FF14 first impression/initial experience as a GW2 veteran.

[DaniTheHero]

This isn't supposed to be an actual rant, nor am i intending to offend anyone who plays either game.
I felt like i should share my experience as a new player in this now increasingly popular MMORPG.


Note this is going to be VERY long.



First i'll tell about why i chose to be playing GW2 up until now to reflect on my latest experience with FF14.
I am not trying to sell the game to you, nor to "take away players" from here, as i barely play GW2 myself now.

I have been playing GW2 for a very long time, and although i have been taking breaks from time to time (as GW2 is known to having content droughts between Living world/Expansion periods) i always come back to it eventually.

GW2 has many things going for it.:

It has a completely free Base game with no time limit, so you can get any friend to try it out and not be restricted to pretty much any content from the Original/Vanilla game pre expansions other than some Spam avoidance and trading/mail system restrictions to avoid botting.

If you decide to pay, you get the entire game, including previous expansions at the price of one, with no monthly subscription, i repeat no monthly subbing.
You pay once, and hop on whenever you want, FOREVER.
No need to cancel every time you take a break and pay again when you return and if you play long term, no large stacked up sum. Just play when you want.

GW2 has no gear chase/treadmill. From the release of the game, the highest tier of gear has been something called "Ascended" and it always remains relevant as the best Tier of gear even a decade later. Meaning even if you take long breaks, you don't need to chase a new ceiling just to enjoy new content properly, and you can hop rightinto it as the same End game character you were before.
The only time that you'll need to get new gear, is if you want a different sort of build for your character, so you'll need a different set of ascended gear for those stats (This can be negated by Legendary armor, that has the same stats as ascended but you can change it's stats whenever you want. This however requires a huge grind to get).

The game has no Mana/Stamina system, nor do you use potions to even heal yourself.
Your attacking is only depended on your cooldown managements and your healing depends on your global class heal (That is by default your 6 key) that varies between classes. No annoying potion usage and purchase management. There is food, but it's used for self buffing.
This system complimented the game well, as the game, at least initially didn't have the concept of holy Trinity. Everyone mostly did everything, or more specifically, everyone was DPS who was capable, and accepted to heal themselves.
Later on as end game raids were introduced more properly, some sub-classes have emerged to sort of fill that old gap, Druid being an old school healer sort, and Chronomancer being a more traditional tank among others, but the mentality of everyone technically being DPS still exists. Some just serve side roles, such as DPS's that can also do useful Squad/party buffs.

The game has a dodge/roll system sort of like in Dark souls, that is limited by a cooldown. This makes the gameplay more mobile and dynamic, and instead of just standing still most of the combat,you dodge and rotate a lot to avoid damage that isn't just enemy AOE.

The combat is very fluid and action-y. Fast. You are constantly on the move, and at times even 'Spamming' moves as cooldowns are short and most classes don't really have more than 5ish damage dealing attacks, unless you weapon swap mid fight. There isn't really a time when you aren't attacking.

Mounts are fairly a new concept in GW2, but instead of having many of them, there's only one of each "type" of mount that serves a purpose(One for dashing, one for jumping, one for flying and so on), and you can change it's appearance with paid skins if you wish to do so.

Questing, although sort of only existing in the base game, is managed through heart areas, meaning you reach an area where the certain quest exists, and you are meant to to tasks around this same area to complete it. There's no fetch quests, no backtracking, no unneeded walls of text just for killing 3 rats.

in GW2 there is no "EXP" grind from killing mobs. You level up near exclusively from doing world events, quests on the map and map exploration. As you you reach the level cap in the base game, the EXP you gain in the expansion zones is used for gaining different sort of mini abilities, passive buffs or unlocking sort of mechanics or merchants that exist in these new zones. No boring hours of fighting the same batch of mobs to level, at ANY point of the game.

Structured PVP works well in theory, the action combat, the fairly decent balancing and the fact that most classes can technically do anything works well. SPVP is also separate from the "main"/PVE game. You can hop into SPVP from level 2, and inside there, gear doesn't matter, you are max level and all your abilities are unlocked. The only thing that counts is your skill as a player, your teammates performance and of course what you pick for your SPVP 'build' (The builds are instantly changable in SPVP). Sadly SPVP and WvW(World vs World) is mostly abandoned by the devs for quite a long time, so you won't really be experiencing anything new there after a while.

