NDA, be gone!

[Averis]

So, the NDA has been lifted... since the other forums seems to be full of crying, what do our fellow beta testers here have to say?

[Kashemia]

Crying? Why?

[ArmachiA]

If SE is reading this:

 

1. Make Guild inviting possible remotely, I do not want to travel the world as a level 1 Archer and pass out pearls because you didn't put in something that simple!

 

2. /wave /happy /cheer /emote please.

 

3. Fix your nVidia crap, my computer is bogging down.

 

4. I love the game but seriously, you act like you've never done this before <,<

[Averis]

Crying? Why?

 

Seems mainly because people are misinformed and spreading false rumors or still don't get that it's still beta. Like the AH and menu.

 

Core and Eorzeapedia have a couple threads going if you wish to read them, but be warned. ;P

[Kashemia]

Nah, I don't think I want to. I know how people are. I just hope SE didn't fall in the trap of releasing a non-finished game, but in general, I try to stay optimistic until some time after launch. A beta will always have flaws.

[Aveline]

My thoughts on the beta thus far:

 

We have definitely come a long way since the first alpha tests, when all most of us tested out was how many times we could enter our username and password within a two hour span.

The good:

GORGEOUS atmosphere. Really, the game is stunning. Wandering around La Noscea, looking up at the star-filled night sky, noticing an airship floating past you out of the corner of your eye, it's all really impressive. I love that there are sound effects of waves lapping at rocks and seagulls in the air when you're near the beach.

 

The ok-but-needs-work:

Character customization:

 

It is far and away better than FFXI's, but it still lacks some things to make it great. For one thing, some races are highly limited currently as to how many hair style options they have (Highlander Hyurs and Lalafells each get 4 I believe, while most others get 8). Furthermore, "eye shape" seems to have a lot of redundant options or too-subtle-to-notice differences, and the color options for facial tattoos are limited to stark white, black, bright red, and blue. Hopefully that changes as well.

 

 

Guildleves:

 

They seem like a great idea, but right now you have a 48 hour cooldown between sets of leves. So if you get 4 leves for Camp Bearded Rock and finish them in an hour, you can't do any more leves for that camp for 2 RL days. You can, of course, move on to other camps, but there is a 10 level gap between leve group levels, so if you don't get 10 levels during your 4 leves, you are left to grind.

 

S-E does suggest that you pair up with others and do their leves, but it's hardly worth it.. only the original leve-holder gets the bulk of the rewards (large money, random equipment drops), while those helping them get only the extra cash bonus. So if I am doing a leve that grants me 2,000 gil and a helmet, for instance, anyone else I sucker in to joining me would get maybe 250 gil and nothing else. I am worried that unless they do something about how this system works, the FFXI grindfest that they explicitly promised would not be returning will, in actuality, make up the bulk of the game.

 

 

Crafting jobs:

 

I can't say much about this because the system is really broken at the moment, and pretty much has been during the entire test. I can say that they show a lot of promise, but right now you need to click through 10 windows just to start crafting. Crafters start out with zero gil with which to buy supplies or any kind of fighting ability to farm them, so you are reliant on three things:

a) Getting your friends to let you tag along with them while they do leves until you get enough gil to buy yourself a weapon and switch classes.

b) Actually succeeding in completing some crafter guildleves (all supplies and crystals for these synths are provided to you when you start the leve).

c) Starting out as a job other than DoH classes and eventually switching to your chosen profession when you've amassed enough supplies.

 

Option B seems the best option, except right now crafting guildleves are broken (again), so who knows how effective they are.

 

 

The absolute crap

 

Linkshells

 

First off, as I've said in other forums, the linkshell "crests" are certified Ugly. They're uglier than the garish highlights people put on their character's heads. I noticed a lot of feedback in the tester forums saying the same thing, so hopefully S-E takes these complaints to heart and gives us better looking crest options.

 

Second, the structure of linkshells is almost identical to what it was in FFXI. One person running the show with the option to set others as officers. No ranking system, no organizational tools, no customizable chat channels, no guild halls, etc. I realize a lot of these things may be waiting in the wings, but so far linkshells appear to be more of the same subpar community system.

