My friend and I are giving a whole hearted try to really give this game a chance there is so much beauty in it and we are trying to love it because there are a lot of positive things we see in it. However, as it stands it seems like around every turn the game is just trying to discourage us from moving on. We're only about lv 14 and at a standstill.
From before I even purchased the game, the interface and account management on the website is unintuitive, and in some cases flat-out erroneous. "Enter this key into steam" What? This isn't even a steam client nor is the code a valid steam number. Even when activating my forum account, the simple task of selecting my main character seems to have been meticulously designed to mislead me in every way possible. To say the least, it is frustrating.
I don't know if Squenix takes pride in it's ambiguity out of some attempt to seem unque and edgey, but reflecting such an attitude in the Game's/account's interfaces and to a lesser extent, core mechanics simply adds NOTHING to the enjoyment of this title. It seems like from the moment I entered my credit card to buy this game, Squenix has been trying to discourage me from playing. I had to put forth a valiant effort to set foot in Eorzea, compared to just about every other MMO-title out there. This is a big deal in a competition-based industry.
FF is already unique and beautiful, it's okay to take the easy route when it comes to basic accessibility.
Now as far as in game goes. My friend and I went in with nothing but a positive state of mind, no expectations really. We didn't begrudge the game's current state of flux and "recovery", but we also took care to avoid preconcieved, unrealistic positivity.
We genuinely enjoyed our time in Gridania. Grinding was fun. Levequests...well they weren't as fun. They seemed like more of a speedbump than anything, but I soon came to appreciate the increased gil and chance for equipment to drop. However, we started experience vast disperities in the level of our equipment compared to the levels of our classes. That bronze spear I got from a levequest was nice, but that's....pretty...much..it. Upgrading gear gear pretty much became impossible, the amount of time it took to save up gil to buy the "lucky vendor upgrade" by far exceeded the time it took to outlevel it, and this is only speaking in terms of weapons. I figure that since our only source of gil was grinding/leves and vendoring everything we could probably make gil more efficiently if we'd be able to sell things to a player market. This is where our Retainer foibles began.
We spent the time to hire and set up and retainer, but when it came time to set up shop (that is after perilously searching through at least seven hundred thousand different types of market wards, which I might add are not clearly indicated in the descriptions of their corresponding item types) I was disappointed to see that the player market is INDIVIDUAL PER NATION. That being said...I chewed on my hat a bit for picking Gridania as my starting locale. We could have quit there, but as I said before we really want to love this game. I said, "screw it" I'll leave behind the aesthetic I've come to know and love for a more populated desert atmosphere. I had read that Ul'dah is in fact the center for trade and commerce.Finally we'll be able to make some gil from spoils from monsters we'd been saving up! A thriving market is ahead of us! Not only the chance at level-appropriate gear, but the off-chance of maybe wearing other armor than my starting gear and the random sheepskin mits I got from a quest.
We booked airship tickets and said goodbye to the green lush forest. This is where the major disappointment set in to the point of stopping us DEAD in our tracks. I got into the Arabesque city and made my way to the market ward, selected the battle craft ward, checked for new spears, aaaaand!........... 0. There were zero people selling my particular upgrade. The next available weapon for me was about 6 levels away, and I was already using a spear 4 levels old...
"Fine!"
I remembered seeing the spear on the NPC vendor earlier for an unreasonable amount of Gil.
"NO PROBLEM! I'm in a thriving market, I can make gil much more efficiently now that there are people in my Nation!"
I go to the market ward to sell off my stack of fire crystals. I check the price and.....what... someone undercutted the next lowest price by a huge percentage, and they'd listed 9999 items.
I began to feel the terror of a nightmare I'd once had recurring as a child, where I would be forced to count every grain of sand in a beach until I was done. I was breaking out in a cold sweat.
I understand that gear is supposed to be very crafting centric, but the supply is still just NOT THERE. I concluded that the only way to be able to even equip myself in a decent manner is to completely derail my gaming experience and go level up about 4 other crafting and harvesting jobs and just create my own! It only took about an hour of mining to find myself with about 100 bone chips and and a fist full of anxiety and hopelessness, and of my friend and I- I am the one who most enjoys crafting in MMO's, he hates it.
