Why are you looking forward to FF14?

[Lucavi]

I would say that while it is convenient it is by far one of the /worst/ changes to WoW they have made since WotLK. While it is fast, and it is good for farming badges, that is all it is good for. It turns every instance into a faster and faster rush to the end so you can go grind it again, which granted they had already been doing but the x-server thing really accelerated it. I have such fond memories of the vanilla instances and some of the TBC ones, that seeing their idea for Heroics in Wrath was bad enough but now that there is so much complaining about an easy instance like Occulus or a marginally interesting one like Halls of Reflection, and having to remember that those complainers are now Blizzard's customer base....

I mean I hate it for alot of reasons, the teleport, but the absolute destruction of server identity is by far the worst, as 5 mans were really the last remaining relic of having to actually interact with your server and the LFD tool destroyed that.

Good, bad, the "terrible" game play at times of FFXI is really why I ended up loving it so damn much. I certainly wouldn't have become such close friends with so many different people if not for the enforced grouping and the restrictions on leaving server and such.

I see what you're saying that it makes things fast, but really, I'll never say that something convenient is terrible. The reason people are plowing through instances is because they have increasingly better gear and have more incentives to do instances quickly because of tasty emblems.

Without cross-server, its the same gold-rush, only without the ability to get parties quickly and get into the action. Anything that shortens the time I have to spend sitting on my ass waiting for a group to finish forming is a good thing.

You're talking to a guy that used to go to sleep in FFXI while leaving his drg LFG, and would wake up with 1 invite from a JP guy at 3:30 in the morning. Don't try to talk to me about actually being able to do the content I want to do at a quick pace being bad.

Yeah, nostalgia is great, but convenience is great. For the record, I didn't particularly like the old days of instance grinding for resist gear. What do you know? There was instance grinding back in WoW's glory days of Vanilla!

And yeah, eagle, when I can dodge, block, parry, and fight with a fluid system that actually looks like real combat instead of bouncing on the heels of my feet for 4 seconds between every swing of a slow lance... yeah. I loved my Drg, and I loved FF, but come on. I'll take fluid over pretty anyday, and FF isn't all that pretty, its just a different style.

Pixilated is pixilated.

[Vacht]

I see what you're saying that it makes things fast, but really, I'll never say that something convenient is terrible. The reason people are plowing through instances is because they have increasingly better gear and have more incentives to do instances quickly because of tasty emblems.

Without cross-server, its the same gold-rush, only without the ability to get parties quickly and get into the action. Anything that shortens the time I have to spend sitting on my ass waiting for a group to finish forming is a good thing.

You're talking to a guy that used to go to sleep in FFXI while leaving his drg LFG, and would wake up with 1 invite from a JP guy at 3:30 in the morning. Don't try to talk to me about actually being able to do the content I want to do at a quick pace being bad.

Yeah, nostalgia is great, but convenience is great. For the record, I didn't particularly like the old days of instance grinding for resist gear. What do you know? There was instance grinding back in WoW's glory days of Vanilla!

That was the the worst.

[Lucavi]

Yeah, it sucked because those were usually the GOOD parties, and I see that I've missed it. I don't regret any of it though - I had so much fun with the game that i just looked at all of it as an experience, even the shitty drg bais parts.

[Vacht]

Yeah, it sucked because those were usually the GOOD parties, and I see that I've missed it. I don't regret any of it though - I had so much fun with the game that i just looked at all of it as an experience, even the shitty drg bais parts.

Totally, and that DRG bias never made sense... Some of the best parties I had were on abraxas with 2 drg 2 thf brd and rdm. There just werent enough birds.

[Lucavi]

There's always a bit of truth buried within stereotypes. Shitty drgs were -really- shitty, and even the best drg was useless if he/she took a one-shot WS to the face. Drg had poor armor and had to work hard to climb over the damage and acc mountain, but once they did... heh.

There was some truth in the drg bias, but as always with humans, it was taken way, way too far.

[Kaylia]

I wish I knew more about WoW... i just dont know how anyone could play with those crappy graphics. /twiddles thumbs

I know you're trolling (to some extent), but I will take the bite anyway.

Spoiler: show

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/5227/wow5g.jpg
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/2283/wow4w.jpg
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/5452/wow3.jpg
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/7927/wow2d.jpg
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/6245/wow1pm.jpg

Certain thing look bad when you zoom up really close and take a screenshot, but it's rare something will just look wrong. The visual effect (lightning, particles effect) usually make up for it.

And well, I don't think people play WoW for the graphic in the first place.

[Yoli]

Just a different style of pictures :: shrug ::.

They do what they want to do fairly well, I suppose. I like the ffxi style pictures much more, but it's just personal preferance either way.


As far as actual playing goes, I think there's a bit of "busy work" button pushing that goes on in games like wow and Aion. "busy work's" not really the right word though, because you're just pushing buttons in ff and any other game too... I don't see why I'd want to be casting protect (or something like that) every 30 seconds when I could just stick it up for 30 minutes, I guess. It seems like they're giving you rotations just for the sake of giving you rotations, kind of. And that does keep you busy, and make things look more fluid, I guess.

