Actualy its a problem with Windows and not with the game. SE is not forbidding you to use ALT-TAB : It's DirectX that cant handle going out of full screen mode. Nothing that can be done about it.
Stop talking, its an anti-cheat mesure left over from FFXI. Its retarded. Window mode works just fine USE THE CONFIG in the game folder.
Who talked about window mode ???????????????????????? Sure window mode work fine.
I just explained why alt+tab dont work in full screen mode. I am not interested in arguing about facts : Go read DirectX spec.
I can alt tab out of full screen mode in every other game just fine. Since you seem to know so much what is it about this game that directx specs say they wont do alt-tabbing?
edit: Im fairly sure I read they are going to fix it, but dont ask for a cite.
I can alt tab out of full screen mode in every other game just fine. Since you seem to know so much what is it about this game that directx specs say they wont do alt-tabbing?
edit: Im fairly sure I read they are going to fix it, but dont ask for a cite.
As I explained : Other games are really runing in window mode. But a window that take the whole screen so it looks like its full screen.
Yourself, as a user, you wont see the differance between an application in fullscreen (exclusive) mode and in window mode. But it doesnt work in the same way.
To make it really simple, its easy for an application to go from window mode to fullscreen (or exclusive) mode. It's the reverse that is hard. (Its related to the state of the memory that isnt saved or something like that)
As for the differance of performences, its well know and pretty logical. In fullscreen mode, the application has exclusive controle of the display and has direct access to it. In window mode (whatever the window take the full screen or not), their is an extra layer that regulate the access to the display between the various applications (among other things).
Look at something like that for more technical info :
Actualy its a problem with Windows and not with the game. SE is not forbidding you to use ALT-TAB : It's DirectX that cant handle going out of full screen mode. Nothing that can be done about it.
Other games using Directx that let you use ALT-TAB arent in true full screen mode : They are in a borderless window that take the whole screen. It "look" the same but the performances are a lot lower.
I was really enjoying the relatively civil, informed feedback going on in this thread until I read this gem, which is so retarded it's actually hilarious. I hope you're not a troll.
Oh for the record, my friend and I did some extensive FPS checks yesterday, and among the things we found (like texture quality/filtering doesn't really impact FPS at all if you have a lot of vid mem, etc.), is that full screen and windowed mode provide the same performance.
This is false, at least on my hardware. (Phenom II 955 @ 3.97GHz, nVidia 8800 GTS 512MB G92 core, 8GB DDR3, Windows 7 x64). Playing at 1920x1080 in full screen mode with 0 FSAA and most other settings on high/normal I get a variable 20-50fps. With the same settings except resolution changed to 1280x720 in windowed mode I get a much worse, variable 5-32fps.
I have heard other reports from friends with higher spec GPUs that they see no visable hinderance from windowed mode, it could be that the nVidia 8XXX series is so old that the game doesn't like being windowed etc, I don't know. I have an ATi 5850 1GB on the way and will report back. Ideally I'd like to be able to run the game at near full monitor resolution (1920x1080) with 4-8X FSAA. at a decent frame rate with most options on high.
On topic, as a FINAL FANTASY XI veteran of many years, I'd expect bug fixes/plethoras of content down the line but it's going to be hard to tell at launch. When FFXI launched in the US it was a highly patched version with it's first expansion pack already out and the level cap and rank was already at what it would be for many years until recent. It had already been on a very buggy bumpy road in Japan for 2(?) years.
XIV will be different because of the universal release. There are still many problems I have with the game that will probably be fixed with time. (True fullscreen crashing on alt+tab, shop windows and many windows being rendered in the 3D plane and being server side, general lag, not being able to sort your inventory, not being able to search for others, no implemented bazaar search or auction house, though I hear both of these are coming. - and last, a general lack of conent.) We'll have to see with retail how much more content is unlocked or that they have hidden away.
Until then it'll mostly be a guessing game. I'm excited, but also worried. I do hope they can fix some of the above bugs/implement said features before retail, but I do imagine that most will be fixed/implemented over time. The only question is how long at this point. At the very least it's a very pretty game and with the FINAL FANTASY name it's likely to pull enough subsribers to have a successful launch with or without the said bugs.
I plan on picking up my preorder copy but I am expecting a bumpy road, I expect the game will be much more playable in the coming weeks/months. I imagine Guildeve timers will be adjusted if enough people bitch but we'll have to wait and see. If it works out the way I'm thinking it will, we'll log in to do daily exp eves then group up in PT or solo for the remainder to grind our rank and physical levels to continue the central story for however long that goes before we reach whatever end game content if any they have implemented at launch or until said content is released via patch or expansion pack.
That does sound kind of awful but I only plan to partially play XIV mostly for the guildeve grinding until content is released while also logging into XI for events.
2. No respect for Windows software standards (including games) by SE
Mostly the fact that Alt-Tab is forbidden; that the window cannot lose focus for too long; and the slowness of the Graphical User Interface (being tied to the 3D framerate... the UI behaves like an in-game object while it should be
Actualy its a problem with Windows and not with the game. SE is not forbidding you to use ALT-TAB : It's DirectX that cant handle going out of full screen mode. Nothing that can be done about it.
I programmed with directX and I can say the problem is on SE side. On a true full screen application if you lose focus in any ways (alt-tab, screen-savers, ctrl-alt-del, etc.) you lose your drawing surfaces and have to create them again so that directx can draw on them. That is because full screen free some of the resources used by windows to increase the drawing performance.
Saying that nothing can be done about it is simply not true. SE should be able to re-create its drawing surfaces, instead they chose to display a nice message because the game went out of full screen mode.
