Well, I just hit level 10 on my character. Here's my feelings thus far:
Graphics - Very nice. Best yet of an MMO to date.
Music/Sound - Very nice as well.
Questing - Meh. Very uninspired. I feel the writing(at least so far) are on the same level as Tera. I am trying to read the quest log/interactions but my mind wanders. It's just so bland and uninteresting.
Combat - Typical 1 2 3 tab combat.
Overall - Aside from the beautiful graphics, I am not quite sure what the appeal is for this game yet. Of course, perhaps the game opens up further down, but at the current state, I am just not really engaged in the game thus far. I'm surprised because at least with Tera I was actually having a lot of fun at this level. I find myself playing but thinking about other games.
(I mention Tera a lot in my comparison because to me, that is what the game feels a lot like).
You missed "interdependent crafting", maybe that's why you are not really liking it ?
I haven't gotten to the crafting yet. Is it that good?
Well, I just hit level 10 on my character. Here's my feelings thus far:
Graphics - Very nice. Best yet of an MMO to date.
Music/Sound - Very nice as well.
Questing - Meh. Very uninspired. I feel the writing(at least so far) are on the same level as Tera. I am trying to read the quest log/interactions but my mind wanders. It's just so bland and uninteresting.
Combat - Typical 1 2 3 tab combat.
Overall - Aside from the beautiful graphics, I am not quite sure what the appeal is for this game yet. Of course, perhaps the game opens up further down, but at the current state, I am just not really engaged in the game thus far. I'm surprised because at least with Tera I was actually having a lot of fun at this level. I find myself playing but thinking about other games.
(I mention Tera a lot in my comparison because to me, that is what the game feels a lot like).
Looks like you already made up your mind, why force yourself? Go play the other games you are thinking about, you would feel so much better
I was just giving my early impressions. I'm going to play out what I paid for.
Its a Final Fantasy game...what the hell were you expecting?
The 300k+ people playing don't want some "groundbreaking and revolutionary game design" they want final fantasy.
Why on earth would you even pick this game up if you wanted something different than a FF game?
Anyway every game that ive seen trump up their "growndbreaking" and "revolutionary" games design...all turned out to be repackaged turds with slightly different delivery of the same old stuff. Rift and GW2 come to mind. At least with those games you can act surprised since they promised the world ect...
I will say that this FF game feels a lot different than most mmorpgs that basically do the same thing...I think that this game has the all important "soul" within it that a most other games lack.
But yeah there are kill/fedex/escort quests...I know crazy considering its a mmorpg.
Its a Final Fantasy game...what the hell were you expecting?
The 300k+ people playing don't want some "groundbreaking and revolutionary game design" they want final fantasy.
Why on earth would you even pick this game up if you wanted something different than a FF game?
Anyway every game that ive seen trump up their "growndbreaking" and "revolutionary" games design...all turned out to be repackaged turds with slightly different delivery of the same old stuff. Rift and GW2 come to mind. At least with those games you can act surprised since they promised the world ect...
I will say that this FF game feels a lot different than most mmorpgs that basically do the same thing...I think that this game has the all important "soul" within it that a most other games lack.
But yeah there are kill/fedex/escort quests...I know crazy considering its a mmorpg.
Well, I just hit level 10 on my character. Here's my feelings thus far:
Graphics - Very nice. Best yet of an MMO to date.
Music/Sound - Very nice as well.
Questing - Meh. Very uninspired. I feel the writing(at least so far) are on the same level as Tera. I am trying to read the quest log/interactions but my mind wanders. It's just so bland and uninteresting.
Combat - Typical 1 2 3 tab combat.
Overall - Aside from the beautiful graphics, I am not quite sure what the appeal is for this game yet. Of course, perhaps the game opens up further down, but at the current state, I am just not really engaged in the game thus far. I'm surprised because at least with Tera I was actually having a lot of fun at this level. I find myself playing but thinking about other games.
