Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - Beta Phase 3 Impression: Phase 4 August
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YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Teletraan1
Banned
No duty finder in this phase. Says phase 4 earliest. 
No duty finder in this phase. Says phase 4 earliest.
No error 9000 and no PS3 here, so i will check for more bugs
Xux
Member
Oh I definitely agree with this. I just think the shadows look cooler, lol; I've never been one to count pixels.
Oh man, freaking this. The city stories were so good and the localization was absolutely top tier. I'm honestly hunting down any reference to the original stories for a hint at some continuation. I found Sisipu but the rest aren't anywhere I've seen.
No duty finder in this phase. Says phase 4 earliest.
Test 4 (next week) not phase 4.
TranceKuja
Member
This has probably been answered before, but will the upcoming weekend be a continuation of phase 3? Have characters been wiped and/or is phase 4 starting? I'm confused.
Continuation of phase 3. Phase 4 starts in August.
TranceKuja
Member
Okay, great. I thought my level 18 THM would be gone but I guess his adventures ain't over yet
BrosephJ
Neo Member
I'll use my first post to say that I am in love with 2.0. No other game has made me shed epic tears of joy quite like this one. Does anyone else feel the same as I do? After watching the A New Beginning trailer I knew it was going to be the ultimate FF experience. The intro cinematic and doing the story quests up to 15 in the beta just reinforced that to the max.
I must have a fanboy inside me because all of the negative posts in the beta forums make me so enraged, lol. Those people just don't appreciate all of the time and effort being put into making the game what it should be. Praise be to Yoshi-P for taking on this enormous task! I bought the 1.0 CE a couple years ago funny enough but I ended up not playing it at all. Pretty glad that I didn't board what I heard was a trainwreck of a game back then.
I must have a fanboy inside me because all of the negative posts in the beta forums make me so enraged, lol. Those people just don't appreciate all of the time and effort being put into making the game what it should be. Praise be to Yoshi-P for taking on this enormous task! I bought the 1.0 CE a couple years ago funny enough but I ended up not playing it at all. Pretty glad that I didn't board what I heard was a trainwreck of a game back then.
Do any of you guys have a spare EU PS3 beta code?
Is that the same time as the past 2 weekends?
Is that the same time as the past 2 weekends?
It is.
June 28, 2013 (Friday), 2:00 a.m. to June 30 (Sunday), 2:00 a.m. (PDT)
June 28, 2013 (Friday), 9:00 a.m. to June 30 (Sunday), 9:00 a.m. (GMT)
Teletraan1
Banned
Oops. Yeah, read that wrong. Was really the only thing I wanted to check out. Guess I can check out the remaining classes I havent played just to see them all. I really cant wait till phase 4 with the hope that our phase 4 character wont have to be wiped for any reason. Playing a MMO that you know your character is going to get wiped has been pretty anticlimactic.
I would probably feel the same as a new player, but I'm loving phase 3 now that I got my character back. I can experiment to my heart's content and not worry about shattering all my good crafting material or spending my money!
RiderKairuu
Member
Excited to get back on this weekend. I ran from Gridania to Ul'dah, gonna switch to Gladiator and do some quests for the guild.
Alexanderon
Neo Member
Hey all. Long time reader, first time poster (at least in this thread).
I got access to the beta last weekend. Rolled on Ultros due to the FF6 reference. Noticed a lot of you guys around. As a FFXI vet, I'm very impressed by what I've seen. I've been playing Guild Wars 2 every week the past 9 months and FFXIV made me completely forget about it for 48 hours. Which no game has done for a long time. I thought I'd post a few of my thoughts.
1. I like the revamped class/job system that still kind of works like the main/sub job system but in ways that is more similar to Guild Wars 1 than Final Fantasy XI. I like that you can pick and choose skills rather than being relegated by level, though obviously level limits still matter and not everything carries over. It just feels more "personalized," I guess.
2. I think the stat allocation system needs work. I think they should just bring back merits to some extent, or make stat points affect the potency or mechanics of spells/skills rather than simply buffing Strength or Intelligence. I played a Conjurer last weekend so I found myself just mindlessly pumping up my Mind, throwing a few extra points in Piety (not entirely sure what that one does?). I mean it's fine in its current form and I'd rather they focus on other elements to prep the game for launch, but in the future I'd like to see a bit more out of this feature, as well as the ability to re-roll stats at a fixed gil price (i.e., GW2 or WoW trait respec).
