This is Compared to other MMO'S i have played at the same Stage (Beta phase 3) Take in consideration this is up to what i have seen in the game, that is not an indication of the entire GAME!
Story: 5 out of 10 - Not impress with the FF1 Gimick, the story by itself is nothing new nor exciting, i understand the need to tell the tale of what happened 5 years ago, but they could have done that early game, the first few quests, instead they opted to save it for level 15+, instead of pushing a new storyline foward, also the story told in gradina is much better told than the one in uldah, the empire is again as in 1.0 a sideshow, not the main enemy, seems like they going for the already used storyline in dissidia about the forces of chaos vs the forces of light, which again not original, they should push the beastman conflic to the forefront in the early levels, instead of holding them for the endgame ala 1.0, so far it seams a repeat of 1.0 storyline all over again... Now! The presentation of the story and class quest, is 10 out of 10, that is why the story stands out, they have done a great job of presenting an average story and make it seem way above what it is.
Quests: Standard MMO questing system, nothing new or exciting.. 5 out 10
Combat: 3 out of 10 - This is my major issue with the game, the combat is to easy, TP regeneration was not even touched, i can spam my abilities non stop and never run out of TP even if the enemy uses drain TP moves, classes are unbalanced, an archer and lancer are far superior to pug, in order to take down an equal level monster i need to use my full combo 2 times in a row, while in lancer, i only need to press 1-2 and the auto attack will finish him off, this is more visible in dungeons, i wiped the floor with monsters in lancer, i could sub tank i needed, and destroy a monster before the party finished their main target, in pug, i cannot do that, while i understand that lancer should be able to tank better than a monk, the disparity in DPS is far to great between the two Classes. Even then while soloing, there is no monster than can kill me, i would have to go out of my way, and engage in a 3vs1 in order to be in danger of Death! Also some quests are tuned up in way to give the impression of being "Hard" the best example is the pug lvl 15 class quest, which has you pinned againts a multitude of lvl 15-20 Mobs... The quest at first glance seems to be hard, but in reality it is not, all you got to do is kill 2 marmots, and then kite the pug that attacks you until your npc kills everything, there is no skilled involved, just run around Literally! As for dungeons, the first 3 dungeons, are way to easy and tam tara got nerfed to the ground, en phase 2 it was harder and even then it was too easy, i did a dungeon with a fellow zam member, first time we did it, nobody even came close to being 50% health... The last boss was a copy pasted version of the tam tara boss, it spawns adds, that you can ignore really, or hit them 2 times and they die... Overall the combat seems to have taken a step back from phase 2 to phase 3, and it is not a problem of the combat being too spameable, is a meter of bad encounter design.
Visuals: 9 out of 10 - The game looks great, there is nothing really bad to say in this area, the game looks awesome, a bit flashy in the combat but i am sure they will address that in the future.
Accessibility: 10 out of 10, very easy to access, nothing is hard to understand, access is good.
Good Tutorials: 10 out of 10.
Crafting: No idea, have not cared to try them so far.
Pace of level progression: 5 out of 10, the game is way to easy to level up, as it stands you can in theory level up 3 classes if you follow each city story, then you have to grind and do leve grinds, the game starts at a good pace, but level 16+ it slows down almost 75% of what it was leveling before.
FATES: 5 out of 10 - a mediocre attempt at copying rift/gw2 mechanics, that falls flat on it's face, outside of NM oriented F.A.T.E.S every other fate is a lag/spam fest, that requires no skills, no preparation, and they all look the same, a bunch of monsters show up, and you kill them in 3 hits, a few of them are far better done, and i would like for SE to take that approach towards the majority of them... But 90% of them is just a big spam of monsters and people fighting whatever you can target w/o any strategy.
Fun: 6 out of 10, while the game has major problems in my opinion, it is still fun, even more so since i have been playing with people of the forum, and chatting etc etc.
Uniqueness of systems: 0 out of 10 - There is nothing unique in this game, that is not an opinion, it is a FACT! And very little additions into the game, where given a Final Fantasy twist, there is nothing final fantasy about fates, they are rifts with FF monsters.
Music: 7 out of 10, very pleasing music, have yet to hear a very epic song, but i am sure i will in the future, but the music is one of the strongest points in the game.
Overall: Whatever all that amounts too.
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#128
Jun 15 2013 at 8:29 PM
Wint wrote:
I'm going to do my own post on my adventures this weekend probably tomorrow after the beta has ended.
I thought that this Beta was supposed to last 1 to 3 weeks, does it end Sunday night?
#129
Jun 15 2013 at 8:35 PM
He means this Beta weekend.
#130
Jun 15 2013 at 8:42 PM
Hyrist wrote:
Well, now you can re-roll and regale the tale of a peaceful fisherman galvanized into the idea of adventuring by the Calamity - leaving Eorzea for five years train in the basics of [insert desired class here] and have just returned to make a name for yourself in this chaotic new era.
Well said!
http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/242033
Name: Ghost Orchid - LEVEL 50 Bard, BLM, WHM, SMN Craft Level 7 Lucis, 6 4-star crafts: CUL, MIN, Wvr, Bsm, Gsm, Arm, Lth, Crp (Fishing and Alc at level 50)
World: Ultros
Name: Ghost Orchid - LEVEL 50 Bard, BLM, WHM, SMN Craft Level 7 Lucis, 6 4-star crafts: CUL, MIN, Wvr, Bsm, Gsm, Arm, Lth, Crp (Fishing and Alc at level 50)
World: Ultros
#132
Jun 15 2013 at 10:05 PM
RhuarcAllah wrote:
Anyone with both PC & PS3 versions willing to compare & contrast the two versions? Obviously the PS3 version wont have the same graphic capabilities, but I'm wondering how it looks and plays. Thank you in advance.
Hook me up with my Beta Key already SE!!
Hook me up with my Beta Key already SE!!
I have played both PC and PS3 for about 6-7 hours each during this phase of Beta.
I played PC first levelling THM to 16 and doing the main storyline quests up to the dungeon in La Noscea,
I played PS3 levelling WHM to 8 and various crafts and mining to around level 5.
After playing the PC (on Max settings) the PS3 looks very flat, detail is limited and if you sit even vaguely close to the TV (I was playing on a 46 inch LCD), the graphics are very pixallated. Draw distances are another big difference with the PC being excellent but a lot of pop up on the PS3, BUT......
Acknowledging the PS3 limitations, sitting further back and just playing the game, it is easy to get used to the graphics and really enjoy the game - it isnt all about how good the game looks. The gamplay is the same whichever system you use and the PS3 is as responsive as my PC was. Also, after a bit of getting used to it the controller is awesome (thinking of going controller for the PC as well). Overall, for the price of purchasing a good PC v price of purchasing a PS3 makes PS3 a very good option if you are on a limited budget, or you have a PS3 already and don't want to upgrade your PC.
Can't wait for PS4!
#133
Jun 15 2013 at 10:18 PM
After being completely disappointed when 1.0 came out, I'm very happy to say that I'm LOVING this game!! When they said that they rebuilt it from the ground up, they meant it! The graphics are beautiful, and it plays perfectly, even on my old, fossilized PC. The game play isn't too far removed from other MMO's out there, but in my opinion, the beauty and detail sets it apart. I have no doubt that as I level along, this game will only get better and better. My only wish is that launch day would be sooner!
#134
Jun 15 2013 at 11:32 PM
Well here are my impressions.
Graphics are not as good as 1.0, but no issues there. I'd rather it be slightly less pretty and much more playable
Crafting wasn't something I had time to do, sadly.
Combat is greatly, ridiculously better.
Overall, I will be back in Open and likely, even, subscribe.
Graphics are not as good as 1.0, but no issues there. I'd rather it be slightly less pretty and much more playable
Crafting wasn't something I had time to do, sadly.
Combat is greatly, ridiculously better.
Overall, I will be back in Open and likely, even, subscribe.
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Olorinus the Ludicrous wrote:
The idea of old school is way more interesting than the reality
#135
Jun 16 2013 at 12:09 AM
I quit back when they started charging for 1.0. Wasn't going to pay a monthly subscription for a game that should never have made it out of Beta.
Level 5 Gladiator now in Beta - Have to say I'm very impressed with the amount of work that's gone into this.
The addition of jumping alone is fantastic. The animations are smooth and it adds a new layer to exploration. I wasn't watching where I was going and I ended up jumping down into a ravine by accident - 159 damage, nearly killed myself and I was surrounded by level 9 sand toads (or whatever those ugly bastards were).
Best of all, I don't see people jumping everywhere like they do in WoW. Maybe it's because of the sprint ability (something else I'm absolutely loving - everyone gets flee on a rapid cool-down!)
The UI is worlds ahead of where it was in 1.0. I'm still trying to get used to Keyboard + Mouse - targeting is a pain in the ***. Combat is a little lackluster, but hey, it's beginner levels here so I'm not going to sweat that.
Questing is also much more fun - the whole Guildleve thing was like irritating, repetitive, and literally devoid of content. This time around I spent my first two hours in game running errands for NPCs and I was rewarded with gear I could actually use, enough money to keep my gear in good working order, and enough to upgrade my weapon and buy a basic shield when I hit level 5 - in other words, the questing now is interesting, engaging and rewarding, and this is from level 1!
My biggest gripe now is still with the Job system. I like the Armory system but linking jobs to specific classes is far to limiting.
Still, this is a game I would actually pay money for. I'm waiting to see if it will be good enough for me to choose it over FFXI once it goes live, but again, I'm impressed.
