Why? Cause I can afford to and all the FF games I've played were using a controller.
Despite what you think, this game is going to do well financially. It will make back the money it took to make it and become profitable within the first year. Possibly sooner.
Don't take me wrong, I'm not trying to convince anyone to buy or not buy the game (although I would personally advise them to read some reviews first) and I'm most certainly not predicting how successful or unsuccessful this game will be amongst console players.
I'm just affronted by attitudes such as the OP's who counters the badly implemented control scheme by saying you should just buy a controller instead, which proves just how badly implemented the traditional controls are.
Amongst other things in this game which do deserve some critique.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Game looks great and what i've been able to play was fun and cool its the amount of crashing/bugs/launcher issues that just boggle my mind when the game is so close to release. Hey its beta though and thats to be expected right? just can't believe These type of issues and amount are still present when we are only 3 weeks away from live.
I'm just affronted by attitudes such as the OP's who counters the badly implemented control scheme by saying you should just buy a controller instead, which proves just how badly implemented the traditional controls are.
This is the main thing I took from this thread: that the PC controls are so poorly implemented and so inferior to the control scheme of a gamepad, that PC users should just ignore them and buy a gamepad. If this is the case, why even bother including those controls? Either state clearly that you will be expected to buy a gamepad to play the game as effectively as it's intended, or don't port it.
Of course, the clear answer is that many PC users will laugh full in your face and take their money to another MMO, one where they can use their mouse/keyboard as effectively as it should be used. I guess so long as they can claim that PC is supported, they'll be able to tap the market. But for me, looking back over a number of poorly executed ports that suffered from exactly the same issue, I just wouldn't chance it.
You'd figure that after all this time, they could could port a game properly to PC. After all the optimization required for getting a game to run on a PC due the the huge variety of possible hardware to contend with, they fail on the mouse and keyboard. They should be able to nail that as an afterthought!
Really, ive been playing MMO's for many years now, and after this beta started I just got totally disappointed with the MMO gamers in general.
SE brings us a totally different game, with some different concepts, different gameplay and harder learning curve (wich was what so many players whined about, the easiness of games). And everyone just criticizes and trash the game.
What were people expecting? Another clone?
When Aion was release everyone trashed the game for being a clone, now, everyone trashed the game for being very different.
Just remenber, this is a new experience. Get a f***ing gamepad, read the damn quests and enjoy something totally new. It's all there if you read. Stop asking it to be just like every other game, and above all, STOP ASKING IT TO BE THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO BE.
It's SE choice to decide the public to wich they cater. Take it or leave it, but at least be man/woman enough not to criticize if it's not your cup of tea. It's good, just not for you
Being a copy cat or being different doesn't automatically guarantee you a success. FF XIV fails to impress many people deal with it.
I'd love for you to publish a design spec for a game that doesn't use anything from any previous game. Show us all how you can do it!
Quite irconic. FF XIV is actually amongst the MMO's with the least depth. There's next to nothing to do but grind. That's either crafting or for combat leveling.
SE has repeated MANY times they are keeping the content under wraps until launch comes along, what more do you expect in a Beta? the full fucking game?
over all loved the way SE have handled the alpha/beta. keep some of the game open to play ,keep a straight topic to feedback on....controls, UI, levequests, all the aspects of the game. and been reading the feedbacks in the general forum - not so sure about the english forum, but if not the Japanese have had same issues with the game as english speaking :P
now on the game itself I wish there were no combat at all,loved the start of the game but not its combat, it were just annoying, well supported by the lack of responsiveness.
+ to story telling/adventure game feel
- to the combat....shouldnt be there in the first place, Id rather see a cutscene where my character fought, SE have shown they can make some good cutscenes.
and no didnt have a problem with controls, tho ofc took afew min to get used to, but ended up only use the keyboard, and use it like a gamepad...never saw the great thing in gamepads, and no worries alot of ppl called me weird before......keyboard ftw, :P
if you want to like a game dont read the mmorpg.com forum
Lol, well the game is either for you or not. I liked a lot of elements of it but some of the game was just annoying enough for me to pass on and well I have uninstalled it. I think having played a lot of MMO's too does make it a little harder for me to be impressed all the way around but I refuse to spend my money on something again that I'm just going to get tired of making exceptions for the things I don't like. Everybody has their opinion and reasoning for not liking or liking it. We shouldn't hate on each other for our own different tastes.
From what I understand, SE focuses mainly on what Japanese beta testers report, not what NA/EU players report.
So guess what? You make your game primarily for a Japanese audience, don't get your knickers twisted when the rest of the world you're trying to impress are in fact not impressed.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
From what I understand, SE focuses mainly on what Japanese beta testers report, not what NA/EU players report.
So guess what? You make your game primarily for a Japanese audience, don't get your knickers twisted when the rest of the world you're trying to impress are in fact not impressed.
I don't think SE is getting their knickers in a bunch.
I'm pretty sure they know that this game is going to be a commercial and financial success.
Really, ive been playing MMO's for many years now, and after this beta started I just got totally disappointed with the MMO gamers in general.
SE brings us a totally different game, with some different concepts, different gameplay and harder learning curve (wich was what so many players whined about, the easiness of games). And everyone just criticizes and trash the game.
What were people expecting? Another clone?
