is playing on ps3 viable?Follow

It'll never be as simple as PC. That's what everyone will agree to. Despite that, I play just fine on my PS3. I don't have problems targetting, marking a single target at a time, etc. Sure, FATEs lag a little, and I do suffer from that invisible enemy issue, but that's the drawback of the PS3. PS4's version, which will be free to PS3 players, will resolve that. Until then, I find the benefit of being able to play on the couch leisurely outweighs my need to stress over absolute perfect execution of everything I do on a PC. In fact, when I play on the PC, it is near mandatory that I use my PS3 controller or it feels very awkward.

I'm not at endgame yet, but I imagine at that time I'll need to switch to KB/Mouse to compete. Even still, I'll resist.

Things that I did to help with the screen crowding UI was shrinking a lot of my bars & moving them away. Taking the journal off the screen really helps too. Also toning down the effects of party members and others might help with your load times (did this at the beginning and I've haven't noticed any issues). PC will always be easier because of the extra flexibility, but from a healer's perspective between positioning & targeting filters I can find my add pretty quickly. Also yea, +hotbar crowidng is a pain, but like hyper clicking or proper keybinds on a keyboard, its a skill that I'm getting better at and will likely lead to a creative use of macros.

I would have to disagree. I can't honestly give the PS3 version a recommendation. This is because some of the content just doesn't work right on the PS3, including large scale content and FATEs. Sometimes models don't load, and there's a lot of lag which can hinder you.

Edit: Actually, you are right that it's playable, I just want to be clear that it's not recommended if your PC is even 5 years old or less.

Edited, Sep 14th 2013 3:22pm by LucasNox

see, i have that 5 year or older computer, and i play ths game just find on HIGH desktop. I play in the massive fates, i have no problems.. ps3 maybe does.. I play with an xbox 360 controller. I pick up adds and i mark for tanks that fail at marker. I can switch targets fine, and i have better mobility with the controller. I seem to play this game better WITH a controller than without. the crossbar being over crowded is annoying, but ive learned to manage. Its all about knowing whats about to come and what you need to do.. I have no problems. this is the first mmo ive ever played with a controller, and i love it. I recommend the controller over the keyboard. The keyboard is going to get you killed when dodging aoes and attacking at the same time.. I can see it already. yes you can adapt, but the controller has the advantage in this aspect. I will run circles around you.

I play on a lower populated server so i haven't encountered a massive fate

I'm quite pleased the PS3 can play this game at all! Seven years ago when the PS3 launched (remember your pc 7 years ago? It was before the iPhone was invented) it had the GPU capabilities of the Nvidia 7800 GTX, which was not overwhelmingly impressive at the time. I'll admit its not really doable as your only FFXIV box, but I've been crafting / farming the past week exclusively on the PS3 and things have gone well. I can FINALLY justify buying the PS3 in the first place =)

Playing FFXIV on my PS3 has been absolutely fantastic. Sure I've only been playing since launch, and even then only once or twice a week... but on my couch in front of a sixty inch set? I don't have any clutter on my screen and I haven't felt like the victim of lag at all.

I play on a PS3, while the targeting isn't exactly to the level I want it to be, but I would need a mouse to fix that.

There are loading issues, but I feel like I can complete any content presented to me.

Actually upon further observation.. the loading issues don't prevent you from using skills like I originally thought. You can still you them, you just wont see any animations until the loading is done. So don't be thrown off when your character is stiff as nails and "running no where" because you can still input skills and they still register "hit events" so to speak.

Biggest issue I've had is trying to use a keyboard primarily as opposed to the controller... it doesn't seem to really want to let you do that as far as the crossbar is concerned and you can't switch to hotbars (AFAIK), which means the controller is almost mandatory.

I made a thread about it: http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?forum=152&mid=1379206422176562377&p=1#10

That's just my personal preference, though. It's not exactly a game breaker.

I actually prefer mining, fishing and botany on PS3 (or with my 360 controller on PC). Crafting is also simpler. It really comes from having the "Confrim" button so easily accessible on the controller. And the way the D-pad moves through menus.

(BTW, you can map "Confirm" to your PC keyboard, allowing you to run up to harvesting nodes and get straight to work as controller players can. Also, the final tab under Keybinds will allow you to set up/down/left/right through the menus to duplicate the D-pad.)

For battles, the PC User Interface really shines. I have 10 hotbars on-screen with 12 spaces each. That's 120 hotbars buttons, all which are keybind-able. The keyboard has 85 keys that can be set to keybinds. My gaming mouse has an additional 8 buttons. That's just a huge list of one-touch actions that can be entered. No buttons-combos. No crossbar sets. No L1 cycling. Not to mention the ease of just clicking on something on screen.

Drag-and-drop is also essential, but you can simply hook up a mouse to your PS3 to enjoy that feature in the menus.

Yes, viable. For myself, not at all preferable for battles. I would be very interested to hear how players are managing end-game battle content on PS3.



Edited, Sep 16th 2013 1:33pm by Gnu

I like the controller UI for battle more so on the way up when everything nicely fits on 1 set. Less of a fan once I go over 16 abilities/macros and have to start switching between sets.

I love playing on PS3 so far. I've only made it past Titan so I can't comment about end-game but the controller works well for me. FATEs are fine except the very crowded ones such as Cancer. That guy is especially annoying because he keeps disappearing. It looks like a prioritizaton issue that could be fixed though.