What Games are you playing 2015?

[jsh357]

Finished my regular fiesta run with no real problems (Summoner/Black Mage/Dragoon/Beastmaster).  Twin Tania was the hardest fight as I had no elemental rings, but hasted Dragoon > him as it turns out.  Beat the game at Level 33 I think.  I have not fought Omega or Shinryu in many years, and don't plan to bother this time around either.  Maybe if I roll a dancer or something.

I started a Random Natural run next, so far have Blue Mage, Red Mage, and White Mage.  I think Gilgabot likes me.  I'm up to Sol Cannon already and doubt I will have many issues going forward.

Edit: LOL of course my fourth job is Summoner.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Inspired by FFRK, more FF games! This time modern ones, heaven help me.

FF14: So I am not actually -playing- this, but chat goes on and on about it, and it IS the only numbered FF I literally know -nothing- about, so I started watching some of the main quest on youtube to kill some hours. It's... actually not bad. The localization team actually does a great job writing MMO world-building plot and has some entertaining dialogue for the characters you meet. I think the only complaint I have with it, writing-wise, is that it has the ugliest names for things ever. Hard to read, harder to remember, and nigh-impossible to spell without looking so you'll have to ask Meeple for the highlights there.

The design for the Primals (summons, but evil) is Fucking Amazing. Worth watching even the most tedious of cutscenes just to see them in motion.

It's really too bad it's an MMO and I will never ever ever play another one of those again, because it has the most worthwhile story/writing/worldbuilding of any FF since 10.

FF Type-0: And in contrast! We have the Fabula Nova Crystalwhatsis. Honestly has very very little to do with FF13, which is great. It is certainly the best writing to come out of the FNC, for all that I'd be wary of calling it 'good'. It has some decent plot/action moments and it builds its villains and their schemes well, but it's the heroes that are lacking really. Type-0, as literally everyone who knew anything about it could have predicted, has TOO MANY CHARACTERS and none of them are well-rounded or fleshed out, and only barely likable due to the most surface of qualities given to them. In a game with 16 or so playable characters, and none of them are really given the role of "main character", this dearth of personal stories is really distracting. If, let's say, Ace was really the main character as he appears to be from most of the promotional materials and his name, and he was the driving force of the story and all the other 16 or so PCs were his tagalong Suikoden one-hit wonders then these shallow personalities would actually gel rather well. But as-is, he's closer to a silent protagonist in terms of personality depth. The worst part is that I -know- SE could have pulled off the assemble cast thing, since even the decades-old FF6 managed to give its similarly-sized cast each their own little story arc. It doesn't help that the voice-acting is sub-par...

This isn't to say that I dislike it, though! I'm actually rather engaged in the whole political struggle and interesting world ideas that are reimagined from the FF13 world into something much MUCH more coherent. It's just really distracting having all these main characters running around. The plot itself cribs a bunch of concepts from FF13 like l'Cie and Focus and uses them as the basis for a sci-fi super-soldier plot wherein an empire also happens to be going around trying to capture all four elemental crystals that are the source of all magic OH AND ALSO ARE SENTIENT THINGS THAT CREATE L'CIE, replacing the stupid Fal'Cie from FF13 that made no sense. Basically, Type-0's story is much more straightforward in its world-building and is all the better for it narratively so it can focus on the political goings-on of the four nations. I daresay I'd read a novel about this storyline were it not centered on the 16-or-so military high school students who make up our playable characters. The politicians could carry this novel.

Oh, and the gameplay. It exists, it's not bad. It is essentially a Kingdom Hearts/Crisis Core style ARPG (with a lot more PC options) and that's just not my thing, but it seems competent at it. So for people who dig those kinds of battle systems, I'd recommend it. Otherwise... well I don't think the narrative is going to win anyone over due to its horrible misuse of large-cast, but if you like FF13 and KH, you probably will like this?

[Scar]

Ffo

The lack of distinction between the characters really stood out.

Yeah, they do have slight differences in their outfits, but they look too similar to care. Hell, even giving them unlockable ff oriented job gear would have been sweet.