(I mention Tera a lot in my comparison because to me, that is what the game feels a lot like).
You missed "interdependent crafting", maybe that's why you are not really liking it ?
I haven't gotten to the crafting yet. Is it that good?
I know I'm not the person you asked, but I'd like to offer my response to that.
My character is a lvl 16 Arcanist/12 Conjurer. That's her combat classes.
She's also a 17 Fisher/16 Botanist/13 Culinarian/13 Carpenter/12 Alchemist. My Botany collects ingredients for cooking, wood for carpentry, and components for alchemy. My food creates meals that help me gather and craft better, plus combat foods, plus fishing lures so that I can fish for more cooking materials. My alchemy is also required in some of my carpentry (which also makes weapons for both of my classes) plus potions and elixirs for later on in the game.
Since the time I picked up my first crafting class, I have put in 3 hours of combat and 18 hours of crafting, including the last 12 straight. The crafting is -very- involved if you want it to be, and if you are a person who enjoys crafting, it will quickly overshadow the combat. Incidentally, almost all of my crafting classes have a stack of abilities to strategically use to increase the chance of a superior item, so trying to craft items for actual use requires a strategy in your crafting approach.
edited to add: Almost forgot. My friend, who is a blacksmith, has to constantly use wood for his crafting as well, which links back in to my botany. He needs some weaving stuff too (as do I!) but 5 crafting classes will have to do it for me for now. I don't have inventory space for any more!
Final Fantasy 14 isn't a bad game, it's just a game. It's average in every conceivable way. The combat is generic and your standard alt-tab type of situation. The storyline, though interesting at times is convoluted and doesn't flow as well as it probably could. The dialog is... Thine bring about thou destruction. I don't care for it.
FATES are more or less large scale 'events' which generally translates to a lot of the same type of enemy spawning in a single area where everybody runs to in order to kill them. Beyond that I haven't really seen anything very exciting. I was hoping for something a little more like what they had in GW2. Where the fates would lead into larger scale events or be something other then a big fight in a field time and time again.
Questing is just as uninspired. Generic fetch, kill, and talk to people quests. Obviously I didn't expect them to be much more because to date most MMOs fall prey to this kind of thing however it'd have been nice if they put a little more... Effort into the presentation.
Good things - Fantastic soundtrack throughout every area I've been to. (At level 27 so far.) Nice graphics and animations. The in-game cut scenes are nice to see. Especially when facing off with a Primal like Ifrit. Final Fantasy isn't a bad game by any means. It's just average. It's a standard MMO set in the FF universe. I understand that there are a lot of people out there looking for that and I'm glad you managed to find your game. For those of us looking for something fresh, new or for a game whose ideas have evolved over the last few years will probably still be looking for their game in the coming months/years.
How on Earth can you judge a game when you have only played a tiny portion of it so far. The game is not even fully complete yet housing and pvp have not even been added and are planned to be out with patch 2.4 and have you even touched Crafting? Crafting is still crafting when you get down to it but at least they gave it a nice twist and made it similar to combat.
Its a Final Fantasy game...what the hell were you expecting?
The 300k+ people playing don't want some "groundbreaking and revolutionary game design" they want final fantasy.
Why on earth would you even pick this game up if you wanted something different than a FF game?
Anyway every game that ive seen trump up their "growndbreaking" and "revolutionary" games design...all turned out to be repackaged turds with slightly different delivery of the same old stuff. Rift and GW2 come to mind. At least with those games you can act surprised since they promised the world ect...
I will say that this FF game feels a lot different than most mmorpgs that basically do the same thing...I think that this game has the all important "soul" within it that a most other games lack.
But yeah there are kill/fedex/escort quests...I know crazy considering its a mmorpg.
Its a Final Fantasy game...what the hell were you expecting?
The 300k+ people playing don't want some "groundbreaking and revolutionary game design" they want final fantasy.
