FFXIV then and nowFollow

Hello!

I write game articles for a little-known site (no sarcasm there, unfortunately) and am currently working on a piece about FFXIV--its past, present, and future. I guess I should start further back than that, though. I played FFXI from 2003 to 2008; was a huge fan; met my now-fiance there on Ramuh; and was so psyched about FFXIV when I first heard about it. So this article isn't going to be biased at all. ;)

Anyway after playing a bit of FFXIV at launch I was disappointed with the gameplay quality and quit, and that was that--until recently, when suddenly I could not stop thinking about tarutaru. I've been playing again for about a month now and am so impressed by the changes Yoshida and his team have made to the game that I wanted to write an article about the state of FFXIV especially aimed at old players who are considering coming back and new players who never gave it a chance because of that brutal 49/100 Metacritic score.

And now to the point. I've only been back for about a month, and casually at that, so I'd love to get some information about the state of the game from you all in the trenches, who've experienced higher-level, in-depth content that I haven't seen yet or come across in my research. I'm going to include below a summary of what I've already come up with for FFXIV's past, present, and future, and welcome thoughts, corrections, and additions to what I've compiled.

September 2010 (then)

-There is no auction house. The replacement system, Market Wards, is a joke. In order to buy an item from another player you must manually check the bazaar of the retainer selling said item—in other words, get incredibly lucky or be impossibly tenacious.
-There is no auto-attack. You must hit enter every single time you want to take a swing.
-There is serious lag, painful lag, lag so bad your little brother knows not to come within 15 feet of you while you’re FFXIV-ing for fear of death by asphyxiation.
-The UI is terrible. Just God-awful. Also laggy.
-The most effective way to gain experience is via job-specific quests called guildleves which are available in sets of 8 every 36 hours. This system rewards low-key play-styles and heavily disadvantages dedicated gamers.
-A confusing system is in place where a character has two levels: class rank and physical rank. Physical rank increases no matter what class he levels, including crafting classes (Disciple of the Hand) and gathering classes (Disciple of the Land).
-The graphics are incredible, but you won’t be able to appreciate them if your computer isn’t top-of-the-line.
-No chocobos.

June 2012 (now)

-Lead Developer Hiromichi Tanaka has been replaced by director/producer Naoki Yoshida, a hardcore MMO player who “can work without sleeping” and who openly communicates with players in game forums.
-There is still no auction house. However players can now speak with an NPC to search the Market Wards for and purchase items other players want to sell. It’s a *massive* improvement but it’s still a bit clunkier than an auction house. For example if a city’s Market Wards are full, other players cannot sell their items there, which is ridiculous and frustrating.
-Auto-attack has been implemented, thank the Twelve.
-The lag issues have been sorted out. Little Johnny can breathe easy.
-The UI is better. But not great.
-MP now regenerates automatically (and quickly!) when not in active mode, which has you fighting more, resting less.
-There are now airships between cities, and single-player combos, and some other fun content such as NMs and quests that I haven’t yet had the chance to experience.
-Physical ranks have been eliminated for simplicity.
-Because too much simplicity is apparently bad for our health, a complex and controversial job system has been implemented in addition to and complementing the class system. It’s difficult to boil down, but jobs seem to be focused on perfecting a few skills, whereas classes seem to be less focused and instead more versatile.
-The game still requires a sophisticated computer setup to run smoothly and look fancy.
-Chocobos!

Final Fantasy XIV Version 2.0

1. Complete redesign of repetitive maps
2. Fully-customizable graphics to cater to a broader range of PC capabilities
3. A new server system which will improve current UI and search issues
4. A completely rebuilt UI that will even allow for user-made add-ons (previously unheard of from SE)
5. Unique story content that only those playing before version 2.0 will get to experience

Bring your brutal honesty. The point of this article is not to sugarcoat or advertise but to inform gamers about the state of FFXIV. Thank you for your help!

Then: Had to use menus to do simple things like opening doors or targeting aetherial gates.

Now: Can easily target them as actual objects.


I'll think of more later.

The problem your going to come across is that pretty much everyone who plays FF14 have done so from the beginning so all these tweeks that have actually improved the game will go un-noticed.

I came back following the campaign and the game has come on leaps and bounds. Its a far more refined game than it was when it was released. UI, Lag, content, ease of leveling have all been improved.

