FFXIV One Month In: Post Your Opinions!

Hi Everyone

We have hit the one month mark already!!!! I hope you have enjoyed your time in Eorzea as much as I have. The server queues are virtually non-existent, and the annoying log in bugs a (hopefully) distant nightmare. We now have more information on upcoming patches, as communicated in the last live letter.

The main thing is that now we can all successfully log in, and play during whichever timezone we choose to play in! Character creation is slowly resurfacing on Excalibur, and digital copies of FFXIV are currently back on sale, allowing new players to join us.

There are still bugs, like lag spikes in duty finder, and various other anomalies, but overall the technical difiiculties seem to be getting sorted.

We plan to have an officer's meeting very soon to discuss the live letter content, and future plans going forward.  We have a better idea of who is going to be with us for the long haul. Most games lose some players during the first few weeks, who decide the game simply is not for them, and FFXIV is no exception. On the plus side, we seem to have gained more than we have inactives, so that is great news.

If anyone has any burning issues they would like us to discuss at the next officer's meeting, please post here.

Keep it constructive, and if you have problems, try to suggest solutions as well, so we know where you are going with your ideas. 

We plan to test the waters with the odd guild event, discuss player housing, post updates, and a guide for those newly hitting 50 to give some direction, if players want that info.

I would also like your feedback as to the game and what you like/dislike about it.  Do you see yourself playing it in a month's time?

Post away!

I have only been able to play the game on the weekends, so I have only been able to get 2 classes up to around level 24 on both. I have been loving the game so far and see myself playing it for awhile. One thing that I do dislike about the game is the 10k in seals you need in order to respec. One suggestion that I would like to make for a guild event is Fate parties (sort of like the Rift parties we use to have). I always see people in chat wanting to join a Fate party and I think it would be easy to set up and a great way to meet the community. I just don't know if difference in character levels would make it too difficult to coordinate.

That is a good idea, something that Lakshmi was looking at starting.  It would a free company event, and span a particular level range each time.

well being only able to play on my days off, so I don't get too lost in the game that I miss work. I love this game. the ability to craft your toon into any role at any time is simply genius. a few gripes that I have is the number of seals you need to respec your points, and the number of allowances you get per day. outside of that I really don't have any real dislikes. I look forward to playing every single time I log in and I would like to see some fate party's formed for our guild too or some other similar events

I've enjoyed the discovery process, but have decided not to subscribe.  I think as of today that gives me 14 more days to play.  IRL I have been offered a new job that I start in a few weeks, so my playtime will be diminished between now and the Holidays.  I'm going to keep running a couple days a week in GW2 for the foreseeable future.

Mostly, I really enjoyed getting to meet some of you guys and game a bit :)

Hey, I know I haven't been around much in ff14 but I have been super busy and ran into some financial bumps this month so was unable to pay sub. Hopefully I will be able to get back with everyone next month. Are there attendance policies to be able to stay in guild? I don't want to take someone's spot. Like I said before joining up i am super casual in the game. I love it and it's a fun game but time seems to crunch itself.

No attendance policy Jess, come and go as you please :) We would have to be at around 500 people to worry about that.

Where do I start?

(TL;DR: I LOVE IT!!)

With my history of a few different MMOs under my belt, FFXIV ARR at first was “Ugh, a sub MMO like WoW?” but after playing Guild Wars 2: A WoW-like MMO was what I really, really wanted again from the Holy Trinity perspective.

Marrra and I have been duoing as my Gladiator(now Paladin) and her Conjurer(now White Mage) and having a lot of fun. The main point I always keep stating over and over is I love the dungeons! GW2 we loathed them, it just took me a lot longer to say stuff it and actually look at them as a death run through trash and a boring boss at the end. Now with FFXIV ARR, I am loving dungeons all over again and getting into tanking (which I had been a healer, both raid and tank, in WoW before I came to GW2).

The glow aspect of the landscape I love as well. I cannot stop taking pictures of areas at night or during weather-y periods. The game itself is absolutely gorgeous and that brings me to my next point.

How many MMOs have you played and find racial features clip through equipment? 9/10 in FFXIV, it does NOT clip! A Miqo’te and a metal helmet? The helmet has been fashioned AROUND the ears! A cowl? Same thing. Some robes? You betcha!