In ff you got to play a bit more reactively instead (pick the right time to use superjump/flash/etc... keep up haste, but it only needs to be recast every minute or so. Protect and shell every 30. Spot a tank canceling shell by mistake instead of shadows and fix it, wait for other people to get tp and skill chain.)

But yeah, there was a little bit of excessive bouncing on your feet. Like some people have said, I think TP was probably meant to be a tiny bit more dynamic, and didn't really work out. I think skill chains could have made life more interesting too, if they'd been implemented a bit better. Maybe add a few extra job abilities in for everyone as well, so there's a bit less bouncing around and a bit more decision making. Adding abilities seemed to be the direction SE ended up taking (although it's hard to say how much of that was a directional shift on their part, and how much was just pressure for new stuff).

My hope is that ff 14 would give every job a few more things to be doing, without trying to stick rigid 1,1,2,3,1,4 type rotations on any job.

[Kaylia]

but it's just personal preferance either way.

I wish it was personal preference, but 99% of the time I see this comment, it's people who havent played one or the other. People who have experienced both rarely bother with comment like this.

Casting a buff every 30 seconds would be stupid. I haven't played Aion, but I don't know many mmorpg like this. In fact, FFXI is probably the mmo I've played that require you to cast your buff the most often (brd, haste, refresh)...it's almost everything you do on certain job.

My hope is that ff 14 would give every job a few more things to be doing, without trying to stick rigid 1,1,2,3,1,4 type rotations on any job.

Maybe you're talking about Aion, but do you sincerely think that's how you win most fights in WoW? How many "tank and spank" fight there is?

Basic skill rotation or WS spam is essentially the same. The only purpose is to keep you in front of the pc. However, that's not how the game is played.

[Lordender]

Rotations or not I want FFXIV endgame to be more than.

Omg slow+elegy the mob.
I sure hope our rdm/nin tank can count to 3.
omg we're in trouble can this be slept?

I want to see actual boss mechanic's things you need to do to win. I want bosses to test how smart people work together and put the players in some tough situations.

[Destinye]

Rotations or not I want FFXIV endgame to be more than.

Omg slow+elegy the mob.
I sure hope our rdm/nin tank can count to 3.
omg we're in trouble can this be slept?

I want to see actual boss mechanic's things you need to do to win. I want bosses to test how smart people work together and put the players in some tough situations.

Which will degrade into "LOWMAN, ZERG THIS SHIT or have only x,y,z classes for it!" eventually >.> People love to take any strategy out of fights when they can find a way to do it as fast as possible.

[Kaylia]

Rotations or not I want FFXIV endgame to be more than.

Omg slow+elegy the mob.
I sure hope our rdm/nin tank can count to 3.
omg we're in trouble can this be slept?

I want to see actual boss mechanic's things you need to do to win. I want bosses to test how smart people work together and put the players in some tough situations.

Always make me laugh when I see ultima's citadel buster kill 5 peoples. You couldnt have a gimmick easier to understand than this, and people still fail horribly.

OH SHIT, IT'S DOING SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN EVERY OTHER MOBS, LETS RUN LIKE HEADLESS CHICKEN.


Ultima, diablos, bahamut (non homo way), Long armed chariot...I want fight like these.

[Hyan]

I wish it was personal preference, but 99% of the time I see this comment, it's people who havent played one or the other. People who have experienced both rarely bother with comment like this.

And that is most likely you talking with people who share the similar mindset as you do, which comes down to personal preferences once again.

It's not a surprise that the people I talk with have an opposite mindset. And no, I do not talk about things like this with people who have no experience about the subject.

[fussel]

Yeah, nostalgia is great, but convenience is great.

Well.

Taking a car instead of walking is convenience.

Asking a Jogger if he needs a lift is hillarious.

[Lucavi]

Well.

Taking a car instead of walking is convenience.

Asking a Jogger if he needs a lift is hillarious.

A valid point, but a jogger can jog for many reasons, health included. I saw no health benefits to having to sit around and wait even longer for your group to get set up, unless, of course, you're like me and work out in between battlegrounds or something.

Every push-up helps!

[Eyedea-Seraph]

A valid point, but a jogger can jog for many reasons, health included. I saw no health benefits to having to sit around and wait even longer for your group to get set up, unless, of course, you're like me and work out in between battlegrounds or something.

Every push-up helps!

when i first played ffxi i used to do reps in between healing to full hp lol

[ringthree]

I see what you're saying that it makes things fast, but really, I'll never say that something convenient is terrible. The reason people are plowing through instances is because they have increasingly better gear and have more incentives to do instances quickly because of tasty emblems.

Without cross-server, its the same gold-rush, only without the ability to get parties quickly and get into the action. Anything that shortens the time I have to spend sitting on my ass waiting for a group to finish forming is a good thing.