 

The tester community

 

Oh my god.. if anything made me want to never touch this game at release, it's the other people testing the game. Half of them are crying that this game will never succeed because it didn't give them a pony upon login. The other half are screaming that obviously S-E has a secret base full of paid testers that are actually testing the REAL game, while we are simply there to act as cannon fodder for their server stress tests, and if anyone has any complaints, legitimate or otherwise, about the game, they need to delete their tester account immediately and "Go back to WoW." {Constructive criticism} {Can I have it?} Apparently not.

 

 

I don't want to end this on such a negative note, so I will say that this game shows a lot of promise. Do I think it's going to be ready by release date? No, not really. Will they probably push it out anyway and give us patches galore in the first few weeks? More than likely, yes. A lot of stuff has not been tested and probably never will be before release.

 

Square-Enix took out all the armor and weapons from vendors with the idea that we were to craft our own gear. Except.. crafting was broken. And there was a glitch that allowed us to wear any level armor on any job. So what ended up happening was you'd see level 15-20 players running around in level 25-30 basic chainmail or whatnot, wielding broken level 16 weapons because you could never find someone to repair your gear. We have no idea how balanced party play actually is at the moment, especially beyond level 20.

 

However, the two storyline quests they put into the game show promise for an engaging storyline, and the world is fantastically enormous. I have faith that at the very least, we will have a lot of places to explore and a lot of NPC quests to fulfill while our leves are on cooldown. Also there is cornbread. :approve:

[Kashemia]

Well, that's a bit of a downer. I really hoped SE had learned something from the game-flops the past couple of years. If they do get most of it fixed within the first month, I'll probably stick it out, but I guess we'll see.

 

It's still beta, so I'm gonna stay optimistic and hope they get most of the stuff somewhat fixed before launch though. But I am a bit disappointed about especially what you say about the linkshell systems and the guildleves. Are guildleves really the only type of "quests"? I can barely believe that they would feel it is ok to only allow you to do 4 quests every other day, that seems redicilous.

 

 

About the community, well... That's just the gamer community. I think it's like that in every game. By now, I try to avoid reading it too much.

 

 

I still have faith that this can be an awesome game, so despite the sort of bad news, I'm gonna stay positive for now It's just a shame really, that companies keep pushing out games before they're ready.

[Zyanya]

My thoughts on the beta thus far:

 

Thank you for this review. I have almost no free time to sift through the amazing amount of feedback that's been posted on other forums since yesterday and it is so difficult to find constructive and honest feedback that isn't overly judgemental at such an early phase. So again, thank you for being so objective and giving a good wrap-up on each point!

 

I really try to avoid official/unofficial forums like the plague. There is always so much negativity and the MMO vultures tend to come swooping down on anything new, complain, rant, finish content quickly, say 'it's not like WoW' (grumble... grrrrrr), then move on to the next thing, leaving a meagre assortment of pickings behind. I was in the queue for the post office yesterday and saw a gaming magazine (I think it was gamesTM) on the shelf with a FFXIV preview and the tagline was something like: will it compete with rival WoW? Sigh... 5+ years later and some people still don't get it.

 

1. Make Guild inviting possible remotely, I do not want to travel the world as a level 1 Archer and pass out pearls because you didn't put in something that simple!

 

2. /wave /happy /cheer /emote please.

 

Wow, I find it surprising that your points 1 and 2 aren't already incorporated!

[ArmachiA]

Trust me I was shocked too. While the latter is actually going in soon, nothing is being said about the former, which is a bigger deal than people think it is. This game is massive, trying to run to get everyone an LS invite is going to be difficult. As the holder of the RPC LS, I pretty much spend the majority of my time trying to find people who want a pearl, and that's just in Limsa Lominsa. Add Three huge cities? It's barely gonna be possible.

 

I'll take ugly guild crests over that pain in the ass anyday.

[Kashemia]

That's really surprising to me as well, and very old fashioned for an MMO. I really hope they change that!

[ArmachiA]

The mouse controls are laggy as hell too. That needs fixed...

 

I do want to state though that the game is fun, immersive, and huge and they have already said there will be a lot of stuff in release we just don't get to see in Beta. I have a lot of fun on my Archer, even though I've no idea what I'm doing 98% of the time. I also played fisherman, which is really fun but kind of broken. The game is glitchy but by no means unplayable. I already enjoy it more than Aion.

 

In Alpha the Guild Leves were every 4 hours, I THINK they made it 48 in Beta to promote partying and test it out. You'll probably see a big drop in time once release hits.