Level 5 Gladiator now in Beta - Have to say I'm very impressed with the amount of work that's gone into this.
The addition of jumping alone is fantastic. The animations are smooth and it adds a new layer to exploration. I wasn't watching where I was going and I ended up jumping down into a ravine by accident - 159 damage, nearly killed myself and I was surrounded by level 9 sand toads (or whatever those ugly bastards were).
Best of all, I don't see people jumping everywhere like they do in WoW. Maybe it's because of the sprint ability (something else I'm absolutely loving - everyone gets flee on a rapid cool-down!)
The UI is worlds ahead of where it was in 1.0. I'm still trying to get used to Keyboard + Mouse - targeting is a pain in the ***. Combat is a little lackluster, but hey, it's beginner levels here so I'm not going to sweat that.
Questing is also much more fun - the whole Guildleve thing was like irritating, repetitive, and literally devoid of content. This time around I spent my first two hours in game running errands for NPCs and I was rewarded with gear I could actually use, enough money to keep my gear in good working order, and enough to upgrade my weapon and buy a basic shield when I hit level 5 - in other words, the questing now is interesting, engaging and rewarding, and this is from level 1!
My biggest gripe now is still with the Job system. I like the Armory system but linking jobs to specific classes is far to limiting.
Still, this is a game I would actually pay money for. I'm waiting to see if it will be good enough for me to choose it over FFXI once it goes live, but again, I'm impressed.
#136
Jun 16 2013 at 3:45 AM
Parathyroid wrote:
Thayos wrote:
Quote:
Now let me tell you what you had to do EVERY single fight in XI...
For early soloing, that's easy.
Step 1: Auto Attack
Step 2: Wait
I suppose that's true for levels 1-5. We both know that's not true after that.
1: Auto-attack
2: Wait for 100 TP
3: Use the flavor-of-the-level-range-WS
4: Repeat
So much more complex--oh wait...
---------------------------------------------------------------
I'm glad to see more people have taken to the game and like it. I was more than a little worried when the same four idiots on the other forums kept complaining about the game being doomed to fail for not being FFXI 2.0.
I'll concur with the crowd saying the game is easier to get into. The story and quests give you a sense of setting, which is always a plus in helping your character belong in the world. I'm surprised at some of the developments, while feeling a little sad that some of the characters from 1.0 seem to have been dropped entirely (unless the heirs of Ul'dah from 1.0 just haven't decided to show their faces yet).
GailC wrote:
Questing is also much more fun - the whole Guildleve thing was like irritating, repetitive, and literally devoid of content.
Quote:
My biggest gripe now is still with the Job system. I like the Armory system but linking jobs to specific classes is far to limiting.
Edited, Jun 16th 2013 5:52am by Ruisu
#137
Jun 16 2013 at 4:31 AM
OK, now that the beta weekend is over...thoughts.
I played around a little with a MRD on Ultros, but basically created a THM on Adamantoise because that's where a couple friends went.
Story: I started in Ul'dah on my original character as well, and in comparison, the ARR story felt MUCH more organized. However, having played Gridania in Phase 1/2 and making the two mentioned characters now, I can say that all three city stories start off in a similar way, with the same three NPCs (the bearded Midlander and the sleeping twins) and a random encounter that your transportation runs from. The THM progressed all the way up to the dungeon north of Limsa Lominsa (It started with an S...that's all I remember). Then I stopped following it and focused more on tradeskills and harvesting, since I wasn't interested in spending a potentially long time waiting for a party to form, especially since the instance error going on brought most people's main quest progression to a screeching halt.
--------------------------------------
Disciples of the Land: Botanist has been changed from Phase 1, with Miner mirroring the current Botanist. Now, instead of having abilities that are dependent on your success rate, they can be used right at the beginning of the harvesting session. In addition, during Phase 1 and 2, harvesting success rate was capped at 80% before buffs. That cap appears to have been removed, although it will still hard cap at 100% no matter what. This makes discovering undiscovered items MUCH less painful because you get more shots at the heightened success rate.
To clarify, under the ARR system, when you harvest a node, you're given a display that shows you what items are available. (Not all available slots are necessarily filled up.) Each item slot shows the item name, the level of the item, a percentage chance of success, and a High Quality icon that indicates the chance the harvest will be a high quality version. (A dash means the item does not have a High Quality version available.) If you have NEVER harvested that item from any node before, it will display a ? bag and the success rate of harvesting will be extremely low. For me, it capped at 10%.
Pretty much every single harvesting node will have a slot dedicated to an elemental shard or crystal. In Phase 1 & 2, this was your only means to chain success rates long enough to use your abilities. In Phase 3, it's just nice that it's there.
I have not gotten them yet, but the higher level abilities have been adjusted and fiddled with as well. When I took a look at Botanist, for example, it now gains 3 abilities at level 20 that increase the yield of particular types of elemental shards from a harvesting node by 4. (One for Ice, one for Air, and one for Earth I think.) Those were not there in Phase 1 or 2.
Gathering and Perception were giving more information. I don't remember the details however -- I think Gathering is your success rate while Perception is your HQ rate? Something like that.
--------------------------------------
Disciples of the Hand: Now that the other tradeskills have been released, I can now walk around in complete HQ gear. Mwahahaha...
That being said, I'm not sure how much of Phase 3's vendors are going to carry over to release. However, in the current state, the ONLY reasons to level tradeskills are to HQ gear, fill in holes for tradeskill equipment and repair items for cheaper if you farm your own Grade X materials. (Or to cook, if you level Culinarian.) You can buy normal versions of all the gear or have it handed to you via the quests. The tradeskills all start off the same way, with a level 1 quest to make one of the level 1 items, a level 5 quest to make some more items, and then a quest every 5 levels after. Starting from the level 5 quest, all the quests of the same tier tradeskill reward the same item choices, plus the most recent tradeskill main hand or off hand item for that tradeskill that you may or may not need. The tradeskill interface uses the tradeskill log listed on your log button, and all the available recipes are listed there with their pre-requisite items and crystals. Recipe pages are divided into pages that cover 5 levels of recipes each. Since you can only see recipes that are near you in skill, you'll start to see recipes in the next page as you get closer to those levels.
Unlike 1.0, ARR tradeskills have infinite time between ability uses. No rush is needed (or advised.)
Craftsmanship and Control are more fully explained now as well. Craftsmanship affects your progress on item creation while Control affects how much quality you boost when you try to increase quality. So you want more. More is better. The game will also automatically use the main hand or off hand tradeskill item (if you equipped it) as appropriate, so there's no need for you to decide.
HQ items -- As far as I can tell, HQ items are treated as if they were ~3 levels higher and given stats appropriately. In other words, for Disciples of War/Magic, you want an HQ weapon of your level, pronto. Tradeskillers and Harvesters will want everything HQ as well in order to squeeze out as much benefit as possible. It's also significantly easier to HQ items now.
Tradeskill abilities -- There's a new tradeskill ability called Observe. It's a low CP cost ability that has you do nothing and does NOT use up any durability. You usually have enough CP to Observe at least 3-4 turns on top of using your +quality ability. This makes it easier to time the +quality ability when the crafting orb is on Good or Excellent, which significantly boosts the quality bar when you succeed. (Note that you need to unlock the ability to have Good/Excellent/Poor options while tradeskilling first by leveling one of your tradeskills high enough to automatically unlock it.) You seem to get this ability around 11-13 in your tradeskill for each tradeskill.
Tradeskill Recipe Start/End: Starting up a tradeskill recipe and ending it is significantly faster now. Menu is back to phase 1 state where it will stay on the recipe you last selected, so for mass production of easy items, you can keep the mouse where it is and slowly alternate between pressing the button and pressing 1.
--------------------------------------
Traveling and mob density -- Mobs are not densely packed. It's actually pretty easy to run between Gridania and Ul'dah, with the only real danger point being Camp Tranquil and the buzzards that hover near the road.
--------------------------------------
That's all I can really think of at the moment.
I played around a little with a MRD on Ultros, but basically created a THM on Adamantoise because that's where a couple friends went.
Story: I started in Ul'dah on my original character as well, and in comparison, the ARR story felt MUCH more organized. However, having played Gridania in Phase 1/2 and making the two mentioned characters now, I can say that all three city stories start off in a similar way, with the same three NPCs (the bearded Midlander and the sleeping twins) and a random encounter that your transportation runs from. The THM progressed all the way up to the dungeon north of Limsa Lominsa (It started with an S...that's all I remember). Then I stopped following it and focused more on tradeskills and harvesting, since I wasn't interested in spending a potentially long time waiting for a party to form, especially since the instance error going on brought most people's main quest progression to a screeching halt.
--------------------------------------
Disciples of the Land: Botanist has been changed from Phase 1, with Miner mirroring the current Botanist. Now, instead of having abilities that are dependent on your success rate, they can be used right at the beginning of the harvesting session. In addition, during Phase 1 and 2, harvesting success rate was capped at 80% before buffs. That cap appears to have been removed, although it will still hard cap at 100% no matter what. This makes discovering undiscovered items MUCH less painful because you get more shots at the heightened success rate.
To clarify, under the ARR system, when you harvest a node, you're given a display that shows you what items are available. (Not all available slots are necessarily filled up.) Each item slot shows the item name, the level of the item, a percentage chance of success, and a High Quality icon that indicates the chance the harvest will be a high quality version. (A dash means the item does not have a High Quality version available.) If you have NEVER harvested that item from any node before, it will display a ? bag and the success rate of harvesting will be extremely low. For me, it capped at 10%.