While windowed mode is a solution, you do have some performance lost since the game will share windows resource. Some systems won't see the difference, but on a windowed game, the CPU will go slightly higher than with a full screen game.
Yes, I simplified : You can go out of fullscreen mode but you need save the state and reset the device and then restore the state. So, yes, its possible. But it may not be feasable with their graphic engine. (many games dont offer the choice between the 2 modes. They always run in window mode, whatever you play in full screen or in a window)
Also am not sure since which version of Direct3d you can do it. This is releated to the problems with runing some Directx application on dual monitors setup. Lot of impovement were done in Dx10 or 11.
On topic, as a FINAL FANTASY XI veteran of many years, I'd expect bug fixes/plethoras of content down the line but it's going to be hard to tell at launch. When FFXI launched in the US it was a highly patched version with it's first expansion pack already out and the level cap and rank was already at what it would be for many years until recent. It had already been on a very buggy bumpy road in Japan for 2(?) years.
XIV will be different because of the universal release. There are still many problems I have with the game that will probably be fixed with time. (True fullscreen crashing on alt+tab, shop windows and many windows being rendered in the 3D plane and being server side, general lag, not being able to sort your inventory, not being able to search for others, no implemented bazaar search or auction house, though I hear both of these are coming. - and last, a general lack of conent.) We'll have to see with retail how much more content is unlocked or that they have hidden away.
Until then it'll mostly be a guessing game. I'm excited, but also worried. I do hope they can fix some of the above bugs/implement said features before retail, but I do imagine that most will be fixed/implemented over time. The only question is how long at this point. At the very least it's a very pretty game and with the FINAL FANTASY name it's likely to pull enough subsribers to have a successful launch with or without the said bugs.
I plan on picking up my preorder copy but I am expecting a bumpy road, I expect the game will be much more playable in the coming weeks/months. I imagine Guildeve timers will be adjusted if enough people bitch but we'll have to wait and see. If it works out the way I'm thinking it will, we'll log in to do daily exp eves then group up in PT or solo for the remainder to grind our rank and physical levels to continue the central story for however long that goes before we reach whatever end game content if any they have implemented at launch or until said content is released via patch or expansion pack.
That does sound kind of awful but I only plan to partially play XIV mostly for the guildeve grinding until content is released while also logging into XI for events.
Originally posted by narasinha
Well, we can only speculate but SE said the beta as very limited. And yes we can compare with FFXI as there is a lot of similarity between the 2 games : Same races, 3 starting cities with their own low levels areas. Each cities with their own story lines.... Thats exactly the same as FFXI.
Now, in FFXI, those cities/areas are for really low levels. At best they are for level 1 to 20 on 75. Experienced players can rush through those levels in 1-2 days. Compared to the weeks/months needed to reach 75.
In FFXI, you cant even ride a chocobo before level 20, or take an airship. Advanced classes are available only once you reach level 30 and so on... all this to say that those starting areas are just a very very small part of the game. With most of the content being available only at higher levels. In fact, some say that with FFXI, the real game start once you reach level 75. Before that, its only the introduction to the game... (and yes, thats a hell if you expect to do endgame quickly)
SE already talked about a 4th city, in FFXIV, common to all players, once you have finished with the early level and starting area. That's exacly like the city of Jueno in FFXI.
Both those posts were very informative to me, thx guys. I guess we're in for a bumpy road, the question being "for how long?", indeed.
About your future specs ShadeFigaro, I have a 4870 866MB + Core2Duo 1,8Ghz + 2GB RAM (7-32bits) and I can do pretty much just that (1080p@max settings AA 4X, except ambient occlusion which kills my FPS and works weirdly anyway), so I guess you'll be fine with a 5850. However although it reaches 30+ FPS in non-populated areas, it can drop as low as 10 in cities or around crystals. I guess (hope) this drop in performance in amplified by beta checks and stuff.
Yes, I simplified : You can go out of fullscreen mode but you need save the state and reset the device and then restore the state. So, yes, its possible. But it may not be feasable with their graphic engine. (many games dont offer the choice between the 2 modes. They always run in window mode, whatever you play in full screen or in a window)
Also am not sure since which version of Direct3d you can do it. This is releated to the problems with runing some Directx application on dual monitors setup. Lot of impovement were done in Dx10 or 11.
I know it can be done in DirectX 9.
Windowed mode will only solve the problem with ALT-TAB, but the game still close if you ctrl-alt-del or changing screen resolution (try it, I just did), even if you run windowed because it can't handle state lost properly. I tried it with some other games I have and and they still worked fine after a ctrl-alt-del and a change of Windows screen resolution because they could restore properly the lost state of the device. DirectX applications should handle these things even if they run windowed because ALT-TABing is only part of the issue.
About the window mode, you can get a script that uses the autohot key program that will let you borderless window-mode virtually any windows game or application on the planet. I use it all the time in FF14, Rappelz, and various other games. I'll zip up the program and the script and post a megaupload link, install the program first, then you can right click and edit the script, when you edit it u'll see 2 numbers which for me is "1280, 1024" thats what you set what resolution your running the game in windowed mode at.
Back to the point - I also have concerns about content. I think I would find it very boring if all there was were leves and grinding mobs for hours and once every 10 ranks have a quest that advances the story. I'm not really one for crafting in my mmorpgs so I wont consider grinding out copper sheets 'content'. YES I KNOW ITS A LIMITED BETA. However, wouldn't you think SE would want to test their quest system if they had one if its anything other than the leves? Or maybe even test a dungeon? Crazy, I know. I did play XI for a few years and leveling in that game was mostly a grind but you had to group to level with any sort of efficiency. FFXIV doesnt really seem to lend it self to group xp grinds from what I can tell from the OB. Mobs spawn in random spots and not in very large numbers. So I really have to wonder - what else is there to rank up with?
