Let’s just get this out of the way, but have you ever noticed that certain fan-bases have an annoying tenancy to avoid boundaries and not take no for an answer? The thing is, when you have to nag people to play your fucking game, that’s generally a sign the game isn’t actually very good, you just need the affirmation of liking it.
When you look at other MMOs, I enjoyed the Star Wars Old Republic, for example, and while I think it’s criminally underrated, it’s free regardless, so if it looks fun to people they’ll simply just play it, and if it doesn’t, they won’t, there’s nothing you can really do about it.
Part 1: The Combat
Okay, so, I’ve tried multiple times to get into Final Fantasy 14 and I wanted to try and explain why that’s the case, but the biggest reason really is just the modernized approach to it's class system.
Compared to something like World of Warcraft, the classes all come across as very restrictive. If you wanted to play as a Warrior, you could role-play as a disciplined samurai, a sturdy gladiator, or an unhinged berserker. You had a wide variety of choices, so chances are the vibes of the character you’re playing could be able to fit into at least one of them.
That’s not the case with Final Fantasy 14, if you want to play as a Warrior you have to be a Tank, you have to be slow, and it’s Greataxes only. Oh, but what if you want to go fast and dual-wield? Well, you can play as a Ninja... which isn’t on the character select screen, you have to get it through a quest first, boy, I sure wish I knew that!
And that’s really it, my favourite class to play simply just wasn’t in the game for the longest time, not until the Viper got added, but even then you have to be at least Level 80 in order to get it. And to be fair it’s not impossible, it is there at least, but it’s a pain in the ass how you have to wait so long.
The combat also being really slow in general... certainly appeals to a lot of people, there’s even a lot of WoW classes that play like that, fair enough, but I personally prefer faster and more frenetic game-play a lot of the time. FF14’s combat is way too stiff and too floaty and the sound and impact effects aren’t implemented in a way that I think is very good.
In short, Final Fantasy 14’s approach to it’s class system is the biggest problem they’ve always had. It’s the single biggest problem the game has and it’s the one thing I would cite as an objective problem. And adding in some new specializations just doesn’t seem to cross their minds for whatever reason.
Part 2: The Story
Do you know what’s not an objective problem with Final Fantasy 14? The story. Because the characters are consistent, villains are set-up and remain villains, while heroes are set-up and remain heroes. The story makes sense, there’s satisfying pay-off, and the characters are not routinely subjugated to the point where it becomes pointless to care about them.
And hey, at no point does a fucking rapist, literal fascists, and a handful of South Park Republicans, get control of the story in order to obliterate their most irrationally hated characters for no good fucking reason.
Final Fantasy 14 is objectively a good game despite it’s one major issue. This wouldn’t be the case if it’s relaunch didn’t work so well. But you wouldn’t know that by talking to it’s fans! In fact, I kind of liked a Realm Reborn!
So, stop telling people your favourite game is shit, because in this case at least, it really is not. A Realm Reborn is not shit. A Realm Reborn is what saved Final Fantasy 14 from being taken offline completely in the first place. The original version was a fucking joke, a complete and total failure, so they took it offline and rebuilt it from scratch.
It’s something World of Warcraft could stand to do after it’s Worldsoul Trilogy is completed. Restore things back to basics, cut the useless crap, and unfuck the female characters they’ve fucked up. There’s no shame in admitting defeat and starting something new.
The introductory quests of the game are there so you can immerse yourself in the world, it’s necessary, you don’t need adrenaline all the time. Because it used to be in stories where they’d build up to the high octane bullshit, that’s what the end game is being built up to, but these days it seems that’s where a lot of narratives start, the stakes keep rising and the audience demands that they keep rising!
I can recommend this video, as I think it’s a great example of how lowering the stakes can greatly benefit a story.
Samurai:
Viper:
Gunbreaker:
