FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn - Impressions
For the past 2 weeks the realm of Eorzea has (mostly) been open to the masses to explore. As a continuation of my BETA impressions article in June, I thought I'd post another article detailing my experience and impressions of playing so far as a non-legacy player. For points of comparison, in this article I'll be making a lot of references to WoW and Guild Wars 2 as FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn has clearly drawn heavy influence from them. It does cover a lot of the stuff in the previous article again for the sake of making it easy to understand.
NOTE: I use the term "playthrough" a lot in this character. I don't mean playthrough in the sense that once you've completed the game you start over from the beginning; I'm simply using it as a way of describing the act of leveling your first class on your character from level 1 to 50.
In the Beginning...
Like any MMO the first thing you'll be doing is making your character. Not much has changed here since my previous article; you still have the choice of Hyur (Humans), Elezen (Elves), Lalafell (Gnomish), Miqo'te (Cat People) and Roegadyn (The Burly Ones) and unlike FINAL FANTASY XIV 1.x you aren't limited to one gender depending on your race. Each race also has two "tribes" which have slightly different back stories and offer varying customisation options without looking too different from their counterparts apart from a few minor starting attribute differences. If you're the type of player that wants to min/max stats and only plans on playing one job then you are locked into a very small selection<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> but honestly the stat differences are usually only in the region of +/- 2. This difference is tiny by the time you're at level 50 where you'll often be rocking close to 300 of your primary stat. If you were a BETA player or used the Character Creation Benchmark you can also import any saved character appearances to get going in an instant. Your starting class also affects which of the 3 City States you'll start out in: Gridania (a forest nation, Limsa Lominsa (a seaside stronghold) or Uldah (a desert fortress) - which helps spread everyone out a bit. Beyond this the only real changes since Phase 3 are a couple of minor interface tweaks. After all, why change what isn't broken?
As we're out of the NDA it means I can finally also talk about the soundtrack as well. In my last article I raved about the fantastic re-arrangement of the FINAL FANTASY prelude theme that plays during character creation. If you haven't already had a bash at the Character Creation Benchmark and heard the theme then check it out below (and just wait until you think it's going to loop at 2:00)
The theme starts out very melancholic but becomes increasingly upbeat. For the theme you'll be hearing a lot of during you first 10-15 minutes of creating your character it really captures what the story of A Realm Reborn is ultimately all about: hope. I won't dwell too much on the music here as I'll be making a special Eyes on FINAL FANTASY Soundtracks article covering it soon. All I will say is that I've generally always found the FINAL FANTASY games not scored by Uematsu to be rather hit or miss... missing more often than hitting. However, Masayoshi Soken has done a fantastic job with the score for this game - from the varied location themes to the battle themes, every theme feels fitting to its location while sounding quintessentially FINAL FANTASY.
First Steps...
The main thing that may put any veteran MMORPG player off of FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn sadly comes within the first hour of playing. The game features a rather lengthy opening in-game dialogue scene that isn't skippable. While it does set the mood it can become quite tiresome if you realise that you're not happy with your appearance and wish to change it. Once that's done you're then greeted with a lengthy tutorial where you are given the run around of your starting town to find where all the important NPCs and other points of interests are. This is very helpful to people who may be new to MMORPGs<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> but for veterans it is a bit of a chore if they're used to just being able to jump straight into things. However once you've got that out of the way and netted your first 3 levels<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> you get into the real bread and butter.
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Some of the early help windows might seem obvious, but don't turn this feature off!
It explains a lot of the more complex mechanics later on.
From levels 1-20 you'll be doing a series of standard killing and gathering quests. I start in Gridania<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> which meant I spent a lot of the time culling the local wildlife that was inconveniencing the supposedly harmonious denizens of the forest while investigating strange goings on in the local ruins. Every 5 levels you get a special quest for your class which introduces more of the back story of your class and basically acts as a sort of skill check to gradually introduce you to more complex mechanics such as avoiding bad things on the ground, tanking and healing. Each class has its own individual storyline too which is quite cool as it means even when you hit 50 on your main class there is still new and interesting things to see as you level up your subclasses long after you've finished the main questing content of the game. The rewards for these class quests can be anything from new gear to completely new spells for your class.
On your first playthrough you'll also get a main story quest every 2 to 3 levels which gradually builds up the overarching story. Most of the features of the game, such as LeveQuests (repeatable quests you can complete for rewards), the Duty Finder (FFXIV's version of WoW's Looking For Group Tool), most of the dungeons, your Chocobo<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> etc<ins class="rev_ins">.</ins> are all unlocked through the course of doing the story. For new players this is a fantastic way of gradually introducing the vast array of content to the player and getting them familiar with it.
