You'll have to blame whiners from the earlier beta phases for the somewhat ez-mode gameplay. I played on phase 3, and I'd have to say that the pre-20 content was a LOT more challenging, specifically the lvl 15 storyline quest and lvl 15 class quests. The lvl 15 storyline quest can easily kill you many times over if you're not paying attention, or using your character to the utmost.
There were too many people posting on the forums that the content was too hard tho, that something that hard shouldn't be on the early portion of the game, and most especially shouldn't be something that blocks storyline progress. A shame really ... That kind of challenging content made me look forward to what else I can expect moving forwards. What we have now is a pale anemic version of what was available then.
this 1000 times this. I actually quite afraid that SE will keep listening to those said players and dumb the end game down too. I also remember previous phases that while still easy, required more attention then this. a monster hit me for 8 dmg? seriously!.
Originally posted by obsolete5 hopefully they re-up the difficulty again. ive always thought listening to comments from players is a deadly sin for developers. im around level 18 and everything including the guildleves were super easy mode so far.
Originally posted by striderbob I feel it might have been made easier as well. Or it felt easier cause we knew what we were doing. I know in phase 3 I died a couple times but this go around I didn't die once. The dungeons also felt a lot easier.
That's a shame. It's not surprising, but it's a shame. Developers need to learn to stop listening to forum whiners, who are such a small minority, as we all know.
Too many games are completely removing any challenge because of whiners from the "I want it now" generation.
Developers really need to just stop listening to their fans. If they want people's opinions they should do in-game polls, etc.
The road to ruination lies through your "friends."
Phase 4 demonstrated that there are significant concerns related to server and data stability. Error #3102 benched nearly 20% of the game's population from being able to play the entire final weekend of beta, and was complimented further by Error #90000 and Error #1017
You mean all the problems caused by the fact that way way more people wanted to play the game than SE expected? I don't think I would really call that a problem. How could SE have predicted record breaking congestion? Why would anyone predict that? Really, i mean you realize this is the remake to 1.0, right? Besides, many successful games have had worse stability problems at RELEASE.
These issues will likely be resolved by next weekend (thanks to this weekend). Its also likely that the servers will be less congested anyway, considering it will only be people who own or have owned the game.
You make it sound like there is a possibility the game will broken at release, when in reality it is one of the cleanest games I've ever tested. In reality, the beta was simply far more successful than SE could possibly have predicted.
So before you go on with your "grave concerns", you should try reading between the lines.
Also the tutorial technically ends at level 1. There is literally dialog that says "This marks the end of the tutorial, enjoy your time in Eorzea", right before they dump you in with the general population. After that you can just turn off the tooltips and play the story.
The next 15 levels (not 20), are spent playing through the first story arc. At 15 you can get your airship pass and visit the other cities, and the game opens up even further. I guess this is a "tutorial" if you couldn't care less about the story. But if thats the case you should just play a game that puts no effort into storytelling, as in, not an rpg.
On a side note, I had a full hotbar of abilites by 17 arcanist. Not 2 actions. A full bar...i had to leave stuff off. You can even have 3 cross class abilites by 15. At 50, you have 27 actions. (17 base and 10 cross-class without an advanced job -- or -- 17 base, 5 cross-class, and 5 job actions with an advanced job) as well as all of your passive traits, as well as a companion that has its own set of abilites.
How many actions do you need to have to consider your play to be complex? 40? 50? 60+?
Your thread starts with several appeals to authority, and even makes a few valid points. But you are not as well informed as you are trying to convince everyone that you are.
Phase 4 demonstrated that there are significant concerns related to server and data stability. Error #3102 benched nearly 20% of the game's population from being able to play the entire final weekend of beta, and was complimented further by Error #90000 and Error #1017
You mean all the problems caused by the fact that way way more people wanted to play the game than SE expected? I don't think I would really call that a problem. How could SE have predicted record breaking congestion? Why would anyone predict that? Really, i mean you realize this is the remake to 1.0, right? Besides, many successful games have had worse stability problems at RELEASE.
These issues will likely be resolved by next weekend (thanks to this weekend). Its also likely that the servers will be less congested anyway, considering it will only be people who own or have owned the game.
You make it sound like there is a possibility the game will broken at release, when in reality it is one of the cleanest games I've ever tested. In reality, the beta was simply far more successful than SE could possibly have predicted.
So before you go on with your "grave concerns", you should try reading between the lines.
