Oh well... Here's to hoping there's a better assesment come winter/spring. And if not well there's better sites out there anyway. I'm not even sure why I posted all day today I swear this place is like crack.... Once you post you can't stoooop.
You can't escape, you know. You have to keep posting... for science.
I honestly don't understand the reviewer's scoring method. Are we using some type of grade school scoring where an 8 is average and a 5 is a fail? Shouldn't 5 be average? Why do game reviews have scoring grades where high numbers are average compared to say movie reviews which sit somewhere in the middle?
Honestly, this review score should have been much lower even with this odd scoring grade system. The only thing the reviewer liked about the game was the graphics, sound, and class switching system. The reviewer talks about the lack of polish, horrible UI, lack of content, and mechanics intentionally limiting the amount of content you can do per day. I don't see anywhere in this review aside from the graphics where points are being generated in FFXIV's favor, so I don't understand where the 5 points magically appeared.
If I were to rate the game based on this review it would probably be somewhere between a 1 and 2. I think the reviewer was being overly generous with rewarding points. When you can't talk about a single thing in the categories as a positive, where are the 4 or 5 points coming from?
Also, people who are expecting the patch to somehow remedy all the problems with the game (or at least boost it's score) are naive. Adding in a raid zone and autoattack won't fix issues with the game.
First off, at the time I feel it's impossible to make an encounter interesting with FFXIV's limited combat, because the entire system needs an overhaul. Animation locking is a thing of the past and makes combat unbelievably slow with little options for mobility. Class abilities need severe tweaking, as of right now you have to level almost all jobs to a certain point to acquire a powerful skill for raiding, but there are still many skills that serve no purpose for class mixing and even are terrible while you have that job set as primary.
The UI still requires 3X as much actions to get simple things done as in other MMOs and there is still lag present. Selling items which takes less than a minute in other MMOs could very well take over 10 in FFXIV. Finding an item you want by shifting retainers could take over an hour where it is a less than 3 minute process of an auction house search in another.
Then you have technical issues. What kind of modern PC game can you not alt tab out of fullscreen and back without crashing the client? The game runs poorly on some high end systems, and the patcher is such a nightmare to use that most people playing the game wind up manually installing patches.
Didn't SE asked to not review the game for some months? Maybe this one site decided to actually be nice and listen to them ;]
Possibly true and not at all reassuring. That would only be evidence that their focus lays in catering to the interests of the publishers rather than serving the interests of their readers. I understand that advertising dollars make the world go 'round, but if you want to be a credible reviewer, you need to maintain some kind of impartiality. The game was on the market. People were buying boxes. They had an obligation to inform their readers about the game, despite the protestations of the company behind the debacle. And debacle it was. It's shameful that it's taken this long to acknowledge it. Also shameful is how unhelpful the review is at this point. It serves absolutely no useful purpose right now.
Even so, I hope this miracle patch actually performs a miracle for those of you hanging on to the game. I'm not out denigrade it unfairly. My problem is with the manner with which it has been handled by this site.
I honestly don't understand the reviewer's scoring method. Are we using some type of grade school scoring where an 8 is average and a 5 is a fail? Shouldn't 5 be average? Why do game reviews have scoring grades where high numbers are average compared to say movie reviews which sit somewhere in the middle?
Honestly, this review score should have been much lower even with this odd scoring grade system. The only thing the reviewer liked about the game was the graphics, sound, and class switching system. The reviewer talks about the lack of polish, horrible UI, lack of content, and mechanics intentionally limiting the amount of content you can do per day. I don't see anywhere in this review aside from the graphics where points are being generated in FFXIV's favor, so I don't understand where the 5 points magically appeared.
If I were to rate the game based on this review it would probably be somewhere between a 1 and 2. I think the reviewer was being overly generous with rewarding points. When you can't talk about a single thing in the categories as a positive, where are the 4 or 5 points coming from?
Also, people who are expecting the patch to somehow remedy all the problems with the game (or at least boost it's score) are naive. Adding in a raid zone and autoattack won't fix issues with the game.
