FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot and other reviews & hilarious discoveries about FFXIV

[Raydeus]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

Or, they could've just given us the DX9 client they were supposed to be doing before they went crazy.

Then add an Eorzea expansion and use their money on more productive endeavours, because it's clear the next generation MMORPG experiment is not going as intended.


But hopefully they will fix things before it gets too bad of a rep, because this game is too expensive to start shrinking before it even starts. After all I still want to give it a try in about a year and two months.

[Elwynn]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

The UI was horribly designed from the ground up and I don't see that getting patched.

QFT.

And the JPs aren't very happy with XIV, either. 2ch has thousands of posts bitching about it. In Google translations, you see the phrase "fecal droppings" a lot.

[Balfree]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

is the UI still shitty even if you use a gamepad? (whatever people say, to me FFXI only made sense with a gamepad, and im sure FFXIV is the same, so i wanz know)

[TheGrandMom]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

Yes, and I think more so with a gamepad.

[Balfree]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

well im still going to play it and see for myself.. i cant seem to shake the feeling that people are just expecting this to be the perfectest game ever and not giving it a chance..

imo mmo's need time to age and as such i'll give 14 an chances it needs unless it screams and shouts at me that it doesnt deserve any

still havent bought a gpu for the game anyway and im not in a real hurry to buy it despite my interest.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

Well if you are waiting till PS3 release, then maybe you'll be in luck and they'll have addressed some of the issues. I sincerely hope so.

But honestly Balfree, I had such high hopes for this game since I tired of FFXI. I even passed on other MMO's in order to be itching to play FFXIV. I seriously wanted it to kick so much ass that it gave WoW a run for its money. I am DEVASTATED by the condition of this game. When I'm into a game, all I want to do is play. I think of what armor/weapon I need to get when I'm grocery shopping. I plan out what missions I need to catch up on when I'm sitting in the waiting room. I carry a small notebook with me to jot down my plan of attack for that night. Hell, I start thinking of what I'm going to do in game when I wake up from having a damn dream about the game....thats how much I get into a good game. I haven't had an FFXIV dream ever. I have had opportunities to get on and have passed. I am severely underwhelmed by this game and every day I tell myself "give it time, they'll fix/tweak things and then it will be better". I'm hoping....I really am hoping...

[Icemage]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

I spent some time in the beta and all of the issues being brought up here (and in the original GameSpot review) were problems back then. It's disheartening to see so many things still unaddressed, and as several people have mentioned here, 5+ years of FFXI and they haven't learned how to set up a proper UI?

Honestly, my very first beta impressions of the game were quite awful. The game was almost completely unplayable without a gamepad (fortunately I have one), and everything was just buried under a pile of menus. I recall it took me a while (10 minutes or so?) to figure out how to activate an Aetheryte stone after standing near one for quite some time because instead of intelligently clicking/selecting it in the field like a sane person would do (think: Teleport crystals in FFXI), you had to somehow guess that you would open the main menu and select the contextual Interact command.

I mean seriously, how do you screw up something that worked perfectly before and is suddenly more complex for no apparent reason?

Navigation was a nightmare too. The maps are hard to read, and unhelpful in many instances. You can't place markers, and you can barely tell where your quest objectives are half the time.

I honestly can not imagine how anyone could wake up one morning, walk into work, and decide "Hey, let's design this system in the worst possible fashion. After all we can patch it later if it doesn't work, right?" I could even forgive that if they didn't have several years of development experience in FFXI to show them exactly what works for players and what doesn't.

I can't even bring myself to agree with the people saying "Well it's a new MMO launch, cut them some slack." I don't like seeing people paying to be beta testers, and that's exactly what Square-Enix wants from the FFXIV playerbase right now. Not only that, the sorts of problems the game is exhibiting are fundamental design flaws. They're not broken quests, or a NPC with untranslated dialogue. These are fundamental issues that someone should have stopped and said "Wait, this isn't going to work" long before they ever wrote the first line of code.

So sorry, Square-Enix. I tried very hard to keep an open mind on FFXIV, but asking people to pay to play a downgraded, flawed, and bug-ridden variation on FFXI isn't going to win you any points.

