Kaori's Babydaddy
Banned
Is this game still in the beta phase?
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - Beta Phase 3 Impression: Phase 4 August
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It's a shame FFXIV 1.0's alpha/beta was basically just an early access. They received tons of feedback (mostly on how terrible it was and should be delayed), and I don't think they changed much of anything when it released in that pitiful state.
Thankfully, ARR's beta feels completely different with dev replies and comments regarding feedback.
Yeah, feels like they're being a whole lot more responsible. Yoshida even recently stated that the retail release would be delayed if any game breaking bugs were found during the open beta. It'd probably have to be a pretty severe bug, but being open to delays at this point is the exact right attitude.
On one final note on the, "lag," issues. Apparently this problem was a lot more prevalent on some servers than others. I don't know too much about this subject, but that to me would suggest a bad piece of server side code somewhere, possibly some sort of memory leak.
That, "should," be fixable, assuming they can identify the piece of code responsible.
It's a shame FFXIV 1.0's alpha/beta was basically just an early access. They received tons of feedback (mostly on how terrible it was and should be delayed), and I don't think they changed much of anything when it released in that pitiful state.
It is as in the Open Beta will be in about 2 weeks, but currently there is no service since they are working on debugging, finishing the launch client, etc.
ROBOKITTYZILLA
Member
Just the main threads. When we get organized on the site, I'll post the majority of the news/updates/events there.
I agree. I loved our group in phase 3 and hope that the majority of those players will be joining us at launch. We talked about this during phase 3, but FC housing is going to be our first major goal. We are definitely going to make a big push for it and hopefully be one of the first FCs on the server to achieve this goal.
It's a shame FFXIV 1.0's alpha/beta was basically just an early access. They received tons of feedback (mostly on how terrible it was and should be delayed), and I don't think they changed much of anything when it released in that pitiful state.
I was the only international media / white person invited to a FFXIV fan event before TGS 2010.
I couldn't follow much of it since it was all in Japanese, but basically it was Tanaka repeatedly apologizing for the state of the game a week before launch.
He showed a bunch of concept art to try and indicate that the game would be improving, but... most of it was really boring? Like... pictures of new camps appearing on the map. No new content, really, just cosmetic stuff, while also promising to address all the really horrible gameplay systems like random exp.
Ahh, Tanaka. Not the best of developers ever to work for Square, but I still tend to feel bad for the guy. I think XIV would've ended up with a lot of the same problems XI had, even if he'd been given ample time to polish the game up before release. Regardless, I still tend to think he was put in an, untenable position, with management rushing the launch of the game.
Maybe not though, blaming management isn't always fair, I suppose.
I had my issues with Tanaka's leadership, but I think he was a good steward of XI for the most part.
And he was always cool to me whenever I interviewed him, and remembered me and that I asked tough questions, could listen to their Japanese, etc.
Just from what I've heard from people at Square, no one on XIV 1.0 was really talking to each other, just focused on their own little bits. There was just no communication, everyone was just kind of working in a fog, and then everyone was surprised when the launch date arrived and they didn't have a game.
I've also heard some things about how, like, they were done with pre-production and itching to get into production, but had to wait for the oft-delayed XIII tech before they could get started. So their start date kept getting pushed back by XIII delays, but their release date didn't move in step with that.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
What a mess. I wish I could have seen their reactions when they got their hands on that XIII tech.
Well, they threw it away in 2.0, so I think we know what they think of it now.
Yoshi-P has commented that the tools for 1.0 were terrible for creating content easily, and that's one of the first things he had to do to get 2.0 going.
This is actually a very forward-thinking position to take for a Japanese company - they tend to believe more in sweat of brow than proper tools.
Type-0 on Vita?
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Yeah, I don't have a problem with AH, neither with the map quests locations, I'm not a person who agrees with making a MMO more obscure and let the player discover the things on their own, BUT if going through a few map screens to know where to go instead of just blindly following a quest marker all the way from the starting point is too much for you, I have something to tell you: STOP BEING SO DAMN LAZY!
