The whole game is a bug

[ganfalfxviv]

Seriously, why does anyone even play this game at all? I heard that it was a complete flop when it first came out, so I didn't buy it. Then I heard that they had made some serious improvements, so I finally decided to try it out. I would have hoped that over the course of a year and a half they'd have it all worked out. If there has been significant improvement, I shudder to think what it was like back when it was first released.

When I'm playing, the NPCs will randomly disappear. Sometimes it's everyone, sometimes it's only some people. I was doing one of the beginning quests, where you escort the two kids through the forest, and one of the kids and the enemy were invisible. I could see the one kid taking damage, but I couldn't kill the enemy attacking them because I couldn't see it.

I've read several threads on this forum and others of many other people having the same problem. It seems to be linked with people who have the Radeon graphics card, so it might possibly be a driver problem. But I don't have any problems with any of my other games. All my other games run just fine with my graphics card, so the only logical conclusion is that it's Square's fault.

Also, the gathering is entirely annoying. I don't want to play a guessing game when I'm chopping wood. If I go up to a tree and start chopping it with an axe, I should gather wood. There shouldn't be some random chance that I'll get wood if I chop in just the right angle. Just let me click on the tree and end up with wood in my inventory. Making me decide where to chop and at what angle makes me not want to gather wood ever.

The synthesizing menu is completely unintuitive. It's like it's designed to drive players away. Other games will give you recipes that you can make and then you just go find the ingredients and then complete the recipe. Here, it seems like I have to guess what ingredients to put together (or just go look it up online somewhere) and then hope that it'll make something good. I don't like that at all. It makes me not ever want to synthesize anything.

Make it easier to change gear. I think it's fine to have different weapons that allow you to change to different classes, but don't make the change so clumsy. Make it so I can hotkey my gear and switch quickly from one to the other.

The shop menus should allow you to compare the item you're about to buy with the equipment that you have on, so that you can know whether it's worth buying. I don't want to have to memorize everything that I'm wearing when I go to the shop to buy something just to see if it's better than what I have.

Anytime I switch applications (using Alt-Tab) the game crashes. I should be able to switch to another application and then come back to the game--especially since you have to look up how to do anything in the game because there's no tutorial in the game for how to do it.

The game will randomly tell me that there was a server error and then log me out. Why are the servers having errors? The server should be stable, it should have redundancy to ensure that it still runs properly even if some part of it fails. If it's not really a server error, if it's really just a connection error, then at least let me stay in the game and just catch up once the connection improves. Don't log me out. Most online games let you lag a bit but don't kick you out of the game for it.

When I first started playing, there was also an error that said "Final Fantasy XIV stopped working" or something like that and just quit the application at that point. I think I fixed that by installing DirectX 11 or something, I'm not sure. But I'm really disappointed in how easy it is to crash this game. I have a nice system, there isn't anything that is wrong with my system itself that should make a game crash. It seems to me that this game is very poorly coded and that all of the effort was spent on the graphics and zero on stability or playability. (The graphics are amazing, btw, but that's entirely useless and pointless when I don't even want to play the game because it's so annoying and crashes all the time.)

Does anyone who works for Square/Enix read this board? If not, is there a place where I can voice these complaints directly to them? I'm just so glad that they give one month free of subscription. I don't want to pay one dollar of monthly fees for this game until it's actually fun to play.

[GinTama]

Seriously, why does anyone even play this game at all? I heard that it was a complete flop when it first came out, so I didn't buy it. Then I heard that they had made some serious improvements, so I finally decided to try it out. I would have hoped that over the course of a year and a half they'd have it all worked out. If there has been significant improvement, I shudder to think what it was like back when it was first released.

most ppl think its playable now, still not good but we are playing an old game anyway since a new one is comming out

When I'm playing, the NPCs will randomly disappear. Sometimes it's everyone, sometimes it's only some people. I was doing one of the beginning quests, where you escort the two kids through the forest, and one of the kids and the enemy were invisible. I could see the one kid taking damage, but I couldn't kill the enemy attacking them because I couldn't see it.

I've read several threads on this forum and others of many other people having the same problem. It seems to be linked with people who have the Radeon graphics card, so it might possibly be a driver problem. But I don't have any problems with any of my other games. All my other games run just fine with my graphics card, so the only logical conclusion is that it's Square's fault.

Sorry but your graphical power doesnt seem to cut it. its not enough. if you at least stated more information like OS CPU RAM and HDD i could give you a more specific answer. you should know FFXIV requires alot raw power. Its only partly SE fault.

