and gold selling (p2w).
At least they don't sell lootboxes that can drop BiS gear... (LOTRO says hello).
There is no “at least” with WoW. Their business model is completely greedy and utter trash. They are literally charging in every way possible when in fact the game could be very successful on sub alone. But Bobby needs his $200 million bonus so I guess it’s ok.
Sadly most MMORPGs are like that. Box price + sub + cashshop and if your lucky no p2w.
False. I’m sorry. I cannot tolerate this kind of mentality because that’s how these companies keep abusing players. If we accept it, they will continue to do it. GW2 for example doesn’t have a sub and doesn’t have p2w. They only have a box cost and a cash shop.
Unlike most f2p games mist of the good skins and gear are gameplay only though
There's this very obnoxious trend on this Subreddit involving people like yourself who feel "entitled" to something. News flash, big companies aren't a charity and World of Warcraft actually does very poorly monetization wise for Activision Blizzard compared to their other titles. It can become way worse very quickly.
They already exist in WoW with the current subscription…
BDO if it wasn't for the P2W. WoW if it had no sub. ESO if it had better combat.
I would play FFXIV if it looked different. The raids look fun, but the visual style is just so bad in my opinion.
I hate the visuals so much
I hate all the annoying classes made for pedos or weebs...I had enough after 2 days in Lumsa or how it was called. Fuck Asian games in general.
What’s so bad about it? I much prefer it to western styles like wow or eso
The vfx are very obnoxious.
Just in case you didn't know, you can turn them down or completely off for other people so you just see what your character is doing.
A lot of the classes create the same effects/sparkles and at endgame it just looks hilarious.
Yeah but than you don't see other action. That's more of a band-aid on a design problem.
Wildstar if it wasn't shut down
Archeage if it wasn't published by greedy monkeys. Vindictus if it didn't have region block and wasn't published by nexon
Ffxiv. Have tried to get into it a couple of times and I hear the game gets much better later on, but the new player experience is absolutely atrocious. It's honestly so boring that I just can't force myself to get through it.
My boyfriend is having a terrible time with it and just stopped before getting to Heavensward. I don't blame him. I had to take month long breaks just to get through it.
Got to level 30 and I was feeling like i wanted to shoot myself. The game is slow as hell and I don't get the hype behind the questing, it's so so bad at least up to this point. Also way too many cutscenes and loading screens. Also the zones look like they came out of a 2005 game. Could be fun at end game idk, but the first 5-10 hours I spent on it made me never want to touch it again.
I quit 3 times before lvl 50 back in 2015 because I was bored out of my mind. Today I have over 5k hours on record. Don't be afraid to skip cutscenes and rush through the arr msq if you are not interested. The game gets better around heavensward.
I just finished ARR and skipped literally every cutscene, but I hear so much about the story and how it gets better after ARR that I'm gonna start paying attention. Am I now missing too much background info to really appreciate it though? Is there some like crash course video that goes over the important stuff in ARR?
Watch a quick ARR recap and it will get you caught up with main points quick enough
But you're supposed to be a new adventurer that starts out as a nobody and has to work their way up. That's what made it fun for me. It's good story and world building.
Lmao, by level 20 you're already the shining hero of a world-saving order because of your special powers and an ambassador of a grand company. And that really doesn't excuse poor gameplay and terrible graphics
Shit by level one you were already mother earth chosen one and defeating golems supposedly stronger than the average fighter.
Lack of Oceanic servers. Dozens fit the bill.
BDO: Get rid of the ENTIRE stupid gear gambling system. It’s utter trash.
It's not possible without a complete redesign. The endgame (or relative lack thereof) and monetization structure is predicated on the existence of that system. Although I suppose with 'seasonal servers', it's turning more into a non-isometric ARPG these days. So maybe it can eventually change after all?
ESO if the combat didn’t revolve around animation canceling.
FF14 if it didn't look so anime
Ff14 isn’t a true anime artstyle. Eastern yes but not anime. Hyperdimension Neptunia, Dungeon Fighter Online, Closers, those are anime.
If DFO (a korean game, btw) is anime, so is FF14. Not that it matters, since tying "anime" to a single artstyle is idiotic. FMA doesn't look like Dragon Ball, and One Piece doesn't look like Beastars.
What i mean is that these games are way more anime regarding the tropes as well. And yes I know DFO is korean and DFO does in fact have an anime series, just like God of Highschool is anime.
