FFXIV Confirmed - No leveling characters

[Antithesis]

Am I the only one who enjoys exping and leveling up jobs? D; Oi.

Stay with XI I guess. Or go play Wow!

[Gokulo]

Oh, so it was just like FFTA. Everybody I talk to about FFTA cites the leveling system was retarded, but everybody I talk to about FFIX loves the leveling system. And it seems like exactly the same thing (I didn't play IX either)

They're basically the same so anybody that says he hates one but love the other is retarded O.o

[Eaglestrike]

So how did 9 work? I didn't play it.

You equipped a weapon and the battles gave EXP + AP. The AP would go to perma-learning the abilities on a weapon/armor. Like say Fire would come on the first wand. Equip the wand, gain 35 AP from battles and you can equip a new weapon and you'll have the Fire spell still. This also worked for things like "Auto-regen" and "Cover" and such, basically all the abilities you'd generally find in FF.

The concept is quite interesting, but I'm not sure yet on how it'll really work for an MMO-balance situation.

[Ker]

Great news but give us a solid release date

[Kurokikaze]

Too far away for any concrete release date. Some Beta info on the other hand...

[Kipling]

Stay with XI I guess. Or go play Wow!

Was planning on it unless they shut it down in the near future :D

[Hixxy]

Just thinking out loud here but how would they incorporate the bonuses you get from being a certain type of race e.g like taru having high INT. I mean like in 11 you level up and your stats change with your level but how would they still keep the uniqueness of each race's stats if u dont level?

[Katlan]

Great news but give us a solid release date

CAn't ask for a release date before a Beta date has even been given lol

[Jotaru]

One of my primary concerns is I loved the way FFXI encouraged group play for 'grinding'... groan if you will, but I liked it, I liked settling in one evening, getting a group together, and going to exp for a few hours- it was fun. Somehow, even though I played Wow and enjoyed instances and such, I still found exp party's appealing and would come back to FFXI. IDK. I was one of those weirdos that just kept levelling jobs rather than work on one exclusively once it hit 75.

While I suppose this will still be possible, without levels or some such, how do you group up? I'm sure SE will come up with something... but I just ponder how that's possible without 'levels'.

So long as I can play Samurai and Dragoon again, I'm sold

[Rocl]

CAn't ask for a release date before a Beta date has even been given lol

Do we know anything about Beta yet btw? I don't keep up with this stuff a lot ;\

[Kurokikaze]

Just thinking out loud here but how would they incorporate the bonuses you get from being a certain type of race e.g like taru having high INT. I mean like in 11 you level up and your stats change with your level but how would they still keep the uniqueness of each race's stats if u dont level?

Simple. Some races would be more adept to using certain weapons. I'm sure there are going to be Weapon Skill Levels of some sort.

[Cutriss]

One difference people are omitting between FFIX and FFTA/FFTA2 is that you learn the abilities/traits from the equipment, but you don't have permanent access to them. Each ability/trait has an associated AP cost to it and you can activate/deactivate the traits anytime outside of battle. As you level, you earn more AP. As an example - Zidane can equip Auto-Reflect for 15 AP, or you can equip Auto-Regen for 10 AP and use the remaining 5 AP for something like Mug.

The AP pool is static, and you don't lose points for allocating/deallocating traits. Think of them as hardpoints.

Also, the weapons were generally character-specific so it wasn't like Zidane could learn Blizzaga or anything like that. Only two weapon classes were shared from what I recall. I don't remember if the armor in FFIX contained abilities/traits, but in FFTA/FFTA2 any equippable slot supported it.

Further, as I recall, in FFIX you couldn't use the ability at all until you learned it, whereas in FFTA/FFTA2, you could use it immediately. Unlocking it made it useable without having the equipment on.

[Katlan]

Do we know anything about Beta yet btw? I don't keep up with this stuff a lot ;\

Only thing I remember hearing is that the FFXIV beta will be shorter then the XI beta and that the NA will also beta test. I thought I read something about JP beta starting around fall '08, but think it was debunked

[richardd]

The concept is quite interesting, but I'm not sure yet on how it'll really work for an MMO-balance situation.

me too, im glad they're all set on different jobs mentality but having access to only 1 weapon would suck monkey tits. i like being versatile in general. but if i have to get another account to be a tank because the other weapon on my main wont give me all the stats needed, than meh. i guess i cant be lazy

[Gokulo]

One difference people are omitting between FFIX and FFTA/FFTA2 is that you learn the abilities/traits from the equipment, but you don't have permanent access to them. Each ability/trait has an associated AP cost to it and you can activate/deactivate the traits anytime outside of battle. As you level, you earn more AP. As an example - Zidane can equip Auto-Reflect for 15 AP, or you can equip Auto-Regen for 10 AP and use the remaining 5 AP for something like Mug.

