@@game_design_diary It has to be criticized because not everyone has several hundred hours to go through basically a book worth of story and unengaging gameplay until the fun stuff begins, especially considering that not everyone has 6+ hours a day to play video games, let alone just one
If it would be just 90h. ARR, has so much non voiced content, compared to the expansions that it can easily get to 200h for some people. When you can only playing 1-3h a day you are basically stuck in the worst part of the game for 3months+. Barely any skills to press, the boring dungeons and trials (because ARR stuff has basically no mechanics or can all be just ignored) and so on. That most of the players don't even talk in dungeons, cities, etc and have their FC or cliques for that doesn't help either, if a newbie doesn't join the Novice Network he is basically playing a worse Single Player Game than any other JRPG out there.
@petrus9067 i wouldn't say it's exaggerating, yes it can be a lot less (50-100h or even less) if you primarily focus MSQ and nothing else, but remember many people jumping in XIV are often times even MMO first timers, maybe even choose a DPS spec (que times, if you don't Duty Support it, etc), which can depending on the time given a day make or don't make any progress in completing the story (if you have a hour and wait nearly a hour for that trial to pop, tough luck).
I just started playing this last week, I'm a lvl 40 white mage. I'm a gamer, but the only MMO I've played is Warframe, which is a lot different. The beginning 20 or so hours were great for me to figure out all the systems available and how progression works. Now I'm to the point where I find a lot of the quests annoying because they are so segmented. Talk to person A, then talk to person B who is literally two feet away. Then talk to person C who is in another city and return to person A to finish the quest.
ARR is a bit rough now days, but it used to be worse until they did their mini rework on it. Once you get past ARR the game is amazing. Not saying ARR is bad, its just a bit of a slog.
I think the early game is fine for someone who doesn't play MMOs, because that was certainly my experience. Some of the more "fetch quest-y" parts of the MSQ could definitely be cut down on, but I still appreciated the space to figure things out. I try not to immediately look up stuff online for games I'm playing, so being able to figure out how to set up my skills and actually understand the rotation was satisfying.
The sad part is, that kind of stuff WAS cut down when they did their "rework" of ARR. Even after that ARR is rough for new players. It's bad when people have to tell people to just make it through ARR and they will love the game.
@Switch72nd I mean, Heavensward is definitely a step up, but ARR has incredible moments too. They just happen a little farther apart from each other. Plus you get pretty consistent dungeons, and that was ultimately why I started the game initially; dungeoning with the lads.
@@TuskyBaby Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying ARR is bad. It's just a slog. The great moments are just far too spread out with almost meaningless fetch quests and talk to npc quests between them. It's far better than it used to be but I personally think it needs more filler cut. They could leave the original ARR in new game but cut down the fluff for brand new players and I think it would be so much better.
I think it's important to keep in mind that the starting experience has been slowly but surely changed and arguably compromised as the compounded side effect of an entire decade worth of updates, many of which were intended to alter the endgame experience of the expansion in which the update was published. For example Life Surge used to be unlocked at Level 18 but was changed to Level 6 with the release of Shadowbringers. This change was likely aimed at improving the experience of players with high level Dragoons who would be put in low level dungeons through the Duty Roulette. Even just this change alone makes the character you played the beginning of the story with far stronger than the character of someone who played the game at the launch of A Realm Reborn. That's not to defend the New Player Experience feeling so anemic, however I believe that it's essential context for why the beginning leaves this impression. Unfortunately I cannot easily find information about changes to things such as starting Defense or HP values the same way I can on skills through the wiki page, which is why I can only speculate if the golem that you killed with auto attacks used to be as much of a pushover as it is today.
Thats a really interesting point about the adjustments of skills and game balance over the years- it also affects higher-level content where players can kill bosses a bit faster than was originally intended meaning that you don't see all of the mechanics. I think they may have adjusted stats at some point a few years ago? but like you I can't find info about that either.
@game_design_diary you might be thinking of the stat crunch that happened with endwalker launch. However that did not affect anything below level 51. Instead, its mostly just the change in potency calculations that happened over the years
@@itsjflash You can get close by using the "Minimum item level" and "no echo" settings in the duty finder, but you'd also need to find people willing to run the dungeons and such. Not much can do about the open world content though. Just now we level up too fast and the attack potencys are much higher then were originally, at least for the player. There was enough complaints about how easy the field mobs are that they made them stronger in HW onwards. Though even there potency increases and over leveling has made it easier as well. It used to be that 3 or more enemies at once in HW would kill you unless lucky.
Yes it used to be harder. Taking the telegraphed attacks too many times would kill you and i think it took me about 4 mins to kill. There also was no way to reduce the difficulty by failing a couple times. You also did not start the game with the jewlery/accesory gear items. I died a few times to being attacked by too many things back when I started in 2.2 or 2.3. Not just the golem, all the single player combat instances were harder and easier to fail. The dungeons were as well and the raids in general have a tonne of mechanics you never see today. During Heavensward they removed Elemental defense stat,(and its materia) which was basically useless. Cant remember for sure if it was during Heavensward or start of stormblood when they removed accuracy stat to make it a flat "if at level or above always hit, if below level miss chance based on positioning and level difference". They also made it so accessorys could only by equipped by the right job type, so no tanks with dps accessorys, and removed main stat materia, you could not meld strength anymore, for example. Cause we ended up with a tank culture that would max out the damage they did instead of reducing the damage they took which meant the healers had to work harder to keep them alive. Summoned Chocobo's used to take up party member slots and scholar fairys, arcanist carbuncles and summoner summons used to have their own hp and could take agro, so you could use the titan egi to take damage for you. At the end of Shadowbringers there was a huge issue with stats. Highest hp thing in the game was about 980 million HP. There was a occasional issue with agro overflowing so tanks would suddenly loose a bosses attention. We had in the range of 250 thousand HP and could do similar damage amounts. So when Endwalker came out they reduced it a lot, down to about 10 to 15 thousand HP. but only effected levels 51 to 80. 81 to 90 had the original stat growth. There's been other things removed or changed. The Chocobo licence to get your first mount used to cost 2000 company seals not 200 and you were not pointed at the quest. Infact they added the blue + quest marker to unlock quests sometime in Shadowbringers if i recall correctly. Glamour and Dye used to be a level 50 unlock and you can still find the original quests in Mor Dhona. Glamour prisms were also divided by level and job. So if you had a level 45 gear you wanted to glam and it needed clothcraft to repair it, you'd need a level 41-50 clothcraft glamour prism to do so. There was no glamour cabinet either till Shadowbringers.
