FFXIV Random Speculation/Question thread VI: Phase 3, FFXIV is still on the rag!

**Senji** · 2010-08-18 17:42

the backwards list is bigger than the forwards list

Originally Posted by ascalon

With a search function it should work. It'll look a lot like an auction house, but it'll work....

I see it only working if you can search everything..like an AH. But stocking/listing your retainer instead of on a broker, and pay fees when it sells instead of upfront to list. At that point should just be able to purchase from said search, instead of having to run all over to get some arrows and mithkabobs.

**Kuya** · 2010-08-18 17:46

Originally Posted by Ghostsix.Midgard

Steps Forward from XI

Spoiler: show

Steps Backwards from XI

Spoiler: show

Shit I'm confident will get fixed

Spoiler: show

A lot of the things in your second list are debateable, and also, some of those things are logically not assumed to be in Beta but can safely be assumed to be in retail (such as missions and quests). You should edit it.

**Croy** · 2010-08-18 17:49

Originally Posted by Krystl

the backwards list is bigger than the forwards list

That's because there are a lot of 'little' things that are missing that make one hell of a big impact on the playing experience :/ This game will be fine but if this is the state they plan to launch the game in, they are doing themselves a disservice. We will have more content, more things to explore, even more dungeons, more items, more almost everything and that should make the game feel more full of life then is currently in beta. But damn those small things that are considered all but essential, if they don't even implement simple targetting commands and keyboard shortcuts from FFXI by release I'm going to rage... thankfully both of those things are quoted as 'being worked on' in the known issues section of the beta site and will hopefully be there either by open beta or launch.

As for the issue with the retainer buy system requiring one of the items you are seeking. Its stupid but understandable since they don't even have a proper search function in yet for the database. So having the item in hand is the only way for the system to match it with something else at another retainer. Great for crafting mats and the like but does nothing for actually completed items.

**mintyice** · 2010-08-18 17:56

welp, probably not going to buy the game at launch anymore. i'm not paying for what essentially is still a beta and a game with zero real content. guess i'll just wait until ps3 release and hope it's good by then.

**ascalon** · 2010-08-18 18:03

Interesting insight from Thaumaturge testers on the beta forum.

DoTs do not scale with level or stats.

Dunno if this is 100% accurate, but the posters debating it certainly seem to think that SE have forgotten to implement any kind of scaling.

Which considering Thaum is primarily a debuffing/weakening class in contrast to Conj's more direct dmg/nuking, is certainly rather worrying...

Anyone got any insight to offer, as I haven't tested this stuff myself.

**el_tio** · 2010-08-18 18:04

Ok I understand that ppl are frustrated, but ppl are viewing things with a subscriber mentality (and entitlement) more than a tester mentality. I know a lot of ppl came into beta with hopes of "OMG I'm in beta I'm going to design the FFXI-2 of my dreams!!" and SE's crushing that hope like an empty coke can. A lot of this is laced with frustration over the beta errors and having sub-par rigs.

The leves I think they're heading in the right direction.

Originally Posted by FFXIVcore

Concerning the direction of this game; is Guildleve's the standard to level in regards to FFXIV? It was heavily advertised in several locations and there seems to be an overall disgruntled feeling towards its 48 hour cooldown. Is this part of the limit implemented for the beta, or is this intention for the release? Is straight-mob grinding going to the primary source of experience gains for FFXIV?

Originally Posted by SE

One of the reasons for the current design is that it's fine if you're playing solo. If you have more time however, we feel that there's a lot of guildleves to experience with other people in groups, while yourself might not have the guildleve, you can still join other peoples guildleves. Currently though most feel there's not enough benefit to group up and as such do the guildleves solo instead. We are working on adressing that so group play will be more encouraged, so maybe either you get more skillpoints for example. Basically we're trying to adjust it so that people do guildleves with other people.

So basically the casuals who don't play much can be fine with solo leves but if you want to play more and extend your time on the leves you'll have to team up with other people and pool leves. This solves the problem of leves making the game a single-player MMO. The main thing is that the time leves take is too short ATM, and more level-based difficulty scaling will be nice.