I write this because we are on our last leg. I want to salvage my enjoyment of this game, but it seems like Squenix is only aiming to infuriate me. IT SEEMS, that this company made sure to create a game but hire NO ONE who knew how to create an MMO. Why do I write this? I don't know, perhaps I am just seeking some solace, perhaps there's a light at the end of the road which I do not see yet. Therefore I call out to all who read or even skimmed this message. Help us.
A Plea for Sanity
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02-11-2012, 01:25 PMSaebA Plea for Sanity
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02-11-2012, 01:31 PMRuriMistakes have been acknowledged, people fired, new director, new version 2.0. For now we're stuck with what there which is not great I know. But the game IS being remade by people with more common sense and who listen to us. So I would suggest holding off to 2.0 if you dislike this version so much because there's only so much they can do with the current client.Quote:
Originally Posted by Saeb
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02-11-2012, 01:31 PMSaeb
Something that also blows my mind, when I search the item's price history to even try and have a chance at being competitive in the market this is all I see:
1 gil
0 gil
0 gil
0 gil
0 gil
1 gil
0 gil
0 gil
0 gil
250 gil
1 gil
0 gil
0 gil
0 gil
This is the point where I wonder if I am still awake or if everything up to this point was a bad dream -
02-11-2012, 01:33 PMRuri
Should have been here before when there was NO market search. Had to go to every retainer, click them, open a menu, and choose bazaar to see what they were selling. Now THAT was FUN!
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02-11-2012, 01:34 PMStanislaw
Seeing as you're on the same server as I, I'll send you a tell if you're on. If not, send me one when you do log in.
Let's see if I can help you out any. -
02-11-2012, 01:38 PMVaen
-Try to find and join a helpful linkshell. They should have several skilled crafters who will happily make you some lowbie gear.
-Yeah the game economy is pretty messed up, but (you'll find this is the answer to 98% of the issues here) it's going to get better with future patches and the market ward clusterphuck should be solved by 2.0.
-Besides lvl1 Weathered weapons/tools, I've never had to buy gear from a vendor NPC (that's actually how it is in almost ALL MMO's, in my experience), and you can start crafting some lowbie things successfully with just one or two crafting skills at level 5, which takes like 20 -30 minutes to reach tops.
-Around level 10 you'll start noticing classic-style quests that some NPCs in the towns give if you talk to them. This is another good source of lowbie gear.
-Gridania is awesome, but its always worthwhile to switch it up and go to the other cities, yes for Ul'dah's markets, but also for quests, change of scenery, fun, etc.
Hope that helps! -
02-11-2012, 01:38 PMRaldo
People don't sell low-level gear, because it's doesn't sell as well as high-level gear. Simple as that.
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02-11-2012, 01:42 PMBulwarkz
Well, I'll tell ya right now as far as gear goes - it's not that diverse. I'm sorry that you went all the way to Ul'dah to find that out, but yeah NPCs don't do hardly anything for gear - and the items on the MW are 6 or so levels apart like you said. When I hit my first 50, I noticed there wasn't another LNC I wasn't nearly identical to. You'll have to farm at 50 and beat end game for semi-diverse items.
Also, the outside of Gridania is in pretty bad shape and they intend to do some serious overhauling on it for 2.0. It's an extremely linear maze... a forest in real life would be nothing like that lol.
Most of your complaints are well known. That's why they're completely overhauling the game. 2.0 comes out very late this year or early next year. -
02-11-2012, 02:05 PMSaeb
Thank you for the replies. I don't have much else to say right now. I seem to have vented most of my energy in the original post. It's just exasperating.
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02-11-2012, 02:06 PMAvraym
Unfortunately, Cornelia is one of the less populated servers, so matts and gear are scarce.
From what I understand Saeb, a lot of these issues in relation to gear could be countered if you and your friend took up crafting / gathering.
