Final fantasy XIV any good?

[MajorMace]

She's not much more than a figurehead, which is a pretty major plot point. She makes speeches and has a family name. Nothing is done without the merchants agreeing to it. And the big military force of that city is Raubahn's personal army, while only the handful of Paladins belong to the princess.
Lalas are even used sparingly as important characters, since I'm pretty sure they knew exactly how hard they are to take seriously.
And to point out the obvious, most MMOs have cutesy or short races.

Yes but the fact they tried and put them in positions of power (like the plotting lalas of the merchant consortium) doesn't help with what I said. Quite the opposite.
Take gnomes in WoW Vanilla (and even retail now that I think of it), they're not presented or sold as anything but gnomes. In vanilla, they were literally jews in their ironforge ghetto and wanted their home back. Most if not all gnomes you meet during the leveling are tied to tinkering quests and happen to be comic relief more often than not. The only gnome of power is Chromie and it's not a gnome.
Lalafells are presented as a race like any other. They're child-looking and chubby, how am I supposed to take this seriously unless I'm a weeb ?
I agree that "it's weeb" is a lazy excuse for discarding the game, that I think is quite good, but it.. you know.. still remains pretty weeb. Not in a good way.
Then again it's not just lalafells. The cat people are also obvious fan service and a disservice to the world.

Also she's not more than a figurehead, they keep complaining about how they can't reenforce their power over the city. And they can't because other lalafells run the merchant consortiums soooo

Which is a good thing. No one likes minding their own business and have some jackass camp their corpse for the whole day. A day they paid a sub for. There's a reason PvP MMOs are going the way of the dodo.

I would argue that they go the way of the dodo because you just get easier and quicker dopamine fixes through PvE. You could say it's nostalgia but daoc and warhammer online were objectively good games despite being pvp-oriented.
Yet, this isn't even the point I'm making here, I'm simply saying they have no focus for their pvp, which is here for the sake of meeting a standard. And it's lame out of a vacuum, but in the case of FFXIV should be nuanced by the fact that -I'll repeat myself- the boss fight design (the core of the gameplay) is great and the reference for the genre imo.
Still, the pvp is not good.

Oh my god, somebody is defending this shitty, shitty game.

I know right ? How do they expect to harvest brofists lol, idiots !

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

MMO PVP is dying because there's numerous other genres out there that do PVP better without making you jump through hoops. A lot of MMO PVP worked in the past because the concept of an MMO was fresh and uncharted, it made the idea of being able to fight other players in this massive world at a moment's notice appealing due to the excitement. The tornado of rising homosexual gamers, streamers and lack of innovation from developers is what has been killing MMO PVP along with there being better and more direct alternatives. There's also the truth that no MMORPG has very good combat so most of the PVP experience is a shitty mess to begin with. With FFXIV feeling like a clunky mess in PVE I don't even want to fathom how shit it would feel if you tried to PVP.

How do they expect to harvest brofists lol, idiots !

I think anyone that genuinely thinks this is a good game needs to highly consider playing anything released in the last 30 years.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

And to point out the obvious, most MMOs have cutesy or short races.

Not even remotely the same. WoW gnomes look like midgets, not children.
We all know why so many jRPGs have overly-sexualized totally-not-children characters/races.

Did you know the only reason the MMO TERA still exists is because of how popular the child-like female race is in Japan?

tera only exists because of pedophiles

no, really, it's true. The devs wrote an article about it in their gookspeak language. The game would have been shut down if they didn't add a race that looks like a female child and heavily monetize sexual outfits for it. It's also the reason most of the new classes added are locked to that race.
https://web.archive.org/web/2017091...general-discussion/topics/BHS-Elin-saved-Tera
They were able to use monetized skimpy outfits on a little girl model to make their game free2play.

After that, making costumes was a simple task- They say school swimming suits, bloomers, and maid outfits are the 3 wonders in Japan. Maid costume was especially a big hit. Due to all the profit from Elin costumes, we were able to transition Tera into Free-to-Play format smoothly.

