Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

RobXIII

Urinal Cake Consumption King
<Gold Donor>
3,683
1,833
... someone mentioned leveling/story and I have to say that this game had the worst quest/story flow of any game (mmo or otherwise) I have ever played. Talk to this person, cross the world, talk to this person, cross the world, talk to this person - ho-ly-shit. Sometimes new quests will open up when you travel, but usually not. Why is every zone broken up into tiny little chunks of level ranges? Is this their solution for their inexplicably shit horrible systems design that forces them to cap zones at 800(?) players? (hard cap coming in patch, good luck getting into north thanalan!)

Some shitbird even said the game runs better than wow. Hey, dumbass, I remember the entire population of the server being funneled into ONE zone at the start of some expansions (and two for the rest) without the zones crashing or needing to be hard-capped. The difference is, WoW doesn't have culling - and it probably should, but not if it sucks as badly as FF14's implementation. (lets cull out THE MONSTER YOU ARE ATTACKING, FUCKING WHAT?)

No, I'm sorry, the first statement stands.
First off, I did enjoy my leveling experience for the most part, and liked 'attempting' to keep my botany and weaving the same level as my summoner. That said, when I was in my 20s, my story quest gave me some ear communicator thingie so I could keep in touch with the story quest folks. DID NOT MATTER, you still had to go all the way back there just to 'talk' to them to keep the story quest going =\

LOL@ the culling out the monster comment, too true.
 

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm
9,271
9,370
First off, I did enjoy my leveling experience for the most part, and liked 'attempting' to keep my botany and weaving the same level as my summoner. That said, when I was in my 20s, my story quest gave me some ear communicator thingie so I could keep in touch with the story quest folks. DID NOT MATTER, you still had to go all the way back there just to 'talk' to them to keep the story quest going =\

LOL@ the culling out the monster comment, too true.
Yea ~ They should rewrite that. Or at least give some arbitrary reason as to why it doesnt work. "This will allow me to get in touch with you, but it is only one way."

The culling issue is really small on my list of things to fix. The frustrating part, especially as a tank, is just being out of a Cone and still being hit by it.
 

spronk

FPS noob
22,663
25,757
well they at least started implementing some server side checks today, this bugs been fixed only 9999 left

 

Sabbat

Trakanon Raider
1,833
760
This is what people are talking about when they mention the 300ms built-in. It's not 300 so much as 0-300 randomly based on when the server chooses to poll. It was in a beta thread so you can't view it anymore directly (shows as maintenance) but you can google it easily enough.
Just because there is a .3 second delay in the code doesn't make it "ping or latency", perhaps a bad choice of words in the original post by axeman. There IS a delay, and we called this delay "mythic seconds" back when the latest game to take a dump on was WAR.

I play this game with 240-300ms ping / latency.

In beta, it was almost impossible for me to move out of a red circle of death, now that I'm playing after release I've had no difficulty at all moving out of AoEs and the like. I watched a video of some chick side strafing out of an AoE and being hit by it even when she was well clear of it.

Back in EQ1, if you ran, stopped and tried to cast, you would ALWAYS get interrupted. You needed to run, stop, turn sideways a little and then cast. At a guess the same system is in place. Even WoW suffers from this when you play with a ping over 250ms. The number of times I've died well clear of AoEs and killzone abilities in WoW (the most memorable was World in Flames on Ragnaros) is simply staggering.

It's very possible that my experience is different from the american experience because I've lived with a high ping and latency my entire gaming life and have adapted to it. Making little updates on positionals by changing direction, not jumping to clear circle bases, walking in front of critters to hit them while moving and so on, are a few of the tricks you learn.

This unresponsive combat is complete bullshit. I push a button, stuff happens, instantly. Off the global stuns like Leg Sweep won't clip the start of an animation, but they will clip the middle/end of an animation. This does make this particular stun and other off-the global abilities feel a little spongy if you're pushing the button at the wrong time. Learn what you can and can't clip and things will get much smoother.

What I can't understand though, is how it's possible for me to clear these AoEs without drama with a 300ms latency, and americans can't with a latency of 50ms. Assuming that JP group servers and NA servers both have the same 300ms delay factored in. At 600ms I shouldn't have a hope in hell of clearing anything.
 

