impressions and comparisons.

[01habbo]

Hey I thought since I played this game for a while and my free trial ran out today I thought I would give my opinion on this game, from a person that hates mmos and has stated so many times around the forum my hatred for the games.

Story - I think the story is excellent certainly more engaging than WoW and many of the free mmos that you play on Facebook, I would even say they tell the story better than guild wars 2 not all scenes have voices but they happen right in front of you while in gw2 they take you out of the world give you pretty background with the two characters talking to each other.

World - It feels very quiet, and when I say quiet I don't mean there is no one around. The only voices you hear in the game is in the main story and there's only a few scenes which have them, compared to gw2 which feels much more lively as you walk around there's loads more voices npcs chatting to each other , with ffxiv you get a wall of text, and with the amount of quests there are I don't want to continue reading, so I get bored and just skip it.

Fates -are a very good system in the game, it makes the world feel alive, you see it happening in front of you. It's a system where enemies suddenly attack an area, you get scaled down if you are too high of a level to help. Best part is you share the experience there is no trolling with stealing kills during a fate. Unfortunately the downside is outside fates steal kills still exist. Still it's an improvement to the traditional questioning and although not as great as gw2's dynamic events at leat it makes the world feel alive.

Dungeons - I love the fact that you get early access to these most mmos ive played you only get to the dungeons at high levels, your first dungeon is at level 15 even gw2 doesn't give your first dungeon til level 30 and I forget with WoW, I got bored before I even got there. They are fun they are well structured.

Gameplay - Feels clunky on the ps3 it's hard to target and the movement just doesn't flow with me. with some classes you can cast spells and move with others it's either cast or move. I like the fact that there are Aoes on the ground and you have to move, this is miles better than WoW or other mmos where you just stand there most of the time just doing attack after attack, it feel more. However again feel GW2 has a better dodge your character actually rolls out of the way it feels more fast paced and and full of actionI want to be able to cast spells and move for all classes.

Quests - Not including fates these feel uninspiring really at the very beginning of the game the pick up quests can get boring quickly, there is a wall of text and and it is quite boring just to count how many enemies you kill before you finish a quest. However with the fate quests these are much more inspiring and exciting. Much better system than WoW but still feels boring at times with the traditional quests. Compared to GW2 which I would put higher up as you get more choice on how to complete the quests.

Seasonal events - So far I've only seen the halloween event but I felt compared to other mmos it was severely lacking in content, was over way too quickly.

Community - Sucks seriously, it's like the sort of community you expect from WoW there are quite a few trolls in dungeons, I don't see many discussion in chat and there's a lot of gold sellers. I didn't really play ffxi all that much but I've been told that the community is worse than ffxi. It's much better if you find a nice free company in the game than using duty finder or find some friends to play with.

My final thoughts are that it's miles better than most traditional mmos you can definately see influences from the newer mmos, if you tried mmos before but didn't like them you might like this one.

[KoFF]

Nice post!
I don't agree with everything you said, but I'll only take you up on the facts, not the honest opinions. Also, I find it interesting that your "review" in my eyes bordered on negative, and yet your final sum up suggests it's for the better.

Best part is you share the experience there is no trolling with stealing kills during a fate. Unfortunately the downside is outside fates steal kills still exist.

This is wrong. Under normal circumstances, the person who makes the first hit on an enemy gets 100% of the experience. The other people that contribute to killing the creature receive exp based on how much they contributed to the battle. It's the same inside and outside of FATEs. The difference is just that you get an additional completion bonus when you win a fate, based on how much you contributed to it.

Gameplay - Feels clunky on the ps3 it's hard to target and the movement just doesn't flow with me. with some classes you can cast spells and move with others it's either cast or move. I like the fact that there are Aoes on the ground and you have to move, this is miles better than WoW or other mmos where you just stand there most of the time just doing attack after attack, it feel more. However again feel GW2 has a better dodge your character actually rolls out of the way it feels more fast paced and and full of actionI want to be able to cast spells and move for all classes.