When I introduced it to new friends I have to say it is story driven but we seriously have to treat it as a book to really enjoy the story… it is just lately partly dubbed.
True, the story is to be treated as a book 100%, although most books I read don't require playtime purchases and passively nudge me to hurry up because it always moves forward
Some other comments touched on this but, we have to remember 2.0 used to be the entire game at launch. There used to be more skills at the early levels (and cross class skills), you didnt get exp as fast so you had to do fates/sidequests and dungeons to catch up with the msq. Potency and skill changes throughout the years made players stronger than they used to be at the early zones (tho i didnt play back then and idk how much different it felt). Endgame and midgame players were also at the same zones as early game players so even though there were less players it might, have felt more packed. The story comments still apply however. And yeah we have to face the fact that 10 years have passed and they haven't made the early game as enticing as it could be, other than changing some things to be more modern style and etc, but that sense of very easy combat is definetely a turn off.
I feel ppl have demonized the "it gets good at X hours" for the wrong reasons and without understanding what it meant, in the same way ppl have demonized assets reuse. That phrase doesn't means that after X hours something happens that rocks your world and it'll be all sunshine and rainbows from there, it simply asks you of giving your time to something and you'll grow to appreciate it instead of searching the instant gratification. However ppl, in good or bad faith, have twisted this notion to be a pejorative when it shouldn't be. This doesn't mean XIV does it well ofc, it could be much better and frankly seems they believe so considering they've been reworking parts of ARR often
Yeah I always found it funny how people say that when pretty much every MMO starts out slow and gets better when you invest more time into it, the early experience is necessary to appreciate what comes later!
I feel like XIV definitely needs some action at the beginning and has to have at least somewhat challenging early areas (and overworld areas in general) - people who start game, may not even understand why game is so easy, and then they get hit by Cape Westwind and find it very difficult because it uses patterns from 6.0 and not 2.0. Although I must admit - they are slowly adding more duty support to optional content and of 7.1 tutorials were greatly expanded for more complex mechanics like stacks, spreads, line tankbusters and everything else
I found the intro insanely slow but when I started fresh with my wife who had never played an mmo before it was definitely eye opening on some of the decisions made. While I was annoyed with early quests due to difficult being non existent my wife struggled with getting ahold of the systems more than anything not really the combat in any way. By the time she finished ARR she was confident on doing things alone and how to navigate everything as a whole. I can definitely say it still needs a lot of fixing but the slow periods or even the repetitiveness can be a good thing for completely new player vs overwhelming them as that was what she was worried about. Not to say fighting the same bosses 2 times is the most fun even for her but like I said still needs fixing for sure 😂
I think the slowness of the intro has positives and negatives as you said- it does help players with no experience in the genre but is quite slow for many others.
@@game_design_diary Definitely agree on that, would be nice if they had some sort of, "How familiar are you with MMO's" at the start. Know its not really feasible for a game of the scale and any kind of fomo but its a nice way to tailor to both.
I really enjoyed this video. I think you plan on doing this with other games but I would love if you would continue ff14 and do the same kind of analysis for each expansion and the end game etc.
I really liked FFXIV. started playing couple of months ago and having a blast! yes the start is a little slow story wise and combat wise but if you try to go with the flow and just accept that its a slow start you will definitely will enjoy the experience. I super recommend FFXIV to people seeking a good story to experience.
I can't imagine how daunting it might be starting out today. There is just no getting around making it through all of the expansions. Lots of content, but it can work against the player retention aspect. I've seen many players stop playing once the reality of a massive main scenario questline layered with the usual mmo grindfests start to set in.
Honestly, I think they should add an intro sequence where you play as one of the 7 scions (or someone other than the trailer character) as they do the final 1.0 raid together to try to stop the calamity, then cut to the finale of 1.0, as you see the not trailer character run off onto the battlefield as the scions watch helplessly, then after louisoix takes a stand, they go off into their spots to try to help. Of course, then you see the calamity happen, but it's too late. I would have each one rep their level 50 toolkits, to represent each of the ARR jobs too, with the other than the trailer character person repping one of the jobs they don't got.
I have almost 2,000 hours in this game and i am still playing and even till today i feel the same kind of excitement and enjoyment as i did when i started. Sometimes i do take a short break but when i come back i enjoy it the same way i did when i first started. I highly recommend giving the game a try.
I actually love the start of this game. It makes me feel like i felt when i started world of warcraft long time, in burning crusade. I grew bored of that game during dragonflight and started plaing FF14 instead, havent regretted at all. Wow started feeling like a chore, like a job. Final fantasy 14 feels like home. It is cozy in a way.
The entire reason ARR feels that was is because level 1-50. IS THE TUTORIAL OF THE GAME. Until you finish the MAIN quest of ARR. Then it stops being a tutorial and becomes harder and increases every expansion. This is the biggest new player friendly experience any game ever. This is 90 year old grandma never played a game in her life and can pick up and play and learn it. Its the point of the game witch is one of the best things a game can ever do. Its long yes. But its the best because of it
Tutorial yet the game is still resident sleeper until Stormblood patches. It's just poorly designed and outdated, Heavensward is no more challenging than ARR, in fact it's worse because not a single fight in HW or SB's MSQ comes close to the difficulty of the new Roegadyn fight
My biggest gripe with its pacing is that it costs money on a monthly basis. With that in mind I just cannot relax and take my time because the clock is literally ticking. Especially for busy people who only have a few hours a day if even that. Are we telling them to play for like a year, pay ~100 bucks while doing so (at 2 hours a day) for all the actually challenging and fun stuff to appear? While the catch up mechanics have been improving, story wise the game does not respect your time at all. If you're young or just have an abundance of time, it's great but for everyone else who just wants to have fun with friends, it's a punch in the face
the game may not force people to learn how to optimally use their kid but i do believe that the whole abilities glowing to show its best to use this one is a good idea
MSQ is not as bad as people make it, rly. Lots of tedious stuff was removed and tempo is much faster now. With duty support, you can get all those early dungeons and trials done in no time. You would have to try really hard to fail there.
Catching up to the msq is the hardest part. You have to play through the whole base game, post patch content and all of the expansions. It will take you probably months of casual gaming
I remember my first time through and being very burnt out on it by the time I got to heavensward and just quit there. I don't remember when I quit, I just know I picked it back up just before or after stormblood got released. I even made a new character for the new run, who is now my main after deleting my old one. Also keep in mind this was long before the devs decided to shorten those old quests. Despite the slog of replaying arr content, I don't know what made me stick with the game this time. I didn't have any friends I was playing with on a regular basis, nevermind made new ones. The only thing I can think of was maybe I could mentally check out because of previous experience, which you'd think would make it worse. I suppose it would allow me to focus on msq more, meaning getting to the good shit faster.
