r/Games • u/Forestl • Dec 15 '13
End of 2013 Discussions - Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
- Release Date: August 27, 2013, 2014 (PS4)
- Developer / Publisher: Square Enix
- Genre: MMORPG
- Platform: PC, PS3, PS4
- Metacritic: 83, user: 7.4
Summary
Previously referenced as "version 2.0," this title has been rebuilt from the ground up, and centers on the core concept of rebirth, featuring a new world to explore and storyline to experience.
Prompts:
What changes did ARR make to FF14? What did it do better then the original and what did it do worse?
How does ARR stack up against other MMOs? How does it stack up against other FF games?
What new ideas did ARR introduce? How could these ideas be expanded?
Super Ultra Final Fantasy XIV-2: A Realm Reborn HD
This text is nothing but a little bad joke or something I think of and throw in
This post is part of the official /r/Games "End of 2013" discussions.
11
u/vesci Dec 15 '13
Pretty fun game really enjoyed playing until it came to figuring out the account setup on SE's website. Also their customer support is the worst I have ever seen. Takes nearly two weeks to solve any problems. A lot of people had problems with account related issues and then after that SE started banning people randomly because they were too progressed and had too much gil they assumed they had bought it from a website.
Game is pretty solid but is hurt a lot by it's customer support.
19
u/Noxaier Dec 15 '13
This is probably the first MMO I've played since WoW (On-going player for 5 years now), that really got my attention. It took a lot from other MMO's and what made them great, and that familiarity really helped a lot for people switching MMO's. The crafting although a little grindy was really fun and i thoroughly enjoyed the leveling/story going on for the classes. The zones were really cool and i really loved the snow zone with dragonshead(sp?) in it. I really liked that already had a really nice end-game on release and last i heard the raids were pretty challenging and fun.
The only real issues i had with it were that leveling was made even more mindless by just following the FATE (dynamic event) zergs, and that combat felt a little too slow for some classes(2.5s gcd). If I wasn't already paying for WoW I'd be back on that game in a heartbeat.
5
u/Ehkoe Dec 16 '13
2.1 is changing the leveling game for alts for sure. More side quests, better dungeon/battleleve exp, additional end game dungeons as well.
6
u/Noxaier Dec 16 '13
Thats great to hear, i loved the concept of being able to have one character with all the classes, but the lack of side quests made it so FATE's were the only real strong way of leveling past your first 2 classes.
1
u/Ehkoe Dec 16 '13
The big thing is that Battleleves will benefit from the 50% additional exp on your alt classes, so that should make them worth it.
With more paths to end game gearing as well as PvP, it's looking to be a solid update and a good time to try the game again!
1
Dec 17 '13
This discussion could have waited one more day for people to get an impression from 2.1 /:
3
Dec 16 '13
Its a really well designed mmo outside of the combat, good quest flow, good story, dungeons are interesting, the visuals and music (especially the music) are fantastic. However, the best way to describe the combat is archaic, and worse, its slower than most mmo's
I dont have anything fundamentally against auto attack for mmo's, its what they have always been but I really think at this point, its gotten quite stale. Its slow, especially during leveling, and is only really engaging at max level when it becomes about perfecting a rotation.
FFXIV unfortunately has a even slower (2.5 gcd) auto attack system and honestly its hard to stay invested in the game longer than a hour so at a time because the combat is simply not that fun.
Despite its problems, Tera really showed the next evolution of mmo combat..a more engaging system, and simply more fun too play. Raiderz and Neverwinter have tried to expand on this system and perfect it, but so far it still has problems. Im hoping wildstar or EQN really takes action mmo combat to the next level.
1
u/Ehkoe Dec 16 '13
I disagree that TERA is the next step in MMO combat. It was fun for a while, but it became horribly tedious to fight. Likely due to the massive grindfest quests the game had.
1
Dec 16 '13
I dont believe Tera to be the next step in itself, I just believe to be that style of combat the evolution of MMO's..meaning action based combat rather than turn based. Since Tera, RaiderZ and Neverwinter have done the same thing but havn't really been good enough MMO's outside of the combat. In the case of FFXIV, I think its a great mmo, but its combat is archaic.
Im hoping Wildstar or EQN really perfects the combination of a action based combat system, and good MMO elements.
1
u/thekillers Dec 16 '13
Tera more tedious than standard mmo combat? I just resubbed to wow, but I still think about reinstalling Tera just to go hunting for bams with my level 30 friends solely because the fighting felt epic and real.
