Because the game is still awful 15 months after launch.
im currently playing the game and i really dont see how people call it awful? Am I to stupid to see the games faults? Maybe im not high enough in level? From what I remember FFXI was not that big of a smashing hit when it first got launched. NA didnt get the game until 1 year of its launch in Japan and it was released with an expansion so im sure that FFXI had just a terrible launch as XIV. Now im not saying that releasing a game in half assed condition is alright by any means. In the current era of MMOS and how many come out if a company wants to maintain its fanbase it is espically important to get it off the ground in a playable stable manner. Just because the company is Square doesnt give them right to take advantage of its customers. I unfortunatley was one of the individuals who had purchased the CE for its full price. I was very dissapointed. What else would you like square to do though? Many other companies would of trashed the game by now, opened up an item shop and gone down that path. Square had to train an entire new team, come up with an entire new gameplan, fire and hire producers, change combat completely, practically rebuild the game from the ground up, made it f2p for more then a year, and to me personally have made many new changes that are satisfying. Many people may not like the game and I guess i can understand because of the sour taste in their mouths from the launch, but I dont see to many issues anymore. Square has said themselves that they will continue to support the game and it will be rerelased for the ps3 as version 2.0. I find it very fun and refreshing.
Not likely...
I predict a whole new generation of players listing the same complaints.
Why would anyone PAY to play for this game, when there are so many MMOs that are better, cheaper, and some are FTP.
The excuses you listed, are beyond forgivable seeing it's been past the year-mark and "not ready yet" or "they are training a whole new team" doesn't cut it.
What was that again "There are so many MMOs that are better??? Really? What MMOs elaborate cause all I see in the market are WoWlike games and only one that looks close to FFXI is FFXIV and actually with my super PC you can't find even single players that look as good as FFXIV. I'm enjoing this game is better then the clones, it's a game that differs from all those copy/paste so called games.
LOL
It's funny you mention Copy and Paste... FFXIV Terrains are all about Copy and Paste... http://youtu.be/La9nLBfH44c Here you go.
And for WOW clones, FFXIV tried that stunt day one... Click click click attacks and lagging at it.... it failed at being a WOW-clone as well...
Which probably doesn't bother you since you like playing WOW-clones enough to post it on your profile, and you are waiting for Guild Wars 2 (another wow-clone).
I've never hard anyone equate being a WoW-clone with ability based combat (meaning skills/abilities/spells etc.), so congratulations for being the first. I generally would just call that "RPG combat", and any RPG's that use other systems action hybrids (you know click click click click click click click *still clicking the same thing while running in circles and jumping around like a dork which is all "action combat really is*)
I would point out however that the combo and TP system makes it quite a bit different from WoW in that regard.
WoW-clone=soulless quest grinder for casuals w/ soulless gear grind raid game for hardcores.
Because the game is still awful 15 months after launch.
im currently playing the game and i really dont see how people call it awful? Am I to stupid to see the games faults? Maybe im not high enough in level? From what I remember FFXI was not that big of a smashing hit when it first got launched. NA didnt get the game until 1 year of its launch in Japan and it was released with an expansion so im sure that FFXI had just a terrible launch as XIV. Now im not saying that releasing a game in half assed condition is alright by any means. In the current era of MMOS and how many come out if a company wants to maintain its fanbase it is espically important to get it off the ground in a playable stable manner. Just because the company is Square doesnt give them right to take advantage of its customers. I unfortunatley was one of the individuals who had purchased the CE for its full price. I was very dissapointed. What else would you like square to do though? Many other companies would of trashed the game by now, opened up an item shop and gone down that path. Square had to train an entire new team, come up with an entire new gameplan, fire and hire producers, change combat completely, practically rebuild the game from the ground up, made it f2p for more then a year, and to me personally have made many new changes that are satisfying. Many people may not like the game and I guess i can understand because of the sour taste in their mouths from the launch, but I dont see to many issues anymore. Square has said themselves that they will continue to support the game and it will be rerelased for the ps3 as version 2.0. I find it very fun and refreshing.
Not likely...
I predict a whole new generation of players listing the same complaints.
Why would anyone PAY to play for this game, when there are so many MMOs that are better, cheaper, and some are FTP.
The excuses you listed, are beyond forgivable seeing it's been past the year-mark and "not ready yet" or "they are training a whole new team" doesn't cut it.
What was that again "There are so many MMOs that are better??? Really? What MMOs elaborate cause all I see in the market are WoWlike games and only one that looks close to FFXI is FFXIV and actually with my super PC you can't find even single players that look as good as FFXIV. I'm enjoing this game is better then the clones, it's a game that differs from all those copy/paste so called games.
LOL
It's funny you mention Copy and Paste... FFXIV Terrains are all about Copy and Paste... http://youtu.be/La9nLBfH44c Here you go.
And for WOW clones, FFXIV tried that stunt day one... Click click click attacks and lagging at it.... it failed at being a WOW-clone as well...
Which probably doesn't bother you since you like playing WOW-clones enough to post it on your profile, and you are waiting for Guild Wars 2 (another wow-clone).
I've never hard anyone equate being a WoW-clone with ability based combat (meaning skills/abilities/spells etc.), so congratulations for being the first. I generally would just call that "RPG combat", and any RPG's that use other systems action hybrids (you know click click click click click click click *still clicking the same thing while running in circles and jumping around like a dork which is all "action combat really is*)
I would point out however that the combo and TP system makes it quite a bit different from WoW in that regard.
WoW-clone=soulless quest grinder for casuals w/ soulless gear grind raid game for hardcores.
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
FFXIV isn't a wow clone, but the combat isn't that different. It's pretty much the same "click hotbar ability" system. Not necessarily something bad, but FFXIV's combat isn't unique.
And before you go on about sidequests, like you did in another thread:
There are more sidequests in Elwynn than FFXIV total. And btw, just about every MMO are raid gear grinders, so will FFXIV eventually be, just like FFXI was/is.
Graphics in FFXIV = great. But as flesh said, it's copy and paste. Enormous zones with almost no variations doesn't impress in the long run, even though the graphic quality is superb.
Imagine if SE decides to charge its players for all the free time they played when 2.0 hits. Now that would be somthing.
Joking aside I have not followed up this game since open beta so i have no idea of all the changes it has been going thru. maybe when 2.0 officially launches ill give it a look and see if what drove me away in open bata is still there.
It's funny you mention Copy and Paste... FFXIV Terrains are all about Copy and Paste... http://youtu.be/La9nLBfH44c Here you go.
And for WOW clones, FFXIV tried that stunt day one... Click click click attacks and lagging at it.... it failed at being a WOW-clone as well...
Which probably doesn't bother you since you like playing WOW-clones enough to post it on your profile, and you are waiting for Guild Wars 2 (another wow-clone).
I've never hard anyone equate being a WoW-clone with ability based combat (meaning skills/abilities/spells etc.), so congratulations for being the first. I generally would just call that "RPG combat", and any RPG's that use other systems action hybrids (you know click click click click click click click *still clicking the same thing while running in circles and jumping around like a dork which is all "action combat really is*)
I would point out however that the combo and TP system makes it quite a bit different from WoW in that regard.
WoW-clone=soulless quest grinder for casuals w/ soulless gear grind raid game for hardcores.
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
FFXIV isn't a wow clone, but the combat isn't that different. It's pretty much the same "click hotbar ability" system. Not necessarily something bad, but FFXIV's combat isn't unique.
And before you go on about sidequests, like you did in another thread:
There are more sidequests in Elwynn than FFXIV total. And btw, just about every MMO are raid gear grinders, so will FFXIV eventually be, just like FFXI was/is.
Graphics in FFXIV = great. But as flesh said, it's copy and paste. Enormous zones with almost no variations doesn't impress in the long run, even though the graphic quality is superb.
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
"click hotbar ability" is not really a WoW thing but again just an RPG thing, but let me point out that FFXIV's combat actually revolves around the combo system (1.20). Also saying "hotbar" gives little indication of what gameplay is like in an RPG, it is the abilities that matter and I think XIV has some good ones.
FFXI was never a gear grinder. You obviously were never in endgame there. Loot is an objective in all MMO's, a gear grinder refers to the primacy of gear checks in endgame progression. This was never the case in FFXI and is not the case in FFXIV. It is taken to such extremes in games like WoW that you even have people doing multiple tiers of the same fight (normal mode and "hard mode") in order to equip themselves to pass gear checks. Hence gear grinder. Gear plays a role in all MMO's, but in well designed ones like XI it takes a backseat to strategy/tactics (mechanics) in its importance in progression. I've played a lot of MMO's, always with a focus on endgame and I'll take Matsui designed encounters over anything I've seen in WoW or other post 2005 releases.
As for Graphics yes they are the best MMO's have to offer, as for copy and paste. 2.0 is the only thing that can and will address that, what else do you want? They are redoing all the maps, and the artwork in content/areas they have added so far since this new dev team have taken over like the beastman strongholds, the primal arenas, and darkhold are all high quality. So the two new raids and private rooms in 1.21, the Crystal Tower, Garuda arena, and Garlean empire will likely continue this trend in quality.
It's funny you mention Copy and Paste... FFXIV Terrains are all about Copy and Paste... http://youtu.be/La9nLBfH44c Here you go.
And for WOW clones, FFXIV tried that stunt day one... Click click click attacks and lagging at it.... it failed at being a WOW-clone as well...
Which probably doesn't bother you since you like playing WOW-clones enough to post it on your profile, and you are waiting for Guild Wars 2 (another wow-clone).
I've never hard anyone equate being a WoW-clone with ability based combat (meaning skills/abilities/spells etc.), so congratulations for being the first. I generally would just call that "RPG combat", and any RPG's that use other systems action hybrids (you know click click click click click click click *still clicking the same thing while running in circles and jumping around like a dork which is all "action combat really is*)
I would point out however that the combo and TP system makes it quite a bit different from WoW in that regard.
WoW-clone=soulless quest grinder for casuals w/ soulless gear grind raid game for hardcores.
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
FFXIV isn't a wow clone, but the combat isn't that different. It's pretty much the same "click hotbar ability" system. Not necessarily something bad, but FFXIV's combat isn't unique.
And before you go on about sidequests, like you did in another thread:
There are more sidequests in Elwynn than FFXIV total. And btw, just about every MMO are raid gear grinders, so will FFXIV eventually be, just like FFXI was/is.
Graphics in FFXIV = great. But as flesh said, it's copy and paste. Enormous zones with almost no variations doesn't impress in the long run, even though the graphic quality is superb.
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
"click hotbar ability" is not really a WoW thing but again just an RPG thing, but let me point out that FFXIV's combat actually revolves around the combo system (1.20). Also saying "hotbar" gives little indication of what gameplay is like in an RPG, it is the abilities that matter and I think XIV has some good ones.
FFXI was never a gear grinder. You obviously were never in endgame there. Loot is an objective in all MMO's, a gear grinder refers to the primacy of gear checks in endgame progression. This was never the case in FFXI and is not the case in FFXIV. It is taken to such extremes in games like WoW that you even have people doing multiple tiers of the same fight (normal mode and "hard mode") in order to equip themselves to pass gear checks. Hence gear grinder. Gear plays a role in all MMO's, but in well designed ones like XI it takes a backseat to strategy/tactics (mechanics) in its importance in progression. I've played a lot of MMO's, always with a focus on endgame and I'll take Matsui designed encounters over anything I've seen in WoW or other post 2005 releases.
As for Graphics yes they are the best MMO's have to offer, as for copy and paste. 2.0 is the only thing that can and will address that, what else do you want? They are redoing all the maps, and the artwork in content/areas they have added so far since this new dev team have taken over like the beastman strongholds, the primal arenas, and darkhold are all high quality. So the two new raids and private rooms in 1.21, the Crystal Tower, Garuda arena, and Garlean empire will likely continue this trend in quality.
"No one grinds leves". Heh. I've been checking the game after the latest couple of patches, and the majority of the very few ppl I've seen, are grinding leves. "No one have grinded guildleves since this summer" it nothing less than a lie. Even I have done that. Not much else to do when there's too few around to get any groups going, especially at low levels. Sugercoat it as much as you like, but I do know what I'm talking about.
FFXI was very much about gear grinding at max lvl (lvl 75 when I played). It was all about grinding mats for relics and whatever, which nobody got (from ie Dynamis / Sky, if you don't know what I'm talking about). I have 100s of hours behind me doing this, never got enough to complete a single equipment. One of several reasons why I eventually quit, but not the main one. This was FAR MORE extreme than in WoW, where you actually make some personal progress. And the worst part, you can (or at least could) camp bosses for hours, waiting for them to spawn, just to lose claim to another raid group (Sky mainly).
