Subscription upon us

[Jizar]

So, the time is upon most of us to actually start paying our subscription. The 30 days of free trial plus the 7 days extra for Erroreza we got in the first 2 weeks of the game is about to end and many of you will not continue on but some might. So lets review what happened since the game started, for the sake of argument lets start from the early access instead of launch day.

At first, we had the Marathon of errors and the lame excuses of the developers. You have seen these quotes on every post they made.

"We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience."
"We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding."

Ok, we understand that you were not ready to release the game but since you probably promise SE or had a deadline set by SE to launch the game, you went ahead with it.

We all know that open Beta should have last a lot longer, 3 days (2 for some people) would never be enough to strain the servers to actually see if they could handle it and the proof of that was the first week of early access when you had all those errors and had to implement servers and login restrictions.

You initially set your servers to handle 5000 active connections at a time and then upgraded to 7500. Those numbers still seems low, especially during peak hours, but it seems that this got the job done unless it is a Friday night or during the weekend and we cannot log in.

For all these troubles, most of us got some kind of reward.
PS3 users got the game free of charge when upgrade to PS4. (Edited because info was wrong)
Legacy user get sub for $9.99 per month instead of $14.99 - (Edited because info was wrong)
PC user got an extra 7 days of free trial (LAME)

All that aside we were (for most part) able to actually play the game. So now lets talk about the actual in game problems, bugs or lack of options.

In my opinion there are 3 types of people that start playing this game.

1. Series Fan – Those of us that had play every other FF games that ever came out or played FFXI and FFXIV V1.0.
2. New player – Those that are new to MMO and decided to start now because of a friend or just wanted to see what is all about.
3. Veteran MMO gamers – Those of us that had played many MMOs, got tired of the same themes on all MMO, and was urging for something new.

I believe that at least 60% of player now fit in the VET Scenario, I for one, played FFXI for 2 years and got a lil angry with all Grinding needed in order to level. After that I went to World of Warcraft and play that for about 7 years. I know I know, wow sucks …. We all know that !. I also tried a few others like Tera, D&D, Vindictus, Age of Wushu, Connan, Everquest, GuildWars, and many others.

There are a few types of MMO:

1. Grindding or Hack&Slash – FFXI, Vindictus
2. Action – Dragon Slayer, Ys, Diablo
3. Sandbox / Themepark – World of Warcraft, LOTR, Everquest, Aion, Tera, etc.

FFXIV has created a new type for MMO that I like to call “Click & Click”. Everything in the game makes you click at least 3 times to get something done. Ex:
For you to get or complete a quest you need to click the npc, click to read the quest, click to accept the quest, click and click and click to make the npc go thru all the dialog and click again to confirm.

That was the first impression I had of the game, too much clicks to get things done.
I understand that they tried to make the game playable for PS3 consoles. But they could come out with a better system.

Another issue is the auto loot system, It’s great, I love it, but “why in the hell” would you give an auto loot to the game and not give an auto-sort option for the bags. By the time I was lv30, I had no more space and had to organize my bags, and thanks to the click&click, it took me about 1 hour to get it done.

Same thing if I wanted to put items on my Retainers, right click > move to retainer….. why not just right click and have the item go to the retainer, why so much confirmation?

Moving on….. Mounts.

It is very frustrating to have to mount and dismount all the time just to talk to a NPC, why can we just talk to a NPC while mounted? Is that so hard to program into the game?.

Why can’t we have our chocobos as companion and just mount it and go, or have the chocobo as a pet and have another like the WHM unicorn as a mount, it seems stupid to have our chocobo sent away in order to use a mount. Again Click here, Click there, and click again just to mount and move in the game.

Chat…..

