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FFXIV Beta Based Review ala Persi
Persimmons
Member Posts: 20
So since MMORPG is not giving any information whatsoever on FFXIV in a manner similar to Game Stop's "Game Informer", and Squenix is letting testers talk about the game without molestrating us, I thought I'd throw out my 2 cents.
Due to the similarities in environment (multi-language servers), I'll make a few comparisons to FFXI. Still, I think it's very inaccurate to say FFXIV is FFXI with upgraded graphics. The game play and storyline is about as related as Me & My Katamari and Fable II.
Also on the FFXIV beta site, there is a section called Game Manual which I feel like a lot of testers are blatantly ignoring. Not that I blame them - anymore game manuals tell you how to turn on your console as though you're a 90-year-old grandmother who for the first time has felt technology's sweet embrace. At this point, I think something similar to the information included there will be included with the retail of the game. It includes information ranging from controls, all basic functions of the main menu, fighting, where to go when you start out, and how to seduce Lalafell into doing your bidding.
I'll try to address the most common things I read whining about from people who have never played the game first, then we'll go from there. Everything's bolded, so just skip to your desired section.
Feel free to ask me any questions, and I'll do my best to answer. Since this is tl;dr, expect the occasional typo and nonsensical ramble. Please don't quote this whole post in your replies - it's 11 pages long in MS Word so no one wants to see it fifteen times in the thread. Hell, some people might not even want to see it one time in the thread.
EU, NA and JP Shared Servers
Some people complain about this, but I think it's awesome having EU, NA, and JP together on one happy server. Why? If you live on a schedule no sane person should keep, having someone to play with at 5 AM even if they don't necessarily understand you is pretty awesome. Squenix addresses obvious language barriers in a few ways:
-As with FFXI, the auto-translate function exists so everyone can understand when you say "Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass".
-IME is currently supported in the NA version of the beta, and I do not see this being removed. IME wasn't supported in NA FFXI unless you through questionably legal means used the windower program. This is particularly useful for speaking JP or any other language of your choosing and getting into parties if you're multi-lingual. Makes me happy anyway.
Graphics & Performance
It's pretty, but I'm sure you knew that already. My computer is a laptop and barely meets the minimum system requirements. I scored around 1500 on the low-res benchmark with Aero disabled, and 1995 using Asus' processor overclocking setting that got my 2.13 processor up to 2.33. In game, I don't bother with the turbo performance booster because it's crazy hot here lately, and I can still play without any computer-induced lag and my processer hangs out at around 70-80% usage and RAM at around 2.5 GB usage with a few chat programs open and Firefox at the same time.
What's really impressive is I run the game on default settings (just about everything turned off or at low - shadows at normal, texture quality high, texture filtering at highest, windowed mode and 1280 x 720 display) and it's still beautiful. The environments aren't as pretty as when I tried to go up slightly on the settings and my laptop wet itself, but since Squenix's aim was to have a game that would graphically be beautiful for a few years down the line, I'd say they succeeded. I'll likely build a desky to play it down the road, but for now my lappy is doing just fine.
Specs -
Windows 7 64-bit (not that it matters since the game runs 32-bit either way at the moment)
Intel Core 2 Duo P7450 @ 2.13 GHz
RAM: 4 GB
Video: NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GS - 512 MB
HDD: Full 
Also for all the crossfire and SLI fanboys, FFXIV does support it, but only in fullscreen mode. Why? Because it was programmed to work with Direct X 9, which only supports it in fullscreen mode. Take that one up with MS. Since the benchmark is windowed, naturally it doesn't work there. Direct X 10 & 11 support it in windowed, and you'd have to hit up Squenix for why they haven't decided to make separate versions for those rocking Vista and 7, but if you're a performance fanboy why would you be running in windowed mode in the first place? For shame.
Controls
As a note, the UI is a bit laggy in the current beta. Squenix is aware of this and made improvements to it already, but I expect them to make further adjustments to resolve this.