Imagine nine in dragoon gear. Would have look cool, yo!

Anyways no one has anything close to a good or engaging personality, which is a shame. I love large casts in rpgs, just not bland ones.

Oh, and the chick who picks the wedgie out of her ass every time she swings her mace around...classy Japan. Classy.

[Meeplelard]

I'd play Type-0 but lack of PS4 means I won't.  Ah well...

Hard to read, harder to remember, and nigh-impossible to spell without looking so you'll have to ask Meeple for the highlights there.

And yet, this is still a step up from FF11.  At least FF14 doesn't throw apostrophes into 50% of it's names, only 20%!  Also removed the hyphen nonsense from Tarutaru names when creating Lalafells.

[Reiska]

FF5 Fiesta: I wandered the world and went to all the places I hadn't been to yet, got myself some Bard songs and such. Then I went and fought the defenses of the flying city, and got walled hard by Sol Cannon or whatever it's called. The Aging+MT 2HKO damage that bleeds was a little much. Then I discovered I could take out the things that were launching the missiles. Funnily enough, I'm also about 90% certain that taking them out damages the main cannon by a fair amount, because I've definitely done way more damage to the cannon and not touched the missiles than in my successful run of that battle. (4-6k on the successful run, whereas I've had a run where I did 6-8k to the main cannon and never touched the missile pods)

Though you got past it, it's worth noting that Sol Cannon's big MT attack always does _exactly_ 50% of your max HP in damage, so if you can keep your HP above that threshold, it will never kill you ever.

(Some parties in the fiesta format do have issues with this.)

FF14: So I am not actually -playing- this, but chat goes on and on about it, and it IS the only numbered FF I literally know -nothing- about, so I started watching some of the main quest on youtube to kill some hours. It's... actually not bad. The localization team actually does a great job writing MMO world-building plot and has some entertaining dialogue for the characters you meet. I think the only complaint I have with it, writing-wise, is that it has the ugliest names for things ever. Hard to read, harder to remember, and nigh-impossible to spell without looking so you'll have to ask Meeple for the highlights there.

FF14's worldbuilding and writing stands up even to the non-MMO FF entries, in my opinion.  Like, a hypothetical refactoring of the game where they made it a single-player experience instead of an MMO (with the expected gameplay changes, naturally) and made the main character not a silent protagonist would probably be well-received amongst the series as a whole, I suspect.  The parts of the MMO which are currently "Now go do this group dungeon!" could easily be handled either by crafting 3-7 more OCs (as "player character" stand-ins) or, in many (but not all) cases, just letting you run around with some of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn or various Grand Company NPCs as party members, or even by just taking a couple of the characters that are ostensibly important but don't actually _do_ anything visible  during most of the main scenario (like Alisaie, who has a very significant role in the Binding Coils of Bahamut, but has all of like two cutscenes she appears in for the entirety of the main scenario leveling quests, and they're way back around level 15).

The main character themselves not being a silent protagonist could be handled either by making them a set character (as with most FFs) or while leaving FF14's avatar customization in, possibly with a 'personality selector' not unlike the one used by the retainers in the actual MMO.  (Obviously the latter would entail significantly more writing work, as you'd probably have a minimum of two sets of lines for every race/gender combination possible, so at least 40 different "main character scripts" if you don't include Au Ra - 5 races * 2 subraces * 2 genders * 2 personalities)

[Cotigo]

Did both scenarios, save Cid and Cid dies. Goddamn in the age of the SNES was Cid Dies ballsy as fuck. Cid lives is really dumb and terrible but I can see why they added it in. Definitely remember doing Cid Lives when I replayed it on the PSX because ballsy fiction was less important to me than the comfort of knowing I could prevent bad things from happening if I just tried hard enough.

