Gamerescape Interview: Summons, Chocobos, Train Tracks and Rocks

[Leonesaurus]

Greetings,

We would like to gather your thoughts about jump and how you would like it to be used (In combat? Getting around obstacles?) so we can pass them along to development team. Please let us know what you think. Thanks!

Here are my thoughts on how it should honestly be used from here on out.

The most necessary need for jump, judging on my entire experience of FF XIV 1.0 thus far, should be for the terrain.

I can't judge how much better FF XIV 2.0's terrain will be, how friendly it will be to scale for a player moving up or down on it, nor if you even can scale down most of the terrain, considering in the current version it's a pain in the ass to get up and down most things, even when on a chocobo.

But again, this is about what I would like to see it used for in 2.0, not what it could be used for now in this current system. However, I think there can be some really awesome things done with jump in the future. And it doesn't necessarily need to be combat based either.

I think the combat system is better without making the jump button an integral part of the combat system and routine. Maybe to dodge ifrit's cracks and plumes on the floor for mages. But if you decide on this, it basically throws out any evasion type statistics, since you're relying on actually skill and timing rather than numbers and luck of the system.

So more discussion should be considered for using jump in combat, but all in all, it doesn't really "need" to be included.

Jump, in my opinion, is primarily for jumping up or down from portions of the terrain that annoy us gamers when we are gathering, traveling, exploring, etc.

Again, I cannot comment on whether FF XIV 2.0's terrain is as much of a pain in the ass as the present version is, but I'll tell ya this: Regardless of how much the environment is improved in 2.0, the jumping ability should allow all players to scale terrain with ease. That means no more invisible walls on simple ledges or hills.

Minus of course actual ending points of a map, or 100 foot drops down to level 70 something mobs or what not. I think jump should have a great distance, but not too great of a leaping point where your guy looks as if he just dropped out of a 10,000 story tall building, otherwise our lalafells will break their friggin legs.

I heard chcoobos are most likely too difficult or too tricky to get to "jump". I don't know if this means:

A) Chocobos will have a harder time getting over leaps and bounds then a character getting off his bird and jumping over the terrain, then getting back on his bird. That would be very, very inconvenient.

I don't know if jump will be 100% used outside in the field since people exploring or traversing through layers of terrain will be on birdback, not traversing on foot anymore.

So discussion should be looked into:

traveling over leaps and ledges on chocobo ~ without having a jump ability

***versus***

a player running on foot and jumping on command over leaps and ledges ~ with a jump ability.

As for new players, who don't have a mount, they'll be most likely using the feature more than us, if that's the case.

Here's another question I have, which may be a bit rhetorical, but what about jumping in active mode? Is that even possible? Or just in passive mode?

Personally, I think if you have jump in the game from the get-go, make sure you can jump in both active AND passive mode. It's only more annoying to players when you limit a common ability to one mode. It'll be patched sooner or later in a fix, so might as well get it right from the start.

Of course, make it so you can't jump when performing a weaponskill, otherwise the game would look a little ridiculous. And become slightly more complicated for the devs.

Just try picturing a male miqot'e paladan trying to tank ifrit, while performing hop-scotch with his keyboard/controller, and popping defensive buffs at the same time in a ridiculous fashion.

Sounds kind of silly. So, that is something to keep in mind. Jumping cancels the weaponskill also. Another reason for people not to spam it in the heat of battle. (More discussion on using jump as an evasive maneuver in battles is still needed: yes/no, and how so?)

Back to jumping and the environment again....

It is paramount that you enable the player to jump down and scale up hills and mountainous terrain. The environment must work in tangent with the range of the jump ability. But even more so, jump won't be of any use if the chocobo can't scale the same range of terrain as the jumping character on foot can.

They must both work from mount and on foot. I've seen the developers enable chocobos to jump around and glide across terrain in FF XIII and FF XIII-2. I think it's possible with this game too. Maybe that's just my wishful thinking and my hope for the game, but it's something that should be highly considered.

But if you enable the chocobo to jump... As yourself this: can the goobbue jump too? You have to remember all travel options should be treated the same, otherwise, who would ever want to use their goobbue mount again? (For those that actually like their goobbue mounts.)

I'll wrap this post up here, for now. My novel of a post is long enough, but I wanted the devs to take my ideas and suggestions into mind. Thanks guys! Looking forward to playing 2.0!