Does anyone on here actually prefer FFXI to XIV?Follow

I really dislike XIV and just modern MMOs in general. I'm hoping Ninja might re-invoke my interest in the game, but I know that just like everything in XIV, it'll be lacking in any form of depth and just leave me unsatisfied and wanting more. And that pretty much sums up my problem with modern MMOs. They're shallow and overly simplistic, and honestly feel like a glorified 3D Mafia Wars to me.

I should make clear that I really want to like XIV. I did really like the crafting but that alone isn't enough to save an MMO for me. Everything else was just boring to me.

I literally could go on and on about this subject but I won't. I tried my hardest not to rant too much(I actually deleted two huge paragraphs to avoid that. lol.) Hopefully it worked out. :p

In regards to your XI controls problem: The controls in XI can be similar to how other MMOs are if you go to Config > Misc. 2 > and change Keyboard Size to Compact from Full. You'll still have to hit CTRL or ALT for your Macros but otherwise it will use WASD. You can probably somehow use Windower scripts to bind 1-0 to specific Macros, M to /map, etc. as well to get over that. Although I'd imagine that make things even more a pain in the ***. As I'd imagine the Windower script would ignore the context. In other words, if you press M at any time it would bring up the map even when typing.

I'm aware that people have likes and dislikes, and that's cool. What's *not* cool is when people throw out random sayings and phrases that are false and attempting to use them as justifications.



Fire. Thunder. Blizzard.

With the exception of Water in a very few Final Fantasies those *ARE* all the spells that defined a Black Mage. From Final Fantasy I to XIII those are the three main elements found in any Final Fantasy Black Mage's spell list and standard. Poison/Bio? Osomose? Utility spells that's in some and not in others, but the main core nuking potential that's always been there *IS* there. Flare/Nuke is also there as the major powerhouse, as Ultima's been shown for story reasons why it's not available.... Aero's usually signed with White Mage, and yes while there is sometimes a Water spell it's not always there.

....unless you specifically mean FFXI. Black Mage is hardly a "stripped" down version in comparison to past Final Fantasies as a whole.

As far as the Summoner complaints in FFXI they were used as healers (boring, reminiscent of FFIX), then used as disposable fodder for endgame, and only very recently had they become semi-competent classes since Abyssea and gear actually supporting the avatar. And they're still weak in comparison to most of the other jobs available. Again you seem to be referring to FFXI who's Summoners either fall into two categories now -- either stand back and let the avatar do the work, or get in there and..... auto-attack to build TP like a melee. You're a pet class with a pet who can only use an offensive ability every 45 seconds at most that auto-attack in between -- you yourself have no offensive abilities outside of your weapon of choice.

SMN in FFXIV wins by miles ahead in a more interesting job take than FFXI's. Not liking the look of the Egis is one thing, but when pre-MMO Summoners have always been broken, overpowered spells (that's all they are, be honest with yourself) it's not hard to see why an MMO doesn't have them operate in the same fashion.



Not. Even. Close.

When the mouse works like other MMOs and click targetting is actually a viable thing (and the camera doesn't operate on a 2D plane) then it will be similar.



If you're using 3 over and over and over, you're flat out -terrible-. The only two jobs in the game that come close to what you describe are basic in their rotation (Paladin and Black Mage) but even they use more than you try to state. Monk's one of the busiest jobs I've ever seen and Dragoon isn't too far behind it. SMN and BRD are mostly debuffs/proc watch jobs.

FFXI is auto-attacking, using a weaponskill when you're at the TP threshold you desire (3,000 for RME, 1,000 elsewise, etc.), and hitting cooldowns when they're up. Heal via TP or MP consumption on whatever job and keep going, stunning any threatening moves and using a -DT set per needed. It's basic -- that isn't a bad thing at all -- and don't even try to pretend they're in the same league.

NOTE: I play both MMOs because both fill holes in MMO gameplay I like. If you like certain things that's cool. If you don't like certain things that's cool -- give them feedback and see if it gets changed. Just don't make **** up.

If you didn't remove the next line, my meaning wouldn't have been lost.

