Update on Final Fantasy XIV

It’s been a while since I gave you guys an update on where I’m at in Final Fantasy XIV.  I think the last time I wrote I was in the middle of what is still considered the be the “end-game.”  I’m sad to say I haven’t made much progress. Over the last month I really lost the drive to do any end-game activities like push to progress into an overly difficult raid tear, or repeat the same dungeons ad nauseam.

FFXIV’s biggest failing in my eyes has been its attempt to  try and fit a mold.  Players have been conditioned for so many years to look for certain things like raiding and gear treadmills.  When those things aren’t present, the players think that a game without them can’t possibly exist.  By creating a game that appeals to that demographic, they closed the door on a demographic that I belong to: The people who simply don’t give a […] and just want to log in and have fun doing something that’s simple to jump in and jump out with friends.  That’s why I play themepark MMOs.

A big question I’ve been kicking around in my head is whether or not FFXIV is a 3 monther.  There are MMOs created with massive design flaws and are destined to be 3 monthers.  Then there are games like FFXIV that didn’t have to be 3 monthers, but fell into that category due to a lack of things to do at the end-game.  So yes, FFXIV is technically a 3 monther.  The development of new content has been really slow coming.  I think it’s been a month of sitting around wishing they would add something I want to do.

That’s an important distinction to make.  There are some 3 monthers where I simply lose all desire to play the game.  In FFXIV’s case, I definitely want to keep playing but I want to do things that sound fun to me.  I came up with a bunch of ideas like Gold Saucer, Chocobo Races, and content like FF Tactics.  I’ve even talked about wanting to fly around in an airship and control it with friends.  While those things may eventually come, they aren’t coming quick enough.

FFXIV-Housing

Thankfully housing comes in like 2 weeks.  That will bring a much needed change of pace for me.  Instead of logging in each day to simply craft and make money, I can log in and decorate my guild’s house and have ways other than combat and dungeons to interact with my friends.

I’m hoping for more activities that feel like Final Fantasy, and less that feel like they are designed simply to keep the raiders playing.  FFXIV isn’t a very good raiding game, I think it should stop trying to be one.  Despite any current success it may enjoy, going down this path for too much longer will lock them into a short-term strategy from which they can’t recover.

My fingers are crossed that the upcoming major patch changes things up enough that I want to play alts, work on a house, and feel like I’m playing Final Fantasy.  I want a Final Fantasy world where players want to simply ‘exist’ instead of ‘play-through’ everything.

  • ” That’s why I play themepark MMOs.”

    Wait, but these MMOs have the gear treadmills…Themeparks tunnel all players into a specific activity or 2 that have one purpose…”gear treadmill”. I play Themeparks too but I don’t mind the gear treadmill if it is done right…Probably the AK chain running for 3-4 months with a 300 mythology cap is one of the worst I found. The alt leveling via fates and only fates isn’t fun either. With all these, I am surprised I am still playing the game…Probably is because of my FC and people I met in the game, but day after day I login for less and less hours and mostly just to chat.

    I don’t think the patch will change something…3 more dungeons is clearly better than 1 but the lack of personal house and nothing interesting for leveling alts will see me bored again pretty quickly.

  • The last line: ” I want a Final Fantasy world where players want to simply ‘exist’ instead of ‘play-through’ everything.”

    Is why i fell in love with MMO’s and why they are hard to catch on to now.

    The only time i have fun in MMOs these days is when im playing with a group of friends with some form of consistency. And its due to that statement, when im playing with friends, I can log in and know that “I exist” But that is the only time i feel that these days, where as back in the old days of MMOs when things actually took longer to accomplish (which IMO is the reason MMOs are faultering these days) You could log on solo and still fill as if you were apart of the world. Because people knew you, they knew you from leveling, they knew you from crafting, heck they knew you just from being in town. Good luck with that these days! You used to stand out because you had a cool piece of armor that was hard to get. Now EVERYONE has these items.

    This is part of the reason EQN:L stands out to me, I can be known based on my work/claims. People will have a designated spot to find me. If my stuff is cool enough, people from other continents can tell others about it and people will travel from all over just to see me/my work.

  • @Rohirrim: To clarify, I do not prefer themeparks but when I do play them it’s because I want their get-in-get-out nature. If a themepark forces me into an exhausting and (subjectively) boring experience, I simply won’t comply.

    @Table: I completely agree with you.

  • For me, it ended up being a 2 monther. Mostly due to RL stuff, but I could not maintain any reasonable play time in it. Even when I joined the guild. I think I am just going to wait for Archeage or WildStar. Maybe play some Destiny on my PS4 when that comes out. Definitely looking forward to doing stuff with the guild more, since I pretty much gave up on the FFXIV boat.