Oh and don’t get me started on a working /sit! So many games, even ones with strong RP communities (D&D Online) and the /sit does not work on objects in the world and yet FFXIV have done it perfectly from the get-go.

As you can probably imagine, I am a subscriber or soon will be before the trial runs out and FFXIV is now Marrra’s and my addiction (also made sure we passed it on to Praehard and Sin from GSCH as well >.>) and have no intention of going anywhere.

We are not max level on our main Job yet (~level 38) but we foresee a long term goal of getting all of them maxed. We have hit those moments of having to FATE grind but thankfully with a full party, it isn’t too bad and I’m hoping of making sure we do some of those with the Family for sure.

On top of the diversity with having all classes on one character, the same goes for crafting and gathering. So often we wanted to do it all and not have to have alts purely for having all crafts covered.

Um, I think I’ll leave it there.. >.>

As a Tank I'm loving the short wait to get into a dungeon, as a DPS not so much =D  Even so I am glad that this game can have both dedicated Tanks and Healers, though not so glad that it requires them for Dungeons at the ratio it currently favors.  

I have not tried crafting yet, and do not intend to make crafting a focus before I have 50 on two types of classes, and my highest at this point are 38 and 22.

You can find my review at http://www.diebythearrow.com/

Oh, btw, I won't be on Excalibur any. I got way too far into character advancement to start over on Excalibur once they finally got issues worked out, and I also hooked up with some old EQ friends who email bombed me late after launch (EQ friends, aren't they always late to the show?). Anyway, I of course will keep in touch with the Gaiscioch family on the forums so I'll be sure to share any tips, hints, and news that come my way.

No one should need to respec their stat points, they are separate, and saved via the Armoury system, for each class (along with that class's gearset).  The only class that you might have an issue with is the Arcanist, because both Summoner and Scholar jobs share the Arcanist base class and Summoner benefits from Int, while Scholar benefits from Mind.

edit: Also, unless you're an OCD min/maxer, don't bother stressong over your stat point allocation being perfect.  Consider them as an accent to your class, rather than a necessity for proper performance.  Its pretty hard to screw them up, you have to actually be trying to mess it up.

I am enjoying the game.  It is so much better than before. 

I am still really loving the game and will definitely be subbing for the foreseeable future. I am still on Gilgamesh with my son, and I miss you guys, but I do read these forums on a daily basis like I have done for the last 2 years and will always keep in touch. Gilgamesh is a good server with a great RP community that has reminded me how I met Gaiscioch in the first place - I rolled on Faeblight in Rift because is was the RP server and met Fog there on the starter zone doing one of the family events.

Anyway, back to the point - what I like about the game: Dungeons, the trinity, guildhests, sitting on furniture, the armory, cute inn room sleep animation log out, chocobo porters, cooking! using an xbox controller with no problem on my pc, linkshells (fantastic idea! I am in 4 already and never need to use shout and still not joined free company yet) and of course - being able to do it all on one character.

I particularly like that guildhests can be used as a gentle introduction to a class you might have always wanted to play, but didn't have the confidence. For example, I have always wanted to play a healer, but the way things go in most games when you role a healing class you typically spend the first 15-20 levels out killing stuff and mostly solo. The first time you get to play as a healer in a full party is when you hit the level for the first dungeon and bam! there you are expected to know how the party window works and keep everyone alive with little to no previous practice. In FFXIV you can do guildhests over and over until you are ready to do try your first dungeon. The first three dungeons, being easy, help to build your confidence in your new chosen profession as you improve. Brilliant! I have always played dps before, and now finally I am playing a healer thanks to FFXIV :)

Burleydawg and I both LOVE the game and plan on being around for some time to come.  The graphics are beautiful, I like that they've decided to go with the "holy trinity" for the dungeons (which are so much fun to do, by the way), and the fact that we can learn as many of the classes (both crafting and fighting) on one toon as we want.  We've both signed up for a 90 day subscription, which will commence once the free trial ends.  We've both had so much fun learning the game and exploring the world!  Everyone has been great, and we've had fun chatting in guild chat with the family, as well as running a few dungeons with them.  

I know that we've all been pretty busy focusing on trying to get leveled up in our different classes and achieving our job/jobs - but now that things are starting to settle down it would be fun to get to know our fellow Echo members better - and I think a besides dungeons, a F.A.T.E run or other event on an occasional basis would be fun for us to do.  I'll try to put some thought into other ideas for us to all do together, and am more than willing to help out in any way I can!

