First ImpressionsFollow

I agree. More importance on connection rather than innovation. And the FF series has that in spades.

I also think people are confusing originality and innovation. You can be innovative but still copy someone else.

Much like Blizzard copied from EQ, and put their own spin on the genre; this is what ARR is doing right now.

FATES do remind me of GW2 quests, but they are done in a FF sort of way. And if all things were equal if there was a game with FF lore and public quests or GW 2 with the same public quests, I'd play the FF game because of the story.

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My First Impressions

I'm only level 10 right now, but I only really have positive things to say about it.

Story: Good. I don't want to say too much and to be honest I've only been half paying attention not to spoil it for myself. It's just like FFXI or 1.0 in this regard.

Quests: OK. Yes, they are very simple, but they are relatively quick and filler mostly. Rewards are where they should be.

Combat: I picked Gladiator first because I thought it would be boring, but when I started to fight for the first time I was amazed at how fun and fast it was. Maybe because it was compared to 1.0, but I really think the combat so far at level 10 is fine. It's a tad slow compared to other games but I think the pace is fine.

Visuals: Areas are completely changed for the better. The textures don't look as sharp as 1.0, but I'd rather have variety and character of areas than the best textures. The new areas are really, really well done.

Accessibility: It's very accessible.

Good Tutorials: They're fine, though I turned them off.

Crafting: Didn't craft, and usually don't in most games.

Pace of level progression: Pretty good, it seems a bit quick now, I would actually like it to be a bit slower but it's been fine so far.

FATES: Pretty fun, although I'd like to see a contribution meter or some cool gear come with it. I don't know if it does this in later FATES or not.

Fun: It's as fun as any new MMO on the market right now. It's a drastic change from 1.0 which was the antithesis of fun. GW2 might have been a bit more fun in the beginning, but again it was surface level. The story combined with the gameplay is what is setting ARR apart.

Uniqueness of systems: They aren't unique as much as it is Yoshi's spin on them. Like other's have stated I don't know if I'd weigh this as heavily as other things.

Music: Very, very good. I'm not joking when I say that it has the best music of any MMO today. And I've only been in Ul'dah and in and around Thanalan.

Overall rating: Around 7-8. By contrast 1.0 was a 3-4. GW2 at release was about an 8-9, but a month later what does that mean, when I don't want to play it anymore? Conversely I'd give WoW an 8 and FFXI a 7.5, but I played those games the longest because there was something about them.

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Of course this is just the 3rd Phase of beta and it seems like a finished product to me.

It reminds me of FFXII, and FFXI and a little bit like WoW. Fighting is a bit more deliberate.

Nothing more to say really. I think Yoshi has done a great job. Sure we can quibble on more of the mechanics of the game and what should or shouldn't be, but I think this is the best start I think the game could get.

HOLY sh*t! INVENTORY!

I didn't look at all, but there is 100 slots, and Crystals have their own place, and gear has its own place.....I busted a nut, figuratively speaking of course.

But jesus....and this isn't including potential for expansions later in the game (such as storage/safes/expanded sacks.)

I mean Holy sh*t inventory.

^ thats me excited.

I was thinking man I should sell some of this junk I gotta be near capping on inventory.....no 18/100 gear sets to level 10 for 2 classes, and a pile of crystals....never need to juggle inventory again...THANK YOU SE.

Edited, Jun 22nd 2013 4:53pm by rdmcandie

Just noticed quest items go into key items bag......man after playing 11 for 10 years I seriously thought Item counts didn't go over 80.

Edited, Jun 22nd 2013 4:55pm by rdmcandie

Ya I have noticed that due to the readily available meds you can last a lot longer than you would (comparatively). Its really a stark contrast to 11. You can either group with people and not need meds or you can solo it our with meds. It really allows for a more casual element to take place, and isn't so cost intensive (like XI) in the sense the investment can offset the reward.

I am pretty impressed actually and that is saying a lot (anyone who frequents XI forums know my stance on XIV). SE seems to not only have pillaged all the hate mail for XIV but taken on some 10 years worth of hatemail in regards to XI as well. Its nice to see them actually committed to making a game that caters towards all styles of play, and all volumes of play time.

(yes I know that the community will gravitate towards optimal, but at least from what ive experienced if you have a few friends you can accomplish some cool fights.)

My one wish is that they would possibly tone the mobs to be group exp favorable. It seems that once you are a couple levels below that regardless the items you just get smashed. I honestly liked EXP framing in XI, and hope that they can work some magic in allowing group environmental EXP to be a viable option comparable to solo/lowman questing. (probably my only gripe so far.)

Edited, Jun 22nd 2013 6:20pm by rdmcandie

That's pretty standard now, not to allow resurrection in combat. Usually there will be some super high level healer ability that allows a combat res either X number of times per encounter or on a long cooldown (10 min+)

As for complaints about the game.. I only have a couple and they're nitpicky. The only one I have that's really bugging me is the quest flow feels awful. I know people deride games like WoW that lead you by the hand from hub to hub, but there's a reason they do that. I spend a ton of time in XIV running back to a quest giver just to be told to run back to where I was just at and do something else. Sometimes this happens 3 or 4 times. I'd also like it if Levequests would show up on my map without me having to ask specifically for their map location from the quest journal. These are small though, and I can live without them.

What games don't allow resurrects in combat?

The recents MMORPGs I've played all did.

Brought back great newbie feelings of ffxi.

Oh I didn't know you can't get raise in this game. No reraise equipment, or reraise potion? That's what we used in epic ff11 battles. sometimes theres not enough time for whm to go around raising everyone.