Working in unison would make the job twice as easy, and the new recipes are no challenge to craft.
A "mentor" would also be helpful to you guys.
The game is tough, and requires a positive mind and positive thinking, which you generally have.
The UI and setup options are both laggy and unintuitive I agree, but I remain hopeful that they will fix/update this in the near future.
Your critisicm was both fair and well worded.
I personally simpathize with you and your friends situation and would be only too happy to lend you a hand with gil and assist with crafting if you were on my server. I like to think there are others out there with this same attitude, regardless of server.
Come transfer time, you find yourselves struggling, choose World #5, and I will be only too happy to assist.
Welcome to FFXIV. -
02-11-2012, 02:14 PMBulwarkzGood post. Cornelia's not that populated? I'm not surprised. Palamecia was in the "middle" population wise with 2 chocobos at the server select screen. It sits on 160 players ( or less ) at a given time. I made a character on Fabul and Kashuan, supposedly the least populated 1 chocobo servers, and they sat at 280 and 300 players respectively.Quote:
Originally Posted by Avraym
Cornelia is a 3 chocobo server o_O. I hope the server select screen is more honest after the mergers.
EDIT: Just thought, it may reflect registered characters. If that's the case, it should indicate the active users on right that second, like every other MMO server select screen I've seen. -
02-11-2012, 02:20 PMStanislawThe reason it seems scarce to an NA player is because Cornelia is primarily a JP dominant server. If we go by JP primetime numbers, I believe we're the third largest server.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bulwarkz
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02-11-2012, 02:32 PMZetsumei_Tsunarashi
As someone who has been here from the very beginning, let me tell you this: As bad as it may seem right now, you have no idea how far this game has come.
It would be easy for me to be an elitist asshole and tell you "lol l2p newb, if you want easymode go play wow!" but actually you're pretty spot on with your comments. The fact that a lot of the playerbase does not experience what you are experiencing is a problem that unfortunately puts your issues on the bottom of the list of priorities. Most people have been around awhile and are already capped out on many classes. Furthermore, the players who have been here for awhile went through a long period where guildleves were the only thing to do in the game, and they gave you an exorbitant amount of money for completing them, (100k in a single guildleve was relatively easy to get by today's standards) so a lot of people have a lot of money, and therefore have no real motivation to sell things for marginal profit (lowbie gear).
This game currently is severely lacking new players right now, and as a result things in the beginning of the game tend to get ignored production wise. However, I do appreciate your comments as they highlight areas of the game with issues that aren't being brought up very often, but need to be addressed as they will likely be the bane of SE's subscriptions in 2.0 if not fixed.
Imo the beginning of the game is the most crucial in an MMO, as that is the point where you decide "am I having fun?" If the answer is yes, you'll continue to invest your time and therefore your money. If the answer is no, then SE has a serious problem on their hands (again). -
02-11-2012, 02:55 PMHubbington
Thanks for all of the replies everyone. I am said friend playing with Saeb. Based on what you have all said in the more recent comments with regards to server sizes I am curious if it would improve our game experience to switch to a server that is more highly populated by NA players.
Because the chocobo ratings are apparently unreliable, I was also curious if you all had any input as to which server would be the best for us to roll on. -
02-11-2012, 03:00 PMdarkstarpoet1very true. according to the last numbers i seen hadQuote:
Originally Posted by Stanislaw
1. Selbina
2. Gyshal
3. Cornelia
4. Figaro
5. Mysidia
these were the top numbers per day so they were very likely jp heavy servers, but it's the only solid numbers i've seen. if anyone has seen numbers that show cornelia as a low populated server i'd be interested to see those numbers. it'd be hard to go below servers like karnak that's lucky to see 300 even during jp prime time and sits round 150 during na prime time. -
02-11-2012, 03:05 PMZetsumei_Tsunarashi
For NA/EU populations I would maybe look at the numbers found at XIVpads It's a pretty popular site for NA/EU but I don't think many JP people use it so the numbers probably reflect more so NA/EU populations.
