FF XIV ONLINE - Anyone playing?

[pandemonium]

I think your response was a bit extreme, but it is well received. I'd rather have a tactically challenging game than a watered down, blantantly boring skill and battle system.

The whole elitist requirements judging gear over player skill is an unwelcomed community destroyer that I can't tolerate. Not because I don't thrive on getting the best gear, or have low standards (not in the slightest, I'm typically very demanding)...but because skill can almost always out-play gear.

 

[PowerYoga]

You are welcome to your opinion in thinking it'll fail in a year or 2. Given that even RIFT and AION are both still around and FF14 is leaps and bounds better than both, I find your opinion unfounded and sorely lacking in perspective. Overreacting just a little.

It sounds like you've already made up your mind about the game and you're getting way off topic here about a rant against mmorpgs in general. I don't disagree with you on action elements since I love action games myself, but that's not the direction final fantasy decided to go in. So FF 14 is not for you.

I suggest looking into some korean MMORPGs if you're looking for the action element, I saw a bunch of them with some action elements, but I doubt any will have the street fighter/dmc elements you are looking for. But hey, maybe there's some other stuff out there that will let you count your invincibility frames.

 

[redrider4life4]

Guys, FF14 isn't trying to be WoW with 12 million subscribers, it is just trying to make an online game for the FF playerbase. If they get 1 million they will be happy and will still make a profit to keep the game running.

 

[PowerYoga]

I think even FF11 had less than a million at its peak, but I may be wrong.

 

[KaOTiK]

See, this is the common misconception people seem to have for some reason, that action games are all about reflexes and take no strategy... Where did that come from? What makes them so good is that they utilize BOTH to their best ability, making the skill ceiling much higher than usual

I hate the usual MMO crap of people being judged by their item level to enter dungeons... It leads into terrible communities like Tera... No ilvl 160? Bye, dont give a damn if you are actually good or not
In action games, gear helps, of course, but skill is a much much bigger factor, which leads into more satisfying gameplay as well

Thats my problem with this combat system, and a lot of people in the official beta forums seem to echo my thoughts - it looks like it could be played by a 5 year old with no issues
There was a post talking about Conjurer party gameplay which basically consists of cure cure cure cure medica cure cure cure
How the hell is that fun? There should be a lot more things for you to do than just pressing the same key over and over

And then, the skills themselves are so streamlined... It doesnt really matter if you pull off a good combo or not, the difference is almost non existent
Skill A is just like Skill B except it has 200 potency instead of 150... Great
I want to have to think about which skill to use taking into account its range, damage, casting/animation time, super armor value/break, iframe and so on, THAT is what makes good tactical gameplay

And the worst is Yoshida says right on the mechanics thread that they deliberately tried their best to completely eliminate action elements... I dont even
Does he not realize this is 2013 and the old model doesnt work anymore?
Inb4 ARR flops just as hard as 1.0, I wouldnt be surprised

Well in all fairness the way you come off describing the stuff is what makes it sound the way I respond.

I agree 1000% with the item level bullshit, it is just freaking dumb. Granted some games are so gear oriented that you need to have people with stats at certain points but most the time as you said, it is just a epeen bs.

I played a Conjurer during the beta so far (plan to play a WHM during release) and have played a healer in nearly every other MMO I've played. Believe me, THAT is how a healer is played 90% of the time. You have 1-2 main heals, a Heal over time, and a few buffs/utility spells that you use (you have a "sleep" spell in this game for crowd control). The life of a healer has NEVER been exciting or dramatic, it is the reason why they are ALWAYS the most under represented class in MMOs. Then to find a good healer out of the people that decided to be healers is even rarer. A good healer has their pick of what and when they want to do something most of the time.

