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An Honest Opinion....and Use a gamepad!!
RobinSage
Member Posts: 10
Okay first of all, I was in Beta for Ultima Online...my first MMORPG. I've played or tested 90% of all the MMORPG's ever released. With that said, FFXIV is by far the best. Aside from the lack of voice acting, which is a gimmick for non-readers anyway, it is very hard for me to criticize much of this game.
My initial thoughts at the opening of beta were good and bad. I hated the patch system, I've gotten over that. I didn't like the UI beeing so choppy, I installed and configured my logitech $9 gamepad and POOF!! awesome UI interface such as a console. The graphics run smoothly at 1920x1080 on a 52" Plasma display. Clearly I thought, they designed this game for consoles. So, using the most badass console in my house (the PC) I set up all of my cross class macros. To ease my interaction with a keyboard. I now only use the keyboard to set up my macros. The game has opened up so much since I've done this.
No more annoying targeting, no more mouse sensitivity issues. Once you hook up a gamepad you will thank me. But I'd also just like to point out some of the best things I've seen about this game. And before anyone says that I'm basing my opinions on other games, I will say that I definately am. I've played them all. This one is better because:
1. The world is seemless. There are instances that feel like they don't detract from the experience or environment. The fast travel is appropriately regulated.
2. Player run economy with goods and services. This worked in Star Wars Galaxies. It was an awesome crafting system. FFXIV is very similar. As long as the NPC pricing is somewhat used as a "guideline" so price gouging and highway robbery aren't occurring.
3. The combat/loot system is organized and efficient.
4. The guildleve system of mission management is very efficient. Especially if you want to have a person that is proficient in multipule classes. Which I'm thinking in the long term is going to be important for everyone to be somewhat versitile, just like every character you've ever played with in a FF game. Don't forget this is a FINAL FANTASY GAME.
5. Like the original Everquest, SWG, EQII and "others" which I wont mention, the use of macros is a big part of the game. This game is not for the wow crowd. And I say that loosly as I know there are some intelligent wow players out there.....somewhere..........anyway, unless you set up your macros so that you can swap classes, equipment, ammo, etc. You are going to be hating life with this game. It's old school equipping. You either simplify it, or you are lazy and you wait for the "mod" doctors to help you with one, which they like to sell to people. Find your answers in the forums.
6. My last observation about this game is that if people would have some patience, try all the classes out, which you can do with one character by the way, which no other mmo allowes you to do since EQ, once you've tried them all and have seen the sheer scope of individualism and originality you can have with your character, I'm sure you'll come to like this game a lot more.
My three cents.
Comments
As for the macroing thing, I wish people would stop using "it's not WoW" as way to excuse archaic game design. There's a reason why the World of Warcraft UI is copied so much in subsequent MMORPGs, and it isn't merely an artistic preference. That UI is far easier to navigate and understand than anything that came before it, and the user friendliness of a UI in no way corellates with the easiness of the game as a whole.
I imagine people will stop telling you "it's not wow" as an excuse for archiac game design some time around the point when you decide that anything that isn't wow can be anything more than backwards and wrong.
Deeply ironic for a guy with a native american avatar.
Forcing people to learn how to create macro's is NOT a feature. Some of us have busy lives and when we wanna game, we wanna game. I don't want to spend hours studying how to create the best macro set-up, only NOT to play because my time for the day is up.
And why do people still bash WoW.
Because bashing WoW is the popular thing to do. I find the irony to be amusing.
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"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
Ease of use an efficiency are signs of progress not regression. Defending FFXIV's cryptic UI carries about as much logic as the idea that we should all go back to riding horses to work every day because driving a car is too easy.
A good argument if I didn't find FFXIV's interface both easy and efficient, it's only cryptic for the hour or two it takes oyu to learn it. It's not like they've got volumes of menus hidden under menus here, most things can be accessed under the first thing you look at, and quickly. Could do without the GUI lag in places, but that isn't by design, they're owrking on eliminating it.
I'm always curious why no one mentions the reverse instancing (leves only visible to those on them)
means you'll never run into a mob and say wow, that's badass.
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I imagine people are using cryptic as in...I'm puzzled why they made such a design choice. The UI isn't terribly complicated.