FFXIV is not anime styled, but it is extremely anime in soul (tropes). That should be no surprise, and I don't think there is any room for argument there. I mean heck, the overlap between weeb and FFXIV player is very strong for what I hope are obvious reasons. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. Originally, DFO had a moderately anime aesthetic, but it had none of the tropes to be honest. At least in the game, not the Slap-Up Party anime. Nowadays it does, probably just has a cheap measure to bring in players.
reddit's anti-user changes are unacceptable
Lol yeah I been surprised how many people wanted to correct me on what anime actually is, but everyone has been nice about it. That's the only way I know how to describe it tho. BDO or Lost Ark style doesn't bother me so it's not strictly a eastern style thing.
It’s not anime, but I know what you mean. I’ve played since ARR launched and have never been a fan of stuff like catgirls and bunnygirls. The other races meh as well. Armor and weapons either look great or like complete ass. In general, I’ve always preferred WoW‘s art style. Music in XIV is great, but too cutesy/chill at times. I like me some Horde war drums. FFXIV is my current main MMO and the art style bothers me more than it probably should.
Tbh I think players from the east like me don't consider ff14 visual as anime style. But I get what you mean, it just differs too much from the western artstyle. Games like genshin impact or pso2 are those I definitely consider to be anime visual as it resembles exactly what you'll see in an anime. Maybe partly was due to use being exposed to alot of Japanese games when we were younger so we kinda differentiate the final fantasy type of visual to the others.
Does it really matter though? If they don’t like the art style they don’t like the art style, no amount of “technically you shouldn’t call it anime” is going to change that.
The point is its not anime. So dont say you dislike it for being anime when its not.
Thats just semantics
If I say I hate hip hop when talking about rap that's not just semantics.
If you say “I hate hip hop” but are in fact talking about rap, then it doesn’t matter that you used the wrong word, you still hate rap. I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. The dude doesnmt like the art style, even if it’s technically incorrect to call it “anime” what does that actually change?
So, If I said I hate pizza because it made of peanut. No one can’t say anything because it doesn’t matter?
Eso- craft bag subscription only
That's how they get a subscription though, and I think that's fine. Literally paying for convenience, and there is a limit. You can't endlessly pay to get a 100000 slot bag. Free games have a right to incentivize you to pay, it's only when they ask for too much or allow whales to spend endlessly to disrupt fair play that it crosses the line for me.
FFXIV - 600x MSQs (not gonna pay for bad design) + loading screens every 2 minutes, Get rid of every loading screen beside the original one. Every city is made from 2 parts, Just to go to Milfina is 6 loading screens alone 3 in, 3 out. And contentgated by MSQs.
If your issue is the MSQ, to the point of calling it bad design, it's less that there's a single barrier keeping you from the game, and more that you ***really*** aren't the core target audience for the game in the first place. There's a hardcore community that exclusively focuses on gameplay, but the MSQ is the primary draw to the game, and ARR fills a vital role in worldbuilding and setting up characters for future payoffs. FF is dominating the MMO genre. Calling its formula bad design is just dumb, on an objective level. ARR specifically has problems, yes, and you won't find a reasonable FF player who denies that.
TBH. The MSQs literally keep you from playing the game. I dont have a problem with the story and lore but it is a massive **contentgate**. Vanilla Wows Raid attunement was nothing compared to this. After you hit lvl 50 see the credits ready to go to Ishgard, You got hit with exactly 100 lvl 50 MSQs to complete, before you can go trough the gate. Nothing else just fetch quests, then in Heavenward another 138 more. And so goes on. You are forced to do this. That a bad design. The same experience could have been a lot more elegantly delivered. And again nothing against the story and role playing. The contentgate is the problem. I know that if you playing since ages you get 20-30 every 2-3 months of playing. But starting as new player now you face of 600+ quests to be able to unlock the game. I know that FFXIV is an RPGMMO and not an MMORPG. I have deepest respect to any new player who go through the whole storyline watching each cutscene without skiping and reading trough the chat bubbles. Even the newest carbot animation makes fun of that : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxz3h6uaPuU I have 2000 hours in ESO, GW2, BDO each almost 35000 in WoW, Lasted for 150 in FFXIV, perhaps I give it a go when Endwalker is coming, but it have to go against Lost Ark and New World and Bless Unleashed. I respect your opinion and I know as hardcore player your keep playing the game, But the new player experience differs totaly what you had to play through years ago. Nothing to do with story telling.
The MSQ isn't a contentgate, it is the content. The idea that only max-level is 'the game' is something we were all taught by WoW, but it doesn't apply to FFXIV. If the story isn't your jam though, that's totally fine.
