I currently have been playing the beta for a few days and more so often the last day or two and I find that this review is 100% true in what the OP says. I don't find a criticism blown out of proportion as I continue to play. Many of the pros and cons are apparent.
One thing that I find this game is lacking for myself is....FUN. I'm just not having fun compared to the olden days. I don't know how to explain it. This game so far seems like a huge time sink so far more than anything. I will continue to play and write my own review hopefully.
I agree with most of your points, though the game made a less fortunate impression on me overall.
Tutorials and better UI / control setup are really a must and that should be their primary concern together with sync issues, I've played lazy console ports like "The Last Remnant" in the past, but this game is much worse.
Some simple actions that you could do with a single hotkey in most MMO's take ages to go through in FFXIV.
I'm also not so impressed with the big world so far, it is big, but a lot of the terrain has been copy-pasted, with some added features like pits and caves here and there, it's not really appealing so far imo; no matter what the devs say, invisible barriers and no jumping remain a major annoyance for me.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Mass Effect 2 is a great game for the 10-20 hours it last. had they extended that to 50 hours, the game would have been much worse. They would have ruined the storytelling, the pace, the players interest in everything changing and being action packed. combat, puzzles, rpg lvling, and explorations would all have become monetone long before that.
I actually spend 56,5 hours on ME2 in my first playthrough, I don't think you did all the game had to offer.
Otherwise, I agree, some things need cutting back, games should be fun first and foremost.
It needn't be instant gratification: a though challenge can be great fun; but repitition is hell, and that is still far too present in FFXIV.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Like I wrote in my blog if your computer is being pushed to the limit because you have the graphical settings too high the UI and controls are slow to respond. Lowering your graphics to what they should be for your system means you'll have a smoother, faster responding experience with both the UI and controls
Actually even on low settings the sluggish UI is present. It's a result of lag between the servers (maybe because they are based in Japan?) and another problem entirely which I don't think is related to the debugger. Every action has lag associated with it no matter if I have a supercomputer or not.
- Very time consuming
Since when is this a bad thing? So long as the time spent is fun that's the point of a good MMO in my opinion. I'd hate to feel as though I was breezing through the game... instead in Beta I feel true progression is going to be earned through patience and time, without the worry of having to be viable in pvp I don't mind that the game may take a lot of time to get far.
It's not exactly a negative to me and you, but it is to a great number of casual players. FFXIV is making an effort to allow casuals to play together. Making an FFXIV an all time-consuming hobby is going to only draw in certain players. You should be able to log in for an hour or less and feel like you accomplished something everyday, as of right now you can only do it with guildleves, which is fine I suppose.
- Not enough focus on group play.
Early on from what I know solo is best, however after the first zone or two (towns) of levequests I was informed by higher level people that grouping is the best form of progression. So really it sounds like the game slowly forces you to group over the first 20 or so levels... not such a bad system though yes I'd love to see the hardest settings on the levequests you first get actually be so hard you do require a group to finish them for a better reward.
I'm wondering where you got this information as I heard beta was capped at 30 which is far from higher levels, but I did mention it could change at higher level. Right now, in the beginning there really is nothing required to do a group with which is kinda a downer. I'd imagine you could solo at higher level too, since the SE stated themselves that they are trying to allow for more solo play.
- Crafting and retainer systems have lots of issues to work out.
I don't have any experience with the retainers as of yet, however the crafting system works just fine even if a tad confusing at first if you have no idea what you're doing. I may try to write a blog on crafting today once I try all the crafting skills for myself... as of yet I am having a hard time placing words in the right order to explain how it works.
If you check the forums on retainers you'll see that they are pretty much universally hated by everyone. The system is promising, but it's implementation right now is outright bad. Crafting "works" fine, but check my description on crafting, while the system itself is a bit more fun than most crafting it has a lot of bugs and issues with material imbalances. There is a bug right now that prevents you from getting skill EXP on half of the crafts you do, which causes it to level extremely slowly. I'm sure it will be fixed by release and hopefully we see some changes in the amounts of materials required for certain recipe combinations.
- "Battlemodes" (Active and Passive) slow down combat.
