Is it worth it?

I have been a fan of early Final Fantasy games but stopped playing when the PS2 games were released, not because I didn't want to, at that time my priorities where other and I had zero time for gaming. 

Now I have time and money to pay for a subscription but is it worth it? I love GW2's system of B2P and no subscription at all but I keep seeing that FFXIV looks awesome and I just wonder if I should give it a try, obviously I don't want to spend $30 in a game that I won't play hehe

I tried getting into beta but I didn't receive an invite :(

Open Beta is coming up very soon.  My suggestion would be to wait for that to come around, play it for yourself and make the decision based of what YOU enjoy and find fun.

I'm enjoying some aspects of the game (crafting isn't click make 20 and watch tv) but other parts are a pain (2.5s global cooldown!?!?!?).  Maybe be specific and let us know what parts of games you really enjoy when playing MMO's and we can tell you about those parts in FFXIV....

But really I'd suggest just playing it yourself in the Open Beta....

Yeah, try open beta. There's a lot to like here but always try before you buy if you can. The 2.5 GCD is a bit of a pain at the start but as I played more, got more skills to combo together, cooldowns to manage, bad things on the ground to stay out of and threat to manage in groups I feel like it's not that bad. Also a lot of gear will start to have stats to reduce the GCD so I feel like it's there to help players who are straight up new to mmos ease on into things. The game has a very deliberate and very noticeable difficulty curve which at the onset seems to greatly favor new players. I'm cool with that because it does seem like they slowly start to take the training wheels off as you progress.

That is a highly subjective question, hard to answer objectively!  I think you will have to play it to decide. I love it, and think it is worth it, but that is because it satisfies my love of pve and raids.  People play for so many different reasons, it is difficult to answer!

Hope you get into beta to give it a try:)

I love the GCD actually. I like the pacing of combat and the management of resources so far.

I think Teleporting is a bit to cheap and chocobos and Airships are to expensive for what you get. Both should be very cheap and easy to use even for broke players.

I don't think I am a fan of having only a few classes / professions per city, I would rather have them all available at each city. Maybe make the race determine the city? No idea, but i wasn't warm and fuzzy about having to run all over the world to pick up Weaver as a Conjurer. It was a temporary inconvenience, but one I didnt feel added anything to the game. Perhaps having novice type trainers (primary slot item vendors) in each city and expert + trainers only at one city?

I am hooked on this game and I have the shakes waiting until the next beta test!

FFIV isn't like Rift or GW2 so it's like comparing apples and oranges. I love the game and the play style. As others have said, wait and play in open beta and see if you like it. I love the cutscenes, the graphics, play style and so much more about the game. They've really changed and improved everything over the 1.0 release. I played 1.0 for along time but there never was improvement. With 2.0 I can see it going far. I'm hooked. :) I'll also play GW2 as it is relaxing for me. FFIV is relaxing in a different way, gotta think and make choices that keep me engaged in the story, which is awesome so far, and the over all gaming experience. Kittara

Ktzala: As everyone said, try before you buy during open beta!

I would argue that subscription based MMORPGs tend to be more enjoyable, but that's a pointless claim as it all comes down to player opinion.

I expected a lot more out of GW2, for example. Unfortunately, I was so disappointed with the game's direction after launch (mostly with PVE

endgame, itemization, & WvW balance), that I decided to look to greener pastures for a more enjoyable MMO experience. But for everyone like

me, there's another player who absolutely loves everything GW2 has to offer! It's all so very subjective. :D

Regardless, I always try to be remain objective with my recommendations. While I was one of the very few who enjoyed FFXIV 1.0, I couldn't,

in good conscience, recommended it to anyone. With FFXIV: ARR, however, I would not hesitate to recommend it to my friends, Final Fantasy fans, 

or any MMORPG fans for that matter, whom have had their curiosity piqued by the media and player feedback currently available. As with anything

though, don't waste your money! You can try it for free during open beta and come to your own conclusion about the game. ^_^

Sandolphan: I found the opposite in terms of travel costs.

• Teleports have ranged anywhere from 90-500~ish gil for me, depending on the distance (which adds up quickly, but seems a fair gil sink to me).
• Aethernet teleports within cities are free (which is great, as I believe inner-city travel should not be a burden).
• Chocobo Porters were around 10gil when I used them a couple weekends ago (please, correct me if I'm wrong with this one).
• Airship rides are 100gil.
• Personal Chocobos are free to summon for travel purposes (after the initial investment of 1k seals to unlock them).
• Ferry Skippers are free (though I'm not sure if these npc's will remain after launch, and if they will, whether or not they will remain free).
• Ferry rides, like the one from Thanalan to La Noscea, are disabled atm (afaik). So I don't know the cost there. 55,000gil (thanks Saren!).

