FFXIV is one of the shittiest games ever made.
Posted: February 27th, 2023, 00:07
Let me tell you why this game sucks.
1) As an MMORPG, it sucks.
Now you may be thinking, "but MMORPGs already suck" but this one takes suckitude to a whole new nadir. I would say FFXIV barely qualifies as a game in some cases. Yeah yeah, you have your standard overworld that you will never die in, your dungeons that will have tanks that take twenty minutes to walk from one end of the hallway to the other, trials or raids that take place in the same room with a new background, but dig it even deeper and you see the flaws. The gameplay is clunky and feels jank. It has this absolutely autistic global cooldown enforced that is a genuine 2 second delay with few abilities off the GCD depending on your JOB. When you select your JOB you'll see all these really cool and impressive looking bars and such on your screen eye-fucking you and think "wow, this is gaming" but I'll spoil it: just about every single class and role follows the same looping pattern. You hit this ability, then this ability, then this ability, then finish with this ability. In case you ever forget, Square-Enix is kind enough to make your next ability glow like a firework so you can engage in this riveting game of Simon Says. Also there's an invisible barrier on the overworld that reminds you to stay on the main track. Garbage.
2) There's no customization, talents, skills, feats, what-have-you among the JOBS.
Part of what makes an MMORPG fun when it comes to the gameplay, at least in the decent ones, is the aspect of player expression. Differentiating your class from someone else's in ways that sees you both under the same umbrella but with different approaches. This shit doesn't exist in FFXIV. The "stats" you get are so minor and stupidly passive that you could probably ignore them entirely. Like it was mentioned above, every class having the same general gameplay loop gets compounded further when it hits you that every single class will be playing the exact same way in the end. There's one set rotation with the only "choice" really being whether you need AOE or single target. It's soulless. I do enjoy when reading people that play this game seriously talk about the classes and roles like any of it actually matters. One day when they graduate to a real game they're going to be in for the time of their life. There's no better way to describe FFXIV than: "a game so fundamentally basic that even girls can enjoy it." And that makes me angry.
3) "It gets better after 200 hours, trust me."
This is my favorite defense of this slop. The belief that after 200 hours of following this inane, aggressively retarded storyline you'll get this Eureka moment and start to love it. You won't. A ton of these characters you meet in the near universally-agreed bad base game story are present throughout the various expansions. A new player that is advised to blitz through the cutscenes and text to get to "the good expansion" will thus have zero fucking clue what's going on or why they should care. Ask yourself if when reading a book series if you start with the second or third book and how well that works out. It's dumb. It's also a huge trap because the storyline itself, which I took it upon myself to spoil, is pretty mediocre. I've no clue why this game's story gets the praise it does. I'm guessing most people don't even know themselves, they naturally assume with the millions of cutscenes you're forced to endure something decent must have been hit by now. Also be sure to set aside time because some of these cutscenes approach Kojima lengths of absurd. We're talking 40-50 minutes straight. I'd rather be tortured by a serial killer or be forced into a conversation with one of these dour German fucks.
4) The community is full of weirdos.
Usually I don't give a shit about communities in MMORPGs but FFXIV is one special case here that it has to be mentioned. When you go around main cities and hubs you'll notice this disturbing trend: a lot of people don't really play this game as a game. They're sitting around, in these really fag looking costumes and shit, dancing or talking like teenagers at their homecoming event or probably ERPing in private messages. If anyone here as a yung buck ever endured things like Habbo Hotel or IMVU you'll know exactly what to expect. All the races look goofy too. I don't tend to mind JRPG oddness but the graphical style sincerely repulses me here. Also when you begin this game your character has this really annoying green sprout next to their name and because the community in this game feels like you've invaded some online sect of the Stepford Wives you'll get random messages by what I can only assume are queers larping as catgirls offering you help. Eventually I started to reply to these messages with a stiff, "no fuck off." I got reported for toxic behavior and sent warnings. Fuck 'em.
And that's why this game is trash. I gave it a good and honest shot about 2 years ago hoping to find something to enjoy in it but was consistently letdown and very rarely does it hit me but this is one of those times I do feel like I wasted hours of my life that will never ever return. MMORPGs generally love to waste your time but this game not only wastes your time but has the audacity to call it "content" while it does so. And the gameplay doesn't make up for it, the classes are boring, the main sell of the storyline is infantile and the community will one day be busted as a human trafficking ring.
People that actually play or enjoy this game are great because you can tell they've never played anything else so they truly have no frame of reference or taste of quality otherwise. When I read someone loves FFXIV I like to give a little arrogant chuckle and then pray to Santa Muerte that their entire family is executed on film for their insolence.