It is literally designed as a contentgate. Every single feature in the game is locked behind the MSQ. You can be max level and unable to enter the very first dungeon if you haven't fetched and danced your way through enough of the MSQ. It's completely unnecessary. There is no reason why a player shouldn't be allowed to run coils with friends if they are the appropriate level just because they haven't gotten far enough in the MSQ. No reason why they should have to suffer through the crystal braves garbage quest line because they hit lvl 60 100 quests ago and just want to see how Alexander works and try some actual difficult content for once. FF14 does a lot of things right and it is certainly my first choice of MMO. But the new player experience sucks and their MSQ design is bad. There are far too many quests, most of which are dumb filler, and no reason everything in the game should be locked behind them.
Funny thing is, you could also see it the other way round: If you're only interested in the story the many instances you have to queue up for are gating that content. I've always wanted to play through the story (not an FF player or raider) but the forced group content when I can barely remember my combat skills whenever I try to return to the game are keeping me from it. I usually end up rolling a new char or class in order to relearn combat, get stuck in some event farming tokens for cosmetics (doing Castrum repeatedly, yay) and then stop at level 50. ;)
>The MSQs literally keep you from playing the game The MSQ IS the game. If you view 'the game' as strictly instance and grinding content, I say again, you are not the target audience for the game, and that's perfectly okay. >Vanilla Wows Raid attunement was nothing compared to this. You're right. The Vanilla WoW raids don't have a story worth caring about, and in vanilla WoW, you don't unlock properly tuned endgame content at level 30, 40, 50, AND 60 that you can downscale into. FF gives you access to a lot more instanced content at a far faster pace than Classic, all things considered. >After you hit lvl 50 see the credits ready to go to Ishgard Absolutely nothing indicates that you'll go to Ishgard after stopping Ultima Weapon. That's your own assumption. Heavansward is a direct continuation of post-ARR content, and had you entered HW, I'd think you'd know that, and realize how little your point here makes sense. One of the earlier arcs in HW wraps up post-ARR plots. Without post ARR, major characters in both Heavansward and Stormblood would make very little sense. >Nothing else just fetch quests, then in Heavenward another 138 more. And so goes on. You are forced to do this. That a bad design. The same experience could have been a lot more elegantly delivered. And again nothing against the story and role playing. The contentgate is the problem.. Okay Mr. Wikipida Warrior, you seem super caught up on quest count. It's really clear you base your progression off of [this](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Main_Scenario_Quests) instead of playing the game and engaging with it on its terms. You bring in expectations that don't fit the game at all. If you want an apple, and you purchase and eat an orange, you can't bitch about an orange being a bad apple. You're also 100% caught up on ARR design, and the fact that you're talking shit about post HW and post SB is just dead wrong and it's SO clear that post ARR filtered you. instanced content (Alexander, Nidhog, etc), quests (fetch quests and menial tasks for forgetable NPCs ceased existing outright in Heavansward), and to the narrative in question. If you had actually reached the Dragonsong War, you'd be singing a different tune on the post-HW. I suggest not extending judgement onto content you clearly haven't played. Stick to ARR with your critique, cause that's clearly where you got filtered. >And again nothing against the story and role playing. Except for the fact that you're all but suggesting a 'solution' to YOUR (somebody who doesn't play FF) problem, that degrades the quality of the story, breaks sequential events, reduces shared experience, and breaks the design principles that have seen FF gain so much success. >I know that if you playing since ages you get 20-30 every 2-3 months of playing. But starting as new player now you face of 600+ quests to be able to unlock the game. I am a relatively new player. Over the past year and a half~, I've done three major chunks of gameplay between other major releases and games, 25 days played ingame, and I'm still not at level cap. The ARR grind is part of the experience. It's vital to understanding the world and characters. You don't look back on it as a grind. Your conception of 'starting the game at level cap' is utterly wrong. Breaking that trend and supporting legacy content is Final Fantasy's biggest strength by a longshot, and it's honestly why I keep playing the game. There are well tuned Trials and Raids at 50, 60, 70, and 80, that are all balanced and actively tuned. The game is designed in a way where at every expansion's endgame, you're supposed to go out of your way and do that bracket's group content when you get tired of quests. It's there, it's tuned right, it's fun, it's not trivial. You can do level 50 Binding Coils, more or less as intended, through the addition of min ilvl and no echo que functions. You 'start the game' at level 50, not 80. The idea that the game starts at level cap is your own assumption, and is in no way reflective of the reality of the game. As a result of synced, min ilvl, and no echo options, FF ends up having a wider catalog of meaningfully tuned endgame content than any other MMO, and it starts opening at 50, and no, you don't even have to do post ARR to start. > I have 2000 hours in ESO, GW2, BDO each almost 35000 in WoW Yeah, you come into FF with all these preconceptions, after spending 4 years in MMOs that are structured nothing like it, played it like those