Couple things that really hurt this game.

Foomerang

I am most likely purchasing this game at launch. I enjoy it for the most part. Great crafting, sound, graphics, classes, story, setting. However, there are two tings that really kill this game for me.

The map system is probably one of the worst I've ever seen in any video game period. Maps are broken down into their areas with little green arrows leading to other map areas. You cant create a waypoint. Multiple leveled buildings are barely visible ie first floor is beige, second floor is beige tinted maybe 1% lighter if you're lucky. In your quest log, you can click on a map button to show where you need to go. However, most of the time, if you are not in the same area as your destination, you just get a generic marker for the entire region, which will help you get lost more than anything. The starter cities have multiple sections all with their own load screens which means there are multiple maps for a relatively small area. Picked up a quest in Uldah to talk to some npc who was located in Uldah. Sounds simple? Nope. Map shows his location as a blip on the entire world. His icon would not show up even at point blank range because he was upstairs in a different section of the same building i was in which happened to be a separate loading zone. Really frustrating.

The second crappy game design imo is the forced questing for hours before you can actually do what you want and go where you want. You choose a starting class, and over the next several hours, you are forced to run errands for people, navigating your way through a counter intuitive map, killing hundreds of mobs with only about 2-3 useful abilities. You cannot craft, or gather, or try a new class until you complete your chosen class' main questline up through level ten. By the time I finished, i was completely burnt on combat and my starting area. So finally I get to try out different classes and i really started to enjoy the game's crafting and gathering systems. However, you soon discover that certain crafting and gathering classes are only available to train in certain specific starting areas. Sounds fair enough, lets just hop on an airship to the next major city. Nope. The ability to do that is locked behind another required minimum 5 levels and the completed set of storyline quests up through level 15. Welp, put your crafting and gathering on hold and go back to your combat class. I tried to do just the story lines but they are not enough xp so you are forced to grind out more kill quests just to have the opportunity to try out all the other things you can do in the game. You can travel by foot to the other starting areas, but it is more of a hassle in the long run than just grinding out 5 more combat levels. You have to navigate though high level mobs that will one shot you. If you die along the way your only option is to rez back at your starting area. You are basically running blind, too, since your map is just a blank canvas.

Once you get all of this out of the way, the game finally opens up and you really feel like you can do whatever you want and explore the entire world. But those first 6-10 hours are just awful. Dull, repetitive, constricting, limited and just overall a bad video gaming experience. I can see how they wanted to help people who have never played an mmo before. But they are doing the genre an injustice in those first 15 levels. Its long enough to be a burden and it really hurts an otherwise great mmo.

Rzep

The map is truly shit, I have to agree. Still it's possible to get used to it, once you do it becomes alot clearer.

The starting quests were a bit overkill in how slow they introduced you to the game, but I think they did not bother me as much because I was amazed how much the game has changed. I remeber the starting experiance of old and it's like night and day.

Hell, I am surprised to say that I will most likely get the game, even though I often said I would never sub for anything anymore.

dwarflordking

i completely agree with the map, i actually have to open 2 maps just to see what the hell is going on, i have no idea where that quest is marker is... its that hard, it should be brain dead easy to ready, and i should'nt have to leave the world map on 

Lord.Bachus

Originally posted by dwarflordking
i completely agree with the map, i actually have to open 2 maps just to see what the hell is going on, i have no idea where that quest is marker is... its that hard, it should be brain dead easy to ready, and i should'nt have to leave the world map on 

Open the quest information, then cjhoose map, and you know where to go...

 

But , yes the mapping system is awkward, it remembers me of how the game was before the ARR update.

simulacra

I think the map is fine /shrug 

Not sure what you guys expect? It does the job. It shows you where you are. It shows you where to go for quests. It shows you where your team members are. You are able to navigate to other areas easily. What else do you need?  Setting waypoints would be too ez mode. Do you want the character to run there automatically too like in Age of Wushu? 

Foomerang

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Originally posted by simulacra
I think the map is fine /shrug Not sure what you guys expect? It does the job. It shows you where you are. It shows you where to go for quests. It shows you where your team members are. You are able to navigate to other areas easily. What else do you need?  Setting waypoints would be too ez mode. Do you want the character to run there automatically too like in Age of Wushu? 

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I'm not sure about the way maps work on the pc version. I'm playing the ps3 version and its extremely cumbersome.

jazz.be

Glad I'm not the only one that got orientation problems. Was thinking I'm growing to old for this stuff. The map is extremely confusing.