When Aion was release everyone trashed the game for being a clone, now, everyone trashed the game for being very different.
Just remenber, this is a new experience. Get a f***ing gamepad, read the damn quests and enjoy something totally new. It's all there if you read. Stop asking it to be just like every other game, and above all, STOP ASKING IT TO BE THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO BE.
It's SE choice to decide the public to wich they cater. Take it or leave it, but at least be man/woman enough not to criticize if it's not your cup of tea. It's good, just not for you
Yeah I've just decided that the MMORPG community in general and I will just never see eye to eye totally. Like, Aion for example. Yes it was panned for being a WoW-clone, but overall, before release, the reviews were overwhelmingly positive. And that game could not have been more generic if they tried (and they did try). Same with Champions Online, STO, Warhammer- basically every WoW-clone pumped out of the cloning facility- some negative but mostly positive. Now we have somthing different and people are making it seem like a three-headed baby, some sort of monstrous abomination. I see it as just what the doctor ordered and potentially the savior for the mmorpg industry. If it sells and does well, companies might get interested in working on similar things, like game immersion and other things to do besides fighting. They might feel free to experiment with the UI and how quests are done. We all might get out of this WoW-driven funk we've been stuck in for 10 years.
quote: What I mind is a community that never talks.
This is unusual and a bit offputting. It's because most people are using a controller and don't have their hands on a keyboard to say whatever comes to mind. Once you get into a good linkshell, you'll end up mostly talking wtih your guild-mates. That's what I experienced in FFXI.
The game should be hard, not the game controls. I want to play FFXIV not "Fuck with the gamepad." I bought a gamepad but it doesn't simply work right out of the box. It is not that you simply CAN remap the buttons. You HAVE TO map the buttons in the first place. If you have never played it before and don't know what to expect then you really don't know what it is you are putting on each button. There is no default layout for a simple PS3 styled USB gamepad. Even when I got things mapped multiple things would happen when I moved a joystick or hit a button. like moving and getting a menu at the same time. Yes, I obviously did it wrong. But what is right? They don't give you anything to point you in that direction. So simply saying get a gamepad is not enough. It is not a guaranteed fix.
If you click on the environment nothing happens. That is fine. But would it have been so very difficult to have made it so that when you clicked somewhere you moved there? That would have probably been just enough to save the mouse users. It is as if SE went out of their way to NOT support standard PC hardware. And this change would not effect any other players. They would never even know. It is not like it would take something away from the person using the game pad. And this form of movement would not have been anything like in WoW. It would have been like L2 an PWI. Which are both asian games. So why couldn't they even simply support what has become the standard for asian MMOs? This isn't simply about SE not doing what appeals to Americans. It is about them purposefully avoiding things that might appeal to anyone anywhere else in the MMO world besides FF.
This is not about making it just like WoW. Lot of games are significantly different from wow. EVE, ATITD, Lineage 2, PWI. SE didn't simply choose to be different, lots of games are different. They choose to not care if it was completely unintuitive to mouse users. Doing it different to make it better is one thing. Doing it different simply to be different is stupid. Besides, things like drop down context menus go well beyond games. There are standard interface conventions that are conventions simply because they work for everbody. Even on Macs and Linux machines. So get over the whole, "you just have to be willing to try something different." This isn't simply different. It is simply not designed to the platform. And no, the ui on the console and on the pc doesn't need to be the same.
The lack of userfriendliness goes deep into game play. You wander around with a vague sense that you are supposed to talk to the npcs, but most don't say much that appears to be useful so you are left wondering if you are doing it right. This results in you spending significant time doing nothing that appears very fun. When you do finally figure out what leves are and finally figure out which way to head out of town you eventually get to the camp. You eventually fumble though how to activate the quest but then when you die for the first time there is... nothing. you are just there. you can't even speak to ask WTF! Nothing. No indication that you should return. You go looking for a help menu and fumble across "return" and give it a try. If a person needs to do something specific to the current context then you bring it up in a dialog box not just simply let them sit at the inert screen expecting them to go looking in the menu tree for the correct choice. This is very basic Interface design philosophy. It doesn't even have any thing to do with games. It is basic to computers in general.
I have come to the conclusion that this game absolutely requires that you don't skip the tutorial. Did you miss the tutorial too? The tutorial is FFXI. If you have not played the previous game for a reasonable amount of time then this game is apparently not designed for you. Shame on you for having skipped the previous game.
Really, ive been playing MMO's for many years now, and after this beta started I just got totally disappointed with the MMO gamers in general.
SE brings us a totally different game, with some different concepts, different gameplay and harder learning curve (wich was what so many players whined about, the easiness of games). And everyone just criticizes and trash the game.
What were people expecting? Another clone?
When Aion was release everyone trashed the game for being a clone, now, everyone trashed the game for being very different.
Just remenber, this is a new experience. Get a f***ing gamepad, read the damn quests and enjoy something totally new. It's all there if you read. Stop asking it to be just like every other game, and above all, STOP ASKING IT TO BE THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO BE.
It's SE choice to decide the public to wich they cater. Take it or leave it, but at least be man/woman enough not to criticize if it's not your cup of tea. It's good, just not for you
Completely agree. Being a former FFXI player, I knew this was going to be the general reaction from the most people. Most western players just want another streamlined hotbar mashing game.
