Game gets boring as hell after you get lvl50. Running the same old dungeon multiple times to get gear for raids isn't fun at all. Especially when other games bring more than just that on top of harder and more exciting raids. Been there done that. Hey Square enix! Don't you know most have already been through this same shit in WoW? WoW does this better anyways so why bother?
For the record, I want to make sure people understand that I have completed the content there is to complete; my storyline is essentially finished, and I did all the quests in between. It's easier to go faster when you've done the first 30 levels of the game like 6 times in the betas, and read all the dialogue before, etc. So I hope people realize I'm not skimping out on the content, but rather, there just isn't enough content to take up the time.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Great Read OP, So glad I am sitting on the bench on this one and waiting to see how it looks a few months down the road before I commit, although it is not looking good.
I want a living world that levels don't matter and quests are found not just mindless quests to level up.
the recipe of mmo games are old luckily the new generation next year is going to change all this hopefully.
luckily there is crowd funding so each can get what his tastes desire .
the problem with final fantacy is they are to scared to go out of the box,they are so scared of not appealing to their fans,
so they keep the games all the same.they have got great caracters and art style but no originality .
you cant like porshe make every 5 years a car that almost looks the same but is 10% better than the previous one.
if I was a developer I would say look at elders scrolls games as your base and make an mmo like that where you can go anywhere and get random missions that are interesting.
I'm not quite sure how long it takes to go 1-50 purely on FATE grinding, or how many hours a day people are having to put in to be hitting 50 now (aside from legacy users), but it seems to me that it's the normal, "Let's rush to end game within the first month." kind of thing. I don't blame the players though. SE made it easy to level, and players are going to take advantage of it, simple as that.
Not me though. I'm going to sit back, try every class, explore every nook and cranny, fill up my logs, help and goof around with other players, and just enjoy my journey to 50.
EDIT: UPDATE: 7 Days Later:
Starting to get a bit bored. It's just... to samey for me. Maybe it's because I play a lot of Rift, so the transition to FF14 just isn't that different. I'll probably wait until 2.1 and so forth come out before I sub. Even taking my time, doing other things, etc. I'm just not feeling it.
Originally posted by potlaki I want a living world that levels don't matter and quests are found not just mindless quests to level up.the recipe of mmo games are old luckily the new generation next year is going to change all this hopefully.luckily there is crowd funding so each can get what his tastes desire .the problem with final fantacy is they are to scared to go out of the box,they are so scared of not appealing to their fans,so they keep the games all the same.they have got great caracters and art style but no originality .you cant like porshe make every 5 years a car that almost looks the same but is 10% better than the previous one.if I was a developer I would say look at elders scrolls games as your base and make an mmo like that where you can go anywhere and get random missions that are interesting.
Personally I still believe the best way to not lean on quests and leveling as heavily (at least if we are speaking in theme park sense) is to provide more freedom to the players in terms of what the game provides. Give the tools to them and thats where I believe EQ Next is at least trying to take the right direction. A small team of developers, designers and artists can only create so much so fast without compromising too much on quality. IMO, MMO's will HAVE to eventually start exploring tools that will allow players to influence the environment or provide content in some shape or form so the players are "creating" the content (either actively constructing it themselves or passively by "being the story) as opposed to a much smaller group of people trying to handle it for tens, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people.
The capabilities of a small team is already being stretched content wise and to me, this is the next greatest step. Whoever gets that right will probably be the next "biggest MMO". It would have to be in such a way where its either controlled enough to not provide players too much "influence" where one player could potentially break the game or subtle enough where players won't even notice the experiences they are actually having until later when they look back at the game in hindsight.
Again, not everyone is playing for the same reasons and it doesn't necessarily always match your thinking and style. The game starting at end-game is a poor way of thinking that was unfortunately established by WoW when the low-mid level content became so stale and easily ignored that they had to recreate it. This isn't the case with FFXIV for me since there is more things to do, crafting is a little more engaging and the dialog is much better written thanmost other MMO's even for low level quests.
This certainly didn't begin with WOW. That was a normal way of thinking in games like DAOC and SWG as well. The thing is in those games it was partly true as reaching that point was typically only the beginning. In SWG you had many options of what to do, and your character was pretty much worthless until reaching full template. DAOC was all about the RvR endgame again non-capped toons were of little use when it came to the main activity of the product RvR.
I'd say WOW actually ushered in the current common concept that the journey is the bulk of the experience.