If you think I don't know anyting about XI's endgame, feel free to browse older parts of my posting history. WSIMike and myself, we pretty much answered everything in the FFXI forum on this site for at least a year.
About 2.0:
No one actually knows what it will be like until we've tried it. The "roadmap" on the official site, is too very shallow to give a good impression. I'll try the game when it goes live, since we're promised a new trial then (or was it another free month, don't remember).
It's funny you mention Copy and Paste... FFXIV Terrains are all about Copy and Paste... http://youtu.be/La9nLBfH44c Here you go.
And for WOW clones, FFXIV tried that stunt day one... Click click click attacks and lagging at it.... it failed at being a WOW-clone as well...
Which probably doesn't bother you since you like playing WOW-clones enough to post it on your profile, and you are waiting for Guild Wars 2 (another wow-clone).
I've never hard anyone equate being a WoW-clone with ability based combat (meaning skills/abilities/spells etc.), so congratulations for being the first. I generally would just call that "RPG combat", and any RPG's that use other systems action hybrids (you know click click click click click click click *still clicking the same thing while running in circles and jumping around like a dork which is all "action combat really is*)
I would point out however that the combo and TP system makes it quite a bit different from WoW in that regard.
WoW-clone=soulless quest grinder for casuals w/ soulless gear grind raid game for hardcores.
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
FFXIV isn't a wow clone, but the combat isn't that different. It's pretty much the same "click hotbar ability" system. Not necessarily something bad, but FFXIV's combat isn't unique.
And before you go on about sidequests, like you did in another thread:
There are more sidequests in Elwynn than FFXIV total. And btw, just about every MMO are raid gear grinders, so will FFXIV eventually be, just like FFXI was/is.
Graphics in FFXIV = great. But as flesh said, it's copy and paste. Enormous zones with almost no variations doesn't impress in the long run, even though the graphic quality is superb.
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
"click hotbar ability" is not really a WoW thing but again just an RPG thing, but let me point out that FFXIV's combat actually revolves around the combo system (1.20). Also saying "hotbar" gives little indication of what gameplay is like in an RPG, it is the abilities that matter and I think XIV has some good ones.
FFXI was never a gear grinder. You obviously were never in endgame there. Loot is an objective in all MMO's, a gear grinder refers to the primacy of gear checks in endgame progression. This was never the case in FFXI and is not the case in FFXIV. It is taken to such extremes in games like WoW that you even have people doing multiple tiers of the same fight (normal mode and "hard mode") in order to equip themselves to pass gear checks. Hence gear grinder. Gear plays a role in all MMO's, but in well designed ones like XI it takes a backseat to strategy/tactics (mechanics) in its importance in progression. I've played a lot of MMO's, always with a focus on endgame and I'll take Matsui designed encounters over anything I've seen in WoW or other post 2005 releases.
As for Graphics yes they are the best MMO's have to offer, as for copy and paste. 2.0 is the only thing that can and will address that, what else do you want? They are redoing all the maps, and the artwork in content/areas they have added so far since this new dev team have taken over like the beastman strongholds, the primal arenas, and darkhold are all high quality. So the two new raids and private rooms in 1.21, the Crystal Tower, Garuda arena, and Garlean empire will likely continue this trend in quality.
"No one grinds leves". Heh. I've been checking the game after the latest couple of patches, and the majority of the very few ppl I've seen, are grinding leves. "No one have grinded guildleves since this summer" it nothing less than a lie. Even I have done that. Not much else to do when there's too few around to get any groups going, especially at low levels. Sugercoat it as much as you like, but I do know what I'm talking about.
FFXI was very much about gear grinding at max lvl (lvl 75 when I played). It was all about grinding mats for relics and whatever, which nobody got (from ie Dynamis / Sky, if you don't know what I'm talking about). I have 100s of hours behind me doing this, never got enough to complete a single equipment. One of several reasons why I eventually quit, but not the main one. This was FAR MORE extreme than in WoW, where you actually make some personal progress. And the worst part, you can (or at least could) camp bosses for hours, waiting for them to spawn, just to lose claim to another raid group (Sky mainly).
If you think I don't know anyting about XI's endgame, feel free to browse older parts of my posting history. WSIMike and myself, we pretty much answered everything in the FFXI forum on this site for at least a year.
About 2.0:
No one actually knows what it will be like until we've tried it. The "roadmap" on the official site, is too very shallow to give a good impression. I'll try the game when it goes live, since we're promised a new trial then (or was it another free month, don't remember).
Yeah what would I know. I only run one of the largest socials on the most populated server and have played since beta playing with thousands of peoples over the past year+. How would I know "how people play", and how that has changed with time? You "check the game" after a patch, claim there are no people (maybe you are on a much less populated server and likely have no friends) and proceed to go do guildleves because apparently that is all you know how to do. You don't know what you are talking about. You probably do nothing but guildleves, but then again I'm sure you do a lot of things wrong if and when you play which leads to your constant rage over FFXIV on this forum.
How the vast majority of people level in order:
Form groups, and make use of the linking and chaining system by which they get massive bonuses to XP equivelent to the challenge (innovative FF MMO design).
They solo guildleves or just solo themselves making use of the chaining system.
1-5 are all capable of leveling a casual player to max inside a month, meaning even if they forced themselves to play solo 100% of the time they never have to do guildleves again if they don't want to. Of course they never have to do guildleves in the first place. You are hardly forced to grind leves, when it is: not the most efficient way of leveling or making gil, and when you have plenty of other options available. It is merely an option that is there for people to have easy access to XP and gil. It is hardly the hallmark or central feature of the game.
As for XI not being a gear grinder. I got lots of gear from sky/dynamis. You must have been in a terrible linkshell. Again loot is an object of every RPG, however gear grind refers to a need to grind out specific gear repetiviely in order to progress through the game's many gear checks. Endgame in WoW is pretty much entirely about its gear checks, FFXI's endgame is about as far from that as you can possibly get in an established MMO endgame.
I feel sorry for any of the people who sought answers to questions about XI on this forum to begin with, much moreso now that I know you gave them "advice" on an endgame where you never got a single item (meaning either you all didn't manage to kill much, your linkshell hated you, or you are exaggerating). So I think you should keep your "secret knowledge of how to play FFXI endgame for a year with nothing to show for it" to yourself and not share it with people seeking advice on the game.
It is a free trial in 2.0 for FFXIV coinciding with the PS3 beta (no definite length given). Of course no one knows what it will be like to play until we play it, but they have given us plenty of information on it. You keep harping on the "copy and paste" map, and one thing they have said repeatedly and shown plans for is the complete revamping of all maps primarily to address this exact issue as part of a complete remaking of the entire game's client/server/engine. So it is relevant for that reason.
I feel sorry for any of the people who sought answers to questions about XI on this forum to begin with, much moreso now that I know you gave them "advice" on an endgame where you never got a single item (meaning either you all didn't manage to kill much, your linkshell hated you, or you are exaggerating). So I think you should keep your "secret knowledge of how to play FFXI endgame for a year with nothing to show for it" to yourself and not share it with people seeking advice on the game.
Reply to quote above (bloody iphone messing up the edit):
Well, considering that you and Draron seems to be the only ones left on this forum, which see all those wonderful options FFXIV seems to have, it's obvious that no one takes your "advice" seriously. {mod edit}
Reply to quote above (bloody iphone messing up the edit):
Well, considering that you and Draron seems to be the only ones left on this forum, which see all those wonderful options FFXIV seems to have, it's obvious that no one takes your "advice" seriously.
{mod edit}
I was extremely dissapointed in the way FFXIV launched, and how it did not begin to live up to my expectations for it. However it is not hard to "keep on defending" it as it remains for me the best experience on the market.
It was hard losing Vanguard though as SOE pulled developers from it and refused to breath any life in it after they bought it, I loved that game. But luckily with FFXIV we have a development team and company who is keeping hope alive for those players who want more from an MMO than some quest grinder with too little attention paid to "extras" like interesting combat systems, story, encounter design, crafting, and character progression.
It is unfortunate I have to wait a year for 2.0, but at least I know it is coming. Far from crashing and burning it has a guarantee that they are putting more rescources not less into fixing it even going as far as to basically redo the entire game to get it up to fans' standards, something even "wildly sucessful" AAA MMO's don't seem to have these days, as one after another they fall to freemium and cash shop models. While it might not capture my attention like some of the greatest MMO's have in their heyday, I enjoy the game more every patch. It is the only thing worth my time to play, and I'm not missing any of the other MMO's I could be playing instead. So while I appreciate your concern, don't worry about me so much.
Besides I hardly come here to "set you straight", I mainly come here to answer legitimate questions from players who make the unfortunate decision to come here for actual information on the game and not read rants from disillusioned haters like yourself.
I wouldn't say me and the other person you mentioned are the only people left on the forum other than the trolls though. There are plenty of other people on this thread, and the others. Though clearly you all do your part to try and create an environment that discouraes them from posting. I generally only bother to visit the site when I recieve an email notification of a PM like these two I answered today.
Originally posted by PM
Hello!
I generally follow your comments and screenshots avidly after giving Final Fantasy less than 10 hours of my time (I even pre-purchased the collectors edition!!). The controls and UI were just too unintuitive to me and I couldn't get past it enough to really try the game. As I see things are slowly changing and as I watch your beautiful screenshots I want to ask. If I tried the game again, would you be available for questions and mentoring as it were? Not long term, just enough to get me past the rather significant block I have on the game. So I could get a bit further in and judge the game itself, as opposed to the controls and UI.
Thanks!
Originally posted by PM
I bought the game FFXIV on the digital you posted. I was unsure about trying it after reading all the negative comments here, but for such a bargain I decided to pick it up after being disapointed by SWTOR. I'm having a blast so far, but I'm having a hard time finding a good linkshell. There aren't a lot of groups forming when I play mostly in the afternoon, and looking around it seems a lot of people are already max level. It is hard to find gear upgrades on the MW that are decently priced for my level. Other than guildleves which give a decent amount I'm not sure what to do to make money. Do I need to craft or gather like in XI, or is there a way for battle classes to make decent money?
I might consider starting over since I am only in my mid 20's. What server would you recommend I start on, and do you have any tips on making gil?
(the answer to his questions were: server merge should take care of issues if you are on a low pop server, so fi you are at all happy where you are at I would wait for that before rerolling. If you do want to reroll though I'd recommend Besaid, Rabanstre,Trabia, Lindblum, Gysahl, Saronia or Selbina. I'd also make use of community sites like xivpro and xivpads to see what linkshells are most active on your server. You can buy low-mid level gear from NPCs placed inside the market wards if the prices are too high. For making gil there are several items you can farm, and generally you should just take a quick look in item search to see what is worth holding onto and what you should NPC. Otherwise a good way for battle classes to make gear is to either do guildleves, or a better option is to convert materia http://www.mystina.ffxivmaps.com/Materia%20Chart%20%28v2.0%29.png as the latter directly engages the max level players with items they are in constant demand for it is arguably the most lucrative way to make gil for new/veteran players alike.)
It would be nice if these people could openly post their questions on the forum without being harrassed by your ilk. Everyone knows all the individual game forums on this site are rampant with trolling. Who knows maybe I would be trolling SWTOR if I literally had nothing to do with my time since I am so disatisfied with the direction of that game. So most people genuinely looking for information I imagine know better than to post here, but I have a feeling more read it and lurk. So occasionally I like to gift them with a perspective from someone who actually plays and doesn't just throw out the same tired flames they probably read here a year ago which aren't really applicable to the game in its current state.
It is you I am concerned about Netspook, are you worried you haven't gotten your message out in your hundreds of posts on this forum regarding your intense and overwelhming hatred for this game and Square Enix for stealing your money? I'd like to help you out. Maybe you could condense your complaints into something short, and I could simply place it into my signature. That way when someone posts a new thread about the game you could be there in spirit to berate and belittle them for playing XIV, rather than having to take time out of your busy busy schedule to come here and post so much yourself.
Still people here that play and look at these forums. I just can't be bothered to post with all the eyerolling I have to do with some of these posts. I played since the beginning, was going to pay then, and going to pay now. Still play XI too.
Yoshi-P already said this game is going to 2.0 whether they get subs or not. This game won't be shutting down at all before then (at least not due to the lack of subs, act of God, sure). Just like when everyone was saying it wouldn't last through the first year, you don't really have anything else. I'm sure when 2.0 comes along, you'll probably still have the same cons from launch like you do now. People like the game and somehow something is wrong with that. Just keep to your flavor of the month game and let people enjoy their game.
Keep up the good work Murugan.
