I'm gonna have to agree with the OP. I was expecting to see a little bit of variety at the higher levels, but things are so very limited skill and gear wise. Everybody looks the same (within their class) give or take some basic colors, and there's no skill variation. Peoples rotations will pretty much be the same at a certain point.
Maybe they're planning to throw these things in later, but I'm not betting a subscription on it.
I like the game, but sorry.
-snip-
This isn't true at all.
Ragnarok Online has huge customization, even at end game, nobody is exactly the same, the gear is different, the cards in the gear are differents, some of the stats aren't the same, same for the skills.
Rift has a lot of room for customization with the Soul system, sure some builds are obviously optimal, but nothing prevents you from trying things out and finding what suits you.
TSW has a gigantic pool of skills to pick from, and make a build you like using all those skills. And there's huge cosmetic customization.
GW1 also has a gigantic pool of skills, and dual-classing.
LOTRO has traits and virtues, endgame weapons can be customized to your liking..
GW2 has traits, weapon sets and the amazing dye system.
So no, not all MMOs are the same as FFXIV in that regard. The list above is mostly modern ones, if you go for older MMOs the examples are even more plentiful.
Just as I suspected. It's not important whether it makes sense or not, the most important thing is that there are a lot of skills with most of them being completely useless.
Other MMO's use one optimal build since it is the optimal one. ARR uses the optimal build since the fat has been trimmed.
Some people still haven't gotten used to the idea that there are ultimately no choices, only an optimal build and inferior builds. Sure was different back then when the games were not challenging, just time consuming.
Still not true.
I'll take Ragnarok Online as an example since it's the MMO I've played the most.
Let's take the Sniper class, many builds can be used on a sniper. Dex/Agi Double Strafe Build, Dex/Int Falcon build, Dex/Agi/Luck Auto-attack build, Dex/Strength Beast Strafe build and many more.
Are there some that are better? Somewhat, Dex/Agi is the easiest to use, and the best DPS, but are the other builds not worth using for that reason? No.
Falcon builds give a great burst that ignores defenses, combined with a bard you can get amazing sustained DPS, especially with MP restoring consumables.
Dex/Agi/Luck is great for long farming sessions, because you don't need to use SP to kill monsters, and falcon attacks ignore defenses, so you can even farm those hard as steel monsters.
Beast Strafe build is very situational, it's only really useful against beasts, but it's EXTREMELY good at what it does, to farm beasts and Bosses of the beast races there's nothing better.
A build being the best doesn't necessarily means the other aren't worth using at all. Maybe if you're a min-maxer but for many people who just want to have fun, these other builds are there for them and there's something for everybody.
I don't think that the "optimal build" issue has as much to do with the concept as it has to do with the lack of them.
Each job/class has only 1 optimal build regardless of content where as, someone mentioned Rift, which has 1 optimal build per class/soul but a lot of them to cover a lot more play styles and content variations.
This I'm sure will be alleviated once more jobs get introduced that cover more play styles but the 1 weapon issue will hold back any variety until that's also expanded upon.
Vanity and appearance slots should cover everyone looking the same, provided gear skins are expanded upon as well.
As it currently stands, it is what it is; a nice foundation to build upon.
Originally posted by FoomerangMy experience so far has been different from yours.
I'm curious how. Everything the OP stated is true.Unless you're not going for max efficiency, then i could see some deviation from cookie-cutter.
His experience hasn't been any different. Dude is just a douche. Every time anybody says something along these lines he says the exact same crap.
Cool. So I can't say that I'm enjoying myself crafting and gathering? I wasn't rude to the OP. I don't think his experience is wrong. Its just not the same as mine. I also wrote that I hope he finds a game he enjoys or something along those lines. Which is true. But the person who quoted me deleted that part.
I have met some pretty cool people in game. I've had a lot of fun crafting. I've had success selling items on the market. I look forward to unwinding after work, log in and do a little gathering.