First off, at the time I feel it's impossible to make an encounter interesting with FFXIV's limited combat, because the entire system needs an overhaul. Animation locking is a thing of the past and makes combat unbelievably slow with little options for mobility. Class abilities need severe tweaking, as of right now you have to level almost all jobs to a certain point to acquire a powerful skill for raiding, but there are still many skills that serve no purpose for class mixing and even are terrible while you have that job set as primary.
The UI still requires 3X as much actions to get simple things done as in other MMOs and there is still lag present. Selling items which takes less than a minute in other MMOs could very well take over 10 in FFXIV. Finding an item you want by shifting retainers could take over an hour where it is a less than 3 minute process of an auction house search in another.
Then you have technical issues. What kind of modern PC game can you not alt tab out of fullscreen and back without crashing the client? The game runs poorly on some high end systems, and the patcher is such a nightmare to use that most people playing the game wind up manually installing patches.
Hit it right on the head. This patch isn't going to be able to fix all of those problems with the game. Oh and if it magically was able to fix the UI issues, make combat more interesting, make it easier to buy and sell things, the game would still be devoid of content that can keep a person interested for more then an hour tops.
Aside from all the technical issues the little content that is there comes with loads of arbitrary rules that make it a pain for no reason at all. You know the whole not being able to do levequests as much as you might like is just kind of silly to me.
I'm playing the game currently and am actually quite excited about changes they've been discussing very recently... though I'm less than thrilled about others.
In fairness to SE, they're currently in "hunkered down and get this sinking ship patched up and back on course" mode. They are very serious and very passionate about fixing the game, no question.
However, you can't score a game on "potential" or "intent". My personal feelings about the game and hopes for its future do not override the reality of what it state it's in right now. In that regard, I think Lori did a very fair job of reviewing that current reality. I think the score is pretty fair as well... I might have scored it a bit higher on a few details, but overall I agree with it.
The game is still very rough around the edges, it does still lack content and a variety of things to do overall, and it does still revolve far too heavily around leves, which become tiresome and repetitive before long.
As far back as late Beta (since I gave them the benefit of the doubt prior to that), it occured to me that SE didn't seem to have a real focus for FFXIV. FFXI, by comparison, always had a very strong "core", a very clear identity of what kind of game it was supposed to be, what kind of experience(s) it was supposed to provide. FFXIV lacks that and feels rather schizophrenic in a number of ways. I really hope part of SE's revamp is finding a core direction to take for it.
Anyway... there's always the re-review. Personally, I think the most appropriate time to re-review it will be some time after SE re-implements monthly subs. That will be the time at which, by their own measure, the game will be "complete" and ready enough for prime-time.
All in all, a very harsh, but very fair review.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Hit it right on the head. This patch isn't going to be able to fix all of those problems with the game. Oh and if it magically was able to fix the UI issues, make combat more interesting, make it easier to buy and sell things, the game would still be devoid of content that can keep a person interested for more then an hour tops.
It's not supposed to fix all the problems with the game. I'm sure if you asked him, Yoshi P would be the first to tell you that. It's one of many steps they're taking to get it back on track. It's never been deemed a "miracle patch", except by some over-enthusiastic fans of the game, perhaps.
It's an important step in getting the game to where it needs to be. But it's only a step, regardless.
Aside from all the technical issues the little content that is there comes with loads of arbitrary rules that make it a pain for no reason at all. You know the whole not being able to do levequests as much as you might like is just kind of silly to me.
Well, their intent behind limiting levequests is that they didn't want people simply power-leveling their way up by doing levequests non-stop. It would essentially be the equivalent of what people are doing in XI now with Abyssea... hardly doing anything else, because they're spending all their time rushing to level cap.
The only reason a limit on leves is a problem, I think, is that there isn't enough other content to do as an alternative. If they had more activities, more options, more "stuff to do" that could benefit characters in some meaningful way, people could say "you know, I don't feel like doing leves.. I wanna do "x" instead". In that scenario, limited leves per 36 hours wouldn't seem like such a strict limit. As it stands now, that option doesn't exist. You do your alotted leves and find there's not a whole lot else to do.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
A shame the review came before the miracle patch, coming in a few days. Like the others miracle patches they release since...release. Soon it'll be a even better game, almost ready for release!
It's an important patch that will (ostensibly) fix and improve things that need fixing and improving. It's an important step in the right direction.
