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I Can't Stop Playing Despite the Flaws

WizGamerWizGamer Member UncommonPosts: 403

I understand the flamers and I understand the fanboys. Here is why.

 

I look at the parts and the games does not sum up.

Combat - The combat is aggravating, mainly because the cooldown does not match the animation, especially as a DOW class, so therefore you're left spamming 1/2 until an ability comes off cooldown and your character is essentially auto-attacking for 1.5 seconds. The fix: LOWER THE DAMN GCD. The game is already so simple in the introduction, people can play with 1.5 GCD rather than 2.5. This is honestly the biggest thing that bothers me about the game. Combat just does not feel right. It's beautiful (despite the 1,000 of spell effects going off at once in dungeons you have no idea what is being cast or if anyone used the limit break until you check the bar)--but it's just not designed well. They really need to fix this, but I have a feeling they won't. Coming from every mmo ever, this has to be the clunkiest feeling combat I've experienced besides TSW. It's not organic enough.

World Design - The world is split into zones with loading screens really every couple of minutes if you are actively questing (which makes you travel everywhere) or working on crafting/levequests/etc. There is a lot of running, but it's a lot of gorgeous running. Yes, animals are still just statically mulling around in this game (not sure if that will ever change). (non-simple) FIX: Give ambient creatures a purpose in the game. Have their distributions affect gathering and resource distribution. 

Progression - The game is grindy. There are not really any PUGs like in FFXI that sat around spamming chat for groups only to find a group that they would spend the next six hours of their life with as they somehow managed to grind through 3-4 levels (seriously group XP in FFXI at one point was ridiculous--> especially if you were underleveled and tagging along). I think FATES are terribly done dynamic events from GW2. There is literally nothing more than spamming attack and trying to tag as many mobs as possible so you get credit. It is FUN, but it's so basic, and gets old quickly. It also doesn't create any community whatsoever. It also does not inhibit any community in any way, unless you count not watching your health bar and raging at X conjurer to your left for not saving your butt as community regression. They are probably saving themselves or frantically watching the cooldown for instacast Aero so they can get FATE credit on tagging new mob spawns (at least their cast animation for Stone is synced to the GCD....). Even crafting is grindy, although I've recently been buying items pre-fab and completing tradeleves for XP. This is completely unethical, but at least I'm contributing to the economy. I hate the crafting grind, so this is a nice alternative. I honestly hope there will be some non-combat activities to contribute to my overall experience. I mean mini-games or other paths of progression. I feel like FFXIV is literally all about killing things or talking about killing things with very clunky combat. Maybe I am jaded by level-progression MMORPGs in general in contrast to horizontal skill-progression MMORPGs like Mabinogi. FIX: Mask the grind. Give FATEs a twist and allow them to take over settlements or change the landscape. I thought this was a great feature of Guild Wars 2. It made you feel like a hero when you could take back a zone. 

Quests - Non-voiced, fetch, kill, rinse, repeat. The main storyline is awesome, but so many quests are so damn trivial. Fix (this is really simple---> take a page out of TSWs book): Create much longer mini-storyline quests. I'm not talking about the GC quests or class quests. Give players some sort of mystery to uncover in the capital city. Example: Heiress in Ul'dah has vanished. You start the quest and are not given a specific location to look for the quest. You start talking to fluff NPCs in the city, only to see that they now respond differently to you. They point you in a certain direction, but again no specific quest tags/pointers (just general tracking: Interrogate the townspeople). You then run into a certain area and you see a girl npc running away from you. You have to chase the npc until you see that it is the wrong girl dressed in the heiress' clothes. The girl tells you she is from the impoverished refugee camp and the heiress gave her these clothes. She then tells you that the girl said she had gone to become one with nature and couldn't stand the stifling city. The quest tracker states, Find where the heiress has fled to. Eventually the clues from this girl (all discourse of course would be tracked so you could follow it) would lead you to Gridania where the girl has joined the Conjurer's guild. Etc. the story continues from there. Basically non-handholding quests that give you a sense of adventure and would award a massive amount of XP upon completion of the entire chain. It could really get the community working together to solve investigations. For example, maybe an npc needs a certain type of item, but he only gives you a vague description. You can work with your FC to discover the item and procure it from a member that is proficient at crafting (or from the market board).