Voice acting. Almost everything is voiced. Story missions, the NPC talking around you, world events and so on.

Most of the content encourages, almost demands cooperative play. Soloing is almost never recommended, sometimes may not even be possible. For people that play MMORPGs, for the actual MMO aspect rather than playing it as a singleplayer RPG that sometimes have real people walking around you, this is very nice.

Of course i can go on praising the game for a long time, but the elephant in the room is:

The biggest issue with the game is that due to lack of funding from NCSoft, and generally the huge loss of capital for being one of the only MMORPGs without monthly subbing, content gets added less often. And periods of content droughts are common. if you are a veteran player that plays a lot you run out things to do, unless you grind for fashion or Legendary equipment.
However as a new player, you still have A LOT of content to go through for months or even years before you reach that drought yourself.

A lot of the content, or pretty much all of it that isn't Raids or fractals(End game dungeons), can be summed up to "zerging". A huge amount of players stacking together spamming something until it dies. Can be fun when it's new content, but gets old REAL quick if repeated. Raids and Fractals do require a more old school approach though.




Now let's actually dive into my FF14 experience.


I've obviously known about this game for a long time, as FF14 pretty much is ( or was?) a direct competitor to GW2, but i never researched or bothered with it as i was content with GW2 and the idea of paying sub didn't appeal to me.
However after many many years in GW2, the recent Exodus of WoW players to FF14 and me dying inside from the anticipation for Ashes of creation, i have decided to finally try FF14.
The game stated to give a 30 day trial that is mostly not limited, which didn't sound bad at all.
I haven't done much research still, and decided to just sign up, install and hop on.

I was first greeted by a.. confusing server selection. As i'm European, Light or Chaos seemed to be the relevant options and Light, was highlighted for some reason, so i assumed it meant i'd have better ping there so i chose it. Inside the server i also needed to pick a World and most were already full apparently. I picked one of the open ones, Lich.

I was then greeted by a fairly robust character creator which was nice, however apparently most of the choices do have some sort of influence on different ingame stats, though upon googling the differences, they are pretty much negligible (I wonder if some people pick things they don't like, but have favorable stats for the job they want in order to minmax here. A bit of a shame if this is a thing).

I was then presented with 8 classes that seemed fairly traditional in nature.
I usually play Strong DPS melee dudes, but i wasn't exactly sure what each job does from the ingame descriptions so I have decided to research a tiny bit and learned that 2 of the melee ones are more focused on tanking, the other two are more DPS oriented.
I have decided to go for the Lancer, as not having an actual weapon and using my fists didn't appeal to me.
Upon further research i have learned there are a lot of more classes to unlock in the game, either by "upgrading" the current classes, or complete new ones you can switch into at around level 50.

The opening of the game was a terrible slog. A lot of conversations and wall of texts of things i don't care about (yet?), no voice acting, seemingly outdated animations and no combat involved.
You're then treated to a lot and i mean A LOT of text walls, dull fetch quests, backtracking, and once again none not even the main quest ones are voiced.

The game, also assumes you have never played an MMORPG, or any video game before.
I appreciate the effort to make this accessible for pretty much everyone, but as someone who isn't playing a video game for literally the first time, this was excruciating.

I was itching for some combat to actually experience the gameplay, and i assume that at some point i could have ignored most of these and go outside to fight, but i didn't want to miss vital information that i may need by not doing these starter quests.

Eventually i was finally sent out to kill some mobs ( Kill some squirls! yey ! ).
And the moment i hit my first enemy, it struck me.
GCD 2.5sec. The combat is very, very very slow.
Even with more moves unlocked later on, every move you make, gives you a near 3 second delay before you can do another move. This was devastating. I could feel literally my brain counting down the miliseconds of the delay between me chaining even something as basic as ability 1 and ability 2.
There's also no real way to avoid damage, enemies completely lock on you so unless you are ranged, you might as well seem to be standing still.
I assume later in the game, enemies will have AOE's that you will need to move away from, but still, this seems awfully static.