The only real complaint I have about the "battlemodes" is the fact that switching between the two is a slow process, if they decrease the amount of time it takes to pull out your weapon or in most cases put it away the system will be perfect. Also I wish they'd make it so you can switch modes while moving, currently your character stops every time you press the button to change modes... it feels as though stopping shouldn't be required.
Agreed, as I mentioned AoC does this pretty well. It's not necessarily a bad system, but right now it feels like a ritual that is slowing the game down.
- Travel takes a long time.
Are you kidding? Hell you teleport nearly everywhere you need to go. Finish a levequest and want to start another? Great! Just teleport back to town and bam you're ready to go again. Need to get back to the city for some reason? Again teleport back into the city and bam you're there! Exploring the city may take a few minutes since it is huge, but beyond that the world feels like what it is, a world. Besides once mounts come into play I'm sure traveling will become even faster than it already is... hell on a personal note I think traveling is a tad too easy right now.
Obviously you haven't run out of anima yet. Once you use up your initial anima you are forced to walk everywhere and anima recharges way too slowly currently.
- Physical jobs seems stronger than casters, despite casters being a necessity to level for most builds.
Casters are always going to be weaker than physical jobs, however the casters have more DPS and more special abilities. I really don't see the issue you have with this... it's common MMO formula, would you rather the casters be the tanks in this game or what?
At lower levels my melee jobs are dishing out more damage than the caster jobs without the impediment of MP usage. Casters have skills you want, so you'll level them up, but right now in terms of soloing ability melees are far superior. I think giving casters a few more utility skills early on like a root or snare ability would help the problem.
You have to remember this is more of a translation from FFXI than another MMO. Anima and teleporting is a total addition to transportation from XI so you don't have to find a tele and pay for it. There will be Chocobo travel later and many features to come. Things in FF online games usually take some effort, and are more difficult and time consuming then most of the MMO's to come recently. This usually makes them much more rewarding though and go a long way to create more of a virtual world feel vs. an arcade game online.
Additionally, the beta is pretty limited. Why don't we have access to the other 2 starting cities? Don't these areas need to be tested too?
See this is where i think SE are actually doing the right thing, by not unlocking these starting areas. Everyone and his dog is currently writing guides on where to find X,Y and Z in this starting area, they want to have some surprises left for when the game goes live. Personally I am not bothered about testing two other starter zones as this one is keeping me busy enough
Shouldn't be a concern for them in my opinion. People are either going to do things themselves or they are going to use guides. They shouldn't have to worry about keeping suprises, that should be up to the player whether they want to be suprised or not. What they should be concerned about is testing every possible area, although I don't know what their paid testers and QA is like, for all I know they could be doing that. I did mention I was going off on a little mini-rant there as most of that was my opinion.
Overall Impressions
Despite all it's problems the game is fun and I'm looking forward to release. It could use a push back in it's release another 6 months-year, but that's highly unlikely now (and the wait is already UNBEARABLE). Major fixes need to be made in only a little over a month's time. The biggest thing holding the game back right now is the sluggish UI which is related to a numerous problems in other features. If Square Enix can manage to fix a few of the problems mentioned above in that short of a timeframe (here's to hoping they are holding onto an updated version of the game that is way of ahead of where we are at currently or the debugger has been the source of the UI problem) then they'll bring in a lot more of the subscribers. If you are still unsure about whether or not to preorder the game I'd recommend waiting at least 6 months till most of the bugs have been ironed out.
TL;DR version: Pros and Cons
+ High quality graphics and sound
+ Great atmosphere
+ Active crafting and harvesting.
+ Since crafting and harvesting increases physical level, you don't have to participate in combat to enjoy the game.
+ Discipline system - Job switching and customization
+ Player driven economy
+ Tries a lot of new things, pretty unique and innovative.
+ No regional block.
+ Allows for solo play.
- Sluggish UI and controls. as a (brief QA tester) are you not aware that 1) there is limited server resources in Beta and 2) Debugging software running in the server side that would be causing these? not defending it jsut saying you cant really call this a neg point
1) If they can't keep up with the current demands on the server then they are going to have a really hard time keeping up with demands at release. 2) Yes, debugging software is present, but I don't think it's slowing the UI down. It seems to be something else entirely as it has nothing to do with frame rate. It could possibly be server lag, but SE acknowledged recently that there are major issues with the speed of the UI response, so hopefully we'll see a fix soon.