Play the PC version if you don't like the targetting system. You really grow the more you get used to this. There will always be situations where it's hard to target exactly right, but sometimes it's got to do with your camera angle, your zoom settings and stress factors.
As for rolling out of it and being action-based... This is still a main series FF and it's an MMO. I don't think it's to be "expected". And the dodging system is really not that bad. In my opinion, it's purely about working on ones own skills. It's part of the difficulty in the game, and without it, it would be Easy Mode, which I don't think this game should be. I can accept lag issues as an excuse, because that can royaly mess with dodge timing and AoE visibility, but I don't think shouting at a game for having difficulty makes it fair to call the evasive system "bad".
There was a subject up and running about this not long ago, because Dragoons wanted an invulnerability-frame added when they descend into Titan's (Hard Mode) AoE, because they aren't able to dodge it in time if they land in it. The developers themselves said they wanted this to remain part of the strategy. People can't just expect there to be free moment, visible AoE's and strategised moves without there being some sort of point to it. It's not supposed to be "ha ha, I walk 2 steps to the left, dodged it... So fun... ponies and barbies ^.^". The visible AoEs are there for a reason. Difficulty grows, just as the player.
Anyway, the devs agreed to give the Dragoons a shorter recovery time upon landing, but that's all, and I fully support that decision. I don't like easy mode cravers when it's a game where settings are applied to all players.

The thing with standing still and casting magic is exactly the same as with the dragoons here as well. Strategize. If you could run and cast all the time, where would the difficulty be at all? Any enemy or boss could be kited to death, and there would rarely be any danger to dying because the healer can revive you at any time but running around and lala-ing to infinity.

BUT HEY, that's my opinion =).

However with the fate quests these are much more inspiring and exciting.

FATE quests?

Seasonal events - So far I've only seen the halloween event but I felt compared to other mmos it was severely lacking in content, was over way too quickly.

They are named "seasonal" for a reason. And like you said, you only saw one. You missed out on the lengthy and memorable Summer festival. That one included a FATE battle you could encounter almost anywhere on the map, several times, giving you items you could turn in for equipment and other things. Halloween is a special occasion that shouldn't last as long as "summer" and therefore also doesn't have as much to it. But even so, I think they made a lot out of it. People had fun running around in costumes and making quests, and they made competitions on their forums to gain in-game items. I think judging too hard and too fast. Join the festivities, THEN talk. Otherwise it's a bit too early to start commenting on the concept as a whole. BUT AGAIN, that's just my opinion .

Community - Sucks seriously

It sucked when you joined 8D

Nah. Not having much experience with MMOs, I don't want to make any firm comparisons and judgements, as that would be ignorant. I will however say that in the little time I spent in XI, I did get the impression people were very nice. But I also heard people say that the players there now don't give a rats ass about you because they are so high leveled and busy doing their own stuff. They ignore you, in other words.
I would also refrain from judging a community as a whole. I definitely agree there are many trolls lurking in wait in dungeons, and I'm always prepared for it, which is kinda sad... But I think it's pretty mixed when I think about it. It's usually just one guy making a bad mood out of everything, or its the "sound" of text, because I swear, it is sooo easy to write something without having an offensive thought to it, and yet it gets treated as such. But again, this is because people expect this to happen because of the trolls that ruin everything.
I'm pretty sure I could say a LOT more if I knew other MMOs better, because I'm pretty sure there must be some technical aspects involved with this. Like the way the gameplay works and how the dungeons pan out and what each player has in mind to gain from doing a dungeon-run... But I don't know how these things work out in other MMOs, so I can't just state something without a base xD.

[01habbo]

Nice post!
I don't agree with everything you said, but I'll only take you up on the facts, not the honest opinions. Also, I find it interesting that your "review" in my eyes bordered on negative, and yet your final sum up suggests it's for the better.

Considering at the start before I played the game my opinion was completely all negative about it, yes I'm highly critical of it because I find a lot of things I still don't like, but there are still a lot of things they have done right and compared to other mmos that is a huge improvement, the game is fun.

This is wrong. Under normal circumstances, the person who makes the first hit on an enemy gets 100% of the experience. The other people that contribute to killing the creature receive exp based on how much they contributed to the battle. It's the same inside and outside of FATEs. The difference is just that you get an additional completion bonus when you win a fate, based on how much you contributed to it.