How is it fun you ask? A lot of times a healer isn't fun, but from my and other people I know who play healers, we do it to help people, because if we didn't shit we get done because no one would play a healer. Granted, I do find fun in it sometimes. I'll push a group to its limits to see how intense the fighting can get before I can not keep up with it and challenge myself in the process. It is very satisfying when your group can survive a battle that some adds come into and for all rights your group should of wiped but you were able to keep everyone up and by the end of the fight everyone has a tiny bit of health and you were basically OOM for the last quarter of the fight casting as soon as you regen'd enough mana for another heal.

It is the life of a healer, we make our own challenges and fun. The crappy ones just sit there and spam 1-2 skills and don't move and when shit does hit the fan the group either runs or dies because the healer isn't skilled.

 

[Aikouka]

As a warning, a lot of my comments in here are probably from the seven plus years that I spent in World of Warcraft...

I agree 1000% with the item level bullshit, it is just freaking dumb. Granted some games are so gear oriented that you need to have people with stats at certain points but most the time as you said, it is just a epeen bs.

I don't care for being so picky about item levels, but I wouldn't call it bullshit. The problem is that there end up being so many bad players in MMOs (especially if they're easily accessible), and while I have no problem teaching players, some of them just refuse to learn. These supposed educational runs usually just ended up being wipe-fests that ended up frustrating players.

The problem is that item level really doesn't mean crap, but there isn't a very good solution to the problem. The idea is that a competent player should be able to match the demands of the dungeon if they're at a certain gear level. Unfortunately, noobs can be overgeared and excellent players can be undergeared.

How is it fun you ask? A lot of times a healer isn't fun, but from my and other people I know who play healers, we do it to help people, because if we didn't shit we get done because no one would play a healer. Granted, I do find fun in it sometimes. I'll push a group to its limits to see how intense the fighting can get before I can not keep up with it and challenge myself in the process. It is very satisfying when your group can survive a battle that some adds come into and for all rights your group should of wiped but you were able to keep everyone up and by the end of the fight everyone has a tiny bit of health and you were basically OOM for the last quarter of the fight casting as soon as you regen'd enough mana for another heal.

It is the life of a healer, we make our own challenges and fun. The crappy ones just sit there and spam 1-2 skills and don't move and when shit does hit the fan the group either runs or dies because the healer isn't skilled.

I've played every role in raids and groups, and if an encounter is designed well, it should pose a challenge for all the roles. Healing tends to involve a lot of intuitive decisions that you normally get better at making over time. An example would be whether you should heal the tank or the DPS. That may sound like a no-brainer, but the obvious answer isn't always the definitive answer.

 

[KaOTiK]

As a warning, a lot of my comments in here are probably from the seven plus years that I spent in World of Warcraft...



I don't care for being so picky about item levels, but I wouldn't call it bullshit. The problem is that there end up being so many bad players in MMOs (especially if they're easily accessible), and while I have no problem teaching players, some of them just refuse to learn. These supposed educational runs usually just ended up being wipe-fests that ended up frustrating players.

The problem is that item level really doesn't mean crap, but there isn't a very good solution to the problem. The idea is that a competent player should be able to match the demands of the dungeon if they're at a certain gear level. Unfortunately, noobs can be overgeared and excellent players can be undergeared.



I've played every role in raids and groups, and if an encounter is designed well, it should pose a challenge for all the roles. Healing tends to involve a lot of intuitive decisions that you normally get better at making over time. An example would be whether you should heal the tank or the DPS. That may sound like a no-brainer, but the obvious answer isn't always the definitive answer.

I call items BS because unfortunately that is all people focus on when it is there. The actual idea of item level is fine, but it sadly how it is used by the player base that is the problem. Much like dps meters. I agree there are a lot of bad players out there and it does help weed them out, but from my experience, WoW had the largest percent of bad players I've ever seen in any MMO due to their catering to the lowest possible person.


