Okay i played it for a couple more days to give a more accurate feel of the game and my opinion still stands. This game will have a hard time surviving outside of the diehard Square Enix fanboys. I still hold true to my opinion that this game is whack. Theres alot of things that would have been okay in Alpha but is unacceptable in Open Beta.
Do note that before anyone says 'Its just beta!'. Please don't. At this current point in time, unless they pull a miracle, chances are what you see is what you get. This is the same for any beta at this stage. Knowing how SE works for FFXI i really really doubt anything is going to change dramatically before release date, and if it isn't then its going to lose a ton of customers. Many are already canceling their pre-orders.
Also alot of the things i say has nothing to do with content in the following section...things like this are what people normally expect to be a non-issue when starting in an MMO.
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-Huge Mouse Lag.
This is horrible, there is absolutely no excuse for this on a PC game at this day and age. The fact that they state that they do not care about this is a real devastating move against themselves. We were willing to be forgiving for FFXI's bad system due to it being Console first, but this is not the case.
Sure you can play with keyboard only, but despite any argument people may have to say, its still extremely stupid regardless that there is no real mouse support and it behaving this badly. Why does a third party patch work better than the one SE gave us yet again? (The guy who made windower had a patch made for mouse lag).
- Menu Lag/Cumbersomeness -
It takes me 5+ seconds to TRADE or CRAFT. Are you serious? The game overall lags, and its not because of my computer. Checking for durability is bad lag, assigning abilities is bad lag, buying stuff is lag, the MAP is lag. This is unacceptable in this phase of beta.
Also, assigning keys is cumbersome. You have to manually delete a key you want assigned to something if its already assigned elsewhere. The hell?
Also there are way too many times that i have to press buttons to do things. I barely played WoW but the times i went on a friend's account to mess around, it was extremely easy to press M (lagless) to view map, and then also press ESC ONCE. There are many other instances that i feel shouldn't be so hard, as in checking durability, trading the exact number of things needed, equiping items and abilities. Way too many button presses, and the lag only makes it worse.
Also why do i have to go into menus to invite anyone in this day and age? What happened to right clicking someone and then inviting them? Why doesn't right click do anything half the time? You shouldn't have to go through the menu this often.
WoW does it with I with Item bag, or some other hotkey to bring up your equpiment, and other things. Theres also no way to compare items when shopping. What the hell?
- Unfriendly Targeting System -
You press tab to cycle through everything, its extremely unfriendly. This is the only way outside of pressing unintuitive F Keys to target things you want. Even then the F Keys (Yourself, the Party, Nearest NPC/PC/anything in front of you) are cumbersome. Many times my party-mates would die because of this, bad targeting.
They got this crap right in FFXI, why is it failing here? No, seriously why?
- Party Map System -
You cannot find your party when you press M to bring up your big map. Also the minimap has Party Dots that are similar to NPC dots. They aren't totally indistinguishable but it should have been much more obvious like in FFXI. Half the time me and my partymates would have so much trouble finding one another, and it can be so easy to lose them when doing adventures together.
Also no Markers...
- Fatigue -
Haven't experienced this myself yet since i rarely log on, but the fact that its here, is already dumb. This is usually fine if the MMO is free but its not. Rested EXP system in WoW is better if they were going to implement any type of fatigue for a PAY game.
- Horrible Patching Service -
The first couple days i let this slide, it happens. But even now the patching system is extremely slow, and i rely on torrents or my friends sending them over to me manually. This is inexcusable.
- Bad Chat Channels -
You cannot create new ones apparently. This is bad...=/ I don't know if its just me though, but when i click on the battle tab, then press ESC to get rid of my chatting bar, it always goes back to General....
That and sometimes EXP gained doesn't show. Also, wheres the Trade Channels? Or things like that? What happened here?
- Battle Nitpicks -
There is no actual timer for how long a buff lasts. There is no way to cancel a spell as easily as in FFXI so i end up casting a spell then wasting it, or staying in place and getting uppercutted by a mole.
Targeting in this game is a bitch...theres also seemingly no /assist macro option. Labeling monsters and yourself is cumbersome and not easily done like in WoW. Some of the labels don't even last that long. So far the only way to eat food is to use it from your bag on the bottom right corner of the screen...kinda weird.
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Basically, its really bad for Open Beta. Its like a chance to show off your game and get people hyped, but its failing miserably. There are ton of other things that are bad that is more subjective like food again not telling you whats up, lack of recipes to guide you in crafting, having to look up so many things online yet AGAIN, or the lack of guildleves after a while since Quest Grinding is the current norm, traditional grinding would be a huge no-no to many.
Too Long Didn't Read Part here
I could go on and on here, all been said before elsewhere. ~ Like with many others..I want to like/love the game, but SE needs to improve the game drastically and I just don't see it happening anytime soon, and even on the off chance it becomes playable in say 6+months time...other bigger MMOs are looming such as Star Wars: Old Republic which honestly right now, is looking like a much better bet to succeed. Plus you have WoW expansion and Diablo 3.. (yeah its not an MMO but it will be a big release) and those are just a small sample of the stuff coming out. FFXIV is essentially entering a market in which right now....is unforgiving of failure, and currently it reeks of it.
I am only going to play the first month and see how it goes because my friend helped pay for a large part of the pre-order. If it still sucks...i don't know man, i might just quit right there.