- Very time consuming, and is what most of us want, not instant gratification, but something that takes time to work at, i can see the XP curve being reduced (less Xp per level etc) already
Who is most of us? If SE wants to be successful they need to appeal to a wider demographic. I like time consuming MMOs, but the hardcore is a niche audience. You should be able to log in and do something productive. It's not just about instant gratification. However I do admit guildleves provide a nice alternative to casual players as you can complete them in only a few minutes and feel like you've made progress.
- Not enough focus on group play. Linkshells were only activated in Beta 3, thus why you see lots of people shouting for people to join linkshells and form groups.
The issue isn't with linkshells and a lack of parties here. It's with the incentives for party player, which there really aren't any besides extra gil from doing more guildleves and at a higher difficulty.
- Crafting and retainer systems have lots of issues to work out.
- "Battlemodes" (Active and Passive) slow down combat.
- Travel takes a long time. intended this way, former FFXI will actually be happy that we can teleport to Camps albeit with the anima restrictions, encourages explorations, the amount of times I ahve stumbled upon a chest sitting there in the wilderness
Yes, and it's not always a bad thing, but it will cause frustration for casuals when their entire playtime is spent going from one camp to another because they ran out of anima.
- Physical jobs seems stronger than casters, despite casters being a necessity to level for most builds. Caster and Physical jobs have always ahd there + and Negative points, I actually leveled my Caster to 10 then did Gladiator cos I wanted the Cure ability while leveling GLA. Every MMo I have played has had Squishies waker at lower levels than Meat Shields, but at higher levels I am guessing we will see differences
Like I said, you will want to level casters because they have great abilities like cure, protect, sacrifice, spike shields, etc. It's hard to tell at higher levels if it will change, that's just assumption, but it would be nice if casters got some form of CC early on so they could handle themselves better.
All in all a nice post by the OP, but I can already see them reducing XP etc in order to slow down the level gain and extend the game play, former FFXI player will probably want to avoid another Valkurm Dunes
Been testing a few days now. I've overcome the initial learning curve and have started to be able to enjoy the game play. However, the horrible and very sluggish UI continues to drag down the experience. It's hard to impart how bad it is unless you try it. I played FFXI for six months, shortly after it's NA release. The UI there was a pain, design wise, but at least it ran well and it was possible to adjust to it. With FFXIV, not only is the UI design much worse than FFXI (many people are begging for an FFXI control option), but everything is slow and tempermental.
The mouse pointer lags your movements and displays on screen at maybe 2 frames per second. Just the ui actions for setting up crafting or adjusting your skill bar or equipment can take many seconds to perform a single step in the actions. Switching between combat mode and passive mode is slow to register, at least a 2-3 second delay, etc... Oh and every time you switch jobs, you have to manually set up your action bar (it doesn't remember settings for each job). You can make macros for this, but it's buggy andtakes almost as long to finish execution as just doing it manually.
Targeting is horrible. I often play a healer in MMOs. Won't touch the role here unless the UI is seriously reworked.
The UI. The UI. The UI. I can't stress it enough. I have faith they can and will fix this before launch. However, I will also say if they DON'T fix it for launch, the game will crash and burn. Yes, it's that bad.
As far as game play, sort of old school. Nice environments. Decent quest system. Large city and map. Great for explorer/gatherers. (Gathering is a slow, highly interactive process. I'm enjoying it now, but it may prove too slow and boring for many). On the negative side, the game is not very innovative. Clearly lacking in features and game play elements vs. what some of the other more promising in development games are touting. Heck, even lacking most of the innovations that have come to MMOs over the past decade.
Wierd blend of cutting edge graphics engine and outdated... well, outdated almost everything else!
Oh, the character animations and facial expressions are superb as well. As are the armor designs and details. The game looks great, but so far, it plays poorly.