Pretty much every single harvesting node will have a slot dedicated to an elemental shard or crystal. In Phase 1 & 2, this was your only means to chain success rates long enough to use your abilities. In Phase 3, it's just nice that it's there.
I have not gotten them yet, but the higher level abilities have been adjusted and fiddled with as well. When I took a look at Botanist, for example, it now gains 3 abilities at level 20 that increase the yield of particular types of elemental shards from a harvesting node by 4. (One for Ice, one for Air, and one for Earth I think.) Those were not there in Phase 1 or 2.
Gathering and Perception were giving more information. I don't remember the details however -- I think Gathering is your success rate while Perception is your HQ rate? Something like that.
--------------------------------------
Disciples of the Hand: Now that the other tradeskills have been released, I can now walk around in complete HQ gear. Mwahahaha...
That being said, I'm not sure how much of Phase 3's vendors are going to carry over to release. However, in the current state, the ONLY reasons to level tradeskills are to HQ gear, fill in holes for tradeskill equipment and repair items for cheaper if you farm your own Grade X materials. (Or to cook, if you level Culinarian.) You can buy normal versions of all the gear or have it handed to you via the quests. The tradeskills all start off the same way, with a level 1 quest to make one of the level 1 items, a level 5 quest to make some more items, and then a quest every 5 levels after. Starting from the level 5 quest, all the quests of the same tier tradeskill reward the same item choices, plus the most recent tradeskill main hand or off hand item for that tradeskill that you may or may not need. The tradeskill interface uses the tradeskill log listed on your log button, and all the available recipes are listed there with their pre-requisite items and crystals. Recipe pages are divided into pages that cover 5 levels of recipes each. Since you can only see recipes that are near you in skill, you'll start to see recipes in the next page as you get closer to those levels.
Unlike 1.0, ARR tradeskills have infinite time between ability uses. No rush is needed (or advised.)
Craftsmanship and Control are more fully explained now as well. Craftsmanship affects your progress on item creation while Control affects how much quality you boost when you try to increase quality. So you want more. More is better. The game will also automatically use the main hand or off hand tradeskill item (if you equipped it) as appropriate, so there's no need for you to decide.
HQ items -- As far as I can tell, HQ items are treated as if they were ~3 levels higher and given stats appropriately. In other words, for Disciples of War/Magic, you want an HQ weapon of your level, pronto. Tradeskillers and Harvesters will want everything HQ as well in order to squeeze out as much benefit as possible. It's also significantly easier to HQ items now.
Tradeskill abilities -- There's a new tradeskill ability called Observe. It's a low CP cost ability that has you do nothing and does NOT use up any durability. You usually have enough CP to Observe at least 3-4 turns on top of using your +quality ability. This makes it easier to time the +quality ability when the crafting orb is on Good or Excellent, which significantly boosts the quality bar when you succeed. (Note that you need to unlock the ability to have Good/Excellent/Poor options while tradeskilling first by leveling one of your tradeskills high enough to automatically unlock it.) You seem to get this ability around 11-13 in your tradeskill for each tradeskill.
Tradeskill Recipe Start/End: Starting up a tradeskill recipe and ending it is significantly faster now. Menu is back to phase 1 state where it will stay on the recipe you last selected, so for mass production of easy items, you can keep the mouse where it is and slowly alternate between pressing the button and pressing 1.
--------------------------------------
Traveling and mob density -- Mobs are not densely packed. It's actually pretty easy to run between Gridania and Ul'dah, with the only real danger point being Camp Tranquil and the buzzards that hover near the road.
--------------------------------------
That's all I can really think of at the moment.
#138
Jun 16 2013 at 6:35 AM
Ruisu wrote:
Quote:
My biggest gripe now is still with the Job system. I like the Armory system but linking jobs to specific classes is far to limiting.
No evoking a sense of immersion and roleplaying on my watch! /punt!
...though I do find a bit of irony to Scholar coming before Red Mage this time around, even if XIV's equivalent doesn't quite seem to be of the same intent. Just hope when XIV's Red Mage does show up, it's not a backline onry affair.
Violence good. Sexy bad. Yay America.
#139
Jun 16 2013 at 7:01 AM
Catwho wrote:
Story: Still missing a major "hook" - a single character who pulls me in and makes me want to learn more about him or her. Thancred just doesn't do it for me. Closest so far is the plight of the NPCs over in Silver Bazaar, and their determination to keep their home. The gladiator storyline isn't as bittersweet as the CNJ storyline was - so far. 7/10
Just curious, what type of story grabs your interest more? Dire and epic(LIke DA origins or main story in most FF)? Humorous?Romance? Backstories involving characters less central to the main plot?
Catwho wrote:
Quests: A lot of variety, but still a lot of "go kill four swarms of gnats" types. So far not too challenging (since I rolled on gladiator easy mode this go round.) I love how non-linear the majority of quests are, so you aren't locked into doing them in any particular order, and how turning one quest into an NPC suddenly unlocks a new quest from that same NPC (when there was none before.) It makes the introduction of your character to all the NPCs seem intuitive and natural. 8/10 here.
When you turn in that one quest and another is given from the npc. Is the quest given with character animations and small story or a text box only?
Catwho wrote:
Combat: On GLA without rearranging any of the hotkeys combat goes "1, 3, 1, 3" although I've finally hit the point where I have to start ducking out of AOE attacks. 6/10 for now but I expect this score might increase if I get higher than level 11.
Visuals: 9/10 most gorgeous game I've ever played hands down. Would 10/10 this if my system could run it at max, but alas it cannot and keep 30+ FPS.
Accessibility: Incredibly easy for an MMO veteran to pick up, although since I've been playing since alpha, I'm probably not the right person to ask this question. Giving this an 8/10.
Good Tutorials: The double tutorials are getting annoying. Either have the green button for more info, or have the tutorial card. I don't need both. 5/10
Crafting: Haven't done this in phase 3 yet, but I had a good time in previous phases. I feel it has been very well implemented. Having to procure our own supplies is a bit of a pain compared to 1.0 but I think it's far more realistic. I also like how Hand and Land can go together - in phase 2, leveling botany alongside woodworking meant you never wanted for most raw crafting materials. 9/10
Visuals: 9/10 most gorgeous game I've ever played hands down. Would 10/10 this if my system could run it at max, but alas it cannot and keep 30+ FPS.
Accessibility: Incredibly easy for an MMO veteran to pick up, although since I've been playing since alpha, I'm probably not the right person to ask this question. Giving this an 8/10.
Good Tutorials: The double tutorials are getting annoying. Either have the green button for more info, or have the tutorial card. I don't need both. 5/10
Crafting: Haven't done this in phase 3 yet, but I had a good time in previous phases. I feel it has been very well implemented. Having to procure our own supplies is a bit of a pain compared to 1.0 but I think it's far more realistic. I also like how Hand and Land can go together - in phase 2, leveling botany alongside woodworking meant you never wanted for most raw crafting materials. 9/10
Perhaps upgrades to the retainer system will make these activities less cumbersome. I just hope that retainers don't actually go out and CC actual players for nodes. I remember crafting in XI had alot of running back and forth or switching characters to do things fast. I'd like retainers to do that running from vendor to vendor for me lol.
Catwho wrote:
Pace of level progression: Levels 1-10 were fast and easy. I'm suspect that they wanted to have an inverse square of time per level. So, say, levels 1-10 require 4 hours of steady work (either through game quests or levequests for second jobs.) Levels 11-15 will require 4 hours of work. Levels 16-20 will require 8 hours of work. 21-25 will require 16 hours of work, and after that it's around 4 hours a level. That's solo progression - dungeons will speed that up tremendously. So it's like it was in FFXI. You can play alone at your own pace and go slow, or join and dungeon and go fast but have to be accountable to others. 10/10 for encouraging teamwork, -1 for making solo play onerous at later levels. So 9/10 so far.
FATES: Fun but with so many people on the screen, even if I'm not getting any visual lag I find myself with abilities queued up since the server isn't responding as quickly to my commands as I'd like. 8/10 here.
Fun: So far I've had a blast. Haven't made any new friends quite yet, but I haven't partied with anyone yet either. 9/10
FATES: Fun but with so many people on the screen, even if I'm not getting any visual lag I find myself with abilities queued up since the server isn't responding as quickly to my commands as I'd like. 8/10 here.
Fun: So far I've had a blast. Haven't made any new friends quite yet, but I haven't partied with anyone yet either. 9/10
Hmmm, I am looking forward to more party content besides the traditional stuff. I imagine building boats or cakes will be a fun side activity. :)
Catwho wrote:
Uniqueness of systems: The Japanese are not great innovators, they are great perfectors. When they try to innovate it doesn't always work out (see 1.0.) By taking existing mechanics, polishing them up and prettifying them, and giving them a FF flavor, they should make their mark in the MMO sphere. "Same but prettier" is a surprisingly good selling point for some PC gamers. WoW's graphics really feel dated these days, so offering a "World of Final Fantasy War" fusion with WoW mechanics and FF graphics was a good bid to lure away the WoW casual types. 7/10 here
Music: Gridania's daytime music is amazing. I'm not as impressed with Ul'Dah's music. I do like how the outdoor areas have music that gently fades in and out in the background, sometimes leaving you in the peace of nature. The battle music is okay (and trust me a vast improvement over the placeholder music in alpha, which was all.... Uematsu opera stuff. Egads that was awful and inappropriate. Could be epic in a late dungeon, though, but I don't need a chorus of women lamenting as I slaughter a ladybug.) 7/10
Overall rating: Exactly 7/10. Considering 1.23 was still sitting around a 5/10 for me that's a big improvement. What really dragged it down for me is that dumb green tutorial button. It needs to be someplace else besides smack dab in the middle of the screen. So damn annoying!