My mistake I thought there was shared experience for each kill as well, in which case that is disappointing, compared to WoW from what I heard this is bad, WoW updated their system to have shared experience shortly after gw2 was released. Still having the fates is better than having no fates and is still a better system than the traditional quests.

Play the PC version if you don't like the targetting system. You really grow the more you get used to this. There will always be situations where it's hard to target exactly right, but sometimes it's got to do with your camera angle, your zoom settings and stress factors.

The ps3 targeting system should be able to flow just as well as the pc I shouldn't have to swap systems.

As for rolling out of it and being action-based... This is still a main series FF and it's an MMO. I don't think it's to be "expected". And the dodging system is really not that bad. In my opinion, it's purely about working on ones own skills. It's part of the difficulty in the game, and without it, it would be Easy Mode, which I don't think this game should be. I can accept lag issues as an excuse, because that can royaly mess with dodge timing and AoE visibility, but I don't think shouting at a game for having difficulty makes it fair to call the evasive system "bad".
There was a subject up and running about this not long ago, because Dragoons wanted an invulnerability-frame added when they descend into Titan's (Hard Mode) AoE, because they aren't able to dodge it in time if they land in it. The developers themselves said they wanted this to remain part of the strategy. People can't just expect there to be free moment, visible AoE's and strategised moves without there being some sort of point to it. It's not supposed to be "ha ha, I walk 2 steps to the left, dodged it... So fun... ponies and barbies ^.^". The visible AoEs are there for a reason. Difficulty grows, just as the player.
Anyway, the devs agreed to give the Dragoons a shorter recovery time upon landing, but that's all, and I fully support that decision. I don't like easy mode cravers when it's a game where settings are applied to all players.

This isn't about making it easier, this is about the flow of battle making it feel natural. GW2 lets you cast and move but that doesn't mean it's an easy game, I would say it's harder than ffxiv. I can list you a number of solo games as well that lets you cast and move while not sacrificing difficulty, the kingdom hearts series is a big one as well as crisis core. It can be done.

FATE quests?

Yeah I just call the fates quests swell since you have a progress bar and a goal.

They are named "seasonal" for a reason. And like you said, you only saw one. You missed out on the lengthy and memorable Summer festival. That one included a FATE battle you could encounter almost anywhere on the map, several times, giving you items you could turn in for equipment and other things. Halloween is a special occasion that shouldn't last as long as "summer" and therefore also doesn't have as much to it. But even so, I think they made a lot out of it. People had fun running around in costumes and making quests, and they made competitions on their forums to gain in-game items. I think judging too hard and too fast. Join the festivities, THEN talk. Otherwise it's a bit too early to start commenting on the concept as a whole. BUT AGAIN, that's just my opinion .

This I was comparing to first seasonal events that GW2 provided because one GW2 is free subscription and fffxiv is paid, there is a certain expectation with paid since you are paying you are expecting constant content, gw2 there is less of an expectation it was a one time payment you get what you pay for nothing more. I found it interesting how GW2 had so much more for their first halloween, than ffxiv. I did have a certain expectation for SE to put out more for halloween since it is paid. It was over way too quick and there wasn't much variety and got boring quickly. I'm not commenting on the seasonal events overall it's just my first impressions which I think is fair to compare to the first events of other MMOs.

Nah. Not having much experience with MMOs, I don't want to make any firm comparisons and judgements, as that would be ignorant. I will however say that in the little time I spent in XI, I did get the impression people were very nice. But I also heard people say that the players there now don't give a rats ass about you because they are so high leveled and busy doing their own stuff. They ignore you, in other words.
I would also refrain from judging a community as a whole. I definitely agree there are many trolls lurking in wait in dungeons, and I'm always prepared for it, which is kinda sad... But I think it's pretty mixed when I think about it. It's usually just one guy making a bad mood out of everything, or its the "sound" of text, because I swear, it is sooo easy to write something without having an offensive thought to it, and yet it gets treated as such. But again, this is because people expect this to happen because of the trolls that ruin everything.
I'm pretty sure I could say a LOT more if I knew other MMOs better, because I'm pretty sure there must be some technical aspects involved with this. Like the way the gameplay works and how the dungeons pan out and what each player has in mind to gain from doing a dungeon-run... But I don't know how these things work out in other MMOs, so I can't just state something without a base xD.

