Spiritreaver
Member
Thanks, that was fast. Now another newb question, but where the heck are Gysahl Greens bought?
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - Beta Phase 3 Impression: Phase 4 August
- Thread starter N.A
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QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
The merchant that sells the little pets sells it.
Boss Man
Member
I had a lot of fun with it. It felt like an updated FFXI so far, we'll see what kind of story / cutscenes are there in the meat of it. I feel like I only skimmed the surface, but I'm not sure if that's just because the game is shallower than FFXI or if it's because beta / I just got to level 8.
I hope they add the option to mess with the chat log on PS3. The whole social aspect of the game feels hidden and secondary compared to FFXI. Chat log is small in the corner, /tells are difficult with two names, there's no clever dynamic nature to the log ('start typing to bring up the typing box').
The combat is fun, the class system is deep and interesting (this is the FFXI part), the art direction is incredible (it looks/feels more like Final Fantasy than anything since FFIX to me), and the game is beautiful.
I hope they add the option to mess with the chat log on PS3. The whole social aspect of the game feels hidden and secondary compared to FFXI. Chat log is small in the corner, /tells are difficult with two names, there's no clever dynamic nature to the log ('start typing to bring up the typing box').
The combat is fun, the class system is deep and interesting (this is the FFXI part), the art direction is incredible (it looks/feels more like Final Fantasy than anything since FFIX to me), and the game is beautiful.
OK, I'm done done for this week. It's almost time and I keep getting disconnected for some reason, so I just put my character in his room and disconnected.
I haven't played FFXI in a LONG time, barely played FFXIV (only the beta) so my opinion might not be super relevant, but I love what I played until now. I'm a Pugilist (so, Ul'dah) and just hit level 11 after clearing the instance where you fight a Golem alone. I did pretty much every quest that was available at any time, it was relatively painless and pretty enjoyable. For some one like me who would like to play this casually, the game delivers for now.
We're keeping these characters next week, right? When the next reset happens, will it be the last one? (ie. I can keep the next character for the main game?)
I haven't played FFXI in a LONG time, barely played FFXIV (only the beta) so my opinion might not be super relevant, but I love what I played until now. I'm a Pugilist (so, Ul'dah) and just hit level 11 after clearing the instance where you fight a Golem alone. I did pretty much every quest that was available at any time, it was relatively painless and pretty enjoyable. For some one like me who would like to play this casually, the game delivers for now.
We're keeping these characters next week, right? When the next reset happens, will it be the last one? (ie. I can keep the next character for the main game?)
cpp_is_king
Member
Affirmative. Phase 3 will last several weekends, and phase 4 characters will be permanent.
So excited playing this for the first time this weekend. Loved XI, got into the XIV alpha and was amazed at how terrible it was in every way but bought the CE like a sucker and gave retail less than a week before realizing what a giant dissappointment it was. Probably my biggest gaming disappointment of the last five years, easily. So to play ARR this weekend for the first time and find that it's a fantastic marriage of things I loved about both XI, WoW, and XIV (mainly art, music, and story) left me really excited.
Might upgrade my GPU from SLI'd 560tis to a 7-series card... anyone using one that could post impressions? I already found this game hates SLI (benchmark scored lower with it on) so a single card solution sounds good.
Might upgrade my GPU from SLI'd 560tis to a 7-series card... anyone using one that could post impressions? I already found this game hates SLI (benchmark scored lower with it on) so a single card solution sounds good.
Game seems CPU bound just like every MMO so your mileage will vary. I can tell you with my 690 working at half capacity I'm getting pretty consistent 60 FPS @1080p in the outdoor areas. High 40s-60 in cities depending on the number of people (once again though, CPU found on a 3770k @ 4.6ghz).
Hopefully SLI support is on the way even if it's only to even out the load between GPUs. Card is getting pretty toasty.
EDIT: This is a beta with limited people playing too... who knows how everything will hold up once it's live.