It's not a miracle patch.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I just find it a little disturbing that it took this long to get a review....
Kinda do find it funny it comes right before a major patch. The timing of this review is suspect to say the least, as a con that is listed is the "Awkward Combat"... and from what I understand from patch notes and dev logs (I haven't played this game in a long while) that the combat system is getting a major overhaul.
I was part of the closed beta team that worked on befor it was the open beta...character creation, combat and camera controls were always a major gripe with me and the other testers. The had a nice basic contol system with old mmo the only real thing they cranked up to 11 positivly was the movies and graphics. Combat, Crafting and may other things were just made overly difficult and complex. I have to say making dedicated crafting classes was something new but found that they had no real way to level them effectively with out getting you pounded into snot...
I don't think the reviewer went into this game with an open mind. I've played since release, and the game has changed, dramatically changed, since it's release. The UI is WAY smoother, combat and growth is much better, new content/fixes are being implemented continously, and hell, there is another patch in 5-6 days. I am a final fantasy fan, I've played through all of them, this one is defintiely the worst, but I don't think the reviewer was fair.
So wait... you think this is the worst FF, meaning it's even worse than FF13, but the review wasn't fair? >.> I'm so confused.
I just find it a little disturbing that it took this long to get a review....
Kinda do find it funny it comes right before a major patch. The timing of this review is suspect to say the least, as a con that is listed is the "Awkward Combat"... and from what I understand from patch notes and dev logs (I haven't played this game in a long while) that the combat system is getting a major overhaul.
I just don't get why the review waited until now.
Yeah, that is a good question when you think about it.
They waited all this time, almost a year, to do a review. With a significant patch that addresses at least one of the complaints in the review coming in a matter of days, and another major patch coming (as I understand it) next month... Why not wait a couple more months so you can say "hey, you know what... this game was really in horrible shape since its launch, but they've put out a couple major patches that really seem to be taking it in the right direction." Of course, that is assuming the reviewer found the changes to be improvements in the first place.
Perhaps it was deliberate in order to get a "base score" of the game before SE's new team starts to really start implementing all the changes, so that a re-review down the road will have a bit more context.
I mean, all these past months have really entailed the new team getting into place, getting changes on the drawing board, getting things designed, developed and so forth.... It's been "behind the scenes work". The fruit of all that time and effort, however, is going to now be implemented starting with 1.18. It's "go time", in other words. So, if you're going to get a base score for "how the game is now", right now would be the last opportunity to do so.
I still think it's a fair review for how the game is right now, but I can also agree that the timing is rather odd.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Just had to say, this review seems very anti Square. Complaining about paying for more char slots when all you need is 1 char who can do everything btw. Docking points for visuals!??!? Its the most technically beautiful MMO today. Its fine if its not your preferred art style but you can't argue its not great looking. So what they re used some monsters/ scenery. Don't act like every other game doesn't use a palette swap for new monsters too.
Clunky UI , slow combat, unituitive way of selling crap I can agree with, but to dock its graphics is just silly.
To people complaining about crafting, its not that complicated once you know what to do.
A shame the review came before the miracle patch, coming in a few days. Like the others miracle patches they release since...release. Soon it'll be a even better game, almost ready for release!
It's an important patch that will (ostensibly) fix and improve things that need fixing and improving. It's an important step in the right direction.
It's not a miracle patch.
How many of these "important patches" will we need before we get a fun, playable game with a decent amount of content to compete with other MMOs on the market? By the time enough of these patches hit, FFXIV will be completely irrelevant, and newer MMOs will be blowing it out of the water.
Is the reviewer suppose to hold off reviewing the game for another 2 years, because every month an important patch "gaurenteed" to fix various problems with the game is coming? How many of these important patches are we suppose to wait for?
Limitations are a problem in MMOs. Putting in artifical limitations like leve limits and surplus is just silly where MMOs are suppose to inheritly have more freedom. The game designers just don't seem to value our time at all. Even travel, after running out of anima, which recharges way too slowly in a game like this, is a tedious process. Doing simple actions is a tedious process. Nearly everything in the game just wastes the player's time needlessly AND you have limitations on top of that which prevent me from doing what little content the game has to offer.