(Not giving up, they patch almost daily, it seems. Progress over the next couple weeks will start to shape my outlook. If the UI and other issues aren't mostly fixed by mid Sept. though, probably will cancel the CE pre-order).
I think the game is very good. The music, visuals, and tone are great. The UI is optimized for the dual-shock+keypad imho. I'm pre-ordering the PS3 version, not the PC version. It will be so pretty on a main livingroom 1080p screen, too!
I think the game is very good. The music, visuals, and tone are great. The UI is optimized for the dual-shock+keypad imho. I'm pre-ordering the PS3 version, not the PC version. It will be so pretty on a main livingroom 1080p screen, too!
I agree the UI is optimized for a gamepad. I actually found it very relaxing to kick back in my desk chair with the controller as opposed to the keyboard. The game played quite well with the gamepad but SE needs to get a hardware mouse up and running or people are going to quit just because of that. The lag could be from all the debugging code running in the background so here is to hoping that SE can pull a rabbit out of the hat and get the UI running a bit more smoothly.
It's a Jeep thing. . . _______ |___| \_______/ = |||||| = |X| \*........*/ |X| |X|_________|X| You wouldn't understand
I agree with most of your points, though the game made a less fortunate impression on me overall.
Tutorials and better UI / control setup are really a must and that should be their primary concern together with sync issues, I've played lazy console ports like "The Last Remnant" in the past, but this game is much worse.
Some simple actions that you could do with a single hotkey in most MMO's take ages to go through in FFXIV.
I'm also not so impressed with the big world so far, it is big, but a lot of the terrain has been copy-pasted, with some added features like pits and caves here and there, it's not really appealing so far imo; no matter what the devs say, invisible barriers and no jumping remain a major annoyance for me.
Whenever you can't do anything in a game, just like Xena said in a Simpson's episode, its "magic"! But in seriousness I seesome elements of SE's prior project, Fantasy Earth Zero, in FF14 and I'm wondering if the direction they took with the UI is also a response to adhere for market demands for more of a mouse-based interface than a keyboard.
The environment and jumping is something that diverges pending on fan base. Most long-term vets to MMO's could care less unless it had an impact on the game play or was required. Most console centered players want to have the jump function. Frankly I'd prefer to not have it as I get enough of it picking up any shooter game.
I think the game is very good. The music, visuals, and tone are great. The UI is optimized for the dual-shock+keypad imho. I'm pre-ordering the PS3 version, not the PC version. It will be so pretty on a main livingroom 1080p screen, too!
I've been playing with a Thrustmaster 2 in 1 PSP2/PC controller. It's better than keyboard, but as a console UI, it's poor on that front as well. I do think that they have been trying to standardize the UI between PC and Console, which may be part of the reason things are so bad, but unfortanately it fails both as a PC UI and a Console UI.
I've seen MMO UIs evolve significantly in the closing months before launch, so they can still pull it off. I'm just a little shocked, however, that the UI isn't 500% better at this point in development.
I agree with most of your points, though the game made a less fortunate impression on me overall.
Tutorials and better UI / control setup are really a must and that should be their primary concern together with sync issues, I've played lazy console ports like "The Last Remnant" in the past, but this game is much worse.
Some simple actions that you could do with a single hotkey in most MMO's take ages to go through in FFXIV.
I'm also not so impressed with the big world so far, it is big, but a lot of the terrain has been copy-pasted, with some added features like pits and caves here and there, it's not really appealing so far imo; no matter what the devs say, invisible barriers and no jumping remain a major annoyance for me.
Whenever you can't do anything in a game, just like Xena said in a Simpson's episode, its "magic"! But in seriousness I seesome elements of SE's prior project, Fantasy Earth Zero, in FF14 and I'm wondering if the direction they took with the UI is also a response to adhere for market demands for more of a mouse-based interface than a keyboard.
The environment and jumping is something that diverges pending on fan base. Most long-term vets to MMO's could care less unless it had an impact on the game play or was required. Most console centered players want to have the jump function. Frankly I'd prefer to not have it as I get enough of it picking up any shooter game.