I definitely agree with your point about starting cities though. It's inconvenient early on, to say the least, if you want to play with friends who

all start in different cities (or even just to try all the classes). I also agree with the pacing of combat. With 14 skills on my bars when I was around

the mid 20's, on top of paying attention to mob abilities, adds, positioning, reactive abilities, threat management (for all classes/jobs), interrupt

windows, both party and non-party health bars, and Limit Break timing when in parties, the GCD felt pretty much non-existent (especially with

auto-attacks filling in the tiny gaps between skill use). I did notice my MP & TP draining though. And I certainly noticed the extended GCD when

switching gear sets out of combat (that's the worst offender to me now...especially when trying to switch to CNJ to save somebody!). I would

much rather it just triggered the normal 2.5 second GCD upon switching. /hnnngh T_T

Hm.  That's interesting to know about the GCD, Gib.  Its painfully apparent during the low levels, enough that its a little worrisome about later levels.  That might account for a lot of the negative feedback that I've been reading on their forums.  I know that Yoshi has said they're going to work on the Battle system after the game releases, but I don't recall there being any specifics, just mostly that it wasn't exactly where they wanted it right now.

Honestly, not trying to be a fangirl here, but I am SO tired of people trying to base their entire play experience off the first 15 levels, ESPECIALLY without reading up on what's coming down the pipe. All the threads about slow combat? Go play Tera. You want to play with your friends from lvl 1? Roll in the same city or figure it out. If they actually paid attention, they'd see you are doing almost everything solo till your first dungeon run anyway. Shane was upset about it at first, but then he realized he needs to roll at least one of the ul'dah classes anyway for future use (Im starting in Ul'dah for rp reasons). People arent looking ahead at all the classes they need to level. They're treating it like a one class game. It's not. 

I spend a lot of time on the forums when the beta isn't up, trying to glean information, and it's always the same sob story about how they want WoW with a FF skin, or GW2 with a FF skin. 

The absolute BEST part about FFXIV is that it doesn't -feel- like other mmos! It feels like a FF you play with other people! It's amazing, for that. 

I'm not giving the game 5 stars. I think they have a couple issues to work on yet, but it's light years from where it was when it launched in 2010. I think people just need to stop and realize this is something different. It has its own learning curve, but once you get past that, you're golden :)

@Gibsauce

Ferry rides between Limsa are not disabled ;P

For the beta its 55,000 gil. Connor made that mistake heheheh

@Larela

Basically telling people to shut up and deal with it isn't a great way to start (restart?) a mmo...especially one that is sub based.  All those issues that you shrugged off are legitimate concerns for other people.  While they may not seem important to you those problems might keep others from playing.  You might not care or be of the mindset that it's great they aren't playing but when the game goes downhill...goes f2p because not enough are playing...well....the tune of the song usually changes.

I based my play experience off the first 20 or so levels (because that's all I've played so far...weird to do that huh?!?!?) and I still found the combat slow, the GCD a pain, having to start in different cities than my friends an annoyance (should be based on race not class but oh well)...while I realize eventually you have to go to those cities to roll another class on top of your starter, it's still an issue for some people.

However I found the crafting and gathering to be enjoyable and not tedious, i'm looking forward to working the market with crafted goods, the retainer and basically only ever "having" to have one toon in the entire game...if I so chose. 

Because you don't agree with their complaints/issues with the game doesn't invalidate them.

Perhaps you both could agree to disagree? Both of you have valid points. 

That said, this far down the track I very much doubt the core mechanics of the game will change. You gotta decide whether it annoys you so much you simply will not play it, or suck it up and figure out how to get the best out of the things you like about the game, and work around the things that annoy you. The starting cities is a big deal initially, simply because people want to play with friends, and most of the time, they will be playing different classes. We have fed back about that since 1.0 alpha, but for some reason SE refuses to change it without really saying why....

Personally, I am focusing on the positives and have decided this is the primary MMO for me.  I have already figured out the run from Gridania to Ul'dah so I can play with my partner, as I am a CNJ and he is a GLD. Once I do it the first time, I can teleport up til I get my airship pass. That will also give me access to the weaver's guild. Problem solved. As for the GCD, until they change it you have no choice other than to live with it.  I decided to stack spell speed to try to lessen it a little but other than that you cannot do much. 

if I like how the game is during open beta. i'm most definitely going to invest my subscription money into this game. because it looks way better then it's predecessor.  

Thank you! I will wait until open beta to decide ^_^

Saren: $55k?! Bwahaha, that's evil. XD

Sekkerhund: Ya, it's certainly not my favorite combat system (Tera, and to a lesser extent Dragon Nest, had the most enjoyable combat systems for me), but I certainly don't think it's anywhere near as slow, or boring as people make it out to be. Then again, it's all subjective. Aside from ability and mechanics balancing, I would be fine with them leaving it exactly how it is now. I think it fits the game well, and more importantly, it's still a lot of fun. However (again), for everyone like me, there are players like Abusabus who simply don't like it. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's no game that will please everyone. There's always negative feedback about something (especially during betas as feedback is requested, whether positive or negative)! It all comes back to our own opinions of the game(s) though. Nobody is forcing us to play these games (or pay for them). Just gotta find what you like and enjoy it for as long as it entertains you. :D

Izzy linked a neat article from MMORPG.com today in RC, and one of the main positives of FFXIV that they discussed, was how so many of the systems were "progressive", even the combat system.  The game starts out simple and becomes more complex and teaches the player as they progress in levels, versus just getting hit with the whole thing at once.