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Aetheryte crystal teleportation is one of your main means of travel. Provided you have the Gil to fund it.
However, it is a bit of a weird implementation for legacy players. Legacy players start out with everything locked too - so you could have copied over your level 50 in 5 classes from 1.x but in terms of access you're on exactly the same page as someone who's starting the game new. This is both good and bad as it means there's a steady flow of traffic through the lower level content, but it also means higher level content groups become increasingly more difficult to find where Legacy players won't naturally be prioritising progression first and may devote more time to other pursuits, such as crafting, from where they left off in 1.x
While this is something that will fix itself over time it can be a bit of an inconvenience as a lot of side quests don't unlock until specific objectives have been met in the main story. So, you may be stuck with a quest to use the Duty Finder to complete a certain dungeon and you'll have no quests available until after you've fulfiled that one objective. For players who love to level through quests<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> this can be a huge barrier of entry. I am happy to say though that since Phase 3 of the BETA<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> they have added a lot more quests and the flow of sidequests feels a lot more coherent and natural as you head from area to area and you rarely run out of things to do. Please do note the use of the word rarely there. There are a couple of cases where your next main story quest won't be for another 3 levels and you suddenly run out of quests to do. It only happens about three times but it does feel like they developers misjudged the quest flow in places - especially when they said there's enough quests available to level at least 2 classes to 50. That really doesn't feel like the case; quests are generally plentiful<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> but by the time you've hit 50, you've probably exhausted nearly all the quests you'd naturally come across when following the main story. In general though traveling from quest hub to quest hub, exploring and doing the main storyline will be the bulk of what you'll be doing on the road to 50 for the first time.
Digging Deeper...
Questing isn't the only way to level. You have several other options such as: grinding, the hunting log, Leve Quests, FATEs, Guildhests and dungeons. You'll generally be doing a lot of FATEs and grinding when leveling up your characters subclasses.
Grinding is nothing new to MMOs. It basically involves just knuckling down and killing enemies over and over and over. A Realm Reborn does try to alleviate the dullness of this by making it slightly more interesting. If you kill an enemy of the same level of your character or higher, and then kill another enemy of the same level as you or higher, you'll earn a "Chain Bonus." If you've played FINAL FANTASY XII and you remember the chain system from that, whereby if you killed the same type of enemy repeatedly in quick succession you got escalating better drops - then this works along the same line. A timer starts and every time you kill an enemy of the same level or higher within that timer your Chain Bonus stacks<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> crediting you more and more experience for each successive kill until eventually the timer runs out and you start over again.
You also have your Class Hunting Log which has a set of objectives to kill between 1-5 of certain mobs around the world. This is a great way to get your chain bonus going and once you've killed the target amount you get a nice chunk of experience and then a hefty wad of experience for killing all the targets within your level range (each rank of the log is generally accommodated for 10 levels. So rank 1 is based on killing 0-10 mobs, 2 is 10-20 and so on).
Generally each quest hub has a Levemete who offers quests called Leve Quests. Every day you get given an allowance of how many Leve Quests you can complete and you can stockpile up to 100 of these. Leve Quests are basically repeatable quests that have you performing set routines - such as killing X enemies, escorting an NPC from one location to another or even using emotes to reveal Imps disguised as common wildlife. They are generally not very challenging quests but are done on a timer. You can get additional rewards for things such as speed of completion and sometimes there may also be hidden objectives or bounty monsters that spawn while doing the Leve Quests which net additional rewards. Sometimes you may even get lucky and find a treasure chest while doing a Leve Quest. The chests can have anything from a disappointing potion in them to a brand spanking new weapon. Generally on your first class you won't do many of these types of quest though and I'd advise simply stockpiling your allowance and then using it to level subclasses.
The Duty Finder tool acts as you port of entry to the dungeons and raids of Eorzea. You can use it enter any dungeon you've unlocked from any point in the world, removing the need to specifically travel to the dungeon entrance each time. It allows you to queue up as a premade Party of 4 (or 8 in the case of Raids), or in a semi-full group or completely alone where it will search other partial groups and players to find you a match to get you into your chosen dungeon. Like any MMO the amount of time this takes can vary hugely depending on the level of the dungeon and what role you are filling. Tanks and Healers, Healers in particular, will get in fairly quickly regardless<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> but Damage Dealer classes may find themselves waiting quite some time for a group due to Damage Dealers being the most played role. A lot of the dungeons are unlocked through the main story as already discussed but there are a couple of side quests that unlock other dungeons that seem to be slightly more difficult in nature than the main story ones. Either way your reward for venturing into these hidden and dangerous places is often a decent chunk of experience and hopefully some nice new items too.