While the start of FF14 is very slow, this is true, but it's better than World of Warcrafts near complete lack of New Player experience. I cannot say if it changed in the new current expansion, but as of Dragonflight, you do the tutorial Island, and that's a very way to be introduced, isolated, few characters, a variety of quests, and quest design philosophies, but if you are horde, after the Island, you are thrown into Orgrimmar, you go into the keep to talk to Sylvanas, and outside is a guy with a beam of light showering him, telling you we have to kill Sylvanas, lets go into the breach of death woop woop! But also if you randomly chose to timewalk to the WoD expansion instead, now it's some other dude on the throne and as soon as you level up to the current expansion you basically get forced to drop what you were doing to go to the new expansion. And also then there are entirely other dudes on the throne. If I wasn't a World of Warcraft veteran, I would have been so fully lost. In conclusion: FF14's story is slow, but at least it's coherent. And also just as a petty remark: The intro to FF7 is very much not FMV, it's a pre-rendered 3d animation, FMV is specifically recordings of real actors placed as video in the game, or through a filter. Things like Her Story, the old infamous Night Trap, and the animations of the original Mortal Combat are examples of FMV.
I agree that the intro is very coherent, one of the main things it does well is giving clear objectives and goals to new players which hopefully came across well in the first half. Whilst FFXIV's intro is a bit slow it could have been worse in a lot of ways!
WoW did used to require going through every expansion (albeit not the whole story, since the story flows through old end game content) but it got cut down and restructured because there’s is just not a good way to pace 120 levels. At some point 14 is going to have to make a tough decision in regards to what levels mean in this game, and where players have to start interacting with the MSQ. Cuz god help them on selling new players on a 120 level cap and a 90 hour MSQ chain
Ive always felt that most MMOs and games in general start out slow so it never bothered me, but good games give you a good return on investment, and FF14 does great at that!
im a new player. currently level 22. no one would do the dungeon so i had to do it with npcs. it was horrendously slow. im an arcanist and already kind of bored with the spam of ruin over and over
@@game_design_diary It is not a big one, but it is better, for example i was playing Halatali, a dg that used be very boring but now they change all 3 bosses to indicate better the mechanics for new players and put things for players to react like mechs that made you move properly and even tank busters.
They have done a lot for the early game over the years but clearly not enough. I'm going through ng+ right now and it's quite enjoyable but I remember being a new player in ~2016 and finding the early game to be absolutely and utterly horrid, which for the most part it still is. The game basically plays itself until mid to late heavensward (if even by then, the MSQ is ridiculously easy) so one might argue for "just watch a cutscene movie or story summary and skip ARR", which in my opinion is a very valid course of action
They did a bit of a rework of ARR, but it's still a bit rough and a slog for newer players. Personally I think they need to take another look at it. I will say talking about the difficulty of it now doesn't really work since both the job system and combat have had massive reworks since ARR was actual content. The difficulty was much better back in the day.
FFXIV start is aweful, but it's worth getting through for the life changing story alone! Even forgetting that it's a top mmo with an abundance of fun stuff to do with your friends, it's worth it for the story
This game is perfect for casuals. Midcores & hardcores can speedrun+optimize just fine, playing seasonally alongside other mid/hardcore MMOs like WoW. FFXIV is directly aimed at the average, working-class "normie" & very often disappoints NEETs + its own community of full-time Twitch streamers. There are plenty of speedrun/optimization MMORPGs in the industry - this title is NOT one of them (again, unless played seasonally). Beware of 'new player tips' & 'you've been doing this wrong' videos right here on TH-cam from full-time FFXIV content creators: they just want to rush you to endgame content, which is definitely NOT worth the time/money investment unless you're comfortable skipping the entire story, literally sitting down to study the mechanics+systems of the game before playing, & you're mentally prepared to fit in with the (VERY vocal) minority of players who are comfortable with criticism/unsolicited advice/feedback/competition. The devs, especially Yoshi-P, have made it abundantly clear that the point of this game (except for the roughly 1-10% of high-end player content made specifically and only for high-end play) is to experience a lived-in, narrative-based, non-optimal, role-playing, team-player oriented, cooperative experience where the group is expected (via enforcement of the conduct clauses in the ToS) to cater to the weakest link(s) in their present group composition. Like I mentioned earlier, raiders are disproportionately vocal in online spaces like Reddit & Twitter, while being the extreme minorities of the in-game population of players. FFXIV hits the target demographic of casuals like 9-5 workers, those with accessibility/disability needs, & folks with already-busy social lifestyles. Too many speedrunners & optimization junkies get burnt out and disappointed with this title, and while their opinions & perspectives can often be valid criticism, they should be taken with a grain of salt (no pun intended) because most of the complaints surrounding the game are coming from an emotional place rather than a logical one. Misery loves company, especially when it comes to a sunk/cost addict who the devs have made crystal clear (no pun intended) that they'll cater to only 1-10% of the overall content, seasonally, and no more than that. It is on-purpose and by-design that backseating & damage meters are prohibited on a don't-ask-don't-tell basis. It's worth noting that every generation of MMORPGs' most casual title will always be the most popular, with so-called "elitists" giving tough-love advice + criticism that directly contradicts why the title is so popular in the first place. This has been a life cycle from Dungeons & Dragons to EverQuest to early-WoW - currently, it's FFXIV. This is a casual game for casual players. Expect midcores & hardcores to have disproportionate & contradictory expectations of players in random-matchmaking, as that's simply how gaming culture is at the present. They have access to tools like the Party Finder, Discord, & entire Reddit boards + Twitter accounts wholly dedicated to dunking on other players in order to simply pre-form - they CHOOSE to use random-matchmaking & bully casual/inexperienced players because they themselves are scared of receiving judgment + tough love advice from their peers/superiors. It's best to just mute/blacklist anyone being pushy or demanding. Don't let them bait you into acting irrationally: they're just trying to get you to violate ToS so they can snitch on you to the in-game moderators and punish you for sticking to your guns / learning the game at your own pace (as opposed conforming to theirs). "Toxic Casuals" is the label that these players use to bully, exclude, & socially-dominate others & I highly recommend using the mute and blacklist feature to save yourself the trouble of them trolling/backseating you. They absolutely know better & they won't stop until they realize all they are doing is socially isolating themselves & not helping anyone, least of all themselves, with such behavior.
