FFXIV Official Alpha Video: Combat & QuestsFollow

now that doesnt seem that much faster than FFXI.. and is it just me or is it all weapon skill spamming and no auto attack?

Ahh! I love those chat bubbles :P. And caster combat does indeed look much nicer than it was. However, I am not crazy about the big red circle around enemies you are fighting and what was with that rotating arrow? I think that simple arrow ma-bob over the enemy is perfectly sufficient to get the point across that you are targeting it... Oh well it is not a game breaker, but something we could go without.

Still looking really good. It all does look a bit familiar, but I'm ok with that. I'd like to see some footage soon with a controller being used to see how that all works out.

Man that looks good, I'm really looking forward to this.

:/ Hate to be the downer, but it looks like a pretty solid take on standard MMO combat, which is not an insult, but not a compliment either.

My biggest complaint is the 2-3 second command input. What makes GW2 tolerable is that you can slam your command buttons really fast. 2-3 seconds between inputting a command is exactly enough time to be boring and exactly NOT enough time to do anything else, like talk to another player. It's fine if they miraculously make it some highly strategic game where that time is spent figuring out your next move, but I'm 99% confident that this won't be the case.

So again, I'd really like to be able to queue up 3 or 4 attacks (and to be able to change what I queued). Then when I am fighting something boring, I can at least talk to other people.

I'm sure it will for the PS3 release if nothing else.

This video seemed very much like a tutorial, I imagine you'll be able to tab and mash the number keys as you can in other MMOs.

I'm beginning to think you can't ever be pleased Kachi

ftfy

The graphics look good, the story and setting is shaping up nicely, and the soundtrack fits. And you can do stuff in a group.

All in all, it's a Final Fantasy game and from what it seems, of good quality.

MMO design is hard though. There are simply so many more factors to take into account that do not apply to normal game development. Mainly, the community and it's reaction to even the smallest of design changes.

Plus the freedom that MMO's demand, that go against designers' best interests. How can you take all the factors into account when the design is so loose in the first place? You let the community do what they want, and they will find a loophole around your design.

Edited, Dec 6th 2012 5:16pm by Hyanmen

I wouldn't say it's easy. It's certainly the hardest medium of gaming to design for. But it's also not a young genre anymore... it's not like these game designs are built from scratch these days. The problems are mostly the same as they've ever been, and the solutions have been there for a fair while. But designers act like they're just ordering off a menu, and if they pick the "right items" then they'll make the game "correctly." All they're really accomplishing is making something too much like every other game. This genre is too young to be as stagnant as it is.



If you're talking about the queuing system I proposed, that would be simple. If you select a command other than one you've queued up, then your queue is cancelled and you execute that command.

If you're just saying that you like those kinds of abilities in general, I agree. It's too bad FFXI had so few of them, and FFXIV doesn't look much better.

Edited, Dec 6th 2012 6:48am by Kachi

The thing is though, if you haven't played every single MMORPG in existence, this is different and innovative. Sure, it may copy styles from other MMORPGs that are out there, but to those of us that don't play WoW or GW2 or (insert mmorpg of choice here), this is going to be a good Final Fantasy MMORPG with good MMORPG mechanics.

No.

And don't insult bread again.

~~

The only thing I'm disheartened about so far is the interrupt mechanics ala FFXI. Seems rather dark-aged and pointlessly annoying.

You coming to Durandal with us Viertel? I can't remember if you were there with us during 1.0 or not.

