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This game is nausiatingly unimpressive.
Neobloodline3d
Member CommonPosts: 54
I checked out the free weekend to see what's changed and I'll share a few of my experiences with you fine folks.
Firstly, I noticed they have not changed the beginning experience at all. You are still forced to do the same 2+ hours worth of running back and forth clicking on nonsense zero difficulty quest targets. This is highly irritating. During this time you discover one of the major flaws of this games design which is zoning. Every 4 minutes you will be looking at a black screen with letters. This is extremely irritating and a throw back to playstation 1 days and Final Fantasy 7. We are living in 2014 now. This may be a direct result of intending the game be played on consoles. I refuse to give a pass to bad repetitive game design simply to make the console crowd feel less inferior.
Secondly, I'd like to say a word about skills. The skills in this game are annoyingly generic. Compared to GW2 skills which are detailed and distinct and artistic these skills and actions are punctuated by generic bursts of exaggerated light. All of them. This is not entertaining after you realize you're going to be looking at it every time you are forced to spam the same skills over and over.
Next I'd like to take a moment and call attention to the overall graphics. I hear talk about how great the graphics are in this game but it is far from reality. They've taken photos of real materials and pasted them over every surface. This may seem an intelligent thing to do but it's very repetitive and has no artistic style whatsoever. It gives an initial impression of realistic textures but fades quickly into being overused and a lazy way to cover a lot of model area as quickly as possible. You'll be looking at the same repeated bland world textures and semi-seamless textures for most of your first 2 days and beyond. You'll be greeted by many other examples of lazy development such as copy and pasted trees, rocks and formations which have somehow been strewn across the landscape sometimes in a row. Armor textures are not as sharp as they should be. When your camera is pulled out they look pretty good but zooming in will reveal some horrendously ugly defects which destroy the immersion of detail. I'm also highly irritated they have the same character designs from release. Every character in this game looks like a prepubescent teenager. Everything is this game has an impressively thick glaze of femininity. There's no balance.
I'd also like to mention the incredibly bad running mechanics. This is the biggest game killer for me. There is no immersion whatsoever when your character doesn't feel rooted to the world you are running in. Your character will literally slide. You will not feel like your character is firmly planted on ground. Your character glides across the surface at an even z axis without so much as a hint of following a contour based on the ground of which you are running. Running up stairs is an action of gliding across the ground watching your legs move underneath a fixed point of your body and then sliding at an angle across the top of the stairs as if there are no stairs. For 90% of your time you will not be fooled by their poor running illusion.
The game has great cut scenes as expected from final fantasy games. This is the highlight of the entire game. The game also has top notch enemy designs. It's to bad enemies are all camped out in mass spawns just hanging out looking stupid with no point. This sort of design does not earn a game a 8/10 rating. The first 2 days experiences alone and the fact that immersion is non existent in this game demand a score closer to 3/10. If you have to force yourself through swamp pits and quicksand and months of pathetic gameplay to reach a soft candy center of contentment you are not doing it right. You are wasting your money. 8/10 MMO games are fun and entertaining from beginning to end. This game is not even close.
I have more niggles as to why this game is dramatically overrated in 2014 but this will do for now.
Comments
Character animations are some of the best in the biz. Your character never 'feels like it's sliding' you are playing a different game clearly.
Also, being upset because the game has loading screens for zoning? It's very standard for many MMOs, I would think you should perhaps adjust your expectations as they seem a bit unreasonable.
This game is the most polished theme park out there, it seems you don't like theme parks by the way your describe not liking their quest design, I feel FFXIV had some of the more clever ways to take you through the story, and in fact is one of the only games that makes me want to go back and find out how it progresses as the patches continue it.
I disagree entirely with your review, and I don't even play the game any more.
Edit: I just re-read it, you mention cut and paste landscape, you CLEARLY are talking about FFXIV the first time around, not ARR. Sorry that was a dead give away.
You played for a few hours and don't like the game's aesthetics. This a review does not make.
A shallow analysis by you but if it's enough to say the game is overrated, that's fine. No one can force you to like something that you clearly don;t. But nothing in your "review" talks about the substance of the game which has A LOT. Hundreds of thousands of people love the game and are happily paying the sub. You may not like the game, but that's not going to change the inherent truth.
I hope you go back, or find something more to your liking.
OP it is clear you do not like this game and that is fine. No one has to like every game. Just from your comments I take it you like GW2 so maybe go back to it if it makes you happy.
Plus your review is only covering the initial starting areas. Granted you don't have a lot of skills yet but you do get more as you level up.
Anyway a lot of people like this game and if you don't then that is ok, I hope you find something you really like as for a lot of us we like FFXIV.
Now I don't agree with the harshness of the OP's review I do agree that the I am not sure FFXIV is in deed worthy of the praise it has received on this site.
For starters, it does fail to grab you out of the gate. I haven't played for that long but as of level 10 I don't feel immersed at all. I mean what is up with the combat? It feels like I am playing a turn based RPG. The combat is slow, clunky and in no way feels like it's on par with Wildstar, GW2, or ESO.
Next why is there no voice overs in this game? I mean, sure walls of texts are fine for games like WoW where rushing to end game is what it's all about but if you want immersion reading walls of text about placing posters won't suffice!
I would love to have a reason to play this game and if it's end game then so be it. With that said I haven't seen anything so far that leads me to believe that this game is in anyway worthy of the 8.4 rating that it has here or worth $15 a month for a sub.
P.S. - I do agree with the OP questioning the instancing. Where is the immersion in walking through lines of blue balls then staring at black screens?