-Controls are not currently customizable via keyboard (but can be customized via controller through configuration utility). A number of people have asked for customization, so it's something I somewhat expect to be included since they already made a lot of changes to controls.
-Mouse is a bit wonky to use, but I just use the keyboard anyway since I'm on a laptop so can't say too much on this.
-Auto-run while looking at the map and still being able to control where you're running is pretty damn sexy.
-Fighting is a breeze with the keyboard. You can make macros in a manner similar to FFXI, or for those who prefer the Ragnarok Online, WoW, WAR, etc...manner of doing things, you just click buttons 1-0 to perform whatever action. You're limited on skills that can be equipped, so 1-0 seems to be enough.
-While in battle and trying to cure or buff, if you're currently locked on the mob you'll need to tab over to yourself, but it's really not difficult to do.
-Tabbing is a bit strange at the moment since you have to go through 100 targets to reach what you want, but they're including a way to target only NPCs or only PCs, which should help this.
-Use / commands to chat. You can change the mode though so it'll default to Linkshell, etc. Currently replying to someone who sends you a tell is a bit annoying, since you have to type out the whole first name and last name, but Squenix said they were going to include a way to just reply. Fortunately I mainly talk to my linkshell.
-Almost every window or icon on your screen can be moved wherever you want, which is nice.
-Emotes are currently a separate menu, which are very awkward to use and difficulty to use with any sort of speed or efficiency. There've been a number of complaints, so I'm hopeful this will change.
-Maps are incredibly more useful than they ever were in FFXI or actually in any MMO I've played to date. Keep in mind the first citystate you're in is huge, so getting lost a bit is pretty expected, but just clicking "M" pulls up the map and you see a faded outline of the lower levels. You can also switch which make you're looking on from this screen too, and as I said before continue running around like a chicken with your head cut off. Cliffs are outlined, cave entrances have a little notch next to them, and I've found them quite useful in keeping my level of being lost limited.
Only 1 Character Without Paying More?! The bastards!
I personally like this, though in the beta you get 3 slots I still only play the one character until wipe time.
-All classes are available on a single character, so playing multiple characters would just mean leveling the same classes again. I had two characters in FFXI due to someone wanting to shove my cat-girl's tail up her vajayjay when I was a cute, innocent 15-year-old girl and being emotionally scarred, and as I got older I regretted it. One is the answer.
-Makes it MUCH easier using this system to stay in contact with your friends on the server, since you don't have to add them to your friend's list again for each character you make or beg for linkshell/guild invites and so on.
-You will never have to do those long storyline quests more than the one time, so far less repetition.
-You get attached to your character - which can suck and be awesome at the same time. It makes it harder to quit when you're like "omg but Vatuwatu will be so ronery wifout meeee" - and yes, I do use baby talk when addressing my video game characters. On the plus side, the game feels a lot more immersive when you are Vatuwatu. You embrace your inner Vatuwatu. You kick ass with the power that is Vatuwatu. You fish and cook and sell your loot as Vatuwatu.
-It helps keep people from being douchebags. Why? If you're a douchebag and half the server blacklists you, or if your uncle's cousin's sister's bastard child's cow gets on your account and is a douchebag and half the server blacklists you, you'll be lonely like douchebaggery should make you.
-It makes it easier to be well-known for being awesome. Are you a generally likable person who wants to be known for more than gear? Why have I got the game for you! Since gamers are gossips, it makes it a lot easier to get to know people and be praised for the lovable little ball of cool known as you.
-If you want to share an account with a family member, I usually think it's more fun to play with them and simply fork out the extra dough for a second account.
-It costs an additional $3 for an extra character. Most MMOs cost $14.99ish right now anyway, so since FFXIV starts at $12.99, you're really only losing out an additional $1. I'm concerned if $1 will break your bank.
No Jumping?! No Swimming?!
I know jumping can be fun when you're bored, but in the environment of FFXIV jumping would just flat out be a bizarre and unrealistic way to interact with your surroundings. Fortunately, the environment of FFXIV doesn't call for jumping or swimming in the slightest, so you don't have to watch your character sink to the bottom of the ocean when you try to vault over the boat's walls.
