Alpha First Look: Video 5 - Quests and Combat

[Shurrikhan]

I prefer no help at all.

Tell me the mob I am looking for is southwest of the current location, and tell me why it needs to be stop. I'll go looking for it, and make a side story in my head.

Tracking them down myself is better than blantly pointing them out. Makes me feel like I actually did the work of finding them, otherwise why not send a town guard to the sign post that says "enemy here"?

This. Though I usually honestly do enjoy reading FFXIV quests (that is a first for me though; I read maybe... a fourth or fifth of them in WoW and other similar quest-system MMOs). Keep some guidance (or at least just have the description on hand), and maybe lose the absolute-location markers.

As much as people have complained thus far about the 1.x quests being inconvenient, between leveling two characters I can't remember a single time I've needed to look at a wiki. The worst I've gotten is having to check multiple elevation points for an absolute marker when I didn't bother to read the text. If I had, I probably would have realized the mentioned cave could not have been located on a barren cliff, and was therefore at the lower area.

Even the relatively obscure quests still have their object-based locations marked on mouse-over or list quest items. If the zone is general, rather than specific, then just about every mob of the mentioned type in the area will drop what you're looking for... I really don't see what's been confusing about the 1.x system at all.

"Ambush a team of Garleans making their way through the canyon", doesn't that already tell you that it's going to be (1) in that section of canyon, and (2) you may need to arrive their first, rather than expecting to see Garlean soldiers already there? Do we need a live arrow to a highlighted, translucent instance wall otherwise in the middle of nowhere just to find these places?

Why do we have to sacrifice the majority of the quest experience just to facilitate the killing/gathering portion? I enjoy the sense of actually knowing what I'm looking for, and finding it given reasonably known parameters. If I just want experience in killing, farming mobs already did that for me. I don't see why I need two (three with leves) of the same thing, but with a lot of added running time and extra clicks to get through dialog. If they aren't going to be enjoyable in their own way, why have them?

[whoopeeragon]

At the time of posting....

Japanese side - 13 replies.

English side - 111 replies.

...Maybe it's a sign about us as a community? Just maybe??

[Enma]

Will be possible in future make ( = worthwhile ) EXP in "old-style" grind PT?
Will be introduced recast for WS and Magics?

[Yellow]

Well, showing something is better than showing nothing and having everyone complain that they aren't showing anything / aren't communicating or keeping us in the loop. They also (apparently incorrectly) figured that we're smart enough to realize that a level 11 quest is very early on and isn't likely to compare to the quests that you'll be doing at level 50. Remember, the level limit in the alpha isn't even halfway to the regular max level.

To be fair.. we're a couple of weeks into alpha.. what you're saying is almost identical to the excuse people used during the TERA beta when people complained that the quests weren't great, "They'll be better higher levels". Guess what! They weren't... lets be honest here, this is obviously a representation of their questing system.


edit: Want to know what game that does quests really well? The Secret World. Too bad the rest of the game sucked.

[IloveYouPumpkin]

At the time of posting....

Japanese side - 13 replies.

English side - 111 replies.

...Maybe it's a sign about us as a community? Just maybe??

Google translate sucks, but this comment from one of the japanese posts doesn't sound good.

"Icon at the top of said NPC, the balloon, said acceptance Quest BGM.
The game makes you feel like a pretty Hiroshi overall.

Improbable ordinary game overseas. Goodbye."

Apparently hiroshi is a japanese comedian that's known for being bad. Maybe he's calling it a bad joke? Sounds like he thinks the game looks like another western crappy mmo and won't be touching it. lol. I would have preferred XI-2 with its sometimes frustrating quest system over this. (not advocating the need of wiki's, I just want to read and explore and figure things out within the game.. you know, like every single RPG ever, in the past). I'll still play and give it a chance but I'm not excited about this hand holding stuff with the map pointing where everything is etc. I don't mind having 'kill this' quests. However, everything else preypacer wrote on the first page is frankly spot on in my opinion.