Yes, healing does require being intuitive, I take it for granted because I've been healing for the past 15 years and just know what to do. I never truly feel challenged though unless it is because of stupidity on a group/raid members fault or due to some silly mechanic built into a fight just to make it difficult for no reason beyond that. I enjoy healing, a lot, it has its own rewards and people either "get it" or they don't when it comes to healing. I've done all the jobs in nearly all the MMO's I've played and for some games some are more fun then others.

IMO, WoW isn't a good comparison to use for MMO's. Yes, they did innovate and do good and is the largest out there, but it really did as one of the previous directors/producers (can't remember) recently said, destroyed the genre.

We don't know a lot about FF14ARR yet. We do know Yoshi and his team are much more open about accepting player feedback and using it then we have previously seen in MMO's and SquareEnix have to have this succeed otherwise they are going to be in a world of hurt. They aren't looking for giant numbers I don't believe, if they can sustain around 1m subs or around FF11 numbers that is they want. It isn't going to be a MMO for everyone that is for sure. FF fans will get more out of it obviously, but they do want it to have an almost turn base feel to it as previous FF games. The game could flop, but I don't think it is going to, it is in a better state currently then a lot of MMO's that are released in normally.

 

[Aikouka]

I call items BS because unfortunately that is all people focus on when it is there. The actual idea of item level is fine, but it sadly how it is used by the player base that is the problem. Much like dps meters. I agree there are a lot of bad players out there and it does help weed them out, but from my experience, WoW had the largest percent of bad players I've ever seen in any MMO due to their catering to the lowest possible person.

Whenever someone brings up requiring minimum item levels or needing an achievement (record of completion) to join a group, my only response is, "What else can you use?" It's unfortunate that it can also cause a modest amount of false positives, but bad players can utterly destroy groups. MMOs are such labor- and time-intensive games that you can't sit there wasting time while waiting for Leeroy to get his act together. Booting him just means you need to waste more time finding a replacement, which may be hard depending on game mechanics (raid locks, etc.).

Yes, healing does require being intuitive, I take it for granted because I've been healing for the past 15 years and just know what to do. I never truly feel challenged though unless it is because of stupidity on a group/raid members fault or due to some silly mechanic built into a fight just to make it difficult for no reason beyond that. I enjoy healing, a lot, it has its own rewards and people either "get it" or they don't when it comes to healing. I've done all the jobs in nearly all the MMO's I've played and for some games some are more fun then others.

In my experience, a lot of the challenge can come from coordination, and the most boring fights are typically when a healer never has to move. Since most heals have cast times, you can't usually heal and move at the same time. It also may mean that you have to avoid any damaging elements while moving, but still keeping a watchful eye on the raid health.

Although, those silly mechanics that you talk about are usually there to ensure that you're not just on autopilot the whole time in a raid. The only complaints that I normally have are just static damage and/or health increases. That's about the MMO equivalent of a bullet (sword?) sponge, and that's never interesting.

IMO, WoW isn't a good comparison to use for MMO's. Yes, they did innovate and do good and is the largest out there, but it really did as one of the previous directors/producers (can't remember) recently said, destroyed the genre.

I think you're talking about the interview with a LoL producer who spoke out on the whole "caterin' to casuals" debate.

I think that Blizzard has made a lot of silly decisions while managing WoW, but I think there have been some good changes. In some cases, it's an argument where it's convention vs. convenience, or possibly just adding a new system that provides more automation to the player where things were more manual before (grouping systems, etc.). I also think the mobile tools are pretty good with WoW as well.

It'll be interesting to see if Square-Enix embraces mobile devices too.

We don't know a lot about FF14ARR yet. We do know Yoshi and his team are much more open about accepting player feedback and using it then we have previously seen in MMO's and SquareEnix have to have this succeed otherwise they are going to be in a world of hurt. They aren't looking for giant numbers I don't believe, if they can sustain around 1m subs or around FF11 numbers that is they want. It isn't going to be a MMO for everyone that is for sure. FF fans will get more out of it obviously, but they do want it to have an almost turn base feel to it as previous FF games. The game could flop, but I don't think it is going to, it is in a better state currently then a lot of MMO's that are released in normally.