Also the tutorial technically ends at level 1. There is literally dialog that says "This marks the end of the tutorial, enjoy your time in Eorzea", right before they dump you in with the general population. After that you can just turn off the tooltips and play the story.
The next 15 levels (not 20), are spent playing through the first story arc. At 15 you can get your airship pass and visit the other cities, and the game opens up even further. I guess this is a "tutorial" if you couldn't care less about the story. But if thats the case you should just play a game that puts no effort into storytelling, as in, not an rpg.
On a side note, I had a full hotbar of abilites by 17 arcanist. Not 2 actions. A full bar...i had to leave stuff off. You can even have 3 cross class abilites by 15. At 50, you have 27 actions. (17 base and 10 cross-class without an advanced job -- or -- 17 base, 5 cross-class, and 5 job actions with an advanced job) as well as all of your passive traits, as well as a companion that has its own set of abilites.
How many actions do you need to have to consider your play to be complex? 40? 50? 60+?
Your thread starts with several appeals to authority, and even makes a few valid points. But you are not as well informed as you are trying to convince everyone that you are.
I normally try to avoid throwing the term "asshat" around, but that's plainly what you are.
The server didn't fail from being "overly successful beta"; it failed from a server outage, and anyone who zoned/was zoning during those times was locked in limbo indefinitely. So don't try to spin it like that, because it's ridiculously misleading. Not only did it cause a problem, it wasn't resolved for nearly the duration of the entire beta weekend, and some of the people who DID have their characters fixed relapsed right back into #3102 a few hours later. Please don't try to downplay an issue solely because your a fan of the game; that was the same type of garbage that led to FFXIV 1.0 being the total sack of garbage that it was. Rampant, rabid fanboy denial of all the issues. It's even more ridiculous that you chose to ignore the part about no fix being implemented during beta, hence it will be implemented for release on a first-time basis.Hence, the game will legitimately be running release on a hotfix that may or may not fix the problem in the first place.
The rest of your post just demonstrates your condescending nature. There's a reason everyone else agreed on the game being in tutorial mode for 20 levels. I'm sorry it's not named Beginner's Tutorial 101 for you, but that's what it is. And as for your 17 abilities, I have around 9 on my Arc. How many are you realistically using all the time? 3? 4? Yes, there may be MANY more skills, but you aren't using them on a per-fight basis, so please don't try to mislead potential new players into thinking you're going to be micro-managing complex macros in order to fight each mod. You're not. You're going to be pressing 1 -> 2 ->3 for the first 20 levels.
Your post didn't contribute anything, other than venom and misinformation, and served as a grave reminder of why I didn't ever want to play on the legacy servers. People who thought this game was perfect the way it was can stay there. I'll take 2.0
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Phase 4 demonstrated that there are significant concerns related to server and data stability. Error #3102 benched nearly 20% of the game's population from being able to play the entire final weekend of beta, and was complimented further by Error #90000 and Error #1017
You mean all the problems caused by the fact that way way more people wanted to play the game than SE expected? I don't think I would really call that a problem. How could SE have predicted record breaking congestion? Why would anyone predict that? Really, i mean you realize this is the remake to 1.0, right? Besides, many successful games have had worse stability problems at RELEASE.
These issues will likely be resolved by next weekend (thanks to this weekend). Its also likely that the servers will be less congested anyway, considering it will only be people who own or have owned the game.
You make it sound like there is a possibility the game will broken at release, when in reality it is one of the cleanest games I've ever tested. In reality, the beta was simply far more successful than SE could possibly have predicted.
So before you go on with your "grave concerns", you should try reading between the lines.
Also the tutorial technically ends at level 1. There is literally dialog that says "This marks the end of the tutorial, enjoy your time in Eorzea", right before they dump you in with the general population. After that you can just turn off the tooltips and play the story.
The next 15 levels (not 20), are spent playing through the first story arc. At 15 you can get your airship pass and visit the other cities, and the game opens up even further. I guess this is a "tutorial" if you couldn't care less about the story. But if thats the case you should just play a game that puts no effort into storytelling, as in, not an rpg.
On a side note, I had a full hotbar of abilites by 17 arcanist. Not 2 actions. A full bar...i had to leave stuff off. You can even have 3 cross class abilites by 15. At 50, you have 27 actions. (17 base and 10 cross-class without an advanced job -- or -- 17 base, 5 cross-class, and 5 job actions with an advanced job) as well as all of your passive traits, as well as a companion that has its own set of abilites.
How many actions do you need to have to consider your play to be complex? 40? 50? 60+?