The Duty Finder also allows you to access Guildhests. Guildhests are sort of skill check content that build up from simple tutorials on how to pull packs of enemies in manageable amounts all the way up to killing elite monsters whilst avoiding death traps on the ground and mitigating the effects of the monsters more devastating abilities. The first time you complete each Guildhest you'll be given a substantial amount of bonus Gil and experience, but subsequent times offer very little in the way of rewards and doing these repeatedly is only really worthwhile if you are a Tank or Healer where you can benefit from shorter queues.
Then we have FATEs - an abbreviation for Full Active Time Events. If you've played Guild Wars 2 then they are very similar in style to Dynamic Events. They're denoted by glowing blue circles on the map with a purple scary face in the middle. FATEs see you do anything from fighting off a Beast Tribe incursion force to gathering relics within a timeframe and all of varying difficulty too. Once the FATE is completed successfully or the time has run out everyone who took part in the FATE is given a Gold, Silver or Bronze rating based on their contribution. Healers gain contribution by healing the tanks and damage dealers, so you aren't at an inherent disadvantage if you're not able to blow something up the second it spawns.
FATEs do get really cool at the higher levels though where you will end up taking on big FINAL FANTASY familiars such as Chimeras, Malboros and Giant Cactuars. The really cool thing is that there are also multi-part FATEs too. The first stage might see you defending a camp from a bandit attack, then at the end of that FATE a second one starts where you accompany the guards on a revenge strike<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> which if successful leads to a third FATE with a mini-boss encounter with the bandit leader himself. Each subsequent FATE awards increasingly more reward than the previous one and for full participation in all parts of the event you can net a hefty amount of experience and gold. Some FATEs even give additional items such as Minions or rare Elixirs for getting the highest possible ranking. There's also very rare FATEs that see you taking on a Behemoth (which unfortunately is extremely buggy right now) and Odin, yes the Odin normally of summon spell fame - complete with his Zantetsuken attack that will kill you instantly!
FATE Training - a process of banding together with a group of friends, or even just people you pick up along the way, is a great way of leveling too. It simply entails forming a party and then running around from FATE to FATE on one map. It's a great way of getting past some duller parts of leveling a subclass and is also a fun way of getting to know more people on your server. Plus it simply looks awesome when there's a big group of players running around on Chocobos to wherever duty beckons them.
Beyond the Level Cap...
A major point of failing in most recent MMOs is the lack of substantial content to do once you've hit max level. I was actually delighted to find out that A Realm Reborn actually seems to have had some thought put into its endgame. As soon as you hit level 50 on your first class and finish the main story, you're immediately offered several new challenges such as raid encounters and a lengthy, challenging quest chain to get a very powerful weapon for your main class that requires not just the slaying of some of Eorzea's most powerful beasts<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> but also crafting rare weapons and materia.
The endgame also has the token dungeon grind, whereby you'll run the high level dungeons a fair few times to amass currency used to purchase more powerful armour for your character. This is pretty much par for the course, but rather than have you re-running more difficult versions of the previous instances, A Realm Reborn has a handful of dungeons that only become available at the level cap and put everything you've learned so far to the test.
The main aspect of A Realm Reborn that separates it from other MMOs is that your character progression doesn't just stop flat once you've hit level 50. While for your main class the bulk of progression does come from obtaining more powerful weapons and armour, it's not the only thing that defines your character.
You can do everything in the game on a single character. Say you get bored of being a Paladin at level 50. You can start leveling up as an Arcanist on that same character, meaning you don't lose any progression, rewards or possessions. As you level up your subclasses more and more specialisations become available to you and you have an increasing repertoire of abilities you can use (with some obvious limitations) across all your classes. For example you might be playing a Bard but lack the means to deal with casters or heavy hitters that caste Haste on themselves. No bother, you also happened to be leveling a Lancer on the side and have access to the Lancer ability that lets you inflict Slow on enemies. So even if your level 17 Pugilist isn't kicking ass in the highest level instances you're still generally get something of use on your character as a whole for putting that extra time in.