 

But, despite all these flaws in my opinion, I could not stop playing this game. Yesterday, I played for five hours before my eyes were too blood-shot to continue.  The game has so much soul and despite the grueling combat (which I still hate a ton), I cannot tear myself away from one more quests and one more battle. It's addictive, and everything in the game is polished and neat --> UI, crafting, the gorgeously simple market board. Even with the GCD, combat is strategic. You want to manage your mana while also maintaining enmity and you will be constantly running around to protect your aggro-inciting dps and healers. Then there are buffing skills with longer cooldowns, and combo skills to restore mana but at the loss of using a skill for enmity. Despite the loading screens, I can't help feeling it is really is a world. There are npcs talking to one another. You can talk to non-quest npcs and listen to the stories about their pocket of the world. You can type /sit and automatically sit on a bench, on a chair, on a crate along with these npcs. With regard to quests, they each begin to have a specific purpose to teach you about the area in which you are exploring. The quests will expose relationships between NPCs or explain a facet of the world. There is a lot more depth here than WoW with regard to storytelling, but I just wish the method of presentation was a little bit less hand-held. Quest pointers should stop at level 20 and corresponding provide larger amounts of experience points. I also think the game is so addictive because it creates a community between the players. Forced dungeons as part of the main storyline force characters to work with one another. Even if they aren't talking (which they will have to do in later dungeons), they are protecting or healing one another. The class quests also push this design by teaching each character how to use his or her skills in a group situation. I think FFXIV frontlines will further expand this but it's a good few months out. 

 

I recently uninstalled FFXIV, but not because I wasn't having fun. In fact, I don't know if I was having FUN per say, but I couldn't stop playing. I was enjoying my experience and enjoying the world. I was simply playing too much that my real life was taking a hit and I couldn't give myself a good enough reason to play through the progression. I honestly don't want to have to do levequests and FATEs to level up a second class. The future of my FFXIV character scares me, along with the tally of hours it will require for me to get to summoner or paladin.  

 

 

 

I'll definitely be back though to see where the game goes from here. I am excited for new methods of entertainment in the game besides combat and crafting (Yoshi's minigames, chocobo raising, etc.).

Comments

  • DecimanDeciman Member Posts: 101

    ill summarize the wall of text.

     

    Doesn't like progression and this game has a lot of progression.

    Doesn't like non action like combat, which this game has.  Its slower combat especially early on when you have few skills.

     

    Cant stand when a game isn't fully voiced/ doesn't like reading.

     

    Still likes the game though

     

    I wouldn't consider any of these flaws though.

  • blackburn11blackburn11 Member Posts: 46
    I cant start playing because of flaws.  Love this game!
  • fistormfistorm Member UncommonPosts: 868
    What your looking for would fit more along the lines of ESO.    I think this game is tied with it as far as how much I like it.   I found myself skiping  beta of another game for it,  which isnt like me at all.
  • slicknslim88slicknslim88 Member Posts: 394
    Originally posted by DMKano

    Honeymoon effect - you notice the flaws but you are in love and don't care

    Honeymoon ending - you notice a lot more flaws, some bother you more but you are still in love so its OK

    Honeymoon over - flaws are all you see, you are very annoyed at the flaws, you start to wander why you even play this?

     

    Many players are in phase 1 now - this will be the case for the first several weeks

    Month 2 is phase 2

    Month 3-6 - phase 3 and unsub

     

    Move to the next game, repeat 

     

     

    I'm scared to ask how many times you've been married.

  • DecimanDeciman Member Posts: 101
    Originally posted by DMKano

    Honeymoon effect - you notice the flaws but you are in love and don't care

    Honeymoon ending - you notice a lot more flaws, some bother you more but you are still in love so its OK

    Honeymoon over - flaws are all you see, you are very annoyed at the flaws, you start to wander why you even play this?

     

    Many players are in phase 1 now - this will be the case for the first several weeks

    Month 2 is phase 2

    Month 3-6 - phase 3 and unsub

     

    Move to the next game, repeat 

     

     

     

    So what motive does someone have being here that clearly in all his posts isn't interested in the game, doesn't find it to be made in the fashion of older game, doesn't find it more of a challenge than other game...ect

     

    What is it about people enjoying the game that upsets you?

     

    This site has far too many people hating the launched game, pushing and praising a game not yet launched...not saying you are one of those (unless you are)

    Let people who like the game enjoy and talk about it without nitpicking every post and trying to dissect every statement for its flaws as you see them.

    This kind of crap is plaguing this website...im not sure why its even tolerated since it ruins all real discussion about the game.

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