Your thread starts with several appeals to authority, and even makes a few valid points. But you are not as well informed as you are trying to convince everyone that you are.
I normally try to avoid throwing the term "asshat" around, but that's plainly what you are.
The server didn't fail from being "overly successful beta"; it failed from a server outage, and anyone who zoned/was zoning during those times was locked in limbo indefinitely. So don't try to spin it like that, because it's ridiculously misleading. Not only did it cause a problem, it wasn't resolved for nearly the duration of the entire beta weekend, and some of the people who DID have their characters fixed relapsed right back into #3102 a few hours later. Please don't try to downplay an issue solely because your a fan of the game; that was the same type of garbage that led to FFXIV 1.0 being the total sack of garbage that it was. Rampant, rabid fanboy denial of all the issues. It's even more ridiculous that you chose to ignore the part about no fix being implemented during beta, hence it will be implemented for release on a first-time basis.Hence, the game will legitimately be running release on a hotfix that may or may not fix the problem in the first place.
The rest of your post just demonstrates your condescending nature. There's a reason everyone else agreed on the game being in tutorial mode for 20 levels. I'm sorry it's not named Beginner's Tutorial 101 for you, but that's what it is. And as for your 17 abilities, I have around 9 on my Arc. How many are you realistically using all the time? 3? 4? Yes, there may be MANY more skills, but you aren't using them on a per-fight basis, so please don't try to mislead potential new players into thinking you're going to be micro-managing complex macros in order to fight each mod. You're not. You're going to be pressing 1 -> 2 ->3 for the first 20 levels.
Your post didn't contribute anything, other than venom and misinformation, and served as a grave reminder of why I didn't ever want to play on the legacy servers. People who thought this game was perfect the way it was can stay there. I'll take 2.0
The guy has a point, yours is much weaker. The whole point of an Open Beta is to slam the server with a sledgehammer. I think it's fair to say we achieved that (and then some). Whether or not they fix it within a 2 day beta is largely besides the point. I doubt most people could diagnose, debug, re-compile, local test, and build a patch in that time frame. The real test is at release, whether you like it or not. I personally didn't have any problems, the client and the server ran like a charm. I had a lot of fun and I feel sorry for those that got mired in the ridiculousness. However, our fun wasn't the primary purpose of the beta. I feel like you are way to used to F2P games that put games in OB indefinitely. That's not how it's traditionally used.
I think it's fair to reserve judgment for release. It shows that they can quickly patch up an issue and if they can't, they should at least acknowledge it and delay release. I think both would be positive signs for the game. What would be unacceptable is if the issue persists post-release. Then I think you can rail against them.
While the other post was condescending, so was yours. Take a step back, breathe, and think about what SE had us there to do. Breaking the game was part of the process.
Im very pleased with the game, as a long standing fan of FFXIV since long before 1.0 release its all come down to a couple of days, they wont pass-by fast enough!!
Yes, I get that. Note that it was mentioned as a cautionary tale: to some people, the way the weekend was handled can be a make-or-break situation for them.
However, what I wasn't going to stand for was blatant misinformation. "A massive bug that crippled over 10% of the game's population and kept them from ever setting foot in Eorzea throughout the entirety of the beta test" is something that needs to be noted. Twisting that into "The game was so successful that the servers stopped working" on the other hand was totally inaccurate, as the servers were up almost the entire time The same part went for the skills and abilities. You may have 20 abilities, but you won't be using all of those abilities... you won't be using even half of them in many situations.
My second post was a bit venomous, and for that I apologize. I do, however, have limited patience when it comes to fans spreading misinformation. I saw it entirely too much before this game was released years ago, and it led to a low quality product and an alienated fanbase... and I don't want to set unreal expectations for new people, or allow that voice of no reason to overtake simple logic.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Without knowing any details on the matter my assumption was the same as notrobertfrost that since phases 1-3 were flawless it had to be due to congestion and that launch will be fine, but he didn't have to spit it at you like that.
Funny thing about that diagram is most of the stuff claiming to be 'new' is actually redundant. (i.e. 'new' hunting logs so you can now grind whole new monsters!). The game does open up at higher lvls, but it's not nearly as drastic as that diagram suggests. Furthermore, a lot of those features didn't even exist in beta. People are just assuming they'll be there, because SE has said so.
