23 Sep, 2010, Kayle wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
I know that Zeno and I are playing it, but are any of the rest of you? If so, what server are you on/going to be on?
23 Sep, 2010, Kline wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Is it any less suck than the first MMO FF? I love FF, dearly, and I tried to force myself to love FFXI but I just couldn't. So many things I didn't like, and was so disappointed in :(. Such as why I am a WoW person instead…
23 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
I have to say the recent Final Fantasy games have been pretty disappointing; more and more about flashy graphics and cinematics and less about gameplay. I don't think I'll even try the newer one; FFXI just reminded me why I generally avoid graphical MMOs with how the majority of the people that I interacted with acted.

Maya/Rudha
23 Sep, 2010, Kayle wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
I think they made some major improvements over FFXI in XIV. But it's really hard to list out all the things that changed…

The Final Fantasy XIV Lodestone Page might explain a little bit, but without knowing what you didn't like about XI I couldn't begin to tell you whether it's "any less suck." :P
23 Sep, 2010, ATT_Turan wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
Speaking for myself, I refused to try Final Fantasy XI when I heard about how much grinding it took to level up (and if I recall, some obselete death penalties also). I played Everquest for a while, it's not fun to spend my few hours of playing in an evening trying to make a dent in a single level.
23 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
ATT_Turan said:
Speaking for myself, I refused to try Final Fantasy XI when I heard about how much grinding it took to level up (and if I recall, some obselete death penalties also). I played Everquest for a while, it's not fun to spend my few hours of playing in an evening trying to make a dent in a single level.


Yeah, combining "making death a pain" with "difficult to gain levels" tends to be a good recipe for frustration; in FF XI's defence it's not the worst with that kind of thing (EVE Online probably wins that award) but it certainly isn't getting any gold stars.

Maya/Rudha
23 Sep, 2010, Kayle wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, the Leveling is a lot easier in 14, you can reach Max Level without ever leaving town if you have the Gil.

They split the crafting disciplines into their own classes. You gain Ranks in Classes as you use them which net you new abilities, and unlock recipes (for crafters), and at the same time you gain experience for your Physical Level. In a couple of hours, I managed to get 4 different classes to Rank 4 and Reach Level 5 without doing much work at all. I traveled to the three major cities so that I could teleport between them at will.

Overall it seems like they really dumbed down the leveling process, and with the added Guildleve (quests) system, the grind really seems to have gone away. Or at least been masked behind a pretty cool quest system. There's a couple of flaws to the Guildleve system though, and I hope they get those straightened out, sometimes when you go to exchange a completed Leve for a new one it won't let you exchange them for some reason, but other than that I love this new aspect of the game.

[Edit:] I haven't actually died yet, so I don't know if the Exp loss at death is still around. I know it wasn't in the Beta but a lot of things changed between the beta and the commercial release.
23 Sep, 2010, Kline wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
Kayle said:
I think they made some major improvements over FFXI in XIV. But it's really hard to list out all the things that changed…

The Final Fantasy XIV Lodestone Page might explain a little bit, but without knowing what you didn't like about XI I couldn't begin to tell you whether it's "any less suck." :P

Slow leveling; death penalty.
"Useless" multi-class system. I say this due to the fact unless you were one of X cookie-cutter builds, nobody would group with you.
Useless "consider" command. Anything that said "a fair fight" would typically annihilate you.
Poor AH system. I don't like entering an arbitrary bid and "hoping" I get the item; let me see the going price!
Big divide between Eng/Jap players since the game had been out in Jap for much longer, and typically wouldn't group/assist/etc.
Horrible design to have no control over server choice. You had to get in a high level LS or be high level yourself to purchase the codes to select-a-realm on create. Good luck playing with friends!
Painfully slow skill leveling. I think I remember trying to fish in one of the starting zones, and while granted MMO fishing is boring anyway, this one really took the cake for skill gain/success/cast rate.
edit:
Again on the multi-class…It sucked to start ENTIRELY over when swapping classes. You may be a level 18 monk, but you're as weak as a fresh newbie when you swap to level up mage, etc. I wouldn't expect 1:1, but some kind of power transference would have been nice so you don't keep returning through the same starting zones each time you level a class.

That's all I've got off the top. I haven't played XI since it was released, I think I only stuck it out for about 3 months before calling it quits.
23 Sep, 2010, Bobo the bee wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
I wish I could get into MMO's sometimes, and my love for the Final Fantasy series is a driving force behind that. But still, I just can't cope with the changes FFXI and FFXIV are making. You can take away my story, you can take away my gameplay, you can take away my music, but damnit you cannot take away just my myself! *shakes a fist*
23 Sep, 2010, Zeno wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
Bobo the bee said:
I wish I could get into MMO's sometimes, and my love for the Final Fantasy series is a driving force behind that. But still, I just can't cope with the changes FFXI and FFXIV are making. You can take away my story, you can take away my gameplay, you can take away my music, but damnit you cannot take away just my myself! *shakes a fist*


Take away what? Both FFXI and FFXIV have a great story. Music? Nobuo Uematsu is doing the music for FFXIV.
23 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
Kayle said:
Overall it seems like they really dumbed down the leveling process, and with the added Guildleve (quests) system, the grind really seems to have gone away. Or at least been masked behind a pretty cool quest system. There's a couple of flaws to the Guildleve system though, and I hope they get those straightened out, sometimes when you go to exchange a completed Leve for a new one it won't let you exchange them for some reason, but other than that I love this new aspect of the game.


