Comments from the Devs

[Lordender]

Yeah... you're right. Everyone's going to get alpha access anyway; I'll save the surprises for all of you to... experience. Yourselves.

This is why I love Yoshida, he's trolling the "FF kids onry/WoW haters" with HD: WoW. I think WoW has fantastic game play, I knew what we were getting when I first saw the video of the run through @ gamerscon and loved it. I love everything except 2 things I've experienced thus far but can't get into that specifically. The dev team sat down and really played WoW(and it shows), they've learned a whole lot from WoW.

All i got to say to people is this: If you don't like WoW type of game play, then 2.0 won't be for you, thats about as vague as I can put it.

[Grey Jorildyn]

That's hardly vague. Also I agree lol

[Sephiroth]

Bit late here but we had two viable healers in the original XIV. THM's Sacrifice line of spells made it a good healer while being different to CNJ. It was a bit over-powered but I don't see why they couldn't balance that and turn THM's second job into a healer with those type of abilities.

[jwang]

WoW style gameplay has pretty much become bread and butter to the MMO genre because of how versatile and easy to use the system is. XIV 1.0 UI was a sort-of attempt at WoW UI without being too WoW, and like all half-assed things failed miserably. The old XI system of menus and macros were cumbersome and overly complicated. Diehards will be diehards though, and will denounce the WoW UI even if it's better optimized. At the end of the day though, the question ought to be "are you having fun?" and not "is this WoW?" IMO the things that made FFXI more fun that WoW was the amazing storyline that the missions and quests tell, as well as the interactions with the community on Cerberus. Recent MMOs where you just do things solo makes the game feel so detached that I usually drop it within a month or so of play. The usage of the FATE system would probably prevent that from happening in XIV, but I'm not getting my hopes up unless the new quests forces you to group or fail.

[Eagleheart]

Reading these posts fills me with a sense of dread at what lunacy the knuckledraggers on the OF might be feeding Dev Team.


>< Need alpha invite pronto. OF needs to burn, I'll bring the kerosene... the thing about 'flavor quests' just makes me want to throw a tomato at someone...

[Charismatic]

Why's that? Do you think I'm making good or bad posts in regards to these issues?

Good ones, actually... my reasoning is that while there may be some community reps that view other boards we can't be sure how often they do so your posts may be getting glossed over (not like this can't happen on the OF/Alpha forums or any other official SE site).
Trust me, I meant nothing negative with that statement.

[Elona]

Another Yoshi interview about failure of 1.0.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/11/new...-the-original/

[Alkar]

Bit late here but we had two viable healers in the original XIV. THM's Sacrifice line of spells made it a good healer while being different to CNJ. It was a bit over-powered but I don't see why they couldn't balance that and turn THM's second job into a healer with those type of abilities.

It wasn't different, it was simply better.
Dancer was different but SE was too scared to properly evolve the job into what it should've been and went with the DD route. That's the kind of stuff we need not another mage with cures. If you guys think handing cures to other mages is gonna fix the issue you're simply wrong. However, handing it out to everyone like in 1.0 isn't really gonna help either. A dedicated healer that plays differently and that can exist without being worse or better than WHM is the only good solution but I don't see it happening at launch.
And let's not start pushing Arcanist into the healing corner already or I'm gonna kill something.

[Grey Jorildyn]

If melee dps outparse them, they won't find a spot in end game. Like everything else the forum noobs will then exclude them from xp parties by extension. They will do this even though it will not effect xp/h by any significant rate. Stick em in a healer role however and people will invite them ala XI's SMN. It's partly bad game design and partly players stereotyping class roles.

[Lucavi]

Bit late here but we had two viable healers in the original XIV. THM's Sacrifice line of spells made it a good healer while being different to CNJ. It was a bit over-powered but I don't see why they couldn't balance that and turn THM's second job into a healer with those type of abilities.

THM and CNJ are two sides of the same coin. They both offer essentially the same type of healing in the same way. Both make numbers go up directly on a target while standing still using few varying abilities. That's not different. That's just better in the case of THM.

Go back and read my post about the different types of healing (and there's more), if you want to truly hear about "different".

[Spider-Dan]

That's the kind of stuff we need not another mage with cures. If you guys think handing cures to other mages is gonna fix the issue you're simply wrong. However, handing it out to everyone like in 1.0 isn't really gonna help either. A dedicated healer that plays differently and that can exist without being worse or better than WHM is the only good solution but I don't see it happening at launch.
And let's not start pushing Arcanist into the healing corner already or I'm gonna kill something.

If Arcanist is capable of healing, it WILL be designated as a healer. This is the logical and natural result when you have only one healer in the game; the next available class that CAN heal MUST heal.

This is the problem with the calls for innovative new forms of healing that you (plural) are making. It would be awesome if Arcanists could heal like Calculators and have a totally new paradigm of gameplay, but whether they heal in fun and exciting new ways or just by spamming boring old Cure2, they will be healing. And unless Arcanist has healing abilities comparable to WHM, we'll be back to the old SMN role of job-with-some-healing-skills-forced-into-fulltime-healing-by-necessity.

Instead of exclusively focusing on implementing exciting new healing mechanisms (which are almost certainly NOT going to be bestowed on a cookie-cutter archetypal mage like THM), you should also think about spreading the healing burden. There's nothing wrong with wanting new types of gameplay, but THM/CNJ/BLM/WHM will always be based on using MP to cast spells. It is as fundamental to those four as punching is to MNK or jumping is to DRG.

[Alkar]

If Arcanist is capable of healing, it WILL be designated as a healer. This is the logical and natural result when you have only one healer in the game; the next available class that CAN heal MUST heal.