I liked the quest bubbles myself, I thought they looked really good. Strange how people react to various things.

for a game like this, i think a moderate queue system would be appropriate and fun. what i like about gw2 is actually the fact that they DO have a small skill queue mechanic. just enough to keep a second ahead of the action. you can basically queue one move ahead of yourself. swtor has a similar mechanic (that you can actually adjust the timing of....why is this feature not in all mmos?)

and speaking of auto attack...its kind of funny how mmo combat has become faster and faster paced, rendering auto attack mostly meaningless (the whole point of autoattack, i assume, was to make it easy to chat during battle...but mmo combat is generally so fast paced nowadays, you cant chat much in battle anyway, AA or no AA) its really kind of a dinosaur mechanic imo. i see why games like GW2 still use it (facilitates better more consistent dps....which i think is silly for a number of reasons)

at any rate, i'm glad to see less of an emphasis on AA in this footage. i'd be sad that they are sticking with the ancient MMO combat style of standing in one spot beating on the mob, but i already knew that was going to be the case. tbh, after all this analysis, im starting to realize that, maybe the quality of combat in this game isnt as important to me as i thought it was. just like XI, i suspect it will be the game world and people in it that decide the fate of my sub fee.

Yeah I don't envy the devs, trying to cater to so many different preferences has to be maddening. At some point you just have to put your foot down and say "Nope, this is what it looks like, get over it."

no doubt. in fact i'd venture to say that devs (ok, devs that dont work for SE) in general need to do a little more foot-putting-down. this new age of putting player feedback on a pedestal is starting to get out of hand imo. not saying they shouldn't listen. just saying they'd better damn well have a strong vision, and then balance that out with catering to player feedback.

yoshi appears to be riding that line pretty ably so far, so good on him. i certainly cant accuse that guy of having no vision.



im 99.999% sure that the person playing in that vid was quite purposefully making slow, methodical movements and clicking (he was clicking. on his action bar. yoshi knows most people dont play like that. but having keybinds wouldnt have been as effective of a demo) because yoshi wanted to make sure we could see exactly how the UI and combat works. the video was a demonstration, not a capture of someone actually playing the game for reals.

Edited, Dec 6th 2012 1:37pm by Llester

Ouch, i didn't notice that at first. They apparently introduced a global cooldown, which is fine and appropriate, but it does seem like rather a long global cooldown . Hmmm. Gee i sure could use an Alpha invite so i could see it firsthand and give feedback! Blargh.

Totally agree, Wint. In the case of SE, catering to the fanbase was the smart (read: only) move. Its funny because Tanaka always seemed to embody the "uncompromising visionary" attitude. He had that part down pat. I actually sort of admired him for it, because I've always believed that it is the game developer's job to know what makes a good game.

This "listening to fans with no education in game design" business always seemed a bit strange to me. Sort of like commissioning a painting and then standing over the artists' shoulder telling her to "put a tree there" or "don't use so much red". But times change. Fans are waaaay more savvy than we used to be (ty internet), and several someones at SE arrived late to that particular party.



Edited, Dec 6th 2012 3:46pm by Llester

omg brilliant. still loling.

"It needs to be less liney"

You do know you could be interrupted in XIV 1.0, right? Or did you actually just not play it? It does suck SE implemented risks during battle, I agree. A mage chanting a spell should NOT be interrupted by getting their face beat in.

>.>

agree. not with the part about caring whether or not he played 1.0 (cause really, who cares), but yeah i for one am glad that mechanic is still in XIV.

on that note, i really miss the skill (yes, skill!) involved in keeping utsusemi up while getting face stomped by, say, Charybdis at 75 cap, with no bard present.

I have no issues with the direction they're taking this at the moment. Get your foot in the door first, then we'll start talking about the advanced innovations of the combat system.

We might be changing Wint... depends how the servers are split up?

General thoughts:

The game looks like it should have.

I get a feeling of atmosphere and I'm not even playing.

The music is already (sorry Uematsu) way better...(even in the other clips I've watched).

Questing looks, well like every other MMO. I understand that SE basically had to move heaven and earth to just get this far but I'd love to see some sort of public quests like Rifts or like in GW2. A public behest would be awesome.

Combat too looks...bland. I can't put my finger on it. I'll have to wait until more video comes out (and to play it) to make a decision though. I don't need to be running and jumping around, if the abilities are cool and combat is rewarding in other ways; and I can effectively deal with adds, then I'll be fine with it.