Blame Blizzard for dumbing down the mmo genre for the sake of that extra dime in their pockets. I may have some issues with FFXIV but I'm glad they did not follow the WoW clone path.
Really, ive been playing MMO's for many years now, and after this beta started I just got totally disappointed with the MMO gamers in general.
SE brings us a totally different game, with some different concepts, different gameplay and harder learning curve (wich was what so many players whined about, the easiness of games). And everyone just criticizes and trash the game.
What were people expecting? Another clone?
When Aion was release everyone trashed the game for being a clone, now, everyone trashed the game for being very different.
Just remenber, this is a new experience. Get a f***ing gamepad, read the damn quests and enjoy something totally new. It's all there if you read. Stop asking it to be just like every other game, and above all, STOP ASKING IT TO BE THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO BE.
It's SE choice to decide the public to wich they cater. Take it or leave it, but at least be man/woman enough not to criticize if it's not your cup of tea. It's good, just not for you
Umm .. NO! If A company wants my money then I better like the game. I ain't going for this crap where your expected to buy a game that you don't like. If you don't want to cater to the public then your considered a niche game and if I don't want it I ain't going to buy it. Don't blame the customer cause the product sucks. If you like it, fine but don't expect me to like something I don't.
Umm..YES! If the company caters to a certain public and you're not the "certain public" they are catering to then they don't want your money. I agree, if you don't like it then don't shell out the bucks for it. The product doesn't suck just because you don't like it. There's lots of things I don't like or can't use but I don't go on a website forum and proclaim the product to suck. The game is good for those that are looking for that kind of game. If it's not for you then perhaps one of these games that's about to come out will be for you.
There's a saying that you can't please everybody. It would impossible and silly for a company to develop a product that everyone would be happy with. Everybody has different tastes. SE built a game around ideas of what they think (and many of their fans think) will be a successfull game.
And lastly, it's still too early to be critical and complain. Wait until the game launches...and then 3 months...maybe 6...then wait for the free trial....and then critique to your heart's content. And, I'm not being bossy here, I'm just saying that this is the logical course to take before you berate something we all know only a little about.
The main problem i get from the controller / mouse arguments i am getting on FF that some pc user ( not all) despice hearing the responce thats it plays better on keyboard. Yet some of these same people will tell someone right off that if they cant play a game they just need to "stop being cheap" and buy a new computer/ video card/ ram/ proccessor etc etc. Or in short just to upgrade there computer hardware
. i dont mind people being a fan of either playstyle.. much rather a controller myself but what i dont see is how this argument is any different that the " just upgrade your hardware" argument.
Now do i think square should work on the mouse lag issues. of course but i think some of that will clean up after beta or atleast when all the debug data is cleared out that usually causes a lot of lag in general. otherwise its just lazy on there part not to clean it up depending on how bad it is.
I guess its strange to me just seeing some of the lengths pc gamers go through to play a game ( like spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on special mouses stearing wheels , vid cards , extra large monitors this list goes on) but a 25 dollar or less controller is where the line is drawn?
I challenged my reflection to a staring contest....4 days later i won
I'm glad you're enjoying the game but I believe we have very polarizing opinions on what is "different" and what is "unnecessary". As a marketer, it is clear to me that their objective was to drag the game out to an unbelievable extent in order to make it more future proof and unfortunately that is what has caused many die-hard players to not appreciate some of what you're claiming is "appealing".
It is a well made game indeed, but it is more of a persistent world environment than a game ... and for this, yes I would appreciate a "clone" if that is what you're calling any game released henceforth that falls within the MMO category of entertainment. A "clone" derived from a Final Fantasy setting would have so much potential ... and to be honest, I had high hopes that this game would be drastically different than its predecessor XI.
Developers feel free to make games unique. Feel free to make them difficult or to implore engaging concepts that will force me to think outside the box and make me want to discover.
To your controller point, the MMO genre is primarily a PC based one. As such, it should be expected that the game (when released on PC before PS3) is designed with a keyboard / mouse combination in mind. No developer should expect a gamer to don a controller with force. In addition, if I DID use a gamepad for this game, I would still not be enjoying it for the items that I listed in my previous post ... http://bit.ly/9ZzrTg ... none of which would be cured by a gamepad. If you don't feel like clicking the link, allow me to summarize - it is slow and boring.
Someone please send me a controller that fixes slow and boring. Not even the power glove could do that ... and that was a glove that had power in it.
The game should be hard, not the game controls. I want to play FFXIV not "Fuck with the gamepad." I bought a gamepad but it doesn't simply work right out of the box. It is not that you simply CAN remap the buttons. You HAVE TO map the buttons in the first place. If you have never played it before and don't know what to expect then you really don't know what it is you are putting on each button. There is no default layout for a simple PS3 styled USB gamepad. Even when I got things mapped multiple things would happen when I moved a joystick or hit a button. like moving and getting a menu at the same time. Yes, I obviously did it wrong. But what is right? They don't give you anything to point you in that direction. So simply saying get a gamepad is not enough. It is not a guaranteed fix.