That's not entirely true. It was the same error code, but a completely different situation. It's been a running misconception the whole weekend. #3102 form 2010's FFXIV =/= #3102 from this past weekend
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Phase 4 demonstrated that there are significant concerns related to server and data stability. Error #3102 benched nearly 20% of the game's population from being able to play the entire final weekend of beta, and was complimented further by Error #90000 and Error #1017
You mean all the problems caused by the fact that way way more people wanted to play the game than SE expected? I don't think I would really call that a problem. How could SE have predicted record breaking congestion? Why would anyone predict that? Really, i mean you realize this is the remake to 1.0, right? Besides, many successful games have had worse stability problems at RELEASE.
These issues will likely be resolved by next weekend (thanks to this weekend). Its also likely that the servers will be less congested anyway, considering it will only be people who own or have owned the game.
You make it sound like there is a possibility the game will broken at release, when in reality it is one of the cleanest games I've ever tested. In reality, the beta was simply far more successful than SE could possibly have predicted.
So before you go on with your "grave concerns", you should try reading between the lines.
Also the tutorial technically ends at level 1. There is literally dialog that says "This marks the end of the tutorial, enjoy your time in Eorzea", right before they dump you in with the general population. After that you can just turn off the tooltips and play the story.
The next 15 levels (not 20), are spent playing through the first story arc. At 15 you can get your airship pass and visit the other cities, and the game opens up even further. I guess this is a "tutorial" if you couldn't care less about the story. But if thats the case you should just play a game that puts no effort into storytelling, as in, not an rpg.
On a side note, I had a full hotbar of abilites by 17 arcanist. Not 2 actions. A full bar...i had to leave stuff off. You can even have 3 cross class abilites by 15. At 50, you have 27 actions. (17 base and 10 cross-class without an advanced job -- or -- 17 base, 5 cross-class, and 5 job actions with an advanced job) as well as all of your passive traits, as well as a companion that has its own set of abilites.
How many actions do you need to have to consider your play to be complex? 40? 50? 60+?
Your thread starts with several appeals to authority, and even makes a few valid points. But you are not as well informed as you are trying to convince everyone that you are.
I normally try to avoid throwing the term "asshat" around, but that's plainly what you are.
The server didn't fail from being "overly successful beta"; it failed from a server outage, and anyone who zoned/was zoning during those times was locked in limbo indefinitely. So don't try to spin it like that, because it's ridiculously misleading. Not only did it cause a problem, it wasn't resolved for nearly the duration of the entire beta weekend, and some of the people who DID have their characters fixed relapsed right back into #3102 a few hours later. Please don't try to downplay an issue solely because your a fan of the game; that was the same type of garbage that led to FFXIV 1.0 being the total sack of garbage that it was. Rampant, rabid fanboy denial of all the issues. It's even more ridiculous that you chose to ignore the part about no fix being implemented during beta, hence it will be implemented for release on a first-time basis.Hence, the game will legitimately be running release on a hotfix that may or may not fix the problem in the first place.
The rest of your post just demonstrates your condescending nature. There's a reason everyone else agreed on the game being in tutorial mode for 20 levels. I'm sorry it's not named Beginner's Tutorial 101 for you, but that's what it is. And as for your 17 abilities, I have around 9 on my Arc. How many are you realistically using all the time? 3? 4? Yes, there may be MANY more skills, but you aren't using them on a per-fight basis, so please don't try to mislead potential new players into thinking you're going to be micro-managing complex macros in order to fight each mod. You're not. You're going to be pressing 1 -> 2 ->3 for the first 20 levels.
Your post didn't contribute anything, other than venom and misinformation, and served as a grave reminder of why I didn't ever want to play on the legacy servers. People who thought this game was perfect the way it was can stay there. I'll take 2.0
Whoa now. Sorry I hadn't eaten before maybe I was cranky. Look. I agree with some of your main points. But much of it really is just a matter of perspective. Is the game trying to break the mold? no. But to say there are no innovations at all is misleading.
I also agree that 1.0 sucked, and that the revamp is a way more playable game. But to compare it to 1.0 doesn't exactly do it justice. It is fun to play. Compared to any mmo offering out there.
Also, it's tab target, and that is not going to change. If you want something more action oriented, this isn't it. But people who want a more classic playstyle will enjoy it. There are more of those players than you think. Will the combat evolve? Yes, it's given. Every mmo evolves its combat system over time. I've never played an mmo that didn't make sweeping changes to combat and balance at the first major patch. The first patch is slated for november.
