First impressions are everything.

[Ari Kagon]

I apologize if this is a redundant thread. I just wanted to share views on our first impressions of the game since it's open beta now.

 

I for one am completely hooked! I pretty much like everything thus far. I feel I accomplished a lot on my first day. The leveling pace is decent, not terribly slow but not quick to the point where I'm not learning anything (*coughWoWcough*).

 

As far as disconnects ect. go, it's beta and the game overall will be glitchy for a little while. Other than that, I had a blast!

[Quuyn]

I'm in complete agreement. It pretty much feels like they took everything I love and shoved it in an MMO. - I adore WoW's questing style, because I love getting a bunch of quests, then doing them all, and turning them in. However FFXIV also takes the event systems from Rift, mashes it with GW2, and makes 'story / lore' based Fates pop up. While in Rift it was like "...Hey, guys... Monsters!" - It feels like there is a -reason- behind each event.

 

And the personal favourite for me is the fact that I can walk right past that Fate and keep doing my quests, because they're not embedded into the Exp grind, as they were in GW2. ( I remember being severely underleveled because I never did events in GW2, so I had to go back and do them. ) 

 

Combat itself is so slack, and easy. It's something I enjoy, due to the fact I'm one of those 'casuals' who just wants to laze about and not really pay attention. Usually I just talk to people while I spam buttons.

 

AND OF COURSE, best part is the appearance. Ugh, everything is so attractive in the world, and the Weather effects are what got to me. When I was leveling in the Black Shroud, there was so many cycles. From Fog, to Rain, to sun. Everytime it shifted I kept getting lost because the effect it had on the actual world, changed the view of it, I thought I wandered into a swampy place by accident when Fog first hit.

 

RP wise, the sitting mechanics are awesome, the animations for the plethora of emotes are amazingly adorable. Only gripe I have is the severe lack of base emotes that most other MMOs have, such as /yawn /hug /pat. Though, I understand why, as all the current emotes are character animation specific, and they didn't want to have emotes that didn't animate. (Hugging / patting nothing would be a bit weird.) HOWEVER, the lack of /yawn still perplexes me... But at least I have /doze... which is adorable.

 

Beta is beta, crashes are crashes. This whole 3102 is the only time I've been actually blocked from re-entering. I've had a few minute crashes at loading screens but that's it on a technical standpoint, no other issues to report.

 

WELL THAT WAS A RANT AND A HALF. THERE YA GO 10 / 10 WOULD RECOMMEND.

 

And as a side fun faact, according to the JP Twitter, the Beta hit 150,000 people. (Probably another million not being able to get in, right guys?! Ha.. Ha.. Haha... *Tugs at collar*)

[Jove]

So this is definitely a first impression from myself, having not experienced XI, XIV 1.0 and the previous betas of XIV: ARR. The first time I got to play was Friday morning before the servers locked up. Although after reading a ton about ARR, seeing various videos and spending hours on the character creator and benchmark beforehand, I was really excited to get started.

 

I can say without a doubt that excitement still exists.

 

Games such as WoW really burned me out of traditional MMORPGs and I never really got into Terra or other games, I figured since then that I wouldn't find another RPG which I would find fun or be drawn into. However there's something about this game that has me really feeling it, but I'll break it down to categories to help my thoughts or this whole post will be a jumbled mess.

 

Combat: I'm really enjoying it, I love the combo system and that enemies can perform area attacks which you have to move away from. I mean it's enough to keep you on your toes and thinking without being overwhelming and it makes combat feel a bit more dynamic.

Also the Fates, Guildhests, Guildleves and hunting log are really good, quick distractions that isn't "quest number 2984".

 

Visuals: Yeah we all know it all looks good, I can't really say more than that. I'm liking the design style a lot though and I felt truly badass when I received my first full set of matching armour. Combat also looks pretty spectacular and I can hardly see the enemies in Fates because of the huge amount of rainbow bleeding in from your eyes to the back of your skull, which should be a bad thing but it's quite awesome to gaze upon.

 

Sounds: I spent 10 whole minutes renting a :chocobo: just to listen to the song. I'm also really liking the environmental ambiance and location songs, they really put you in the mood. It's just a shame the sound jitters a lot when the area is busy.