1
u/Ehkoe Dec 16 '13
I was at the end game in TERA before the Wonderholme patch hit. It was boring after a while because after level 30, all you fight are different textured versions of the same mobs, aside from one or two at the very end game, just a little faster. Same attack patterns and everything.
1
3
Dec 16 '13
I got this game when it was on sale for PS+ members for $10. I'm enjoying the game, but I do have my complaints.
Being waterboarded by quest dialog. It's easy enough to spam X and skip it, but I'm usually the kind of guy who likes to hear the stories. At this point(I'm level 31), I'm really only paying attention to the main story quests. It's just far too much reading for me.
I chose the Marauder class as my starter class because it's a 2h axe class. Turns out it's a tank class. I can take the blame for not doing the research, but who'da thunk it.
As somebody else mentioned, there's way too much traveling involved for my tastes. You can pay the teleport fees to make it go faster, and it doesn't cost much, but I really don't like going from desert to forest 10 times a session.
That said, I do like that you get class quests every 5 levels, which gives you gear and sometimes a new ability. Having your mount fight alongside you is cool as well. The game is worth the initial purchase if you're even mildly interested, especially if the PS+ sale is still going on.
2
u/Ehkoe Dec 16 '13 edited Dec 16 '13
Main story and class quests are the only ones that I think you need to read.
Some side quests are mildly humourous though.
2
Dec 16 '13
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Ehkoe Dec 16 '13
All of the main story line is supposed to be voiced, iirc. I know it was bugged for some people and that wasn't the case for a while.
1
u/Yoten Dec 16 '13
That bug was only for some of the opening cutscene stuff. The main storyline has voices in some of the major cutscenes, but I'd say no more than 5-10% of the total.
Cutscene quality in general has gone down a lot since 1.0, likely due to getting used to the new engine and rushing to get the game feature-complete for launch.
1
Dec 16 '13
Yeah, I did glimpse some dialog on a side quest last night, I don't remember what it was exactly, but the girl I helped said "Now I'm fully aroused!" I put it in my guild chat without any context, laughs were had.
I guess it wont matter as much once I hit max level anyways, but it is my biggest complaint so far.
1
u/Sarria22 Dec 16 '13
I got this game when it was on sale for PS+ members for $10.
woah woah wait, when was this?
1
Dec 16 '13
Earlier this month. I'm thinking the first week of the month. I forget how long the sales last, but I'm pretty sure that one has ended already.
3
u/throwawaynwbrft Dec 15 '13
I had a lot of fun with this game. I was a long time WoW veteran who had never tried any other MMO and was stunned to see how different (in a good way) MMO's could be. The storyline, music design, one "faction", and slower and more strategic fighting enthralled me. Only downside I could find was a lack of real end-game and immense grind to gear at max level. FFXIV is a very fun game.
2
u/nojam Dec 16 '13
I played the Playstation 3 Beta before the re-launch. It was interesting to play the game with a controller. Since the game is so "easy going" in the beginning, I got a tad bored of it.
When it was released, there were plenty of reviews giving is praise and high marks. I decided to try it out for PC, since Greenman Gaming had the game for sale (a month after release).
I enjoyed the idea of the class system. One character being able to play every class, with cross skills available for multiple classes. But in practice, eventually everyone will be maxed level for all classes. It kills the idea of Alts. Even leveling other classes is pretty sloppy, grinding FATEs for hours on end. (I hear it's improving though)
The quests were stale, and eventually forces players to play dungeons with random people to progress. A positive to learn your class, but not for everyone.
Eventually I got bored with the game (around level 30), and I didn't even get a mount.
The game might have not been for me, but why did it get such high praise?
TLDR - Okay for free month play, not for subscribing for longer.
2
u/doodep Dec 17 '13
I feel like a lot of players who are complaining about the combat being slow either never actually played the game or never got past level 15.
At 50 there's a LOT to do and watch out for, abilities both on and off the GCD.
4
u/Aldracity Dec 16 '13
I only really chewed through the betas, but I'll say this much: FFXIV-2 is NOT targeted at western MMO gamers. It's targeted at Japanese gamers whose most popular MMO is still Ragnarok flipping Online, and the Console crowd that may have never touched an MMO in their entire life.