It seems that a lot of aspects of the game are slow upon further research. Traveling, moving around the map and although they are mounts, they seem to be restricted in a lot of ways.

I also have learned that as a free player, i can't even party anyone ( unless a paid player invites me himself) or add anyone to my friendlist. Why? What if i wanted to team up with other free players that are trying the game with me?

I continued trying to grind ( As this seems to be the most efficient way to gain exp, and because i was tired of meaningless tasks and endless text from the side quests) to see if something speeds up, but no.
Upon even further research, late in the game there are some abilities that aren't restricted by the GCD that you can weave in, but the combat itself doesn't REALLY speed up.

I also noticed, although the character models, when zoomed looked quite nice and rather fan service-y. The graphics and the engine itself seemed awfully outdated.
Sure GW2 isn't the biggest looker anymore, and the engine is quite dated as well as the game IS from 2012, but FF14 being a newer game, a bigger IP in general, and having far more income brought in and funding put into the game, it's a bit disheartining that the game.. doesn't look good.

At this point i've done further research. How late game works, how gear works, how many things that MMO's do, work here. and the more i read, the more disappointed i started feeling.

Now after having all these first impression thoughts and after learning a bit about the future, i had one final thought lingering on my mind.
Even if this DOES get better later on, do i really want to be buying the game all it's expansions AND be paying 13$ a month for this?


When this realization caught on to me, i swiftly exited, uninstalled and after some thought, came here for this post.

[Taco]

Gw2 is just bad in itself if you compared to ffxiv. Its weakest point is endgame where you grind for no profit cause the dungeons and raids are abyssmal. In ffxiv the dungeons and raids are atleast of quality. Then there is the mounts where if you get the one and only true flying mount it automatically defeats the purpose of using the other four making it almost better no not go for it at all. In ffxiv most of the mounts have better quality and design than the gw2 mounts but you can either run or fly with all of them. Its just so many things that makes gw2 pretty bad.

[DaniTheHero]

Origineel geplaatst door Tacomuschen:

Gw2 is just bad in itself if you compared to ffxiv. Its weakest point is endgame where you grind for no profit cause the dungeons and raids are abyssmal. In ffxiv the dungeons and raids are atleast of quality. Then there is the mounts where if you get the one and only true flying mount it automatically defeats the purpose of using the other four making it almost better no not go for it at all. In ffxiv most of the mounts have better quality and design than the gw2 mounts but you can either run or fly with all of them. Its just so many things that makes gw2 pretty bad.

That’s not the right way to look at it.
The mounts themselves are a progression, and when you get the best one that does it all you aren’t supposed to use the others.
Instead of saturating the game with dozens of mounts that do mostly the same thing, you have one or two really good ones you work for to get and utilize forever once you do.

GW2 raids are fine.
MMORPGs Endgame was always raids and fashion/glamour.
GW2 issue is that it updates too slowly, so the content although good, gets stale.

[DaniTheHero]

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

Origineel geplaatst door Ruffio:

It's still cheaper than sub for wow or eso+ and other ones. If you can't afford 13 bucks a month, then you got bigger issues to deal with than play computer games.

I may be wrong, but ESO dropped subs didn't they? They have a sort of premium optional subbing but it isn't mandatory.

In terms of the subbing you need to look at the biggest picture.
This isn't just 13 bucks. This is 156 a year, 312 for two. Not including game and expansion purchases, and the game still has a sort of Cashshop system as well.

Why should i be expected to pay so much money just to have the right to play a game i already paid for?

GW2's servers didn't implode because people didn't pay subs for over a decade.
The game stagnated due to having less income sure, but also because of huge, HUGE management issues later on.
And i'm not even advocating for the complete removal of subbing, but a different pricing.
13-15 dollars a month was the norm almost 2 decades ago. Things have obviously changed.
Do any basic math that me and the other dude has done previously, unless they are paying devs 1000$ an hour, the profits are ABSURDLY high.
Dropping it to 5-8 would not kill the game or slow down any development, it would be more fair and still extremely profitable

There's also a variable to it. What if i'm really busy? A lot of work, studies or family life? What if i can only play twice a week? once a week? Maybe just an hour once every few days but i still want to play at least that one time a month? Is 13 dollars a month sound even more intrusive?
You really shouldn't be making so much excuses and be doing so much defending for the ultra capitalists that manage this game. Your game won't suddenly die if their profits drop a few millions if it's already at dozens or hundred millions a year.