Music: Gridania's daytime music is amazing. I'm not as impressed with Ul'Dah's music. I do like how the outdoor areas have music that gently fades in and out in the background, sometimes leaving you in the peace of nature. The battle music is okay (and trust me a vast improvement over the placeholder music in alpha, which was all.... Uematsu opera stuff. Egads that was awful and inappropriate. Could be epic in a late dungeon, though, but I don't need a chorus of women lamenting as I slaughter a ladybug.) 7/10
Overall rating: Exactly 7/10. Considering 1.23 was still sitting around a 5/10 for me that's a big improvement. What really dragged it down for me is that dumb green tutorial button. It needs to be someplace else besides smack dab in the middle of the screen. So damn annoying!
In dungeons is there any ambiance music? Something that builds tension and plays with loud and soft dynamics?
#140
Jun 16 2013 at 7:05 AM
-REDACTED-
Scholar
1,339 posts
Seriha wrote:
...though I do find a bit of irony to Scholar coming before Red Mage this time around, even if XIV's equivalent doesn't quite seem to be of the same intent. Just hope when XIV's Red Mage does show up, it's not a backline onry affair.
Don't be surprised if when it does return it's back to its Mage Knight-esque roots (which is where it should have been to begin with).
#141
Jun 16 2013 at 7:11 AM
Viertel wrote:
Seriha wrote:
...though I do find a bit of irony to Scholar coming before Red Mage this time around, even if XIV's equivalent doesn't quite seem to be of the same intent. Just hope when XIV's Red Mage does show up, it's not a backline onry affair.
Don't be surprised if when it does return it's back to its Mage Knight-esque roots (which is where it should have been to begin with).
Just as long as I get my pimp hat back everything will be alright.
#142
Jun 16 2013 at 7:14 AM
-REDACTED-
Scholar
1,339 posts
sandpark wrote:
Catwho wrote:
Story: Still missing a major "hook" - a single character who pulls me in and makes me want to learn more about him or her. Thancred just doesn't do it for me. Closest so far is the plight of the NPCs over in Silver Bazaar, and their determination to keep their home. The gladiator storyline isn't as bittersweet as the CNJ storyline was - so far. 7/10
Just curious, what type of story grabs your interest more? Dire and epic(LIke DA origins or main story in most FF)? Humorous?Romance? Backstories involving characters less central to the main plot?
Catwho isn't talking about the story persay, but the *NPC* associated with that story.
In FFXI, for launch and Rise of Zilart I believe they intended for there to be many NPCs to latch onto amongst Zeid, Lion, Aldo, and even the main antagonists from RoZ.
In Chains of Promathia it became Prishe by far; any cutscene was enhanced just because of the amount of life and character they put into her.
Treasures of Aht Urghan had me latching onto Naja Salaheem personally because her mannerisms, speech, and actions were simply funny as hell.
Lilisette made Wings of the Goddess very worth the hassle of quest/mission ****** they had you go through. As much as I loved CoP storyline, the sheer emotional response to a lot of the scenes in WotG shot it to the top for me.
....
So, I can completely agree and see where Catwho is coming from. Though, to be fair, I wouldn't be too surprised if they spend the first iteration of the game's story fleshing out the "national" storylines first like FFXI did. Though they weren't as good as the expansion storylines they were still very well done overall.
#143
Jun 16 2013 at 7:14 AM
1. I did not have to spend nearly as much time inside the character creator as I thought I would. Solid enough options to help you be more 'unique' but not near what my imagination had let me run wild with.
2. I tried out Pug and I must say I did enjoy the pace of combat. I felt engaged enough spamming my little triple combo which while repetitive, makes me look forward to unlocking higher abilities that will allow me to play with variations of combos.
3. PS3 Graphics I'm exceedingly happy with. I understand pc is superior but I am more than content with the graphics until I roll over into PS4.
4. I'm visually attracted to the screenshots of Limsa but I wanted to start as Pug so I had to select Ul'dah. That lack of starting freedom never used to bother me until XI. Very minor issue however.
5. Ul'dah Music. Kept waiting for Superman to show up. lol seriously just reminded me of something in a superman movie. I did enjoy the soundtrack for the most part.
6. With the few PS3 bugs aside, I found the game to be very enjoyable. Once they fix the freezing issues with attack/passive abilities (and sometimes options disappearing altogether) I don't believe I'll have too many complaints. The slow npc/character loading I'm somewhat used to due to playing FFXI on PS2. Nothing like sprinting through Jeuno and watching everyone materialize behind me lol. If they can at least get it under control a little better I'll be happy.
2. I tried out Pug and I must say I did enjoy the pace of combat. I felt engaged enough spamming my little triple combo which while repetitive, makes me look forward to unlocking higher abilities that will allow me to play with variations of combos.
3. PS3 Graphics I'm exceedingly happy with. I understand pc is superior but I am more than content with the graphics until I roll over into PS4.
4. I'm visually attracted to the screenshots of Limsa but I wanted to start as Pug so I had to select Ul'dah. That lack of starting freedom never used to bother me until XI. Very minor issue however.
5. Ul'dah Music. Kept waiting for Superman to show up. lol seriously just reminded me of something in a superman movie. I did enjoy the soundtrack for the most part.
6. With the few PS3 bugs aside, I found the game to be very enjoyable. Once they fix the freezing issues with attack/passive abilities (and sometimes options disappearing altogether) I don't believe I'll have too many complaints. The slow npc/character loading I'm somewhat used to due to playing FFXI on PS2. Nothing like sprinting through Jeuno and watching everyone materialize behind me lol. If they can at least get it under control a little better I'll be happy.
#144
Jun 16 2013 at 7:32 AM
Ostia wrote:
This is Compared to other MMO'S i have played at the same Stage (Beta phase 3) Take in consideration this is up to what i have seen in the game, that is not an indication of the entire GAME!
Story: 5 out of 10 - Not impress with the FF1 Gimick, the story by itself is nothing new nor exciting, i understand the need to tell the tale of what happened 5 years ago, but they could have done that early game, the first few quests, instead they opted to save it for level 15+, instead of pushing a new storyline foward, also the story told in gradina is much better told than the one in uldah, the empire is again as in 1.0 a sideshow, not the main enemy, seems like they going for the already used storyline in dissidia about the forces of chaos vs the forces of light, which again not original, they should push the beastman conflic to the forefront in the early levels, instead of holding them for the endgame ala 1.0, so far it seams a repeat of 1.0 storyline all over again... Now! The presentation of the story and class quest, is 10 out of 10, that is why the story stands out, they have done a great job of presenting an average story and make it seem way above what it is.
Story: 5 out of 10 - Not impress with the FF1 Gimick, the story by itself is nothing new nor exciting, i understand the need to tell the tale of what happened 5 years ago, but they could have done that early game, the first few quests, instead they opted to save it for level 15+, instead of pushing a new storyline foward, also the story told in gradina is much better told than the one in uldah, the empire is again as in 1.0 a sideshow, not the main enemy, seems like they going for the already used storyline in dissidia about the forces of chaos vs the forces of light, which again not original, they should push the beastman conflic to the forefront in the early levels, instead of holding them for the endgame ala 1.0, so far it seams a repeat of 1.0 storyline all over again... Now! The presentation of the story and class quest, is 10 out of 10, that is why the story stands out, they have done a great job of presenting an average story and make it seem way above what it is.
Wouldn't it have more impact if the empire came to the forefront in an expansion like Rise Of The Zilart? I think if the empire was the focal point right out of the gate, we wouldn't be treated to the just the lore of them and have to anticipate their future coming. Picture how jarrring that might be? You start game off and immediately there is airship and magitek battles like the Bahamut trailer. Then they start playing the game and there is no content fighting in airships and magitek. Front loading all the cool stuff then transitioning to more tamer stuff kind of leaves the anticipation nowhere to go, you know what I mean?
Ostia wrote:
Combat: 3 out of 10 - This is my major issue with the game, the combat is to easy, TP regeneration was not even touched, i can spam my abilities non stop and never run out of TP even if the enemy uses drain TP moves, classes are unbalanced, an archer and lancer are far superior to pug, in order to take down an equal level monster i need to use my full combo 2 times in a row, while in lancer, i only need to press 1-2 and the auto attack will finish him off, this is more visible in dungeons, i wiped the floor with monsters in lancer, i could sub tank i needed, and destroy a monster before the party finished their main target, in pug, i cannot do that, while i understand that lancer should be able to tank better than a monk, the disparity in DPS is far to great between the two Classes. Even then while soloing, there is no monster than can kill me, i would have to go out of my way, and engage in a 3vs1 in order to be in danger of Death! Also some quests are tuned up in way to give the impression of being "Hard" the best example is the pug lvl 15 class quest, which has you pinned againts a multitude of lvl 15-20 Mobs... The quest at first glance seems to be hard, but in reality it is not, all you got to do is kill 2 marmots, and then kite the pug that attacks you until your npc kills everything, there is no skilled involved, just run around Literally! As for dungeons, the first 3 dungeons, are way to easy and tam tara got nerfed to the ground, en phase 2 it was harder and even then it was too easy, i did a dungeon with a fellow zam member, first time we did it, nobody even came close to being 50% health... The last boss was a copy pasted version of the tam tara boss, it spawns adds, that you can ignore really, or hit them 2 times and they die... Overall the combat seems to have taken a step back from phase 2 to phase 3, and it is not a problem of the combat being too spameable, is a meter of bad encounter design.
