Final Fantasy XIV: Week 1 - Player's Perspective

Like Final Fantasy XI, players can switch between a variety of different classes, each possessing their own unique skills and attributes. Gladiator is your basic tank job, allowing players to equip a sword and shield, as well as abilities to divert enemies' attention from fellow teammates by increasing one's enmity (aggro). Pugilists are hand-to-hand fighters who are all about dealing damage hard and fast. You also have the standard magic jobs in the form of Thaumaturge (Black Mage) and Conjurer (White Mage), which focus on offensive and healing magic, respectively. There are also a host of outside-battle classes tasked in gathering materials, including Fisherman, Miner, Blacksmith, and so on.

What sets FFXIV apart is that now players can instantly switch between these jobs at any given time. To do so, all one has to do is equip a class-specific weapon, which results in an instant change (equipping a spear, for example, switches to Lancer, swapping the spear for a fishing pole changes you into a Fisherman, etc). Switching classes also swaps the character's level to the last earned level of each job, not to mention its skills and abilities. While the levels may not carry over, certain skills can be combined into one job, such as equipping a Monk's evasive boost into a Gladiator's ability set.

In theory, this ability to instantly switch jobs cuts down on much of the back-tracking required in other MMOs, and also encourages players to level up each class simultaneously to yield the shared results (and the game no longer punishes players sticking to one role with the much maligned job fatigue mechanic, which was thankfully removed post-patch). It's unfortunate, then, that the game does not save equipment configurations for each job, as technically all you're doing is changing your weapon in the equipment screen. Outside of some complicated macros, there's no way to save specific equipment configurations that would bring out the best of each class, which requires going over each piece of equipment in the still-cluttered inventory screen every single time. You aren't even allowed so much as to auto-equip bait when switching to a fishing lure, which greatly hampers what should have been a quick and easy method to swap around jobs.

On the upside, the battle system itself has received significant improvements, even if they basically boil down to copying FFXI's dated-yet-functional mechanics. Players who engage against an enemy will automatically attack foes, never deviating from continuous attacks unless ordered to do so. The extra abilities are known as Weapon Skills, which require a set amount of TP (which accumulates with each successful strike). Performing a weapon skill puts that ability in a timed cooldown (versus the arbitrary stamina gauge that plagued the launch game), requiring some strategic thinking beyond merely spamming each ability when made available. It's a familiar mechanic for those coming from Square's first massively multiplayer effort, but an effective one nonetheless (it's too bad current lag issues tend to display how much or how little damage a weaponskill had on an enemy before your character actually performs the animation).

But once again, a simplistic feature is encumbered by a cumbersome mechanic. In the case of battles, players cannot simply double click (or double-press, for gamepad users) an enemy to target and attack it, as is typically the universal standard for MMOs. Instead, one extra requirement requires players to push a separate key/button to unsheathe their weapon, then target and attack the enemy, thus resulting in three different commands instead of two. While it is possible to shorten this process by targeting an enemy and selecting a weaponskill as the opening attack, it's an unnecessary process that can prove awkward to longtime MMO players used to attacking the “old fashioned” way.

Lastly, some attention must be given to Final Fantasy XIV's current technical performance. The good news is that the game has improved significantly from its rocky beginnings, including the ability to switch to a hardware mouse (which should be checked by default, as it's unlikely that anyone would prefer the painfully slow and unwieldy software mouse). Other issues such as screen tearing and slowdown have also been addressed with recent patches, resulting in a smoother and ultimately playable presentation.

The bad news is that it's still a far cry from meeting the performance standards of other PC games. Despite possessing visuals that are moderately better than the average MMO, the game's poor optimization will tax even the heftiest of PC rigs, forcing players to tinker with several settings just to get a stable framerate (FOV, in particular, causes some serious slowdown). Even worse, the ever-dreaded “Alt Tab Error”, which results in an instant crash when trying to minimize the game (or even when an external program is running in the background), has yet to be addressed. Even when following several online tips, including programs that run the game in a borderless window, these random crashes can still occur at any time, and will completely lock out players from quests should they crash in the middle of an active objective. Even during those instances where the game is performing adequately, there are still other graphical hitches like characters floating a foot off the ground or background textures being drawn in, which only support Yoshida's admittance that the Crystal Tools engine was a poor choice for an MMO (and also why the game will feature a brand new engine come 2.0).

Make no mistake, Square has so far kept its promise about improving the core game; with every tweak and addition, the game improves substantially from its rocky start, though there is still a great deal of rubble that needs to be chiseled before any light can shine through. It seems players who stuck with the game during its troubled launch are being rewarded the most, with new dungeons and battles (which feature popular FF icons such as Ifrit and the Moogles, in addition to obtainable gear from both) awaiting high-level players. It's a shame, then, that there wasn't enough work put forth to help ease newbies into the game, even if there is a metaphorical “Under Construction” sign that is present throughout the entire game. And with so many online guides that are out-of-date due to the rampant changes that occur with each and every patch, it's more important than ever to establish a community with fellow adventurers who continue to brave the troubled waters on this leaky vessel of a game.

Tune in next week, where I'll take a look at some of the party-based features to determine if things really are more fun when they are done with a group.