If leves being the only path people take for the fast possible progression is a problem, limiting them is not the solution. Instead, they could have come up with more appropiate solutions, like decreasing EXP and rewards gained from leves to be more in line with other content (or better yet, increasing rewards gained from grinding and removing surplus altogether, allowing players to level at whatever pace they want with whatever content they want). Instead, now you have a situation where most of the players that they have left do the limited number of leves per day (roughly ~1 hour of work every 36 hours) and log off the rest of day. Worse yet, if you grow tired of leves you really don't have much else to do. Grinding is extremely slow progression.
Considering the game is ment to be Pay to Play, i don't think there should be a review until they start charging you money as was first intended, they have already admitted it isn't what they wanted and "Poor" reviews are useless until they say "It's good enough" Then people's opinion would actually mean something.
My opinion, i have played it since launch, and i like it just as much as FFXI, the learning curve is steep, you're not going to learn a Final Fantasy game within a few hours, that's just how it is, and it's not for lazy people who arn't willing to learn more than button 1,2, 3.
How are you going to re-review the game before it gets any of its big patches that fix the game? You are trying to make this game fail and you rating for this game at the time being is unjust and unfair.
A shame the review came before the miracle patch, coming in a few days. Like the others miracle patches they release since...release. Soon it'll be a even better game, almost ready for release!
It's an important patch that will (ostensibly) fix and improve things that need fixing and improving. It's an important step in the right direction.
It's not a miracle patch.
How many of these "important patches" will we need before we get a fun, playable game with a decent amount of content to compete with other MMOs on the market? By the time enough of these patches hit, FFXIV will be completely irrerevant, and newer MMOs will be blowing it out of the water.
As many as it takes. They know the issues, they're addressing the issues, they're communicating with the community about what they're doing, what their timeline is, etc.
If it's too much for you to wait for, well, there's always those other games coming out. No one's forcing you to sit around waiting.
Is the reviewer suppose to hold off reviewing the game for another 2 years, because every month an important patch "gaurenteed" to fix various problems with the game is coming? How many of these important patches are we suppose to wait for?
Sweet sweeping strawmen, Batman. Where did that question even come from?
I merely stated it's an important step in the right direction, but it's not a miracle patch.
If it's absolutely too much for you to wait, then fine... don't wait. Move on to another game whose progress is more to your satisfaction. There are plenty to choose from. No one's forcing you to sit around and wait for SE.
Limitations are a problem in MMOs. Putting in artifical limitations like leve limits and surplus is just silly where MMOs are suppose to inheritly have more freedom. The game designers just don't seem to value our time at all. Even travel, after running out of anima, which recharges way too slowly in a game like this, is a tedious process. Doing simple actions is a tedious process. Nearly everything in the game just wastes the player's time needlessly AND you have limitations on top of that which prevent me from doing what little content the game has to offer.
... again... what does this have to do with the post you replied to?
If leves being the only path people take for the fast possible progression is a problem, limiting them is not the solution. Instead, they could have come up with more appropiate solutions, like decreasing EXP and rewards gained from leves to be more in line with other content (or better yet, increasing rewards gained from grinding and removing surplus altogether, allowing players to level at whatever pace they want with whatever content they want). Instead, now you have a situation where most of the players that they have left do the limited number of leves per day (roughly ~1 hour of work every 36 hours) and log off the rest of day. Worse yet, if you grow tired of leves you really don't have much else to do. Grinding is extremely slow progression.
... and again... nothing to do with my post.
Lack of content is a major problem in FFXIV. This isn't news to anyone, including SE. It hasn't been news to anyone, including SE, for months now. They've pretty much come out and said, "We fucked up and we're going to do everything we can to make it right". This happened months ago.
Time has moved forward. SE is moving forward, working to address that problem. They've been working at addressing it, giving updates in interviews and Yoshi P's monthly 'Letters From the Producer'.
If it's taking too long for you to handle, then again.... there are plenty of other MMOs out there for you to choose from. No one's forcing you to wait around.
I really don't understand what it is you expect me to tell you. That SE is "Teh Satan"?
Someone makes a remark about a miracle patch. I state it's not going to be a miracle patch, and you respond with this completely irrelevant rant.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Lol, at least you got out of it with 14.99, I played beta..decided it was alright because I didn't get to far..bought the collectors edition because I liked it so much, and the visuals and ideas, then played for like 4 days and was like, wtf? 80 dollars gone.
