Hitler's FFXIV ARR Early Access Experience

Ascy posted a link on where to make your own Downfall parody (http://downfall.jfedor.org/create/), where Hitler flips outs. I decided to make one showing how he reacts to FFXIV ARR Early Access.

FFXIV Open Beta

Freaking 3102...

That's how a good portion of my phase 4 went. Sat night around 9 PM I got booted and was not able to log in until Mon after maintenance, 12:30 AM. I stayed up so I could log in and get myself to an inn, even though I had work in the morning.

Unfortunately I had forgotten to load Fraps, so the whole time I was thinking I was taking screenshots, I really wasn't :(

But after I logged on after maintenance, I took a couple screens using the in game screen capture. The horrible 5+ second lag is gone!!!! However, there seems to be a built-in cooldown that prevents you from taking screenshots too quickly. Thanks to Aque for posting how to further maximize the HUD space by resizing the UI elements. http://aquelia.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/ffxiv-a-realm-reborn-ui-and-hud-scaling-guide/

4800x900 AMD Eyefinity mode. Using 3x Dell U2312HM

HUD with Eyefinity. I definitely prefer 3x1 setup in landscape vs 3x1 setup in portrait mode

For comparison, in phase 3 I went with 3x1 portrait 2700x1600. Although the screenshot doesn't show, the monitor bezels are very noticeable while in this mode, and I would not recommend it.

Here's hoping that next weekend will not see any server problems. Won't be beta anymore, so I'd be really upset if 3102 shows it's ugly face again. All-the-same, I don't wanna see 90000 or any other major login errors.

Adventures in Laptop Hybrid Graphics

Getting hybrid graphics to work on a laptop isn't the most intuitive thing to do. I found this out the hard way when I tried running FFXIV benchmark on my laptop containing a built-in Intel HD 4000 and a discrete AMD Radeon HD 7730M.

I've had my laptop for a months now, but have never seriously tried playing games on it. I ran Diablo 3 a couple times, but only for a brief amount of time. In Diablo 3, the settings do not tell you what GPU you're running at that moment, so I'd assume it was switching to the discrete card and never thought anything of it. That changed when FFXIV benchmark 2.0 came out, and I started to question which GPU  was being used.

When you launch the benchmark, it displays your system specs and for me, it was displaying my Intel HD  4000 instead of my Radeon HD 7730M. There wasn't even an option to select the 7730M, as if it didn't exist.

The combo box only lists the HD 4000

But I'm POSITIVE my laptop has a Radeon HD 7730M

DirectX Diagnostic was displaying the HD 4000 too. WTH!

This got me uber paranoid that something was up and my laptop wasn't working the way I thought it should. I started to do some research and sure enough, a Google search showed that others had similar problems with their hybrid setups. However, based on the make and model of the laptop and type of discrete graphics, there were solutions, and they varied. 

I started to experiment with the different methods and none of them seemed to work for me. Benchmark and dxdiag were still both telling me "Screw you! You don't have discrete graphics!" AMD drivers wouldn't install and kept saying they were not compatible with my setup. So I decided to force install the drivers anyways using a round-about method. That didn't work and made things worse. Every time it booted up, the screen flickered between a black and gray screen and never got into Windows.

After a few hours of getting rid of the drivers and doing Windows reinstall, I was back to square one. At this point I was exhausted and decided to just run the benchmark anyways. One of the things I read was that even though settings only shows the HD 4000, if the AMD Catalyst Control Center is configured correctly, the program should use the correct GPU. I've tried almost all other options, why not. So I made sure that the Switchable Graphics settings were set.

Option to control switchable graphics

Set all benchmark related executables to High Performance. Apparently the benchmark launches 4 different .exe files

I ran the benchmark and got the results. They seemed pretty decent for a laptop setup, giving me a warm and fuzzy that maybe the 7730M was being used. I then changed the CCC settings to use the HD 4000 and reran the benchmark.