In regards to your reply to JF:
You could definitely argue BLM is a stripped down version from previous FFs if only because of the lack of elemental weaknesses. That defines a Black Mage more than the spells themselves, in my opinion. Unless they have decided to go back on removing them?

what put me off about ffxiv initially, was i couldnt do a story mission until it told me to, then i have to do it solo (wtf its an mmo) then the mission is so easy oall i basically have to do is autoattack while i get cure bombed by an npc, wait for another npc to say atack those tarus, go over and hit tarus, mission won! meh, im sick of all this, cant do any group content in an mmo until end game.

Paladin needs a SERIOUS re-work.

A lot of the iconic things that a Paladin should have are either missing, or don't work right at all. The only thing they did right, was Flash, but the threat gained from Flash does not seem to be all that large particularly. I've had mobs attacking a group member who barely touched it (or the healer) and a Flash didn't even make the mob flinch whatsoever.

Cure just doesn't work at all. In any group content, one Cure isn't even a single hit from a trash mob. In Solo, it is barely good enough to let you solo lesser Fate NMs. Barely. And that's if you spam it WITH that +incoming Cure cooldown.

"Light" or "Holy" based abilities... where are they? If I'm supposed to be playing a PALADIN wearing shiny armor, I expect to use the power of the light to smite my foes... only I'm not doing that. I got Sword/Shield Oath... you get this flashy graphic when you use it... and then that's it. That's all you get. Now, there's Circle of Scorn later, but that's pretty late (Lv45? Lv50? I know it is at least 45+; I'm 42 and don't have it), but otherwise... nothing?

And again as you said, Multi-mob tanking as PLD sucks, and sucks ***.

Compare that to WoW's tanking paladin:

Avenger's Shield: I love that ability so much. You actually throw your shield (you can do this as XIV's GLA, but it is far less awesome) and it glows bright white, it slams into the first target and 2 more nearby targets and comes back to your arm like a boomerang.

Hammer of Righteousness: You smash the mob you're targeting and with a loud "WHAM!" sound, a shockwave of holy energy erupts, hitting all mobs near you for about half the damage as the initial hit. The sound effect alone makes it feel awesome. It shares a cooldown with Crusader Strike, a single-target swing.

Consecration: Circle of Scorn, only it is a DoT that stays there, it causes the ground around you to glow and it is an AoE.

Holy Wrath: Currently feels kinda meh, but it does fairly nice damage and is yet another AoE.

Shield of the Righteous: A Shield Bash, with glowing holy light! It is actually part of your main rotation (and not just some ability that will mess up your combo).

Also a few defensive cooldowns and such I won't name here. Oh, and one of them allows you to sprout glowing golden angel wings to do more damage for 30 sec or so. How more awesomely can you say "holy light warrior" than that!?

So, when you compare the two... I went into FFXIV... saw that Gladiators eventually became Paladins, pictured this awesome warrior of light being the bastion of defense between the mobs and my group members who should have had some nice soloability... and I wound up with this pansy that can hardly keep multiple mobs on them, and is out-tanked by a class that wields 2H axes. I got a shield, but yet this class with the 2H axe can do it better than me? wtf? That's ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, I love 2H Axes (my "main" is a warrior in XI), but WTF is the deal with tanking with a 2H axe? Silly Maurader... you're supposed to use shields for tanking, unless you've got some kind of magic powers or something (death knights in WoW and even then I find it far-fetched how good they are at tanking).

EDIT: Some of the names might be a little off; been awhile since I've tanked on a Paladin in WoW. Been working on my newest Rogue for the last couple months.

Edited, Aug 4th 2014 7:34am by Lyrailis

Also:

XIV Summoner = Warlock. It's only called Summoner to appease the fans of FF that plays and recogonize the horn. The only reason they didn't call it Warlock is probably due to copyright issues of some kind.

Aside that, I much prefer XI. Argue all you want, XI's battle system is amazing when you get down to the actual design, as stated above. If it was a bit more updated (but not "streamlined" like ARR), maybe something akin to 1.23, it would be pretty damn amazing and why they should have redone XI rather than WoWify XIV for ARR (Yoshi is Very open about this.)

I don't know, I kind of think they butchered the essence of FF too much for ARR for the sake of 'fitting in' but to each their own. XI needs a facelift but what isn't true about that after more than 10 years of service?

Well, if you notice, every extra job has only 1 representative(including the BRDs, and PLDs that you'd expect to be up there) in that '100-taru village' thing and all the starting jobs have much more. It most likely is considering all the level 1 mules.

Edited, Aug 4th 2014 12:52pm by valid

Yep. :\ lol.

What they probably just do is look at all the characters 1-99, probably not even filtering active accounts, and seeing what job they are on and at the time and calling it there. lol.

What they should do is take a real census. Similar to those surveys they sometimes do. Results would be more accurate and it would just be a simple fun thing for us to do. :p Because even if they do as accurate a job as they can do by just looking at the data, it's still not going to be accurate. Say they only factor active accounts level 50+ and decide your main is whatever job you're on the most. It still won't be accurate. I might be a PUP main, but have BRD and RNG also geared. Guess what job I'm probably going to be on the most?

XI job census data is pretty useless without knowing their selection criteria. Even going by time on a said job is deceptive since some people just idle all the time and rarely, if ever, actually play a given thing. The "best bet" is probably going by a mix of time spent in combat and enemies defeated while on a given job. It's still not perfect, but likely better than what they did.

Anyway, XI and XIV are two different beasts with their own pros and cons. XI has the benefit of a decade's worth of content behind it, especially now that some of the older things are being made more solo-friendly one way or another. Yet, at its peak, I could also recall people quitting during things like CoP because of things like level caps, non-existent matchmaking tools for missions, and just the general douchebaggery of MMOers in general. So, on that end, I say nostalgia tends to stain the views of XI for a lot of people far too much, especially if attempt to advocate depth to the combat system where so many cooldowns were way too long, ability durations too short, gobs of useless abilities, class imbalances out the wazoo, terrible macro system, and quite arguably perhaps one of the worst records in handling third-party tool use, for better or worse. XI is also lacking in a number of more modern features, like better in-game radar, quest indicators, more robust quest details, party finders, cross-server matching, and so on. Sure, there's been a good rush of recent QoL changes, but there's a lot the game is seemingly never going to see because its foundation won't support it, and not just because of PS2 limitations.

As for XIV, for me, it has two major flaws at the moment. The first is lacking content. This is something that needs time, fine, I get that. But of what is there, spamming dungeons holds zero appeal. While I'll wholeheartedly acknowledge that queue systems are great for getting people together who want to do a specific thing, when your game time is spent perhaps more in waiting to that specific thing, it gets old fast. Which leads to my second point: Endgame progression. Like lockouts? XIV's got lockouts. Want to gear up multiple jobs for top-tier performance? Better do it on multiple characters, because each one is effectively capped on Things To Do(tm) for a week. The things that aren't capped are, in turn, generally inferior, an outright waste of time, or far too grindy. Gear crafting is held back by Yoshi because the ghost of RMT has him by the balls. There are no solely endgame open world zones. Sure, Hunts have added a (temporary?) alternative to some endgame progression, but that system is most definitely flawed and arguably not the most casual friendly experience even if it isn't all that difficult.

As for XIV's combat, I guess some lesser flaws for me would involve how punishing some mechanics are with a side of how they handle their combo system. Or more accurately, don't handle it. Ability clutter is something I've come to loathe in MMOs, if only because WASD+Mouse is a pain in the *** for quickly accessing abilities after a certain point. Macros can get around this a little, and in XIV's case, it's better than XI here by virtue of macros not terminating if any kind of error pops up in execution. However, one thing I feel XIV really needs is to implement abilities "changing" to execute their follow-up steps (in potentially pre-defined ways if they branch). To use the earlier mentioned Paladin combo, if you have Fast Blade on 1, pushing one would turn it into Savage Blade for the combo window. Thus, you can press 1 again and SB executes, leading to Halone. Once Halone is executed or timed out, 1 becomes Fast Blade again. Something like this is just one of those major QoL things that, while some might argue "dumbs down" the game, can be a veritable godsend to people with mediocre manual dexterity or even health issues, especially over longer sessions. Something like this, however, isn't even really possible in XI since the closest thing we have to combos are skillchains. And I guess as a nod to XI, I actually like being able to play keyboard only and wish such was possible in more games, but a mix of combat pacing or UI issues tend to make that impossible. I'm not someone who feels camera controls are an issue there, as much as I've seen people argue such in the past.

