Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn- Beta and Release Information

If anyone is wondering I'll be on the Coeurl server.

Be rolling a character there later today. (Bohemond Antioch.) 

Hope to see guys there.

Light Exequiam :o for some reason, Exequim was taken. =( dunno how. I just made that word up like a week ago during my studies.

Well I managed to make a character. Liking the game's graphics a lot tbh.

However, Onionbro, the game's combat is as cheap as MMORPGs can get.
5 minutes and all of my previous questions have been answered. All negatively.

I started as Archer. There was some sort of water spirit and black lizard. Water spirit shot at me. Shot went through tree and hit me. I used Sprint, next shot missed me by five meters. Still got damage. -__-
Black lizard lunged at me. Missed me. Still got damage. I was backing off from it while keeping shooting at it. It suddenly turned away and returned to it's original location and any and all damage I tried to do it was promptly ignored and instead of damage numbers, the word INVINCIBLE appeared above the lizard isntead. -__-
Archer can use only auto-aim and it's range is pathetic. Speed of normal attack is laughable, so I have to spam abilities. -__-

Switch to Gladiator.

Didn't notice anything on small enemies, so I moved to some giant turtle. It's a turtle, who cares it has 10 more levels then me. Turtle used bait. Sentiel moved to turtle's back. Bite still did damage. -__-
Sentiel near death, used Sprint to gtfo. Turtle bite. Bite misses Sentiel by 15 meters. Sentiel died. -__-
Got lucky I guess, cos there was a FATE event going on. I don't really know what was happening. I just saw about 20, or so guys pummeling and spamming some very resistant lvl 5 enemy, so I joined. So like...bosses and the like just have ridiculous numbers in stats and that's all? Button mashing and ability spamming fest? No skill, other than choosing the right ability and timing invloved? -__-

After the battle system of Souls and Dragon's Dogma, this is serious dissapointment and I must say it's some cheap *** battle programming. I expected that tbh, every MMORPG is the same. However I wanted it to be different. To be better. Seems I'll have to wait for someone to make a MMORPG with good combat system still.

My lady told me it's ok, cos it's the start. Well, if the start of the game is not to my liking, the rest will be the same, especially if my problem is with mechanics of the game. They don't change all of a sudeen. They'll hardly let me manually aim my bow to snipe enemies from 100 meters, or explain to them that if their attack misses me it shouldn't damage me after I reach some breakpoint in the game.

The game seems to have some nice story behind it and has great design. Especially moogles are very cute. :3
But all I care about is gameplay and that's the department where the game failed me, even if everything else is perfect.

My lady loves it, so I'll let her play it on my PSN. She loves doing the white mage stuff and going around healing and helping people. ^^

Welp.

Onion Knight wrote:Welp.

Have a +

Lol I'm looking forward to the game still.

I'm a fanboy, criticism is just not gonna dull me till i can see it for myself

It's not criticism per say. The game is great, it's just not what I want it to be. Basically, I'm looking for a MMORPG with similar combat to Souls, or preferably Dragon's Dogma. That's why I had all those questions. And given by Onionleft's answers, it seemed that FF XIV is the game I'm looking for.

Turns out, it isn't. -__-

if you expect an MMO to have the combat of a single player game where combat is pretty much 60% of the games concern compared to FFXIV where it's probably a much smaller emphasis, you're asking a bit much.

Things I Hate:

The Map. That is map terrible. I can't right click out and find my quests. I have to play "connect" the areas to find my character without having to use "focus on camera character".

The Combat. Though I love WoW, GW2, and every other traditional. There is like this weird thing where you have to sort of follow "this rotation" to achieve Ultimate dps or healing. Well, don't get me wrong that is how GW2 and WoW is. But this sort of is holding your hand for it.

Input Delay that a lot of F2P MMOs share. Such as clicking quest objects and items. This is sort of made up for by the auto-loot system.

Misguided Tag System: Early on in the game, you can attack anything with someone else already attacking it. You will still get credit. But then there is these quests where the Mob code won't give you credit unless you "summon" first. But it doesn't say that. The quest will usually say: Slay this mob at this spot. 

Just a few things that bother me.

I love mostly everything else. The combat does have pros as well. I also love a lot of the input actions fluidity for attacks and defensing.

Serious_Much wrote:if you expect an MMO to have the combat of a single player game where combat is pretty much 60% of the games concern compared to FFXIV where it's probably a much smaller emphasis, you're asking a bit much.

I expect nothing, but demand everything.

I want MMORPG with combat of a single player game because I intend to play the game, thus the combat will fill the majority of the time I spend with the game. I don't play MMOs to have a glorified 3D avatar for chatting. I enjoy the company, but want the gameplay. None of the current MMOs have that. All they are is a grind and farm fest focused not on gameplay, but on social aspects. Thus when you play the game with minimal interactions with other player, you'll soon find the game to be very dull and boring, because the gameplay is just that.