During your first playthrough you'll also join one of the three Grand Companies: The Maelstrom, The Immortal Flames and The Order of the Twin Adder. These are basically the factions of WoW - you can only ever be a member of one at a time (though you can switch between them at will) but you earn seals (an alternate currency) for your Grand Company by completing Company Leve Quests, FATEs, daily crafting/gathering missions and eventually through special dungeon quests and an exchange that lets you turn in rare armor and weapons you've picked up in dungeons for more seals. You also get a Grand Company Hunting Log which awards you with Seals instead of Experience for killing, generally, more tougher foes. While ranking up with your Grand Company isn't a necessity, it is something worth investing time into. You can purchase decent armor and weapon pieces for leveling a subclass, as well as temporary crafting and gathering buffs. You can also pick up some vanity items for your Chocobo!
Square Enix have already revealed that they have a major patch planned and are also aiming to add additional major content patches to the game every 3 months or so. If they can keep to this commitment then there should be no end of things to do on your character.
The Journey Itself...
My best piece of advice would be - don't rush it! Eorzea is a truly beautiful place with sprawling forests, stunning vistas and bellowing deserts. The level of attention to detail is astounding. Trees will sway too and fro in the wind. Water actually laps up onto the beach and recedes and gets visibly deeper in colour the further out into the depths it spans. Gusts of wind will cause sand to whip across the deserts. Each zone even has it's own weather too! You could be adventuring in the La Noscea hill lands when the sky gradually gets darker and darker and rain begins to fall. Fog may envelop the forests of Gridania as you're questing. When up in the mountains of Coerthas a brilliant arctic sunshine by day suddenly turns into a violent blizzard at night complete with reduced visbility. Ancient ruins blend seamlessly back into the landscape where nature is reclaiming it's territory. The screen gradually lights up as you emerge from darkened caves. This list could go on and on, and all of it is so well done that the vast majority of the time it feels so natural until you take that step back and realise just how breathtaking everything is.
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The view in the desert becomes blurry and hazy in the heat.
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Visibility lowers as a snowstorm becomes more severe.
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Even the water looks beautiful!
This attention to detail doesn't just stop at the graphics either. As more and more people participate in a FATE<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> the ambient noise of the zone gradually begins to get drained out by the sound of adventurer's cheering and jeering in battle with steel clanging and spells flying. When you enter one of the city states you'll hear the hustle and bustle of the locals chattering away almost as if you were in a busy café.
If you're an old school FINAL FANTASY fan you'll also appreciate the level of detail in the dialogue with NPCs. When offering you quests NPCs will tell you their life story, they will set the stage and in a lot of cases some of the finer detail or downright most humorous dialogue is buried within these seemingly trivial conversations. Even the NPCs that don't require your services to mindlessly murder 5 squirrels often have something interesting to say.
However, there is a really missed opportunity here. A Realm Reborn falls into the trap that a lot of your deeds seem to have no real meaningful impact on the world sometimes. You could become a prodigy within the Archers guild, saving your comrades from certain death and then going on to become a Bard that surpasses Bards of fable - but the NPCs in the Archers Guild will still react and talk to you in the exact same way they would as if it was the first time you set foot in the place. This goes for a lot of things; you might help someone find a long lost friend but as soon as you've turned that quest in they seem to have instantly forgotten about your heartwarming deed.
That being said the level of detail really is a love letter to FINAL FANTASY fans. There's plenty of in jokes and references which are even buried in unsuspecting places such as the configuration options for your chat window. There's even remixes of old battle themes used as part of some of the main story quests.
Each area of Eorzea feels unique and distinct. The forests of the Black Shourd eventually give way to the Thanalan desert on one side whilst turning into a rocky mountain climb that leads to the snowy peaks of Coerthas on the other. From the heights of Upper La Nocsea, some two maps away from Limsa Lominsa, you can still look down and see Limsa Lominsa on the Horizon. As you go through the Central Shroud you'll see the outline of the huts of Gridania. Although you may be travelling from one map to another, the level of detail does a very good job of making the world feel connected.
The main story itself alone is something worthy of the FINAL FANTASY brand name. What starts off as the simple tales of an adventurer helping out in their starting city gradually escalates into something of far vaster proportions, and just when you think you've got it all figured out you get hit by several plot twists and developments before it's climactic end. It allows new players, and 1.x players who never got the chance, to take on versions of some of 1.x's more powerful enemies such as Ifrit and Garuda. Little will you realise on the journey itself that these battles are actually training you for what's to come. I won't spoil anything but the Level 50 story raid quest at the very end of the main story is utterly epic and when you finally land that decisive blow you feel a sense of relief and accomplishment that's more akin to beating an engrossing single player game - except this time you've just done it alongside 7 other people. If you manage to do the final mission at the same time the rest of the group is doing it for the first time, then experience of 8 peoples minds collectively being blown is really something special. However, even after the final credits finish rolling the game still has one more twist up it's sleeve that leaves you clamouring for more.