To be the best, you must help each other become the best. FFXI Character: Satimasu FFXI Server: Valefor FFXIV Character: Tamorae Fonteil
I really can not agree more with Murugan. I tried to make the same points and comments in my post but just sounds so much better coming from the mouth of Murugan. I have played the game on and of since launch and since the last patch it really has caught me and grabbed my attention. I got into a great LS who really help out through PL and just answering general questions. The game is fun for me and thats all that matters. I dont understand why people have to come here all the time and give no credit towards a company that has admitted their faults and cearly working like crazy to fix the game. Just dont play it no reason to bash it because of the games state 1 year ago, it is not the same game anymore and to me the best and most enjoyable on the market. A market that is crowded and overrun by games that follow the same standards and fundamental type of gameplay and progression. FFXIV is different it just feels different. Far from perfect but no MMO. There will always be people that complain about every little change because it affects them in some way. I do not see FFXIV failing. They still are commited to 2.0 and committed to a ps3 launch which is either a make or break for FFXIV. Until then i dont mind paying the $9 and watching the game change and grow. Murugun keep doing what you are doing I appreciate how you come here and try to give out information for those who are interested but I pity how you need to put up with those people who are trying to pull you away from a game that they clearly dislike.
I'd like to chime in and back up Murugan as well. I don't usually post, but I read these forums enough. He gives better answers than I ever could, but I agree with pretty much all of what he says.
Final Fantasy is easily shaping up to be an mmo that will be one of, if not the, best... simply because of the detail they are giving to every aspect of it. Nothing goes into the game without consideration for how it will make the game run as a whole. They are taking the game's failure very seriously, and have been working their buns off to fix it. Everytime I see Yoshi-P, he looks like he hasn't slept in 3
weeks.
Murugan: "But luckily with FFXIV we have a development team and company who is keeping hope alive for those players who want more from an MMO than some quest grinder with too little attention paid to "extras" like interesting combat systems, story, encounter design, crafting, and character progression. "
This is exactly what I look for and more. FF will not be for everyone, and if that be the case, it's no big deal. You nod and move on. But if it's for me or anyone else, it's not really anyone's business to bash.
I like that FF doesn't revolve around getting the next piece of gear. You get gear, sure, but it doesn't become obsolete within 5 mins. Before on WoW and even SWTOR, I could easily replace gear several times in a 2 hour session. In FF, getting a new piece of gear has more meaning. You want to wear it a certain amount of time so you can turn it into materia, which will in turn strengthen your next piece of gear.
I like that FF doesn't hold your hand as much as other mmos. They have and are making tutorials of course, but certain things you explore and find for yourself. You can even toggle off the quest markers and mob level icons if you want to have things really take you by surprise.
I like the housing and chocobo raising they are planning to add, along with being able to use chocobos in battle. I personally like the guildleves. To me they are just like dailies, only you can set them to whatever difficulty you like. I love the skill chains. It's fun to try to get it to five.
Honestly, if you have been a fan of FF, and you can bear in mind the game is a construction zone in need of more than what it has at present, now is a good time to give it a try while it is discounted. If you need everything to be perfect, wait for 2.0 to come out, especially if you are a UI junkie, as the completely revamped UI won't be released until then. The UI right now is perfectly usable though, and not that hard. I'm willing to help anyone get started as well. However, I play on a low-pop server and I'm not a social butterfly (thus my reason for picking a low-pop server ), so if you're looking for more "crowd", you might want to ask Murugan instead. If you are more of a quiet, keep-to-yourself type like myself, maybe I'm someone who could help you out.
It's funny you mention Copy and Paste... FFXIV Terrains are all about Copy and Paste... http://youtu.be/La9nLBfH44c Here you go.
And for WOW clones, FFXIV tried that stunt day one... Click click click attacks and lagging at it.... it failed at being a WOW-clone as well...
Which probably doesn't bother you since you like playing WOW-clones enough to post it on your profile, and you are waiting for Guild Wars 2 (another wow-clone).
I've never hard anyone equate being a WoW-clone with ability based combat (meaning skills/abilities/spells etc.), so congratulations for being the first. I generally would just call that "RPG combat", and any RPG's that use other systems action hybrids (you know click click click click click click click *still clicking the same thing while running in circles and jumping around like a dork which is all "action combat really is*)
I would point out however that the combo and TP system makes it quite a bit different from WoW in that regard.
WoW-clone=soulless quest grinder for casuals w/ soulless gear grind raid game for hardcores.
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
FFXIV isn't a wow clone, but the combat isn't that different. It's pretty much the same "click hotbar ability" system. Not necessarily something bad, but FFXIV's combat isn't unique.
And before you go on about sidequests, like you did in another thread:
There are more sidequests in Elwynn than FFXIV total. And btw, just about every MMO are raid gear grinders, so will FFXIV eventually be, just like FFXI was/is.
Graphics in FFXIV = great. But as flesh said, it's copy and paste. Enormous zones with almost no variations doesn't impress in the long run, even though the graphic quality is superb.
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
"click hotbar ability" is not really a WoW thing but again just an RPG thing, but let me point out that FFXIV's combat actually revolves around the combo system (1.20). Also saying "hotbar" gives little indication of what gameplay is like in an RPG, it is the abilities that matter and I think XIV has some good ones.
FFXI was never a gear grinder. You obviously were never in endgame there. Loot is an objective in all MMO's, a gear grinder refers to the primacy of gear checks in endgame progression. This was never the case in FFXI and is not the case in FFXIV. It is taken to such extremes in games like WoW that you even have people doing multiple tiers of the same fight (normal mode and "hard mode") in order to equip themselves to pass gear checks. Hence gear grinder. Gear plays a role in all MMO's, but in well designed ones like XI it takes a backseat to strategy/tactics (mechanics) in its importance in progression. I've played a lot of MMO's, always with a focus on endgame and I'll take Matsui designed encounters over anything I've seen in WoW or other post 2005 releases.
As for Graphics yes they are the best MMO's have to offer, as for copy and paste. 2.0 is the only thing that can and will address that, what else do you want? They are redoing all the maps, and the artwork in content/areas they have added so far since this new dev team have taken over like the beastman strongholds, the primal arenas, and darkhold are all high quality. So the two new raids and private rooms in 1.21, the Crystal Tower, Garuda arena, and Garlean empire will likely continue this trend in quality.
"No one grinds leves". Heh. I've been checking the game after the latest couple of patches, and the majority of the very few ppl I've seen, are grinding leves. "No one have grinded guildleves since this summer" it nothing less than a lie. Even I have done that. Not much else to do when there's too few around to get any groups going, especially at low levels. Sugercoat it as much as you like, but I do know what I'm talking about.
FFXI was very much about gear grinding at max lvl (lvl 75 when I played). It was all about grinding mats for relics and whatever, which nobody got (from ie Dynamis / Sky, if you don't know what I'm talking about). I have 100s of hours behind me doing this, never got enough to complete a single equipment. One of several reasons why I eventually quit, but not the main one. This was FAR MORE extreme than in WoW, where you actually make some personal progress. And the worst part, you can (or at least could) camp bosses for hours, waiting for them to spawn, just to lose claim to another raid group (Sky mainly).
If you think I don't know anyting about XI's endgame, feel free to browse older parts of my posting history. WSIMike and myself, we pretty much answered everything in the FFXI forum on this site for at least a year.
About 2.0:
No one actually knows what it will be like until we've tried it. The "roadmap" on the official site, is too very shallow to give a good impression. I'll try the game when it goes live, since we're promised a new trial then (or was it another free month, don't remember).
Yeah what would I know. I only run one of the largest socials on the most populated server and have played since beta playing with thousands of peoples over the past year+. How would I know "how people play", and how that has changed with time? You "check the game" after a patch, claim there are no people (maybe you are on a much less populated server and likely have no friends) and proceed to go do guildleves because apparently that is all you know how to do. You don't know what you are talking about. You probably do nothing but guildleves, but then again I'm sure you do a lot of things wrong if and when you play which leads to your constant rage over FFXIV on this forum.
How the vast majority of people level in order:
Form groups, and make use of the linking and chaining system by which they get massive bonuses to XP equivelent to the challenge (innovative FF MMO design).
They solo guildleves or just solo themselves making use of the chaining system.
1-5 are all capable of leveling a casual player to max inside a month, meaning even if they forced themselves to play solo 100% of the time they never have to do guildleves again if they don't want to. Of course they never have to do guildleves in the first place. You are hardly forced to grind leves, when it is: not the most efficient way of leveling or making gil, and when you have plenty of other options available. It is merely an option that is there for people to have easy access to XP and gil. It is hardly the hallmark or central feature of the game.
As for XI not being a gear grinder. I got lots of gear from sky/dynamis. You must have been in a terrible linkshell. Again loot is an object of every RPG, however gear grind refers to a need to grind out specific gear repetiviely in order to progress through the game's many gear checks. Endgame in WoW is pretty much entirely about its gear checks, FFXI's endgame is about as far from that as you can possibly get in an established MMO endgame.
I feel sorry for any of the people who sought answers to questions about XI on this forum to begin with, much moreso now that I know you gave them "advice" on an endgame where you never got a single item (meaning either you all didn't manage to kill much, your linkshell hated you, or you are exaggerating). So I think you should keep your "secret knowledge of how to play FFXI endgame for a year with nothing to show for it" to yourself and not share it with people seeking advice on the game.
It is a free trial in 2.0 for FFXIV coinciding with the PS3 beta (no definite length given). Of course no one knows what it will be like to play until we play it, but they have given us plenty of information on it. You keep harping on the "copy and paste" map, and one thing they have said repeatedly and shown plans for is the complete revamping of all maps primarily to address this exact issue as part of a complete remaking of the entire game's client/server/engine. So it is relevant for that reason.
When you list five ways to level and one through four are the same thing, you have to understand that your credibility goes right out the window. ::boggle::
It doesn't get much better, when you blame the players for not learning some non-obvious method to making the best of the bare bones game, rather than the bare bones game itself, for the fact that most people who play this game find it largely devoid of content.
Then, of course, he's not smart enough to play, or didn't realize that you need to make friends with hundreds of people before the game becomes playable. Really?
People interested in the game read your post and I'm sure it drives more people away than it attracts. Maybe you like having your own little playground of a game and don't want more people to play? Well, fine if so, but if it's just you and those of your friends who decide to stay once they have to start paying that populate the game, I'm guessing your cadre is not going to justify the continuation of the game for very long.
Just what are the first four of the five ways to level, that all point back to #1. Do you form groups and just go grind world mobs together? I'm not aware of any other end game content, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think for most people, that doesn't qualify as acceptable or engaging MMO content. There are plenty of F2P grinders for people who are into that sort of thing.
I think most of us, at minumum, expected FFXI with better graphics and anything beyond would have just been gravy. Instead, we got a tech demo with uninspired world design, little to no content beyond idiotic daily repeatable quests and a very sparse main story line. At launch, it was literally what you might expect an internal build to look like a year into a five year development, minus the bugs and plus a little polish.
The fact that nothing in the game zones actually possessed any Final Fantasy flavor or detail just cements the impression that this was a game that needed a full three years of additional content creation at all levels, but for some reason was released as a "complete" game instead.
The snails pace of progress over the last year either bespeaks of a serious lack of resources going into the continued development, or an inefficiency of work product never before seen in MMO development, or both.
I'm glad you and some others found a way to enjoy the game for free, many of us found nothing worth playing even with out a monthly sub. Those who continued to play got their money's worth, the rest of us should get a refund on the box price, or a certificate for a free SE game, including new releases, at a level comperable to our purchase. I'd have said a certificate for a free copy of their next MMO, but I'm not sure they will ever make one again after this fiasco, or that any of us would have faith in them making something worth playing.
It's funny you mention Copy and Paste... FFXIV Terrains are all about Copy and Paste... http://youtu.be/La9nLBfH44c Here you go.
And for WOW clones, FFXIV tried that stunt day one... Click click click attacks and lagging at it.... it failed at being a WOW-clone as well...
Which probably doesn't bother you since you like playing WOW-clones enough to post it on your profile, and you are waiting for Guild Wars 2 (another wow-clone).
I've never hard anyone equate being a WoW-clone with ability based combat (meaning skills/abilities/spells etc.), so congratulations for being the first. I generally would just call that "RPG combat", and any RPG's that use other systems action hybrids (you know click click click click click click click *still clicking the same thing while running in circles and jumping around like a dork which is all "action combat really is*)
I would point out however that the combo and TP system makes it quite a bit different from WoW in that regard.
WoW-clone=soulless quest grinder for casuals w/ soulless gear grind raid game for hardcores.
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
FFXIV isn't a wow clone, but the combat isn't that different. It's pretty much the same "click hotbar ability" system. Not necessarily something bad, but FFXIV's combat isn't unique.
