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Casual game? Read before you buy.
Skoamroth
Member Posts: 49
Yes, another post from an upset customer.
I love complex MMO's thats what drew me to FFXIV, but I feel like I just got hoodwinked out of $75. DDO and ffxi were among my favorite mmo's ive ever played and I consider them more challenging/enganging/fun then the "beast" and beast clones, (I do not speak the name of the beast lest I give it power) I was looking forward to this game so much, and truth be told I enjoyed this game until level 15 or so, when it was time to upgrade armor...
You can't buy armor from NPC's, well you can but by the time you get enough gil to do it you will have out leveled it by 20 levels. So whats next, buy it from a fellow player who crafted it of course. So just head over to the AH and pick up new gear. OH YAH, THERE IS NO FREAKIN AH! No bother, I'll just go to the player market stalls and search for chest piece and buy some new armor, easy. WTF!!? NO search option, good luck running through everyones bazaar, hoping that you might come across a player selling the piece of armor you want to buy, for a decent price. Don't hold your breath.
Well, that leaves us wiith the last and most obvious option, roll up your sleeves and get to work! If you want something done right, make that damn armor yourself! Ok then easy I mean other people can make armor why can't you.
Well, the reason is the people making armor have a large network of other crafters suppling them with materials to make armor, such as an LS that is based almost exclusivley on crafting(b/c if you are proficient enough to make decent items by crafting, then belive me most of your ffxiv play time will goto crafting not adventuring). Why you ask, well b/c in order to make heavy armor by yourself, one must be just as proficient in weaving, and leatherworking. In order to be proficient enough in weaving and leatherworking one must also be just as proficient in alchemy and carpentry, which means you will need to be able to gather resources as a botanist. Leveling all of theese craft professions will indeed take days, with no adventuring at all. You will however have to adventure too get the shards and crystals required to craft items.
My point is, in order to craft yourself a peice of armor, you need to have every single craft profession almost the same level as armorer, or bother other people to give you the materials you need to skill up and create the item. Most people in my LS dont want to make leather to give me for hours so I can level up armorcraft, when they could be leveling up leatherworker or adventuring.
So, if you only play until levels 15-20 you might enjoy it, just wait until its time to upgrade equipment, you cant use starter equip forever, much as I tried.
In a year or a few months I will gladly look at this game again, but if your playing FFXIV in it's current state, enjoy paying for open beta.
Comments
I don't understand why you are unhappy when everything you stated was mentioned in past news articles, or could be found in threads on this website. There is merit to your complaint if you knew about it, but didn't understand the consequences it would have on gameplay.
yep this game isn't casual friendly, it is very much a community based game. I think thats a good thing though. You have to get a network of friends in order to progress. In my opinion not enough games do this right now. Most games you can play by yourself and barely touch the community.
While i agree AH makes it difficult, i do like i do in real life. I pick a day for shopping and thats all i do. Sometimes i'll find what i'm looking for, sometimes i won't. But thats me, i don't expect others to be that way.
I also encourage very much for people to understand the game they are playing or plan on buying. If they like being able to do alot of things on their own and only rely on the community to beat encounters and to talk to. Then this game isn't going to be for them. This one forces you to rely on the community for practically everything after a certain point.
To each their own though, i'm still waiting for the MMo i can live with for a while. Heres hoping ToR is it. Hasn't been one since EQ *sigh*
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Unfortunatly I did read that SE was intentionally not implementing an AH, but I assumed that they would have given us a tool similar to it. I was way wrong. Also, this post is more of a heads up for people unfamiliar to the game who are thinking about buying it.
No AH and current crafting system makes this game an enormous time sink, and makes it next to impossible to play casually, (past level 15)
I wholeheartedly agree with you about the community thing, and the EQ thing, but something as simple as basic needs, such as armor so you can kill things, should not fall into the depths of community involvement that it does, IMHO.
OP, to be honest your thread makes this game more interesting to me than all the "Best Game ever, doesn´t hold your hand blah" posts, since I like crafting and such.^^
I didn´t play the game, but from how you describe it as a soloer, wouldn´t it be profitable, if you just specialize in 1-2 gathering classes and sell the resources to people who want to level their crafting classes? At least it worked this way in several other MMOs for me.
For a number of reasons, that would be very hard to do. As I considered the same thing, to fund buying armor or materials needed to craft armor, I set about selling logs and ore. Problem is, once again, no AH. Shout spamming will only get you so far before people get tired of seeing your name on the chat bar as well.
I encourage you to try it, but I don't think anyone really forsaw just how complicated this game is going to be without any way to at least search for an item you wish to buy. That aside, it wouldn't bother me so much, but the fact that it is marketed as "CASUAL FRIENDLY", well you get my point.
There is always the retainer to sell for you. Just a thought, but yeah i agree it's casual friendly...to a point, but the later parts of the game certainly aren't. You do need the community, you did in 11 you do here as well.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Nowadays we have ads and the internet to tell us what stores sell what, this game does not. We know what gamestop, walmart, etc... will likely have and sell, this game gives you zero indication what a vendor will sell. I doubt cultured people would expect strangers to come up and talk to everyone to find out what they sell. It makes no sense for a business to not advertise even with a basic sign.
SE stated numerous times this game would be more casual friendly than FFix. It is grossly far from it, or definately a deviant from the norm in regards to what players would consider a casual game.
It does have the start of a good community, but it also is starting to have an elitist community that wants to work in small niches, rather than a helpfull community like we saw in Ryzom and Pre-CU SWG. Mileage will vary, just my thoughts.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
No, this game is not even close to casual friendly. I don't believe many casual players will A) Reach the supposedly friendly quests and
Pay monthly for this game.
