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The new camp and grind
Voqar
Member UncommonPosts: 510
So fates. Are all very generic and could not be any easier. Kill, collect, move with the zerg, do enough damage to get credit, repeat. Boring. Simple. Boring. Zero tactics. Zero strategy. Zero grouping - just zerg on. A soloists wet dream - easy xp without lifting a finger.
In the old days of MMORPGs we had camp and grind. It was pretty miserable. But back then you couldn't solo - it would take you years to cap solo because the xp was so poor. You had to group. You camped somewhere and pulled mobs. Repeat a billion times and months later you were at the level cap. Not that sophisticated. But you did have to group. And in order to group, you had to NOT be a dick, because nobody except other dicks wants to group with dicks. You had to know how to play somewhat, because most sane people don't want to group with morons either. Since you were grouped all the time and weren't served xp on a platter you would sometimes socialize while grouping. You met people. You chatted in group (vs spewing idiocy in public chat). Community happened. You saw the same people regularly. You formed bonds. You experienced things together.
Now. We have a new kind of camp and grind. Fates are great xp, decent money, and most importantly, seals. So now people either sort of group up and migrate from fate to fate, or, people just pick a spot in the middle of an area and everybody just sits there. Staring. Maybe chatting in guild or something. Watching the map. Waiting for the next fate to spawn. BOOM, POP, OMG it's been TWO FUCKING MINUTES AND A FATE FINALLY SPAWNED - ALERT THE ZERGLINGS! So the locust horde moves to the fate, mows it down with zero strat, zero tactics, zero threat to anybody except the low level leaches who deserve to die repeatedly anyways, and..repeat. No social element. No real group. No threat. Just piles of xp and loot for doing the most mindless and mindlessly easy task to ever exist in an MMORPG. Well, delivering X to an NPC 10 feet away is easier, but only barely.
It's a joke. It's the solo ez-moders wildest wet dreams. It's being handed the world on a platter just for showing up. And it is so incredibly boring.
The old school camp and grind was pretty routine, and you HAD to do it for weeks/months to level. But at least you met people and if you weren't on your game, you died, the group died, you lost xp (xp loss on death in those games).
In the FFXIV, this neo camp and grind is just one small sliver away from just giving players XP and loot every 5 minutes on a timer just for logging in. Fate camping is a braindead exercise in going thru the most minimal of motions every few minutes to collect xp and loot. I don't see how Yoshi the anti-stresser could make anything any more dumbed down and boring without just giving you exercise for breathing oxygen.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
Comments
Game has barely been out a week. Nobody can hardly get on when they want. And you are complaining about people wanting solo ez mode? Maybe you forgot that those old communities you loved took time to develop. Its ironic that you're expecting this from a game that is barely even accessible to the majority of us who purchased it. And I highly doubt you've experienced all of the different types of fates. Care to man up and link your character's lodestone page? Didnt think so.
OP I couldn't agree with you more. I think the Fate system is horrible (and even go as far to claim it is being exploited).
What I can't figure out is why people are joining Fate groups. Yes, the experience, loot, and seals are great, but it is terrible gameplay--it is not fun at all and takes no skill whatsoever.
I hope I won't be forced to endlessly grind Fate's to level a second class. Because if that is the case then I will be unsubscribing very quickly.
Do me a favor and unsub now. So i can have your spot
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
Some of the Fates are challenging, but if your just into the pve grind aspect i guess it would get boring as it is pretty much the same as most MMO's.
I entertain myself with the Story line, gathering and crafting...and using the market etc, those aspects i just named are far superior to every MMO that has the pve aspects you described as old, I mean what other MMOs out there atm can you enjoy? Rift is far less fun and far less content driven, Wow...just ancient and easy, TSW? Terrible game?
If you enjoy sandbox games like i do on the regular there is absolutely nothing out atm, for me playing FFXIV until the repopulation comes out is a good idea, the game runs really smooth, nice graphics, great story even if it is a throwback to the oldschool rpgs....thats a good thing imo....gaming needed an MMO with that kinda story.