And before you go on about sidequests, like you did in another thread:
There are more sidequests in Elwynn than FFXIV total. And btw, just about every MMO are raid gear grinders, so will FFXIV eventually be, just like FFXI was/is.
Graphics in FFXIV = great. But as flesh said, it's copy and paste. Enormous zones with almost no variations doesn't impress in the long run, even though the graphic quality is superb.
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
"click hotbar ability" is not really a WoW thing but again just an RPG thing, but let me point out that FFXIV's combat actually revolves around the combo system (1.20). Also saying "hotbar" gives little indication of what gameplay is like in an RPG, it is the abilities that matter and I think XIV has some good ones.
FFXI was never a gear grinder. You obviously were never in endgame there. Loot is an objective in all MMO's, a gear grinder refers to the primacy of gear checks in endgame progression. This was never the case in FFXI and is not the case in FFXIV. It is taken to such extremes in games like WoW that you even have people doing multiple tiers of the same fight (normal mode and "hard mode") in order to equip themselves to pass gear checks. Hence gear grinder. Gear plays a role in all MMO's, but in well designed ones like XI it takes a backseat to strategy/tactics (mechanics) in its importance in progression. I've played a lot of MMO's, always with a focus on endgame and I'll take Matsui designed encounters over anything I've seen in WoW or other post 2005 releases.
As for Graphics yes they are the best MMO's have to offer, as for copy and paste. 2.0 is the only thing that can and will address that, what else do you want? They are redoing all the maps, and the artwork in content/areas they have added so far since this new dev team have taken over like the beastman strongholds, the primal arenas, and darkhold are all high quality. So the two new raids and private rooms in 1.21, the Crystal Tower, Garuda arena, and Garlean empire will likely continue this trend in quality.
"No one grinds leves". Heh. I've been checking the game after the latest couple of patches, and the majority of the very few ppl I've seen, are grinding leves. "No one have grinded guildleves since this summer" it nothing less than a lie. Even I have done that. Not much else to do when there's too few around to get any groups going, especially at low levels. Sugercoat it as much as you like, but I do know what I'm talking about.
FFXI was very much about gear grinding at max lvl (lvl 75 when I played). It was all about grinding mats for relics and whatever, which nobody got (from ie Dynamis / Sky, if you don't know what I'm talking about). I have 100s of hours behind me doing this, never got enough to complete a single equipment. One of several reasons why I eventually quit, but not the main one. This was FAR MORE extreme than in WoW, where you actually make some personal progress. And the worst part, you can (or at least could) camp bosses for hours, waiting for them to spawn, just to lose claim to another raid group (Sky mainly).
If you think I don't know anyting about XI's endgame, feel free to browse older parts of my posting history. WSIMike and myself, we pretty much answered everything in the FFXI forum on this site for at least a year.
About 2.0:
No one actually knows what it will be like until we've tried it. The "roadmap" on the official site, is too very shallow to give a good impression. I'll try the game when it goes live, since we're promised a new trial then (or was it another free month, don't remember).
Yeah what would I know. I only run one of the largest socials on the most populated server and have played since beta playing with thousands of peoples over the past year+. How would I know "how people play", and how that has changed with time? You "check the game" after a patch, claim there are no people (maybe you are on a much less populated server and likely have no friends) and proceed to go do guildleves because apparently that is all you know how to do. You don't know what you are talking about. You probably do nothing but guildleves, but then again I'm sure you do a lot of things wrong if and when you play which leads to your constant rage over FFXIV on this forum.
How the vast majority of people level in order:
Form groups, and make use of the linking and chaining system by which they get massive bonuses to XP equivelent to the challenge (innovative FF MMO design).
They solo guildleves or just solo themselves making use of the chaining system.
1-5 are all capable of leveling a casual player to max inside a month, meaning even if they forced themselves to play solo 100% of the time they never have to do guildleves again if they don't want to. Of course they never have to do guildleves in the first place. You are hardly forced to grind leves, when it is: not the most efficient way of leveling or making gil, and when you have plenty of other options available. It is merely an option that is there for people to have easy access to XP and gil. It is hardly the hallmark or central feature of the game.
As for XI not being a gear grinder. I got lots of gear from sky/dynamis. You must have been in a terrible linkshell. Again loot is an object of every RPG, however gear grind refers to a need to grind out specific gear repetiviely in order to progress through the game's many gear checks. Endgame in WoW is pretty much entirely about its gear checks, FFXI's endgame is about as far from that as you can possibly get in an established MMO endgame.
I feel sorry for any of the people who sought answers to questions about XI on this forum to begin with, much moreso now that I know you gave them "advice" on an endgame where you never got a single item (meaning either you all didn't manage to kill much, your linkshell hated you, or you are exaggerating). So I think you should keep your "secret knowledge of how to play FFXI endgame for a year with nothing to show for it" to yourself and not share it with people seeking advice on the game.
It is a free trial in 2.0 for FFXIV coinciding with the PS3 beta (no definite length given). Of course no one knows what it will be like to play until we play it, but they have given us plenty of information on it. You keep harping on the "copy and paste" map, and one thing they have said repeatedly and shown plans for is the complete revamping of all maps primarily to address this exact issue as part of a complete remaking of the entire game's client/server/engine. So it is relevant for that reason.
When you list five ways to level and one through four are the same thing, you have to understand that your credibility goes right out the window. ::boggle::
It doesn't get much better, when you blame the players for not learning some non-obvious method to making the best of the bare bones game, rather than the bare bones game itself, for the fact that most people who play this game find it largely devoid of content.
Then, of course, he's not smart enough to play, or didn't realize that you need to make friends with hundreds of people before the game becomes playable. Really?
People interested in the game read your post and I'm sure it drives more people away than it attracts. Maybe you like having your own little playground of a game and don't want more people to play? Well, fine if so, but if it's just you and those of your friends who decide to stay once they have to start paying that populate the game, I'm guessing your cadre is not going to justify the continuation of the game for very long.
Just what are the first four of the five ways to level, that all point back to #1. Do you form groups and just go grind world mobs together? I'm not aware of any other end game content, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think for most people, that doesn't qualify as acceptable or engaging MMO content. There are plenty of F2P grinders for people who are into that sort of thing.
I think most of us, at minumum, expected FFXI with better graphics and anything beyond would have just been gravy. Instead, we got a tech demo with uninspired world design, little to no content beyond idiotic daily repeatable quests and a very sparse main story line. At launch, it was literally what you might expect an internal build to look like a year into a five year development, minus the bugs and plus a little polish.
The fact that nothing in the game zones actually possessed any Final Fantasy flavor or detail just cements the impression that this was a game that needed a full three years of additional content creation at all levels, but for some reason was released as a "complete" game instead.
The snails pace of progress over the last year either bespeaks of a serious lack of resources going into the continued development, or an inefficiency of work product never before seen in MMO development, or both.
I'm glad you and some others found a way to enjoy the game for free, many of us found nothing worth playing even with out a monthly sub. Those who continued to play got their money's worth, the rest of us should get a refund on the box price, or a certificate for a free SE game, including new releases, at a level comperable to our purchase. I'd have said a certificate for a free copy of their next MMO, but I'm not sure they will ever make one again after this fiasco, or that any of us would have faith in them making something worth playing.
First of all let me say right off that your demand for a refund or a free certificate for their next game is absolutely ridiculous. Though I guess the free month they are giving away when they launch 2.0 is that already.
{mod edit}
The best way to level is in group doing exp chains and linking. That is how most people do it, bottom line it is fun for them and it is very fast. You can also solo, it is slower than grouping, but it is hardly a snails pace. I got half a level soloing guildleves from 44-45 in less than an hour.
"
"Just what are the first four of the five ways to level, that all point back to #1. Do you form groups and just go grind world mobs together? I'm not aware of any other end game content, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think for most people, that doesn't qualify as acceptable or engaging MMO content. There are plenty of F2P grinders for people who are into that sort of thing."
{mod edit} No people don't "grind mobs" at endgame. Most people I know have all 50's, we grind mobs to spiritbind sometimes in order to create materia to better our gear. At cap the content we do is:
Darkhold (dungeon)
Ifrit and Moogle Primal Battles
Natalan, Zahar'ak, and U'lgharammo Mines Beastman Strongholds
Dodore, Great Buffalo, Uraeus, Elder Mosshorn, and Haughtpox Bloatbelly NM's.
Chocobo escort for grand company seals
We have 2 more dungeons coming out in the next patch for level 50's as well as the AF/job quests, and Hamlet defense battles.
The rate of progress doesn't indicate a lack of resources, but I'm sure to someone who hasn't followed XIV at all as you appear to have it could seem that way. No the bulk of their resources since Yoshida took over as director has been developing an entirely new game, with new maps, new UI, new mechanics, brand new engine, new clients, and new servers. That will be launching early 2013 along with the PS3 release.
On the contrary unlike most MMO's on the market FFXIV has one of the largest development teams working on a released game I have ever encountered with the full financial and logistical backing of Square Enix aimed at making FFXIV into a top MMO regardless of its current state.
The refund isn't gonna happen, SE made the game free to play for this long to avoid the the angry pitchforks and torches for a refund. The outbreak of people realising this wasn't FFXI part 2 was enough to shake everyone at SE, that they had to replace all those responsible.
NOW, if you did read or see video game reviews you got NO ONE to blame when the billing kicks in.
All the whiners still crying about the game should have taken everyone years-worth of advice, it's old.
Demanding a refund is old news and never going to happen.
Let the eventual events will take their course, we all know how this is going to end. The billing date will remove people, but will not draw in more unless the infamous cure-all update prophecy comes to pass.
This game and Star Trek Online taught me a valuable lesson of looking at game reviews before buying, and to look at every review for all angles of view. I will never buy a game based on Name-sake alone, and will take all hyped commericals with a grain of salt.
In the end that is the only reason I am thankful for FFXIV.
I got half a level soloing guildleves from 44-45 in less than an hour.
Whoaaa! Wait a minute!
I said:
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
Your response:
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
Well, fiontar said your credibility went right out the window. He wasn't wrong.
The best part is that you attacked me for not knowing what I talked about, then proved that I actually *do*, so thanks for that one!
(Would have replied to this weeks ago, but didn't notice this one myself until a RL friend pointed it out to me. Thanks, K.)
I got half a level soloing guildleves from 44-45 in less than an hour.
Whoaaa! Wait a minute!
I said:
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
Your response:
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
Well, fiontar said your credibility went right out the window. He wasn't wrong.
The best part is that you attacked me for not knowing what I talked about, then proved that I actually *do*, so thanks for that one!
(Would have replied to this weeks ago, but didn't notice this one myself until a RL friend pointed it out to me. Thanks, K.)
Hey Netspook been a while...
What was that about all the servers dying when payment started? That was crazy lol! (didn't happen, servers are more populated currently than pretty much any time since before the Tsunami).
Yeah I soloed guildleves one night because I was bored and didn't want to do a group. I have had 99 available guildleves since then, and only use them sometimes for DoL leveling (which as you can see I don't do often). I got 99% of my levels in groups, as did most people I know who have played since 1.18. Most people don't do guildleves regularly, I was merely pointing out how they were an option if you could not get a group.
Don't worry you still have no idea what you are talking about. I don't think anyone who currently plays FFXIV would see the term "soulless leve grinder" as an accurate reflection of the game's current state.
I think you and your team of crack researchers need to update your information because trolling a thread from months ago that is not in the slightest relevant to the current game using criticisms that have long since become irrelevent isn't cutting it.
I got half a level soloing guildleves from 44-45 in less than an hour.
Whoaaa! Wait a minute!
I said:
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
Your response:
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
Well, fiontar said your credibility went right out the window. He wasn't wrong.
The best part is that you attacked me for not knowing what I talked about, then proved that I actually *do*, so thanks for that one!
(Would have replied to this weeks ago, but didn't notice this one myself until a RL friend pointed it out to me. Thanks, K.)
Hey Netspook been a while...
What was that about all the servers dying when payment started? That was crazy lol! (didn't happen, servers are more populated currently than pretty much any time since before the Tsunami).
Yeah I soloed guildleves one night because I was bored and didn't want to do a group. I have had 99 available guildleves since then, and only use them sometimes for DoL leveling (which as you can see I don't do often). I got 99% of my levels in groups, as did most people I know who have played since 1.18. Most people don't do guildleves regularly, I was merely pointing out how they were an option if you could not get a group.
Don't worry you still have no idea what you are talking about. I don't think anyone who currently plays FFXIV would see the term "soulless leve grinder" as an accurate reflection of the game's current state.
I think you and your team of crack researchers need to update your information because trolling a thread from months ago that is not in the slightest relevant to the current game using criticisms that have long since become irrelevent isn't cutting it.