Also, the weapons were generally character-specific so it wasn't like Zidane could learn Blizzaga or anything like that. Only two weapon classes were shared from what I recall. I don't remember if the armor in FFIX contained abilities/traits, but in FFTA/FFTA2 any equippable slot supported it.

Further, as I recall, in FFIX you couldn't use the ability at all until you learned it, whereas in FFTA/FFTA2, you could use it immediately. Unlocking it made it useable without having the equipment on.

Well in FFTA equipment is class specific, so it's not like you can have a Palading equip a wand and learn Blizzaga. And yes, armors/accessories had abilities too.
And no, you could equip/use an ability as soon as you had the item on you, same as FFTA.

Only thing I remember hearing is that the FFXIV beta will be shorter then the XI beta and that the NA will also beta test. I thought I read something about JP beta starting around fall '08, but think it was debunked

I'm actually sure it said that the FFXIV beta is planned to be longer >.<;

[Kurokikaze]

One difference people are omitting between FFIX and FFTA/FFTA2 is that you learn the abilities/traits from the equipment, but you don't have permanent access to them. Each ability/trait has an associated AP cost to it and you can activate/deactivate the traits anytime outside of battle. As you level, you earn more AP. As an example - Zidane can equip Auto-Reflect for 15 AP, or you can equip Auto-Regen for 10 AP and use the remaining 5 AP for something like Mug.

The AP pool is static, and you don't lose points for allocating/deallocating traits. Think of them as hardpoints.

Also, the weapons were generally character-specific so it wasn't like Zidane could learn Blizzaga or anything like that. Only two weapon classes were shared from what I recall. I don't remember if the armor in FFIX contained abilities/traits, but in FFTA/FFTA2 any equippable slot supported it.

Further, as I recall, in FFIX you couldn't use the ability at all until you learned it, whereas in FFTA/FFTA2, you could use it immediately. Unlocking it made it useable without having the equipment on.

Just a few minor corrections about FFIX:
The armors/accessories did have abilities/traits.
You could use abilities as soon as you equipped the weapon/armor as long as you put the points into it.

Only remember that cause I played through it again not even 2 weeks ago.

Only thing I remember hearing is that the FFXIV beta will be shorter then the XI beta and that the NA will also beta test. I thought I read something about JP beta starting around fall '08, but think it was debunked

According to a previous interview SE said they would like for FFXIV's Beta to be longer than FFXI (3-4 months) but shorter than WoW's (8-9 months).

[Jotaru]

In putting some more thought to it, a Certificate-style system similar to Eve's would be kinda fun... To those who don't play, as you train certain skills you gain certificates to denote your proficiency; training Sharpshooter to 1, Motion Prediction to 2, Rapid Firing to 2, and Gunnery to 3 earns you the Turret Control Basic certificate; there are Basic, Standard, Advanced, and Elite certificates as you train the skills higher.

I figer, you start off with a weapon, and which weapon you have dictates which 'path' you embark (Mage, Fighter, Thief, etc). Learning abilities could be similar to FFIX (using a weapon to earn AP until you perma-learn the ability, active or passive) and when you have earned a pre-set skillset (I.e. MP+20, MP+40, Cure, Poisona) you transform from 'Mage' into 'White Mage', which could then ascend to Priest, so on and so forth. There'd be no 'levels' per se, but you would be able to advance still, and you could have some idea where people stood in their various jobs.

The more I think about it, the more I think that'd be an ideal setup for me, at least

[Cutriss]

Well in FFTA equipment is class specific, so it's not like you can have a Palading equip a wand and learn Blizzaga.

What I mean is that in FFIX, as I recall, there were staves like rackets that were equippable by both Garnet and Eiko, and that was the only cross-character weapon. In FFTA2 (which I've been playing for the last couple of months), the ability to equip a weapon is based on its class, and not just "All rods are Black Mage weapons". That's what I meant.

[quannum]

How deep can a story get?

balls deep

[Priran]

so it's like some horrible nightmare where every class plays like the worst parts of BLU

sounds fun