I don't get all the complaints frankly, why not suggest what game you want others to flock to due to your poor opinions of this game? I mean there is nothing lol.
and then they cant do any endgame cause they suck
Can we please, please, please stop mythologizing the ancient MMO past and with equal verve denigrating its present? As much as the OP (and others) think FATEs are a joke, so was the notion of spending hours sat in one spot killing mobs for a miniscule bump of XP. I personally think FATEs need a lot of tuning to offer more challenge and better scaling but nearly every aspect of a new MMO needs fine tuning once the public gets their hands on it.
Leveling in MMOs has never reached the difficulty threshold of even the earliest arcade games and the genre has always been among the most repetitive (at least for PvE) of any gaming genre out there. I get it, forced grouping and copious downtime fosters socialization, something that dynamic content like FATEs lack. But in this era we have voice chat and expansive guild tools/forums, and Twitch and Skype and youtube and twitter and a whole slew of options for people who are really interested in socializing with their fellow gamers. We can game with people we actually want to play with rather than the dude who just happens to fill the role and level range we require. Why get hung up on a single paradigm-- and one that the OP admitted was already "pretty miserable"?
I love this site and its often crazy discussions but the more I read, the more obvious it is to me that there is a particular camp that is completely out of touch with anything post-2004. I don't mean that as a criticism, not really. My own musical tastes are about 70 years out of touch and I've made my peace with that. But just as it would be pointless for me to rail that the last good American music came out of the smokey clubs on 52nd Street in the 40s and 50s, it's equally so to argue that the genre has been dead since EQ and all the new stuff is just crap. When it comes to music, movies, gaming, and anything regarding the arts and culture, it's clear that one generation will think the next generation's stuff is inferior.
Back on topic, the game is what it is. It's a "modern" MMO set in the Final Fantasy universe with a few quirks thrown in. The old spawn camping, forced grouping, corpse running, mob training, boat sitting, druid paying, experience draining, mana waiting style of games has ridden off into the sunset. If you actually prefer that, then it sucks and FFXIV isn't for you (probably). But if you're open to doing things that aren't FATEs, you'll probably find there are still a bunch of fun ways to pass the time in-game.
(If you can get on.)
Favorite MMO: Vanilla WoW
Currently playing: GW2, EVE
Excited for: Wildstar, maybe?
What end game? Fighting Ifrrit at 50 or syncing down to re-run dungeons?
...
FF14 always will be dungeon and crafting, this is a MMORPG! I played a lot of MMORPGs and I really think your question is the same for 90% of them and some dont even have nothing besides PvP content.
I don't even like the game but, FFXI was no better.
I loved FFXI don't get me wrong, but I fell asleep in a party once and woke up the next day with 3 levels, and this was 55-58 which is a pretty long grind, that game took no skill at all to lvl in, if you had a ninja tank the entire party could just afk while he killed stuff.
Fates pretty much only way level another job if u done main quests all. sure there is levemete or what was is called but u can do 3 quests every 4-8 hour? thats not really option. Hunt log not really option either, exp not so good. dungeons? well can take time get in one and u never know what kind party it is.
normal mobs shoulf give more exp and drop offen loot.
and dungeon trash mobs should drop like 20 gil kill.
Fates exp gaining need tuned slighly down.
Game need Daily quests that scale with level, 25 daily quest max or so. or they need improve levemete quest gain to 25 quest every day.
+10, one of the best posts ive seen in regards to this matter.
Lol @ expecting robust endgame at launch.
Also, there's already an update in the works to add more endgame things to the game, not to mention content like player housing that improves EVERYONE's experience from 1-50. Pardon my lack of sympathy for someone crying for more content in a less than week-old game when the devs have already announced content on the way because they power leveled to 50 and are bored.
Unlike some trolls, i'm not going to tell you that you need to slow down....that's your choice and your problem, and now you have to deal with it. Instead I'm just going to call it what it is.
