Is this game ready yet?

Quizzical

I've been looking into playing FFXIV ever since it launched--in 2010.  But I don't like playing games that are a buggy mess, which this game reputedly was in 2010.  And in 2011, and 2012.  Now the word seems to be that it's much better.  Is it now a solid, polished game, or is there still a major revamp coming that I ought to wait for before picking it up?  Or worse, is it still a buggy mess to the degree that I ought to wait longer to see if it gets fixed?

For what it's worth, I don't care if the endgame is a mess, unless the endgame is so bad that it ruins lower level content.  I'll play all classes equally and keep them roughly together in levels.  (Well, I'll keep the battle classes together in levels; crafting and gathering may vary.)  That means every class levels slowly, so I'm not going to hit the cap for a long, long time.  But I want to know if the lower level areas are polished and ready yet.

cagan

I played 1-50 last month and it was almost bug free. Pretty solid storyline that I really enjoyed. End game content is limited to doing 1 weekly raid  and daily dungeon grind but they are almost bug free too. This is one of the few games where I didnt fall into the ground and die or got stuck into a small rock as I was jumping. QC team did a great job I think.

I suggest you buy it and try it for 1 month, you will enjoy the storyline, if you do not like the rest you can stop playing till they end some good end game content

ElirionLoth

Actually, end game consists of 5 four man dungeons (two of them are hard mode versions of lower level dungeons), 4 instanced 8 man primal fights (with three of them having extreme modes making 7 total fights), a 24 man raid called the Crystal Tower, and an 8 man raid called the Binding Coil of Bahamut..

simsalabim77

It's polished and mostly bug free. Word of warning when it comes to AOE indicators: Be out of them before the enemy cast bar finishes as the indicator animation and the application of damage are not visually synchronized. It's annoying, and can feel like a bug or lag until you get used to it. 

Hyanmen

You're comparing the original FFXIV from 2010 to FFXIV:ARR in 2014.

You might as well be comparing North Korea to South Korea.

If you won't start playing now (esp. the way you described, taking things slow) then you should just skip the game. It's definitely a solid MMORPG and I've been having a blast with it taking it slow. Good script quality and storylines, fantastic environments and entertaining dungeons. It's all there. There are no bugs.

 

GoldenArrow

It's a decent cliky cliky mmorpg.

In about a year we'll probably know what direction they will be going with it.

At the moment it seems to have some really bad design choices. This said it's definately a game to play 1-50 and keep an eye out for expansions.

Quizzical

I didn't come here to talk about game mechanics or inquire about the endgame.  I just wanted to know if the game was polished yet.  It sounds like it is, so I'm working on downloading and installing it now.

With Vanguard, I waited about two years after launch, fans of the game claimed that it was all fixed, so I tried it and the game was still a buggy mess.  Not to mention basically dead outside of the free starting area.  (5 people online on an entire server within five levels of me counts as dead to me.)

mbrodie

Originally posted by Quizzical

I didn't come here to talk about game mechanics or inquire about the endgame.  I just wanted to know if the game was polished yet.  It sounds like it is, so I'm working on downloading and installing it now.

With Vanguard, I waited about two years after launch, fans of the game claimed that it was all fixed, so I tried it and the game was still a buggy mess.  Not to mention basically dead outside of the free starting area.  (5 people online on an entire server within five levels of me counts as dead to me.)

yes it's very polished. try it out

Quizzical

Originally posted by mbrodie

Originally posted by Quizzical

I didn't come here to talk about game mechanics or inquire about the endgame.  I just wanted to know if the game was polished yet.  It sounds like it is, so I'm working on downloading and installing it now.

With Vanguard, I waited about two years after launch, fans of the game claimed that it was all fixed, so I tried it and the game was still a buggy mess.  Not to mention basically dead outside of the free starting area.  (5 people online on an entire server within five levels of me counts as dead to me.)

yes it's very polished. try it out

Yeah, it's downloading now.  I'm hoping that crafting will be interesting.  There have been a few MMORPGs that had good crafting, but not many, and none of the ones that I've played had anything remotely similar to traditional MMORPG combat.

Is there a "main" wiki that I should look to for information?  A Google search found several, but it wasn't immediately obvious to me which is the one that nearly everyone uses.

simsalabim77

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by mbrodie

Originally posted by Quizzical

I didn't come here to talk about game mechanics or inquire about the endgame.  I just wanted to know if the game was polished yet.  It sounds like it is, so I'm working on downloading and installing it now.