Yeah I was surprised to see that they were very limited on the content they could create thanks to those awful tools.
No doubt that Crystal Tools was one of the SE banes during the whole gen. You won't be missed shitty engine!
FF 7 Remake
for iOS
Well yea, I get that.
But part of me is still left thinking how incompetent the team is as far as netcode goes, all MMO's suffer from lag but this is the only company where I have seen such mismatches in client/server data.
Well, it, "can," take years to get a good engine up, running, and fully polished, particularly when it comes to MMO's. It's also difficult to test every aspect of an MMO's engine, until its up and running in a real world environment.
For example, lets say my earlier hypothesis about the lag being the result of a memory leak somewhere, is correct. This would mean, that some feature within the game, when heavily utilized, would cause lag for other players. Well, the only way they'd ever notice this, is if they had players to report that lag. You can stress test a server, but that doesn't actually simulate real world activity, the only way to really know how many players are going to do X, Y, or Z activity at any given, and how that effects the programs and servers, it to actually have players doing X Y and Z.
So, no, I'm not surprised this server side bug went unnoticed until now, there would've been limited opportunity to notice it before now.
Teletraan1
Banned
I think they have been pretty responsive to addressing concerns that are within the scope of fixing before launch. Expecting any MMO to ship with all the refinements that a game that has been on the market for 9 years has is foolish, the development time for the game would be forever.
I never understand the complaints about combat in this game either. I think a lot of it stems from people who barely got to 15 in the beta and they don't skill bloat you early in this game which is a good thing for new players. Also for certain classes they don't focus on just giving you attacks, they gave you longer defensive/offensive CDs. However I have been playing FFXII to kill time and I came to the realization that a lot of people are fickle and against any sort of change. Apparently selecting Spells and abilities from a menu and sub menu is "good" gameplay but selecting the same spells and abilities from a hotbar is "bad" gameplay. If someone released a mod that let you select your abilities from a menu with a 2.5s ATB bar that needed to fill up before you could execute these commands would the gameplay then become "good"?
I never understand the complaints about combat in this game either. I think a lot of it stems from people who barely got to 15 in the beta and they don't skill bloat you early in this game which is a good thing for new players. Also for certain classes they don't focus on just giving you attacks, they gave you longer defensive/offensive CDs. However I have been playing FFXII to kill time and I came to the realization that a lot of people are fickle and against any sort of change. Apparently selecting Spells and abilities from a menu and sub menu is "good" gameplay but selecting the same spells and abilities from a hotbar is "bad" gameplay. If someone released a mod that let you select your abilities from a menu with a 2.5s ATB bar that needed to fill up before you could execute these commands would the gameplay then become "good"?
KH3, XV sequels, ARR expansions, XVI (you know it must already be in planning stages), other remasters...any number of things could come up or possibly be already fucking things up.
I guess it's not really fair but I consider all the 1.0 development time and 1.0 refinement over 2 years to be ARR time as well. And that means this game has had a lot of time to be refined.
And I feel the combat is boring and sometimes annoying. I made it passed 15 in Phase 3. I did up to 30 in the beta on CNJ and tried all classes to at least the first dungeon except for THM across multiple characters on both JP and US/EU servers, starting at all 3 cities.
I prefer menus because that means the combat would need to be designed around it. It would need to be slower and more methodical. I realise I am a minority in this. Hot bar combat is more twitch based, which I can live with. But the issue here is with the long GCD, it's not really that twitch either. So it's in this weird in-between spot that is just unappealing to a lot of people. Lots of people complain about how slow it is because of that GCD. It seems like it wants to appeal to both crowds but instead ends up appealing to neither.
But this is all lower level stuff. I don't know if it changes up in the late 30's, 40's, and at 50.
If I remember correctly you interviewed Yoshi 2012 E3 right? Did he ever mention how much of a massive undertaking remaking a game from scratch was for him?
As far as I am aware lag is only a small factor of this "bug", they have said multiple times that the damage/healing is calculated after the animation and because of this the cast bars don't align correctly with whats actually happening on screen.
This is why you get odd things happening like being hit by AoE's when not in the circle or party members dying after the heal has gone off.