I agree. A lot of gamers forget the fact that this oh-so-terribly-slow-paced-boring experience that is just so easy that is boring with it's menial fetch quests may be exactly the kind of gameplay a less chronically gaming person needs. It may be too easy for you but pretty challenging for most people that never needed to deal with 30 plus skills in a hotbar. Adding one at a time helps building confidence and get you used to the mechanics. When I told my partner RDM unlocks at 50 with most of its kit on the hotbar already I meant it as an exciting thing. She said "that seems too much, I'd get confused".
^This. Bro says a lot but bro speaks the truth. All a person who is newer to the game has to do is simply say, "hey this is my first time" or "I'm not experienced with this" or something to that effect, and without fail, the other people you are playing with will be supportive, patient, and not be judgemental cuz they remember that they too were at that point once
I’ve tried getting into FF twice now (on third attempt) and my opinion is this: NO MMO should require 400+ hours of playtime to get to endgame content. WOW has a great model to get people to endgame fairly easily while not sacrificing story. All the previous expansions are optional quests to do if you’re interested, and it takes ~8-20 hours casual gameplay to reach the newest expansion.
ff14 positives : one toon for all jobs , fast queue with roulettes, no need of addons , clear mechanics, music soundtrack, housing , UI, friendly community , time to play other games. negatives: convoluted msq, not so fluid combat with bloat buttons, cult community
as someone who has played through ARR multiple times now I need to say, YES we know it is slow as fuck and boring as hell and YES it does not get better until at least lvl 50 but work has been done to fix ARR, dungeons have been remade, NPCs are able to go into dungeons with you so you don't need to wait on other players if you prefer to play alone but I BEG of you, finish ARR. Endure it and get through it to the end because if you skip ARR you will be lost the rest of the game on characters, on story, on world building for the rest of the expansions
Here's something that doesn't work. How important features to crafting are found around the world and you don't know what they are until you talk to the npc. It's really easy to miss Materia Melding, Matria Extracting and Desynth. The only good thing being they're all found or most of them in thanalan Very important stuff as most players start as Free trials. Also same with certain extra dungeons. I didn't know about Cutters cry until I was in HW.
I think the optional dungeons are fine but your point about the materia melding and other crafting being easy to miss is really important, I do think they could have introduced those features as part of the main quest so it's guaranteed people won't miss them.
It's 5 RPG under one, of course it will be slow, that was content that people had 2 years to do back when it launched. and you cant cut out majority of it, cause the later parts won't make any sense. you cant compare it to either an MOO or an RPG, cause it is it's own thing.
Yeah i tried playing and deleted then played again then deleted then i may play again, it is just so boring and easy and u just press the same button over and over again
I tried to get 3 gaming contacts into the game in hopes of forming a static for high end content and they could barely make it through the first 15 levels and one didnt really even start. The start of the game is really not selling the experience very well. I remember when i started, i had no clue the jobs ended up as cool as they did because all i knew was the single attack on bland mobs. As well as needing to read the opening scene on the cart was a real put off after being spoilt with VO scenes in other games. Something they could have done was tease a level 30 combat scene in some form of "vision" before removing it all and make you start at square one. Just to give you an idea of whats to come.
This is part of the issue in my opinion, the game opens with some of its weakest content which makes it a tough sell to get other players to join you in the game.
Couldn't agree more. I have 3000 hours in the game and the biggest reason I could stick around was probably me being a religious cutscene skipper. I think it's great that they have a new game + system, which I'm going through right now (and actualy enjoying it quite a bit) but people usually don't play MMOs for the story but rather the gear grind, the difficult fights and generally the end game
@@Noel_Tamura first and foremost though, this is a final fantasy game. and people almost exclusively play FF games for the story, not for the combat. originally, it mainly appealed to FF fans and this was no problem. but after the game saw such a boom in MMO players (after other MMOs started to drop the ball a bit), the playerbase became mainly MMO players. perfectly fine, but of course it means those MMO players may not be interested in what the game's initial audience are interested in
FFXIV in the beginning is slow and awful.... FFFXIV in the end if boring and awful. One day SE will start to listen to it's player base instead of drippling the game out drop drop drop.... PVP is broken, has been broken... The dungeons are fun the first couple of run throughs, then they are easy to see the mechanics The new Deep dungeons are for a niche. The variant dungeons are a joke. The community is good, until it isn't.. Want to stand and pose all day check... Here is a prime example... FF11 is an amazing game for it's age... they did a cross over but still can't or won't fix the login to get to 11.. They could have offered users a chance to mingle between the two with some sort of discounts... Instead, like all gaming companies they release the bare minimum.. For them to live out another 10 years, they will need to start listening to the user base. Plain and simple. Unless you have friends on FF14, it's just another game to play through and put on the shelf until next patch, which is get you a few hours of content if you're lucky.
FF 13 gets good after 13 hours not 30 and I still found it boring and tedious in particular the massive difficulty spike when you reach the open world area (Forgot the name) and FF 14 is similar, I wasted 30 hours and drop it. The game should have give you at least 4 skills at the start or I don't know. meanwhile I made 4 characters in WOW (No longer play since I drop it after lich king) I would recommend people playing Ragnarok Online since that game is 100% gameplay 0% story and 99.999% GRINDING.
If your not going to respect the devs time and effort they put into making and designing this game to enjoy the lore and story you do not deserve to play this game, sue me (i dare you XD) hell I'll meet you irl and fight you.
as a new free trial player, there is WAY TOO MUCH "buy this critical thing you'll need in the marketboard you have no access to" and "use the party finder you have no access to in terms of creating one"
14 is the epitome of "it gets good at 90 hours"
This is one of the main criticisms that the game usually gets so you're definitely not alone in thinking that!
@@game_design_diary It has to be criticized because not everyone has several hundred hours to go through basically a book worth of story and unengaging gameplay until the fun stuff begins, especially considering that not everyone has 6+ hours a day to play video games, let alone just one
If it would be just 90h. ARR, has so much non voiced content, compared to the expansions that it can easily get to 200h for some people.
When you can only playing 1-3h a day you are basically stuck in the worst part of the game for 3months+. Barely any skills to press, the boring dungeons and trials (because ARR stuff has basically no mechanics or can all be just ignored) and so on.
That most of the players don't even talk in dungeons, cities, etc and have their FC or cliques for that doesn't help either, if a newbie doesn't join the Novice Network he is basically playing a worse Single Player Game than any other JRPG out there.
@@Electric_Doodie 200h is a wild exageration tbh. If you are only doing the msq, it will never get anywhere near that
@petrus9067 i wouldn't say it's exaggerating, yes it can be a lot less (50-100h or even less) if you primarily focus MSQ and nothing else, but remember many people jumping in XIV are often times even MMO first timers, maybe even choose a DPS spec (que times, if you don't Duty Support it, etc), which can depending on the time given a day make or don't make any progress in completing the story (if you have a hour and wait nearly a hour for that trial to pop, tough luck).
