Alpha First Look: Video 7 – Levequests and Party Combat

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The time between deciding what to do next and the time it takes to press the key. Three seconds is a long time to do that. If you want to talk about it in relation to 1.0, the main difference is that you won't have to spam nearly as much to fight the latency. It will be more "press it and wait" instead of "press it x number of times until you believe it has gone off."

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Yea, but youre still autoattacking and adding to your dps in that 3 secs... so its not like youre doing "nothing". And the higher lvl you become I think the 3 secs becomes even less. Just seems like a non issue. Even with the 3 secs, the plyer in the vid was able to throw out a lot of combos.

Just doesnt seem that that huuuge a big deal to me.


And you didnt have to spam the button in 1.0. At a certain point it kinda fake cued the next action because of the animation lock.

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Originally Posted by RoninDarkchild

HAHA! XD

I was called a Troll for bringing the same thing up before? :(

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Welcome to my world. :D

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Originally Posted by Yrusama

THANK YOU! PUP/DNC or THF/DNC, you'll be doing so many different things it'll make your head spin!

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Yep, PUP/DNC, that was me. Pure street performer all the way!

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Originally Posted by Westers

I'm sure they will continue these teaser videos come Beta. I don't know why people keep going at these videos like this is the way it's gonna be. It's only ALPHA! It's for working out the servers. SE have said many times these things are NOT as they will be. I'm gonna wait until I see some Beta game play before I get so nit picky. But being a player of 1.0 for almost 2 years and a big fan of 1.0 the last six months of it's life. I do appreciate getting a little taste of things to come, being I can't play said game at the moment ; ;. With out reading to far in the visuals. I love how it is looking and can't wait to see how it all turns out. I also hope media and other players give it the second chance it deserves.

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Yeah this is why developers usually don't show Alpha videos. People really have to be open minded that these videos are in development. Square-Enix is in a slightly different boat though. They literally are trying to make up for the initial release, and putting out these videos is to show the progress that they are making. It's very polished compared to other games in Alpha. Usually Alpha isn't the complete game. Here there game is complete but Yoshida took a lot of game elements out to get the players to focus.

Game Developers do not do Public Alphas, it's usually internal only at this point. When your an employee getting paid to test, you will follow instructions and report issues reliably. Also you need to be very informative when reporting issues, Where were you, what were you doing, what you were trying to do, when did it happen etc...

But since this is public ppl are pretty much just playing the game, while this accomplishes a stress test nicely, restrictions to the game had to be put in place to FORCE ppl to focus.

Regardless I am very appreciative of this, very open door development style with the community. Yoshida appears to really put thought into our requests to come up with a better solution.

While there is a lot of complaining, the complaint is still valid because there IS a complaint. If it was perfect there would be no complaining. HOWEVER, from a development stand point you have to look at the bigger picture. Complaints are often self centered to adjust the game to make it easier for the complainer and they don't think about how these changes would affect the rest of the game or other players.

Yoshida is VERY good about looking at the BIGGERpicture and coming up with a compromise that will benefit all.
So YAY, for sharing videos of Alpha even though it shows an slightly unfinished results of a Work In Progress! (aka Alpha)

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Originally Posted by Biggs

I think it would be cool if the mob reacted to a certain percentage of its hp being taken in one hit. Give a little nod to the big dogs and blms when getting crits or setting up a sweet skill chain.

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Do you mean like when the mob gets to last 30-25% the mob visually looks winded and breathes heavily like it's struggling?
Or visually shows like it's wounded?
I personally would like to see the mob do something visually when Incapacitated by weapon skills. Like the skeletons used to lose their head. Or Rams would break one of their horns. etc. I thought the incapacitation was cool, and the mobs would drop different items because of this.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

People on these boards are too damn quick to oversimplify things. people basically say "oh, its dumb, it's just 11112351348412311223123! spam fest!"- generally what skills you use when is important, where you're standing is important, your status is important... etc. It's not just about what buttons you press. If you wanted, you could oversimplify any game to "you just press buttons!" But if you say that as a reason some game is bad, then you must hate all video games, because guess what... for ALL video games, you "just press buttons!"