Why on earth would you even pick this game up if you wanted something different than a FF game?
Anyway every game that ive seen trump up their "growndbreaking" and "revolutionary" games design...all turned out to be repackaged turds with slightly different delivery of the same old stuff. Rift and GW2 come to mind. At least with those games you can act surprised since they promised the world ect...
I will say that this FF game feels a lot different than most mmorpgs that basically do the same thing...I think that this game has the all important "soul" within it that a most other games lack.
But yeah there are kill/fedex/escort quests...I know crazy considering its a mmorpg.
Thus it the insanity of MMO fans.
"we want innovation! Something new!
"We present to you EQN!!"
"Noooooooo...we wanted EQ1 reskinned!!"
"...."
It really is sad to watch all these people who clearly don't like RPG games complaining about RPG aspects in online RPG games.
Makes me wonder if these people wouldn't have better luck going into some action games forum and begging for a MMO version of that game...rather than plaguing every mmorpg game forum begging for RPG aspects to be trashed to make things easier/more action/ ect
Its like...sport games started to bore me some years ago...so I stopped playing them...I didn't go onto the forums and start to complain that sport games should have quests or whatever.
A lot of these perpetually angry and disappointed gamers would do themselves and the remaining RPG community a great service finding a new game type to enjoy. They really should get steam, wait for a sale, and check out some other types of games...im guessing they'll never look back to mmorpgs.
Threads like this make me cringe. The OP was expecting space lazers and crazy stuff never before seen in a mmorpg...all he got was a really good FF game and hes pissed about it.
Its a Final Fantasy game...what the hell were you expecting?
The 300k+ people playing don't want some "groundbreaking and revolutionary game design" they want final fantasy.
Why on earth would you even pick this game up if you wanted something different than a FF game?
Anyway every game that ive seen trump up their "growndbreaking" and "revolutionary" games design...all turned out to be repackaged turds with slightly different delivery of the same old stuff. Rift and GW2 come to mind. At least with those games you can act surprised since they promised the world ect...
I will say that this FF game feels a lot different than most mmorpgs that basically do the same thing...I think that this game has the all important "soul" within it that a most other games lack.
But yeah there are kill/fedex/escort quests...I know crazy considering its a mmorpg.
Thus it the insanity of MMO fans.
"we want innovation! Something new!
"We present to you EQN!!"
"Noooooooo...we wanted EQ1 reskinned!!"
"...."
While I understand the sentiment , I don't think it is the same faction of fans wanting both. As a fan of EQ1, I'm excited for EQN nonetheless.
(I mention Tera a lot in my comparison because to me, that is what the game feels a lot like).
Well, I am a huge Tera fan and the writing feels much better than Tera.
For example, I'm a person who usually reads every quest. Yes, every quest. Except in Tera I skip then. Most of them. Yet I read every one in this game.
The quality of writing in this game is much better. You are still killing x among of things but that's ok with me, I'd rather be sent to do battle and just stay there. Then again I'm a grinder at heart.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
(I mention Tera a lot in my comparison because to me, that is what the game feels a lot like).
Well, I am a huge Tera fan and the writing feels much better than Tera.
For example, I'm a person who usually reads every quest. Yes, every quest. Except in Tera I skip then. Most of them. Yet I read every one in this game.
The quality of writing in this game is much better. You are still killing x among of things but that's ok with me, I'd rather be sent to do battle and just stay there. Then again I'm a grinder at heart.
I really really try to read every quest since I originally come from playing PNP RPGs. I just cant seem to read the quest logs any more. I have gotten to the point that I am clicking through them like I was with Tera, Warhammer and other poorly written ones.
(I mention Tera a lot in my comparison because to me, that is what the game feels a lot like).
Well, I am a huge Tera fan and the writing feels much better than Tera.
For example, I'm a person who usually reads every quest. Yes, every quest. Except in Tera I skip then. Most of them. Yet I read every one in this game.