I just started playing this last week, I'm a lvl 40 white mage. I'm a gamer, but the only MMO I've played is Warframe, which is a lot different. The beginning 20 or so hours were great for me to figure out all the systems available and how progression works. Now I'm to the point where I find a lot of the quests annoying because they are so segmented. Talk to person A, then talk to person B who is literally two feet away. Then talk to person C who is in another city and return to person A to finish the quest.
new player too here....yeah lvl 40 is lil slow but at 44 it rly getting better, you have the biggest wall behind u =)
ARR is a bit rough now days, but it used to be worse until they did their mini rework on it. Once you get past ARR the game is amazing. Not saying ARR is bad, its just a bit of a slog.
I think the early game is fine for someone who doesn't play MMOs, because that was certainly my experience. Some of the more "fetch quest-y" parts of the MSQ could definitely be cut down on, but I still appreciated the space to figure things out. I try not to immediately look up stuff online for games I'm playing, so being able to figure out how to set up my skills and actually understand the rotation was satisfying.
The sad part is, that kind of stuff WAS cut down when they did their "rework" of ARR. Even after that ARR is rough for new players. It's bad when people have to tell people to just make it through ARR and they will love the game.
@Switch72nd I mean, Heavensward is definitely a step up, but ARR has incredible moments too. They just happen a little farther apart from each other. Plus you get pretty consistent dungeons, and that was ultimately why I started the game initially; dungeoning with the lads.
@@TuskyBaby Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying ARR is bad. It's just a slog. The great moments are just far too spread out with almost meaningless fetch quests and talk to npc quests between them. It's far better than it used to be but I personally think it needs more filler cut. They could leave the original ARR in new game but cut down the fluff for brand new players and I think it would be so much better.
I think it's important to keep in mind that the starting experience has been slowly but surely changed and arguably compromised as the compounded side effect of an entire decade worth of updates, many of which were intended to alter the endgame experience of the expansion in which the update was published. For example Life Surge used to be unlocked at Level 18 but was changed to Level 6 with the release of Shadowbringers. This change was likely aimed at improving the experience of players with high level Dragoons who would be put in low level dungeons through the Duty Roulette. Even just this change alone makes the character you played the beginning of the story with far stronger than the character of someone who played the game at the launch of A Realm Reborn. That's not to defend the New Player Experience feeling so anemic, however I believe that it's essential context for why the beginning leaves this impression.
Unfortunately I cannot easily find information about changes to things such as starting Defense or HP values the same way I can on skills through the wiki page, which is why I can only speculate if the golem that you killed with auto attacks used to be as much of a pushover as it is today.
Thats a really interesting point about the adjustments of skills and game balance over the years- it also affects higher-level content where players can kill bosses a bit faster than was originally intended meaning that you don't see all of the mechanics. I think they may have adjusted stats at some point a few years ago? but like you I can't find info about that either.
@game_design_diary you might be thinking of the stat crunch that happened with endwalker launch. However that did not affect anything below level 51.
Instead, its mostly just the change in potency calculations that happened over the years
I wish I could play vanilla ARR with the original intended difficulty. The game being so ridiculously easy just takes me out of it
@@itsjflash You can get close by using the "Minimum item level" and "no echo" settings in the duty finder, but you'd also need to find people willing to run the dungeons and such. Not much can do about the open world content though. Just now we level up too fast and the attack potencys are much higher then were originally, at least for the player. There was enough complaints about how easy the field mobs are that they made them stronger in HW onwards. Though even there potency increases and over leveling has made it easier as well. It used to be that 3 or more enemies at once in HW would kill you unless lucky.
Yes it used to be harder. Taking the telegraphed attacks too many times would kill you and i think it took me about 4 mins to kill. There also was no way to reduce the difficulty by failing a couple times. You also did not start the game with the jewlery/accesory gear items. I died a few times to being attacked by too many things back when I started in 2.2 or 2.3. Not just the golem, all the single player combat instances were harder and easier to fail. The dungeons were as well and the raids in general have a tonne of mechanics you never see today.
During Heavensward they removed Elemental defense stat,(and its materia) which was basically useless. Cant remember for sure if it was during Heavensward or start of stormblood when they removed accuracy stat to make it a flat "if at level or above always hit, if below level miss chance based on positioning and level difference". They also made it so accessorys could only by equipped by the right job type, so no tanks with dps accessorys, and removed main stat materia, you could not meld strength anymore, for example. Cause we ended up with a tank culture that would max out the damage they did instead of reducing the damage they took which meant the healers had to work harder to keep them alive.
Summoned Chocobo's used to take up party member slots and scholar fairys, arcanist carbuncles and summoner summons used to have their own hp and could take agro, so you could use the titan egi to take damage for you.
At the end of Shadowbringers there was a huge issue with stats. Highest hp thing in the game was about 980 million HP. There was a occasional issue with agro overflowing so tanks would suddenly loose a bosses attention. We had in the range of 250 thousand HP and could do similar damage amounts. So when Endwalker came out they reduced it a lot, down to about 10 to 15 thousand HP. but only effected levels 51 to 80. 81 to 90 had the original stat growth.
There's been other things removed or changed. The Chocobo licence to get your first mount used to cost 2000 company seals not 200 and you were not pointed at the quest. Infact they added the blue + quest marker to unlock quests sometime in Shadowbringers if i recall correctly. Glamour and Dye used to be a level 50 unlock and you can still find the original quests in Mor Dhona. Glamour prisms were also divided by level and job. So if you had a level 45 gear you wanted to glam and it needed clothcraft to repair it, you'd need a level 41-50 clothcraft glamour prism to do so. There was no glamour cabinet either till Shadowbringers.
When I introduced it to new friends I have to say it is story driven but we seriously have to treat it as a book to really enjoy the story… it is just lately partly dubbed.
True, the story is to be treated as a book 100%, although most books I read don't require playtime purchases and passively nudge me to hurry up because it always moves forward
@Noel_Tamura to be fair you can do th story without paying anything up to 4.55. That's like half the main story content
Some other comments touched on this but, we have to remember 2.0 used to be the entire game at launch. There used to be more skills at the early levels (and cross class skills), you didnt get exp as fast so you had to do fates/sidequests and dungeons to catch up with the msq. Potency and skill changes throughout the years made players stronger than they used to be at the early zones (tho i didnt play back then and idk how much different it felt). Endgame and midgame players were also at the same zones as early game players so even though there were less players it might, have felt more packed. The story comments still apply however.