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02-11-2012, 03:07 PMSaeb
We can't thank you enough for your feedback. I am curious to see anecdotal data on NA server populations if anyone would care to oblige.
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02-11-2012, 03:24 PMdarkstarpoet1i don't think any third party site will ever be a true estimate of populations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zetsumei_Tsunarashi
i would love it if they could put like a search menu that refreshes every week or so that shows the max na/jp/fr/de players on each server during the previous week. i'm not sure something like that would be possible for them to incorporate into the character creation of the game, but maybe a player tracker in the lodestone or something.
it's just hard to judge a servers population by an optional third party site like that unless they hear about from someone else they may not even be aware of. i'm not saying it's numbers would be completely wrong, but it may be just as accurate as the other numbers we have seen already. we just won't know unless se gives gives us the ability to see actual numbers during all times of the day and the groups those numbers represent. -
02-11-2012, 03:25 PMDarkillumina
Besaid currently has a large NA/EU population (and RP). I just started recently myself and have run into many of the same issues but they are somewhat alleviated by the fact that Besaid's market isn't too top heavy. I've been able to find the materials I need to craft gear for myself and everything seems to be reasonably priced at the moment.
I've actually run into more North American/EU players than JP players which makes things a lot easier.
Your points are very valid however. Even simplified, signing up for the game is a chore. I had the benefit of coming from FFXI and did careful research before I came to the game which helped me with server selection and getting things organized. I can only imagine what a nightmare it is for people who are trying the game on a whim. -
02-11-2012, 03:33 PMStanislawOne thing to keep in mind is that with server mergers coming soon, restarting over and going to a new server may not be the best of ideas. I'd say stick with Cornelia for now and try your best to expand your ring of friends with your current character(s).Quote:
Originally Posted by Saeb
Again, I would like re-offer my helping hand if you send me a tell while I'm in-game. I will also try to look for you two while I'm on as well.
Edit: For reference, a quick search determined Cornelia's current online population as I'm writing this as 507. -
02-11-2012, 03:49 PMVornWhy would you want to reroll?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hubbington
Cornelia isn't bad at all once you get the ball rolling, and know people.
It's very diverse, and like said yes, heavy JP, but there is enough in w/e time zone you play to get things done without feeling cramped.
You may want to read some of the threads from the problems in the bigger servers, such as not being able to summon a retainer from crowding. -
02-12-2012, 01:45 AMCoglin
I have a question based on information the OP mentioned. Are you looking at the unconjoined market wards of Gridania? or are looking at market wards in Ul'Dah?
If you looking at anything outside of Uldah, you won't find much. The games situation design at the moment tends to push everyone to uldah. Not so much as it used to, but once everyone got used to it being the central hub, it will be hard to break that mentality. As of now though, there is little reason for players to congregate or focus on LL or Grid. -
02-12-2012, 01:50 AMdarkstarpoet1
my honest suggestion for the op and hs friend is to hold off moving to another server for the time being. i'd wait until after the merge, at the very least, and see if the situation improves once you get to know a few good people on there. with the merge you could also get a major influx of other players that you could band together with that are lower levels like yourself.
most servers are top heavy right now, but i'm sure once you get involved into the community on any server your gaming experience will improve. i know it's difficult right now, but hang in there. the game is improving and hopefully soon we will start seeing alot more new players coming in. -
02-12-2012, 05:03 AMcharlemagne
I'd also suggest you try the level 15 dungeon just outside Limsa you can pick up a lot of gear in there for lower levels.
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02-12-2012, 07:43 AMHubbington
Thanks for all your feedback everyone. Things are going better so far. After listening to your input and getting in touch with a few of you from this forum we were able to join up with a linkshell and connect with Stanislaw who helped us out with some crafted stuff. As of right now we're working our way through the level 15 dungeon outside of Limsa as recommended, and having a good time. The cave is absolutely gorgeous and the size of it helps add to a general feeling of exploration.
