I think it’s just because structurally XIV is very different from every other game in the series, barring XI obviously; always online, live-service, subscription requirement, etc.
That’s just the shortlist, but I do think it’s fair to say that XI and XIV are just very different from the rest of the series in terms of the game/consumer relationship. The way the user interacts with everything is, by intentional design, just very different from every other title, and the functionality of the game both narratively and mechanically falls around that. Some will love it, others won’t, but regardless it is quite distinct from how the rest of the series is developed.
I do agree with you though, I think you should be able to say, “this thing just isn’t for me,” without people jumping down your throat. Sadly, the XIV community does this amongst itself a lot too; it doesn’t matter how much a person actually likes the game, if you say out loud that you don’t like the story that much, you get an absurd amount of backlash, including a lot of weird assumptions about reading comprehension and general patience. The XIV subreddit is very toxic if I’m honest, though I’m not about to claim this one is the bastion of acceptance either, not even close.
Wish everyone wasn’t so uptight about how much other people do or don’t enjoy their stuff.
Wish everyone wasn’t so uptight about how much other people do or don’t enjoy their stuff.
It's just called being polite. If I meet someone who says they enjoy Beyonce's latest album, I'm not gonna tell them I dislike it. I would just change the topic of the conversation to find common interest.
In the same vein, going to r/ffxiv to say you dislike the game, or r/finalfantasy to say you dislike final fantasy is just impolite.
No it isn’t; it’s impolite if the topic of conversation is “what you love about Beyoncé?”, but if the question is “what do you think about Beyoncé?”, then you can answer however.
Subreddits are an open forum about that second question, not a complete circle jerk. Obviously there are threads where it is and isn’t appropriate to bring up such criticisms, but the idea that these subreddits are dedicated to worshipping these properties is kind of silly. Criticisms are lodged against the subject of a subreddit all the time.
Edit: Based on the fact that I can no longer see or respond to the commenter, I can only assume this person blocked me. That’s completely fine, and I suppose also consistent with their point, but I also think it’s kind of silly to deliberately engage in a disagreement with someone only to prevent any means of further discussion just so you can get the last word. Both of us were engaging cordially, so evidently they just didn’t want to engage in the discussion that they voluntarily put themself in. Or maybe they just deleted the comment, which still seems like an overreaction considering they didn’t respond inappropriately.
Subreddits are an open form about that second question
According to who?
If you went to r/knitting just to complain about knitting, then you would be an asshole. This isn't hard. It's called reading the room.
If you went to r/beyonce and asked "what do you think about Beyonce?" saying that you dislike her music, it is normal for that post to be downvoted. Expecting otherwise is just not in touch with reality.
i think its not as much about being downvoted as it is about getting personally insulted based on your opinion about something. your view on this is very ffxiv player coded.
It's really not that different, though. XIV's greatest strength and biggest weakness is that it's barely an MMO. It's a single player rpg that's online that you have to sub to. You can get through the entirety of the 10 year story from launch through Endwalker and you'll have to group with people like 17 times total in a couple hundred hours. Every single story dungeon can be done with your canonical party of npcs. Between those, it's just cutscenes, running around, and killing shit, all of which is designed to be done alone. The only group content you're likely to do are the marqee boss fights, of which there are like 5 of per expansion. There's really nothing MMO about the structure at all-for a long time that worked, because people played for the story. The story post conclusion has been not very good, and the game has been having a rough time because people are feeling pretty shitty about paying a subscription for a shitty cutscene simulator.
The only real area I'd say XIV is meaningfully different than the single player entries is in terms of pacing. Most FFs have a 30-50 hour runtime, which is long but not endless, and barring spinoffs that aren't widely liked, you don't get a sequel, either. Your entire story and everything you want to happen has to transpire in that 50 hour or so limit.
XIV has no such concern and thus there is a lot of extraneous dialogue. There's like no desire from the developers to be thrifty with cutscenes or dialogue, and it can lead to a lot of not-entirely-neccesary "could have been an email" scenes.
But even then, you could argue that has nothing to do with it being an MMO, because FF16 has the exact same problem and that's a normal mainline single player entry. It's a great game with bizarrely bad pacing that would instantly improve if you cut out a bunch of recaps and meandering conversations that do nothing but kill narrative momentum. The same team made both games-its a flaw of their style, and it being present in both an online game and a single player entry is pretty indicative that it's not an inherent genre feature so much as the inability of one developer to ever be concise.
XIV is not barely an MMO, it is very much an MMO from all aspects of its design; combat, narrative writing, pacing, story structure, side content, world design, payment method, gearing systems, in-game economy, balancing, interactivity, graphically, etc. XIV’s MMO genre can be easily seen across the whole game. The idea of it being a single player RPG that is barely an MMO simply isn’t apparent when every single design decision is made in the context of it being an MMO. For some reason some people think an MMO’s only characteristic is that it’s multiplayer, but it isn’t, it’s an entire business model and structure for how a game is delivered and experienced.