For now, I'm not playing either game. Being honestly objective, XIV simply has the greater future potential. Those still in XI, in my experience in a few places, have a bad habit of clamoring for some of the worst things a MMO can do these days, usually under the guise of propping themselves up as superior players because of it. XIV needs to better embrace its job system and get through those lacking content growing pains. If not, people will just hop to the next game that looks more interesting. And I know not everyone is like me in following games I've enjoyed, but left generally amicably. The big thing keeping me from killing time with XI now is knowing my alliance connections are long gone alongside not wanting to just stand around shouting hoping to do something meaningful I can't solo. Granted, that's a problem for XIV, too.

I agree 100%. It's terrible to have varying content systems, properly done overworld content (you can't just go out and benefit the second you load up the game), properly done open world dungeons, more varying jobs rather than everyone being the same with different animations (Yoshida's own words, he wanted classes "universalized".)

Know what else is so horrible to do in an MMO that XI does? Small content that doesn't require a lockout to keep people invested. It's also pretty terrible to allow players to have even a tiny gap between each other because lord knows everyone needs to be able to do everything and get everything, no one will get bored without goals or anything.



There is very little this game needs or will see because of a platform they no longer support. The only things that the PS2 ever prevented was fluff crap that did nothing for gameplay because PC only MMOs that utilize the fluff stuff doesn't even do it properly.



Nope. Thing is, I wasn't a crybaby because:

"WAAAAAAAAH I NEED TO BUY GEAR FOR LEVEL CAP? NO!"

^ That was the main complaint about level caps. As someone said, Nostalgia makes you want to play, not the reason you are playing. I'm not playing DayZ because I'm nostalgic..what am I nostalgic about? The world never had a zombie apocalypse and I was never into Walking Dead or other zombie stuff largely, if I were to feel nostalgic I would go play House of the Dead and House of the Dead 2 on my Dreamcast. CoP saw the largest surge in XI population, the only drop off was the ones who went to play WoW but plenty came back because WoW didn't have "that feeling", it satisfied the people who weren't into MMOs at the time though.

Huh? Oh you forgot WoW released the SAME YEAR AND TIME FRAME AS CoP in 2004?



The only class imbalance is in the PvP, which the game was far from designed for. Everything else is more of a player problem rather than design problem. PUP was the only "modern" job that had an issue because while the focus was on the automation, the master was a bit too low from the start (very low H2H for it being its main weapon), once they boosted that and boosted attachments, PUP is pretty damn good in many situations, the problem were the PUPs who didn't bother with attachments so their puppet was a ragdoll.

Blue Mage is overpowered! WHOO! Yeah, on level 75 content at 99. You know, it's like going out to Central Shroud on your level 50 Archer and shooting the level 2 Marmots. They sure put up a good fight that they did!

As for depth? There's more options and battles aren't all the same script like they are in FFXIV, so no the cooldowns aren't "too long", they're designed around the flow of the battle system in the game, which is a lot slower and essentially "turn based" in a way. There's a lot more depth in XI's battles than in XIV where you're just:

Spamming your main rotation
Avoiding AoE
Rinsing and Repeating.

Even enemies with phase changes does nothing but activate instant kill abilities most of the time and notice how the only intense fights people complain about "lag" because 99% of the time they just absolutely suck at a 1-2 dance number?

