Class details, Beta info & Battle System Details! (Famitsu&Dengeki 3/25 issue)

[Yoli]

I don't know if it's really going to be TH v. 2.0. I see how you could get that impression easily from what they said, but it's not exactly what I got. It just doesn't sound like a proper ability for a miner (whereas it sounds reasonable, if poorly designed, for a thief).

It looks to me like what SE's trying to to is increase the depth of crafting "jobs". Some people out there really love crafting. I presume the numbers are a lot lower than the people who're into the main jobs, but there are still people who love to craft or gather. If SE /could/ expand crafting jobs in an interesting way, maybe they could open up a larger and more diverse player base. I prefer to think that they're after that, rather than actively trying to make people dual box accounts. Or that's what I'll prefer to think until SE manages to show me otherwise, at least.

I will say that having more miners in the alliance for more rewards isn't a great idea. It's not making fights harder, it's just rewarding larger shells that have more people they can get to come on miner.

[willriker]

i wouldnt want to break my pick killing a troll! ... would be such a waste, that could have been an O ore!


anywho, if what they said about being able to siphon magic from the dead enemies is true, this game just got a lot cooler. In addition, having to time abilities for use after an event is just pure win. Having abilities only function after, lets say, an enemy misses an attack on you prevents lame ass button rotations while keeping the player engaged in whats going on. And on top of all that you now need to move around to keep an advantageous position, or to avoid being in a disadvantageous position.

This is shaping up to be a really fun game. No rotations and... gasp... you have to move around.

[Kyreth]

OK, Dengeki magazine came out today with a surprising amount of extra details.

Dengeki Class and Beta Q&A

They go over some details on the alpha/beta testing and general gameplay stuff regarding classes and battles. Like Famitsu, they also went class-by-class and got developer comments on each one.

First you give us steak, now this is prime rib on top of it. With bacon.

Gawd tier work, thank you.

[willriker]

i apologise for the possible double post.

But, i think many people are forgetting that you can change jobs in the field.


So, only if a boss has someting extra special would you want to put TH from a miner on the enemy. OR, it could mean that, after the fight a miner could search the body for something extra special. Nothing said that this TH style thing will need to be applied during battle. Heck, we dont even know if we will need to search bodies, like WoW, to get treasure or if its automaticaly distributed allah ffxi.

The only reason TH works like it does in ffxi, is because of how the loot system drops everything into a pool on enemy death. This game could be more wow like, in that you need to search the kill. At that point, whos to say that you cant switch weapons to a miner job... after the enemy is dead... and the TH ability is applied at that time.

Seriously, we really dont know enough about how the game works to make any value judgement on a craftmans TH type abilities.

[Kyreth]

In theory, it's just a bonus. Practically, when it involves farming something for many months, you will want every little drop rate boost you can get.

If the miner is asked to stay on the backline, or outside alliance, it won't be better, even if he is meant to be week.

They're looking at giving Miners the ability to use items to weaken opponents.

I think that'd be a decent tradeoff. Make Disciples of the Land able to reveal physical weaknesses/temporarily strengthen equipment(Smith) or temporarily modify the terrain (Miner).

Smiths could have a form of Temper, Miners could be able to prepare traps or render terrain easier/more difficult to move through/outright trap it with pits. Make them very weak as far as direct damage is concerned, but useful in other ways. Especially if there's parts of areas that take dealing with the environment or heavy equipment damage to get through and succeed. It doesn't all have to be about combat- if you've got a party member that lets you quickly move through an area between battles or can crowd control by trapping enemy monsters long enough to deal with the rest, or one that can increase your fighting time in the field by extending your endurance? Both are useful to a party beyond "How many monsters can I kill?"

[Lucavi]

Just give me separate mining bags like in WoW that can carry an exceedingly larger amount of mining-only loot than ordinary stash space and I'm happy.

I love my big 30+ slot crafting bags.

[Purrrfect]

- Will there be classes in the beta that have not been announced yet?

A: As of right now, that is undetermined.

Does that sound like a sure thing there are more jobs to anyone else?

- Out of the weapons and classes presented so far, there are still some weapons from FFXI (great sword, scythe, staff) which we haven not seen yet. Will they appear in FFXIV? If so, what classes might they be added to (e.g. great sword on Gladiator?) Will all weapons be on separate classes?

A: I cannot tell you when, but those weapons will definitely appear in FFXIV. As for which classes they will be associated with, I'll have to ask you to wait and see.

Conjurer(attack mode) gets to be the token scythe user and conjurer(healing mode) is the token staff user. wwww

[Hyan]

At least that they are working on/planning more classes. Not surprising =P

[Lucavi]

Only a matter of time before the Sam job and the end of the game with it.

[McGoonagle]

Just remember folks, we have a lot more information this week, and it's given us a lot to talk about. It's not until the leather thighboot tastefully showing the two inches of luscious leg hits the ground that we are really going to get a full grasp of the game.

[Uzor]

At least that they are working on/planning more classes. Not surprising =P

I'm guessing there will be at least 4 Disciples of Magic. Any less seems.... strange.