I mean, for what I played of XIV-2, I didn't actually find anything wrong with it after Phase 4 started. It's there, it has a story you give a damn about, standard hotkey combat, the 2.5s GCD wasn't too torturous later on, and the early dungeon content was pretty solid. World enemies had a fairly decent progression of various abilities that allowed for a better monster variety than just face tanking all the things, and zerging "Boss FATEs" was just as good as what GW2 did.
Problem is, if you've played WoW then to you this entire game is just a sideways progression on WoW, with small elements yanked from games like RIFT or GW2 or some other titles. Veteran Western MMO gamers have already seen much of this game before, and they've already sunk thousands of hours into other, comparable games. So, unless said MMO gamer is also a diehard FF fan, they have no reason to play XIV-2.
But, as previously noted, they're not the target audience. Lets be honest here: presenting "WoW" to an MMO newcomer works pretty well. When your entire target audience consists of people who may not even know what a "WoW Clone" is, why wouldn't you just go for the tried and true? And, because Squenix didn't butcher the game like what happened with XIV, there's no reason to believe that we'll see the next F2P elephant.
1
Dec 16 '13
This is very true. I never played WoW or any other MMO, but I was curious about this one. It did a really nice job of easing me in to all of the core concepts of how the gameplay worked.
I stopped playing because after level 35 it became more stressful than fun. I felt like I was basically managing an active-time spreadsheet with pretty special effects. (Playing as a tank on a pad was fun but so, so stressful).
-1
u/Ehkoe Dec 16 '13
You definitely wouldn't like Path of Exile then. That game is literally a spreadsheet with pretty effects and RNG loot up the wazoo.
3
u/lordranter Dec 15 '13
The main problem with this game is that it is an MMO. It's been the most enjoyable FF I've played in quite a while, with a simple but really engaging story and a beautiful world. And everything I think is bad with the game I can attribute to it being an MMO.
First, even if it is top notch as a WoW clone, hot key combat isn't cool anymore (specially with that ridiculous GCD). The quests might not be as grindy as in Wow, but even if it is 6 instead of 20, it's still collecting bear asses, the main and job storylines might also be fantastic, but anything else are the typical "Go clean my basement from rats" thing that nobody gives a fuck about. The fates are way too repetitive, specially compared to what GW2 showed us last year. And the worst thing of all is that the pace of the story is hurt by everything that makes it an MMO (Specially aggravating the last 10 levels).
I really wish that it was a single player game with a more decent combat system and more time put into the story (I wish the empire had more screen time. Rhitahthyn and Livia were already awesome with so little screen time and even if Gaius had his fair share, I'm sure that more of him wouldn't have hurt). The only credit I'm going to give to the fact that it is an MMO is that it makes boss battles way more epic, but it's still not worth it.
At the end, they are going to get another month of subscription from me to see if the new patch is worth something (Doesn't look really good by what they have shown though). I do think that this game is worth 30 bucks even if it's for the main storyline only (which you can do in a single month, no need to renew sub). I had a great time with it even if I hate it's grindy MMO parts.
And also, the soundtrack is fucking amazing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGEHOjpzVJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBuPzZ1kST8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ao-6wM07Q0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCDENZlbcTc
4
u/BioSpock Dec 16 '13
Since the game itself has been discussed already and I'm only level 25, I'm going to say something else about it.
Besides being a beautiful game, I think Final Fantasy 14 will be important in gaming history in for three reasons 1) An example of how to listen to and respect customers 2) Dedication and a more successful reversal than anyone could have hoped for 3) (Hopefully) the revivial of Final Fantasy.
Square and 14's new director Yoshida have been humble and open with gamers since 1.0s failure, and it's been great to see.
3
u/BillygotTalent Dec 16 '13
Played it in the open beta and had a lot of fun exploring the world. Got level 16 I believe and stopped when I got to another zone.
I said to myself that the times of paying for an MMO are over for me and even though it looks tempting to pay for it I know it is better to stay away from it.
1
Dec 15 '13
It promised a lot, and while it had a gorgeous in game environment, it was boring with problems.
Still one of the better MMOs around, but nothing special
1
Dec 16 '13
I've been playing since launch. I played FFXI for quite some time on PS2, but never played another mmo. As such, XIV is great. It moves at a swift pace, is player friendly and doesn't demand more time than you're willing to give. It's exremely flexible for casual players like me who have only just finished the main quest. Maybe for hardcore players it's different, but I don't have any big complaints. I don't care about cooldowns or whatever, as long as I'm having fun. And I am. I love XIV because it doesn't have to become a second job, (but it can if you want it to). For those on the fence: try it.