Yes that's my experience in FFXIV right now. I am enjoying it quite a bit. I appreciate the fact that people don't like this game. Why is it so difficult to acknowledge that there are other people who do?
i agree with the OP. and to make it so bad, the people you party with are expecting to use the same skills. you TRY to be even a little different and you are getting kicked from the group because you arent doing what all other people of the same class do. The way they made the game is that each class is really stuck with a role, and they dont give u an oppurtunity to be different because of the messed up stat and skill system. it didnt take me a while to quit once i found out im exactly the same as the next guy, minus my freaken character name.
now ragnarok 1 the customizations was endless. i spend countless countless hours just on the skill/item/stat/card calculator.
i wonder why final fantasy did it the way they did. it is defintely dumbed down to the point of retardation IMO.
The OP's post pretty much sums up the whole experience of Final Fantasy XIV. I remember being one of the first people promoting this game over a year ago and its such a shame to see yet another developer throw out a another generic wow clone. I have nonthing against themeparks but I consider this game to be the worst type. No depth at all, linear fed ex questing, everybody exactly the same, ultra fast leveling, instances everywhere you go even in town. Final Fantasy XIV Reborn is everything that's wrong with mmos today.
Does anyone have a link to what the best in slot gear that was available the 1st month WoW launched? Aside from the time to level cap, I'd like to see how much diversity players had in WoW during it's first months. Elitest Jerks has been publishing BiS gear set ups for every class out there throughout every expansion and patch, Complete with builds and rotations. At the end of the day, you were either cookie cutter or you were not at your best.
What the OP is saying is part of every Theme park MMO out there. there is a best in slot piece of gear for each slot on every character. Guess what? It's the same. It always is. The difference here is that there just isn't that much gear yet since the game is still new.
Also, you talk about theory crafting. Having to balance different stats. Well, it's true WoW and to a much lesser degree Rift had this. Mostly in balancing your Hit in with your primary stat. But at the end of the day, it wasn't that much better and someone else had already figured out what your target number was so once again, you were striving for cookie cutter.
Anyway, OP isn't wrong per se, but it's a new game and there is a set of gear that is best. Also, most people don't even have it yet. We will see what future content brings in terms of diversity. So why now in FF14 is this issue a reason to stop playing when it's been a staple of Theme parks from day one? Bitching about cookie cutter has been in every one I've played.
I have to agree with the OP, even though I stopped pretty early on we have a chapter of obsessive FF fans in our gaming community and I hear a lot of what's going on in the game from them. It appears once you hit max level, assuming you get someone who knows the fights and find a decent party, you can get your relic weapon (granted, 1.0 not 2.0) in about 6 hours and a good chunk of your armor done. As the OP stated there is literally no variety at endgame. All endgamers have the same exact gear, "builds", and so on. If you take any other progression heavy PvE oriented MMO you'll find this simply isn't the case in other games so it's definitely a problem that needs to be addressed in FFXIV.
I think the problem is only worsened by the lack of unique and potent abilities (I find them all to have rather boring effects and many classes share abilities that are functionally the same), slow combat pace, and the content in the game.
Admittedly I'm probably a bit of a hater. I did really want to like Final Fantasy, but I find it to be a mess of mediocre features and really poor design decisions. The only thing it excels in over many other MMOs is the graphical department. Still, I find it hard to believe why people actually enjoy it over say other similar games like WoW, Rift, EQ2, or even games that differ a bit such as GW2 or old school EQ/FFXI. It will be interesting to see what the long term appeal of the game is like and how it maintains subscribers.
Does anyone have a link to what the best in slot gear that was available the 1st month WoW launched? Aside from the time to level cap, I'd like to see how much diversity players had in WoW during it's first months. Elitest Jerks has been publishing BiS gear set ups for every class out there throughout every expansion and patch, Complete with builds and rotations. At the end of the day, you were either cookie cutter or you were not at your best.
What the OP is saying is part of every Theme park MMO out there. there is a best in slot piece of gear for each slot on every character. Guess what? It's the same. It always is. The difference here is that there just isn't that much gear yet since the game is still new.
Also, you talk about theory crafting. Having to balance different stats. Well, it's true WoW and to a much lesser degree Rift had this. Mostly in balancing your Hit in with your primary stat. But at the end of the day, it wasn't that much better and someone else had already figured out what your target number was so once again, you were striving for cookie cutter.