I am not sure they would like GW2 as when it comes to graphics and what appears to be their personal preferences in MMO's regarding them, GW2 is pretty much in the same category, although personally i do think the graphics in FFXIV;ARR are better, mostly due to the overall ambience, but if someone hates the graphics in FFXIV;ARR then they will undoubtedly hate the graphics in GW2 also, it could be their own preference is the more 'cartoonified' look, with brighter colours etc, or they prefer a more 'anime' look associated with the Asiatic games. Overall though i don't think the OP is really that keen on MMO's generally, perhaps it would help understand their point of view if they could point out what they consider to be their own personal preference in the MMO genre, if such exists?
When i tried this in closed beta, i was just shaking my head. Why don't developers ever learn? This is the exact same mistake EQ2 made, then Swtor made the same mistake, and now FFXIV:ARR. Do these developers even play other MMOs? I'm getting tired of the excuse that it's the game engine that prevents the limitations too. It has everyhing do with the questing design, so that defense fails every time. Why do developers constantly send players back and forth through loading screens? I'll never understand.
Nope, talking about ARR. I've played both versions. I'd give the first version a 0/10 cesspool filth attempted rip off. As I already mentioned I give this game a 3/10 which I do not believe was their intention but clearly is what they are capable of regurgitating on people at this point. I respect their attempt to regain the trust of their customers but they have not succeeded. This is absolutely a below average MMO game in 2014 relying on it's name for draw. I play a lot of MMO's. I'm a lifetime sub to The Secret World which destroys this game without so much as an effort. I'm also a Wildstar subscriber although I've got a few niggles with that game as well and won't sit here and tell you that game is qualified for 8/10. It's not. Maybe 7/10 with unavoidable annoyances. I think Guildwars 2 is the best MMO game out on the market right now no question. The detail in everything it does is a tribute to what MMO's should be in 2014. Footprints in the snow, extreme character development, fascinating skill animations, cut scenes with voiceovers, dynamic feedback for every action, plants that move with your character underfoot. Wonderful development worthy of all it's praise. There is a lot to admire in GW2 design and to deny it is silly. It's simply fun and the immersion is second to none at the moment. Not to mention it's free. You don't ever feel you're on the hook to play it to "make it worth it". It's simply is worth it. Regarding the run animations in FF14 ARR I am exactly on point. They are terrible. If you search youtube for "
I'm having serious issues with these forums. Forgive the funny posting bugs.
I'm not talking about the breasts. I'm talking about the overall way the character animation and detail in the movements are grounded to the world contributing to the immersion. FF14ARR has none of this.
So, its bad because the boobs don't bounce when they run.....
/picardfacepalm
That's silly but no that's not what I'm referring to. Body bounce contributes to the immersion but what I'm really pointing at is the movement in relation to the world. Slowing, speeding, stopping jumping etc. It's all properly grounded to the world and you feel your character move and react as it's meant to.
Umm, yes you do. The animations in the game are some of the smoothest, most well-done I've ever seen in any game, period. You're not spot on, you didn't even hit the target. I love stomping around in my magitek armor, and regular running has a very nice sense of speed. It certainly isn't 'floaty' in any way, shape or form. Just the fact that you even attempt to denigrate FFXIV's animations severely damages your credibility, not that you had any to begin with.
You want horrific running animations, or horrific animations in general? Go play your precious TSW.
I'll give you the armor textures, they could use some love but still look pretty good overall. The environments look fantastic though, and really make the game world feel that much more alive.
Skill effects are amazingly well animated, and flow very smoothly from one attack to the next, making combat a joy to watch (on monk at least) even after months of playing the game. Sometimes too good; I've died a few times during boss fights because I was too busy watching all the great looking moves.
The rest of your criticisms show that you obviously haven't played the game for more than maybe an hour, and are most likely a 12 year old Arenanet worshiper upset that your game isn't doing so well, while FFXIV is thriving and growing.
Oh, and the storyline in FFXIV blows GW2's 'living story' right out of the water.
[mod edit]
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
I'm actually A-OK in the rig department. I've got a I7@4.4Ghz, 8Gigs, GTX780 FTW>X560TI for physx. So you see I'm not a casual kind of guy about these things. For your enjoyment I will now post a few pictures of some of the annoying textures and lame design of FF14ARR compared to the much better developed GW2.
Must admit i was wondering that too, if he's got a 780, why does it look worse than my own 660 ? you could be right though, is this a comparing PS3 graphics to PC graphics
I have to disagree. The physics are somewhat off, especially with jumping. The character models hit an invisible ceiling. I can't remember if FFXIV's is better, but this always bothers me in GW2.
The animations are simply the best i have ever seen in an mmo.
Smooth and extremely satisfying to look at.
Its a themepark so it has loading screens like any other themepark.
Good contend and it plays solid.
Flawless profession system that other themeparks seem to lack.
Naoki Yoshida made a realy good mmo, its not for everyone.
But its a Final Fanstasy mmo so maybe the OP have never played one before ?
I dont play it anymore as i fell in love with Archeage the moment it was released in Russia and moved over to Trions Alpha and still log in everyday.
But man if i would play a Themepark again it would be FF ARR instead of all these western mmo's who cant keep me playing longer then 3 weeks before i start pulling my hair out.
Lets take a quick look at Asia and what mmo they are creating compared to our Western studio's.
Aion / FFARR / Blade and Soul / Archeage / Black Desert
Warhammer / TSW / Rift / SWTOR / GW2 / ESO / Wildstar
Dunno but i would play all those Eastern mmo before i would play a Western mmo.
But hey thats my choice and what i like.
I had enough of these Western mmo's that i uninstall a few weeks later after playing premium price only to get 2 weeks of fun.
o/
for games that have decent 'boob' physics though, i hear Scarlet Blade has pretty much pwned that genre