Alex
Member
That's pretty much my story to a t, except I never bought it after! I did go ahead and buy a CE down the line, though, when Newegg had them on clearance for 15, got lucky there considering the new rewards are going to be retroactive.
Still gotta register it when it goes back up.
Unless they find a bug and need to wipe.
In 1h and 5 minutes right now.
what the heck? that's lame..I've been busy this weekend so far and haven't had time to play as much and week one of the beta is about to end=/
ah well...last of us time
Can you be more specific, are you at the very start of downloading the client or downloading a smaller section?
If it's just a smaller section that's failing you can delete the partial download from your;
Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn (Beta Version)\downloads\ffxivpatch
I had this problem with a 50mb~ section when I didn't have enough file space.
If it's the worse scenario you have where the entire download keeps failing then you just need to login, babysit the download, cancel it when it stops progressing, and type the password again or else the client will close and you'll have to do a recheck.
Every time the download reaches around 1,400MB, it changes from "Downloading" to "Updating", then throws an error. After that, the download will simply restart from the beginning.
Is there a file in one of the folders;
Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn (Beta Version)\downloads\ffxivpatch\randomnumbershere
Deleting it is the only fix I can suggest based on my 50mb segment problem where the update would just keep failing.
EDIT;
If it doesn't work, try grabbing the error code if there is one and searching it on the beta forum if you haven't already.
You can buy it at "The coffer and Coffin" In Central Thanalan.
During the download, the file is there, but as soon as the process fails, the file is removed. I've been trying different things since Friday afternoon, and all I've accomplished is downloaded gigs and gigs of data for no reason at all. Searching around the technical support forums, it appears this same issue has existed since the previous testing phase as well.
Oh, nice! Maybe I'll manage to complete the quest.
Searching 1400mb brings several results pointing to this thread;
http://forum.square-enix.com/ARR-Test/threads/8162-11006-20641-20643-a-litany-of-failure
So how does one obtain the quest for the Thanalan instance ("A Copper Hell") if you started in Ul'dah? I played far enough in to see that if you start in Ul'dah you gain access to the Limsa instance first (which I didn't try- what are people's impressions of instances, compared to let's say WoW?)
Ending the first weekend at level 17 guardian; if anyone saw a goofy looking XIV-Galka running around as Beep Boop on Ultros, that'd be me.
Ending the first weekend at level 17 guardian; if anyone saw a goofy looking XIV-Galka running around as Beep Boop on Ultros, that'd be me.
Heh, yep, I tried every voodoo fix in that thread with no luck. A friend of mine described it as "watching a kid try to push the truck by the S.S. Anne." It's also worth noting the date on that thread, a little telling that the problem has existed for quite some time for a significant amount of people. Hopefully this stuff can get ironed out before release...
Spent the majority of my Sunday evening playing it. Highly enjoyable and I feel that it's a quasi-merge of playstyles grabbed from WoW and GW2. I'm sure that the negatives are bound to rear their head, but at the moment I'm willing to forgo any discrimination against a subscription.
Everything was a little confusing at first, as was warranted, but after a few hours I came back wanting to play more.
Everything was a little confusing at first, as was warranted, but after a few hours I came back wanting to play more.
For the most part, a really solid MMO experience this time around from Square-Enix. I'm surprised at how much has changed since 1.0. Outside of a few issues (audio, graphical, in-game quests), everything seems to be working quite well.
I think the only worrisome thing I see right now is how quickly you can level in the game. I'm sure there will be some very ridiculous end game stuff, but I can easily see a good chunk of people hitting cap on their advanced job in well under a month. Even if FFXI was a grind fest when it first came out, you had to work for those levels.
I hope this has more staying power than most of the MMOs that have come out in the last few years.
I think the only worrisome thing I see right now is how quickly you can level in the game. I'm sure there will be some very ridiculous end game stuff, but I can easily see a good chunk of people hitting cap on their advanced job in well under a month. Even if FFXI was a grind fest when it first came out, you had to work for those levels.
I hope this has more staying power than most of the MMOs that have come out in the last few years.