My second most annoying thing may sound stupid, but this 2 second global cooldown is really annoying. Is it for all melee classes?

How about the dialogue boxes? Wouldn't it be better to just throw the whole conversation in one box, since there is no real dialogue?

 

I'm OK with games that start slowly. You get the feeling that the game opens up slowly, which is good.

Foomerang

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Originally posted by Epic1oots
I guess its not only "girls" that cant read maps..... but guys too. I knew they should had included directional arrows or a line drawn on the floor leading us to everywhere so there isnt any need to explore. We are all so used to navigation systems and google maps these days everyone seem to have become stupid at reading a map.

---

Way to generalize. I would rather not have a map at all tbh. I would rather have my quest info tell me the general direction or area I need to go and then just explore from there. But unfortunately, my quest log doesn't give me a general idea of where to go in writing. Instead, I get a map button that is counter intuitive for me at least. I'd rather have no map and the npc just says "go south of here" or "around the giant rock that looks like a face"

GeezerGamer

The map system was very awkward at 1st. It took some getting used to. There is a disconnect in where you are vs. where you need to go. I'll also agree that the 1st few hrs felt restraining. I couldn't go and do what I wanted to do. But then after level 10 or so, things opened up and I really began to enjoy it. So, I see your points, but I don't think the game was poorly designed.

Shadowzanon

The second issue, I had no problems with, given you are introduced to the hunters log when you complete your first class quest, so killing those enemies provide exp boosts. since you will be doing your story quest along with quest around the area, your first 10 lvls is a breeze and takes but a few hours of play max. Also depending the cities you start from, Ul'dah and Gridania , you can easly take a chocobo after your class quest and make it to the other town and get the classes you want. Now I am not so sure about Limsa Lominsa I tried to travel on foot but it does seem you do need a airship pass to get there.  So there is some leeway.

I really just did not find it as horrifying as you make it sound.

NobleNerd

The map system is different from many MMOs, but that does not mean it's function is bad. Once you understand how the maps work they are quite easy to use. I had little trouble using the maps, PLUS actually reading & comprehending the quests while playing the betas so far. I do have to point out I play on PC, but use the gamepad mostly, but when it comes to certain functions I use my mouse, the map being one of them.

InsaneDalek

Originally posted by Epic1oots
I guess its not only "girls" that cant read maps..... but guys too. I knew they should had included directional arrows or a line drawn on the floor leading us to everywhere so there isnt any need to explore. We are all so used to navigation systems and google maps these days everyone seem to have become stupid at reading a map.

Ugh, tell me about it. So many people don't even keep track of their relation to the four cardinal directions anymore that it's a bit frightening. If we were to lose all of our electronics, I'm convinced that 99% of the population would die trying to figure out how to get to the grocery store without their GPS because they don't know which direction north is...

It does make for a bit of fun when people ask me if I have GPS in my vehicle, and I pull out my road atlas though.

Anyway, on the subject of FFXIV, I don't find the map to be particularly egregious nor accessible. It does what it's supposed to do with few frills. Then again I'm only about an hour into the game, so I very well may change my opinion over time.

One thing that I've already noticed which really bugs me more than it should, are some of the low-res textures. My God, these things look bad. How bad? SWTOR bad (not kidding either). Which is a shame because the overall world design, shadows, and lighting are actually really well done. Then BAM! Low res texture pops up and I just can't seem to focus on anything else. Especially on the ingame message boards & books, all the text is just a blurry mess, and reminds me that this is a port of a console game. Hopefully Squeenix will release some high res textures for PC, because I'm not even that much of a videophile & it bugs the crap out of me.

 

simulacra

I only noticed a few low-res textures, like the book that the head of the Adventurers Guild has, and frankly it didn't bother me much. 99% of the game looks beautiful, from the environment to the character models to the animations. 

Doomedfox

My biggest gripe with the map is that i had to scale it to full screen every time i logged out again.

So i guess since that my biggest prob i had with it i can say i don't mind the map.

It shows me all i need to know and lets me decide how transparent i want it to be.

reeereee

The OP is right on in his second paragraph, the stale questing/combat system are a major black eye to what is an otherwise excellent game.  I found myself bored with the combat/questing system 5 minutes into the game, which is not good for a new mmo.  But I have quite a few friends there from 1.0 so I'll prolly suck it up and come back anyway.

svann

For the most part Im fine with maps.  There is a bug though where if you have leves in your quest log before you enter the area then the orange circles wont show on the map.  But the fix is just open the map from within the quest log.  It was annoying till I figured that out.  Hopefully they fix that bug before open beta.

