Thinking about a second try...Follow

Hey Guys,

im sure this has been thrown out there about 1000000000 times since the game was launched, and im sorry ahead of time. I was curious about the progress the Square-Enix team has made with FFXIV. Im in a rut with MMO's becoming very tired of SWTOR quickly. I've always been a fan of final fantasy but don't want to waste my time trying again if it's still in it's period of rebuild. I only lasted about 3 weeks into launch and could not stand it, so im sure good things have happened. If anyone has any input that would be awesome and totally appreciated :)

IMO since launch this game has changed massively. When I think back to those early days last September and compare it to now it can't be denied that many of the things that annoyed have been changed or at least tweaked. The GUI is much much better now, classes have changed and are more simple but better defined, there are more quests etc. As long as you don't have all DOM/DOW leveled to 50 you will have more than enough to do for months. Each patch so far has brought quite big changes but 1.21 is expected to be the biggest of all.

I run an Acer 4400+ dual core 2.3GHZ processor with an ATI Raedeon HD4350 and 15 megabits a second internet, windowed at 1920x1080 res, with the settings just below default and it runs smooth, NPC's load within 5 seconds, PC's load almost instantly.
There is no action delay.
No screen tearing.
Guildleves still suck.
No drag and drop.
And still crappy LS interface.

However, Square has come leaps and bounds in the progress of making this a legitimate game, rather than a paid for beta as it appeared to be in Sept. of last year. They added a Search Function to the Retainers, they are not making us pay full price. They are aware of what problems are still there and are working on fixing them which is more than you can say about 85% of the MMO's currently on the market.

Worth a second try?
Maybe, depending on how much you like Final Fantasy, it's still not a complete game and still has about 9 months to go before it is where it should have been at launch. However, the game is definitely playable now to an extent where you most likely will not get frustrated to a point of punching your monitor.
But, that does not mean you will love it. My advice, unless you feel like rolling the dice, wait till Version 2.0 comes out in about 7 months. Or if your antsy for to get out of the MMO rut, jump in at 1.22 in June/July when about 75% of the problems will be fixed, and get a jump on the Ver 2.0 people and the PS3 players.

Edited, Feb 24th 2012 9:28am by WeedjediRedux

The problem with your first post though, Xoie, is that the vast majority of the problems you lists are quite simply funumental design flaws in the construction of the game and engine. We're not talking about wrinckles you can iron out of the code in a few months, it takes a full reboot, which they are doing. That doesn't make the original mistakes "Ok", but expecting them to be fixed already is asking too much.

To answer the OP though, the team has done well with the time that they have had, relatively speaking. Things are improving at a marked pace and we're starting to see some pretty fundumental changes and improvements. It's still the same game; if you didn't like it before, I don't know if you'll like it now, but if you have the spare $9.99, it might be worth trying it out again. The overall flow and pacing of the game has picked up, and the amount of content to do at any given level is substantially higher1. I suppose what I am trying to say is that it is much better, but don't come in expecting miracles quite yet2.

1. With one caviat, alot of the current content is designed for groups. With the current population, it's pretty hard to find a pickup group, so most of the content is pretty much "locked" unless you find an active linkshell.
2. Most of us are putting our hopes in 2.0 for the miracle, where we will be seeing a completely reconstructed engine from the ground up, along with new content, environments (fixing the cnt-c cnt-v environments) among other things.

Edited, Feb 24th 2012 1:44pm by Hulan

It is pretty impressive the range of opinions on the game's current state.

Since the last time you said that you played the game they have added the following: (and this is not a concise list, and items listed are not necessarily complete, you may want to check the Compendium - Expected Updates sticky for more specifics)

Class redesign. All classes are much more focused, and have specific purposes in parties.

Mob re-work. All mobs are uniformed in difficulty. There are now mobs that are weak to elements, and weak to specific types of attacks that can give different classes better efficiency to fight.

System enhancements. Commands are not as laggy as they used to be, however, there are periodic issues where command lag starts occuring, annoying, but not game breaking (mostly a problem in Ifrit and Moogle fight).

Bazaar system implemented. You can now find items and purchase them without wandering around for an hour. Still not optimal, but it works for what it is.