Could they fix it in 6 months? Maybe. But this game should never have launched in the state it was in, and given their past track record with FFXI, the rate that issues get addressed means these major problems with UI and gameplay probably won't get fixed in a timely manner.


Icemage

[Bricklayer]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone

It appears that they're addressing some of the issues. I'm still waiting on my SE. Hopefully the next patch in a week or so will cover more of the issues.

- The chat log will no longer close while entering text during the following processes:
- When viewing a bazaar
- When setting up a bazaar
- During gathering
- During synthesis

This is encouraging, as I was thinking of starting as a DoH.

[Elwynn]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

I honestly can not imagine how anyone could wake up one morning, walk into work, and decide "Hey, let's design this system in the worst possible fashion. After all we can patch it later if it doesn't work, right?" I could even forgive that if they didn't have several years of development experience in FFXI to show them exactly what works for players and what doesn't.

I've been saying for a while now that the only possible explanation is that SE had a document "Things We Want To Fix In FFXI But PS2 Limitations". When the DX9 client/whatever project reached a certain stage, and someone in management decided they should make a new MMO instead of creating an up-to-date client for the current one, this became the "FFXIV Design Specification". The problem, of course, was that it only contained the stuff that was broke and needed fixing. "Things That Work Really Well Already In FFXI" was not part of it, and they decided to create everything else FFXIV needed from scratch.

These are fundamental issues that someone should have stopped and said "Wait, this isn't going to work" long before they ever wrote the first line of code.

QFT

They had a lot of ideas that they crammed into FFXIV. Unfortunately there seems to be an attitude at SE where nobody is allowed to ask the question "but will it be FUN?" Players don't care how technically cool an idea is (well, except for the graphics-tards) if it's no fun to play. And this is an MMO, where you have to keep people coming back month after month. There was a lot of bitching about FFXIII, especially about it being so linear. People played it anyhow because they had already bought it, but if they had to pay for that month after month, I don't think people would have stayed very long.

I could tell that the UI was going to be "fecal droppings" from the first videos. I just didn't expect the rest of the fundamental game design to be "fecal droppings" too.

[DakAttack]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

The UI is fine.

[Kailea]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

They had a lot of ideas that they crammed into FFXIV. Unfortunately there seems to be an attitude at SE where nobody is allowed to ask the question "but will it be FUN?" Players don't care how technically cool an idea is (well, except for the graphics-tards) if it's no fun to play. And this is an MMO, where you have to keep people coming back month after month. There was a lot of bitching about FFXIII, especially about it being so linear. People played it anyhow because they had already bought it, but if they had to pay for that month after month, I don't think people would have stayed very long.

I could tell that the UI was going to be "fecal droppings" from the first videos. I just didn't expect the rest of the fundamental game design to be "fecal droppings" too.

the game is fun. and there is nothing wrong with the UI, you had to learn it like we all did when FFXI came out. Hell you have to learn a new UI every time you play a new game -.-

[Paradigm777]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

slow UI is slow

[DakAttack]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

What's the big complaint about it, anyways? The only time I've ever had trouble with it being slow was when I was accidentally running a CPU testing tool in the background and forgot to close it out before booting FFXIV. In my opinion, the crafting menus could use some simplification, but that's about it. Personally, I would like to see a better way to organize and manage inventory, but that's just a request. As for crafting, they could display all the information you're currently required to click through in one screen instead of making you OK everything. They could take a page from WoW's book and display a list of ecountered and learned recipes for easy reference.

[Paradigm777]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

What's the big complaint about it

I'm not concerned about the UI layout aside from the synthesis system. I'm having issues with the delay in between command input and server response. Connection speed does have a part in this but even at optimal conditions (I ran this on a 15mb down FiOS connection) it takes too much time to bring up the next menu.

The whole thing is very clunky and frustrating to use especially when you have to go through multiple menus to do things.Keep in mind I'm comparing this to every other MMORPG that came after FFXI which SE should have learned from by now. I'm aware that FFXI's UI is just as slow.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: FFXIV gets a 4.0 from Gamespot

I'll just leave this right here.

Final Fantasy XIV Online Review (PC) - PC Games - CNET Reviews

(lolcopypasta)