3. This game is engrossing. The sights. The sounds. The aesthetic is totally there. It just feels like a Final Fantasy game the minute you step into Central Shroud. And as the story continued to unfold and I saw more homages to previous Final Fantasy titles, I got more and more interested to see where the plot was going. It was a slow burn to start with the chocobo caravan intro, but about ten minutes in I just got completely drawn in.
4. More on the story: I like that several main quests were challenging. They weren't unfair. It's no Dark Souls, but To Guard A Guardian and Lord of Whatever (the pre to Ifrit fight) were hard enough to keep me engaged but easy enough to not make me ragequit. It also adds color to the plot given it's an experience you have to put effort into (unlike GW2).
5. The gathering/crafting system is elaborate. When I first rolled a crafting profession, I was horrified that they retained the failure mechanic. I remember playing FFXI, spending thousands of gil on materials, bending the knee, watching the crystal hover between my hands only to shatter into a million pieces. Obviously it's more forgiving here, and you're destined to almost never fail so long as you are crafting stuff reasonable to your level. There's a risk-versus-reward feature built in, allowing you to try and increase your chance for HQ materials, but at the cost of the items durability (which then diminishes your odds for success). And I like that gathering naturally complements the crafting professions, allowing you to swim in crystal shards.
6. My final point, and perhaps the most relevant to you guys: I wanted to say that the community in this game is bar-none the best I've seen in years. Maybe I've just been on Xbox Live a few years too long, but it is so refreshing meeting players that aren't selfish. And unlike Guild Wars 2, not every pick-up player out there is focused on speed running content---even the obvious legacy players. I did also have the pleasure of playing with a GAF member through Copperbell and Tam-Taru. I don't remember their name, unfortunately, but I did want to mention that partying with them was a very positive experience.
This user name is one I made a few years ago, and hopefully the mods will allow me to change it to better reflect the names I use these days, but my character name is Phineas Poe, and I think I'm pretty settled on Ultros as my server. I look forward to seeing more of you guys out there this weekend. I especially want to delve deeper into the crafting/gathering professions.
I got access to the beta last weekend. Rolled on Ultros due to the FF6 reference. Noticed a lot of you guys around. As a FFXI vet, I'm very impressed by what I've seen. I've been playing Guild Wars 2 every week the past 9 months and FFXIV made me completely forget about it for 48 hours. Which no game has done for a long time. I thought I'd post a few of my thoughts.
1. I like the revamped class/job system that still kind of works like the main/sub job system but in ways that is more similar to Guild Wars 1 than Final Fantasy XI. I like that you can pick and choose skills rather than being relegated by level, though obviously level limits still matter and not everything carries over. It just feels more "personalized," I guess.
2. I think the stat allocation system needs work. I think they should just bring back merits to some extent, or make stat points affect the potency or mechanics of spells/skills rather than simply buffing Strength or Intelligence. I played a Conjurer last weekend so I found myself just mindlessly pumping up my Mind, throwing a few extra points in Piety (not entirely sure what that one does?). I mean it's fine in its current form and I'd rather they focus on other elements to prep the game for launch, but in the future I'd like to see a bit more out of this feature, as well as the ability to re-roll stats at a fixed gil price (i.e., GW2 or WoW trait respec).
3. This game is engrossing. The sights. The sounds. The aesthetic is totally there. It just feels like a Final Fantasy game the minute you step into Central Shroud. And as the story continued to unfold and I saw more homages to previous Final Fantasy titles, I got more and more interested to see where the plot was going. It was a slow burn to start with the chocobo caravan intro, but about ten minutes in I just got completely drawn in.
4. More on the story: I like that several main quests were challenging. They weren't unfair. It's no Dark Souls, but To Guard A Guardian and Lord of Whatever (the pre to Ifrit fight) were hard enough to keep me engaged but easy enough to not make me ragequit. It also adds color to the plot given it's an experience you have to put effort into (unlike GW2).
5. The gathering/crafting system is elaborate. When I first rolled a crafting profession, I was horrified that they retained the failure mechanic. I remember playing FFXI, spending thousands of gil on materials, bending the knee, watching the crystal hover between my hands only to shatter into a million pieces. Obviously it's more forgiving here, and you're destined to almost never fail so long as you are crafting stuff reasonable to your level. There's a risk-versus-reward feature built in, allowing you to try and increase your chance for HQ materials, but at the cost of the items durability (which then diminishes your odds for success). And I like that gathering naturally complements the crafting professions, allowing you to swim in crystal shards.