With Vanguard, I waited about two years after launch, fans of the game claimed that it was all fixed, so I tried it and the game was still a buggy mess.  Not to mention basically dead outside of the free starting area.  (5 people online on an entire server within five levels of me counts as dead to me.)

yes it's very polished. try it out

Yeah, it's downloading now.  I'm hoping that crafting will be interesting.  There have been a few MMORPGs that had good crafting, but not many, and none of the ones that I've played had anything remotely similar to traditional MMORPG combat.

Is there a "main" wiki that I should look to for information?  A Google search found several, but it wasn't immediately obvious to me which is the one that nearly everyone uses.

XIVDB and the gamerscape site are the two I use. 

Quizzical

Also, thanks for the answers.  I'm not trying to be troublesome; just to get some information.  Some people jump into every new game that comes along and then complain when they don't like a lot of them, even though it should have been highly predictable.  I do a lot of research on game design choices before picking up a game, so I'll really only play games that I had a good chance of really liking if the game works as the designers intended.

The most recent Final Fantasy game that I've played was the first one--back when it seemed plausible that it really would live up to its name and be the final one.

Quizzical

Any recommendations on a server choice?  Are a bunch of servers dead?  Are they all still active?  Is it a trivial matter to transfer to another server later, so the choice doesn't matter now?  Is the game structured such that player density doesn't matter that much?

TerminalDeity

Originally posted by Quizzical

I didn't come here to talk about game mechanics or inquire about the endgame.  I just wanted to know if the game was polished yet.  It sounds like it is, so I'm working on downloading and installing it now.

With Vanguard, I waited about two years after launch, fans of the game claimed that it was all fixed, so I tried it and the game was still a buggy mess.  Not to mention basically dead outside of the free starting area.  (5 people online on an entire server within five levels of me counts as dead to me.)

I have never played a more bug-free MMO at launch. If that is one of your concerns, then you have nothing to worry about.

sketocafe

What? You do know that this is not the same game released in 2010 right? Like, it's actually a different game. For what it's worth, ARR seems to be polished like you wanted.

neobahamut20

The main issue with the game is the terrible combat. Other than that, if you play MMOs for everything besides the combat, it is probably the best one out there for now. But if combat is your main interest, you should start looking for something else.

doodphace

I bought ARR at launch, and though I didn't sub passed the first month, even then I found it very polished (bug wise).

NobleNerd

Yeah, it's downloading now.  I'm hoping that crafting will be interesting.  There have been a few MMORPGs that had good crafting, but not many, and none of the ones that I've played had anything remotely similar to traditional MMORPG combat.

Is there a "main" wiki that I should look to for information?  A Google search found several, but it wasn't immediately obvious to me which is the one that nearly everyone uses.

You may end up liking the crafting, but for me it is one of the biggest let-downs of the revamp. You can go from 1-50 easily without needing a single crafting job. It is no where close to how necessary crafting was in FFXI.

kabitoshin

Gilgamesh is a really populated server some afternoons there's a queue to get in, but doesn't take too long to get in.

cagan

dungeon queues and group finder works with other servers, I always end up grouping people from Japan or Eu servers in late hours

Crafting is very bad (for me), end game crafting is totally useless, it is a good way to make some money for some people

I leveled alchemy to 48 and stopped, didnt even bother with the last 2 levels. Don't get me wrong, I like the crafting cross skill interactions, how you make high quality items and how strategicly you must implement each step is amazing, but the end product is totally useless which kills the whole purpose...

(well other than cooking I guess, people still use food before raiding etc)

Nevulus

I started ff14 a week ago, I have 2 jobs at 18 on one character, I've been taking it slow and reading the quest dialogs.

It has been a polished and optimized experience. My only wish would be for complete voice overs during cut scenes (and there are a lot) instead of just in 1 spot during my 1-20 THM storyline. It made the game feel like voice overs are missing due to how few of them there are compared to cut scenes.

 

FF14 is a true classic mmo. The only technical annoyance is the slight lag in combat due to ms. But the gfx are definitely top notch and run surprisingly well. Great Shader programming on their behalf. I've experienced no graphical glitches.

Quizzical

Originally posted by DMKano

Originally posted by simsalabim77
It's polished and mostly bug free. Word of warning when it comes to AOE indicators: Be out of them before the enemy cast bar finishes as the indicator animation and the application of damage are not visually synchronized. It's annoying, and can feel like a bug or lag until you get used to it. 

The game basically has a built in 300ms latency - so anticipate everything by a 3rd of a second.

So you need to be out of the red circle a 1/3 of a second before its visually gone to be safe.

Very annoying until you get used to it.

