Fixing FFXIV Means Basically Redoing the Game, Says Square Enix

[VincentX3]

Someone please explain in detail on how the game is supposedly so "Broken and horrible" to the point that it's unplayable.

If not then, just because it's not a WoW clone =/= Unplayable.

I do. Quite a few people do. The Japanese player base seems to be fairly satisfied with it. I myself think it's perfectly serviceable now that it's been patched to high holy hell and back. The next patch is bringing in airships and chocobos! I'm hype!

I'm glad there's decent people somewhere, even if most of them are on the other half of the world.
I can't blaim Square for being frustrated when most people are "OMGZ IT TAKS ME 2 XTRA CLCIKS TO SELL!! HORRABLE GAME!!"

I'd be surprised if Square doesn't just not decide to screw the American version of the game and stick with the Japs on this one.

 

[Zenn3k]

This game is still going?

Oh right, SW: TOR hasn't come out yet.

Good luck fixing FF14 before then!

 

[twistedheat15]

They brought it on themselves so can't even feel sorry for them. Beta tests was telling them the problems for months and they changed nothing, not to mention they always talked about how they was going to make the pc/ps3 come out at same time in all regions so ppl don't get jump starts, then decided to rush it out on pc before xmas thinking the whole XI crowd would just ship on name alone. If this was their first MMO ya could understand, but it's like they took everything they learned from XI, took the worst out of it, and made of game full of shit that everyone hated. They been using the FF name to whore out subpar crap for years, and not it's biting them in the ass.

 

[go-10]

FF's name was damaged WELL before XIV. The only talented they have left are the Tactics team, and they pretty much require Yasumi Matsuno (who's over at Level 5 right now) to make a good narrative.

Anyway, at least Square is admitting that XIV was a total disaster. Now if only they would admit that Motomu Toriyama is a worthless hack and fire him.

I agree on their name being damage when they abandoned Musashi, Front Mission, and Einhänder but Tactics game after the first one have been going downhill. Switching to that kiddy story and Laws and Judges system has only buried the Tactics as a series more. At least they didn't ruin Ogre Tactics for the PSP

 

[nadesico33]

-snip-

Sounds like someone is a Wrath baby . Not that is a bad thing or an insult, but it just sounds like you don't know what to do when you try and play an MMO with some actual complexity instead of the simplified-to-the-point-of-near-insult design mentality like WOW. It really isn't the game's fault if you are lost because you were expecting something almost patronizing in terms of simplicity.

While I won't defend the mess FFXIV was at launch (its still installed, though I can't vouch for how much the patches have fixed), but FFXI is a different beast altogether. The reason FFXI was the way it was is two-fold. 1) It was designed and released pre-WoW, when the MMO genre had not been codified/killed by WoW. 2) It was designed to run on a PS2. The reason the PC and XBox360 versions of the game ran like crap was because they were designed to run equally as well as the PS2 version, not better. Why do this, why not make those versions better? Cross-platform, cross-regional play, and fairness in play between those platforms. Aside from (maybe) DCUO, no other MMO has released on multiple platforms, and even if they had, those cross-platform people playing the same game on the same world servers? Blasphemy! Madness! (SPARTA!!!)

Just think about it, you see 100 PCs in front of you. On WoW, all those players are on PCs, in the US (or whatever region you play in). On FFXI, those players are on some mixture of PS2, XBox360, and PC, and from all over the world. Crazy idea, isn't it?

 

[Jonci]

Make it more like WoW.

WoW clones ultimately don't do well, mainly because, WoW is still running strong. FFXIV went their own way, which is what Final Fantasy fans want. But their drive to show up WoW with a different MMO failed because they rushed release.

 

[hazabaza1]

I forgot that this game existed. I should probably try it someday.

 

[Abedeus]

Downloaded it during beta.

Endured it for almost an hour.

Gave up when I noticed I can't even set resolution from inside of game.

 

[Winterfel]

-snip-

Sounds like someone is a Wrath baby . Not that is a bad thing or an insult, but it just sounds like you don't know what to do when you try and play an MMO with some actual complexity instead of the simplified-to-the-point-of-near-insult design mentality like WOW. It really isn't the game's fault if you are lost because you were expecting something almost patronizing in terms of simplicity.

Yeah well the arrogance here is kinda overwhelming.
What your saying if that someone who has played WoW, the current leader of the MMO genre(shut up it's not great but it's the still fact), can't even navigate the starting areas of another MMO with some ease it's not the games fault? The starting areas should be simple enough for a complete newbie to navigate and LEARN the game, am I wrong? If so please do correct me.

 

[kebab4you]

Ehh no Yoichi, FF have done a lot of dmg to itself for the passed few years >-<

 

[Nu-Hir]

Someone please explain in detail on how the game is supposedly so "Broken and horrible" to the point that it's unplayable.

If not then, just because it's not a WoW clone =/= Unplayable.

Most of my problems lie in that I'm used to playing FFXI, not that it's not a wow clone, since I can't stand WoW. It's like they didn't learn anything in the almost ten years that FFXI had been in existence. Lists of things I don't like:

Fast travel between points is limited by way of Anima. You get 200 Anima and it costs up to 6 Anima to teleport to crystals you've previously been to. Anima recharges slowly. Very slowly. So you have two options, walk, or hitch a ride with someone (until Chocobos and Airships are added with 1.19).

I both like and hate the job system. Not love, like. It's an interesting concept, but setting my abilities every time I switch weapons is slightly annoying. Sure I can make macros for it, but I'd rather it just remember what abilities for which job.