 

Feels: The last FF game I played was XII and I have to admit that XIV reminds me somewhat of that, partly because of the art style and partly because of (from memory) the gameplay is similar at times. Regardless, although I didn't feel it at first, XIV definitely feels like an FF to me now, I just had to get into the world proper (or ride a :chocobo: ).

I have to say though the NPC dialogue is amazing in Lominsa, the "shites" and "arses" were totally unexpected and I never, ever expected to see "colder than a dead whore's crotch". Certainly makes me feel like I'm in a port city (just like the one I live in IRL) and I don't know if vulgarity gives NPC character, but it definitely makes me read what they have to say out of shear amusement.

 

So there's already a ton more I could say but this is already too many words. I mean all the time I'm writing this is all the time I could be playing, which I definitely will be doing for the foreseeable future. I just wish it performed better on my computer, it definitely isn't running as fast as the benchmark.

 

But I'm hooked and that's all there is to it really.

[FreelanceWizard]

Combat gets trickier over time. The difficulty starts to ramp up once you get to Toto-rak in terms of both mechanics and party skill requirements. Any individual role doesn't necessarily get harder, but correct execution of it in a group gets increasingly important, as the margins for error get smaller. A bad group in Toto-rak can easily wipe on trash, and it just gets harder from there.

 

The story-oriented Ifrit fight is probably the first "real" fight most players will encounter, which is why it has a reputation for party wiping; it's a big step up in challenge from the previous three boss fights. Experienced MMO players won't find it especially challenging, but if any of the players are new to the genre, watch out.

 

Anyway... XIV 2.0 is quite impressive. It's leaps and bounds from 1.x and while it doesn't tread a whole lot of new ground, between its community and its good execution of the basics (including RP-friendly features), I have to say I'm a fan. I got hooked back in Phase 2.

[Hali]

I'm in complete agreement. It pretty much feels like they took everything I love and shoved it in an MMO. - I adore WoW's questing style, because I love getting a bunch of quests, then doing them all, and turning them in. However FFXIV also takes the event systems from Rift, mashes it with GW2, and makes 'story / lore' based Fates pop up. While in Rift it was like "...Hey, guys... Monsters!" - It feels like there is a -reason- behind each event.

 

And the personal favourite for me is the fact that I can walk right past that Fate and keep doing my quests, because they're not embedded into the Exp grind, as they were in GW2. ( I remember being severely underleveled because I never did events in GW2, so I had to go back and do them. ) 

 

Combat itself is so slack, and easy. It's something I enjoy, due to the fact I'm one of those 'casuals' who just wants to laze about and not really pay attention. Usually I just talk to people while I spam buttons.

 

AND OF COURSE, best part is the appearance. Ugh, everything is so attractive in the world, and the Weather effects are what got to me. When I was leveling in the Black Shroud, there was so many cycles. From Fog, to Rain, to sun. Everytime it shifted I kept getting lost because the effect it had on the actual world, changed the view of it, I thought I wandered into a swampy place by accident when Fog first hit.

 

RP wise, the sitting mechanics are awesome, the animations for the plethora of emotes are amazingly adorable. Only gripe I have is the severe lack of base emotes that most other MMOs have, such as /yawn /hug /pat. Though, I understand why, as all the current emotes are character animation specific, and they didn't want to have emotes that didn't animate. (Hugging / patting nothing would be a bit weird.) HOWEVER, the lack of /yawn still perplexes me... But at least I have /doze... which is adorable.

 

Beta is beta, crashes are crashes. This whole 3102 is the only time I've been actually blocked from re-entering. I've had a few minute crashes at loading screens but that's it on a technical standpoint, no other issues to report.

 

WELL THAT WAS A RANT AND A HALF. THERE YA GO 10 / 10 WOULD RECOMMEND.

 

And as a side fun faact, according to the JP Twitter, the Beta hit 150,000 people. (Probably another million not being able to get in, right guys?! Ha.. Ha.. Haha... *Tugs at collar*)

 

This. All of this. I am in complete and total love with the game. I also love the class/job system from what I've seen and from what friends have told me thus far. I was super excited to try picking up Thaumaturge for a supplemental class for my arcanist (though 3102 saw to that ending fast. Cursed Beta glitches!) and just generally see more of the world.

[Gideon Aryeh]

I apologize if this is a redundant thread. I just wanted to share views on our first impressions of the game since it's open beta now.

