Another series of FFXIV beta pics!

More pics of fun stuff from this latest weekend's beta.

First though... something from FFXIV 1.0!

From the 1.0 Collectors Edition :o

Says here I'm from Ul'dah and has my nameday too xD Can't believe I still had this lying around. Mmm... wonder if I should start again from Ul'dah so that my character still matches the certificate? I was originally planning on starting CNJ1 in Gridania as that job wasn't even unlocked on my 1.0 char, but maybe I should start as THM1, or GLD4 in Ul'dah? I wanted to play GLD first and even if i start on THM1, I can switch to GLD easily and exp both since they start in the same city... First job gets a little boost from the story quest chain anyway.

Anyway, here are some fun pics!

Some very interesting landscapes out there

The REAL fight of that evil dragon from the 32-35 dungeon Brayflox's Longstop

Very pretty "dungeon", though not as fun or interesting as the Manor

Nighttime overlooking an outpost. Nice how it's quiet around here (level 30+ area)

Whee... people from Impact doing a dungeon together :D Always fun

Playing around with the benches

Look at that pink hair! And that mix of colors!

And we found a Lalafell boy to do our bidding!

One of the many cute-creepy creatures!

The holy trinity of chocobos! (One from each grand company)

SE *DID* promise to tone down the special effects, right? The good news that even though there were a good 30 PCs and 20 mobs doing all sorts of flashy skills in the area, there was no slowdown at all, unlike certain other MMOs

Overlooking Costa Del Sol at night...

And sunrise at the beach!

This is what happens if you don't feed your chocobo enough!

Elezen are tall >.<

Fighting Jaded Jody. This is a level 31 15-minute FATE NM, while I was level 35 at the time. It's possible to tackle these solo and still get full credit for the FATE, but it takes a long time

On the other hand, 30-minute big, *BIG* FATE NMs of the same level can't be soloed xD This is Cancer, just south of Costa Del Sol. I think he's at least 15x my height, probably 40x a Lalafell!

But a small group of us managed to take him down... twice!

After which, found some bouncies for Zurar!

This it for this beta weekend! I've actually hit cap for beta at 35 on MRD, but still running around poking things for fun. There's still a lot to potentially do, including working for a promotion in my grand company to get fancy looking gear. This red armor I'm wearing here is from the Limsa grand company!

I'm half wondering if I should join the Limsa GC again at release... their armor color is red and black, which I like. The Gridania colors are green and yellow, while the Ul'dah color appears to be blue... 

Let me know what you think! And what your favorite pics are... anything else you'd like to see... questions, etc. There'll be a post about other MMOs, and a special guest post on crafting coming up in the near future!

Dungeons as a Marauder at level 30

In the last beta, I had the opportunity to do many dungeons on the Marauder job. For the most part, I was doing the dungeon as a tank, but there were two dungeons where I was a DD. I figure I'd do a post on how combat in a dungeon felt like as a Marauder.

Basic Combat
While Zurar complains that combat in FFXI is simpler due to removing the idea of elemental weaknesses, I think compared to FFXI, combat is a little more complex due to the introduction of combos. This is where you string specific attacks together for increased effects.

At level 30, Marauder has two basic combos:
1. Heavy Swing -> Maim -- This gives you a buff so that you deal 10% more damage
2. Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder -> Butchers Block -- This combo not only does more damage compared to doing the skills individually, but also has an increased enmity effect

The yellow dashes surrounding the box show which actions will have an added combo effect if I were to use them next

Essentially, most of the time you end up smashing these four buttons, #1 to get the damage buff, and #2 to do a bunch of damage and get a bunch of hate. On random same-level open world mobs, I rarely go through this cycle more than twice.

My only complaint about this system is that to use the different combos, you really have to be conscious of which buttons you're pressing. For example, for me, I have to make sure I hit B->X->A in order to pull off the enmity combo. Tera, on the other hand, has all the combo buttons on one button, so to do a combo, all I have to do is start the combo by hitting one button, then all subsequent skills are automatically mapped to the X button so I only have to hit that with the correct timing.