For the most part, I haven't missed jump, but it IS frustrating when you get stuck on a piece of the landscape that you could probably step over IRL. I think in MMOs, I mostly jump to clear a low obstacle I know I might get stuck on otherwise. In those situations in FFXIV, I do find myslef cursing the lack of jump. Not a huge issue, but an occasional annoyance.
I agree with most of your points, though the game made a less fortunate impression on me overall.
Tutorials and better UI / control setup are really a must and that should be their primary concern together with sync issues, I've played lazy console ports like "The Last Remnant" in the past, but this game is much worse.
Some simple actions that you could do with a single hotkey in most MMO's take ages to go through in FFXIV.
I'm also not so impressed with the big world so far, it is big, but a lot of the terrain has been copy-pasted, with some added features like pits and caves here and there, it's not really appealing so far imo; no matter what the devs say, invisible barriers and no jumping remain a major annoyance for me.
Whenever you can't do anything in a game, just like Xena said in a Simpson's episode, its "magic"! But in seriousness I seesome elements of SE's prior project, Fantasy Earth Zero, in FF14 and I'm wondering if the direction they took with the UI is also a response to adhere for market demands for more of a mouse-based interface than a keyboard.
The environment and jumping is something that diverges pending on fan base. Most long-term vets to MMO's could care less unless it had an impact on the game play or was required. Most console centered players want to have the jump function. Frankly I'd prefer to not have it as I get enough of it picking up any shooter game.
Well if they are going for a mouse-based interface it certainly isn't showing, if that is what you meant.
I'm not a console player at all, and jumping is important for me, not because I want to bunny hop or even jump that much, but because I don't want invisible barriers blocking you from coming over even small bumps or from falling down.
While FFXIV does allow you to fall off some ledges, there are still quite a few invisible barriers around and whether visible or invisible, those do restrict your ability to explore.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I pretty much agree with 99% of this post to be honest. My main concerns are the UI and the combat sync (getting killed, but it takes like 3 seconds for the animation to happen, lol)
Yea Im with you its a great write up... I think they cuold use identifiers for the regular Quest givers also not the leve the other quest you can get...... And yes I have posted that in the beta tester area of FFXIV
I'm glad they don't have quest indicators and am sincerely hoping they don't add them.
I'm thrilled to see that there's a MMO out - these days especially - where the player isn't led around by the nose being shown exactly who to talk to and exactly where to go for everything. I feel like I'm actually an active participant in uncovering questlines and tasks to be completed, rather than just playing "connect the dots", following quest indicators everywhere.
They want us to explore and to find and learn things for ourselves, and I think that's great.
As it is, they've done a great job with providing more detailed explanations of what to do and where to go in the quest dialog (which I know many people don't like to read and will likely just look it up on a Wiki somewhere instead). Leves show you which direction to go and indicate the area your leve targets are going to spawn in. That's extremely helpful as well for the casual group, and makes sense, given how they're time limited and the targets can spawn anywhere over a pretty large area.
Anyway... back on topic.. Good read OP. One thing I will point out though... You no longer have to enter Active mode yourself. Targeting and interacting with a mob will automatically put you into Active mode now. They changed that for Beta 3.
you don’t need to lead me around with dots but letting me know there is an available quest would be awesome... I love the idea of getting the quest and having to figure out were to go on my own but I dont enjoy runnign around like an ass for hours upon end looking for one quest its pointless and when you level who's to say quests dont open up then your running around like an ass agian for what maby 1 with little xp reward not worth the hours I spent searching. they need to add quests to more NPC's or indicate that they have a quest one or the other.
Third day in Beta. I'm starting to adjust to the game. The interface still has many problems, but I'm getting used to it. (Using a controller, which while having many advantages, has it's issues as well). Biggest issue now with the UI is targeting. They want to have targeting fit in with the amount of buttons on a controller, but it just isn't working. Often, you can eventually find the target in o.k. time, other times the UI just refuses to let you target the baddie standing in front of you pounding you to a pulp, or to target yourself so you can use a heal.
The "Tab" targetting needs to get much better at intelligent target choice and prioritization (many MMOs have gone through this, well, not as much in recent years, but it's not new to the genre).
Also, the game really needs to default to self casting of heals or buffs, if a friendly target isn't already selected. This is pretty much expected today, but becomes 10X more important here, because targeting in general is so bad.