 

I for one am completely hooked! I pretty much like everything thus far. I feel I accomplished a lot on my first day. The leveling pace is decent, not terribly slow but not quick to the point where I'm not learning anything (*coughWoWcough*).

 

As far as disconnects ect. go, it's beta and the game overall will be glitchy for a little while. Other than that, I had a blast!

 

Glad you enjoyed yourself have you made it into the ic and ooc linkshells rp linkshells yet for the server?

[Fiona Swift]

I'm loving the game of course. Has a lot of potential and is just a blast to run around and explore in. Only issue I have is the 3102 which has now locked me out, locked two of my friends out

 

It also locked out a few FC members, and it is just rampant on the forums (which now have been shut down for almost 12 hours). The game is awesome, but Square Enix needs to learn customer service. Some people have been stuck with error 3102 since just hours into the test and are now locked out of testing and Square Enix has remained silent for almost everything

 

They are aware of the issue but last i looked it was at nearly 700 pages for people with Error 3102 just in the English section of the forums alone. hard to stress test a game when a nice % of testers are locked out.

 

Outside of that; the game is awesome! Voice acting isn't bad for English, however the Japanese is better I feel.

[Colyer]

I would say that they need to re-balance the FATEs at least the ones in the early zones.

 

I entered many FATes to get the "you are below the recommended level" message for ones that shouldn't of been.

 

I remember one clearly - I was lvl 12, doing a quest in that area, the map says that the FATE was lvl 14 and the mobs it spawn were lvl 10. 

 

A few seems off in that regards.

[Fiona Swift]

Yeah that was kind of strange. I saw that in a few places. It looks more like an oversight though since many fates I took part in were quite balanced and a lot of fun!

 

The fates early on though seemed a tad strange , like there is a lv 34 fate which spawns "barely" past a level 10 questing area. Might want to nudge that fate down the path just a bit more to avoid people randomly walking into a lv 30+ mob

[Levi Druthers]

My first impressions of the character creator is great.  i didn't realize different facial structures would give you different accents on the face!  Nothing too over exaggerated.

 

Aaaand that's it since I can't get into a server.

[Ari Kagon]

I apologize if this is a redundant thread. I just wanted to share views on our first impressions of the game since it's open beta now.

 

I for one am completely hooked! I pretty much like everything thus far. I feel I accomplished a lot on my first day. The leveling pace is decent, not terribly slow but not quick to the point where I'm not learning anything (*coughWoWcough*).

 

As far as disconnects ect. go, it's beta and the game overall will be glitchy for a little while. Other than that, I had a blast!

 

Glad you enjoyed yourself have you made it into the ic and ooc linkshells rp linkshells yet for the server?

I was planning on doing that today actually. 

[shotgunbadger]

So I decided to say eff it and just mess around on another server since I'm not gonna be on Balmung until Early Access it seems.

 

This game is great, I was really frustrated with all the server shenanigans and all, but as soon as I started (I decided to play a Gladiator just because) I was having a blast.

 

My laptop isn't great but still everything looked lovely, the sounds were beautiful and the game just all felt so organic and Final Fantasy like, I loved it.

 

Combat was a treat, I love games like TERA's combat systems where you have to be active so seeing an enemy busting an AoE out and being able to bail out of the way was great. The combat is rather slow but it feels...purposeful...it's not magic anime fifty cuts in one seconds and you're dead fighting. The slowness feels right because I'm a dude with a sword swinging it around at a fat little monster bouncing around me, this should feel kinda slow, you know? I've never felt bored during it, which is the key point, everything felt fun, just, ya know, a bit slow.

 

I played back during beta and launch so I knew the core systems, but it was just astounding how much they grew and added on. I really had my doubt about how much a 'reboot' this was, I was kinda still expecting to be disappointed at this just being FFXIV's launch with a shiny new class and a coat of fresh paint, but this just knocked my socks off.

 

I didn't get to play with crafting like I wanted to, but that's because I was loving Gladiator so much, which is amazing to me because back in the old days I HATED that class with a burning fury. Coming from FFXI it felt like they were Warrior's special younger brother, but now they really feel like...well gladiators. I'm moving around, doing cool shit, and cutting fools' faces instead of just standing still swinging my sword like an asshole.

 

My one negative is, well this is beta, and the servers are wonky and all that. Still, if my one glaring flaw I can think of is basically a thing that will be fixed by the next time I play, I'd have to say this is a 10/10 experience, would recommend.