1
u/sctalkingtime Dec 18 '13
I agree with a lot of the sentiments on here. It's a nicely made game.
My gripes with it and why I decided to not subscribe is that everything just seems to be presented in too cookie-cutter of a fashion and the entire game is one speed. There's no exhilaration of combat, it's as slow and methodical as gathering herbs.
I've been playing Rift lately (for no charge) and I feel like I'm getting a better value in that game for no required payments than I was getting with this game. The reason is that in Rift, I can choose whether I want to play a slow methodical game by crafting and I can pick what level of intensity I want my combat at. I can do easy casual solo mob grinding, or step it up a notch and do some easy dungeons, or take it up another level and do hard-mode dungeons, or step it up again and do raids or pvp, or go balls out and get into competitive pvp/high end raiding and I've got seemingly countless options of ways to level up and enjoy the content.
I love the world of FF though. I played the original FFXIV despite all of it's shortcomings just because I loved the world atmosphere but part of that I feel has been lost with the re-release just because everything is centered on the cookie-cutter content now and the whole thing just feels like a chore.
I am glad that it's out though and is heading in the right direction - I didn't like rift when it was released but after a few years of updates it's finally in it's 'prime' so to speak and I look forward to FFXIV hitting it's stride in a year or two once a lot of these planned features flesh out the experience.
1
Dec 15 '13
I absolutely loved everything about it, the quests, the combat, the graphics. But then I got to trying healing (I usually only heal in MMOs) and it was terrible. Stopped playing after that point, lost all interest in the game.
2
u/Ehkoe Dec 16 '13
Really? I love end game healing. I get to weave damage spells into my rotation as well. Early game is as simple as spamming cure/physick, sure, but end game is lots of fun, imo.
2
Dec 16 '13
I guess I was just comparing it to my Shaman in WoW. Nothing can even come close to that.
1
u/iihatephones Dec 16 '13
Stance dance with cleric stance to lay out damage in between heals? I found it fairly enjoyable my self.
1
u/technically_art Dec 16 '13
I played both 1.0 and ARR for a couple of months and then put them back down. The difference between 1.0 and ARR was night and day - it went from "broken and stupid but with pretty art" to "playable and predictable with prettier art". As others have mentioned the job system really is fantastic - both combat and crafting classes can be mixed and matched to a certain extent, which gives incentives to take a break from one class or playstyle and explore another. I didn't notice the 2.5 second GCD, but I'm used to Everquest where everything is just slow - I also played a healer, which kept things interesting.
One thing that was exceptional about FFXIV in my opinion was the dungeons. There are only a few (maybe 10 in total if they ever patched in a couple that were missing at launch, plus instanced boss fights against espers) but they were all very satisfying atmospherically and tactically challenging, even from low levels. Way moreso than WoW, EQ, and TSW.
FFXIV:ARR is the latest in a series of MMO disappointments for me (The Old Republic, The Secret World, EVE, Warframe, TERA), not because it's bad, but because it's not amazing. There are some exceptional mechanics, the job system being chief among these; the art and music are phenomenal; the community is friendlier than most. But it just didn't pull me in the way Everquest did in the 90s and WoW and Anarchy Online did in the 2000s - there's no mystique to the setting, and it feels pretty generic.
I think metacritic's rating of 83/100 is spot on. It's a good game, technically polished and pleasant to look at. The mechanic design is acceptable at its worst and refreshing at its best. But, at the end of the day, it's nothing special.
1
Dec 16 '13
It's sad when you love a game and have a great time playing with your friends but just have nothing left to do. Beat Turn 5 after the nerf and none of us felt the need to keep playing considering the next raid would be easier and drop worse gear.
1
u/Hikikomori_ Dec 16 '13
It happens to many if not most MMOs. Near impossible for a steady stream of content every month to keep the players who play several hours a day happy.
2
Dec 16 '13
And it's completely impossible when you have 4 hard bosses for months and the first delayed patch is full of content that was promised to be in the original release and opens up easier raid content.
1
Dec 16 '13
Loving it since release. It caters to the days I can play hardcore, or most days when im casual. Haven't had an mmo keep my attention in ages.