The software mouse is annoying admittedly but this seems like more an issue of a platform company tackling a major PC project. I'd personally put $ down 2:1 that within a year there will be hardware mouse. I think this is more a deadline issue at this point--I imagine the coders already have their hands very full resolving all the bugs atm, which could be why the devs are being cagey about the issue.

And ppl getting so worked up over the retainer system? Really? Sounds like more than anything retainers will be the equivalent of deluxe auctioneers. It's definitely going to hurt the game's playerbase tho if retainer search isn't available out of the box.

Also everyone completely overlooked that SE's working on changes to the MP system. The word "small" has me a bit worried but I'll see what they come up with.

I'd say SE has a good track record of listening to player concerns, just in a slow manner.

The communication's always been the main problem.

Also:

Originally Posted by FFXIVcore

Concerning the current UI, there is a noticeable lag between changing menu's and interaction between players and NPC's. Can we look forward to a revamp of the UI prior to release?

Originally Posted by SE

We're currently in phase three of our beta test and you're going to see several improvements being made to this. we're working on it, please look forward to how it's going to be in the final product. These issues are also because of some bugs we know about which we're going to fix.

Originally Posted by SE

For the betaversion it might be because we have several check routines in the game that might be causing some of the performance-related issues. This should be improved when the game is released. It also could be something specific to the persons PC setup. There's a lot of different graphics cards among other things so we're trying to solve it one by one.

**Balphas** · 2010-08-18 18:28

Ehm, don't count on any form of quests people. At all. The only form of content outside of grinding will be the guild leaves. Only way to level up your DoW/DoM classes is to do battlecraft leaves, which all consist of killing x amount of mobs, repeatedly. You'll be doing the same guild leaves over, and over and over. That's it. There's the city storylines which have taken the place of rank missions. With little to no support for any kind of varied content as of yet, I doubt it'll be more than cutscenes, an escort quest, killing a few mobs in some obscure place and possibly a makeshift NM at the end.

Like someone mentioned earlier, this is a shell of the game, GUI wise it's a few months too early, and content wise it'd do well with another few months of development. All in all, this game is being rushed out the door. This is kinda the same as the japanese FFXI release, which was basically 6 classes, lvl 50 cap and rank 5. This is almost the same, with some more classes. Once again, open beta is in about 2 weeks. That usually means a much wider variety of an audience will try this game out before deciding if they'll buy it or not. Many of them are most likely more detached from FFXI/FFXIV than us, and should be able to give a more objective view on this game. Let's hear their thoughts on the matter ^^.

**Celeras** · 2010-08-18 18:35

Originally Posted by Balphas

This is kinda the same as the japanese FFXI release, which was basically 6 classes, lvl 50 cap and rank 5. This is almost the same, with some more classes.

I don't know what point you're trying to make, but I imported for the Japanese FFXI release. Before I even got to a point where it was relevant to me, SE had already added Artifact Armor, Shadowlord, and an unkillable Serket. It was a glorious heyday. If you're trying to make the point that history is repeating itself, my response would be: we can only hope.

But to be honest, if launched as-is this game would have far more issues than FFXIs launch. The problems there were mostly balance related, the games core functions were solid and not changed much.

**Ramsey** · 2010-08-18 18:35

Originally Posted by mastamind

there's a lvl 13 shield but you need buffalo leather and i cant find a leatherworker.

http://ffxiv.zam.com/en/item.html?ffxivitem=4100004

there's also a lvl 17 one, i'll see if i can get it to show up later

http://ffxiv.zam.com/en/item.html?ffxivitem=4100602

My only problem getting the first one is where the heck does one get antelope sinew/sinew cord? It used to be at the vendor I believe, but it's gone as of P3, are there antelopes around that need to be killed? I haven't seen one.

**Lucavi** · 2010-08-18 18:39

The chevy impala deer mobs might drop your antelope drops.