I also enjoyed the difficulty ramp in beta 3. I was sad to see the level 15 story fight nerfed. But I have been playing games like this for 25 years. Its a fact that newer gamers do not expect such difficulty at low levels of a game. And it is possible that some players who are totally new to mmos or even rpgs don't even know what to expect from level 15.
But its really not a tutorial. The tutorial is the first 5 minutes. Where they teach you how to use the controls and talk to npc's. After that the rest of teaching you how to get around, play your class, learn your party role, and the various non combat things to do, are seamlessly weaved in with learning the lore in your starting area, introducing the main characters, and introducing several antagonists and conflicts. You could think of it as a tutorial, and be mad, or you could just think of it as playing the game. Kind of like how movies spend the first 15 minutes introducing characters and setting, and then move on to conflict and rising action. Storytelling 101. If you disagree with the design choice, that's fine. But ff games always emphasize storytelling over other things. Nature of the beast. You said EVERYONE thought it was a tutorial. Or maybe it was just a vocal minority, and you are making a generalization.
Now as for job complexity. You are using perhaps the most simple class in the game as an example of how simple the gameplay is. Some classes are more complex than others. Archer is good example of an easy job for a beginner. Arcanist is much more complex, and fit for someone with more advanced skill. What SE should probably do is make some kind indicator to the difficulty level of a particular class at he beginning of the game, so people know what they are getting into. Spamming the same skill over and over? You're doing it wrong. Your future parties will appreciate you learning how to play your job the right way. Too easy for that? So decent players can steamroll low level trash mobs, so what. Except people still die when they stop paying attention all the time. If you are a good player you will figure out the best way to play your role, regardless of whether the game forces you or not. I can't think of any games that give you 20+ useful abilities 10% into the game. And thats about what level 20 is. Level 39-40 is about half way to the cap exp wise.
Oh and error 3102, which i had for almost 24 hours, effected a lot of people. Probably nearly 20k. Was it a problem? Sure, but at the time it was not as important as the 100k people waiting to play because they simply didn't have enough space to accommodate everyone. They opened 6 new servers during the test. They also fixed 3102 sunday night, and extended the NA beta by 6 hours to make sure it was fixed. No need to mention those things though, because they don't support your chicken little theory.
I didn't play 1.0 that much. I payed the $30 to get legacy because I appreciated SE's move to apologize for 1.0 and rebuild the game. It's a rare thing for any corporation to do. I rewarded their positive gesture with my own. I don't expect you to understand and I don't care.
You can halt with the character assassination. I only posted in your thread because I disagreed with some points, but I didn't think you were a troll. I wouldn't post in a troll thread, and I apologize if I came off that way. We simply disagree on some points. You are welcome to disagree with whatever design choices you like. But you can't call the game broken, because it is not. You didn't exactly write an unbiased report of the game. You claimed neutrality, and then wrote a persuasion piece, trying to convince people not to play the game.
At no point did I say people shouldn't play the game. On the contrary, I listed my server and even said to message me if they were interested in the long haul, as I already pre-ordered the game.
And as I said, the #3102 bug was fixed. Kind of. Except for the part where people relapsed and still didn't get to play. A concrete solution has not been completed yet. It's like a band-aid solution; it'll work for the time being, but a more in-depth fix is required.
I also didn't say there wasn't any innovation, but rather, there wasn't much. I'd say if you played any MMO's in the past 5 years, you've seen what FF14 has to offer (presently). Can that change? Absolutely, but as it stands, there's not a lot there (barring the crafting system, which borrows from EQ2)
Lastly, when it came to leveling, I was referring from 1-20, in which I stand by my statement that you won't be using many skills. That does change later on (which I mentioned in a different thread), but for the early game purposes, i.e. "tutorial mode", 1->2->3 is legit the extent of most of the classes.
I encourage you to re-read all my posts.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
At no point did I say people shouldn't play the game. On the contrary, I listed my server and even said to message me if they were interested in the long haul, as I already pre-ordered the game.
And as I said, the #3102 bug was fixed. Kind of. Except for the part where people relapsed and still didn't get to play. A concrete solution has not been completed yet. It's like a band-aid solution; it'll work for the time being, but a more in-depth fix is required.
I also didn't say there wasn't any innovation, but rather, there wasn't much. I'd say if you played any MMO's in the past 5 years, you've seen what FF14 has to offer (presently). Can that change? Absolutely, but as it stands, there's not a lot there (barring the crafting system, which borrows from EQ2)
Lastly, when it came to leveling, I was referring from 1-20, in which I stand by my statement that you won't be using many skills. That does change later on (which I mentioned in a different thread), but for the early game purposes, i.e. "tutorial mode", 1->2->3 is legit the extent of most of the classes.