I think it's a masterful piece of fuckery to have it possible to prevent an incredibly sad thing, just you didn't know how.  It feels like FF6 getting into metafiction, especially for the era.  If you paid closer attention to the fish and tried to figure out how it worked based on the item descriptions and what Cid says, you can probably find out how to save him, but the game makes it so you have to scramble to save him (since his health ticks down no matter what you're doing).  It's a really effective way of putting you in the character's shoes the first time you play through it.  So Cid lives is important in that it puts the responsibility for Cid dying on you, the player, for doing it wrong, and not just the story.  Even though it's trite.

Hm, I think I agree but I feel like that wasn't done on purpose. In any case...

Up to Figaro - Good stuff etc. Reset in the house Sabin's holding up because I dicked around too much. Both Hunbaba and Phunbaba are legit translations of what I assume is the original name and that irritates me but whatever. Dealt with Tentacles easily... this was another boss that walled me as a kid and I have no idea how. I can only guess I hadn't actually bothered to build up a skillset for these characters because my party as a kid was Locke/Sabin/Terra and...... Cyan. So only one character was really set up to do anything? Anyway, EZ mode this time around.

A bit of plot incongruity... Celes had been asleep for 1 year, and Figaro castle went under the day everything went boom, but there are all these bodies laying around saying they can't breathe. So they've apparently been suffocating for a year straight. Silly plothole, i c u.

hahaha ok gba translation you got me on the NPC talking about people spelling Kefka's name with C's. That was pretty great. god that doesn't even make linguistic sense

Darryl's Tomb. Another area that was only probably hard because out of the characters you have access to here I only ever used Sabin.  On that note, Genji Glove Sabin with two Burning Fists is actually pretty badass throughout this section, and barely outdamages Celes with -Ra spells. Like, even without setting him up with any skills in the WoB he's still holding his own. I imagine that's intended though since almost everything in this stretch is weak to fire, so they wanna give you a leg up. Edgar, too, would be fine on the strength of his tools alone, the utility spells I gave him are just an added bonus. And even if I hadn't been using Celes she'd at least have Blizzara by now. Setzer on the other hand... man without any setting up he is terrible. Maybe better with slot manipulation but I don't care enough to do that. Good thing the other 3 PCs you're forced with here carry their own quite handily, and Seraph can turn him into an OK heal battery by the time it's time to fight Dullahan. Another easy boss that walled me as a kid because I didn't realize motherfucker was countering all my sick fires. 10 year olds is dumb.

And now I have the Falcon. Dramatic music is dramatic (also great). First order of business, ignore the game trying to get me to get Cyan and go get Terra. Phunbaba is easy even though he blows away both Celes and Edgar. Mahou Shojo Terra is Mahou Shojo Terra.

Now that I have a proper team + Sabin, I decide that my final party will include Relm since I've never actually used her, so off to Jidoor... after picking up some low hanging fruit. Bum Rush, Birdsper, etc. Owzer is Jabba the Hutt. Refrence pyle. taller. dont stop gettin.  Dungeon was somewhat competent, but not really. Relm and Lakshmi (uh whatever it is originally called. Gives Curaga) acquire, a brief drop off for Strago, then to Narshe for -aga spells.

Millivanilly (Villagepeoplemiranda? Vilimanjaro? Viligarmanda?... Tritoch) goes down EZ, so does the Ice Dragon. Reset once to Tonberries because I haven't learned to heal up before opening chests yet and I forgot this was a mimic. Beat Umaro, and realize I hadn't gotten mog yet, and redo the dungeon, swapping Edgar for Mog and pissing and moaning the entire time. It's not even like I'm gonna use Umaro or anything. Anyway, swapped Mog for Strago, frameskip my way to get Aero for Strago and to rerecruit Gao and then quit for the night.

[Reiska]

Tentacles are easy to troll with game knowledge, yeah.  They can be a little hard when you don't realize that Running Shoes/Hermes' Sandals make you immune to Slow, and thus also immune to their seizing attack.

There are some official Square publications (in Japanese) from the era that romanized the name as "Cefca", and when Sky Render did his retranslation of FF6 he used that spelling as a result.  Even he thinks it was dumb now, he prefers the GBA script over his own.