Anyway, OP isn't wrong per se, but it's a new game and there is a set of gear that is best. Also, most people don't even have it yet. We will see what future content brings in terms of diversity. So why now in FF14 is this issue a reason to stop playing when it's been a staple of Theme parks from day one? Bitching about cookie cutter has been in every one I've played.
There was a lot of diversity in end game raiders in WoW at launch, not because there wasn't obvious BiS for every pieces, but because the gear took so long to obtain. I don't think I've ever seen anyone with BiS everything in Vanilla because of the difficulty to obtain certain pieces of gear. Remember back then you were competing with 40 people and bosses only dropped 2-3 pieces of loot with no token system so getting the gear you wanted took a lot of raiding. In FFXIV it seems like you can obtain BiS (at least pre-coil) very quickly.
Also although FFXIV has more classes (jobs) than WoW, WoW had a lot more build variety. Even though certain builds in Vanilla (which has improved in subsequent expansions) weren't raid viable there was still a lot more options for specs than there is in FFXIV.
Many the issue is Legacy members and on a non-Legacy server there is a lot of gear variety since everyone couldn't quickly max out their builds with BiS, but from what I understand everyone in our guild is maxed out minus the gear you can get in Bahumut's Coil since they were legacy and already had a million Darklight tokens and what not. (I don't know for sure as I'm not playing the game and only trying to make sense of what I've heard)
Not true sorry, in Rift I have 4 builds on my mage, melee DPS, ranged DPS, pet build, and healer support build. None are cookie cutter and are unique to my play style.
Since there are so many build choices in Rift there is no clear winner what the most optimal build is because of varying play styles and different situations one build would be more ideal.
So your point about only optimal and inferior builds is not true at all.
Look at a much simpler game like Diablo 3 - even there there are many variations of optimal builds.
Things are not so black and white as you'd like to portray, FFARR simply has no options for unique optimal builds.
They trimmed the fat? No they trimmed options for uniqueness entirely.
Yes yes, keep telling yourself that.
What you just described is the game having many specs on a class - something that FFXIV has yet to implement in their game in full extent (more jobs per class). WoW also has three of them per class, but the class system is different from Rift so each sounds about right.
It's exactly like Alders said; a nice foundation to build upon. It's not in any shape or form "flawed" or "incomplete". It's just not as complex as you people would prefer it to be. Although Alders said that there is some sort of problem in the way weapons work in this game; that's not the case. There's absolutely nothing whatsoever stopping SE from adding more weapons to the classes' existing weaponry with a snap of a finger, or implementing new weapons you can only equip as a Job once they get implemented. A non-existant problem, to say the least.
To each his own. Haters will hate regardless.
The problem is haters will obviously overlook outright positive aspects in the way the game is designed, obviously. Out of the existing Armoury system in FFXIV I am creating my very own character with it's own unique build of classes. You simply can not do this in any other AAA MMORPG. While you can level each class to 50 at the end of the day, you will hardly have time to prioritize more than a few of them. Those classes are the foundation of your character, your unique identity.
8 battle classes; 9 jobs; many, many crafting and gathering professions: A whole lot of unique ways to build a one single character to do everything the game has to offer. No quest unturned, no content undealt with. Something every MMO out there pretty much lacks entirely. The possibility for an entirely exhaustive experience.
Right now you may be like the other Warriors in the game; but very few people have your combination of classes/jobs leveled and focused on.
If only other MMOs had this much iconic lore and background to build from. The amount of specs hardly matters when the whole game's lore and the soul behind everything is such a train wreck. Who names their game after a gameplay feature?
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
- sub-stats to consider: skill speed, determination, etc.
- cross-class skills
- outside raids/dungeons, it has jobs v.s. class customization (gladiator has broader cross-class skills than paladin)
You cannot turn a blind eye on the foundation they created. There is customization to be found. This is comparable and actually unique (can pick skills from other jobs) from WoW or Rift. And like those games, there are optimal builds and unique builds. You may argue which is better which is subjective, but the fact is the customization does exist.
OP isn't the only one. I have been hearing same complaints from LVL 50 in linkshells too. So reading OP's post was like summary of what i have been reading in chat.
I'm gonna have to agree with the OP. I was expecting to see a little bit of variety at the higher levels, but things are so very limited skill and gear wise. Everybody looks the same (within their class) give or take some basic colors, and there's no skill variation. Peoples rotations will pretty much be the same at a certain point.
