Random Complaint Thread. No white knighting allowed.

[person2007]

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985 out of 1,012 (97.3%) users referenced this review as helpful:

1★

Had this gone well, it could have remained the goose that laid the
golden egg. In this recession, SquareEnix certainly must have
hoped as much.

Every time I play, I ask myself "How did this happen?"

Cheap and shallow game content, with nothing fun to do except
leves. A game with nothing worthy of praise but the graphics.

Even still, before launch and for days afterward, I kept my hopes
up. I'm sure every SquareEnix fan did the same for FF14. But
recently they've put out nothing but trash that doesn't come close
to their earlier masterpieces. We fans know: SquareEnix no
longer exists. Instead we have a company President in Wada who
openly despises his users, and puts the shareholders first. Just
once, I wish they would sincerely listen to their users instead.

Final Fantasy is the public face of SquareEnix, just like Pokemon
and Mario are for Nintendo. That's how you treat official
numbered titles. Every SquareEnix fan should be outraged. Fans
should say it most strongly especially because they're
fans. If we don't make them see, they will never understand.

This game is rife with systems, item names, etc that point squarely
to them cozying up to China in a way that no domestic game should
do. Even when maintenance patch notes are in Japanese to begin
with, they are poorly translated and hard to understand. Is it a
good idea for a Japanese company to be ignoring its Japanese users
at a point in time where games are struggling as an industry in
general?

Finally, it's clear the 10/1 release date was purely because
management said they needed to launch an online title by then. If
you want to play a game that feels so much like the bleak end of
an era, I recommend you go play Fallout 3. I look back on the
SquareEnix of the NES, SNES, and Playstation eras like the ghost
of a bygone age. I'm sure every fan in their 20's and 30's has to
feel the same. Who would have thought 14 could turn out to be the
end of the brand entirely? It's pretty depressing.

I apologize for my poorly-written ramble. I just hope that by
being so blunt, they might eventually listen.

Taken off FFXIVPro, JP review, if you havent read it...

[Ezekial]

Hmmm, that Hyan retard hasn't made a post in 4 pages with some retarded crap no one will read trying to defend this game, even though it's summing up to a big big pile of shit.

Wonder if he died, or just realized everything he has been trying to counter is retarded and this game should still be in beta.

Complaint: Menu locking your character in a run path for 2-5 seconds, it caused me to run into an antlion today and die.

[Lordender]

Wonder how long before tanaka rages on twitter about how many people dislike the game. Seems like the japanese are far more harsh than we are lol.

[Corbins]

Good to see that the JP gaming community are tearing into it, might just be the rocket up the ass SE need.

[miokomioko]

I don't get this whole China thing that keeps getting brought up. How is XIV catered to the Chinese, and WHY DO WE CARE?

[Kaylia]

Wonder how long before tanaka rages on twitter about how many people dislike the game. Seems like the japanese are far more harsh than we are lol.

Yep. Watch them bitch about people not playing the game "correctly", and not giving it a proper chance.


"We aren't doing it wrong, you are"

This is one of the complaints I have the hardest time understanding. Who exactly is having that hard of a time playing around, exploring, trial/error here and there as a brand new player in a brand new game and still just doesn't get it and throws their arms up in surrender? What aspect(s) of the game exactly is so "severely" lacking explanation? Is someone who caught on and understands the general mechanics of things that much more intelligent than the average person?

Kids these days!

Don't give yourself too much credit. Anyone can understand the mechanics after wasting a certain amount of time in game. Still doesn't mean SE shouldn't have facilitated the process by giving you decent tutorials. Hell, single players FF games always have great tutorial usually...why not do the same here? It's not like the game is more complex in its current state.

How do I repair my gears? Oh, it's simple, just talk to every npc in town and you will eventually fine one that does it. Instead, why arent they triggering a pop-up message that appears on your screen the first time you reach 50% durability to explain how repairs work, and guide you to the npc? It's the same deal with nearly every aspects of the games.

The biggest issue in my opinion is the control. They should tell you exactly how you're supposed to play the games. How do I open the menu, what macro should I use...etc. the control is so awkward at first, even for someeone who is used to ffxi.

[fussel]

The actual comparison of data may not be "like-for-like", but the principle stands. It takes longer to level in FFXIV than in XI, especially given the random nature of advancement.

It doesn't take longer, just because it's random. If you kill 10 mobs, would you rather get 154, 250, 0, 42, 319, 208, 112, 99, 227, 4 skill points, or would you rather get 120 skill points flat for each mob?