Arcticnoon

Originally posted by Foomerang

I am most likely purchasing this game at launch. I enjoy it for the most part. Great crafting, sound, graphics, classes, story, setting. However, there are two tings that really kill this game for me.

The map system is probably one of the worst I've ever seen in any video game period. Maps are broken down into their areas with little green arrows leading to other map areas. You cant create a waypoint. Multiple leveled buildings are barely visible ie first floor is beige, second floor is beige tinted maybe 1% lighter if you're lucky. In your quest log, you can click on a map button to show where you need to go. However, most of the time, if you are not in the same area as your destination, you just get a generic marker for the entire region, which will help you get lost more than anything. The starter cities have multiple sections all with their own load screens which means there are multiple maps for a relatively small area. Picked up a quest in Uldah to talk to some npc who was located in Uldah. Sounds simple? Nope. Map shows his location as a blip on the entire world. His icon would not show up even at point blank range because he was upstairs in a different section of the same building i was in which happened to be a separate loading zone. Really frustrating.

The second crappy game design imo is the forced questing for hours before you can actually do what you want and go where you want. You choose a starting class, and over the next several hours, you are forced to run errands for people, navigating your way through a counter intuitive map, killing hundreds of mobs with only about 2-3 useful abilities. You cannot craft, or gather, or try a new class until you complete your chosen class' main questline up through level ten. By the time I finished, i was completely burnt on combat and my starting area. So finally I get to try out different classes and i really started to enjoy the game's crafting and gathering systems. However, you soon discover that certain crafting and gathering classes are only available to train in certain specific starting areas. Sounds fair enough, lets just hop on an airship to the next major city. Nope. The ability to do that is locked behind another required minimum 5 levels and the completed set of storyline quests up through level 15. Welp, put your crafting and gathering on hold and go back to your combat class. I tried to do just the story lines but they are not enough xp so you are forced to grind out more kill quests just to have the opportunity to try out all the other things you can do in the game. You can travel by foot to the other starting areas, but it is more of a hassle in the long run than just grinding out 5 more combat levels. You have to navigate though high level mobs that will one shot you. If you die along the way your only option is to rez back at your starting area. You are basically running blind, too, since your map is just a blank canvas.

Once you get all of this out of the way, the game finally opens up and you really feel like you can do whatever you want and explore the entire world. But those first 6-10 hours are just awful. Dull, repetitive, constricting, limited and just overall a bad video gaming experience. I can see how they wanted to help people who have never played an mmo before. But they are doing the genre an injustice in those first 15 levels. Its long enough to be a burden and it really hurts an otherwise great mmo.

I agree with you on most points about the map, but I have never been hindered to the point of frustration by it. Especially when I compare it to starting maps of other games. In  FFXI, you had to buy the map for every area before you could see anything. Some of the maps where only sold in cities you hadn't even been to yet. With some of the biggest areas ever seen in an mmo imagine running around blind trying to find zones to a city you have to get to at level 15 with mobs who can 1 shot  and out run you. Plus you didn't know if these mobs detected by sight, sound or smell or combos of each.

FFXIV is cake in comparison.

Your complaint about not being able to do what you want till level 10 is unwarranted in my opinion. Consider the fact that because you can level every class, job, crafting and gathering profession on one character, you are only stuck doing these beginner things once for the entirety of the game.

This isn't like WoW where every time you wanted to start a new class you had to get all you mounts and gear all over again. Trust me there is nothing like raiding with your mage because you guild needs you on the class and still being able to loot for  your Paladin.

The devs have said over and over that the beginning levels are for players new to mmos, while endgame is for the hardcore. If you are truly an mmo player wading through a slow beginning shouldn't be a problem. Heck its only 10-15 levels in a beautiful world with a beautiful soundtrack.

Mardukk

The map system is not good. The opening areas of this game (quests and combat) are also really dull. It would be a shame if the game lost a lot of people due to the first few days being not a great gaming experience.

Nanfoodle

On the map thing I 100% agree. See my thread on that topic HERE!!!! As for doing the 1-2hrs of quest and story. I loved it but I have to admit when I just wanted to try out how a new class felt. I just did the first quest and then walked out the city gates and killed mobs for 5-6 levels with no quests. Was a lot of fun!!!!