Back to the point - I also have concerns about content. I think I would find it very boring if all there was were leves and grinding mobs for hours and once every 10 ranks have a quest that advances the story. I'm not really one for crafting in my mmorpgs so I wont consider grinding out copper sheets 'content'. YES I KNOW ITS A LIMITED BETA. However, wouldn't you think SE would want to test their quest system if they had one if its anything other than the leves? Or maybe even test a dungeon? Crazy, I know. I did play XI for a few years and leveling in that game was mostly a grind but you had to group to level with any sort of efficiency. FFXIV doesnt really seem to lend it self to group xp grinds from what I can tell from the OB. Mobs spawn in random spots and not in very large numbers. So I really have to wonder - what else is there to rank up with?
There are dungeons, only one I've experienced personally is Casiopea Hollow near Bloodshore in La Noesca, can see a bunch of others on the map, I just haven't reached a high enough level to explore them with any confidence yet this go so I can't really speak to them sorry.
Depends how you define dungeon I guess, Casiopea Hollow was a big cave network full of nasty critters, counts as dungeon for me.
Curious to test some of the new critters out party wise, I know some people have been grouping on Lone Wolves, haven't tried it myself though. Seeing as skill gains seem to be loosely based off of how many skills you do on a mob it could indeed be quite lucrative to group up and go after some big game that'll last a while, think there's also a bonus for battle regimens, I can't figure em out myself though.
Other than the story missions I'm pretty sure leve's are the only 'quests' (there is another category called faction leves I haven't been able to find any in them yet so who knows what those are about and what the limits are), looks more like they developed the game with them being a nice bonus, rather than the meat and potatoes.
Oh yeah there's also patrols you can do periodically at the outposts (they function sort of like a leve), only up every hour or so but there is no limit on them.
2. No respect for Windows software standards (including games) by SE
Mostly the fact that Alt-Tab is forbidden; that the window cannot lose focus for too long; and the slowness of the Graphical User Interface (being tied to the 3D framerate... the UI behaves like an in-game object while it should be
Actualy its a problem with Windows and not with the game. SE is not forbidding you to use ALT-TAB : It's DirectX that cant handle going out of full screen mode. Nothing that can be done about it.
Other games using Directx that let you use ALT-TAB arent in true full screen mode : They are in a borderless window that take the whole screen. It "look" the same but the performances are a lot lower.
FFXI had the same problem. That''s why many people use a program called "windower" that will lunch the game in a full screen borderless window. (Originaly FFXI couldnt be played in a window at all)
Yes, its silly that SE didnt already included this option (yet ?). But you can easly find scripts that will start the game in a window taking the whole screen.
lol, i guess that's why every other game I played on my windows pc allows me to alt tab out ><, I knew it was window's fault!!
It won't take people long to realize that Guildleves are not the main source of content in this game. If you play it as such, you are wasting potential.
If you are talking about the crafting aspect, I totally see what you mean and tend to agree.
However concerning battle jobs, Disciple of War and Disciple of Magic, what other content is there in the game to level up those jobs besides "Battlecraft" leves, which are limited to 8 per 48h? I mean, besides good ol'schooled grinding? That's the only way I could find to keep ranking up while waiting on the 48h counter. I visited all three towns with the same character to make sure the 8 limit is global: it is, it's 8 per character, regardless of the job in use and the NPC issuing the leve.
Please enlighten me if you know better, I really wish I could do something else to rank up Battle jobs.
The Questline?
Treasures of the Main etc? should get you started nicely
also by my calculations, 8 leves per 48h? ok fair enough If i want to run through them on the 1Star setting for minimal reward.
Instead I plan to Join a Battalian /Company and team up with friends.
So 6 of us at 8 each on 4star+ leves will be more than adequate methinks
Well, this is precisely where I have concerns. Will the Questline be extensive, or will it only be a 3-hours gil-rewarding quest (forget about ranking up so far with those story quests) once every 10 levels? In the beta it's limited to one quest per character, which is totally understandable; however how much more questing there will be in the release... that, we don't really know yet. Unless FF XI set some precedents that we can use to project a possible future of the XIV, which is why I'm starting this discussion (I don't know FF XI besides talking with friends). The 16 limitation in Quests as opposed to 8 in Regional leves is a reason for hope, I guess.
But still there is the question of Gil versus rank points awarded in the Questline, because I'm talking about ranking up battle jobs here, not "spending time with content" (that I'm sure we'll do, no problem).
On the Battalian aspect, I think you're right. It's how the game is intended to be played. However, that's still just 4 hours maximum occupied every 48h. If that could be ok for weedays for most casuals (me included, I guess, in average), it will surely feel dry in content for weekends and those long night sessions.
Once again, I'm not worried about "how to play FF XIV", because I guess that I... get it. It's how much I can play it that has me worried with those limitations and timers on leve questing.
Ok, for JUST your DoW classes you're curious about how to level up when you can only use 8 leves? Well, I'm by far no expert and don't pretend to be the end all be all of answers but for this question I would use FFXI as a precedent. I would count on a lot of other more story driven quests but aside from the ones that have you out killing things there will be no EXP reward for them, this just isn't that kind of game. I would say, much like XI, XIV will have you joining hunting groups for maximum and efficient exp gains.