As for Setzer, it's pretty easy to at least hit Flash or whatever the three gems slot is consistently, and you don't need anything better for that segment of the game, probably. 

Relm's actually pretty good just on raw stats, if projecty.  Sketch is hot garbage though of course.

[Meeplelard]

The Cefca thing was pretty much straight up pedantic nonsense because of the Japanese Romanization; Woolsey did the right thing translating it as "Kefka" simply because, well, doesn't give the false impression of "Sefca" and phonetics are probably the most important thing when it comes to Name Translations (as in, "Jody" vs. "Jodi" is completely meaningless; they're pronounced the same way and in Japanese, there'd be no way to distinguish the two.)  These days it's easy to shut those fake-purists up by simply linking them to a Japanese Dissidia cutscene where they very blatantly say "Kefka." 
I remember someone tried to argue Kefka was based off an Italitan character and the name was probably meant to be italian and thus "Cefca" made sense until he remembered that if it was a Italian, it'd be pronounced "Chefca" that way, which is no better than "Sefca" so he back-pedaled on that claim.  This is a random annecdote, not really making a point!

And yeah, the Figaro thing is a plothole I've seen brought up plenty.  Another plot-point that feels off is Mobliz.  Terra claims that Kefka nuked the town the same day the world was redone, but the flashback suggests this isn't the first Light of Judgment Kefka has hurled since the parents seem to recognize it (First in Mobliz, sure, but not first in the world.)  I personally think it should have been reworded as something like "shortly after." 

Figaro could easily be re-written too.  Change "we're running out of air!" to "we're running out of supplies!"  Sure, some suspension of disbelief on "where are they getting air from!?" but changing it to a supply issue as opposed to an air one makes sense.


And yeah, Early WoR is very much geared to be Sabin solo-able, specifically for that reason.  It's very possible to have an under-developed Celes at this point since she leaves right before integral Espers show up, and her level might not be high enough to get Ice 2, etc.  Sabin, by contrast, will have most definitely learned Fire Dance by then, so enemies are basically made one-shottable by him to help make that section easier despite 2 PCs.  Add in how just about every enemy until Daryl's Tomb is clearly way weaker than the Floating Continent, unscaled, and it's clear they balanced it to be easy.  Daryl's Tomb is the first dungeon with any bite to it and even that has, as you note, a heavy emphasis on Fire Weak enemies.

Interestingly, before Sabin rejoins, the enemies are geared to be easily solo-able by Celes.  There's a bunch of Ice weak enemies, and they have fairly low HP, and outside of the status in the collapsing house (which the game warns you about if you talk to NPCs in Tzen, and the relic shop does have the appropriate relic to counter-act it), so it's clearly intended with that mindset, since once you cross the bridge, the enemies shift from "lots of Ice weak" to "lots of Fire weak" as though you just got Sabin.   It's honestly a pretty well designed area all things considered since before this point, outside of Thamasa, you have a lot of freedom with characters, then suddenly it says "you mults now use these characters, one of whom is very plausibly under-developed!" so they balanced it around that minimum potential.  Played a lot of games that give you the finger when doing a stunt like that.


As far as Setzer goes, Chocobop is the best for Daryl's Tomb; it's essentially Meteor that can't hit fliers, and it's just as easy to get as 7 Flush.  That said, Setzer's not particularly good during this arc.  Sabin's hitting weakness, Edgar's got big ST damage with his tools, Celes probably has probably caught up by now with Magic between the previous segments if she had fallen behind at all, Setzer...yeah, doesn't have much.  I guess 7 Flush is no worse than Edgar's Flash, except Edgar does have Enhancer giving basically a 20% boost Setzer can't get (before Esper boosts.)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Suite Autobattle II: Menuet - In which I grind for tons of black power. Got Dark, Venom Buster, Mental Break and Retaliate to R3. If I manage to pull another -ga to R4, I'll be pretty much good to go for a while.