And yeah we have to face the fact that 10 years have passed and they haven't made the early game as enticing as it could be, other than changing some things to be more modern style and etc, but that sense of very easy combat is definetely a turn off.
I feel ppl have demonized the "it gets good at X hours" for the wrong reasons and without understanding what it meant, in the same way ppl have demonized assets reuse. That phrase doesn't means that after X hours something happens that rocks your world and it'll be all sunshine and rainbows from there, it simply asks you of giving your time to something and you'll grow to appreciate it instead of searching the instant gratification. However ppl, in good or bad faith, have twisted this notion to be a pejorative when it shouldn't be. This doesn't mean XIV does it well ofc, it could be much better and frankly seems they believe so considering they've been reworking parts of ARR often
It’s okay for something to get good later on, so long as people want more from an early point.
Yeah I always found it funny how people say that when pretty much every MMO starts out slow and gets better when you invest more time into it, the early experience is necessary to appreciate what comes later!
I feel like XIV definitely needs some action at the beginning and has to have at least somewhat challenging early areas (and overworld areas in general) - people who start game, may not even understand why game is so easy, and then they get hit by Cape Westwind and find it very difficult because it uses patterns from 6.0 and not 2.0. Although I must admit - they are slowly adding more duty support to optional content and of 7.1 tutorials were greatly expanded for more complex mechanics like stacks, spreads, line tankbusters and everything else
I agree that they have improved on this lately, and some slightly more challenging early areas would be nice!
I found the intro insanely slow but when I started fresh with my wife who had never played an mmo before it was definitely eye opening on some of the decisions made. While I was annoyed with early quests due to difficult being non existent my wife struggled with getting ahold of the systems more than anything not really the combat in any way. By the time she finished ARR she was confident on doing things alone and how to navigate everything as a whole. I can definitely say it still needs a lot of fixing but the slow periods or even the repetitiveness can be a good thing for completely new player vs overwhelming them as that was what she was worried about. Not to say fighting the same bosses 2 times is the most fun even for her but like I said still needs fixing for sure 😂
I think the slowness of the intro has positives and negatives as you said- it does help players with no experience in the genre but is quite slow for many others.
@@game_design_diary Definitely agree on that, would be nice if they had some sort of, "How familiar are you with MMO's" at the start. Know its not really feasible for a game of the scale and any kind of fomo but its a nice way to tailor to both.
I really enjoyed this video. I think you plan on doing this with other games but I would love if you would continue ff14 and do the same kind of analysis for each expansion and the end game etc.
I really liked FFXIV.
started playing couple of months ago and having a blast!
yes the start is a little slow story wise and combat wise but if you try to go with the flow and just accept that its a slow start you will definitely will enjoy the experience.
I super recommend FFXIV to people seeking a good story to experience.
Glad you're enjoying the game!
I can't imagine how daunting it might be starting out today. There is just no getting around making it through all of the expansions. Lots of content, but it can work against the player retention aspect. I've seen many players stop playing once the reality of a massive main scenario questline layered with the usual mmo grindfests start to set in.
Honestly, I think they should add an intro sequence where you play as one of the 7 scions (or someone other than the trailer character) as they do the final 1.0 raid together to try to stop the calamity, then cut to the finale of 1.0, as you see the not trailer character run off onto the battlefield as the scions watch helplessly, then after louisoix takes a stand, they go off into their spots to try to help.
Of course, then you see the calamity happen, but it's too late.
I would have each one rep their level 50 toolkits, to represent each of the ARR jobs too, with the other than the trailer character person repping one of the jobs they don't got.
I have almost 2,000 hours in this game and i am still playing and even till today i feel the same kind of excitement and enjoyment as i did when i started. Sometimes i do take a short break but when i come back i enjoy it the same way i did when i first started. I highly recommend giving the game a try.
I actually love the start of this game. It makes me feel like i felt when i started world of warcraft long time, in burning crusade. I grew bored of that game during dragonflight and started plaing FF14 instead, havent regretted at all. Wow started feeling like a chore, like a job. Final fantasy 14 feels like home. It is cozy in a way.
When 1.0 ended, the game was offline for less than a year. Closer to just 6 months if you count the unsaved time the servers were up.
The entire reason ARR feels that was is because level 1-50. IS THE TUTORIAL OF THE GAME. Until you finish the MAIN quest of ARR. Then it stops being a tutorial and becomes harder and increases every expansion. This is the biggest new player friendly experience any game ever. This is 90 year old grandma never played a game in her life and can pick up and play and learn it.
Its the point of the game witch is one of the best things a game can ever do. Its long yes. But its the best because of it
Tutorial yet the game is still resident sleeper until Stormblood patches. It's just poorly designed and outdated, Heavensward is no more challenging than ARR, in fact it's worse because not a single fight in HW or SB's MSQ comes close to the difficulty of the new Roegadyn fight
My biggest gripe with its pacing is that it costs money on a monthly basis. With that in mind I just cannot relax and take my time because the clock is literally ticking. Especially for busy people who only have a few hours a day if even that. Are we telling them to play for like a year, pay ~100 bucks while doing so (at 2 hours a day) for all the actually challenging and fun stuff to appear? While the catch up mechanics have been improving, story wise the game does not respect your time at all. If you're young or just have an abundance of time, it's great but for everyone else who just wants to have fun with friends, it's a punch in the face
Except game never gets harder. And ARR isnt tutorial, it teaches you nothing. Keep coping with crappy new player experience
the game may not force people to learn how to optimally use their kid but i do believe that the whole abilities glowing to show its best to use this one is a good idea
I agree that having the abilities glow to show you which one to use is a really good feature that helps players a lot!
MSQ is not as bad as people make it, rly. Lots of tedious stuff was removed and tempo is much faster now. With duty support, you can get all those early dungeons and trials done in no time. You would have to try really hard to fail there.
Why dosen't FF XIV have a launcher like WoW ( battle net ) ?
They need to allow the choice of starting ARR or a epilogue style catch up into dawnbreaker
Catching up to the msq is the hardest part. You have to play through the whole base game, post patch content and all of the expansions. It will take you probably months of casual gaming
I remember my first time through and being very burnt out on it by the time I got to heavensward and just quit there. I don't remember when I quit, I just know I picked it back up just before or after stormblood got released. I even made a new character for the new run, who is now my main after deleting my old one. Also keep in mind this was long before the devs decided to shorten those old quests. Despite the slog of replaying arr content, I don't know what made me stick with the game this time. I didn't have any friends I was playing with on a regular basis, nevermind made new ones. The only thing I can think of was maybe I could mentally check out because of previous experience, which you'd think would make it worse. I suppose it would allow me to focus on msq more, meaning getting to the good shit faster.