Just use your desktop resolution in windowed mode, you can alt tab all day.... I honestly would prefer a full screen with the bottom bar, but few games implement that.
Your other concern is a fair one. I can see the combat part not being an issue as you can do them in a group all day and night. The crafting and gatheing ones on the other hand I can see severly crippling this game.
Reasoning is simple: People are going to out level crafted goods until the crafters are finally able to keep up. 15 hrs of combat in a week will probably net you a decent level, 15 hrs of crafting in a week will net you so much time wasted it'll be just bad. I see a large equipment gap coming up after week two or three.
Only thing I can think will save it is guilds working together for the better of themselves. One goes gets materials, others get the crystals, while one member levels up the crafting skill. I guess that is what SE wants though as a whole community working together in utter harmony.
But regardless of those specific guilds, I don't see how they can tout it as "casual friendly" by those few guilds certainly won't share(and why would they? as they can pretty much set the standard of prices, which I thought was exactly what they were trying to prevent by instituting all these stupid limitiations anyways)
This games community maybe good, it maybe horrible. I'm leaning towards horrible because SE can't figure out they are making what they don't want to happen to specifically happen by their horrible choices. Hopefully I'm wrong in my assumptions.
Ok, for JUST your DoW classes you're curious about how to level up when you can only use 8 leves? Well, I'm by far no expert and don't pretend to be the end all be all of answers but for this question I would use FFXI as a precedent. I would count on a lot of other more story driven quests but aside from the ones that have you out killing things there will be no EXP reward for them, this just isn't that kind of game. I would say, much like XI, XIV will have you joining hunting groups for maximum and efficient exp gains.
That's just my two cents.
That was very informative, thx.
On a side-related note, I find it strange a design not to tie character progression with storyline content, as it is after all the original purpose of story-telling in RPGs, to "wrap up content in a nice manner so it doesn't feel like endless grinding". Especially in a game that requires grinding otherwise anyway. But that's just an opinion, and not really the subject at hand here.
So we're kinda back to square 1 (huhu), as the questline probably won't help us ranking up jobs.
I've been told numerous times about job-related "chains" in FF XI, from lv 30 or s/ (or so I think, correct me if I'm wrong). Perhaps an expansion of that system is a potential answer to story-told job progression (fitting nicely in the Quest category, job filters are already in place). I dunno. If anyone cares to elaborate on chains and perhaps other comparable features in XI... please, by all means, do so!
Ok, for JUST your DoW classes you're curious about how to level up when you can only use 8 leves? Well, I'm by far no expert and don't pretend to be the end all be all of answers but for this question I would use FFXI as a precedent. I would count on a lot of other more story driven quests but aside from the ones that have you out killing things there will be no EXP reward for them, this just isn't that kind of game.
What kind of game is it then?
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
Just use your desktop resolution in windowed mode, you can alt tab all day.... I honestly would prefer a full screen with the bottom bar, but few games implement that.
Your other concern is a fair one. I can see the combat part not being an issue as you can do them in a group all day and night. The crafting and gatheing ones on the other hand I can see severly crippling this game.
Reasoning is simple: People are going to out level crafted goods until the crafters are finally able to keep up. 15 hrs of combat in a week will probably net you a decent level, 15 hrs of crafting in a week will net you so much time wasted it'll be just bad. I see a large equipment gap coming up after week two or three.
Only thing I can think will save it is guilds working together for the better of themselves. One goes gets materials, others get the crystals, while one member levels up the crafting skill. I guess that is what SE wants though as a whole community working together in utter harmony.
But regardless of those specific guilds, I don't see how they can tout it as "casual friendly" by those few guilds certainly won't share(and why would they? as they can pretty much set the standard of prices, which I thought was exactly what they were trying to prevent by instituting all these stupid limitiations anyways)
This games community maybe good, it maybe horrible. I'm leaning towards horrible because SE can't figure out they are making what they don't want to happen to specifically happen by their horrible choices. Hopefully I'm wrong in my assumptions.
I won't spend too much time speaking on the full screen preferences of each and everyone of us, but suffice it to say that I have a pretty neat home cinema on which HD games tend to look and sound amazing, and it would be nothing less than a sin to play FF XIV through a badly centered window with a stupid bar on top of it. Anyway, the script posted in this thread works like a charm, so all is well. And if you can use a laptop in addition to the PC running FF, then all problems are solved even in true fullscreen. I still have crashes that pain me though, in hoping that they'll be gone by release because it's hard a penalty to lose a leve because of a game crash. Talk about double sentence...
Regarding the rest of your post, I have to agree. I didn't think of it like that, but it makes sense. In the end however, there are two things to look at:
How much is the economy "controlled" by the devs, regardless of the fact that it is supposedly "player driven" (devs always have control, as they can adjust drop rates of components, recipes ingredients and success rates, etc)
"Casual friendly" and "easy to use" are two different things and Square is aiming at the former, clearly not the latter. Their assumption must be that casuals do have brains, just less time to act upon their knowledge and findings. The question is therefore: how much "harmony" is the crafting system likely to induce, or even force, on a given server commuity (the answer can be negative of course, then you may engage in naming "negative harmony": "discord", "rivality", etc).
From the first observation, how much devs can and do effectively play "the hand of god" (yeah, from Smith himself) in the game. The fact is that the more they do, the more players feel left out of the economy, such a stance is usually detrimental to a thriving player-driven economy (it becomes a solo grind, usually tasteless, my personal example of that is WoW and any clone crafting system). On the contrary, leaving it all "up to players" would be considering that the original designs and variable adjustments of the game are somehow perfect enough. Wild assumption if you ask me.
