Thinking About Joing This Game

That response reads so well I like it just for that reason.

And you're very right about the negative criticism thing. I bought & put together a $1700 computer to play XIV, obviously that says it all: I really tried to like this game. I now don't do anything on this computer I didn't do on my old one (which I bought for 600 from Futureshop and sold for 300 less than a year later), which is terrible because I feel like I should actually leave it off so as to stop any potential hazards occurring (I am by no means a computer geek but I have had several computers that worked perfectly fine and just decided to stop working one day; actually usually because my brother experimented on them b/c he's the computer guy in the family). Basically every computer I've had (which are many) I have to torrent the same old music because I've always been too lazy to get an external hardrive or dedicate time into protecting my computer. But that's all besides the point.


XIV caters a lot more to the typical MMO players and playstyle than XI does, at the moment it is not as obvious as infinite Abyssea NM farming or the equivalent in WoW (instances over and over for gear), but that's probably the exact direction it will take when the bulk of the content is added. I can't see a game so lacking in oldschool MMO atmosphere and so like the Diablo II style I described really go any other direction.

I'm not playing XI at the moment but every so often there is enough in it to make me play hard again, for at least 2-3 months, longer if my real life wasn't active (like I may have said, I was 12 when I started XI). I still wish it felt like a world to me. I can imagine getting older and having friends die and feeling something like XI's (or any MMO's) history.

Also, your name makes me think of the Ashu Talif. I couldn't think of a last name for my character Vael, either, and because it's a game that doesn't appeal to me I almost felt bad for creating Vael. After deleting my first character, Vael Ameno, now I'm Vael Lijevan, and birthdate is the same as XI Vael's character creation date.

Edit: any negativity in my opinion just comes from a fondness of playing Devil's advocate and also a great hate for fanboys. Those people say XI was just as bad at release, and I've never understood why you would insult a game you loved to defend another game.

Besides, by this point in XI's life (11 months) RotZ was released which meant there were either 30-something or 50 areas, I can't actually remember but I counted once. If the final mission of vanilla XI wasn't released, it would've been shortly after. 15 Jobs. I really made a complete list of XI vs. XIV once and just take my word for it, it destroyed it (even at release, though less destroying involved).

While I agree it will be playable/good at PS3 launch, whenever that is, I don't think it will ever make top-tier MMO status as someone said. It's really hard to become that now that the genre is saturated and the gap between online game and the true MMO I can't stop referencing is abyssal (<---- YOU SEE THAT?) I do hope it will have its niche playerbase like XI has always had (though I doubt it will match XI's best periods of population), and will be an enjoyable game with enough content to really just relax and have fun with your friends. Then again, it will be subscription based by that point and that won't be worth it. But like I said, I do very much enjoy playing casually whenever I'm bored for an hour or two so far.

Well because FFXI isn't the same game it was, I'm just not a fan of what they did to it. Seems like FFXIV is moving in the right direction and FFXI is moving in the wrong direction.

I read somewhere that one of the guys who made such a mess out of 14 moved over to 11 after release.. and man it shows. 90% of FFXI's content is now open unused empty space or gimped to the point where it's a joke of what it use to be such as CoP.

And ya know this is just what I honestly think, it doesn't make any difference to anyone else. 14's got it's problems to be sure and I totally get that ppl still like 11, but I have a hard time getting into it anymore.. I played it since release and it just makes me sad to see how easy it is now. If ppl want to keep playing 11 who am I to judge? Party on 11'ers, I'm sure it will have a long life and lots of cool things to come.

Does anyone know how to turn of the wind and rain effects in this game? its loud!

there removing the casual aspect of the game. not even worth it anymore

Lmfao. It's the ambient sound. And nope, there is no way of turning it off. If you're using Windows 7 just click on your Volume tab in the lower right corner of your monitor, then click Mixer, and adjust your FFXIV volume. This way you can still hear the game w/o shattering your ears, and still listen to vent/music/movies w/e else you do at the same time on your comp.

I believe they are looking into fixing the ambient sound issue, but atm, I just have FFXIV on low volume.

Really? Since when? Soloing may not be exactly the fastest way to level, but it sure as *** is a lot quicker than it is in XI. You can't even really 'casually' solo anything worthwhile in XI when I left.. If you screwed up, you were dead. XIV is very forgiving and doesn't demand you to be at the top of your game.. Seems like a casual game to me.

opinionated post is opinionated.

Ya, bud - this game is incredibly casual. So much that I have time to level two characters.