[hinode]

One thing about FF6 slot is that in my experience if you get the first real for 7-flush or Chocobop than the game will rig the next two for you at a really high rate, something like 90% or so. Getting the timing down for just one reel is a lot easier than doing it for all three.

It's probably still not worth the bother of practicing unless you are doing some sort of esoteric challenge where you use neither Sabin nor Espers in the early WoR, though. Or god forbid, are using Setzer on the Floating Continent in an NMG. Or maybe if you're named Meeple and are trying to argue Setzer>Sabin for the back half of the WoB in a faq/message board.

Snow: I assume Thundaga is the first one to R4? If not, definitely pick it, 3 of the likely next 4 events will call for lots and lots of lightning-elemental damage.

[Meeplelard]

One thing about FF6 slot is that in my experience if you get the first real for 7-flush or Chocobop than the game will rig the next two for you at a really high rate, something like 90% or so. Getting the timing down for just one reel is a lot easier than doing it for all three.

That's due to how it's rigged.  Chocobop and 7 Flush are rigged in your favor, such that if you get the first one, the 2nd one is insured, and the 3rd one is insured unless you a hit specific icon on #3.  This is because it's rigged that the game will take the icon you landed on and scroll through the next 3, stopping on whatever matches with the previous two.  In most cases, there's a diamond or chocobo every 3 or 4 icons so you are insured to get it this way, but there's one case where there's a stretch with them, and it lands on a 7? 

Either way, Chocobop and 7 Flush are the only two you can reasonably Spam if you learn the timing because the game helps you out.  H-bomb is a bit risky since it's a 50% rigging against you (as in, the game will just tell you "no") which honestly I find silly because H-bomb, while good, is not so good to the point to need rigging against you as the timing has to be precise, though H-bomb can still pay off since 50% odds is no different than Gau (only crap healing on failure instead of crap damage, and you have to actual know the timing but you can pause cheese that I guess).  Everything above H-bomb is basically "don't bother, not worth it." 

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Snow: I assume Thundaga is the first one to R4? If not, definitely pick it, 3 of the likely next 4 events will call for lots and lots of lightning-elemental damage.

I want to R4 both Thundaga and Blizzaga, since I already have R4 Firaga. Problem is I don't have enough Lightning Orbs for R4 Thundaga. Suppose I'll grind that tomorrow. Thundara Sword and Thundaga are both at R3, at least, and that goes a long way.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Slots are a source of kinda okay damage which can tide you over while learning spells with Setzer, a choice which is mostly justified by the existence of Fixed Dice. I'm actually kinda inclined to agree that Setzer > Sabin in the back half of the WoR but neither's great then anyway so whatever.

[Cotigo]

The Cefca thing was pretty much straight up pedantic nonsense because of the Japanese Romanization; Woolsey did the right thing translating it as "Kefka" simply because, well, doesn't give the false impression of "Sefca" and phonetics are probably the most important thing when it comes to Name Translations (as in, "Jody" vs. "Jodi" is completely meaningless; they're pronounced the same way and in Japanese, there'd be no way to distinguish the two.)  These days it's easy to shut those fake-purists up by simply linking them to a Japanese Dissidia cutscene where they very blatantly say "Kefka." 
I remember someone tried to argue Kefka was based off an Italitan character and the name was probably meant to be italian and thus "Cefca" made sense until he remembered that if it was a Italian, it'd be pronounced "Chefca" that way, which is no better than "Sefca" so he back-pedaled on that claim.  This is a random annecdote, not really making a point!

#MeepleTalksToZennyAboutJapaneseLinguisticsAndTransliteration

[Fenrir]

Is the italian character Franz Kafka



FFRK: Curse you Snoooow
Well. The situation is not too bad here. I got R3 -gas, R1 Protectga, R3 standard breaks, R2 magic breakdown. I also have three priceless works of art: R4 Curaga, R4 Fira strike and R2 Waterja.
I almost have a (good) level 65 team + several other levelled characters, plus the MP restore materias.

I still only max 95 stamina though, the regular dungeons are taking way too long. No idea how anyone has beat all of them.
I also don't want to whip out a calculator + check the website for HP just to beat fucking Baigan.


