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September 25 2010

With Final Fantasy XIV’s Open Beta phase behind us, the game’s launch is on the horizon. Of course, if you pre-ordered the Limited Edition, you’re playing it right now, in which case I’m sorry. After all the trash I’ve been talking about the game on our podcasts, I decided to step up and actually play it. So, I hopped into the Open Beta to give my impressions on the game.

Initially, I was very excited about FFXIV, and a lot of the things that initially drew my interest in the game are present and well-executed. The world, the story and the degree of control you have over your character’s growth are all wins for FFXIV. Unfortunately, much of the experience alongside those aspects is fundamentally broken.

Starting Out

Initially, the game was unplayable, simply due to the fact that the damn updater didn’t work at all. It would make connections, but just wouldn’t download. If it wasn’t for fansites and torrents, I doubt I would have been able to play at all. To give credit where it’s due, the updater seemed to be working much better over the last week of the Beta, so if the trend holds true, it shouldn’t be an issue in the launch version. Before you finally start the game, be sure to run the separate configuration application, since most of the basic settings can only be changed outside the game for some stupid reason.

Character creation manages to present too many and yet too few choices all at once. There are five races to choose from: the Hyur, essentially humans; Elezen, traditional elves; Lalafell, a cute little race usually depicted as mages; Miqo’te, a feline race with only the females playable and finally the hulking Roegadyn, only playable as males. After that, there’s a choice between two tribes for each race, determining basic appearance traits. Then there’s the usual MMO character customization, though not as robust as in many recent games. Still, there’s a decent number of preset options. Next, you select your Discipline, choosing from Disciples of War, Magic, Land and Hand; essentially combat, magic, gathering or crafting. There are no restrictions on race/class combinations. Personally, I went with a Sea Wolf Roegadyn Pugilist.

Up to this point, it’s all your traditional MMO character creation. FFXIV takes it a couple steps further. You choose a birthday and a Guardian Deity for your character. In many games, these choices would just be window dressing, but Square-Enix has said every decision in character creation will affect your character in some way. While the race and tribe choices are fairly obvious, aside from a slight elemental affinity bonus, I haven’t noticed anything from the more obscure options. That said, I’m sure it’s in there; FFXI had a plethora of intricate, behind-the-scenes mechanics. Of course, after hundreds of hours of gameplay, you could realize you made a bad choice during character creation, since Square-Enix likes to hide many of these mechanics from the player, making it as confusing as possible.

To round out character creation, you select a Realm, name and starting city. During the Beta, S-E kept adding more servers, and the game looks to be launching with a respectable amount. The launch issues of other games will likely not be present here. Also, note that you must give your character a first and last name. Endlessly creative, I went with “Sam Odean.” Just like the Disciplines, your starting city if not restricted by race. I chose Limsa Lominsa for two reasons. First, the port setting seemed fitting for my Sea Wolf, and second it was the only town available in Closed Beta. Likely, it would be the least populated of the three during Open Beta.

Entering the World

Upon first logging in, you’re treated to a scene showing your character traveling to your starting city. Things go wrong and monsters attack, giving you your first taste of combat. What it also gives you is your first taste of the game’s many cutscenes, both through the game engine and pre-rendered. There’s also some of the game’s amazing music score running through it. It’s a very impressive way to start the experience, setting FFXIV apart from its competitors.

Once you actually get to your city, you realize something else that sets it apart: the graphics. For a majority of players, the game either looks like crap, runs like crap or both. There’s tons of optimization issues. My PC isn’t great, but it can run most modern MMOs nicely. I had the game running at minimum settings, and only managed to get 12 FPS in an empty part of the city. There’s several more glaring technical issues, unfortunately. The menus lag, all of them, and the mouse, quite honestly, sucks. It just doesn’t bloody work, forcing you to use the keyboard for everything. While it may not exactly be modern, I played FFXI entirely with the keyboard, so I figured I could stumble through a couple weeks of Beta with it. Sadly, it was not meant to be. When in the third-person view, there’s actually no way to turn your character. The strafe keys strafe and the turn keys… STRAFE. So, just to navigate the game world, you either have to use an awkward two-handed keyboard method or use the crappy mouse.

The world itself? Yikes. Limsa Lominsa is freaking huge, and there’s no easy way to get from point A to point B. I don’t know how the other cities are, but I actually wished I was back in Windurst from FFXI, which made Thunder Bluff look like a good idea. Honestly, I could deal with it, as all the high-traffic areas are relatively centralized, but the opening questline didn’t help things any. It’s a nice concept, as it introduces the player to the storyline and important locations and NPCs, but it sends you back and forth across this place for hours. Still, you get a lot of story, told through liberal use of cutscenes. For people that like to read quest text, FFXIV is a dream come true.

