@Synxos @Dverburg @slainta The combat wouldve been awsome 15 years ago. In todays market, its mediocre at best.
Wow became popular when it found the sweet spot between being challenging overall while still being accesable enough. Its when they took casualizing to far when they started losing subs rapidly.
You can shout really hard how hilarious that is.... but i predicted it, warned them for it on the forums and saw huge groups of players leave due to the exact reasons i mentioned and warned them for.
You started seeing signals how more and more players and (former) devs where against this. And it showed in the results. The subnumbers took a nosedive.
So ye, i dont think you have an idea how MMO specfic market forces work.
I never said wow allowed for a lot of theorycrafting/ What i did say was that a lot of people will come with the "people will only play the cookiecutter build"statement anyway (like in wow). Which is not an excuse. Just because an other game does this poorly, doesnt mean FF14 needs to make the same mistake.
And a casual talent tree like we see in wow today....is still better than no talent at all.
@Drkr_Zen The combat is probably the worst ive seen in any main stream MMO. With its 2.5 sec casts, 2.5 sec GCDs and pure focus on standard rotations....wait what thats strategic? So faster paced wouldnt be strategic right? There is no way to design a system that is both fast paced and strategic? There is no way they can design a system that isnt purely about standard rotations?
Or wait maybe this combat system is as bad as TSWs....a game that flopped due to its poor combat. TSW had some really engaging lore and difficicult puzzles though.
On for your first two points:
Yes being forced to run or port back and forward 10.000 times isnt annoying at all right? The world itselve is not even that big or open world like. Grab a game like wow rift or GW2 and youlll see that every single one of those have bigger worlds and more of an open worldy feel......but none of them force you to spend as much time traveling as this game does.
It feels like "filler content". Oooh wait he just spend 1 minute to kill 10 ladybugs, lets let him run for the next 10 minutes to fill up the lack of better things to do.
A bit like how the lore in this game works. I kill a big bad meany, they explain the lore behind it + 20 extra pages of empty fluff. Telling me they are happy im there, that they wonder how X person would think about my achievement, how noone has ever achieved something this amazing, what an impact it had on the city and its community, how this major development would impact this NPC and that NPC and her mother and her little dog named spike. etc etc
Grinding is fine. As long as the combat is good. I didnt mind grinding in Tera or even Aion (which is more grindy than this) but the combat in those games is better than this. The combat is worse than warhammer onlines combat...which is about tto be shut down.
@slainta So what youre saying is that any FF MMO instantly deserves a 9 at least...even if its mediocre like this one?
The combat is really really bad. As another ARR review stated:
"But there’s just something inherently wrong with the combat in this game. It’s slow for the sake of being slow. It’s dated for the sake of being dated. It’s about as basic and exciting as world of warcraft was at release, nearly ten years ago"
The gameplay and questing mechanics in this game are as good as any Korean low budget free to play MMO. Just pick any out of the long list of title, play it and youll notice the similarties.
If we want "oldschool" why dont we turn the funfactor up a notch and start playing text based RPGs again? Wait? How old are you man...dont you appreciate oldschool? Come on man, text based RPGs is where the real fun is at. Not that casual online crap.
Right?
The next bad thing is the total lack of builds. For an MMO that tries to cater to the somewhat more hardcore crowd this is like the dumbest thing they can do.
Lets just get rid of one of things us hardcore MMO players really enjoy.; theorycrafting around builds etc.
"But wow only has cookie cutter builds, you want that instead?"
Yes exactly thats one of the reasons why they lost millions of subs. Due to casualized crap like that.
These two things are deal breakers. Even if they wrote the best story in the world (they didnt) and endgame would be the best anyone ever created (it isnt)......shitty combat and total lack of class specific customizability makes this gaame worthless. Not even worth the download if it was F2P.
- The combat sucks. Its not even nearly as good as wows, rifts or even warhammer onlines combat system.....and thats a game that is about to be shut down.
- The leveling structure is uninspired / as generic as it gets.
- The lack of customizability due to the absense of talenttrees
- The endless running/portalling back and forward
- The story containing to much fluffyness (i know its great that i killed that creature....but you dont need 6 pages of text to compliment me).
So yes there are a handfull of fun fights at endgame....a handfull of fun moments during the storyline....and the crafting system is good...but its far from being worth the 30 dollar cost, let alone the extra sub.
I paid and played it. and regret buying it. There are much better F2P or cheap B2P options, like GW2.
I think that GW2 does a lot of things really really well, But it has some major issues and they couldve done a lot better if they whent with the holy trinity (of some sort) + a full fledged endgame model at the release date.
A lot of the things that makes GW2 so amazing work against it aswell. Like the way dynamic events get triggered and how they chain at times. Its really up to the player to find out how that happens ....bad thing about that is the most wow generation players dont have the patience or dedication to do that.
Same can be said about the hidden puzzles and mindungeons spread across the zones. Most people dont even know they are there.