-Your character isn't a little twiggy toon like in WoW or WAR or...well, a lot of games. Your character is big, beefy, and if you're a Lalafell, a little bit on the chubby side. Also, your character is covered in heavy armor or long robes that make the thought of jumping terrifying.
-If you were to swim, you would sink to the bottom as you tried to kick around in your robes and intricate thigh-high boots.
Give it a try. It's really not that shocking to lose. If you get bored? Run in circles.
PVP
There isn't any yet. The game is mainly focused on PvE, though Squenix mentioned including PvP at some point on a smaller scale. I'd imagine it'd be similar to Ballista in FFXI if they go that route, but there is an arena in one of the main cities that'll be available at release, so my guess is PvP would be available in an arena form like that. Final Fantasy games tend to be about cooperation rather than retaliation, so this isn't too surprising.
Storyline
The introduction for the game is quite nice. I saw people complaining that it doesn't tell you what to do or the controls, but there are a list of the controls on the beta site if you just sign in then click on "Controls" (I imagine they're using that as their prelude to the manual included with the retail sales, since they had a quick cheat-sheet included with FFXI).
The first battle tutorial gives you the rundown on active and passive modes and some other basic information about fighting. Once you switch into active mode, the bar with all your currently set abilities pops up and you can go spam crazy. ...Sort of. More on that later.
-The tutorial is brief enough that experienced gamers won't get pissy, and detailed enough that my mother figured it out when I handed my computer to her. And my mom, while I love her dearly, gets whiny and quits if something is too hard.
-If you're playing a crafter or gatherer as your main job, the NPCs will save you from throwing rocks for an eternity during the tutorial
-Unlike FFXI and much like most MMOs, the NPCs actually tell you where to go and what to do within the storyline
-If you forget or didn't read where to go during the quest, you can just pop open your journal and look at the information there for where to go
-NPC chat box opens in a separate window, so it's easy to read
-NPCs actually contribute to the atmosphere when you talk to them.
During certain points in the story quests, you'll enter "instances", which only have other people at the same point in the game with you. This essentially makes it so Squenix can manipulate the environments of the game without everyone who isn't where you are seeing it. For example, during one point you enter an instance which changes the surroundings to include an NPC who wasn't there usually who responds when you do different emotes at her. Once the instance is over, you go back to a cutscene, and finally she is gone from the game world.
Also instances are used to vastly adjust the difficulty of an area. For one part of the storyline, you run down to an area where the monsters would rape you from behind normally (alright, only one aggroed me, BUT IT HURT OKAY?!), but during the instance only a certain mob appears at certain points and you can kill them with any low level character without a problem.
Tutorial Leves
A lot of people have complained about not knowing how to gather or craft, etc... Within 5 minutes of the main storyline, the game takes you to the place where you get guildleves. If you talk to the first main NPC you've had contact with, he tells you where to get retainers, guildleves, and local leves. He's so nice.
-The NPC who gives Guildleves also has a "Tutorial" section. You can get "My First Adventure" which teaches you about guildleves in general, and also one for each gatherer class including fishing, mining, and botany.
-These leves tell you everything you need to know without taking all the mystery out of the class you need.
For example, it tells you to select "wait" when fishing to get a bite, and to use "jig" afterwards and that you will fail to catch the fish if you select an inappropriate action, but since where you should jig varies depending on the kind of fish you're catching it doesn't tell you exactly after that.
-The NPC who has Local Leves also has one Tutorial leve for each of the crafting jobs. Select her, and one of the leves will have the description of learning how to do something blah blah... It gives you enough information to figure out the basis of what you need to do in order to be successful.
Guildleves
Currently guildleves are limited to a set number (currently it's 8 every 2 days), though they keep adjusting this so who knows if it'll be permanent. The amount of experience you currently gain from them is ridiculous, but will likely be adjusted for release. You essentially go to the adventurer's guild, pick up some leves, then run to the location listed in your journal, talk to the aetheryte (so spelled that wrong) and begin the leve. Leves for gatherers are similar to leves for DoH and DoM, except instead of fighting mobs or protecting someone you fight an epic uphill battle against fish...or grass...or rocks.