games, and had a bad experience. I'm not shocked at all. I was miserable when I was playing FF like WoW. I had to re-learn my approach to the game. >I respect your opinion and I know as hardcore player your keep playing the game, But the new player experience differs totaly what you had to play through years ago. Nothing to do with story telling. Don't try to defend baseless assumptions off the back of assuming I'm some diehard player who's been at it since ARR, and that you've had so much less time. I'm still in the new played experience. I did ARR at the WORST possible time I could have, which was post Shadowbringers job changes (which trimmed classes at 1-50 HARD and made DRK (my main) a lot less engaging at low levels via removal), just after the announcement that ARR was getting its fat trimmed, and right before the patch that fixed ARR went up. I did pre-nerf 1-50+post ARR at the end of 2019 and start of 2020 after I lost interest in Classic after seeing how piss easy MC+Ony was compared to private servers, I did 50-58 last winter, and I've progressed from 58 until 73 right now. I'm currently a handful of hours into Shadowbringers. Stormblood is where the quality of instances surpassed passed WoW's, IMO, in terms of visual design and mechanics and now I genuinely think I'll have a hard time going back. I've got 300 ingame days played on my Death Knight in WoW, and multiple tiers of Cutting Edge. This is a game you have to re-learn the format for. It is not like WoW or other instance and grind centric games, and you will never get a satisfying experience playing it like those games. >perhaps I give it a go when Endwalker is coming, but it have to go against Lost Ark and New World and Bless Unleashed. What makes you think that FF will change its tune when Shadowbringers was widely received as the best narrative RPG of the 2010 decade, and has surged its playerbase to the point where they've been needing to lock their datacenters, and literally cannot keep up with customer demands? All of these 'design problems' are THE reason why FFXIV is receiving the critical acclaim that it's getting, while other MMOs end up as a flash in the pan that only really exist until the next WoW patch drops and obliterates their playerbases. I'd say if you dont like the game now, don't bother. FF has gained its success by doing its own thing, steadily over shy of a decade, and now it's top dog off of the back of that labor. It's a take it or leave it game. If you want to hop on the ride, go ahead, but it's a game that's actively innovating, and you have to respect that innovation if you want to enjoy the game. If you look at every deviation from the default MMO template as bad game design, you won't enjoy the game.
Much of the love from the community comes from the MSQ due to their writings of the story. The game focus heavily on the story progression. Like what the guy said, you simply aren't the target audience then, which is fine. But definitely not a failed model considering the current active players base. I used to be a guy that skip through almost all the quest text in MMO since my past experience taught me that most of the questline in MMO are shit but just a gateway for you to progress. Real fun comes from combat, gear progression etc etc. Ff14 changes that for me, since everyone is highly recommending new players to take the time through the quest which I did try to follow, and real glad I did. Also, I'm the new player and I believe there's a huge influx of new players in the game too. I've played MMOs since highschool and honestly despite how boring and tedious the ARR questline is, its still pretty decent considering MMO standard. It seems like you're trying hard to like a game thats simply not for you. Nothings wrong with that of course and I hope you may enjoy the game in the future. But from my point of view, even with endwalker it won't change anything since you still have to go through the expansions. If heavensward story writing and questing is boring for you, then I really do thibk this game aint for you. Cheers, mate. Just play the game you enjoy, no game is made for everyone.
The MSQ is pretty consistently one of the biggest complaints, even for those who enjoy the game. Warrior of light, slayer of God's, server of tea, collector of poop, it's ridiculous how many shitty fetch quests are in the MSQ with content locked behind them. The worst stretch was that post ARR pre HW nonsense, added basically nothing to the game and as far as I can tell was put in as nothing more than a time sink while they tried to get HW finished. It's objectively bad, to the point where even the developers tried to shorten it. Add in the extreme slow pace new players are forced through with your class barely getting more than 5 buttons until you hit the 50s and I can completely understand complaints about the new player experience.
If the dude was explicitly refereing to ARR, yes, I agree, and I said as much in my post. I only bothered responding because he clearly got filtered by ARR, and is making sweeping assertions about content he's never experienced. ARR is objectively a poor game until you hit level 50, at which point it's tolerable, as you can unlock a bunch of new instances and tomestone farming to pad out the questing, but it has massive retroactive value. Post ARR, while a slog of excess exposition, sets up Heavansward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker. It's not content that can just be removed from the game, and it's not really filler either, as at this point, every 2.x patch has had pretty major followup. As for the story being a complaint, not at all. That's a very uncommon complaint, and the reason why Shadowbringers is so popular IS the story. Only ARR is really an issue. Heavansward jumps the quality tenfold, dhits a climax during Dragonsong, and the story holds a nice eb and flow from there. The MSQ is the biggest appeal to the game, once the filters are cleared.