Also, the gathering is entirely annoying. I don't want to play a guessing game when I'm chopping wood. If I go up to a tree and start chopping it with an axe, I should gather wood. There shouldn't be some random chance that I'll get wood if I chop in just the right angle. Just let me click on the tree and end up with wood in my inventory. Making me decide where to chop and at what angle makes me not want to gather wood ever.

YOU dont like the gathering system doesnt mean all other ppl dont either. Its a mini game if you didnt understand it say it so, this system protects us from RMT farming. With a bit of knowledge you can get what you want pretty fast.

The synthesizing menu is completely unintuitive. It's like it's designed to drive players away. Other games will give you recipes that you can make and then you just go find the ingredients and then complete the recipe. Here, it seems like I have to guess what ingredients to put together (or just go look it up online somewhere) and then hope that it'll make something good. I don't like that at all. It makes me not ever want to synthesize anything.

So you dont like working? is that it? All recipes are on lodestone, other than that you can get recipes from completing leves. The synth menu is a bit complicated like the whole UI but its not as bad as you make it out to be.

Make it easier to change gear. I think it's fine to have different weapons that allow you to change to different classes, but don't make the change so clumsy. Make it so I can hotkey my gear and switch quickly from one to the other.

try using macros, its basicly the same only better.other than that hotbars are crap

The shop menus should allow you to compare the item you're about to buy with the equipment that you have on, so that you can know whether it's worth buying. I don't want to have to memorize everything that I'm wearing when I go to the shop to buy something just to see if it's better than what I have.

Thats a good suggestion, lets hope they implement it into 2.0

Anytime I switch applications (using Alt-Tab) the game crashes. I should be able to switch to another application and then come back to the game--especially since you have to look up how to do anything in the game because there's no tutorial in the game for how to do it.

Thats been so since FFXI, its sad but at the moment they cant do anything about it. About looking everything up be cause of lack of tutorials, sorry but be a bit more specific about that. There are alot of npc you can talk about almost anything. Seems like you didnt talk to a lot of npc at the beginning of the game, dont know what you need a tutorial for more than that. And btw its recommended to play in windowed mode for the time being.

The game will randomly tell me that there was a server error and then log me out. Why are the servers having errors? The server should be stable, it should have redundancy to ensure that it still runs properly even if some part of it fails. If it's not really a server error, if it's really just a connection error, then at least let me stay in the game and just catch up once the connection improves. Don't log me out. Most online games let you lag a bit but don't kick you out of the game for it.

When I first started playing, there was also an error that said "Final Fantasy XIV stopped working" or something like that and just quit the application at that point. I think I fixed that by installing DirectX 11 or something, I'm not sure. But I'm really disappointed in how easy it is to crash this game. I have a nice system, there isn't anything that is wrong with my system itself that should make a game crash. It seems to me that this game is very poorly coded and that all of the effort was spent on the graphics and zero on stability or playability. (The graphics are amazing, btw, but that's entirely useless and pointless when I don't even want to play the game because it's so annoying and crashes all the time.)

Does anyone who works for Square/Enix read this board? If not, is there a place where I can voice these complaints directly to them? I'm just so glad that they give one month free of subscription. I don't want to pay one dollar of monthly fees for this game until it's actually fun to play.

The servers tend to be unstable 12hr after a patch, after that its most of the time your connection, probably. but since you did not write down the errors i cant say for sure. If you are using WLAN, it could be unstable. Lag and connection lost are 2 different things, dont mix them up. If i loose connection ind Diablo 3 for ex. i am kicked out of the game too. (i am starting to hate that game lol)

That FF stopped working can have many reasons, OS, drivers or just bad install and or corrupted files.
At this point its seems more likely to me that your system is not good enough for the current version.
Other then alt+tab the game normally doesnt crash. there are very few bugs that let the game crash.
and yes this is the official forum and the producer Yoshida himself posts here from time to time.
Everything here is getting read by SE employees.

My final comment: It seems like you did not know it but after 3 months of release the dev team got replaced by the current team and since then, a new game has been in development while improving the current version. 2.0 is comming out soon with improved servers, better graphic engine and more player oriented gameplay.
At least thats what was promised to us lol.
You didnt seem to play the game alot, thats to bad but you got your first impression and you decided its to much of work to deal with. Thank you for your post.

[Verytus]

Thank you for your post, ganfalfxviv. Unfortunately as this is more feedback than a question on any specific issue, I have moved it to the appropriate section. I hope that a fruitful discussion can continue now that it is in the correct place. Thanks again!

[ganfalfxviv]

most ppl think its playable now, still not good but we are playing an old game anyway since a new one is comming out

What's coming out? When?