-There are arrows showing you where to go, sort of like Quest Helper in WoW, except it's not an add-on. There are also pretty flashing lights on your mini-map when you're supposed to be killing a mob, and monsters you're supposed to kill have a little icon beside their name.
-You can do the same leve with another person at the same time and still get all the benefits and items. This is a pro and a con, since you'll go through your leves at the same pace, but if you have different leves than someone else you can get additional gil and other bonuses
-Current limitations make some people whiny about having to grind if they want to do more than the available leves and have no interest in crafting or gathering, though if you select the correct level of difficulty leves should take about 20 minutes. Early ones take about 10 minutes tops though.
-Leves give you gil, items, experience and rank points. Also leve mobs tend to give more experience than normal mobs.
-Time remaining displays as well as how many X / X you've completed, whether it's how many fish you've caught or how many locations you've explored.
Local Leves
Local Leves are the crafter's guildleves. They give you items for crafting and also teach you certain recipes. Unlike most crafting in most games, this makes the start up cost completely free. Awesome!
-Unlike the guildleves, rather than going to the aetheryte (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) to start it, you go to an NPC listed in your journal who will give you the supplies to craft the items.
-If you run out of ingredients, you'll fail the leve and not get any of the precious, precious rewards. No biggy, you can try again later.
-Rewards provide experience, rank points, and items.
Travel
Travel is sexy. The things I would do to travel in this game if it were personified into a fine young man probably shouldn't be listed here. There's a few qualms with some limitations in beta, but I also expect these limitations to be adjusted by release due to some comments made on FFXIV's youtube channel.
As a comparison - FFXI is an endless battle between you the player and forms of transportation - anything from missing the airship to cornering a white mage in an alley with a shiv and forcing them to teleport you, or hell - spending a month raising a giant chicken with nice strong legs you can call upon a limited number of times from wherever before you spend thousands of gil to recharge your whistle. RO is dislocating your wrist from all the hardcore mouse clicking action you got going on. WoW is running through throngs of ever-attacking enemies once, and next time making yourself an elaborate dinner with a fancy French name while you spend 30 minutes to get to the distant flightmaster.
FFXIV is running once, and thereafter everywhere is merely a click of a button away.
Limitation? There's a point system called Anima, and returning somewhere can cost somewhere before 0-1 anima (returning being to the last camp you hit up), while teleporting costs 4 anima for everything available so far. Currently it recharges 1 anima every 24 hours or so, which is waaay too low, but based on interviews I expect this to be increased with retail release, and I believe it was faster before too.
There's currently a chocobo stable and a ferry in the citystate that are unusable, so I'm guessing you might be able to ferry yourself somewhere once then get there with a click of a button afterwards. Hot.
Classes
-On one character, you can play any class. See previous rant about all the many, many ways this is awesome.
-General information about equipping skills from other classes etc...could be elaborated on in game for newbies, but as a benchmark of sorts I gave it to my mom and asked her to equip different skills to fight with and she figured it out in about 10 minutes just dinking around. Since I've played a lot of games in my time, I figured it out almost instantly. Anyone who has played an FF game before shouldn't have any troubles with it, though it may confuse general MMO players.
-Skills from other classes can be equipped under your current class. This adjusts some things, such as Stoneskin when playing a Pugilist will only cast on yourself instead of everyone around you (even out of your party), and the recast times of certain skills are longer, but that's a pretty balanced way of adjusting the skills.
-Some skills are inaccessible due to using a different kind of weapon - which makes complete sense since you shouldn't be able to use a shield skill when you don't have a shield.
-Number of skills you can equip is limited by a certain point system. I don't know the right words to explain it, so! Say Cure takes up 2 points, and at rank 1 you have 9 points available, you can equip Cure then another 2-3 skills you can use while fighting that can be adjusted whenever.