But disregarding all of this, subbing or not, it still boils down to me finding the 2.5 GCD , static , tab targeting combat to be archaic and slow. You may subjectively claim that you like this system or prefer it over others, but it is OBJECTIVELY slow. I have never played or have seen a game where, at the very least at the start of it was THIS slow in combat.

There's even FF14 players in this post chain that agree, that at least 50% of the leveling experience is you pressing either 1 or 2( or 1 then 2) while waiting 2.5 seconds in between.
If you honestly believe that max level combat is more bareable, good even, then can we at least agree that the early game of FF14 is terrible?

And there's also the matter of bad questing, bad presentation ( At least early on). Nothing is voiced, nothing has sounds to it (mobs don't have sounds interacting with the world, no rain sounds, no npc rambling or any sort of environmental feedback, just JRPG music all around).

The games engine and graphics are also noticeably dated, the only times it looks good is if you Zoom in all the way into your character, and even then you can clearly see you're playing a game that was developed a decade ago and had no enhancements.

Maybe the story picks up and becomes so interesting it's comparable to a fully fledged singleplayer game, at least by FF or JRPG standards, but as once again many people claim, this only really starts being a thing during the first expansion content, the beginning is BORING.

I have found traversing around the world being quite slow as well.

I’ll never understand why people defend the payment model.

[Etraux]

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

GW2 issue is that it updates too slowly, so the content although good, gets stale.

It's almost like they could use some money to hire more people. Maybe even in monthly payments from players.

Also, no, current content is meh. They dropped the ball on last episode and writing quality has been in decline since PoF release, IMO.

P.S. Did you just reply to yourself?

[Estheliel]

There's absolutely no discussion to be had all thanks to the majority of Free-to-Play games showing us that Sub MMOs will always be much better to play in, case in point both WoW and FFXIV.

The solution is regional pricing, not to lower it or drop it altogether in favor of a model that will inevitably mean either worse servers, more and more items in the cash shop or less developers on the team (usually QA suffers first).

If region pricing is done right and protected from people in developed countries using VPN to pay from underdeveloped ones, it would mean a lot more players in general considering subbing. But 13 eu a month is quite a lot for many countries, all of those are potential players not giving the game a go.

[MOSLEY]

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

GW2 issue is that it updates too slowly, so the content although good, gets stale.

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

I’ll never understand why people defend the payment model.

Really?

[Splat]

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

Origineel geplaatst door Splat:

So, these guys at Square give people a free trial (some don't seem to grasp what trial means) which includes the base game or Realm Reborn and the first expansion Heavensward and still people complain about things... id think that we really live in a day and age where people just believe that they are entitled to everything.

If one isn't happy with FF14's trial you can always go to WoW and get that free trial until level 20.

As i said before, i was wrong about the way the FF14 trial works.
I simply pointed out that's among the restrictions, you get Friendlist and Party restrictions in an MMORPG. I don't see how any of that helps prevent spamming or botting.
Such restrictions don't exist in F2P GW2, and i was never, NEVER randomly invited by spammer/bot to a party.

You can always go and play the super popular GW2 and their successful F2P model, in any case coming here now pretending that FF14 is a bad game because it's a visual novel, or the restrictions of the free trial, each company makes the games their own way. Nobody here said, at least i will never say that FF14 isn't a perfect game, no game is, but what i noticed each year or at least each time that game launches an expansion is that rises in number of players and popularity, so something right those devs are doing, if it doesn't please everyone well i'm sorry but we don't live in wonderland.

People seem to very, very so very often forget that it's not our IP but Square's.

[Splat]

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

I may be wrong, but ESO dropped subs didn't they? They have a sort of premium optional subbing but it isn't mandatory.