I think quite a few people will have an experience like this, plus it's a very long game so taking a couple of breaks along the way isn't a bad thing!
While the start of FF14 is very slow, this is true, but it's better than World of Warcrafts near complete lack of New Player experience.
I cannot say if it changed in the new current expansion, but as of Dragonflight, you do the tutorial Island, and that's a very way to be introduced, isolated, few characters, a variety of quests, and quest design philosophies, but if you are horde, after the Island, you are thrown into Orgrimmar, you go into the keep to talk to Sylvanas, and outside is a guy with a beam of light showering him, telling you we have to kill Sylvanas, lets go into the breach of death woop woop! But also if you randomly chose to timewalk to the WoD expansion instead, now it's some other dude on the throne and as soon as you level up to the current expansion you basically get forced to drop what you were doing to go to the new expansion. And also then there are entirely other dudes on the throne.
If I wasn't a World of Warcraft veteran, I would have been so fully lost.
In conclusion: FF14's story is slow, but at least it's coherent.
And also just as a petty remark: The intro to FF7 is very much not FMV, it's a pre-rendered 3d animation, FMV is specifically recordings of real actors placed as video in the game, or through a filter. Things like Her Story, the old infamous Night Trap, and the animations of the original Mortal Combat are examples of FMV.
I agree that the intro is very coherent, one of the main things it does well is giving clear objectives and goals to new players which hopefully came across well in the first half. Whilst FFXIV's intro is a bit slow it could have been worse in a lot of ways!
WoW did used to require going through every expansion (albeit not the whole story, since the story flows through old end game content) but it got cut down and restructured because there’s is just not a good way to pace 120 levels.
At some point 14 is going to have to make a tough decision in regards to what levels mean in this game, and where players have to start interacting with the MSQ. Cuz god help them on selling new players on a 120 level cap and a 90 hour MSQ chain
Ive always felt that most MMOs and games in general start out slow so it never bothered me, but good games give you a good return on investment, and FF14 does great at that!
Despite all the changes made to ARR, it's still really showing its age. Might be time for A Realm Reborn Reborn.
im a new player. currently level 22. no one would do the dungeon so i had to do it with npcs. it was horrendously slow. im an arcanist and already kind of bored with the spam of ruin over and over
It might be the worst time to say this to you.... but they update a lot of old dungeons in 7.1 to put some mechanics and spice the early game a bit
I will need to go and check those out and see how much of the difference the changes make!
@@game_design_diary It is not a big one, but it is better, for example i was playing Halatali, a dg that used be very boring but now they change all 3 bosses to indicate better the mechanics for new players and put things for players to react like mechs that made you move properly and even tank busters.
Only one dungeon, there will be more later
They have done a lot for the early game over the years but clearly not enough. I'm going through ng+ right now and it's quite enjoyable but I remember being a new player in ~2016 and finding the early game to be absolutely and utterly horrid, which for the most part it still is. The game basically plays itself until mid to late heavensward (if even by then, the MSQ is ridiculously easy) so one might argue for "just watch a cutscene movie or story summary and skip ARR", which in my opinion is a very valid course of action
They did a bit of a rework of ARR, but it's still a bit rough and a slog for newer players. Personally I think they need to take another look at it. I will say talking about the difficulty of it now doesn't really work since both the job system and combat have had massive reworks since ARR was actual content. The difficulty was much better back in the day.
FFXIV start is aweful, but it's worth getting through for the life changing story alone! Even forgetting that it's a top mmo with an abundance of fun stuff to do with your friends, it's worth it for the story
This game is perfect for casuals. Midcores & hardcores can speedrun+optimize just fine, playing seasonally alongside other mid/hardcore MMOs like WoW. FFXIV is directly aimed at the average, working-class "normie" & very often disappoints NEETs + its own community of full-time Twitch streamers. There are plenty of speedrun/optimization MMORPGs in the industry - this title is NOT one of them (again, unless played seasonally). Beware of 'new player tips' & 'you've been doing this wrong' videos right here on TH-cam from full-time FFXIV content creators: they just want to rush you to endgame content, which is definitely NOT worth the time/money investment unless you're comfortable skipping the entire story, literally sitting down to study the mechanics+systems of the game before playing, & you're mentally prepared to fit in with the (VERY vocal) minority of players who are comfortable with criticism/unsolicited advice/feedback/competition. The devs, especially Yoshi-P, have made it abundantly clear that the point of this game (except for the roughly 1-10% of high-end player content made specifically and only for high-end play) is to experience a lived-in, narrative-based, non-optimal, role-playing, team-player oriented, cooperative experience where the group is expected (via enforcement of the conduct clauses in the ToS) to cater to the weakest link(s) in their present group composition. Like I mentioned earlier, raiders are disproportionately vocal in online spaces like Reddit & Twitter, while being the extreme minorities of the in-game population of players. FFXIV hits the target demographic of casuals like 9-5 workers, those with accessibility/disability needs, & folks with already-busy social lifestyles. Too many speedrunners & optimization junkies get burnt out and disappointed with this title, and while their opinions & perspectives can often be valid criticism, they should be taken with a grain of salt (no pun intended) because most of the complaints surrounding the game are coming from an emotional place rather than a logical one. Misery loves company, especially when it comes to a sunk/cost addict who the devs have made crystal clear (no pun intended) that they'll cater to only 1-10% of the overall content, seasonally, and no more than that. It is on-purpose and by-design that backseating & damage meters are prohibited on a don't-ask-don't-tell basis. It's worth noting that every generation of MMORPGs' most casual title will always be the most popular, with so-called "elitists" giving tough-love advice + criticism that directly contradicts why the title is so popular in the first place. This has been a life cycle from Dungeons & Dragons to EverQuest to early-WoW - currently, it's FFXIV. This is a casual game for casual players. Expect midcores & hardcores to have disproportionate & contradictory expectations of players in random-matchmaking, as that's simply how gaming culture is at the present. They have access to tools like the Party Finder, Discord, & entire Reddit boards + Twitter accounts wholly dedicated to dunking on other players in order to simply pre-form - they CHOOSE to use random-matchmaking & bully casual/inexperienced players because they themselves are scared of receiving judgment + tough love advice from their peers/superiors. It's best to just mute/blacklist anyone being pushy or demanding. Don't let them bait you into acting irrationally: they're just trying to get you to violate ToS so they can snitch on you to the in-game moderators and punish you for sticking to your guns / learning the game at your own pace (as opposed conforming to theirs). "Toxic Casuals" is the label that these players use to bully, exclude, & socially-dominate others & I highly recommend using the mute and blacklist feature to save yourself the trouble of them trolling/backseating you. They absolutely know better & they won't stop until they realize all they are doing is socially isolating themselves & not helping anyone, least of all themselves, with such behavior.
