FFXIV Random Speculation/Question thread IV: I got beta inv but my 5 year old PC can't run it

[Destinye]

Though the beta is far more polished than the alpha, there is one glaring weakness...

The gameplay is boring. DAMN boring.

It may not seem as boring to some of you because it's different, and certainly seems no worse than XI at its base, but there is a LOT of unrealized potential here.

Please, please, please make suggestions about how to improve the gameplay as I have been.

Combat takes you back to the old school RPGs. A button A button A button A button. The tactical battles we're looking forward to are nowhere near implemented yet. Gathering makes me want to slit my wrists. I haven't played a more boring minigame in any video game made in the last ten years.

Lots of tweaks to abilities and positioning are surely in the works, but what concerns me is just the foundation we're building on. They shouldn't have done away with the Effect Gauge, only the charge time required, and they should at least allow attack queuing as in XIII. Passive/active mode is a lame mechanic that requires almost no thought and will surely preclude the development of better mechanics. I'm not sure how they're going to get Battle Regimen to work outside of a simple Skillchain type system.

Tactical battles don't exist early on in any RPG. It's like saying:

"Hey adventurer, here's your weapon, armor and a prayer. We're going to fly over the Dark Lords castle and drop you right ontop of him. Good luck!"

You have to build up to it.

Passive/Active is tied to systems so people can't exploit the class change system it just needs polishing. Regimens are basically skillchains..as they pretty much explained it another way. The Alpha battle system they never intended to use in the first place.

[Kachi]

You always get Skill, success or fail.

You only get Physical on successes.

I could be wrong, but I don't recall ever getting physical in crafting at all.

Gathering, you definitely get physical xp when you succeed. The rate of progression on gathering is fine, but damn it's boring.

[Kurokikaze]

Anyone wanna compile a list of recipes that have been figured out so its easier to find? I can't even find the post with the weaving recipes.

[blythe]

Tactical battles don't exist early on in any RPG. It's like saying:

"Hey adventurer, here's your weapon, armor and a prayer. We're going to fly over the Dark Lords castle and drop you right ontop of him. Good luck!"

You have to build up to it.

Passive/Active is tied to systems so people can't exploit the class change system it just needs polishing. Regimens are basically skillchains..as they pretty much explained it another way. The Alpha battle system they never intended to use in the first place.

Lol seriously is anyone even past level 15 in the beta yet? Sheesh.

[Jinko]

I actually didn't find gathering to be boring.

They have to make it labourious otherwise everyone will skilling up to max cap within a week.

It's kind of simple though, if it bores you then don't do it.

New Info

--- Added: 07/14/2010 ---

- "Guardian's Favor" has no effect on any disciplines besides Disciples of War.

- There are times when an error may occur and you may be logged out while trading.

[Other]

--- Added: 07/15/2010 ---

- We have updated the game such that the log messages for the following items will no longer be visible to other players:
・ Changing between Passive Mode and Active Mode
・ When beginning a Battle Regimen
・ Claiming a monster
* The monster claiming message will be visible to your party members.

[SephYuyX]

Changing between Passive Mode and Active Mode

Saw this and smiled.
Read the heading and frowned.

[Cichy]

I could be wrong, but I don't recall ever getting physical in crafting at all.

Gathering, you definitely get physical xp when you succeed. The rate of progression on gathering is fine, but damn it's boring.

I did get physical exp while smithing, and no skillups.

[Katlan]

hard to have tactical battles when A: nobody knows wtf to do for battle regime's or if/how to chain them. And B: no game is really that complicated at the early lv's.. wait until ppl are 20+ and I'm sure there will be a lot more things to battle and diff ways to approach stuff. A lot of mobs carry over XI feeling.. Cone affects, facing certain directions, AoE, a lot of the same similarities are there are will be more pronounced come higher lv's retail.. Fuck, fight a a dodo w/ some friends and in order to do it wo spamming heal ppl need to be positioned correctly

[Cichy]

Btw anyone go exploring yesterday? I've seen alot of mobs that I've never seen in screenshots and some that looking like NMs. Not gonna say what they are but I found it interesting.

[DeathbySnoosnoo]

if all these people with 5 year old comps hoarding beta keys give them away i would love to explore.