We both look forward to many hours of fun with all of you in FFXIV:ARR!

I am definitely sticking with this game and did a 180 day sub.

Love the crew too because of the comraderie that is evident even more so than other games lately.  It's that comraderie that got a few others to join the guild to try it out.

I definitely love the dungeons in this game.  Done several of them with Jay and Mara lately.  Some pretty cool variations on dungeons and mechanics to defeat various mobs in them.  Let's not forget those primals we so love to hate.  ;)  Curse you titan for making us try you like 20 times, but we won before time was out.  ::laughing::

I'm definitely into the crafting, too.  It's something I can do when my MS acts up and my left hand is being cranky.  I have all crafting and gathering in the 21 to 24 level range.  This is HOURS of work, but I'm definitely plugging for the L25 on everything now though I think I'm getting dizzy doing the gathering I need first.  ;)  I think most of my leve allowance goes into leveling this stuff.

Of course, I have my Bard to 36, a Pugilist at 17 or 18, a conji at 13 and a gladiator at 14 (she's my lalafel alt).  Heh, I know you don't need multiple toons in this game, but it's been fun  to spend some time here and there playing the Lalafel and actually see the story quest in another city, since each city is different until level 15 and the traveling really starts.

I'll be around in this game for some time to come and feel like I haven't even scratched the surface of everything you can do in the game.  Looking forward to a lot more fun grouping for dungeons, fates and whatever other insanity we want to get into.  Even that two hour stint of chain leveling with fresh classes was a hoot.  Helped me get the pugilist started fast.  She even got a couple levels with Natch as we just beat up goats for the materials we needed off of them.  I don't think she's done a quest other than the class ones, so its amazing ALL the stuff you can do and combos of ways to level.

Okay, done blathering.  See you all in the game for some time to come.  This is a game I know I won't have "conquered" in short order.

The dungeons in this game are amazing. Briin and I just got done doing Sunken Temple of Qarn and had a blast, we were high fiving each other after beating it on first run through on our tank and bard. I haven't had this much fun literally since my first MMO in EQ1. Looking to stay with this long term for sure, amazing game. We both have solo characters on Excalibur (ones we play when we can't play online together due to work schedules, etc) and we are hoping that both: 1) transfer fees aren't too high 2) they even allow transfers at all to Excalibur so we can move our "together" characters from Lamia to Excalibur. See you all in game!!!

I love the game :)  I just don't have a lot of time to play.  I will be continuing to play when I can and my sub is already setup.  I have been working on getting my toon to a min of lvl 15 on all classes before moving forward into higher levels.  I know I am gonna have to bite the bullet and get her to lvl 20 on one class so I can get my chocobo.....eventually lol.

The graphics were very nice and the music was classic FF :)  None of that was disappointing.

Since so many folks posted what they did like, I'll share my reasons for not subscribing!  The game itself I would give a 6 out of 10.  Not great, but not bad.

What I did not like I will try and phrase right.  Hmmmm.  It's not lag, because my connection speed averages 80mbps and I run a custom Alienware machine.  Most things I play are smooth as silk.  It was more of a "pause" between me pushing a button and the game sending feedback to me.  There was just something not right about it, and it made me feel very disconnected from the real time of a battle.  I've read where others have noticed this and haven't seen a name for it yet.  My conclusion is that something is not running fast enough on the server side.  For lack of a better word, there's a shadow in the responses.

The maps in general were very hard to navigate for me, personally.  I know in time I would have memorized them, but reading the maps and navigation in general were very muddy.  Also, there were different leveled areas within each zone.  Not just "this just jumped 5 levels", but "I went through a gate and died" levels.  I didn't like the flow.  It didn't feel like an immersed discovery, it felt like chasing NPC's across the world and hopping crystal to crystal.

Finally, it was too grindy.  Even at a low level I felt like I was already doing the same things over and over.  With the absence of battlegrounds or pvp I felt there was too little dimension in what my character could do.

These are just my opinions, of course.  I do hope the game has much success and Echos thrives :)  I appreciate everyone who helped me learn during those first couple of weeks.