In terms of the subbing you need to look at the biggest picture.
This isn't just 13 bucks. This is 156 a year, 312 for two. Not including game and expansion purchases, and the game still has a sort of Cashshop system as well.

Why should i be expected to pay so much money just to have the right to play a game i already paid for?

GW2's servers didn't implode because people didn't pay subs for over a decade.
The game stagnated due to having less income sure, but also because of huge, HUGE management issues later on.
And i'm not even advocating for the complete removal of subbing, but a different pricing.
13-15 dollars a month was the norm almost 2 decades ago. Things have obviously changed.
Do any basic math that me and the other dude has done previously, unless they are paying devs 1000$ an hour, the profits are ABSURDLY high.
Dropping it to 5-8 would not kill the game or slow down any development, it would be more fair and still extremely profitable

There's also a variable to it. What if i'm really busy? A lot of work, studies or family life? What if i can only play twice a week? once a week? Maybe just an hour once every few days but i still want to play at least that one time a month? Is 13 dollars a month sound even more intrusive?
You really shouldn't be making so much excuses and be doing so much defending for the ultra capitalists that manage this game. Your game won't suddenly die if their profits drop a few millions if it's already at dozens or hundred millions a year.

But disregarding all of this, subbing or not, it still boils down to me finding the 2.5 GCD , static , tab targeting combat to be archaic and slow. You may subjectively claim that you like this system or prefer it over others, but it is OBJECTIVELY slow. I have never played or have seen a game where, at the very least at the start of it was THIS slow in combat.

There's even FF14 players in this post chain that agree, that at least 50% of the leveling experience is you pressing either 1 or 2( or 1 then 2) while waiting 2.5 seconds in between.
If you honestly believe that max level combat is more bareable, good even, then can we at least agree that the early game of FF14 is terrible?

And there's also the matter of bad questing, bad presentation ( At least early on). Nothing is voiced, nothing has sounds to it (mobs don't have sounds interacting with the world, no rain sounds, no npc rambling or any sort of environmental feedback, just JRPG music all around).

The games engine and graphics are also noticeably dated, the only times it looks good is if you Zoom in all the way into your character, and even then you can clearly see you're playing a game that was developed a decade ago and had no enhancements.

Maybe the story picks up and becomes so interesting it's comparable to a fully fledged singleplayer game, at least by FF or JRPG standards, but as once again many people claim, this only really starts being a thing during the first expansion content, the beginning is BORING.

I have found traversing around the world being quite slow as well.

I’ll never understand why people defend the payment model.

I don't know if you are trolling or maybe young and showing lack of knowledge about how some things work in this world.
Why people pay for Netflix, Amazon and so on? Better yet why do you play for gas or electricity or to be able to have an internet provider?

Also, and this may seem hard to understand by many people like you, people like me defend the payment model in this case for a game because it keeps supporting that same game, content flowing, helping paying for wages etc...as in any other corporations/companies out in the world they need money in order to survive and thrive.

Look at your loved GW2 for a long time they kept the game going with free updates monthly or ever couple of weeks until they realized they needed payed expansions, money in these kinds of games help a whole lot especially with the content flowing at a steady pace, maybe sometime you will see that or not and in some time we will come back here or a new post will be made by FF14 being only a novel and so on and meanwhile the game keeps growing...mind-blowing.

[DaniTheHero]

Origineel geplaatst door Splat:

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

As i said before, i was wrong about the way the FF14 trial works.
I simply pointed out that's among the restrictions, you get Friendlist and Party restrictions in an MMORPG. I don't see how any of that helps prevent spamming or botting.
Such restrictions don't exist in F2P GW2, and i was never, NEVER randomly invited by spammer/bot to a party.

You can always go and play the super popular GW2 and their successful F2P model, in any case coming here now pretending that FF14 is a bad game because it's a visual novel, or the restrictions of the free trial, each company makes the games their own way. Nobody here said, at least i will never say that FF14 isn't a perfect game, no game is, but what i noticed each year or at least each time that game launches an expansion is that rises in number of players and popularity, so something right those devs are doing, if it doesn't please everyone well i'm sorry but we don't live in wonderland.