Try putting yourself in the shoes of a brand new player who has no network of friends inside the game. The game is extremely top-heavy by this point because people have almost every DoW/DoM to 50 by now. Finding a PT for XP was bad enough a few months ago, and it certainly hasn't gotten any better. It's pretty much impossible to find a group below 40, so what does that leave a person to do? Grind leves. They will have a limited amount being a new player, so after doing their leves what are they left to do? Grind mobs. I recently re-rolled on Rabanaster just to get an idea of what the experience is like as a new player, and it is dreadful.
I got half a level soloing guildleves from 44-45 in less than an hour.
Whoaaa! Wait a minute!
I said:
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
Your response:
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
Well, fiontar said your credibility went right out the window. He wasn't wrong.
The best part is that you attacked me for not knowing what I talked about, then proved that I actually *do*, so thanks for that one!
(Would have replied to this weeks ago, but didn't notice this one myself until a RL friend pointed it out to me. Thanks, K.)
Hey Netspook been a while...
What was that about all the servers dying when payment started? That was crazy lol! (didn't happen, servers are more populated currently than pretty much any time since before the Tsunami).
Yeah I soloed guildleves one night because I was bored and didn't want to do a group. I have had 99 available guildleves since then, and only use them sometimes for DoL leveling (which as you can see I don't do often). I got 99% of my levels in groups, as did most people I know who have played since 1.18. Most people don't do guildleves regularly, I was merely pointing out how they were an option if you could not get a group.
Don't worry you still have no idea what you are talking about. I don't think anyone who currently plays FFXIV would see the term "soulless leve grinder" as an accurate reflection of the game's current state.
I think you and your team of crack researchers need to update your information because trolling a thread from months ago that is not in the slightest relevant to the current game using criticisms that have long since become irrelevent isn't cutting it.
Try putting yourself in the shoes of a brand new player who has no network of friends inside the game. The game is extremely top-heavy by this point because people have almost every DoW/DoM to 50 by now. Finding a PT for XP was bad enough a few months ago, and it certainly hasn't gotten any better. It's pretty much impossible to find a group below 40, so what does that leave a person to do? Grind leves. They will have a limited amount being a new player, so after doing their leves what are they left to do? Grind mobs. I recently re-rolled on Rabanaster just to get an idea of what the experience is like as a new player, and it is dreadful.
That's not at all the same thing as saying the game is a guildleve grinder. The options are there, and the problem is you couldn't find a group. Saying you can't find a group in an MMO isn't always an indication that "no new players can", all the new players I know do. I have a social linkshell that regularly invites people new to the game, and most of them group rather than do guildleves because it is much faster and not as dull.
Not everyone or every server has that problem. There are groups on Selbina for leveling all the time, and the point I was making in the earlier post is that if for some reason you can not form a group then you can do guildleves and still level very fast solo. It just isn't what the game is centered on any more. Which is good, because the system had little fans. It is what it is though, a quick substitute for people with no friends online/willingness to search out people to play with so they can still progress their characters. It isn't meant to be used every time it refreshes, and most new players are not going to exhaust their guildleves every time they log in unless they make no effort at all to group.
The game at launch was a guildleve grinder because that was all there was to do. Whether in a party or solo, guildleves defined FFXIV since that is what most people did every time they logged in. That is not the case anymore, and you can visit guildleve camps to see that. They used to be packed, and now you are much more likely to see people leveling in parties elsewhere than you are sitting at an aetheryte camp.
I got half a level soloing guildleves from 44-45 in less than an hour.
Whoaaa! Wait a minute!
I said:
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
Your response:
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
Well, fiontar said your credibility went right out the window. He wasn't wrong.
The best part is that you attacked me for not knowing what I talked about, then proved that I actually *do*, so thanks for that one!
(Would have replied to this weeks ago, but didn't notice this one myself until a RL friend pointed it out to me. Thanks, K.)
Hey Netspook been a while...
What was that about all the servers dying when payment started? That was crazy lol! (didn't happen, servers are more populated currently than pretty much any time since before the Tsunami).
Yeah I soloed guildleves one night because I was bored and didn't want to do a group. I have had 99 available guildleves since then, and only use them sometimes for DoL leveling (which as you can see I don't do often). I got 99% of my levels in groups, as did most people I know who have played since 1.18. Most people don't do guildleves regularly, I was merely pointing out how they were an option if you could not get a group.
Don't worry you still have no idea what you are talking about. I don't think anyone who currently plays FFXIV would see the term "soulless leve grinder" as an accurate reflection of the game's current state.
I think you and your team of crack researchers need to update your information because trolling a thread from months ago that is not in the slightest relevant to the current game using criticisms that have long since become irrelevent isn't cutting it.
Try putting yourself in the shoes of a brand new player who has no network of friends inside the game. The game is extremely top-heavy by this point because people have almost every DoW/DoM to 50 by now. Finding a PT for XP was bad enough a few months ago, and it certainly hasn't gotten any better. It's pretty much impossible to find a group below 40, so what does that leave a person to do? Grind leves. They will have a limited amount being a new player, so after doing their leves what are they left to do? Grind mobs. I recently re-rolled on Rabanaster just to get an idea of what the experience is like as a new player, and it is dreadful.
That's not at all the same thing as saying the game is a guildleve grinder. The options are there, and the problem is you couldn't find a group. Saying you can't find a group in an MMO isn't always an indication that "no new players can", all the new players I know do. I have a social linkshell that regularly invites people new to the game, and most of them group rather than do guildleves because it is much faster and not as dull.
Not everyone or every server has that problem. There are groups on Selbina for leveling all the time, and the point I was making in the earlier post is that if for some reason you can not form a group then you can do guildleves and still level very fast solo. It just isn't what the game is centered on any more. Which is good, because the system had little fans. It is what it is though, a quick substitute for people with no friends online/willingness to search out people to play with so they can still progress their characters. It isn't meant to be used every time it refreshes, and most new players are not going to exhaust their guildleves every time they log in unless they make no effort at all to group.
The game at launch was a guildleve grinder because that was all there was to do. Whether in a party or solo, guildleves defined FFXIV since that is what most people did every time they logged in. That is not the case anymore, and you can visit guildleve camps to see that. They used to be packed, and now you are much more likely to see people leveling in parties elsewhere than you are sitting at an aetheryte camp.
Selbina is the most populous server that FFXIV has. It's not so peachy everywhere else. It's not exactly as though I sat around waiting for a PT to happen. I actively looked for people to level with from 1-35 over the course of two weeks. I wasn't successful a single time. The term "leve grinder" is very much accurate for new players. Go reroll a new character on a different server, and just see how it is. It is not a great experience.
I got half a level soloing guildleves from 44-45 in less than an hour.
Whoaaa! Wait a minute!
I said:
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
Your response:
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
Well, fiontar said your credibility went right out the window. He wasn't wrong.
The best part is that you attacked me for not knowing what I talked about, then proved that I actually *do*, so thanks for that one!
(Would have replied to this weeks ago, but didn't notice this one myself until a RL friend pointed it out to me. Thanks, K.)
Hey Netspook been a while...
What was that about all the servers dying when payment started? That was crazy lol! (didn't happen, servers are more populated currently than pretty much any time since before the Tsunami).
Yeah I soloed guildleves one night because I was bored and didn't want to do a group. I have had 99 available guildleves since then, and only use them sometimes for DoL leveling (which as you can see I don't do often). I got 99% of my levels in groups, as did most people I know who have played since 1.18. Most people don't do guildleves regularly, I was merely pointing out how they were an option if you could not get a group.
Don't worry you still have no idea what you are talking about. I don't think anyone who currently plays FFXIV would see the term "soulless leve grinder" as an accurate reflection of the game's current state.
I think you and your team of crack researchers need to update your information because trolling a thread from months ago that is not in the slightest relevant to the current game using criticisms that have long since become irrelevent isn't cutting it.
Try putting yourself in the shoes of a brand new player who has no network of friends inside the game. The game is extremely top-heavy by this point because people have almost every DoW/DoM to 50 by now. Finding a PT for XP was bad enough a few months ago, and it certainly hasn't gotten any better. It's pretty much impossible to find a group below 40, so what does that leave a person to do? Grind leves. They will have a limited amount being a new player, so after doing their leves what are they left to do? Grind mobs. I recently re-rolled on Rabanaster just to get an idea of what the experience is like as a new player, and it is dreadful.
That's not at all the same thing as saying the game is a guildleve grinder. The options are there, and the problem is you couldn't find a group. Saying you can't find a group in an MMO isn't always an indication that "no new players can", all the new players I know do. I have a social linkshell that regularly invites people new to the game, and most of them group rather than do guildleves because it is much faster and not as dull.
Not everyone or every server has that problem. There are groups on Selbina for leveling all the time, and the point I was making in the earlier post is that if for some reason you can not form a group then you can do guildleves and still level very fast solo. It just isn't what the game is centered on any more. Which is good, because the system had little fans. It is what it is though, a quick substitute for people with no friends online/willingness to search out people to play with so they can still progress their characters. It isn't meant to be used every time it refreshes, and most new players are not going to exhaust their guildleves every time they log in unless they make no effort at all to group.
The game at launch was a guildleve grinder because that was all there was to do. Whether in a party or solo, guildleves defined FFXIV since that is what most people did every time they logged in. That is not the case anymore, and you can visit guildleve camps to see that. They used to be packed, and now you are much more likely to see people leveling in parties elsewhere than you are sitting at an aetheryte camp.
Selbina is the most populous server that FFXIV has. It's not so peachy everywhere else. It's not exactly as though I sat around waiting for a PT to happen. I actively looked for people to level with from 1-35 over the course of two weeks. I wasn't successful a single time. The term "leve grinder" is very much accurate for new players. Go reroll a new character on a different server, and just see how it is. It is not a great experience.
I'm not going to go roll a character on another server just to prove a point, however I find it hard to believe that on any server one could not find a group. It is not as if Selbina is the only populated server in the game, and no one groups anywhere else. The servers are being merged in less than a week so maybe that will fix your unique issue with the server you chose.
Though it might still not, this might sound harsh and I'm sorry for that. But I find many people who can't find groups just aren't cut out for looking for one, and might because of that have no business playing MMO's in the first place where this type of socializing with others is expected of you. You get people talking about how it takes them "all day" to find a group, and my question is how they can play an MMO with hundreds or thousands of players and not cultivate any relationships they can build off of in order to accomplish things that require a group. This comes naturally to me and many others who play MMO's, and do other things in real life which require the cooperation of others. You go down to the park to play basketball, or do a number of other social activities you'll likely encounter the same issue if you struggle at it in a video game. I don't mean to insult you or anyone else with this problem, and imply you lack social skills. Merely that you should go into an MMO with the same expectation as other things in life, that as it requires other people you need to invest as much in your social ties as you do your character development. If you do this I find in the majority of cases you can alleviate this issue. If you can't do it then yes, I find a hard time seeing how you can get the same enjoyment from an MMO as I or others do.
Point is, you are conflating a typical problem in all MMO's of it being hard in certain circumstances to find a group to level with (something I too have struggled with in every MMO since FFXI, but because most games do not lend themselves easy to grouping for exp like FFXIV/FFXI do), and having to instead trudge through a solo grind with the original, and outdated complaint that Netspook spoke of as this game being nothing but a soulless leve grinder.
The game has much more to do as a player than doing guildleves as was unfortunately once the case. So yes I stand by my assertion that guildleves are not the focus of the game. Gameplay does not revolve around waiting for your guildleves to refresh as it once did and many ignore them entirely. Whether solo or in a group there are a multitude of other options for people to do with their time (whether leveling our outside of leveling). If someone comes into the game and can't find a group, and has no choice but to solo mobs or do guildleves that is unfortunate, but it is not indicative of the experience of most players or the game's current design/direction.
So if you do guildleves only, you are missing out on 99% of the game. So that really sucks for you, and I'm sorry. Not for me though, and not for anyone I know. If it is any consolation at least it doesn't take that long to level through guildleves still, so you could always tough it out to get to the real game or just wait until 2.0 when there is more "solo stuff" to do.
tl;dr: If I had to play solo I'd agree with you that it sucks, and I hope you can solve your problem. However neither I nor many new players I know experience this issue, and so I don't agree with the term "leve grinder" being accurate at all to the current state of the game. Maybe if they work out the kinks of level-synch and add it in, that will solve your issue? I don't know. But I've never played an MMO since FFXI, that had as many opportunities for people to level in a group as FFXIV, so I don't see the issue as being one unique to, or related directly to FFXIV itself.
I got half a level soloing guildleves from 44-45 in less than an hour.
Whoaaa! Wait a minute!
I said:
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
Your response:
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
Well, fiontar said your credibility went right out the window. He wasn't wrong.