I just ran out and got my CE for 14 bucks. :-) Was very excited to see one in the area. For 14 bucks, just having a digipass makes it worth that much for me.
If you had followed the thread you'd know that we're not arguing wether the game deserves the score, I tink we all agree on that, we're arguing why it's coming NOW???
A shame the review came before the miracle patch, coming in a few days. Like the others miracle patches they release since...release. Soon it'll be a even better game, almost ready for release!
It's an important patch that will (ostensibly) fix and improve things that need fixing and improving. It's an important step in the right direction.
It's not a miracle patch.
How many of these "important patches" will we need before we get a fun, playable game with a decent amount of content to compete with other MMOs on the market? By the time enough of these patches hit, FFXIV will be completely irrerevant, and newer MMOs will be blowing it out of the water.
As many as it takes. They know the issues, they're addressing the issues, they're communicating with the community about what they're doing, what their timeline is, etc.
If it's too much for you to wait for, well, there's always those other games coming out. No one's forcing you to sit around waiting.
Is the reviewer suppose to hold off reviewing the game for another 2 years, because every month an important patch "gaurenteed" to fix various problems with the game is coming? How many of these important patches are we suppose to wait for?
Sweet sweeping strawmen, Batman. Where did that question even come from?
I merely stated it's an important step in the right direction, but it's not a miracle patch.
If it's absolutely too much for you to wait, then fine... don't wait. Move on to another game whose progress is more to your satisfaction. There are plenty to choose from. No one's forcing you to sit around and wait for SE.
Limitations are a problem in MMOs. Putting in artifical limitations like leve limits and surplus is just silly where MMOs are suppose to inheritly have more freedom. The game designers just don't seem to value our time at all. Even travel, after running out of anima, which recharges way too slowly in a game like this, is a tedious process. Doing simple actions is a tedious process. Nearly everything in the game just wastes the player's time needlessly AND you have limitations on top of that which prevent me from doing what little content the game has to offer.
... again... what does this have to do with the post you replied to?
If leves being the only path people take for the fast possible progression is a problem, limiting them is not the solution. Instead, they could have come up with more appropiate solutions, like decreasing EXP and rewards gained from leves to be more in line with other content (or better yet, increasing rewards gained from grinding and removing surplus altogether, allowing players to level at whatever pace they want with whatever content they want). Instead, now you have a situation where most of the players that they have left do the limited number of leves per day (roughly ~1 hour of work every 36 hours) and log off the rest of day. Worse yet, if you grow tired of leves you really don't have much else to do. Grinding is extremely slow progression.
... and again... nothing to do with my post.
Lack of content is a major problem in FFXIV. This isn't news to anyone, including SE. It hasn't been news to anyone, including SE, for months now. They've pretty much come out and said, "We fucked up and we're going to do everything we can to make it right". This happened months ago.
Time has moved forward. SE is moving forward, working to address that problem. They've been working at addressing it, giving updates in interviews and Yoshi P's monthly 'Letters From the Producer'.
If it's taking too long for you to handle, then again.... there are plenty of other MMOs out there for you to choose from. No one's forcing you to wait around.
I really don't understand what it is you expect me to tell you. That SE is "Teh Satan"?
Someone makes a remark about a miracle patch. I state it's not going to be a miracle patch, and you respond with this completely irrelevant rant.
Only my first paragraph was directed at you. I'm sorry if I used quotes and confused you. The rest of the post was directed at various other posts above. I have no good method to directly quote multiple posts here.
They've come out and said it, yet there really hasn't been much in the way of improvements coming. Changes to the EXP system which make grinding much slower and boring (going from things that were tough to fight to two shotting doblyns for SP), addition of NMs which are uninteresting encounters, changes to crafting which made some professions more difficult to level.
You use typical agruements like, "if it's too long to wait, then move on". I'm sorry, but if everyone moves on except SE's most zealous fanboys, and especially with new MMOs from major developers in the future on the horizon, FFXIV is doomed to fail before the game becomes a complete game, not the husk of a game it is now. I'm asking how long you fanboys are willing to wait before you accept the reality that the game will never improve to a state where it becomes the triple A quality game it was meant to be. Maybe it will survive on it's death throes by it's overly ardent fanbase, but it's a shame SE released the game in the state it is and I personally think they should scrap this money sink before it kills their company.
