FFXIV Closed Alpha/Beta Discussion (Cancelled for this week)

[Lunarhawk]

I love that. The name too.

...LEAKER!

Just kidding...

...But are you? >_>

I don't work for square nor am I an alpha tester sadly

All I am leaking is me genius. Or insanity. Whichever you prefer.

[Satyr]

could someone in the alpha test see if they can take a list of all the amenities in Limsa Lominsa, which Guilds are there, so people have better idea what starting city works for they character they roll.

[Sephiroth]

All of the things you mentioned were patched in in the content patches that shipped with NA release and the one prior, both of which came after FFXI was out for more than a year, when the level cap was raised to 70.

So unless you expect these types of content in XIV 18 months after it ships, I wouldn't bank on this to be a good comparison.

You're right. For some reason I thought the NA version was released in October 2002, same year as Japanese release, rather than 2003. I didn't realise it took them so long to get the game to NA.

I suppose it's hard to say if there was enough to do for Japanese players unless you played the JP version from the start. I'm sure some will be about on here who can elaborate.

But even as late as the NA release, little things that no one cares about these days such as AF1 quests were big events back then. They were pretty much end game events. Level cap quests and rank missions were huge events too and it was fun. LB2 was the first time most people played in a big alliance. Not quite as fun for the new starters years afterwards who would get a couple of 75 friends to help them.

I learnt enough in XI (my first MMO) that I will have plenty to do in XIV early on. Getting an advantage on gil is certainly something I need to focus on as much as levelling.

[qpoiuwer]

could someone in the alpha test see if they can take a list of all the amenities in Limsa Lominsa, which Guilds are there, so people have better idea what starting city works for they character they roll.

We could also maybe estimate the total number of classes if we assume each of the 3 start cities have the same number of guilds. Unless of course the MAN class is the gun class, in which case I guess we already know all the classes.

[Lazytowner]

I'm wondering if there would be a specific benefit of Thaum and Conj starting out in Uldah and Gridania, respectively. From the official info on the website it has their HQ's in those cities. Maybe some kind of bonus like the +AGI/INT ring for Taru/Mithra starting in Windy? It would be interesting to see.

[Sephiroth]

We could also maybe estimate the total number of classes if we assume each of the 3 start cities have the same number of guilds. Unless of course the MAN class is the gun class, in which case I guess we already know all the classes.

We could also estimate based on the weapons in XI. They aren't going to leave out weapons like the scythe and great sword, that much is obvious. Whether we'll see them at release is another issue. I'm sure they'll keep some for expansions.

[Foxer]

I missed the memo on how exactly to do this.

Was I supposed to re-download the client off the dev site or just uninstall and re-install the original one?

I keep getting an error as soon as I open it saying:

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/3...dasdasdasd.png

[Fanfon]

I want armor with effects
like a super rare drop from a boss that is a chest piece that is constantly on fire or something

Special effect: 3rd degree burns

[Foxer]

No one-time password on me, so I figured I'd come here for help.

Now, it seems to be working with the original client after uninstalling it and re-installing it again.

I'm supposed to be going through the whole update thing again, right? I ask because the blue window turned red immediately and said "finishing updating" and now went back to blue and seems to be updating just fine.

[Satyr]

I'm wondering if there would be a specific benefit of Thaum and Conj starting out in Uldah and Gridania, respectively. From the official info on the website it has their HQ's in those cities. Maybe some kind of bonus like the +AGI/INT ring for Taru/Mithra starting in Windy? It would be interesting to see.

could be that you need to goto the guilds for respec, or possibly each city takes a large part in mission based quests?

[Fanfon]

I'm wondering if there would be a specific benefit of Thaum and Conj starting out in Uldah and Gridania, respectively. From the official info on the website it has their HQ's in those cities. Maybe some kind of bonus like the +AGI/INT ring for Taru/Mithra starting in Windy? It would be interesting to see.

Or that's where you get the 'supah-special' abilities

[revoemag]

In the upcoming alpha tests I'd like to learn a little more about the classes themselves, those of the DoM in particular.