I am worried about the combat too. Because I know that combat and content is what players look at if this universe is not their first choice. However, I am not in beta and actually getting my hands on it. So I just hope that SE takes feedback from the beta testers(and you) and puts something forward to make it more deep.
Ostia wrote:
Crafting: No idea, have not cared to try them so far.
Are you just not a crafter in any game? I am reading from sites other than fansites that ARR has some of the best crafting and gathering in any mmo. There are people who even go as far as to say that they don't even want to play the core combat game and how the classes actually have their own stories and meaning.
Ostia wrote:
Pace of level progression: 5 out of 10, the game is way to easy to level up, as it stands you can in theory level up 3 classes if you follow each city story, then you have to grind and do leve grinds, the game starts at a good pace, but level 16+ it slows down almost 75% of what it was leveling before.
I'm confused. Is it too fast or too slow? You say it's easy to level up but then say it slows down to almost 75% of what it was before? Murugan on mmorpg says it should take a casual 2-3 months to hit the cap.
Ostia wrote:
FATES: 5 out of 10 - a mediocre attempt at copying rift/gw2 mechanics, that falls flat on it's face, outside of NM oriented F.A.T.E.S every other fate is a lag/spam fest, that requires no skills, no preparation, and they all look the same, a bunch of monsters show up, and you kill them in 3 hits, a few of them are far better done, and i would like for SE to take that approach towards the majority of them... But 90% of them is just a big spam of monsters and people fighting whatever you can target w/o any strategy.
I don't think it was ever going to one up GW2 in this content. Because in ARR it is another content on top of raids, dungeons,etc. GW2 whole core is built around this type of content Ostia. I'm sure it can be improved but expecting it to do it better than a game who has it as a focal point is asking for disappointment. They could add some cascades here and there, some active events with non central npcs and companions, etc. Over time I can see it getting better if SE tries.
Ostia wrote:
Uniqueness of systems: 0 out of 10 - There is nothing unique in this game, that is not an opinion, it is a FACT! And very little additions into the game, where given a Final Fantasy twist, there is nothing final fantasy about fates, they are rifts with FF monsters.
FF jobs, enemies, chocobos, summons, & locales. Mechanics wise I agree with you on alot of levels. But let's not take it too far and say there is nothing unique. As much as I rant about the latest FF. I still love FF and this game is trying to meet me at my FF heart.
Who is in charge of the writing of ARR?.
#145
Jun 16 2013 at 7:42 AM
ShindaUsagi wrote:
5. Ul'dah Music. Kept waiting for Superman to show up. lol seriously just reminded me of something in a superman movie. I did enjoy the soundtrack for the most part.
Did Hamauzu do the music for Uldah? He does have that quality to some of his tracks.
#146
Jun 16 2013 at 8:41 AM
Alright, now that I am not half asleep and needing rest, let's go through this!
First, I will be first putting out the negatives, then the positives, because I feel that's how the game left me feeling. There were some annoyances at the start, but overall it left me feeling excited and ready for more. So I'd rather just clear out what needs fixing, what I found from my experience to be bad, and then hit the high points. Also, some of these might be based on my limited, rushed play of the game, so if there are ways to improve the experience in the future, point them out. My hands-on amounted to a rushed play-through of only a few hours.
One caveat I am tossing out now: I am not on the optimal setup. The TV I am using is an old JVC iArt 4:3 standard def TV (36" I believe). As such, some of my issues are not ones I'm reporting on the Beta forums unless there's some huge outcry here that I do so. Just know that you need a 16:9 TV to play this game.
The Bad
UI customization isn't really complete
AKA Don't expect to play on 4:3.
The chat window is very much too small on PS3 at the default setting. And on the 4:3, the far left and the bottom are off the edges of the screen. The font is also very small for a TV, and the NPC dialogue font is very fine. If you are planning to play far from your TV, change your plans. I didn't see a font adjustment at all, so I think that's basically your one option for chat/NPC dialogue. Mind you, the NPC dialogue is larger, but the fine-lined font looks terrible at 4:3, and my eyes feel the strain of trying to read it. Also, again at 4:3, the dialogue windows are chopped at right and bottom, making quest info impossible.
At 4:3, the menus pile on one another. Buying anything was impossible. If I highlighted the item, and it wasn't the bottom item, the price was totally hidden. I am not sure if anyone else experienced these problems at other resolutions or if the menus were better at higher res, but it was a bit of a downer.
Graphics aren't as good, if that's your thing
The hair looks like helmets, the skins are uniform playdough in colour... you've seen the complaints here and I can confirm them to be true. For me, it's not a deal breaker. 1.0 was bloody gorgeous, but all that beauty led to lag. I'd prefer it much better this way, but mind you the skin could use a little be more definition. Also character customization is more limited for some options (facial hair mainly, But I could swear there were more skin options).
This is NOT a dealbreaker for me at all.
CAMERA CONTROLS/POSITION and TARGETING
THIS. THIS is a dealbreaker lol! I will be posting on the beta forums for this when I get home. Playing as a small Lalafell is ridiculous. The camera is locked in on a spot in the middle of your back. That means at close range, your character fills the screen and your angle is terribly low. It makes it impossible to function. At all. Even zoom the camera out doesn't help much, the lower angle causes you to be unable to deal with enemies who are much taller than you, like the Gobbue and Aurochs. Camera lock-on doesn't appear to fix this, it just causes your camera to tilt in on the enemy at a different angle. This needs fixing. There needs to be a height adjustment option or it needs to be moved to at least the midpoint of the character's head. This led to my death in a FATE to Aurochs because I could not see what I was targeting. The camera needs to dynamically position up on taller mobs, otherwise being a Lalafell is going to suck. Really really badly.
Targeting using a controller is broken. Badly. Really really badly. Left and right work fine when you are coming up on non-aggressive mobs and picking them off. When you are in a FATE and mobs are running everywhere, you are flailing to get a target, then running all over chasing it as opposed to getting one near you. I started just not targeting until my attack hit a mob. Yes, I know, hit Tab. Or Circle Circle X. Either way, it doesn't always work, and it will cause issues if it is not address. I am not sure how best to address it, but it needs tweaking.
There was also a one-off bug that ended my night that I already posted on the beta forums. In the Auroch battle, when I died, I had switched my combat menus to toggle, and when the "Return to Homepoint" dialogue came up I couldn't select it because the combat menus were up. I toggled off the menu... and the Return to Homepoint became untargetable. I couldn't access it at all, and since it was already late, I went to bed.
The Good
Combat is amazingly better!
Yes, there's not a large depth here yet. I'm not expecting that. FFXI's combat system took time. LOTR:O's combat system took time. WoW's........... Moving on... Combat will become better defined, but what is there now is a nice, solid base. The means of accessing your combat options (Hold or toggle using your L/R2 with an easy way to switch between them as well) feels rock solid. The fact that you now use all your controller buttons instead of hammering X, brilliant. The abilities feeling more unique? Done and dusted! There is even an order to skills in my case as a Marauder. Use Heavy Swing, a dashed rotating outline appears around Cleave, use Cleave for MAXIMUM DAMAGE! Simple, clean, glorious. Yes, it is spammy, but with autoattack, you could just as wel sit back on trash mobs and let your character beat on them. So now farming is a thing!
There is room for improvement, but I am sure that will come. Also, I am sure that there is more complexity in the system that you will not see running about solo. It feels like the start of a deeper system, and for that I am glad.
Also, running out of range of a Goblim Bomb... Wow.
Controls are like a second skin... mostly
With some exceptions (targeting, some of the context-sensitive actions), you can do like did and never, ever read a help screen yet still control your character. Because of my limited time, I pretty much blew through every tutorial, reading nothing at all. I am sure I missed tons of helpful, useful information. Don't care. I had a ton of fun discovering how to play, and nothing was so complex that I could not discern how to make it work via just trial and error. These are the controls you need for an MMO. There is more depth, again, but allowing someone to pick up, play and have fun... Brilliant!
AND WE CAN JUMP!!!!
Character Creation is much better than FFXI
In comparison to 1.0, you have less options. But since this is going to get compared to FFXI, it's better than that. There are plenty of options to make you look unique. From face tattoos to jewelry to height and facial features, you can look more unique that its predecessor. For people coming back from 1.0, you will see a loss of some options, but none of them are truly bad, and maybe they are just gone for the beta.
Lalafells still should not have facial hair.
The @#%^ing music!
One of the signatures of FFXI was the music you experienced as you traveled. It gave the game a greater personality than other, silent MMOs. As you draw your weapon and attack, the music swells from nowhere, as the enemy dies, it fades away. It's a small touch, but an important one. Idle too long, music starts to slowly rise. It enhances the experience of the game, filling it with life beyond the sound effects of people grunting and weapons clashing. It truly makes you feel like the world is more epic.
The enemies
Seeing goblins just outside down made me smile. Seeing them fall on their *** instead of having them smash mine, amazing. No longer are there mobs just outside down that will wreck you without warning. Levels clearly show above the heads of all the enemies. Plus seeing old time mobs like mandies mixed in with the new level fodder definitely makes this feel like a natural successor to FFXI. More on that in the conclusion.
Questing made easy
Wow, you mean I DON'T need wiki open to do a quest? You mean you are going to label the NPC who gave me the quest so I can find them later? Are you actually SE? Because you don't seem like SE. Seriously, I was excited to see questing go the way of the ! for ease of doing it. Quests should not be something arcane and obtuse, requiring reams of website bookmarks to decipher. I love the fact that I could bop around and do the quests without the torture of the google searches of hell that I did back at FFXI.