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
Why are people trying to convince folks that do not like the game that they are wrong?
Why are people that do not like the game bothering trying to convince the folks that do like the game that they should not?
Any argument other than perhaps graphics and system requirements that FFXIV is moving the genre forward is going to fall on deaf ears.
Telling PC gamers to buy a gamepad is generally going to be good for a laugh. There is typically a reason that they are gaming on the PC with certain games and not on a console.
Face it, those that like it - like it. They think it is nifty, new, innovative, and the best thing since apple pie a la mode. The rest think they are wrong - that in a world where people are looking for french silk pie, they have been offered a stale muffin.
If you enjoy the game, enjoy it! Have fun!
If you hate the game, move on! Have fun!
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
This is not Square's first MMO,they should have at the very least ,learned that the mouse is a huge part of online gaming.
mouse lag,no map dragging with mouse,they even removed the right mousse clik to open menu that ffxi had.You SHOULD be able to drag pre made icons into the macro system,this would have showed me Square cared a bit about their design and would have made it user friendly,after all give your potential fambase something to look forward to.People should not be telling others they need a gamepad to play this game,it should be keyboard/mouse FIRST,this is NOT the PS3 release version of the game.
I do not agree with the player run economy because it is too limited to work properly.Seamless world?i felt i was loading too many menus and screens to feel anything of a seemless world,even worse is when the game itself keeps telling me it is loading instances.
combat loot system organized?There is ONLY crafting loot or in most cases unless you want to craft that junk,it is junk.Combat i couldn't tell if it was organized ,i didn't do enough of it,it just seems like WOW now lazy soloing,do quests all day for easy xp.My idea of FUN is not how many quests i can do to speed level.
YES the guildLeve is efficient ,that is the game design i do not approve of,it is nothing more than copy cat WOW,turning a BETTER FFXI game design into an all out repeating questing game for faster xp,since when did FUN become all about faster xp?We need another questing for xp game like we needed a hole in the head,EQ2 already does that the best and others prefer Wow and their repeating dailies,why did Square need to copy this yet again?
Although Leves are efficient[for xp],they are not as well thought out in design as the fame/rank system was in FFXI,that was much better game design and showed a ton more effort.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I don't think you get it. A UI that takes an hour or two to learn is not easy to use or very efficient.
I don't think you get it. WoW's interface took you an hour or two to learn, although it may not have been Wow you learned it in since it's actually (say, over 80%) an archaic interface they inherited from EverQuest. The only reason why you're complaiing about it is because you already know WoW's interface.
I know, I've heard this a million times already "I think we should make all the games play exactly alike so I don't have to learn anything" but, in practice, this is boring because you should already be bored of the games you know, and consequently I will not sympthatize with such a lack of willingness to exhibit a little effort.
The world is not seamless. When you travel between zones, there is a loading screen.
As far as getting a gamepad, I have one but windowerxiv with hardware mouse works much better.
The game is pretty fun though and the graphics are very nice.
It goes beyond that. He stated "if I didn't" basically in response to your saying it is. This is just a quibble of opinion. You will find somebody that agrees with you. He will find somebody. Back and forth.
If only folks focused more on concrete issues with the game. So much opinion. We get it. The UI is either efficient, not efficient, or somewhere in between. Pretty much every game out there.
Concrete stuff. This is a PS3 port that was not well thought out for PC. There is no getting around that. Hefty system requirements in an otherwise system friendly flooded market - while the PS3 has such crappy hardware. No getting around that.
People knew the game was going to be this. It is like walking across the room into a wall and then saying, "Stupid wall!"
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I'd say WoWs interface definitely doesn't take that long to learn. I'm not even sure if the fine details of the interface take that long.
Let's say in FFXIV you want to do something simple that you will have to do a lot like repair equipment. How does that work? How many steps does it take for each individual piece of equipment?
Or...you want to craft an item, how many dialogs do you have to go through to do it?
Sell an item to a vendor?
The UI is functional, but it is no way, no how efficient.
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
Awesome.
Yeah, true enough. People come to an MMORPG expecting to find another WoW clone because most MMORPGs are these days. But what they don't understand is that Final Fantasy XIV isn't looking to suceed WoW. It's looking to succeed Final Fantasy XI.
