PS4 in Australia is it possible to be competitive?

[Crazyscorp]

I have been playing the trial for a couple of days now and really like it so far but have concerns (based on previous MMO’s I’ve played) that my progress may be servery hampered later on.

Issues are

- I live in Australia so I am getting a ping of 400-500
- Playing on PS4 typing is pretty much not an option.
- Having young kids I can only realistically play 2 - 2.5 hours per night

Based on previous games I might as well delete it now but just checking in case ffxiv different

[Crazyscorp]

Is it going to be possible to be competitive at 400-500 ping especially in pvp or will I be servery handicapped?
Being unable to type more than a few words and unable to type at all while actually playing is finding groups going to be too hard? Can talk through the mic if this is supported but in most games this doesn’t happen in guild chat and most people use external programs like Ventrilo anyway.
Most MMO’s I’ve played to play at the top end up need to play 3-4 hours per night. I liked that the patch mentioned time limited on raids and the longest I saw was 2 hours. Is two hours per night enough or am I wasting my time?
Is it possible to get the best gear etc through crafting or other single player means or is it a case of the more people involved the better the gear?

Thanks in advance I am very competitive and like to play at the top end in any game I play so if this isn’t going to be possible I will delete now before getting too hooked

[Enkidoh]

Firstly, welcome to Eorzea!

I have no idea what things are like in PvP as I've never done Frontlines or the Wolves Den (the two PvP events in the game, unless you count the recently added Triple Triad card game and Chocobo Racing minigames of course as 'PvP' ), but I've heard latency can be pretty bad in them (I'm Australian too playing from Perth, WA, so my connection has quite a distance to travel).

Unfortunately, Australia's substandard internet services don't really help matters much - so much so the majority of Aussie players actually play on the JP server group instead of the NA/EU one (the Tonberry server has the largest population of AU/Oceanic players on it). I used to play on a JP server as well (Ridill) but recently switched to the US server Balmung because my friends were there. It really more comes down to where abouts you are and what time zone you like to play in (US servers will usually be quiet at our 'peak' time simply because they're on the other side of the world ).

As for your other questions, chatting while in a battle is indeed difficult - the battle system is very fast and simply doesn't allow time to do idle chitchat while you're battling a boss. A lot of PC players do use third-party voice chat programs, but this is not officially supported on account of the game being multiplatform and thus SE doesn't want to unfairly discriminate one part of the player base by insisting chat software be used. The best thing to do is leave chat til after the battle.

The game is designed for all play types, but especially casually orientated players. Sure you can do hardcore activities like raiding in endgame, but even those don't last for hours on end. Players like to farm them over and over to get the best gear though, but you don't have to do it - you can play as casually or as hard as you wish.

Gear is a sticky issue which I think someone else might be better equipped to answer than me. But the basic of it is that most of the best gear is either dropped in a dungeon/raid, quested or acquired from special vendors for tomes of soldiery/poetics.

Hopefully this has helped!

[Niwashi]

- I live in Australia so I am getting a ping of 400-500

If ping becomes too much of a problem, you could try one of the servers in Japan. I've heard Tonberry has a significant number of English speakers from Australia and New Zealand. (There may be others, too. I'm in the US myself, so haven't really looked into it.)

- Playing on PS4 typing is pretty much not an option.

You'll want to get a USB or wireless keyboard. Nearly all PS3 and PS4 players use the controller for character actions, but switch to keyboard to type. The game is quite well set up for action controls to be done by controller, but when it comes to typing, yeah, that's way too awkward without a real keyboard.

- Having young kids I can only realistically play 2 - 2.5 hours per night

That's probably pretty typical. There are certainly some hard core players (and some who are casual in playstyle and hardcore only in the amount of time they spend) who will be on significantly longer than that, and they'd be able to advance faster than you, but with 2 - 2.5 hours at a time, you should be able to do pretty much any part of the game you want. You'd just have to be a bit selective of which aspects of the game you're going to focus on each day, rather than trying to get everything done to its maximum every day.

Is it possible to get the best gear etc through crafting or other single player means or is it a case of the more people involved the better the gear?

Top end crafting can produce some nearly-the-best gear. As various patches are released, there are times when, for at least some of your gear slots, the best-in-slot items are crafted (then another patch will come out, with newer gear, and that will change again). There are also soloable or PUG-able combat activities that earn currencies tradeable for some really good gear, not quite best-in-slot, but near enough to wear it while running the high-end raids that can drop the best stuff.

[Carvaka]

I play on PC, but I use an xbox controller. I just keep the keyboard (wireless) nearby to type. You can set macros to buttons for information you have to repeat (like at start or end of dungeons) which makes life easier. My brother plays PS4 and is fine, but he also has a wireless keyboard and mouse.

In terms of the time commitment, a couple of hours will be fine. It will just take awhile to hit lvl 50. But it is all about the journey, I just hit level 50, and to be honest the fun is in the getting there, so take your time and enjoy the story. You will hit end game sooner or later, whether now or in 18 months. The long build will make it worthwhile.

I am lucky as I got the NBN to the home, so that wasn't an issue. If I was living at my old house, playing would not have been an option as the connection was so bad. So not sure on that end.

[Crazyscorp]

Thanks for the responses sounds like i can probably have fun but am never going to be able to be truely competitive.

[Enkidoh]

But this game isn't really designed to be 'competitive' - at least, not in the way you're thinking of. PvP is actually a minor aspect of the game as it's predominately PvE, and thus the PvP events are more 'for fun' than anything. A more pressing problem is the issue of latency affecting survivability in certain boss fights (Titan is the old one usually mentioned as being directly affected by bad latency).