Nilenya

I didnt have problems with the maps once I got used to how it worked. 

But it did annoy me that I wasnt able to start leatherworking at lvl 10 because I needed to be further in my main storyline to obtain the airpass to go to the town where I could learn that class. - It felt restrictive to say the least, and convoluted.

 

It also annoyed me that there was so much text in all the quests. I am hoping those chat bubbles mean it will be voiced, because otherwise it should just be presented as a solid text block - standard quest faire, rather than me having to click through each sentence in a chatbubble. - I expect lore fiends wont mind, but it really annoyed me.

 

The worst thing I found was being unable to skip the intro cutscene and subsequent wagon ride. I created 4 different toons over the course of this beta and it was mindnumbingly boring that I had to spend 10 minutes on the same crap every time. - I could not skip untill the very last bit which was the shortest anyway.

 

 

I did 3 dungeons, and found them to be fun, and a few even had some interesting mechanics. Pleasently surprised there, and frankly it is the group stuff that makes me consider purchasing the game. The average quest faire wasnt that much fun.

Also the class system and crafting system was really very deep. I did some leatherworking and frankly didnt even begin to understand how to make the most of my materials. - I liked that it was interactive crafting with buffs and abilities to choose from during each synthesis. It reminded me of EQ2 and Swg, but I have a feeling that its even deeper and more conjoined with the other crafts than those were. I can imagine the game would be very immersive and last me a lot longer than the usual mmo faire in recent years.

And finally, while it was annoying that a solo quest in the main story line was set as lvl 14, but featured lvl 16 mobs, I was pleasently surprised when I died, and found I couldnt faceroll everything. - Googling the quest I learned I just needed to hold out a little bit longer for aid to arrive, and I leveled once to be able to do so. Still it made me feel like the game was challenging without being a chore. Which is a very good thing, and possible even very rare for modern mmo's,

versulas

meh... Am I the only one who feels like the combat and UI is still a little clunky for keyboard/mouse? The mouse cursor still spazzes out when you try to turn with it, backing up and strafing seems... off, and i don't even think things light up when you hover over them, though I wouldn't know for sure because I keep spamming the Confirm button to get through all the extra crap. Then there's that half a second delay when you perform an action or interact with an npc. 

I mean, I could use the damn controller, especially if that's the way it was designed, but switching back to the keyboard to type is annoying. You KNOW not everyone in a party will commit to voice chat, especially since with no voice acting for npc dialogue everyone is going to be blasting music anyway.

It looks gorgeous and has all these nice features, but at the end of the day, I want the game I'm spending hours on to be smooth and right now, beta restrictions aside, that's just not the impression I'm getting. Maybe it's different for the ps3, or maybe I've just been playing too many fps games that I want things to happen instantly. Or maybe it's because I played ffxi and the ffxiv before the redesign and this was the number one thing that annoyed the crap out of me so I'm looking for it to be different in the extreme.

Ramonski7

They should only give a cloth or foldout paper map. In-game maps are for suckas! Seriously. I really didn't notice the map being particularly bad. Also if you're that irritated about the class system quest and chocobo quest, grab a copy of FFXIV 1.0 and all those things are unlocked for you from the get go. Check around, they still have new copies available.

Raass

A few things that bothers me is the cut-scenes. And the quests when you get them. I rather have 1 screen to read then a ton to click through to get the quest. I will still play the game at release and hope the change some things in the updates to come.

mcrippins

I'm actually kind of happy they did the map system in the way they did. When I played UO - they didn't even really have an in-game map. I had to use a cloth map I got with the game to get an idea of where I was. This helped me learn the world. Because my hand wasn't being held, I was able to recall things like houses, buildings, structures that I had seen before and find my way out. I was able to get a general idea of where I was simply by the type of foliage on the ground. I know it sounds weird, but it was great for immersion. 

Mors-Subita

Originally posted by Foomerang

Great crafting, sound, graphics, classes, story, setting.

Agreed

You cant create a waypoint.

By waypoint, do you mean custom map markers? I agree that that would be nice, although the vast majority of MMOs I've played didn't give us that feature... still, that isn't a reason they shouldn't.

In your quest log, you can click on a map button to show where you need to go. However, most of the time, if you are not in the same area as your destination, you just get a generic marker for the entire region, which will help you get lost more than anything.