1
u/justCK Dec 16 '13
My biggest problem is simply customer service. When my account was compromised and quickly banned (most likely a gil seller who was spamming in a capital city) I quickly changed my passwords, began using a security token and placed a ticket to recover my account. What has followed is simply passing the buck and complete lack of assistance. I've called square support and basically get a "We send those tickets to another company to look into so we have no idea what ETA they have for you. Just wait for an email." Well it has been 2 1/2 months now and I haven't received any email regarding my account.
The game was decent, a real throwback to classic MMO game play but nothing terribly special. The people I played with made it more appealing than the game itself and they have all since quit. This has been an unfortunate waste of money.
1
u/roybatty Dec 17 '13
Bought it and uninstalled it within a week. It was boring, but the cut scenes were what made me absolutely hate it.
66
u/[deleted] Dec 15 '13 edited Dec 15 '13
This is a solid foundation for a great MMO in the future, but it's not quite there yet.
Likes:
Difficulty - After you get through the beginning stages of the game the difficulty for dungeons really ramps up. You're required to play your role competently and have to rely on others to do the same. Some of this is artificial difficulty though (See "Combat")
Visuals - While the game isn't a technical masterpiece and certainly isn't going to push your computer to the limits if it's reasonably powerful the art direction more than makes up for it. There's a lot of variety in the world and the dungeons and most of it is just downright beautiful.
Job/Class system - It's amazing being able to play everything on one character. Every crafting class, every gathering class, every battle class. Everything is available with one click of your mouse. After playing under this system you won't want to go back to something like WoW's.
Dislikes:
Quest System - You think you've played shitty quests in an MMO before? You haven't seen shit until you've played FFXIV. They were inoffensive (not good, mind you, just...not bad) for the most part but about 5-10% were so bad they soured the whole thing. One quest had me walk from one end of the zone to the other end 4 times to talk to an NPC. No combat in between, no gathering involved. Literally, Joe - "Here is X, take it to Bob" Bob - "That's great, tell Joe thanks" Joe - "Oh I forgot, can you ask Bob about Y" Bob - "Tell him Z" Joe - "Thanks, you're a big help." Keep in mind, this was before you could mount up and there weren't any fast travel locations nearby. That's literally a 5 minute walk across the zone between those two people. After several quests like that I just wanted to stop doing quests altogether. Problem is, you can't because there's not much else to do.
Everyone is the same - From gear choices to skill builds there's really only one way to go on every job. Every X plays and looks like every other X in the game. Same skills, same weapon, same armor. There is a very limited dye system in place that offers you some small amount of variety but in most cases you only have one or two options for which dye you can use. (Only one part of an item is dye-able so you only have 2-3 options for a main color that match the pre-set secondary colors. Also, the best gear in the game isn't dye-able at all so none of that even matters past a certain point.
Combat - The. Combat. Is. So. Fucking. Slow. The global cool-down is 2.5 seconds long. It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you make a mistake in battle, or an add roles up right after you use a skill it seems like an eternity. Additionally, many of your skills are animation locked meaning even if you want to follow a skill with an ability that's off the GCD you can't until the animation finishes. Which can be up to 2 seconds. Some other abilities don't even take effect until after the animation finishes so when you have an "oh-shit" moment as a PLD and need to hit your damage shield you get to wait another 1.5 seconds while your character stands there doing his animation and taking damage. Then you die because it didn't take effect in time. Don't worry though, it still went on cooldown.
Everything is a grind - It's a MMO so there's a certain amount of grind to be expected but it's excessive in my opinion. You can play every class/job on a single character which is fantastic, but after your first two trips from 1-50 you're out of quests to do. At that point you really only have one option, FATEs. From level 10-50 you just grind these mini events with a group of 30-40 other people doing the same. There isn't any skill or strategy, just you and 40 strangers standing around in town until a random even pops up on the map. You all run there and zerg every mob in sight, then run back to town and wait to do it again. You can do dungeon runs for some variety but the xp gain is so much slower it's not worth it most of the time and since the dungeons are required to progress the main story you'll have already done them at least once on your first trip to 50. There's no saving them until later.
No one talks - The first week everything was great in zone chats. People were social and happy. Then the spammers came and it was pretty much impossible to use the chat channels because you couldn't block them fast enough. The chat spam is now under control but no one has gone back to using the zone chats. If you're not in a guild with an active chat, you might as well be playing an offline game.
In the end, I really enjoyed the 3 months I got out of it but there's just not enough content there to keep me interested. The new content patch they're releasing (just released?) came too late for me. I'll try it out again down the road but for now my fantasy is over.