People seem to very, very so very often forget that it's not our IP but Square's.

One can argue is that it's not that FF14 is doing something specifically right, but others are doing a lot wrong.
It doesn't matter if you're just average, if almost everyone else is below average.

One can only hope Ashes of Creation won't be a bust.

[DaniTheHero]

Origineel geplaatst door Splat:

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

I’ll never understand why people defend the payment model.

I don't know if you are trolling or maybe young and showing lack of knowledge about how some things work in this world.
Why people pay for Netflix, Amazon and so on? Better yet why do you play for gas or electricity or to be able to have an internet provider?

Also, and this may seem hard to understand by many people like you, people like me defend the payment model in this case for a game because it keeps supporting that same game, content flowing, helping paying for wages etc...as in any other corporations/companies out in the world they need money in order to survive and thrive.

Look at your loved GW2 for a long time they kept the game going with free updates monthly or ever couple of weeks until they realized they needed payed expansions, money in these kinds of games help a whole lot especially with the content flowing at a steady pace, maybe sometime you will see that or not and in some time we will come back here or a new post will be made by FF14 being only a novel and so on and meanwhile the game keeps growing...mind-blowing.

Firstly, i have said, many times in this chain, supporting the concept of monthly subbing is one thing, and debating the exact price is another thing entirely.

Pretending that cutting the 13-15 dollar price to 5-8 would somehow kill the game is absurd.
The subbing alone brings in tens of millions if not hundreds of millions a year of income, and this doesn't include people buying the game for the first time and some expansions.
And the game STILL has a freaking Cashshop.
Unless each dev literally gets paid thousands of dollars a DAY, the game is monumentally profitable.

You're simply being dishonest if you claim that the only two options that exist are either 1) A F2P game with P2W FIFA like lootboxes or 2) Each player being forced to play near 200 dollars in his first year, for the right to play a single game which by all accounts you all admit isn't a masterpiece, but just better than the current competition in your opinion.
It took GW2 2-3 years before the lack of funds started being a real problem, and even there a lot of the issues also came from Management issues and NCSoft interventions, and not just a matter of money.

There's an obvious middle ground that can be employed here.

Secondly, comparing Netflix or other stream services to this is also dishonest.
Netflix and other services of it's like doesn't provide you with single long running show that never ends. It gives you a near unlimited amount of different content that updates on a daily basis. It also doesn't require you to pay extra every once in a while for "service expanding (i.e paid expansions), and you can even share your account with people, as the watching experience isn't tied to YOUR progress.
Also licensing costs A LOT.

Besides, the whole point of Netflix and other alike services was to provide a CHEAPER alternative to Cable, that was many times it's price and didn't really provide a better service. In this example FF14 would be the old school Cable networks that still overcharge people with the excuse that a different model wouldn't work.

I'm not even going to respond to the honestly ridiculous comparison of an MMORPG monthly sub bill, to paying the electricity bill..

[DaniTheHero]

Origineel geplaatst door MOSLEY:

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

GW2 issue is that it updates too slowly, so the content although good, gets stale.

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

I’ll never understand why people defend the payment model.

Really?

Again, read above comment.
There can be a middle ground. Subbing can exist without literally milking the playerbase.

[DaniTheHero]

Origineel geplaatst door Kabbs:

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

GW2 issue is that it updates too slowly, so the content although good, gets stale.

It's almost like they could use some money to hire more people. Maybe even in monthly payments from players.

Also, no, current content is meh. They dropped the ball on last episode and writing quality has been in decline since PoF release, IMO.

P.S. Did you just reply to yourself?

The content structure and the level of writing is not a money issue, it's known that Arenanet has had a lot of management problems, SJW/Woke agendas leading charge, diversity hires, talent leaving due to these things and so on.
Although money was and is an issue for sure, it is far from being the only issue that plagues recent GW2.
Regardless GW2 clearly is bringing in SOME profit, or else it would be shut down and not running for over a decade.

This was one of the first attempts of a fairly talented an experienced team (GW1 was great for it's time), to try a more consumer friendly approach. Politics and issues from the inside ruined what could of been something far greater.