If you click on the environment nothing happens. That is fine. But would it have been so very difficult to have made it so that when you clicked somewhere you moved there? That would have probably been just enough to save the mouse users. It is as if SE went out of their way to NOT support standard PC hardware. And this change would not effect any other players. They would never even know. It is not like it would take something away from the person using the game pad. And this form of movement would not have been anything like in WoW. It would have been like L2 an PWI. Which are both asian games. So why couldn't they even simply support what has become the standard for asian MMOs? This isn't simply about SE not doing what appeals to Americans. It is about them purposefully avoiding things that might appeal to anyone anywhere else in the MMO world besides FF.
This is not about making it just like WoW. Lot of games are significantly different from wow. EVE, ATITD, Lineage 2, PWI. SE didn't simply choose to be different, lots of games are different. They choose to not care if it was completely unintuitive to mouse users. Doing it different to make it better is one thing. Doing it different simply to be different is stupid. Besides, things like drop down context menus go well beyond games. There are standard interface conventions that are conventions simply because they work for everbody. Even on Macs and Linux machines. So get over the whole, "you just have to be willing to try something different." This isn't simply different. It is simply not designed to the platform. And no, the ui on the console and on the pc doesn't need to be the same.
The lack of userfriendliness goes deep into game play. You wander around with a vague sense that you are supposed to talk to the npcs, but most don't say much that appears to be useful so you are left wondering if you are doing it right. This results in you spending significant time doing nothing that appears very fun. When you do finally figure out what leves are and finally figure out which way to head out of town you eventually get to the camp. You eventually fumble though how to activate the quest but then when you die for the first time there is... nothing. you are just there. you can't even speak to ask WTF! Nothing. No indication that you should return. You go looking for a help menu and fumble across "return" and give it a try. If a person needs to do something specific to the current context then you bring it up in a dialog box not just simply let them sit at the inert screen expecting them to go looking in the menu tree for the correct choice. This is very basic Interface design philosophy. It doesn't even have any thing to do with games. It is basic to computers in general.
I have come to the conclusion that this game absolutely requires that you don't skip the tutorial. Did you miss the tutorial too? The tutorial is FFXI. If you have not played the previous game for a reasonable amount of time then this game is apparently not designed for you. Shame on you for having skipped the previous game.
Foolish thread. Once again people feel that because it's not WoW it must be great when that is so obviously not the case. There is no reason, what so ever, that anyone should like this game if they simply don't like. They shouldn't like it just because it's different. How ridiculous.
That said I DO like the game and will be getting it.
Well While this maybe up to SE, it is up to us as paying customers for their game, and to share our opinions on their game, and how good, or bad their game is. From everything I hear their game is not great right now, not because of the controls, or the quests, but because they are restricting everyone’s game play that plays the game, which is no more than 8 hours a week per character, and not many people like this, compared to those who actually do. I also think that the game should be based on user interface upon release, and people should be able to customize their skills, buttons, and stuff for keyboard, or game pad, or any control they wish to use as many other games of 2010 are designed.
I played back in Final Fantasy XI since it first came out, and I can say from experience in their game they did two things that hurt the game for years.
1. They never provide any interface menu for skills, or any upgrades for their game but left a really slow old version for console/PC, and the user had to custom create each macro, which was really annoying, and not new player friendly.
2. They mad everything have to be a party of 5 to kill almost any monster, no solo friendly other than beast master, and completely ruined the game once everyone was level 75+, and new players came it was often hard to find a group sometimes and took hours.
3. Window Restriction. Users who played this game could not Alt + Tab, and do other things while the game was playing, which is why I myself used windower for FFXI, but they should have this built into their client by default. It does not, and will not prevent butters, as anyone can bypass this who is experienced, but is annoying for Steam users, and other uses who try to Alt +Tab as the game says Full Screen Mode lost, game quits, and annoys people.
I hope the new Final Fantasy does not have these.
Also is the crafting system going to suck with limiting people to two crafts, or one craft per character as well again. This really did such as they only give one character slot free in FFXI.
Just remenber, this is a new experience. Get a f***ing gamepad, read the damn quests and enjoy something totally new. It's all there if you read. Stop asking it to be just like every other game, and above all, STOP ASKING IT TO BE THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO BE.
It's SE choice to decide the public to wich they cater. Take it or leave it, but at least be man/woman enough not to criticize if it's not your cup of tea. It's good, just not for you
No, not good for me.
No, I won't "get a f****ing gamepad" because I don't like them. It is not a control method that appeals to me in the least, except in beat em ups. When I play a game that I really delve into I like point control. An ideal controler for me would be some kind of configurable multi-touch, tactile-feedback pad that would follow both the "analogue" feel of the mouse and binary yes/no precision of keys. Gamepad just sucks monkey's balls for me, sorry. Fiddling my thumbs never struck me as particularly neurally stimulative.
And no, I won't "read the damn quests". I never read them and I never will. I'm an old guy. I have a library you wouldn't believe. I read books. I don't read the damn quests. Sorry. I like to get my interactive drama kicks from somewhere else and not "damn quest texts". Quest texts are monkey's balls to me. Player chat and stuff that happens to real unpredictable peoplke I play with is waaay damn more interesting and relevant to me.
Next?
p.s. and yes, I do love to jump, even when there is no "reason" to do so. Lick me.
We're giving SE some advice..and those morons still don't allwo tab+alt.