One thing people seem to forget about WoW's launch is that it didn't have a whole lot of things to do once you hit 60. It took a couple of patches to get the content in the game. The difference between WoW and many of the games that launch today is that there was a ton to do before cap and you could level multiple characters and still not hit all the zones. GW2 is probably the closest to this on launch of mmos that we've seen in the last few years, and I think that has a bit to do with its longevity (I know people will argue about how popular it is today, but it is better off after a year than the vast majority of games to have launched in the last 7 or 8 years). I know of of the main points of FFIV is being able to level multiple classes on the same character, but you are redoing much of the same content over and over. Eventually WoW fell into this, but it was after the original level cap and not for a couple of years with the first xpac. I think people don't give enough credit for this aspect of WoW's initial longevity.
Originally posted by donpopuki When you can play a game like it's your job then yeah you might go through the content much faster than the rest of us. Theres always that small elite group in every game that essentially beats the game in 1 month. You can't design your game around these folks because no matter how hard you think you've made the game someone will always beat it in astosinling speed.
This ^
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
This just in ... game developers do not develop these games with content locusts in mind. They develop these games with casual gamers in mind. They are fully aware that there is no way they can develop content faster than the locusts burn it. To attempt to do so is futile. You know it, I know it, we all know it. Hence why they will take the locusts box money, and wave goodbye to them with a thank you when their 30 free days are up.
This isn't exclusive to FF:ARR. If you have even a modicum of knowledge regarding MMORPG releases, you have seen threads like this pop up in every game forum when games are released. The content locusts rush to top level in a few days, and then begin complaining that there is nothing to do. And then they take to the forums to complain because they are suddenly bored, have nothing to do, and are on the outside looking in. Once there they are joined by a the disaffected few but vocal minority with their hidden agendas that will agree with anyone with anything negative to say about the game. It's as predictable as night and day. There will always be that minority that can never be satisfied.
Originally posted by MagKiln Great Read OP, So glad I am sitting on the bench on this one and waiting to see how it looks a few months down the road before I commit, although it is not looking good.
The game has just started and will just get better - this is NOT a game that will fail in the long term. I've played enough MMO's to know when I'm playing a gem - and this one is.
Housing coming up and much more stuff planned will keep players subbed and the game community thriving. All the rush to end cap one dimensional players will go to the next thing - it's always been that way.
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
i haven't seen your issue!but you are right!the effort to level something else then the class vs the reward potentiality is not there also there are other title that are just as good and don't have monthly (gw2 and tsw)don't get me wrong this title is awesome!
but too many thing put the handbrake on player experience!throttling sale of the game because they don't have space is a big nono ,there is no reason gamer accept this stuff!we are reaching 30 days and no fix in sight ,s-e still trickle sale the game everyday!if you are lucky cheer!but most haven't!
lastly you are also right on the tank and healer problem!nobody almost want to be a tank and especially more so a healer .it is unrewarding and most of the time healer get yelled at because tank expect to be an unmoving meat shield and expect healer to just put up with it!this is why you see less and less healer!too many meat sheil don't bother to even side step half an inch when the small floor arrow point to tank!yes some place you need to be smack in the middle?lol nope!it is just laziness!so i suspect healer are packing up and either playing other class or going back to wow!
and to this ?there is no solution!how you entice player to be healer?or tank!
Originally posted by MagKiln Great Read OP, So glad I am sitting on the bench on this one and waiting to see how it looks a few months down the road before I commit, although it is not looking good.
The game has just started and will just get better - this is NOT a game that will fail in the long term. I've played enough MMO's to know when I'm playing a gem - and this one is.
Housing coming up and much more stuff planned will keep players subbed and the game community thriving. All the rush to end cap one dimensional players will go to the next thing - it's always been that way.
It's humorous that as you peruse through any of the negative FF:ARR threads you find the same half-dozen negative posters in all of them. And they seem to become more vocal as the popularity of the game increases. Because make no mistake, the game's popularity is increasing. Several weeks after the game's release, the servers are still jammed packed, they stopped selling the game more than a week ago and still haven't resumed sales, and even people who have the game are unable to create characters in the large majority of the servers. And yet the same half-dozen doom-and-gloomers pop up in every thread with their version of game apocalypse. This is like a nightmare tidal wave for them, and yet they persist. Its actually quite entertaining.
Reaching level 50 on one class is not finishing the game.RPG's are not meant to be finished like a single player game.
Doing Fates JUST because it is faster experience just reaffirms what i have always said,no matter how much FUN or how much content a developer delivers,people will still play one dimensional and NOT for FUN.
As to leveling so fast and not enjoying gear,this is fact and i have said this many times as well.That is a good enough reason right there to NOT go solo game design.