Sorry but your graphical power doesnt seem to cut it. its not enough. if you at least stated more information like OS CPU RAM and HDD i could give you a more specific answer. you should know FFXIV requires alot raw power. Its only partly SE fault.

CPU: AMD Atholon II X3 3.3 GHz
RAM: 8GB 240-pin DDR3 1600
Video card: Radeon HD 7750, 1GB VRAM 128-bit
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB, 7200 RPM

That should be good enough to play any game that's out. Yeah, there are definitely better graphics cards out there, but what I have should be sufficient. Especially since I'm not trying to run the game with the graphics turned all the way up. (For example, I see no reason to have x32 anti-aliasing on, when x2 looks just as good.)

YOU dont like the gathering system doesnt mean all other ppl dont either. Its a mini game if you didnt understand it say it so, this system protects us from RMT farming. With a bit of knowledge you can get what you want pretty fast.

It's stupid. If it's a mini-game, it's an epic fail of a mini-game. Mini-games are supposed to be games and therefore fun. This is not fun. It's annoying.

So you dont like working? is that it? All recipes are on lodestone, other than that you can get recipes from completing leves. The synth menu is a bit complicated like the whole UI but its not as bad as you make it out to be.

If I want to work, I go to work and do my job. When I come home and want to relax and play a game, I want it to be relaxing and fun, not work. If you want to work, get a second job. Don't make a game become a second job.

Thats been so since FFXI, its sad but at the moment they cant do anything about it. About looking everything up be cause of lack of tutorials, sorry but be a bit more specific about that. There are alot of npc you can talk about almost anything. Seems like you didnt talk to a lot of npc at the beginning of the game, dont know what you need a tutorial for more than that. And btw its recommended to play in windowed mode for the time being.

Why can't they do anything about it? I have tons of other games that I play that can do that. It shouldn't be a hard feature to implement. It sounds like they just have incompetent people on their programming teams. I switch in and out of games all the time--even when they're in full-screen mode--and have no problem. It's only FF14 (I never played XI, but the way the games have gone downhill since Enix merged with Square, I don't even know why I tried 14). It's recommended to play windowed? Why? Because they can't write a game that will play full-screen? Everyone else does. EA writes games that you can play full-screen without any problem. They don't try to make people pay for a public beta, which is really what this game is at the moment.

That FF stopped working can have many reasons, OS, drivers or just bad install and or corrupted files.
At this point its seems more likely to me that your system is not good enough for the current version.
Other then alt+tab the game normally doesnt crash. there are very few bugs that let the game crash.
and yes this is the official forum and the producer Yoshida himself posts here from time to time.
Everything here is getting read by SE employees.

I shouldn't have to pull my whole system apart and do ten hours of research to find out what drivers I'm missing and what missing pieces I need to put together just to play a game. Every other game I've installed and run on this computer has just worked. That's the way games should be. I shouldn't have to look up on forums to see how to make my game work.

And that's great if SE employees actually read this board. They need to know how quickly they drive away new players with all of the things that are wrong with this game.

My final comment: It seems like you did not know it but after 3 months of release the dev team got replaced by the current team and since then, a new game has been in development while improving the current version. 2.0 is comming out soon with improved servers, better graphic engine and more player oriented gameplay.
At least thats what was promised to us lol.
You didnt seem to play the game alot, thats to bad but you got your first impression and you decided its to much of work to deal with. Thank you for your post.

Yes, I knew that. I had heard that the whole team was replaced. That's why I thought it would be alright to try the game now. I thought that it would run. Apparently I was wrong. I also heard that 2.0 would be released at the same time as the PS3 version, and maybe I'll start playing again when it is released. But, that's not a "new game", it's just a new version of the same game. Unless you're saying that I have to buy it again and get a new account to play it on, which wouldn't surprise me, coming from SE, but it would be stupid and annoying. I probably just won't play the game until 2.0 does come out, and then I'll see if they fixed all the annoyingness and bugs in it.

[GinTama]

Okay, i will try to keep it short since its too much work .
System is ok but its not rly enough, i know most game are better compatible and require less power but thats simply the crappy base the old team left and the new team got to work with. The thing with gathering is not for everyone but i for my part like even if its abit slow.

Putting effort into something should be normal. Maybe its too much for you for what you get in the end but its just a game. Synthing is fun for me, i like to find out what i need and where to get it and using the synth system the best way to get either HQ items or just alot of them in a short time.

Since you knew that a new team got to work on this, i dont know much about programming but when you get something whats finished then you cant just rip it out hack it into small bits and try to assamble it again.
The problem with alt+tab is something (i believe) rooted deeply in the corecode off xiv, maybe someone else can give you a more specific answer. But anyway with current game and current server its not possible. BUT will be possible with 2.0 btw.

