Well, I went and done it... Hi All!Follow

Just wanted to say hello! Long story, very long story, short... I went and ordered a new gaming rig and I have purchased FFXIV. I was a long time FFXI player, since about 2003'ish. Walked away from it in August 2014 but the itch is back. I would consider returning to that world, but I gave my account away and just not worth the hassle or trouble to get it back. Plus, looks like who I gave it to is still active in it as the are still selling items according to FFXIAH.com. Wouldn't be right to take the account away from him/her now. Pride to know my character still lives in FFXI.

My alter ego will be reborn into FFXIV. I am pretty excited and looking forward to it. Yes, I have tons of questions about the game, but my rig wont be in until late next week so I will be diligent and research the game.

But wanted to say hi to the ZAM forum, has been my FFXI forum home ever since I discovered it in my FFXXI days many many years ago. Its good to be back.

Gonna be a long week lol!

jay

Indeed I have prepared myself. I followed FFXIV prior to the 1.0 release and when they pulled it down to relaunch it. I have been reading a lot on it and watching videos and it has my interest. A different take but I am down for it. Passing time for another game to come out that goes back to the party/co-op style.

I'm glad you're doing research so the shift in gameplay between FFXI and this won't hit you like a ton of bricks, but let us know if you have any questions.

Ironically I can't play FFXIV right now because my internet is a potato. But FFXI works fine (handles the bad connection better I think) so I've been playing that a little (leveling PLD... go divine magic skill, go!). I'm hoping the NA data center move will help, but I'm still expecting an ugly series of conversations with Comcast trying to convince them that I've done a bunch of troublshooting on this already and it's them... not me... that'll be fun.

I don't know if it is still that way, but FFXI was originally designed to be run over 56k Dialup. Indeed, I used to play on Dialup. There was occasional ability delay, but it didn't matter much. Now, come 2017 and all of the expansions later, I don't know if they ever "uncapped" or modified how much data gets sent back and forth, but the S/R numbers are almost never above 1200 (same as it was back in the day). Not sure what that is, bytes/sec? That's probably why it runs on your internet when XIV won't.



I wouldn't worry about trying to cram every little detail into your brain -- there's no telling how much of it you will actually remember, and by the time you get there, the game will make sure to teach you (or give you the opportunity to learn), though basic concepts might be nice.

If you've never played other similar games (WoW has a very similar setup), then some of the group mechanics might be a good read, though there's even an in-game Grouping Tutorial that does reasonably well at explaining how groups work (though sadly, it doesn't mimic the UI, for example, healing the Tutorial is harder because you cannot select your AI teammates with the party window like you could human players).

Also, job abilities are sparsed through the levels like they were in FFXI -- you will start out with most likely 1 and only 1 ability you can use. Then a couple levels later, you get a new one, etc. The tooltips are very good in this game, they tell you exactly what an ability does, or at least what potency it has. This won't tell you exact damage, but it should give you a good idea... for example, Sneak Attack and Trick Attack... I forget the exact numbers, but it's something like SA does a Potency of 500 from the front, and TA does a Potency of 400 from the back but has an Additional Effect: 10% physical vulnerability for x seconds. etc. The tooltips are very candid about what each ability does, right down to actual numbers and even ability ranges/AoE range. So if you got another ability that does about 400 potency and you know what that does... then you'll know what TA will do if it also does 400, etc etc.

Edited, Apr 1st 2017 11:39pm by Lyrailis

That's kind of weird that they would have the client triggering the cooldown instead of the server telling the client "hey, this ability is now on cooldown".

I mean in WoW, I've been DCing before and attempted to use something and it won't actually go on cooldown until I get a response from the server.

Now that you mention this, I remember one time I was DCing and I noticed something very similar and I was like "wut....?"

It took me a sec to figure out I was DCing because of an ISP reset (like a once a week thing, random time of the day), and I couldn't use any abilities, nothing was hitting me, but I think I remember using a cooldown and it... got put on cooldown.

Probably a huge oversight on the devs' part, but easily missed order of operations mistake.

All great info. Sucks you are having ISP problems. I have played my fair share of WoW. Actually, I gotta cancel my account as they just billed me the other day. I tried to get back into it several months back but my laptop I currently have couldnt play it. Played WoW with my bro as it was more casual for his schedule. Really cant wait to get into the game.

Plus, I have just been reading up on the game to have a good base understanding of the game and concept. I like to be prepared and all.

Edited, Apr 2nd 2017 12:52pm by Stucco

There's also a ZAM type FC on Lamia too, lol. That's the one I'm in.

I can concur with Thayos here. Him and I are in the same FC (I actually introduced him to it). Obviously, this also means we're on the same server, Hyperion. Our server is one of the Legacy servers, which means a lot of the people on there used to play in 1.0. Not everyone or even most, just a lot. What Thayos said about it (in addition to our FC) is spot on.

Of course, I know there are other FCs and servers that people on ZAM can recommend to you (like Callinon just did).

I hope you have fun, and welcome to the game!

I know how that is. I don't really know anybody and I'm not really the social type, so the guys here on ZAM are the only people I really got to know when I got into XIV.

You guys are making a strong case for Hyperion, sorry Callinon. Just really looking forward to getting in the game. Should be active by the weekend or so.

He speaks the truth. Best times I've seen to make characters are early morning and at night. Took me a day or two of being patient to get a character here.

I'd also ask around if there are anything like queues to log in. I remember at a high point, Lamia even had queues to log on, and it isn't exactly the most populous server either.

One doesn't want a dead server with hardly anybody on it, but IMO, queues suck even worse. Nothing like sitting down, with 2 hours to do a quick dungeon run or two and end up spending 30+ minutes waiting in line just to log on, lol.

These days, I've not seen any queues on Lamia yet and I'm glad for it. There's easily enough people around that the world feels alive, but yet not so many that I can't log on either.