Final Fantasy XIV : a real letdown
I got roped into playing this game because a silly video was posted on FB and it had a song in it that I could swear I recognized. It was the chocobo song from Final Fantasy and this video actually reunited me with a high-school pal who recommended I join in the game.
Let's get this straight: I really like MMO's for the most part. I find them to be a great way to kill time and if you enjoy RPG's well, they never really end. Some people view them as a massive waste of time and to a certain degree I agree with those people. However, if you enjoy them and have the ability to not let them consume your life (and they do for many people) it is a great way to spend just a few bucks a day on what you enjoy.
That being said: I feel as though FFXIV is not a good game. This is because of some very simple reasons - the game is a grind-fest and the combat is extremely repetitive.
The game is quite beautiful and there is an awful lot of nostalgic moments especially the battle songs simply being revamped better versions of the type of music that has always existed in the franchise. You have lots of options for professions, and you can switch professions at any time without going back to level one, you simply equip different gear and go through a short tutorial in one of the main cities and voila! You have changed professions! UPDATE: you have to achieve a certain level before this is possible, I believe it was level 30.
Like most MMO's FFXIV had the "trinity" of Tank / Healer / DPS (mostly spell-casters of sorts,) each class having their obvious pros and cons in a battle situation. I actually like the trinity system, and efforts to deviate away from it haven't exactly worked in my opinion (such as in Guild Wars 2.) The benefit of being able to change classes simply by altering your equipment is a big bonus in the game and makes you more versatile in a group.
look on the left, this guy is in a large group
Group play is the nuts and bolts of any MMO and is the main reason why people play it. FFXIV has integrated simple commands to make it possible for people from different languages to team up and be able to communicate, which is one of the good parts of this game. Now on to the bad
The grind
When leveling up your toon you will need to partake in certain story mission to progress your character. Some of these missions have level requirements and if you don't yet meet said level you have to tool around getting xp until you are a high enough level. This can be exceptionally frustrating because the combat is so boring. As a healing class (and I am writing this from memory, forgive me for being slightly wrong with the terms,) I would cast an offensive spell from a distance, then just wait for the enemy to halfway close the distance and wait for the offensive spell to "recharge," and continue to use it over and over.
I have access to a more powerful rock throwing spell but it takes a really long time to recharge so I can really only ever use that once per battle. After each battle your health automatically restores so you take a small break, and then do the same sequence over and over again. It just wasn't fun.
When you join a group as a healer you are tasked with healing, and this consists of watching the lifebars on the left side and then casting heals on whoever happens to need it at the time. For me, I wasn't even watching the gameplay, I was simply looking at the bars on the side in order to do my job.
silly run-around missions
I can't really understand the purpose of this. Perhaps it is to familiarize you with the world map or something. You will be given a task that incorporates going REALLY FAR away in order to talk to someone, who then tells you to go REALLY FAR away to gather something or kills something. After doing so now you have to return REALLY FAR away to the people who gave you the task in the first place. Sometimes it is so far away that you actually have to catch a "flight" to get to that point. This sort of "busywork" is just annoying and pointless. This is the main reason why I left the game.
I don't expect everything to be handed to me in a game, but making me spend 20, often combat-less, minutes traveling from one side of the world to the other, only to watch an overly long cut-scene and then being told to travel another 20 minutes back in the direction I JUST CAME FROM, is dumb.
I know there are going to be some fanbois out there that are going to say that I couldn't possibly know about the game after only playing it for 2 months (the free trial and also one paid month) but in my mind, if an MMO isn't at least somewhat interesting after playing for 60 days, it is time to go.
you have to pay to play
Perhaps GW2 ruined me because that game has never had a monthly subscription, but I find it a bit odd that I have to pay to purchase the game ($20 or so) and also have to pay a monthly subscription fee of 10 or 20 dollars (I don't remember which but both are too high.) Guild Wars 2 had a relatively high buy-in of $50 or so, but then you never had to pay a monthly fee, ever.
Credit to TheLazyPeon for this nice vid and he highlights some of the good stuff as well, which I didn't do much of.
Basically, being a lifelong Final Fantasy fan I was extremely disappointed in the game being a grind-fest. Oh well, they can't all be winners I guess.
I am not going to rate this game because well, everyone's experience will be different based on how they choose to play the game. For me, I choose not to play it.
The story was good even if a bit cliche and tropey though the quests (gameplay wise) still were pretty inferior to what WoW does. Zone design was improved compared to HW but copying of assets is still pretty noticeable in areas like terrain doodads. I understand buildings having only 1 or 2 varieties but I shouldn’t see things like the same rock and tree over and over so easily which can usually be dealt with but just rotating an object. Ruby Sea feels like a huge empty zone given the water doesn’t add much actual gameplay either besides swimming. If you’re going to add a mostly water zone you should at the very least add some type of gimmick rather than having it be nothing more than a barren land of emptiness and copy pasted rocks and kelp that you swim through. In general some zones just didn’t feel like they reached their full potential such as the Lochs and Yanxia while others like Azim Steppe were really well done. The zones still feel dead in general when compared to WoW’s where you’ll see NPC’s actually doing things such as bears hunting fish or predators hunting prey and in general FF14 zone design seems to be nothing more than ‘this is the bear area and over there’s the wolf area and this final area is the bird area and the mobs are just all walking back and forth in their little zone’ and doodads just seem thrown into the game world and rarely are blended in
Final has been one of my favorite RPGs, like to spend my boring moments on games, its a great way to kill time. FFXIV indeed didnt reach expectations the way i was hoping it would, Square Enix's effort to immotalised final fantasy went a little off this time in terms of gameplay though, the worlds still continue to be wonderfully done, the musical arrangements also deserve an applause, i enjoyed every single bit of it, the reduction in graphic quality is however a let down don't you think so? Apparently it was to enable smooth play on Pcs too
i never really thought about the graphics being reduced to accommodate PC's, probably because my own rig is far more powerful than a console but yes, i think you have a point there. They want to be able to engage as much of the PC market as possible and to do so they would need to make the minimum req's as low as they can. Good eye!
Looks kinda awesome at first glance until you dive in and realise that is not really as great as you were expecting, am not really a serious gamer but i have played final fantasy releases because it was soo popular and i cn tell you this one in particular aint my favorite, too many downs and few ups
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I love final fantasy but any game with a compulsory pay to play rule is an instant turnoff for me
its strange @gooddream, but all through my experiences with gaming in the past, i never played final fantasy despite how popular it was/is
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Hmm nice game what um I can conclude from the article and the video. The gameplay is great but the controls and the combat styles are too complicated and repetitive (as you mentioned). Though I like the change of professions at any time and part of the game without retreating to level one. Thanks for this.
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Final Fantasy is a delivery that has been surpassed by later games, but still keeps its personal charm; for being the first of all and for being the one that made known to such a project, of such immense scope, that neither the developers themselves expected. Do not miss the opportunity to play and know the origin of everything.