I encourage you to re-read all my posts.
To your last point about skills, I think that was the class. I was a 20/13 arcanist/conjurer and I had a bunch of spells. Off the top of my head:
1 Cast DoT
2 Instant DoT
Protect
Revive
2 Cast Spikes
2 Heals
2 Summons
2 Heals
1 Pet Heal
3 Pet Skills
In the course of normal play, I'd focus primarily on my 5 attack skills (mostly DoTs), one of the heals (they were actually the same exact spell - don't get that design choice). It was far from being 1-2-3 at least for my choice of class. A lot of stuff I listed was setup/buffs.
It's a little concerning that it may get out of hand as we get more cross class action (think scholar borrowing from arcanist and conjurer). Keep in mind that by my level I had 4 additional skills from cross-class conjurer, of which I could pick three to add to my arcanist. I'm quite sure that this will get much more robust.
Comments
That's a shame. It's not surprising, but it's a shame. Developers need to learn to stop listening to forum whiners, who are such a small minority, as we all know.
Too many games are completely removing any challenge because of whiners from the "I want it now" generation.
Developers really need to just stop listening to their fans. If they want people's opinions they should do in-game polls, etc.
The road to ruination lies through your "friends."
Very good post Cy, I am glad to know people like you will be playing in my community!
On another note my final thought was "Connection lost!!! No! Now I have to wait 5 days to continue playing!!"
Someone posted a pretty good image that explains a bit. http://eorzeareborn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Game-systems-by-level1.jpg
Phase 4 demonstrated that there are significant concerns related to server and data stability. Error #3102 benched nearly 20% of the game's population from being able to play the entire final weekend of beta, and was complimented further by Error #90000 and Error #1017
You mean all the problems caused by the fact that way way more people wanted to play the game than SE expected? I don't think I would really call that a problem. How could SE have predicted record breaking congestion? Why would anyone predict that? Really, i mean you realize this is the remake to 1.0, right? Besides, many successful games have had worse stability problems at RELEASE.
These issues will likely be resolved by next weekend (thanks to this weekend). Its also likely that the servers will be less congested anyway, considering it will only be people who own or have owned the game.
You make it sound like there is a possibility the game will broken at release, when in reality it is one of the cleanest games I've ever tested. In reality, the beta was simply far more successful than SE could possibly have predicted.
So before you go on with your "grave concerns", you should try reading between the lines.
Also the tutorial technically ends at level 1. There is literally dialog that says "This marks the end of the tutorial, enjoy your time in Eorzea", right before they dump you in with the general population. After that you can just turn off the tooltips and play the story.
The next 15 levels (not 20), are spent playing through the first story arc. At 15 you can get your airship pass and visit the other cities, and the game opens up even further. I guess this is a "tutorial" if you couldn't care less about the story. But if thats the case you should just play a game that puts no effort into storytelling, as in, not an rpg.
On a side note, I had a full hotbar of abilites by 17 arcanist. Not 2 actions. A full bar...i had to leave stuff off. You can even have 3 cross class abilites by 15. At 50, you have 27 actions. (17 base and 10 cross-class without an advanced job -- or -- 17 base, 5 cross-class, and 5 job actions with an advanced job) as well as all of your passive traits, as well as a companion that has its own set of abilites.
How many actions do you need to have to consider your play to be complex? 40? 50? 60+?
Your thread starts with several appeals to authority, and even makes a few valid points. But you are not as well informed as you are trying to convince everyone that you are.
I normally try to avoid throwing the term "asshat" around, but that's plainly what you are.
The server didn't fail from being "overly successful beta"; it failed from a server outage, and anyone who zoned/was zoning during those times was locked in limbo indefinitely. So don't try to spin it like that, because it's ridiculously misleading. Not only did it cause a problem, it wasn't resolved for nearly the duration of the entire beta weekend, and some of the people who DID have their characters fixed relapsed right back into #3102 a few hours later. Please don't try to downplay an issue solely because your a fan of the game; that was the same type of garbage that led to FFXIV 1.0 being the total sack of garbage that it was. Rampant, rabid fanboy denial of all the issues. It's even more ridiculous that you chose to ignore the part about no fix being implemented during beta, hence it will be implemented for release on a first-time basis.Hence, the game will legitimately be running release on a hotfix that may or may not fix the problem in the first place.