I haven't really followed Yoshi and his MMOG design philosophy, but since the NDA went down, I've been reading quite a bit of opinion and commentary and I have to say that the guy knows his stuff.  I've seen blogs from diva designers in the past, and while they blew smoke out of their nether region, this guy really thinks his design concepts through.

It will be interesting to see how the game develops after release.

One of the first things you "feel" about this game once you start fighting mobs is that this is NOT a twitch game. Combat is 100% unlike: GW2, WoW, Rift, Neverwinter. What it does sort of remind me of is Everquest 1. Cast times are back! You have instants, but then you hit the GCD of doom! This means, timing and placement matters a lot! You have to make sure if your casting a 2.5-3 sec spell that your standing in a good spot to get the spell off. Also there is a stat that increases your cast speed, but I was not able to stack more than 8% of it...but that made a huge difference! If anyone here made it to the Ifrit fight, all of these things made a huge impact in the fight.

Also the trinity is back, but seems flexible at the single group level (I am sure its not flexible for raids), however I had several different classes tank instances (although as of now, there is one dedicated tank class), and after release, there will be 2 different flavors of healers. And if ffxi is an indicator, there will be no lack of new classes and jobs introduced to the game in the future.

Another thing I noticed that will apply to raids is the possibility of making specialty groups. In a group when you add a certain class, the group gets a very substantial stat bonus based on that characters primary stat, so stacking a bunch of toons with the same primary stat in a raid would be a huge boost to dps or mana/regen 

Sorry but cast speed doesn't make much difference at all right now.  Check out the findings from this info at reddit....basically 100 skill/spell speed will drop times by .1 which is totally worthless at this point and time (basically because you'd have to gimp your other stats to stack it).  Even the end game gear they've seen (legacies) barely stacks 100 of it.

Hopefully what everyone is speculating is that they are intentionally going very low for it at first and slowly balance it upwards instead of it being OP then nerfing it down.

Here's the link:  http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1heehm/skill_speed_the_stat_underwhelming/     ----Inside that link is another post that has the actual stats on a google doc.

Really not that concerned about it, I am fine with the cast time without any spell speed. If its underwhelming, then maybe they will buff it, maybe they won't.

Me either, it is fine to heal instances, and does not affect my playstyle as a pve healer.

Looking at the game objectively I can say that in my experience that it was a very well made, bug free experience with an interesting array of jobs and a lot of story and lore.  The visuals are stunning, the dynamic content reminded me a lot of Rift (in a good way) and they stuck to a tried and true method of holy trinity and lots of action bars full of abilities.

I wont be playing it because it's not really that interesting to me personally but that is my subjective opinion.  My objective opinion is that it is a great game with a lot of potential for some gamers

@abusabus 

i'm not trying to really invalidate them. and i do really agree with some concerns. but it's all you see. i did not find combat too slow, i found it paced just right (played a CNJ/glad/pgl). but i based a lot of my assumptions on the fact that this is the game now, and it will be different at max level. i have read through the developer notes and through what they have planned. judging by what they want to do, i dont think the game will be unenjoyable at max.

i am aware it is always the vocal minority you see, but i find it depressing that so many people insist a game be made their way. i believe they have the wrong mentality of it. developers dont just make a game to cater to "you" personally. they make a game they love and a game they believe others will enjoy. developers of great games make the games -they- want to play. you are lucky enough to enjoy their vision. if enough people dont like the game, then it will fail, for sure. i sincerely believe this will not happen with FFXIV:ARR for 2 reasons:

1) FFXIV:ARR is funded in-house. they do not have to answer to investors for poor sales as much as other games have been.

2) FFXIV:ARR has been created by developers that -love- mmos and rpgs and take pride in their work.

i was really upset when i found out my husband and i would have to start in separate cities, for sure. in fact, i was about ready to call the game off. JUST LIKE all those people. but then i thought about it and i realized i wanted to level 3 jobs/classes to 50. well that's a lot of classes. so i could just pick one of the others i wanted to get out of the way first and he wanted to do the same. problem solved. no hurt feelings. 

i think, if people stop and think about it and just enjoy the game for what it is, that it is most definitely NOT WoW, or Tera, or GW2, or even SWTOR...then people will realize it is an enjoyable game. 

a company that bends over backwards for their customers will ultimately fall on its face. a company that focuses solely on profit will do nobody any favors. the dev team has created a gem of a game. with this and FFXV, they may reclaim a huge number of straying fans.

TL:DR all i want is for people to stop saying "me me me, what i want" and actually try to appreciate the game as it is. and look at what the devs have said they want to do with it before writing it off because of an issue that MAY be trivial at end game.

sorry it took me so long to respond. been busy lol.

P.S - my number one wish will never be granted =p -i- wanted ATB!