I can use FFXI as a perfect example.They added two new classes ,Runefencer and Geomancer.Well as soon as they added them everyone acted like they were in a race and sped to level 99.Players never enjoyed a level or gear,they simply raced to the end to start grinding in Adoulin.
The fact Square took TONS of criticism on this design philosophy when they introduced Abyssea,telle me they do not listen to common sense.It also tells me they are either blind to their own mistakes or are being fed wrong ideas by a handful of people inside the development team.This is the real reason the game "could" struggle.
Here is the final synopsis.No matter what game it is or how much content,this same play style will be done by 99% of the players again and again.So i do not think jumping form game to game even matters anymore,your NEVER going to find a better game IF you choose to play every game the exact same way.
Vanilla FFXI was better because it did not even offer you the chance to speed level via book burns or Abyssea lights.This way you actually enjoyed your gear for many levels because it lasted longer.
As to crafting being useless,i only played Beta and am not playing this game right now.So i cannot give a definitive answer ,but i will say that eventually and very soon ,Square will begin to add in very important aspects from crafting,they did the same thing in FFXI.If all of a sudden a new reason to craft comes out and you have not crafted,you would be behind everyone else for quite some time or have to buy it.I thin k it also important to note if playing on a Legacy server or not,it would make a big difference to need.One aspect of crafting that was supposedly important ,i can no longer remember the name of it but had something to do with Materia and gear or something like that.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Agree OP but it isn't only FFXIV that suffers from this. Many mmos today are nothing but weekend theme parks. It seems developers no longer care about the nuts and bolts guy.
A company really has to screw up to have their MMO fail these days. I think, OP, the best you can say is that FF won't be the MMO savior some people think it will be because of the issues you raise.
I can basically copy paste the same topics and posts by both sides from a template.
Anyways, as soon as I saw where the core of the game was going to be spent I quickly turned around and hightailed it. I already played that kind Of MMO and am not in any type of mood to spend the majority of my time stuck in a closed off part of the world. Closed off from the rest of the community. I might as well start playing multiplayer mode in single player titles.
Very well written article from the OP, i pretty much agree with everything said even tough im not 50. I decided to uninstall the game today cause quiet frankly i dont see the point of continuing. Fate grinding is the only thing to do once you hit the max level. You've done all the quests already, all the dungeons, you are left with fate grinding for what ?
Most MMO i play i always stop playing when i reach a certain point and i'm asking this simple question, why i'm i doing this ? When i cannot asnwer it, i stop. FF XIV lasted 3 weeks for me....
Originally posted by Cymdai For the record, I want to make sure people understand that I have completed the content there is to complete; my storyline is essentially finished, and I did all the quests in between. It's easier to go faster when you've done the first 30 levels of the game like 6 times in the betas, and read all the dialogue before, etc. So I hope people realize I'm not skimping out on the content, but rather, there just isn't enough content to take up the time.
Can you estimate how many hours you've played so far?
Was wondering when we would get a doom and gloom post from all those people who bypassed all the content to race to 50.
So the game lacks content you say?
Oh and crafting isn't useless at 50. Not by a long shot.
Ill be 50 within the week, ill then start the endgame process, which I look forward to because I like this type of endgame which is why im playing this type of game. I have a lot of work to do on my crafting and gathering classes. Once I get that sorted ill need to get some cross classes up to par before I start getting too deep into endgame.
After that? Ill be working on a new class that isn't cross classed with my main.
Yeah the story is over, however, I didn't burn out fate grinding to 50 like a lot. I wont mind doing that and leves...also theres a fair amount of mob dropped crafting items I want to take advantage of, as they sell for a lot.
We all knew this would happen, usually does right around sub renewal time. Every game the people obsessed with speed leveling to endgame get upset that there is no content...however they don't like the content that is actually there. I don't mind dungeon farming...I actually like it...so I don't have an issue with the up hill process getting my tombs and then gear and then moving on to harder content.
Hopefully wildstar gets here fast so these people can move on to another race+dissapointment, this game will do just fine not being in the spotlight.
An era where everyone levels to max level in one week and other facets of gameplay, such as crafting, are near pointless. They are merely a footnote in game descriptions to fill up paragraph space and "content"
LOL, yep the era of the forum crybabies. They want everyone to be equal regardless of skill or dedication to a game. Sad part is the devs. eat this crap up and then are like wtf.... when they flop and go ftp.....
Comments
Basically this is the nature of most MMO's now people get to max and it's fun for a month or so maybe then it's back to the same old, same old....