Maybe they're planning to throw these things in later, but I'm not betting a subscription on it.
I like the game, but sorry.
-snip-
This isn't true at all.
Ragnarok Online has huge customization, even at end game, nobody is exactly the same, the gear is different, the cards in the gear are differents, some of the stats aren't the same, same for the skills.
Rift has a lot of room for customization with the Soul system, sure some builds are obviously optimal, but nothing prevents you from trying things out and finding what suits you.
TSW has a gigantic pool of skills to pick from, and make a build you like using all those skills. And there's huge cosmetic customization.
GW1 also has a gigantic pool of skills, and dual-classing.
LOTRO has traits and virtues, endgame weapons can be customized to your liking..
GW2 has traits, weapon sets and the amazing dye system.
So no, not all MMOs are the same as FFXIV in that regard. The list above is mostly modern ones, if you go for older MMOs the examples are even more plentiful.
Just as I suspected. It's not important whether it makes sense or not, the most important thing is that there are a lot of skills with most of them being completely useless.
Other MMO's use one optimal build since it is the optimal one. ARR uses the optimal build since the fat has been trimmed.
Some people still haven't gotten used to the idea that there are ultimately no choices, only an optimal build and inferior builds. Sure was different back then when the games were not challenging, just time consuming.
Not true sorry, in Rift I have 4 builds on my mage, melee DPS, ranged DPS, pet build, and healer support build. None are cookie cutter and are unique to my play style.
Since there are so many build choices in Rift there is no clear winner what the most optimal build is because of varying play styles and different situations one build would be more ideal.
So your point about only optimal and inferior builds is not true at all.
Look at a much simpler game like Diablo 3 - even there there are many variations of optimal builds.
Things are not so black and white as you'd like to portray, FFARR simply has no options for unique optimal builds.
They trimmed the fat? No they trimmed options for uniqueness entirely.
funny you mentioned rift. when i played it when it first came out i remember there being only one cookie cutter 2-hand dps build available for my warrior because everything else just sucked in comparison. its the first time i used dps meters and macros in a game. oh my and were those macros easy. basically just rolled my face on my keyboard and i annihilated people in pvp. also, i was in a very competetive raiding guild in RIFT and was one of the top DPSers until i burned myself out and quit. in RIFT like in all other games, if you wanted the optimal setup you needed to use a very specific build (with at least all other classes except mage). same thing with ragnarok, same thing with ffxiv.
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
funny you mentioned rift. when i played it when it first came out i remember there being only one cookie cutter 2-hand dps build available for my warrior because everything else just sucked in comparison. its the first time i used dps meters and macros in a game. oh my and were those macros easy. basically just rolled my face on my keyboard and i annihilated people in pvp. also, i was in a very competetive raiding guild in RIFT and was one of the top DPSers until i burned myself out and quit. in RIFT like in all other games, if you wanted the optimal setup you needed to use a very specific build (with at least all other classes except mage). same thing with ragnarok, same thing with ffxiv.
Not true story. Come play Wushu, or EVE. Rift was a step in the right direction, as is TSW.
funny you mentioned rift. when i played it when it first came out i remember there being only one cookie cutter 2-hand dps build available for my warrior because everything else just sucked in comparison. its the first time i used dps meters and macros in a game. oh my and were those macros easy. basically just rolled my face on my keyboard and i annihilated people in pvp. also, i was in a very competetive raiding guild in RIFT and was one of the top DPSers until i burned myself out and quit. in RIFT like in all other games, if you wanted the optimal setup you needed to use a very specific build (with at least all other classes except mage). same thing with ragnarok, same thing with ffxiv.
People are lazy simple as that. They google the optimal builds and stick with that. Why bother experimenting with all the skills devs provide you? How is it games fault? Rift gives you a lot of skills to experiment with but if a player stumbles upon something good everyone just copy pastes they same build. There is always some few players in every MMO who are willing to experiment..rest just reap hard work of these few people.
Atleast in Rift there are choices and an option to apply your own and mind and make a unique build..in FFXIV you don't even have that choice. All you get is what 4 or 5 skills from the other class for your job? how unique you gonna be really with that? fact is that at lvl 50 everyone is nothing more than a clone of each other.