The quality of writing in this game is much better. You are still killing x among of things but that's ok with me, I'd rather be sent to do battle and just stay there. Then again I'm a grinder at heart.
I really really try to read every quest since I originally come from playing PNP RPGs. I just cant seem to read the quest logs any more. I have gotten to the point that I am clicking through them like I was with Tera, Warhammer and other poorly written ones.
I feel that this game is an exception to the rule. I've read every quest so far as well. The text really does seem like it gives life to the World. Like you meet one NCP on some minor quest, and it turns out he is very important later on. I fyou don't pay attention, you miss those moments.
BTW - I hate seeing this horrid thread title. There should be a rule about such things.
Well, I just hit level 10 on my character. Here's my feelings thus far:
Graphics - Very nice. Best yet of an MMO to date.
Music/Sound - Very nice as well.
Questing - Meh. Very uninspired. I feel the writing(at least so far) are on the same level as Tera. I am trying to read the quest log/interactions but my mind wanders. It's just so bland and uninteresting.
Combat - Typical 1 2 3 tab combat.
Overall - Aside from the beautiful graphics, I am not quite sure what the appeal is for this game yet. Of course, perhaps the game opens up further down, but at the current state, I am just not really engaged in the game thus far. I'm surprised because at least with Tera I was actually having a lot of fun at this level. I find myself playing but thinking about other games.
(I mention Tera a lot in my comparison because to me, that is what the game feels a lot like).
You missed "interdependent crafting", maybe that's why you are not really liking it ?
I haven't gotten to the crafting yet. Is it that good?
I know I'm not the person you asked, but I'd like to offer my response to that.
My character is a lvl 16 Arcanist/12 Conjurer. That's her combat classes.
She's also a 17 Fisher/16 Botanist/13 Culinarian/13 Carpenter/12 Alchemist. My Botany collects ingredients for cooking, wood for carpentry, and components for alchemy. My food creates meals that help me gather and craft better, plus combat foods, plus fishing lures so that I can fish for more cooking materials. My alchemy is also required in some of my carpentry (which also makes weapons for both of my classes) plus potions and elixirs for later on in the game.
Since the time I picked up my first crafting class, I have put in 3 hours of combat and 18 hours of crafting, including the last 12 straight. The crafting is -very- involved if you want it to be, and if you are a person who enjoys crafting, it will quickly overshadow the combat. Incidentally, almost all of my crafting classes have a stack of abilities to strategically use to increase the chance of a superior item, so trying to craft items for actual use requires a strategy in your crafting approach.
edited to add: Almost forgot. My friend, who is a blacksmith, has to constantly use wood for his crafting as well, which links back in to my botany. He needs some weaving stuff too (as do I!) but 5 crafting classes will have to do it for me for now. I don't have inventory space for any more!
I think you are pretty much spot-on in describing how involved it is. And yeah inventory space is an issue, that's why I am hoping to finish my dungeon main quest to reach the point where I get retainer so I can store there XD. (Had to sell a lot to npc for pennies )
Like in your case, crafting is quickly overshadowing combat for me. Got lv18 lancer, lv13 archer, lv12 conjurer in the fighting aspect. Have 7 out of the 8 crafting classes at lv10-15, while my culinerian is at lv6 XD. I noticed that for leveling past level 10, in many cases it was a good idea to aim to get High Quality gear since any failed attempt was still decent exp.
Using crossclass abilities for crafters starts when you get one to lv15, so I am very much looking forward to discover all crosscrafting abilities I will have when I get my 8 crafting classes to 15. I very much felt like the level 15 carpentry cross-classable ability was really useful. I found level 10 leves to suck though for crafting classes expwise, but maybe that'll change at higher leves.
