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Final Fantasy XIV
HazardParalyze
Member Posts: 14
Hey,
I´m looking for a new game and so my FF Xiv catched my attention. I watched some reviews about it and most of same are positive, although there are some negative points like slow combat. So I wanted to ask you what you think about the game and if it´s worth the subscription. Please give me some detailed answers!
Comments
It has a 2-week free trial. That should allow you to answer your own question.
The combat is slower than most MMOs, particularly in the early levels. The game pretty much treats the leveling experience as a giant tutorial. I thought it got much better as I started opening up cross-class abilities and started getting into some of the later dungeons.
Slow combat and heavy zoning are probably the biggest cons most people give.
HEavy zoning is okay imo especially cause the loading screen don't take long.
The combat can feel very slow especially in the first 10-30 levels. Also the feel of the combat will also depend on which class you pick. Get a class like conjurer which is a healer and you will only get like 2-3 attack spells which will make the whole combat feel incredibly boring when soloing the first 10-30 levels.
Later on the combat becomes much more interesting. The global cooldown is still 2.5 seconds but you get some abilities which do no trigger the global cooldown but most importantly the dungeon fights become so engaging that you won't have time to think about the slower pace of the combat. You will be bombarded with tons of mechanics you need to pay atttention despite your role (tank,healer, dps etc.). In some of the later dungeons I barely get time to heal people and when I do get to cast heals I really need to think about what I should cast as I might not be able to cast another spell for 2-3 seconds or more depending on the mechnics which means that someone might end up dead rather quickly if I made the wrong choice.
Long story short, I think you should try it and give it a real go as the combat becomes VERY INTERESTING later on. Outside of these two main cons the game is amazing.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I would definitely recommend it. The level of detail and polish in this MMO is on par if not better then WoW and its an amazing and well supported game.
Every option you can think of is in the game and fully customizable. You can move any window/bar wherever you want, built in macro maker and macro guide that tells you all the command lines for making them etc.
Really is worth the money imo.
I think the crafting in it is clever. As one character you can develop any number of harvesting and tradeskill abilities (well, adventuring too, but it's moot to a point to have more than 3 or 4) and, having attained certain crafting levels, you can use special abilities cross-craft. Since crafting itself is a sort of mini game, numerous abilities from different tradeskill yield better chances toward better results, with a good rotation.
FFXIV is a mostly combat game with good crafting and bad combat. Good crafting is unusual in an MMORPG, so if you like crafting, I'd try it on that basis alone, even if you don't expect to stay all that long. It's also got beautiful graphics--the best I've seen in an MMORPG by a good margin.
But good crafting and good graphics can't carry a mostly combat game with bad combat. It's not just that the combat is slow; Pirates of the Burning Sea had naval combat that is slow but good. There are games with good combat that is purely turn-based. The problem with the combat is that it's boring. It's as if they tried to make completely generic trinity combat without any twists to try to make it interesting. The classes don't differentiate themselves well at all apart from the generic tank/healer/damage dealer roles, so cross-class abilities don't add much.
Now, I never made it to the endgame, and some people in this very thread claim that the combat was better at high levels. But if I play a game for two months and haven't yet had an interesting fight, I don't think it's unreasonable to give up on a game. Games that have a big mountain of boring grinding generally only have even more boring grinding on the other side, so I've learned not to stick it out and see if some particular game might be an exception that was just designed really badly.
If you're a good game designer and you've put interesting stuff into a game, you don't make players do a bunch of stupid, boring stuff before they get to try anything interesting. That's a way to convince people who try your game that there's nothing interesting there. Though now that I think about it, crafting wasn't any good until about level 13 or so. But given that combat takes a whole lot longer than that to be any good, I'm skeptical that it ever gets there.
People complaining about bad/slow combat probably never made it past Lv.30 and never did hard dungeons/raids.
I have every single classes to Lv.50, completed every raids in the game and I can tell you the combat isn't slow once you get past Lv.30-50. Skill levels differ from person to person so some reaches it faster than others but there is combat for every kind of players.
Also, the crafting is carefully intertwined into the game to make it relevant which is rare in most MMOs. I'm not saying it's easy to get into but it is lucrative when you learn how to.
I raided WoW as a hunter for years so I know what the "fast paced" Combat feels like, and honestly I prefer FFXIV. Their counter to having a larger GCD is having more abilities to weave in in between said global cooldowns, or Off GCD abilities as we call them.
The game has a trial, I highly suggest you check it out.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
If WoW is your idea of fast-paced combat, then you've never played a game with fast-paced combat. Not all MMORPG combat is either WoW or trying too hard to copy WoW.
Using your abilities can feel slower than other games as you level up because the global cool down is 2.5s. But at higher levels you unlock off gcd abilities so using those in between your on gcd abilities is crucial to play effectively. In addition the more difficult fights in the game have several phases which have complex attack patterns and positioning requirements keeping you on your toes. You might find it difficult in some situations to actually use an ability every 2.5s just trying to keep pace with mechanics of the fight.
Aside from that I enjoy the game because I just love the whole atmosphere and vibe from the world. The music is great, the graphics are great and the story is increasingly becoming more and more intriguing. Hildibrand is awesome too.
Bonus: my favorite boss music in the game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZZDnlAg3Pk
"EVE is likely the best MMORPG that you've never really understood or played" - Kyleran
i agree, if you are looking for pve focused themepark, you will proly like it.
i would add that i do like crafting in ffxiv a lot, it is someth different then usual "click and wait" crafting.
Since we're talking about getting the OP into a larger themepark MMO I figured it would make sense to compare it to another large themepark, screw me right?
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
Agreed, crafting is actually something that if you are "good" at, it will make a difference compared to people who aren't. There are a lot of details and things to know to be a great crafter.
Pros of XIV:
1) The game is pure linear.
hard primals => Crystal Tower => Coil 1-2-3-4-5 & Extreme primals => S. Towers => Moogle and Ram ex => Coils 6,7,8,9 => Shiva EX => Coils 10,11,12,13
There is no freedom because content Ilvl is 100% tiered.
2) Front lines negates the buffs on PvP gear. Enough said
4) If you like doing events for 8hrs a week it is fine. Either that or you cannot clear content... which is your problem. This is the problem devs are looking at the majority who cannot do coil. Therefor those who can do coil are bored out of thier minds.
6) Coil is a step above Towers. SO if you are on coil it is negated at launch technically. And the lockout removal of the new coil gives you massive penalties.
7) Gear is negated once you can clear any of new endgame enough said.
IMHO it's finally a worthy successor to ff11 (one of my top 3 MMO of all time).
the pros:
it feels like final fantasy
the quality is there (it's polished, if you prefer)
there are a lot of things to do for a themepark
you have a main story progression but can veer off of it and do your own thing, ad still come back to the main line later
non-combat activities give depth (EX crafting and housing)
the community is good- i would say almost great. Helpful and mature are the norm.
there are a variety of combat jobs
you can mix and match skills from other jobs to "customize" to an extent.
it's a couple bucks cheaper than other game subs (unless this changed but i've gotten grandfathered in? not sure)
good mix of newness and nostalgia.
the cons:
the combat is on the slow side.
it takes a long time to raise a significant amount of resources
your starting location is locked in depending on your job
gil spammers
as you can see, for me at least the pros far outweigh the cons.
highly recommended by Da Skull.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
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