I did pre-order the game (digital CE on Amazon), but I'm keeping an eye out to see if the physical CE comes back in stock! Overall, I'm rather interested to see how the game turns out.

 

[KaOTiK]

Whenever someone brings up requiring minimum item levels or needing an achievement (record of completion) to join a group, my only response is, "What else can you use?" It's unfortunate that it can also cause a modest amount of false positives, but bad players can utterly destroy groups. MMOs are such labor- and time-intensive games that you can't sit there wasting time while waiting for Leeroy to get his act together. Booting him just means you need to waste more time finding a replacement, which may be hard depending on game mechanics (raid locks, etc.).

I'm not arguing that at all. Believe me, I know. I am a pretty hardcore player in MMO's and very good at them and know all to well what the general player base skill is in a lot of MMO's now. Back in vanilla WoW and previous MMO's I didn't have any issues joining a PUG to do something, now though, I avoid PUG's as you said people waste your time and/or suck and the odds of getting 1 of those in a group of 5 nowadays is way to damn high for my tastes.

In my experience, a lot of the challenge can come from coordination, and the most boring fights are typically when a healer never has to move. Since most heals have cast times, you can't usually heal and move at the same time. It also may mean that you have to avoid any damaging elements while moving, but still keeping a watchful eye on the raid health.

Although, those silly mechanics that you talk about are usually there to ensure that you're not just on autopilot the whole time in a raid. The only complaints that I normally have are just static damage and/or health increases. That's about the MMO equivalent of a bullet (sword?) sponge, and that's never interesting.

I know all to well why silly mechanics are there, but it doesn't make them any less silly in most cases
Coordination is the most difficult part of boss fights and was one of the most rewarding parts as well when your raid could down a single shot a boss after killing him 1-2 times, that is one of the most satisfying feelings. That coordination is what makes the boss fights hard though. Boss fights are general each person/class has their own "dance" I like to call it where they must move and react too certain things while still performing their normal job. Sometimes there is another mechanic or two thrown in that will involve and effect a few people that are assigned to deal with it, but overall nothing to worry about. I'm not saying raids are fun or challenging, because they are (mostly), but it doesn't make your job much harder most the time. I just never found any of it overly difficult, more challenging and fun though?

While a straight up tank and spank fight isn't as eventful is most cases and certainly shouldn't be the norm because they are more power than a normal one, they can though be quite fun their own ways, even if not say for your class but maybe for a few other classes (namely DPS love them and I can't blame them as a DPS a good old fashion tank and spank is fun when competing with friends ).

I think you're talking about the interview with a LoL producer who spoke out on the whole "caterin' to casuals" debate.

I think that Blizzard has made a lot of silly decisions while managing WoW, but I think there have been some good changes. In some cases, it's an argument where it's convention vs. convenience, or possibly just adding a new system that provides more automation to the player where things were more manual before (grouping systems, etc.). I also think the mobile tools are pretty good with WoW as well.

It'll be interesting to see if Square-Enix embraces mobile devices too.



I did pre-order the game (digital CE on Amazon), but I'm keeping an eye out to see if the physical CE comes back in stock! Overall, I'm rather interested to see how the game turns out.

This was the thing I was talking about from one of the Ex Blizz guys http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/feature/7540/Mark-Kern-Have-MMOs-Become-Too-Easy.html

He noted some of the good they brought to the genre and focused on the main bad they brought to it.

I never messed with the mobile stuff with WoW. When I came back to play after first quitting I played casually then started going back to hardcore and quit again. Came back once more for Cata played for a few months and quit for good so never touched on the mobile apps.

I want to kick SE in the balls for keeping the PC CE limited to their store. So I preordered the digital CE at GMG since they had 25% off coupon I was able to use on it

 

[Rinaun]

Just curious, what do you expect from MMO quests? They are all pretty much the same. The only MMO that actually has unique quests that are very different from the standard flair are The Secret World's quests, and mainly just the investigation ones.

