Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

I see a few major issues that really are preventing it from being a pretty solid home run for those that like the world/job system etc.

1) As mentioned the delay bug that makes you get hit when you are out of AE's etc; this IS GAME breaking from a raiding perspective if they at all follow past game's raiding design philosphy
2) Combat Speed - Don't get me wrong, its not OMG THIS COMPLETELY SUCKS slow but I'd say it definitely leaves you wanting abit faster pace. I think with the vast majority of new players (non FFXI) that have played other MMO's will feel abit out of tune. I am 2 boxing a mage and a Gladiator Tank and the speed is fine on the mage for the most part but as a tank I want to stab myself.
3) Crafting - Only explored this to 20 but if it trends like it is, high levels will completely be able to destroy the low level market once they improve there skills. HQ items/gear will be trival; I wish they got abit closer to VG's crafting system from a rarity stand point. Chance at rare mats didnt dramatically increase so lower lvl quality items still retained value. Maybe something inbetween VG & FX would be good.
4) Inventory clunkiness - They made great strides in the UI etc but it still feels like a damn mini game trying to manage your armor and inventory boxes. Also they need an additional tab or 2 for inventory with all the spare mats and consumables etc

Nothing major outside of item 1-2 but things that will help the game in the long run. Side note, gladiator's shield bash NEEDS to be off GCD with the current combat speed. If the mob starts casting an ability, if its semi quick casting you have zero chance depending on where you are on the GCD. You can't just "not attack" trying to predict when they are going to cast an ability. Put it off GCD and give it a cool down or something but its so fustrating trying to stun spells when you have zero chance of success.

Abit scared about end game raids and how much challenge they can build in with this long of GCD (either things are too slow or it will be frustrating because mobs will require quick interaction and you will be moving slow as hell (sleeping mobs, interrupting spells, heals etc)

Overall I really enjoyed the 2 periods of beta that I did. Hoping it all comes together because its the only MMO i'll be playing until EQN is out.

Turbo_sl said:

2) Combat Speed - Don't get me wrong, its not OMG THIS COMPLETELY SUCKS slow but I'd say it definitely leaves you wanting abit faster pace. I think with the vast majority of new players (non FFXI) that have played other MMO's will feel abit out of tune. I am 2 boxing a mage and a Gladiator Tank and the speed is fine on the mage for the most part but as a tank I want to stab myself.

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Uh, personally I love the slower pace and do not want it fasterat all. I'm tired of the lolspam of MMOs and if this was more of the same I wouldn't give it a second thought. Fuck all the ADD kids who want to just mash their keyboards, I welcome the slower pace.

Sean_sl said:

Uh, personally I love the slower pace and do not want it fasterat all. I'm tired of the lolspam of MMOs and if this was more of the same I wouldn't give it a second thought. Fuck all the ADD kids who want to just mash their keyboards, I welcome the slower pace.

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Agree 100%. I spent about 12 hours in phase 3, ran all dungeons up thru 20 or so as a healer. It certainly isn't EQ slow (which I'm currently playing on p99 as I type this), but it's way better than WoW, Rift, etc. For my playstyle, it's a step in the right direction.

I enjoy the pace as well but still don't enjoy having to use every GCD using a skill. This is mostly evident tanking. If you don't use every GCD, you will lose agro if you have more than 2 mobs. Doesn't impact a healer or dps as much.

When I saw TP and Mana regen, I was hoping it would require one to make a decision to give up fast regeneration if you have a "fuller" bar or give it up for continuous GCD use. I enjoy finding a sweet spot and the decision making it requires. Sometimes no action is the best action.

God forbid we can use chat during combat.

Sean_sl said:

Uh, personally I love the slower pace and do not want it fasterat all. I'm tired of the lolspam of MMOs and if this was more of the same I wouldn't give it a second thought. Fuck all the ADD kids who want to just mash their keyboards, I welcome the slower pace.