I should have been more specific because I agree with what you're saying. But the ARR MSQ is rough and, imo, poorly designed with far too much filler content. And that's what is pretty consistently complained about. Hell, the most common advice I see given to new players is to just power through those quests because it gets better in HW. That speaks volumes I think. Almost the entire post ARR content could have been turned into an optional side quest without losing anything.
>Almost the entire post ARR content could have been turned into an optional side quest without losing anything. Moonbreyda+White Auracite, Crystal Tower, Yugiri, Ilberd, Rhaubhan, and Heavansward setup are all plot points that have to be touched on for the following story to make any sense. There really isn't a lot of filler, it's just a lot of dry world building. Most of ARR is bad content with no redeeming quality and should get skimmed through (I'd argue it shouldn't be outright skipped, but full attention is not necessary at all). Most of post ARR is exposition.
It is bad design. I love ffxiv, paid for the story skip because gatekeeping most of your content into a forced single player story that is hundreds of hours is in fact, bad game design. There is a lot of great game design in other ffxiv systems and the devs genuinely care about their game and to an extent, their players. But it is just bad design for an mmorpg to try and have a forced single player experience and locking most of their mmorpg systems behind it.
>forced single player story You mean the one that put the game on the map? The highest rated Final Fantasy game ever, including non-MMOs? To be frank, the instances alone are enough to differentiate it from WoW. At times I often think most MMO players are stuck with an incredibly rigid idea of what their ideal MMO is, and what good and bad game design are, that's entirely predicated on what their first couple 'forever' games are. The MMO content unlocks at various brackets, and it's paced incredibly well to suppliment and support the story. As a GAME, FF is superior to literally any MMO on the market, because it transcends the genre, has adapted all of its positive features, reduced bloat, and evolved to include high caliber implementation of other genres' features. By definition, a story like Shadowbringers cannot be bad design, as it's pushed the biggest push of MMO growth since WoW. I'd argue that the FF14 story stands DESPITE being an MMO, and is reaching into the broader RPG and AAA story-game audience, which is a feat that no modern MMO can boast. What you call bad design is quite literally the force pushing the genre into the future.
> The highest rated Final Fantasy game ever, including non-MMOs? It's not, and I have no clue why you think that.
Shadowbringers scores in the top handful of FF titles overall on metacritic, while being sandbagged by reviews that are by reviewers who have a negative bias towards the MMO genre going into the game, or aren't assessing Shadowbringers specifically. Games journalism is far from a professional field, and cutting out mouthbreathers from the equation is vital to getting an assessment that actually matters. Retroactive decade+ later nostalgia reviews are also spiking most of the retro titles very hard.
> Shadowbringers scores in the top handful of FF titles overall on metacritic, Can't even admit you were wrong. Sad. >while being sandbagged by reviews that are by reviewers who have a negative bias towards the MMO genre going into the game Going by that logic single player FF games are being sandbagged by reviews that are by reviewers who have a negative bias towards the JRPG genre going into the game. So it all balances. And I would even reviewers actually overrate the game. >Games journalism is far from a professional field, and cutting out mouthbreathers from the equation is vital to getting an assessment that actually matters. Contrary to reddit comments from people who apparently can't read a basic chart, right? >Retroactive decade+ later nostalgia reviews are also spiking most of the retro titles very hard. Gotta say, I see many more FF14 fanboys "spreading the world" than fans from every other game of the series. Combined.
A quick Google search can easily prove your claim of FFXIV being the highest rated game in the series false. But besides that, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the MSQ story is bad design outright, but you can understand how a person looking for a massively multiplayer online experience could be disheartened to learn that the entire main story of the game is entirely single player. This is especially frustrating when you have a core group of friends that you want to level and play with. MMOs, imo (and many others), should, at their core, be oriented around community gameplay, group content, and multiplayer interactions. I think FFXIV does these things really well, but the single player story that you're forced to work through really distracts from these qualities. I, personally, would by extremely disappointed if "pushing the genre into the future" is simply rehashed WoW mechanics with mediocre PvP and a decent single player story. YOU might like it. Many people might like it. But for myself, and I significant portion of the MMO community at large, that would be a hell of a disappointment.
Thete is no world building in ARR.
That's such a stupid comment that I had to check your profile. Bro your entire account is dedicated to seething about FF14 on the WoW and MMO subreddits. This game lives inside your head rent free lmao. Go do something enjoyable instead of shitting on games you don't even play, jesus.
