Final Fantasy XIV expands details on the battle system

You must know this, I am NOT a Square Enix fanboy in the slightest, I didn't like final fantasy 11 and I am a WoW player. However, I just don't understand why some people think it is their God given duty to go out and trash a game. The game is a little harder to get the hang of, but once you do it is a solid product. PLEASE it doesn't do anyone any good for anyone to go out and trash a game that doesn't need trashing.
Think about it this way, do you go out and trash others religious beliefs? If so, just because this game isn't fun FOR YOU doesn't mean it isn't fun for anyone.

i agree! this game is so garbage!

@Crookedladder.

"I am NOT a Square Enix fanboy in the slightest, I didn't like final fantasy 11 and I am a WoW player"

Then your opinion is worthless. Go cry into a pillow.

I understand that some people like FFXIV and some don't, that's fine and to be expected. Not everyone likes WoW I'm sure. I have been playing FFXIV a little bit and I am trying to get the hang of it, i think its a beautiful game with some really interesting mechanics going on. Now are there some things I don't care for much in the game? sure, i wish it played better with a keyboard and mouse for example. But! I am not going to go out and call it garbage or anything for many reasons.

1. This was a game made by people, and to those people this is their lively hood, these people obviously have a great deal of talent regardless of any flaw (whether simply perceived or real).

2. There are people that like the game, if not there would be zero reason to write about it as no one would be playing it.

3. This game is very early its life cycle and will receive many improvements to various parts of the game as time goes by.

4. Well it just doesn't really do anyone any good to sit there and be filled with that much angst and disgust over something.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

I really wanted to like this game, but after the early access and another 5 days of retail release. The game lost my sub. It wasnt any big problems or the awkwardness. once i got my feet wet i really liked it, until I realized that there isnt enough content to keep my busy more than 3 hours every 36 hours.

So disappointed by the lack of content, but i will resub the minute they put in either, side quests or more mobs, or a reason to play more than 3 hrs every 36 hrs.

Chances are that you won't enjoying FF14. I could be wrong, but betting I'm right.

If you're looking to replace WoW then try EverQuest II, it may be old and half dead but it's actually pretty good.

I just started it less than a week ago and I'm loving it.

I'm actually thinking of duel subbing EQII when Cata comes out.


Though there's not a problem in WoW's graphics.
WoW has better graphics than any MMO I've seen, what it lacks in power it makes up in style.

You've probably done a whole lot of research on the game already, but I thought I'd suggest that you could watch videos of gameplay. I'd suggest a Let's Play video on Youtube or any general real gameplay video, not some press released video that's edited to show the best elements. Watching those you can at least get a sense for what you'd really experience while playing, seeing how long it takes to travel and do stuff that isn't always mentioned in reviews or trailers.

Barring that avenue, if you have any friends that play you could talk to them to get their impressions and maybe they'd let you play a bit to see how it is.

There will be a free trial at some point, why not wait for that? At least there should be a free trial. Not sure if there was one for 11...anyone care to comment on the likeliness of a trial?

Unfortunately, you definately shouldn't get FF14. I bought it (twice, one for my gf), and even got my friend to get it too. One week later we all seriously regret it. I can't even bring myself to log in anymore, it just annoys me every time. I have never been so disappointed in a game before, and it sucks that it had to be a FF game that did it.
I also play Aion, you should give it a try, it's a great alternative to WoW. Good graphics, good community, and you'll feel right at home.

It's so useful when half a dozen people come along, declare that you will hate the game, and then fail to tell you why, isn't it?

I'm coming from GW, LotRO, and Aion. I even gave WoW a try, but didn't make it past lvl 40. The graphics were too cartoonish for my tastes, and it was incredibly, boringly easy to play. I liked the character customization of GW, the cooperative nature of play and terrific storyline in LotRO, and the beautiful graphics and large scale PvP in Aion.

With that said, FFXIV is a reasonably good fit for me. There are no true character classes, so the customization is certainly there. The gameplay generally favors cooperation in the early going - my understanding is that this will increase as we level through the existing content. The main story quests are engaging enough that I actively wonder what will happen next. And of course, the game is incredibly beautiful. There's no PvP (yet?), but I can take or leave that in a PvE-focused game. Furthermore, FFXIV is emphatically not an easy game, and I enjoy a challenge. Whatever its deficiencies might be, FFXIV does tick a number of items on my "is this a good game" checklist, and so I find it worthwhile and fun to play.