And yes, variance is that large, we were in a group of four yesterday and I got about 400 skill points for some mobs and nothing for others.

I'm an English teacher, not a mathematician.

Obviously.

[Kuroanagi]

I don't get this whole China thing that keeps getting brought up. How is XIV catered to the Chinese, and WHY DO WE CARE?

When the game went retail in Japan, some things named on the map were written in a prodominently Chinese way instead of Japanese (I.E. The spelling of Chocobo with Kanji - making "Horse Bird" instead of spelling it with Japanese katakana). This led trolls on 2ch to believe that FFXIV was catering to future Chinese players.

And then, thanks to the lovely Sankakucomplex, which has a fatwa on anything Square-Enix, spun it out of control and gave the English speaking world word that FFXIV was made in China.

It doesn't help that the terrain in the game is blatantly repeated, giving it the shoddy, "Made in China" stigma that trolls perpetuate.

[Priran]

I don't get this whole China thing that keeps getting brought up. How is XIV catered to the Chinese, and WHY DO WE CARE?

The Japanese care because anything China-related is a sore spot. You care because it's probably why we have Fatigue. (actually, scratch that, you probably love fatigue)

[NikeahOrazu]

So I log on this morning to do some Local leve's all is going well, decided that as close as I am to ranking up in blacksmith I'll go ahead and do the level 1 in Ul'Dah I activate "Momodi's Dancing Daggers" and off to Camp Black Brush I go talk to the NPC get my items, all seems well and right with the world, kneel my happy *** down click requested materials and wtf its not there? Stand up talk to said NPC about said quest, tells me to give him the items when they are completed, well thats all fine and dandy....think hey perfect call for a GM. Except then I read about squares little dumb we don't actually have GMs for in game issues. File bug thingy online, btw we're nto gonna tell you if this gets fixed, ORLY?! Individual responses are SOOO hard, and the GMs in FFXIV might be more useless then in FFXI....I DIDN"T EVEN THINK THAT WAS POSSIBLE!!!!

[ascalon]

It doesn't take longer, just because it's random. If you kill 10 mobs, would you rather get 154, 250, 0, 42, 319, 208, 112, 99, 227, 4 skill points, or would you rather get 120 skill points flat for each mob?

And yes, variance is that large, we were in a group of four yesterday and I got about 400 skill points for some mobs and nothing for others.


Obviously.

I didn't say it takes longer JUST because it is random. I said that it factors into it. Says right there in the bit you quoted: "takes longer to level... ESPECIALLY GIVEN the random nature of advancement..."

It DOES take longer than in FFXI, because the rate of TNR growth is exponentially faster that FFXI's TNL growth, while the maximum possible sp you can gain per mob remains static. Mathematically it does, therefore, take longer to level the higher you go.

It did in FFXI too, but the growth curve of FFXI is much shallower than FFXIV's, varying only by a hundred or so xp in the 20s and 30s, while in FFXIV it goes up by the thousands. It MIGHT "average out" based on a formula using the 500sp cap per fight, but most people get considerably less than that.

It would be less of a problem if there were benefits to partying - a group bonus or whatever - but at the moment its simply for social reasons. XP chains and group bonus mechanics would go a long way to promoting play, but at the end of the day someone is always going to end up doing worse than others in a group. If you're lucky enough to always come out on top, great for you. But if you happen to always fall at the bottom of the barrel, well it sucks to be you. The random nature of the skillup system destroys any balance inherent in the system, actively penalises people through no actual fault of their own, and ensures that there's always someone who falls behind.

And to take your example, I'd rather get a flat rate per mob, modified by the number of people in the group and the difficulty level of the mob. Not this completely random bullshit where I can earn less for a Tough than I can for an Easy Prey.

I may not be a mathematician, but even I can add up a string of 10 numbers and find the average sp. And hell, I'd probably rather take a guaranteed 120sp a mob than a POSSIBLE average of 141.5sp per fight. Especially when facing enemies that randomly give little to no sp.

As people have suggested, if there is a base rate, modifiable, that would go long ways to making the system more accessible and balanced for everyone. Sure I'd miss out on those random high numbers of skillpoints, but in a game with this much grind, I'd rather have a guaranteed number that a possible chance of mind-boggling success. Your point about the variance actually proves my point. Thanks.

Maybe I just prefer to be more efficient with my time?