-----------------------------------------------
Also to describe crafting a bit better: in FFXIV, there are 8 crafting classes and 3 gathering classes. It is common for a crafting class to need resources from 1 gathering class and 3-4 other crafting classes to be able to be craft all available recipies. That's why it is considered to be "interdependent":
Crafting classes have their own unique stats of importance: craftmanship, control and crafting points (cp). So of course you will later on (i.e. starting at level 11 due to what quests give as reward equipwise; level 11 secondary tool is not awarded by quest and it helps your crafting a lot) have great use of crafted equips that is specific for crafting classes.
Crafting classes have their own skills which they gain as they level up or as they unlock cross-classable abilities. The skills are designed in such way that it rather quickly (definitely at lv15) becomes far from obvious what the best skill order is.
There are 2 versions of items as far as I know: regular ones and high-quality ones. Sometimes you want to focus on crafting regular ones and sometimes you want to focus on just getting high-quality ones. It depends on situation.
It is more difficult to craft items that is higher in crafting level (do not confuse with level required to equip item) than your current level of your craft class compared to crafting something that is at your or below your level. However somtimes you still want to do it to get certain items quicker.
Experience gain is also another massive aspect; to gain good experience you do not want to keep massproducing an item that is far too low in level compared to you. However, if you are aiming for high quality end-product you may want to spend some time getting the materials to high quality even if they are low level recipies.
I could go on and on, but this is enough from me for now XD.
Yeah crafting is like...combat kinda...you have a skill bar and skills ect...of course you can quick craft for spam crafting.
The questing in this game is average. I think that is basically what the OP is referring to...and yeah...its the same old.
Theres a lot of non average stuff going on about the game. For one...I don't mind standard quests when the world im doing them in is beautiful, the music is fantastic, and the game has a decent story to it. Also (imo) the games world has soul. Something that is usually lacking in games. The world feels alive. I dunno it doesn't have that soulless town/hub feel that a lot of games (rift for example...even GW2 kind had it) hard to explain I guess.
Really though, if you hate progression, and you hate same old quests..don't even bother with the game. If you don't mind the game actually does it all quite well...in fact might be the best incarnation to date of the tried and true mmorpg.
Next test is endgame and endgame raiding.
But the way they handle cross classing and multi classing, crafting, and the general feel of the game world...its quite above average. Its also nice to see a mmorpg that isn't afraid to include progression as well as not completely catering to the lowest common denominator. Yeah you need to learn the geography to use the fast travel, cant just click on a huge map to the location nearest all your quest indicators. Also some complexity in what cross skills you want to use and what off classes to level up.
Im not really the biggest themepark mmorpg fan...I do play most of them knowing ill be out quick. This game has a feel to it...a vibe...that I never got with all the wow clones.
Plus they have 220k-300k concurrent players online...game might be going places if endgame raiding is top notch and they add in some new areas, content, decent pvp, and player housing...and its done as well as the rest of the game.
Its all rosy now...but then ive seen endgame kill the best of games...so we got a few more weeks, probably a month...after than if endgame isn't top notch wheels might fall off like they did with rift (though rift was a chore to level up in and the world felt soulless and boring...so who knows)
I still think they dropped the ball that is my opinion based on the amount of knowledge I had on the game at the time, mechanics, testing phase, releasing a broken product etc. I had asked my friend at the time who owned the ps3 copy if it was avail for PC, he told me that it was not and I just went with what he said.
That's fine. I'm used to people on forums arguing that something is bad by being as vague as possible. Half the opinions on this site can be translated into "It's bad because I said so eventhough I can't give any actual reasons why it's bad".
I'm not a Square fanboy. In fact, I pretty much ignored anything they did after FFX....I just hate that game. This is their first product I've played since then(watched some friends play FFXI and it just looked like really slow EQ).
The servers are crap I'll admit. But it will be fixed. Not because they are so amazing and can do no wrong, but because they're not going to let the second attempt at this game fail without a fight and it has enough popularity to be make it worth their while.
As far as it being a "broken product". Servers aside, the game is pretty much perfect. I'm not talking about personal game preferences. I mean how the game runs once you get past the login screen from hell.