I'm enjoying the game more and getting the hang of a few classes and a little crafting. The pace of the game is fairly slow. Some will get bored, but so far I'm liking the change of pace. It gives you more opportunity to immerse in the world and your character.
One demerit for forcing people to spend so much time in early levels killing rats! The cliche has gotten too old to be anything but annoying!
It's looking like crafting will provide much of the gear in the game. Occasionally, a Levequest will reward you with a piece of armor or a weapon, but that's pretty rare. Mobs don't drop gear, at least not that I've noticed so far. A plus for player driven economy, but that can also cut both ways. I just hope the AH is functional at launch and that it's robust. The Retainer system is extremely flawed ATM.
The game feels big enough, but with such limited acces to content, it's hard to know just how big the world is and how much total content the game has to offer.
I guess I still have mixed feelings about the game, but could be a solid title if they can solve the UI issues!
I think the game is very good. The music, visuals, and tone are great. The UI is optimized for the dual-shock+keypad imho. I'm pre-ordering the PS3 version, not the PC version. It will be so pretty on a main livingroom 1080p screen, too!
Completely agree.
I don't understand why they are designing a game for a gamepad when it's debuting on the PC?
The ps3 version isn't due out until what March or April?
No keybinding? what? why? w a s d for movmement and i'm locked into it? Wow...
I've played various mmo's for over a decade and only EQOA for the ps2 locked me in but that was designed only for the console.
I think the game is very good. The music, visuals, and tone are great. The UI is optimized for the dual-shock+keypad imho. I'm pre-ordering the PS3 version, not the PC version. It will be so pretty on a main livingroom 1080p screen, too!
Completely agree.
I don't understand why they are designing a game for a gamepad when it's debuting on the PC?
The ps3 version isn't due out until what March or April?
No keybinding? what? why? w a s d for movmement and i'm locked into it? Wow...
I've played various mmo's for over a decade and only EQOA for the ps2 locked me in but that was designed only for the console.
Third day in Beta. I'm starting to adjust to the game. The interface still has many problems, but I'm getting used to it. (Using a controller, which while having many advantages, has it's issues as well). Biggest issue now with the UI is targeting. They want to have targeting fit in with the amount of buttons on a controller, but it just isn't working. Often, you can eventually find the target in o.k. time, other times the UI just refuses to let you target the baddie standing in front of you pounding you to a pulp, or to target yourself so you can use a heal.
The "Tab" targetting needs to get much better at intelligent target choice and prioritization (many MMOs have gone through this, well, not as much in recent years, but it's not new to the genre).
Also, the game really needs to default to self casting of heals or buffs, if a friendly target isn't already selected. This is pretty much expected today, but becomes 10X more important here, because targeting in general is so bad.
I'm enjoying the game more and getting the hang of a few classes and a little crafting. The pace of the game is fairly slow. Some will get bored, but so far I'm liking the change of pace. It gives you more opportunity to immerse in the world and your character.
One demerit for forcing people to spend so much time in early levels killing rats! The cliche has gotten too old to be anything but annoying!
It's looking like crafting will provide much of the gear in the game. Occasionally, a Levequest will reward you with a piece of armor or a weapon, but that's pretty rare. Mobs don't drop gear, at least not that I've noticed so far. A plus for player driven economy, but that can also cut both ways. I just hope the AH is functional at launch and that it's robust. The Retainer system is extremely flawed ATM.
The game feels big enough, but with such limited acces to content, it's hard to know just how big the world is and how much total content the game has to offer.
I guess I still have mixed feelings about the game, but could be a solid title if they can solve the UI issues!
they removed all the gear offent he npcs to force us to craft
Comments
Magnum,
thanks from the write up.
hope to hear more from you soon!
I currently have been playing the beta for a few days and more so often the last day or two and I find that this review is 100% true in what the OP says. I don't find a criticism blown out of proportion as I continue to play. Many of the pros and cons are apparent.
One thing that I find this game is lacking for myself is....FUN. I'm just not having fun compared to the olden days. I don't know how to explain it. This game so far seems like a huge time sink so far more than anything. I will continue to play and write my own review hopefully.