Some will stay, some will go.....
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
I want a living world that levels don't matter and quests are found not just mindless quests to level up.
the recipe of mmo games are old luckily the new generation next year is going to change all this hopefully.
luckily there is crowd funding so each can get what his tastes desire .
the problem with final fantacy is they are to scared to go out of the box,they are so scared of not appealing to their fans,
so they keep the games all the same.they have got great caracters and art style but no originality .
you cant like porshe make every 5 years a car that almost looks the same but is 10% better than the previous one.
if I was a developer I would say look at elders scrolls games as your base and make an mmo like that where you can go anywhere and get random missions that are interesting.
I got the game on the 3rd, started playing on the 4th. I have 68 hours played so far (that averages out to about 7 hours a day over 9 days).
31 THM/BLM, 15 Archer, 6 CNJ, 14 Fisher, 15 Botanist, and 10 Carpenter.
I'm not quite sure how long it takes to go 1-50 purely on FATE grinding, or how many hours a day people are having to put in to be hitting 50 now (aside from legacy users), but it seems to me that it's the normal, "Let's rush to end game within the first month." kind of thing. I don't blame the players though. SE made it easy to level, and players are going to take advantage of it, simple as that.
Not me though. I'm going to sit back, try every class, explore every nook and cranny, fill up my logs, help and goof around with other players, and just enjoy my journey to 50.
EDIT: UPDATE: 7 Days Later:
Starting to get a bit bored. It's just... to samey for me. Maybe it's because I play a lot of Rift, so the transition to FF14 just isn't that different. I'll probably wait until 2.1 and so forth come out before I sub. Even taking my time, doing other things, etc. I'm just not feeling it.
Personally I still believe the best way to not lean on quests and leveling as heavily (at least if we are speaking in theme park sense) is to provide more freedom to the players in terms of what the game provides. Give the tools to them and thats where I believe EQ Next is at least trying to take the right direction. A small team of developers, designers and artists can only create so much so fast without compromising too much on quality. IMO, MMO's will HAVE to eventually start exploring tools that will allow players to influence the environment or provide content in some shape or form so the players are "creating" the content (either actively constructing it themselves or passively by "being the story) as opposed to a much smaller group of people trying to handle it for tens, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people.
The capabilities of a small team is already being stretched content wise and to me, this is the next greatest step. Whoever gets that right will probably be the next "biggest MMO". It would have to be in such a way where its either controlled enough to not provide players too much "influence" where one player could potentially break the game or subtle enough where players won't even notice the experiences they are actually having until later when they look back at the game in hindsight.
One thing people seem to forget about WoW's launch is that it didn't have a whole lot of things to do once you hit 60. It took a couple of patches to get the content in the game. The difference between WoW and many of the games that launch today is that there was a ton to do before cap and you could level multiple characters and still not hit all the zones. GW2 is probably the closest to this on launch of mmos that we've seen in the last few years, and I think that has a bit to do with its longevity (I know people will argue about how popular it is today, but it is better off after a year than the vast majority of games to have launched in the last 7 or 8 years). I know of of the main points of FFIV is being able to level multiple classes on the same character, but you are redoing much of the same content over and over. Eventually WoW fell into this, but it was after the original level cap and not for a couple of years with the first xpac. I think people don't give enough credit for this aspect of WoW's initial longevity.
This ^
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
This just in ... game developers do not develop these games with content locusts in mind. They develop these games with casual gamers in mind. They are fully aware that there is no way they can develop content faster than the locusts burn it. To attempt to do so is futile. You know it, I know it, we all know it. Hence why they will take the locusts box money, and wave goodbye to them with a thank you when their 30 free days are up.
This isn't exclusive to FF:ARR. If you have even a modicum of knowledge regarding MMORPG releases, you have seen threads like this pop up in every game forum when games are released. The content locusts rush to top level in a few days, and then begin complaining that there is nothing to do. And then they take to the forums to complain because they are suddenly bored, have nothing to do, and are on the outside looking in. Once there they are joined by a the disaffected few but vocal minority with their hidden agendas that will agree with anyone with anything negative to say about the game. It's as predictable as night and day. There will always be that minority that can never be satisfied.
The game has just started and will just get better - this is NOT a game that will fail in the long term. I've played enough MMO's to know when I'm playing a gem - and this one is.
Housing coming up and much more stuff planned will keep players subbed and the game community thriving. All the rush to end cap one dimensional players will go to the next thing - it's always been that way.