Score of "Very High" although the graphics detect is Intel HD 4000

Set all benchmark related executables to Power Saving. In theory, this means "Use the HD 4000 instead of discrete graphics"

Lower score than before, but still displays Intel HD 4000

After all that, it seems that behind the scenes my laptop and programs are selecting the appropriate graphics card. I'm still a little confused as to why that's happening, but at least I feel better seeing the benchmark results. I'll chalk it up to space magic and not waste any more time with figuring out why.

FFXIV Benchmark 2.0

I tried running the character creator and benchmark in Eyefinity mode, at a res of 4800x900. Unfortunately, the benchmark wasn't really made for my non-standard aspect ratio :(

At least the character creator makes use of the higher res...

Unlike the benchmark

Not really sure what hair color I wanna go for on my Lalafell, though i might stick with my phase 3 color. I'm also considering a hairstyle change.

 Phase 3 style and color...
 

Now blonde with highlights.

New Do...

Highlights make my head look like a tarantula. This is one of the safer color combos. This hairstyle can get pretty wild with highlights!

Didn't really bother with benchmark with Eyefinity res after I saw what it looks like. These are my 1080p results though. Not the best system specs, but the scores weren't terrible. Eyefinity was still enabled though, so the benchmark was rendering the same image on all three monitors. I reran on high with Eyefinity off, and got in the 7200s, so not that big of a difference.

Standard

High

Interesting that High and Max weren't as different as I thought they'd be

All Good Things...

So ends phase 3 of FFXIV beta. This was my first real exposure to XIV in any capacity, and I was pretty impressed with the game so far. It's what pushed me over the fence into pre-ordering it. After quitting XI last year, I wasn't sure I'd get back into MMO'ing, despite Fuji's many attempts to get me to play with him, Arkaru, and Ascy in various other MMO's.  It just felt like I had so much more free time while not playing an MMO. Well, I can forget about that now! If the beta is any indication of my playing habits to come, then I'm in BIG trouble. /Goodbye free time! D:

This week saw the return on Wutang Warrior! Haven't seen him in years since he was banned 
from FFXI! Good to see old faces again. I also logged onto Coeurl server where some of the other AP members were and did a couple of FATES with them. Aque is still a Taru, Foosh is still a female (although a cat now :3) and Debris is a female Galka! Fun times.

Being the last week of phase 3, not having a wiki to rely on (/stare FFXI wiki), and just wanting to do stuffs in the name of science, these are my week 5 findings. So it goes without saying, that these are my own opinions and thoughts... so they should be regarded as truth.

Technical-ish Observations


So You Want to Be A Melder?

At level 25 of a crafting job, you can go to The Bonfire area where you first learned how to materia meld, and learn how to do Advanced Materia Meld from the Goblin there. He'll want you to meld materia 8 times in his presence, so make sure to have 8x grade 1 carbonized matter, 8x pieces of materia, and some gear that needs melding (or you can opt to use trash materia and trash gear like me) on hand and start melding.

 Our old friend Mutamix Bubblypots at The Bonfire camp teaching me his secrets

 Materia Melding is now replaced with Advanced Materia Melding.

This upgrades your melding ability to allow you to attach additional materia to a piece of gear, exceeding the slots available. For example, if a body armor has 2 slots for materia and you've filled those slots with materia, advanced meld will allow you to put in a 3rd, and possibly 4th or 5th, but all at reduced chances of success.

Going for the gold. 14% chance of success on a 5th materia!

After burning through a few materia, success! +3 Advanced Melds

I was able to successfully advance meld my body piece I used for crafting 3 times. The first two melds were regular melds, with guaranteed success rate of 100%. The 3rd materia (1st advanced meld) had a success rate of 45%, 4th materia (2nd advanced meld) at 24%, and 5th materia (3rd advanced meld) at 14%. At this point, the meld option was grayed out and no further melding was possible...sad face.


Advanced Melding is what really makes materia shine. I'm still not a fan of melding gear for your main storyline job due to stat caps, how quickly you outgrow gear, and dungeon drops being better. However, melding for Crafting and Gathering jobs grant some nice benefits. I haven't seen any pink craft/gather gear and the only green craft/gather gear I've seen are Grand Company stuff at level 25. That stuff was okay if you don't have access to melding, but Advanced Melding is pretty much the way to go for crafting and gathering gear, especially using HQ gear.