This game is going into the shitters. I loved FFXI, but we're now in the WoW era....it's great that this game is different, but garbage controls and coding = shitter.
The pertinent question that the OP did not address would have been whether there was an appeasement measure in place...ie, having presented two issues (gamepad & reading) would there be less bitching were only one of the issues present; and if so, which is less of an issue for players.
Personally, I agree with the anti-gamepad crowd. To an extent, it is one of the reasons that I have never been a major adopter of gaming consoles. Certain games, imho, appear better suited to keyboard/mouse than they do a gamepad. At the same time, I have indeed purchased a few consoles over the years because certain games...tada!
Personally, I disagree with the anti-reading crowd. The combination of crappy stories and connect the dot navigation has turned most games into a quick zip along your merry way. But of course, developers have done this because of the sheer number of anti-reading crowd out there. Think about the games with various add-ons, where even that is enough and they need to have explicit details about exactly where to go and what to do appear as nice little shiny marks on their maps...oh well.
So if I had a game with keyboard/mouse controls and quests with decent stories (and decent enough instructions to get it done without telling me exactly what to do all the time) then...I would be a happier lil' camper, personally...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
I think what the OP was trying to get at, is if you don't like the game, you don't need to come to the forums and start thread after thread after thread about not liking the game. What is your objective in doing so? To let the developers know you don't like it? Im sorry but mmorpg.com is not the place for that. I garuntee the developers don't even read these forums. If you want the developers to hear of your plight on the matter, you need to take that to the proper channels. A 1 on 1 email to them explaining your concerns with their product.
What you ARE trying to accomplish is to steer away potential customers just because you don't like the game. Thats just bad form. We understand its not your cup of tea, but for me, who can't even get into the beta because of no keys atm sitting here wondering if i should cancel my pre-order because of all the complaining is just lame. Im almost certain that i will enjoy the game since i have no problem with using a gamepad and im not naive enough to think that lag is going to be an issue for a lengthy period after launch. If anyone remembers WoW's launch, they would remember loot lag bugs where you remained in a crouching position until you logged off. 2 hour Queue's just to get into the game, and all the free play time they gave to everyone just because their hardware couldn't handle the players logging in and were constantly down. They might be able to "anticipate" the outcome of their mmo, but they just won't know until launch day happens and everyone is logging in that actually bought the game.
SE has always kept things quiet on all their xpac's for FFXI. They never give out too much in their beta's or their press releases. They obviously enjoy keeping players guessing "whats next". And people have liked it. So please. Just keep your opinions in 1 thread. Stop making countless threads after threads about the same thing just because you don't like something about the game.
What disgusts me even more is that the moderators here are allowing it. All these threads are nothing but trolling, and you're supposed to be suspending / warning people for their trolling. But it just seems like you're supporting it. And its disgusting.
Just remenber, this is a new experience. Get a f***ing gamepad, read the damn quests and enjoy something totally new. It's all there if you read. Stop asking it to be just like every other game, and above all, STOP ASKING IT TO BE THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO BE.
It's SE choice to decide the public to wich they cater. Take it or leave it, but at least be man/woman enough not to criticize if it's not your cup of tea. It's good, just not for you
First, why should i have to go out and spend $50 on a controller to play a PC game? PC gamers want to use a mouse and keyboard to play their PC games. If we wanted to use controllers we would be playing on consoles.
Second, it's SE's choice to make the game we want, but they are advertising this game as being friendly to casual players, which it isn't.
Third, why shouldn't people criticize the game? If people aren't allowed to criticize it, then in the same vein, they also shouldn't be praising it.
Comments
How is this game so special from all the other themepark-PvE games?
Unless you think a console port is a huge plus?
Don't take me wrong, I'm not trying to convince anyone to buy or not buy the game (although I would personally advise them to read some reviews first) and I'm most certainly not predicting how successful or unsuccessful this game will be amongst console players.
I'm just affronted by attitudes such as the OP's who counters the badly implemented control scheme by saying you should just buy a controller instead, which proves just how badly implemented the traditional controls are.
Amongst other things in this game which do deserve some critique.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Game looks great and what i've been able to play was fun and cool its the amount of crashing/bugs/launcher issues that just boggle my mind when the game is so close to release. Hey its beta though and thats to be expected right? just can't believe These type of issues and amount are still present when we are only 3 weeks away from live.
This is the main thing I took from this thread: that the PC controls are so poorly implemented and so inferior to the control scheme of a gamepad, that PC users should just ignore them and buy a gamepad. If this is the case, why even bother including those controls? Either state clearly that you will be expected to buy a gamepad to play the game as effectively as it's intended, or don't port it.
Of course, the clear answer is that many PC users will laugh full in your face and take their money to another MMO, one where they can use their mouse/keyboard as effectively as it should be used. I guess so long as they can claim that PC is supported, they'll be able to tap the market. But for me, looking back over a number of poorly executed ports that suffered from exactly the same issue, I just wouldn't chance it.
You'd figure that after all this time, they could could port a game properly to PC. After all the optimization required for getting a game to run on a PC due the the huge variety of possible hardware to contend with, they fail on the mouse and keyboard. They should be able to nail that as an afterthought!