What about the game do you feel won't be casual? Especially since they are adding the ability to save your leves for a time that is convenient.

From the few days I've been back I'd have to agree that the game is very casual. I'm having lotsa fun doing stuff by myself at a leisurely pace. I'm sure a linkshell and what not would be fun too but the game seems to be very laid back if you want it to be.

I think also the fact that I saw somewhere that they are going to put in an EXP bonus for fully rested players a sign that they are keeping the casual play alive and well.

Oh and the sound comment... yeah I use the built in mixer in windows 7 to turn down my 14 volume quite a bit.

So, I've noticed that they really like dumping gil on us now unlike in FFXI--however in a completely player-based (non-real world) economy, all that means is people will inflate the hell out of stuff--add on the burden of gear repair (God I hope they reform that to be at least like WoW's repair) and I'm not sure how easy it will be to sustain my virtual barbie in the later levels. Will quests and the sort increase gil reward substantially? I've only managed to procure two affordable pieces beyond the stock equipment and one of them needs repairs pretty bad (lv 40something body which costs almost as much to repair as I paid for it.)

O.o Do you get repair from NPC? repair for high level gear cost me 5k now thanks to the dumb ore they added for repair before it was 3.5k easy. So it cost me noting too how much i pay for it.

I used an NPC to repair my gear which was cheap enough except the body--I passed on it. What ore is this and do you need anything else to repair? I thought to repair your own stuff you had to buy tools for the type of item you're trying to repair (smithing, tanning, etc.)

Also, I assume you mean it used to cost you 35k, not 3.5k?

If you're using NPC to repair your ***, you're doing it wrong.. All that over charging will add up eventually. I don't like the addition of dark matter.. Carrying the dark matter around takes up no less inventory space then the mats I used to carry on me for repairs.. It's also a lot more expensive.. Nuggets/spetches were cheap as hell to make.

the NPC charged me like 8-10 gil for repairs for most of my stuff. As far as that dark matter crap, I don't know how to actually use it. I suppose I need to buy a smithing instrument, and a tanning instrument and a damn weaving instrument and a damn leather instrument and so on to "job change" to those crafts and repair ***with it? How vexing.

I thought that NPC's also do a repair that is sub-par to a player repair.

I also read that gear still functions fully down to 10% durability, so maybe that could end up costing a bit of money if you repair it every time it hits 50% or something.

So the dark matter is the new thing used to repair gear now instead of other materials? I pulled up a few random pieces of gear and they all have "dark matter" of different grades to repair gear.

If my assumptions are correct then get the grade dark matter that is needed to repair, get a player of the appropriate class to fix the gear instead of an NPC and save lots of money?

In the end if you have the job to repair it, the repair could cost you as little as 100gil for rank 1-10 equipment and up to 5Kish for 40-50 gear with a 100% repair instead of the 75% from NPC's.

Sorry for all the questions but I'm just trying to piece together / confirm the information from wiki, as most of it seems outdated or all over the place.

Oh then you must still be in really low level gear, once you get higher up, that price takes a huge hike, or did anyways.. I think they adjusted it, but I've never had an NPC repair my stuff since I got charged like 20k for a rank 10-20 piece of gear..

And yes, you have to first be on the job that does the repairs, you also need to be of a high enough rank to do it.. You're not going to be able to fix a level 30 piece of gear when you're still rank 1.

NPCs repair to like 75% IIRC.. Each peice of gear is now repaired with dark matter.. Grade one dark matter is for gear >10, grade two is for gear 11-20, etc.

You are absolutely right on this. 14 will inflate, apparently SE didn't learn the hard economic lesson of inflation from 11. Gil sellers do not create inflation, they just move existing money around, dumping too much money into the game is what creates inflation.

But that's fine.. just be ready for it. Remember commodes (items) retain their value during inflation and money (gil) retains value during deflation. So hold items up till the point where square says they are taking money out of the game (as they did in FFXI) and then dump the items and hold the gil.

Sit next to the reapir npc in ui'dah /sh repair can i have it put item to repair on your bazaar. Look at the price for the repair ores then put 1-2k more so the people can make profit. Congreats cost 5k to repair one item if it's 50+

And no i don't mean 35k i mean 3500 for low med range gear. You sit next to the repair npc /say or /sh for repair and put stuff on the bazaar and congreats you fix your stuff for much less then NPC at high levels and it repair it at 100% vs the 75% from Npcs.

Seeing how you only 14 i guess you did not know that ul'dah is the main city and you can just ask people for repair.