[Kashemia]

Oh, thanks for that note, ArmaichA. I enjoyed Aion for a while, so if it's better than that, it should be ok, at least long enough for them to fix some stuff ^^

 

I'm still looking a lot forward to playing it!

[Hayden]

I like reading the constructive critisism.

 

I am not worried about what the Masses think really. In general the Gaming community is never pleased. You could give them gold on a stick and they'd complain about the stick.

[Tadir]

Or the gold. In their defense gold really isn't supposed to tarnish. Who gave you this gold...wait...is that? YES! It's better than gold! It's chocolate wrapped in gold colored foil!

 

On a serious note, thanks for the objective thoughts. It's really hard to find on the zam or eorzea boards. I'm beginning to think it's a waste of time going to those forums, but I'll keep going anyway.

[Tyriont]

Yeah, I'm avoiding the other boards and deliberately NOT reading the information posted. Screenshots, yes. Opinions, no. I remember the FFXI community. I was part of the Warhammer Online beta. I remember those communities. I have therefore installed a mental filter that exchanges the text of anyone involved with the beta who I don't already trust the opinion of (i.e. the members of the RPC) with this:

 

 

 

 

I wouldn't worry too much at this point. Even if they do push things not totally ready and give us patches up the arse in the first few weeks, it could be a lot worse. I point to the example of Warhammer Online. We were promised independent cities for each faction, we were promised massive, world-spanning events...we got two cities. The other four got cut with the promise of "we'll add them in later". They didn't. Ever. SE are going to leave in some stuff that pisses us the hell off. The linkshell thing will probably remain. I see them taking an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality here and from all the FFXI feedback I saw developers get through Q&A sessions I don't remember it ever coming up. So they probably didn't rate it as a high priority to change. For better or worse, SE seem to be ignoring what a lot of other MMOs have done in favor of learning from their own past experiences with FFXI. How effective that strategy is remains to be seen.

 

I also don't think it's fair to evaluate everything as a package. Granted, I've not been in the beta myself but the few snippets I've picked up as well as some of the earlier comments in this thread make it sound like SE tested one area, then shut it back down in order to test another. This makes sense to me. Evaluate the different pieces separately in closed beta, work on the issues then test them as a more complete package in open beta. Arma's point about the difference in Guildleve cooldown between Alpha and Beta is a good example of this.

 

Bottom line, don't get disheartened. Because at the end of the day, all the other stuff is just gravy. We're not like most of the people who will be playing this game. How many of us would have stuck out FFXI as long as we did without the RP communities we were parts of? There will be aggravations within FFXIV, but all I've seen thus far indicates it's by and large significantly improved over FFXI. And thanks to the efforts here (and largely thanks to Castiel), we've managed to vastly improve the one thing in FFXI that really kept most of us coming back. The RP community. That's there and rocking.

 

Who's awesome?

 

You're awesome.

 

I'm awesome.

 

We're all awesome.

 

 

 

[Kashemia]

Yeah, I've stayed away from those boards for the same reasons that you guys mentioned. The problems Aveline listed did make me a tiny bit worried, but not something that greatly detracts from my interest in the game ^^

 

I'm sure it will be great, and the attitude just means a lot too, and people seem to positive on these boards, and then it usually never turns out totally bad ^^

[Trizzip]

Loving the critiques. Thanks guys!

[Iroh]

With how soon it's coming out I actually expected it all to be a lot worse. This constructive criticism here is nice to see as well, no one is coming off as a fanboy here.

 

I guess because my expectations are so low about certain things, I won't be disappointed. What I really want the MOST is a beautiful, huge world to explore with lots of different things to do RP-wise, and from what you guys have said, that important core of the game is there. So woohoo!

[ArmachiA]

Honestly, there really isn't THAT much criticism to be had, the main problems are with the UI and the keyboard/mouse functionality. The game is very streamlined, it's somewhat easy to level so it doesn't actually feel like your grinding when you are. The cutscenes are extremely immersive and the story is interesting.

 

We don't get to see a lot of beta, they've only said there's 20% of it available, but what we see if beautiful, fun, and interesting. Like every game, it definitely has it's faults, especially in Beta (Those of you in WoWs beta can remember how craptastic it was compared to release). The game is already HUGE, with lots of areas for good rp sessions. I cant wait to see a dungeon or endgame honestly. It's seeming like it's going to be a really solid game.