The ones in 14 are at least well written and there were some that made references and gave a little homage to previous FF titles.

If they would have kept the same combat system as 11 they would have caught a ton of shit and people would be like its just a prettier version of 11, why bother ditching my old character etc.

In FFXI I was thrown into a world making a new character and everything was difficult. Progression was a big deal. For the first 15 levels so far in FFXIV, I've done nothing but run back and forth reading npc dialogue or cutscenes while picking up items with noticeable lag. Bottom line is the game has changed to suit mainstream audiences tastes (which is fine with me). I don't think the game will do badly, but it just isn't nearly as immersive as FFXI to me. Add to that the combat system changing from FFXI makes it a pass for me. I'm sure plenty of people will pick it up considering how polished it is now, so don't worry

 

[pathos]

After playing games like Vindictus, Tera and especially Dragon Nest, this kind of combat is so boring and pointless, there is no skill involved, you just mash 111111 then the occasional 2 and 3

Where is the real time dodging/blocking? Thats what makes combat fun, having to time your dodges perfectly and stuff
And because its target based, there isnt even any aiming required, which means a class like Archer will be even more pointless (archer has become one of my favorites thanks to the new action mmos, since it feels kinda like playing an fps, while having the MMO elements at the same time)
I cant help but feel Im gonna fall asleep before I even get to lvl 10, but oh well

I just dont see this game having a future with such outdated combat

First of all, I don't agree with you that the old style of combat is outdated. Sure, it's been around forever. But, it's tried and true. Certainly, there are people like you who don't like it. But, that doesn't mean that everyone hates it.

As a side note - I did play Tera at launch. And, liked it. But, I don't want every game to have twitch style combat, sorry. It got old enough playing one game like that. If every mmo from now adopted it, then I'd drop the genre.

Now, what are we getting with this launch of ff14? A game many times better than the original launch. In every category. It is not, however, the second coming of christ. You can wait all day on your water to be changed into wine. But, won't happen.

It's a game with excellent graphics, old school type combat, the usual standard quest system, usually consisting of fetch this, take that, escort the other....and everything that the words "Final Fantasy" entail...whether that means chocobos, cactaurs, and other critters, or perhaps spell names and types, or character classes, or anything else that Squeenix usually places in their FF games.

Now, does this sound like something you'd want to play? No? Then the game probably isn't for you, no. And there is nothing wrong with that.

As well as I think they are doing this time around, what they are doing is hardly new, inventive, or original. If you demand that, not only will you probably wont like this game, but the list of games for you to actually play, online or no, is probably pretty small.

 

[Aikouka]

While a straight up tank and spank fight isn't as eventful is most cases and certainly shouldn't be the norm because they are more power than a normal one, they can though be quite fun their own ways, even if not say for your class but maybe for a few other classes (namely DPS love them and I can't blame them as a DPS a good old fashion tank and spank is fun when competing with friends ).

That's certainly true. Patchwerk was a piece of werk back in the day as he may have been tank-n-spank, but he was a pretty big hurdle in the beginning.

This was the thing I was talking about from one of the Ex Blizz guys http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/feature/7540/Mark-Kern-Have-MMOs-Become-Too-Easy.html

He noted some of the good they brought to the genre and focused on the main bad they brought to it.

I kind of disagree with him. I don't think that it was the simplification that made people not care much about leveling. I think that people simply realized that leveling was nothing more than a hurdle to get to the real content. It was actually quite fun the first time, but things don't change that much unless you completely change your leveling path. I would argue that the greatest change is that WoW is largely a single-player MMO. Some games are simply a lot more fun when you can play with others and mess around, but WoW is all about tunnel-visioned leveling.

Although, Blizzard has been sort of pushing away from this by doing that whole cross-realm zone thing where they'll pull people from other realms into a sort of instance of a zone. At least the zones appear populated now!

