I've been testing FFXIV: ARR since April, and with the closed beta now over, I just had to post some screenshots and my opinion on the game so far.
I had beta tested FFXIV 1.0, and let me tell you, there is such a big difference when beta testing ARR/2.0. While I was intrigued by the idea that you could change classes with the switch of a weapon, 1.0 felt really boring. I played for one or two days and abandoned it. With ARR, I couldn't get enough.
First thing is the character creator. It had a bunch of options, face, hair, eyes, lips, colors, heights and widths. You can even choose highlights for your hair, which I loved. They also had a really neat feature where you could see your character in different settings. You could view how you looked in outdoor lighting, indoor lighting, with starting clothes, underclothes or the higher level armor of what class you chose. I liked it since in some games, what you choose as a color in the character creation may not quite be what you expected when in daylight.
Class selection is pretty great as well, with a mix of melee and three magic casting classes (Disciples of War and Disciples of Magic):
Each class will also have an advanced job that they can switch to after meeting requirements. Those are paladin, Dragoon, Monk, Bard, Warrior, White Mage, Black Mage, Summoner and Scholar. However, you are more limited on cross-class abilities. Paladin, for example requires Gladiator level 30 and Conjurer level 15, but can only use Maurader and Conjurer abilities. (Note: this may change once jobs are accessible in open beta. This is based off of the 1.21 of the original version.)
It was really difficult for me to decide which class to pick, especially because I would have to hit level 10 in my class quests to switch, and level 15 in the story to get an airship pass to visit other cities and their class guilds. I tried a little bit of everything, and at first settled on Maurader. I felt incredibly powerful with this giant axe on my back, but I did start to struggle as levels went on.
I eventually switched over to Gladiator and then Thaumaturge and had a much better time.
Graphics are just gorgeous. I couldn't get enough of exploring around and taking all of it in. It felt every bit like a Final Fantasy game, with creatures I remember from past games. I am one to take way too many screenshots in any game, and this was no different.
Combat is your standard put skill on hotbar and then press buttons, but it felt very solid. Movement was exceptionally fluid. A lot of skills were to be used in combination with others to make them more powerful. The only thing I didn't like is that I felt that some of the buffs had a bit too long of a timer on them, but other than that, I really enjoyed it.
Thaumaturge had to be the most fun for me due to two spells: Fire and Blizzard. Casting Fire gives you the Astral Fire buff, which pumps up the damage, but also makes each subsequent casting take more MP (to a limit). Casting Blizzard gives you Umbral Ice, which deals less damage, but has a 40% chance to inflict Heavy (makes them move slower), and also vastly increases the regeneration of your MP. And of course, casting one cancels out the other. However, you eventually get a skill called Transpose, which swaps Astral Fire with Umbral Ice. So you can cast Fire until your MP is low, use Transpose to instantly switch your AF to UI and then refill your mana. With the other spells to use in between the cooldown for Transpose, it made combat very fun and engaging.
Want to take a break from questing? You can also pick up Guildleves. Guildleves are daily quests that you can perform to earn experience, gil and items. Battlecraft Leves for Disciples of War and Magic require you to complete a specific combat related objective within a time limit, like kill missions, investigations and escorts. Tradecraft Leves require you to craft a specific item(s) for a client with no time limit. Higher quality version of items earn you greater rewards.
Also, you have Hunting Logs. This gives you tasks that involve the slaying of certain creatures. It lists them based on job level, and hovering over the game will tell you where to find that particular one. This is great for earning XP on the side.
Tired of all that fighting? Take up a crafting (Disciples of Hand) or gathering (Disciples of Land) class!
Crafting classes synthesize new and useful items such as armor, weapon, food and potion from basic materials. Some of the basic materials are collected by gathering classes.
Gathering classes harvest natural resources. These natural resources can be used by crafting classes to synthesize new and useful items.
I tried out both weaver and miner. It was actually enjoyable to play a game that requires interaction with crafting and not just "set this up to queue and then go make a sandwich". I didn't have access to the area with the gathering profession I needed for materials but I found plenty of starter stuff off of NPCs. Gathering was actually a bit more fun since I got to actually leave the city and wander around, although you get very little xp for what you do, and soon it became tedious and boring. However, the devs said that that will be adjusted so I will be looking forward to trying it out again!
I didn't get to party with anyone and try out groups, the Duty Finder, or party Limit Breaks, sadly. I also felt a little mismatched with my armor colors, but you do get a quest to be able to dye your armor later on.
Now that we've gone through all that, let's get to the cons of the game. Truth be told, I didn't find to many. There's the issue with the gathering professions not getting enough experience and that is going to be addressed. The only other thing I can think of are the rates to teleport from one place to another. However, with all the other options for travel, that's really not much of a concern.
All in all, I had a great time with this game. There was never a shortage of things to do, especially since you can change classes at will once they are unlocked. It's nice to play a game where I don't have to create 10 characters just to experience everything. Open beta should be coming soon, so keep an eye out on the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn website. I haven't even covered a quarter of what this game is about, so definitely check it out if you are interested!
Now it's time to ask you. What do you think of the game? Did you play during beta and if you did, what are your thoughts? Also, do you think that A Realm Reborn will do well, or will it struggle like 1.0 did? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter!
I had beta tested FFXIV 1.0, and let me tell you, there is such a big difference when beta testing ARR/2.0. While I was intrigued by the idea that you could change classes with the switch of a weapon, 1.0 felt really boring. I played for one or two days and abandoned it. With ARR, I couldn't get enough.