This is what the character looks like:

Western video games have men for women, eastern video games have pedophile content. There is no middleground.

 

[Derringer]

And to point out the obvious, most MMOs have cutesy or short races.

Not even remotely the same. WoW gnomes look like midgets, not children.
We all know why so many jRPGs have overly-sexualized totally-not-children characters/races.

Did you know the only reason the MMO TERA still exists is because of how popular the child-like female race is in Japan?

tera only exists because of pedophiles

no, really, it's true. The devs wrote an article about it in their gookspeak language. The game would have been shut down if they didn't add a race that looks like a female child and heavily monetize sexual outfits for it. It's also the reason most of the new classes added are locked to that race.
https://web.archive.org/web/2017091...general-discussion/topics/BHS-Elin-saved-Tera
They were able to use monetized skimpy outfits on a little girl model to make their game free2play.

After that, making costumes was a simple task- They say school swimming suits, bloomers, and maid outfits are the 3 wonders in Japan. Maid costume was especially a big hit. Due to all the profit from Elin costumes, we were able to transition Tera into Free-to-Play format smoothly.

This is what the character looks like:

Western video games have men for women, eastern video games have pedophile content. There is no middleground.

'Middle ground' is unironically japanese gook comics nowadays, there wasn't much of a middle ground in western entertainment with women to begin with unless it was porn.

 

[Caim]

And to point out the obvious, most MMOs have cutesy or short races.

Not even remotely the same. WoW gnomes look like midgets, not children.
We all know why so many jRPGs have overly-sexualized totally-not-children characters/races.

Did you know the only reason the MMO TERA still exists is because of how popular the child-like female race is in Japan?

This is what the character looks like:

Western video games have men for women, eastern video games have pedophile content. There is no middleground.

The virgin loli fan VS the chad shortstack enjoyer.

 

[Mojobeard]

And to point out the obvious, most MMOs have cutesy or short races.

Not even remotely the same. WoW gnomes look like midgets, not children.
We all know why so many jRPGs have overly-sexualized totally-not-children characters/races.

Lalafells are "chibi", big heads and undefined blob bodies. Which was big during a certain period in JRPGs.
Does this look like a sexualized child?

TERA

Korean MMO.

 

[Caim]

And to point out the obvious, most MMOs have cutesy or short races.

Not even remotely the same. WoW gnomes look like midgets, not children.
We all know why so many jRPGs have overly-sexualized totally-not-children characters/races.

Lalafells are "chibi", big heads and undefined blob bodies. Which was big during a certain period in JRPGs.
Does this look like a sexualized child?

TERA

Korean MMO.

For someone who's not overly sexualized Lolorito sure fucks a lot of people in the ass.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Been sort of playing this a bit again due to the free login even that's going on. Each time I return to this game I'm just less enthusiastic about it. The game is just ultra repetitive. I know people don't like change, especially if it's bad change (and in MMOs that is almost always the case), but FF14 really needs some new ideas. Leveling new jobs is dull and even then there's no real reason to have more than 3 of the core roles since jobs only sport a skin-deep aesthetic difference at best. Unlocking new dungeons so I can do the level 80 dungeon roulette again is a major chore and takes a long time even if you skip all the cutscenes. The game was pretty good in ARR, really good in HW and then getting progressively worse ever since by.. remaining largely the same. The insistence on adding more Jobs is also a huge detriment as they keep ripping out core features from older Jobs and giving them to the new ones in order to justify their existence. But all it does is homogenize everything even further.

 

[Anonona]

The game was pretty good in ARR, really good in HW and then getting progressively worse ever since by.. remaining largely the same. The insistence on adding more Jobs is also a huge detriment as they keep ripping out core features from older Jobs and giving them to the new ones in order to justify their existence. But all it does is homogenize everything even further.

