Comments from the Devs

[Spider-Dan]

is anyone else besides me having a hard time being able to watch/read the action/party hp etc. given that you're constantly having to stare at GCD's?

I do feel like I don't have much time to watch other peoples' HP bars because I'm busy staring at my GCD, which makes me feel less... connected... as to what's going on with everyone else. Normally, I've always tried to be that guy that will bind/sleep a random add, pull hate away from a mage, etc.

That being said, I think a lot of it is just getting used to timing. Once we get our rhythm established at 50, I think we'll free up more mindshare for other concerns.

[Gulkeeva]

kinda bringing up some discussion by niiro a couple pages back (which i completely agree with). do things change at later levels in terms of GCD/tp used?

is anyone else besides me having a hard time being able to watch/read the action/party hp etc. given that you're constantly having to stare at GCD's? i almost feel like i'm not allowed to do anything but stare at my hotbar for the sake of maximizing my output. i want to be able to read the combat log as efficiently as possible during combat, but it seems pretty tough to do without moving things in weird spots and making my screen completely clogged up and ugly.

Well since everything is on a 2.5sec cooldown basically, and you can "precast/action" a little before the GCD is up, you can just just rythempress the buttons pretty much, since that 2.5sec isn't changing, so no I don't stare at it at all really unless I press something that has no GCD.

[Lucavi]

Well since everything is on a 2.5sec cooldown basically, and you can "precast/action" a little before the GCD is up, you can just just rythempress the buttons pretty much, since that 2.5sec isn't changing, so no I don't stare at it at all really unless I press something that has no GCD.

I miss the days of WotLK Surv Hunter with explosive shot Lock and Load procs. I remember just mashing 3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333!! Fire and fucking forget, baby!

[Cutriss]

Having a hard time locating it again, sorry to ask:

1. Did Yoshi-P say we'll be able to do starter quests in all three cities? For the insane people like me that want to do 'em all?
2. I didn't play far enough into the story quests to find this, but when you get to the point of joining a GC, does the game still have the "Go visit the other two and make sure you really want to join the Twin Adders because we all have herpes" mechanic in place? In other words, you're still prompted to actually choose a GC regardless of which starter city you pick, right?

[Ratatapa]

Having a hard time locating it again, sorry to ask:

1. Did Yoshi-P say we'll be able to do starter quests in all three cities? For the insane people like me that want to do 'em all?
2. I didn't play far enough into the story quests to find this, but when you get to the point of joining a GC, does the game still have the "Go visit the other two and make sure you really want to join the Twin Adders because we all have herpes" mechanic in place? In other words, you're still prompted to actually choose a GC regardless of which starter city you pick, right?

1) I doubt it
2) They said some quests might change but yes you have to visit all 3 cities to join a GC but they said that you can change GC in 2.0 if you want, but of course if you join Maelstorm you can't wear Twin Adder gear and vise versa

[Voyage1970]

After the level 15 story quests where you do all the starter dungeons your starting city has no bearing on the story at all. When they ask you which GC you want to join it just has 3 Sergeants lined up in a room and they all give you their Company Salute and ask you to join them. Depending on which you pick you get a new mission that is basically "Oh shit some of our guys went down help us out and you can join us!".

As far as starting quests do you mean story quests or just general lvl 1 quests around the cities? Cause I can confirm you can do the lvl 1 general quests of other cities regardless of which nation you started in.

[Raldo]

1) The main story quests from 1~14 are all a bit different per city, and you can't do another city's on the same character. I'm glad you realize that you're insane if you want to do that to yourself, since the underlying experience is all similar.

Oh look, here's a crystal
... ♪
Then a couple of masked guys, who were up to no good,
Started making trouble in your neighborhood.
You get in one little fight and your nation gets scared.
They send you off to other cities, so the masked threat is shared.

2) Your GC choice is completely independent of your starter city. You are required, once again, to watch each GC's rallying speech, but there's no more of the whole 'join everyone as a recruit, then decide' sort of thing thankfully. Once the speeches are over, you simply choose which one you want, and BAM, one more quest and you're in.

