Open Beta player looking to return.

[SirEdeonX]

Don't listen to the ignorant trolls

... let the fight begin:

ROUND 1

FIGHT!

[Sasse]

/popcorn

&

/10chars

[solracht]

I'm wondering if any of you fine folks in the community could clue me in on any changes that have happened to this game since then? Has it improved a lot?

Short answer:

Nothing has changed

Long answer:
Leveling is way easier if you know how to group for guildleves and how to keep the good leves around.
Searching the market wards doesn't make you want to kill yourself anymore.
Items don't get damaged so fast if you wear the right gear for your class and rank.

It still doesn't have a monthly fee, can always give it a try yourself and decide.

[Shikaree]

If you can find one of the previous Letters from the Producer topics on the Lodestone, you can see there's plans down for trying to get in some class specific gear (they have an outline for black mage), but they're trying to figure out first how they want to implement the new class system when it comes to traditional jobs. Otherwise most gear looks similar to one another at this point, but there are robes you can at least equip.

Edit note: Here's the topic http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...449d1b7c37eb49

You mentioned you were in beta, but did you get the actual game? If you don't have the game, it's out for decently cheap in stores and it's free to play until an undetermined date. But at the same time, I would wait on playing if you're looking for content. My play times mostly consist of just getting on for leves atm for an idea, and I rarely grind outside of that.

I'd at least wait to see what the next content patches better detail, they're supposed to start up some changes to get ready for instanced combat zones and such. Right now we don't know anything else besides "zomg! bigger fireballs!" and the Easter event.

[Aramil]

Since you haven't play since open beta here's a list of all the changes i can think of.

-Less ui lag, very noticeable when buying/selling stuff.
- Addition of inventory sorting and increase of the size of the stack for almost every item.
- Addition of a few monsters(like mite and scorpion)
- Increase of the number of monster on the field
- Introduction of a few NMs(some on the field, some in faction leves)
- You can adjust the guildleves difficulty now.(No need to fail it it's too difficult now)
- Changes in the sp system. (Basicaly party vs difficult monster isn't the way to go now, it's linking guildleves or soloing weak monsters of your rank)
- Market wards got a few changes too. Now the wards have names that are suppose to reflect the items you'll find in and more importantly there's a search feature now.
- Addition of crtl+r for quick reply and ctrl+t for tell. However you'll have to type <t> after ctrl+t to send a tell to the character your are targeting.
- Addition of quests(not many and kind of bland for now).

That's all i can think of right now. As you can see, there's not a lot more content than before, however they did fix some annoying parts of the game like the lack of shortcut for reply and the ui lag.

[Abriael]

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...tegory?catId=4

All the patch notes.

Much more effective to see for yourself than coming to a troll-saturated environment will people going as far as denying the evident fact that the game has changed quite a lot since release.

[Akumu]

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...tegory?catId=4

All the patch notes.

Much more effective to see for yourself than coming to a troll-saturated environment will people going as far as denying the evident fact that the game has changed quite a lot since release.

I sometimes wonder if these same people(if they could) would go back to how FFXIV was before the changes. If not then that means the changes were significant enough.

to the OP: If you are expecting some major content then give it about another 2 months. As Abriael wrote check the patch notes and judge for yourself.

[Elkwood]

As the title says, I played this game in Open Beta. Many things weren't up to scratch for me, building up into one huge let down, and that's me being as reserved as I can. Basically I liked nothing about it, besides the fantastic visuals. It's been some time since then and my thoughts came back to this game.

I'm wondering if any of you fine folks in the community could clue me in on any changes that have happened to this game since then? Has it improved a lot? Will it improve? Also, is it possible to make a character and acquire an outfit that makes me look like a black mage (love vivi from FF9, hehe)?

Thanks in advance for your time to those that respond.

Well plain and simple if you did not like Open Beta aside from a few UI changes you probably wont like the game now. Not a lot has changed. There are or should be 2 major updates coming down in April and May which I recommend you keep an eye on. If those patches fail then I cannot see a lot of people staying.

1.17 should be introducing Companies and more Quests/Missions
1.17a Should be the first of the major battle changes
1.18 Will be the last of the battle changes, More Missions/Quests, and the introduction of our first Endgame Dungeon

At least that is what I took out of the producer letters.

As for gear yes you can make your character look similar to Vivi using Velveteen Gear, but in all honesty the game is not that bad. As a Mage a lot of people say it is broken but it does not appear as bad as it seems, I am able to Nuke for over 1700 when using the proper regiments.

A vast majority of the problem is the player base not wanting or knowing how to figure certain things out in game. I am one of the minority tho that actually does enjoy the combat system and other things currently in game.

[Chezen]

Since there are still a lot of changes being worked on, I would personally advise waiting. But, as Abriael said, it's best to draw your own conclusions.

Besides the patch notes Abriael provided, I would look at the Producer letters. They deal more with the future of the game.

Letter from the producer I
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...98e4034b898102

Letter from the producer II
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...15f82184c907bc

Letter from the producer III
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...bbc24abc29469f

Letter from the producer IV
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...449d1b7c37eb49

Letter from the producer V
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...16083b634f7678

Letters VI & VII
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/137

Also, I'd look at this interview.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/featur...y_xiv_the_.php

[Xatsh]

- Changes in the sp system. (Basicaly party vs difficult monster isn't the way to go now, it's linking guildleves or soloing weak monsters of your rank)
.

Gona just comment on this because your comment about the current sp is completely wrong. Especially with the cobyln nerf soloing is just brutal post 25 now.

In general partying on Non-Leve mobs will result in about 30-40% more sp/hr then soloing with ease with some camps breaking 20k/hr. (such as the nine-Ives eft camp rank 30-35 with a 6-7 person party), or the Puks in nanawa 20-24 in a group of 6 where you get 200sp a kill and kill a mob every 15-20secs. Both those camps will break 20k/hr easy in a group.

Soloing you will be lucky to break 12k/hr at mid level.

Solo Grinding is the absolute worst way to level.