I was very excited about this game. I uninstalled it around two days ago after having killed ifrit. There were 3 things that turned me away.
1. The way the characters run, walk, and overall something about the way the characters interact with the area. I felt no reason to care about their plight, etc. I don't know Its final fantasy I guess I was expecting so much more.
2. Combat- I like the flash but there is no substance. I was a 22 or 23 conj. I had what 3 skills maybe that did damage and 2 skills that had support. There are only 50 levels. It just feels like I didn't have a lot skills. 20 levels of spamming that same skill over and over with nothing to replace it...sheesh! I wanted to actually be a healer in this game, and healing is actually quite fun and not to tiring. But it comes with a price. Just feels like I honestly feel repetitive and shallow as a class. Also I wanted to be a summoner but when I saw the summons that was a turn off as well. They should have varying degrees of summons.
3. Fates- Yes I agree. I understand grinding mind you, fates, dungeons, mobs, repeatable quests in other games. However I dislike them with a passion. I love doing quests mind you. I just hate doing the same one over and over again. I dislike fates because they just seemed to e tacked on to give you the illusion you are doing something. Instead they should be few and far between that build up like Rifts portals that have multiple steps, or in GW2 where a event quest leads to an even bigger one. They also should be a tad harder so players can get to them and affect the zone.
Right now if you stand back and look at this game most will understand this is a flavor of the month type game. Which for me is sad since I really really love FF. There just is really no substance to this MMO. It's better than Neverwinter, and GW2 but only slightly. Not better than Rift, Wow, EQ2, FF11. However I can see why people will play it as its new, etc. Some will like it and there is no problems with that.
I just want constructive dialog. Hopefully things will change a bit and become more indepth with this game. However given the track record of all developers in MMOs they rarely change from the norm. So...yeah.
Oh do keep one thing in mind. Wildstar dev spoke of going up against a game like wow, only with the content in place when their game launches with as much content as WOW has at this present moment. To me that is one of the best ideas I have heard since playing MMOs.
We are content locusts. FF14...people should not be leveled cap in any class right now. None. I say Minimum 2 weeks of grinding before you are level capped.
So I think I'll continue playing WOW and Rift until Wildstar comes out. Will try EQnext as well as ESO. However I'll keep my characters and keep updated on FF14 until a different time.
Agree with OP.
Today's mmo's doesn't have enough space for a group to actually go out and camp/grind together. They are always just a "HS/recall or what's it now called" home. Buffing isn't giving a huge boost etc..
When I read the post I remembered the Starwars Galaxies camps out in the wilderness under the nightsky, ppl playing music and dancing for buffs. This in actual player camps with tents and a fireplace. Hunting together as a group, all friendly...
I hope I'll live to see another game like that. THAT was a community...
There is a game coming out that supposed to be like SWG (sandbox) called archeage. You should register and check their facebook page.
https://www.archeagegame.com/en/register
I loved the community in SWG. That game had everything and it was fun.
Those quests are not going to give you nearly enough XP. I left all sidequests even in my main area past level 15 for my second class and never touched a quest in another area, and on my second class I had to grind fates and hunting log because the side quests just only give a small amount of XP in themselves and are done with very quickly. You will need to grind, and grind a lot, on second and subsequent classes. That is why people are grinding FATEs, by the way.
I do, this new type of gameplay bores me....this is WoW....im sorry but it is, if I wanted to play WoW I would re-subscribe....but unfortunately I played WoW for around 5-6 years and I got tired of it(AFTER 5-6 YEARS)....every new MMO bores me after 1 month. UO and EQ were my pride and joys.
The OP is 100% correct, anyone who doesn't agree never played old school MMO's and their opinions are therefore null
About "community" in these games ...
