Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

My character got un-3102'd around midnight and I tried to do Ifrit this morning but then I was getting Error 90000 every time I tried to enter the instance :>

Didn't affect me leveling my subclasses in the open world but I hope that error gets fixed...

My character was non existant on the server after the 3102 server stuff was supposedly resolved. Dunno what happened, log in, and the character select screen is interactable, but the only option is to exit out.

Click to expand...

Mine was doing that too - give it about a minute and the characters pop in. They seemed to appear after my client determined the JP servers were offline.

Valderen_sl said:

I've said this before, but it's a strange game...for all intent and purpose it shouldn't be fun.

Questing is average at best(interesting main story though FF style).

Combat is very basic...but polished.

Classes have no customization to speak off.

Itemization is pretty bland.

World is beautiful, and game runs great.

But for some reason...I am having a blast. I shouldn't, all the system are just average but as a whole the game is a lot fun.

Click to expand...

This is exactly how I feel. I have seen everything here 1000x before. There is absolutely nothing new here.....yet I'm having fun. I can't really explain why either. The only thing I can put my finger on is that the pacing is superb, as is the variety. While the quests are the same old get me 8 rat tail shit. They mix it up a lot with story quests, class quests, side quests, quest hub, guildhest, guildleves, FATEs, dungeons. The game opened up at an almost perfect pace after the horrificly long tutorial.The end result is you moving around a lot, always having something to do. There was none of the typical "grind here 3 more levels until next area/cool thing opens up" that every MMO seems to do. The game has pretty good world building, not in the sense of the shitty side quest story, but in the thematics. Each area has a unique feel and look that gives it more character and life than most MMOs put into newbie zones.

The tradeskills are so fucking awful though, like "throw up onto a plate, then eat it, repeat x 20, then come talk to me for your next quest". I tried a lot of them and some were less bad than others, but they were all AWFUL.

I preordered mine last night via direct download from the SE website, they sent me the 6-3-6-3 digit code in the email confirmation right after the order went though. As good as the story and music are I can't imagine not paying $25 bucks for it, even if i beat it in a month It'll be worth it. The combat is kinda meh, not so much the gcd but all the damn fucking cooldowns and wonky useless one in a million situational attacks etc. They should ditch the cooldowns and just do a long duration self buff and a long duration group buff for every class if they justhadto add more buff buttons. I agree with EQN's decision to limit the hotbar to 4 attacks and 4 class abilities/spells, hopefully none of them will be dumbass cooldowns except for the bare basic ones like a defensive cooldown for tanks, one burndown cd for dps classes, and mend for monks >;p. Post wow mmos need to start cutting the extraneous bullshit.

They need to let you cue up your next attack on the hotbar instead of having to spam click as the gcd is about to end too. I didnt get far enough into the options to know if there's a cycle hostile targets + and - buttons, or functionality for an /assist "tank name" macro for grouping/raiding, but those two things are nice to have if they're not in already.

It's overall a game who's grouping mechanics, while not perfect, i can tolerate in order to see where the story is going.

I would honestly be ok with them letting me queue up like 3-4 attacks ala KOTOR or something, the pace is so glacial that I don't feel like I would lose out on the gripping combat by being able to queue a couple hotkeys. If anything it would add to the game for me

We'll need to set up some 8 man teams on Saturday for fate grinding

The fun factor is definitely tied to the public mechanic of awarding experience for 30% damage even if you don't have the tap. Everything branches from that into chain bonuses, FATEs, and actual grouping to drive you to kill faster and play better. On the flip side the instances actually feel like dungeons with their looks and object interactions. There's no bullshit it's simply clear all rooms looking for chests and kill bosses for better pink/green gear.

Crafting and gathering are both heavy timesinks. Tediousness to the max, with some classes worse than others. For example, the carpentry level 10 quest they ask for 12 maple lumber combines, and nearly every 10-15 combine requires maple lumber as well. I would strongly advise taking Botanist first and farming as many logs as possible, then probably keeping both skills on the same tier. Alchemy on the other hand was a lot of straight simple combines over and over but didn't incur too much of a cost to get to 15. The fact that we're going to need full gear sets for Magic + Melee + Crafter + Gatherer is going to be crazy, no wonder they give the armory chest.

As far as combat the 12 pugilist crit buff is a must have since it's only a 1 minute cooldown versus the 3 minutes for archer damage buff. Pink/Green/HQ crafted weapon farming is going to be desired since that's the #1 measurement in power. Materia definitely seems to suffer the same as TOR augments where gear is simply replaced too often until 50.

