Final Fantasy XIV Beta First Impressions Part 2

Well here we are again, I figurte, and ope after my little rant regarding Final Fantasy XIV punishing players for playing the way they like I should finish up my beta impressions. Now for people that are still on the fence Square Enix is having an open beta for the game. It starts August 31 I believe. So don't take my word for it as I am after all only one person and one opinion, go try it for yourself.

Now before I talk about the user interface I need to point out their is some serious lag on the mouse and the time it takes to enter commands. Square Enix says they are working on this but if its present in the open beta I will be...concerned. The interface is a bit of a mess, if you don't learn all the hot-keys for the game fast than your going to slow as molasses. Sure you can press your hot-bar buttons with your mouse, switch out of passive and active staen the main menu, but the mouse lag prevents this and the cursor is HUGE compared to the buttons. So you are left ignoring your mouse in favor of keyboard controls to adjust your camera, move, and fight.
Probably my two biggest complaints about the UI at the moment are inventory management and clicking on this. You cannot interact directly with things you have clicked you have to click them to make them your target than enter the main menu to look at the options you have for interaction... this is just stupid, annoying, and time consuming. Oh and there is no way to sort through your items and equipping an item can be confusing. Yes, the item management system is confusing to me. Sure I have equipped some new items but I have done it differently each time and I still don't know if there is a faster option. Some ability to just drag and drop into the equipment slot would save me a about three menus worth of equipment interface.

Okay on to the meat of any MMO, combat. I have to give points to Final Fantasy XIV here it is not that bad and it is not a World of Warcraft clone. You have two states your character can be in at any given time, passive and active. Passive you run faster, regen health, and take double damage if hit. So the first thing you do before engaging in combat is switch to active state. Shown as you in a battle stance with your weapon drawn you can engage and fight. Fighting is done by targeting an enemy and executing attacks on your hot-bar or macro commands. Final Fantasy XIV has a great macro system with up to 50 commands to be executed in a single macro, easier to learn than most larger macro systems as well. It should be noted their is no auto attack in the game so you have to execute commands if you want the monster to die.

In Final Fantasy XIV there are four bars for combat, stamina, health, mana, and tactical. Stamina is always filling up and all your skills use a present of your stamina bar. It replenishes fast so you are almost never without something to do unless you used several high stamina attacks in succession. Health should be self explanatory, however, it is interesting to note that several skills I came across also drain your health. Usually to increase the power of your attacks. Mana is the tricky one here, except for Disciples of Magic few skills there is no way to regen mana without going back to town. So mana conservation is a priority. If this sounds bad it is not really. They give you enough mana that only the longest of play sessions will force you back to the nearest encampment (so far at most a five minute walk). Tactical points are the final thing and these are used for your heavier, flashier attacks. Every attack you do or take adds to your tactical bar and than you can use powerful skills by spending these points.

The animations for battle are quite flashing and enjoyable to watch. The command delay lag currently in the beta does mess with the flow of combat a bit having some commands not execute properly. Finally the game is not afraid to throw you up against small bugs and rats to start you off which is a bit of a disappointment. I always like it if the things I am fighting in a MMO actually feel they have some worth behind them. What is nice is you can see the difficulty of a monster without the need of a "check" command. However, like it's predecessor Final Fantasy XIV continues the tradition of anything harder than easy or green/blue will wipe the floor with you.

As you kill monsters and do your guildleves you are given experience. Now Final Fantasy XIV has two types of levels, class rank and physical level. Class rank determines what skills you have learned for that class. Now any skill you learn can be carried over and equipped to a different class. Needless to say a stabbing weapon based skill loses some of its bite when carried to a class that uses a blunt based weapon. There is a equip cost with each skill and the higher your rank the more points you can spend on equipping skills. The system overall rewards experimentation and leveling multiple classes. Now physical level determines your stats like strength, vitality, intellect, ect. It also determines your elemental resistances. Nice thing about stats in the game is you get to pick and choose how you spend the points you get from each level up, a min-max wet dream. Even better is the option to respec at any time. So if you were going as a melee juggernaut you are not out in the cold when its time to wear the mage's robe.

Crafters and gatherers also get experience for doing what they do best, crafting and gathering. Neither of these classes are all that simple. Gatherers have to work at the nod delicately to get the full hull or fish up the big fish. Not to mention their are many factors that we just don't know about. For example fishing you determine how deep you are going to go, the lure, and when you get a bite you have to fight the fish to get it back up. Crafting is also rather complex. Crafting requires you to gather the materials and than begin the crafting process. While crafting you have to watch the energy you are working with and determine how to proceed, crafting fast reduces quality, increasing quality reduces durability, and just standard. The object is to reach 100% completion with as high a quality of an item (yes your skill determines the quality) without the durability falling to zero.

Now if you are worried about starting a crafter right off the bat don't the game provides local guildleves designed for crafters and can be done an unlimited number of times. These give you the materials to make the item of course you have to hand the item in for credit (no you can't sell it or equip it). In return you will get some gil to begin working on your crafting empire.

Which brings me to the fact that their is no auction house. The game uses a bazaar system that I have to admit is actually pretty good if it was not so annoying. Basically every player after talking to some random woman gets a retainer who will act as a seller/buyer for you in the market districts. These retainers once set up will sit there with anything you want to sell waiting for people to click on them. They will also buy items from players that you are seeking for a price you determine in advance. This was rather neat until you clicked on your 100th retainer looking for new armor and realized the one you looked at 20 retainers ago had it cheaper than anyone. There is no search function either so finding what you want is a long process of trial and error. Now I am pretty sure Square Enix thinks this will fail. While exploring the city in a almost abandoned section of the town I saw a closed auction house. How did I know it was an auction house? Had the classic Final Fantasy XI symbol for an auction house stamped all over it. Though it makes me wonder if you though a system would fail why did you put it in the game?

Final thoughts? Well I been worried about this game for some time and even though I was really looking forward to an epic story the likes of Square Enix can tell I have to admit the rest of the game leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The limitations of advancement, the lack of any sense of direction, a clunky user interface, and downright depressing attitude of the developers makes me wonder how far this game can go. If it gets off the ground I am sure in a couple years it will be worth a second look. However, with Cataclysm on the horizon and a ton of other games charging this way I can't see myself playing this game. It is just too bittersweet.