Alpha First Look: Video 5 - Quests and Combat

[Talshara_Blade]

But they made it so we dont have to pull up wiki anymore! total easy mode.

Works for me. I don't want to have to use anything that didn't come with the game as far as info resources or addons. Sometimes I like to read the details of the quests, but sometimes I don't, occasionally the NPCs just babble on for too long. Cutscenes really get me more involved ....and then I end up doing quests with people that want me to skip CS just to get to the god damn fight or whatever and that makes me want to kick puppies. lol It's a lose/lose situation no matter what they do for quests.

[Sazhka]

Cutscenes really get me more involved ....and then I end up doing quests with people that want me to skip CS just to get to the god damn fight or whatever and that makes me want to kick puppies.

thats why i love being WHM... what was that? heal? ohh sorry im still watching CS


But anyways.. how is this different from 1.0 ? ... same quests..just easier to follow

[Punainen]

OMG, that battle music! <3

[Neasa]

Nice, no more having to locate quest stuff via that diary. I love how it shows the damage you parry... Quest stuff looks pretty clean overall. Not sure about combat, yet... Looks like we will be more active now, but hard to judge from this.

And just skimming over some of the responses... Quests are usually pretty "cookie cutter," or whatever you want to call them. Welcome to MMOs. Also realize you're looking at only two low level quests that clearly aren't even balanced yet (15 mage having a hard time with a level 4 quest, 15 melee taking decent damage on a level 10 quest).

I know I'm expecting too much of you people, but relax a little. I guess now that we get to see the combat video you've been dieing to see, you have to figure a way to complain about it.

[Majoga]

Honestly the questing didn't seem that much different than 1.0, I remember pulling up a map to find the location of where to go next. This is just making it easier to access without going through the extra menus. As for new battle system doesn't look that impressive to me but I'm not gonna dis on it until I've had a chance to at least try it.

[Psykotsu]

Honestly the questing didn't seem that much different than 1.0, I remember pulling up a map to find the location of where to go next. This is just making it easier to access without going through the extra menus. As for new battle system doesn't look that impressive to me but I'm not gonna dis on it until I've had a chance to at least try it.

I think people are bent on taking 10 minutes to read quest text and then an hour or two to trying to figure out what the quest is saying, and then another 10 minutes to pull up the wiki.

[Denmo]

Is the handholding any different than a single player RPG world being designed solely with the intent of guiding a player to the next part of the story? (Ex: The only accessible town in FF3 at the beginning just happens to be the starter town, even though you have a boat to explore with.). The game doesn't necessarily have to tell you where to go, because the developer knows that even if you butt your head into every wall available like an idiot, you'll still end up where you need to be. You're not "set free" until the game has - by virtue of design and story telling - guided you through enough of the game to where you feel comfortable in setting out on your own (IE: obtaining an airship in FF6)

It just can't be the same with MMOs. MMO's are complex beasts from a play design perspective because they have to accommodate for multiple players of all ranges doing all sorts of different things. There are techniques for hinting at where players should be at what level (hostile mobs blocking access to higher level areas), but ultimately in an open world, a new player will get lost when trying to figure out what to do next. First gen MMOs have tried to just let players figure it out for themselves, but it never seems to be enough and it's not a very user-friendly way of doing things. Some players 'enjoy' this. Or rather, they 'enjoy' the status they feel they obtained by roughing it out even though they know it was bad game design (See: FFXI endgame, Legacy Members [like me!], and elite EQ players). The quests offered in modern MMOs are designed to do the same things the story in single player RPGs do: Guide the player from point A to point B until they feel comfortable with the world. At least in ARR, we can expect quests with a good bit of flavor and meaning to them.

Final Fantasy has never been particularly difficult. I don't recall ever throwing my controller at the screen while fighting my way through Balamb Garden in FF8 (though I did smash in the PSOne power button when I lost my Shiva card to some random jack-off in a TripTriad game). You're constantly going from point A to point B killing hordes of random encounters that mean nothing to the story except to make you stronger. How then, is the quest system XIV:ARR is using such a step back for the genre?

[Ashaylin]

I'd like to remind people that the main scenario quests have not been implemented into Alpha.

Also, the red targeting rings are visible in order for players to do positional combos.

[Yukagama]

Make's feel good that am a legacy member ^_^

[Denmo]

I'm loving the pace of the UI shown! LOOKS SO SILKY SMOOTH~!