Very extensive and pretty well done review imo.
I agree with most of your points, though the game made a less fortunate impression on me overall.
Tutorials and better UI / control setup are really a must and that should be their primary concern together with sync issues, I've played lazy console ports like "The Last Remnant" in the past, but this game is much worse.
Some simple actions that you could do with a single hotkey in most MMO's take ages to go through in FFXIV.
I'm also not so impressed with the big world so far, it is big, but a lot of the terrain has been copy-pasted, with some added features like pits and caves here and there, it's not really appealing so far imo; no matter what the devs say, invisible barriers and no jumping remain a major annoyance for me.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I actually spend 56,5 hours on ME2 in my first playthrough, I don't think you did all the game had to offer.
Otherwise, I agree, some things need cutting back, games should be fun first and foremost.
It needn't be instant gratification: a though challenge can be great fun; but repitition is hell, and that is still far too present in FFXIV.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
You have to remember this is more of a translation from FFXI than another MMO. Anima and teleporting is a total addition to transportation from XI so you don't have to find a tele and pay for it. There will be Chocobo travel later and many features to come. Things in FF online games usually take some effort, and are more difficult and time consuming then most of the MMO's to come recently. This usually makes them much more rewarding though and go a long way to create more of a virtual world feel vs. an arcade game online.
Been testing a few days now. I've overcome the initial learning curve and have started to be able to enjoy the game play. However, the horrible and very sluggish UI continues to drag down the experience. It's hard to impart how bad it is unless you try it. I played FFXI for six months, shortly after it's NA release. The UI there was a pain, design wise, but at least it ran well and it was possible to adjust to it. With FFXIV, not only is the UI design much worse than FFXI (many people are begging for an FFXI control option), but everything is slow and tempermental.
The mouse pointer lags your movements and displays on screen at maybe 2 frames per second. Just the ui actions for setting up crafting or adjusting your skill bar or equipment can take many seconds to perform a single step in the actions. Switching between combat mode and passive mode is slow to register, at least a 2-3 second delay, etc... Oh and every time you switch jobs, you have to manually set up your action bar (it doesn't remember settings for each job). You can make macros for this, but it's buggy andtakes almost as long to finish execution as just doing it manually.
Targeting is horrible. I often play a healer in MMOs. Won't touch the role here unless the UI is seriously reworked.
The UI. The UI. The UI. I can't stress it enough. I have faith they can and will fix this before launch. However, I will also say if they DON'T fix it for launch, the game will crash and burn. Yes, it's that bad.
As far as game play, sort of old school. Nice environments. Decent quest system. Large city and map. Great for explorer/gatherers. (Gathering is a slow, highly interactive process. I'm enjoying it now, but it may prove too slow and boring for many). On the negative side, the game is not very innovative. Clearly lacking in features and game play elements vs. what some of the other more promising in development games are touting. Heck, even lacking most of the innovations that have come to MMOs over the past decade.
Wierd blend of cutting edge graphics engine and outdated... well, outdated almost everything else!
Oh, the character animations and facial expressions are superb as well. As are the armor designs and details. The game looks great, but so far, it plays poorly.
(Not giving up, they patch almost daily, it seems. Progress over the next couple weeks will start to shape my outlook. If the UI and other issues aren't mostly fixed by mid Sept. though, probably will cancel the CE pre-order).
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I think the game is very good. The music, visuals, and tone are great. The UI is optimized for the dual-shock+keypad imho. I'm pre-ordering the PS3 version, not the PC version. It will be so pretty on a main livingroom 1080p screen, too!
I agree the UI is optimized for a gamepad. I actually found it very relaxing to kick back in my desk chair with the controller as opposed to the keyboard. The game played quite well with the gamepad but SE needs to get a hardware mouse up and running or people are going to quit just because of that. The lag could be from all the debugging code running in the background so here is to hoping that SE can pull a rabbit out of the hat and get the UI running a bit more smoothly.
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Whenever you can't do anything in a game, just like Xena said in a Simpson's episode, its "magic"! But in seriousness I seesome elements of SE's prior project, Fantasy Earth Zero, in FF14 and I'm wondering if the direction they took with the UI is also a response to adhere for market demands for more of a mouse-based interface than a keyboard.