At least with XI there's more varying roles that can make battles interesting. Once XIV gets a buffer/debuffer and get rid of the silly skill restrictions (very few skills compared to even its 1.x days) it'll be better. Also, XI has a terrible macro system? No, it was just limited in lines you could do in-game. XIV has the terrible macro system because it ADDs delay to your already delayed action system.

Whenever people bring up Nostalgia it automatically feels like they honestly had nothing to actually argue against and just throw out "nostalgia!" to try to tell people they didn't actually like anything or the game they played, they just thought they did.

The only time that fit is with Final Fantasy VII because much like sex, there's a chance you'll madly be in love with the first person you gave your virginity to and will always remember it for better or for worse, FFVII was most RPG and Final Fantasy virgin's first time.



It is a 2002 MMORPG, back when MMOs didn't play the game for you or held your hand every step of the way. They can easily add "modern features" but it won't change the fact it's an MMORPG from a more (better) era. I say better because MMOs rarely failed or had to be relaunched every year or two because back then, people didn't ***** over the silliest of ****.

Not even XIV ARR, a 2013 MMORPG, has a proper cross-server matching system. 9/10 you'll be matched up with people on your server FIRST AND FOREMOST because it goes towards the others in your data center and even then it's only for content most people rage quit after 1 failure because they can't take the heat but want to stay in the kitchen.

It doesn't need an 'in-game radar", which you mean Mini-Map, as it does have a radar and compass already. Its really hard to use "modern features" as an argument against a 2002 MMO since that would be like complaining that Super Mario Bros on the NES doesn't have a rewind feature like many modern platformers. All quest markers really do is tell you a quest is there and tells you which NPCs to ignore, rather than talking to every NPC and stumbling upon a quest. Sure if you ignore NPCs you'll ignore them regardless...but quite a lot of XI changes have been telling you exactly where to go, so they are modernizing it but it's not going to get an overhaul unless they shut down ARR and overhaul XI like they should have.

Edited, Aug 5th 2014 4:28am by Theonehio

I was indeed thinking more in ratio with a side of on-offs like ES. But let's look to how others have described playing a melee in XI in that it's basically just wait for TP then WS. Positioning may occasionally matter, or if you're a DRK, maybe you'll have to Stun from time to time, but depth isn't there. On the other hand, one be hard pressed to find many combat abilities in XIV with a cooldown greater than 3 minutes. Yes, I may also agree that some associated durations there are too short, but I'd rather 2:50 to do something again instead of 9:50.


Barstatus spells, a large chunk of BLU's spell library, most Dark magic, ************* Stymie, and more if I felt compelled to refresh my memory of the entirety of JAs available. Channeling the last point, sometimes it's a duration thing, others cooldown, and even more about potency. Sometimes these deficiencies also led to conflicts in job identity, like SMNs forced into healer roles or any poor RDM who ever wanted to melee. Yeah, some of you knew that was coming. :P


Some might consider the stuff like windower's extended macros okay, but they're still things console users couldn't do. It wasn't uncommon to see builds revolving around the existence of such, though, and not having it available obviously made a player gimp. Then we could go into more insidious things like botting, move speed, and position hacking. It wasn't uncommon to feel totally helpless seeing the same exploiters flourish in the game despite GM reports.

That said, the comparison is more the belief that "more" automatically equals "better" for the game. If we trim the fat of all those useless or underpowered abilities I alluded to earlier, how different might things really be? The common goal of combat is to still get mobs dead, get loot, repeat. This is actually where I'd call into question flipping out over how games nowadays are of the Kill X, Fetch Y, Go to Z, Defend/Escort Q-type activities. All those are present in XI, too. Is it just not having a counter on the side? Hell, even XI had counters going on with Magians for a while there. Is it more a case, then, of not wanting to have your "hand held" as a commonly used statement of downplaying? Ideally, a game should let one disable or grossly minimize UI elements they may find displeasing, but I know that's not always the case.


There is a middle ground here. A couple, actually. The less hands on one is to set a check box to only automatically group with people on your server. The more involved version is let people set up parties for an advertised purpose that only people on your server can see, which XIV presently does.