-Currently your class can only be changed out of battle. I think that's a huge improvement over the FFXI system where you had to head to town or find a nomad moogle to change your job, but it's not as ridiculous as FFX-2 where you change mid-fight (especially not ideal due to having to change your skill set up based on your new rank). Classes were originally able to be changed in battle, but I believe this was changed due to people abusing a high level class to get their low level class more skills.
-As your base level increases, so does your HP and MP (though this increases with rank as well). You get more points to allot to stats and to elemental resistance. Currently this can only be reset once a day (EDIT: sounds like roughly once an hour for every 12 points, and by physical level 15 you have about 75 invested - but not 100% sure on this) to avoid abuse, but I'd personally like it to be able to reset more often, since being specced towards DD then having to use DD stats to level a mage if you so choose is a bit rough.
-Even if your base level is insanely high, when leveling you currently level mostly based on your rank level in your class, which keeps it open for new players having a group they can play with. I would love to see a level-sync system like they had in FFXI though, since this eliminated that issue all together.
-Gathering for botanists and miners is a bit excessively simplistic to really consider it a class of its own at this time, I think. They may be adjusted by release, but there's not really much of a mini-game feel to them even. Just run up and slash, baby.
-Fishing and all crafting jobs are involved enough that even though they feel very "mini-game" like, that I'm comfortable considering them a class. I thought the fishing class and culinarian class would be boring, but the intricacies are quite involved and it's very fun to play, especially when too tired to go beat up some mobs.
Battle
After the complaints about how slow it was even during beta, I was a bit surprised to see how much I had to do. The battle system isn't completely easy, nor is it simple. The amount of customization makes sure you'll never have to play a cookie-cutter class, and with customization comes discombobulation. I find myself mixing pugilist and conjurer skills when playing a gladiator. It's quite nice.
-Currently in the beta, there isn't any incentive to play as a group. Case and point, spell casters gain next to no skills unless they attack a mob and get aggro since you have to use your skills to improve at all. I expect this to be adjusted, since Squenix has mentioned a lot they want a game you can play solo for 30 minutes, but where grouping is possible too for higher levels of difficulty.
-Alright, even without skill points grouping is still fun. Groups can be anywhere as small as 1 person or up to 15, and there's something about 15 people who aren't quite sure what they're doing running around chaotically that just makes me smile.
-All classes, even spellcasters, have a basic attack they can use to attack that costs no TP or MP, which is nice. They sometimes have two of these attacks.
-I thought the lack of auto-attack would annoy me like it did in City of Heroes, but it's actually sort of nice. For example, pugilists have one basic attack that just hits for damage, and they have another basic attack that hits for slightly less damage but also boosts evasion and defense, so there's a lot more strategy behind it when running into a fight. Keeps my brain busy, rather than like in FFXI where someone could go afk and you wouldn't notice until they didn't attack the next monster.
-The lack of auto-attack and active battle system also makes it so you're much more responsive in combat. Combat is surprisingly fast-paced but not uncontrollable. A monster may take out 3/4s of your health in one hit, but you'll have enough time to get yourself into a comfortable range before it'll nail you like that again so long as you're paying attention.
-If you're not paying attention, you'll probably die once you get past the super low levels and if you're soloing. If you're feeling spacey, it's probably better to level a crafting class or gathering class or get a lovely group to keep your sorry butt alive.
-Currently, targeting the next monster is a bit awkward, or targeting a monster that just dove underground then jumps back out to hit you. Tab spamming works...sort of.
-Sort of like City of Heroes, along with the basic attack there are also more damaging attacks that require TP or MP, which are semi-limited reserves.
-TP builds up as you punch things and decreases as you don't punch things. MP only currently recovers when poking aetheryte to recover to full health. I'm hoping MP recovery will be adjusted, because other than that there's a skill you can use every 30 minutes to recover it, but some of us like to spam skills. Aetheryte isn't ever too far away, but it's just unnecessary waste of time.
-HP recovers automatically over time when you're in passive mode (i.e. not running around with your weapon out ready to smack something). It regenerates fairly quickly too, and you can run around finding the mob that way.