Granted it is something which needs feedback and changing, so agree that its part of the beta process but its still a big over sight IMO, especially considering Yoshida has so much experience playing other MMO's.
I just hope that the game doesn't go live without it getting addressed. (or worse still being ignore and fobbed off as "working as intended")
Dog food is delicious
Banned
We had this problem a couple times vs. Ifrit.
Boss Man
Member
The delay happens on fall damage too. Not sure if that means anything
How long does it usually take them to add captions to the Live Letter videos? Been wanting to watch the new one but would like to wait until I have some idea of what they're saying.
Yea not really sure what is causing that to happen, sometimes I get the delay on fall damage and sprint and other times I don't :S
Sometimes they don't sub the live letters, you might be able to search youtube for a umm "fansub lol" otherwise there should be a translated write up on the forums.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Every other MMO I have ever played already had the server determine the results before the character animation is played. How they could get this so wrong when every other MMO ever made does it the right way is baffling to me.
I want the FC house to be seaside, a personal room with a window view of the sea, and every non-Lalafell race forced to room in the outhouse.
My poor sensitive Mi'qote nose! D:
SoraanTribal
Member
FFXI was also fairly "laggy" in terms of character actions, but since that game was pretty slow-paced, it didn't matter quite as much. On the other hand, ARR will require pretty quick reflexes for boss fights, so it really needs to be better.
I like you.
I like you.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
That's because it takes into account distance, so the closer you are the faster the target will get it's heal. I think is a interesting idea that will force some dynamic positioning in battles. Although given the current lag is clear that is a problem.
All welcome changes. The fact that they can add new features like this, at fairly short notice, really bodes well.
ROBOKITTYZILLA
Member
The mouth animations while chatting sounds amazing.
It'd be really nice if they were accompanied with hand gestures, but I guess that might be a bit too much non-required effort.
The game plays, looks and controls fine on PS3. Sitting at a PC sucks balls if you plan to play for hours on end.
That said, if you have the choice, why not try out the beta on both and see which you prefer.
I suppose it's an improvement from FFXI, when every single action would take a second to register before anything happened. This includes menus.
Why does sitting at a PC suck balls for playing hours on end? People already do this for other games. I tried out the PS3 version first and couldn't deal with the sub-30 frame rate and poor IQ.
If that's directed to me, I've already tried both.
Also, a game running fine on a console is far from what I want when they are also on PC. My consoles are for exclusive titles, not for multiplatform ones that appear on PC.
It really does. I welcome every change that adds to the immersion.
Well, mouth movement may not be Elin-tier, but it's a nice start!
Well, like I said elsewhere, the AoE issue has been acknowledged by the developers as a problem. Reportedly they're going to try fixing it, hopefully they have luck.
SoraanTribal
Member
Someone on the beta forums mentioned something that would be cool. When you talk in linkshell chat, it'd be neat if your character did that animation where your character puts their hand up to your ear like they do in cutscenes (when you get npc linkshell messages in the story).
Sola Scriptura
Member
For those adamant about playing FFXIV on a console, are most holding out until an eventual PS4 release, or are most going to buy the PS3 version?
Lavalamp1138
Member
I'd guess more in the US and EU are holding out for a PS4 release on consoles. My impression of Japans gaming culture, is that they really don't place as high a premium on slick visuals, so there's probably less incentive for them to hold out.
StunandStab
Member
I'll be buying both the PS3 and PS4 version.
Dog food is delicious
Banned
Same
plutoknight
Member
Obviously Kingdom Hearts III. They'll have to just leave the title as is without appending a crazy subtitle...
I've seen people play XI for years on PS2 with "poor image quality" and "inferior controls" I've played on PC, hooked to my TV, so yes, I still think sitting at a desk sucks. If you like PC then enjoy it on PC. No need to be an elitist.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
I know is a joke, but separate teams are working in parallel on both projects. Actually Nomura said there's some kind of "competetition" between the two. (Yeah, KH III was started later, but that's all)
Augemitbutter
Member
both if the game is good.
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