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Hear hear! totally agree. It's why I like FFXI more than other MMO's because of the battle strategy in the game. While the strategy isn't necessary to kill an average mob. NM and Bosses often require it to prevent a wipe. Having an efficient battle strategy disposes the NM/Boss quickly and efficiently. That and regular mobs where you get aggro adds to the battle target such strategy changes on the fly are important! It's what separates a party to an SUPER AWESOME PARTY THAT KNOWS THEIR STUFF!!!

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Originally Posted by Linkurrra

Do you mean like when the mob gets to last 30-25% the mob visually looks winded and breathes heavily like it's struggling?
Or visually shows like it's wounded?
I personally would like to see the mob do something visually when Incapacitated by weapon skills. Like the skeletons used to lose their head. Or Rams would break one of their horns. etc. I thought the incapacitation was cool, and the mobs would drop different items because of this.

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Yeah! Remember Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, where the monsters you fight would appear to be more and more injured as their HP went down? That would be excellent!

This sandwich is in alpha
http://static3.depositphotos.com/100...at--slices.jpg

"Boo! This sandwhich is so bland, who would want to pay for that! Its terrible! You gotta fix it!"

(the confused sandwich maker gives you an odd look and continues making you your sandwich)

This is release day sandwich

http://mountainexpressmagazine.com/w...andwhiches.jpg

"OMG this is the best sandwich ever! I'm so glad they listened to me or else this sandwich would have turned out like shit! It would be nice if they had some honey mustard, or maybe some roast beef but all in all good sandwich"

(the still confused sandwich maker continues to look puzzled "This is what i was going to make all along, I just showed you the bread and meat so you could tell me if it looked cooked enough. You would like some mustard and meat, well i can easily slip that in now that you have your sandwich")

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...azs1u8nshBqEqg

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Originally Posted by ZakarnRosewood

...sandwich...

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Best

post

ever.

Poor iron giant.. Oh that's just cruel! Beating up on the poor guy while he's having a seizure! ;_;

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Originally Posted by ZakarnRosewood

This sandwich is in alpha.... Edited for Brevity

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lol That is the simplist and best explanation in layman terms EVAR! I wish I could double like!

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Originally Posted by Raven_Reborn

I wish I had the power to reach through the interwebs and personally punch people in the face. Who in the hell likes slow paced battles? That's so boring... If its too fast.. then GOOD.. that means the rest of the world living outside the Final Fantasy fanboy bubble will actually like the game.

Good job SE!

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lol it's really the old school Final Fantasy players that liked turn based combat. Where the mob would wait till you finished selecting the moves for the entire party! Key difference here is, the single player game vs an MMO! :P
1 player decided the moves for the entire party.
I've had some overzealous Party Leaders that tried to dictate what I did in combat, like this. But I listened by choice or left the party. ;)

probably been said numerous times and responded to.. but..

1) i hope the twitch when hit animation is reduced a fair bit for all monsters and players, but especially for the big monsters.
2) particle effects are a little excessive. it gets pretty bad when lotsa people attack the same enemy.
3) um.. the sound effect before every ability gets used.. could be better.
4) that orange whirl that happens after critical hit looks a little off. im thinking either its size or opacity.. or both

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Originally Posted by KoujiGeki

ok i know its just alpha but that casting animation is hideous! and what jobs can you play in alpha all i see are arcs, cnj, and lncs. Are there any other jobs?

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All classes with guilds in Gridania.
CNJ, ARC, LNC, BTN, LTW and CRP

:D When exactly will be released!!!

Ooo pretty!

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Originally Posted by Linkurrra

While there is a lot of complaining, the complaint is still valid because there IS a complaint. If it was perfect there would be no complaining. HOWEVER, from a development stand point you have to look at the bigger picture. Complaints are often self centered to adjust the game to make it easier for the complainer and they don't think about how these changes would affect the rest of the game or other players.

Yoshida is VERY good about looking at the BIGGERpicture and coming up with a compromise that will benefit all.
So YAY, for sharing videos of Alpha even though it shows an slightly unfinished results of a Work In Progress! (aka Alpha)

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Well you cant satisfy everyone :) if you make combat fast, some ppl complain it's to fast. if they slow it down, some ppl (most) get annoyed it's to slow.
So the dev team can only stick to their own plan, and incorporate players ideas, that fit their plan.
Their plan was to make more into a standard MMO, so i assume combat gonna end up faster paced; as suggested by live letter, where they say monk for example will be open for endless combos.