I never messed with the mobile stuff with WoW. When I came back to play after first quitting I played casually then started going back to hardcore and quit again. Came back once more for Cata played for a few months and quit for good so never touched on the mobile apps.

Ahh, it's pretty sweet. You can use the auction house or chat with your guildies for free. You can also show off your epic loots (with 3D character model!) and make all the girls swoon.

I want to kick SE in the balls for keeping the PC CE limited to their store. So I preordered the digital CE at GMG since they had 25% off coupon I was able to use on it

Well, my current plan is to pre-order through somewhere and if Square-Enix gets any more copies in, I will cancel that pre-order. So, on that note, does GMG charge you immediately or do they wait until it releases like Amazon? I'd rather not be charged if I might cancel it.

 

[KaOTiK]

Well, my current plan is to pre-order through somewhere and if Square-Enix gets any more copies in, I will cancel that pre-order. So, on that note, does GMG charge you immediately or do they wait until it releases like Amazon? I'd rather not be charged if I might cancel it.

They charge you immediately and because they send you an early access code right after preordering they wont do a refund. I can't complain though, got the digital CE for $37.50

 

[PowerYoga]

I have a GMG 20% off voucher that works for FF14 collectors edition, supposedly. That works out to be about $40~, give or take a few. I'm sure the voucher is the same for everyone though, it's generally posted somewhere like fatwallet or cheapass gamers. I doubt you can trade it in or cancel the order though.

Here's a link to the game in GMG's stores... not sure if that's what you're looking for.

http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/us/en/pc/games/mmos/final-fantasy-xiv-realm-reborn-dc-na/

 

[ImpulsE69]

OMG I finally got into the beta lol. I picked up the CE version from GMG for $35 a few weeks ago.

 

[Sazuzaki]

dont even know why they even made these FF games online.. -_- they shoulda just stuck with what worked for them.

 

[Aikouka]

Yay! I got a beta code finally! Have to give them credit for one thing... the beta downloads pretty quickly at 6MB/s, which is rather nice when it's 6GB.

 

[KaOTiK]

Yay! I got a beta code finally! Have to give them credit for one thing... the beta downloads pretty quickly at 6MB/s, which is rather nice when it's 6GB.

Good thing, because after this weekend you can delete the client as it wont work with the last phase (open beta) and release lol

 

[ImpulsE69]

What server is everyone playing on? I'm on the first one (starts with an A?) Name is Impulse Zablon in game.

 

[KaOTiK]

I'm on Hyperion currently. I didn't know what Legacy meant when I got into the beta and I liked the name because it reminded me of Borderlands 2

 

[Aikouka]

Good thing, because after this weekend you can delete the client as it wont work with the last phase (open beta) and release lol

Comcast is going to love me! :biggrin:

 

[Rinaun]

Good thing, because after this weekend you can delete the client as it wont work with the last phase (open beta) and release lol

Why do they use a system like this? There isn't a better way to do the beta tests than completely trashing a client? Its not very fun testing a game for 3 days and then the client is worthless.

:/

 

[KaOTiK]

Why do they use a system like this? There isn't a better way to do the beta tests than completely trashing a client? Its not very fun testing a game for 3 days and then the client is worthless.

:/

This client has been used for phases 2-3 which lasted over 2 months.

They are doing it like this because unlike many other games and MMO's that call something a beta when it is pretty much done, this game is very much in its beta still. The devs have been fixing/implementing/adjusting features due to people's feedback on the beta forums.

They only want portions of the game tested and are still working on others. No use in rolling out a full client that will go through lots of updates for stuff people wont get too and they don't want people to mess around with yet. I think the full client is suppose to be around 20GB, so that would take awhile for most to DL and since they are doing the testing over weekends it would limit down the amount of people that can get it rather quickly to test.

When the next phase (open beta) starts in like a month, we will have to DL the retail client. It will be missing some stuff, like they did say the high res textures will be out at release date and DX11 is suppose to be right around there as well.

