Alpha First Look: Video 7 – Levequests and Party Combat

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Originally Posted by Eekiki

UNLESS, they were to release these videos with developer commentary, so they could explain to us what was going on and what their plans are for what we're watching instead of leaving it up to the community to speculate.

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That is really an excellent idea. Even with bold colored lettering, somehow people miss what certain things are suppose to represent. So how bout a Comentated and Subtitled Video, with little quizzes along the way, to see if people understand what is being said. ;)
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Apart from all the obvious things that are missing from this Alpha footage. (obvious ='s things not yet implemented)

I can really appreciate the responsiveness of this new system.
-You can see what spells are being cast in the party list, you'll notice that the spells actually go off, with the timer.
-You can see that WS's are performed instantaneously

For the Party Fights in gereral, the UI is nicely laid out and useful. No sign of a "Threat" meter though.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

For the Party Fights in gereral, the UI is nicely laid out and useful. No sign of a "Threat" meter though.

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I might be wrong and can be corrected, but I think the there is a agro meter to a degree. The number on the lower left on the party list that is listed from A(Agro) to 8 and depending on who is building more hate the number chances up the list. . . 8 being the least hate and 2 close to getting agro and finally A to. . . you have it. . . correct me if I am wrong though but that is what I am seeing anyways.

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Originally Posted by Davy

Ya because releasing vids to us hardcore fan boys on the forums is Global Marketing. . . My word. . .

People would find fault with a cure for Cancer and AIDs.

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Ya because only hardcore fan boys are the only ones who 1) can see these videos 2) have seen these videos... My word.. Blah blah blah... What was your point again??

..Nevermind, clearly you didn't have one..

For the animation twitching I can see it being tone down a bit even though allot of battle related stuff is taken out apparently. I going to speak for the larger enemy's like the one in videos making it where critical hit causes them twitch like that isn't really best solution either you have to also account for the other players as well when they do critical hits also and adding further upon that if gotten to a 16 to 24 man party's will get the same issue with that but that can change because it is alpha.

For example instead if the large monster like these are susceptible to like blunt type damage that doesn't automatically make them flinch it when you do a combo/weapon skill with blunt type effect that cause them to flinch if you hit for a critical then maybe that flinch effect last about two second longer preventing them from reacting for those seconds.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

For the Party Fights in gereral, the UI is nicely laid out and useful. No sign of a "Threat" meter though.

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Actually, look over the left-hand side of the screen, below the party list.
There is an actually very small indicator that contains the enemy party, also a number and a bar. Bar shows enemy health, number is aggro. at least from what I gather

Stop whining about every little thing.

People wanted a faster battle system, so they made it faster. The battle system did not become any less "complicated" than before. Thunder -> Thundara -> Thundaga was not any more complicated than this, and just because the battle system is faster does not mean it's suddenly a "spamfest."

Furthermore, if people are complaining 3 second GCD is too long, how can you also complain it's a "spamfest?" That 3 second GCD gives you more than enough time to make a calculated decision on your next attack. In my opinion, it's perfectly fine, and it's no different than the animation lock and/or lag we were experiencing in 1.0, except now we're not totally locked out of movement/etc and it's shorter.

IN ADDITION, you have to remember that this is low level combat. Think about what you were doing at level 20 in FFXIV: as a mage, I was just using Thunder over and over, and occasionally Thundara. There were also fire parties, and guess what you did there? Oh that's right, you spammed Fire. Was that a spamfest? Is this a spamfest? Seriously, you're just finding anything to complain about. Even melee were just auto attacking (doing absolutely nothing) until they got enough TP, then hit the button, then waiting some more (maybe you had a combo to hit another button too, ooh!). This is no different, except now you don't have to wait for the TP, and it's faster. Think about what you do in level 20 of a game like WoW, but this is already more complicated than that. Yes, I play WoW, and at level 20 most casters just use the same nuke spell over and over and over, and I never heard of that being called a spamfest (even at max level some casters use the same spell over and over for maximum dps).

On top of everything else: it's alpha. Expressing negative feedback is fine, but some people are just outright calling it "shitty" for no reason. Seriously, use your brain and think things through before whining like a child that the game isn't perfect for you in every way.

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Originally Posted by Eekiki

UNLESS, they were to release these videos with developer commentary, so they could explain to us what was going on and what their plans are for what we're watching instead of leaving it up to the community to speculate.

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Yeah, I do think that would help tremendously curb some of the populations concerns/fears about ARR. Would be a much better option to what they are currently doing. However, I'd think players are still going to want/demand to see 'proof of concept' before buying into an already failed game, again. So as long as whatever they forecasted during Alpha, actually was able to be presented by the end of beta, it should prove to be a much better marketing strategy.

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Originally Posted by Eekiki

Totally. I think they were a bit premature in releasing this. We've already seen how the combat UI works. They should have waited until more classes were available to show off partying.

The video should have been about levequests and that's it.

Or nothing at all, really. Something like this could have easily been delivered to players in the form of a dev post on the forums. I appreciate that they're trying to provide more updates, and use different mediums for providing those updates. But I'd rather play the game and find out how these systems work myself than watch a video about them.

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I took it more as an oportunity to look at the UI. A lot of things added to it that I'm loving. Better agro indicators, target of target, debuff with timers under the target hp bar, etc.

Cant wait for ARR.

Looking good, didnt see any skillchain, are we having that feature?

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Originally Posted by elreed

Looking good, didnt see any skillchain, are we having that feature?

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There are no skillchains from FFXI in this game. We had the battle regimen system, but that is being reworked into the Limit Break system.