4.0 the new 8.8?

[Yeargdribble]

It's a case of "My-10-year-old-established MMO can do this, this and this. Why can't this one?!"

SE doesn't get a pass on this. This is not their first MMO. They do have nearly 10 years of experience and have no excuses to have made the blunders they seem to have made. SE was horrible about listening to feedback in FFXI and only in the last years have they actually started listening to the playerbase and making some improvements.

Perhaps my opinion will be discounted because I haven't played FFXIV yet, but I am familiar with SE. I know their MO. They have terrible customer support and don't listen to their players. I love the flavor of FFXI and I'm sure at some point I'll enjoy FFXIV for the flavor.

There's going to be an issue of bias coming not only from people who are on a FF based forum, but also from people who bought. People are always apologists for things they pay a lot of money for so they don't have buyer's remorse.


I think expectations were generally too high for the game and it's causing a backlash. People were unrealistic in thinking it would be the perfect, most beautiful, most awesome be-all-end-all MMO. No MMO can live up to that. However, I think it's fair to say it's an unfinished project as that seems to be a point of unanimous criticism. Once again, while I think expectations shouldn't be ridiculous, they should be higher for a company that has created and run another MMO for nearly a decade. Just making it pretty isn't going to be enough.

[Madame Adequate]

I just want to say that I really really really want to like FFXIV - I liked a lot of things about XI, and I was only put off by A) needing to party to do anything at all and B) the atrociously bad UI. In the first case that declined later, and it seems XIV is a lot better in this regard, but if anything the second point is even worse. I know there are people who don't have a problem with it, and there are games where I have soldiered gamely on through bad design because I found other aspects of the game the effort, but judging from this I simply don't see how I could, at this stage, get much enjoyment out of FFXIV.

No MMO is perfect at launch, but when you've made a successful MMO before, and you have plenty of other examples - both successful and not - to draw on, there is no excuse to make fundamental and elementary mistakes which, unless people are outright lying, FFXIV makes.

I do sincerely hope that with time it becomes something I want to play, despite this. I'm just not confident that it will.

[Ouch!]

This may be a great deal of speculation, but I think it may be worth noting that FFXIV has been in development a good five years now. I think this may be an important factor in the types of mistakes that are being made with FFXIV. More specifically, the mistakes being made, such as a poor user interface, are the same types of mistakes that were made at FFXI's retail launch.

This is not a coincidence, nor is it a coincidence that many of these errors were rectified relatively late in FFXI's lifespan. I can't say for certain since I've hardly followed the distribution of the development teams for FFXI and FFXIV, but I would suppose the following: much of what was fixed in FFXI was fixed after the original development team shifted its efforts largely towards FFXIV. The same mistakes are being made because, quite frankly, they didn't learn from FFXI. They were never part of the clean up which was largely responsible for correcting many of the errors which made FFXI more difficult to play; as a result, their development of FFXIV does not reflect a great deal of the learning from FFXI.

If I'm correct, we will see many of the same mistakes. Hopefully it also means that FFXIV's development team can look back on FFXI and see what their replacements did to improve on the game so that the fixes come quicker this time around.

[Del Murder]

I'm pretty sure that eventually FFXIV will be awesome like FFXI was. Reading some of the stuff on that list Gobo posted was great comedy. I guess people expected more at launch but that doesn't mean the game will always be like that, in fact it's almost 100% that it won't be.

I'm excited for the PS3 release because it appears the game was designed for a controller and it will look super awesome on my TV. The only problem is finding a way for Miriel and I to play together.

[Yeargdribble]

No MMO is perfect at launch, but when you've made a successful MMO before, and you have plenty of other examples - both successful and not - to draw on, there is no excuse to make fundamental and elementary mistakes which, unless people are outright lying, FFXIV makes.

This is the point I can't hammer enough. However, I keep hearing the argument "FFXI wasn't great at launch but it improved and FFXIV will improve with time."

Think about this statement for a moment. Why should SE, who made an MMO that was horribly flawed initially be given a free pass to put out a game that is largely broken when they should've learned from experience? Sure, FFXIV is doing things that aren't directly analogous. They are new and will need tweaking, but in areas like the UI, why go from broken (FFXI) to brokener (FFXIV). They. Should. Know. Better.

Sure they want to distinguish themselves from the WoW clones, but that's like making s**t burgers to differentiate yourself from cheeseburgers. The UI should not be so wayward and if you think they will fix that you're likely mistaken. That would be a very difficult thing for them to fix now that the game is launched, so the players are stuck with less than stellar UI for the foreseeable future and most likely for the life of the game.