I think the community is better than WoW, I think a lot are blaming WoW players for trying it and the hope is that they will rush through, get bored and return to WoW I don't really know how true that is though since in any community you will get trolls but I have they are noticeable here and also as I said I don't notice a lot of regular conversations here that have a sense of community. This could be due to a number of things that one I came from a rp server in gw2 and expect too much 2, there are ps3 players and its hard to talk without a keyboard, 3, the games set up of a steal kills is so competative it discourages people from talking.

[KoFF]

My mistake I thought there was shared experience for each kill as well, in which case that is disappointing, compared to WoW from what I heard this is bad, WoW updated their system to have shared experience shortly after gw2 was released. Still having the fates is better than having no fates and is still a better system than the traditional quests.

Before I say anything to that, can you rephrase the first sentence? Actually I can't make sense of the first whole sentence in common o.O. You say something is disappointing, but I can't figure out what you mean. We talked about kill steals, and now you say shared exp? Does that mean the system XIV uses, equal exp divide, equal full exp or something else? I'm confused X.X

The ps3 targeting system should be able to flow just as well as the pc I shouldn't have to swap systems.

Wow, then you really do expect a lot from a controller compared to a mouse. A whole. Lot.
But speaking of that, if you want the same controls as PC, get an external mouse (and keyboard perhaps). It's much better than whining about stuff that kinda obviously can't be anything but different from each other.

This isn't about making it easier, this is about the flow of battle making it feel natural. GW2 lets you cast and move but that doesn't mean it's an easy game, I would say it's harder than ffxiv. I can list you a number of solo games as well that lets you cast and move while not sacrificing difficulty, the kingdom hearts series is a big one as well as crisis core. It can be done.

You're not really seeing my point. It's not about whether this or that game uses movement halts. This genre is so very different from KH for instance. It's a horrible comparison. I never said that any game was easy just because you could move around while performing abilities.
I just think you're doing 2 really bad things:
1. Comparing everything to GW2 constantly. This is not supposed to be GW2. It's FFXIV. Different rules, different system. Any influence it might have had is still obscure, other than "western MMOs" and it's not fair to judge a game because you compare it to something else. You don't see me bashing Assasins Creed for not being Just Cause etc.
2. Expecting a game to be a certain way because you are used to it from other games. If you don't like how it works in XIV, fine, but at least respect that this is the intended difficulty and system for this game. This is not XIV trying to be GW2 or WoW. It uses its own challenge system and the player is tasked with learning how to get good at it, like with any game.

Yeah I just call the fates quests swell since you have a progress bar and a goal.

... I don't remember seeing bars in quests o_o. But I understand what you mean with it now, so the question was answered, lol.

This I was comparing to first seasonal events that GW2 provided because one GW2 is free subscription and fffxiv is paid, there is a certain expectation with paid since you are paying you are expecting constant content, gw2 there is less of an expectation it was a one time payment you get what you pay for nothing more. I found it interesting how GW2 had so much more for their first halloween, than ffxiv. I did have a certain expectation for SE to put out more for halloween since it is paid. It was over way too quick and there wasn't much variety and got boring quickly. I'm not commenting on the seasonal events overall it's just my first impressions which I think is fair to compare to the first events of other MMOs.

I'd still have waited. I wouldn't ever begin to make a public comparison based on the first level I played in 2 different games. In fact, I wouldn't compare 2 different games with no relation to each other in common, unless the matter really called for it. And also, you really didn't compare to other MMOs. You just compared to one. GW2 (lawl).
Personally I didn't even expect them to make this seasonal event, so I'm not complaining. Happy first MMO experiences, lol.

I think the community is better than WoW, I think a lot are blaming WoW players for trying it and the hope is that they will rush through, get bored and return to WoW I don't really know how true that is though since in any community you will get trolls but I have they are noticeable here and also as I said I don't notice a lot of regular conversations here that have a sense of community. This could be due to a number of things that one I came from a rp server in gw2 and expect too much 2, there are ps3 players and its hard to talk without a keyboard, 3, the games set up of a steal kills is so competative it discourages people from talking.