I figured that out already, I just would rather be less dependent on other people especially when I've seen people shout for repairs for a while--and crafters for hours on end in FFXI.

Also, this system is just a great big recipe for being ripped off. I mean, someone could just steal your equipment outright and I'm sure its happened. You would hear about it on occasion in FFXI from cases of a "friend" borrowing something like a vermillion cloak and then running off with it, or hiring crafters to make abjurations or something--but statistical law states that the more times something is repeated, the more likely alternate results will manifest--the game is structured on a culture of item servicing swaps, but unlike in the real world, there is no business reputation at stake or the risk of the 'real' penalties that fraud would entail in society. (Se has been wishy-washy about officiating item fraud throughout FFXI's time)Because repair swaps will be so commonplace, the incidence of theft will also multiply. It may not be as big a deal now, but when the gear becomes rarer and more sophisticated it will be.

And Jadi, yeah. Se never does learn do they? They had FFXI for an MMO "dry run" and they had what? a year of this game and they still dont learn. MMO economies manifest gross distortions of real economic theory. I mean, MMOs demonstrate capitalism to the extreme, taking advantage of an incomplete picture. Life has other "gil sinks" that create a homeostasis-like balancing affect that is absent in an MMO world. Furthermore, there is an extreme emphasis placed on output whereas irl most people earn a wage based on whoring their time a way at an hourly rate. earning money in game is based off of luck in procuring materials and craft success and high risk investment so unemployment is in affect unrealistically higher in game too, I presume. Crafters invest a very large percent of their total funds-- that doesnt happen in the real world. People just do not go live on the streets and skip a few meals so they can dump larger loads of money in the stock market. There is no safety net income to cushion your desperately poor virtual barbie while you "try" to skill up a craft, losing very expensive materials--all without being able to sell your inventory back to break even much less at a profit because unlike the real world, SE limits how many "auction listings" or "bazaar" inventory you can have. (But taxes are still there!) On the flip side, RMT is a quasi-socialist agency that only adds wood to the fire. Bottom line, a lot of people come home from work and/or school to play the damn game, not to spend lots of time working a virtual job to support their playtime within playtime. If SE wants to make a 100% player based economy, it should do more to create more realistic variables and parameters as well as offer other income sources more suited to people who don't have a wall-street type risk chaser mentality.

SE should make every sellable item in the game purchasable from an NPC vendor at a fixed rate as to mitigate the abuse of inflation--artificial "competition" even as the world market affects one nations system. That way it would still be a player controlled economy, but it would only be able to get so far out of hand. In real life prices are for the most part limited by the ability of the masses to pay for something. Your virtual barbie crafter wont go hungry if it sits on an over-inflated item for 5 months--a company will go bankrupt if it did.

At one time in FFXI, Haubergeon was pretty much a necessity for certain jobs from lv 59(?) on---and so it was for YEARS. The damn things price inflated and deflated drastically, but it was 7 million at times, other times it was 10 million and 15 million and so on. Given that haubergeon was pretty much a necessity for certain jobs, in a real world economy, the market would recognize this and make it cheaper for a greater net profit. Nobody would own a car if it were not for credit--and even that wouldn't matter if they were 15 million dollars plus gas. Its ridiculous for SE to try to achieve a purely player controlled economy and expect anything with a 21st century 1st or even 2nd world likeness. In algebra they teach you to keep both sides of the equation proportional--that is whatever you do to one side, you have to do the same thing to the other to keep the integrity of the equation intact. Well, if they want to make a totally player based economy, they had better "simulate" real world parameters to govern the players who dictate the economy. Ive rambled enough.

Knowing a bit about this I think it's pretty hard to apply economic theory to video game economies. However the basics principles still apply. (mind you a lot of economists fail on even the basics) Inflation is one thing, it's an increment to the money supply. It's not as a lot of people presume a raise in prices. The raise in price is only an after effect of inflation as more money being injected causes money holds less value so prices in return rise.

RMT can't really do anything that average players can't do, in fact they are sometimes at a disadvantage because large money making opportunities often require extensive questing and organization that’s something only a player run LS can accomplish.. As an example I never see RMT doing Dynamis, but selling currency can yield tremendous profit, at one time probably the most profitable thing an LS could do.. I think players hate RMT more so because it's cheating and they fail to have a firm understanding of economics.. it's viewed as a complex and boring science by most people tho it can be quite fascinating.

