Ascule's Adventures: Pugilist

After beta 4, beta 5 turned out to be a nice huge fiasco as well, with no less than 4 downtimes and tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people not being able to login to their servers.

What's even funnier is that SE appears to have no clue how to fix the problem based on how they're running and trying things randomly... I think the main differences between how FFXIV: EEA on Saturday and Sunday is that on Saturday, everyone could login but not do any instances, while on Sunday, only a select few could login, but everyone on could do instances. This leads to the hilarious antics of some people hitting level 40, while others spend 18 hours on the login screen!

Here's the typical FFXIV early access player's experience (courtesy of Vanh!): Hitler's FFXIV Early Access experience

So here's what we do know about FFXIV's early access:
1. The "queue" is useless. 90% of the time there is no queue and it outright rejects you
2. If you do get in the queue, you have a 90% chance of being kicked out anyway after waiting for a few seconds
3. While the NA/EU servers have been popping up and down like a beginner scuba diver, the JP servers have been rock solid
4. The only other thing that was kinda productive is that SE has been rebooting the NA/EU servers once in a while, which *sometimes* lets other people login to the server. They seem to have appeared to have given up doing the reboot thing as of today
5. Yoshi-P seems to be out of ideas and has issued an apology at http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/68427 In his apology, he re-iterates that they have decided to implement login restrictions for the time being due to the extremely heavy load being placed upon the servers. Basically... they have no idea what to do next xD

I took a quick look and popped in on one of the JP servers (Hades to be exact) to see what it was like over there. No problems creating a character, logging in and looking around. In fact, I had to search Limsa for a while after getting out of my initial cutscenes before I started to see people running around. They have maybe 1/20 the number of people on Hyperion's area running around and absolutely no shouts. And no, this was not the middle of the night. It was around 11am Japan time xD In fact, if I saw a server like this during any MMO launch, I'd worry that the game would be a failure from how few people there were during the launch period.

The side effect of all these login problems is that now people are not logging off when they do RL stuff. Instead, they remain AFK in the inn, or even in town. This leads to what I'm now calling the "Sword Art Online" syndrome. Unlike in SAO where players are trapped in the game, in FFXIV: SAO, people willingly stay in game 24x7!

Given the lack of communication all day today, and with launch less than 24 hours away, I'm pretty confident that this problem will go on for at least a few more weeks. Unlike during beta 4, they did not add more servers. Nor have they announced any more "potential fixes" for the login problem. The only thing Yoshi-P has said that there will be "severe login restrictions" and he hasn't said for how long. I'm expecting that to be as long as it takes for people to either give up on the game for the immediate future, or move to JP servers. They announced that server transfers will be coming in September... I wonder if they'll actually let people into the JP servers? That would be interesting. My current impression is that not only did they not expect this sort of response to FFXIV, but also they did not have any contingency plans beyond opening the initial 25 servers. They also appear to not have a way for the duty finder to scale further, hence the "severe login restrictions".

I *did* manage to get some gameplay in so... I managed to make it to GLA32, and as part of that, unlocked Paladin. I also managed to get my chocobo companion! (Level 30+ quest that you can pick up from Camp Tranquil). I'll probably do another post later this week about my impressions about general gameplay and compare it to other MMOs now that I've gotten quite a bit more experience under my belt. This would cover the gameplay and leveling experience, and not the endgame experience (which IMO determines the long-term health of any MMO)

Anyway, here are some pics!

Mulling around waiting for a party

The PGL story is quite amusing. I highly recommend it

Another CS of speeches

Flashy flashy special effects!

Joining Maelstorm (again)! Mainly due to the uniform color and sharp Chocobo barding. Supposedly the armor for each GC has a different emphasis as well, but I mainly don't like the yellow/blue of the other two xD

Yay my chocobo! Lalafells get a large chicken xD

A semi-good looking armor set for GLA. Too bad I only used this for about 45 minutes D:

This was cute. Did a DF TTR where there were two identically dressed mages (ACN & THM) with the same last name behaving like twins

Ramuh! (This was an in-game screenshot, not any concept art or pre-rendered or anything)

I think our lunch salad is talking :o

Just for fun, I've also made a few other characters... probably going to level them from 1-15 just to see the main stories of the other two cities. This is my ARC Miqo'te

Short-haired version of Ascy on Hades. Interestingly, even a new character has that "tattoo" in the upper back. I thought it was only for characters who were created during the 1.0 period. I guess it's all 1.0 accounts?

Ya! Gladiators vs. everyone else! (The GLA story is kinda cute, but is a classic FF-type story. Not as funny as the PGL or THM stories)

Victory poses!

Smashing rocks, just like in prison. Is Yoshi-P trying to tell us something?

Zurar's dream lifestyle!

Ick... that's bloated!

That's it for now! Side note, if you want to play on a JP server (since those are literally up 24x7, no problems logging in and stuff), I'm on Hades!

FINAL FANTASY is a registered trademark of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.

