Heh, my first post here as a complete an total newbie to the Final Fantasy MMO universe:
- Crafting drives me up the friggin' walls. I kinda like the fact that most people won't see equipment upgrades until they're well into their teen levels, as it makes them a really big deal compared to, well, every MMO out there, but OHMYGOD could they have made it ANY more newbie-unfriendly?! I predict a huge falloff as players just try to get into it and FAIL and FAIL and FAIL and FAIL and FAIL SOME MORE FOOL over and over and over and over again. It's ridiculous. There's no curve to it whatsoever. It's completely, unfailingly unintuitive and completely, unfailingly unforgiving. If Square is serious about drawing customers that were turned away by FFXI they have GOT to do something about crafting, especially since it's the ONLY way to get new gear.
- The game requires a gamepad. Absolutely no question, you will not be able to enjoy this game with a mouse and keyboard. Or, rather, your experience will be completely compromised without one. It's possible to enjoy it that way, but I'd rather run far, far away than contend with the horrible UI lag with a mouse and keyboard.
- You have to make macros to quick-switch classes. I'm just... scratching my head with this one. You have to make macros. Or else you get to manually, slowly, painfully reassign every single action every time you switch classes. Which, uh, kinda defeats the purpose of such a feature in the first place, doesn't it? ...I think the UI designer at Squeenix needs to be replaced. ASAP. Seriously. Too much fail here. It's inexcusable.
- Guidleves. I don't quite understand them. I mean, I understand they work best in groups so you can just keep chucking out quest after quest, but the loooong cooldown and the automatic failure on disconnect (lol, and with a game that crashes this often) is pretty, well, unforgiving.
These things aside, though, my impressions are largely positive. But then, I have a high tolerance for BS (hell, I played APB for about 400 hours over the entirety of closed beta and the first month of release...), and I can see many things that will turn off less-hardcore players, which is a bad thing as that's exactly the customer base Squeenix was trying to attract with XIV in the first place. But, well, I can see myself getting into it, as the ambiance and the immersion and everything is more well-done than any game I've played in recent memory. Just have to get past those little niggles...
And the crafting. Oh, boy, the crafting...
- Crafting drives me up the friggin' walls. I kinda like the fact that most people won't see equipment upgrades until they're well into their teen levels, as it makes them a really big deal compared to, well, every MMO out there, but OHMYGOD could they have made it ANY more newbie-unfriendly?! I predict a huge falloff as players just try to get into it and FAIL and FAIL and FAIL and FAIL and FAIL SOME MORE FOOL over and over and over and over again. It's ridiculous. There's no curve to it whatsoever. It's completely, unfailingly unintuitive and completely, unfailingly unforgiving. If Square is serious about drawing customers that were turned away by FFXI they have GOT to do something about crafting, especially since it's the ONLY way to get new gear.
- The game requires a gamepad. Absolutely no question, you will not be able to enjoy this game with a mouse and keyboard. Or, rather, your experience will be completely compromised without one. It's possible to enjoy it that way, but I'd rather run far, far away than contend with the horrible UI lag with a mouse and keyboard.
- You have to make macros to quick-switch classes. I'm just... scratching my head with this one. You have to make macros. Or else you get to manually, slowly, painfully reassign every single action every time you switch classes. Which, uh, kinda defeats the purpose of such a feature in the first place, doesn't it? ...I think the UI designer at Squeenix needs to be replaced. ASAP. Seriously. Too much fail here. It's inexcusable.
- Guidleves. I don't quite understand them. I mean, I understand they work best in groups so you can just keep chucking out quest after quest, but the loooong cooldown and the automatic failure on disconnect (lol, and with a game that crashes this often) is pretty, well, unforgiving.
These things aside, though, my impressions are largely positive. But then, I have a high tolerance for BS (hell, I played APB for about 400 hours over the entirety of closed beta and the first month of release...), and I can see many things that will turn off less-hardcore players, which is a bad thing as that's exactly the customer base Squeenix was trying to attract with XIV in the first place. But, well, I can see myself getting into it, as the ambiance and the immersion and everything is more well-done than any game I've played in recent memory. Just have to get past those little niggles...
And the crafting. Oh, boy, the crafting...
