Ascy: A Hyur Reborn

Hello!

Anyone out there?

I'm guessing not... but if you do see this and you haven't talked to me in a while... leave a comment and say hi!

In the 1 1/2 years since my last post, I've gone through a circuit of waaaaaaaaay too many MMOs! Star Wars: The Old Republic, Tera, Phantasy Star Online 2, Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter, The Secret World, Vindictus... None of them have held my interest for very long for one reason or another, some of which embarrassingly so -- Ark & I had hit max level and finished all the Neverwinter content before the game was actually released! I might do a post on my experiences in each of the other MMOs if people are interested. I was considering reactivatin Final Fantasy XI for the new Seekers of Adoulin content until the Final Fantasy XIV 2.0: A Realm Reborn testing started up!

I've been playing this off and on since the alpha last December. Through the different phases, I've tried out healing as a Conjurer, DDing a an Archer, and tanking as both a Gladiator and Marauder. Now that the NDA is lifted, I figure I'd revive this blog and put some of my impressions out there for people, especially those former FFXI players who might be considering playing XIV.

First, the legal stuff. All appropriate images are:

 All company, product, system names and/or company logos and marks are the
registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners. 

 Copyright (C) 2010 - 2013 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved. 

I find it slightly ironic that the last time I blogged about FFXIV it was during the 1.0 alpha. Since this the game is still not released, and it has changed significantly between phases, I'll just talk about the latest beta. In this beta, I had original chosen to be Marauder, the axe wielder which eventually develops to become Warrior. I had originally figured on trying out a close-ranged DD for a different experience, but I quickly found out that not only is Marauder an effective off-tank, but also quite good at being a main tank!

Graphics & Sound
FFXIV is still one of the prettiest games I've ever seen. The good news is that unlike 1.0, you don't need a computer that is out of this world to play it! Framerates are smooth, the environment and rendering looks sharp and almost realistic.

(Mostly) Starting gear, just out of town

The UI is adjustable so you can edit it, move things around. The environment chases constantly too, with an accelerated day/night cycle, weather effects, etc. all things you'd expect from FFXI. Fighting effects are very flashy, with appropriate noises.

Yay lens flares! Just like J.J. Abrams

The sound effects are also impressive. Besides the usual stuff like footsteps changing depending on your armor and what you're stepping on, the environmental sounds change depend on where you are and what's around you. When I first logged on, the opening town was relatively quiet since there weren't many players around. Later, there was a crowd in the adventurer's guild and it sounded like a lot of noise. If you enter a cave, you'll hear the sound of your footsteps changing, adding an echo. The same thing happens for any actions you take.

Combat
Some people call this the "old style" MMO combat style, involving 2.5 second "global cooldowns" between items, tabbed targeting and hotkeys. They'd be correct here. The actual combat itself isn't anything special, with the usual actions like a few damage moves, stun moves, healing, raises, etc. The combat is faster compared to FFXI, but anyone from a classic MMO like WoW would feel right at home.

TP, HP, MP all regenerate at a decent speed and when you're in the open world, you have virtually no downtime. /heal is a thing of the past. The good news is that claiming mobs is also a thing of the past! If someone else is fighting a mob you need credit for a quest, go join in! If someone is near death, go help kill the mob too! Even more amazing is that they actually have aggro lines showing you not only who has the mob's attention, but which mobs will link if you attack a mob! There are even hate meters so you can see how much leeway you have to do damage compared to the tank.

Not the best shot, but you can see the red circle around the mob's feet pointing to who is under attack. The white bar next to the party member's name on the upper left shows the amount of hate. Also, see: "The Hole" and "Key to the Hole"

What else... they have a "combo" system which gives your attacks special effect or more potency if you chain two skills together. I guess a kind of self-skillchain, but you're doing this constantly. You can see there's a dash outline on the box of one of my skills. This means that I just did an ability that chains to this one and that if I use it, I'll get more damage compared to normal. There are also limit-breaks, but they are based on parties. I still haven't figured out how to trigger a limit break yet!

Overall, the combat system leads to something that feels fast paced compared to FFXI, but not as fast as modern action MMOs like Tera or Neverwinter. The good news is that it at least gives you some time to actually type and talk, unlike the other games where if you aren't moving, you'll be killed.

Controls
Since the game is being released for both the PC and PS3, the game has gamepad support. I've always played FFXI with a gamepad, though the method of hitting a button, then moving the cursor around and finally selecting something seemed slow. I've had many cases when I decide to simply abandon the controller and type commands directly (like '/ma "Cure IV" Fuuji') as it would be faster than scrolling and finding the macro. I did like how the buttons can be used to select items and interact with everything in the world.

I also liked Tera's method of using the face buttons to perform commands. For example, pressing X uses one skill, Y another. This made combat feel more real-time and interactive. You didn't have to look at the menu bar to see which action you were choosing and could do it entirely by feel.

FFXIV keeps the way that FFXI interacts with the world, but manages to add the hotkey-like buttons by using the shoulder buttons as modifiers. You can use the D-pad and buttons to interact with the world, but if you want to use a skill, you hold one of the shoulder buttons and press a face button. For example, LT+Y causes you to sprint, and you can also use the D-pad as buttons. This gives a default of 16 actions you can use (LT and RT are two different macro 'pallets', while the 4 buttons and 4 directions on the D-pad are individual actions you can take. FFXIV calls this the "cross-bar". You can also switch between 8 different cross-bar configurations, giving a theoretical 128 possible customizable actions you can take from just a controller

The classic MMO hotkey method (keys 1-=) can also be used. What's interesting is that you can actually use both at the same time, and they don't have to map to the same actions.