Other combat skills
At level 30, there are a few other combat skills that are situationally useful.

Tomahawk - A basic ranged attack. It comes with increased enmity, so it's also useful for pulling mobs off the mages if you're not in direct melee range
Fracture - Applies a damage-over-time effect. Not very useful unless it's for boss fights simply because most mobs do not last very long
Mercy Stroke - A hard hitting attack that can only be done in the last 20% of a mob's life. If you kill the mob with Mercy Stroke, you get up to 20% of your own HP back.
Overpower - A conal AoE which has increased enmity
Brutal Swing - A stun move that is *not* subject to the global cooldown

Overpower is probably the most useful skill here since you can get the attention of a bunch of mobs and keep hate on them at the same time. Of course, since you're doing damage here, you really have to coordinate with the other party members and make sure there is no THM sleeping the mobs. I found myself spamming this a lot, especially when we're cleaning up small mobs between bosses in a dungeon when TP was not an issue.

Tomahawk is also very useful, especially as a tank in order to pull the groups of mobs in the dungeon.

Brutal Swing can interrupt many moves, though I'm not sure how many boss moves it actually interrupts.

Spamming Overpower on little mobs

Buffs, cross-class skills
Foresight - Increased defense for a short period of time
Bloodbath - Converts damage dealt to HP for a period of time
Berserk - Increases attack power for a period of time, but after it wears, you can't use weaponskills for 5 seconds.

Fairly descriptive moves. Bloodbath is pretty useful as it's one of the few ways that a Marauder can get HP back.

As you may know, FFXIV lets you "steal" abilities from other classes as long as you've unlocked them by leveling them up. In beta phase 3, you can unlock all jobs to level 15 by talking to specific NPCs after you reach level 20 in at least one job. The instructions are in the beta patch notes :)

Some of the cross-class abilities I've found very useful are:
Flash(Gladiator) - AoE enmity without doing damage! Even though as a Marauder, you have a low MP pool, this skill is still extremely useful in locking down hate.
Keen Fury (Lancer) - Increases parry rate. A 2nd defensive move for tanking
Raging Strikes (Archer) - Increases damage done by 20%
Second Wind (Pugilist) - Instantly restores % of max HP

Putting it all together
The nice thing about the buffs that most of them appear to be near-instant cast and are not subject to the global cooldown. This lets you do some fun things on Marauder.

For example, if you pop all your offensive abilities and Bloodbath, you end up doing a ton of damage while absorbing a lot of HP. Combine this with the Overthrow AoE attack and you end up not only doing a ton of damage, but you'll get a lot of healing and lock down hate on a bunch of mobs. For boss battles, doing Bloodbath + heavy hitting attacks lets you get some of your health back and gives the healer a breather.

As a tank, FFXIV is fairly simple. Boss fights become a matter of going through your combos, choosing if you want to try to stun certain moves, or move out of the attack radius, and keeping an eye on the healer to make sure they aren't being attacked by other mobs. The hate meters in the party list make it very easy to see where the other members of the party are, and if you need to use some hate spiking tools.

The only real challenge so far in dungeon fights is accounting for special fight mechanics. It appears that after the first dungeon, each boss fight has their own special mechanic that needs to be tackled. Sometimes, the tank has to hold a boss for something special while other party members interact with the environment. Others, it's where to position the mob and what to attack at the appropriate time.

I'm a little torn on these boss mechanics. On one hand, they are interesting to discover and figure out on our own, on the other, well... people don't like to lose, so learning all you can before starting the fight might be for the best. One example was one of the fights in the Copperbell Mines dungeon. The first time I did it, it was with a group and we had no idea what would happen. We ended up nearly wiping, but managed to pull out a win at the last moment once we figured out what to do. It felt like an accomplishment as we recovered from the near-disaster. The second time I did it, I briefed the team on what was going to happen and what to do, and we smashed the mob easily... maybe a little too easily.