**Calemero** · 2010-08-18 18:42

Originally Posted by Balphas

Ehm, don't count on any form of quests people. At all. The only form of content outside of grinding will be the guild leaves. Only way to level up your DoW/DoM classes is to do battlecraft leaves, which all consist of killing x amount of mobs, repeatedly. You'll be doing the same guild leaves over, and over and over. That's it. There's the city storylines which have taken the place of rank missions. With little to no support for any kind of varied content as of yet, I doubt it'll be more than cutscenes, an escort quest, killing a few mobs in some obscure place and possibly a makeshift NM at the end.

Like someone mentioned earlier, this is a shell of the game, GUI wise it's a few months too early, and content wise it'd do well with another few months of development. All in all, this game is being rushed out the door. This is kinda the same as the japanese FFXI release, which was basically 6 classes, lvl 50 cap and rank 5. This is almost the same, with some more classes. Once again, open beta is in about 2 weeks. That usually means a much wider variety of an audience will try this game out before deciding if they'll buy it or not. Many of them are most likely more detached from FFXI/FFXIV than us, and should be able to give a more objective view on this game. Let's hear their thoughts on the matter ^^.

Spoiler: Beta. You work for SE, right? You know what content is gonna come out in September, right? Games always put 100% of their developed content into beta, right? right?

**Cureslime** · 2010-08-18 18:56

The only thing with antelopes I've seen is the Hollow quest The Boughs Above. 2 evil antelopes and an evil squirrel from the necronomicon spawn at the end.

**blythe** · 2010-08-18 19:05

Question/possible bitching (since that seems to be the theme lately)

Is it true that now you can equip armor/weapons of any level, and that they're synced down? If so, to physical level or class rank?

Either way, not a fan if that's the case. Aesthetically, I kind of like being able to look at someone and have a general sense of what level they are. More importantly, wouldn't that just choke off the market for low level crafters after some time? Like after you were already physical level 50+ and decide to go back and level another class, you could just use your "end-game" or whatever armor synced without having to rebuy all the lowbie armor.

**Lucavi** · 2010-08-18 19:07

^ As of right now, yes, but it was not that way in Alpha.

Its been that way ALL throughout Beta, though, so one can only guess if its going to show up for retail.

**Croy** · 2010-08-18 19:08

There are also several things we are missing that might actually add some discernable amount of gameplay not in beta. The Towns are not activated yet plus with 3-4 more regions opening up for retail release at least it will be a fun 1-2 months of the game just in exploring and seeing what the world has to offer. By then 'hopefully' SE will get its act together by having most of the GUI issues quashed, a retainer ward with search function installed, more activities outside of Guild Leve to do and maybe more classes to work on in the first content patch plus possibly more regions to explore on the continent itself.

I am as disappointed as everyone is about some of the stuff that won't be in at launch (and their continued horrible communication skills with the community) but a bunch of the issues with beta has more to do with the fact it is beta (Menu Lag now confirmed to be due to server tools they are using to track peoples data for beta) and content is sparse because we are essentially crammed into one city and what amounts to ONLY the first half of one of the city-state regions. If the other ones are of similar size to La Noscea then we will have only been playing about 1/8th to 1/10th of the explorable launch territory. There are only a couple things that really, really need to be solved either by launch or shortly after.

1.) Retainer system needs a search ability and hopefully when that's implemented we can also use the demand feature of the retainers to search items we don't already have. They don't do that then a crafting market will be grid locked and horribly cumbersome. They get those features in and I actually think it will turn out better then a normal AH just for the demand feature alone.

2.) A player search needs to be added but I'm almost 100% positive that will be in at launch, same with keyboard controls getting an overhaul (shortcut keys for chat and targetting are coming as said in the known Issues post on the beta site).

3.) Better explanation and Balancing of Combat Gameplay, specifically in regards to hate and the importance of group based events like battle regimen. They either need to overhaul those two things or tell us what we 'should' be doing to make better use of them.