I've managed to get in every night since Open beta started (just need to try to login nonstop for about 15minutes /sigh)even on one of the NA servers that hit full the first night. I've been in the launch of almost every major mmo of the last decade and I've never seen a game without bugs that runs as smoothly as FFXIV. I've yet to see a bug and I've never been disconnected. Once I login I can play perfectly for hours. I've never seen any weird graphical glitches, got stuck in a wall, fallen through the world, logged in to a world of naked people, seen any items with weird error message tooltips(Item#239848934894), flickering cutscenes, nothing. I can be doing a Fate with 50 people killing 10 mobs in a 10ft diameter circle and not even notice a sec of framerate loss(I'm running on the highest settings). They did an amazing job on this game.
I'll even give you one of my gripes about the game. The different zones are separated by load screens. I prefer a fully persistent world. But surprisingly the load screens are all about 1-2 second between zones.
I understand that everyone likes different things. If you don't like a game because of the game, great save your money. But if someone finds the game(not the server issue) interesting this game has a level of polish that puts some games 2-4 years old to shame.
Sorry I'm bored at work and got a little carried away...little longer reply than intended.
Comments
I haven't gotten to the crafting yet. Is it that good?
I was just giving my early impressions. I'm going to play out what I paid for.
Its a Final Fantasy game...what the hell were you expecting?
The 300k+ people playing don't want some "groundbreaking and revolutionary game design" they want final fantasy.
Why on earth would you even pick this game up if you wanted something different than a FF game?
Anyway every game that ive seen trump up their "growndbreaking" and "revolutionary" games design...all turned out to be repackaged turds with slightly different delivery of the same old stuff. Rift and GW2 come to mind. At least with those games you can act surprised since they promised the world ect...
I will say that this FF game feels a lot different than most mmorpgs that basically do the same thing...I think that this game has the all important "soul" within it that a most other games lack.
But yeah there are kill/fedex/escort quests...I know crazy considering its a mmorpg.
Thus it the insanity of MMO fans.
"we want innovation! Something new!
"We present to you EQN!!"
"Noooooooo...we wanted EQ1 reskinned!!"
"...."
I know I'm not the person you asked, but I'd like to offer my response to that.
My character is a lvl 16 Arcanist/12 Conjurer. That's her combat classes.
She's also a 17 Fisher/16 Botanist/13 Culinarian/13 Carpenter/12 Alchemist. My Botany collects ingredients for cooking, wood for carpentry, and components for alchemy. My food creates meals that help me gather and craft better, plus combat foods, plus fishing lures so that I can fish for more cooking materials. My alchemy is also required in some of my carpentry (which also makes weapons for both of my classes) plus potions and elixirs for later on in the game.
Since the time I picked up my first crafting class, I have put in 3 hours of combat and 18 hours of crafting, including the last 12 straight. The crafting is -very- involved if you want it to be, and if you are a person who enjoys crafting, it will quickly overshadow the combat. Incidentally, almost all of my crafting classes have a stack of abilities to strategically use to increase the chance of a superior item, so trying to craft items for actual use requires a strategy in your crafting approach.
edited to add: Almost forgot. My friend, who is a blacksmith, has to constantly use wood for his crafting as well, which links back in to my botany. He needs some weaving stuff too (as do I!) but 5 crafting classes will have to do it for me for now. I don't have inventory space for any more!
How on Earth can you judge a game when you have only played a tiny portion of it so far. The game is not even fully complete yet housing and pvp have not even been added and are planned to be out with patch 2.4 and have you even touched Crafting? Crafting is still crafting when you get down to it but at least they gave it a nice twist and made it similar to combat.
Let me FTFY:
Thus it the insanity of MMO fans.
"we want innovation! Something new!
"We present to you EQN!!"
"Noooooooo...we didn't want GW2 reskinned!!"