I have to say as a vet of many many many mmo's it's nice to see a community that's actually supportive and helpful. I have yet to encounter a single troll and that's very refreshing, so thanks to all of you for trying to make mine and Saeb's experience in the game more enjoyable. -
02-12-2012, 08:58 AMElexiaQuote:
Originally Posted by Saeb
I don't know, FFXI and FMO were pretty good. -
02-12-2012, 10:01 AMQuesseThis is a bit telling because I've actually been pleased with how the game is progressed. But to see someone come on new and have such a high level of frustration shows how much farther this game needs to go. Sometimes I'm blinded by how bad the game really was at launch. Its still not that great, in fact many facets of it are really pretty awful. There is a ton of work left to be done.Quote:
Originally Posted by Saeb
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02-12-2012, 10:53 AMKinseykinz
It seems you are starting to find your way but here are a couple things I'd tell a friend if they started playing today:
1. Look on the Lodestone Forums, guildworks, ffxivpads etc sites and see if you can find a shell that either caters to new players or at least welcomes them.
2. Pick your favorite battle class and go have fun. Do all the storyline when you reach the correct level for it because you actually make a nice little gil pile this way. Also, as you level, you will notice ? pop up above people's heads in town. These are small mini-quests you can do that give a small exp reward and usually a small gil or equipment reward. Again, these all help towards creating a small bankroll for yourself.
3. Consider picking up a DOL class. You'd be surprised how quickly you can gather mats/gather sellable items this way..again work on that nest egg.
4. Go to Uldah as soon as you can. Most of the people on your server are there. It is the best place to meet other players/find linkshells etc.
5. Don't be afraid to ask others questions...the community overall will help you. Plus, a lot of us are a little bored atm and might even be down to helping your kill that NM or do that quest you need help with.
6. Throw up your 'Seek Party' flag while soloing leves/mobs...best way to meet people is in a party.
7. Consider leveling a craft via leves (so you don't need to buy mats) at your leisure (it's semi-hard to make money leveling a craft quickly...but having at least one rank 50 crafting class is helpful).
8. The level 15 dungeon will drop some nice gears you can wear through your 30's level wise. After that, there are small NM's (like Old SixArms and Catuar Jack) that drop some nice rare/ex gears. These are free and some are even great until you hit close to rank 50. Also, while you would be good to have a friend or two help out at low levels, this is something you could /sh in Uldah and probably get a bite or two. '/sh newer player here needing assistance killing Catuar Jack pm if interested' I strongly believe you'd get at least 1-3 rank 50 ppl to come assist (you'd only need one 50 to help)
9. Even if you decide that you'd rather try out a NA based server (I believe mine is pretty NA centered), just wait until the merge. Take the time now to build up some gil, work on your levels slowly etc. That way, while you feel like a hermit right now, you can still be productive while you wait the 6 weeks or so until the merge. Because even if you stick with Cornelia, there will be a flurry of 'join my ls!' 'no join my ls' 'we are an awesome ls, join us!' happening once we do server merges and ALL the ls's have to re-form/ re-invite. So even if making friends is hard now, if you can make it six weeks, you'll have plenty of ls joining options (on all servers)
10. If you can get your battle class to at least rank 30 before patch 1.21 comes out, there should be a lot of people looking for parties then (level 30=job system once 1.21 is released). So you might make more friends then.
11. Bookmark websites like mooglebox.com ffcivpro.com yg.com. While not every site is perfectly up to date, they give you a reference where you can look up recipies, quests, items, armor etc.
12. Create a ffxivpad. for yourself. It helps track what quests/milestones you've achieved...but you can also see what quests/milestones you still have yet to do. This can help you know what quest you need next,etc.
Lastly, you might need to be around level 30 before you can start getting into pick-up exp groups on a consistant basis. BUT the good news, exping goes super-fast from 30-50. So you can feasibly have a rank 50 before the server merges happen. And also know a couple people who will help craft gears for you add materia etc. I know it must be daunting to walk into a world with so few new players...but just ask, the 'vets' really don't mind helping usually AND we want new players to stay. So ask and we'll help.