I definitely agree that communication is lessened due to PS3 gaming, although I honestly find that there are quite a few out there with external keyboards because I can usually carry a conversation with someone in every dungeon. I've had the thought that it could be related to the troll problem, but I don't think it is all that much. It can lead to half-assed responses, but the people who troll generally just troll out loud from an early point during the instance. I think the barrier lies in text interpretation in common.
I don't get your point 3 though. By kill steals and competition discouraging people, which game are you talking about? Because I do think we established that kill steals aren't in XIV, and players would not have to worry about competition in dungeons. Only competition I see is between loot wh0res (From time to time, I can be one, lol) even though that ultimtately doesn't matter either since the content of a chest is randomly given to a player regardless of who opens it, and otherwise it uses the need/greed/pass system. And I have never seen this warrant a quarrel. Guessing you mean a different game?



EDIT: We should totally do a Epic Rap Battle of History based on this conversation!

[01habbo]

I'm going to reply to this in a different order since I wanted to answer the middle first.

You're not really seeing my point. It's not about whether this or that game uses movement halts. This genre is so very different from KH for instance. It's a horrible comparison. I never said that any game was easy just because you could move around while performing abilities.
I just think you're doing 2 really bad things:
1. Comparing everything to GW2 constantly. This is not supposed to be GW2. It's FFXIV. Different rules, different system. Any influence it might have had is still obscure, other than "western MMOs" and it's not fair to judge a game because you compare it to something else. You don't see me bashing Assasins Creed for not being Just Cause etc.
2. Expecting a game to be a certain way because you are used to it from other games. If you don't like how it works in XIV, fine, but at least respect that this is the intended difficulty and system for this game. This is not XIV trying to be GW2 or WoW. It uses its own challenge system and the player is tasked with learning how to get good at it, like with any game.

Woah just because I'm expressing an opinion doesn't mean you can say I'm wrong like it's fact it's an opinion just like yours is an opinion. First of all lets get something straight the only mmos I've played that I thought that did it right was gw2 therefore of course I am going to compare the systems and critise it also GW2 is the only mmo that I know of that uses movement and casting so of course I am going to list it as one of them. MMOs get constantly compared to each other all the time, up til gw2 I thought all mmos were basically clones all had the same system, all had the holy trinity. If you want me to compare ffxiv to other mmos I will but my opinion is thus apart from fates and few other differences ffxiv is a clone of any other traditional mmo, there's not much to compare which is why I use gw2 as a strong example I feel the battle system is clunky. That is my opinion I'm not stating any of this as fact yes I'm biased towards gw2, but all this post ever was going to be was my opinion, I even stated in the name of the thread "Impressions and COMPARISONS" I just have more to compare to gw2 because i have actually stuck to that mmo all others were very brief, and have tried to compare to others as best as I can such as WoW.

Before I say anything to that, can you rephrase the first sentence? Actually I can't make sense of the first whole sentence in common o.O. You say something is disappointing, but I can't figure out what you mean. We talked about kill steals, and now you say shared exp? Does that mean the system XIV uses, equal exp divide, equal full exp or something else? I'm confused X.X

Ignore that then I was just saying I was wrong. I don't think I can word it any other way lol.

Before I say anything to that, can you rephrase the first sentence? Actually I can't make sense of the first whole sentence in common o.O. You say something is disappointing, but I can't figure out what you mean. We talked about kill steals, and now you say shared exp? Does that mean the system XIV uses, equal exp divide, equal full exp or something else? I'm confused X.X

I'm not saying I want the same control I just said it should be as simple to work.

I'd still have waited. I wouldn't ever begin to make a public comparison based on the first level I played in 2 different games. In fact, I wouldn't compare 2 different games with no relation to each other in common, unless the matter really called for it. And also, you really didn't compare to other MMOs. You just compared to one. GW2 (lawl).
Personally I didn't even expect them to make this seasonal event, so I'm not complaining. Happy first MMO experiences, lol.

I'm not writing for a magazine these are just my first impressions, this is my opinion.

I don't get your point 3 though. By kill steals and competition discouraging people, which game are you talking about? Because I do think we established that kill steals aren't in XIV, and players would not have to worry about competition in dungeons. Only competition I see is between loot wh0res (From time to time, I can be one, lol) even though that ultimtately doesn't matter either since the content of a chest is randomly given to a player regardless of who opens it, and otherwise it uses the need/greed/pass system. And I have never seen this warrant a quarrel. Guessing you mean a different game?