Has A Few Bumps Along The Way...
For all the praise I've lavished upon it, FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn is by no means perfect. It does have its flaws, and while most of them are relatively minor in nature added together they are quite bothersome. You can't receive friend requests while you're offline - so if your buddy picks up the game while you're at work, he can't actually add you to his friends until you get home. Eventually, after certain main story requirements have been met, you can use your Chocobo mount as a companion that fights alongside you. This is a fantastic feature but carries one very heavy flaw - if you have your Chocobo assisting you, you can't queue up for the Duty Finder. If you happen to be in the queue to get into something using the Duty Finder at the time, summoning your Chocobo to fight with you causes you to get removed from the Duty Finder queue. It's a very simple mistake to make and can be hugely frustrating if you're playing a DPS class and have already waited 20+ minutes.
The interface for the most part is very well made and can generally be moved around to as you see fit. However you will pick up a lot of items along your travels and your inventory itself is severely lacking in functionality to sort it, meaning that you're often just left with a heaping mess of items that after a while becomes a game of micro-management in itself. Thankfully the development team have stated that this is something they want to get fixed.
The Marketplace (Auction House) interface does the job but could do with a few quality of life improvements too - such as being able to filter for specific stats.
The game does also have a few rendering problems. For fights like the Behemoth FATE the game doesn't seem to have a very well optimised rendering process. If there's 200+ people in an area AND the Behemoth, the game doesn't consider rendering the Behemoth that's going around murdering everyone to be a top priority causing him to actually disappear unless you're standing right next to him. Right now this can be avoided by simply turning off spell effects and details of other players but then you just feel like it's you vs a Behemoth surrounded by a bunch of paper dolls. In general performance wise the game runs very well, but as a lot of emphasis is placed on group play out in the world, situations where too many people can cause enemies to not be rendered can become a huge frustration.
There are also some client/server issues too. A lot of the more menacing and devastating attacks are often forecasted by red lines or circles on the ground. If you're inside it when the enemy finishes casting, you'll get hit by whatever ability they were preparing. However sometimes you can be well clear of the marked area by the time they've finished preparing and you'll still get hit by it. It's not an extremely frequent occurrence but it does happen often enough that you will notice it.
Right now there also seems to be a lack of quests to do on subclasses as well. The goal was for there to be enough classes to allow you to get at least 2 classes/jobs to 50 but right now a lot of the quests are gated behind the main story, so while you'll get full access to the quests that lead out of your starting city - you don't actually get access to all the quests in the other areas because a lot of them are gated behind the stories for those starting cities. I'm not sure whether or not this is actually intended and there does currently appear to be several threads on the official forums discussing this topic.
There are also really baffling little restrictions such as not being able to whisper anyone whilst you're in a dungeon, or even receive whispers. You also can't summon any of your vanity minions whilst in dungeons either so the only real time you get to show them off is in the capital cities.
But for the most part most of A Realm Reborn's issues are just general quality of life ones. There's nothing as of yet that's particularly game breaking or causing of massive inconveniences (well, current server capacity issues aside) which is really something for an MMO launch.
A Realm Reborn
The proof really is in the pudding with this game. It is an absolute joy to play and even the more dull elements of MMOs such as gathering are at least made interesting by treating these pursuits as separate classes with their own progression systems. Eorzea feels like a living and breathing world and even as someone who hadn't played 1.x I was sucked into it and found myself growing attached to its motley crew of heroes and villains alike. For an Asian made MMO this game has a distinctly Western feel to it. If the grind of early FINAL FANTASY XI was more up your street then this probably won't be the game for you - this is mechanically World of Warcraft but given the loving touch of a development team that clearly cares passionately for the FINAL FANTASY brand. As an MMO it's not particularly revolutionary in any way and is largely cookie cutter - but what it offers is so polished and so engrossing that you'll be coming back time and again.
Just remember, it is an MMO, you are playing with other people. A little kindness goes a long way - if you see someone who's bit off more than they can chew, help them out. Thank those who help you. Chuck a Raise to someone who's died. FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn has all the mechanics of an epic adventure but it really is the people who are playing it that make the whole experience come together.
Some people like to hold off and wait until an MMO has had a few patches before they jump into it. However if you are even remotely interested in FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn<ins class="rev_ins">,</ins> I'd recommend jumping into it as soon as you can, experience everything for the first time along with other people experiencing it for the first time and share in that rare sense of collective joy and amazement as you adventure through a world that hasn't been datamined to the depths of abyss and back before it even hit store shelves.
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Originally Posted by Cloudane
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