To be fair, I'm spending every sunday in exp city. So I have levelled a lot of different characters.
Here is my character evaluation right now, from the ones I have tried:

Vivi: Rules
Garnet: Rules
Cloud: Rules so much
Wakka: Wakka's kind of a loser but who else is going to use breakdowns? Fucking Irvine? So he's still useful.
Squall: You use Squall when your Cloud is maxed and you don't want to lose exp, he's about the same but obviously less good
Tyro: Useful when you need three white magic spells but don't want to use two white mages. So you can slap a white mage spell on Tyro, plus let's say, a breakdown. That's pretty good.
Gordon: You could also do that Tyro build I talked about with Gordon, but I'm pretty sure Gordon has worse stats overall after equipment. Also Tyro can do literally anything else he wants and Gordon can't. Gordon blows.
Irvine: Irvine, I tried really really hard to get you a gun, but the odds were so low
Lenna and Arc: Garnet is better since she can break the lvl cap

Mean Cecil / Luneth / Warrior of Light / Kain / Brosef / Sephiroth / Locke / Tidus: They're all very similar generic filler fighters. The difference between each of them is like the difference between pokemon games. D. Cecil and Sephy are the best since they can break the level cap
Nice Cecil: Is slightly more defense oriented than those above, which is bad in this game. Good SB though.
Balthier: See Irvine. Also, lack of Support 4 is a real bummer. He's pretty worthless right now, I don't really see what his role is supposed to be.
Rydia: Black Magic level 3 only = Get the hell out Rydia
Cyan: Get out
Cores: Get out


Soul Hackers: The Amani Monolith has traditional SMT final dungeon size, so I guess I'm at the end. I've already spent like four hours inside. Loving these ridiculous dungeons.

[Sierra]

The design for the Primals (summons, but evil) is Fucking Amazing. Worth watching even the most tedious of cutscenes just to see them in motion.

It's really too bad it's an MMO and I will never ever ever play another one of those again, because it has the most worthwhile story/writing/worldbuilding of any FF since 10.

I would be all over FF14 if only it wasn't, you know, an MMO. I've had FF soundtracks on in the background while working on personal projects the past couple days? And it turns out FF14's tracks are mostly pretty boss, and I do like the actual boss designs as well. Only because it's an MMO they're hidden behind a splash of names&numbers&cooldowntimers vomited all over the screen and MMORPG combat, just fundamentally unpalatable to Cids. I got closer to that than I liked in FF12, thanks.

[Fenrir]

Yeah this is definitely more of a traditional MMO than a FF.
I guess I'm the only one here who wasn't charmed by FF14 at all because it's an MMO, yet I really like FF12 a whole lot.

I consider FF14 to be the worst FF I've played, easily sub FF2. (not including 11 which I haven't played at all and which is probably even worse)
Redundant jobs, endless grinding, endless backtracking, no thinking required during gameplay, worthless story, and the world is a FF-themed theme park instead of an actual FF world. (Note that this is all pretty standard for a MMORPG) The only good thing about it are the graphix, I haven't paid attention to the music but it's not like I had any epic boss battle anyway.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

FFRK: Curse you Snoooow
Well. The situation is not too bad here. I got R3 -gas, R1 Protectga, R3 standard breaks, R2 magic breakdown. I also have three priceless works of art: R4 Curaga, R4 Fira strike and R2 Waterja.
I almost have a (good) level 65 team + several other levelled characters, plus the MP restore materias.

I still only max 95 stamina though, the regular dungeons are taking way too long. No idea how anyone has beat all of them.
I also don't want to whip out a calculator + check the website for HP just to beat fucking Baigan.

For Baigan, you do the following: pick Summon Eidolon II Rydia as your RW. Bladeblitz once. Focus on Baigan until he's at lowish HP. Then, unload Rydia Shiva x2. Alternatively, you're likely overpowered enough that you'll be able to master that fight even without fulfilling that condition. I pulled that Target Score when I was at like L45 or something.

