With the welcome back campaign...Follow

I had to make an account to say this lol....but this is not your type of game.

You can say whatever you want, I've played many MMOs and this game is by FAR the largest grind there is, I love the scenery and the graphics and from what I understand it's getting yet another overhaul but regardless I'm looking for more information on what's changed, WHEN I played there were VERY few quests, you were limited in how many you could take ect, this included VERY limited job quests for end game use.

Unfortunately it is still really grindy. They really need to chop tnls by at least a third.

Havent played since before the fees, my favorite game of all time is FFXI so i am gonna give it another shot, dont think i had any jobs past lvl 20.

Still slow laggy and choppy, maybe its my system but the dealbreaker is still no AH, I'm out.

This is the issue though with leveling, no random stranger is going to plvl you, leve's get old fast and exp groups...I shouted for awhile and got 0 replies. There seems to be plenty of people shouting for 40+...but I'm not anywhere near there. If there was ONE thing SWTOR got right it was leveling, whether it was solo or in group, and I hope 2.0 somehow follows that trend (though I doubt it will).

This is what's worrysome about 2.0, if everyone gets to keep all their jobs at level 50, who the hell is going to want to join, revamp or not? Sometimes I wished they would just wipe all data and make everyone start fresh, but I understand that would piss off the player base that's been so faithful and willing to pay. So it's obviously not an option. On the other hand, if you want to attract loads of new players, it'd be best for that. We can say they'll raise the level cap, but again everyone will be ahead while you're playing catch up, the old school players will be doing new content while you're playing catch up. Sure, go at your own pace, but the best part of an MMO is when everything is fresh for everyone, not when 80% of the population will be doing everything new and the rest trying to level.

I do think FFXIV will be around for quite awhile with the base they have now as they seem quite dedicated, if they can keep the 10 servers moderately full, it'll work out pretty well. Though, to make the game what it should of been, I doubt it'll ever happen even with 2.0 simply cause all these dedicated players will be too far ahead of the curve. This welcome back campaign is showing, those who left cause they couldn't get parties or level in groups, are still having a hard time, is 2.0 going to change that? Probably not.

Only on gathering, everything else is pretty quick. If you need a hand and I'm on send me a /tell. I won't PL you but I'd be happy to kill stuff with ya.

Probably gonna get downrated to the gutter, but I wanted to chime in on this issue because I actually care about this game, but SE's design decisions and business policies keep pushing me away from it.

Case in point: the grind is something SE is going to have to move away from. It's simply not passable game-design anymore, and the longer they cling to it the faster their fan base will diminish. People don't want to pay their money to do the same thing repetitively over and over... that's how we work for our money. We want to spend our time playing the game by adventuring.

Now, the old model, the model they used in FFXI a decade or so ago is the idea that you place leveled content for the players to experience and then use the leveling mechanics as a pace-car. By managing the rate at which players progress, you can keep them playing longer and thus paying more.

That kind of model is outdated. It doesn't draw people anymore the way it used to. Ten years ago, the U.S. and World economies weren't in as bad shape, people had a bit better job security, and a bit more free time, college tuition debt wasn't as bad... you get the point. Now people have less time and money to be spending on entertainment... but they're still going to spend the money. You just have to have a product that's going to appeal to them, you can't just assume on brand loyalty to carry you through if there's nothing to be loyal too.

Especially if you're still trying to milk loyalty from decades-old titles.

The management of FFXIV has been deplorable. In the early days, the game was nigh unplayable. Updates have been slow. If by this point they are still using grind to pad out the lack of content... then I'll look elsewhere to spend my money for entertainment.

It isn't just the business practices. Like I said, I disagree fundamentally with many of their design decisions; they implemented the classic Jobs, for example, in precisely the way I was hoping they wouldn't, turning what was an interesting, open class-creation system (the Armory System) into something even more restrictive than FFXI's class system: imagine if you could only physically select one combination of Main Class/Subjob... you could only ever play as a Pld/War for example, or a Rdm/Whm. This is EXACTLY the problem that players decried in FFXI as limiting (and it was a community issue as much as a design issue, because there were certain combinations that were ideal, and the players would not accept anything less than ideal in FFXI).

As I argued a year ago, the problem with class-role differentiation doesn't need to be fixed by focusing jobs tightly on specific roles, rather you need to define specific roles necessary for the party and let players decide how to fill those roles, something that FFXIV has lacked. Instead, again, they took a system that was supposed to be inherently customizable and made it static and uninteresting.

In any case, this is all moot I think. They'll maintain their core supporters, but as the fantastic, progressive titles like FFVII and FFXI fade farther into the past, and the games SE does produce continue to decline in quality, they won't have younger generations of gamers clinging to their franchise. Now is the time for SE to reinvent the brand. In fact, I would go so far as to say now is a pivotal time for them; the brand is undergoing reinvention whether they like it or not, and if they stick to their old way of doing business, then I'm afraid their brand is not going to survive the transition in very good shape.

This is not to trash the game, or the company, or to troll anyone here on the forums. I honestly would love to come back to FFXIV, but they're going to have to adapt to a changing industry or else I'll simply find my entertainment elsewhere, notably with games that don't require me to devote time I don't have to doing things I'd rather not be doing.

I know, I know, don't let the door hit me on the way out, right?

A word of warning though, guys... that attitude leads to vacant servers and plugs being pulled.

GaliC, you express a lot of concerns, but with no openess to have them addressed.

You approach this with a closed mind and a upturned nose, and it's difficult to express that.

You stated you grinded Leves with your friend? At what difficulty and level? Solo, I could get a level an hour fairly easily, and you're saying you're at half that pacing. Something seems off to me here and I'd like to help out.

Also, for example, you argue against the Job system and the fact that you only have a specific amount of set options. You complain heavily about it, but you do so in the absolute neglect of the fact that the class system still exists, and is still flexible. There are fights, partciuarlly Ifirit, where Classes are still put to use over Jobs. Granted, Class Stacking is still a problem in some cases, but I think this issue can be resolved fairly simply or very interestingly, depending on what SE does with it.

As far as abilities gone for ever, yeah, mages got the shaft a bit when they re-arranged abilities. But combat in general has an overall better feel for it. Still, some other abilities, like Doomspike 1, 2, just got rolled in together, and are not gone forever.

I mean - I'd love to sit and figure things out with you guys, but it just feels like you're not interested enough for the conversation to continue.