I still think it's completely naive to think otherwise. They gave monthly updates and interviews with Tanaka in charge too. Do you really think Yoshi is going to somehow pull this game from the ashes like a Phoenix? I've already moved on from the game months ago, my posts are directed at the fanboys claiming this review isn't fair because a patch is coming (which many believe is a miracle patch, no I'm not talking directly at you here), just like the many other patches that came before it. If that were the case then you couldn't review any MMO until long after it was dead.
I hope she doesn't read these replies, because it won't change how bad of a game this was.
The patch won't do anything for it. Plain and simple. Waiting for it would have accomplished nothing except people saying "But the plans for the next patch are GREAT!"
Comments
Didn't SE asked to not review the game for some months? Maybe this one site decided to actually be nice and listen to them ;]
You can't escape, you know. You have to keep posting... for science.
I honestly don't understand the reviewer's scoring method. Are we using some type of grade school scoring where an 8 is average and a 5 is a fail? Shouldn't 5 be average? Why do game reviews have scoring grades where high numbers are average compared to say movie reviews which sit somewhere in the middle?
Honestly, this review score should have been much lower even with this odd scoring grade system. The only thing the reviewer liked about the game was the graphics, sound, and class switching system. The reviewer talks about the lack of polish, horrible UI, lack of content, and mechanics intentionally limiting the amount of content you can do per day. I don't see anywhere in this review aside from the graphics where points are being generated in FFXIV's favor, so I don't understand where the 5 points magically appeared.
If I were to rate the game based on this review it would probably be somewhere between a 1 and 2. I think the reviewer was being overly generous with rewarding points. When you can't talk about a single thing in the categories as a positive, where are the 4 or 5 points coming from?
Also, people who are expecting the patch to somehow remedy all the problems with the game (or at least boost it's score) are naive. Adding in a raid zone and autoattack won't fix issues with the game.
First off, at the time I feel it's impossible to make an encounter interesting with FFXIV's limited combat, because the entire system needs an overhaul. Animation locking is a thing of the past and makes combat unbelievably slow with little options for mobility. Class abilities need severe tweaking, as of right now you have to level almost all jobs to a certain point to acquire a powerful skill for raiding, but there are still many skills that serve no purpose for class mixing and even are terrible while you have that job set as primary.
The UI still requires 3X as much actions to get simple things done as in other MMOs and there is still lag present. Selling items which takes less than a minute in other MMOs could very well take over 10 in FFXIV. Finding an item you want by shifting retainers could take over an hour where it is a less than 3 minute process of an auction house search in another.
Then you have technical issues. What kind of modern PC game can you not alt tab out of fullscreen and back without crashing the client? The game runs poorly on some high end systems, and the patcher is such a nightmare to use that most people playing the game wind up manually installing patches.
Possibly true and not at all reassuring. That would only be evidence that their focus lays in catering to the interests of the publishers rather than serving the interests of their readers. I understand that advertising dollars make the world go 'round, but if you want to be a credible reviewer, you need to maintain some kind of impartiality. The game was on the market. People were buying boxes. They had an obligation to inform their readers about the game, despite the protestations of the company behind the debacle. And debacle it was. It's shameful that it's taken this long to acknowledge it. Also shameful is how unhelpful the review is at this point. It serves absolutely no useful purpose right now.
Even so, I hope this miracle patch actually performs a miracle for those of you hanging on to the game. I'm not out denigrade it unfairly. My problem is with the manner with which it has been handled by this site.
Hit it right on the head. This patch isn't going to be able to fix all of those problems with the game. Oh and if it magically was able to fix the UI issues, make combat more interesting, make it easier to buy and sell things, the game would still be devoid of content that can keep a person interested for more then an hour tops.
Aside from all the technical issues the little content that is there comes with loads of arbitrary rules that make it a pain for no reason at all. You know the whole not being able to do levequests as much as you might like is just kind of silly to me.
Very fair review.
I'm playing the game currently and am actually quite excited about changes they've been discussing very recently... though I'm less than thrilled about others.