Thus in the end it's, as always in MMO, a matter of balance, of finding the right middle path between extreme, often too theoretical, approaches to a stable economy. Tools are also essential, a sane market is one in which agents are informed as much as possible.
From the second observation (how much harmony can the system bring), it depends on the crafting system core design, of course, but also a great deal on the community. A full PvP MMO can have the exact same crafting system as a full PvE, the fact is that it will always be "played" more competitively by the players PvP-minded. In FF XIV we know that cooperation is not just of the essence, it's the very purpose of the game. Those of us who wish to enjoy FF alone have more than 20 other solo FF games to do that, or so does Square seem to think since XI.
What I can conclude--much too early to be sure of anything--from my observations of the game, based on this dual grid I just explained, is that Square has put in place the kind of cross-job needs that will force all players to deal heavily with others. If the search system doesn't improve regarding markets, most "casuals" won't do it because it's too time-consuming to search random people every time they need something. However for those who put up with it, a natural form of cooperation will emerge, I believe, since it's both a mutual benefit and a requirement of the game to interact with others.
All of this because FF XIV is a full PvE fully cooperative game (let's just forget about Dynamis camping for now).
However your concerns will prove right on some servers, where cooperation will just be randomly less of a spirit and more of a struggle. Individualistic ideas won't cut it in FF Online, not yesterday and not tomorrow, so those not willing to join a LS or two will just feel left out of the main stream of the game, its possibilities and potential. Square will have a hard time changing the situation on those servers, as it's a huge issue on many MMOs (thus really hard to deal with I guess), and Square themselves aren't really the pro-active type, to put it mildly.
edit: just to add that, as it stands now, the slowness of the UI is detrimental to crafting and makes it so time-consuming that it's a real issue of balance with battle jobs. If they don't get rid of most of the lag in cities, the only place to do serious crafting for now, then I agree this economy is already dead. Until the UI is fast and it becomes psychologically gratifying to craft (how many clicks between two crafts, my god...)
Local leves and regional leves are on separate groups of 8 right? I guess I haven't specifically tested that. If so, I wonder if there will be other "types" of leves as well. Straight up hunting is not bad though especially if it is more effecient in a group. It can make for a very social game. I have seen it done well in Lineage 2. Grinding mobs or grinding quests or grinding work orders or grinding tradeskills or grinding faction or grinding instances for tokens. Every game has grinding and often more than one type.
I would still like to see the 48 hrs reduced to 20 - 24 though.
Ok, for JUST your DoW classes you're curious about how to level up when you can only use 8 leves? Well, I'm by far no expert and don't pretend to be the end all be all of answers but for this question I would use FFXI as a precedent. I would count on a lot of other more story driven quests but aside from the ones that have you out killing things there will be no EXP reward for them, this just isn't that kind of game. I would say, much like XI, XIV will have you joining hunting groups for maximum and efficient exp gains.
That's just my two cents.
That was very informative, thx.
On a side-related note, I find it strange a design not to tie character progression with storyline content, as it is after all the original purpose of story-telling in RPGs, to "wrap up content in a nice manner so it doesn't feel like endless grinding". Especially in a game that requires grinding otherwise anyway. But that's just an opinion, and not really the subject at hand here.
So we're kinda back to square 1 (huhu), as the questline probably won't help us ranking up jobs.
I've been told numerous times about job-related "chains" in FF XI, from lv 30 or s/ (or so I think, correct me if I'm wrong). Perhaps an expansion of that system is a potential answer to story-told job progression (fitting nicely in the Quest category, job filters are already in place). I dunno. If anyone cares to elaborate on chains and perhaps other comparable features in XI... please, by all means, do so!
Like you said the filters are already there, which makes it fairly obvious that there will be job related quests again, as well as faction leve's (that we've seen nothing of yet).
As I stated before it looks as if they designed the levequest system to be a nice bonus for most (or something you can do if you only have an hour or so to screw around), not the main method of advancement. Of course if you're grouped with 6-15 buds you could spin the levequests for a whole day no problem and just piggy back off each other doing 4-5 star leves. Missions will be for the story line and probably these job related ones too will be story related.
It would seem that the main mechanism of progression will most likely be akin to FFXI's again, grouping, we just haven't really figured out how or where it's efficient yet. Heck we don't even know how many members *should* be in a party or what their roles *should* be (trinity doesn't really seem to apply here).
Either way those that stick it out are in for a ride for sure. This is distinctly different from it's predecessor.
Like you said the filters are already there, which makes it fairly obvious that there will be job related quests again, as well as faction leve's (that we've seen nothing of yet).
As I stated before it looks as if they designed the levequest system to be a nice bonus for most (or something you can do if you only have an hour or so to screw around), not the main method of advancement. Of course if you're grouped with 6-15 buds you could spin the levequests for a whole day no problem and just piggy back off each other doing 4-5 star leves. Missions will be for the story line and probably these job related ones too will be story related.
It would seem that the main mechanism of progression will most likely be akin to FFXI's again, grouping, we just haven't really figured out how or where it's efficient yet. Heck we don't even know how many members *should* be in a party or what their roles *should* be (trinity doesn't really seem to apply here).
Either way those that stick it out are in for a ride for sure. This is distinctly different from it's predecessor.
You're onto something here. I begin to have a much clearer picture of the possibilities and "ways" of ranking up. Thanks a lot for the feedback.