I will have GW1, Rift; EVE, TSW skill system over watered down GW2 and FFXIV skill system any day.
Am I the only one that plans to level more than one job to 50? Right now I'm leveling white and black Mage at the same time. Once I finish with those I plan to level summoner and scholar. After that possibly paladin and dragoon.
The game is designed for people to level multiple jobs, hence the armory window. The variety comes via multiclassing,
funny you mentioned rift. when i played it when it first came out i remember there being only one cookie cutter 2-hand dps build available for my warrior because everything else just sucked in comparison. its the first time i used dps meters and macros in a game. oh my and were those macros easy. basically just rolled my face on my keyboard and i annihilated people in pvp. also, i was in a very competetive raiding guild in RIFT and was one of the top DPSers until i burned myself out and quit. in RIFT like in all other games, if you wanted the optimal setup you needed to use a very specific build (with at least all other classes except mage). same thing with ragnarok, same thing with ffxiv.
Not true story. Come play Wushu, or EVE. Rift was a step in the right direction, as is TSW.
Unfortunately Rift was a potential that was never realized. I played Rift avidly throughout its Vanilla period. The Soul System should have been a crown jewel in the wolrd of MMO character building. It should have allowed an unlimited potential to create your own playstyle to make a character play exactly as you would wish it to be. Anything should have been possible. I experienced this with the mage. I leveled my mage to 50 using a combination of Necro/Warlock and Chloro. The play style was virtually identical to the Warlock class from WoW. I enjoyed this all the way to 50. It was awesome for leveling. It had absolutely no place in any endgame content. Not even good for standard dungeons let alone heroics and raids.So at 50, I had to abandon EVERYTHING I had been playing with to that point and become a Pyro mage. These aren't even similar. It's like you decided to level a Warrior in WoW and then are told at 60, you now have to be a Rogue. Well what if I didn't want that?
funny you mentioned rift. when i played it when it first came out i remember there being only one cookie cutter 2-hand dps build available for my warrior because everything else just sucked in comparison. its the first time i used dps meters and macros in a game. oh my and were those macros easy. basically just rolled my face on my keyboard and i annihilated people in pvp. also, i was in a very competetive raiding guild in RIFT and was one of the top DPSers until i burned myself out and quit. in RIFT like in all other games, if you wanted the optimal setup you needed to use a very specific build (with at least all other classes except mage). same thing with ragnarok, same thing with ffxiv.
Not true story. Come play Wushu, or EVE. Rift was a step in the right direction, as is TSW.
Unfortunately Rift was a potential that was never realized. I played Rift avidly throughout its Vanilla period. The Soul System should have been a crown jewel in the wolrd of MMO character building. It should have allowed an unlimited potential to create your own playstyle to make a character play exactly as you would wish it to be. Anything should have been possible. I experienced this with the mage. I leveled my mage to 50 using a combination of Necro/Warlock and Chloro. The play style was virtually identical to the Warlock class from WoW. I enjoyed this all the way to 50. It was awesome for leveling. It had absolutely no place in any endgame content. Not even good for standard dungeons let alone heroics and raids.So at 50, I had to abandon EVERYTHING I had been playing with to that point and become a Pyro mage. These aren't even similar. It's like you decided to level a Warrior in WoW and then are told at 60, you now have to be a Rogue. Well what if I didn't want that?
Nahh, Rift's Soul System failed HARD.
This is exactly why Rift failed imo.
I played beta + vanilla Rift before they nerfed ("fixed") a lot of the abilities and being able to mix n match skills to create unique classes was the best thing about it. But instead of promoting it, they went with cookie cutter builds so that things would be easier to balance. F* balance, let's have fun for once. Let people do crazy things and who cares what's more optimal by 2%. Gah.
FFXIV will sit on my shelf until the PS4 version releases, if I can get some free play time to try it on PS4, I'll play it. If not, I'll have to wait and read reviews/keep up on changes/additions to see if it's worth coming back to.
I don't think there is anything all that "wrong" with FFXIV - in fact I still think it is a great MMORPG with a hell of a lot of good things going for it, but I think my interest in MMOs in general is at an all time low...