Understand, however, that not everyone playing these games is out there to become your friend. We're all means to an end. Yes, the more socially capable will be more pleasant to be around, but trying to ostracize those who aren't good at communicating by removing or demanding such systems not be present isn't something I'd call for the betterment of a game. These folks are filling gaps for incomplete friend parties, greasing the economic wheels in their own ways, and even influencing the behavior of others they encounter out in the world, even if indirectly. Conversely, more restricted systems do not prevent people from being asshats. In my own XI experience, those the server came to collectively hate just wound up forming their own group, and they thrived in their own ways. In turn, the best we can hope for is a dev to instead minimize ways people can grief others through game mechanics.


Content has a lifespan. For some, it's the moment it stops being fun. For others, it's the moment they have nothing left to get from it. Sometimes these align, sometimes they're miles apart and someone may begrudgingly partake because something they're after has no alternative source. I didn't like setting aside 2 nights a week for Dynamis for 2 years, in part to guarantee my place for a Duelist's Chapeau when my turn eventually did roll around. In fact, demanding that kind of time commitment was very much one of XI's old issues.

And believe it or not, there is also a point where there is too much content, especially if it winds up feeling compulsory for progression. Lockouts don't help here, especially for something like dailies where missing one means you lose out on progress forever. Pre-Adoulin XI was wrestling with this problem, making players farm Dynamis to try and be relevant in the construction of a relic or diverting the currency to gil for other purposes. This also carried over into Salvage, and by proxy, Assaults. Things like Einherjar and Limbus was then a lighter layer, but still on the clock. I'm not a fan of daily/weekly stuff, myself, and have been arguing against them in the XIV section, too. The more responsible players are their own moderators of content consumption. So, part of the issue of lacking content is more a matter of having content someone wants to participate in. In XIV's case, and for me, this isn't spamming dungeons for all time. Them being instanced or not isn't even really a factor.

Anyway, I see Hio is gonna Hio now.

This is EXACTLY the kind of nostalgia I'm trying to point out. MMOs were NOT better back then. What you're pining for is that first love you're never going to find again because you've now been in the scene long enough to have seen all the good and bad that has transpired over the past decade. The following, however, are some irrefutable facts of how MMOs are now "better" these days:

- The internet and server infrastructures have improved.
- Graphics have significantly improved.
- The possible prowess of the user's PC to enjoy things have significantly improved.
- Developers have a carbon footprint to view of games both successes and failures, resulting in systems to be replicated, refined, or outright avoided.
- Like it or not, the market no longer being sub-only further stimulates competition and innovation.
- The gamers of yesteryear have aged, with that their demands and expectations also rising.
- MMOs aren't for basement dwelling nerds anymore.

Could we veer into subjectivity over story qualities across games? Sure. My tl;dr opinion on MMO plots, though? They're high school level at best. Coincidence? Maybe. Yeah, I prefer the XI and XIV style of story delivery with a mix of cutscenes and shorter text bubbles over giant blobs of tiny text plastered into a pop-up.


And in XI's case, that NPC you talked to and had nothing important to say now suddenly has a quest because you made a hidden fame level or completed some non-obvious related pre-rwq. Saving people time from wandering around aimlessly is not a bad thing. "But then they're not stopping and smelling the roses! They're totally not getting the full game experience!" And some people need to smoke weed to get the most out of life. Your fun != Their fun, nor should we pretend the presence of markers has suddenly deprived you of meaningful content. But you know what? There are also games with "stumbling over" quests out there despite the presence of markers, too. Things like finding a clickable out in the field or a unique mob drop. Sure, the quest trail may put you in these vicinities, but let's not pretend a sense of randomness has vanished. This even exists in things like FATEs.


You won't see me calling it perfect (I'd give that title to Rift), but it's better than XI's non-existent option. Don't play in NA or JP prime time? Good luck getting anything you can't solo done. Coincidentally, this is why many hated CoP on top of the level caps and job discrimination it fostered.