As for Balthier, I dunno. Right now he's a Tidus variant with worse pdur and weaponry, but better mdur due to robes (which is a mixed blessing, since being squishy =/= good for trash. Mitigating physical damage is easier than magical, though). He will likely soar up the tiers when the Thief abilities drop into Global, parasitic stat buffing with Breakdown power sounds crazy good.

[Scar]

Ffrk

Next week I will have all the core classes to 50, plus those that can break the level cap too.

I spent all day getting black power, but I didn't have enough ice or lightning orbs for the aga spells.

Drain n drain strike are lv 3, so that's something. Got terras daddy to rank 2 as well.

Tidus so far is the only max lv character.  I'd rather leave him on the bench for this upcoming event. Kain, wakka, balthier, cloud, vivi, rydia, and garnet are all high 50s.

Need a new retaliate n magic sword user fast cause fuck sephiroth n squall. I'd rather use cyan and lv 50 celes.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Children of Autobattle - Welp, they announced the Yuna event. The banner preview also sounds good, worth tossing some Mythril on. Now, to amass the Lightning Orbs I need for Thundaga R4.

[Captain K]

FFRK:  Working on getting the abilities that alter the Attack command for more efficient autobattling.  Level cap-broke Josef, but haven't had luck getting his second materia.  Got the memory crystals for bard and ranger but they lack levels currently.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Speaking of which, I now have enough Black Orbs to hone Thundaga to R4 -and- to hone another Break to R3. Not sure if I'll do that, since the metagame will soon phase the lower level breaks out and I could use those Power Orbs to hone Spellblades instead, but it's worth a thought.

[Scar]

New abilities would be nice. Does monk even have anything yet?

I'd appreciate a large release of new  abilities to further differentiate all these characters.

Also, I think kain's  daddy is gonna take his place as soon as he maxes out.

[Reiska]

Yeah this is definitely more of a traditional MMO than a FF.
I guess I'm the only one here who wasn't charmed by FF14 at all because it's an MMO, yet I really like FF12 a whole lot.

I consider FF14 to be the worst FF I've played, easily sub FF2. (not including 11 which I haven't played at all and which is probably even worse)
Redundant jobs, endless grinding, endless backtracking, no thinking required during gameplay, worthless story, and the world is a FF-themed theme park instead of an actual FF world. (Note that this is all pretty standard for a MMORPG) The only good thing about it are the graphix, I haven't paid attention to the music but it's not like I had any epic boss battle anyway.

I think we played different games.  >_>  But I'll go down the line with your points.

Redundant jobs: How, exactly, are they redundant in 1) a way other FF job systems are not, and 2) a way that isn't necessitated by the realities of MMO design?  (There is certainly some redundancy inherent there.  Some of it is a necessary evil in MMOs due to role stratification; MMOs explicitly don't permit the inclusion of gimmick classes, because every class has to contribute something meaningful to group play, and in a well-designed MMO, no one class' contribution should clearly outweigh that of any other class in the same role.)  If the classes were truly redundant, then optimal group composition for raid content would involve identifying the single highest DPS class and bringing 4 of that class and only that class for the 4 DPS slots in raid groups.  Being roughly in contact with three different raid groups that are decently competent at this game, I can assure you that this doesn't happen and that FF14 raid compositions tend to be quite varied within the guideline of 2 tanks, 2 healers and 4 DPS; the community pretty much universally agrees that doubling up on any class ever is generally to your raid's detriment, from what I can tell.

Endless grinding: I wouldn't characterize it as "endless" but I will concede that FF14 is slightly more grindy than is my preference (for reference, I consider WoW's leveling grind to be about "just right", and FF14's is notably protracted by comparison in some ranges).  Grinding in MMOs in general, of course, is another consequence of the medium; no doubt it originally existed to ensure that monthly subscriptions continued to get renewed month to month, and even now in this era when more and more MMOs are coming out in a freemium format, it exists to partly alleviate the fact that no development team in the world can create new content for the game world at a rate that keeps up with players' consumption of content.  And when players run out of content, they quit, and they often don't come back.

