Yes, I know it isn't where it should be. But I'm always dreaming of a better future for it, so for those who are interested, I guess this thread can hold all relevant info. For the current status of the game though, due to the disasters in Japan right now all online services provided by Square-Enix has been suspended for the following week. More updates will be added later in the week. Hopefully, everyone on the dev team made it out okay, and are ready to get back into fine-tuning the game.
That online game?
It's shit.
I bought the limited edition of this for PC last summer and have yet to play it since. I feel terrible, since I was keeping up with updates for it for MONTHS before it's release. But overall I think square has has one major issue, and that is their programming department. Their artists as always are top notch and honestly I'll buy their games for only that aspect, it's just that with this and XI there is a noticeable amount of problems with the interface and how things are systematically done. All that aside, I really do want to play this game again, I barely did anything in it at all. When does the ps3 version come out? I also send my heart out to Japan right now and wish them the best in recovery, although I will admit they got out of this alot better than they could have. They were well prepared.
PS3 release has been pushed back till "Beta phase 5" is completed. That being said, it's F2P right now, so if you feel like wasting time just go ahead and hop on. I'm on Saronia playing a taru (screw the new names), so if you don't have any established communities already look me up.
I think I had my characters on a server made already, since I got all the promotional items. But we'll see if I manage to get back on. Yeah I liked the old names better myself haha. But I do have another question, have they added or talked of adding any sort of summons to the game yet?
Pet classes are not likely to be added with how the game is currently set up. However, they ARE looking for ways to fit in traditional FF job titles into the game. Whether this means change in class name, additional specialization trees, or other specifics, is currently unknown. Changes that were added recently has already changed drastically how the game feels and plays in the past 2 months (time when the new dev team took over). SP gains has been sped up greatly, and crafting isn't nearly the chore it once was. The main thing I'm still waiting on though is goddamn chocobos. I'm quite frankly tired of running everywhere.
Oh wow no Chocobos yet? I was also surprised when the game first came out, I didn't think it was neccasary for them to completley change the game like they were. The classnames were changed, and even their roles a little. I can't say I had a large variety of MMO experience, I played WoW for 5 years and I played XI for a couple months. So coming from at least WoW where the interface was refined to near perfection, it took some getting used to in the XIV beta from what I remember. Seeing where your friends were wasn't as easy as just shift-clicking their names, at least not then. What FF has going for it; are familiar themes presented in new worlds and stories. They should have stuck with that, but from what you're saying it seems like they might go back to it.
The state of FFXIV currently:
Socially-As poorly as it was when first released. People have no motivation to communicate outside of their LS, group outside of their LS, or do anything outside of their LS. The only thing that you can probably do with random PUGs is Behest, which is retardedly crowded around Ul'Dah
Economically-Gil is still ridiculously abundant. Shard prices have dropped due to new alchemy recipes. Search functions on market wards makes finding what you want at the price that's right alot easier.
Progression-Like stated before, SP gains have gone alot faster. At 1-20 level range, a 3 leve link group can get 1k+ SP per kill with Guardian's Favor on. Depending on group size and leve, you can maintain a high paced SP gain all the way to level cap. There is also talks of removing physical level since it's ridiculously redundant and messes with how stat calculation goes.
Combat-Same old, same old, besides the fact some abilities got nerfed and some buffed. Enmity is still screwed up, so be careful when buffing in the middle of combat.
Crafting-Difficulty has been adjusted all across the board, and crafting high level synths actually is more beneficial with the risk of breaks than doing lower level synths. SP gains here has also been increased drastically, I'm able to get ~500 SP per craft on appropriate level synths.
Gathering-Mining and Botany is still shitty as ever, tough as hell to grind without leves. The ability that boosts your speed if no node is in range had its cooldown reduced to 30 sec so you can have constant quickening (provided no node is near you).
That's all the major changes I can think of right now, and while you can see there's still lots of changes that still needs to be made, the new dev team is hard at work to make it a truly successful game.
The game is a gigantic mess. Though it may be aesthetically pleasing, it otherwise is pretty much a terrible game.
Like Bargadiel, I purchased the game on release, as well as participated in the beta. The last time I played was around Christmas, and it still was the buggy, glitchy, freezing mess that I began with. I could write paragraphs of how much of a wreck the game is, though unfortunately after numerous rants I hardly have the enthusiasm.
It is disappointing, as the game seemed to have so much potential, but in the end it was just oozing with so much disarray that it was basically unplayable. Though some of the problems may have been improved upon since I last played, it still was inexcusable to launch a game with so many. For example, unstable combat, everything is soloable, parties are near useless and the social aspect of the community seemed almost dead; crafting is stressed so exhaustively the game might as well make it its main focus, if it didn't all ready; physical levels seemed unnecessary and almost game-breaking; retainer system is so laughably bad it makes me wonder why they even thought of it in the first place (though apparently this has been fixed somewhat.); mountains upon mountains of glitches and unresponsive gameplay; lazy copy-and-paste environments, locations not progressive in change but separated by an awkward black void that seemingly teleported you from a desert wilderness to a lush forest; terrible optimisation; and just by majority a game that was not enjoyable to play.