I mean, we have

War
Marauder
Lancer
Archer
Pugilist
Gladiator

Hand
Alchemist
Culinarian
Weaver
Tanner
Blacksmith

Land
Botanist
Miner

Magic
Conjurer
Thaumaturge

So I suspect at least 2 more Land classes (crystal gatherer and lumberjack perhaps? Iunno) and at least 2 more mage classesSo its not surprising they would work on more classes, especially as they stated the alpha will only contain like 10% of the completed game.

[McGoonagle]

So I suspect at least 2 more Land classes (crystal gatherer and lumberjack perhaps? Iunno).

Funny that there's been no mention of wood or woodworking.

[Kaluuki]

First of all...if any of you believe for one second that TH in FFXI was a good idea, we probably haven't played the same game.
Secondly, if you're arguing that TH on miner is a good thing in FFXIV when we know next to nothing about the game, you're retarded. The concept of TH is a poor idea in the first place, and we have every reasons to be worried about it considering that's how they make it sound
And lastly, if the you were convinced by the "handicap" argument, keep in mind we could say the exact same thing about thief in FFXI pretty often. I'm all for handicap, but the concept of bringing one specific class (you won't bring a tanner, blacksmith, cook or w/e) isn't a fun way to increase difficulty level. Do it like WoW and add hard mode to everything if you want to reward players for doing more with less.
Hopefully, what he meant was limited to "an increased ore drop rate" or something like this...which is fine since the profession is meant to make money, but if it's anything like TH, you will want it on all the time, and a similar scenario will be repeated.
And bringing a thief to nyzul was an increased risk since they kill slower than samurai?
+ risk +reward is a great concept, but not when it makes everyone do the same thing.
If they were giving this ability to every craft, it would makes some sense. Giving it to a single class is stupid in theory.
You don't have to bring a thief if you don't have to...wait you do, cause spending 15% less times on something that takes a year to get is freaking awesome.

I don't understand what you're bitching about. You can switch freely between jobs when you're not in a fight in FFXIV. It's not the same game as FFXI.

So, if you wanted drops you'd be a pugilist for one fight, and if it gets tough just disengage, switch classes and weaken it more until you feel comfortable. It's the same thing for miner. If you're in a dangerous area, just switch to your main job/tank class/ whatever, wipe everything out and then you can mine in peace.

Also, people are talking about "LS mining/crafting whores" and whatnot. I don't see how this is going to happen, considering everybody can switch to miner when they want...I'm sure they can just do it themselves without relying on a "greedy" individual. lol

Funny that there's been no mention of wood or woodworking.

It might be because there's no need for it yet, or something. Disciples of the hand can make arrows, so that puts woodworkers out of that job. There's also been no mention of mog houses, so there's no need for lumberjacks if they have nothing to make (aka furniture).

[Gwynplaine]

Does anyone else think that their concept for how parties should position is going to be one of the first casualties to go? It sounds potentially interesting and unique but players almost always wind up making things as simple as possible. The same way it's a lot easier to just TP burn than it is to shuffle together skillchains and magic bursts. The same way it's easier to just use Blizzard and Thunder than it is to consider the type of enemy, the weather, and the day. (I realize with nukes it's because of the level hierarchy so please god don't go there)

I just get the feeling that when thousands of people descend upon the game the first thing they'll do is figure out what most easily gets things dead fast. And there's nothing wrong with that I'm just curious how well conceptualized their battle system will be.

[Dein]

People are bitching rather prematurely about the "TH" SE wants to give the mining class and have skipped over a quote that hints that we might not even need to lug miners around during fights.

Only Disciples of the Hand will be able to make arrows. However, in the future, by putting abilities from a Disciple of the Hand on an Archer, they could attain some limited crafting ability.

This can mean two things. We might be able to take some aspects of the classes we've leveled and mix them with another class (like subjobs) or some classes will be able to cross boundaries and share select abilities that another class gets. I hope that the drop rates in this game are good enough that we don't really need miners to see anything worthwhile drop at a good rate but we might not have to worry about that if the developers are doing things this way.

[Cooleko]

The same way it's easier to just use Blizzard and Thunder than it is to consider the type of enemy, the weather, and the day. (I realize with nukes it's because of the level hierarchy so please god don't go there)

Every BLM I play with in FFXI knows how to put their obi+pants on for day effect when the mob is weak to the day element.

Even is dynamis I see BLM tossing out Fire4 (pants+obi) on slimes etc.

If you/your blm aren't paying attention/dont care, it doesnt mean other BLM dont care.

I am going to have a hard time figuring out what to do in FFXIV. I want to be a taru/galka, I want to be a DD/BLM/Crafter... And all we see are these amazing screenshots and juicy tidbits of information that make all the posibilities seem wonderful. Please stop the torture SE, give us the game!

[Enkidu]

Does anyone else think that their concept for how parties should position is going to be one of the first casualties to go? It sounds potentially interesting and unique but players almost always wind up making things as simple as possible. The same way it's a lot easier to just TP burn than it is to shuffle together skillchains and magic bursts. The same way it's easier to just use Blizzard and Thunder than it is to consider the type of enemy, the weather, and the day. (I realize with nukes it's because of the level hierarchy so please god don't go there)

I just get the feeling that when thousands of people descend upon the game the first thing they'll do is figure out what most easily gets things dead fast. And there's nothing wrong with that I'm just curious how well conceptualized their battle system will be.