The best part is that you attacked me for not knowing what I talked about, then proved that I actually *do*, so thanks for that one!
(Would have replied to this weeks ago, but didn't notice this one myself until a RL friend pointed it out to me. Thanks, K.)
Hey Netspook been a while...
What was that about all the servers dying when payment started? That was crazy lol! (didn't happen, servers are more populated currently than pretty much any time since before the Tsunami).
Yeah I soloed guildleves one night because I was bored and didn't want to do a group. I have had 99 available guildleves since then, and only use them sometimes for DoL leveling (which as you can see I don't do often). I got 99% of my levels in groups, as did most people I know who have played since 1.18. Most people don't do guildleves regularly, I was merely pointing out how they were an option if you could not get a group.
Don't worry you still have no idea what you are talking about. I don't think anyone who currently plays FFXIV would see the term "soulless leve grinder" as an accurate reflection of the game's current state.
I think you and your team of crack researchers need to update your information because trolling a thread from months ago that is not in the slightest relevant to the current game using criticisms that have long since become irrelevent isn't cutting it.
Try putting yourself in the shoes of a brand new player who has no network of friends inside the game. The game is extremely top-heavy by this point because people have almost every DoW/DoM to 50 by now. Finding a PT for XP was bad enough a few months ago, and it certainly hasn't gotten any better. It's pretty much impossible to find a group below 40, so what does that leave a person to do? Grind leves. They will have a limited amount being a new player, so after doing their leves what are they left to do? Grind mobs. I recently re-rolled on Rabanaster just to get an idea of what the experience is like as a new player, and it is dreadful.
That's not at all the same thing as saying the game is a guildleve grinder. The options are there, and the problem is you couldn't find a group. Saying you can't find a group in an MMO isn't always an indication that "no new players can", all the new players I know do. I have a social linkshell that regularly invites people new to the game, and most of them group rather than do guildleves because it is much faster and not as dull.
Not everyone or every server has that problem. There are groups on Selbina for leveling all the time, and the point I was making in the earlier post is that if for some reason you can not form a group then you can do guildleves and still level very fast solo. It just isn't what the game is centered on any more. Which is good, because the system had little fans. It is what it is though, a quick substitute for people with no friends online/willingness to search out people to play with so they can still progress their characters. It isn't meant to be used every time it refreshes, and most new players are not going to exhaust their guildleves every time they log in unless they make no effort at all to group.
The game at launch was a guildleve grinder because that was all there was to do. Whether in a party or solo, guildleves defined FFXIV since that is what most people did every time they logged in. That is not the case anymore, and you can visit guildleve camps to see that. They used to be packed, and now you are much more likely to see people leveling in parties elsewhere than you are sitting at an aetheryte camp.
Selbina is the most populous server that FFXIV has. It's not so peachy everywhere else. It's not exactly as though I sat around waiting for a PT to happen. I actively looked for people to level with from 1-35 over the course of two weeks. I wasn't successful a single time. The term "leve grinder" is very much accurate for new players. Go reroll a new character on a different server, and just see how it is. It is not a great experience.
I'm not going to go roll a character on another server just to prove a point, however I find it hard to believe that on any server one could not find a group. It is not as if Selbina is the only populated server in the game, and no one groups anywhere else. The servers are being merged in less than a week so maybe that will fix your unique issue with the server you chose.
Though it might still not, this might sound harsh and I'm sorry for that. But I find many people who can't find groups just aren't cut out for looking for one, and might because of that have no business playing MMO's in the first place where this type of socializing with others is expected of you. You get people talking about how it takes them "all day" to find a group, and my question is how they can play an MMO with hundreds or thousands of players and not cultivate any relationships they can build off of in order to accomplish things that require a group. This comes naturally to me and many others who play MMO's, and do other things in real life which require the cooperation of others. You go down to the park to play basketball, or do a number of other social activities you'll likely encounter the same issue if you struggle at it in a video game. I don't mean to insult you or anyone else with this problem, and imply you lack social skills. Merely that you should go into an MMO with the same expectation as other things in life, that as it requires other people you need to invest as much in your social ties as you do your character development. If you do this I find in the majority of cases you can alleviate this issue. If you can't do it then yes, I find a hard time seeing how you can get the same enjoyment from an MMO as I or others do.
Point is, you are conflating a typical problem in all MMO's of it being hard in certain circumstances to find a group to level with (something I too have struggled with in every MMO since FFXI, but because most games do not lend themselves easy to grouping for exp like FFXIV/FFXI do), and having to instead trudge through a solo grind with the original, and outdated complaint that Netspook spoke of as this game being nothing but a soulless leve grinder.
The game has much more to do as a player than doing guildleves as was unfortunately once the case. So yes I stand by my assertion that guildleves are not the focus of the game. Gameplay does not revolve around waiting for your guildleves to refresh as it once did and many ignore them entirely. Whether solo or in a group there are a multitude of other options for people to do with their time (whether leveling our outside of leveling). If someone comes into the game and can't find a group, and has no choice but to solo mobs or do guildleves that is unfortunate, but it is not indicative of the experience of most players or the game's current design/direction.
So if you do guildleves only, you are missing out on 99% of the game. So that really sucks for you, and I'm sorry. Not for me though, and not for anyone I know. If it is any consolation at least it doesn't take that long to level through guildleves still, so you could always tough it out to get to the real game or just wait until 2.0 when there is more "solo stuff" to do.
tl;dr: If I had to play solo I'd agree with you that it sucks, and I hope you can solve your problem. However neither I nor many new players I know experience this issue, and so I don't agree with the term "leve grinder" being accurate at all to the current state of the game. Maybe if they work out the kinks of level-synch and add it in, that will solve your issue? I don't know. But I've never played an MMO since FFXI, that had as many opportunities for people to level in a group as FFXIV, so I don't see the issue as being one unique to, or related directly to FFXIV itself.
Did you miss the part where I said I looked/tried to put a PT together for two weeks and didn't succeed a single time. Frankly, I stopped reading your post when you blamed the lack of groups on me being socially retarded. Talk about a huge leap in logic. He can't find a group; must have zero people skills in-game or IRL. Really man? It wasn't because I'm some social leper who is a hateful prick. It was simply because there weren't enough people in my level range to form a group. In any case, I'm not going to bother with you any further.
I got half a level soloing guildleves from 44-45 in less than an hour.
Whoaaa! Wait a minute!
I said:
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
Your response:
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
Well, fiontar said your credibility went right out the window. He wasn't wrong.
The best part is that you attacked me for not knowing what I talked about, then proved that I actually *do*, so thanks for that one!
(Would have replied to this weeks ago, but didn't notice this one myself until a RL friend pointed it out to me. Thanks, K.)
Hey Netspook been a while...
What was that about all the servers dying when payment started? That was crazy lol! (didn't happen, servers are more populated currently than pretty much any time since before the Tsunami).
Yeah I soloed guildleves one night because I was bored and didn't want to do a group. I have had 99 available guildleves since then, and only use them sometimes for DoL leveling (which as you can see I don't do often). I got 99% of my levels in groups, as did most people I know who have played since 1.18. Most people don't do guildleves regularly, I was merely pointing out how they were an option if you could not get a group.
Don't worry you still have no idea what you are talking about. I don't think anyone who currently plays FFXIV would see the term "soulless leve grinder" as an accurate reflection of the game's current state.
I think you and your team of crack researchers need to update your information because trolling a thread from months ago that is not in the slightest relevant to the current game using criticisms that have long since become irrelevent isn't cutting it.
"Most people don't" and "no one" that's two very very different statements, so your definition of facts varies to whatever it's conveniant to be, appearently. And by your own words, "no one" includes yourself... lmfao.
Severs more populated now? Prove it, I've read shitoads of claims about the opposite. And again, it's no surprise you "forgot" to mention merges. As expected from a fanboy.
My post was before the merger (which I assumed you knew about, since you know you are so informed on the state of the game). My server also wasn't merged because it already was high pop, so not much has changed there.
Why not just admit you aren't very good at trolling? Your whole "nothing to do but guildleves" argument is irrelevant, and the servers never died after billing as you and others predicted. There is a post on this forum with post billing server numbers, they didn't drop and raised considerably post 1.21 if you are interested look for it I'm not going to do the work for you. Then after merger (this Monday), there is another thread on the forums with people taking "snapshots" of the server numbers which shows higher simultaneous log ins than before.
You keep bumping this dead thread in some sort of attempt to personally "prove me wrong" and prove that I'm a blind fanboy, I never said the game was perfect just that your assessment of it is outdated and misleading to people. Which it was, and I laid out reasons why it was which you obviously can't be bothered to attempt to refute so you resort to arguing semantics and name calling to save face (as if anyone cares or is paying attention).
Originally posted by Zookz1
Originally posted by Murugan
Originally posted by Zookz1
Did you miss the part where I said I looked/tried to put a PT together for two weeks and didn't succeed a single time. Frankly, I stopped reading your post when you blamed the lack of groups on me being socially retarded. Talk about a huge leap in logic. He can't find a group; must have zero people skills in-game or IRL. Really man? It wasn't because I'm some social leper who is a hateful prick. It was simply because there weren't enough people in my level range to form a group. In any case, I'm not going to bother with you any further.
I never said you were socially retarded, but are you saing the correct leap in logic is that because you couldn't find a group no one can? Everyone I know does, I see groups forming all the time on my server. At the very least it seems like a personal problem which could be said of every single MMO out there. At least with FFXIV people have 7 chances to sync up with your level range as opposed to just one, so if you still can't find a group maybe it is your problem. I just tried to make suggestions on how you could improve your chances. I managed when the game had a lot less players than it does now. Despite me personally being fully at cap, and many people I know there are still far more people who are not.
You were saying the game is very unsupportive of grouping, and I was simply saying that is not my experience at all. I haven't played a game since FFXI that supported grouping to level as much as XIV, I grouped my way up and hwen they raise the level cap I will group again and I want other people who enjoy leveling in a group to know what it is like in this game (flawed in executation, but at least possible/encouraged). So of course I'm going to post in disagreement with your extreme stance that, Finding a PT for XP was bad enough a few months ago, and it certainly hasn't gotten any better. It's pretty much impossible to find a group below 40, so what does that leave a person to do? Grind leves. They will have a limited amount being a new player, so after doing their leves what are they left to do? Grind mobs.", if you take it as an insult that is your problem since I certainly never meant it to be.
I would not play FFXIV the way you describe you playing it, and if someone similar was looking to enjoy it I wouldn't recommend they did either.
Comments
I've never hard anyone equate being a WoW-clone with ability based combat (meaning skills/abilities/spells etc.), so congratulations for being the first. I generally would just call that "RPG combat", and any RPG's that use other systems action hybrids (you know click click click click click click click *still clicking the same thing while running in circles and jumping around like a dork which is all "action combat really is*)
I would point out however that the combo and TP system makes it quite a bit different from WoW in that regard.
WoW-clone=soulless quest grinder for casuals w/ soulless gear grind raid game for hardcores.
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http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
FFXIV isn't a wow clone, but the combat isn't that different. It's pretty much the same "click hotbar ability" system. Not necessarily something bad, but FFXIV's combat isn't unique.
And before you go on about sidequests, like you did in another thread:
There are more sidequests in Elwynn than FFXIV total. And btw, just about every MMO are raid gear grinders, so will FFXIV eventually be, just like FFXI was/is.
Graphics in FFXIV = great. But as flesh said, it's copy and paste. Enormous zones with almost no variations doesn't impress in the long run, even though the graphic quality is superb.
Imagine if SE decides to charge its players for all the free time they played when 2.0 hits. Now that would be somthing.
Joking aside I have not followed up this game since open beta so i have no idea of all the changes it has been going thru. maybe when 2.0 officially launches ill give it a look and see if what drove me away in open bata is still there.
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
"click hotbar ability" is not really a WoW thing but again just an RPG thing, but let me point out that FFXIV's combat actually revolves around the combo system (1.20). Also saying "hotbar" gives little indication of what gameplay is like in an RPG, it is the abilities that matter and I think XIV has some good ones.
FFXI was never a gear grinder. You obviously were never in endgame there. Loot is an objective in all MMO's, a gear grinder refers to the primacy of gear checks in endgame progression. This was never the case in FFXI and is not the case in FFXIV. It is taken to such extremes in games like WoW that you even have people doing multiple tiers of the same fight (normal mode and "hard mode") in order to equip themselves to pass gear checks. Hence gear grinder. Gear plays a role in all MMO's, but in well designed ones like XI it takes a backseat to strategy/tactics (mechanics) in its importance in progression. I've played a lot of MMO's, always with a focus on endgame and I'll take Matsui designed encounters over anything I've seen in WoW or other post 2005 releases.