 

Thanks for the advice.  There are a lot of ways to try to cover up latency, and making certain things have a fixed, predictable latency is one of them.

I'm in game now and trying to configure my controls.  I use a gamepad, which always adds a ton of work there, as I need to figure out:

1)  which particular controls I really need access to and which I can defer to rare keyboard use, and

2)  which controls are so important that they need to be a single button versus which can be relegated to a combination of buttons.

The game claims to have gamepad support, and probably does support some particular gamepads, but just not mine.  It recognizes that the gamepad is plugged in, but only recognizes some of the buttons.

lafaiel

Originally posted by DMKano

Originally posted by simsalabim77
It's polished and mostly bug free. Word of warning when it comes to AOE indicators: Be out of them before the enemy cast bar finishes as the indicator animation and the application of damage are not visually synchronized. It's annoying, and can feel like a bug or lag until you get used to it. 

The game basically has a built in 300ms latency - so anticipate everything by a 3rd of a second.

So you need to be out of the red circle a 1/3 of a second before its visually gone to be safe.

Very annoying until you get used to it.

 

They changed this recently to 100ms for the harder fights like Titan HM and binding coil of bahamut. 

 

  If you looking for a popular server to roll on Quizz, try gilgamesh lots of people on all the time, for dungeons you mostly use the dungeon finder or you can make a group yourself for it but that would take a bit of doing for lower level content.

    If you do roll on gilgamesh, its my day off tommorow, name is Lafaiel Khan shoot me a tell and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Quizzical

Actually, speaking of getting a gamepad working, how many combat skills do I need quick access to?  It looks like the game engine supports combinations of keys, which will help a lot, but I'd like to know what I need to plan around.  Guild Wars 2, for example, makes it pretty obvious right from the start that you need easy access to exactly 10 skills--not 9, and not 11.  FFXIV shows me two skillbars of 12 slots each, nearly all of which are empty.

lafaiel

Originally posted by Quizzical
Actually, speaking of getting a gamepad working, how many combat skills do I need quick access to?  It looks like the game engine supports combinations of keys, which will help a lot, but I'd like to know what I need to plan around.  Guild Wars 2, for example, makes it pretty obvious right from the start that you need easy access to exactly 10 skills--not 9, and not 11.  FFXIV shows me two skillbars of 12 slots each, nearly all of which are empty.

Depending on class/job, all 24 of those slots plus some more for maybe macros and cross class skills.  You can probably condense some of those down with macros for skills you normally combine wtih other skills too.

Wizardry

Yes but sadly Square Enix is so dumb to marketing and making sure their game is out there,no wonder Blizzard owns the market ,their games are on every shelf in every store.

I cannot buy FFXIV anywhere,no way no how.

EB games nope,Future shop..nope,Best Buy ...nope,Amazon doesn't accept CDN orders for the game,even the Square Enix store does not take CDN orders how lame is that.The Square Enix store is not even run by Square it is run by a UK company named Digital River,just such a weakly run operation,i would fire the marketing,community team behind Square,the worst i have ever seen.

So i have been waiting forever for this game to hit Steam,why it is not already on Steam, again proves how inept Square`s marketing team is.DayZ has been on Steam awhile and is not even out of Beta phase lmao.

By time i get to get back into the game,the noob zones and content will be a barren wasteland.BTW the game was ready during it`s last Beta phase and has got a lot better since,imo the best game on the market right now but i will take a look at Archeage and Black Desert when they come out.

MagikrorriM

Originally posted by Wizardry

Yes but sadly Square Enix is so dumb to marketing and making sure their game is out there,no wonder Blizzard owns the market ,their games are on every shelf in every store.

I cannot buy FFXIV anywhere,no way no how.

EB games nope,Future shop..nope,Best Buy ...nope,Amazon doesn't accept CDN orders for the game,even the Square Enix store does not take CDN orders how lame is that.The Square Enix store is not even run by Square it is run by a UK company named Digital River,just such a weakly run operation,i would fire the marketing,community team behind Square,the worst i have ever seen.

So i have been waiting forever for this game to hit Steam,why it is not already on Steam, again proves how inept Square`s marketing team is.DayZ has been on Steam awhile and is not even out of Beta phase lmao.

By time i get to get back into the game,the noob zones and content will be a barren wasteland.BTW the game was ready during it`s last Beta phase and has got a lot better since,imo the best game on the market right now but i will take a look at Archeage and Black Desert when they come out.

http://www.amazon.ca/Final-Fantasy-XIV-Reborn-Square/dp/B008R6XREA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389961110&sr=8-1&keywords=final+fantasy+14+arr  Won't take Canadian orders?