-Your Active Gage recovers automatically over time while in active mode. Depending on how your HP is doing, might be worth it to keep your weapon out to resume smacking.
-When you die, unlike FFXI, you don't lose experience. More like most recent games you're temporarily weakened. Also you can use the "Return" command to go to the last camp you were at, which usually isn't too far away - unlike FFXI where you would have to go back to your homepoint and cry if no one could raise you.
Bazaars and Loot
-Currently the retainer is limited to 80 items (not including stacks) and so are you. This would be fine if you could sell items via NPC faster, but I'm hoping this is a UI issue that will be addressed.
-There is currently no way to search the bazaars for something you're looking for, and there are 20+ different maps with bazaars located on them and you have to search through them one by one and teleport between them. I'm also hoping this will be addressed with at least a search function so you don't have to load each and every map and check each and every bazaar, since that's a monster waste of time. The idea behind a player-based economy is good and it won't have the limitations FFXI's auction house did, but increasing the accessibility of the system would be incredibly helpful.
-With those item limitations, keep in mind armor can be equipped by multiple classes for the most part - or at least I haven't seen class specific armor, so it's really not an issue unless you have a lot of random loot on your.
-Unlike FFXI, monsters drop items far more frequently and in larger quantities. Most of these items can be used for crafting if you figure out the recipe for it. This is usually fine, but full inventory has started happening to me more regularly since I'm fond of fishing and cooking and killing.
La Fin
So since this post was massive, and I'm sure I left something out, let me know if you have any questions. Overall, the game is beautiful and introduces a novel battle system that's really enjoyable to play. It also makes crafting fun to do, rather than just an afterthought. There are some UI issues that need to be taken care of and partying needs to be adjusted so it's actually beneficial rather than something you do because you're lonely, but I expect most of the former problems and a good amount of the latter to be adjusted in the right direction by release if not completely resolved.
P.S.
There may be some mistakes included within as far as numbers go, since I'm most certainly not perfect nor do I know everything. Please feel free to point anything out (nicely - I'm a delicate flower), and I'll go ahead and tweak it. Thanks!
Comments
This was extremely enjoyable to read. I found a lot of useful information that I have been wondering about and it was nice to hear your experiences. Hope to see you in game! ^_^
Yeah, thanks for this write up. I've been trying to find some good solid information like this for a bit now. I appreciate it!
I would love if you talked about the following some more, as I am wondering more about the game and since I am in beta I have questions myself:
1). Why does loot suddenly appear in my chat log and in my inventory....randomly? This occurs especially as I am walking around or zone into another area. Also, how do I know what is junk versus what I should keep?
2). What am I to do besides Leves? Grind? There is absolutely no guidance that I can see besides the tutorial questline that I finished. I am not complaining that I want to be spoonfed and told what to do, I am merely stating that I have NO idea what to do besides just grind.
3). How does one obtain other classes? Just find the guild and go there and speak to whomever?
4). How do I join these "guilds" and how do I obtain the quests to get marks?
I got a ton more that come up, but I can't think of any atm.
1. It's actually loot from monsters hidden deep in the crappy item menu system. Kill a monster or two, open up your menu, go to inventory, and it shows a list of all your items. Hit the cancel button or escape key and it should bring up a new small window in the top left, click loot. That's what you've been getting off the monsters. You can let it go to your inventory over time or PAINSTAKINGLY manually click through the laggy menus to get it yourself right then. I'm not sure how it works in a group.
2. So far, yes. Grind or craft.
3. Equip a new weapon and voila you're the class. Most of them you won't actually buy where the guild marker is on the map.
4. You get guild marks from completing I think level 20 leves. Randomly they're a reward and you can trade so many of them for learnable skills for those specific classes. If a leve gives you guild marks as a reward, I believe you get them as the class you are when you accept it (or start it at the crystal? not sure).