The environment and jumping is something that diverges pending on fan base. Most long-term vets to MMO's could care less unless it had an impact on the game play or was required. Most console centered players want to have the jump function. Frankly I'd prefer to not have it as I get enough of it picking up any shooter game.
I've been playing with a Thrustmaster 2 in 1 PSP2/PC controller. It's better than keyboard, but as a console UI, it's poor on that front as well. I do think that they have been trying to standardize the UI between PC and Console, which may be part of the reason things are so bad, but unfortanately it fails both as a PC UI and a Console UI.
I've seen MMO UIs evolve significantly in the closing months before launch, so they can still pull it off. I'm just a little shocked, however, that the UI isn't 500% better at this point in development.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
For the most part, I haven't missed jump, but it IS frustrating when you get stuck on a piece of the landscape that you could probably step over IRL. I think in MMOs, I mostly jump to clear a low obstacle I know I might get stuck on otherwise. In those situations in FFXIV, I do find myslef cursing the lack of jump. Not a huge issue, but an occasional annoyance.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Well if they are going for a mouse-based interface it certainly isn't showing, if that is what you meant.
I'm not a console player at all, and jumping is important for me, not because I want to bunny hop or even jump that much, but because I don't want invisible barriers blocking you from coming over even small bumps or from falling down.
While FFXIV does allow you to fall off some ledges, there are still quite a few invisible barriers around and whether visible or invisible, those do restrict your ability to explore.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
you don’t need to lead me around with dots but letting me know there is an available quest would be awesome... I love the idea of getting the quest and having to figure out were to go on my own but I dont enjoy runnign around like an ass for hours upon end looking for one quest its pointless and when you level who's to say quests dont open up then your running around like an ass agian for what maby 1 with little xp reward not worth the hours I spent searching. they need to add quests to more NPC's or indicate that they have a quest one or the other.
Just wanted to throw this in here...
Third day in Beta. I'm starting to adjust to the game. The interface still has many problems, but I'm getting used to it. (Using a controller, which while having many advantages, has it's issues as well). Biggest issue now with the UI is targeting. They want to have targeting fit in with the amount of buttons on a controller, but it just isn't working. Often, you can eventually find the target in o.k. time, other times the UI just refuses to let you target the baddie standing in front of you pounding you to a pulp, or to target yourself so you can use a heal.
The "Tab" targetting needs to get much better at intelligent target choice and prioritization (many MMOs have gone through this, well, not as much in recent years, but it's not new to the genre).
Also, the game really needs to default to self casting of heals or buffs, if a friendly target isn't already selected. This is pretty much expected today, but becomes 10X more important here, because targeting in general is so bad.
I'm enjoying the game more and getting the hang of a few classes and a little crafting. The pace of the game is fairly slow. Some will get bored, but so far I'm liking the change of pace. It gives you more opportunity to immerse in the world and your character.
One demerit for forcing people to spend so much time in early levels killing rats! The cliche has gotten too old to be anything but annoying!
It's looking like crafting will provide much of the gear in the game. Occasionally, a Levequest will reward you with a piece of armor or a weapon, but that's pretty rare. Mobs don't drop gear, at least not that I've noticed so far. A plus for player driven economy, but that can also cut both ways. I just hope the AH is functional at launch and that it's robust. The Retainer system is extremely flawed ATM.
The game feels big enough, but with such limited acces to content, it's hard to know just how big the world is and how much total content the game has to offer.
I guess I still have mixed feelings about the game, but could be a solid title if they can solve the UI issues!
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Completely agree.
I don't understand why they are designing a game for a gamepad when it's debuting on the PC?
The ps3 version isn't due out until what March or April?
No keybinding? what? why? w a s d for movmement and i'm locked into it? Wow...
I've played various mmo's for over a decade and only EQOA for the ps2 locked me in but that was designed only for the console.
I guess I expected to much?
your eally shouldnt be reviewing the current beta phase this pahse is meant to force you to test crafting
its still beta..
they removed all the gear offent he npcs to force us to craft