If you're giving SE slack, don't. Would you give Blizzard slack on their next MMO by saying "Well, WoW wasn't perfect at launch either."? No. Most likely you'd scratch your head at how a company that had years to learn from mistakes and perfect their craft managed to make something crappy. You would call it lazy and sloppy.

[Ouch!]

I provided an explanation. I didn't say it was a good one or that they shouldn't have known better regardless. Obviously mistakes have been made that should not have been made. Am I going to forget the game forever because of it? No. I'll wait for the inevitable improvements and deal with it in the meantime. If it's a deal-breaker for you, that's fine. I'm willing to wait because I think the game has enormous potential otherwise.

[Loony BoB]

The UI should not be so wayward and if you think they will fix that you're likely mistaken. That would be a very difficult thing for them to fix now that the game is launched, so the players are stuck with less than stellar UI for the foreseeable future and most likely for the life of the game.

And the complaints about the game are not falling upon deaf ears. The number one complaint that the team has heard is about the user interface, and that is the current top priority for the team. Performance-smoothing is next on the list, followed by content and new features. Each team is working on the game to improve it, and every piece of feedback is being compiled worldwide and taken into account for development.

In all honesty though, aside from the lag and the lack of sorting of items, I'm fine with the UI. Maybe it's because I don't know what I'm missing out on because I don't play WoW, but I'm happy.

[Yeargdribble]

I provided an explanation. I didn't say it was a good one or that they shouldn't have known better regardless. Obviously mistakes have been made that should not have been made. Am I going to forget the game forever because of it? No. I'll wait for the inevitable improvements and deal with it in the meantime. If it's a deal-breaker for you, that's fine. I'm willing to wait because I think the game has enormous potential otherwise.

Yeah. I know it's hard to tell with how harsh I tend to be, but I'm not saying that it should be a deal-breaker. As someone jaded by SE, I'm just saying that I'm disappointed, but I full expect that I'll be playing FFXIV within a year and that it will be a solid game.

In all honesty though, aside from the lag and the lack of sorting of items, I'm fine with the UI. Maybe it's because I don't know what I'm missing out on because I don't play WoW, but I'm happy.

This is also fine. Ignorance truly is bliss. I didn't understand why so many people hated the FFXI interface before I played WoW and similar UI'd MMOs. Now I find it a little more frustrating. That said, I think the bile ejected toward the UI is greatly exaggerated. There's certainly the case of people being so used to WoW type interfaces that they won't give the FFXI UI a chance.

To call it unplayable is certainly hyperbolic. I've adjusted well to the FFXI UI, but I also know that it's far from optimal. I wish they hadn't taken such a similar direction with FFXIV, but in the long run it's not going to stop me from playing the game once some things are ironed out. That doesn't mean I'm happy with it. I really hope that SE learns even more before FFXIX (or whichever is their next MMO) and doesn't just pigheadedly keep trying to blaze trails with crap.

[Loony BoB]

Ignorance isn't the best word, more just not having used other systems - although I get the point of what you're saying and it runs very true in my case, I suppose. But then, people have said EVE's system was bad, too, and I thought it was amazing. Go figure. FFXI's, though, I never really enjoyed at all. I liked the game regardless because of the great community.

[Rostum]

This is also fine. Ignorance truly is bliss. I didn't understand why so many people hated the FFXI interface before I played WoW and similar UI'd MMOs. Now I find it a little more frustrating. That said, I think the bile ejected toward the UI is greatly exaggerated. There's certainly the case of people being so used to WoW type interfaces that they won't give the FFXI UI a chance.

FFXIV's interface isn't that bad. It really isn't. You can't compare it or think of it to be worse than FFXI's.

The only issues the interface has is menu lag (which is not a design flaw but something that really needs to be fixed) and lacking in hotkeys (which I'm sure would be easy enough for SE to add and perhaps they will).

You can't really say "Well WoW's interface does this, this and this" when the games as a whole function differently to each other.

Most of the complaints people have are because they have to click one extra button when talking to an aetheryte - which is not a huge deal and it doesn't affect anything at all (in fact it doesn't even take 1 second to do). Or there's the battle interface, which is fairly identicle to most MMO's but you get the "lag" of the character pulling out his weapon - again this isn't a really fast paced MMO where you need instant action. Of course if you don't like the slower paced then fair enough, but you can't really say it's a broken interface because of it.

I don't know. As someone who's played FFXI, WoW and Aion all from release, I don't really see where all this negativity about FFXIV's interface is coming from except for the lag and lack of some hotkeys/auto-sorting. Which are features that I would hope SE never think twice about putting in.