Antarius

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,828
15
I'm going to assume that the majority of the 54 million gold "per" account banned (or whatever it was, something ridiculous like that) on their RMT dev post came from that bug.
 

Man0warr

Molten Core Raider
2,265
171
Did no one post these upcoming hotfix changes on 10/15?

  • Changes will be made to the way equipment is bound.
  • Introducing additional servers and enhancements to act as a countermeasure against the congestion to enter "Amdapor Keep."
  • The difficulty for level 50 dungeons will be adjusted.
  • The number of areas where you can acquire Allagan Tomestones of Philosophy and Mythology will be increased as well as the amount you can acquire.
  • Implementation of a population cap for each field.
  • * The population cap is planned to be introduced separately. (Added on October 11th, 2013)
  • Adjustments to the spawn rate of monsters that drop diremite web and additional locations where Karakul can be found.
  • The amount of experience points that can be acquired on botanist and miner, as well the experience points that can be acquired from their fieldcraft leves, will be increased.
  • User interface elements related to materia and target information will be adjusted.
 

Antarius

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,828
15
I'm assuming the note about dungeon difficulty means that Westwind and praetorium would be made slightly easier (and likely drop tomes too),

Maybe a slight nerf to Titan HM? I mean I'd only speculate, but the rest of the dungeons seem pretty easy/intended.

WP and AV seem just about right in terms of difficulty, same with AK. Maybe WP could use a nerf, but AV isn't a 50 dungeon either. I'd say DD was actually harder than AV by a fair margin.


Population cap really I don't think will matter except when Behemoth / Odin / future world bosses are up... but if it keeps keeps the server from crashing, I'm ok with it.

All the other changes seem fairly common sense, nothing really shocking. AK queue times is probably the highlight of the patch.
 

dogbarf_sl

shitlord
28
0
The main reason most MMORPGs in the last six years have failed is because they tried to innovate the genre. That's very different from simply designing a game where every feature and aspect of gameplay is worse than the main competitor. A game like GW2, for instance, isn't expected to deliver the same level of itemization design or dungeon variety as WoW because that game was meant to provide something different. It didn't really work out all that well, but that's a different matter entirely. FFXIV tries to do exactly what WoW does, it makes no attempt whatsoever to provide something new, but then tragically fails to improve on anything at all; rather they've regressed ten years in the MMORPG development timeline on many fronts, creating a game that feels more like the precursor to the game they've forced themselves to compete with by doing nothing different than that game.

It goes way beyond QoL issues. This isn't going to become a great game with a few light patches that paper over the cracks. It has a number of enormous flaws and problems, among which, to name a few, are:

- No class specialization whatsoever, there simply aren't builds or serious customization choices
- Probably the smallest item pool in MMORPG history with only one piece of equipment per tier for each slot, except ilvl90
- One valid dungeon per tier, forcing players to run the same instance over and over and over and over
- Utterly broken class(es) that the developers insist is fine and it's just every single player of that class being bad at the game
- Unspeakably bad server infrastructure and lack of regional servers for most parts of the world
- Unbearable 2.5 second global cooldown, extremely sluggish combat, unresponsive controls
- Poor general combat system with severe over-emphasis on step-out-of-the-AoE as almost the only fight dynamic
- Fundamentally broken, unsustainable economic model
- Pitifully primitive and one-dimensional class mechanics, skills and mechanics have less depth than vanilla WoW's
- Completely broken leveling system where the only viable source of exp with alts is mindless FATE leeching
- Anyone with any clue can tell that this game's PvP will be hysterically awful
- Retarded party size vs. raid format which exacerbates the queue time issue for DPS and guarantees problems with tank demand in raids

They didn't get dick right and it's not a great MMO unless your standards are very low. They made rookie mistakes, they've recreated problems that were fixed years ago, they've worsened issues that already existed in the genre, and they've created a game so primitive and shallow that there basically isn't a platform for any kind of theorycrafting or discussion. Look at this forum, or anywhere else. There's nothing to talk about regarding the actual game because it's less complex than DAoC. They've taken all the things WoW offers and imitated them except worse, offering nowhere near the diversity of content or classes, the intricacy of itemization, the fluidity of gameplay or the depth of combat and skill mechanics that people have enjoyed for nearly a decade in the game that they're inevitably being compared to because they chose not to do anything beyond that.
This post should be stickied and the people defending this game should have their posting rights removed.
 