6. My final point, and perhaps the most relevant to you guys: I wanted to say that the community in this game is bar-none the best I've seen in years. Maybe I've just been on Xbox Live a few years too long, but it is so refreshing meeting players that aren't selfish. And unlike Guild Wars 2, not every pick-up player out there is focused on speed running content---even the obvious legacy players. I did also have the pleasure of playing with a GAF member through Copperbell and Tam-Taru. I don't remember their name, unfortunately, but I did want to mention that partying with them was a very positive experience.
This user name is one I made a few years ago, and hopefully the mods will allow me to change it to better reflect the names I use these days, but my character name is Phineas Poe, and I think I'm pretty settled on Ultros as my server. I look forward to seeing more of you guys out there this weekend. I especially want to delve deeper into the crafting/gathering professions.
theSlacker
Member
While being an asshole is never ideal, some would make the claim that the opinions and points of view of the people who were willing to pay money to play a game so catastrophically broken and bad as 1.0 should be disregarded outright. Especially if you were an outsider who didn't really get to see the good of the original game first hand, and only had the knowledge that it had go go though a full makeover because of being bad to remain sellable.
Just saying, while I disagree with him I can see where he is coming from. It doesn't really help that I still remember arguments from the 1.0 beta with people over issues like why all the input lag is a bad thing, why all the repeated landscape is a bad thing, and why things like jumping is a good thing.
dakkumauji
Member
Yay for being able to play it for two days!
I was actually one of the people previously defending FFXIV 1.0 at launch, but not because I thought it was perfect, but because I was waiting/hoping to see a grander vision or plan that had not yet come to fruition... Basically waiting until the first large update to see things like housing or some other form of content besides guild Leves, I wanted to see more of the story, I liked the world but wanted to see it more filled etc. I wanted to see Ishgard while seamless walking from Coerthas to the city (based on data hacking it would have looked amazing even without the actual city being in game), I wanted to see where the boat battles were going, the collaborative crafting was going to go.
2 months after launch I came to realize it wasn't coming and the the team royally messed up the game to the point it would be a miracle if it could recover. That's when I stopped defending it, I couldn't defend it, it was indefensible. There were so many things wrong with the game at a technical and core level that whatever concepts they might have wanted to create for the game initially, it was all but impossible as it was.
I have welcomed ARR and Yoshida with open arms, and his tact and reasoning are spot on. But despite that to this day I still wonder what some of the original core concepts could have been had they actually had a chance to cook and had a respectable core functionality like we have now (Proper server architecture, better graphical optimization and effects, and perhaps most of all, proper development support for a game this size.) But that time has come and gone.
theSlacker
Member
And now the world may never know. Those were the only things that stuck out at me as being bad from the original beta, and I jumped off and ran far far away when I realized they weren't going to get fixed. The core is the most important part of a mmo, anything else can be easily changed and improved, but if your core functionality and systems are bad you end up needing a full remake to fix it.
HD Ron!
I was in the bookstore today and spotted a book/magazine (in Japanese) from the original version. Pricy at $13 (¥1260) but when I saw the samples of the Eorzean writing system inside, I couldn't resist.
Anyway, at one point they explain the measurements used in Eorzea; specifically, ilms, yalms, and malms. There are 12 ilms to the fulm, 3 fulms to the yalm, and 1760 yalms to the malm.
Now what kind of confusing, cockamamie measurement scheme would have three of one thing and seventeen hundred and-- oh, wait.
Anyway, at one point they explain the measurements used in Eorzea; specifically, ilms, yalms, and malms. There are 12 ilms to the fulm, 3 fulms to the yalm, and 1760 yalms to the malm.
Now what kind of confusing, cockamamie measurement scheme would have three of one thing and seventeen hundred and-- oh, wait.
The initial letters even match up!
Have the devs gone on record to say that additional graphics option are planned beyond beta for the PC version? Have they mentioned how the game poorly utilizes the GPU and favors the CPU? Even though it looks and runs great on my rig, I'd like to see it tax the GPU and leave my CPU alone.
SoraanTribal
Member
lol, that screenshot is hilarious. Love it.
Pai Pai Master
Banned
DirectX 11 version and high res textures are coming after launch. Maybe that will result in better optimization and more options.
That sounds nice (considering how amazing it already looks), but I hope they're working on better GPU utilization too.
Did they say which DX11 features they're implementing?
Pai Pai Master
Banned
Not yet IIRC...they've only mentioned it in passing a few times as a goal they have for shortly after launch. The PS4 version will be a port of the DirectX 11 version they will be focusing on as soon as service is live.