When SE removed the RMT accounts and the gil in those accounts they reduced the money supply and caused deflation. I think they wrongly attributed the market correction to "curbing" RMT.. but they fail to realize that RMT still existed in FFXI even during deflating periods you could still buy as much gil as you would like.. so that couldn't have possibly been the cause.

In 14 the Levequests generate far too much currency, and very little leaves the economy as far as I can see. Perhaps when they institute travel that it will include fees that will make the economy more stable. One idea also may be paying gil to restore Anima. This is a difficult task when designing a game though I will admit, it's not a job I would want. lol

Is there a physical level cap?

Yes, same as class caps, Rank 50. Although, not for long because they are removing physical levels.

Awesome when?

Not exactly sure it is "awesome."

The way I think it works out is that physical level essentially becomes an auto-power leveling mechanism for your other jobs.

No, it's really not.. The only two stats that do anything (the only thing you gain from physical levels) is MND for MP pool and VIT for HP pool... Beyond that, they're mostly worthless, and the development team has already admitted this and it is ALSO planned to be remedied. HP pool and MP pool have a cap, based on your class level.. Level a class and your physical level to cap, put it all in MND and VIT, then jump on a class at rank 1, and level it up, you will notice how your HP/MP jumps every rank up.

However, spend a day or two to reset all your points to their basic levels, and you'll find very little difference between your class at physical level 1, as you will at physical level 50 (minus the hp/mp). VIT and MND are the only majorly contributing attributes, the rest is mostly useless/"broken". Your current class isn't being powerleved because you already have rank 50, your HP/MP pool is capped, and the rest do nearly nothing (if they do anything at all, that is still highly disputed, and is the subject of many tests, including my own).

As for when this all takes place, I don't really know, I only know that it is being addressed.

Hm... VIT's and MND's sole properties are HP and MP? They do not also have the same affect on dmg mitigation and white magic potency (if there is/will be such a thing) as they did in FFXI? Or am I just misunderstanding you.

Please tell me this isn't another example of SE's BS about how they were trying to make the game "easier" for FFXI players to adapt to given that was their convenient excuse for keeping the races and general character model designs the same...

No, they do not do much to effect damage resistance or magic potency*.. There are a ton of different tests into what the stats actually do.. At best, they play only a small part (minus HP/MP pool) in anything you do with your character, but from the test results I've seen, and from my own testing results, they do absolutely nothing (again besides HP/MP pool, they obviously do something for those, you can reset all your stats to base and get on a R50 class, put points into either and watch your pools jump up).

From what I've read, the new system they have in mind, is more job specific, no more spending your career on melee and just having to suffer when you jump on a magic class.

*= There is lots of opinions and testing into this, but the results all tell the same story more or less, they're useless pretty much.. Some tests seem to show that they do something, like 5 extra damage per swing per 10-20 STR added, or maybe you'll miss 10% swings less after you add 20-30 DEX, but others tell us it does absolutely nothing.. Either way, it does little, if anything.

In short, put a heavy emphasis on your gear.. They have stats, and those stats are huge.. As a MRD, I can personally vouch for the accuracy part.. I can't recall the numbers off the top of my head, but an axe with 158 ACC has me saying "I'm tired of missing" while an axe with 161 has me saying "I love this damned axe, I feel like a PUG, I never miss!"

I can also vouch for the defense part of armor, We take a lot of hate, unless there's an ARC in the pt, or we're just being careful to not pull hate.. The difference between ~100 and ~130 defense is being pretty much one shotted by Great Buffalo, and having less than half your health taken off.

So THAT'S why my lancer still takes a huge beating and doesn't deal all that much damage even though I thought I've been pumping up its stats... well that and the horrid equipment I'm wearing =D. Those other stats never really seemed to do much for the job, except Vit and Mnd.

I've been playing the DoH and DoL jobs more though than the combat jobs because I've always enjoyed crafting and actually find the crafting system in 14 to be quite fun and interesting. Carpenter and Botanist are the two that I've really been having fun with seeing as how it's a killer combo of farming all the logs I could ever need then turning them into something cool with carpenter.

I haven't given up on my lancer but I think that Archer and Conjurer sound really fun so I'm going to give those a go soon. I can't wait till they get rid of this physical level thing though, it just seems like such a waste after playing for a bit and getting to experience it.

What a horrible move by the developers.

Thanks for the info.

At this point, I really wouldn't put much faith in any job.. THM got nerfed horribly.. I expect much of the same in the coming months.. Play a job only if you like it's style, don't play it for it's current strengths, because they'll likely be gone soon.