The lack of option in the chat is amazing. With all the GilSellers/Spammers in the game now, we have to run a marathon just to Blacklist these Aholes. Right at the chat window if you right click on the name you can only invite to party or send fried request. Why can’t you add all options right there? Right click > Blacklist.
Same thing if you want to invite someone to your Free Company, you need to either have the person on your friend list or you need to open a window, write the first or last name, queue the search and then invite the person. Why not just Right click on the person’s name right there on the chat window and invite to FC?.

Mail….

I have 2 chars o the same server….. why?, you don’t need it … I know there’s no need to, but I like to have my Tank/Melees as a male char and my Healer/casters as a Female char. It’s all about taste.

But…… in order for me to send anything to anyone in the server, they need to be on my friend’s list and in order to put someone on your friend’s list, that person needs to be online. In other words, I can never send anything to my second char. In order for me to do that I need a 3rd person to help.

Lets say that I wanted to send my 2nd char 100000gil, the way the game is set right now I have to send the gil to a friend, logout, login with my 2nd char, have that friend added to my list and then have that friend send me the gil. Again… click, click. Click… just to send Gil to a 2nd char.


Cut scenes….
OMG. Add an option to auto skip it pleassseeeeeeeee!


Rendering….

Being a lv50 PLD I have an urge to kill Odin whenever I get a chance, but I have done it twice and got nothing. Why? Although he was there and some people was killing him, I and other like me could not see him the entire fight. I went to the options, turn everything to low, disabled all effects from other players, left the FATE and came back, Zoned out and Zoned in again, turned the game off and back on, and still didn’t see Odin. You need to work on your rendering engine. It has nothing to do with my system because people that play on PS3 had the same problem, and my pc setup it one of best up to date.

FFXIV is not a user friendly Game, it lacks options and support and for that reason many players will not be paying for subscription.

Despite of what many people think, World of Warcraft was the leading MMO for over 5 years in a row for that exact reason, it was a game easy to understand, very user friendly that had advance options for VET mmos players. They had the famous ADDONS for people with programing knowledge that allow them to change the interface of the game without compromising the Gameplay itself. Maybe you should look into this unless you only aiming to satisfied the JP players. But keep in mind that………..

According to most research, the leading MMO gamer comes from:
As a single country:

1. Korea
2. United States
3. Japan
4. Brazil
5. China

As a Continent:

1. Asia
2. Latin America
3. North America
4. Europe

Although Japan has a high MMO gamer rate. Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, etc. are growing in exponential rate. It is shown in most research that by the 2015, Latin Americans will be leading the MMO Games by 20% over other continents. Here is one of the research, you can always google others.

http://www.newzoo.com/trend-reports/mmo-trend-report/

You should aim to improve NA/EU support. Otherwise when Korean Games like Archage, Bless, BlackDesert comes to this side of the map, you will fail like you did on FFXIV v.1 or maybe worse.

So, to resume. If you intend to lure gamer I would suggest that you:

1. Make the game more user Friendly:

1.1. Add option to auto skip cut scenes.
1.2. Less clicks to get stuff done.
1.3. Add more chat options.
1.4. Update the mail system.
1.5. Add an auto-sort system for the inventory.
1.6. Make buying, moving, deleting and organizing items easier.

2. Add Voice to all main story Cut scenes.
3. Work on your rendering engine.
4. Make it possible to interact with things while mounted.
5. Make it possible to interact with things while crafting.
6. Add macros help to help menu.
7. Make pet macros available and easy to understand.
8. Get rid of Limit breakes and add individual one for each class like in FFXI
9. Add combat skill Fusion like in FFXI
10. Get rid of GilSellers/Spammers.

I still don’t know if I will pay for subscription, the way the game is right now is kind of boring and I already have done everything in the game, now I’m leveling a 2nd char and waiting for the new patch. I heard that the new patch is coming out on November 16th, not sure, but I might just wait until patch is out to see if the game has improved. Like me, many other think the same way. So get your heads out of your asses and fix the dammed game.

I believe that you will feel the amount of people leaving the game now. And maybe, just maybe they will come back in November once patch is live to see if the game is better, if not, get ready for the sad true that SE will not EVER give you another chance.