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
i haven't seen your issue!but you are right!the effort to level something else then the class vs the reward potentiality is not there also there are other title that are just as good and don't have monthly (gw2 and tsw)don't get me wrong this title is awesome!
but too many thing put the handbrake on player experience!throttling sale of the game because they don't have space is a big nono ,there is no reason gamer accept this stuff!we are reaching 30 days and no fix in sight ,s-e still trickle sale the game everyday!if you are lucky cheer!but most haven't!
lastly you are also right on the tank and healer problem!nobody almost want to be a tank and especially more so a healer .it is unrewarding and most of the time healer get yelled at because tank expect to be an unmoving meat shield and expect healer to just put up with it!this is why you see less and less healer!too many meat sheil don't bother to even side step half an inch when the small floor arrow point to tank!yes some place you need to be smack in the middle?lol nope!it is just laziness!so i suspect healer are packing up and either playing other class or going back to wow!
and to this ?there is no solution!how you entice player to be healer?or tank!
It's humorous that as you peruse through any of the negative FF:ARR threads you find the same half-dozen negative posters in all of them. And they seem to become more vocal as the popularity of the game increases. Because make no mistake, the game's popularity is increasing. Several weeks after the game's release, the servers are still jammed packed, they stopped selling the game more than a week ago and still haven't resumed sales, and even people who have the game are unable to create characters in the large majority of the servers. And yet the same half-dozen doom-and-gloomers pop up in every thread with their version of game apocalypse. This is like a nightmare tidal wave for them, and yet they persist. Its actually quite entertaining.
Reaching level 50 on one class is not finishing the game.RPG's are not meant to be finished like a single player game.
Doing Fates JUST because it is faster experience just reaffirms what i have always said,no matter how much FUN or how much content a developer delivers,people will still play one dimensional and NOT for FUN.
As to leveling so fast and not enjoying gear,this is fact and i have said this many times as well.That is a good enough reason right there to NOT go solo game design.
I can use FFXI as a perfect example.They added two new classes ,Runefencer and Geomancer.Well as soon as they added them everyone acted like they were in a race and sped to level 99.Players never enjoyed a level or gear,they simply raced to the end to start grinding in Adoulin.
The fact Square took TONS of criticism on this design philosophy when they introduced Abyssea,telle me they do not listen to common sense.It also tells me they are either blind to their own mistakes or are being fed wrong ideas by a handful of people inside the development team.This is the real reason the game "could" struggle.
Here is the final synopsis.No matter what game it is or how much content,this same play style will be done by 99% of the players again and again.So i do not think jumping form game to game even matters anymore,your NEVER going to find a better game IF you choose to play every game the exact same way.
Vanilla FFXI was better because it did not even offer you the chance to speed level via book burns or Abyssea lights.This way you actually enjoyed your gear for many levels because it lasted longer.
As to crafting being useless,i only played Beta and am not playing this game right now.So i cannot give a definitive answer ,but i will say that eventually and very soon ,Square will begin to add in very important aspects from crafting,they did the same thing in FFXI.If all of a sudden a new reason to craft comes out and you have not crafted,you would be behind everyone else for quite some time or have to buy it.I thin k it also important to note if playing on a Legacy server or not,it would make a big difference to need.One aspect of crafting that was supposedly important ,i can no longer remember the name of it but had something to do with Materia and gear or something like that.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Anyways, as soon as I saw where the core of the game was going to be spent I quickly turned around and hightailed it.
I already played that kind Of MMO and am not in any type of mood to spend the majority of my time stuck in a closed off part of the world. Closed off from the rest of the community.
I might as well start playing multiplayer mode in single player titles.
OP nailed it.
I admit that even my cynical side could not fathom such a botched design. MMOs this content-lite and easy fail.
The subscription bleed from this is going to be hilarious: I predict WAR/AoC type attrition in the next 6 months.
Very well written article from the OP, i pretty much agree with everything said even tough im not 50. I decided to uninstall the game today cause quiet frankly i dont see the point of continuing. Fate grinding is the only thing to do once you hit the max level. You've done all the quests already, all the dungeons, you are left with fate grinding for what ?
Most MMO i play i always stop playing when i reach a certain point and i'm asking this simple question, why i'm i doing this ? When i cannot asnwer it, i stop. FF XIV lasted 3 weeks for me....
Can you estimate how many hours you've played so far?
Couldn't agree more, well said....
LOL, yep the era of the forum crybabies. They want everyone to be equal regardless of skill or dedication to a game. Sad part is the devs. eat this crap up and then are like wtf.... when they flop and go ftp.....