On another note, a recent interview with Sage Sundi said that SE are listening and they are reading the premium fan based forums. But really they need to improve on communication, not just listening.

[Yeargdribble]

Ignorance isn't the best word, more just not having used other systems - although I get the point of what you're saying and it runs very true in my case, I suppose. But then, people have said EVE's system was bad, too, and I thought it was amazing. Go figure. FFXI's, though, I never really enjoyed at all. I liked the game regardless because of the great community.

SEMANTICS: I actually think ignorance is the perfect word. It's just that we've learned to connote the word ignorant with stupid, but it really means no such thing. Most people take exception to being called ignorant, but it's really not an insult and I didn't mean it as such. Outside of the connotations it just means being unaware which is precisely your stiuations.


I liked (and do like) FFXI for many reasons. The story, though sometimes haphazardly constructed, really made you feel connected more. Problem was, you didn't get to be involved unless you leveled quite high. I also just love the FF flavor with White Mages and other very FF thing. I liked the community and I appreciated them far more after playing a game like WoW (though LOTRO still had a far better community when I played it).

On another note, a recent interview with Sage Sundi said that SE are listening and they are reading the premium fan based forums. But really they need to improve on communication, not just listening.

He has said this before. SE in general has claimed this before. For years when they said that nobody needed windower. When they claimed RMT wasn't a problem. When they said that Ullikummi being a bottleneck in sky was a non-issue. AV being unbeatable wasn't an issue. Sure, they've cleaned up, but they blatantly ignored the userbase of FFXI for nearly 5 years before they started making adjustments. All the while they claimed they were listening.

Most of the complaints people have are because they have to click one extra button when talking to an aetheryte - which is not a huge deal and it doesn't affect anything at all (in fact it doesn't even take 1 second to do).

This type of annoyance does add up. In FFXI there are around 3 confirmation boxes to list an item on the AH. When you're trying to quickly list lots of items this takes forever. There's no need to have so much confirmation. Extra confirmation stuff is very annoying. WoW did a great job any time the community complained about the redundancy of these things. Blizz didn't just write off the players and say it's not a real issue and the whiners need to shut it. They changed it because it's annoying in a game that is at its heart repetitive to have mundane repetitions shoved down your throat.

Or there's the battle interface, which is fairly identicle to most MMO's but you get the "lag" of the character pulling out his weapon - again this isn't a really fast paced MMO where you need instant action. Of course if you don't like the slower paced then fair enough, but you can't really say it's a broken interface because of it.

I don't care if it's not a fast, action based MMO. This is probably my biggest gripe with FFXI. I hate how long it takes to enter combat. What I hate more is trying to enter combat right after finishing a mob.

You must wait longer to perform that action.
You must wait longer to perform that action.
You must wait longer to perform that action.
You must wait longer to perform that action.
You must wait longer to perform that action.

You say it's identical, but I don't remember such an issue in LOTRO, Aion or WoW. You can stream quickly from one foe to the next without hesitation. There is no noticeable lag in drawing a weapon. If I hit a macro in WoW it goes off immediately. Leaving combat with one foe doesn't stop me from entering new combat for 5+ seconds.

Even worse is trying to do certain actions on the AH or check your delivery box. There is NO REASON that it should make you wait 30 seconds to check again. There's no reason it should be so impossible to look up the going rate of an item on the AH in FFXI and there's no reason they shoud've foregone AHs in FFXIV.

The concept of a player-drive economy with only player-sold/traded items is cool... as a concept. In reality it's smurfing annoying.

[Rostum]

You say it's identical, but I don't remember such an issue in LOTRO, Aion or WoW. You can stream quickly from one foe to the next without hesitation. There is no noticeable lag in drawing a weapon. If I hit a macro in WoW it goes off immediately. Leaving combat with one foe doesn't stop me from entering new combat for 5+ seconds.

You can in FFXIV. Once you've drawn your weapon you don't put it away after each battle, you can just continue on to the next mob without any delay what-so-ever. The reason they have a two different modes is the way the game is set up, you can mix and match abilities to pretty much create any kind of job you want which would be unfair if you could do that during battle, so they had to impliment a passive mode and a slight delay (2 seconds at most to pull out the weapon).

And I don't know why you're arguing FFXI's ways when this game is not FFXI and I had no intention of talking about FFXI. Considering none of what you've mentioned has really been an issue at all (other than UI lag, which SE acknowledge and are fixing).

Also, who's to say SE aren't going to be fixing stuff via player feedback? They have the Lodestone website (central hub for FFXIV) where you can specifically send feedback to the developers, as well as SE saying they plan to have a patch each week (correct me if I'm wrong). The game has only really just been released, and a lot of issues have been fixed since, so you can't expect them to fix everything instantly as soon as a player complains about it.

Give them a chance, even knowing how bad they were during the first 5-6 years of FFXI. It has always been an issue in Japan with developers , which is something that is being remedied and it looks like SE are really trying to do that. And that's not an easy task by any means.

I'm not going to completely defend SE like a rabid fanboi, but I'm trying to give this game a fair go whereas most people are just completeing dismissing it because of their own bias. In saying that, there's heaps of issues that need to be fixed or else I'm out.

The concept of a player-drive economy with only player-sold/traded items is cool... as a concept. In reality it's smurfing annoying.

I agree, it hasn't exactly sold me. All it really needs is a good way to search for items, which they are putting in. You'd get the same issues with an auction house at release since no economy has been established. The word is they'll end up putting one in soon enough.

[Madame Adequate]

SE may well fix things, but I think that expecting them to do so is incredible, in the sense of beyond credibility. They have a deserved reputation as the most obsequious, unfriendly, unhelpful MMO dev in the business, so I'm not going to say improvement is impossible, but I'm certainly going to say it's unlikely. Hell, there's breaking news right now that SE are overzealously handing out bans and suspensions for naming violations

FFXIV ToS: 3.5 Naming Right. You may not use any name or other intellectual property belonging to SQUARE ENIX or any other third party in your use of the Game (for example, naming a character after a celebrity, company, product, or superhero)

- the convention in the industry is that you get forced to change your name if someone is annoyed enough to report you, nothing else. To suspend or ban people for it boggles the mind. They may be within their rights to do it, but it's really like they're trying some sort of Springtime for Hitler thing at this point.

[Rostum]

Yeah, that is fairly insane. I'd have to say there must be more to it, as the way they dealt with it in FFXI was just forcing the person to change their name and not ban them - especially when I see people like "Chrono Trigger" running around in FFXIV. But if it's true, it's very bad...

[Loony BoB]

If that's true and there is no resolution then it is most certainly a shame. However, I wouldn't complain if the likes of Fortywaystosuckballs (retainer) was forced into a rename - amusing as it is for us. Probably still there, though, oddly.

The sad thing I find is that when they do fix things, people just complain anyway, they find a way to rant at SE regardless. It's this kind of person that I find to be ungrateful and entirely likely to be a person who is only posting in forums in order to make the game less appealling, like they have some kind of vendetta against the company and/or game.

If they fix something, people should commend them, not slate them. If they add a feature that was requested, people should commend them, not slate them. If they do anything we ask them to do, they should be thanked. But no, most people will say "About time. God, this should have been there from the start. I hate this game." and while maybe they should have had it there from the start, that doesn't change the fact that they did something you asked of them and now they are starting on the next thing that is requested. If people were a little more reasonable towards the company then I'd have a bit more respect for their opinion.

I think EoFF is actually really lucky that we don't have many, if any, of these kind of people registered here and actively posting in this forum. They're everywhere on other forums and that's why I don't actually post there. Someone out there should make a dedicated FFXIV forum which is restricted to people who actually like the game. If you don't like something about the game, sure, complain. But if you don't like the game at all, don't spend days upon days complaining about everything and slating SE at every turn. I mean, I don't like most racing games and probably wouldn't like American Football games as they just aren't my thing. Likewise I was never a big Tomb Raider fan despite being a massive Uncharted fan. Does that mean I should register at the Tomb Raider forums and complain about everything I can because it's not Uncharted? Urgh.

This is more a rant at the people who are out there at various sites providing user-feedback and user-reviews and discouraging people from playing. I think some guy got it right when he made some article about "Is FFXIV the right game for you?" and the most important thing he said is a prerequisite for the game was that you want to like it. I'm sure there are people out there who would slate FFXIV even if it was a perfect clone of their favourite game, be that WoW or Gran Turismo.

There are still people out there who say they want to like the game that are just unable to, and again, if you don't like the game at all then that's that, man. Just because it's a Final Fantasy doesn't mean you have to like it and complain until you do. If it's simply not your thing, don't worry about it, there will be other MMO's. Basically, people should really complain about games only if they like the whole ideas behind the game but don't like certain aspects of it, such as bugs, economy, etc. In which case complain about those things, but don't complain that the game is crap... just don't buy it, don't subscribe. It is that simple!