One of the other major downsides is that there is huge difference between the complexity of classes. Classes literally range from a simple 5 button rotation buttonmash fest to some of the most complex classes (to play well) in the history of MMOs. So people end up quitting since they think the game is to easy...while it was their class that was the problem.
I think the main storyline is lacking aswell. But then again im not really impressed by FF14s story so far either (at level 45).
And there are some other things i didnt cover yet, like the (pvp) reward system etc.
So my rating would be a bit lower than a 9. Id say an 8.5 is pretty accurate for GW2.
I would give FF14 a 6.5 based on the experience up till level 45 as bard. Since i like challenging endgame i guess it can go up to 7/7.5. But imo the game isnt worth more than that.
Problem is that im not having a good time while playing it. So i would only play it, for reviewing purposes. But i did play it for about 60 hours id say. Isnt that enough to get a good overall feel of the game?
@AznarKaimelar @Dverburg Do me a favour. Check what reviewers gave FF14 will you?
Here are the first ones i checked:
Usgamer: They gave 6 100% scores, and 4 90% scores this month alone.
Tentonhammer: Gave a truckload of games a nine + incl pretty much every MMO like SWTOR RIft TSW. They even gave Raiderz a 9.0. An unpolished low budget action MMO that was closed down before it officially released
Gamesradar: 3 pages filled with 100% scores (over the last 2 years).
IGN it: Over the last couple of months they gave about 30-40 games an 8.5 - 10 grade.
Meristation: They gave 70+ games a 9-10 grade over the last 2 years.
And these are the 5 reviewers that gave FF14 its highest grades. This is where the unrealistic expectations come from. Caused by buttkissing reviewwebsites that give out multiple 100% scores per week.
Now dont get me wrong. A 9 for a game that is without a doubt a masterpiece / classic like GTA5. Im perfectly fine with that....
Id say a 7 is a good game, an 8 is a must have for anyone who loves the specific genre and a 9 is a genre defining masterpiece.
With that in mind id say only a handfull of games actually deserve that 9. (GTA 5 being one of them).
FF14 is a solid 7. It has its charm but is to outdated in a lot of areas (combat, creature animations to name two) to be graded an 8+.
Game feels more like a 5 or 6 to me. Bad review, since it wasnt covering the games obvious weaknesses. Something good reviewers will do.
Last time ill rely on reviewsites like this. The reviews for the bigger games / publishers tend to be very cautiously worded and graded. Since god forbid they will step on the publishers toes.
On top of that the comments are filled with blind fanboyism (the same type that gives their games a 10 on metacritic). I get that you played this game for a long time but who in his right mind would give this game a 9/10?
Did we play the same game even? Are you all paid by SE to write these absurd comments or what?
The combat (one of the key features of an MMO) is mentioned as being pretty much the same as in WoW? The hell it is...its far worse. Its on par with TSWs combat and that game flopped due to its oudated clunky combat. Its a downgraded version of what other MMOs offer. Most likely due to the cross platform limitations.
It has a world with a lot of restrictions (invisble walls etc) like in single player RPGs or MMOs like Tera. On top of that the world doesnt feel alive since creatures are standing still or move in incredibly simple left to right patterns, NPCs are locked in place and dont have voiceacting. There is no real point to explore...since there is nothing that is hidden really. It feels as if we are back in 2000 or something.
One of the main draws to MMOs for me is theorycrafting around builds and setups. Guess what? This game got rid of builds/talenttrees. Gone is all the theorycrafting and figuring out how to build your char for its specfic role.
But sure i can play as any class with the same char right?.Wrong! Youll end up playing the class you enjoy the most anyway. Youll specialize in for example being a warrior but without the depth of theorycrafting around warriorbuilds.
Farsights and specific props look nice but the majority of textures are low quality (even on my 3000 euro setup). But i guess if you squint your eyes (or had a few drinks) it looks ok. Which applies to the entire game...its passable if you dont care about details and dont care how outdated the game is.
@AznarKaimelar Its weird how people start to expect 9's or 10's if games are even remotely decent. Imo giving a truckload of games a 9 or a 10 is just poor reviewing. A product off gaming sites kissing ass of certain publishers.
A good game deserves a 7....a masterpiece a 9. Are you really telling me that you guys see this as a masterpiece?
@JechtDepp A lot of sites like IGN make it rain 9's. While i have quite the possitive attitude towards games myself and enjoy games even if they are lacking in a lot of ways. Rating a truckload of games as masterpiece takes away the entire point of rating a game.
Check the reviews on metacritic for example. There are websites like Gamesradar and tentonhammer that accumulated 4-5 pages of 9+'s or even mulitple pages of 10 out of 10's. USgamer gave out 6 perfect scores (100%) AND 4 times 90%'s over the last month alone (wtf is up with that)
Was the last month one of the best months in the history of videogames or is something wrong with that picture?
The bad thing is that people start to expect 9+ grades whenever semi decent games come out. While a 9+ should only be given to absolute masterpieces. Games that are nearly flawless and an absolute must buy for any gamer that is even remotely interested in its genre.
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