If that's where MMO's are evolving to, the MMO genre everyone used to know is dead. Soon enough we'll have a yellow-brick road that pops up after quest acceptance that highlights where you need to walk to for advancing. Is that an MMORPG anymore? Maybe it should be called FTARPG. "follow this arrow rpg". Maybe this is the kind of thing the majority wants. I mean, with music like gangnam style going viral I'm not too surprised people want a shallow experience in their MMO.

Not to sound over-dramatic. Maybe other parts of the game will hold my attention. I'm just tired of this kind of thing happening over and over with every MMO ever since WoW was released. Not that I'm hating on WoW, I played it for a while.. had some fun, sometimes a lot of fun. But why don't I remember most of it? Because streamlined easy experiences don't stick. nothing compares to everquest 1 and FFXI. Nothing has been as memorable as those two.

But times have changed. I'll deal with it while reminiscing of the good old days until someone decides to make a game that doesn't care about how many casual players it picks up for their money.

[Tadacho]

I'm sorry, there seems to be some confusion as to what every quest in every game ever is. Killing enemies, retrieving something, going to a particular location. Sure some of the more epic quests will involve boss enemies, puzzles, etc, but these are usually reserved for the grander quests (e.g. the main scenario).

Honestly, what more can you expect from a quest? Especially ones that are designed to just level you up and explore the land. The primary way to make such quests more exciting is the variation in enemies and their abilities, which at low levels can't really be explored so well.

There is nothing new in this video, nothing that I didn't already anticipate as we've been told for a year that 2.0 will feature a quest hub style of gameplay.

You'll all still play.

[Gugnir]

I dont mind the questing system, it just seems like filler to keep people occupied. The endgame content of this game and having stuff to do besides hanging around ul'dah is what concerns me the most.

[nibelunc]

I am kind of sad after seeing this gameplay vid. Until now I was very happy with everything I saw from ARR.
But I don't like the icons in the game, the UI, on one side we have classic text bubbles and on the other side we have future UI elements, as bad as in FFXIII and they just dont fit. I dont like progress with questing, the progress and game speed at all. Because I used to grind in every Final Fantasy until now. I want to get exprerience by fighting and not by talking with a NPC?
Maybe the story will be good. I want to give the game a try but I prefer FFXIV 1.0 over this...
I am sure every WoW player will be happy with this game. But I sadly think I will not.
I want Final Fantasy not only with names and creatures. But also with system and innovation. They copied too many elements from other games and thats not what SE was known for.

Short: If I want to play a JRPG, I play a JRPG and not a western RPG. Because I do not like them.
- SE is trying to do a J-western RPG atm.

[HiirNoivl]

Nibel, somtimes change is good.

The last thing I want to feel in ARR is the crushing boredom I felt in the last days of 1.0. Quests like this aren't the most excited but they do drop lore nuggets, which I like even more than loot. (Loot is great means to get more lore though. ;3) Today we found out that Tam Tara is the Catacombs of the victims of the 11/11 disaster. So I'll try to make sure I head over there and see if I can find out more about what happened when Hiir faded to white.

This, end game content, dungeons, F.A.T.E, and well I hear we'll be getting a card game maybe?

Methinks this is going to be fun. Bye bye boring grind. Welcome to the fun grind!

[Andrien]

This game is shaping up to be very fun to play.

I can't stress how much I'm relieved to no longer depend on someone else or be forced to open up a second page and hope someone wrote down a walk-through on wiki. That kind of stuff really killed the mood for me, and I'm glad they choose this way of questing and combat.

Also this way the console users have a fair ground to stand on because they wont be able to pull up a second page to read tips and tricks. This makes the game more fluid, fair, and seamless in my opinion.

Pros:
Music is great
Environment looks great
Combat looks good
Questing and progression looks pleasing

Cons:
Characters look to stiff.

Other:
The Pace of combat in the video is understandable because of level difference.