Your opening article looks really good and is probably spot on to how the game is now,

Little Johnny can breathe, but currently needs an inhaler to help him overcome his panic attacks in certain situations i.e Ul'dah

DoT and enfeeble spells were NOT removed from the game. They were simply added as random chance additional effects on elemental base spells. In my opinion, this provides a more tactical situation, where the player must kno the when and where to use specific elemental spells.

All of what you mentioned go off if you perform combos with abilities. Slow went to Pugilist. Blind went to Gladiator/Paladin, etc...

From BLM perspective:

Enfeebling effects do NOT require a combo to be activated. That statement is absolutely incorrect and should be disregarded.

Blizzara - Chance to Bind any affected targets; AOE effect. INSTANT CAST
Thundara - Chance to Stun the target. INSTANT CAST


Notice a trend here? Not only do you get a chance to enfeeble your enemy, but you also can damage them in the process. White Mage has access to Stonera, which I BELIEVE can inflict paralysis (could be wrong on this).

The idea from the dev team was to split up different enfeeblement across all jobs in order to keep people from taking certain job combinations in battle. Unfortunately, this hasn't really happened for things like instances or primal battles as of yet. The american player base still tend to lean more towards the standard cookie cutter BS it always has.

Really? American Player's sticking to a cookie-cutter build, and battle style? Never! (and never mind the comments that SE promotes it...)

And it is not limited to blm either. Almost every class has an enfeeble ability. I have yet to be in a party since jobs were introduced that people actually use them.

It appears to be linked to the idea of: If it's not over-powered, it's completely worthless. In regards to bind and stun, they still work the same, but people got a taste of what it was like to have unlimited bind and stun, and now, they will not even use it (even though the basic functionality would be the same in oh, say the moogle fight), if it was staggered, and more timing was applied (than setting up a spam order).

But, yeah, that is another aspect of the game from when it was launched and now that they still share.

There is a general lack of community (you can find a linkshell, or a click), but there is a definite elitest mentality combined with a "Do it my way only" mentality.
All and all though, as long as you meet people who share your ideas/expectations for the game you can be happy (by either enjoying doing stuff or complaining about stuff) in the game.

I also image that we will see traditional enfeebles and buffs return with Rdm. But, who knows.

Personally, I think if you want to help the game, you'd focus on promoting 2.0 for new players and even returning players who haven't signed back up yet.

I think anyone who was remotely interested in giving FFXIV another chance in its current incarnation has done so already. My concern is that if people sign up for FFXIV now thinking they'll be getting 2.0, they will be utterly repulsed by the shocking disappointment of the current version.

Don't get me wrong, the game has improved. But as you pointed out, it's climbing from a depth of 49/100. Even if it could get a 60-65 now, it's still far from its intended quality. Many problems still exist:

- Controller UI on a mouse-based PC platform
- Incurable lag from poor engine netcode.
- Cut-and-paste environment
- Limits on displayable characters that make NPCs invisible for several seconds (even a minute in busy areas).
- No delivery system
- Sub-par market system
- Almost no new story content since launch
- Heavy on grind content (grinding leves, grinding crafts, grinding end game gear, grinding materia)

That's not even every problem, but you won't see any of this fixed until 2.0 at the earliest, which makes it the best time to give the game a chance, in my opinion.

Has the game come far from where it originally started ? Yes!

Has it come far Enough ? No!

Has SE/Yoshi been outperformed by just about every single MMO developing team out there in updates and quality of patches? Yes!

Is every other MMO out there in the same grave position as FFXIV ? No!

After 2 full years + beta time, is the game up to par with games released in 2010 and earlier ? Nope!

Why should we even think that SE is dedicated to making this game better, when obviously they are doing a terrible job of It ? Now dont get me wrong, i dont think yoshi is a horrible mmo developer, but he is not the jesus christ everybody wants to portray he is, the fact is FFXIV dev team is in a fight for the life of it's game, and they have yet to show that they are willing to go far and beyond any other company in order to succeed.

Ah! white Knights! How i missed you

First off, what the F@ck does it meter if 10-20-60-100% of a games population is in China ? Are Chinese people less than Japanese or American people ? And what swotor did is not free to play, is called a trial Idiot! How are they even close ? The closest they are is to Tera, wish released a few months ago in the states, 2 full years and they are close to match a game that just released...... Yup! going far and beyond duty Brah! They cant match cataclysm (Just the expansion not the entire wow universe) they cant match swotor, they cant match rift, and that is in content, or update quality, can they even match in population ? Nope! So please do tell me where does FFXIV matches any of this games at ?

Oh and dont even start with the storyline, 2 FREAKING YEARS!!! No major advance whatsoever........