To be honest, I am not sure if I am happy or disappointed that the game is wanting me to just grind off the bat or craft. It has seriously been so long since the EQ days where you just grinded for no apparent reason or guidance. I haven't played an MMO where I was just thrown out there to do whatever I wanted (minus Darkfall and EQ of course) that I actually somewhat enjoyed. I will put this grind to the test and just blow my brains out then. It is disappointed though that the Leves are only limited per day, which basically give casuals a somewhat perk to the game. Login, do your leves, logout. Or am I mistaken by this system? Granted you won't make enough to level, but the leve mobs do give a ton more XP.
Yes thank you SO MUCH for writing this up. I really appreciate the love! It's a shame this had to be written by a member and not MMORPG.com itself. Still much appreciated!
Thank you very much for this post. It has been the most informative, helpful and enjoyable post to read on these forums. Ever.
Dude, grind or craft only, FOR BETA. I'm assuming there won't be -that- much more to do in the game, but way more locations, story quests, repeatable group instance type of stuff I imagine as well. You can only grind or craft RIGHT NOW IN BETA. The figures being thrown around are this is 10-20% of what the game will be at release.
Thank you very much for writing this up! Excellent read.
Dareantk beat me to most of this, aha, so I'll just answer #2 & #3.
2) I feel like honestly most MMOs that have you quest constantly are just marginally veiling grinding. "Kill X mob until 50 of these drop" or "Kill X mob 15 times" sounds just like grinding to me, just with a lot more back and forth to get the bonus rewards, so I never really felt that detached from grinding in the first place.
But yes, essentially either do a storyline quest (but I've only been able to find the Treasures of the Main one so far, but I also haven't looked), join other people who are doing their leves which is pretty fun, craft, gather, or go for the grind. I suggest grinding in a group, though, since it makes it way less lonely, as fun as button mashing moles is. Oh, or my personal favorite - try to break the game.
3) As Dareantk said, by getting the weapons for it. The fisherman's guild has the rod, one of the people on the lower levels either in east or west hawker's alley have the equipment for gathering and crafting classes, and the two NPCs near the armorer guild will sell the weapons for the other war and magic classes.
Cheers!
Nice informative post. Learned more from reading this then I have from any site so far. Unfortunately some of the points that you seem to enjoy are lack luster to me. I can't think of a single good reason to have only 1 character. Especially considering my wife might want to play too.
Well, usually if you have multiple characters they only have one job/class available on them, which is why I think having them all on one character is a major bonus. If your wife wants to play, I think it'd be more fun to play with her at the same time rather than at different times on the same account and just fork over the $12.99 for an additional account. Of course, there's still the alternative to pay the additional $3 for another character slot if you wouldn't be playing together anyway or let her play around on your character while she decides if she wants to play or not.
I guess I don't quite understand the need for more than a single character in FFXIV unless you want to start over entirely and have to level your classes again and redo all the storyline quests. I did it in FFXI and it sucked, since I always wished I could merge the two characters so I didn't have to go level whatever job again to use it as a support job or play through the same missions again. Similarly, in FFXIV you'll have to go level whatever class again to get access to a certain ability and progress through the story you've already seen.
But to each their own!
After you finish the first storyline quest Baderon will give you a new one. They are fun.
Nice write up and I find your saying that noone seems to read the manual spot on. Really no excuse not to be able to do any of the things in the game so far, there is lots of info on all the mechanics. Someone even has a list of recipies for all the classes started already. Manual, ingame tutorial, fan sites the info is there.
"-Mouse is a bit wonky to use, but I just use the keyboard anyway so can't say too much on this."
Wow dude, it's 2010. I think 99% of mmo players use the mouse to look around/steer these days. I can't live without it.
Keep in mind I'm using a laptop, so my mouse = touchpad, which I have to say is not how you want to look around in any MMO, so for me using it in FFXIV was a bit wonky. I also played WoW predominantly without a mouse because of this too.
You can use the mouse to look around & steer. A lot of people said the mouse controls vastly improved in the latest version of the beta, but there was a bit of lag when FPS rate went down and I know it's an issue Squenix is addressing - but I honestly am not the best person to comment.