4.) More things to do besides Guild Leve. If they can change behest around a bit to either supply more rewards or at least occur more frequently, it could be a nice past time while waiting for a party group for EXP or Guild Leve timers (since they now obviously want people to go back group EXP grind when you got nothing else you can do, casuals will just do guild leves and log if they want).

If they can fix these things, imo the game will be ready for launch (along with fixing other bugs). The other stuff that 'should' be there day 1 (like hardware mouse) although is an annoyance it shouldn't make the game unplayable. The rest of my issues will probably alleviated just by the game launching with more regions to explore and the game has a sense of permenance.

**mastamind** · 2010-08-18 19:12

Originally Posted by Ramsey

My only problem getting the first one is where the heck does one get antelope sinew/sinew cord? It used to be at the vendor I believe, but it's gone as of P3, are there antelopes around that need to be killed? I haven't seen one.

Round Chestnut Shield Shee of Bronze Plate x1, Chestnut Plank x2, Circle of Buffalo Leather x1, Uncolored Buffalo Leather Strap x1, Handful of Bronze Nails x1

i dont see sinew cord anywhere?

**Airget** · 2010-08-18 19:13

Originally Posted by blythe

Question/possible bitching (since that seems to be the theme lately)

Is it true that now you can equip armor/weapons of any level, and that they're synced down? If so, to physical level or class rank?

Either way, not a fan if that's the case. Aesthetically, I kind of like being able to look at someone and have a general sense of what level they are. More importantly, wouldn't that just choke off the market for low level crafters after some time? Like after you were already physical level 50+ and decide to go back and level another class, you could just use your "end-game" or whatever armor synced without having to rebuy all the lowbie armor.

While it may be true that high levels would be able to use their high level gear to level a lower level class there's still the situation of how much the material cost to repair the item as well as the cost of the repair itself. With those aspects in mind it might not be uncommon for higher level characters to carry around their serious equipment and then a lesser equipment they don't mind having the durability lowered in when leveling another class rank.

I truly don't think the ability of being able to wear synced gear will effect the economy as one would think because honestly would you rather wear a lv 10 piece that cost 10k that's easy to repair or a 100k lv 50 armor that syncs to the same stats as the lv 10 and cost 20k to repair. Of course they are exaggeration in pricing but that's how I imagine the ability to sync will balance itself out.

**Skidz** · 2010-08-18 19:14

Originally Posted by Calemero

Spoiler: Beta. You work for SE, right? You know what content is gonna come out in September, right? Games always put 100% of their developed content into beta, right? right?

I think he's basing that off of the interview questions/answers posted on ffxivcore. Check it out if you haven't already.

**Croy** · 2010-08-18 19:24

Originally Posted by Skidz

I think he's basing that off of the interview questions/answers posted on ffxivcore. Check it out if you haven't already.

No he is responding to the guy talking and he basically says there will ONLY be Guild Leves at launch and nothing else when we have no right to believe that. See that journal in beta? About how there is a quest journal tab for lots of other things like Class Quests, Local Quests and Mission quests in it? And about how almost none of said quests are in beta (except treasures of the main) and how we are only experiencing in beta just 1/10th of the world at launch?

They gave us things they WANTED us to test, they weren't even planning till launch to show us the other two city-states but they changed that tune and added them for open beta. We have lots of problems that clearly won't be solved by launch as was said in that interview but I don't think the gameplay will be near as sparse as some of you guys are crying about. They have issues, they probably should have delayed the game till those issues are fixed, but that doesn't mean they don't have other normal things like quest in the final game. They made Limsa Lominsa into a beta hub but clearly even from what little you can see in beta they stripped out stuff that was going to be in at launch, or at least planned to be.

**el_tio** · 2010-08-18 19:36

Anyone have any idea what drops buffalo hide?

Thread: FFXIV Random Speculation/Question thread VI: Phase 3, FFXIV is still on the rag!

Thread Tools

Latest Threads

Up & Coming Threads

Hottest Threads