FFXIV Random Speculation/Question thread II: Let's Speculate the Speculations

[King Zuca]

Exactly. Valk trains will live forever in my heart. There was nothing better than having the power to help that little Taru scuttling away from 30 gobs and a pugil, yet doing nothing but watching and waiting for that sweet level down sound.

Good times!

someone else with an evil sense of humor. can you imagine how funny it would be to have mob trains in a game with no zones? oh the possibilities lmao.

[King Zuca]

I sincerely hope SE gets creative with Guild Leves. I really don't want to go from "Smack 20 Rats" to "Smack 20 Bigger Rats" with the GL system. Something cool like the Gessho fight.

you know a good portion of them will be just like that. but i too hope they get creative. like some rare creature hunts that chain together and finaly lead to a very menacing foe, rarely seen by adventurers, but talked about in legends. ooo and airship battles plox.

[Hyan]

I'm still clinging to the small bit of hope that even those "kill X Y" leves will have some additional twists to them. I recall SE talking about something like that last year, but it could also be lumped together with the "there are no levels at all!" hype-speech.

The alpha leves have been quite traditional so far, or have I missed something?

[Biggie]

I don't know that they ever will. I doubt there will be quest-based xping options available, like WoW has. Quests as a significant source of xp is an unusual concept in general. I'm guessing the main source of xp and levelling will be getting a party and killing mobs.

And yeah, they said you can solo, but I'm sure partying will yield the best xp/hour.

I thought it was already said exp would be a reward from leves, just not in alpha so PCs would lvl slower to test the system. I think maybe even in the manual it says something about this? I would check, but I'm at work and can only get on this forum.

[Loaar]

I thought it was already said exp would be a reward from leves, just not in alpha so PCs would lvl slower to test the system. I think maybe even in the manual it says something about this? I would check, but I'm at work and can only get on this forum.

All it says in the manual is that during the alpha you can only gain exp from killing mobs. It doesn't say how else you might get exp post alpha.

Leves are a possibility, as is crafting/gathering. Until SE tells us though we don't know for sure.

[Vitglance]

I'm not sure if it's kosher to quote the Manual directly, but,

Characters gain physical levels by accumulating a certain amount of experience points. (During the Alpha Test phase, experience points will be obtainable only by achieving victory in battle.)

That sort of implies killing mobs won't be the only way to obtain EXP after Alpha.

Which doesn’t necessarily mean Guildleves will be the things that also grant EXP. But it is one of the more easily moderated things I can think of, given the guildleves are supposed to have caps on repeats per fixed period of time. I think that does more to encourage group play than say, EXP rewarded via gathering/crafting or spending time outside the game.

[King Zuca]

All it says in the manual is that during the alpha you can only gain exp from killing mobs. It doesn't say how else you might get exp post alpha.

Leves are a possibility, as is crafting/gathering. Until SE tells us though we don't know for sure.

on that note i really hope crafting gives you good exp for DoH classes. cuz you got me all types of fucked up if you think im going to sit there for hours slapping monsters with a hammer just lvl blacksmith. or throwing fuccin rocks all day to get that miner class up. it'll be interesting to see how they have us level those classes... or maybe it will be just the same as ffxi.

[Loaar]

on that note i really hope crafting gives you good exp for DoH classes. cuz you got me all types of fucked up if you think im going to sit there for hours slapping monsters with a hammer just lvl blacksmith. or throwing fuccin rocks all day to get that miner class up. it'll be interesting to see how they have us level those classes... or maybe it will be just the same as ffxi.

I wondered if stats affect crafting at all, and if not, then maybe your physical level makes no difference to crafting therefore Land/Hand classes might not get exp at all, just skill points for their weapon.

Either that or the leves will give exp as well at release and you can level up that way.

SE have said in an interview that players who want to craft/gather only won't have to kill monsters to level up.

When asked if crafting-based jobs like Weaver will have Guildleve quests designed for them, Tanaka answers that they will, and in fact, you can increase your skill without entering a single battle. Sundi reinforces this by saying players can easily choose to adventure through Eorzea as a Tailor or Blacksmith and simply focus on raising their crafting skills. One of the concepts behind Final Fantasy XIV, is that players do not have to slaughter monsters to reach a "high level," and can lead a quiet life as a crafter.

[Purrrfect]

cuz you got me all types of fucked up if you think im going to sit there for hours slapping monsters with a hammer just lvl blacksmith.

HAMMERANG!

New weapon found in some dats. >.>

[Lucavi]

someone else with an evil sense of humor. can you imagine how funny it would be to have mob trains in a game with no zones? oh the possibilities lmao.

All I have is an evil sense of humor and a strong sense of justice. Mob trains without zoning would be hilarious, though most games typically put about a 40-100 yard radius for mobs.

Too small of a radius is annoying when you just want to put some distance between you and the mob and they vanish or teleport back or run away, but too large of a radius means that you can never really get away from them before they slaughter you.