[Scythiroth]

Only quests that seem to vanish are ones once you get outside of those cities. It seems like following the storyline "unlocks" quests at certain camps, but if you did the storyline in say Gridania, they won't be unlocked in Uldah, and a lot of camps seem very empty with very few or no quests available. >.>

[Vuitton]

Oh look, here's a crystal
... ♪
Then a couple of masked guys, who were up to no good,
Started making trouble in your neighborhood.
You get in one little fight and your nation gets scared.
They send you off to other cities, so the masked threat is shared.

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18rt.../ku-medium.gif

[Carraway]

I really don't like ARC/BRD in ARR. BRD was bad enough in 1.0 but it seems they've taken away the combos too this time round and it just takes the fun out of battle. I do love being able to fire Ifrit plumes anywhere I want however but that will get old fast.

I think I will be retiring my ARC until it gets a secondary job (hopefully DD) because I can't think of anything worse than standing casting songs.

At least those new guys know what they're getting into. I was ARC main until BRD appeared but BRD is bottom of the list of jobs I want to play. New players can look at that and not bother with ARC if they don't want to play BRD.

BRD has probably the highest mechanical skill ceiling out of all the DPS jobs due to its pseudo-combos being based solely on procs, placing a higher demand on a player's ability to react.

[Amiricle]

Oh look, here's a crystal
... ♪
Then a couple of masked guys, who were up to no good,
Started making trouble in your neighborhood.
You get in one little fight and your nation gets scared.
They send you off to other cities, so the masked threat is shared.

Beautiful. Lol

[Lucavi]

Hats off to you, Raldo.

[Raldo]

Hats off to you, Raldo.

lol I tried to make it longer, but I had a lot of trouble coming up with more.

[Spider-Dan]

BRD has probably the highest mechanical skill ceiling out of all the DPS jobs due to its pseudo-combos being based solely on procs, placing a higher demand on a player's ability to react.

I think that might be why they tried to dumb down singing, but it seems like the cure is worse than the disease.

Again, haven't played it in "real content" yet, but if you could sing two auras (and resolve the MP problem) then you would restore some of the old BRD venn diagram position jockeying, which seems like it would solve some of the glaring problems.

In fact, you could probably solve all three issues by allowing dual aura and giving BRD an ability that negates song perpetuation cost while inflicting bind on self (toggleable). That would allow you to provide different buffs to different people as long as you intelligently picked your spot, and would provide you some ability to reposition as the battle demands.

[LD]

lol I tried to make it longer, but I had a lot of trouble coming up with more.

Now this is a story all about how
my era got flip, turned upside-down
now I'd like to take a minute, you've been warned,
to tell you how I'm doin' in a realm reborn

In CENtral Thanalan, synthed and trained,
In the desert is where I spent most of my days
chillin out max and doin some FATEs,
fightin with my chocobo outside the GATEs

... ♪
Then a couple of masked guys, who were up to no good,
Started making trouble in your neighborhood.
You get in one little fight and your nation gets scared.
They send you off to other cities, so the masked threat is shared.

I waited for an airship and when it rolled in
it had a balloon on top with 4 little fins
I think airship design needs a better answer
But I thought 'Nah, forget it' - "To Limsa Lominsa"

I. pulled. UP to the Mizzenmast, 'round 7 or 8
And I yelled to the pilot "Yo homes smell ya later"
I looked at my kingdom
I was finally there
To clear a dungeon with my ridiculous hair

[Fievel]

fucking lol, well done.

[Skai]

Nice.

[Shimbo]

Fresh

/golfclap

[Alkar]

I think that might be why they tried to dumb down singing, but it seems like the cure is worse than the disease.

Again, haven't played it in "real content" yet, but if you could sing two auras (and resolve the MP problem) then you would restore some of the old BRD venn diagram position jockeying, which seems like it would solve some of the glaring problems.

In fact, you could probably solve all three issues by allowing dual aura and giving BRD an ability that negates song perpetuation cost while inflicting bind on self (toggleable). That would allow you to provide different buffs to different people as long as you intelligently picked your spot, and would provide you some ability to reposition as the battle demands.

Or maybe they don't want BRD to be a complete support job in this game and would rather have buffs as an extra. They need to come up with something to adress the MP issue but I don't mind the new song mechanics that much. They can always add a pure support class in the future.

[Lucavi]

Even a pure support will always have ways to fight, and effective ones at that. This game is not going back to the XI style of "you MUST PARTY OR YOU WILL NEVER PROGRESS YOUR CHARACTER" design.