I'm hoping they're really putting efforts on job-specific storylines, because in most MMOs it's a 1% part of your progression that always leaves me kind of wanting for more. I guess in FF it's an understatement to say that we all enjoy some jobs more than others for reasons that make us wanna dwell deeply in said job(s) culture and mastership, and it's always nice to be able to do that being a different kind of hero than the random job next door.
The "exploring part" or grouping mechanics will be a bumpy ride, for sure, at least until japa-geek channels begin pouring the web with detailed abstraction; however i'm hoping for a less restrictive approach than the trinity (that's an old dream of most PvE MMO players, isn't it?) and I believe the armory systems has the basic concepts to do just that. That's interesting, but I must now refrain from hoping too much because I always end up disappointed...
Comments
I can alt tab out of full screen mode in every other game just fine. Since you seem to know so much what is it about this game that directx specs say they wont do alt-tabbing?
edit: Im fairly sure I read they are going to fix it, but dont ask for a cite.
As I explained : Other games are really runing in window mode. But a window that take the whole screen so it looks like its full screen.
Yourself, as a user, you wont see the differance between an application in fullscreen (exclusive) mode and in window mode. But it doesnt work in the same way.
To make it really simple, its easy for an application to go from window mode to fullscreen (or exclusive) mode. It's the reverse that is hard. (Its related to the state of the memory that isnt saved or something like that)
As for the differance of performences, its well know and pretty logical. In fullscreen mode, the application has exclusive controle of the display and has direct access to it. In window mode (whatever the window take the full screen or not), their is an extra layer that regulate the access to the display between the various applications (among other things).
Look at something like that for more technical info :
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/304669/why-direct3d-application-performs-better-in-full-screen-mode
This is false, at least on my hardware. (Phenom II 955 @ 3.97GHz, nVidia 8800 GTS 512MB G92 core, 8GB DDR3, Windows 7 x64). Playing at 1920x1080 in full screen mode with 0 FSAA and most other settings on high/normal I get a variable 20-50fps. With the same settings except resolution changed to 1280x720 in windowed mode I get a much worse, variable 5-32fps.
I have heard other reports from friends with higher spec GPUs that they see no visable hinderance from windowed mode, it could be that the nVidia 8XXX series is so old that the game doesn't like being windowed etc, I don't know. I have an ATi 5850 1GB on the way and will report back. Ideally I'd like to be able to run the game at near full monitor resolution (1920x1080) with 4-8X FSAA. at a decent frame rate with most options on high.
On topic, as a FINAL FANTASY XI veteran of many years, I'd expect bug fixes/plethoras of content down the line but it's going to be hard to tell at launch. When FFXI launched in the US it was a highly patched version with it's first expansion pack already out and the level cap and rank was already at what it would be for many years until recent. It had already been on a very buggy bumpy road in Japan for 2(?) years.
XIV will be different because of the universal release. There are still many problems I have with the game that will probably be fixed with time. (True fullscreen crashing on alt+tab, shop windows and many windows being rendered in the 3D plane and being server side, general lag, not being able to sort your inventory, not being able to search for others, no implemented bazaar search or auction house, though I hear both of these are coming. - and last, a general lack of conent.) We'll have to see with retail how much more content is unlocked or that they have hidden away.
Until then it'll mostly be a guessing game. I'm excited, but also worried. I do hope they can fix some of the above bugs/implement said features before retail, but I do imagine that most will be fixed/implemented over time. The only question is how long at this point. At the very least it's a very pretty game and with the FINAL FANTASY name it's likely to pull enough subsribers to have a successful launch with or without the said bugs.
I plan on picking up my preorder copy but I am expecting a bumpy road, I expect the game will be much more playable in the coming weeks/months. I imagine Guildeve timers will be adjusted if enough people bitch but we'll have to wait and see. If it works out the way I'm thinking it will, we'll log in to do daily exp eves then group up in PT or solo for the remainder to grind our rank and physical levels to continue the central story for however long that goes before we reach whatever end game content if any they have implemented at launch or until said content is released via patch or expansion pack.
That does sound kind of awful but I only plan to partially play XIV mostly for the guildeve grinding until content is released while also logging into XI for events.
I programmed with directX and I can say the problem is on SE side. On a true full screen application if you lose focus in any ways (alt-tab, screen-savers, ctrl-alt-del, etc.) you lose your drawing surfaces and have to create them again so that directx can draw on them. That is because full screen free some of the resources used by windows to increase the drawing performance.
Saying that nothing can be done about it is simply not true. SE should be able to re-create its drawing surfaces, instead they chose to display a nice message because the game went out of full screen mode.
While windowed mode is a solution, you do have some performance lost since the game will share windows resource. Some systems won't see the difference, but on a windowed game, the CPU will go slightly higher than with a full screen game.
Yes, I simplified : You can go out of fullscreen mode but you need save the state and reset the device and then restore the state. So, yes, its possible. But it may not be feasable with their graphic engine. (many games dont offer the choice between the 2 modes. They always run in window mode, whatever you play in full screen or in a window)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb174714(v=VS.85).aspx
Also am not sure since which version of Direct3d you can do it. This is releated to the problems with runing some Directx application on dual monitors setup. Lot of impovement were done in Dx10 or 11.
Both those posts were very informative to me, thx guys. I guess we're in for a bumpy road, the question being "for how long?", indeed.
About your future specs ShadeFigaro, I have a 4870 866MB + Core2Duo 1,8Ghz + 2GB RAM (7-32bits) and I can do pretty much just that (1080p@max settings AA 4X, except ambient occlusion which kills my FPS and works weirdly anyway), so I guess you'll be fine with a 5850. However although it reaches 30+ FPS in non-populated areas, it can drop as low as 10 in cities or around crystals. I guess (hope) this drop in performance in amplified by beta checks and stuff.