I'd love for you to publish a design spec for a game that doesn't use anything from any previous game. Show us all how you can do it!
over all loved the way SE have handled the alpha/beta. keep some of the game open to play ,keep a straight topic to feedback on....controls, UI, levequests, all the aspects of the game. and been reading the feedbacks in the general forum - not so sure about the english forum, but if not the Japanese have had same issues with the game as english speaking :P
now on the game itself I wish there were no combat at all,loved the start of the game but not its combat, it were just annoying, well supported by the lack of responsiveness.
+ to story telling/adventure game feel
- to the combat....shouldnt be there in the first place, Id rather see a cutscene where my character fought, SE have shown they can make some good cutscenes.
and no didnt have a problem with controls, tho ofc took afew min to get used to, but ended up only use the keyboard, and use it like a gamepad...never saw the great thing in gamepads, and no worries alot of ppl called me weird before......keyboard ftw, :P
if you want to like a game dont read the mmorpg.com forum
Lets avoid personal attacks in the discussion guys. Remember the Rules of Conduct when posting.
Lol, well the game is either for you or not. I liked a lot of elements of it but some of the game was just annoying enough for me to pass on and well I have uninstalled it. I think having played a lot of MMO's too does make it a little harder for me to be impressed all the way around but I refuse to spend my money on something again that I'm just going to get tired of making exceptions for the things I don't like. Everybody has their opinion and reasoning for not liking or liking it. We shouldn't hate on each other for our own different tastes.
I don't mind the UI. It's not intuitive and it's obviously worse than other modern MMOs but I'm getting used to it.
I don't mind having to read the quests instead of seeing yellow exclamation points everywhere. I think it's actually kind of cool.
What I mind is a community that never talks.
I mind a beginning set of tutorial quests are horribly slow paced, mind numbing, generally unenjoyable, and fail at providing a proper tutorial.
I sure as hell hate seeing the phrase 'You are about to leave the instance'.
It's pretty crappy that I bugged out and never received my promised 'heavy thrust' skill.
It feels like Square-Enix created a very enjoyable MMORPG that they are trying to do their best to make me ragequit.
From what I understand, SE focuses mainly on what Japanese beta testers report, not what NA/EU players report.
So guess what? You make your game primarily for a Japanese audience, don't get your knickers twisted when the rest of the world you're trying to impress are in fact not impressed.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I don't think SE is getting their knickers in a bunch.
I'm pretty sure they know that this game is going to be a commercial and financial success.
Yeah I've just decided that the MMORPG community in general and I will just never see eye to eye totally. Like, Aion for example. Yes it was panned for being a WoW-clone, but overall, before release, the reviews were overwhelmingly positive. And that game could not have been more generic if they tried (and they did try). Same with Champions Online, STO, Warhammer- basically every WoW-clone pumped out of the cloning facility- some negative but mostly positive. Now we have somthing different and people are making it seem like a three-headed baby, some sort of monstrous abomination. I see it as just what the doctor ordered and potentially the savior for the mmorpg industry. If it sells and does well, companies might get interested in working on similar things, like game immersion and other things to do besides fighting. They might feel free to experiment with the UI and how quests are done. We all might get out of this WoW-driven funk we've been stuck in for 10 years.
quote: What I mind is a community that never talks.
This is unusual and a bit offputting. It's because most people are using a controller and don't have their hands on a keyboard to say whatever comes to mind. Once you get into a good linkshell, you'll end up mostly talking wtih your guild-mates. That's what I experienced in FFXI.
The game should be hard, not the game controls. I want to play FFXIV not "Fuck with the gamepad." I bought a gamepad but it doesn't simply work right out of the box. It is not that you simply CAN remap the buttons. You HAVE TO map the buttons in the first place. If you have never played it before and don't know what to expect then you really don't know what it is you are putting on each button. There is no default layout for a simple PS3 styled USB gamepad. Even when I got things mapped multiple things would happen when I moved a joystick or hit a button. like moving and getting a menu at the same time. Yes, I obviously did it wrong. But what is right? They don't give you anything to point you in that direction. So simply saying get a gamepad is not enough. It is not a guaranteed fix.
If you click on the environment nothing happens. That is fine. But would it have been so very difficult to have made it so that when you clicked somewhere you moved there? That would have probably been just enough to save the mouse users. It is as if SE went out of their way to NOT support standard PC hardware. And this change would not effect any other players. They would never even know. It is not like it would take something away from the person using the game pad. And this form of movement would not have been anything like in WoW. It would have been like L2 an PWI. Which are both asian games. So why couldn't they even simply support what has become the standard for asian MMOs? This isn't simply about SE not doing what appeals to Americans. It is about them purposefully avoiding things that might appeal to anyone anywhere else in the MMO world besides FF.
This is not about making it just like WoW. Lot of games are significantly different from wow. EVE, ATITD, Lineage 2, PWI. SE didn't simply choose to be different, lots of games are different. They choose to not care if it was completely unintuitive to mouse users. Doing it different to make it better is one thing. Doing it different simply to be different is stupid. Besides, things like drop down context menus go well beyond games. There are standard interface conventions that are conventions simply because they work for everbody. Even on Macs and Linux machines. So get over the whole, "you just have to be willing to try something different." This isn't simply different. It is simply not designed to the platform. And no, the ui on the console and on the pc doesn't need to be the same.
