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Patch 3.2 Brings the Fun Back - Eorzea Reborn
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Patch 3.2 Brings the Fun Back - Eorzea Reborn
Victor takes a quick look at some of the new things FFXIV's Patch 3.2 brings that make it worth playing.
Comments
Grinding the beast tribe quests and tomestones 8P
Until we completely Overhaul MMOs we will continue to have glaring issues that will never be fixed no matter what stupid system we come up with. What we need to do is stop the treadmill effect, first by requiring players do X amount of Dungeons a week to get X amount of stones or badges to raid. The second is to stop catering towards the 15 a minute a week warrior. I know this sounds harsh but if you get busy like I am this month where I cannot and will not get on any game for maybe more than 5 hours total this entire month then tough shit. The game does not need to cater to my needs or anyone else's needs. If I was playing Vanilla WOW right now or TBC WoW I would take the month off OR I would have a group of friends that I would text a few days a head of time and say look I got 1 hour to do something Sunday night at 9pm. Anyone able to do X, otherwise I would chalk this month up to a REAL LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT time.
As a part of the complete Overhaul I would get rid of the Dungeon Grind for gear. Players would still do Dungeons to help gear up for raiding, or advance their gear through Dungeon gear. I would also make long quest chains or paths to get gear via a solo method that would push players to rather group BUT if a player like myself gets busy for a month can have already be working on a side piece or 2 or 3 that I could do for the month while I didnt have the time. It's a way to not full too far behind. I would also completely wipe out LFD/LFR/DF and all these automated grouping tools and replace it with FFXIV's Party Finder and FC Finder tools. This way players can find groups of players that match their play style and social levels and stop randomly throwing people together for convenience which has killed the MMORPG Genera as a whole. Socialization was the corner stone of MMOs and is why they got as popular is they did. The problem is as soon as Socialization was thrown out and replaced with Convenience we seen the Genera start to go in the wrong direction.
Not really sure what they added that brings fun to the game. They added the same stuff the last patch added. A few dungeons, bst tribe quest, primal fight. Only difference is a raid for 8 man and not 24 man.
If it was not fun before it is the same old same old now.
People always come back for patches for 1 to 3 weeks then leave again. The ones that love the game are still loving it those who typically get bored will be again in about 2 to 3 more weeks. Patch is still lacking in content like most patches.
The first 50 levels consist of you spamming 2-3 abilities in extremely slow, bland, and basic dungeons, while going through extremely slow quests painstakingly explaining every little detail on how to play the game. When you are on your way to 60, you start really learning the bore that is your optimal rotation, which is basically the same order of abilities you probably used leveling, since you can only use half your moves by comboing the one before it.
By the time you are 60, you are just pushing the set in stone optimal rotation, because everything is balanced assuming every class is playing optimally. You and every other person of your class will likely use the exact same rotation, and have the exact same gear.
In the end, it feels kind of like an mmo training ground as opposed to an actual fun, diverse and engaging mmo, teaching you basic mechanics so you can move onto more complex MMO's, in which you have some choice how you play.
I wanted to love this game and tried so hard (being a long time FFXI and overall FF fan) but it can only get you so far. I know people really like it, but its just a pretty looking FF skin of every standard themepark we have seen for ages now. I would put money down right now that this game will not last nearly as long as its older sibling and it shouldnt surprise anyone why i would think that.
This story made me think they did something big that changes up the standard patch, but its another minor side thing that will mostly be ignored and barely adds anything overall.
To me I don't care if there's a patch every week, it's about the endgame format. There are no long-term goals to reach, only minor hurdles to navigate only to stop and wait until the next short hurdle is set up. You want to know why this format of MMOs doesn't feel epic anymore? Look no further than this.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Because apparently it's a good patch? Pretty sure this same writer was critical of the last patch....take your tinfoil hat off there guy....
The same status symbol is part of FFXI as well,with 3 stars over your name,it looks silly and foolish if you ask me.It furthers stupidity knowing that FFXI at least has been a no hand holding game,meaning no markers of any kind,yet here we are with 3 stars over our head,just dumb.
You know i don't know if grouping to kill mobs is even viable in FFXIV because nobody does it.There would be no need for 30% bonus rings if they designed the game better,more like FFXI with a lot of classes and no speed leveling.This whole questing/fates or whatever other system. you use is again terrible game design,way too much like Wow and stuff i would expect from Blizzard.
Also quality of life is needed because of their structure to FORCE you how to game ,having to unlock everything and attain certain gear to advance,again TERRIBLE game deign and why i likely never play FFXIV again and giving up on FFXI...finally.
I just don't like Square Enix's new game philosophies,yes they understand their games require needs after awhile but that is because they made bad design decisions from the get go and then have to backtrack and fix it with quality of life fixes.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
no FFXI was not perfect but what I think the CORE problem with all MMOs right now is they are too dam solo centric and we are seeing people just get completely bored with the Genera. I played FFXIV for over a year, yes is one of the best MMOS on the market now however if you take old school MMORPGs which really pushed you to have a social circle and friends nothing today can hold a candle to it. Yes people have less time now BUT that does not mean that MMORPGs have to be designed the way they are today. The Mentoring system I knew was going to flop because its just designed to take on the role of another social aspect of MMORPGs. Before we got to the treadmill gaming with the need for LFD/DF tools you had guilds that sole purpose was to do leveling content together daily. None of those truly exist today because why wait or schedule events with friends when you can click a button now you are in the dungeon. I know why it was done but there was too much damage to the Genera as a whole vs good that came of it.
That is the key to all of this and why so many people are not happy with MMOs because there is a tool to automate forming a group vs letting the players form them. O well not like it will change any time soon.
When you get bored from the existing content and you take a break to come back to new content and you get an artificial wall telling ''no sir, you know that content that you tried to dodge because you already farmed it, completed it without having the quest, or on anohter server\class\character, well you need to grind it again to unlock our new content''
This is even worst than the ''key \ flag'' system of everquest 1, at least it was puting High level content behind gates, not normal content ....
I really liked FFIV:AR, i lvled 5 class's and played a tone, but i have no interest in grinding content i already did and quests ''in the old world'' while being at the lvl 50 cap .... i just want to hop into the new expension content and lvl 60 content, but the game is designed in a way that stoping that and that's definitly killing the accessibility of the game.
But that's how it goes with this type of game. It also helps that I've gotten into PvP a bit after forcing myself to give that side of the game a go. Which will help when The Feast is opened up soon.
But I always come back. I never seem to be gone longer than a few weeks in between patches.