FF14 Launch

[Ridere]

A couple of my friends switched to FF14, I also purchased CE FF14 and tried.

Didn't like it.

Tech side of things:

No matter what I do, I just can't get this thing to run at above 50 FPS. The graphics are impressive, really ? Compare to some of the non-mmo I played on my PC, ff14 is barely on-par. Gears of war PC (a game from 2007) still looks better. Note that my PC is not top of the line, but by no means a push over. i7 920 OC at 4Ghz, 12G ram, GTX295. Running FF14 on it, with all details turned low/off, res at 1080p, barely 35-45 fps, UNacceptable. Having Crysis flashbacks~

Above all, my gaming laptop that has an ATI mobile 5730, can't even play the damn game. It crashes on start up. Sure, I just patch the game right ? nope, you need to start the launcher to download the patch. and Now it is the launcher that is crashing. Brilliant.

For the problem everybody complains about, the UI/input lag. This is the game breaker for me. The control is just not smooth. This game is designed and made with console in mind. MADE to be played on PS3. Sorry for bashing the game so hard, but I really have some high hopes for this game, being a long time Square-enix / FF serie fan and all.


Those 2 things completely put me off on this game. But somehow my friends were having a blast. Telling me "oh , as the game progress, it gets better. So much depth. the system is good. Unlike wow, which is flat and noob friendly. The combat is complex." (really ?? all I see is I can't move if i cast/execute anything, combined with the input lag)

So I ask you guys who got further into this game. Did FF14 get better later on ?

I'm going to try hard to not sound too much like a fanboy in this response, so please forgive me if I do. Let me start with this:

Did you even read my above post?

As MMOs go, FF14's Graphics are impressive. Comparing 14 to a non-mmo game is sort of retarded. Things get a bit more complex when you have thousands of users connected to a central server. Graphics alone aren't the only reason to play a game, however, so it's not a huge point. But yes, the game is quite pretty. That being said, the game has a heavy PC requirement, so your rig most likely has a bottleneck somehow. Also, you were running the game with all settings turned down, so that probably explains a good deal of why you weren't too impressed with the graphics. I have some screenshots I can post lated if needbe.

Controls and UI are slow. I hope this does get fixed, as it is annoying.

Storyline missions eclipse anything you could ever hope to see in WoW. S-E is a storyteller first and foremost. All shitty things in FF14 aside, the storyline, mission-related events, and cutscenes are wonderful. The closest thing I can really equate them to is the whole Dragonblight/Undercity quest in WoW, and even it comes up short (Though super buffed characters in WoW were pretty fun during that event). The immersion is real good and makes you feel as if you are your character, instead of just a guy clicking through a text box to see what items you need to collect for said quest.

The game is tough. Solo is possible in this game via quests/grinding up to rank 20. After that, solo ranking up is done pretty much only through quests (called guildleves). Soloing monsters is still possible, but the skill points you receive currently decrease. This may be an oversight on S-E's part, but I think it was intentional to try and encourage party play.

You can form parties of 2-15 players, and take on different monsters depending on the strength of the party. 2-4 player parties are pretty common and allow you to rank up at a good rate. If boxers can find a good way to box the game, then this fact would give them a clear advantage over others in the sense that they can party up whenever they feel like it.

And basically, as stated above, there's a ton of character customization, you don't need to do shitty quests more than once (as you basically only ever need one character per FF14 account), the crafting system is the most complex I've ever seen (this is more bad than good right now, IMO - But still pretty interesting).

The game is very rough around the edges, but as long as S-E works on some of those rough features, the game will be great. If you'r easily frustrated, though, I would probably stick to WoW for now. By the time it's realeased for the PS3, it should be much more polished. It is basically a paid open beta rigth now. I'm the first to admit that. But I'd rather be 6 months ahead than 6 months behind, so I'm enjoying the game a lot right now.

Just wish I had more time to play it. hah.