As for Graphics yes they are the best MMO's have to offer, as for copy and paste. 2.0 is the only thing that can and will address that, what else do you want? They are redoing all the maps, and the artwork in content/areas they have added so far since this new dev team have taken over like the beastman strongholds, the primal arenas, and darkhold are all high quality. So the two new raids and private rooms in 1.21, the Crystal Tower, Garuda arena, and Garlean empire will likely continue this trend in quality.
Strongholds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-7vGJiVtqs
Not to mention that the "Copy and paste" original design isn't quite as bad as you make it out to be:
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
"No one grinds leves". Heh. I've been checking the game after the latest couple of patches, and the majority of the very few ppl I've seen, are grinding leves. "No one have grinded guildleves since this summer" it nothing less than a lie. Even I have done that. Not much else to do when there's too few around to get any groups going, especially at low levels. Sugercoat it as much as you like, but I do know what I'm talking about.
FFXI was very much about gear grinding at max lvl (lvl 75 when I played). It was all about grinding mats for relics and whatever, which nobody got (from ie Dynamis / Sky, if you don't know what I'm talking about). I have 100s of hours behind me doing this, never got enough to complete a single equipment. One of several reasons why I eventually quit, but not the main one. This was FAR MORE extreme than in WoW, where you actually make some personal progress. And the worst part, you can (or at least could) camp bosses for hours, waiting for them to spawn, just to lose claim to another raid group (Sky mainly).
If you think I don't know anyting about XI's endgame, feel free to browse older parts of my posting history. WSIMike and myself, we pretty much answered everything in the FFXI forum on this site for at least a year.
About 2.0:
No one actually knows what it will be like until we've tried it. The "roadmap" on the official site, is too very shallow to give a good impression. I'll try the game when it goes live, since we're promised a new trial then (or was it another free month, don't remember).
Yeah what would I know. I only run one of the largest socials on the most populated server and have played since beta playing with thousands of peoples over the past year+. How would I know "how people play", and how that has changed with time? You "check the game" after a patch, claim there are no people (maybe you are on a much less populated server and likely have no friends) and proceed to go do guildleves because apparently that is all you know how to do. You don't know what you are talking about. You probably do nothing but guildleves, but then again I'm sure you do a lot of things wrong if and when you play which leads to your constant rage over FFXIV on this forum.
How the vast majority of people level in order:
Form groups, and make use of the linking and chaining system by which they get massive bonuses to XP equivelent to the challenge (innovative FF MMO design).
... see #1
... see #1
... see #1
They solo guildleves or just solo themselves making use of the chaining system.
1-5 are all capable of leveling a casual player to max inside a month, meaning even if they forced themselves to play solo 100% of the time they never have to do guildleves again if they don't want to. Of course they never have to do guildleves in the first place. You are hardly forced to grind leves, when it is: not the most efficient way of leveling or making gil, and when you have plenty of other options available. It is merely an option that is there for people to have easy access to XP and gil. It is hardly the hallmark or central feature of the game.
As for XI not being a gear grinder. I got lots of gear from sky/dynamis. You must have been in a terrible linkshell. Again loot is an object of every RPG, however gear grind refers to a need to grind out specific gear repetiviely in order to progress through the game's many gear checks. Endgame in WoW is pretty much entirely about its gear checks, FFXI's endgame is about as far from that as you can possibly get in an established MMO endgame.
I feel sorry for any of the people who sought answers to questions about XI on this forum to begin with, much moreso now that I know you gave them "advice" on an endgame where you never got a single item (meaning either you all didn't manage to kill much, your linkshell hated you, or you are exaggerating). So I think you should keep your "secret knowledge of how to play FFXI endgame for a year with nothing to show for it" to yourself and not share it with people seeking advice on the game.
It is a free trial in 2.0 for FFXIV coinciding with the PS3 beta (no definite length given). Of course no one knows what it will be like to play until we play it, but they have given us plenty of information on it. You keep harping on the "copy and paste" map, and one thing they have said repeatedly and shown plans for is the complete revamping of all maps primarily to address this exact issue as part of a complete remaking of the entire game's client/server/engine. So it is relevant for that reason.
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http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
Reply to quote above (bloody iphone messing up the edit):
Well, considering that you and Draron seems to be the only ones left on this forum, which see all those wonderful options FFXIV seems to have, it's obvious that no one takes your "advice" seriously. {mod edit}
I was extremely dissapointed in the way FFXIV launched, and how it did not begin to live up to my expectations for it. However it is not hard to "keep on defending" it as it remains for me the best experience on the market.
It was hard losing Vanguard though as SOE pulled developers from it and refused to breath any life in it after they bought it, I loved that game. But luckily with FFXIV we have a development team and company who is keeping hope alive for those players who want more from an MMO than some quest grinder with too little attention paid to "extras" like interesting combat systems, story, encounter design, crafting, and character progression.
It is unfortunate I have to wait a year for 2.0, but at least I know it is coming. Far from crashing and burning it has a guarantee that they are putting more rescources not less into fixing it even going as far as to basically redo the entire game to get it up to fans' standards, something even "wildly sucessful" AAA MMO's don't seem to have these days, as one after another they fall to freemium and cash shop models. While it might not capture my attention like some of the greatest MMO's have in their heyday, I enjoy the game more every patch. It is the only thing worth my time to play, and I'm not missing any of the other MMO's I could be playing instead. So while I appreciate your concern, don't worry about me so much.
Besides I hardly come here to "set you straight", I mainly come here to answer legitimate questions from players who make the unfortunate decision to come here for actual information on the game and not read rants from disillusioned haters like yourself.
I wouldn't say me and the other person you mentioned are the only people left on the forum other than the trolls though. There are plenty of other people on this thread, and the others. Though clearly you all do your part to try and create an environment that discouraes them from posting. I generally only bother to visit the site when I recieve an email notification of a PM like these two I answered today.
(the answer to his questions were: server merge should take care of issues if you are on a low pop server, so fi you are at all happy where you are at I would wait for that before rerolling. If you do want to reroll though I'd recommend Besaid, Rabanstre,Trabia, Lindblum, Gysahl, Saronia or Selbina. I'd also make use of community sites like xivpro and xivpads to see what linkshells are most active on your server. You can buy low-mid level gear from NPCs placed inside the market wards if the prices are too high. For making gil there are several items you can farm, and generally you should just take a quick look in item search to see what is worth holding onto and what you should NPC. Otherwise a good way for battle classes to make gear is to either do guildleves, or a better option is to convert materia http://www.mystina.ffxivmaps.com/Materia%20Chart%20%28v2.0%29.png as the latter directly engages the max level players with items they are in constant demand for it is arguably the most lucrative way to make gil for new/veteran players alike.)
It would be nice if these people could openly post their questions on the forum without being harrassed by your ilk. Everyone knows all the individual game forums on this site are rampant with trolling. Who knows maybe I would be trolling SWTOR if I literally had nothing to do with my time since I am so disatisfied with the direction of that game. So most people genuinely looking for information I imagine know better than to post here, but I have a feeling more read it and lurk. So occasionally I like to gift them with a perspective from someone who actually plays and doesn't just throw out the same tired flames they probably read here a year ago which aren't really applicable to the game in its current state.
It is you I am concerned about Netspook, are you worried you haven't gotten your message out in your hundreds of posts on this forum regarding your intense and overwelhming hatred for this game and Square Enix for stealing your money? I'd like to help you out. Maybe you could condense your complaints into something short, and I could simply place it into my signature. That way when someone posts a new thread about the game you could be there in spirit to berate and belittle them for playing XIV, rather than having to take time out of your busy busy schedule to come here and post so much yourself.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
Still people here that play and look at these forums. I just can't be bothered to post with all the eyerolling I have to do with some of these posts. I played since the beginning, was going to pay then, and going to pay now. Still play XI too.
Yoshi-P already said this game is going to 2.0 whether they get subs or not. This game won't be shutting down at all before then (at least not due to the lack of subs, act of God, sure). Just like when everyone was saying it wouldn't last through the first year, you don't really have anything else. I'm sure when 2.0 comes along, you'll probably still have the same cons from launch like you do now. People like the game and somehow something is wrong with that. Just keep to your flavor of the month game and let people enjoy their game.
Keep up the good work Murugan.
To be the best, you must help each other become the best.
FFXI Character: Satimasu
FFXI Server: Valefor
FFXIV Character: Tamorae Fonteil
I really can not agree more with Murugan. I tried to make the same points and comments in my post but just sounds so much better coming from the mouth of Murugan. I have played the game on and of since launch and since the last patch it really has caught me and grabbed my attention. I got into a great LS who really help out through PL and just answering general questions. The game is fun for me and thats all that matters. I dont understand why people have to come here all the time and give no credit towards a company that has admitted their faults and cearly working like crazy to fix the game. Just dont play it no reason to bash it because of the games state 1 year ago, it is not the same game anymore and to me the best and most enjoyable on the market. A market that is crowded and overrun by games that follow the same standards and fundamental type of gameplay and progression. FFXIV is different it just feels different. Far from perfect but no MMO. There will always be people that complain about every little change because it affects them in some way. I do not see FFXIV failing. They still are commited to 2.0 and committed to a ps3 launch which is either a make or break for FFXIV. Until then i dont mind paying the $9 and watching the game change and grow. Murugun keep doing what you are doing I appreciate how you come here and try to give out information for those who are interested but I pity how you need to put up with those people who are trying to pull you away from a game that they clearly dislike.
I'd like to chime in and back up Murugan as well. I don't usually post, but I read these forums enough. He gives better answers than I ever could, but I agree with pretty much all of what he says.
Final Fantasy is easily shaping up to be an mmo that will be one of, if not the, best... simply because of the detail they are giving to every aspect of it. Nothing goes into the game without consideration for how it will make the game run as a whole. They are taking the game's failure very seriously, and have been working their buns off to fix it. Everytime I see Yoshi-P, he looks like he hasn't slept in 3
weeks.
Murugan: "But luckily with FFXIV we have a development team and company who is keeping hope alive for those players who want more from an MMO than some quest grinder with too little attention paid to "extras" like interesting combat systems, story, encounter design, crafting, and character progression. "
This is exactly what I look for and more. FF will not be for everyone, and if that be the case, it's no big deal. You nod and move on. But if it's for me or anyone else, it's not really anyone's business to bash.
I like that FF doesn't revolve around getting the next piece of gear. You get gear, sure, but it doesn't become obsolete within 5 mins. Before on WoW and even SWTOR, I could easily replace gear several times in a 2 hour session. In FF, getting a new piece of gear has more meaning. You want to wear it a certain amount of time so you can turn it into materia, which will in turn strengthen your next piece of gear.
I like that FF doesn't hold your hand as much as other mmos. They have and are making tutorials of course, but certain things you explore and find for yourself. You can even toggle off the quest markers and mob level icons if you want to have things really take you by surprise.
I like the housing and chocobo raising they are planning to add, along with being able to use chocobos in battle. I personally like the guildleves. To me they are just like dailies, only you can set them to whatever difficulty you like. I love the skill chains. It's fun to try to get it to five.
Honestly, if you have been a fan of FF, and you can bear in mind the game is a construction zone in need of more than what it has at present, now is a good time to give it a try while it is discounted. If you need everything to be perfect, wait for 2.0 to come out, especially if you are a UI junkie, as the completely revamped UI won't be released until then. The UI right now is perfectly usable though, and not that hard. I'm willing to help anyone get started as well. However, I play on a low-pop server and I'm not a social butterfly (thus my reason for picking a low-pop server
When you list five ways to level and one through four are the same thing, you have to understand that your credibility goes right out the window. ::boggle::
It doesn't get much better, when you blame the players for not learning some non-obvious method to making the best of the bare bones game, rather than the bare bones game itself, for the fact that most people who play this game find it largely devoid of content.
Then, of course, he's not smart enough to play, or didn't realize that you need to make friends with hundreds of people before the game becomes playable. Really?
People interested in the game read your post and I'm sure it drives more people away than it attracts. Maybe you like having your own little playground of a game and don't want more people to play? Well, fine if so, but if it's just you and those of your friends who decide to stay once they have to start paying that populate the game, I'm guessing your cadre is not going to justify the continuation of the game for very long.
Just what are the first four of the five ways to level, that all point back to #1. Do you form groups and just go grind world mobs together? I'm not aware of any other end game content, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think for most people, that doesn't qualify as acceptable or engaging MMO content. There are plenty of F2P grinders for people who are into that sort of thing.
I think most of us, at minumum, expected FFXI with better graphics and anything beyond would have just been gravy. Instead, we got a tech demo with uninspired world design, little to no content beyond idiotic daily repeatable quests and a very sparse main story line. At launch, it was literally what you might expect an internal build to look like a year into a five year development, minus the bugs and plus a little polish.