I've died on quests, not knowing what to expect, and not being prepared for it.


PS3 TARGETING SUCKS. That's my first impression. I can target a little bit better with the tab button on the
keyboard. Using the d-pad hurts after awhile and with FATE's its almost impossible to target a mob.

I hope to make a macro, when I learn what to call the mobs.


Pressing R1 and the Square, circle etc buttons, hurts after a while. Might have to make macros for that too.

Oh there are gobbies that agro, and that's fun /train to you want it? Low levels don't get much agro.

I had a lot of trouble with the Gridinia lvl 15 story mission. I heard a few stratagies to beat it. One was "bring potions and antidotes!". Another was "Run away for a bit, then come back".

The one thing i have noticed is positioning. I finally beat that lvl 15 mission on my squishy CNJ.....and i didn't use a single potion. I didn't even use an antidote when the mages pet hit me with that nasty poison.

Here's what i did:

I positioned myself to not get aggro during those 2 waves of nasty pointy lances. Then, when the pet came out.. i switched to all out ATTACK!]
I used my cleric stance to up my magic attack. I used the ARC ability that gives +20% attack (magic or physical) and burned that thing down enough for....well, i don't want to spoil it.

My point here is.. There isn't enough data about this game to come up with concrete solutions to big fights. But i'd like to think that we are all chipping in.

Not everything's perfect, very likely I will not be playing anymore... very sad indeed, been on FFXI for 6 years straight since PC launch, now my FF MMO adventure is truly over. I waited, I hoped but it's truly over now.

UI is awesome, loved it.

Fighting was ... boring but.. not a big minus.

Story line is fine but the introduction was kind of... hallow. I don't expect NPC's actually talk during normal play but at least in cutscenes or movies... but nope, nada.

The graphics are horrid. To the other poster who is calling people liars, if I meet you in real life, I'd beat the **** out of you. FFXIV 1.0 seriously put my rig on the test and gave it a run for it's money. I mean, I couldn't even crank that **** up on Max settings without crashing and you can see from my sig that the machine ain't half bad.

Now... well, I set everything on Max in terms of graphics, other than the character model, everything makes me wanna throw up. You can say what you want but I know I'm not exaggerating. And I ******* dare you to post an image of FFXIV 1.0 graphics turned on to high or max, then compare that with FFXIV: ARR on max, I ******* dare you to tell me there isn't a difference. In fact, the difference is night and day.

The lighting is beyond weird. Everything is so goddamn bright.. it just seems like... really, the character models skins look like clay.

The new armor designs are flat out silly and disgusting. Mage robes looks like some kind of bath towel. Some of the melee equipment just looks like rubber pads... sigh.. I just don't know how to explain it. Someone should post some 1.0 armor designs and compare it to the ARR and you'll see what I mean. It looked like somebody's cousin got hired to do the costume design or something.... severely lacking... artistic details. Again, maybe this ties into graphical performance if armors are too sophisticated (lacking texture capabilities)?? And don't tell me it's going to get better on later levels, during 1.0, armors and equipment are not that ugly during starting levels.

Everything else ... as long as it ties to graphical effects, looks absolutely disgusting. If you don't have a high end rig that can run 1.0 on Max, you don't get to comment on this.

I hate to say it this way but in honesty, the graphics turned on max felt like I'm playing a PS2 game. Did you take a look at the flora/fauna around you? Grasses, flowers, trees are so pixelated, I mean... well whatever...

I know I'm preaching to the wrong choir, since after 6 pages of posts, I see 80% folks are here just... love the franchise regardless of what they spew out. So I'm not here to put down anyone or convince anyone. People should form their own opinions, try the game during launch, pay them the first month and see for yourself.

In conclusion, FFXIV: ARR sacrificed every bit of graphical feature for a... smoother game play. And if you are one of those who don't give a rats *** about eye candy, you only enjoy good game play, story line, character development and whatnot, I suggest you turn this crap off and go play FF6 instead.

I'm a graphics *****, I'll admit that and this 2.0 is seriously forcing me to go back to my modded Skyrim.

Wanna know what else? Ff XIV stole it's name! It stole it's name from FF IV ! Don't tell anyone. It's so similar, people might get confused!
The graphics (the way things look, not how they are designed) are the same. I wish SE would stop trying to make money. Making so many FF's...it's like they want to take all your money, just so they can make a new FF.

My brief beta experience so far has been only solo play, so I haven't been able to try out things that you need a party for, or the high level content since I spent most of my two days playing in phase 3 just exploring all the changes since I played at Version 1 release.

So far I'm thoroughly impressed with all the improvements that have happened. The only thing I don't like (and I'm not sure if this was just an ARR change or happened after I quit) is how leves are treated. I really dislike the 3 leve point per 12 hours. That's really sparse. Painfully sparse. But given the sheer amount of sidequests that have been added in cities and in camps in the field, I suppose we're better off.

One further part of leves I'm upset with is how tradeleves have changed. Originally the NPC would provide all the materials for the requested item so crafters would only need to put it together and get their exp. Now crafters need to source all their own materials for tradeleves. I can see this being a problem later on with harder to find materials or for anyone without a large enough friend base to exchange materials with. I think I would be reluctant to do any crafting quests or leves outside of guilds if they're all similar to this.

Why are you the way that you are? Honestly, every time we try to do something fun or exciting, you make it not that way. I hate.. so much.. about the things that you choose to be.

Whatever. The game's graphics are still better than anything I've seen on the PS2.