Working class "normies" wants to play game and not read visual novel for 300 hours before playing game
I agree. A lot of gamers forget the fact that this oh-so-terribly-slow-paced-boring experience that is just so easy that is boring with it's menial fetch quests may be exactly the kind of gameplay a less chronically gaming person needs. It may be too easy for you but pretty challenging for most people that never needed to deal with 30 plus skills in a hotbar. Adding one at a time helps building confidence and get you used to the mechanics. When I told my partner RDM unlocks at 50 with most of its kit on the hotbar already I meant it as an exciting thing. She said "that seems too much, I'd get confused".
^This. Bro says a lot but bro speaks the truth. All a person who is newer to the game has to do is simply say, "hey this is my first time" or "I'm not experienced with this" or something to that effect, and without fail, the other people you are playing with will be supportive, patient, and not be judgemental cuz they remember that they too were at that point once
I’ve tried getting into FF twice now (on third attempt) and my opinion is this: NO MMO should require 400+ hours of playtime to get to endgame content. WOW has a great model to get people to endgame fairly easily while not sacrificing story. All the previous expansions are optional quests to do if you’re interested, and it takes ~8-20 hours casual gameplay to reach the newest expansion.
ff14 positives : one toon for all jobs , fast queue with roulettes, no need of addons , clear mechanics, music soundtrack, housing , UI, friendly community , time to play other games. negatives: convoluted msq, not so fluid combat with bloat buttons, cult community
as someone who has played through ARR multiple times now I need to say, YES we know it is slow as fuck and boring as hell and YES it does not get better until at least lvl 50 but work has been done to fix ARR, dungeons have been remade, NPCs are able to go into dungeons with you so you don't need to wait on other players if you prefer to play alone but I BEG of you, finish ARR. Endure it and get through it to the end because if you skip ARR you will be lost the rest of the game on characters, on story, on world building for the rest of the expansions
Here's something that doesn't work. How important features to crafting are found around the world and you don't know what they are until you talk to the npc. It's really easy to miss Materia Melding, Matria Extracting and Desynth. The only good thing being they're all found or most of them in thanalan Very important stuff as most players start as Free trials. Also same with certain extra dungeons. I didn't know about Cutters cry until I was in HW.
I think the optional dungeons are fine but your point about the materia melding and other crafting being easy to miss is really important, I do think they could have introduced those features as part of the main quest so it's guaranteed people won't miss them.
It's 5 RPG under one, of course it will be slow, that was content that people had 2 years to do back when it launched. and you cant cut out majority of it, cause the later parts won't make any sense. you cant compare it to either an MOO or an RPG, cause it is it's own thing.
try guildwars2
My main issue with MMORPGS is that developers make leveling and open world mobs so boring and easy.
Sometimes you need a bit more challenge to make the game more interesting!
Yeah i tried playing and deleted then played again then deleted then i may play again, it is just so boring and easy and u just press the same button over and over again
I tried to get 3 gaming contacts into the game in hopes of forming a static for high end content and they could barely make it through the first 15 levels and one didnt really even start.
The start of the game is really not selling the experience very well.
I remember when i started, i had no clue the jobs ended up as cool as they did because all i knew was the single attack on bland mobs.
As well as needing to read the opening scene on the cart was a real put off after being spoilt with VO scenes in other games.
Something they could have done was tease a level 30 combat scene in some form of "vision" before removing it all and make you start at square one.
Just to give you an idea of whats to come.
This is part of the issue in my opinion, the game opens with some of its weakest content which makes it a tough sell to get other players to join you in the game.
Couldn't ever get past the beginning of the game. The combat is horrendous, and the pacing is sooo slow.
Couldn't agree more. I have 3000 hours in the game and the biggest reason I could stick around was probably me being a religious cutscene skipper. I think it's great that they have a new game + system, which I'm going through right now (and actualy enjoying it quite a bit) but people usually don't play MMOs for the story but rather the gear grind, the difficult fights and generally the end game
@@Noel_Tamura first and foremost though, this is a final fantasy game. and people almost exclusively play FF games for the story, not for the combat. originally, it mainly appealed to FF fans and this was no problem. but after the game saw such a boom in MMO players (after other MMOs started to drop the ball a bit), the playerbase became mainly MMO players.
perfectly fine, but of course it means those MMO players may not be interested in what the game's initial audience are interested in
@@xxephon yeah I like the Final Fantasy world but I have a hard time with cut scenes when I'm trying to play a game. Looks really good though.
Before I maxed out lvl and completed all the main quests, the game was boring and took me a very long time to grind through
Hate story quests
FFXIV in the beginning is slow and awful.... FFFXIV in the end if boring and awful. One day SE will start to listen to it's player base instead of drippling the game out drop drop drop....
PVP is broken, has been broken...
The dungeons are fun the first couple of run throughs, then they are easy to see the mechanics
The new Deep dungeons are for a niche.
The variant dungeons are a joke.
The community is good, until it isn't.. Want to stand and pose all day check...
Here is a prime example... FF11 is an amazing game for it's age... they did a cross over but still can't or won't fix the login to get to 11.. They could have offered users a chance to mingle between the two with some sort of discounts... Instead, like all gaming companies they release the bare minimum.. For them to live out another 10 years, they will need to start listening to the user base. Plain and simple.
Unless you have friends on FF14, it's just another game to play through and put on the shelf until next patch, which is get you a few hours of content if you're lucky.
FF 13 gets good after 13 hours not 30 and I still found it boring and tedious in particular the massive difficulty spike when you reach the open world area (Forgot the name) and FF 14 is similar, I wasted 30 hours and drop it.
The game should have give you at least 4 skills at the start or I don't know.
meanwhile I made 4 characters in WOW (No longer play since I drop it after lich king)
I would recommend people playing Ragnarok Online since that game is 100% gameplay 0% story and 99.999% GRINDING.
If your not going to respect the devs time and effort they put into making and designing this game to enjoy the lore and story you do not deserve to play this game, sue me (i dare you XD) hell I'll meet you irl and fight you.
as a new free trial player, there is WAY TOO MUCH "buy this critical thing you'll need in the marketboard you have no access to" and "use the party finder you have no access to in terms of creating one"
They need to just delete ARR. No one wants to sit there and read 100 hours of trash writing