Harkon

Vyemm Raider
1,549
4,090
This post should be stickied and the people defending this game should have their posting rights removed.
Why? The majority of that post is opinion and conjecture, there is lots to discuss. If anyone should have their posting rights removed it should be you.
 

Vilgan_sl

shitlord
259
1
Shrug, I am enjoying the game and am paying a sub for the first time in years. The good and the bad has been fairly hashed at this point. Not sure why Dogbarf feels the need to post 70% of his total posts in the FFXIV thread if he hates it so much. I think Wildstar is a horrid piece of shit, but I said my piece and got out of their thread.

Is part of the fun based on hitting old Final Fantasy nostalgia? Probably. But given their fairly limited timespan they came out with a game that many are finding fun. They are also starting to address a few of the max level concerns now that people other than Sean and other Poopsockers are at 50.

The game has been pretty clear from day 1 (imo) about what they are offering. If you raced to 50 and it didn't feel like losing your virginity again when you got there, blame yourself and fuck off. Axeman's list of complaints are valid but also not relevant to many people who are enjoying themselves. For example, there is no mention of crafting which I enjoy more than I've enjoyed crafting in any other game. It pulled some concepts from EQ2 but executed WAY better.
 

Dahkoht_sl

shitlord
1,658
0
Shrug, I am enjoying the game and am paying a sub for the first time in years. The good and the bad has been fairly hashed at this point. Not sure why Dogbarf feels the need to post 70% of his total posts in the FFXIV thread if he hates it so much. I think Wildstar is a horrid piece of shit, but I said my piece and got out of their thread.

Is part of the fun based on hitting old Final Fantasy nostalgia? Probably. But given their fairly limited timespan they came out with a game that many are finding fun. They are also starting to address a few of the max level concerns now that people other than Sean and other Poopsockers are at 50.

The game has been pretty clear from day 1 (imo) about what they are offering. If you raced to 50 and it didn't feel like losing your virginity again when you got there, blame yourself and fuck off. Axeman's list of complaints are valid but also not relevant to many people who are enjoying themselves. For example, there is no mention of crafting which I enjoy more than I've enjoyed crafting in any other game. It pulled some concepts from EQ2 but executed WAY better.
+1

Enjoying the combat pace for a change myself ,people actually talk and socialize on my FC and server and play it like an mmo.

More than I can say for any of the shit released in the past 7 or so years since VG.

It looks great , has an interesting world to level in , and a decent population of folks that are playing it.

It's not for poopsocking , grind fates to 50 ASAP folks , but that's not really what I'm looking for in an mmo anyway.
 

TrollfaceDeux

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
<Bronze Donator>
19,577
3,743
you are going to quit in less than 2 month if you poopsock.

and/or if you are a jew and you may play this game for awhile.
 

bayr_sl

shitlord
715
0
It's hard to take the people who defend this game seriously because it feels like the same story every time. Some people arrive quickly to the reality that the game is shit and others take several months, during which they staunchly defend the game but in the end the game dies anyway and the defenders are nowhere to be found
 

Chancellor Alkorin

Part-Time Sith
<Granularity Engineer>
6,029
5,915
i play a lot and all criticism are valid, but it's not game breaking.
Right. It's a simple concept. Are you having fun? If not, stop playing.

The part where some people have to come whine and moan on a forum about how other people can choose to have fun is hilarious.
 

Malakriss

Golden Baronet of the Realm
12,360
11,760
I shall drink your tears and convert the salt into poop which i will place in a sock and mail back to you.

Perhaps I will scribble "Here's a preview of the next WoW expansion" on the package.
 

Toxxulian_sl

shitlord
227
0
You wish this game was even in the same ballpark as wow. Although, I guess you must have a lot of time on your hands to type out BS with that 2.5 second gcd.

Keep at it.

i play a lot and all criticism are valid, but it's not game breaking.
Almost all of the bugs that have been listed are as close to game breaking as they get. They will never be fixed because they are built into the game as features.. You see? Everyone calls them bugs, even the people still playing call them bugs, yet the devsknowinglyadded them. They've had netcode issues since XI, that will never get fixed. If that was the only issue the game had it would still be a bust, because with that bug the game feels like you are fighting against the servers and not the boss. How could anyone think that is fun? That is just a shitty game. XI was fine with it because the boss fights weren't doing anything crazy.