Skillchain/magic burst was the easiest way to do things back in the day. SE should know what that easiest way is by the time the beta ends and try to balance it out a little so that hybrid groups don't end up being the norm.

[willriker]

oh i dont know, from what i see, the combat system looks to be pretty involved. Sure i cant sit down and tell you how itll work, but from what i see, it looks promising. It looks entirely diferant than any other game Ive played before.

Its all very exciting to me.


Oh, btw. If being at a certain distance from the enemy will get melees to do noticably more damage per hit, or be noticably more accurate, there is not doubt in my mind that melee will be standing at the apropriate distance. Note: i said noticably. noticably =/= significant.

In addition, in MMO's, what is most easily done changes with time. Skill chain > MB was not the prefered method to get exp when the game first came out. It was TP burn, much like we have it today, but not as effecient.

[Kaylia]

From a gameplay standpoint, whether a miner is useless or not depends entirely on exactly how much treasure he adds to the pool and the potency of his anti-rock monster abilities. If a stone monster gets a massive debuff or if everyone gets 3x the loot they'd normally get, he can't really be 'useless' in the grand scheme of things. Of course, this is an unknown. We just have to wait and see.

When I said "useless", I'm talking about the difference between a normal class and the miner. I don't think they literally won't be able to do anything interesting in a fight, but the way they spoke about the topic made it sound like there was a significant gap between the classes (or they wouldn't talk about an handicap).

First of, if you go with 6 people to Nyzul, and a THF is the difference between win and loss, your group sucks anyway. I'm sorry, but that is the harsh reality of things. Second, we've only just heard of miner's th ability, we don't know if the other land or hand jobs have them. Throwing judgement on the failure of these jobs for the single reason of Miner having TH, before Alpha even started -or hell, before game even released - is beyond retarded. Giving the job the benefit of the doubt is not retarded, as you seem to claim. This is not ffxi, so comparing miner to thief is just plain stupid.

What make you assume it won't be the same thing in FF14? Do you really think you won't be able to sacrifice a dps for a half dps (or whatever it is)? Even in WoW where every encounter are tuned around the number of tank/healer/dps, you can generally sacrifice a dps without any issue. My point is that we don't know the scope of the gap between a normal job and miner, and that using this for an argument is retarded.

How useless the job is in a fight? Half a normal member?75% ? 90%?


Who said I'm not giving the benefit of the doubt. I'm talking about the hypothetical situation they actually go through their idea and implement something identical to TH, which considering their wording is a likely possibility. If it doesnt happen, then my fear is obviously not founded, but I already said that in my 2nd posts on the topic.


And comparing thf's th to miner's possible TH is a valid comparaison.

They're looking at giving Miners the ability to use items to weaken opponents.

I think that'd be a decent tradeoff. Make Disciples of the Land able to reveal physical weaknesses/temporarily strengthen equipment(Smith) or temporarily modify the terrain (Miner).

Smiths could have a form of Temper, Miners could be able to prepare traps or render terrain easier/more difficult to move through/outright trap it with pits. Make them very weak as far as direct damage is concerned, but useful in other ways. Especially if there's parts of areas that take dealing with the environment or heavy equipment damage to get through and succeed. It doesn't all have to be about combat- if you've got a party member that lets you quickly move through an area between battles or can crowd control by trapping enemy monsters long enough to deal with the rest, or one that can increase your fighting time in the field by extending your endurance? Both are useful to a party beyond "How many monsters can I kill?"

I don't understand what you're bitching about. You can switch freely between jobs when you're not in a fight in FFXIV. It's not the same game as FFXI.

So, if you wanted drops you'd be a pugilist for one fight, and if it gets tough just disengage, switch classes and weaken it more until you feel comfortable. It's the same thing for miner. If you're in a dangerous area, just switch to your main job/tank class/ whatever, wipe everything out and then you can mine in peace.

Also, people are talking about "LS mining/crafting whores" and whatnot. I don't see how this is going to happen, considering everybody can switch to miner when they want...I'm sure they can just do it themselves without relying on a "greedy" individual. lol

I'm not going to repeat everything every single post. If you want to bitch about me bitching, at least read the whole quote train please.

That said, with the ability to change your class at any time, maybe it won't be too bad. You could sacrifice one dps when you reach the boss and use miner instead. I'm fine with this. However, if it's like salvage where I will spend 2h looking for a thief because he couldn't show up...I will club a cute baby seal.

It's annoying when people single out a specific quote of a long chain of replies and come up with a counter that I already mentioned.

[Ksandra]

Skillchain/magic burst was the easiest way to do things back in the day.

No. They weren't the easiest, they were just what people thought to be the most effective way to kill mobs (ie. we thought it did a lot more dmg).

Then parsers came out and we realized having the blm only cast freeze the whole fight really wasn't as strong as straight melee dmg/spamming ws.

It wasn't about being the easiest we just didn't have the knowledge of how weak they actually were.