Hmm, I wasn't planning on playing this game until I read this thread. All too often I find myself soloing everything in MMOs and not talking to anyone (what can I say, I'm introverted) and I like the idea that community involvment is forced. Not being able to search for items sound like a pain, I would hope player retainers would have a sign or something saying which kinds of things they sell, but I imagine eventually if it really does suck the developers will relent and add a search function. Now if only there was some form of pvp in the game...
To clarify what i meant by casual friendly...to a point. Is that you can walk around do thing in the game up to level 15 and generally have no problems, thats the to a point part. After that you gotta get into the community if you wish to progress.
I agree that it's not casual friendly later in the game no doubt about it. This feels just like 11 that way. But hey who knows maybe SE is throwing buzz words out to get people to play it.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I wish you the best, just remember, the community that knows this game well and is able to amass enough people from different crafting professions to actually create useful items will more then likely not be the community you will get involved in off the bat. There is mostly an elitest group of players who want nothing to do with you, and the rest of us.(similiar to FFXI)
Also, I played to rank 20 and never once created or was invited to a party, nor did I once see a single LFG in any way. I was able to solo 5 star leves. As such, dont plan on playing in parties until MUCH later in the game.
In fact, compared to other games, the chat is almost barren for having so many people all around you at a given time. Anyone else notice this? There is more chat going on in Istaria (couple hundred peole play that game) at any given time then FFXIV, so far.
Well is not a surprise, a lot of players play with gamepads.
Indeed, but someone was talking about how they don't like that they tend to keep to themselves and be introverted while playing MMO's, FFXIV would NOT be the game to come to if you are looking for chat interaction...
That's why I hate gamepads on mmo. It's the quiets mmo I have ever played and I hate that.
You know, you're making it a lot harder than it is.
Simply travel to the city that that guild is based in, for Carpentry you go to Ul'dah. Pick up the FIVE leves he has for carpentry at the level master in the Quicksand, this will easily bring you to at least level 5 carpentry, which unlocks more levels for you to complete. Rince and repeat for other guilds, btw leve items that you create as extras stay in your inventory afterwards ;]
My point is simply that after lvl 20, it is nigh impossible to go through undergeared... as I have been saying all along
So many people have never played in a 'head start' before... Of course no one is chatting or grouping. #1 most people are trying to level up their crafting skills so that when launch comes they will have the skill to provide services for new players.
All this whining is just silly. Unstable client, low mob population, no one talking... these are all quite common traits of any game at launch, or, as this one, pre launch. Get over it and either have fun or wait for things to calm down and settle into a more 'normal' routine a couple weeks to a month down the road.
You know as well as I to do that for every profession will take days for a casual player(2-3 hours a day)
My only point was that somene was talking about liking the idea of being "FORCED" to play with others, and that is simply not true on the grouping aspect. I'm not really whining about it.
Toward the original post regarding the game's "market" community:
It's like the developers said "let's make a community based game" and set out to do so. In the end though, it's too reliant on community. These are after all MMORPG players and though there can be good folks and fun times, it's certainly not a community I want to gamble my fun on. Will I have to spend 2 months leveling every profession so that I may be able to supply my own materials or will I try to find steady, decent prices? Only the first option really becomes reasonable and soon enough everyone will just being doing things solo because it's easier and less tedious.
Now, the idea is splendid, don't get me wrong, but it's flawed. If I go to an open market that sells everything in the world, I would have ads and signs and things would be organized and categorized. I wouldn't have my electronics department in the middle of a fruit and vegetable seller. "Oh, mighty fine TV you have here oh and a mighty fine, ripe potato". What makes open markets successful is that they bring in varying goods that consumers can find with ease. FFXIV is an open market selling everything existent in the world with no signs or ads or the ability to see what the consumer sells without running up and investigating every piece. Not only is this laborious and pointless, but it's not immersive.
Why couldn't they have broken down the market into categories or groups or let you put up signs. If I recall correctly Aion allowed you to post up a message when you were selling so people could easily cycle through sellers. "X ARMOR, X WEAPONS, X MATERIALS HERE, CHEAP!". I guess to me in the end I don't see how this is different from an AH other than being more confusing. If I have new stuff to sell I'm going to check the sellers around me for their prices and ALWAYS undercut them. It's like the game makes the browsing so tedious that it's trying to make me NOT want to check someone else's prices and just blindly throw shit up. I honestly do not understand the problem with auction houses. They're as community controlled as this will ever be. If something is too expensive, people won't buy it. If it's too cheap people will buy it out instantly. Auction Houses let you monitor prices and place items at going rates. This system won't change inflation or idiots selling items for 80x their worth.
Thank you Klizzy,
I just want people to read this thread befroe they buy the game, so they don't end up wasting money and being disappointed like I did.
I'm not trying to be a troll to the game i just want people to realize exactly what this game is, eeriely quiet chat, devoid of a market that is passable for AAA MMO, community required for crafting and gear, no community required for adventuring, in a nutshell. Oh yah, pretty graphics.
Not defending the game as i honestly don't like it, but you have to understand FF runs differently when it comes to chat. Most players especially the JP community that played XI, consider it rude to just start talking in general chat about nonsense. Shouting "lfg" was rare, and most groups formed by placing comments that showed up next to your name in search. Everything is done at a personal level in /tells. I'm sure it'll change when everyone begins to congregate in one main city later on.
Again, I understand that as I played FFXI, I was merely trying to show jamesd129 that if he was looking for an MMO that would "force" him to communicate and play with a community while soloing, FFXIV would not be his best bet.
He said something about how he notices too often when he solos he does not chat or engage the community