  • Even though i cannot be even considered casual gamer nowadays mainly due to my extremely low time-to-spare availability, i just could not feel part of the world in ARR. They just made so many things wrong imho.

    I, personally really have it in for the whole interaction with the world, the time it took you interacting with npc is COMPLETELY broken, it is inconceivable to spend that much amount of time clicking through dialog options (i.e. take a look at the first 2 hours on any new character). The world map is completely wrong made (even they agree on that and have promised to fix it).

    What ALL game developers fail to realize in MMORPG design is that the genre has repetition as an innate characteristic, and therefore small nuances tend to blow WAY out of proportions after you encounter them for the 1000 time around.

    They have failed to promote replayability and they have so much downtime infused into their system that is exactly what i described above, small nuances multiplied by million times (i remember you made a post about downtime between fates as well).

    So they need to improve the world map, cut down on animations/locked character while interacting with npc’s, remove dialogs (chocobokeeper for example), remove zoning/loading screens as much as possible.

    What they cannot do even though they should is make the zones bigger, completely revamp the levelling experience that is broken at this point (but that would also mean to leave out the multiclass system so that people need to go through it at every new character) by somehow making it a lot longer and remove the whole idea of FATEs altogether, they need to promote farming by making professions worthwhile in end game and if possible at all levels (mobs should drop interesting stuff AND Gil).

  • Despite my objections I got dragged into FFXIV by my friends. I knew what I was getting into after my 1 question survey was answered here (Does it have quest hubs? Yes.).

    The leveling was much better than most MMOs I’ve played recently, but still not good. The act of crafting is fantastic, but I’ve come to realize crafting can never having the meaning I want it to unless the items you create have a shelf life.

    I haven’t quit, but my playtime now is greatly reduced. Since beating Titan I pretty much just log in to do coil a few times a week.

  • I’m still in love with the game but I haven’t played it consistently in 3 weeks. I’ve reached that end game but all I was doing was run the same 2 dungeons to farm Philosophy tomes to grab Dark Light gear to be able to advance and do the only Raid available at the moment.

    I’ve been waiting for this patch to go back to it, since that will add several other activities to obtain those Philosophy tomes and that should make the grinding more bearable. I also stopped leveling new jobs since I have 2 of them at 50 and everything else around 30. I got bored of running fates to level and the patch also promises to raise XP from other activities like questing and dungeons, so that should give me more options since I plan on getting all the jobs to 50 eventually.

  • Seems like I’ve had a bit different experience than most. I’m sure part of it is that I have a lot more playtime, but most of it is that I involved myself early in a coue of great Link Shells. Since then I’ve ended up leading two (pre- and endgame) while still an active member of 4 more and a lurker in the last two. I interact daily with 3-5 parties of people I’ve been playing with for weeks, chat with a dozen or so more, and meet 2-3 new players a day. I look for shouts LFM for tough-to-make-happen content like Chimera or Hydra and pop in for a karma kill a couple of times a week.

    In all, I’ve found FFXIV to be a vastly rewarding and enjoyable game. I’ve made a name for myself across Leviathan and have met literally 300+ awesome people that make each community I’m a part of special and fun.

    The tools are there. The community is there. The options at endgame *can* be limited to “must grind WP” but in no way have to be. I’ve done maybe 10 WP runs in the last two weeks. I get most of my times from Coil, but I help new players gear in AK or join them in ANY of the sub-50 content. Hell, I’ve run Brayflox more often than WP lately and I’m not even there for the drops.

    I think my meandering point is that there’s a massive server sitting out there just waiting for us to interact with it. Come and play! If you’re looking for a world, you have to make yourself part of it 😉

  • @Truff You are absolutely right, however this is kind of my problem with FF14 and current MMOs in general. You, the person behind the keyboard, is the key part of this equation. And although it might sound nerdy, I prefer your character to stand out. It adds a certain drive to my playtime, It gives me goals. Making my character stand out in different ways is what I am after when I play MMOs.

    Honestly if I wanted to be known for the person behind the keyboard I would go hang out with people lol. I play video games (mmos specifically) to invest into a toon for a long time and progress and set goals. So far I enjoy FF14 but the whole progression/setting goals so far has come up short.

  • Has there been a non-3 monther since WoW? With differentiating attention spans of different generations of gamers combined with the pure volume of MMO’s to choose from now, will there ever be another non-3 monther? Mine has been Guild Wars 2, however, I know for a lot it was a less than 3 monther, but the game model works for me. So I guess you can add personal preference to the list as well.

    I think the MMO as a whole is going to have to completely reinvent itself before we have another game where the majority of gamers stick around for more than 3 months.

    As always, until then… “The MMO is dead, long live the MMO.” will be the trend.