Several quests have been introduced. Most are simple kill quests, but there are some storyline quests (my favorite series are the trickster quest chain out of Gridania).

There are achievements to be had. Many of which will take well over a year to obtain, and some which (specifically the lodestone live quest achievements) can only be obtained before the release of 2.0. Some achievements give items, others just give titles, and others are just good markers towards what you have accomplished. Giving the game some sense of purpose.

The crafting system has been reduced to work better with the people and availability of items. You no longer need twenty inventory slots to craft a single piece of gear.

Guilds have been reduced to stores and crafting enhancement centers. You can no longer collect Marks, and abilities have been switch over to purely auto-gain for classes (Jobs will have abilities you have to work for).

Mob difficulties have been adjusted. You can no longer have a group of 50 people kill a level 99 mob, as you can't hit one, and when you try they squish people in a single hit. You are not fighting within 5-10 levels of your job.

There is now a clear sound, sight, and sound/sight aggro for mobs that is easily identifiable, and to get to different locations in the world, you either have to brute force it with a large group of people, and a lot of death, or by being clever, and patient, and using mob aggro type to your advantage (Gatherers get a Sneak/Invis ability, but it is only good up to 10 levels above their rank, capping out at 50 right now, and comes with the down-side of having to walk).

There are Grand Companies, which comes with gear and leves and quests to advance the storyline a bit more then what was there.

There are strong-holds which offer an open-world place to farm for gear, and serve as a leveling place from ~40-50, and also used by many to create Materia. So, once you get a job to 40, there is almost always a party available, and if not, you can get one started pretty quickly.

There is now a party search feature. Unfortunately, it's been so long without one, and the population is so low and scattered by level, it is not frequently used yet.

Targeting has improved, however, there are still times and situations where targeting is still nearly impossible (different targeting modes help to alleviate this problem, but it is not fixed completely).

Chocobos... They are here, they are good.
Airships. A simple cut-scene form of travel, but it works for getting from town to town.

Anima regen has increased. Still run out way too quickly

You now can have a reserve of Guild leve attempts, and you can flag a leve as long as you have an attempt available. But they are shared between crafting and combat leves.

There are 2 dungeons to go through. yeah, not much (and technically there are 3 if you count the one that starts w/ an S I can never remember how to pronounce it). One at 25, the other at 45. Both are pretty fun, though none are level-capped (so most people take 1+50 in the level 25 with whoever needs it to quickly burn through the dungeon... Good way to get level 25-35 gear). The level 45 dungeon is just a pain. And fun.

Party size has been reduced down to 8. But many things work with parties of 2-4 (especially pre-40).

PowerLeveling is currently the preferred way to level to 30... Makes it hard to find a party pre-30. But it can be done.

Leve rewards have been reduced. So, if you are starting the game, it's harder to make money, but, money is still there to be made. And the exp is still good. It's about 10 leves a level at any level.

And there is more and there is less.

1.21 is coming March 3-6th and is supposed to bring a lot of change to the game as far as game-play is concerned. Jobs and class differentiation, player housing, a change to guildleves (no more Guardian Aspect and adding the bonus guardian aspect would have given into the leves themselves making the whole process simpler), a logoff bonus, etc...

Yeah, Lillitha and Xoie, you guys have the right to your opinions, but they are far less relevant than the opinions of people who actually play the @#%^ing game. There have literally been multiple updates since the last time either of you played, and there's about to be yet another substantial one to which you will no doubt share your wealth of assumptions rather than firsthand knowledge. Why is it so hard for you to understand why people find it annoying when you share your 2 cents about a game you haven't played since the middle of 2011? If you believe otherwise you are just retarded and no amount of discussion or spirited banter will help you with that.