[Mife]

if all these people with 5 year old comps hoarding beta keys give them away i would love to explore.

Who would do such a thing they rather keep it and say my system is unable to run the beta .. was posted earlier saying if all people who could run the game got beta keys then they wouldnt know how it would run on a lessor system which i can understand but some people system so outdated that they would need to build another pc just to run the beta lol .. Tho would be nice tho to get one lol

[Kachi]

On some things it's a legitimate concern, although pointless because there's nothing we can do about it.

Personally I like to think that all the changes to the alpha were due in part to all of the feedback they received from testers, so I plan to make even more noise if it gets their rears in gear.

Also, is there a command to start typing in chat? The only thing I found was "/" and then you have to delete the god damn "/" from the chatline before you start typing. Just typing or hitting enter doesn't work. I will also say this, for a next gen MMO the UI/Controls are nowhere near as intuitive as you would expect. I was really hoping for an updated FFXI with a control scheme similar to WoW or basically any other recent MMO released. Controllers are great but it would be great if they didn't completely forget about players that like mouse/keyboard too.

It's annoying on controller too, because even the button you press to access that chat log doesn't allow you to actually scroll up through the chat log if you happen to miss something.

The camera controls were completely fucked and backwards from FFXI.

Just go to configuration and invert both of the third person controllers-- that's how I had it in XI and that's what I'm used to. Unfortunately when my friends tried this configuration they thought it was all backwards. Probably the best thing to do is force people to configure their controller from the beginning, because everyone prefers something different.

Indeed. And yes, you get physical exp from crafting too. I got some while Weaving.

Ah, I guess this changed from alpha?

Tactical battles don't exist early on in any RPG. It's like saying:

"Hey adventurer, here's your weapon, armor and a prayer. We're going to fly over the Dark Lords castle and drop you right ontop of him. Good luck!"

You have to build up to it.

Passive/Active is tied to systems so people can't exploit the class change system it just needs polishing. Regimens are basically skillchains..as they pretty much explained it another way. The Alpha battle system they never intended to use in the first place.

That's really beside the point. I'm not talking about the existence of tactical battles, I'm talking about the POSSIBILITY for the existence of tactical battles, which is a function of the basic game mechanics. When the basic game mechanics are very simple, tactical potential is lost. If they don't add more tactical mechanics on the player end, they will always be limited in the kinds of tactical battles they can design.

To offer an analogy, I'm saying the problem is that they're laying out the guidelines for chess, but they haven't included any knights or bishops. As a result, complexity and depth are diminished. No matter what your opponent can do-- no matter how unique and complex they are-- you will always be playing with pawns and rooks.

So my complaint is that we should be able to do a lot more in battle than move around, select hotkey attacks, and eventually execute battle regimens (and potentially use macros). The addition of character customization and the stamina gauge will ultimately be pretty small changes that won't give the game enough depth in the long run.

It's beta and all, but I'm hoping and guessing that the sooner we call attention to it and request more, the better off the game will be.

[Ramsey]

I actually didn't find gathering to be boring.

They have to make it labourious otherwise everyone will skilling up to max cap within a week.

It's kind of simple though, if it bores you then don't do it.

New Info

The biggest problem is the UI lag artificially lengthens the crap out of it, but that'll be fixed. I would like to see more differentiation between Harvesting and Mining, but overall it's way the hell more fun than FFXI or any other game for that matter. And non-compete over resources is great.

if all these people with 5 year old comps hoarding beta keys give them away i would love to explore.

Actually this is funny my comp is 5 years old, and I thought I'd have to buy a new PC 8800GTS Core2duo, and the game runs full settings, Ambient Occulsion and DoF turned on, with only far draw turned off, at around 20-30 fps.

[Viertel]

Only thing thats bugging me atm is the lack of shortcut keys to inv, equip, journal, etc. Also tabbing is kind of awkward, reverse tabbing (shift+tab) stops your character when walking, and theres no F key to target NPCs/Mobs, which is annoying.

And like people have been saying, the passive/active thing is not fluid at all, no reason you should have to stop to do it.