It's too asian. No, I'm not saying there's too many Japanese players. This is in regards to the grinding involved with Asian MMOs vs not nearly as much in western MMOs. If you're not doing Levequests, your SP (soon to be XP) will be coming in slooooooooow. Unless I've been doing something completely wrong.

The UI is just sluggish. I don't know if it's my PC, but it seems the UI is just shitty and slow. Targetting is a pain in the ass, selecting items to buy/sell lags. It takes forever to transfer stuff to a retainer or to sell to an NPC.

I don't know, maybe I just miss FFXI and I was hoping that XIV would be a HD version of XI.

I'm glad there's decent people somewhere, even if most of them are on the other half of the world.
I can't blaim Square for being frustrated when most people are "OMGZ IT TAKS ME 2 XTRA CLCIKS TO SELL!! HORRABLE GAME!!"

As I said before, my problem isn't with extra clicks to sell stuff, it's the interface is slow and not very well designed. It was much nicer in XI, which makes it weird that it's harder to use in XIV.

I'd be surprised if Square doesn't just not decide to screw the American version of the game and stick with the Japs on this one.

I'm surprised that they didn't just throw in the towel overall for the game.

 

[viranimus]

Someone please explain in detail on how the game is supposedly so "Broken and horrible" to the point that it's unplayable.

If not then, just because it's not a WoW clone =/= Unplayable.

Ok initially during the beta and early days of it the game was absolutely unplayable and it really had nothing to do with it being dissimilar from WoW. For example one thing that really did It for me was having my toon become glitched and allowed to continue leveling but restricted from earning advanced skills for leveling. However bugs can be fixed.

No the unplayable parts were trying to release an MMO that was clearly centered around Tradeskills at the expense of combat. Or the sheer lack of viable quest content coupled with XP throttling, Coupled with an XP model that made it virtually useless to fight mobs unless your on a quest, yet limiting the number of quests you can not only hold, but actually get (cant get quests that dont exist) And an outside issue was an unrealistic system spec vs very weak optimization. Running last year on a 2.5 dual core, 4gb ram, 1gb GTX 250 and I was getting 20 frames per second.

Those were the biggest things that rendered the game unplayable at launch. However it is clear the game has been worked on and improved. It was just an insane decision to launch an MMO without proper support to combat classes, or the combat experience. However the game was even in those days very firmly salvagable with many interesting possibilities that made it worth considering as an MMO.

(Side note. What the hell is with SE and making their 2 MMOs control so stiff. Seriously its like every Player char is spawned with a stick up their ass that limits the upper turning velocity. Best way to ensure your brand spanking new MMO with slick graphics and all sorts of pretty shineys look really bad is when you rehash a control mechansim that was infuriatingly antiquated 10 years earlier last time you tried it)

 

[LordLundar]

Sounds like someone is a Wrath baby . Not that is a bad thing or an insult, but it just sounds like you don't know what to do when you try and play an MMO with some actual complexity instead of the simplified-to-the-point-of-near-insult design mentality like WOW. It really isn't the game's fault if you are lost because you were expecting something almost patronizing in terms of simplicity.

There's complexity, then there's the online Final Fantasy games. I'm sorry, but a game that requires you to:
-stand in a specific direction on a specific virtual day for a couple extra points of damage
-memorize a dozen different combos that the group can do
-require perfect timing execution of said attacks for the special finisher
-have a flow chart for basic routines just to barely survive a single even con trash mob
-monitor a subtle movement of a regular trash mob to avoid an attack that can wipe the party
-run an 8 hour quest to rent a faster means of travel
-require the player to travel across half a mob infested zone to go past a foot tall shelf because of a lack of a jump key
and I could go on all day. That's not complex, it's convoluted.

So while I agree that WoW is probably one of the most simple to understand MMO's out there, it's a really huge gap between what WoW is and what the online FF games are.

 

[vivster]

yes it baffles me
normally they take a lot of time to polish all of their games

please SE stick at what you're good at
cut scenes and single player experiences

 

[ShadowKatt]

Got news for you, SE, fixing find fantasy XIV is only the tip kf the iceberg. Fourteen was an utter failure, thirteen was a price if shit, a.d as far as your kkngskm hearts fantasy goes, the only people you're selling now are the blind fanboys that can't be bothered to use all two kf their braincells to realise they you're fucking then with cheap knockoff games that don't coat a quarter of what you're selling them for.

The whole company is A shell of what it used to be. I don't know who enix was before, but the merger with squaresoft clearly destroyed everything that used to bw good in that developer.

Edit: wow, i don't think I've ever had the autocorrect o. My phone screw with my typing so much. Gotta atop posting with my phone...

 

[oldtaku]

Gotta agree. I played the beta, it was just broken (in too many places for a beta) and stupid and horrible. Burn it to the ground and start over.

But for gods sake keep those mi'qote models.

 

[Zelgon]

Wait a minute... was there even a demand for another FF MMO? Was there ANYONE who would have cared if they delayed the release of this? They just gave us FF13. Sometimes I just don't understand...

 

[littlewisp]

I tried to be reasonable and upbeat during the beta, but when it closed and the beta forums were rioting with pleas and demands to put the release off, I decided to not buy the CE as I'd planned. Still not regretting that decision, though I do feel a bit sad that the game never reached its potential. Maybe one day. But with all the new shinies coming out I don't know how they might convince me their game is worth my money.

 

[kabiaan]

not had time to read through everyones replies, so i'll just ask, is there any thing mentioned about when/if theyre gonna innitiate the monthly charges? Also how many more fixes do they need to do b4 the game will be playable without the annoyances? Anyone know?