If this convinced you to never pick this piece of shit up then I have done my earthly duty as a human-being full of compassion.
1) As an MMORPG, it sucks.
Now you may be thinking, "but MMORPGs already suck" but this one takes suckitude to a whole new nadir. I would say FFXIV barely qualifies as a game in some cases. Yeah yeah, you have your standard overworld that you will never die in, your dungeons that will have tanks that take twenty minutes to walk from one end of the hallway to the other, trials or raids that take place in the same room with a new background, but dig it even deeper and you see the flaws. The gameplay is clunky and feels jank. It has this absolutely autistic global cooldown enforced that is a genuine 2 second delay with few abilities off the GCD depending on your JOB. When you select your JOB you'll see all these really cool and impressive looking bars and such on your screen eye-fucking you and think "wow, this is gaming" but I'll spoil it: just about every single class and role follows the same looping pattern. You hit this ability, then this ability, then this ability, then finish with this ability. In case you ever forget, Square-Enix is kind enough to make your next ability glow like a firework so you can engage in this riveting game of Simon Says. Also there's an invisible barrier on the overworld that reminds you to stay on the main track. Garbage.
2) There's no customization, talents, skills, feats, what-have-you among the JOBS.
Part of what makes an MMORPG fun when it comes to the gameplay, at least in the decent ones, is the aspect of player expression. Differentiating your class from someone else's in ways that sees you both under the same umbrella but with different approaches. This shit doesn't exist in FFXIV. The "stats" you get are so minor and stupidly passive that you could probably ignore them entirely. Like it was mentioned above, every class having the same general gameplay loop gets compounded further when it hits you that every single class will be playing the exact same way in the end. There's one set rotation with the only "choice" really being whether you need AOE or single target. It's soulless. I do enjoy when reading people that play this game seriously talk about the classes and roles like any of it actually matters. One day when they graduate to a real game they're going to be in for the time of their life. There's no better way to describe FFXIV than: "a game so fundamentally basic that even girls can enjoy it." And that makes me angry.
3) "It gets better after 200 hours, trust me."
This is my favorite defense of this slop. The belief that after 200 hours of following this inane, aggressively retarded storyline you'll get this Eureka moment and start to love it. You won't. A ton of these characters you meet in the near universally-agreed bad base game story are present throughout the various expansions. A new player that is advised to blitz through the cutscenes and text to get to "the good expansion" will thus have zero fucking clue what's going on or why they should care. Ask yourself if when reading a book series if you start with the second or third book and how well that works out. It's dumb. It's also a huge trap because the storyline itself, which I took it upon myself to spoil, is pretty mediocre. I've no clue why this game's story gets the praise it does. I'm guessing most people don't even know themselves, they naturally assume with the millions of cutscenes you're forced to endure something decent must have been hit by now. Also be sure to set aside time because some of these cutscenes approach Kojima lengths of absurd. We're talking 40-50 minutes straight. I'd rather be tortured by a serial killer or be forced into a conversation with one of these dour German fucks.
4) The community is full of weirdos.
Usually I don't give a shit about communities in MMORPGs but FFXIV is one special case here that it has to be mentioned. When you go around main cities and hubs you'll notice this disturbing trend: a lot of people don't really play this game as a game. They're sitting around, in these really fag looking costumes and shit, dancing or talking like teenagers at their homecoming event or probably ERPing in private messages. If anyone here as a yung buck ever endured things like Habbo Hotel or IMVU you'll know exactly what to expect. All the races look goofy too. I don't tend to mind JRPG oddness but the graphical style sincerely repulses me here. Also when you begin this game your character has this really annoying green sprout next to their name and because the community in this game feels like you've invaded some online sect of the Stepford Wives you'll get random messages by what I can only assume are queers larping as catgirls offering you help. Eventually I started to reply to these messages with a stiff, "no fuck off." I got reported for toxic behavior and sent warnings. Fuck 'em.
And that's why this game is trash. I gave it a good and honest shot about 2 years ago hoping to find something to enjoy in it but was consistently letdown and very rarely does it hit me but this is one of those times I do feel like I wasted hours of my life that will never ever return. MMORPGs generally love to waste your time but this game not only wastes your time but has the audacity to call it "content" while it does so. And the gameplay doesn't make up for it, the classes are boring, the main sell of the storyline is infantile and the community will one day be busted as a human trafficking ring.
People that actually play or enjoy this game are great because you can tell they've never played anything else so they truly have no frame of reference or taste of quality otherwise. When I read someone loves FFXIV I like to give a little arrogant chuckle and then pray to Santa Muerte that their entire family is executed on film for their insolence.
If this convinced you to never pick this piece of shit up then I have done my earthly duty as a human-being full of compassion.