This is the problem with the calls for innovative new forms of healing that you (plural) are making. It would be awesome if Arcanists could heal like Calculators and have a totally new paradigm of gameplay, but whether they heal in fun and exciting new ways or just by spamming boring old Cure2, they will be healing. And unless Arcanist has healing abilities comparable to WHM, we'll be back to the old SMN role of job-with-some-healing-skills-forced-into-fulltime-healing-by-necessity.

Instead of exclusively focusing on implementing exciting new healing mechanisms (which are almost certainly NOT going to be bestowed on a cookie-cutter archetypal mage like THM), you should also think about spreading the healing burden. There's nothing wrong with wanting new types of gameplay, but THM/CNJ/BLM/WHM will always be based on using MP to cast spells. It is as fundamental to those four as punching is to MNK or jumping is to DRG.

So if Arcanist gets access to Cure it will heal? Yeah, sure. Good luck with that. Wether Arcanist gets a pet that can act as a main healer is something we don't know but Yoshida is smarter than that hopefully. The design for Arcanist and Summoner however is going in a different direction.

[Izzy]

Arcanist: FFXI's 2004 summoner.

[Stanislaw]

I really do hope that Arcanist/Summoners in FFXIV don't have a 'maintenance costs' associated when summoning avatars, especially so if HP/MP don't heal naturally when you have them out.

Honestly, that was the biggest thing I disliked about FFXI Summoners. The costs of performing them moves were already steep enough.

[Amiricle]

Arcanist as a healer would be fine if it gets a new mechanic, and isn't forced to do it as a gimp whm wannabe like ffxi. Give Carby AoE tp based heals & reflect or something.

Also, I really hope they do realize they need multiple classes that can heal and tank and that don't all do it the exact same way. WoW really is a good example of having multiple classes that can fill multiple rolls. Tera is a really good example of healing done different that was very fun.

[vadre]

An obvious suggestion would be to have Arc branch out into SCH as one of its jobs (considering the arcanists ingame pretty much look like them already), which could use regen-based mechanics (take it from WHM, which would focus on direct heal mechanics) and provide a second healing dynamic that compliments and competes with WHM (SCH could detonate regens for direct/emergency heals or something)

I wish they'd kept the old concept for arcanist, dropping those staff things for location-based healing could've been a good option.

I think a pet job being a healer will be awkward if special abilities are done through the pet itself, I'd prefer they took summoner in the DPS direction and just have it as an alternative to BLM for backline magic deeps. Other jobs for ARC could downplay the pet and play up other areas of the class.

[fussel]

I'd like to see each of them who hadn't played, yet talked it up, get punched in the dick, repeatedly.

Add those who make the tenth post about the same issue. So much useless noise to scan through when reporting simple bugs/suggesting simple improvements. "I didn't read the whole thread, but here's something I want to suggest."

[Spider-Dan]

So if Arcanist gets access to Cure it will heal? Yeah, sure. Good luck with that.

I truly do not care whether or not Arcanist gets Cure, and it's not particularly relevant to the discussion. If Arcanist can mainheal in any sort of competent capacity, they will be expected to be a healer in the majority of non-endgame situations.

Now, maybe Arcanist will be designed to be mainhealer competition for WHM. Nothing wrong with that. But if they aren't, it would be nice to somewhat diversify the "poor man's WHM" role into some other classes, too. The easiest way to do that is to give an already-existing dedicated mage access to more cure spells... but if they also want to make Life Surge and Second Wind AoE-able, so much the better!

The game needs more healers. Whether it's more cure spells or shooting party members with Cure arrows or Throw Item potion spamming, I don't care. It needs something.

[Alkar]

I truly do not care whether or not Arcanist gets Cure, and it's not particularly relevant to the discussion. If Arcanist can mainheal in any sort of competent capacity, they will be expected to be a healer in the majority of non-endgame situations.

Now, maybe Arcanist will be designed to be mainhealer competition for WHM. Nothing wrong with that. But if they aren't, it would be nice to somewhat diversify the "poor man's WHM" role into some other classes, too. The easiest way to do that is to give an already-existing dedicated mage access to more cure spells... but if they also want to make Life Surge and Second Wind AoE-able, so much the better!

The game needs more healers. Whether it's more cure spells or shooting party members with Cure arrows or Throw Item potion spamming, I don't care. It needs something.

And that clashes with the design of the class and job. Both get multiple pets with different roles for a reason. Give them a healing pet and you can forget about everything else.

[Thiefami]

I wonder if Spiderdan ever played 1.0 post job release lol. Honestly, I never saw a shortage of white mages. In fact, there always seemed to be a surplus of WHM. I trust Yoshi to keep all the classes dynamic and fun. If you hate healing I hate it break it to you, you're going to probably hate healing even if it's on an Arcanist. I love the idea of a specialized job system with the current armory system, if you want variation you can either pick another job or roll with a class.

With the job system and being able to literally switch on a damn dime it is VERY unnecessary to have a 'modern mmo' setup. Unlike XI, there is no painful process of going back to town and grabbing all of your gear from mog house porting back, rebuffing and then going in. You can literally buff, switch, and proceed. With the new equip dummy system you don't even have to worry about a full set clogging your inventory. If they wanted to base a job off conjurer specifically dedicated to all buffs with zero attacks (they wouldn't, but..) they could. Why? Because you can easily just switch to friggen WHM or DD CNJ once you have finished your purpose. The system is very convenient and it makes for great way to make super situational jobs and say, 'fuck you' to the usual game struggling for balance. If it turns out to be 1 job to 1 class I could see that not working, however if it is multiple jobs to a class then every single doesn't need to be fine tuned to be a standalone ass kicker and can give each class a nice variety, no matter how situtational. '