The rest of your post just demonstrates your condescending nature. There's a reason everyone else agreed on the game being in tutorial mode for 20 levels. I'm sorry it's not named Beginner's Tutorial 101 for you, but that's what it is. And as for your 17 abilities, I have around 9 on my Arc. How many are you realistically using all the time? 3? 4? Yes, there may be MANY more skills, but you aren't using them on a per-fight basis, so please don't try to mislead potential new players into thinking you're going to be micro-managing complex macros in order to fight each mod. You're not. You're going to be pressing 1 -> 2 ->3 for the first 20 levels.
Your post didn't contribute anything, other than venom and misinformation, and served as a grave reminder of why I didn't ever want to play on the legacy servers. People who thought this game was perfect the way it was can stay there. I'll take 2.0
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
The guy has a point, yours is much weaker. The whole point of an Open Beta is to slam the server with a sledgehammer. I think it's fair to say we achieved that (and then some). Whether or not they fix it within a 2 day beta is largely besides the point. I doubt most people could diagnose, debug, re-compile, local test, and build a patch in that time frame. The real test is at release, whether you like it or not. I personally didn't have any problems, the client and the server ran like a charm. I had a lot of fun and I feel sorry for those that got mired in the ridiculousness. However, our fun wasn't the primary purpose of the beta. I feel like you are way to used to F2P games that put games in OB indefinitely. That's not how it's traditionally used.
I think it's fair to reserve judgment for release. It shows that they can quickly patch up an issue and if they can't, they should at least acknowledge it and delay release. I think both would be positive signs for the game. What would be unacceptable is if the issue persists post-release. Then I think you can rail against them.
While the other post was condescending, so was yours. Take a step back, breathe, and think about what SE had us there to do. Breaking the game was part of the process.
I am not happy at all that wildstar is going to ask a subscription fee
but ill rather pay for wildstar than FFXIV.
Yes, I get that. Note that it was mentioned as a cautionary tale: to some people, the way the weekend was handled can be a make-or-break situation for them.
However, what I wasn't going to stand for was blatant misinformation. "A massive bug that crippled over 10% of the game's population and kept them from ever setting foot in Eorzea throughout the entirety of the beta test" is something that needs to be noted. Twisting that into "The game was so successful that the servers stopped working" on the other hand was totally inaccurate, as the servers were up almost the entire time The same part went for the skills and abilities. You may have 20 abilities, but you won't be using all of those abilities... you won't be using even half of them in many situations.
My second post was a bit venomous, and for that I apologize. I do, however, have limited patience when it comes to fans spreading misinformation. I saw it entirely too much before this game was released years ago, and it led to a low quality product and an alienated fanbase... and I don't want to set unreal expectations for new people, or allow that voice of no reason to overtake simple logic.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Great post Cymdai.
Without knowing any details on the matter my assumption was the same as notrobertfrost that since phases 1-3 were flawless it had to be due to congestion and that launch will be fine, but he didn't have to spit it at you like that.
What are you doing here then?
Error 3102 existed back in 2010.
That is all I needed to know about the game.
Funny thing about that diagram is most of the stuff claiming to be 'new' is actually redundant. (i.e. 'new' hunting logs so you can now grind whole new monsters!). The game does open up at higher lvls, but it's not nearly as drastic as that diagram suggests. Furthermore, a lot of those features didn't even exist in beta. People are just assuming they'll be there, because SE has said so.
That's not entirely true. It was the same error code, but a completely different situation. It's been a running misconception the whole weekend. #3102 form 2010's FFXIV =/= #3102 from this past weekend
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Whoa now. Sorry I hadn't eaten before maybe I was cranky. Look. I agree with some of your main points. But much of it really is just a matter of perspective. Is the game trying to break the mold? no. But to say there are no innovations at all is misleading.
I also agree that 1.0 sucked, and that the revamp is a way more playable game. But to compare it to 1.0 doesn't exactly do it justice. It is fun to play. Compared to any mmo offering out there.
Also, it's tab target, and that is not going to change. If you want something more action oriented, this isn't it. But people who want a more classic playstyle will enjoy it. There are more of those players than you think. Will the combat evolve? Yes, it's given. Every mmo evolves its combat system over time. I've never played an mmo that didn't make sweeping changes to combat and balance at the first major patch. The first patch is slated for november.
I also enjoyed the difficulty ramp in beta 3. I was sad to see the level 15 story fight nerfed. But I have been playing games like this for 25 years. Its a fact that newer gamers do not expect such difficulty at low levels of a game. And it is possible that some players who are totally new to mmos or even rpgs don't even know what to expect from level 15.
