Well, I'm still knee deep in work for at least the next two days, but I managed to play a bit during lunch.
- Crafting seems harder. You can still spam rapid synth and get a majority of successful synths, but it doesn't seem as effective. I don't have the time or gil to test things right now, but I definitely feel this has been adjusted since the beta.
- XP/SP comes much faster. In the short time I played I'm CON 6, CPN 5 (carpenter) and TAN 4, Physical 9.
- Wear on weapons and armor seems slower. For the amount of xping I've done, it feels like my wear should be more. This may be a side effect of lower gil rewards since players won't have as much gil to fix gear.
- Lower gil rewards is really a shock from the OB gil rewards. After completing half the Ul'dah storyline, 5 battleleves and 4 crafting leves, then buying tools for TAN, CPN and ALC (alchemist), I only have just over 2000 gil. I haven't even tried to buy mats for crafting yet, although I haven't sold any of the misc items in my inventory either. Still, at first, the market is going to be very slow while people raise the money to buy items.
- Overall lag has been decreased, but it's still present. This is especially so during crafting leves.
- The game crashed once during character creation and one time while I played, so about average compared to the OB (at least for me).
- Game ran very smoothly for me. I'd say slightly smoother than the OB.
- I did not get into a party as my CON, but spamming cure on myself did not give me any SP, so I'm still skeptical about the party mechanics.
- People seem much more friendly than in the OB. I actually had a THA try to heal me (with regen no less) while fighting a tough mob. I was doing far more healing myself, but still, this did not happen at all during the OB.
- People also seem far too reliant on guildleves... even in this thread. I still have 7 leves to do and I haven't even started crafting outside of leves.
I said the only quests in this game are the storylines and class quests (which once again, no one is high enough yet to trigger). There is also behest but that is only once every 1 hour. This game is a grind, a grind you either put up with or don't. It is a core part of the game. Basically if you think the Core design has potential, either get the game or wait till the PS3 version to get it. You don't like the core design of the game, it probably isn't going to change into something better for you even down the road.