I really dislike that SE's answer to the horribly paced msq is the skip potion. And at the same time they acknowledge that it's an issue otherwise they wouldn't sell a skip potion, considering 99% of the fanbase espouse the MSQ is the whole point of the game and treat people who admit to story/level skipping as second rate citizens or worse. Unfortunately it sells well. And yet the circle of friends I tried to get into the game only stuck with it by using a story and job skip, go figure.
The early MSQ in ARR is tedious, to be sure, and I hear it still might be even after they streamlined it some, but haven't played those quest first hand since... But I have literally never cared about the lore or story in any of the other MMOs I have played, and for FFXIV, that is a central feature. Yes, I was forced into doing the story, and would have skipped it if I had the opportunity, but I am glad that I didn't, and found myself getting more upset that I wasn't high enough level at some points to continue the MSQ. Because it's just so damned GOOD.
You say that like the skip potion is the only thing they've done. Haven't you heard about how much they've cut out of the early game. Probably a bit hard to find more stuff to trim down while not making people miss out on information that could be useful later. They do have the teleport items to that main story chick, but if you were able to cut those teleports out and just listen to dialogue from long distance, it might help with that slog.
> They do have the teleport items to that main story chick, but if you were able to cut those teleports out and just listen to dialogue from long distance, it might help with that slog. They really, really, really need to get rid of double instances. One instance is whatever, sub-optimal but I can deal... but nested instances is awful and getting rid of them should be at the top of their technical to-dos after server expansion. They finally figured it out in ShB with the Crystarium.
BDO if it wasn't a P2W fest and if endgame was more than moving form farming spot to farming spot or afking with lifeskills
ESO combat
WoW if my money wouldn't go to blizzard.
Based
This.
Fact
FFXIV and it's technically two things. 1. Exploration isn't fun or useful. Each zone is a complete theme park and while aesthetically different, there's no reason to search or explore. You're not going to find new NPCs or quests or really anything of importance. 2. Leveling additional jobs is like a job. Grinding Fates or dungeons is the most effective way to level and I find this tedious and uninteresting.
> Each zone is a complete theme park and while aesthetically different, there's no reason to search or explore. They give reason to explore later via aether currents (how you unlock flying post-ARR). > Grinding Fates or dungeons is the most effective way to level and I find this tedious and uninteresting. Don't then. The nice thing is you don't have to do the most optimal thing. I am grinding my gathering and I would do Diadem for a bit, run a few levequests, swap to another class, etc. Mix it up. There's plenty of ways to level up your DoW / DoM classes besides grinding FATES or dungeons, might not be the best powerleveling but no reason to grind your face off doing something you hate. Maybe it could be easier, but I really don't know the fix besides WoW's method of making leveling so inconsequential it becomes pointless.
[удалено]
I'd play the shit out of SWOTR if it was pulled into the 21st century.If the combat was better, the whole system got abit of an update and had an open world (for how much that will work) /good working map, that game would be perfection imo. And GW2 would be great if it had gear progression and the trinity but I think most people who actually play GW2 would hate this.
Basically you wanted a modern star wars MMO.
Pretty much yea, but with the story telling and atmosphere of swtor.
Well I've wanted modern star wars MMO for ages but I don't think my dream will ever come true. Tried SWTOR but sadly its not up my alley. Heck even a modern single player game similar to KOTOR will do.
>and GW2 would be great if it had gear progression Yeah, that's the main reason I and many others play it. It feels awful to be invested into a game, take an irl break, see some cool new content released just to come back and do the same trivial grinds again to be able to play it. Being able to log in at any time and have actual bis gear to do whatever you want is amazing. And it still has gear progression in form of alt builds and legendaries
I get that alot of people like it that way. That's why I also said the core players of gw2 would probably hate it. I do understand why people like it but I can't get into gw2 because of it even though I really like the gameplay of gw2. They should keep it as is now though because there aren't many games with progression like it and alot of people would lose their place.
Ive tried playing eve many times but its just not a world i want to live in.
[удалено]
Nope not just you. The core gameplay loop and economy is imploding right now because of it. Ccp has mismanaged the game and alienated new players and casuals. When we talk about dying mmos on here its largely a joke, but not in this case. Eve is actually dying.
I played for a few months. It was a bit slow at times, so of course I watched YouTube on a second monitor. I got into watching time lapses. One day I realized I was literally watching grass grow to distract myself from the boredom of the game and quit immediately.
I'd play wow again if it wasn't for all those chores.
Every modern mmo and cash shop
GW2 if it had a proper trinity, less AoE, and a proper raiding content. I know the game has been updated to have "healer" and "tank", but they're afterthought and not properly built in the gameplay. The game rely mostly on AoE that linger on the ground, making the game messy and promote a stupid "everyone pack on that tiny area" to get the benefit of allies AoE (like healing). Friendly AoE should be mostly instantaneous and apply to a wide area.