I did not get to craft, sadly, because I couldn't see the option to start as a crafter, and because of my menu issues I could not see when I had enough gil to buy crafting items. It really pisses me off, I wanted to try it SO BAD! I did do some quests but because of my text issues, I can't really say how much I will like the story. The opening cutscene was epic. Got me wanting to get that armor and axe...
Overall, this is the game 1.0 should have been. Since they were not breaking with FFXI entirely (Look, call them Lalafells if you like, they are ******* Tarutarus), they needed to aim for making FFXI 2.0. And this IS FFXI 2.0. More solo friendly, easier to quest, faster paced battles. This is doing it all and doing it all right. Brilliant, 8/10, four and a half stars, not perfect but beyond any expectation I had set for it. This raises the bar for launch, and as I said, I will be there in Beta, and if they keep wowing me like this, I will be there for many years to come.
Edited, Jun 16th 2013 10:53am by Pawkeshup
First, I will be first putting out the negatives, then the positives, because I feel that's how the game left me feeling. There were some annoyances at the start, but overall it left me feeling excited and ready for more. So I'd rather just clear out what needs fixing, what I found from my experience to be bad, and then hit the high points. Also, some of these might be based on my limited, rushed play of the game, so if there are ways to improve the experience in the future, point them out. My hands-on amounted to a rushed play-through of only a few hours.
One caveat I am tossing out now: I am not on the optimal setup. The TV I am using is an old JVC iArt 4:3 standard def TV (36" I believe). As such, some of my issues are not ones I'm reporting on the Beta forums unless there's some huge outcry here that I do so. Just know that you need a 16:9 TV to play this game.
The Bad
UI customization isn't really complete
AKA Don't expect to play on 4:3.
The chat window is very much too small on PS3 at the default setting. And on the 4:3, the far left and the bottom are off the edges of the screen. The font is also very small for a TV, and the NPC dialogue font is very fine. If you are planning to play far from your TV, change your plans. I didn't see a font adjustment at all, so I think that's basically your one option for chat/NPC dialogue. Mind you, the NPC dialogue is larger, but the fine-lined font looks terrible at 4:3, and my eyes feel the strain of trying to read it. Also, again at 4:3, the dialogue windows are chopped at right and bottom, making quest info impossible.
At 4:3, the menus pile on one another. Buying anything was impossible. If I highlighted the item, and it wasn't the bottom item, the price was totally hidden. I am not sure if anyone else experienced these problems at other resolutions or if the menus were better at higher res, but it was a bit of a downer.
Graphics aren't as good, if that's your thing
The hair looks like helmets, the skins are uniform playdough in colour... you've seen the complaints here and I can confirm them to be true. For me, it's not a deal breaker. 1.0 was bloody gorgeous, but all that beauty led to lag. I'd prefer it much better this way, but mind you the skin could use a little be more definition. Also character customization is more limited for some options (facial hair mainly, But I could swear there were more skin options).
This is NOT a dealbreaker for me at all.
CAMERA CONTROLS/POSITION and TARGETING
THIS. THIS is a dealbreaker lol! I will be posting on the beta forums for this when I get home. Playing as a small Lalafell is ridiculous. The camera is locked in on a spot in the middle of your back. That means at close range, your character fills the screen and your angle is terribly low. It makes it impossible to function. At all. Even zoom the camera out doesn't help much, the lower angle causes you to be unable to deal with enemies who are much taller than you, like the Gobbue and Aurochs. Camera lock-on doesn't appear to fix this, it just causes your camera to tilt in on the enemy at a different angle. This needs fixing. There needs to be a height adjustment option or it needs to be moved to at least the midpoint of the character's head. This led to my death in a FATE to Aurochs because I could not see what I was targeting. The camera needs to dynamically position up on taller mobs, otherwise being a Lalafell is going to suck. Really really badly.
Targeting using a controller is broken. Badly. Really really badly. Left and right work fine when you are coming up on non-aggressive mobs and picking them off. When you are in a FATE and mobs are running everywhere, you are flailing to get a target, then running all over chasing it as opposed to getting one near you. I started just not targeting until my attack hit a mob. Yes, I know, hit Tab. Or Circle Circle X. Either way, it doesn't always work, and it will cause issues if it is not address. I am not sure how best to address it, but it needs tweaking.
There was also a one-off bug that ended my night that I already posted on the beta forums. In the Auroch battle, when I died, I had switched my combat menus to toggle, and when the "Return to Homepoint" dialogue came up I couldn't select it because the combat menus were up. I toggled off the menu... and the Return to Homepoint became untargetable. I couldn't access it at all, and since it was already late, I went to bed.
The Good
Combat is amazingly better!
Yes, there's not a large depth here yet. I'm not expecting that. FFXI's combat system took time. LOTR:O's combat system took time. WoW's........... Moving on... Combat will become better defined, but what is there now is a nice, solid base. The means of accessing your combat options (Hold or toggle using your L/R2 with an easy way to switch between them as well) feels rock solid. The fact that you now use all your controller buttons instead of hammering X, brilliant. The abilities feeling more unique? Done and dusted! There is even an order to skills in my case as a Marauder. Use Heavy Swing, a dashed rotating outline appears around Cleave, use Cleave for MAXIMUM DAMAGE! Simple, clean, glorious. Yes, it is spammy, but with autoattack, you could just as wel sit back on trash mobs and let your character beat on them. So now farming is a thing!
There is room for improvement, but I am sure that will come. Also, I am sure that there is more complexity in the system that you will not see running about solo. It feels like the start of a deeper system, and for that I am glad.
Also, running out of range of a Goblim Bomb... Wow.
Controls are like a second skin... mostly
With some exceptions (targeting, some of the context-sensitive actions), you can do like did and never, ever read a help screen yet still control your character. Because of my limited time, I pretty much blew through every tutorial, reading nothing at all. I am sure I missed tons of helpful, useful information. Don't care. I had a ton of fun discovering how to play, and nothing was so complex that I could not discern how to make it work via just trial and error. These are the controls you need for an MMO. There is more depth, again, but allowing someone to pick up, play and have fun... Brilliant!
AND WE CAN JUMP!!!!
Character Creation is much better than FFXI
In comparison to 1.0, you have less options. But since this is going to get compared to FFXI, it's better than that. There are plenty of options to make you look unique. From face tattoos to jewelry to height and facial features, you can look more unique that its predecessor. For people coming back from 1.0, you will see a loss of some options, but none of them are truly bad, and maybe they are just gone for the beta.
Lalafells still should not have facial hair.
The @#%^ing music!
One of the signatures of FFXI was the music you experienced as you traveled. It gave the game a greater personality than other, silent MMOs. As you draw your weapon and attack, the music swells from nowhere, as the enemy dies, it fades away. It's a small touch, but an important one. Idle too long, music starts to slowly rise. It enhances the experience of the game, filling it with life beyond the sound effects of people grunting and weapons clashing. It truly makes you feel like the world is more epic.
The enemies
Seeing goblins just outside down made me smile. Seeing them fall on their *** instead of having them smash mine, amazing. No longer are there mobs just outside down that will wreck you without warning. Levels clearly show above the heads of all the enemies. Plus seeing old time mobs like mandies mixed in with the new level fodder definitely makes this feel like a natural successor to FFXI. More on that in the conclusion.
Questing made easy
Wow, you mean I DON'T need wiki open to do a quest? You mean you are going to label the NPC who gave me the quest so I can find them later? Are you actually SE? Because you don't seem like SE. Seriously, I was excited to see questing go the way of the ! for ease of doing it. Quests should not be something arcane and obtuse, requiring reams of website bookmarks to decipher. I love the fact that I could bop around and do the quests without the torture of the google searches of hell that I did back at FFXI.
I did not get to craft, sadly, because I couldn't see the option to start as a crafter, and because of my menu issues I could not see when I had enough gil to buy crafting items. It really pisses me off, I wanted to try it SO BAD! I did do some quests but because of my text issues, I can't really say how much I will like the story. The opening cutscene was epic. Got me wanting to get that armor and axe...
Overall, this is the game 1.0 should have been. Since they were not breaking with FFXI entirely (Look, call them Lalafells if you like, they are ******* Tarutarus), they needed to aim for making FFXI 2.0. And this IS FFXI 2.0. More solo friendly, easier to quest, faster paced battles. This is doing it all and doing it all right. Brilliant, 8/10, four and a half stars, not perfect but beyond any expectation I had set for it. This raises the bar for launch, and as I said, I will be there in Beta, and if they keep wowing me like this, I will be there for many years to come.
Edited, Jun 16th 2013 10:53am by Pawkeshup
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Olorinus the Ludicrous wrote:
The idea of old school is way more interesting than the reality
#147
Jun 16 2013 at 8:58 AM
You know, now that i was reading the other thread about flashy battles it came to me that it will be hard for a healer in a FATE if he wanted to heal a bit.
Ok i mean all fates are really to kill stuff and you are awarded according to how much you helped with that. But sometimes there are a lot of mobs hitting you so it wouldn't be bad if there was a healer in there. So i was thinking they should put something like a raid/party icon so healers can heal the people in the FATE maybe and of course been rewarded according to how much they helped as well.
Don't know if it sounds good but in my ears it does sound good.
Ok i mean all fates are really to kill stuff and you are awarded according to how much you helped with that. But sometimes there are a lot of mobs hitting you so it wouldn't be bad if there was a healer in there. So i was thinking they should put something like a raid/party icon so healers can heal the people in the FATE maybe and of course been rewarded according to how much they helped as well.