In fairness to SE, they're currently in "hunkered down and get this sinking ship patched up and back on course" mode. They are very serious and very passionate about fixing the game, no question.
However, you can't score a game on "potential" or "intent". My personal feelings about the game and hopes for its future do not override the reality of what it state it's in right now. In that regard, I think Lori did a very fair job of reviewing that current reality. I think the score is pretty fair as well... I might have scored it a bit higher on a few details, but overall I agree with it.
The game is still very rough around the edges, it does still lack content and a variety of things to do overall, and it does still revolve far too heavily around leves, which become tiresome and repetitive before long.
As far back as late Beta (since I gave them the benefit of the doubt prior to that), it occured to me that SE didn't seem to have a real focus for FFXIV. FFXI, by comparison, always had a very strong "core", a very clear identity of what kind of game it was supposed to be, what kind of experience(s) it was supposed to provide. FFXIV lacks that and feels rather schizophrenic in a number of ways. I really hope part of SE's revamp is finding a core direction to take for it.
Anyway... there's always the re-review. Personally, I think the most appropriate time to re-review it will be some time after SE re-implements monthly subs. That will be the time at which, by their own measure, the game will be "complete" and ready enough for prime-time.
All in all, a very harsh, but very fair review.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
naw, gotta dissagree. it's better than FF13, but that isn't saying anything.
It's an important patch that will (ostensibly) fix and improve things that need fixing and improving. It's an important step in the right direction.
It's not a miracle patch.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I just find it a little disturbing that it took this long to get a review....
Kinda do find it funny it comes right before a major patch. The timing of this review is suspect to say the least, as a con that is listed is the "Awkward Combat"... and from what I understand from patch notes and dev logs (I haven't played this game in a long while) that the combat system is getting a major overhaul.
I just don't get why the review waited until now.
I was part of the closed beta team that worked on befor it was the open beta...character creation, combat and camera controls were always a major gripe with me and the other testers. The had a nice basic contol system with old mmo the only real thing they cranked up to 11 positivly was the movies and graphics. Combat, Crafting and may other things were just made overly difficult and complex. I have to say making dedicated crafting classes was something new but found that they had no real way to level them effectively with out getting you pounded into snot...
So wait... you think this is the worst FF, meaning it's even worse than FF13, but the review wasn't fair? >.> I'm so confused.
Yeah, that is a good question when you think about it.
They waited all this time, almost a year, to do a review. With a significant patch that addresses at least one of the complaints in the review coming in a matter of days, and another major patch coming (as I understand it) next month... Why not wait a couple more months so you can say "hey, you know what... this game was really in horrible shape since its launch, but they've put out a couple major patches that really seem to be taking it in the right direction." Of course, that is assuming the reviewer found the changes to be improvements in the first place.
Perhaps it was deliberate in order to get a "base score" of the game before SE's new team starts to really start implementing all the changes, so that a re-review down the road will have a bit more context.
I mean, all these past months have really entailed the new team getting into place, getting changes on the drawing board, getting things designed, developed and so forth.... It's been "behind the scenes work". The fruit of all that time and effort, however, is going to now be implemented starting with 1.18. It's "go time", in other words. So, if you're going to get a base score for "how the game is now", right now would be the last opportunity to do so.
I still think it's a fair review for how the game is right now, but I can also agree that the timing is rather odd.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Just had to say, this review seems very anti Square. Complaining about paying for more char slots when all you need is 1 char who can do everything btw. Docking points for visuals!??!? Its the most technically beautiful MMO today. Its fine if its not your preferred art style but you can't argue its not great looking. So what they re used some monsters/ scenery. Don't act like every other game doesn't use a palette swap for new monsters too.
Clunky UI , slow combat, unituitive way of selling crap I can agree with, but to dock its graphics is just silly.
To people complaining about crafting, its not that complicated once you know what to do.
How many of these "important patches" will we need before we get a fun, playable game with a decent amount of content to compete with other MMOs on the market? By the time enough of these patches hit, FFXIV will be completely irrelevant, and newer MMOs will be blowing it out of the water.
Is the reviewer suppose to hold off reviewing the game for another 2 years, because every month an important patch "gaurenteed" to fix various problems with the game is coming? How many of these important patches are we suppose to wait for?
