Monday, October 7, 2013

Final Fantasy

So I have been playing FF14 now for a few weeks. In that time I hit max level, have become a raid leader, gotten into coils and also seen a guild fall apart in a rather heartbreaking fashion. Here are my thoughts of the game overall.


  • Game is visually stunning and a joy to play
  • Crafting is much more involving and intelligent than most games
  • The difficulty of encounters is refreshing given how easy I feel most MMO content has gotten
  • Class balance is rather poor. While parsers are rather inaccurate but there are clear discrepancies between ranged and melee dps and even within that role. Monks and Dragoons could do the same damage, but Monks seem to be ahead. Regardless Monks provide raid utility (bonus healing, silences) and dragoons..do nothing. The same goes for Black Mage and Summoner. The former looks flashy but the latter does better damage per second and can provide an in combat rez, damage mitigation and more. Don't even ask about Warriors.
  • I do not like the general design of the end game thus far. It is generally pretty stale, involving grinding against certain instances to get gear (which can be done within 3 days) after which you are done with that 'set' of gear. Then there is a ladder of primal (single boss instances without trash) that are fun before going to the first end game area called Coil of Bahamut. The Coil is interesting but generally has many problems.
    • 8 players only AND there is a type of instance lock (you cannot kill a boss you have already killed in the same week). This is a problem for a large guild in general.
    • The fight mechanics are interesting but..uninspired I feel.
I enjoy the game, however I'm not sure about the long road with the game. The japanese developers, bad customer service and disjointed web site give me concerns. On the other game, the actual design from the developers seems top notch. So..whats the verdict?

I will stay with the game, but I will also be checking out TESO and giving WildStar another shot (I was in the beta and was VERY unimpressed, but we will see what they can do in the time I have been away from the game).

3 comments:

  1. I'm holding out hope for Wild Star. The artistic design looks very appealing to me.

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  2. Had taken to playing Eve again for a bit, but only seem to be able to handle it for short periods of time.

    Question for you, what do you want from a game? Longer time to gain levels? Better end game content? Just curious what would hold your interest for an extended period of time? Having played games with you for a while over the years, I have noticed a bit of a trend in you getting excited about the game, but that petering out pretty quick. So, questions is, what is needed to hold the attention of the Gabe?

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  3. More end game. Eve is great cause..its all end game content. It just requires you invest time, and I might maybe have that time now a days. I think WoW has lots of end game, but over time they have made it easier and easier to the point that its insulting, and I really dislike the graphics/lore direction.

    I want compelling combat (tera) not gimicky combat (GW2/Wild Star). We will see how things pan out with TESO, WildStar and others, but I may go back to Eve at this rate. We will see. FF14 IS a great game, dont get me wrong, right now im having a ton of fun with it, im just worried I will finish content much faster than its created at this point.

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