So in short, easier and quicker to get people to start testing when you have a small 6GB client then to have them download a giant one.

 

[TidusZ]

Got into the beta and played a few hours. Thus far this is the dullest MMO I have ever played. The combat is incredibly simple with no real thought required and a 3 second GCD (archer).

MMOs have a reputation of starting off slow, although some newer MMOs (rift, neverwinter, guild wars 2, etc) have decent combat early on. You have some sort of dps rotation, stuns/debuffs, DoTs/HoTs, etc. So far in FF14 the early game makes Vanilla WoW's early game fireball spam feel engaging in comparison.

I was of the understanding that this was going to be a good MMO from the hype I had read, but it seems like a polished/user friendly intro to MMOs with combat that would be subpar in 2004. The only part I really enjoyed thus far was the character creation.

I was generally considered the best healer in WoW and played in several top guilds worldwide (overrated, cuties only, exodus, blood legion, adept, etc etc etc). I expected I would buy this on release and play at least 1 month, but at this point I don't think I'll even boot up the beta again. Definitely not what I expected.

 

[pandemonium]

dont even know why they even made these FF games online.. -_- they shoulda just stuck with what worked for them.

Did you play FFXI? It did, and still does, incredibly well with FF fans. I thought they made that game very well for the time.

What server is everyone playing on? I'm on the first one (starts with an A?) Name is Impulse Zablon in game.

I'll be transferring my V1 character to Balmung unless I hear otherwise from any of my old school friends.

Got into the beta and played a few hours. Thus far this is the dullest MMO I have ever played. The combat is incredibly simple with no real thought required and a 3 second GCD (archer).

MMOs have a reputation of starting off slow, although some newer MMOs (rift, neverwinter, guild wars 2, etc) have decent combat early on. You have some sort of dps rotation, stuns/debuffs, DoTs/HoTs, etc. So far in FF14 the early game makes Vanilla WoW's early game fireball spam feel engaging in comparison.

I was of the understanding that this was going to be a good MMO from the hype I had read, but it seems like a polished/user friendly intro to MMOs with combat that would be subpar in 2004. The only part I really enjoyed thus far was the character creation.

I was generally considered the best healer in WoW and played in several top guilds worldwide (overrated, cuties only, exodus, blood legion, adept, etc etc etc). I expected I would buy this on release and play at least 1 month, but at this point I don't think I'll even boot up the beta again. Definitely not what I expected.

Comparing everything to WoW is your problem. This isn't WoW, and people need to stop using that as a benchmark. If WoW is your game, then stick with it. If you try something that focuses on different aspects of gameplay, expect your standards to accept those differences.

For me, this game ecompasses adventure, storytelling, unique character building, and a sense of hard-core small party gameplay and talent exploration of each players skillset. It's also beautiful and refreshing just to look at.

After playing small resolution textured and polygon modeled games for so long (it's 2013, yo!), you start to demand something more visually entertaining, rather than have to resort to a typical single player RPG every now and then for that requirement. This is the essence of the Final Fantasy series, so I see nothing wrong here.

The moment I play something that "feels" like WoW, I start to lose interest. Rift, TERA, Aion, GW2, SW: KotoR, and Warhammer Online all lost my interest pretty quickly because of that focus. (All of those games held my interest with other unique qualities, but they primarily lost it since the focus to become the next WoW was so abundant.) The big problem I have with this game is they obviously catered the quest system to that standard. However, it's not to the point of losing its FF quality, if you will. So, I'll see it through a little further rather than dismiss it outright.

I see this game being a challenge at end-game with small parties, and that's really what I'm after when it comes down to it.

Also, don't forget this is still beta. The game will likely have more to it when it releases than what meets the eye now.

Edit: What was the purpose of mentioning you were considered the top healer? Is that to say you aren't seeing a healer class or are you just touting your peen?