I know it can be done in DirectX 9.
Windowed mode will only solve the problem with ALT-TAB, but the game still close if you ctrl-alt-del or changing screen resolution (try it, I just did), even if you run windowed because it can't handle state lost properly. I tried it with some other games I have and and they still worked fine after a ctrl-alt-del and a change of Windows screen resolution because they could restore properly the lost state of the device. DirectX applications should handle these things even if they run windowed because ALT-TABing is only part of the issue.
lol never crossed my mind to try changing resolution while in a online game. I think I can live without it
I will have to try it with Windower and FFXI and see if work or crash too.
Hmm, this did nothing for my FFXIV. It would make all the other windows go full screen but not FFXIV. Any idea waht I could be doing wrong?
Holy thread hijacking....
Back to the point - I also have concerns about content. I think I would find it very boring if all there was were leves and grinding mobs for hours and once every 10 ranks have a quest that advances the story. I'm not really one for crafting in my mmorpgs so I wont consider grinding out copper sheets 'content'. YES I KNOW ITS A LIMITED BETA. However, wouldn't you think SE would want to test their quest system if they had one if its anything other than the leves? Or maybe even test a dungeon? Crazy, I know. I did play XI for a few years and leveling in that game was mostly a grind but you had to group to level with any sort of efficiency. FFXIV doesnt really seem to lend it self to group xp grinds from what I can tell from the OB. Mobs spawn in random spots and not in very large numbers. So I really have to wonder - what else is there to rank up with?
There are dungeons, only one I've experienced personally is Casiopea Hollow near Bloodshore in La Noesca, can see a bunch of others on the map, I just haven't reached a high enough level to explore them with any confidence yet this go so I can't really speak to them sorry.
Depends how you define dungeon I guess, Casiopea Hollow was a big cave network full of nasty critters, counts as dungeon for me.
Curious to test some of the new critters out party wise, I know some people have been grouping on Lone Wolves, haven't tried it myself though. Seeing as skill gains seem to be loosely based off of how many skills you do on a mob it could indeed be quite lucrative to group up and go after some big game that'll last a while, think there's also a bonus for battle regimens, I can't figure em out myself though.
Other than the story missions I'm pretty sure leve's are the only 'quests' (there is another category called faction leves I haven't been able to find any in them yet so who knows what those are about and what the limits are), looks more like they developed the game with them being a nice bonus, rather than the meat and potatoes.
Oh yeah there's also patrols you can do periodically at the outposts (they function sort of like a leve), only up every hour or so but there is no limit on them.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
lol, i guess that's why every other game I played on my windows pc allows me to alt tab out ><, I knew it was window's fault!!
/sarcasm off
Ok, for JUST your DoW classes you're curious about how to level up when you can only use 8 leves? Well, I'm by far no expert and don't pretend to be the end all be all of answers but for this question I would use FFXI as a precedent. I would count on a lot of other more story driven quests but aside from the ones that have you out killing things there will be no EXP reward for them, this just isn't that kind of game. I would say, much like XI, XIV will have you joining hunting groups for maximum and efficient exp gains.
That's just my two cents.
Just use your desktop resolution in windowed mode, you can alt tab all day.... I honestly would prefer a full screen with the bottom bar, but few games implement that.
Your other concern is a fair one. I can see the combat part not being an issue as you can do them in a group all day and night. The crafting and gatheing ones on the other hand I can see severly crippling this game.
Reasoning is simple: People are going to out level crafted goods until the crafters are finally able to keep up. 15 hrs of combat in a week will probably net you a decent level, 15 hrs of crafting in a week will net you so much time wasted it'll be just bad. I see a large equipment gap coming up after week two or three.
Only thing I can think will save it is guilds working together for the better of themselves. One goes gets materials, others get the crystals, while one member levels up the crafting skill. I guess that is what SE wants though as a whole community working together in utter harmony.
But regardless of those specific guilds, I don't see how they can tout it as "casual friendly" by those few guilds certainly won't share(and why would they? as they can pretty much set the standard of prices, which I thought was exactly what they were trying to prevent by instituting all these stupid limitiations anyways)
This games community maybe good, it maybe horrible. I'm leaning towards horrible because SE can't figure out they are making what they don't want to happen to specifically happen by their horrible choices. Hopefully I'm wrong in my assumptions.
That was very informative, thx.
On a side-related note, I find it strange a design not to tie character progression with storyline content, as it is after all the original purpose of story-telling in RPGs, to "wrap up content in a nice manner so it doesn't feel like endless grinding". Especially in a game that requires grinding otherwise anyway. But that's just an opinion, and not really the subject at hand here.
So we're kinda back to square 1 (huhu), as the questline probably won't help us ranking up jobs.
I've been told numerous times about job-related "chains" in FF XI, from lv 30 or s/ (or so I think, correct me if I'm wrong). Perhaps an expansion of that system is a potential answer to story-told job progression (fitting nicely in the Quest category, job filters are already in place). I dunno. If anyone cares to elaborate on chains and perhaps other comparable features in XI... please, by all means, do so!
What kind of game is it then?