With that initial chain out of the way, it’s time for the game’s Guildleve system. Guildleves are FFXIV’s questing system. There’s an NPC in town that offers a selection of Leves to choose from, ranging from combat to gathering to story quests. You’ll have to gain reputation from the first two before you can unlock any further story progression, though. I grabbed a handful of Leves and headed outside the city. In a nearby camp, there’s an Aetheryte Crystal, which is where you activate the Leves. No, you can’t click on it. No, you can’t target it with your keyboard. You have to open your menu, and it’s selectable from there. It’s a system implemented for many key items in the game world, presumably to make interacting with them easier in crowded areas. It’s a solid idea, assuming the menu doesn’t lag every time you open it. Too bad it does.

Once you activate a Guildleve, you can select a difficulty; the higher the difficulty, the better the rewards. These early Leves gave me my first taste of combat, and guess what? It lags. Sure it’s Beta, but the flow of combat just wasn’t there. First I would press a key, then I would see my Action Gauge drop, see the “You defeated Stupid Animal” message, watch its health bar drop, THEN perform the attack animation. At no point did it feel smooth. Regardless, the Leves do a good job guiding you to your objectives without completely holding your hand, and you get some decent rewards. Just don’t lose connection; if you disconnect or the game crashes mid-quest, it’s considered a failure. Also, don’t think you can just grab some more and keep trucking. In Beta, I was limited to eight combat/gathering Leves every 48 hours. S-E has claimed to be lowering the cooldown in the release version, but DAMN. Maybe I can spend those two days crafting?

Gathering and Crafting

I like crafting in MMOs, it’s just one of those small features that really draws me in. FFXI had the most painful crafting system I’ve ever seen. Well, now it’s the second worst.

You can gather at any time, just equip the appropriate item and your Discipline will change. I chose to experiment with gathering through the Guildleves available. I tried out Mining, Harvesting and Fishing. Mining and Harvesting are pretty much the same. You survey the area, and the game tells you the general area for the closest gathering point. Once you get there, you can activate it (through the laggy menu, of course) and begin… a minigame. You must select a spot to gather from, then either the power of your pickaxe swing or the angle of your hatchet. If you guess right, you will gather successfully. If not, the game will give you a hot/cold hint and you can try a couple more times. Since this is all done through the menu windows (which lag, remember?) it took me a solid five minutes to mine three ores. Don’t even get me started on Fishing.

With gathering being a pain, I decided to give crafting a try. At this point, I was determined to at least attempt everything this game had to offer. I went to the Blacksmith Guild and started out. I bought a hammer and a dozen copper ore. What could I make out of this ore? I have no idea! Like its predecessor, FFXIV has no in-game recipe list. Here’s how my crafting experience went: Open Menu. Wait. Select “Attributes & Gear.” Wait. Equip the Blacksmith’s Hammer. Wait. Select “Synthesize” from the menu. Wait. Pick an empty ingredient box. Wait. Select a copper ore. Wait. Pick the next ingredient. Wait. Select another copper ore. Wait. Choose which tool to use. Wait. Discover I can make fishing hooks, confirm recipe. Wait. Minigame time! Select Standard, Rapid or Bold Synthesis, with varying results on quality. Repeat several times. Fail crafting, losing all materials. Realize the whole process took almost ten minutes. Log out.

Verdict

In case you couldn’t tell from the tone of this article, I became increasingly frustrated with Final Fantaxy XIV the longer I played. There truly are some good elements in the game. The story is deep, with a wonderfully crafted world. The cutscenes during the story segments go a long way toward immersing you in the game, making you feel like your character is important and the music is amazing. Even the concept of the Guildleve system is solid, though the execution needs quite a bit of refinement. Unfortunately, the UI and technology just drag everything down. If the software isn’t easy to use, the game won’t be fun to play. Whether intentional of not, everything in the game takes far too long to do, either from lag, game mechanics, travel distance or loading times.

If Square-Enix were to fix the technological issues, as well as fine-tune some of the more aggravating systems, I would gladly play this game. There’s too much here to like to declare the game a total loss. As it stands now, based on my experience with the Beta, Final Fantasy XIV is not worth the price of purchasing the software, not to mention a monthly subscription fee.

Screenshots

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