What I consider to be the worst is that they removed more and more systems of the game each expansion. The combat system has become a series of very rigid rotations with little in the way of player agency. At most you may delay or change the order of certain skills in specific fights to optimize your damage, but overall you will be doing the same thing over and over. Your skills feel like they have no impact on the outcome of the fight: there is no smart tactics nor intelligent usage of skill or resource management. Is all about how good can you keep your rotation going while memorizing and doing arbitrary mechanics. The most "depth" the game can have is synchronizing your buffs with those of party members, and even then most rotations are already made so they align naturally (cool downs of 60s,90s,180s,etc).

What I consider the biggest mistake SQ made when introducing changes each expansion was the removal of mechanics that didn't work, instead of fixing them. In ARR we had some CC, now almost no class has any, and if they have it there is hardly any chance to use it in "real content". Aggro management is gone, TP management is gone and MP management is practically gone. Enemies are immune to almost all status effects and we have very little in the way of debuffs besides things like trick attack and the Tank/Meele/Caster's Role Skills that reduce damage for a bit. Stats are beyond retarded. Direct hit is just redundant when Critical Hit exists. Stats like Determination, Tenacity and such are little more than increase in DPS, and SkS and Casting Speed are useless to the point you actively want to avoid raising them as they can fuck your rotation up. Sure, many of these mechanics weren't that well though out to begin with, but instead of erasing them completely SQ could have fixed them and design the different fights to take those systems into account, instead of the "strict dances" we have now.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Been playing this a bit. You all get to look forward to an official Rusty Review in the future, just so you guys have a reason to keep living.

Short preview for my fans: The biggest strength of the game is hands down the amount of refinement the game has at nearly every level. I've never seen an MMO include a massive manual that gets regularly updated.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

biggest hurdle to playing the game is actually buying it btw
I had to use a VPN when entering my keycode because SE thought my IP was in a different country and wouldn't let me enter a code for a game I already purchased. Apparently it's a fairly common issue from reading all the complaints.

The sprout system itself probably deserves an article. Just by putting a small icon next to your name they managed to address a lot of issues that plague MMOs. New players easily recognize each other and seem to be more helpful to other sprouts(perhaps creating some sort of tribal bond on a subconscious level?), and older players are much more forgiving and lenient with sprouts.

also, they somehow managed to have essentially no loading screens even when teleporting across the game world to a different map. My screen fades black for about half a second and then I'm already in the game again without any hitches.

 

[Enkidu]

biggest hurdle to playing the game is actually buying it btw
I had to use a VPN when entering my keycode because SE thought my IP was in a different country and wouldn't let me enter a code for a game I already purchased. Apparently it's a fairly common issue from reading all the complaints.

The sprout system itself probably deserves an article. Just by putting a small icon next to your name they managed to address a lot of issues that plague MMOs. New players easily recognize each other and seem to be more helpful to other sprouts(perhaps creating some sort of tribal bond on a subconscious level?), and older players are much more forgiving and lenient with sprouts.

also, they somehow managed to have essentially no loading screens even when teleporting across the game world to a different map. My screen fades black for about half a second and then I'm already in the game again without any hitches.

Loading screens not sucking is because you have a great pc and probably an SSD. (My i52500k fucks it up, but it was on the stormblood the last time since loading screens helped you out a bit)
On the issues and refinement. It sounds like a meme and honestly, it should be. But the developers talk to the players, think about their feedback, and they do what they think its fun.
Thats why the game has a lot of polish. They reverted changes (uncalled for) on tank acessories and on a lot of other matters because of the simple fact that players hated it.

FFXIV is weird in a way that is a themepark mmo where gear does not matter (Will matter if you are a new player with fuck no gear, but only in that case and then catching up is easy) and you dont do the fights because of gear, you do the fights because you want to. You actually have fun doing them, you have fun complaining about your shitty dps and you hate your life when you have a dungeon healer with 0dps.
Nowadays i just run with the punches. As long as we clear the fight, i dont care. it does not matter if you are a fucking mentor, someone returning or a sprout. i'm expecting you to suck and at least get better after some wipes.
Farming parties exist, but if you were done farming, they are just boring.
My biggest issue with the game is that the fanbase sucks. I wish that most of the players had at least the interest to know how they should be playing and getting better. FFXIV is an easy game with very hard mechanics. You can learn every fight with trial and error, but you at least have to read and understand what is your rotation and how you should be playing.