At this point I have lost almost all interest. Though they may be working night and day in fixing it, the game is so much of a convoluted fiasco that I haven't really the patience in it anymore.
Last edited by Lavender; March 14th, 2011 at 03:56 PM.
Not to mention that if it ever gets fixed, it won't be worth the money anyone would have invested in this game. I guess FFXI's shoes were just too gigantic to fill.
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I don't like MMOs at the best of times. In fact, the only one I've played that I can stand is Guild Wars, since it actually has a storyline, and I'm a whore for a game with an actual story. From what I've seen, FFXIV doesn't have anything that would make me want to play it, especially after hearing what Spoony had to say about it.
Crafting is painfully boring.
Gathering at least has a somewhat non spamming mini-game with it, but grinding with crafting is just standard x forever.
I had an idea where they replaced that mini-game with one similar to gathering, you have a circle with fixed/moving targets, depending on difficulties, that you're to hit with a moving cursor, but I doubt they'll change it.
And, as always, there's nothing to do D:
I'm not really a MMO person, but Final Fantasy XI was my first one and I played it on and off for about a year. I really enjoyed it, but couldn't warrant the monthly fees with how little I was actually playing it by the end of the year. I had really high hopes for XIV, but I admit I was disappointed from the start when the characters and races were just blatant copy-and-pastes of the ones in XI. Then the bad news starting pouring in from all over.
I'd like to see it get it's act together, but even if it does, I doubt it will be able to regain the audience it lost when it first came out. If it can manage to fix itself up within a year's time or so, I'll consider giving it a shot when they release the PS3 version.
I'll try not to white knight things. I know it's a gigantic mess right now, and people have gotten a bad first impression of it. That being said, saying that the FF MMOs don't have a good storyline can be considered to be a false statement. Anyone who played FFXI can tell you that the plot of the main storyline missions can be very compelling, and is on par with the rest of the FF series. Particularly the Chains of Promathia expansion, that xpac had some of the best quests and mission stories. With the quests I've done so far, I'm of the opinion that XIV is just as good as XI in the story department. The only issue they have right now is the time you have to spend grinding inbetween each major plot. With current SP updates though, it's no worse than the rate you can do XI's nation missions if you were starting from scratch (this was prior to level cap removal on battlefields and level sync, of course).
They do have issues with the storyline objectives though. As awesome parleying is (HA!), at times the NPC can be a total bitch, and own you in 1 move right before the end. Some times the quests also force you to go to places that are surrounded by extremely high level mobs. If you know how damage calculation works in XIV, this is pretty much a death sentence at times. The early missions are pretty much "Go to X, find Y NPC, watch Z cutscene", making it incredibly boring at times. There are a few mildly interesting missions, like the rank 26 mission where you Solid Snake your way to the objective. I found it retarded though, since I just grinded up to 30 and ran past the guards regardless of where they were looking.
That being said, if you found this game to be unsatisfying, wait until the PS3 release before making final judgment on it. Otherwise, it's a pretty interesting experience seeing how the new dev team is working at making it a better game.
What I noticed more than anything was how Square really cares about their customers. I mean, so far nobody has paid a cent monthly for the game because they wanted to fix key issues. Even World of Warcraft was subject to problems back in it's day.
I wouldn't say that. Do remember when the game was in testing, they hardly cared for any of the players' suggestions, much of which referenced key issues that ended up breaking the game on release.Originally Posted by Bargadiel
I feel they "care" more so now because they are losing money for a bad game, and one that is widely considered as such.
Last edited by Lavender; March 20th, 2011 at 03:22 PM.
That's hilarious, SE caring about their customers. If you've played XI, you know that SE gives diddly about their customers. Prime examples: consistent failure to balance damage to TP ratio of 1-hander damage dealers, failure to make certain merits groups worthwhile (NIN got shafted hard here with really lousy Cat 2 merits), failure to consider boss difficulty until they were called out on it, failure to state flat out that they're making an unbeatable boss (SE says: if you beat it, you glitched it, so suck it). If it weren't for the fact that XIV got such lousy reviews and had so much money sunk into it they wouldn't have put it on life support like this.
That being said, ~24 hours as of this post until servers are back up or we get new reports on status.
What is man? A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk... Have at you!
Eh, if they didn't care then they would have billed for the past few months. Whether or not they care in a positive light is another deal alltogether.
It's ~8:30 AM Mar 22nd in Japan right now, so I'm spamming F5 like a boss on the News/Updates/Maintenance page. Though, I suspect the servers will be down for a while yet.
Update on status: services will resume on the 25th, provided that the situation does not worsen. 3 days, cheers.
Last edited by jwang; March 22nd, 2011 at 09:19 AM.
What is man? A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk... Have at you!
Servers are coming back up, just waiting on the login server and we'll be back in business.
What is man? A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk... Have at you!
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