The fact that nothing in the game zones actually possessed any Final Fantasy flavor or detail just cements the impression that this was a game that needed a full three years of additional content creation at all levels, but for some reason was released as a "complete" game instead.
The snails pace of progress over the last year either bespeaks of a serious lack of resources going into the continued development, or an inefficiency of work product never before seen in MMO development, or both.
I'm glad you and some others found a way to enjoy the game for free, many of us found nothing worth playing even with out a monthly sub. Those who continued to play got their money's worth, the rest of us should get a refund on the box price, or a certificate for a free SE game, including new releases, at a level comperable to our purchase. I'd have said a certificate for a free copy of their next MMO, but I'm not sure they will ever make one again after this fiasco, or that any of us would have faith in them making something worth playing.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
First of all let me say right off that your demand for a refund or a free certificate for their next game is absolutely ridiculous. Though I guess the free month they are giving away when they launch 2.0 is that already.
{mod edit}
The best way to level is in group doing exp chains and linking. That is how most people do it, bottom line it is fun for them and it is very fast. You can also solo, it is slower than grouping, but it is hardly a snails pace. I got half a level soloing guildleves from 44-45 in less than an hour.
"
"Just what are the first four of the five ways to level, that all point back to #1. Do you form groups and just go grind world mobs together? I'm not aware of any other end game content, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think for most people, that doesn't qualify as acceptable or engaging MMO content. There are plenty of F2P grinders for people who are into that sort of thing."
{mod edit} No people don't "grind mobs" at endgame. Most people I know have all 50's, we grind mobs to spiritbind sometimes in order to create materia to better our gear. At cap the content we do is:
Darkhold (dungeon)
Ifrit and Moogle Primal Battles
Natalan, Zahar'ak, and U'lgharammo Mines Beastman Strongholds
Dodore, Great Buffalo, Uraeus, Elder Mosshorn, and Haughtpox Bloatbelly NM's.
Chocobo escort for grand company seals
We have 2 more dungeons coming out in the next patch for level 50's as well as the AF/job quests, and Hamlet defense battles.
The rate of progress doesn't indicate a lack of resources, but I'm sure to someone who hasn't followed XIV at all as you appear to have it could seem that way. No the bulk of their resources since Yoshida took over as director has been developing an entirely new game, with new maps, new UI, new mechanics, brand new engine, new clients, and new servers. That will be launching early 2013 along with the PS3 release.
On the contrary unlike most MMO's on the market FFXIV has one of the largest development teams working on a released game I have ever encountered with the full financial and logistical backing of Square Enix aimed at making FFXIV into a top MMO regardless of its current state.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
The refund isn't gonna happen, SE made the game free to play for this long to avoid the the angry pitchforks and torches for a refund. The outbreak of people realising this wasn't FFXI part 2 was enough to shake everyone at SE, that they had to replace all those responsible.
NOW, if you did read or see video game reviews you got NO ONE to blame when the billing kicks in.
All the whiners still crying about the game should have taken everyone years-worth of advice, it's old.
Demanding a refund is old news and never going to happen.
Let the eventual events will take their course, we all know how this is going to end. The billing date will remove people, but will not draw in more unless the infamous cure-all update prophecy comes to pass.
This game and Star Trek Online taught me a valuable lesson of looking at game reviews before buying, and to look at every review for all angles of view. I will never buy a game based on Name-sake alone, and will take all hyped commericals with a grain of salt.
In the end that is the only reason I am thankful for FFXIV.
Whoaaa! Wait a minute!
I said:
FFXIV: soulless leve grinder where you repeat the same shit over and over.
Your response:
No one grind guildleves. No one has grinded guildleves since this summer. Guildleves are purely a solo activity available for bored people to make some easy gil/xp. However there are much better ways to do both, and most people I know regularly sit at the guildleve cap (99 available guildleves). You clearly do not know what you are talking about, and haven't played or kept with the game for a very long time.
Well, fiontar said your credibility went right out the window. He wasn't wrong.
The best part is that you attacked me for not knowing what I talked about, then proved that I actually *do*, so thanks for that one!
(Would have replied to this weeks ago, but didn't notice this one myself until a RL friend pointed it out to me. Thanks, K.)
Hey Netspook been a while...
What was that about all the servers dying when payment started? That was crazy lol! (didn't happen, servers are more populated currently than pretty much any time since before the Tsunami).
Yeah I soloed guildleves one night because I was bored and didn't want to do a group. I have had 99 available guildleves since then, and only use them sometimes for DoL leveling (which as you can see I don't do often). I got 99% of my levels in groups, as did most people I know who have played since 1.18. Most people don't do guildleves regularly, I was merely pointing out how they were an option if you could not get a group.
Don't worry you still have no idea what you are talking about. I don't think anyone who currently plays FFXIV would see the term "soulless leve grinder" as an accurate reflection of the game's current state.
I think you and your team of crack researchers need to update your information because trolling a thread from months ago that is not in the slightest relevant to the current game using criticisms that have long since become irrelevent isn't cutting it.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
Try putting yourself in the shoes of a brand new player who has no network of friends inside the game. The game is extremely top-heavy by this point because people have almost every DoW/DoM to 50 by now. Finding a PT for XP was bad enough a few months ago, and it certainly hasn't gotten any better. It's pretty much impossible to find a group below 40, so what does that leave a person to do? Grind leves. They will have a limited amount being a new player, so after doing their leves what are they left to do? Grind mobs. I recently re-rolled on Rabanaster just to get an idea of what the experience is like as a new player, and it is dreadful.
That's not at all the same thing as saying the game is a guildleve grinder. The options are there, and the problem is you couldn't find a group. Saying you can't find a group in an MMO isn't always an indication that "no new players can", all the new players I know do. I have a social linkshell that regularly invites people new to the game, and most of them group rather than do guildleves because it is much faster and not as dull.
Not everyone or every server has that problem. There are groups on Selbina for leveling all the time, and the point I was making in the earlier post is that if for some reason you can not form a group then you can do guildleves and still level very fast solo. It just isn't what the game is centered on any more. Which is good, because the system had little fans. It is what it is though, a quick substitute for people with no friends online/willingness to search out people to play with so they can still progress their characters. It isn't meant to be used every time it refreshes, and most new players are not going to exhaust their guildleves every time they log in unless they make no effort at all to group.
The game at launch was a guildleve grinder because that was all there was to do. Whether in a party or solo, guildleves defined FFXIV since that is what most people did every time they logged in. That is not the case anymore, and you can visit guildleve camps to see that. They used to be packed, and now you are much more likely to see people leveling in parties elsewhere than you are sitting at an aetheryte camp.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
Selbina is the most populous server that FFXIV has. It's not so peachy everywhere else. It's not exactly as though I sat around waiting for a PT to happen. I actively looked for people to level with from 1-35 over the course of two weeks. I wasn't successful a single time. The term "leve grinder" is very much accurate for new players. Go reroll a new character on a different server, and just see how it is. It is not a great experience.
I'm not going to go roll a character on another server just to prove a point, however I find it hard to believe that on any server one could not find a group. It is not as if Selbina is the only populated server in the game, and no one groups anywhere else. The servers are being merged in less than a week so maybe that will fix your unique issue with the server you chose.
Though it might still not, this might sound harsh and I'm sorry for that. But I find many people who can't find groups just aren't cut out for looking for one, and might because of that have no business playing MMO's in the first place where this type of socializing with others is expected of you. You get people talking about how it takes them "all day" to find a group, and my question is how they can play an MMO with hundreds or thousands of players and not cultivate any relationships they can build off of in order to accomplish things that require a group. This comes naturally to me and many others who play MMO's, and do other things in real life which require the cooperation of others. You go down to the park to play basketball, or do a number of other social activities you'll likely encounter the same issue if you struggle at it in a video game. I don't mean to insult you or anyone else with this problem, and imply you lack social skills. Merely that you should go into an MMO with the same expectation as other things in life, that as it requires other people you need to invest as much in your social ties as you do your character development. If you do this I find in the majority of cases you can alleviate this issue. If you can't do it then yes, I find a hard time seeing how you can get the same enjoyment from an MMO as I or others do.
Point is, you are conflating a typical problem in all MMO's of it being hard in certain circumstances to find a group to level with (something I too have struggled with in every MMO since FFXI, but because most games do not lend themselves easy to grouping for exp like FFXIV/FFXI do), and having to instead trudge through a solo grind with the original, and outdated complaint that Netspook spoke of as this game being nothing but a soulless leve grinder.
The game has much more to do as a player than doing guildleves as was unfortunately once the case. So yes I stand by my assertion that guildleves are not the focus of the game. Gameplay does not revolve around waiting for your guildleves to refresh as it once did and many ignore them entirely. Whether solo or in a group there are a multitude of other options for people to do with their time (whether leveling our outside of leveling). If someone comes into the game and can't find a group, and has no choice but to solo mobs or do guildleves that is unfortunate, but it is not indicative of the experience of most players or the game's current design/direction.
So if you do guildleves only, you are missing out on 99% of the game. So that really sucks for you, and I'm sorry. Not for me though, and not for anyone I know. If it is any consolation at least it doesn't take that long to level through guildleves still, so you could always tough it out to get to the real game or just wait until 2.0 when there is more "solo stuff" to do.
tl;dr: If I had to play solo I'd agree with you that it sucks, and I hope you can solve your problem. However neither I nor many new players I know experience this issue, and so I don't agree with the term "leve grinder" being accurate at all to the current state of the game. Maybe if they work out the kinks of level-synch and add it in, that will solve your issue? I don't know. But I've never played an MMO since FFXI, that had as many opportunities for people to level in a group as FFXIV, so I don't see the issue as being one unique to, or related directly to FFXIV itself.
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Did you miss the part where I said I looked/tried to put a PT together for two weeks and didn't succeed a single time. Frankly, I stopped reading your post when you blamed the lack of groups on me being socially retarded. Talk about a huge leap in logic. He can't find a group; must have zero people skills in-game or IRL. Really man? It wasn't because I'm some social leper who is a hateful prick. It was simply because there weren't enough people in my level range to form a group. In any case, I'm not going to bother with you any further.
"Most people don't" and "no one" that's two very very different statements, so your definition of facts varies to whatever it's conveniant to be, appearently. And by your own words, "no one" includes yourself... lmfao.
Severs more populated now? Prove it, I've read shitoads of claims about the opposite. And again, it's no surprise you "forgot" to mention merges. As expected from a fanboy.
My post was before the merger (which I assumed you knew about, since you know you are so informed on the state of the game). My server also wasn't merged because it already was high pop, so not much has changed there.
Why not just admit you aren't very good at trolling? Your whole "nothing to do but guildleves" argument is irrelevant, and the servers never died after billing as you and others predicted. There is a post on this forum with post billing server numbers, they didn't drop and raised considerably post 1.21 if you are interested look for it I'm not going to do the work for you. Then after merger (this Monday), there is another thread on the forums with people taking "snapshots" of the server numbers which shows higher simultaneous log ins than before.
You keep bumping this dead thread in some sort of attempt to personally "prove me wrong" and prove that I'm a blind fanboy, I never said the game was perfect just that your assessment of it is outdated and misleading to people. Which it was, and I laid out reasons why it was which you obviously can't be bothered to attempt to refute so you resort to arguing semantics and name calling to save face (as if anyone cares or is paying attention).
I never said you were socially retarded, but are you saing the correct leap in logic is that because you couldn't find a group no one can? Everyone I know does, I see groups forming all the time on my server. At the very least it seems like a personal problem which could be said of every single MMO out there. At least with FFXIV people have 7 chances to sync up with your level range as opposed to just one, so if you still can't find a group maybe it is your problem. I just tried to make suggestions on how you could improve your chances. I managed when the game had a lot less players than it does now. Despite me personally being fully at cap, and many people I know there are still far more people who are not.
You were saying the game is very unsupportive of grouping, and I was simply saying that is not my experience at all. I haven't played a game since FFXI that supported grouping to level as much as XIV, I grouped my way up and hwen they raise the level cap I will group again and I want other people who enjoy leveling in a group to know what it is like in this game (flawed in executation, but at least possible/encouraged). So of course I'm going to post in disagreement with your extreme stance that, Finding a PT for XP was bad enough a few months ago, and it certainly hasn't gotten any better. It's pretty much impossible to find a group below 40, so what does that leave a person to do? Grind leves. They will have a limited amount being a new player, so after doing their leves what are they left to do? Grind mobs.", if you take it as an insult that is your problem since I certainly never meant it to be.
I would not play FFXIV the way you describe you playing it, and if someone similar was looking to enjoy it I wouldn't recommend they did either.
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http://guildwork.com/users/murugan