No Need to be Racist

With the help of Ascy, I was able to get her Hyur level 35 MRD stats and compare them with my Lalafell level 35 MRD stats. I had read a post somewhere that race plays a smaller role in your stats than it did in FFXI, but wanted to confirm it first hand. And I did!

Midlander Hyur top. Plainsfolk Lalafell bottom.

Although we had different weapons equipped, they had similar main stats (+7 STR, +7 VIT). Coincidentally, we also happened to have the same allocation of bonus stat points at MRD 35 (+8 STR, +7 VIT). Great minds think alike... or something?

The results confirm that race plays a small role in your stats, compared to FFXI at least. At 35 MRD, the total amount of primary stat points (STR, DEX, VIT, INT, MND, and PIE) are equal for both races, 532 (or 503 if you subtract the bonus points noted in the previous paragraph). Basically, whatever the differences you see in starting stats, that's exactly how much your stats will differ at endgame. That is, if Lalafell's VIT stat is 2 VIT less than a Hyur at level 1, then at level 50, you can expect the difference to still only be 2.

This makes me rethink my choice of race for retail, which I originally was going to pick Miqo'te, because I did not want a repeat of FFXI, where my Taru had a small HP pool. That's not the case anymore. Since HP is determined from VIT, there won't be a huge discrepancy in HP.  Here's some fun facts:

-Lalafell Plainsfolk have the same starting VIT as Wildwood Elezen (18 VIT)
-Lalafell Plainsfolk have the same starting STR as Keepers of the Moon Miqo'te (18 STR) /flex
-Lalafell Dunesfolk have the same starting VIT as Keepers of the Moon Miqo'te (17 VIT) (despite their size, these Mi'Quote aren't built to be strong or durable are they?)

So if you really want to optimize a particular stat, you can still do so by picking the appropriate race, but you may be sacrificing aesthetics to do so. Since, at most, a particular stats will only differ by a maximum of 5 points, I personally put more weight on aesthetics.  Lalafells are just awesome anyways!!! There's also something to be said about their 'unique' perspective too... something I like to call Lalafell Vison! XD


Item Stat Bonuses

I was browsing my armory to see what I could convert to materia when I noticed I had two pink items with the same name... only they had different bonuses.

Space Magic?

I'm guessing since these items aren't labeled as Unique, their stats can vary, and you can carry multiple versions. Something I didn't know about /derp.  Not that it matters, but one was found in a dungeon, and the other was found in a coffer during a leve (not sure which was found where).


Enough talk, screenshot dump of week 4 and 5 incoming!

 

 Playing around in the desert

 Chillin' with a Miquo'te

Sightseeing in the middle of a Brayflox run. Go ahead guys, I'll be right behind you, I swear!

Ballroom 2.0? Some appear shattered... ouch!

 My favorite area in the beta, visually. Costa Del Sol. Home of the Courtesan FATE too! =D

Some nighttime views are just as cool as daytime ones

 Checking out floating islands with Wicked and Ascy. Avatar anyone?

Valharin, Ascy, and me staring at a floating castle

Chillin' after Wicked, Ascy, Zurar, and me had an emote party for like an hour. Wicked completely broke the cuteness scale with her emotes. So cute! She introduced me to my favorite Lalafell emote /sit > /doze

Why the suspicious looks? Oh right, I'm using my Lalafell Vision...

An interesting site near Ceruleum Processing Plant...

With interesting enemies! Reminds of FFVI

 I hope that box doesn't say "Danger! Flammable!" in Eorzean speak

 Shiny

 Staring contest with a Goobue

Do you even lift?

 

 How YOU Doin'?

 Ladies. Ladies. There enough Vanh to go around ;o

Cameraman, you're fired! How dare you capture me with my eyes closed! Goodbye beta phase 3!