Alpha First Look: Video 5 - Quests and Combat

[Nox]

I agree. This version of XIV is terrible. The graphics are fantastic, the environments are stunning but the quests are an insult to gamers. The battle animations are a giant leap backwards as are the spell casting animations and the spells themselves. All weapon skills so far look identical too each other not to mention they happen so fast you dont even know what just happened. I could tell you how every weapon skill looks and functions in 1.0 but this.... this is all forgettable mindless icon spamming..

I didnt play WoW, Rift, SWTOR, GW2 because they all look and play like this game now. I stayed away from all of those titles because they were all clones of WoW; its safe to say this game is too. They want what's popular in the MMO market to make a buck. This is all just mindless fetch quests, mind numbing, time sinking garbage.

Why cant we just have a main story line and progress through that? By the time we get done with our 1 millionth quest of kill 6 of X and 3 of Y, we will have forgotten what the story was even about.

I think current customers that stuck it out for 2+years will leave for good now that this game has morphed into yet another standard MMO. So much for innovation. But hey.. at least the graphics are good huh!?

Oh look! One of THOSE responses. Let me spell it out for you bro. Not doing this (standardizing the game to the current market) and releasing 1.0 in such a pathetic state, was what made Xiv 1.0 a fail pretty much everywhere. what they are doing here is *gasp* making the game up to standards. congratulations on missing the point. If they don't provide these type of "cookie cutter" quests, then it's difficult to bring forth content (For all types of gamers). I highly doubt these are the only type of quests that ARR will provide. But if you are going to be ignorant enough to assume that, walk away now. Your point of view won't be missed by those of us who want the game to succeed.

[RexValentino]

I too, thought the quests in ffxi, etc. were very enjoyable and extremely deep. Though, I don't think i enjoyed those quests because the people to talk with or the places to examine were hard to find. I was always on the wiki so i knew where i was going and what i was doing. Constantly being on another computer or alt-tabbed, was a bit annoying.

I think the best part of side questing in ffxi, etc. was how the quest tied in with the main storyline and how well they were written. I don't feel like new components in the user interface take away from the ability to get into side quests if they are well written and tie into the main story, or with each other. It does seem like this is an option, so i think if you wanted to have a bit more of a challenge in finding things you don't have to click on the help text for more info or the map markers.

I prefer in game help rather than a constant website hunt XD. The User Interface and the ability to get info in game fast is a great OPTION they are giving us! <yes, please!>

The thing i noticed lacking, that might have made the SIDE QUESTS a tad more enjoyable, is that there were no mini cut scenes and camera angles and npc movement ... mood setting devices. I love these, though i know a lot of the grab and go type of guys don't ^^; But i'm sure they will be used in the main story line, and probably the more meaningful sidequests.

[Psykotsu]

I'm in agreement with Nox.

But as far as the video goes, like others have pointed out, the Water spell looks cool, and it's instant. I think this mechanic opens up doors for battles. I was worried about how Stone looked in one of the events YoshiP did. The rocks would just teleport to the enemy, which looked weird but that has been adjusted too. (Testament to things gradually being updated)

Also, the WHM parries some damage. Was that always possible?

[IloveYouPumpkin]

Dark souls... enough said.

Played it beat it.

[Talshara_Blade]

I'd say to make everyone happy, why not just make it so that you have the option to "hide" some of the quest information. You can then select your own level of quest "hand holding" and if you get stumped you can click on Hint and perhaps it reveals a direction, click it again and it shows all the info. That way people can decide how much of the quest they want to figure out on their own , and don't have to go to a website if they get lost.

[avalonstormm]

i think the markers and indicators should have a "toggle on/off" switch so that players can have a choice of how they want to do the quests (figure it out themselves without the markers and indicators or have the quests guide them step by step with markers and indicators).

this is to add to Talshara_Blade's comment, which I don't think will be difficult to implement..

[Kagato]

A lot of this crap is truly embarrassing to read:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post914260
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post914304
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post914351

I especially like the parts where they ignore when people ask to be given examples of MMOs that do not follow the "grind" formula. Even Guild Wars 2 has a grind. It just doesn't feel like it because you're always in different areas and it's free-flowing. You're still killing x amount of enemies and getting x amount of items.

These folks make it seem this is FAR FAR FAR FAR more grindy and repetitive than 1.0's system.

>Guildleves
>Enemy Grind
>Spiritbinding Party
>Repeatable quests

This sort of thing has never happened before in an MMO ever! WHAT AN OUTRAGE!

Grow up. If you're going to support your negativity with nothing more than pipe dreams and basically saying the same "this is too much like other MMOs" chorus without giving a single example of an MMO it SHOULD be like (but then again, you'd be playing that MMO instead of being here, so lolol)... then kindly just quit playing MMOs entirely. Clearly this kind of game is not for you.

[Felis]

Ohnoes! A couple of level 15-ish quests in an alpha build of a game don't require a masters degree in rocket science! This is a tragedy!

Worse
The first quest in the video was lv4, the second lv10

Everyone know in lv 4 quests there should be some mini NM where you need 3 party members to kill (if you are on lv 4) ^^

[fredtma]

Everything in life is repetition.
u wake/wash/eat go to work/school for 5/6 days then relax on the weekend(an instant with a group of friends)
occasionally you do get those rare reward/achievement a promotion at work/new job/graduation (story quest finish)
then u reach the highest level (marriage/ur own company) but that does not mean you stop there.
So we can't really complain about repetition can we?

My question to the community is, what makes ARR different to any other MMO out there?
So far I don't see it and we can't use "it only alpha" because chances are, this is as good as it gets.
Took them two yrs to produce alpha chances are beta & final won't be different.

Again I ask what makes ARR different then any other MMO?
Personally, I have always enjoyed FF games because of they summoning, story and the characters.
I hope this game can deliver at least on the story, like chain of promathia in FFXI

[strallaalaa]

no matter what, in any mmo. example number. 50hours to hit max, then it's 50hours no matter what type of leveling it is. grind is grind. it's just preference and also how long you want the leveling to be. this type of leveling only works for those who love solo'ing and have short times to play. or between every quest likes to get up and check on there kids or whatever they do.

but in my opinion these are different types of mmo's and they need to start defining mmo's right away before we buy them so we stop waisting our time. the way mmo companies play is they try and get everyone they can to buy into there bs and it should become a law standard to define them for what they are prior to purchase not this really broad range of yeah it's a mmo. no no it's not.

@FREDTMA also to the question on what seperates arr from any other mmo. only it's franchise title. people that love the final fantasy series, those who loved ffxi even though they totally not creating the game for them, it's probably the majority of us are one or the other or both. that is it, and its' the reason they probably thought they could get away with a bad launch the first time and it's probably why they think this new arr will be good enough. we all really want it to succeed way too much lol. other then that it's still has 24man content that is missing from many of the new mmo's coming out. though i would rather have full linkshell 64man but 24 is really good too. either way that is the only thing else that separates it from most the garbage out now.