So, hey, working as intended. If you don't like it, and you don't want to take the effort to adapt to something you already know, then [jedi wave] this is not the MMORPG you are looking for.
Both games have skill books, hotbars, etc, but then again, almost every MMORPG on the face of the earth has those things. The difference is how players access those features. WoW simplified the process in which players can access all the standard features for a fantasy MMORPG user interface, but even DAoC and EQ had a simpler interface than FFXIV.
Here it is man....if you don't like macros, go buy the game on console. If you don't want to spend hours on how to create the BEST CHARACTER for yourself then you are exactly the wrong type of player for an MMORPG like FFXIV. That is exactly what I'm talking about. The game is complex, the character creation and development is open ended and robust. If you weren't planning on spending hours with this game, then why the f would you play it?
And that's precisely why, if you're ap erson who has played a significant number of the MMORPGs on the face of the earth, you would be likely bored stiff of seeing the same old skill boooks, hotbars, ect, and you're looking to see something different for a change.
FFXIV doesn't reinvent the wheel in all aspects, but I do find what it does different to be novel and refreshing, and not that much more difficult (if more difficult at all) once you get used to it. You have to be willing to show the effort to learn a new interface.
To be honest, if that's beyond your ability to do, I don't think I'm going to miss you. It's not elitism or being a fanboy, per se, so much as I just think the community will be a lot cooler without the kind of folk hanging around who are unwilling to put a little effort in.
I think you are still going to experience those moments later. There are always going to be the "bosses" that a party or legion of people will be needed in order to take out. Only those with the leves in that instance would experience that.
I'm not sure if that's exactly to what you were referring to though.
The problem I have is with fanboys who cannot take any cricism of their game, even over the stupidest of subjects. Case in point, if FFXIV didn't run like a three headed dog on my system and if it had a better combat system, I may actually like the game, but I'm still going to say the interface is terrible and entirely unoptimized for PC users. I'm not going to defend such an obtuse interface based purely on the idea that this game is different than WoW. Of course it's different than WoW. It's probably the most original fantasy MMORPG to come out in a long time, but the UI has nothing to do with being different than WoW. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes has a UI that's almost an exact clone of the one used by WoW, and those games are night and day. It does, however, have everything to do with the fact that FFXIV ont he PC is a poorly optimized port of a PS3 game that may never even see the light of day without some major visual downgrades.
Name me some ways in which you feel FFXIV's UI is more efficient than WoW's. I realize those are two different games, but surely they share some enough common features as to where there are similar functions in each game's interface.
Alright man....for one thing NOTHING ABOUT THIS GAME COPIES WOW. Nothing. All of the things that everyone is talking about this game copying from that game are the same things that were in place before WoW. Wow's UI was EQ's UI first. Then it was a mod. Nothing new there. The fact that this game IS NOT an XP mash up like you said is what I love about it. You said you're soloing stuff and you're bored. HOW? There are at least 6 classes just to train on to engage the badguys. Right now I've got one character that can use Bows, Swords, Axes, he can fish, and bake....so what other games allow you so much versatility? None. And anyone that says that this game copied anything from WOW hasn't played any of the MMO's before that one so they should shut the f up anyway.
If you use a gamepad, you can get to any menu in seconds. Or you can use hotkeys. The UI is simple, displays what it needs to. Why are we even compairing? It's a UI. They're usually all customizable anyway. WTF.
What is also good is that you can access those menus while you're Auto running. Comes in handy.
Only two? Shoot, the interfaces are advanced enough that I could nitpick to my heart's content.
Lets take one example: in WoW, you'll have to hunt through five (or more) bags trying to find the one piece of equipment you want.
FFXIV has built-in macro support that lets me, for example, change up to 8-9 pieces of gear by just hitting Ctrl-1. Conversely, in WoW, all equipment changes must be done manually.
Changing equipment in FFXIV manually just involves opening the equipment list and selecting the slot to change equipment for, this will grey out all areas on your inventory that are not compatible allowing for easy finding and changing of equipment.
Find me two ways in which you feel WoW's UI is more efficient than FFXIV's.