OP- I just started playing the game about 6 weeks ago (for the first time). Since I'm not butt-hurt by SE like Lillitha and Xoie, I can tell you what I think of the game without any old, resentful feelings tainting my opinion. Is the game as good as XI was in its heyday?- No. Is it fun enough to be worth ~$10 a month for the current subscription (if you pay for a 6 month package)?- Yes. I am also feeling pretty optimistic that it will continue to improve as Yoshi and his team gear for 2.0. As a previous poster mentioned, some of the issues the game still has won't be able to be resolved until they switch the engine. All in all, make your own decision, but if you scan through all the "I've just returned, here is my impression" threads you'll notice a theme:

People who actually play the @#%^ing game say it's fun and worth $10 a month.

People who don't play and haven't for quite some time will continue to sh*t all over it regardless of the fact that the game they are commenting on was FFXIV last @#%^ing summer.

Sorry for my language, it's just hard to fathom some people's disconnect from basic @#%^ing logic. If you don't play a game, how can you have an informed, relevant comment about it...

Edited, Feb 24th 2012 7:33pm by ChaChaJaJa

Su,

It's better sometimes to just ignore posts like this. Chances are if a poster can't display their point of view without giving a hostile tone, it's just best to leave it alone or report it.

However, I do agree that many people who do take issues with FFXIV are sitting on the sidelines playing the wait and see game.

And I also agree that as a consumer, I like to hear both sides to products, the good and the bad. To me, it helps me make an educated decision on a product before purchasing. I also like to see out friends and family to see if they had experiences with certian products. Of course, with any product you see information on there is the good and the bad, but you can always tally up the pro's and the con's of products.

Hopefully the Op can make an informed decision based on the posts he or she see's here.

Op, may I also make a suggestion, please check out the official FFXIV Lodestone Forums, you may not be able to post without an account, however, there are people there that pay to play that also have varied opinions. Try sifting through the boards there as well. Again, if all else fails just play for a month, again, you'll only be down 10$ for giving the game a shot again.

To append to what I said previously, the single most negative thing I can say about FFXIV right now has already been displayed on this thread. Namely, the community has become pretty toxic. I am no exception, quite often I find myself wanting to strangle some sense into my fellow forum goers, and merely by posting this post I have once again waded into that same morass. I like to believe that in this case it is worth it though to point out to the OP what I believe is the game's most dangerous failing at the moment. If you avoid the forums entirely, it's pretty safe, but things can get pretty nasty around here these days. I long for the days when we can just throw rotten vegetables at each other about whether the Wall of Justice is really cheating.

As has been pointed out, is the game worth $10? Yes. Is it worth $10 every month? That's up to you, and you'll never know for sure without trying it out. It isn't too terribly difficult to set up payment for only one month, then let it expire if you don't like it.

Edited, Feb 24th 2012 11:52pm by Hulan

Really wish someone had told me that we were only allowed to give our opinions if they happened to agree with yours. Could I have a list of them for future reference? I'd hate to post the wrong opinion again.

People are here waiting for the 2.0 relaunch of the game, much like they were here for the original launch of the game.

People speculated and stated what they wanted to see in the game for September 2010. Now they are talking about what they want to see in 2013. Most everyone who hates the game as it is now is not here to troll and some us even still have subscriptions despite our misgivings. SE does read these forums and they certainly have an interest in the opinion of those who don't play the game because they are the ones they want to lure back.

When and if the situation becomes hopeless, you can have your empty FFXIV forum in peace. Until then, expect a little controversy.

Many of the posters have only recently stopped playing since last month. Myself included. Also, many of us have played for more than 6 weeks. We have been playing since closed and open beta. So that is why many of the pessimists (I guess is what you could call us), feel we need to voice. We have played through every patch up until the most recent that is now delayed.

So sorry if one could find our opinions off setting. Just cause one plays right now or has started recently, doesn't make ones opinions more valid than one who has just recently quit or one who has on an X level job. Everyone is entitled to their pov, and yes it can be challenged, but just cause one values their pov over another doesn't make the other parties pov less valid.

Aww DM, depends on which section of zam you are talking about :)

The WoW forums seems very helpful when it comes to WoW. And less high strung :)

It just seems like FF fans are a breed of their own :).

Edited, Feb 25th 2012 10:45am by LillithaFenimore

It's a good point. There hasn't been much change since billing started. Unless the newly added Goobbue mounts are a whole world of entertainment that FFXIV wasn't capable of previously.