2.0 is basicly a new game what they worked on and are working on while implementing new things into ffxiv and listening to feedback. If you dont like the current game version at all come again in a few months when 2.0 is out.
And i dont believe you have to buy FFxiv again to play 2.0.

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

Hi Allastair.

Your feedback is appreciated.

I believe that the 2.0 is meant to address a host of UI flow and streamline processes for gathering and crafting. Over the past 1.5 years, SE has received most of the feedback you have posted in some shape or form. On occasion, we've gotten community managers acknowledging that the information has been submitted, where other times, the community managers will submit the info like ninjas.

The disappearing NPCs may be a hiccup in the installation or patching process. And while it may not sound like the best solution, you may have to reinstall the game and patch again to make the NPCs appear.

Like many of the folks here, we've become accustomed to the layout and the processes. Many have left, some have stayed. Each with their own motives for playing.

We will see what 2.0 and the following patches bring.

[ganfalfxviv]

Okay, i will try to keep it short since its too much work .
System is ok but its not rly enough, i know most game are better compatible and require less power but thats simply the crappy base the old team left and the new team got to work with. The thing with gathering is not for everyone but i for my part like even if its abit slow.

It's not enough? Let me quote to you the system reqs that SE published with the game. My system is well above those reqs.

CPU: Athlon X2 2.0 GHz. Actual: Athlon II X3 3.3 GHz, which is basically twice as fast.
RAM: 2GB. Actual: 8GB, which is 4 times as much.
Video card: Radeon HD 2900 with 512 MB VRAM. Actual: Radeon HD 7700 with 1GB VRAM. That's twice the VRAM, and a much faster GPU.

I don't see how you can possibly say "It's ok but not really enough." It's well over the reqs. "Enough" means "meet the requirements", or at least that's what it should mean. And, I know that the reqs are just the bare minimum. But I'm not at the reqs in any single component, I'm at least twice as good as the reqs. The game should therefore run without problem. It should not be an issue. It shouldn't crash. I shouldn't have disappearing NPCs.

I don't know all that much about computer programming, but I am very skeptical when you tell me that something as simple as alt-tab is involved with deep coding in the game--that the problem can't be easily handled without a complete overhaul of the code. That seems like just an excuse.

And, yes, I am willing to put effort into a game. That's part of what makes a game fun. But it shouldn't be work. It should be entertaining. It should be fun. I should be wanting to put effort into it, not feeling like I'm compelled to put effort in where I don't really want to.

[Sav]

System bottle-necking has been a known issue since nearly day one; it's something that will most definitely be addressed in 2.0, as has been announced in some interviews somewhere.

[ganfalfxviv]

System bottle-necking has been a known issue since nearly day one; it's something that will most definitely be addressed in 2.0, as has been announced in some interviews somewhere.

Are you saying that's why I keep getting server error messages?

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

It's not enough? Let me quote to you the system reqs that SE published with the game. My system is well above those reqs.

CPU: Athlon X2 2.0 GHz. Actual: Athlon II X3 3.3 GHz, which is basically twice as fast.
RAM: 2GB. Actual: 8GB, which is 4 times as much.
Video card: Radeon HD 2900 with 512 MB VRAM. Actual: Radeon HD 7700 with 1GB VRAM. That's twice the VRAM, and a much faster GPU.

I don't see how you can possibly say "It's ok but not really enough." It's well over the reqs. "Enough" means "meet the requirements", or at least that's what it should mean. And, I know that the reqs are just the bare minimum. But I'm not at the reqs in any single component, I'm at least twice as good as the reqs. The game should therefore run without problem. It should not be an issue. It shouldn't crash. I shouldn't have disappearing NPCs.

I don't know all that much about computer programming, but I am very skeptical when you tell me that something as simple as alt-tab is involved with deep coding in the game--that the problem can't be easily handled without a complete overhaul of the code. That seems like just an excuse.

And, yes, I am willing to put effort into a game. That's part of what makes a game fun. But it shouldn't be work. It should be entertaining. It should be fun. I should be wanting to put effort into it, not feeling like I'm compelled to put effort in where I don't really want to.

My understanding is that systems that are playing with Windows XP do not experience the ALT TAB issue. Windows Vista and Seven games that go full screen seem to have had issues with DirectX 9.0. I can't recall if these issues apply to 9.0c so that games and in hindsight, haven't tried playing games like Witcher or Neverwinter Nights 2 on a Windows Vista/Seven system.

Now I'm wondering if I try running the game with Windows Basic visual settings instead of Aero will I trigger the same issue?