You can check out this link to FFXIV Core for more info about the current control set-up, though it may still change.
YESSSSSSS!
I read the whole thing, but this one point made me semi-hard.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Thanks, Persimmons! That answered some questions I had. It'll be interesting to see how the game changes between now and launch. From what I've seen, things are constantly and wildly changing in beta (as should be expected, I supposed).
For example, on a recent youtube video where a beta tester was explaining the stat reallocation system, he said the cooldown was something like 2 hours, but you're saying it's 24 now. I've also heard the daily guildleve limit was 8, but you say 4. Hopefully they find a balance that most people can be comfortable with soon.
I do have a question though. Have you gotten a chance to try out the grouping system enough to learn how it works? I've heard there's some sort of search function where a party leader can specify certain requirements and people who flag themselves as LFG will auto-join if they meet those requirements? Is that the case? Can you explain that system a bit lol? Thanks!
Not loosing exp is one of the very few things i will not like in 14 :: besides that i really enjoyed reading your post thx a ton for the info's.
Agreed, but can't win them all. Still greatly looking forward to this.
END OF LINE_
~V
Guildleve limit is 8 (16 actually if you count both regional and local which are on seperate limits) and it's not "daily" it's bi-daily (every 2 days, resets at a certain time on the server).
Not sure about the stat reallocation. Have yet to try it.
Well, there is always the Logitech Netplay Controller (PS2/PS3 adapter to USB it works pretty well). The reality is you can still enjoy this game without a mouse. All, i'm saying is dont let playing with a mouse and keyboard turn you away from this game. Regardless, if you think it is too old school, it allows you to play this game completely on the keyboard. If peripherals are the only thing keeping you from playing this game, Im sorry that you have limited yourself.
Yes, it really is changing quite a bit right now. I think they're checking out the extremes to find a nice balance with the game. Since they increased the experience from the guildleves like crazy for this phase, I wouldn't be surprised if the limit was increased and experience gained lowered a bit to balance it a bit more.
I can't say too much about partying, since I usually only do it when my linkshell just invites me when I'm standing right next to them to do leves. Also not many people look for parties at the moment since the system doesn't really encourage partyingas much as I wish it would, but Squenix is working on that. Currently you can't invite people from other zones (which is sort of a weird concept to me since when moving from one zone to another by walking, the transition is completely seemless with no load times). There also isn't currently a /sea all Pretty Purple Monkey function like there was in FFXI, but a lot of people have been asking for search functions like that to be included.
Right now (though I may be wrong, since I usually get invited to join by a linkshell mate rather than start it up on my own), you can open the main menu, select "Party" and then a box will pop up with info about people in the world and nearby. You can search by class, location, purpose (regional guildleves, localleves or quests), and name. I think the search currently only looks for people in your physical level range, but Squenix said they were going to be adjusting this.
The other option is "recruit", which is the auto-join set-up for people who meet the certain requirements. It has the same purpose location and class information, but you can also recruit people within a certain rank range, and how many of them you want (so you want 5 rank 10-20 pugilist and 2 conjurers rank 15-20 to go do regional leves in Camp Skull Valley) and then you can add a custom recruitment message, like join Vatuwatu on her epic suicidal journey. Currently the recruiting goes on automatically for 60 minutes. If you decide to stop, you can close it.
My bad - couldn't tell since I did 4 fishing leves one day and 4 camp leves another, aha. Will go update.
About the one character slot. I love being able to have one character that can have all the classes... as I for one.. don't like having alts but do just to try out different classes ect. HOWEVER I would say that having 3 slots at least would be ideal... for example if there is a group of guys living together that each want to play.. or a brother and sister... why not? Then again new slots can be purchased so I dunno...
The controls also sounds like a concern BUT FFXI was my first MMO so I had no problem with using mostly the number pad. In fact that was all I knew... never even knew wsda keys were used for movement so I will adjust....
Regardless though I am highly looking forward to this game and have been since I heard of it's exsistance. I will be getting this on launch day for sure.. in fact I should probably reserve it just in case...