You're talking to a guy that used to go to sleep in FFXI while leaving his drg LFG, and would wake up with 1 invite from a JP guy at 3:30 in the morning. Don't try to talk to me about actually being able to do the content I want to do at a quick pace being bad.

Yeah, nostalgia is great, but convenience is great. For the record, I didn't particularly like the old days of instance grinding for resist gear. What do you know? There was instance grinding back in WoW's glory days of Vanilla!

And yeah, eagle, when I can dodge, block, parry, and fight with a fluid system that actually looks like real combat instead of bouncing on the heels of my feet for 4 seconds between every swing of a slow lance... yeah. I loved my Drg, and I loved FF, but come on. I'll take fluid over pretty anyday, and FF isn't all that pretty, its just a different style.

Pixilated is pixilated.

If you aren't willing to help yourself, then no one else will.

<< DRG first job to 75.

Started after the multi-hit TP return nerf. I made all of my own parties, and leveled just as fast as any other job.

[ringthree]

I know you're trolling (to some extent), but I will take the bite anyway.

Spoiler: show

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/5227/wow5g.jpg
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/2283/wow4w.jpg
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/5452/wow3.jpg
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/7927/wow2d.jpg
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/6245/wow1pm.jpg

Certain thing look bad when you zoom up really close and take a screenshot, but it's rare something will just look wrong. The visual effect (lightning, particles effect) usually make up for it.

And well, I don't think people play WoW for the graphic in the first place.

WoW looks good in screenshots, but the animations clip all the time, you don't need to get that close to see some of the poor background graphics, and things just don't translate well from the art style to the game for the most part. Don't get me started on how bad mountains look in WoW. It just looks like they took a rudimentary texture map and stretched it.

Like FFXI the older zones look worse than the newer zones, but in FFXI it looks like an artist designed the graphics, in WoW it looks like a graphics person tried to do art. It's subtle but very noticeable.

This is coming from someone that pretty much loves WoW's artistic style and how the game looks. I just think that FFXI is better.

[ringthree]

Going for the trifecta.

Did anyone else notice that the person that started this thread did it to bash FFXI and FFXIV and it turned into a FFXIV love fest? LOL

[Yoli]

I wish it was personal preference, but 99% of the time I see this comment, it's people who havent played one or the other.

How is it not personal preference? The two games simply did up their art in different styles... Dalaran doesn't look like Jeuno or Whitegate, and it was never trying to. I played both (albeit ff much more than wow) and can easily say which I like more, but I don't see why anyone else would be compelled to share that opinion. (As far as technical stuff goes like stretching texture maps or whatever... I know nothing about graphics in that respect, so can't comment.)

Maybe you're talking about Aion, but do you sincerely think that's how you win most fights in WoW?

I never really did "end game" in Aion, it wasn't really existing when I played. So maybe they fixed stuff up nicely. There was far too much of that leveling though.

It's not as bad in WoW, you're right, but it's there a bit more than I'd like.

If you aren't willing to help yourself, then no one else will.

<< DRG first job to 75.

I think his 1 party offer / 12 hours is kind of an extreme example. But the general point is valid. Some days - particularly at certain times - it was just difficult to get a party together (assuming you were making it). That's not to say I don't like parties... if they found a way to make this a bit easier though, it would be nice. (As for the people who didn't make their own parties and just complained... that's their fault in part. There's a lot of DD's that can fill the same slots, so it's just the nature of the beast if someone else gets picked up by chance).

What would a good way of keeping parties be though, while making it easier to get one together? If you still needed a tank and a healer, the stumbling blocks you had with six man parties are still going to be present for stuff you could run with three or four people. I mean, It wasn't /usually/ hard to fill out the DD slots - it was finding that rdm or whm or tank that kept things up most of the time.

You can get rid of the tank by giving 3 people good xp for mediumish mobs, and just letting a dd tank that stuff I guess. If mechanics gave tanks a useful way to contribute as a decent DD on things of that level. Still have to hold up for healers though. (Although drg/whm stuff or maybe a pup could have healed that well, if given the chance).

[Lucavi]

If you aren't willing to help yourself, then no one else will.

<< DRG first job to 75.

Started after the multi-hit TP return nerf. I made all of my own parties, and leveled just as fast as any other job.

It was a worse case scenario, but the point still stands. Paladin getting invites vs. brd getting invites vs. drg getting invites. Not everyone wanted a drg, or to join a party with one. Yeah, blah blah, I made parties and had good friends and had a good time, but the point of it all was the stigma, not how long it actually took to finish the journey.


You as a former drg can't tell me there wasn't a stigma, and I know that even you, king of the argument world, will not deny that. I'm sure I'll get a tough love speech from you about how people need to man up (and I did, otherwise I wouldn't have been one of the three strongest on the server), but still, bullshit stigmas suck, and are just another product of how shallow and pedantic humanity really can be.

Its just another reason I really, really love cross-server instancing in WoW. Just a brilliant idea, and I hope that eventually every game that has some sort of instancing will at least look at the model.

But all of that is horribly off-topic.