Would you believe me if I told you that you can log into FFXIV and not receive any achievements for doing so?

Edited, Feb 25th 2012 2:04pm by Xoie

OP, server merges are scheduled to occur soonish (forget the exact date) to absorb the populations of some of the really small servers into viable numbers and some folks have been speculating about the post-merger server populations in this thread:

http://www.zam.com/forum.html?forum=152&mid=1329764322322962778

Possibly, but to "play" for 3-4 months and nothing to show for it says something about what you're doing in the game.

Edited, Feb 25th 2012 4:09pm by UltKnightGrover

No one's questioning whether you get achievements or not but last achievement was 9/29/2011 and nothing since means really not playing at all. Unless you count logging in and using FFXIV as a glorified MSN to have a 3D chat.

I've read the recent post and Lillitha congratulations on the upcoming birth of your child; no disrespect on the length of your play time as personally I take the opinions of all people.

The only people I generally don't take the opinion of is those that quit at the start or have never even actually played past level 5 or 10; believe me there are a LARGE number of posters (albeit ones without a XIV sig) that actually only bought the game, logged in for 2 levels and quit. Yet they have the most excellent rated posts here.

I'm with Doctor Mog on this one however lol. We should all be more constructive in the way we talk or else we are just trading stories on how more retarded the next person can be in what they say.

Nope I'm more referring to people that are level 2. One job and hating on the game. :P

Edit: breed of own, yes that's it lol... I'm off >.>

Edited, Feb 25th 2012 7:45pm by Elionara

BTW, I know this is a bit off topic, but I did go through my achievments, and I thought they did log when you did leve quests and such :/ Oh well, would have loved achievments for the # of times I have killed Do-do related leves quest mobs :D

The sad part is you will find more mature discussion here compared to official forums... That's saying alot about the people playing... lol

I rage a lot in there because of the level of stupidity I see :(

Lillitha :) One thing I recommend at least from my own opinion is to at least get all the event gear while you can because come 2.0 it won't exist for the most part especially goobbue and such. If you want to join karnak I'll even get you level 30 again in 3.5 hours just to get it if you already haven't :P

Edit: By event gear I mean like swimsuits and things like that, they've changed them each year. Makes me sad I missed getting the new dragon ones on my wifes account. She doesn't play at all because of how it launched and is waiting for 2.0 but until that time I get all the special events for her, PL while she's away for a bit ^^;

Edited, Feb 25th 2012 10:07pm by Elionara

There's an achievement for levequests, you need to talk to an NPC in game to unlock it.

I don't think the official boards are indicative of the people playing FFXIV, but rather the posters themselves.

Decent people don't even bother going there. The subject matter very narrowly applies to FFXIV and FFXIV alone, and almost any references to other topics (current events, comparisons to other MMOs, etc.) ends up getting shut down quick. So all that's left is a big food fight between control freaks who want to impose their vision of play so their "immersion" doesn't get ruined.

You might wanna check out Tera, it's 2 months away yet still but it's very very pretty and you can do everything in the game there is to do at endgame with 2-3 people. Might enjoy it more than wow and will either give you what you're looking for or something to tide you over till v2.

Pre-ordered GW2 :) Aion is going F2P soon :)

... Try it for 10 dollars.. not like the universe is going to collapse if you're 10 dollars poorer..

Personally I'd wait till it's closer to 2.0 to play again, because if you start playing now, you will be burned out long before 2.0 is even released.

OR Invest in a steam account... For 10 bucks you can get a plethora of game more worthy of your time.. Wait what kind of pc gamer are you if you don't have a steam account @.@?

Also TERA online is also looking to be a good investment at this point.. based on taste and financial situations either Guild Wars 2 or Tera online will scratch all of your future MMO itches..

Torchlight 2 is also coming soon, and borderlands 2 is somewhere over the horizon...

Edited, Feb 28th 2012 8:00pm by nick2412

Edited, Feb 28th 2012 8:00pm by nick2412

I've been wondering the same thing, so I looked around a bit... here's some good info.

:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(software)

http://store.steampowered.com/

Edited, Feb 28th 2012 7:36pm by LebargeX