Endless backtracking: Return to the Waking Sands.  Sure, there's a lot of backtracking in FF14.  There's also a lot of backtracking in basically any offline RPG that ever has any kind of a central hub location for anything.  FF5 sticks out to me as a game with a lot of it (mostly around the Catapult, Ancient Library, and Sealed Castle Kuza).  So I mean, sure, this is accurate enough, but I don't see how it's a unique criticism at all... and in the specific context of FF14, anyway, it kind of makes narrative sense for what is, at first, presented as a quasi-secret society to, you know, want to stick around in their quasi-secret base, not gallavant around in public all the time.

Also wait if you hate endless backtracking how the heck did you like FF12 because holy crap it has probably the most backtracking in the entire damn series.  Hell, 14 itself has more convenient travel.

No thinking required during gameplay: Yeah, uh, no.  Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but this is 100% horse shit, unless you want to be a really bad player in any content past about level 30, which is about when the game starts taking the training wheels off its group content and expects you to actually deal with enemies having specialized mechanics.  Roughly speaking, you can say that the first three dungeons are more or less tutorials on how to play in groups.  (On that note, organically teaching you how to actually perform in group content is an area in which MMOs are typically very weak, and an area in which FF14 relatively excels by the genre standards.  Compare WoW, which pretty much just throws you in on the deep end and doesn't ever teach you the fundamentals of "how to tank".)

Worthless story: Respectfully disagree here.  FF14 probably has the best story presentation in the MMO industry, which is to say that it exists at all.  (I will accept that it is limited somewhat by the nature of the medium, e.g. silent protagonist problems.)  Also it actually largely makes sense and is internally consistent, which is more than I can say for, say, FF13.

The world is a FF-themed theme park instead of an actual FF world: I'm not honestly sure what you even mean by this, elaborate?

"It's not like I had any epic boss battle anyway": Yeah, you didn't play long enough.  Sorry, but it's true, what non-MMO FF game has had an "epic boss battle" in the first quarter of the game?  I typically associate "epicness" in boss battles with boss competence, and while single-player FF isn't known for boss competence in general, it's CERTAINLY not known for *early game* boss competence.

That all being said, I will happily concede that if you're a person who strongly dislikes MMOs in general, FF14 is exceedingly unlikely to win you over or anything.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Hm, I think I agree but I feel like that wasn't done on purpose. In any case...

I don't know that it's on purpose but I know it fucking works.  You know, like penicillin .

I consider FF14 to be the worst FF I've played, easily sub FF2. (not including 11 which I haven't played at all and which is probably even worse)
Redundant jobs, endless grinding, endless backtracking, no thinking required during gameplay, worthless story, and the world is a FF-themed theme park instead of an actual FF world. (Note that this is all pretty standard for a MMORPG) The only good thing about it are the graphix, I haven't paid attention to the music but it's not like I had any epic boss battle anyway.

In FF14 you at least get to press buttons and shit.  Most of FF11 is spent watching your character autoattack because every ability is on a noticeable cooldown.  Class design in WoW back in Vanilla wasn't great but even a vanilla Paladin looks like Guilty Gear in comparison.

FF14 probably has the best story presentation in the MMO industry, which is to say that it exists at all.

Never played The Old Republic or The Secret World, I see.

"It's not like I had any epic boss battle anyway": Yeah, you didn't play long enough.  Sorry, but it's true, what non-MMO FF game has had an "epic boss battle" in the first quarter of the game?  I typically associate "epicness" in boss battles with boss competence, and while single-player FF isn't known for boss competence in general, it's CERTAINLY not known for *early game* boss competence.

So the statement was preceeded by "I wasn't paying attention to the music," so it looks like you're pretty much entirely off-point there mang.  Clearly a question of presentation.  Kefka melts as soon as Locke gets a turn whenever I play FF6 but that doesn't make him not "epic," as overused as the term is.