In the other FF games, you pay for the game once and then you get unlimited access to it, you are never forced to interact with other players, not seventeen times, but zero; your gear doesn’t become outdated due to ongoing patches, the story isn’t made under the assumption it will be developed for another ten years, you don’t see random other players going through the same journey as you, you aren’t incentivised by game systems to play daily/weekly/monthly, you can play all content in the game, including side content, completely solo, you can play without needing internet access and ping isn’t a factor, certain content doesn’t become effectively impossible to do due to factors like player population in those regions, there’s no player managed economy, you can’t lose fights or any challenge due to other players performance, you can’t be potentially interacted with by random people, including harassment, etc.
I could go on with more, but the point is that XIV, and by extension XI, contains many design elements that the player has to deal with that are deliberately designed with the structure that comes from the fact that it’s an MMO. XIV is more single player friendly than a lot of other MMOs, but it is still by far the least single player friendly in the series, along with XI.
I don’t don’t that some players can see XIV more as an RPG with MMO elements, but a lot of people can’t, and that’s my point; these elements with how the player interacts with the game exist, and they’re exclusive to XI and XIV, so even as someone who plays a lot of XIV, I can easily understand why many people would mentally distinguish the MMO’s from the single player titles.
If someone has decided to not to play, or decided to play XIV on the basis that it’s an MMO, then that’s fine, in the same way someone can decide not to play XVI because it’s an action title. If you don’t see XIV as very different that’s fine, but many people do, and that stance is still valid. XVI is an MMO much like how Genshin Impact is a gacha game; some players can ignore those gacha/MMO elements, but they’re there, so many won’t be able to. That’s not a good or a bad thing inherently, it’s just what XIV is, and consumer will perceive the game based on that fact.
Edit: What is the point in deliberately engaging in a discussion, only to block me so that I can’t respond? Who are you talking to at that point? You’re literally just proving my point about a sub-section of the XIV fanbase getting way too emotionally invested in what others think of the game; some people aren’t into MMOs, and that’s completely fine. If you don't want to engage in a conversation, just leave, no one is making you respond.
I read your response before you blocked me, and frankly, you’re throwing around a lot of unnecessary insults; it’s childish, and it’s over a video game. Stay civil like you did in your initial response, because this conversation is superfluous at the end of the day; it doesn’t matter. Don’t make the situation unnecessarily hostile, it’s toxic.
Yeah this is objectively wrong. There are single player games that you need an internet connection to play (as stupid as that is). Technicals do not determine genre. Is Hitman a fucking MMO? No. Please make rational arguments or don't waste my time.
If you come to FFXIV seeking what most people are looking for in the genre, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Nobody does overland content, the large scale cooperative pve content is limited to 6 maps, the most recent of which came out nearly 4 years ago now, pvp is a joke despite multiple attempts to get it on par with its competitors. There isn't even a fucking place to talk, lmao. Novice Network is the closest thing to a general chat we have, and NN is by its nature exclusionary.
XIV's selling point is and has always been its story. I went out of my way to talk about 16 because, barring the vastly different combat, it is shockingly similar to 14. It has the same quest design, the same overwrought cutscenes, the same pacing issues, the same anemic gearing, the same everything except there's other players running around in 14 and if you want there's optional content you can do with 7 other people to remind yourself you're not playing a single player rpg.
This shit isn't even new dude. Dragon Age Inquisition famously was criticized for its open world format...and lo and behold, Bioware themselves said the game initially was an MMO before they pivoted mid development and retooled it into what eventually released. It's an offline single player rpg...that still fundamentally has tons of design elements from a different fucking genre, because that is how these things work. Genres are not mutually exclusive. You can have something designed an an MMO and release it as a single player rpg, just like you can have a game be online and yet design it such that it barely takes advantage of it. Other than using it for the purposes of marketing by the developer, genre tags are subjective, flexible monikers meant to clue potential audiences into whether or not a piece of media is intended for them. FFXIV has vastly underdeveloped MMO aspects, and thus it is frequently, in both praise and insult, said to more or less be a normal ass rpg that happens to be online. Is Destiny an MMO? it's online! The developers don't call it one, about half the community does. If subs make an MMO, why does Genshin have one? Or is it only mandatory subs?
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u/Duouwa Dec 08 '24 edited Dec 08 '24
I think it’s just because structurally XIV is very different from every other game in the series, barring XI obviously; always online, live-service, subscription requirement, etc.
That’s just the shortlist, but I do think it’s fair to say that XI and XIV are just very different from the rest of the series in terms of the game/consumer relationship. The way the user interacts with everything is, by intentional design, just very different from every other title, and the functionality of the game both narratively and mechanically falls around that. Some will love it, others won’t, but regardless it is quite distinct from how the rest of the series is developed.
I do agree with you though, I think you should be able to say, “this thing just isn’t for me,” without people jumping down your throat. Sadly, the XIV community does this amongst itself a lot too; it doesn’t matter how much a person actually likes the game, if you say out loud that you don’t like the story that much, you get an absurd amount of backlash, including a lot of weird assumptions about reading comprehension and general patience. The XIV subreddit is very toxic if I’m honest, though I’m not about to claim this one is the bastion of acceptance either, not even close.
Wish everyone wasn’t so uptight about how much other people do or don’t enjoy their stuff.