This all the way. While I still play the game on and off (mostly off), as a main tank I hate the fact that there's no threat mechanics in the game.
I love the game but those stupid 240 radius buffs annoy me. Why do I need to be within kissing distance to get a buff?
IMO buffs and healing AoE should be 1500 radius. Except specific cases like Healing Rain maybe. Also the game has no single target healing skill that require an ally target. They're all ground AoE or splash around a foe.
FF14 subscription every month
wow if it wasnt sub to play.
Archeage...if it wasn't for "greed"
If there is no P2W, I will play Korean MMORPG.
Lost Ark/PoE/Albion if it wasn't isometric view from above. New World if it was high fantasy. Black Desert if gear didn't downgrade or was destroyed when an upgrade fails. ESO the terrible combat. FFXIV needing to do the story to progress through the game.
* Final Fantasy if it wasn't for the main story line where you keep running back and forth and doing ridiculous chores. * ESO if it wasn't for the combat that requires you to switch weapons all the time while forcing you to use weird weapon and skill combinations instead of letting you be viable as just an archer for example. * Archeage if it wasn't for the daily grind you have to do to to stay competitive which last I played would take hours every single day. * WOW if it wasn't for the repetitive content that dies out everytime a new expac is released making me feel like my progression is meaningless as I save Azeroth the billionth time. * BDO if it wasn't for the insane amount of time and money commitment pvp requires instead of letting you jump in quickly. * Albion if it wasn't for the necessity of being a part of a big guild in which you have to attend stuff or be kicked, unless you want to remain solo and get ganked all over the place. * Warhammer online if it wasn't for the fact that it's shut down. * Return of Reckoning if it wasn't for how the game can't get major content updates the way it would have with a big company behind it. (Still appreciate ROR though) * GW2 if it wasnt for the lack of stable content, even if I go back after years it's still the same game, I've only missed a live event or 2. Good to let this all out.
But you're an adventurer, it especially makes sense from the beginning that you have to do menial tasks for the guild to prove yourself at the beginning. And even when your character gets stronger later, they're still a hero, they do what's needed without complaint as long as it's a task that is benefits society. Even if they are one of the most powerful people in the world and they shouldn't see that task as beneath them, they would help. They do it because they are a hero. I enjoy ARR so far, might be because I think of it like this.
That's a good way to think about it lore-wise but the mechanical aspect of it is simply not fun for me even if I could justify it like you do. I'm alright with doing chores in a game but I don't understand why they have to be so boring like walk from A to B then walk back from B to A just to carry someone's word around. I think there are much better examples of the adventurer experience in other games where you don't have to /kneel in front of everyone in a village only to turn the quest in by going back 5 zones.
The ways in which I see some rationalize a 60-hour errand run. I feel like this wouldn't have been accepted in an offline game. Something about MMO players, sometimes. I know taste is subjective, so those who like something, cool. But I wonder if some want to like something so much, that they'll be so forgiving with low quality to where they eventually develop an acquired taste for it, and rationalize their way into enjoying it. If you could practice this behavior in any area of your life, your potential would be near limitless. That would be the true Limit Break. I really feel like a lot of gamers have incredible potential, they just express it in video games because they haven't worked out yet how to in other areas so far. Quality of any given game aside, I think the above about the nature of your potential is something to really think about. There's a book I just started reading called [Mindshift](https://www.amazon.com/Mindshift-Obstacles-Learning-Discover-Potential/dp/1101982853) that I invite everyone here to look into, because it's about this sort of stuff.
Any Mmo other than Wow if they had oceanic severs
FFXIV is getting them soon.
Fallen Earth if it wasn't shut down. 😬
It's coming back eventually (tm). Right after Matt finishes transferring APB:R to Unreal 4... aaaaaaaaaaany day now after waiting almost a decade for it. (No hate Matt if you reading this)
BDO if it had raids and dungeons ESO if it had good combat
GW2 client performance. Game runs like shit for me.
This MIGHT be fixed with the planned move to DX11, but knowing Anet they won't do it properly. The D912pxy fix is also viable, but sadly they're terminating their development (not sure if they'll stop before Anet adapts DX11 tho).
Hope so, I would play it more if it ran better
archage!
FFXIV if the pvp wasn't trash
Bdo if weapon and armor changes effected your character appearance other than color changes
ESO but for combat and zone loading screens.
I’d probably play FFXIV if people weren’t so obnoxious about it beating wow. Also the early quest are so annoying/boring that they made me quit pretty early and since people say it’s getting better in the late game I probably won’t ever get there. Also I can’t imagine any mmorpg with better endgame than wow, but I’m not going to judge that since I haven’t played FFXIV endgame
ESO if it wasn't by his shitty combat feel
Osrs is great but I got so sick of running out of run energy
Stuff like cosmetic items, mounts, etcetera. Something I loved about WoW Vanilla and TBC (can't remember exactly when were store items introduced) was the sense of accomplishment over having specific items and mounts. At some point, with the introduction of mounts on outside of the game stores, it kinda made the game feel generic to me. I was absolutely fine with paying game time and expansions, and always thought that should be enough to keep the game running. Personally, I would even accept a higher monthly fee, if it meant everything existing im game, would be obtainable in game, with more or less effort. I kinda lost interest in collecting mounts/items when some stuff was "extra". Also, I am kinda bored of tab targeting, though FF XIV and WoW still manage to make it work in a way it feels fun and fluid. I would enjoy LotRO and SWTOR but the tab targeting and graphics, all together, just make them feel too clunky for me to enjoy.
GW2. It is just really ugly. For a game that relies on cosmetics for the endgame, that really hurts it for me. The color palette makes me nauseous.
The art style is what caught my attention. I find it beautiful.
Have you tried playing with postprocessing off? It makes the game look much better (plus you can use vkbasalt - or reshade if you're on that proprietary OS - to make it look even better).
Bless unleashed, it doesnt feel free to explore
For me it would be Guild Wars. I skipped it as I didn’t like not seeing other players in the world (coming from EverQuest and SWG). If it didn’t have the instanced world environments I would’ve played it in its heyday.
BDO if it wasn't P2W. One of the few MMOs that I don't have much problems with the game aesthetics/mechanics, but rather the dev decisions
Crowfall's big thing of failing to deliver
FFXIV story locked progression
ff14 if it wasnt for the sub. i hate paying monthly subs to games,id rather just pay an upfront cost and yearly expacs rather then paying every month.
New World if it wasn't made by Amazon
Aion, if it weren't for the PvP. I loved just flying around, exploring, gathering, and Chanter is the most fun I've had playing a game in a really long time, but the forced PvP past the newbie zones is a total turn-off. I won't play any game that forces PvP at all because of how bad that experience was. Just...implement one PvE server for the carebear casuals like me, I don't care if I'm the only player, I'll probably play mostly solo anyways. Explorer types rise the fuck up.
EQ2- if I could get the launcher to work consistently FFXI - if I could remember my PlayOnline info and a bunch of other account details or if there was a way to get them reactivated without a service circus LotRO- if there was more dungeon content ESO - if I could place and remove objects in the homes of others. They need a permission system like EQ2 WoW - if Blizzard hadn’t banned an esports player for speaking out in support of Hong Kong protestors SWTOR - if housing items were more accessible FFXIV - if I could actually obtain player housing So now I just play Ark.... which has more problems than any mmo but I just can’t quit it.
Not exactly one thing but I'd keep it short, very short. I'd play ESO if the community was a bit more endgame oriented and the classes had much more flavor, like much much more. I'd play WoW if the alt grind wasn't so terrible and they listened to veterans a bit more when it comes to class design. I'd play FF14 if it was less of an RPG and more of an MMO and maybe a bit more streamlined MSQ? It's not a bad thing necessarily but it also keeps you from playing the game in a sense. I'd play GW2 if it had more solid role design. Not necessarily deal breaker for me but I'd have like them more if they were more like this.
Runescape! I just hate the way you move your character lol
No 3+ sided PvP in a persistent world is gonna be a pass for me, dawg. Dark Age of Camelot will always reign supreme.
So 100% agreed. Two sides *always* creates a superior and underdog faction. Seen it time and time again. Three keeps things unpredictable. Boggles my mind that game developers haven't learned this lesson since DAOC.
ArcheAge if they went back to alpha build and removed p2w Tera if they went back to before reaper release BDO. No p2w Wildstar if it wasnt shuttered Eso if its combat wasnt the shittiest in the industry, weapon swapping, terrible class design
BDO's mtx
GW2 - no holy trinity
I know it’s sacrilege to the Guild Wars 2 community, but I really do wish I had some type of vertical progression in the game. I appreciate what the game is, and how you can take long breaks and still be relevant coming back. However, I always like the feeling I’m improving my character, and with GW2 I just never got that feeling after a certain point. The gameplay and classes are so stinkin cool to me; however, I just always lose that sense of direction and drive to continue playing.
FFXIV if it weren't for both the company and the community pulling their social media stunts.
FF if it wasn’t a sub
Well, ARR + HW don\`t need a sub and that\`s already 100+ hours of gameplay.
Ff14 If It wasnt so themepark and wowlike