Limitations are a problem in MMOs. Putting in artifical limitations like leve limits and surplus is just silly where MMOs are suppose to inheritly have more freedom. The game designers just don't seem to value our time at all. Even travel, after running out of anima, which recharges way too slowly in a game like this, is a tedious process. Doing simple actions is a tedious process. Nearly everything in the game just wastes the player's time needlessly AND you have limitations on top of that which prevent me from doing what little content the game has to offer.
If leves being the only path people take for the fast possible progression is a problem, limiting them is not the solution. Instead, they could have come up with more appropiate solutions, like decreasing EXP and rewards gained from leves to be more in line with other content (or better yet, increasing rewards gained from grinding and removing surplus altogether, allowing players to level at whatever pace they want with whatever content they want). Instead, now you have a situation where most of the players that they have left do the limited number of leves per day (roughly ~1 hour of work every 36 hours) and log off the rest of day. Worse yet, if you grow tired of leves you really don't have much else to do. Grinding is extremely slow progression.
Considering the game is ment to be Pay to Play, i don't think there should be a review until they start charging you money as was first intended, they have already admitted it isn't what they wanted and "Poor" reviews are useless until they say "It's good enough" Then people's opinion would actually mean something.
My opinion, i have played it since launch, and i like it just as much as FFXI, the learning curve is steep, you're not going to learn a Final Fantasy game within a few hours, that's just how it is, and it's not for lazy people who arn't willing to learn more than button 1,2, 3.
/waits for review when you're charged money
How are you going to re-review the game before it gets any of its big patches that fix the game? You are trying to make this game fail and you rating for this game at the time being is unjust and unfair.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I'm just going ahead and requoting that because this really should be read a few more times...XD
(,,,)=^__^=(,,,)
Lol, at least you got out of it with 14.99, I played beta..decided it was alright because I didn't get to far..bought the collectors edition because I liked it so much, and the visuals and ideas, then played for like 4 days and was like, wtf? 80 dollars gone.
(-_-)
I just ran out and got my CE for 14 bucks. :-) Was very excited to see one in the area. For 14 bucks, just having a digipass makes it worth that much for me.
If you had followed the thread you'd know that we're not arguing wether the game deserves the score, I tink we all agree on that, we're arguing why it's coming NOW???
(,,,)=^__^=(,,,)
Only my first paragraph was directed at you. I'm sorry if I used quotes and confused you. The rest of the post was directed at various other posts above. I have no good method to directly quote multiple posts here.
They've come out and said it, yet there really hasn't been much in the way of improvements coming. Changes to the EXP system which make grinding much slower and boring (going from things that were tough to fight to two shotting doblyns for SP), addition of NMs which are uninteresting encounters, changes to crafting which made some professions more difficult to level.
You use typical agruements like, "if it's too long to wait, then move on". I'm sorry, but if everyone moves on except SE's most zealous fanboys, and especially with new MMOs from major developers in the future on the horizon, FFXIV is doomed to fail before the game becomes a complete game, not the husk of a game it is now. I'm asking how long you fanboys are willing to wait before you accept the reality that the game will never improve to a state where it becomes the triple A quality game it was meant to be. Maybe it will survive on it's death throes by it's overly ardent fanbase, but it's a shame SE released the game in the state it is and I personally think they should scrap this money sink before it kills their company.
I still think it's completely naive to think otherwise. They gave monthly updates and interviews with Tanaka in charge too. Do you really think Yoshi is going to somehow pull this game from the ashes like a Phoenix? I've already moved on from the game months ago, my posts are directed at the fanboys claiming this review isn't fair because a patch is coming (which many believe is a miracle patch, no I'm not talking directly at you here), just like the many other patches that came before it. If that were the case then you couldn't review any MMO until long after it was dead.
I hope she doesn't read these replies, because it won't change how bad of a game this was.
The patch won't do anything for it. Plain and simple. Waiting for it would have accomplished nothing except people saying "But the plans for the next patch are GREAT!"
And if it's "So improved" already....lol
"You can't please everyone" - Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
"You don't know what you got, 'til it's gone" - Ben Franklin (1706-1790)
"Enjoy what you have, not what you expect them to be" - Richard Trench (1807-1886)