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Originally Posted by Radacci

Well you cant satisfy everyone :) if you make combat fast, some ppl complain it's to fast. if they slow it down, some ppl (most) get annoyed it's to slow.
So the dev team can only stick to their own plan, and incorporate players ideas, that fit their plan.
Their plan was to make more into a standard MMO, so i assume combat gonna end up faster paced; as suggested by live letter, where they say monk for example will be open for endless combos.

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If the game has fast combat the user can still choose to go slow, if the game has slow combat the user has to deal with it because you can't make it faster. The combat system has the potential to ruin this game so I hope se takes all the feedback now through beta to heart and does whatever needs to be done.

On the bright side, you really can't make the battle system worse than FFXIII's.

Could you imagine a party wipe if the trigger happy black mage was the leader, and if he died it was game over?

Or have support/healers using the same spell over and over again instead of using what's needed?

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Originally Posted by Orophin

People think a 3 second GCD is too slow, yet combat is a spamfest?

/mindboggled

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"Spamming" isn't a description based solely on the speed of button-pressing. More often than not it also describes the consecutive repetition of choices (especially a single or couple buttons), or the lacking connectivity of those choices.

As it stands Archers will hit their DoTs every 6th action and their blinds, if needed, every 7th action. All other actions use their primary damage ability until the mob drops under 20% health, where you add an entire fourth button to the mix.

[The Gloom Arrow Heavier Shot proc has occurred much more often than it's listed 15% + likely base crit chance, and the large Heavy Shot numbers themselves following the proc were crits. The actual proc difference appears to be marginal.]

The purposes of each ability remain almost entirely separate. Buffs can even be clicked off during other abilities' GCDs. In most situations 83.33% of your chosen attacks will be Heavy Shot. I personally wouldn't feel bad using "spamming" to describe that.

We have a mouse-clicker complete with each ability's tool-tips. All it takes is reading them.

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Originally Posted by Jinrya-Geki

On the bright side, you really can't make the battle system worse than FFXIII's.

Could you imagine a party wipe if the trigger happy black mage was the leader, and if he died it was game over?

Or have support/healers using the same spell over and over again instead of using what's needed?

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You have to consider that it's a single-player game where each characters uses potentially every class within a fight. None of these points would likely be kept in a multiplayer adaptation, especially not poor party... AI...

Centering the camera in a more cinematic, battle-oriented party-wide mode would be FFXIII-ish, and there's nothing especially wrong with having that in an MMO, as long as you complement it with changes to movement controls in that view. Is there anything necessarily wrong with having queued abilities, or, given a sort of stamina bar, a get in and get-out approach to melee? Having various but diverse attack schemes that can be switched through isn't especially problematic either. Fitting to FFXIV, no, but it's not an outright laughable problem. And those are the things that aren't singleplayer-specific.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

You have to consider that it's a single-player game where each characters uses potentially every class within a fight. None of these points would likely be kept in a multiplayer adaptation, especially not poor party... AI...

Centering the camera in a more cinematic, battle-oriented party-wide mode would be FFXIII-ish, and there's nothing especially wrong with having that in an MMO, as long as you complement it with changes to movement controls in that view. Is there anything necessarily wrong with having queued abilities, or, given a sort of stamina bar, a get in and get-out approach to melee? Having various but diverse attack schemes that can be switched through isn't especially problematic either. Fitting to FFXIV, no, but it's not an outright laughable problem. And those are the things that aren't singleplayer-specific.

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Sometimes I have to question the player in a party that you have no control over the same as the AI you also have no control over.

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Originally Posted by Jinrya-Geki

Sometimes I have to question the player in a party that you have no control over the same as the AI you also have no control over.

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But that's already an MMO standard. So no worries right? Or... all the worries... > >

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Originally Posted by Jinrya-Geki

On the bright side, you really can't make the battle system worse than FFXIII's.

Could you imagine a party wipe if the trigger happy black mage was the leader, and if he died it was game over?

Or have support/healers using the same spell over and over again instead of using what's needed?

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lol if this was in FFXIV ppl would be passing Party Leader around like a hot potato! So they could keep the game going with the player with the most health! lol