What do you prefer? Experimenting, or knowing what will happen? Comment below!

(Latest screenshot from the latest beta. This just like the promo pictures from when 2.0 was first announced. I didn't think it was real when they first showed the action!)

Hi Dragon!

Long beta weekend

Sleepy... I overdid it this weekend x.x

Played much too much, almost entirely on Marauder, finished the main scenario content for the beta and nearly finished everything in beta! At this point, the last thing remaining among content in the beta is just the final level 32-34 dungeon.

In this beta, the 1.0 or legacy character import was added and I found that I had a character on the "Hyperion" server. This server is probably going to end up as the final server as Excalibur is filling up already.

Meanwhile, here's a screenshot dump! Brain no worky for thought deep ideas.

Even legacy characters start with the same opening sequence, like it's a new game

Legacy characters get branded in their upper back

2.0 engine

Same outfit, 1.0 engine. Any graphics people who can comment on the differences?

Full set of level 20 armor the Ark crafted for me. This was actually equal to, maybe slightly better than the dungeon drop for this level.

I swear that I didn't chop off that Lalafell's head! Really!

Ifrit says hi!

A lot of boss mobs are BIG! And this is the UI layout I'm becoming used to.

Lighting makes a different in how the world feels. This scene was at night. I wonder how the mood would change if it was during the day... (Music in the open world also changes depending on the time of the day)

At a certain rank, Lalafells can can get a special mount!

This is the Seed Seer, aka the Hyur Star Sybil! (Names that are S.S., leader of the city in the trees... even the flag's colors are the same!)

Some alien looking landscapes out there

Small temple in the middle of nowhere. Feels like this might be part of a quest or story eventually, or there should be NPCs here. There are a few outposts which look like they are missing NPCs

Camp Tranquil, which isn't very tranquil as there are high level plants waiting to eat you below

Ruins of an ancient civilization?

Hi Gigas!

And Mamool Ja... maybe they went overboard with importing FFXI stuff

A floating city

Sunrise at an onsen bed & breakfast! 

Floating city during the day

Costa Del Sol!

Wide open seas, though there are invisible walls if you try to walk out to the ocean. 

Local entertainment. The purple (!) on top of her head means that talking to her can start a dynamic FATE event. In this case, an escort quest where anyone in the area can participate

Which, if you do, leads to this conclusion >.>

There's an in-game military system where you can get promoted, buy uniforms and stuff too

Dungeons start with a cutscene which gives a fast, dramatic pan through where you'll be fighting and who you'll be facing

Like this friendly lizard!

I think Archers have some of the better outfits xD

Someone's cranky!

Many classic FFXI NMs are back as boss monsters in FATEs

Hmm... a house... Wonder what's in it?

Crazy floating women!

Classic party fighting regular mobs in the dungeon. This also shows the target marking system in action

Creepy floating eye

Yes, definitely haunted

Some people complain that combat is too flashy and has too many special effects... what do you think?

Well.. at least the house has a nice garden!

Whee! Giant crabs! This also shows my personal chocobo helping me as a party member companion (usually set to heal me) Unfortunately this means I can't ride her right now!

End of beta 3 part 2

That's it for this round... I'm almost done with the content that they're releasing for this beta, having just one dungeon left. If it seems that the game is progressing fast, it is probably because in the beta, there are a few parts where you can take leveling fast-forwards to bypass a few levels. For example, once you hit level 26, you can skip directly to level 29 by talking to a NPC. Similarly, once you enroll in a grand company at level 20, you can skip all the other jobs directly to level 15 after unlocking them. This lets us experiment with different actions from other jobs, as well as increases the pool of people to help out in the level 15 dungeon sequence. (You have to do 3 dungeons as part of the main storyline). It also lets you discover a lot of interesting other action combinations, like on Marauder, I have found that Flash from Gladiator really works well, even with the small MP pool.

Anyway, that's it for this weekend's photo dump! May have some thoughts later this week about the direction, and my experiences from doing the dungeons... Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to talk about in the comments!