And i "responded to myself", because i wanted to add a certain point to a comment that was lost in the pages (As an edit on it wouldn't be seen).

[Ruffio]

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

Origineel geplaatst door Ruffio:

It's still cheaper than sub for wow or eso+ and other ones. If you can't afford 13 bucks a month, then you got bigger issues to deal with than play computer games.

I may be wrong, but ESO dropped subs didn't they? They have a sort of premium optional subbing but it isn't mandatory.

In terms of the subbing you need to look at the biggest picture.
This isn't just 13 bucks. This is 156 a year, 312 for two. Not including game and expansion purchases, and the game still has a sort of Cashshop system as well.

Why should i be expected to pay so much money just to have the right to play a game i already paid for?

GW2's servers didn't implode because people didn't pay subs for over a decade.
The game stagnated due to having less income sure, but also because of huge, HUGE management issues later on.
And i'm not even advocating for the complete removal of subbing, but a different pricing.
13-15 dollars a month was the norm almost 2 decades ago. Things have obviously changed.
Do any basic math that me and the other dude has done previously, unless they are paying devs 1000$ an hour, the profits are ABSURDLY high.
Dropping it to 5-8 would not kill the game or slow down any development, it would be more fair and still extremely profitable

There's also a variable to it. What if i'm really busy? A lot of work, studies or family life? What if i can only play twice a week? once a week? Maybe just an hour once every few days but i still want to play at least that one time a month? Is 13 dollars a month sound even more intrusive?
You really shouldn't be making so much excuses and be doing so much defending for the ultra capitalists that manage this game. Your game won't suddenly die if their profits drop a few millions if it's already at dozens or hundred millions a year.

But disregarding all of this, subbing or not, it still boils down to me finding the 2.5 GCD , static , tab targeting combat to be archaic and slow. You may subjectively claim that you like this system or prefer it over others, but it is OBJECTIVELY slow. I have never played or have seen a game where, at the very least at the start of it was THIS slow in combat.

There's even FF14 players in this post chain that agree, that at least 50% of the leveling experience is you pressing either 1 or 2( or 1 then 2) while waiting 2.5 seconds in between.
If you honestly believe that max level combat is more bareable, good even, then can we at least agree that the early game of FF14 is terrible?

And there's also the matter of bad questing, bad presentation ( At least early on). Nothing is voiced, nothing has sounds to it (mobs don't have sounds interacting with the world, no rain sounds, no npc rambling or any sort of environmental feedback, just JRPG music all around).

The games engine and graphics are also noticeably dated, the only times it looks good is if you Zoom in all the way into your character, and even then you can clearly see you're playing a game that was developed a decade ago and had no enhancements.

Maybe the story picks up and becomes so interesting it's comparable to a fully fledged singleplayer game, at least by FF or JRPG standards, but as once again many people claim, this only really starts being a thing during the first expansion content, the beginning is BORING.

I have found traversing around the world being quite slow as well.

Playing ESO, without sub for ESO+ suck ass.. ESO+ increase your qol in the game a lot.
mmo's with the f2p model more than often keep restrict you with qol issues. Restrict or limit content .Pay to unlock more raids, accesss dungeons etc. Paying a sub and don't have to deal with any such ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is the better option.

Don't start invest into play a mmo if you don't have the time to spend on it. mmo's is a time sink. Even if you down to 10 hours a month, it's still cheap entertainment in regard of cost per hour...

With get a mount and the ability to teleport all over the place, travel in FF is not that slow.
You only need to focus on the msq and your class/job quest, and some important quests on the side. There is no need to do every quest possible while progressing through the msq.

I get it you don't like the game, you like gw2.. so go back to gw2? That highly active and successfull game deserve you -)

[LeftPaw]

Logged in to GW2 this morning with the intent to finish off my ascended gear. Started the grind for dragon ore, then after 10 minutes had this light bulb go of in my head, a fantastic idea. Log off and play something you like. So I did.