I am really enjoying it so far and will definitely be playing for awhile yet! Took a small break to level up mining a bit since I got 50 on my Paladin, but I am going to start the Philosophy/Myth tomestone farming tonight or tomorrow I hope. So if anyone needs a tank for anything at all just let me know!

Glad I'm not the first "Debby Downer" to post, this time.  

I'm not really having fun, but to be fair, its more "me issues" than game issues.

I have a social anxiety disorder, so I do not like grouping with random strangers in small enclosed spaces (ie. minor panic attacks, the experience is akin to asking a secret crush out on a date.).  Therefore I do NOT like this forced grouping by having to use a "LFG tool" just to advance my characters in the game, much less to get the necessities like a mount, bank and AH access.  This is a subscription game, not a F2P, so I should not be forced to do any content that I do not want to do.

At this point, I am struggling to figure out what there will be for me at end-game.  All I read about are "dungeons and more dungeons", and I just do not like dungeons, unless I am with friends or guild members ONLY.  Hopefully they'll add more "non-dungeon" content, or even open world dungeons would be fine.  I just do not like playing any instanced content with strangers.  I also don't like asking for help.  I was raised on the concept that asking for help is a sign of weakness.  Silly, maybe, but old dog... new tricks.

If this game wasn't so amazing in other areas, I'd not be bothering to struggle with it so much, so I guess that says a lot about the game in general.  I do agree with Twilah on several of his points, especially the goofy stutter issues (its like a client/server communication issue, but I've seen it explained better in other posts.  Its not uncommon, its usually due to poor client coding).  They'll fix it with optimization tweaks over time, so I'm not too worried about it for now.

Now, I have found fun via "altoholic" play.  I've created 8 toons, each with a different theme and Job in mind and scratch my ADD itches with them, daily.  I've found that there isn't really a whole lot of noticeable "higher class xp bonus" while leveling these new characters, so it doesn't seem to be much more of a struggle to level a new class on a new character, than it does to level a new class on the same character.  

It actually seems simpler just to plan on gearing and building for a single class/job on a character , than it does to try and plan out gearing all the classes on a single character.  Working for me, for now, at least.  I might discover the error of my ways, later.  I need me alts, can't live without them.  ;)

That's about all that I have for now, I still plan to invest long term and subscribe for 180 days at this time, as I'm hoping I can get past my issues and they'll put more content in that appeals to my particular tastes.

I decided to elaborate on my original post (which was very short).

There are things I really like and things I don't so much like about the game.  First, I love the chocobo companion, the story line, and that you can change class at the push of a button.  I think this is the first game where I actually know the storyline (well, I did in  SWTOR also).  I really like the fates and dungeons.  I usually HATE doing dungeons / instances, but so far I really like these.  I have not joined a Fate party yet, but I bet I will really enjoy doing that.  I like fishing and I really like the hunting log (hide n seek).

I am not enjoying the other crafting activities as much as I usually do; although, I do like that achieving HQ is more about skill than luck.  My biggest pet peeve is that I spend way too much time sorting inventory space.  I really wish FFXIV would adopt the GW2 inventory system as well as the crafting from your bag capability.

Yay Bris! I'm glad we got you for at least 180 days. I think Jayven summed up most of my thoughts perfectly. In short, the game is pure genius. The attention to detail in everything from the quest lines to the actual artwork is amazing. The class system is superbly done, and by this I mean the 'armoury'. In an MMO everyone gets attached to their characters, and now we can have that one character be whatever we want. We dont have to split game time between multiple toons, we can invest it all into one. Ok, crafting...I haven't seen a game with a crafting system like this since EQ2 and it had one of the best. And making gathering it's own class is genius. needless to say, I am now a convert. A fanboy that will follow FFXIV into the depths of the abyss. They made a bad game and admitted to it...not only admitted to it but turned it into this breathtaking world that has already made me use a vacation day to play (something I havent done since DAoC)

I have a lot of ideas for Echoes, and I would love to help us grow in anyway possible. The family feel that I loved in Rift is here, alive and well in Eorzea, and I plan on being here a long, long time. My Gladiator hit 30 yesterday by the way, so there is a fresh Paladin on the rise if anyone needs a tank =) See you in game and on RC

After reading all your post's, it looks like I'm going to have to join in FFXIV.  With my move and computer problems, that is now taken care of,  I can get back to where I love to be.  I'll definitely be downloading. I hope to see you all soon. <3