A friend and I burned toward the airship quests before the end, and MAN, were we rewarded. Really impressive stuff at that point.
Really enjoyed what I played, but I think that's it for now...everything I do I'm going to have to do again, Does anyone know how different the Limsa and Ul'dah openings are? I figured I would try a different city to relieve the repetition, but honestly, I just love Gridania more than those two cities...at least, aesthetically.
Most fun things: a random levequest where I had to kill Water Sprites to obtain cores, than use those cores on random sprites until one was revealed to be a trickster imp in disguise. It was a lot of fun figuring out what to do, it was quick, it was fun.
Also the battle to protect the guardian tree, two-part instance. I don't like that all story instances had to basically be done solo, but this one was as good as it could be.
Didn't ever go into the Tam-Tara Deepcroft, or do a Guildhest, which looked interesting.
No materia to be found, or companions, or limit breaks. Lots of stuff to come. And PLEASE MAKE TP MANAGEMENT A THING. Come on, S-E. Why even have that bar there?
Really enjoyed what I played, but I think that's it for now...everything I do I'm going to have to do again, Does anyone know how different the Limsa and Ul'dah openings are? I figured I would try a different city to relieve the repetition, but honestly, I just love Gridania more than those two cities...at least, aesthetically.
Most fun things: a random levequest where I had to kill Water Sprites to obtain cores, than use those cores on random sprites until one was revealed to be a trickster imp in disguise. It was a lot of fun figuring out what to do, it was quick, it was fun.
Also the battle to protect the guardian tree, two-part instance. I don't like that all story instances had to basically be done solo, but this one was as good as it could be.
Didn't ever go into the Tam-Tara Deepcroft, or do a Guildhest, which looked interesting.
No materia to be found, or companions, or limit breaks. Lots of stuff to come. And PLEASE MAKE TP MANAGEMENT A THING. Come on, S-E. Why even have that bar there?
AzureSkies
Member
So with the server still worryingly up for me in my inn room as I'm the only person in the linkshell online, I decided to give my opinion on the beta in emote form:
My god is this game enjoyable!
I only managed to play for the last few hours, but I managed to get to level 10 and the experience playing the game was damn great. I went in expecting a mediocre MMORPG and I was left with an incredibly well-crafted Final Fantasy MMO that managed to push all the right buttons. This is the most enjoyable MMO that I have played in years.
If anyone's interested, my character name was Gangplank Moneyman decided by my drunk friend on Skype as I main Gangplank in LoL.
My god is this game enjoyable!
I only managed to play for the last few hours, but I managed to get to level 10 and the experience playing the game was damn great. I went in expecting a mediocre MMORPG and I was left with an incredibly well-crafted Final Fantasy MMO that managed to push all the right buttons. This is the most enjoyable MMO that I have played in years.
If anyone's interested, my character name was Gangplank Moneyman decided by my drunk friend on Skype as I main Gangplank in LoL.
TranceKuja
Member
I wonder why you can't play story missions with friends. I am currently amazingly stuck on the Duty, Honor, Country quest. I think this is the one people are standing in line for? I've had a ton of trouble with the story related quest before this one too. Made me wonder how much more fun and manageable it would be if I could just let a healer join me. The cooldown on potions take so long they're practically useless.
I was really enjoying the game until the quests ran dry and the story missions became brick walls.
I was really enjoying the game until the quests ran dry and the story missions became brick walls.
Because they want it to be more difficult and also in the story quests NPCs jump in to help
ended for the weekend. Starts back up on Friday again. Will keep doing this for like a month or two
AzureSkies
Member
The beta is only up on weekends.
Also, I was sadly kicked out of the server about a minute after I made that post.
Playable only on weekends.
ooooh
Spiritreaver
Member
Aw man, took a short break and it's down! Was a fun ride. Color me impressed and I was incredibly skeptical going into it. The phase 2 tests really let me down, but the game has changed significantly in phase 3. It went from your typical WoW era MMO to making me feel like I was playing FFXI, without all the horrible shit I remember.