First thing is the character creator. It had a bunch of options, face, hair, eyes, lips, colors, heights and widths. You can even choose highlights for your hair, which I loved. They also had a really neat feature where you could see your character in different settings. You could view how you looked in outdoor lighting, indoor lighting, with starting clothes, underclothes or the higher level armor of what class you chose. I liked it since in some games, what you choose as a color in the character creation may not quite be what you expected when in daylight.
Class selection is pretty great as well, with a mix of melee and three magic casting classes (Disciples of War and Disciples of Magic):
- Gladiator: Standard sword and board tank.
- Pugilist: Hand to hand combat.
- Marauder: Another tank, but with a big two handed axe and much different abilities.
- Lancer: Ranged melee with a polearm, more effective attacking from behind.
- Archer: Ranged damage with arrows.
- Thaumaturge: standard FF black mage, but with some interesting twists.
- Conjurer: standard FF white mage.
- Arcanist: A pet class that specalizes in Damage over Time spells. (This one will be available for play during Open Beta, so far it has been closed off)
Each class will also have an advanced job that they can switch to after meeting requirements. Those are paladin, Dragoon, Monk, Bard, Warrior, White Mage, Black Mage, Summoner and Scholar. However, you are more limited on cross-class abilities. Paladin, for example requires Gladiator level 30 and Conjurer level 15, but can only use Maurader and Conjurer abilities. (Note: this may change once jobs are accessible in open beta. This is based off of the 1.21 of the original version.)
It was really difficult for me to decide which class to pick, especially because I would have to hit level 10 in my class quests to switch, and level 15 in the story to get an airship pass to visit other cities and their class guilds. I tried a little bit of everything, and at first settled on Maurader. I felt incredibly powerful with this giant axe on my back, but I did start to struggle as levels went on.
I eventually switched over to Gladiator and then Thaumaturge and had a much better time.
Graphics are just gorgeous. I couldn't get enough of exploring around and taking all of it in. It felt every bit like a Final Fantasy game, with creatures I remember from past games. I am one to take way too many screenshots in any game, and this was no different.
Combat is your standard put skill on hotbar and then press buttons, but it felt very solid. Movement was exceptionally fluid. A lot of skills were to be used in combination with others to make them more powerful. The only thing I didn't like is that I felt that some of the buffs had a bit too long of a timer on them, but other than that, I really enjoyed it.
Thaumaturge had to be the most fun for me due to two spells: Fire and Blizzard. Casting Fire gives you the Astral Fire buff, which pumps up the damage, but also makes each subsequent casting take more MP (to a limit). Casting Blizzard gives you Umbral Ice, which deals less damage, but has a 40% chance to inflict Heavy (makes them move slower), and also vastly increases the regeneration of your MP. And of course, casting one cancels out the other. However, you eventually get a skill called Transpose, which swaps Astral Fire with Umbral Ice. So you can cast Fire until your MP is low, use Transpose to instantly switch your AF to UI and then refill your mana. With the other spells to use in between the cooldown for Transpose, it made combat very fun and engaging.
Want to take a break from questing? You can also pick up Guildleves. Guildleves are daily quests that you can perform to earn experience, gil and items. Battlecraft Leves for Disciples of War and Magic require you to complete a specific combat related objective within a time limit, like kill missions, investigations and escorts. Tradecraft Leves require you to craft a specific item(s) for a client with no time limit. Higher quality version of items earn you greater rewards.
Also, you have Hunting Logs. This gives you tasks that involve the slaying of certain creatures. It lists them based on job level, and hovering over the game will tell you where to find that particular one. This is great for earning XP on the side.
Tired of all that fighting? Take up a crafting (Disciples of Hand) or gathering (Disciples of Land) class!
Crafting classes synthesize new and useful items such as armor, weapon, food and potion from basic materials. Some of the basic materials are collected by gathering classes.
Gathering classes harvest natural resources. These natural resources can be used by crafting classes to synthesize new and useful items.
I tried out both weaver and miner. It was actually enjoyable to play a game that requires interaction with crafting and not just "set this up to queue and then go make a sandwich". I didn't have access to the area with the gathering profession I needed for materials but I found plenty of starter stuff off of NPCs. Gathering was actually a bit more fun since I got to actually leave the city and wander around, although you get very little xp for what you do, and soon it became tedious and boring. However, the devs said that that will be adjusted so I will be looking forward to trying it out again!
I didn't get to party with anyone and try out groups, the Duty Finder, or party Limit Breaks, sadly. I also felt a little mismatched with my armor colors, but you do get a quest to be able to dye your armor later on.
Now that we've gone through all that, let's get to the cons of the game. Truth be told, I didn't find to many. There's the issue with the gathering professions not getting enough experience and that is going to be addressed. The only other thing I can think of are the rates to teleport from one place to another. However, with all the other options for travel, that's really not much of a concern.
All in all, I had a great time with this game. There was never a shortage of things to do, especially since you can change classes at will once they are unlocked. It's nice to play a game where I don't have to create 10 characters just to experience everything. Open beta should be coming soon, so keep an eye out on the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn website. I haven't even covered a quarter of what this game is about, so definitely check it out if you are interested!
Now it's time to ask you. What do you think of the game? Did you play during beta and if you did, what are your thoughts? Also, do you think that A Realm Reborn will do well, or will it struggle like 1.0 did? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter!
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