 

It's okay to be worried, because when it releases the first thing your gonna do is flip about the UI. Trust me

[Averis]

I've only been able to mess with the beta for an hour, but yeah, the biggest issue I see so far are the controls and interface.

 

The mouse cursor is supposedly software (not hardware) so there is a delay. If you're used to using a mouse and keyboard then things will seem a little odd as the game really prefers using keys like XI. That will take a while to get comfortable with again for some. In some ways it feels like a step backward after playing modern MMOs. The menu system could use work. It's clunky and not really intuitive, unless, again, you played XI.

 

I have a friend coming that has only played WoW and I worry they might get a little turned off by the current setup.

 

Besides that, even with my 2 year old computer the game is SO pretty. I love feeling like it's a deep world. I love that there are no ! over NPCs.

[Renaise]

Is there an option to set up a control pad for the game yet?

[Satrina]

My thoughts on the beta thus far:

 

 

The ok-but-needs-work:

Character customization:

 

It is far and away better than FFXI's, but it still lacks some things to make it great. For one thing, some races are highly limited currently as to how many hair style options they have (Highlander Hyurs and Lalafells each get 4 I believe, while most others get 8). Furthermore, "eye shape" seems to have a lot of redundant options or too-subtle-to-notice differences, and the color options for facial tattoos are limited to stark white, black, bright red, and blue. Hopefully that changes as well.

 

I think they said more will be added for live. If they are just lying, will be putting in a lot more, or WANT to put in more but won't be able to is to be seen. I hope they hold to their word and put some more customizing in.

 

Guildleves:

 

They seem like a great idea, but right now you have a 48 hour cooldown between sets of leves. So if you get 4 leves for Camp Bearded Rock and finish them in an hour, you can't do any more leves for that camp for 2 RL days. You can, of course, move on to other camps, but there is a 10 level gap between leve group levels, so if you don't get 10 levels during your 4 leves, you are left to grind.

S-E does suggest that you pair up with others and do their leves, but it's hardly worth it.. only the original leve-holder gets the bulk of the rewards (large money, random equipment drops), while those helping them get only the extra cash bonus. So if I am doing a leve that grants me 2,000 gil and a helmet, for instance, anyone else I sucker in to joining me would get maybe 250 gil and nothing else. I am worried that unless they do something about how this system works, the FFXI grindfest that they explicitly promised would not be returning will, in actuality, make up the bulk of the game.

 

 

 

Just to address this, not sure how high lvl you are but from my other forum they say guild leves will increase in time needed to complete by a good amount, and become more plentiful. Keep in mind there will be 3 other starting areas, all with their own leves i'm sure, and if transportation between them is allowed early on then that's triple the amount available in beta. Not to mention they may add more. The reason they have the cooldown, which i'm not sure will even come into live with that large of a cooldown is the amount of xp you get from the later guildleve's is HUGE. They don't want people bursting out levels like nothing and hitting max level in a week or 2 like WoW. My opinion at least.

[Kashemia]

I don't think it's unlikely either, that they've made the time between guildleves higher to avoid people from levelling too quickly during beta.

[ArmachiA]

That's cuz right now it only takes like 4 leves to hit level 10 and rank 10 in your chosen class. Seriously, it's easy sauce.

[Aveline]

Just to address this, not sure how high lvl you are but from my other forum they say guild leves will increase in time needed to complete by a good amount, and become more plentiful. Keep in mind there will be 3 other starting areas, all with their own leves i'm sure, and if transportation between them is allowed early on then that's triple the amount available in beta.

 

There actually seems to be a cap right now on how many leves you can do in a day. I jumped on this morning and did four leves for Bearded Rock and three leves for Skull Valley. After that I was high enough level to try Bloodshore, so I went back to town to collect those. I get a message currently saying I am unable to trade leves for new ones. I asked around and it is confirmed: you can only do so many leves in a day; after that you have to wait for the 48 hour cooldown to trade in your finished leves for new ones.

 

So if the current system stays in place as is, there could be thousands of leves available to me in game, and I'd only be able to do 7 every 48 hours. I really hope that is not the case. Or if it is the case, I hope they only charge me a subscription fee for every other day. ;P