It looks great, it feels great, there is always something happening. Whether it's quest you're completing, story instance, the random FATE you stumble upon, or leves. The only time the game's pacing seemed to slow down was when I couldn't find a group for the three instances. Then again when I reached Grand Company, but that was likely because I reached it well before hitting 25, which I assume is when the next arc in the story starts.
What surprised me the most was the combat. I picked up gladiator and by the time I did the first dungeon I realized just how busy it played. And it was busy because it needed to be, not because the rotation required it. Yet it all felt very fluid.
Things I need to see before I'm completely sold: PVP and the state of endgame. I know it's going to probably be a daily instance/raid fest like every other MMO, but they have to offer much more than that. I really wouldn't mind seeing them flesh out FATE and guildhests for endgame content. Not everything has to be casual. Don't be afraid to get more "bad" publicity like the Absolute Virtue/PW fiasco.
It looks great, it feels great, there is always something happening. Whether it's quest you're completing, story instance, the random FATE you stumble upon, or leves. The only time the game's pacing seemed to slow down was when I couldn't find a group for the three instances. Then again when I reached Grand Company, but that was likely because I reached it well before hitting 25, which I assume is when the next arc in the story starts.
What surprised me the most was the combat. I picked up gladiator and by the time I did the first dungeon I realized just how busy it played. And it was busy because it needed to be, not because the rotation required it. Yet it all felt very fluid.
Things I need to see before I'm completely sold: PVP and the state of endgame. I know it's going to probably be a daily instance/raid fest like every other MMO, but they have to offer much more than that. I really wouldn't mind seeing them flesh out FATE and guildhests for endgame content. Not everything has to be casual. Don't be afraid to get more "bad" publicity like the Absolute Virtue/PW fiasco.
Damn, there was no line on my server (Shiva-EU) but i could easily see how it could get clogged and bugged out, that quest was ridiculously hard on my THM. Took 7 attempts before I finally defeated that Gargoyle.
I think i love this game, amazing considering what v1.0 was like.
Big Chungus
Member
Yeah I enjoyed the beta quite a bit, that boss battle at the Eldertree (sp?) was pretty cool.
TranceKuja
Member
Well, I suppose, but it's an MMO. I thought the main appeal of it would be to overcome obstacles with other human players, not you + NPC's.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Beta weekend is over, even though it's barely Sunday in the US. Dat Japan time.
Well, I'm not sure what to say that can adequately express how I feel about this. If you had told me nearly 3 years ago now that Squenix would completely turn FFXIV around, I would have laughed and said you were crazy.
Well, it's 3 years later, and Squenix has completely turned FFXIV around. There are still some quirks in the UI such as the map system and the need to click 3 times to hand a quest NPC an item to complete a quest, but mostly the game has been completely remade from top to bottom. It literally is a new game. The general shape of the 3 main cities remains the same, but everything else is completely new and surprisingly good. This game really is FFXIV-2.
There's plot literally everywhere now, something which was so blatantly absent in the original game. This is because there are quests literally everywhere now, as FFXIV has been largely remade from the original pointless grindfest into a pretty classic themepark MMO. You move from quest hub to quest hub and do quests. Fortunately a decent amount of effort has been put into giving quests some variety, this is no Tera where every quest hub had kill 10 of x, gather 10 of y, repeat until you're level capped. The quests you do are pretty fun for the most part, and the number of mobs you need to kill is generally limited to 3-5 which is nice.
The story of FFXIV-2 connects to the ending events of the original game but the story cutscenes I watched from level 1 to 17 pretty much summarize it fairly well. Not that much actually happens in original FFXIV up until the return of Bahamut and it gets covered quickly. Players of the original game will recognize a number of the important story NPCs who return in this game and continue to aid you at opportune moments. Oh, and there's a particular cutscene I watched when you get your Airship Pass which gave me a bunch of FFXII vibes all over the place. It seems story elements are lifted unashamedly from previous FF titles but especially from FFVI (magitek) and FFXII. Both of these games had great storylines so I'm hoping they take the story of FFXIV-2 seriously. Also, I want to wear Magitek armor. Make it happen, Squenix!
