Comments on: FFXIV: Beta 3 Impressions, Part 1

By: flosch

flosch — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 18:53:40 +0000

Now that you mention it, I do remember that X started quite slowly. I was in the mood for that though, I guess. In fact, I think I rented it, together with a PS2, from a videostore when the PS2 was still quite new and they had a special, so I had no incentive to return it early and a whole weekend to play it. That silly ball game was by far the worst part of the game, and you could thankfully ignore it ever after.

Out of curiosity, did you play any FFs that you liked? I think the only other one I played for more than 30 minutes was VI, and I never finished it because other stuff came up.

One hope that I have for XIV is that, with a bit of luck, the community might be quite stable. I don’t think there’s been any setting since WoW that drew in fans that new what they were getting into. SWTOR drew in lots of fans, but they weren’t gamers, first and foremost. FF fans might not leave immediately when the next MMO is released. If that happens, I could see myself spending quite some time there. But we’ll see. I won’t get my hopes up too high, I don’t like disappointments.

By: HarbingerZero

HarbingerZero — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 15:05:56 +0000

You like X? I rented it and returned it the same day, when I realized I had played for five hours and the only thing I had actually done was throw a ball at a couple of bad guys…while underwater.

On the other hand, I agree that VII was overrated and…you’ve piqued my interest enough here to at least try the OB for XIV. I don’t know that I will stick with it, since I’m not a fan of the weapon = class mechanic. Not sure why they couldn’t have stolen a page from Tactics and made a line of support skills that allowed you to use the abilities of your job while equipped with a weapon from some other job. Lost opportunity!

By: flosch

flosch — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 06:38:24 +0000

“Half the things you pick out as bad were the things I liked most and vice versa” – And half of those, still, are things we actually don’t disagree on, though we might come there from different angles. 😉

The quests are somewhat above average because I enjoy the language. The quests themselves are nothing to write home about, though. Then again, I’ve been playing games that live off this fare exclusively for years, so I guess this is not critical.

Maybe I made it sound like I do, but I don’t mind slow leveling at all. I enjoyed the leveling speed. Even though I didn’t feel it was all that slow.

I think the “all classes on one character thing” is something you can easily enough circumvent if you don’t like it, by just rolling additional characters when you feel like it. I don’t think there is any imposed limit, as it was in SWG at some point. Doing so is not optimal from a min-max point of view, but I don’t think you’re ever given a rat’s ass about that. 😉

I will talk about public quests in a stand-alone post, though I think for the most part, we’re just of different mindsets there.

I love scripted boss fights, so this is where we definitely disagree. On the other hand, you reminded me of a good point that I forgot to write down in the post: the dungeon design has this worrisome room->corridor->room->corridor->room setup. I’d love to see more sprawling cities (Blackrock Depths) or winding tunnel dungeons, and especially huge vertical ascents (Blackrock Spire). I kind of expected from the start not to find those in this game, though.

About the central narrative, you’re probably right. It’s a Final Fantasy game, so it will probably attract a lot of fans of the single-player FFs, who will want a central story line. I can’t really count myself among those fans, because I only played a few FF’s, and the only ones I finished where X (which I really liked) and VII (which I found ok, but ridiculously overrated).

By: bhagpuss

bhagpuss — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 23:13:48 +0000

Half the things you pick out as bad were the things I liked most and vice versa. I think the quests are well above average. Many are very odd and quirky and all are very well-written. I liked the leveling speed, which I found pleasantly slow. The world is quite small, I think, which is worrying.

I really, really dislike the “all classes on same character” thing. I dislike it everywhere it’s used. One of the key parts of MMOs for me is to play all the races on offer (except elves) and this kind of system makes that less fun. I’m not at all interested in having one uber-powerful character – I’d far rather have half a dozen moderately feeble ones. Which is what will end up happening anyway if I play for any length of time.

I have been in since Beta 2 but I never managed to level far enough to try a dungeon. They sound unpleasant. I detest scripted fights and these sound like they move towards that quite quickly. Just put mobs in there and let us kill them, that’s all I want. Which is also why my favorite innovation in MMOs of late is the huge all-pile-on fights you don’t like. I can happily mash buttons for hours in a huge crowd fighting a big monster – what’s not to like about that? The monsters in the Fates I did weren’t big enough, though. I like a nice 10-15 minute water-on-stone fight while 50 of us wear one monster down! Especially if it also involves lots of running in circles.

As for the story, I was under the impression that FF fans expected a central narrative of some importance as a recognized part of the franchise. It looked pretty good to me.

Overall I’m not sure about FFXIV. It seems yet another MMO falling between several stools. I’ll be buying it but how long I’ll play is another matter.