"...."
It really is sad to watch all these people who clearly don't like RPG games complaining about RPG aspects in online RPG games.
Makes me wonder if these people wouldn't have better luck going into some action games forum and begging for a MMO version of that game...rather than plaguing every mmorpg game forum begging for RPG aspects to be trashed to make things easier/more action/ ect
Its like...sport games started to bore me some years ago...so I stopped playing them...I didn't go onto the forums and start to complain that sport games should have quests or whatever.
A lot of these perpetually angry and disappointed gamers would do themselves and the remaining RPG community a great service finding a new game type to enjoy. They really should get steam, wait for a sale, and check out some other types of games...im guessing they'll never look back to mmorpgs.
Threads like this make me cringe. The OP was expecting space lazers and crazy stuff never before seen in a mmorpg...all he got was a really good FF game and hes pissed about it.
While I understand the sentiment
, I don't think it is the same faction of fans wanting both. As a fan of EQ1, I'm excited for EQN nonetheless.
Well, I am a huge Tera fan and the writing feels much better than Tera.
For example, I'm a person who usually reads every quest. Yes, every quest. Except in Tera I skip then. Most of them. Yet I read every one in this game.
The quality of writing in this game is much better. You are still killing x among of things but that's ok with me, I'd rather be sent to do battle and just stay there. Then again I'm a grinder at heart.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I really really try to read every quest since I originally come from playing PNP RPGs. I just cant seem to read the quest logs any more. I have gotten to the point that I am clicking through them like I was with Tera, Warhammer and other poorly written ones.
I feel that this game is an exception to the rule. I've read every quest so far as well. The text really does seem like it gives life to the World. Like you meet one NCP on some minor quest, and it turns out he is very important later on. I fyou don't pay attention, you miss those moments.
BTW - I hate seeing this horrid thread title. There should be a rule about such things.
I think you are pretty much spot-on in describing how involved it is. And yeah inventory space is an issue, that's why I am hoping to finish my dungeon main quest to reach the point where I get retainer so I can store there XD. (Had to sell a lot to npc for pennies
)
Like in your case, crafting is quickly overshadowing combat for me. Got lv18 lancer, lv13 archer, lv12 conjurer in the fighting aspect. Have 7 out of the 8 crafting classes at lv10-15, while my culinerian is at lv6 XD. I noticed that for leveling past level 10, in many cases it was a good idea to aim to get High Quality gear since any failed attempt was still decent exp.
Using crossclass abilities for crafters starts when you get one to lv15, so I am very much looking forward to discover all crosscrafting abilities I will have when I get my 8 crafting classes to 15. I very much felt like the level 15 carpentry cross-classable ability was really useful. I found level 10 leves to suck though for crafting classes expwise, but maybe that'll change at higher leves.
-----------------------------------------------
Also to describe crafting a bit better: in FFXIV, there are 8 crafting classes and 3 gathering classes. It is common for a crafting class to need resources from 1 gathering class and 3-4 other crafting classes to be able to be craft all available recipies. That's why it is considered to be "interdependent":
Crafting classes have their own unique stats of importance: craftmanship, control and crafting points (cp). So of course you will later on (i.e. starting at level 11 due to what quests give as reward equipwise; level 11 secondary tool is not awarded by quest and it helps your crafting a lot) have great use of crafted equips that is specific for crafting classes.
Crafting classes have their own skills which they gain as they level up or as they unlock cross-classable abilities. The skills are designed in such way that it rather quickly (definitely at lv15) becomes far from obvious what the best skill order is.
There are 2 versions of items as far as I know: regular ones and high-quality ones. Sometimes you want to focus on crafting regular ones and sometimes you want to focus on just getting high-quality ones. It depends on situation.
It is more difficult to craft items that is higher in crafting level (do not confuse with level required to equip item) than your current level of your craft class compared to crafting something that is at your or below your level. However somtimes you still want to do it to get certain items quicker.
