Alpha First Look: Video 7 – Levequests and Party Combat

[dascorp]

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?

you mean classes... and yes those are the three

[Nayto]

Greetings!

In regards to all of the comments about how the enemies visibly react to player attacks, we'll be adjusting these animations around the time the Beta Test begins.

Specifically we are looking into addressing it in the following ways:

• Vary the damage animation according to the amount of damage inflicted.
• Tone down the damage animation for large monsters.

No more monster seizures confirmed... now you can complain about other things.

[BarretWallace]

No more monster seizures confirmed... now you can complain about other things.

...That's the best response I've read in a good long while.

[RoninDarkchild]

I never understood how slower combat was instantly Strategic.... it just meant your combat was slower... nothing more.

And I never felt Strategy and tactics came from the combo system of 1.0 in hard fights.
You used all 4 combo you could do an Auto Attack was an after thought, something that just happened between combos riding timers. I never used Simian Smash or Aura Pulse because it was Strategy... I used them because I had no choice. Neither had a desired effect that did anything in combat. It didnt even matter what order I did my combos in. I just started with Howling fist because it hit the hardest. Would the battle be that different if i started with Dragon Kick? I know some attacks break body parts, and some things gave a debuff but did it every really matter in 1.0 hard battles? :-\

The only time monitoring TP seemed to matter was during garuda for plumes (and using aoe at right time), and ifrit extreme Nails. Every other fight I was in was just a combo spam fest. Using every single combo I had that was not on a timer regardless of which one. It didnt require me to think, or monitor anything. Even when you watch the youtube videos of the best and fastest fights, there is no strategy in combo rotation and TP generation. That in itself is not tactics to me. Seemed just secondary.



Tactics for hard fights in 1.0 to ME was about positioning (Stand in this safe spot, run from that attack), adds (Slugs, plants, Skeletons, Plumes, Nails), phases (behavioir changes), using the right ability at the right time (benediction and battle voice), knowing WHAT to do (whats the best way to take it down), and when to do it (Full attack after abc), the gimmick in the fight (You wipe if you dont accomplish xyz), and living through big attacks (Meteor, Inferno, Aerial Blast, MegaFlare). But spamming my 4 combos being Tactical? Not so much imo.

And when did ANY of these things exist at lvl 20 in 1.0? You even spammed the same combo at lvl 20.... You only had like 5 abilities...

[Eekiki]

Tactics for hard fights in 1.0 to ME was about positioning, adds, phases, using the right ability at the right time, knowing WHAT to do, and when to do it, the gimmick in the fight, and living through big attacks. But spamming my 4 combos being Tactical? Not so much imo.

The issue is people are using this word "tactical" because it sounds like a smart word to use, but they don't know what they're really saying when they use the word. EVERY fight involves tactics. The question is are those tactics simple, or are they complicated?

In 1.0, in the Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, were the tactics needed to win those boss fights that complex? No. It was simple tank-and-spank. How, then, could anyone expect to see complicated fighting tactics in a 90 second video showing off a group of level 20's fighting a prototype monster in a very incomplete alpha build of a game?

The purpose of the video was not to show off what kind of tactics the game's battles would entail. It was only to show off how the UI operates in a party. People are acting like these two fights are illustrative of how every major battle in the game is going to be, and that is just plain foolish.

[RoninDarkchild]

The issue is people are using this word "tactical" because it sounds like a smart word to use, but they don't know what they're really saying when they use the word.

People are acting like these two fights are illustrative of how every major battle in the game is going to be, and that is just plain foolish.

Careful, if you point out those details you may be accused of "SUpressin Mah Opnionz" XD

[Zumi]

....

I don't get it. I really don't...People are complaining that a three second Global Cooldown makes the pace of battles too slow....and now they are saying it's a fast paced spamfest?

Time to add another thread to the folder of contradictions within the forums community.

Its different groups of people. The ones who think 3 sec GDC slows pace of battle are totally different then the ones who are saying its a spamfest and want it slower.

Personally I think the combat is slow, due to the fact you can see the guy waiting 3-4 sec to hit his next action. He uses is mouse and has a lot of time to click the next action. At a professional level of play clicking your mouse to pick actions would be unthinkable, but here it shows just how slow the combat is because he actually has a lot of time to use the mouse.

[RoninDarkchild]

At a professional level of play clicking your mouse to pick actions would be unthinkable, but here it shows just how slow the combat is because he actually has a lot of time to use the mouse.

Yea, but its only lvl 20
What if there are ways to reduce the timer at higher lvl??

[Zumi]

Yea, but its only lvl 20
What if there are ways to reduce the timer at higher lvl??

I would say its bad game design then. Pick up WoW at level 20 it generally has the same battle pace from level 1 to level 90, you start out with 1.5 sec GCD, at endgame you have 1.5 sec GCD, although you get stronger spells and abilities as you level up the battle pacing feels the same at level 20 dungeon vs a lv 90 raid.

At level 1-20 is when someone decides if they will continue to play a MMO or not. If they see that combat pacing is really slow when they are starting out then they are less likely to stick with it. Someone posted a video from gamebraker.tv in another topic where they were talking about these videos and the major complaint they had was the GCD looked too long and seemed like a snooze fest. These guys aren't like hard core into Final Fantasy but are your general mmo audience, but even they think that 3 sec GCD is unacceptable.

[ZakarnRosewood]

Global cooldown 3sec? looks pretty standard in the FF ATB system. I had no gripes about the battles in these games...

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