PLEASE CANCEL YOUR PRE-ORDER AND QUIT SO THE REST OF US CAN PLAY

3012, 1017, 90000. These are the numbers that I think almost everyone ran into during this weekend. The unlucky among us (Ark, Val) were locked out with the 3012 (character still logged in) error and weren't able to play for most of Sunday. It also looks like they also severely underestimated the number of people who would want to play, closing Hyperion (and Excalibur) and I think all the original launch servers down to new players for most of Saturday and all of Sunday while opening new servers in both Japan and NA/EU datacenters. Unfortunately, this locked out a lot of people, including all our "Cro*" friends and a few others (where are you Wutangwarrior!?). Hopefully they will be able to join in next weekend. Worst case... well, if you really want to play, in theory server-to-server transfers are coming 2-3 weeks after launch, though whether they'll allow transfers to Hyperion is questionable :(

For a good portion of us however, this weekend was pretty fun and productive! We got the linkshells established (AlphaPrime, Impact and CrossingTheRubicon -- the official FC linkshell) and thanks to Zurar's 1.0 leveled character, we got the CTR Free Company started too. I think most of us played too much this weekend. I definitely did, hitting about 60 hours played out of the 72 hours (well, 76 after the downtime and extension) over the weekend, taking only about 12 hours for sleep x.x

Final score was:

- GLA 4-20

- PGL 11-20

- CNJ 1-20

- MRD 6-18

- LNC 4-15

- ACN, ARC, THM 1-15

I had originally only intended to take GLA to 20, CNJ to 15 to help people with dungeons, and to unlock all jobs... then my OCD kicked in and I wanted to do all the quests in the cities to get rid of those icons... then finish all the hunt logs together with Zu... then the class quests... and before I knew it... >.> This game is badly addictive.

So here's the new (final) Ascy... at least until the barber shop is released!

And some eye candy! Though ask Zu about the effect a harness has on a Hyur female >.>

This time I actually *played* all class from 1-15+ instead of using the fast-forward from previous betas, so I got a decent impression on each class. The scary part is that I didn't find a class I didn't like and could easily see myself playing all of them in any situation. Compare this to other MMOs where I'd find things I just didn't enjoy... like in FFXI I couldn't stand BLM or MNK, or in SWTOR where I didn't like the Jedi Consular/Sith Inquisitor. Here are my fast impressions:

- Gladiator(GLA) -- A little underpowered on the damage and hate side of things compared to MRD. That shield size makes a big difference in damage mitigation. Tower shields just don't have a high enough block rate.

- Pugilist (PGL) -- Solid DD which has an emphasis on speed and movement. When playing PGL, you have to really move between the flank and rear of a mob to get full effect of your combos. Unfortunately, this means you can't be fully effective when solo. There also seems to be a lack of stun and ranged attack moves until high levels.

- Marauder (MRD) -- A little overpowered with the AoE damage, ability to absorb HP and high HP pool. Currently I still like playing MRD over GLA for tanking, especially thanks to the instant stun (though stunning has become less relevant with the addition of indicators for nearly every big boss move) and the ability to absorb HP with damage done (Bloodbath). Does a decent amount of damage too, matching regular DDs at this low level.

- Lancer (LNC) -- While LNC has some positional abilities, you can still do a solid amount of damage straight up against the mob. Add in an instant stun, ranged attack and this becomes a solid DD for any situation.

- Archer (ARC) -- Very fun job with lots of instant attack reaction abilities. Since it's a ranged job, position doesn't matter, and Shadowbind on a fast recast makes it possible, even easy to kite any melee mob around. My only disappointment is that the ARC limit break is the healing one and not the damage one.

- Conjurer (CNJ) -- Pretty boring class for soloing. Cure gives a lot of survivability for you to just nuke and outlast the mob. Surprisingly straightforward in a dungeon if you're focusing on healing. Can almost do it purely by watching the HP bars. At least with Aero you can easily toss on some DOTs on mobs, and in the beginner dungeons, you can get some nuking in.

- Thaumaturge (THM) -- I was surprised to like this class. I think the MP mechanic between Fire & Ice and switching modes made this a lot more interesting compared to BLM in FFXI. The no-recast Sleep, and heavy effect of Blizzard really makes it easy to handle large groups of mobs too

- Arcanist (ACN) -- Weird DOT focused job. In some ways, it can fill nearly all roles - some basic healing, using Carby as a tank, or a decent amount of damage. Need to use it properly though, putting all DOTs as possible on a mob and keeping the rotation up. Ruin just isn't a good direct damage spell. Big annoyance is when Carby goes running off by itself or pushing mobs around, screwing tanks/DDs up.

Yay, weapons!

When I was playing through each class quest, I thought it was pretty impressive how the level 15 quest really focused on teaching the player the specific roles and things you could do. They changed the class quests slightly between beta 3 & 4 and you pretty much have to play your class properly in order to win (at least if you do it at level 15).

For example, for ARC & THM, when faced with multiple mobs, you have to Shadowbind/Sleep them in order to not get overwhelmed. CNJ is given a group of NPCs to heal, ACN has to not only send Carby to tank, but also heal the NPCs around you. It's almost like teaching potential party roles. Of course, Guildheists do this as well with other players, but everyone knows that sometimes parties don't play properly in these.

What else... some nice changes between beta 3 & 4, including:

- Auto-sort is in the system! Though it's not what you think. Auto-sort in XIV puts items into different tabs for you. For example, crafting items automatically go into the 4th slot

- Voice acting is in the game for some cutscenes. Even better, you can change the language you listen to. What they say and the subtitles do not always match though, accounting for cultural differences. And now you can learn how to pronounce some names!

- The PS3 fullscreen menu is available on Windows now. However, I've gotten used to the mini-menu now xD

- You can share hotbars/crossbars between jobs/classes. This is nice so that I can keep the hotbar with all my signs around no matter what class I'm on. There's also supposedly an option to allow you to automatically change crossbars when you go between combat and passive mode, though I didn't play around with this yet.

- The opening movie added some more scenes, and voiceover too, so watch it again if you ignored it when you first started the beta!

- When you speak, your mouth moves as well. This applies not only to /say, but anytime you say something party or linkshell. Amusingly, your mouth still moves if you talk when dead xD

Anyway, here's what you really came for... the picture dump!