Don't know if it sounds good but in my ears it does sound good.
#148
Jun 16 2013 at 9:08 AM
Pawkeshup, Averter of the Apocalypse wrote:
Alright, now that I am not half asleep and needing rest, let's go through this!
First, I will be first putting out the negatives, then the positives, because I feel that's how the game left me feeling. There were some annoyances at the start, but overall it left me feeling excited and ready for more. So I'd rather just clear out what needs fixing, what I found from my experience to be bad, and then hit the high points. Also, some of these might be based on my limited, rushed play of the game, so if there are ways to improve the experience in the future, point them out. My hands-on amounted to a rushed play-through of only a few hours.
One caveat I am tossing out now: I am not on the optimal setup. The TV I am using is an old JVC iArt 4:3 standard def TV (36" I believe). As such, some of my issues are not ones I'm reporting on the Beta forums unless there's some huge outcry here that I do so. Just know that you need a 16:9 TV to play this game.
The Bad
UI customization isn't really complete
AKA Don't expect to play on 4:3.
The chat window is very much too small on PS3 at the default setting. And on the 4:3, the far left and the bottom are off the edges of the screen. The font is also very small for a TV, and the NPC dialogue font is very fine. If you are planning to play far from your TV, change your plans. I didn't see a font adjustment at all, so I think that's basically your one option for chat/NPC dialogue. Mind you, the NPC dialogue is larger, but the fine-lined font looks terrible at 4:3, and my eyes feel the strain of trying to read it. Also, again at 4:3, the dialogue windows are chopped at right and bottom, making quest info impossible.
At 4:3, the menus pile on one another. Buying anything was impossible. If I highlighted the item, and it wasn't the bottom item, the price was totally hidden. I am not sure if anyone else experienced these problems at other resolutions or if the menus were better at higher res, but it was a bit of a downer.
First, I will be first putting out the negatives, then the positives, because I feel that's how the game left me feeling. There were some annoyances at the start, but overall it left me feeling excited and ready for more. So I'd rather just clear out what needs fixing, what I found from my experience to be bad, and then hit the high points. Also, some of these might be based on my limited, rushed play of the game, so if there are ways to improve the experience in the future, point them out. My hands-on amounted to a rushed play-through of only a few hours.
One caveat I am tossing out now: I am not on the optimal setup. The TV I am using is an old JVC iArt 4:3 standard def TV (36" I believe). As such, some of my issues are not ones I'm reporting on the Beta forums unless there's some huge outcry here that I do so. Just know that you need a 16:9 TV to play this game.
The Bad
UI customization isn't really complete
AKA Don't expect to play on 4:3.
The chat window is very much too small on PS3 at the default setting. And on the 4:3, the far left and the bottom are off the edges of the screen. The font is also very small for a TV, and the NPC dialogue font is very fine. If you are planning to play far from your TV, change your plans. I didn't see a font adjustment at all, so I think that's basically your one option for chat/NPC dialogue. Mind you, the NPC dialogue is larger, but the fine-lined font looks terrible at 4:3, and my eyes feel the strain of trying to read it. Also, again at 4:3, the dialogue windows are chopped at right and bottom, making quest info impossible.
At 4:3, the menus pile on one another. Buying anything was impossible. If I highlighted the item, and it wasn't the bottom item, the price was totally hidden. I am not sure if anyone else experienced these problems at other resolutions or if the menus were better at higher res, but it was a bit of a downer.
Darn, I planned on playing ARR on a 50 inch SED tv from the luxury of my recliner with a built in icebox...
Pawkeshup wrote:
CAMERA CONTROLS/POSITION and TARGETING
THIS. THIS is a dealbreaker lol! I will be posting on the beta forums for this when I get home. Playing as a small Lalafell is ridiculous. The camera is locked in on a spot in the middle of your back. That means at close range, your character fills the screen and your angle is terribly low. It makes it impossible to function. At all. Even zoom the camera out doesn't help much, the lower angle causes you to be unable to deal with enemies who are much taller than you, like the Gobbue and Aurochs. Camera lock-on doesn't appear to fix this, it just causes your camera to tilt in on the enemy at a different angle. This needs fixing. There needs to be a height adjustment option or it needs to be moved to at least the midpoint of the character's head. This led to my death in a FATE to Aurochs because I could not see what I was targeting. The camera needs to dynamically position up on taller mobs, otherwise being a Lalafell is going to suck. Really really badly.
Targeting using a controller is broken. Badly. Really really badly. Left and right work fine when you are coming up on non-aggressive mobs and picking them off. When you are in a FATE and mobs are running everywhere, you are flailing to get a target, then running all over chasing it as opposed to getting one near you. I started just not targeting until my attack hit a mob. Yes, I know, hit Tab. Or Circle Circle X. Either way, it doesn't always work, and it will cause issues if it is not address. I am not sure how best to address it, but it needs tweaking.
There was also a one-off bug that ended my night that I already posted on the beta forums. In the Auroch battle, when I died, I had switched my combat menus to toggle, and when the "Return to Homepoint" dialogue came up I couldn't select it because the combat menus were up. I toggled off the menu... and the Return to Homepoint became untargetable. I couldn't access it at all, and since it was already late, I went to bed.
THIS. THIS is a dealbreaker lol! I will be posting on the beta forums for this when I get home. Playing as a small Lalafell is ridiculous. The camera is locked in on a spot in the middle of your back. That means at close range, your character fills the screen and your angle is terribly low. It makes it impossible to function. At all. Even zoom the camera out doesn't help much, the lower angle causes you to be unable to deal with enemies who are much taller than you, like the Gobbue and Aurochs. Camera lock-on doesn't appear to fix this, it just causes your camera to tilt in on the enemy at a different angle. This needs fixing. There needs to be a height adjustment option or it needs to be moved to at least the midpoint of the character's head. This led to my death in a FATE to Aurochs because I could not see what I was targeting. The camera needs to dynamically position up on taller mobs, otherwise being a Lalafell is going to suck. Really really badly.
Targeting using a controller is broken. Badly. Really really badly. Left and right work fine when you are coming up on non-aggressive mobs and picking them off. When you are in a FATE and mobs are running everywhere, you are flailing to get a target, then running all over chasing it as opposed to getting one near you. I started just not targeting until my attack hit a mob. Yes, I know, hit Tab. Or Circle Circle X. Either way, it doesn't always work, and it will cause issues if it is not address. I am not sure how best to address it, but it needs tweaking.
There was also a one-off bug that ended my night that I already posted on the beta forums. In the Auroch battle, when I died, I had switched my combat menus to toggle, and when the "Return to Homepoint" dialogue came up I couldn't select it because the combat menus were up. I toggled off the menu... and the Return to Homepoint became untargetable. I couldn't access it at all, and since it was already late, I went to bed.
Were you using that L!+X and L1+O feature?
Pawkeshup wrote:
The Good
Combat is amazingly better!
Yes, there's not a large depth here yet. I'm not expecting that. FFXI's combat system took time. LOTR:O's combat system took time. WoW's........... Moving on... Combat will become better defined, but what is there now is a nice, solid base. The means of accessing your combat options (Hold or toggle using your L/R2 with an easy way to switch between them as well) feels rock solid. The fact that you now use all your controller buttons instead of hammering X, brilliant. The abilities feeling more unique? Done and dusted! There is even an order to skills in my case as a Marauder. Use Heavy Swing, a dashed rotating outline appears around Cleave, use Cleave for MAXIMUM DAMAGE! Simple, clean, glorious. Yes, it is spammy, but with autoattack, you could just as wel sit back on trash mobs and let your character beat on them. So now farming is a thing!
There is room for improvement, but I am sure that will come. Also, I am sure that there is more complexity in the system that you will not see running about solo. It feels like the start of a deeper system, and for that I am glad.
Also, running out of range of a Goblim Bomb... Wow.
Combat is amazingly better!
Yes, there's not a large depth here yet. I'm not expecting that. FFXI's combat system took time. LOTR:O's combat system took time. WoW's........... Moving on... Combat will become better defined, but what is there now is a nice, solid base. The means of accessing your combat options (Hold or toggle using your L/R2 with an easy way to switch between them as well) feels rock solid. The fact that you now use all your controller buttons instead of hammering X, brilliant. The abilities feeling more unique? Done and dusted! There is even an order to skills in my case as a Marauder. Use Heavy Swing, a dashed rotating outline appears around Cleave, use Cleave for MAXIMUM DAMAGE! Simple, clean, glorious. Yes, it is spammy, but with autoattack, you could just as wel sit back on trash mobs and let your character beat on them. So now farming is a thing!
There is room for improvement, but I am sure that will come. Also, I am sure that there is more complexity in the system that you will not see running about solo. It feels like the start of a deeper system, and for that I am glad.
Also, running out of range of a Goblim Bomb... Wow.
I'm thinking part of what contributes to combat feeling spammy or faster is the intuitive design of the cross hotbar and how it doesn't require you to open a macro palette or fumble through menus as in XI, maybe. The cross hotbar seems like the way forward for mmos coming to consoles, great in my opinion.
Pawkeshup wrote:
Controls are like a second skin... mostly
With some exceptions (targeting, some of the context-sensitive actions), you can do like did and never, ever read a help screen yet still control your character. Because of my limited time, I pretty much blew through every tutorial, reading nothing at all. I am sure I missed tons of helpful, useful information. Don't care. I had a ton of fun discovering how to play, and nothing was so complex that I could not discern how to make it work via just trial and error. These are the controls you need for an MMO. There is more depth, again, but allowing someone to pick up, play and have fun... Brilliant!