The lack of userfriendliness goes deep into game play. You wander around with a vague sense that you are supposed to talk to the npcs, but most don't say much that appears to be useful so you are left wondering if you are doing it right. This results in you spending significant time doing nothing that appears very fun. When you do finally figure out what leves are and finally figure out which way to head out of town you eventually get to the camp. You eventually fumble though how to activate the quest but then when you die for the first time there is... nothing. you are just there. you can't even speak to ask WTF! Nothing. No indication that you should return. You go looking for a help menu and fumble across "return" and give it a try. If a person needs to do something specific to the current context then you bring it up in a dialog box not just simply let them sit at the inert screen expecting them to go looking in the menu tree for the correct choice. This is very basic Interface design philosophy. It doesn't even have any thing to do with games. It is basic to computers in general.
I have come to the conclusion that this game absolutely requires that you don't skip the tutorial. Did you miss the tutorial too? The tutorial is FFXI. If you have not played the previous game for a reasonable amount of time then this game is apparently not designed for you. Shame on you for having skipped the previous game.
All die, so die well.
Blame Blizzard for dumbing down the mmo genre for the sake of that extra dime in their pockets. I may have some issues with FFXIV but I'm glad they did not follow the WoW clone path.
Umm..YES! If the company caters to a certain public and you're not the "certain public" they are catering to then they don't want your money. I agree, if you don't like it then don't shell out the bucks for it. The product doesn't suck just because you don't like it. There's lots of things I don't like or can't use but I don't go on a website forum and proclaim the product to suck. The game is good for those that are looking for that kind of game. If it's not for you then perhaps one of these games that's about to come out will be for you.
There's a saying that you can't please everybody. It would impossible and silly for a company to develop a product that everyone would be happy with. Everybody has different tastes. SE built a game around ideas of what they think (and many of their fans think) will be a successfull game.
And lastly, it's still too early to be critical and complain. Wait until the game launches...and then 3 months...maybe 6...then wait for the free trial....and then critique to your heart's content. And, I'm not being bossy here, I'm just saying that this is the logical course to take before you berate something we all know only a little about.
The main problem i get from the controller / mouse arguments i am getting on FF that some pc user ( not all) despice hearing the responce thats it plays better on keyboard. Yet some of these same people will tell someone right off that if they cant play a game they just need to "stop being cheap" and buy a new computer/ video card/ ram/ proccessor etc etc. Or in short just to upgrade there computer hardware
. i dont mind people being a fan of either playstyle.. much rather a controller myself but what i dont see is how this argument is any different that the " just upgrade your hardware" argument.
Now do i think square should work on the mouse lag issues. of course but i think some of that will clean up after beta or atleast when all the debug data is cleared out that usually causes a lot of lag in general. otherwise its just lazy on there part not to clean it up depending on how bad it is.
I guess its strange to me just seeing some of the lengths pc gamers go through to play a game ( like spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on special mouses stearing wheels , vid cards , extra large monitors this list goes on) but a 25 dollar or less controller is where the line is drawn?
I challenged my reflection to a staring contest....4 days later i won
To the OP:
I'm glad you're enjoying the game but I believe we have very polarizing opinions on what is "different" and what is "unnecessary". As a marketer, it is clear to me that their objective was to drag the game out to an unbelievable extent in order to make it more future proof and unfortunately that is what has caused many die-hard players to not appreciate some of what you're claiming is "appealing".
It is a well made game indeed, but it is more of a persistent world environment than a game ... and for this, yes I would appreciate a "clone" if that is what you're calling any game released henceforth that falls within the MMO category of entertainment. A "clone" derived from a Final Fantasy setting would have so much potential ... and to be honest, I had high hopes that this game would be drastically different than its predecessor XI.
Developers feel free to make games unique. Feel free to make them difficult or to implore engaging concepts that will force me to think outside the box and make me want to discover.
To your controller point, the MMO genre is primarily a PC based one. As such, it should be expected that the game (when released on PC before PS3) is designed with a keyboard / mouse combination in mind. No developer should expect a gamer to don a controller with force. In addition, if I DID use a gamepad for this game, I would still not be enjoying it for the items that I listed in my previous post ... http://bit.ly/9ZzrTg ... none of which would be cured by a gamepad. If you don't feel like clicking the link, allow me to summarize - it is slow and boring.
Someone please send me a controller that fixes slow and boring. Not even the power glove could do that ... and that was a glove that had power in it.
My two gil.
qft
Foolish thread. Once again people feel that because it's not WoW it must be great when that is so obviously not the case. There is no reason, what so ever, that anyone should like this game if they simply don't like. They shouldn't like it just because it's different. How ridiculous.
That said I DO like the game and will be getting it.
Well While this maybe up to SE, it is up to us as paying customers for their game, and to share our opinions on their game, and how good, or bad their game is. From everything I hear their game is not great right now, not because of the controls, or the quests, but because they are restricting everyone’s game play that plays the game, which is no more than 8 hours a week per character, and not many people like this, compared to those who actually do. I also think that the game should be based on user interface upon release, and people should be able to customize their skills, buttons, and stuff for keyboard, or game pad, or any control they wish to use as many other games of 2010 are designed.