A great number of assets seem reused from the original game, but the zones are all new and are now smaller but completely hand-made, unlike the massive empty copy-pasta zones of the original game. The new engine for this game looks good, draw distance is basically unlimited and it runs basically locked at 60 fps on my machine, though AA is confirmed to be not working yet. The graphics are very good though for a game which is still intended to run on the PS3, some of the texture resolution isn't there when zoomed in close-up but when you're just running through the world fighting things, it looks just great.
The lighting and shadowing system has been completely revamped and is now mostly free of the weirdness seen in the old engine, and skills and spells now generate massive amounts of sparkles everywhere whenever you do just about anything. In terms of sheer environment variety and size, Tera still is the king and queen of sheer MMO eye candy, but that game didn't have to run on PS3 and it frequently has awful framerates whereas this game runs perfectly smoothly.
I want to say a few words about the combat. FFXIV-2 is, for lack of a better description, a skillspam mashfest tab-target ice-skating combat MMO. Combat is reasonably fast-paced but all you do is mash a button every 2.5 seconds to spam a skill, as for some reason auto-attack is on an ungodly slow timer and waiting for your auto-attack between skills actually slows down how fast you kill stuff. The MMO "weaving" technique seen in many auto-attack combat MMOs is pointless here, just mash skill buttons until it's dead and forget your auto-attack.
There is an element of tactics involved with larger mobs and bosses, mostly relating to charging of AoE attacks, but unlike for example Tera in this game when the mob charges it's AoE a huge-ass red circle appears around it to show you the range of the attack and a bar appears above it's large HP bar to show the charging. There is no animation lock anymore either, you can just ice skate through your attack animation to move out of the AoE red circle freely. If you can still manage to still get hit by AoEs in this game after all this, then I'm not sure what to tell you, they've dumbed it down as much as humanly possible without just removing AoE attacks completely.
The game's sound engine is quite noteworthy for two reasons. First, the music is absolutely fantastic. The original FFXIV had a few decent tunes but this game pretty much has epic scale soundtrack everywhere you go. The game now has a day and night track for each area too, which is a really nice touch. Second, the sound effects are absolutely thunderous, this game has a monstrous default dynamic range and when you're in a huge story fight the music kicks in and everything is loud, full of bass, and really gives you a cinematic feeling like you're in the middle of an action scene.
The game client still has a few bugs to iron out. I had some problems with running it in Fullscreen where it would suddenly decide to wig out and minimize itself and the sound would cut out and not work again until I quit and restarted the client. Running in the long-awated Borderless Windowed mode that was so sorely unavailable in original FFXIV sorted that out for me. Besides that I noticed a few places where I could get myself stuck in the level geometry, giving us the Jump ability we've waited for so long has also allowed us to get stuck on the level and need to Return to escape. Oh well, being able to Jump is a wonderful thing and I'll gladly accept it even with the possible problems it may cause.
Well, I've already written a post so long that hardly anyone will read it, so here's TL;DR:
This is the game which should have launched 3 years ago. The end.
Well, I'm not sure what to say that can adequately express how I feel about this. If you had told me nearly 3 years ago now that Squenix would completely turn FFXIV around, I would have laughed and said you were crazy.
Well, it's 3 years later, and Squenix has completely turned FFXIV around. There are still some quirks in the UI such as the map system and the need to click 3 times to hand a quest NPC an item to complete a quest, but mostly the game has been completely remade from top to bottom. It literally is a new game. The general shape of the 3 main cities remains the same, but everything else is completely new and surprisingly good. This game really is FFXIV-2.