I'm having a lot more fun with Diablo 3 (never played before the past few weeks) due to the incredible build diversity, addictive gameplay, and no $ commitment.
Much more excited for and having fun with PC/console games I missed out on and the next gen coming in a month or so.
I was so hyped and was leveling like mad (even quests are incredibly boring), still the old school feeling was there and I liked it.
When I steped in lev 35+ things started to be a bit boring with all fates and slow story progression and when i hit lev 43 I just could not do it no more.
And also saw that there is not much to do when you hit 50 i just gave up.
Still, I think the game is much better then what we saw in last few years.
Comments
Still not true.
I'll take Ragnarok Online as an example since it's the MMO I've played the most.
Let's take the Sniper class, many builds can be used on a sniper. Dex/Agi Double Strafe Build, Dex/Int Falcon build, Dex/Agi/Luck Auto-attack build, Dex/Strength Beast Strafe build and many more.
Are there some that are better? Somewhat, Dex/Agi is the easiest to use, and the best DPS, but are the other builds not worth using for that reason? No.
Falcon builds give a great burst that ignores defenses, combined with a bard you can get amazing sustained DPS, especially with MP restoring consumables.
Dex/Agi/Luck is great for long farming sessions, because you don't need to use SP to kill monsters, and falcon attacks ignore defenses, so you can even farm those hard as steel monsters.
Beast Strafe build is very situational, it's only really useful against beasts, but it's EXTREMELY good at what it does, to farm beasts and Bosses of the beast races there's nothing better.
A build being the best doesn't necessarily means the other aren't worth using at all. Maybe if you're a min-maxer but for many people who just want to have fun, these other builds are there for them and there's something for everybody.
I don't think that the "optimal build" issue has as much to do with the concept as it has to do with the lack of them.
Each job/class has only 1 optimal build regardless of content where as, someone mentioned Rift, which has 1 optimal build per class/soul but a lot of them to cover a lot more play styles and content variations.
This I'm sure will be alleviated once more jobs get introduced that cover more play styles but the 1 weapon issue will hold back any variety until that's also expanded upon.
Vanity and appearance slots should cover everyone looking the same, provided gear skins are expanded upon as well.
As it currently stands, it is what it is; a nice foundation to build upon.
I have met some pretty cool people in game. I've had a lot of fun crafting. I've had success selling items on the market. I look forward to unwinding after work, log in and do a little gathering.
Yes that's my experience in FFXIV right now. I am enjoying it quite a bit. I appreciate the fact that people don't like this game. Why is it so difficult to acknowledge that there are other people who do?
Even the OP said he liked the game in his title.
i agree with the OP. and to make it so bad, the people you party with are expecting to use the same skills. you TRY to be even a little different and you are getting kicked from the group because you arent doing what all other people of the same class do. The way they made the game is that each class is really stuck with a role, and they dont give u an oppurtunity to be different because of the messed up stat and skill system. it didnt take me a while to quit once i found out im exactly the same as the next guy, minus my freaken character name.
now ragnarok 1 the customizations was endless. i spend countless countless hours just on the skill/item/stat/card calculator.
i wonder why final fantasy did it the way they did. it is defintely dumbed down to the point of retardation IMO.
Does anyone have a link to what the best in slot gear that was available the 1st month WoW launched? Aside from the time to level cap, I'd like to see how much diversity players had in WoW during it's first months. Elitest Jerks has been publishing BiS gear set ups for every class out there throughout every expansion and patch, Complete with builds and rotations. At the end of the day, you were either cookie cutter or you were not at your best.
What the OP is saying is part of every Theme park MMO out there. there is a best in slot piece of gear for each slot on every character. Guess what? It's the same. It always is. The difference here is that there just isn't that much gear yet since the game is still new.
Also, you talk about theory crafting. Having to balance different stats. Well, it's true WoW and to a much lesser degree Rift had this. Mostly in balancing your Hit in with your primary stat. But at the end of the day, it wasn't that much better and someone else had already figured out what your target number was so once again, you were striving for cookie cutter.