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It SUCKS tanking with these timers. At the least take one more ability off the 2.5 so that we can get a decent rotation going that doesn't leave you wanting.

I haven't tanked yet, but having tanked in several other games, and with the small amount of skills I had available as a CNJ, I can totally agree that the GCD is the largest hindrance to the combat system in it's current form (for me, at least). A second GCD for a subset of skills could fix alot of it, maybe.

Bah, ADD kids my ass. I'm a lot older than you Sean.

2.5 seconds is just too long, and it makes physical classes feel very clunky. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if autoattack was at least faster so that the gaps are filled more and your character isn't standing around like a tard. Certain spells are actually much worse (i.e. 3.5 seconds on Stoneskin and Medica II), and even instants piss me off when they trigger 2.5 seconds of thumb-up-ass time.

It certainly doesn't help that spell/skill speed items have practically zero effect on the cast/recast times either. I stacked spell speed in nearly every slot and took a whopping 0.06 seconds off my Cure I cast time. Awesome!

As I said, I don't mind it much on my castor but tanking it just felt horrible. I'm 13 years into my MMO career, i'm not asking for keyboard dance dance revolution but if they don't speed it up a tad they at least need to put a few actions off the GCD or something and preferably lower the time you can click items off non GCD. Currently i think its like 1 second + for those which just seems slow as hell when popping multiple buffs etc.

Positive is when I play my THM i could be very effective in a group while harvesting on my 2 box on the other screen....I'm just interested into how the end game content will translate since most challenge is tied to being able to quickly respond to NPC or environmental events. I liked VG's speed probably the best out of any MMO and unique classes....shit why did they fuck up my Vanguard!!! WTB Vanguard: A Realm Resuscitated. I never liked WOW's combat but rift definitely had a good challenging pace during release but when I went back at the start of the year I didn't enjoy it as much.

They need to try to capture the experience related to vanguards bloodmage or the early days of chloro-mancing in rift, in my mind some of the most challenging and rewarding healing in any game (i should say the best healing experience that really allowed for seperation between average healers and great healers)

Intrinsic_sl said:

Everyone else has 1 - 2 covered, and God help me I'm commenting on something related to crafting in an MMO, but...

Yeah, HQ items become trivial to make around 20, at least 1 - 20 HQ items. The low level market will be flooded with them and no one should waste time purchasing something that isn't HQ if you haven't found a drop. Hopefully it just impacts the 1 - 20 market from a 'destroys' standpoint, because who cares. You'll get a better dungeon drop or quest reward. If HQ items become as trivial at the higher levels it would be a problem. It did feel like an accomplishment when some of the stupid low level stuff became trivial HQ, either b/c my gathering skill was high enough to get HQ components, I crit'd a crafting step, or used my CP resource wisely enough to squeeze out an extra step. What wasn't cool was making approximately a bajillion cotton yarn and undyed cotten.

As to #4, Inventory management sucks huge donkey balls. Sometimes a quest reward, drop, or crafting item would go in to regular inventory, sometimes Armory. Can I auto sort the 3,000 crafting components I have? Can I sort armor by job, or level? What if I have a level 10 GLD, 16 MRD, 30 CNJ, 25 WVR, 20 MIN, 10 BTN (botanist? BTY? Can't remember). That is six different equipment set ups that I have to manage, with no way to distinguish which piece is currently assigned to which job when I'm mass selling the crap in my disjointed inventory. I'd just like to see a better way, and no I do not have the answer.

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With so many people starting low level jobs to level up skills it could create a sustained market for the low levels that are still leveling up crafting etc if they kept them somewhat rare. We'll have to see how common HQ becomes higher levels but for crafting to be good in the game (i hate crafting but tend to do it in the last few games as a neccassary evil) they need to keep it relevant. A high level with Gil up the ass to spend will go and buy a full set of HQ items for the various level ranges just so he doesn't have to dick around with gear. They need to maintain the rarity of the gear which will keep people crafting etc, as I mentioned vanguard did this very well and it kept the low-mid level crafting economy alive alot longer then any other game I've seen.