There's plot literally everywhere now, something which was so blatantly absent in the original game. This is because there are quests literally everywhere now, as FFXIV has been largely remade from the original pointless grindfest into a pretty classic themepark MMO. You move from quest hub to quest hub and do quests. Fortunately a decent amount of effort has been put into giving quests some variety, this is no Tera where every quest hub had kill 10 of x, gather 10 of y, repeat until you're level capped. The quests you do are pretty fun for the most part, and the number of mobs you need to kill is generally limited to 3-5 which is nice.
The story of FFXIV-2 connects to the ending events of the original game but the story cutscenes I watched from level 1 to 17 pretty much summarize it fairly well. Not that much actually happens in original FFXIV up until the return of Bahamut and it gets covered quickly. Players of the original game will recognize a number of the important story NPCs who return in this game and continue to aid you at opportune moments. Oh, and there's a particular cutscene I watched when you get your Airship Pass which gave me a bunch of FFXII vibes all over the place. It seems story elements are lifted unashamedly from previous FF titles but especially from FFVI (magitek) and FFXII. Both of these games had great storylines so I'm hoping they take the story of FFXIV-2 seriously. Also, I want to wear Magitek armor. Make it happen, Squenix!
A great number of assets seem reused from the original game, but the zones are all new and are now smaller but completely hand-made, unlike the massive empty copy-pasta zones of the original game. The new engine for this game looks good, draw distance is basically unlimited and it runs basically locked at 60 fps on my machine, though AA is confirmed to be not working yet. The graphics are very good though for a game which is still intended to run on the PS3, some of the texture resolution isn't there when zoomed in close-up but when you're just running through the world fighting things, it looks just great.
The lighting and shadowing system has been completely revamped and is now mostly free of the weirdness seen in the old engine, and skills and spells now generate massive amounts of sparkles everywhere whenever you do just about anything. In terms of sheer environment variety and size, Tera still is the king and queen of sheer MMO eye candy, but that game didn't have to run on PS3 and it frequently has awful framerates whereas this game runs perfectly smoothly.
I want to say a few words about the combat. FFXIV-2 is, for lack of a better description, a skillspam mashfest tab-target ice-skating combat MMO. Combat is reasonably fast-paced but all you do is mash a button every 2.5 seconds to spam a skill, as for some reason auto-attack is on an ungodly slow timer and waiting for your auto-attack between skills actually slows down how fast you kill stuff. The MMO "weaving" technique seen in many auto-attack combat MMOs is pointless here, just mash skill buttons until it's dead and forget your auto-attack.
There is an element of tactics involved with larger mobs and bosses, mostly relating to charging of AoE attacks, but unlike for example Tera in this game when the mob charges it's AoE a huge-ass red circle appears around it to show you the range of the attack and a bar appears above it's large HP bar to show the charging. There is no animation lock anymore either, you can just ice skate through your attack animation to move out of the AoE red circle freely. If you can still manage to still get hit by AoEs in this game after all this, then I'm not sure what to tell you, they've dumbed it down as much as humanly possible without just removing AoE attacks completely.
The game's sound engine is quite noteworthy for two reasons. First, the music is absolutely fantastic. The original FFXIV had a few decent tunes but this game pretty much has epic scale soundtrack everywhere you go. The game now has a day and night track for each area too, which is a really nice touch. Second, the sound effects are absolutely thunderous, this game has a monstrous default dynamic range and when you're in a huge story fight the music kicks in and everything is loud, full of bass, and really gives you a cinematic feeling like you're in the middle of an action scene.
The game client still has a few bugs to iron out. I had some problems with running it in Fullscreen where it would suddenly decide to wig out and minimize itself and the sound would cut out and not work again until I quit and restarted the client. Running in the long-awated Borderless Windowed mode that was so sorely unavailable in original FFXIV sorted that out for me. Besides that I noticed a few places where I could get myself stuck in the level geometry, giving us the Jump ability we've waited for so long has also allowed us to get stuck on the level and need to Return to escape. Oh well, being able to Jump is a wonderful thing and I'll gladly accept it even with the possible problems it may cause.
Well, I've already written a post so long that hardly anyone will read it, so here's TL;DR:
This is the game which should have launched 3 years ago. The end.
- Status