7th Alpha video "Levequests and Party Combat"

[Eekiki]

I guess he was comparing it to other recent MMOs, ARR looks completely boring and dull and I still don't understand the point of showing these videos to everyone, except for tarnishing even more the image of this game and actually bringing people who played through 1.0 to wonder and doubt about the future of this game.

The flashiness was here in 1.0, we complained about it, it is still here and it's worse in a sense since, now, we cannot even tell who is using what, all WSs are fast, flashy strikes (and noisy actually).

And yes, I saw that we could see who is doing what by looking at the party UI, cool-looking, flashy, clustered, bar-on-bar messy indicators.

We will see during Beta since I guess we'll have even more of those videos (bringing the question of the usefulness of Alpha videos) and we'll get an idea if things were really changed for the best. Right now, my LS and myself are really worried about this game's future and I know more and more people who are too, but we will play it for sure at release.

Just gotta see if we'll stay.

Yeah, this is how you show off a game in development!

Seriously, Mr. Doom and Gloom Grouchy Grouch, you could replace the words "alpha", "ARR", and "1.0" with the name "Obama" and you would fit right in on the Fox News Channel here in the U.S.

You know what I think? There's a difference between watching a video game being played and playing it yourself, and role playing games have always been boring to watch. Compare this to this. Which game looks more exciting to you?

We complained about the "flashiness" in 1.0? Maybe you did, but I seem to remember more people complained about the lack of flashy effects and unique animations for our weapon skills.

And I'm not seeing where you get the idea that the party UI looks messy. None of the indicators are overlapping or "clustered". And keep in mind you're seeing the game's UI rendered on a 1280x720 screen. Think about how it will look on a full 1080p resolution.

If a hundred things about ARR look good, and one thing looks bad, mentioning that one bad thing a hundred times does not make it any greater amount than a single bad thing. And yes, the verbal and written response to these videos are of course going to focus on what's bad, because its people's natural inclination to notice what doesn't look right or normal to them.

[AlexNiculaie]

I might also point out that not all battle features are in alpha, just the most basic system for stress test purposes. That means that the things which will require movement (combos, incapacitation) are not there to use. the same goes with animations. We have already been told they are not complete in alpha.

Seriously, if you or your "friends" don't understand what an alpha is, that is your own fault, not SE's.

[leomax]

lmfao at the battle log, filters please use them! :P

[Req]

It would be best if SE would just stop showing vids to you ppl till open beta. No more vids no more crying about an game during alpha test...

I agree with this. I know people who didn't get into the alpha want to see footage, but to everyone who is looking at this game to see whether or not they have interest in it, they are just going to be put off. The giant alpha symbol watermark isn't going to stop people from saying "wow that looks boring and unpolished."

Fire your marketing department please.

[Fadigre]

I'm already reading comments like why everyone is standing and spamming skills? No movements required? Just Tank & Spank? Boring..

It's quite concerning really. Seems that having no cooldown on weapon skills could potentially encourage standing on a single side of the mob and spamming your strongest combo. In version 1.0 a player would move from his strongest combo to his second strongest and so on until their priority combo comes off of cooldown again.

Some particular combos however changed dependant on buffs! Some multi-hit skills were stronger than singlefold skills although this would flip when Blindside was used. Perhaps this will encourage movement with higher leveled players with more available to them!

As we can see from the video things aren't as they were in 1.0 as the low leveled Archer now has Venomous Bite; a weaponskill that was not in 1.0. It's exciting to see what else has changed!

Weaponskills themselves could be varied enough to warrant movement during end-game events.
Spirits Within in 1.0 used your HP % to determine how much damage it would do. Perhaps this particular ability could take advantage of a mob with immeasurably high defence (which if I recall correctly was one reason why Warrior would be unable to keep enmity on select mobs). The particular mob could also require an incap to lower its defence for a period of time which would allow other weapon skills to become viable. This would force DPS into moving to cause an incap otherwise they would be unable to pump out the damage required!

As we know from the end-game in 1.0, incap was steadily becoming necessary to get through fights such as Monk stacking on Chrimera for a 17 minute run and Ifrit Extreme's stinkin' horns.

I was kinda picturing this little devil from XIII whilst writing.


Whilst this might not necessarily be how things work, let's hope the team have something up their shifty sleeves.

[Alhanelem]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSO4DgXzeTs

Looks pretty fun and action packed to me. Thoughts on this?

As a nice touch they brought Genbu back it looks like.

1) there is an official thread for the video already whyd you feel the need to pst one yourself
2) it's not genbu it's adamantoise
3) yes it looks fun

It's quite concerning really.

I find it not concerning at all. Everyone always overreacts to everything when they first see it. I also find it highly unlikely that these characters were playing optimally (especially considering whoever is being shown is clicking with the mouse). This is yet another case of people oversimplifying to make things sound bad ("tank & spank").

People are never going to move just for the sake of moving- they move because they are required to by the action of an enemy or because the ability they want to use isn't available when attacking from behind or whatever.

We had plenty of fights in XIV 1.0 where moving around was necessary. You will have to do it in ARR as well.

[Eekiki]

1) there is an official thread for the video already whyd you feel the need to pst one yourself

I understand what you're getting at, but remember, there are some people who think General Discussion is the only FFXIV forum.

Mods should have made the official thread a temporary sticky on the top of every forum.

[AlexNiculaie]

1) Not everyone checks other forums on a regular basis, and would probably have missed it. It's not cluttering up the forums. Why bitch about something that only bothers the most anal retentive handful?

[Alhanelem]

lmfao at the battle log, filters please use them! :P

they werent even looking at the battle log probably. The onscreen markers show everything.

1) Not everyone checks other forums on a regular basis, and would probably have missed it.

You don't need to check other forums on a regular basis.

Am I the only one here who saw "alpha gameplay video" on the dev tracker when i pulled up the forum? Doesn't ANYBODY look at the dev tracker? Doesn't it make sense that this is where you'll find the big new important stuff? It should be easily found by everyone regardless of which section they read most.

[Eekiki]

Am I the only one here who saw "alpha gameplay video" on the dev tracker when i pulled up the forum?

One of the few, at least, because "hot topics" has been stupidly placed higher on the page than the more important dev tracker.