AND WE CAN JUMP!!!!
Character Creation is much better than FFXI
With some exceptions (targeting, some of the context-sensitive actions), you can do like did and never, ever read a help screen yet still control your character. Because of my limited time, I pretty much blew through every tutorial, reading nothing at all. I am sure I missed tons of helpful, useful information. Don't care. I had a ton of fun discovering how to play, and nothing was so complex that I could not discern how to make it work via just trial and error. These are the controls you need for an MMO. There is more depth, again, but allowing someone to pick up, play and have fun... Brilliant!
AND WE CAN JUMP!!!!
Character Creation is much better than FFXI
Your enthusiasm is making me excited. I just got the urge to go outside and slam dunk on my basketball rim lol.
Pawkeshup wrote:
The @#%^ing music!
One of the signatures of FFXI was the music you experienced as you traveled. It gave the game a greater personality than other, silent MMOs. As you draw your weapon and attack, the music swells from nowhere, as the enemy dies, it fades away. It's a small touch, but an important one. Idle too long, music starts to slowly rise. It enhances the experience of the game, filling it with life beyond the sound effects of people grunting and weapons clashing. It truly makes you feel like the world is more epic.
One of the signatures of FFXI was the music you experienced as you traveled. It gave the game a greater personality than other, silent MMOs. As you draw your weapon and attack, the music swells from nowhere, as the enemy dies, it fades away. It's a small touch, but an important one. Idle too long, music starts to slowly rise. It enhances the experience of the game, filling it with life beyond the sound effects of people grunting and weapons clashing. It truly makes you feel like the world is more epic.
Ambiance and tension. <3
It's why I like me horror movies and horror games. I am imagining in my brain that experience you are describing. Cool.
#149
Jun 16 2013 at 9:10 AM
Teravibe wrote:
You know, now that i was reading the other thread about flashy battles it came to me that it will be hard for a healer in a FATE if he wanted to heal a bit.
Ok i mean all fates are really to kill stuff and you are awarded according to how much you helped with that. But sometimes there are a lot of mobs hitting you so it wouldn't be bad if there was a healer in there. So i was thinking they should put something like a raid/party icon so healers can heal the people in the FATE maybe and of course been rewarded according to how much they helped as well.
Don't know if it sounds good but in my ears it does sound good.
Ok i mean all fates are really to kill stuff and you are awarded according to how much you helped with that. But sometimes there are a lot of mobs hitting you so it wouldn't be bad if there was a healer in there. So i was thinking they should put something like a raid/party icon so healers can heal the people in the FATE maybe and of course been rewarded according to how much they helped as well.
Don't know if it sounds good but in my ears it does sound good.
I'm not sure how FATEs work in the higher lvls but they seemed to end rather quickly. I might have seen one character death in all the FATEs i participated in. But yes, if FATEs at higher lvls drag on longer than what I've seen so far then what you're requesting would seem like a huge help.
#150
Jun 16 2013 at 9:17 AM
Also i wanted to comment on the crafting!
Now i don't know how was the crafting in 1.0 but i really like how it is in ARR.
This time the only crafting i did was for goldsmith in Uldah. I like the way you do the crafting this little "mini game" . If you are careful with your crafting skills and with a little luck you can do a lot of crafting higher than your level.
For example i managed to get goldsmith to level 10 so i had 4 skills. One skill was the basic one that lets you craft the actual item.
The second one was to let you improve the quality of the said item. Now both moves cost durability and each item you are gonna craft has durability points like 30/30, 50/50 or 60/60 etc. Each move you do takes 10 durability points. If you run out of points before the item is made you will fail the craft.
edit: Also to add here that for those 2 skills there is always a chance your action will fail so it will take 10 points of durability and you would gain nothing.
Now i said 4 skills so my third skill was to add durability points from the ones i used up. It added 30 durability points. Of course this skill along with the one to raise the quality and a forth skill i will tell you later cost CP. So you need to be mindful of it so you wont run out.
The forth skill now was called i believe "steady hand" not sure but what it did was that it would increase your chance of success by 20% for the next 5 moves. This one as i already said cost CP as well.
Besides the skills that would help you with the crafting we also have your clothes. Clothes have certain buffs like control, craftsmanship etc that raise your stats for crafting.
You get a log similar to your hunting log and in there you got all the recipes. First one is i believe 1-10 lvl log and each time you make an item you get xp.If its the first time you are making an item you will be granted with extra XP and if you finish the recipes for the first log you will be granted with even more XP just like the hunting log. Also again similar to your classes in lvl 1, 5 and 10 you get a quest from your master and once you do it you are awarded with XP and items that help you craft.
And this is the crafting system! All in all i enjoyed it quite a lot. Definitely more than wow! So if i am to put points as you do for the rest i would say a good 9/10. I never put 10/10 because there is always room for improvement!
Edited, Jun 16th 2013 11:20am by Teravibe
Edited, Jun 16th 2013 11:22am by Teravibe
Now i don't know how was the crafting in 1.0 but i really like how it is in ARR.
This time the only crafting i did was for goldsmith in Uldah. I like the way you do the crafting this little "mini game" . If you are careful with your crafting skills and with a little luck you can do a lot of crafting higher than your level.
For example i managed to get goldsmith to level 10 so i had 4 skills. One skill was the basic one that lets you craft the actual item.
The second one was to let you improve the quality of the said item. Now both moves cost durability and each item you are gonna craft has durability points like 30/30, 50/50 or 60/60 etc. Each move you do takes 10 durability points. If you run out of points before the item is made you will fail the craft.
edit: Also to add here that for those 2 skills there is always a chance your action will fail so it will take 10 points of durability and you would gain nothing.
Now i said 4 skills so my third skill was to add durability points from the ones i used up. It added 30 durability points. Of course this skill along with the one to raise the quality and a forth skill i will tell you later cost CP. So you need to be mindful of it so you wont run out.
The forth skill now was called i believe "steady hand" not sure but what it did was that it would increase your chance of success by 20% for the next 5 moves. This one as i already said cost CP as well.
Besides the skills that would help you with the crafting we also have your clothes. Clothes have certain buffs like control, craftsmanship etc that raise your stats for crafting.
You get a log similar to your hunting log and in there you got all the recipes. First one is i believe 1-10 lvl log and each time you make an item you get xp.If its the first time you are making an item you will be granted with extra XP and if you finish the recipes for the first log you will be granted with even more XP just like the hunting log. Also again similar to your classes in lvl 1, 5 and 10 you get a quest from your master and once you do it you are awarded with XP and items that help you craft.
And this is the crafting system! All in all i enjoyed it quite a lot. Definitely more than wow! So if i am to put points as you do for the rest i would say a good 9/10. I never put 10/10 because there is always room for improvement!
Edited, Jun 16th 2013 11:20am by Teravibe
Edited, Jun 16th 2013 11:22am by Teravibe
#151
Jun 16 2013 at 9:18 AM
Ahh that Beta weekend was fun! So glad I got in :D
For a Beta, it was amazing. A few bugs here and there, but thats to be expected - I was bumping into invisible walls on the way from Ul'dah to Gridania, in Eastern... Thau-something. Had to actually log out and back in lol. My biggest gripe would have to be the chat screen. I was asking this in game, but maybe someone here knows also; Whenever anyone typed anything, the message would be cut out or not show altogether until someone else typed something to bump it up. It was almost as if the chat screen wasnt scrolled down all the way (But let me assure you... On my screen, it was. I devoted almost 30 mins making sure of that lol).
Leveling was simple, I didn't die once until lvl 14... a giant toad came from behind and ate me (No, really) out of nowhere. Combat was pretty smooth, but I haven't tried crafting either. One annoying yet funny part was a lvl 15 Ul'dah quest called "For honor, duty, country" or something like that. It was an instanced quest, but only 1 person (I think?) could enter it at a time, so there was literally a line formed behind that instance entrance spot... lol. Literally a 20-somethin-man line, everyone back-to-back just waiting for their turn. (Thus began my run to Gridania to unlock CNJ and my encounter with the invisible wall bug stated above. Waiting in an online line? No thanks).
The good far outweighed the bad though IMHO. I'm definetely looking forward to next week ^^
Edited, Jun 16th 2013 11:20am by Swiftskye
For a Beta, it was amazing. A few bugs here and there, but thats to be expected - I was bumping into invisible walls on the way from Ul'dah to Gridania, in Eastern... Thau-something. Had to actually log out and back in lol. My biggest gripe would have to be the chat screen. I was asking this in game, but maybe someone here knows also; Whenever anyone typed anything, the message would be cut out or not show altogether until someone else typed something to bump it up. It was almost as if the chat screen wasnt scrolled down all the way (But let me assure you... On my screen, it was. I devoted almost 30 mins making sure of that lol).
Leveling was simple, I didn't die once until lvl 14... a giant toad came from behind and ate me (No, really) out of nowhere. Combat was pretty smooth, but I haven't tried crafting either. One annoying yet funny part was a lvl 15 Ul'dah quest called "For honor, duty, country" or something like that. It was an instanced quest, but only 1 person (I think?) could enter it at a time, so there was literally a line formed behind that instance entrance spot... lol. Literally a 20-somethin-man line, everyone back-to-back just waiting for their turn. (Thus began my run to Gridania to unlock CNJ and my encounter with the invisible wall bug stated above. Waiting in an online line? No thanks).
The good far outweighed the bad though IMHO. I'm definetely looking forward to next week ^^
Edited, Jun 16th 2013 11:20am by Swiftskye
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