But its really not a tutorial. The tutorial is the first 5 minutes. Where they teach you how to use the controls and talk to npc's. After that the rest of teaching you how to get around, play your class, learn your party role, and the various non combat things to do, are seamlessly weaved in with learning the lore in your starting area, introducing the main characters, and introducing several antagonists and conflicts. You could think of it as a tutorial, and be mad, or you could just think of it as playing the game. Kind of like how movies spend the first 15 minutes introducing characters and setting, and then move on to conflict and rising action. Storytelling 101. If you disagree with the design choice, that's fine. But ff games always emphasize storytelling over other things. Nature of the beast. You said EVERYONE thought it was a tutorial. Or maybe it was just a vocal minority, and you are making a generalization.
Now as for job complexity. You are using perhaps the most simple class in the game as an example of how simple the gameplay is. Some classes are more complex than others. Archer is good example of an easy job for a beginner. Arcanist is much more complex, and fit for someone with more advanced skill. What SE should probably do is make some kind indicator to the difficulty level of a particular class at he beginning of the game, so people know what they are getting into. Spamming the same skill over and over? You're doing it wrong. Your future parties will appreciate you learning how to play your job the right way. Too easy for that? So decent players can steamroll low level trash mobs, so what. Except people still die when they stop paying attention all the time. If you are a good player you will figure out the best way to play your role, regardless of whether the game forces you or not. I can't think of any games that give you 20+ useful abilities 10% into the game. And thats about what level 20 is. Level 39-40 is about half way to the cap exp wise.
Oh and error 3102, which i had for almost 24 hours, effected a lot of people. Probably nearly 20k. Was it a problem? Sure, but at the time it was not as important as the 100k people waiting to play because they simply didn't have enough space to accommodate everyone. They opened 6 new servers during the test. They also fixed 3102 sunday night, and extended the NA beta by 6 hours to make sure it was fixed. No need to mention those things though, because they don't support your chicken little theory.
I didn't play 1.0 that much. I payed the $30 to get legacy because I appreciated SE's move to apologize for 1.0 and rebuild the game. It's a rare thing for any corporation to do. I rewarded their positive gesture with my own. I don't expect you to understand and I don't care.
You can halt with the character assassination. I only posted in your thread because I disagreed with some points, but I didn't think you were a troll. I wouldn't post in a troll thread, and I apologize if I came off that way. We simply disagree on some points. You are welcome to disagree with whatever design choices you like. But you can't call the game broken, because it is not. You didn't exactly write an unbiased report of the game. You claimed neutrality, and then wrote a persuasion piece, trying to convince people not to play the game.
At no point did I say people shouldn't play the game. On the contrary, I listed my server and even said to message me if they were interested in the long haul, as I already pre-ordered the game.
And as I said, the #3102 bug was fixed. Kind of. Except for the part where people relapsed and still didn't get to play. A concrete solution has not been completed yet. It's like a band-aid solution; it'll work for the time being, but a more in-depth fix is required.
I also didn't say there wasn't any innovation, but rather, there wasn't much. I'd say if you played any MMO's in the past 5 years, you've seen what FF14 has to offer (presently). Can that change? Absolutely, but as it stands, there's not a lot there (barring the crafting system, which borrows from EQ2)
Lastly, when it came to leveling, I was referring from 1-20, in which I stand by my statement that you won't be using many skills. That does change later on (which I mentioned in a different thread), but for the early game purposes, i.e. "tutorial mode", 1->2->3 is legit the extent of most of the classes.
I encourage you to re-read all my posts.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
To your last point about skills, I think that was the class. I was a 20/13 arcanist/conjurer and I had a bunch of spells. Off the top of my head:
1 Cast DoT
2 Instant DoT
Protect
Revive
2 Cast Spikes
2 Heals
2 Summons
2 Heals
1 Pet Heal
3 Pet Skills
In the course of normal play, I'd focus primarily on my 5 attack skills (mostly DoTs), one of the heals (they were actually the same exact spell - don't get that design choice). It was far from being 1-2-3 at least for my choice of class. A lot of stuff I listed was setup/buffs.
It's a little concerning that it may get out of hand as we get more cross class action (think scholar borrowing from arcanist and conjurer). Keep in mind that by my level I had 4 additional skills from cross-class conjurer, of which I could pick three to add to my arcanist. I'm quite sure that this will get much more robust.