FFXIV Boxable?

[Duess]

I did a lot of boxing back in ffxi up to 4 at a time on one pc. This game is rough playing ONE copy of it on my main pc (which ain't exactly slow). I could lower the graphics but that defeats the purpose of the game. If you can get past the crappy programming and terrible implementation, the game will be awesome.

Playing the beta, I've already gotten the feel back of really exploring the game. I'm not talking about running around to the different areas, I mean exploring a brand new game that purposely doesn't tell you anything. Where games like WoW go out of their way to make things less confusing, squenix does their best to make you figure it out.

I did try some boxing in the beta just to see what kind of advantages you can get. The questleves can be repeated if done by different characters, however, you only get the bonuses if you were the one who started it or you are on that quest when it was activated. Otherwise when you complete the quest, you only get a few gil for completing and no bonus items. You also can't access the guardians favor while helping someone with the quest. This is the buff that boosts your xp gains.

There are going to be several issues with targeting in the game even with single boxing. They are supposed to be enabling a hardware mouse in the release version which will help, but with the importance they are putting on positioning in the game, i think it might make things a bit more interesting at higher levels.

What I did like in the old game:

- Ability to make macros with: Wait X seconds commands.
- Great community
- Ability to have more than one "guild" at a single time
- Some of the BCNM fights were very challenging to master
- Trade skills were much more complicated which made it not so boring and was pretty fun to work on.
- Most items in the game was crafted by players, making it useful to have professions and be able to profit with any trade skill.

Macros are still in the game and use the same functionality, however all the commands you can use are not available in beta.
Community will be pretty terrible in the starter zones at release. Hundreds of people that didn't play ffxi or are coming from WoW making that huge adjustment. This will get better.
Linkshells are still the big guild chat rooms. They even added a bunch of new icons to tag yourself different ways instead of just having different shades of color.
They haven't released any NM information yet, but the design for the questleves and the hints they are giving about the fight mechanics are going to make these fights really interesting.
Crafting is going to be huge. So huge in fact, you can actually gain xp faster leveling a craft than you can just questing. (This will probably change with the cooldown changes.) Crafting is a lot more involving now too. Instead of pressing one button and crossing your fingers that that stars align (literally), you are involved in the crafting process and directly effect the quality of the item produced.
Right now, their is no AH so everything will be player driven. The weird thing is that you can hire "retainers" that act as your own personal bazaars in town. You can also bazaar on yourself as well.

All in all, the game is so vast and elaborate that even learning a portion of it in beta is going to put me leaps and bounds above those just seeing it for the first time on release day.

[Bigfish]

Playing the beta, I've already gotten the feel back of really exploring the game. I'm not talking about running around to the different areas, I mean exploring a brand new game that purposely doesn't tell you anything. Where games like WoW go out of their way to make things less confusing, squenix does their best to make you figure it out.

Honestly, I found that to be a major turn off. I mean, some degree of "figure it out" is ok (hence the multiboxing I suppose), but I intensely dislike flailing about wondering if I'm doing it right or not and having to spend an inordinate amount of time on forums looking up the data mined damage formulas, recipes, or what freaking direction you are supposed to face. (Yes, for those of you who didn't play FFXI, direction you were facing played a role in crafting.)

But maybe that's just my preference for analyzing the meta-game with most of the in-game numbers available. I mean, if I'm going to craft as a career, it should be about finding materials, finding a market, and minimizing time spent traveling the world looking for this stuff. It shouldn't be about figuring out if STR or DEX or INT affects the chance I succeed on a single whack of the anvil, or figuring out who I have to ask to find a crisp basalisk urethra so I can finish this piece of armor I wanted to craft.

[Duess]

Honestly, I found that to be a major turn off. I mean, some degree of "figure it out" is ok (hence the multiboxing I suppose), but I intensely dislike flailing about wondering if I'm doing it right or not and having to spend an inordinate amount of time on forums looking up the data mined damage formulas, recipes, or what freaking direction you are supposed to face. (Yes, for those of you who didn't play FFXI, direction you were facing played a role in crafting.)

But maybe that's just my preference for analyzing the meta-game with most of the in-game numbers available. I mean, if I'm going to craft as a career, it should be about finding materials, finding a market, and minimizing time spent traveling the world looking for this stuff. It shouldn't be about figuring out if STR or DEX or INT affects the chance I succeed on a single whack of the anvil, or figuring out who I have to ask to find a crisp basalisk urethra so I can finish this piece of armor I wanted to craft.

I guess the point I was trying to make was that the game is more than just getting to max level as fast as you can. That was the biggest feature I loved about FFXI. From the level capped events or even the lvl sync that they added made the game fun to play at all levels instead of just racing to max level.

I know what you mean on the crafting after getting 95+ in a couple crafts over multiple characters. I think that we'll still see some of that in this game (moon phase, elements, etc., effecting your crafting). This will make the meta game a whole game in itself but it will be the same as ffxi, if you enjoy crafting you can be just fine with putting together the materials. If you want to craft hardcore, you'll spend large amounts of time researching everything.

The one thing that I do like about crafting is the quests you get. Most of them give you the materials at the start, the rest of them you talk to someone to get the materials. So, no spending your own money just to complete a quest. It also breaks the monotony of power leveling a craft.

[Bigfish]

The one thing that I do like about crafting is the quests you get. Most of them give you the materials at the start, the rest of them you talk to someone to get the materials. So, no spending your own money just to complete a quest. It also breaks the monotony of power leveling a craft.

You know, if they speed up the guild leves, that WILL be an awesome way to implement craft leveling, expecially with how intense the crafting is.

[Duess]

You know, if they speed up the guild leves, that WILL be an awesome way to implement craft leveling, expecially with how intense the crafting is.

The crafting guildleves for crafting (the local ones) seemed to refresh pretty fast. I was getting 4-6 of them and more when I got to 10+ in a craft. The fieldcraft leves and battlecraft leves are getting the reduction but I'm not sure how they are handling the local guildleves since they work on a little bit different schedule (You aren't locked out of your 8 slots when you complete one.)

Crafting is a pretty fast way to level in beta. It will be interesting to see if that extends through to live with the changes they are making.