I do not really enjoy the current XI, but I do wish pre Abyssea XI was still here, I would play that. I also have not played XIV since november because it just was not for me. I got to and had a few 50s, got relic and so on and I can see why people like it. I mean it has many of the features a "modern" mmo should have. Essentially it is a FF version of 2012 WoW, which is not a bad thing per se, it is again just not something I am looking for. Partly because imo you can not beat WoW at being WoW and also because... been there done that.

When it boils down to it I have found that what I like is probably not what most mmorpg players today want. I want:

- The game to start at lvl 1. No "rush to max for the real game to begin". For me this also means that it can take quite a long time to get to max level because while you want to get to max it is just a distant goal but there is so much before that. When you, as a newbie, see those high level players you are in awe at their power and "coolness".

- An open world that feels big and "content" in it. This is so important for me honestly, I want the world to be filled with dungeons and places to explore, hidden areas, secrets, huge monsters that might or might not drop something cool. Generally this means it has to be more dangerous than what we see in most games now. It also means it just has to take some time to travel to different places. I do not mean it needs to take ages and I have to wait for thirty minutes for the boat to arrive, but it does mean there just can not be instant teleports everywhere. The sense of exploration and the feeling of a huuuge world just disappears completely when you can get there within seconds no matter what.

- Horizontal progression. For me when the developers add content, that should be content that adds to the world, not just completely replaces the old or more or less makes it the only thing worth doing if you want to progress. It is rather funny if you ask me that more or less every mmo nowadays has the issue of people complaining that there is not enough content (especially at endgame). It is no wonder developers can not keep up when they keep making all their previous work more or less worthless. I mean I just do not understand why it is so clear that it is "better" to have people complain there is not enough content and try to solve it by making three versions of the same fight but harder and then call it new content. For me the whole "play for two or three weeks and then wait for the next patch" is not something good.

- Long term goals that I might never achieve myself, but that are out there for those who want to go for it. Of course there needs to be a mix of things I can get myself etc but PERSONALLY I actually enjoy seeing some people walk around with that amazingly cool item that just makes me go "holy moly". I like telling my friends I just saw a dude wearing X, even though I know I will never get it. It is fun for me to be in a world where there are some legendary items/players. As long as there are other cool items that are fun for me to aim for I do not see it as a bad thing if there are others who aim for the legendary things.

- Money should mean something. I actually like being able to buy some great items off the AH. Not all, some found and some crafted, but still it should be there.

- Better balance between solo and party play. This whole "solo exp to max and then only party" is a strange concept to me. By this I mean viable options for both playstyles at all levels.

When looking at these things I feel that I got some of it to a pretty good extent in pre Abyssea XI, which is why I am rather sad to see that the game is just turning more and more into something else. They killed the world for me when they raised the level cap (and no it was not actually because I had so pimp gear that all I worked for was made useless... because I did not lol). If you ask me I wish they had kept XI for those who liked it for what it was and then those who liked something else could play XIV. Now I end up with two games I wish I liked, but unfortunately do not (anymore).

I have a feeling Everquest Next will deliver at least some of what I am looking for, or at least to a greater extent than any other game released lately (since WoW). I think it will deliver either way, but they are even discussing "oldschool servers" which could be cool for people like me. I mean like I said, I realize I am in a minority and I am not saying developers are doing it wrong, but I wish there was a little more variety in the market. Hopefully EQN can deliver for me and maybe the idea of different ruleset servers which can deliver completely different experiences, to a larger extent than they do now, could be my savior. Actually it might be the future, there are many different ways people want to enjoy mmos and if you ask me variation is what is lacking in the industry atm.

As I stated:



I wasn't talking out of nostalgia. Comparing the failure rates back before MMOs became mainstream and pandered to every asinine complaint is pretty night and day. I don't mean just "triple a titles" either.



As stated by SE themselves, the main hate for CoP was:

1. Level Caps
2. Trying to get it done many years after the fact.

The first point is the main reason people hated CoP while it was still relevant. We won't even talk about difficulty or the 'easy win' strategies because in my personal experience, it was much easier to just do it normally than trying to find people who even knew how to properly play SMN unless you already had great SMNs in your linkshell/friendlist for example.