Experience gain is also another massive aspect; to gain good experience you do not want to keep massproducing an item that is far too low in level compared to you. However, if you are aiming for high quality end-product you may want to spend some time getting the materials to high quality even if they are low level recipies.
I could go on and on, but this is enough from me for now XD.
Yeah crafting is like...combat kinda...you have a skill bar and skills ect...of course you can quick craft for spam crafting.
The questing in this game is average. I think that is basically what the OP is referring to...and yeah...its the same old.
Theres a lot of non average stuff going on about the game. For one...I don't mind standard quests when the world im doing them in is beautiful, the music is fantastic, and the game has a decent story to it. Also (imo) the games world has soul. Something that is usually lacking in games. The world feels alive. I dunno it doesn't have that soulless town/hub feel that a lot of games (rift for example...even GW2 kind had it) hard to explain I guess.
Really though, if you hate progression, and you hate same old quests..don't even bother with the game. If you don't mind the game actually does it all quite well...in fact might be the best incarnation to date of the tried and true mmorpg.
Next test is endgame and endgame raiding.
But the way they handle cross classing and multi classing, crafting, and the general feel of the game world...its quite above average. Its also nice to see a mmorpg that isn't afraid to include progression as well as not completely catering to the lowest common denominator. Yeah you need to learn the geography to use the fast travel, cant just click on a huge map to the location nearest all your quest indicators. Also some complexity in what cross skills you want to use and what off classes to level up.
Im not really the biggest themepark mmorpg fan...I do play most of them knowing ill be out quick. This game has a feel to it...a vibe...that I never got with all the wow clones.
Plus they have 220k-300k concurrent players online...game might be going places if endgame raiding is top notch and they add in some new areas, content, decent pvp, and player housing...and its done as well as the rest of the game.
Its all rosy now...but then ive seen endgame kill the best of games...so we got a few more weeks, probably a month...after than if endgame isn't top notch wheels might fall off like they did with rift (though rift was a chore to level up in and the world felt soulless and boring...so who knows)
That's fine. I'm used to people on forums arguing that something is bad by being as vague as possible. Half the opinions on this site can be translated into "It's bad because I said so eventhough I can't give any actual reasons why it's bad".
I'm not a Square fanboy. In fact, I pretty much ignored anything they did after FFX....I just hate that game. This is their first product I've played since then(watched some friends play FFXI and it just looked like really slow EQ).
The servers are crap I'll admit. But it will be fixed. Not because they are so amazing and can do no wrong, but because they're not going to let the second attempt at this game fail without a fight and it has enough popularity to be make it worth their while.
As far as it being a "broken product". Servers aside, the game is pretty much perfect. I'm not talking about personal game preferences. I mean how the game runs once you get past the login screen from hell.
I've managed to get in every night since Open beta started (just need to try to login nonstop for about 15minutes /sigh)even on one of the NA servers that hit full the first night. I've been in the launch of almost every major mmo of the last decade and I've never seen a game without bugs that runs as smoothly as FFXIV. I've yet to see a bug and I've never been disconnected. Once I login I can play perfectly for hours. I've never seen any weird graphical glitches, got stuck in a wall, fallen through the world, logged in to a world of naked people, seen any items with weird error message tooltips(Item#239848934894), flickering cutscenes, nothing. I can be doing a Fate with 50 people killing 10 mobs in a 10ft diameter circle and not even notice a sec of framerate loss(I'm running on the highest settings). They did an amazing job on this game.
I'll even give you one of my gripes about the game. The different zones are separated by load screens. I prefer a fully persistent world. But surprisingly the load screens are all about 1-2 second between zones.
I understand that everyone likes different things. If you don't like a game because of the game, great save your money. But if someone finds the game(not the server issue) interesting this game has a level of polish that puts some games 2-4 years old to shame.
Sorry I'm bored at work and got a little carried away...little longer reply than intended.