Not in dungeons obviously you are in a party but in the world, steal kills exist you go to kill a monster someone else tags it kills it and it doesn't count towards your quest, so they do exist. I find that I have to go for a different monster away from the other person if I want the kills to count.

[KoFF]

Woah just because I'm expressing an opinion doesn't mean you can say I'm wrong like it's fact it's an opinion just like yours is an opinion. First of all lets get something straight the only mmos I've played that I thought that did it right was gw2 therefore of course I am going to compare the systems and critise it also GW2 is the only mmo that I know of that uses movement and casting so of course I am going to list it as one of them. MMOs get constantly compared to each other all the time, up til gw2 I thought all mmos were basically clones all had the same system, all had the holy trinity. If you want me to compare ffxiv to other mmos I will but my opinion is thus apart from fates and few other differences ffxiv is a clone of any other traditional mmo, there's not much to compare which is why I use gw2 as a strong example I feel the battle system is clunky. That is my opinion I'm not stating any of this as fact yes I'm biased towards gw2, but all this post ever was going to be was my opinion, I even stated in the name of the thread "Impressions and COMPARISONS" I just have more to compare to gw2 because i have actually stuck to that mmo all others were very brief, and have tried to compare to others as best as I can such as WoW.

I'm not attacking your opinion. Just your arguments, because I don't think they are fair to the game. I did say from the very beginning I was just gonna comment on the factual parts, not the opinions themselves.
As for having "comparisons" in the thread title, it might have done some good if I had noticed that beforehand, lol. I still mean what I said about the references, but I also see you were aware of this and intended it from the start now.

I'm not saying I want the same control I just said it should be as simple to work.

Plug the mouse. Simple to work. Blame Sony for not releasing a keyboard and mouse with their consoles.

But I still don't consider it problematic. There are just certain things you can't do on a PS3, with a game that's normally meant for PC gaming. As I see it, you can either accept it or do something about it (invest).
I love using the controller though, lol, but I've always been a core controller player. I'd suck at using a PC... I don't even know how I ever got through Diablo II back in the day, lol.
Considering what they had to deal with, I find it amazing how well the controller gameplay works. They must really have worked a lot on fitting this for console play.

Not in dungeons obviously you are in a party but in the world, steal kills exist you go to kill a monster someone else tags it kills it and it doesn't count towards your quest, so they do exist. I find that I have to go for a different monster away from the other person if I want the kills to count.

Sounds like you are confusing with first-to-gold with kill stealing. First of all, you CAN get credit for a kill even if you aren't the one to deal the first blow, provided you deal enough damage or enough hits to the enemy before it dies. This also relates to the difference in strength between 2 characters attacking the same enemy. It's like with FATE battles, where your actions aren't weighed as heavily if you're not up to level.
Secondly, since it's an MMO I find it logical and fair that the first player to claim a monster gets the most out of it. It's not stealing kills, it's being there first.

[01habbo]

Sounds like you are confusing with first-to-gold with kill stealing. First of all, you CAN get credit for a kill even if you aren't the one to deal the first blow, provided you deal enough damage or enough hits to the enemy before it dies. This also relates to the difference in strength between 2 characters attacking the same enemy. It's like with FATE battles, where your actions aren't weighed as heavily if you're not up to level.
Secondly, since it's an MMO I find it logical and fair that the first player to claim a monster gets the most out of it. It's not stealing kills, it's being there first.

Then why do I find even if im there first and start battling the kill is stolen from me?

[R.Kyra]

That's because I run in there and steal things ^_^.

FFXIV is a clone? I thought it was just a final fantasy game... Strange comparison there.

[01habbo]

I said except for a few differences^

[KoFF]

Then why do I find even if im there first and start battling the kill is stolen from me?

You are a summoner. Do you remember to use instant magic to make sure you land the first HIT? Otherwise, it could be lag or it could be that you simply don't deal enough damage on hit, to count for something. Your damage still has to match the difficulty of the enemy you are fighting.

Can you come up with a more concrete example?