Anyway, OP isn't wrong per se, but it's a new game and there is a set of gear that is best. Also, most people don't even have it yet. We will see what future content brings in terms of diversity. So why now in FF14 is this issue a reason to stop playing when it's been a staple of Theme parks from day one? Bitching about cookie cutter has been in every one I've played.
I have to agree with the OP, even though I stopped pretty early on we have a chapter of obsessive FF fans in our gaming community and I hear a lot of what's going on in the game from them. It appears once you hit max level, assuming you get someone who knows the fights and find a decent party, you can get your relic weapon (granted, 1.0 not 2.0) in about 6 hours and a good chunk of your armor done. As the OP stated there is literally no variety at endgame. All endgamers have the same exact gear, "builds", and so on. If you take any other progression heavy PvE oriented MMO you'll find this simply isn't the case in other games so it's definitely a problem that needs to be addressed in FFXIV.
I think the problem is only worsened by the lack of unique and potent abilities (I find them all to have rather boring effects and many classes share abilities that are functionally the same), slow combat pace, and the content in the game.
Admittedly I'm probably a bit of a hater. I did really want to like Final Fantasy, but I find it to be a mess of mediocre features and really poor design decisions. The only thing it excels in over many other MMOs is the graphical department. Still, I find it hard to believe why people actually enjoy it over say other similar games like WoW, Rift, EQ2, or even games that differ a bit such as GW2 or old school EQ/FFXI. It will be interesting to see what the long term appeal of the game is like and how it maintains subscribers.
There was a lot of diversity in end game raiders in WoW at launch, not because there wasn't obvious BiS for every pieces, but because the gear took so long to obtain. I don't think I've ever seen anyone with BiS everything in Vanilla because of the difficulty to obtain certain pieces of gear. Remember back then you were competing with 40 people and bosses only dropped 2-3 pieces of loot with no token system so getting the gear you wanted took a lot of raiding. In FFXIV it seems like you can obtain BiS (at least pre-coil) very quickly.
Also although FFXIV has more classes (jobs) than WoW, WoW had a lot more build variety. Even though certain builds in Vanilla (which has improved in subsequent expansions) weren't raid viable there was still a lot more options for specs than there is in FFXIV.
Many the issue is Legacy members and on a non-Legacy server there is a lot of gear variety since everyone couldn't quickly max out their builds with BiS, but from what I understand everyone in our guild is maxed out minus the gear you can get in Bahumut's Coil since they were legacy and already had a million Darklight tokens and what not. (I don't know for sure as I'm not playing the game and only trying to make sense of what I've heard)
Yes yes, keep telling yourself that.
What you just described is the game having many specs on a class - something that FFXIV has yet to implement in their game in full extent (more jobs per class). WoW also has three of them per class, but the class system is different from Rift so each sounds about right.
It's exactly like Alders said; a nice foundation to build upon. It's not in any shape or form "flawed" or "incomplete". It's just not as complex as you people would prefer it to be. Although Alders said that there is some sort of problem in the way weapons work in this game; that's not the case. There's absolutely nothing whatsoever stopping SE from adding more weapons to the classes' existing weaponry with a snap of a finger, or implementing new weapons you can only equip as a Job once they get implemented. A non-existant problem, to say the least.
To each his own. Haters will hate regardless.
The problem is haters will obviously overlook outright positive aspects in the way the game is designed, obviously. Out of the existing Armoury system in FFXIV I am creating my very own character with it's own unique build of classes. You simply can not do this in any other AAA MMORPG. While you can level each class to 50 at the end of the day, you will hardly have time to prioritize more than a few of them. Those classes are the foundation of your character, your unique identity.
8 battle classes; 9 jobs; many, many crafting and gathering professions: A whole lot of unique ways to build a one single character to do everything the game has to offer. No quest unturned, no content undealt with. Something every MMO out there pretty much lacks entirely. The possibility for an entirely exhaustive experience.
Right now you may be like the other Warriors in the game; but very few people have your combination of classes/jobs leveled and focused on.
If only other MMOs had this much iconic lore and background to build from. The amount of specs hardly matters when the whole game's lore and the soul behind everything is such a train wreck. Who names their game after a gameplay feature?
Let's break this down for FFARR:
- stat allocation
- materia slots where you stacking has a limit
- sub-stats to consider: skill speed, determination, etc.