Busy picture, but look at the cross-bar just above my HP in the bottom middle part of the screen, and the hotbar just above it.

I found this actually worked quite well. I could have the rarely used things on my keyboard, playing with the controller just above the keyboard and quickly tap down on them when needed. In this picture, I have my potions and ether on the right side, and the "target marking" actions on the left, letting me very quickly mark the order which my party should attack mobs without sacrificing actions on my gamepad.

Gameplay

At first glance, gameplay seems to be the standard MMO stuff... pick up quest, kill mobs/escort npc/fetch items, turn in quest, go to new area and repeat. It's what WoW did for ages and is fairly standard for MMOs. Unlike other MMOs, FFXIV lets you have multiple classes/jobs on the same character, so you need other ways to exp. The semi-good news is for at least levels 1-15, there are 3 different countries where you can do 3 different sets of quests, so at least 3 classes can go through this manner. I think there is a split of quests after level 25 as well, but haven't confirmed.

There are also a few other ways to get exp:

• Hunting logs -- For the OCD of us, each class has a log which tracks the mobs you've killed. You can get exp just from killing different mobs in different places in the world
• "Guildleves" -- Essentially repeatable quests. You get 3 leve allowances every 12 hours, and the quests themselves give exp, gil and in some cases, items or gear. This would make it easy to grind exp solo. You can have up to 100 allowances, so if you simply don't do leves for two weeks, you'll be capped and can go on a levequest grind
• FATEs -- Real-time dynamic events. These pop up on the world map. Essentially mini-events that last a few minutes at a time, you can get quite a bit of exp from dropping in with a large crowd and smashing mobs (or picking oranges, or killing a big boss). It's very similar to Rift or Guild Wars 2
• Dungeons -- These are repeatable, give decent exp and gear. I think I was averaging just under 1 level per run through a dungeon, and they didn't take very long to do (~1 hour if you don't screw up). Dungeons are also enjoyable with interesting boss fight mechanics, not the simple tank & spank that so many other games use. You actually have to talk to your party members! 
• Exp chains! -- This concept from FFXI is still alive! Kill an equal level mob or higher in a certain time and you'll get a bonus of up to 50%. What's better is that they actually *tell* you how much bonus you're getting, what chain number you're on and how much time you have before the timer runs out. Self-chaining to 5 can be done for most classes Supposedly you get a bonus for partying and killing, but I haven't tried the sustained chain in a party concept before.

Another successful dungeon

Subjobs make a comeback... kinda. Unlike FFXI, you get to pick and choose specific abilities from the jobs you've leveled. For example, as a Marauder, I could choose to either enhance my damage with another ability from the Archer class, add another move from Lancer to increase my parry, or even add Protect or Cure from the Conjurer class. The number of abilities you can borrow from other classes increases as you go up in level, and the ability to unlock other classes starts at level 10, though you may have to visit other cities to unlock the class you want.

Cutscenes are of course, SE standard! Some random scenes:

No, I'm not your dentist

And my axe! (Yes, subligar, the FFXI standard armor is still around!)

Yay posing!

Traveling to Ul'dah

Entertainment in Ul'dah

The little things
I've played the initial starting experiences in two of the major cities so far -- Gridania to level 28 (thanks to some level fast forwarding they had in betas), and Limsa to level 20... I thought that the experience is fairly good, and has only gotten better in the latest beta. There are still things that aren't in-game yet that will be. I might put up another blog post about the leveling experience, including how the game introduces things gradually, but funnels everyone to experience dungeons together, much like how FFXI funnels everyone to Jeuno.

However, I found that it's the little things that have impressed me the most. Besides what I said about sound earlier, they've done a lot of things that make me feel like they've learnt the lessons of FFXI, from other MMOs and are actually listening to the players.

A few of what caught my eye so far:

• Traveling around the world is very easy. No more 15 minute chocobo rides to places, teleporting between cities, or even places in a zone, can be done for relatively cheap, airship rides are instant and you don't have to wait for the airship
• Abundant storage -- Not only do you start off with a crazy amount of storage (100 inventory slots), but each armor slot has their own independent inventory section in the "armory chest". Key items and quest items also have their own area, so you essentially have 100 inventory slots for crafting items and consumables. I haven't even touched individual storage or player housing, but I don't think I'll need to juggle around my inventory
• Emotes and facial expressions -- Besides the major motions whenever you do something like a /wave, you can see your character's face changing expressions even when you do something as simple as a /joy will show your character smiling

• Questing is easy -- They basically point you to where you need to go, and clicking on the map brings up where you need to go so you can easily travel to places. They also funnel people to the initial dungeons
• If you log out/log in to the game in an inn, you'll see that your character actually climbs into bed and lays down, logging you out when you fall asleep... just like ALfheim Online.

• You can set up gear set to easily change your gear for the job. No more hunting around your mog house searching for that Serket ring which you can't find when you need to change roles! Switching to WHM is just a click away! (This may or may not be a good thing)
• You can interact with the environment in limited ways, like sit down on a bench

• Detail on the outfits, down to the underwear! Look at how the designers created something just for the mi'qote tail!

• The taru-taru's worst enemy has finally been defeated! The newer stronger brand of lalafells have conquered the counter!

Thanks to Ark for the pic! Visit his tumblr at http://eorzeark.tumblr.com/ 

Ok, that's it for now. I'll save some pics for next time... but before I go, very important question!

Hairstyle! Which is better, long or short? Vote now on the poll to the right!

Long:

or short:

They're almost the same hairstyle, except the shorter version has an extra layer of hair along the left side of the face.

Vote now!