[DaniTheHero]

Origineel geplaatst door Ruffio:

Origineel geplaatst door DaniTheHero:

I may be wrong, but ESO dropped subs didn't they? They have a sort of premium optional subbing but it isn't mandatory.

In terms of the subbing you need to look at the biggest picture.
This isn't just 13 bucks. This is 156 a year, 312 for two. Not including game and expansion purchases, and the game still has a sort of Cashshop system as well.

Why should i be expected to pay so much money just to have the right to play a game i already paid for?

GW2's servers didn't implode because people didn't pay subs for over a decade.
The game stagnated due to having less income sure, but also because of huge, HUGE management issues later on.
And i'm not even advocating for the complete removal of subbing, but a different pricing.
13-15 dollars a month was the norm almost 2 decades ago. Things have obviously changed.
Do any basic math that me and the other dude has done previously, unless they are paying devs 1000$ an hour, the profits are ABSURDLY high.
Dropping it to 5-8 would not kill the game or slow down any development, it would be more fair and still extremely profitable

There's also a variable to it. What if i'm really busy? A lot of work, studies or family life? What if i can only play twice a week? once a week? Maybe just an hour once every few days but i still want to play at least that one time a month? Is 13 dollars a month sound even more intrusive?
You really shouldn't be making so much excuses and be doing so much defending for the ultra capitalists that manage this game. Your game won't suddenly die if their profits drop a few millions if it's already at dozens or hundred millions a year.

But disregarding all of this, subbing or not, it still boils down to me finding the 2.5 GCD , static , tab targeting combat to be archaic and slow. You may subjectively claim that you like this system or prefer it over others, but it is OBJECTIVELY slow. I have never played or have seen a game where, at the very least at the start of it was THIS slow in combat.

There's even FF14 players in this post chain that agree, that at least 50% of the leveling experience is you pressing either 1 or 2( or 1 then 2) while waiting 2.5 seconds in between.
If you honestly believe that max level combat is more bareable, good even, then can we at least agree that the early game of FF14 is terrible?

And there's also the matter of bad questing, bad presentation ( At least early on). Nothing is voiced, nothing has sounds to it (mobs don't have sounds interacting with the world, no rain sounds, no npc rambling or any sort of environmental feedback, just JRPG music all around).

The games engine and graphics are also noticeably dated, the only times it looks good is if you Zoom in all the way into your character, and even then you can clearly see you're playing a game that was developed a decade ago and had no enhancements.

Maybe the story picks up and becomes so interesting it's comparable to a fully fledged singleplayer game, at least by FF or JRPG standards, but as once again many people claim, this only really starts being a thing during the first expansion content, the beginning is BORING.

I have found traversing around the world being quite slow as well.

Playing ESO, without sub for ESO+ suck ass.. ESO+ increase your qol in the game a lot.
mmo's with the f2p model more than often keep restrict you with qol issues. Restrict or limit content .Pay to unlock more raids, accesss dungeons etc. Paying a sub and don't have to deal with any such ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is the better option.

Don't start invest into play a mmo if you don't have the time to spend on it. mmo's is a time sink. Even if you down to 10 hours a month, it's still cheap entertainment in regard of cost per hour...

With get a mount and the ability to teleport all over the place, travel in FF is not that slow.
You only need to focus on the msq and your class/job quest, and some important quests on the side. There is no need to do every quest possible while progressing through the msq.

I get it you don't like the game, you like gw2.. so go back to gw2? That highly active and successfull game deserve you -)

I don't understand this snark that a lot comments seem to have.
I was looking for a new MMO to play BECAUSE i was tired of GW2, i'm not trying to sell the game to you.

Up until fairly recently FF14 was fairly on par in popularity with ESO and GW2.
The exodus from WoW to FF14 was the biggest boost to this game, and the move FF14 specifically was because FF14 is similar to WoW(The game people were leaving), being a slower, tab targeting game.
Some specific endorsements from popular figures helped as well.

If we had this exact conversation just a year ago, the "You see? paying 200 dollars a year is clearly superior in every way to not paying it!", would not look well.

So what's the message here? That 13 dollar subbing is clearly better AFTER a decade passes and your biggest competitor dies from the inside(and not because of something you did)?