Yea, everything was pretty much easy mode - I'm hoping the difficulty settings that come for later dungeons are a force to be reckon with. On a side note I did Copperbell Mines this weekend with a couple arcanists, I'm not quite sure how pets work in this game but the stupid Carbuncles kept killing the bombs on the second boss before they blew up. Anyways 10 minutes later of politely asking the arcanists to control their pets we finally told them to just kill them. The game is new (Arcanists even more so) so random shit like that is expected.

Click to expand...

Pets can be controlled very good if people bother with it. Most are probably new to a petclass.

Pets will switch targets with 1 click. No responsiveness issues at all.

Anyone have any clue when GMG will send out pre-order codes?

Elurin_sl said:

Anyone have any clue when GMG will send out pre-order codes?

Click to expand...

I ordered from GMG yesterday and the moment I checked out I received an e-mail instantly from them that contained my pre-order code. - This was for the collectors, I don't know if its different for the regular edition.

Elurin_sl said:

Anyone have any clue when GMG will send out pre-order codes?

Click to expand...

the code you got when you ordered was the preorder code

Yeah.. had a blast and I really wasn't expecting to honestly. I thought I would walk away thinking that's a solid game and it would be enjoyable but nothing I would want to play every chance I had. I found myself trying to play every free moment I had, I was hooked. I really was busy this weekend and going to be out of town this coming weekend but it definitely provided some old-school, fun MMO experiences. As I said a few posts back, it's like everything I expected from EQ2, Rift, and SWTOR. Nothing revolutionary, it's just a good MMO. That problem is people maybe looking for the "next big thing" ... well this isn't it. It's just a good MMO and probably the best among the current options in terms of giving you what you want without appearing dated.

I ordered the collector's edition from GMG but have not received a code as of yet. Looking forward to playing. I know my Dad, who was a hardcore EQ1 player for years, said he very unexpectedly had a great time. (He's very jaded towards the industry btw). This seems to be the consensus for those looking for an alternative to the current market.

Muligan_sl said:

YNothing revolutionary, it's just a good MMO.

Click to expand...

This. I wish the dungeons had been a little harder, although given some of the pugs a bunch of us ran with from time to time, maybe it wasn't the worst thing for this weekend. The crafting is tedious, but frankly I don't mind it being that way. I just wish I hadn't had a lot of shit to do this weekend since I never had any errors whatsoever other than getting bumped offline that one time Friday. Game is solid, didn't try to reinvent the wheel, but the class system is simple and doesn't require any alts. Will easily be worth ~2 months with potential for more. The central story is pretty decent, will be curious to see where it goes.

Also want to point out the level 20 cap was a really good idea. Without a multi-day/week grind to 50 people branched out into their secondary job classes, tried different group roles and crafting. Hell, my archer is better geared than my thaum right now.

axeman_sl said:

Does the game get more complex later on? I tried it for a few hours this morning and it was so primitive that it seemed like a game for little children. I get that the first like 20 levels are sort of a tutorial, but I looked at the later skills and they don't appear to get any more involved. I mean, there's max-level skills that are simple "+x% damage for y seconds" types, and the resource system is from 1997. Is this par for the course in this game or is there something that gives it depth that isn't readily apparent from a cursory look? So far the itemization and skill system feel like it's for a smartphone game. What comprises the depth and long-term involvement of this game?

And is there a way to skip those fucking cutscenes in the beginning? Unholy fucker of mothers, it takes like 15 minutes to create a new character.

Click to expand...

Pft, in 1997 I actually had to watch out for my resources emptying out. I just spam heal and never run out.

It's fun though.

I agree. I wish it had been longer just so I'd have a chance to level up a tank class and try it out, and to do a few more dungeons runs trying out different classes. I'll probably end up grinding out my main class once the cap is gone. It may be a case where lots of people change what their main class is because of this.

I'm kind of in the same boat as everyone else. Nothing new, nothing out of this world dynamic about the game, but I really enjoyed it (even with the server issues), much more than it probably deserves. I think the IP has something to do with that, the game does feel like Final Fantasy. The music is great as is the graphics. It's one of those types of games where you know you probably will only be playing it for a limited time (maybe a month) before burn out but I think that's ok if you know it going in. I'm still worried about launch day though. I didn't get the sense they had a handle on what was going on with the server issues so I'm not sure what would make me think they would magically be able to solve them in a week.

Was there a GMG code for checkout discount?