That said, its challenges are legion, and you'll have to decide what you can tolerate. This game is the opposite of WoW's spoonfeeding. There are no quest markers to follow, no step-by-step instructions of how to do this or that activity. There aren't many quests at all, so your progress through the game is almost entirely self-determined. The UI is incredibly clunky for Western PC-gamers. It's clearly a console port with endless menus and dialogue boxes instead of point-and-click panels. Mouse-and-keyboard interaction with the game can be frustrating, but it's MILES better than it was in Beta. The crafting system is not well-balanced, with some low-level crafts requiring incredibly high level crafted components. This means that some jobs won't have access to even basic equipment upgrades until the player crafting community advances pretty far along the crafting progression scale. The economy is almost non-functional without an Auction house. S-E is so proud of their player bazaar system to cut down on RMT dominance in the economy, but in shutting out the RMT purveyors, they've also shut out the players to a large extent, though improvements are supposed to be in the offing. There are many hyped game features that just aren't there yet (additional retainers for storage/selling, mounts, airship travel), and the longer we wait for them, the more frustrating their absence becomes.

Does FFXIV have serious problems to overcome? Yeah, definitely, and lots of them. Does it also have strong positive points? Absolutely. It's not what I would call a polished overall game experience yet, but the lack of polish has not, so far, been enough to chase me away. Would you enjoy playing it? Maybe, but it depends on how much of the bad you're willing to tolerate for the sake of the good. Like you, I've got my eye on upcoming titles like SW:TOR and GW2. Of the MMOs currently in operation, though, there really isn't anything else out there to command my attention. If that's about where you are, and the slate of positives and negatives I laid out sounds workable to you, then sure. FFXIV is probably worth your time, at least to try it out and see if you like it. If a couple of the issues I discussed are show-stoppers, though, think twice. S-E is not known for its speedy response to player feedback, so you'll probably be living with those issues for some time.

Compliments to istarien619 for a well written opinion.

I concur with the Gamespot review in general. The graphics are stunning, provided you have a PC/gaming notebook powerful enough to run FFXIV. (However, some top end video cards are still underperforming).

Playing the game is more enjoyable with a controller. The interface is deliberately restrictive in my opinion - I suppose they don't want to gimp PS3 players by giving PC players an 'advantage' but they've severely limited the freedom & flexibility that PC MMO'ers are used to.

The grinding required to progress in FFXIV is pretty much enforced and not very well disguised. It wouldn't be so bad if there were a few more quests to keep players engaged. It feels like everything has been designed to take a lot of time. The game in general is not intuitive or casual friendly. The lag 3 weeks in still abominable.

That said - the game does have a solid foundation, great class customization and a lot of potential. If SE commit resources to speed development of some content and address some of the key gripes of players it'll be a much better game.

In short, like most MMO's these days - FFXIV was pushed out as an unfinished product far too early, with the promise of more features and content to come down the track. We as customers of MMO's seem to now be in the habit of purchasing these unfinished/unpolished products and are surprised when we find ourselves disappointed and outraged.

My impression from playing it and out of game research was that the development team kept coming up with ideas for gameplay mechanics and using the ones that they thought were the most interesting taken on their own. No consideration for how players would feel about them, what players would do in response, whether it adds up to too much, which genre conventions attempting to defy would only cripple them, and certainly not for taking some time out to develop some content variety.

The final straw for me was finding out that running around causes gear to lose durability. It really is a straw, just a small quality of life issue, but the fact that the developers thought that this not only would be a good idea but contributed to their vision left me aghast. Not only could I not subscribe to the game, I could not consider playing any further during my remaining time. I was just disgusted.

4/10 sounds about right to me. All four points are for graphics.

yeah but the gamespot reviewer said he had difficulty creating an account which was a menial task

so im not sure but the fact that the game is a bit more complicated in it's approach to just about everything whether he knew what was going on

the interface(which kinda lags and has too many confirmation windows) and the dumb obstacles (i can walk down this cliff step but i cant jump back up)

are the only thing i can agree with

if you group their's more than enough quests to do since you'll end up in like 50 levequests instead of the 8 regional ones

the economy in my mind is more annoying due to interface lag than anything

Yes, I think the GameSpot review was pretty accurate. The boards over at Zam, Amazon and even Amazon.jp have been filled with frustrated players... most of them fans disappointed with SE for releasing an $80 game in this condition with none of the lessons they should have learned from FFXI.

http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?game=268&mid=1286417050303847381&page=1

There are some really cool gameplay elements buried in this game. But the broken chat window keeps most players silent, broken search keeps you from finding your friends, slow UI and multiple redundant confirmation dialogs make doing simple things tedious, weapons wear out after 2-4 hours of grinding, the list goes on and on.

I hope SE does start communicating with players and fixes all of the valid issues the review & forums are pointing to, but ya in it's *current state* 4.0 is a pretty accurate assessment.

Deg,

This isn't an infomercial. This isn't even positive or negative. It's simply a statement of fact: S-E put up information on their systems yesterday, and we thought it was worth making a mention of, especially as many FFXIV players want to know more about these systems.

In fact, the only opinion in this article is "FFXIV isn't accessible." An opinion that's obviously a little negative towards the game.

Please, do not accuse us of "soliciting money through outside means." We are a member of the Joystiq Network, and one of the many AOL Blogs. Our advertising and our revenue comes from the AOL side of the business, not the writing side of the business. Our advertising network and staff are completely separate, and never the twain shall meet.

~Sera