Mp doesn't regen while resting, is it much more difficult to manage mp? Size of mp pool compared to cost of spells. What are the starting spells and abilities ? What's the basic magic attack like? Is there anything like a 2 hour in this game?

I'm interested in these things, too. I'd like to know how quickly you can go OOM. It makes sense that you would fight from Aetheryte to Aetheryte for the purpose of quickly regening HP and MP, but what about a BCNM or HNM type fight? If you go OOM quickly, that means boss fights will be incredibly short (which I'm hoping to not see), whereas if there were more aggressive ways to make your MP last longer, we might actually see interesting boss fights that lasted much longer than fighting a normal XP mob.

[Kirb]

Class-specific guildleves, maybe.


Hrm, considering that Thaumaturge and Conjurer are represented by the other two cities, Arcanist is almost certain to be the third mage class.

Wonder when they'll reveal it and what role it would play. Buffs, I assume.


When's the new Famitsu out?

[qpoiuwer]

could be that you need to goto the guilds for respec, or possibly each city takes a large part in mission based quests?

I thought they said there was going to be class-specific quests which I would imagine would come from the guild, along with a shop selling weapons/armor. Or possible class-specific guildleves, while generic combat guildleves come from the Adventurer's Guild or something.

[Lunarhawk]

I want to know more about Race Specific abilities/skills/buffs
Like will mithras get + damage bonuses to rat-based mobs?
will galkas gain more health from eating a banana than other classes?
THIS IS IMPORTANT DAMMIT

[Hyan]

AF quests starting at level(rank)1? Sounds pretty kick-ass. Hopefully those will feature more story content, and not just generic questing. Although I could see them restricting story to missions only but making a shitton of them this time around and branching to different directions like the three paths in CoP.

Or not :D.

[Kachi]

Just because you can beat the computer doesn't mean people don't aim to get better. Once you can beat the computer, you can try and do it faster (and as such have time for more things in your playtime), with less people, etc. I dunno about you, but I always aim to become better in every way. Just because I do something good doesn't mean I'm content with that, as you can always get better at it. A shell that can beat Fafnir with 18 people don't say "Well, we beat it. Let's stick to that, don't change a thing. We're content.".

As for how they could work to reward it; they can make it time-based. The faster you beat it, and the less people you use to do it, the higher the chance of items dropping from the bosses. So if you can clear an instance with 3 people in 50 min when the recommended time is 100 min for 6 people, you have a greater chance of getting the drop. That way, people will always aim on getting better, and as such increase their chance of getting good items. If you do extremely well, it could even give you extra rewards.

I'm not talking about fights that could take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour, though. At some point, certain fights in XI give you an incentive to win faster just by virtue of them taking too long and making people want them to be shorter. That's not the same as wanting to improve yourself and be a better player. It's very rare that people time their battle to improve their time, let alone use a stopwatch, but that's partially because XI isn't skill-based enough to warrant it.

As for your suggestion, I think it's good, but I would suggest the addition of performance feedback within the game in addition to the reward. For example, "You defeated Fafnir in 00:10:23 with 0 deaths. Your rank is ****" Something along those lines. Maybe include a server scoreboard (unless it's a hotly contested mob).

[SkullRobot]

I'm not talking about fights that could take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour, though. At some point, certain fights in XI give you an incentive to win faster just by virtue of them taking too long and making people want them to be shorter. That's not the same as wanting to improve yourself and be a better player. It's very rare that people time their battle to improve their time, let alone use a stopwatch, but that's partially because XI isn't skill-based enough to warrant it.

As for your suggestion, I think it's good, but I would suggest the addition of performance feedback within the game in addition to the reward. For example, "You defeated Fafnir in 00:10:23 with 0 deaths. Your rank is ****" Something along those lines. Maybe include a server scoreboard (unless it's a hotly contested mob).

That sounds alot like FFXIII. Of course you got a 5 star and a score but it didn't really mean anything...

[Charismatic]

...and it was only based on speed. Nothing else mattered.

[BRP]

Point systems are superfluous for the most part. This is especially true if it doesn't work side by side with that players actually do.

Just need to make shit harder. Punish player mistakes more. Have monsters circumvent the more common player strategies. I don't think SE has much interest in doing this though or they don't try hard enough.