The reason why there isn't the same sense of "community" in the games is primarily due to the fact that the kind of people who play these games is now broader, more mainstream, and more diverse than it was when the genre was young (EQ, SWG, etc.). Back then, it was mostly a self-selected group of people who had fairly a lot in common in general -- early adopter computer/online techophiles who were disproportionately geeky. Sure, the mechanics forced people to cooperate, but it was easier as well because the people playing had naturally more in common.
Today, MMOs are mainstream, and people playing them have often nothing in common at all other than the fact that they play the game, and for the most part that isn't enough. Interacting with strangers on the internet is not fascinating like it was in 1999. It's old and now tedious. People stay with their real friends, and don't mix and match with strangers on the internet very much any more. That's what happened when the net went truly mainstream in the early naughts and brought the MMO games with it (with WoW and later games). So people don't want to socialize with strangers. The games are designed specifically to facilitate group play without requiring people to be social with strangers on the internet. That's why they are designed this way -- people don't want to be social with strangers on the internet.
The "old skool" community feel is not coming back. It's gone, because the nature of the playerbase is different and is more mainstream, and people do not want community in these games -- they just want fun multiplayer gameplay that doesn't require them to be social with people they don't already know.
I agree that FATEs (this game's iteration of public quests) are boring zergfests. They give far too much XP, however -- the most efficient way to XP in a game where you run out of other ways to XP for your additional classes fairly quickly. I honestly have never seen public quests done very, very well in an MMO. GW2 probably had the best system, but it's still fairly boring after a while, rather zergish, and, once the "bolus" of the playerbase moves through the content, impossible to play because of a lack of players to play them with. They're an interesting idea based on the desire to create group content that is plug and play with no social interaction required, but they're hard to make work well in a way that isn't repetitive zerging.
Like many features imported from modern MMOs in Final Fantasy XIV: ARR, fates just seem so half-assed and little thought was put into their design. Not only do they provide absolutely no challenge in a zerg since none of them require doing anything other than mass killing (even the few that do require you to stand out of red circles can easily be overcome by zerging), many people are discovering that you can keep a fate going by not turning in quest objectives and just AoE grind chain kills all day in the AoE zerg to level quickly.
They seemed to forget what made GW2's dynamic events fun for some and didn't address any of the weaknesses that were so obviously present in Warhammer and GW2 and other games with these events systems. They put in boring, generic MOBs, with nothing but kill (or kill and collect) objectives and no special mechanics to worry about. Something that should have been a fun alternative and/or diversion to leveling off normal quest hubs (which are equally a step backwards from modern MMOs, but I digress) instead becomes a boring repetitive grind.
I have someone in my community who didn't play the original 14 (you can't have a serious conversation with people who did play the original and actually enjoyed it in my opinion) and he keeps playing even though he hates the game. I wonder why. He hates the idea of grinding out fates yet he did it from 25-50 in a few days times. He's obviously not enjoying the game, yet he keeps playing it and doing the same mindless stuff over and over.
I also agree with not idolizing old school MMOs like many others on this site do. I played Everquest likely more hardcore than anyone on this site (literally had 2 years of playtime between my characters, yes that's 700+ days of actual PLAYTIME and I was an endgame raider with maxed out everything), but it's time to let go. Still, I also agree with the OP. To me FFXIV takes all the great improvements modern MMOs (that still have a long ways to go) have made over the last few years and unfortunately doesn't understand the ingredients that makes a great MMO and winds up mixing them together in some terrible vile putrid concoction. Sadly, the game is still miles better than the original 14.
One man's meat is another man's poison. If you don't like doing FATEs, then don't do them. Nobody is holding a gun to your head.
Play the game you want to play the way you want to play it. Let others do the same. Everybody will be happier for it.
IKR?
This game blew away every expectation the company had. Sure they messed up the launch with an inadequate data center, But they are getting new servers tomorrow. In the mean time, when we can get on, the servers are packed. Everywhere you go, there are people in the game it's always full. If you aren't enjoying the game, Please do everyone a favor and stop taking a slot. This game is way to popular to deal with players who don't really want to be here.
So, to the OP and all who agree with him, please, Step aside.