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Final Fantasy 14

Posted By: BobH

Final Fantasy 14 - 02/23/15 12:31 AM

I was looking for a new (to me) MMORPG to play and saw that Final Fantasy 14 got some good reviews and that it is a classic style MMORPG. I'm downloading the two week trial now and will give it a try. I'll let you know what I think of it.

Anyone have experience with this game? I didn't find anything from searching the forums.
Posted By: looney4labs

Re: Final Fantasy 14 - 02/23/15 03:26 AM

Bob, lots of my kids' friends have been very caught up in and think it's great, but I have no personal experience with it.

Do let us know what you think? wave
Posted By: BobH

Re: Final Fantasy 14 - 02/23/15 06:44 AM

I've played for a few hours now. I've never played any of the Final Fantasy games before so really didn't have any frame of reference to compare this one. I believe the others were not MMORPG games. I read some reviews and so I did have some idea what to expect. The reviews I read raved about the music and the visuals but had some quibbles with battle mechanics. This is offered for PS3/PS4 in addition to PCs. I think this is the first time I've played an MMO that can be played on a console. So far I haven't noticed any issues related to this.

Here are my first impressions:

The music track is very nice. This is something I don't normally think much about and it's fine with me as long as it stays in the background. This is a little more prominent but is nice. You have a lot of control over controlling volume of different things so can turn it down if you want.

This game starts you off very slowly you spend a good amount of time just running around various places in the starting city, Gridania, which is pretty large for a starting city. Every other MMO that I can remember, you start off in a small area away from the city and start right in killing things and work your way to ever larger towns. This was not that way. I would have preferred starting in doing some fighting but after a while I finally got to that.

Now that I have ventured out and have started fighting creatures and bad guys it is more like the other MMO's that I've played. That was one of the comments in a review I read as well that there is nothing really new in this game but what there is, is polished and well done. I generally agree with that.

Interacting with NPC's sometimes involves cut scenes which I have also seen on SW:TOR and GW2 so it is not so unusual but it seemed to interrupt the flow of the game more than the others. Also a strange thing I noticed is that when you are talking with an NPC normally (no cut scene) the game restricts your view to always keep the NPC that you are talking with in view. I really don't like this. I'm used to being able to look around if something happens behind my character while I'm talking to a NPC.

The one thing that was mentioned in the review I read about battle mechanics appears to be fixed...I think. The problem was that there was a lag in the battle mechanics. Some monsters have an attack that affects an area in front of it covering an angular section like a pie slice. The area is highlighted on the ground as it's preparing to strike and if you are fast enough, you can move out of the way of the strike. The complaint I read was that there was a lag in the game noticing if you moved out of the way and it would still strike you even if you weren't in the area. I only encountered this once but I moved out of the way and it didn't hit me. I'll keep an eye on this to see if it really is fixed or if I just didn't fall victim to the lag in my one encounter.

So, overall, even with the slight quibbles, I would say I am liking this game. It's got nice character races (I chose to play a cat-like race) and plays smoothly and seamlessly so far. It feels polished with everything working they way the developers intended. I'm only level 7 so still really just getting started. I'll add an update after I've played for a while.
Posted By: RNL

Re: Final Fantasy 14 - 02/23/15 06:57 AM

Hello Bob,
In my opinion FFXIV is one of the better MMO's out now period. It has a nice story line, some funny side quests and it is not difficult to level up. I played for around 6 months before finally quitting the game, not a long time but enough to have almost every class up to max level (50 at the time, 60 with the new content coming this spring) and into the end game stuff. I will say though I played everyday during those 6 months to get those levels as it takes time to level up the crafting and gathering classes.

It is a beautiful game graphically as well even on the PS4 which is what I used to play the game with. If you are playing on a PC the graphics will be even better. SE did a nice job of giving a variety of ways to play depending on how you want to develop your character. If you are interested in end game stuff I would suggest you look into a server such as Gilgamesh which has a lot of end game "Free Company's". If you can create a character in that server that is - it is pretty full most of the time. I was on the Faerie server which seemed to be more full of groups more focused on social activities and crafters with less emphasis on end game overall, thus the economy is not as robust as some of the other servers. With that said money is not all that important in FFXIV than it has been in their past MMO (FFXI) though. I was on the Faerie server in FFXI as well which is why I chose that one for FFXIV not really knowing the dynamics of the servers at the time.

As with any MMO you will find some very nice people, some who are not as nice, some who are outright jerks and some who are elitists so if you have friends who are already playing that would be great, otherwise take you time to join up with a group to make sure they have the same goals you have. It sounds like this is not your first MMO so you probably are aware of this but I wanted to mention as it is no different in 14.

The real money traders are a royal pain in the rear and you are constantly blacklisting them to keep the messages from coming and these are not shouts they are messages directed to just your character - I would blacklist on average 50-60 per week and up to 100 during the times just before an update and I could have blacklisted more each week but just ignored as best I could. You can clean up your blacklist after each server reset every Tuesday and will need to do so to not run out of room in your blacklist space. I kept hearing the Japanese servers do not have this issue like the North American ones do.

I started playing to game along with my daughters and one son-in-law which was great to be able to do something with them but in the end left for many reasons one of which is just the amount of time the game takes to keep up with everything, for instance just one outfit for my botanist cost over 7 million gil to craft and I had many outfits to keep geared up as well as keeping up with the group in the end game content it was just to much of a time dump for me but if you don't mind the grind then FFXIV is the MMO I would recommend to play.

I hope you have a great time in your trial period and will be interested in hearing what you think about the game!
Posted By: BobH

Re: Final Fantasy 14 - 02/24/15 07:11 AM

Hi RNL,
Thanks for adding your comments. I agree that the graphics are beautiful, I don't think I mentioned that. As you guessed I have played a lot of MMO's and this one is easy to jump into because so much of it is familiar. I'm a pretty slow leveler and for as much as I have played lots of different games, I haven't reached end game in any yet. I tend to want to move on at some point.

You sure hit the mark on the real money traders. I've seen this before in other games but not so consistently as here. I have already blacklisted 3-4 and they just keep coming. It is a pain that they use tells so you can't just block a channel. I would think that if the game managers really wanted to they could find ways to block a lot of these spammers. Other MMO's are much more successful at it.

I already like this well enough that I'm going to continue past the trial. Time will tell how long I stick with it after that.
Posted By: RNL

Re: Final Fantasy 14 - 03/22/15 07:05 PM

Bob,
Still playing FFXIV? I was wondering how you find it now after a little while and how you have progressed! I have heard from my daughter that the new expansion has been delayed as they are adding more content than they planned earlier. I also heard it will be a new disc and cost around $60 (US) WOW what a price for an expansion to go along with the monthly charge.
Posted By: BobH

Re: Final Fantasy 14 - 03/23/15 06:09 AM

Hi RNL,
I had to take a break for a bit but I just jumped back in. Yeah I still like it. I joined a Free Company (guild) and they are really friendly and helpful. There is a lot to the story in this game. I like that. I also like that it has a "main" quest line. I've been thinking about writing an update but I'm going to wait until I've had some time back with the game again.

I'm a level 18 archer and level 10 carpenter.

Yeah, that sounds kind of expensive but this used to be the norm for MMO's and I still prefer it to the new model of free-to-play with ability to buy advantages. I like that it's more of a level playing field for all.

I'll check in soon with an update.
Posted By: looney4labs

Re: Final Fantasy 14 - 03/23/15 05:15 PM

Thanks, Bob, always good to hear from those who are playing. wave
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