I'm sure they will outline their plan for the DX11 client as we get closer to release.
Pai Pai Master
Banned
Yeah - I think it's very much because of the stuff they would want to do in a DX11 version would not be possible on PS3, so they might as well focus on that first, then go further once they are no longer bound to that hardware and aren't trying to make a deadline.
The game looks gorgeous, isn't horribly optimized and has a really strong art direction...but it's still lacking some advanced features that would take it to the next level. I think the lighting in particular is an area that they oversold, and would be really improved on later.
I'm feeling that too. I have a 1.0 character, but I didn't get far enough for it to have a major impact on how I want to start in 2.0.
I'll probably hop in to try more of the crafting, and hopefully a guildhest or two, but overall I probably won't play much more until phase 4.
I could live without DX11, but I do really want proper AA and high res textures for the gear. It sometimes looks like it melted candle wax.
AlphaDragoon
Member
Ugh, I want to throw a chair through a Square Enix window or something right now.
They said no to looping background music option, 90% dead silence at all times here we come.
They said no to looping background music option, 90% dead silence at all times here we come.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
Ugh, I want to throw a chair through a Square Enix window or something right now.
They said no to looping background music option, 90% dead silence at all times here we come.
You mean 90% battle music?
Ugh, I want to throw a chair through a Square Enix window or something right now.
They said no to looping background music option, 90% dead silence at all times here we come.
I brought this up on the beta forums I would say this is one of my biggest issues and while not game breaking the music is handled kind of poorly for such great music.
The other issue with the sound I brought up is that when there is an area with a good amount of music there is too much. Basically using sprint and running ahead a tiny bit only to have another song starting up they really need to space the music out.
I also agree with the ambiance complaints.I don't really like all ambiance that much its really boring running around with nothing too listen to.
Also a friend sent me these from a recent lalafell march event that took place last saturday. The server took a hard hit lol it was real laggy.
Ugh, I want to throw a chair through a Square Enix window or something right now.
They said no to looping background music option, 90% dead silence at all times here we come.
I dunno, I was on that same page too before this phase, and the looping to silence balance seems pretty decent atm. Maybe I just havent hit the wider areas yet. Is dungeon music on loop like the city music, or does it have periods of silence too?
Unknown Soldier
Member
Ugh, I want to throw a chair through a Square Enix window or something right now.
They said no to looping background music option, 90% dead silence at all times here we come.
I'm not sure what the fuss is about. The game just doesn't loop without interruption. The music plays and the track ends. Then awhile later, it loops and resumes. It's not as if it plays once and stops forever until you zone or something. There are periods of silence between track plays, which is an interesting artistic decision that I have no problems with.
Ugh, I want to throw a chair through a Square Enix window or something right now.
They said no to looping background music option, 90% dead silence at all times here we come.
I don't see what the problem is. To be honest, I rarely even notice when the music fades and goes to silence. I only notice the lack of music when it comes back in and I'm pleasantly surprised again and again at how good the OST for this game is. I find it much better than just dropping the music all together until you zone and keeps the music fresh.
Same here. The occasional silences actually serve to highlight the music. I really like how it's done.
Pai Pai Master
Banned
I'm fine with the music design in the game too. Sometimes I like silence when I'm running around exploring. It seems to me like whenever I notice the music is absent, it starts up shortly after.
The music is really good but I think it would lose some of its luster if it just ran repeatedly. That happened to me with a lot of FFXI's music.
Man, the night time themes for the 3 cities are really spectacular.
The music is really good but I think it would lose some of its luster if it just ran repeatedly. That happened to me with a lot of FFXI's music.
Man, the night time themes for the 3 cities are really spectacular.
SnakeLinkSonic
Member
Alexanderon
Neo Member
Ugh, I want to throw a chair through a Square Enix window or something right now.
They said no to looping background music option, 90% dead silence at all times here we come.
I remember playing FFXI the first time I strolled into Konschtat Highlands with no music or anything playing. You could only hear the wind blowing across the mountains. Or Valkurm Dunes, where you could hear nothing but the waves hitting the beach. Sometimes music can mask the ambient noise of an area, which can sometimes be more immersive than a soundtrack.
Either way, I don't think this will be a problem. It didn't seem to me that the music was zone-centric so much as region-centric. If you went into a sanctuary/camp a certain track would play, but the second you ran out into the field it'd change to something else, sometimes tapering off and changing to a different track within the same zone. So even if there's no loop, music will always start up again as long as you're trekking around.
Yeah, I've heard it a few times.
It's the West Thanalan theme.
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