I played back in Final Fantasy XI since it first came out, and I can say from experience in their game they did two things that hurt the game for years.
1. They never provide any interface menu for skills, or any upgrades for their game but left a really slow old version for console/PC, and the user had to custom create each macro, which was really annoying, and not new player friendly.
2. They mad everything have to be a party of 5 to kill almost any monster, no solo friendly other than beast master, and completely ruined the game once everyone was level 75+, and new players came it was often hard to find a group sometimes and took hours.
3. Window Restriction. Users who played this game could not Alt + Tab, and do other things while the game was playing, which is why I myself used windower for FFXI, but they should have this built into their client by default. It does not, and will not prevent butters, as anyone can bypass this who is experienced, but is annoying for Steam users, and other uses who try to Alt +Tab as the game says Full Screen Mode lost, game quits, and annoys people.
I hope the new Final Fantasy does not have these.
Also is the crafting system going to suck with limiting people to two crafts, or one craft per character as well again. This really did such as they only give one character slot free in FFXI.
No, not good for me.
No, I won't "get a f****ing gamepad" because I don't like them. It is not a control method that appeals to me in the least, except in beat em ups. When I play a game that I really delve into I like point control. An ideal controler for me would be some kind of configurable multi-touch, tactile-feedback pad that would follow both the "analogue" feel of the mouse and binary yes/no precision of keys. Gamepad just sucks monkey's balls for me, sorry. Fiddling my thumbs never struck me as particularly neurally stimulative.
And no, I won't "read the damn quests". I never read them and I never will. I'm an old guy. I have a library you wouldn't believe. I read books. I don't read the damn quests. Sorry. I like to get my interactive drama kicks from somewhere else and not "damn quest texts". Quest texts are monkey's balls to me. Player chat and stuff that happens to real unpredictable peoplke I play with is waaay damn more interesting and relevant to me.
Next?
p.s. and yes, I do love to jump, even when there is no "reason" to do so. Lick me.
@get a gamepad
No.
What you gonna do? QQ?
We're giving SE some advice..and those morons still don't allwo tab+alt.
This game is going into the shitters. I loved FFXI, but we're now in the WoW era....it's great that this game is different, but garbage controls and coding = shitter.
The pertinent question that the OP did not address would have been whether there was an appeasement measure in place...ie, having presented two issues (gamepad & reading) would there be less bitching were only one of the issues present; and if so, which is less of an issue for players.
Personally, I agree with the anti-gamepad crowd. To an extent, it is one of the reasons that I have never been a major adopter of gaming consoles. Certain games, imho, appear better suited to keyboard/mouse than they do a gamepad. At the same time, I have indeed purchased a few consoles over the years because certain games...tada!
Personally, I disagree with the anti-reading crowd. The combination of crappy stories and connect the dot navigation has turned most games into a quick zip along your merry way. But of course, developers have done this because of the sheer number of anti-reading crowd out there. Think about the games with various add-ons, where even that is enough and they need to have explicit details about exactly where to go and what to do appear as nice little shiny marks on their maps...oh well.
So if I had a game with keyboard/mouse controls and quests with decent stories (and decent enough instructions to get it done without telling me exactly what to do all the time) then...I would be a happier lil' camper, personally...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I think what the OP was trying to get at, is if you don't like the game, you don't need to come to the forums and start thread after thread after thread about not liking the game. What is your objective in doing so? To let the developers know you don't like it? Im sorry but mmorpg.com is not the place for that. I garuntee the developers don't even read these forums. If you want the developers to hear of your plight on the matter, you need to take that to the proper channels. A 1 on 1 email to them explaining your concerns with their product.
What you ARE trying to accomplish is to steer away potential customers just because you don't like the game. Thats just bad form. We understand its not your cup of tea, but for me, who can't even get into the beta because of no keys atm sitting here wondering if i should cancel my pre-order because of all the complaining is just lame. Im almost certain that i will enjoy the game since i have no problem with using a gamepad and im not naive enough to think that lag is going to be an issue for a lengthy period after launch. If anyone remembers WoW's launch, they would remember loot lag bugs where you remained in a crouching position until you logged off. 2 hour Queue's just to get into the game, and all the free play time they gave to everyone just because their hardware couldn't handle the players logging in and were constantly down. They might be able to "anticipate" the outcome of their mmo, but they just won't know until launch day happens and everyone is logging in that actually bought the game.
SE has always kept things quiet on all their xpac's for FFXI. They never give out too much in their beta's or their press releases. They obviously enjoy keeping players guessing "whats next". And people have liked it. So please. Just keep your opinions in 1 thread. Stop making countless threads after threads about the same thing just because you don't like something about the game.
What disgusts me even more is that the moderators here are allowing it. All these threads are nothing but trolling, and you're supposed to be suspending / warning people for their trolling. But it just seems like you're supporting it. And its disgusting.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
First, why should i have to go out and spend $50 on a controller to play a PC game? PC gamers want to use a mouse and keyboard to play their PC games. If we wanted to use controllers we would be playing on consoles.
Second, it's SE's choice to make the game we want, but they are advertising this game as being friendly to casual players, which it isn't.
Third, why shouldn't people criticize the game? If people aren't allowed to criticize it, then in the same vein, they also shouldn't be praising it.