Sentiel wrote:It's not criticism per say. The game is great, it's just not what I want it to be. Basically, I'm looking for a MMORPG with similar combat to Souls, or preferably Dragon's Dogma. That's why I had all those questions. And given by Onionleft's answers, it seemed that FF XIV is the game I'm looking for.

Turns out, it isn't. -__-

I know this has little to do with FFXIV, but an MMO with some pretty good combat is Vindictus.

On an unrelated but more related to the thread note,  I spent the entirety of Friday and Saturday playing a pugilist and loved it. I admit that the combat is very spammy and kind of repetitive, but I still had a lot of fun (this coming from someone who has never really enjoyed FF as a series). I'm gonna be bored without the beta to play for a while now

Yeah...not gonna get PC to play MMOs though. I got consoles for playing games and PC for work and would love to keep it that way.

I did play Rising Force Online on PC with a few friends and my lady and it was good fun, until you hit the "post-game" where everything costs millions and you gotta farm for days just to get something. Of course, you could just buy the stuff with real money. I don't think so.
I tried many MMORPGs since then, but all of them ended up the same. Either monthly subscription, or Free2Pay where you can't get, nor do anything decent without inhuman time sacrifice, or paying with cash.

Back to FF XIV. Seems that it has full server maintenance since yesterday. My lady couldn't log in for a whole day. Poor thing went to play LIMBO instead. Never knew the game is so...detailed. O_O

The beta is down till next weekend. As per schedule. 

Beta happens only on weekends. They update the game and fix bugs during the week.

Oh. That sucks. Thanks for the info Onionbro. ^^

Well hopefully the latency that started happening on the Saturday will be fixed. I think that and the transport ship from Ul'dah to Limsa Lominsa not working were the only major bugs that I accounted at least.

So far it has been 'decent' and I say that as a XIV player. Some of the changes to the early game I am not a fan of. 

Negatives:
-lack of group content, no armoury system and no leve quests till you reach level 10.
-locking classes to certain cities. Hampers group play till level 15
-cannot access other cites till level 15.
-The mini-map still isn't great.
-Can no longer teleport your friends to areas they haven't explored.
-NPC repair system needs some tweaks.
Positives:
-The combat is most definitely an improvement over the broken mess of the original. However it takes awhile for it to become more tactical and less 'spammy' (around about level 20) when grouping starts to come into it's own.
-The world map- I like the XII esque layout. And much prefer it over the coypaste open world of the original. It makes navigation so much easier with landmarks to pick out when your travelling
-The hunting log.- Encourages exploration of the areas.
-The excellent story, soundtrack and innovating crafting system from the original remain mostly unchanged.
-The pc version looks even better than the original (if that is even possible.) 

So far I'm content. Hopefully the adding of more and more content in phase 3 and 4 will give me a much more clearer picture of the changes the game brings.

I'd still prefer to see a slightly different combat. At least a DCUO level.
But to heck with it. I just wanna explore the non combat parts and find out if I can be player NPC. You know, open a shop somewhere (like literally having a store) and do a blacksmith, or something. Would be nice.

You can play the game (after level 10) without doing combat (probably at its most effective after the level 15 main quests when you unlock the airship pass.) 

You can open a store (with an NPC 'retainer') in the market wards of Ul'dah (not in phase 3 I think)

You can also buy a house and turn it into a store (again with a 'retainer' and again not in phase 3)

Right now you could just level up the crafting classes and make your money crafting and repairing other players equipment.

I'm not sure when the market wards and the housing system will be implemented: but I would think during the beta at somepoint (maybe even later on in phase 3.) I will ask around for you.

No need friend. My lady plays it most of the time. A bit dissapointed with the weekend only thing, but it's a beta.

I just wanted to see how the game really is, to "feel" it per say. 
I don't plan to do anything too serious, since all data will be deleted after Beta is over.

Well with the short time I had my hands on it for PS3, I rather enjoyed it to be honest and that is saying a lot since I haven't enjoyed an FF game since FF10.

I didn't get very far this weekend, but it was fun. The game seems to hold alot of promise for the future.

Maybe there should be a list of our characters in the op.

Sentiel Warheit lvl 5
Arin Rotheart lvl 3

Both on Cerberus (EU) server.

Not sure about levels, especially since we both just wander around the town and chat with NPCs and do meaningless quests.

One thing about the game. I would really like to be able to see how a weapon, or equipment looks before buying it. Something like a preview option. It sucks when you spaned your hard earned money to buy a new armor and find out it's for a mage. Yes, you can wear it, even though you're not a mage, but it still looks silly in it.

You can tell the difference easily. Just look in the stats of the equipment you're buying.

-Mage gear (a.k.a robes) has boosts to stats like mind and intelligence.

-Light armour has boosts to stats like strength and dexterity.

-Heavy armour has much higher defences than all other armour types as well as being limited to use by the Gladiator/Marauder classes and the Paladin/Warrior jobs .

But I agree that some sort of previewer for how it looks would be a handy addition.

Bohemond Antioch lvl 15 Coeurl server.

Duh Dh Level 5
Malboro Server