If you are not in the region where the quest target is, clicking on the map button in the quest log will take you to the world map and show you which region it is in. If you then click on that region, you can see the marker in the area. It actually works pretty well, given that the world isn't seamless

The starter cities have multiple sections all with their own load screens which means there are multiple maps for a relatively small area. Picked up a quest in Uldah to talk to some npc who was located in Uldah. Sounds simple? Nope. Map shows his location as a blip on the entire world. His icon would not show up even at point blank range because he was upstairs in a different section of the same building i was in which happened to be a separate loading zone.

The map for the city has an option in the top left corner to cycle through each of the areas. you can see him in the city if you switch the focus to the area he is in. I think that the whole map and map marker thing is a red herring for a larger problem though. I found that, in general, the quests were very explicity about where exactly the NPC was(although there were a few exceptions)... The problem is that the majority of the players don't read the quests, and just want to go to some point on the map.

The second crappy game design imo is the forced questing for hours before you can actually do what you want and go where you want. You cannot craft, or gather, or try a new class until you complete your chosen class' main questline up through level ten.

Some pieces of information are missing here... First off, since you can do ALL classes on one char, there is no real rerolling so you only need to do all this once and it stays unlocked forever. The other thing you need to note is that since the quests are character specific and not class specific, they have designed the game so it is really easy to level up... Since your 4th, 5th, etc.. class will not have the quests available. I took mutliple classes from 1 to 15 without using the quests. Just with completing your hunting log and participating in any fates you run past, you can get to lvl 15 in a few hours. It was some of the easier leveling I've done.

However, you soon discover that certain crafting and gathering classes are only available to train in certain specific starting areas. Sounds fair enough, lets just hop on an airship to the next major city. Nope. The ability to do that is locked behind another required minimum 5 levels and the completed set of storyline quests up through level 15. Welp, put your crafting and gathering on hold and go back to your combat class.

If you really don't want to go back to your combat class, it still isn't necessary there. You can run from any city to any other city(isn't even that difficult a run), and considering that the gathering classes get stealth it is a cakewalk. Once you have reached the other town and attuned yourself to the aetherite you can teleport back to it at any time... Not only that, but you can register them as favorite destinations(I did all 3 main cities as my 3 favorite locations) As a favorite location, teleporting to any main city costs me 78 gil... Less than the airship, and more convenient. You are complaining that a convenience feature is level-gated? *shrug. I ran from gridania through to ul'dah to play with my GF. You could have done the same.

I tried to do just the story lines but they are not enough xp so you are forced to grind out more kill quests just to have the opportunity to try out all the other things you can do in the game.

If you do just the main story-line without doing any side-quests, any fates, any additional killing(since almost everything in your starting faction/town gives you bonus xp from the hunting log), any leves, etc. then no, you won't get enough xp... Of course, that is like saying that if you don't use anything but vowels you won't be able to write a sentence. 

You can travel by foot to the other starting areas, but it is more of a hassle in the long run than just grinding out 5 more combat levels. You have to navigate though high level mobs that will one shot you. If you die along the way your only option is to rez back at your starting area. You are basically running blind, too, since your map is just a blank canvas.

Your map is blank, but shows you the area and zone names and you can see more or less where you are going. you can register at at least one aetheryte and one chocobo in each area. Mobs are clearly marked for aggro/non-aggro. Mobs do not run faster than players(and a lot slower than players using sprint). If you leveled up a gatherer, you get a freakin stealth!!!

Once you get all of this out of the way, the game finally opens up and you really feel like you can do whatever you want and explore the entire world. But those first 6-10 hours are just awful. Dull, repetitive, constricting, limited and just overall a bad video gaming experience. I can see how they wanted to help people who have never played an mmo before. But they are doing the genre an injustice in those first 15 levels. Its long enough to be a burden and it really hurts an otherwise great mmo.

My only complaint with starting out was the lack of skills. I think that this is my biggest complaint throughout the entire game, not just at the beginning. I think that if they were to flesh out the skill list a bit more it would be really nice, and they could put in a few extra at early levels to really show off  teh classes mechanics.

Comments above in red.

Mors-Subita

Originally posted by mcrippins
I'm actually kind of happy they did the map system in the way they did. When I played UO - they didn't even really have an in-game map. I had to use a cloth map I got with the game to get an idea of where I was. This helped me learn the world. Because my hand wasn't being held, I was able to recall things like houses, buildings, structures that I had seen before and find my way out. I was able to get a general idea of where I was simply by the type of foliage on the ground. I know it sounds weird, but it was great for immersion. 

God, yeah... I still have the big map I got with DAOC.