Square Enix sure is working hard to rejuvenate Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn in the eyes of fans. After a promising showing at E3 this year and plenty of revamped content for the upcoming rebirth, Square says that over one million people have registered for the MMO’s beta.
The August 27th launch date is right around the corner, and these beta numbers could mean that the desired trust has been regained after the original launch failure in 2010. “In the 25-year history of the Final Fantasy series, there hasn’t been a Final Fantasy that has failed. We can’t — we just can’t — let this game end in failure,” game director Naoki Yoshida said last year in an interview with Eurogamer.
If you’d like to find out more about the FFXIV beta and our impressions so far, check FFXIV Gil Learn more content and services.
Been playing the beta since the start of phase 2. I didn’t play the original but have mostly enjoyed my time with this sequel. However, I must say that in my opinion, they need to make some adjustments to the battle system and to the difficulty of some of the solo instanced quests, else they may find themselves hard-pressed to attract and retain casual players, or people who are just mmo players in general and not Legacy players or FF fans.
I really haven’t had many issues except for one solo quest in general; however, the sheer amount of call for changes to the battle system and instanced quests in the testing forum says a lot. No, all of those people aren’t right, and the forums are not necessarily reliable. Yet when you have that many people saying the same thing about something, it stands to reason that it should be looked into. Just look at the number of suggestions, ideas, and (of course) complaints under the Battle System feedback if you don’t believe me.
Don’t take this as a rant, but the GCD is simply too long and should be dropped by about half a second. Simply because your skills take longer to recharge does NOT mean that the game requires more “skill” or “tactics.” Sorry, but it just doesn’t. Positioning as a melee character is an issue to me because the overly-long GCD means that by the time your skills are ready again, your foe has changed positions also, negating much of your advantage from flanking or what have you.
At the moment this is an awesome, beautiful game, but I fear it may be mostly designed for Legacy players, fans, and the Eastern audience, meaning there will be cultural differences that may not take hold here. The more casual players could very easily be turned off by the solo quest difficulty and “slow” combat, and unfortunately if you don’t have any casual players, your game doesn’t last very long. You don’t really think that WoW and Guild Wars were entirely made up of dedicated raiders and elite players, do you?