Taking the grind out of a mmorpg is like taking the foundation out a house, you can still build a house without a foundation but it won't be very long-lasting; grind is essentially the factor that keeps people interesting in most of these games since the mainstream games market hasn't really figured out that having administration-run events is cool yet; or rather it seems t have forgotten that when Richard Garriot stopped running UO rather personally and it became just another heartless piece of EA propriety.

I really could rant for ages here, but I have to say that the only MMORPG that appealed to me of late - Guild Wars - appealed to me because it actually attempted to mesh storytelling with a MMORPG experience; most MMORPG's interaction between story and gameplay is limited to them catching fleeting glimpses of each ther through the small slit of a window in their concrete cells.

I may try FF 14 just to give it a chance to surprise me; but I doubt that it will.

Maya/Rudha
23 Sep, 2010, Zeno wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
One way they lowered the grind is by putting a new "feature" in that people didn't really understand and got pissed off at. Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abE09-tqh...
23 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
I'm aware of how they do it; I just think it's needlessly complicated and ultimately ineffectual.

Maya/Rudha
23 Sep, 2010, Bobo the bee wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
Zeno said:
Bobo the bee said:
I wish I could get into MMO's sometimes, and my love for the Final Fantasy series is a driving force behind that. But still, I just can't cope with the changes FFXI and FFXIV are making. You can take away my story, you can take away my gameplay, you can take away my music, but damnit you cannot take away just my myself! *shakes a fist*


Take away what? Both FFXI and FFXIV have a great story. Music? Nobuo Uematsu is doing the music for FFXIV.


I meant more I can't seem to positively wrap my mind around the idea that Final Fantasy as a multiplayer system. It's not a rational distaste for them, per-say, but it's there all the same. I was/am all-in-all a fan of FF12 and 13, which I can't really say compare in many ways favorably to the more classic FF games.
23 Sep, 2010, Ssolvarain wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
10 was the last one I wanted to finished. I've since gone retro and refused to play new FF titles.
24 Sep, 2010, Kline wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
Not a huge fan of the fatigue thing after watching that video as it seems like it's doing nearly what WoW does, just in reverse. In WoW you get rested exp for 200% exp gain from monsters during time you are logged out (and the gain rate is increased for logging out in an inn). So sure, you can keep grinding away without rested, but it's far less efficient. It helps the casual catch back up to the hardcore; and you "grow horizontally" via side systems such as crafting or PVP instead of leveling a new class.
24 Sep, 2010, Kayle wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
But leveling those other classes allows you to augment your chosen class (crafting is one of those new classes btw) with the abilities from the others.
24 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
Kline said:
Not a huge fan of the fatigue thing after watching that video as it seems like it's doing nearly what WoW does, just in reverse. In WoW you get rested exp for 200% exp gain from monsters during time you are logged out (and the gain rate is increased for logging out in an inn). So sure, you can keep grinding away without rested, but it's far less efficient. It helps the casual catch back up to the hardcore; and you "grow horizontally" via side systems such as crafting or PVP instead of leveling a new class.


That's exactly what it's doing, really. I found it funny that the youtube blurb touted it as unique and innovative, which is kind of like … say, devising a system that uses a table base... (http://dnd.wikia.com/wiki/THAC0), and calling it unique and unprecedented.

I don't know, while novelty is hard to come by these days and Im generally okay with a system that simply implements things in an entertaining and well-told story, the new Final Fantasy just doesn't appeal to me. It falls into the common JRPG problem of having a large amount of disconnect between the gameplay mechanics and the story that breaks immersion with it's artificiality and that tends to be a dealbreaker for me.

Maya/Rudha
24 Sep, 2010, quixadhal wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
FFXIV will be fun if you like games that don't hold your hand and wipe your nose every step of the way. There's a lot of old-school mechanics in it. If you liked FFXI, you'll probably love this one. If you like old EQ1, you might like it. Many people can't get past the UI, which was designed more for the console than keyboard/mouse (I use an old Playstation 2 controller with a USB adapter).

The much-cried-about fatigue system has been tweaked to the point that unless you're a power gamer and intend to try and hit the level cap before anyone else, you probably won't notice it.

I'm on Palamecia, along with my guild. For me, this is the first game since EQ2 (at launch) that's had a fun and complex crafting system. It's also nice to sit back in the chair and use the controller instead of being hunched over the mouse and keyboard like a cripple. :)
24 Sep, 2010, Kline wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
Kayle said:
But leveling those other classes allows you to augment your chosen class (crafting is one of those new classes btw) with the abilities from the others.

WoW does this via crafting, too, in that each crafting profession has bonuses unique to it. I noticed you only get 1 character in FF, though, and one mule to store things on. Otherwise they want more of your money :(. I enjoy that WoW gives me enough character slots (on a single realm, no less) to have 1 of each class at a minimum. Yes, FF is multi-class on the same character, but it can still be fun to have different personas at times that are disconnected from one another.
0.0/42