 

[MajorMace]

You can learn every fight with trial and error, but you at least have to read and understand what is your rotation and how you should be playing.

I'm not an mmo expert but doesn't this apply (or should apply) to every game of the genre ?

Nowadays i just run with the punches. As long as we clear the fight, i dont care.

I felt the same while playing through ARR end game content.
I launched the mog king hard mode battle and wiped again and again. Thing is the game is fun enough for it not to seem like a chore.
Wiping three times in other mmos I've played (wow, swtor) made me want to quit and just go do smthg else.

I think it's the overall visual and sound design, it's just too much dopamine not to like it.


Which makes me think of the thing I liked the most about ARR : You can play it today and it feels fresh.
I don't understand how new mmos manage to do what old mmos could never seem to get right, but I got the same feeling while playing TESO recently.
These games are pretty old, but the core experience, or base game, still feels consistent and relevant.

I'm not sure if it's an exception, or if I'm just used to wow design giving 0 fuck to former expansions content and just throwing it out the window every two years, but it felt damn nice.
You play through the coils of bahamut today like the shit just got released. At no point was I thinking "ok it's pretty old, maybe it gets better later". It was just good to begin with.
Consequently, you can own only ARR and no xpacs and not only still have fun, but also never feel pressured to buy more. You obviously see the new jobs quests in cities, that tell you to buy this or that to unlock, but that's very easy to ignore. I also appreciate the fact that the shop is completely invisible in game.
Overall, I'm very surprised by Square Enix super chad approach to monetization. This reeks of confidence. Which is funny because these fucks just milk their old games ip dry every three years.
Even though they're gigantic dickheads, I kinda understand why the fans would evangelise FF so much.

Won't keep playing though. I haven't access to the xpacs, and the world-building doesn't drag me in enough to invest more time. Game seems pretty solid for an occasional in-and-out adventure though.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

weather system is nice, it's the little things that add a lot to a game
storming ingame in the area I'm in right now, going indoors and hearing the rain sound quit but you can still hear the howling winds outside, very cozy

17 standard types of weather with various effects(some have effects on gameplay too e.g., Fog seems to greatly reduce visibility), also plays a big role in fishing

 

[J1M]

Seems kinda like it is for weebs though. Wish a developer cared that much about my demographic.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

goes to reply but gets blocked by one of the two million invisible walls

 

[Delterius]

Seems kinda like it is for weebs though. Wish a developer cared that much about my demographic.

you must learn to let go

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Seems kinda like it is for weebs though. Wish a developer cared that much about my demographic.

doesn't feel very weeb at all, final fantasy is already a very westernized japanamango series

goes to reply but gets blocked by one of the two million invisible walls

yeah you can tell these zones were designed around PS3 restrictions, I hope the later zones aren't as bad

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Another example of what I meant before about refinement, basically everything about the game(both inside and outside of it) feels like they have a slave farm in the basement of square enix dedicated to making every little detail high quality
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/6526ce95a595e8a557b55736f85f19687dc11883/

Have you ever seen patch notes like this before? They wrote a fucking book for patch notes.


Table of contents, everything is clearly marked as to who it pertains to depending on what expansions you own, before/after slider images, extensive documentation on all changes.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

enter dungeon
tank starts keyboard turning

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

FF14 vs PSO2? I see different sides choosing one over the other. Which is better? And why?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

FF14 vs PSO2? I see different sides choosing one over the other. Which is better? And why?

pso2 is definitely way more weeby
I often forget I'm playing a japanamango game when playing ffxiv

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I was standing next to someone and had my kitten coeurl out and they had a puppy out, the pets started fighting with each other

 

[rusty_shackleford]

uhhhhhhhhh excuse me this is literally nazism

 

[Ninjerk]

I've got a 20ish something Lancer on Gilgamesh (trial acct) and have been having some fun with the game.