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I won't spend too much time speaking on the full screen preferences of each and everyone of us, but suffice it to say that I have a pretty neat home cinema on which HD games tend to look and sound amazing, and it would be nothing less than a sin to play FF XIV through a badly centered window with a stupid bar on top of it. Anyway, the script posted in this thread works like a charm, so all is well. And if you can use a laptop in addition to the PC running FF, then all problems are solved even in true fullscreen. I still have crashes that pain me though, in hoping that they'll be gone by release because it's hard a penalty to lose a leve because of a game crash. Talk about double sentence...
Regarding the rest of your post, I have to agree. I didn't think of it like that, but it makes sense. In the end however, there are two things to look at:
How much is the economy "controlled" by the devs, regardless of the fact that it is supposedly "player driven" (devs always have control, as they can adjust drop rates of components, recipes ingredients and success rates, etc)
"Casual friendly" and "easy to use" are two different things and Square is aiming at the former, clearly not the latter. Their assumption must be that casuals do have brains, just less time to act upon their knowledge and findings. The question is therefore: how much "harmony" is the crafting system likely to induce, or even force, on a given server commuity (the answer can be negative of course, then you may engage in naming "negative harmony": "discord", "rivality", etc).
From the first observation, how much devs can and do effectively play "the hand of god" (yeah, from Smith himself) in the game. The fact is that the more they do, the more players feel left out of the economy, such a stance is usually detrimental to a thriving player-driven economy (it becomes a solo grind, usually tasteless, my personal example of that is WoW and any clone crafting system). On the contrary, leaving it all "up to players" would be considering that the original designs and variable adjustments of the game are somehow perfect enough. Wild assumption if you ask me.
Thus in the end it's, as always in MMO, a matter of balance, of finding the right middle path between extreme, often too theoretical, approaches to a stable economy. Tools are also essential, a sane market is one in which agents are informed as much as possible.
From the second observation (how much harmony can the system bring), it depends on the crafting system core design, of course, but also a great deal on the community. A full PvP MMO can have the exact same crafting system as a full PvE, the fact is that it will always be "played" more competitively by the players PvP-minded. In FF XIV we know that cooperation is not just of the essence, it's the very purpose of the game. Those of us who wish to enjoy FF alone have more than 20 other solo FF games to do that, or so does Square seem to think since XI.
What I can conclude--much too early to be sure of anything--from my observations of the game, based on this dual grid I just explained, is that Square has put in place the kind of cross-job needs that will force all players to deal heavily with others. If the search system doesn't improve regarding markets, most "casuals" won't do it because it's too time-consuming to search random people every time they need something. However for those who put up with it, a natural form of cooperation will emerge, I believe, since it's both a mutual benefit and a requirement of the game to interact with others.
All of this because FF XIV is a full PvE fully cooperative game (let's just forget about Dynamis camping for now).
However your concerns will prove right on some servers, where cooperation will just be randomly less of a spirit and more of a struggle. Individualistic ideas won't cut it in FF Online, not yesterday and not tomorrow, so those not willing to join a LS or two will just feel left out of the main stream of the game, its possibilities and potential. Square will have a hard time changing the situation on those servers, as it's a huge issue on many MMOs (thus really hard to deal with I guess), and Square themselves aren't really the pro-active type, to put it mildly.
edit: just to add that, as it stands now, the slowness of the UI is detrimental to crafting and makes it so time-consuming that it's a real issue of balance with battle jobs. If they don't get rid of most of the lag in cities, the only place to do serious crafting for now, then I agree this economy is already dead. Until the UI is fast and it becomes psychologically gratifying to craft (how many clicks between two crafts, my god...)
Local leves and regional leves are on separate groups of 8 right? I guess I haven't specifically tested that. If so, I wonder if there will be other "types" of leves as well. Straight up hunting is not bad though especially if it is more effecient in a group. It can make for a very social game. I have seen it done well in Lineage 2. Grinding mobs or grinding quests or grinding work orders or grinding tradeskills or grinding faction or grinding instances for tokens. Every game has grinding and often more than one type.
I would still like to see the 48 hrs reduced to 20 - 24 though.
All die, so die well.
Like you said the filters are already there, which makes it fairly obvious that there will be job related quests again, as well as faction leve's (that we've seen nothing of yet).
As I stated before it looks as if they designed the levequest system to be a nice bonus for most (or something you can do if you only have an hour or so to screw around), not the main method of advancement. Of course if you're grouped with 6-15 buds you could spin the levequests for a whole day no problem and just piggy back off each other doing 4-5 star leves. Missions will be for the story line and probably these job related ones too will be story related.
It would seem that the main mechanism of progression will most likely be akin to FFXI's again, grouping, we just haven't really figured out how or where it's efficient yet. Heck we don't even know how many members *should* be in a party or what their roles *should* be (trinity doesn't really seem to apply here).
Either way those that stick it out are in for a ride for sure. This is distinctly different from it's predecessor.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
You're onto something here. I begin to have a much clearer picture of the possibilities and "ways" of ranking up. Thanks a lot for the feedback.
I'm hoping they're really putting efforts on job-specific storylines, because in most MMOs it's a 1% part of your progression that always leaves me kind of wanting for more. I guess in FF it's an understatement to say that we all enjoy some jobs more than others for reasons that make us wanna dwell deeply in said job(s) culture and mastership, and it's always nice to be able to do that being a different kind of hero than the random job next door.
The "exploring part" or grouping mechanics will be a bumpy ride, for sure, at least until japa-geek channels begin pouring the web with detailed abstraction; however i'm hoping for a less restrictive approach than the trinity (that's an old dream of most PvE MMO players, isn't it?) and I believe the armory systems has the basic concepts to do just that. That's interesting, but I must now refrain from hoping too much because I always end up disappointed...