Also not sure why people dont like using the keyboard, it's mostly fine, just takes a second to get used to ijkl. Theres no need to use a mouse in this game if youre using keyboard, so im not real sure why people are syaing they hate using the mouse when they dont have to at all.

Perhaps because it's fucking 2010, and I'd expect a game company to be able to program a workable keyboard and mouse control scheme by now? They've only had....what? 8 years with FFXI? 9 years? I hated using keyboard only simply because they couldn't be bothered to actually make workable mouse interaction.

And as far as gamepads are concerned, they can piss off. I'm playing this on a PC. If I wanted to play a damn MMO with a gamepad, I'd have just waited for the PS3 version.

[Ramsey]

So my complaint is that we should be able to do a lot more in battle than move around, select hotkey attacks, and eventually execute battle regimens (and potentially use macros). The addition of character customization and the stamina gauge will ultimately be pretty small changes that won't give the game enough depth in the long run.

It's beta and all, but I'm hoping and guessing that the sooner we call attention to it and request more, the better off the game will be.

I'm confused, I'm guessing that in your eyes none of the fights in FFXI, WoW or any other game were "Tactical?" Because you can do all of the things you could do in FFXI in XIV, Skillchains/Bursts have been improved into Battle Regimens, movement plays more of a key role, and direction does as well.

The pacing is also faster, making the actual act of fighting more enjoyable. Things like blocking are now actually implemented as commands, and you have more choices over the kinds of attacks you perform.

What is it you think needs to be added?

Perhaps because it's fucking 2010, and I'd expect a game company to be able to program a workable keyboard and mouse control scheme by now? They've only had....what? 8 years with FFXI? 9 years? I hated using keyboard only simply because they couldn't be bothered to actually make workable mouse interaction.

And as far as gamepads are concerned, they can piss off. I'm playing this on a PC. If I wanted to play a damn MMO with a gamepad, I'd have just waited for the PS3 version.

It'll be added within a few updates I'm sure, and it'll definitely be in Beta, I'm sure there's just things higher on the priority list for the engineering team (like fixing the item list and input lag.)

[Kachi]

The biggest problem is the UI lag artificially lengthens the crap out of it, but that'll be fixed. I would like to see more differentiation between Harvesting and Mining, but overall it's way the hell more fun than FFXI or any other game for that matter. And non-compete over resources is great.

There's also the fact that even for a hot and cold game, it's ridiculously simple. Chocobo digging in Final Fantasy IX (that's 9), kicked this hot and cold game's ass.

Don't get me wrong, it's much better in some ways, but ultimately the complexity they added so far is offset by the enormous length of time it takes. That and they can do much better... in fact, other than in XI, I don't think they've made a more boring minigame in the last ten years.

But "has to be boring" is bunk. The express purpose of a game is to not bore you.

[Destinye]

Btw anyone go exploring yesterday? I've seen alot of mobs that I've never seen in screenshots and some that looking like NMs. Not gonna say what they are but I found it interesting.

I explored, I found a gate:

Spoiler: show

http://i27.tinypic.com/2gy7tyr.jpg

@gamepad crying:

It's not that bad. It's funny too, years ago people were telling console gamers to "play real games, get a good computer" >.>

[Ramsey]

There's also the fact that even for a hot and cold game, it's ridiculously simple. Chocobo digging in Final Fantasy IX (that's 9), kicked this hot and cold game's ass.

Don't get me wrong, it's much better in some ways, but ultimately the complexity they added so far is offset by the enormous length of time it takes. That and they can do much better... in fact, other than in XI, I don't think they've made a more boring minigame in the last ten years.

But "has to be boring" is bunk. The express purpose of a game is to not bore you.

I agree they could do better, but this is hella' more fun than mining in any other MMO. Also FFIX's hot and cold game was moving around, here you're in one spot. I agree more mechanics could and should be added though.

[Gadritan]

Perhaps because it's fucking 2010...mouse rant

It's not a FPS. There's not much of a reason to omgneedmouse. I loved using a KB with XI. I'll do the same with XIV. I like the fact that you -don't- need to use the mouse at all. It'd be pointless and annoying if you did.

[Jinko]

Agreed there is only so tactical you can make an MMO, its not like we are playing a hack and slash RPG here, with twitch mechanics.