- cross-class skills
- outside raids/dungeons, it has jobs v.s. class customization (gladiator has broader cross-class skills than paladin)
You cannot turn a blind eye on the foundation they created. There is customization to be found. This is comparable and actually unique (can pick skills from other jobs) from WoW or Rift. And like those games, there are optimal builds and unique builds. You may argue which is better which is subjective, but the fact is the customization does exist.
OP isn't the only one. I have been hearing same complaints from LVL 50 in linkshells too. So reading OP's post was like summary of what i have been reading in chat.
100% agree.
funny you mentioned rift. when i played it when it first came out i remember there being only one cookie cutter 2-hand dps build available for my warrior because everything else just sucked in comparison. its the first time i used dps meters and macros in a game. oh my and were those macros easy. basically just rolled my face on my keyboard and i annihilated people in pvp. also, i was in a very competetive raiding guild in RIFT and was one of the top DPSers until i burned myself out and quit. in RIFT like in all other games, if you wanted the optimal setup you needed to use a very specific build (with at least all other classes except mage). same thing with ragnarok, same thing with ffxiv.
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
Not true story. Come play Wushu, or EVE. Rift was a step in the right direction, as is TSW.
People are lazy simple as that. They google the optimal builds and stick with that. Why bother experimenting with all the skills devs provide you? How is it games fault? Rift gives you a lot of skills to experiment with but if a player stumbles upon something good everyone just copy pastes they same build. There is always some few players in every MMO who are willing to experiment..rest just reap hard work of these few people.
Atleast in Rift there are choices and an option to apply your own and mind and make a unique build..in FFXIV you don't even have that choice. All you get is what 4 or 5 skills from the other class for your job? how unique you gonna be really with that? fact is that at lvl 50 everyone is nothing more than a clone of each other.
I will have GW1, Rift; EVE, TSW skill system over watered down GW2 and FFXIV skill system any day.
The game is designed for people to level multiple jobs, hence the armory window. The variety comes via multiclassing,
Unfortunately Rift was a potential that was never realized. I played Rift avidly throughout its Vanilla period. The Soul System should have been a crown jewel in the wolrd of MMO character building. It should have allowed an unlimited potential to create your own playstyle to make a character play exactly as you would wish it to be. Anything should have been possible. I experienced this with the mage. I leveled my mage to 50 using a combination of Necro/Warlock and Chloro. The play style was virtually identical to the Warlock class from WoW. I enjoyed this all the way to 50. It was awesome for leveling. It had absolutely no place in any endgame content. Not even good for standard dungeons let alone heroics and raids.So at 50, I had to abandon EVERYTHING I had been playing with to that point and become a Pyro mage. These aren't even similar. It's like you decided to level a Warrior in WoW and then are told at 60, you now have to be a Rogue. Well what if I didn't want that?
Nahh, Rift's Soul System failed HARD.
This is exactly why Rift failed imo.
I played beta + vanilla Rift before they nerfed ("fixed") a lot of the abilities and being able to mix n match skills to create unique classes was the best thing about it. But instead of promoting it, they went with cookie cutter builds so that things would be easier to balance. F* balance, let's have fun for once. Let people do crazy things and who cares what's more optimal by 2%. Gah.
FFXIV will sit on my shelf until the PS4 version releases, if I can get some free play time to try it on PS4, I'll play it. If not, I'll have to wait and read reviews/keep up on changes/additions to see if it's worth coming back to.
I don't think there is anything all that "wrong" with FFXIV - in fact I still think it is a great MMORPG with a hell of a lot of good things going for it, but I think my interest in MMOs in general is at an all time low...
I'm having a lot more fun with Diablo 3 (never played before the past few weeks) due to the incredible build diversity, addictive gameplay, and no $ commitment.
Much more excited for and having fun with PC/console games I missed out on and the next gen coming in a month or so.
Totaly feel you brother!
I was so hyped and was leveling like mad (even quests are incredibly boring), still the old school feeling was there and I liked it.
When I steped in lev 35+ things started to be a bit boring with all fates and slow story progression and when i hit lev 43 I just could not do it no more.
And also saw that there is not much to do when you hit 50 i just gave up.
Still, I think the game is much better then what we saw in last few years.