I fit in that category VET. I was looking for something new to play and FFXIV came out with a new way of Crafting which I found it to be Great. Combat in the other hand was a disappointment 2.5secs of global CD is a downer. Same goes for Limit Breakers, Bard/Archers having Healers LB (LAME). History line was great but the lack of voice killed it. Why only JPs have voice in everything… oh I forgot… the game was not ready for launch.

Here is my breakdown of the game with the 10pnts system.

Graphics = 8 - there’s something that does not render right
Audio = 10 - Great 5.1 sound
Races = 10 - love the races
Classes = 8 - lack a few
Jobs = 8 - lack a few
Crafting = 10 - Best feature of the game
History Line = 10 - Love it
Combat = 4 - not a big fan of the 2.5 global CD
Skills = 7 - Lacking
Gameplay = 7 - could be better
Mounts = 6 - lacking
Pets = 5 - lacking
Companions = 10 - a lot of options
Price = 5 - not a fair price for a game that is not complete yet.

Maybe a 7 out of 10 overall. But there a lot of room for improvement.

We run 3 gaming website in 3 different languages and have played many games. So we are here to Review and tried to help you improve the game. You can consider our advice or ignore it, but keep in mind that we know what gamers want.

Please few free to add, disagree, complain or just bash whatever you like. These are just our thoughts of the game.

[MalcolmReynolds]

You can auto skip cutscenes already except for a few rare ones such as the intro. Just hit escape twice.

But I do agree with some of your points. Some of the issues have been acknowledged and are being worked on, like the Odin/Behemoth fates and the inventory stuff, but there is certainly still room for improvement.

[Jizar]

You can auto skip cutscenes already except for a few rare ones such as the intro. Just hit escape twice.

But I do agree with some of your points. Some of the issues have been acknowledged and are being worked on, like the Odin/Behemoth fates and the inventory stuff, but there is certainly still room for improvement.

if you have to click is not AUTO-skip

[Jizar]

PS3 users did not get the game free. I don't know where you heard that.
Also I think Legacy players got less free-time than new players. But I'm not Legacy so I can't confirm this.

sry, i updated it... they get free upgrade to PS4 when is out. they were going to charge initially

[Curagaja]

sry, i updated it... they get free upgrade to PS4 when is out. they were going to charge initially

I'm also confident the upgrade to PS4 was free initially as well.

[Lisotte]

Waaayyy too long to read the whole thing. Only thing I'll mention is LMFAO for you claiming that wow, aion, tera, everquest (EQ of all things!) are sandboxes. Do you even know what kinds of MMOs those typically apply to? Games like Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, EVE Online. Everquest, WoW, and those are themeparks.
FFXI is like the opposite of a hack-and-slash game. It's pretty much in the same category as EQ and WoW, but more unique.

[Tiggy]

You're information is wildly inaccurate all over the place.

- "PS3 users got the game free of charge." FALSE
- "Legacy user got 180 days of free subscription" FALSE
- "You initially set your servers to handle 5000 active connections at a time and then upgraded to 7500. Those numbers still seems low..." 7500 is actually pretty damn good.

I'm sure there is more but I didn't want to read your wall of text after so much was incorrect right out of the gate.

[Curagaja]

You're information is wildly inaccurate all over the place.

- "PS3 users got the game free of charge." FALSE
- "Legacy user got 180 days of free subscription" FALSE
- "You initially set your servers to handle 5000 active connections at a time and then upgraded to 7500. Those numbers still seems low..." 7500 is actually pretty damn good.

I'm sure there is more but I didn't want to read your wall of text after so much was incorrect right out of the gate.

This was my exact thought.

[PapaSteel]

We run 3 gaming website in 3 different languages

Link them.

Just another post full of complaints, folks. Save yourself the time, there's nothing new here that hasn't been said before.