Then again...fuck crafting!

It would be great if pieces in the armory chest had a number overlayed on the icon to show which gear set the item belongs to. Gearset 1 would put a little 1 in the corner, etc. Or at the very least a check mark or some other symbol to show if eaxh piece is in a gearset or not.

Aside from taking a while to 100% spiritbond some gear, or so it felt like, did anyone have a problem with getting materia during phase 3? I was trying to figure out if there were bonuses to spiritbond raising (duty finder, levequesting, FATEs) or not, but I couldn't put my finger on it. My first trip into Sastasha Seagrot maxed out six of my eight slots off the bat.

Also, ditto to Intrinsic's #4. I really hope they put in gear "filtration" into phase 4 so you know what the hell to equip if you change a job and forget to update your gear set. Cripes that was annoying sometimes, when going from Harvester back to Conjurer. >< Having to OCD organize your gear sets (by class no less) ... yeah.

I've noticed the people that don't mind the 2.5s GCD typically play ARC, CNJ, or THM. Every tank/melee class isn't so thrilled with it.

Jaybee_sl said:

I've noticed the people that don't mind the 2.5s GCD typically play ARC, CNJ, or THM. Every tank/melee class isn't so thrilled with it.

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I agree. I think this is largely due to 2.5s casts being familiar. When the spell is done animating, the GCD is up and you can move onto the next. Melee often finish their animation well before the GCD is up and it creates a visual disconnect in the game. Also, if any class needs a lower GCD, tanks should have it because they have to handle a large set of players who don't follow the marking hierarchy.

Are there no atk speed items in the game? IE not spellspeed or skillspeed, but something that reduces weapon delay? Maybe a faster auto attack will help with the void melee feel between attacks.

Brahma_sl said:

It SUCKS tanking with these timers. At the least take one more ability off the 2.5 so that we can get a decent rotation going that doesn't leave you wanting.

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The hate mods on skills for both War/Mrd and Pal/Glad are so huge that you can literally just sit there and spam your hate combo all day and never lose hate. Iiirc when we tested it, it was x3 for skull sunder/savage blade(?), and x5 for butcher's block/rage of halone (and seems to scale by level). Add that with voke that puts you 1 point over the highest hate and Shield Oath/Defiance that gives x2 hate to all actions including flash, what more you do really need. When we tested on Cancer for good dps rotations we had a script for a warrior tank alt that just spammed the hate combo lol.

It might be shitty for lower levels if that's what you mean, but it's retarded overpowered and easy at 50 right now. I played both a Glad and Mrd to 35 though in the first two phase 3's and didn't run into any problems. Gear plays alot into it too, since the combos are directly tied to weapon damage/str/det. If you're gear is terrible you'll have a worse time of it.

Edit: Or I could have just misread and you mean it's boring, who knows!

Artifa_sl said:

It would be great if pieces in the armory chest had a number overlayed on the icon to show which gear set the item belongs to. Gearset 1 would put a little 1 in the corner, etc. Or at the very least a check mark or some other symbol to show if eaxh piece is in a gearset or not.

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This. At the very least, the background for items included in the gearset that you're mousing over at the time should change to highlight items that are part of that set. Please submit as a suggestion!

Personally, I think little things like a slam dunk inventory system (or any great game system) would go a long way towards people overlooking other small to medium sized issues, and make it easier to recommend via word of mouth.

Nehrak_sl said:

Also, ditto to Intrinsic's #4. I really hope they put in gear "filtration" into phase 4 so you know what the hell to equip if you change a job and forget to update your gear set. Cripes that was annoying sometimes, when going from Harvester back to Conjurer. >< Having to OCD organize your gear sets (by class no less) ... yeah.

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Not sure if this addresses your specific complaint, but it might help. There was a slash command that would output all the items associated with a gearset. This way, if you or the game got confused, you could at least somewhat easily see what items the game thought were part of the set in question.