[Dantrag]

I was reading the reviews thread in "advanced" and saw some post about the Devs and the "Big wigs". People were saying that the higher ups were basically to blame for the current state of the game because they forced the Devs to deploy the game. While this maybe partially true, it has been around 5 years since XIV has been in development. The game should be much, much more polished. Some people were defending the Devs of XIV because they probably felt that they didn't want to release the game but didn't have a choice. While yes, they probably didn't want to release the game, the Devs in general for SE have always been horrible. They do not listen to the community, they do not communicatate with us, and they do whatever the hell they want. I don't think it was until the past 2 years or so that SE's Devs truly started listening to it's users. XI became a much, MUCH better game in the past few years than it was for anything from release to about '08. I don't think most of us have the patience to sit around for 4 years until SE hammers out the most of basic things before they start listening to us again.

[Meko]

This made me lol:

At the time and date listed below, the FINAL FANTASY XIV Lodestone was updated.

[Date & Time]
Oct. 5 20:11 (PDT)

[Details of Update]
Fixed an issue causing some character profile images to not be displayed correctly

At least they are fixing the profile images on the lodestone site... >_>

[CasualPlayer]

Quit backtracking, you said tools weren't always sold at their guild. I'm saying they are. If you went to the Alchemist's guild (which you said you did), you would have went to Ul'dah. I'm wondering where the hell you went in Gridania that counts as an Alchemist's guild?

Cities that don't house the crafts respective guilds have representatives that are always on the strips with NPCs that sell shit. That's obvious place number 2.

Guess how I figured out where to go to buy stuff? I used the map.

Jesus Christ lol I love you

[Amastacia]

Complaint: I wish the NPCs would just buy the crap I accumulate while killing shit. Maybe it's just that Ul'dah is a lagfest, but selling to vendors makes me want to cut myself.

Comment: I would like to see more communication vis a vis in-game issues, but there seems to be this assumption that the Lodestone team and the FFXIV team are one and the same. It's entirely possible the minor issues are being noted and fixed quickly on the Lodestone side because it's a separate team with much less to do and more ability to address it quickly.

Which would then lead me to suggest if they have time to deal with bullshit like that, get some of the Lodestone devs working on FFXIV issues. Yeah, yeah, they're probably web developers and would shit themselves looking at spaghetti code, but still!

[Dantrag]

How about having them communicate with us on what the devs are working on. They could act as the middlemen.

WoW's biggest thing was that the Devs were extremely active with the community. Some would say TOO much. But SE is on the opposite spectrum. Please let us know what you're working on and what you plan to do about it. Comment on the worries of the community please...

[Lucavi]

This is one of the complaints I have the hardest time understanding. Who exactly is having that hard of a time playing around, exploring, trial/error here and there as a brand new player in a brand new game and still just doesn't get it and throws their arms up in surrender? What aspect(s) of the game exactly is so "severely" lacking explanation? Is someone who caught on and understands the general mechanics of things that much more intelligent than the average person?

Kids these days!

Yes, yes, blame the player, not the game. We've all heard it before. That's an excellent way for a company to make money: when someone has an issue, the company doesn't do anything about it, and the company's die-hard fans lam-blast the individual.

Do you have stock in SE or something?

[CasualPlayer]

I don't even know why people just don't put the whiteknights/SE defense force idiots on forum ignore, they are trolls at best right now and really bad ones at that. There is no way to defend this game without looking like a god damned idiot troll.

On topic of horrible exp system:

Blah blah blah....

So anyone that doesn't think the game is utter fail is a white knight? Can't have a positive opinion about the game w/o "being a goddamned idiot"? So should i start calling you black knight? Or should i just call u a fucking douchbag. Only hearing negative shit from u and usually its because your own retardation is getting in the way of how your playing the game.

On topic:
Anyway as its been mentioned already in vanilla FFXI the xp curve was much higher and group xp was much slower. So not really a valid complaint to bitch about the differences of lvling in the two games right now. I think the xp chart is a good thing to maintain though in the spirit of figurig shit out.

The curve will probably come down for ps3 release though so late players can catch up.

At all the retards complaining about the Oct. 5 lodestone update. You guys are the biggest fucking hippocrits I've ever seen. They had a problem with their website and they told us about it as they should. Because the problem is small compared to other glaring flaws they should say nothing?

Just DAYS ago they posted about much bigger patches and future updates and u guys DIDN'T SAY SHIT. Black knights? Do u all have stock in blizzard?!

[HAMBURGERMEAT]

i gots the buyer's remorse. any chance i can get a refund or would i need a class action lawsuit to make it happen?

[Priran]

Anyway as its been mentioned already in vanilla FFXI the xp curve was much higher

The hell? No it wasn't, assuming by "vanilla FFXI" you mean "FFXI as it was on JP launch day". TNLs from 1-50 in FFXI haven't changed.