[King Zuca]

I wondered if stats affect crafting at all, and if not, then maybe your physical level makes no difference to crafting therefore Land/Hand classes might not get exp at all, just skill points for their weapon.

Either that or the leves will give exp as well at release and you can level up that way.

SE have said in an interview that players who want to craft/gather only won't have to kill monsters to level up.

nice, that soothes my fears. also, according to the .dats there is an Armorer class as well, which leads me to believe blacksmiths will be solely responsible for weapons, while armorers focus more on chainmail and heavy plate armor. this could be a good and bad thing. it could mean that the arsenal and the equipment in this game is going to be massive, giving both classes plenty to tinker with... or it could mean that SE is trying to make things more simple for the DoH classes so as to not detract players from the more exciting classes. however i doubt it will mean the latter.

[Destinye]

I sincerely hope SE gets creative with Guild Leves. I really don't want to go from "Smack 20 Rats" to "Smack 20 Bigger Rats" with the GL system. Something cool like the Gessho fight.

Considering people want this game like WoW..expect it.

[Lucavi]

I'm still clinging to the small bit of hope that even those "kill X Y" leves will have some additional twists to them. I recall SE talking about something like that last year, but it could also be lumped together with the "there are no levels at all!" hype-speech.

The alpha leves have been quite traditional so far, or have I missed something?

Its an MMO, so it has to be grindy (look at FFXI's leveling system) so they can make that dolla every month, but its SE, so it has to be similar to something they've done before.

I envision it as something like FFXII and FFXIII's "hunts", just with more grind to them. I see you or a party having to kill a singular boss for a mission out in various parts of the wild, or in dungeons or whatever, but with lots of mobs along the way, and with filler mobs found with the boss.

I can't see SE doing the XXX Boars style of gameplay because they've never done anything like it before, but the certainly have thrown 300 random encounters between you and the end of a hallway that contains the target mob you need.

I have a feeling they'll be pulling more from FFXII's and FFXIII's gameplay than some people might imagine. FFXI and FFXII had stark similarities because they were designed around the same engine. FFXIII and FFXIV are one in the same.

[Hyan]

Its an MMO, so it has to be grindy (look at FFXI's leveling system) so they can make that dolla every month, but its SE, so it has to be similar to something they've done before.

I envision it as something like FFXII and FFXIII's "hunts", just with more grind to them. I see you or a party having to kill a singular boss for a mission out in various parts of the wild, or in dungeons or whatever, but with lots of mobs along the way, and with filler mobs found with the boss.

I can't see SE doing the XXX Boars style of gameplay because they've never done anything like it before, but the certainly have thrown 300 random encounters between you and the end of a hallway that contains the target mob you need.

I have a feeling they'll be pulling more from FFXII's and FFXIII's gameplay than some people might imagine. FFXI and FFXII had stark similarities because they were designed around the same engine. FFXIII and FFXIV are one in the same.

Yep, sounds more than likely. I recall that some of XII's hunts had some kind of puzzle or prerequisites..

I mean I wouldn't mind if it was like you described, but eh, some additional puzzles to figure out wouldn't hurt. If I remember right during Gamescom there was this one leve where to pop one mob type you had to clear the other one first, which is very basic but something like that would be cool to have in other leves as well. Of course you could just look it up on the net but if you enjoy a bit of solving "puzzles" as you grind the choice would be there.

[Lucavi]

As long as if by "puzzles", you aren't referring to the Aeon puzzles in FFX. Replaying that game was a bitch because I hated Bahamut's puzzle so damned much.

[vrumpt]

As long as if by "puzzles", you aren't referring to the Aeon puzzles in FFX. Replaying that game was a bitch because I hated Bahamut's puzzle so damned much.

more like the puzzles similar to the one you had to do to spawn several of the hunt NMs, like King Behemoth in XII

[Lucavi]

^ Those would be nice.

[Siatdiat]

I can't see SE doing the XXX Boars style of gameplay because they've never done anything like it before, but the certainly have thrown 300 random encounters between you and the end of a hallway that contains the target mob you need.

300 random encounters that you can sneak and invis past. And if you cant everyone will whine that it sucks because killing random mobs is a waste of time! In other words, I pray they dont have sneak/invis in this game or that anything of value is all true sight.

[Lucavi]

300 random encounters that you can sneak and invis past. And if you cant everyone will whine that it sucks because killing random mobs is a waste of time! In other words, I pray they dont have sneak/invis in this game or that anything of value is all true sight.

You can't say things like this out in the open. Nostalgia will not allow for people, when remembering their experiences with something they enjoyed, to remember the entire story, not just what they enjoyed.

In WoW, you just ran past things you didn't feel like killing, or mounted up and prayed that you wouldn't get knocked off. In FFXI, you snuck, invized, and if you could, marzukaed past things you didn't want to get saddled down with.

One is classified as clever and as intelligent game design (FFXI), while the other is classified as boorish and simplistic. Shit's always gotta be black and white.

To be fair, though, if trash fights didn't take as long as they did, and if resources were as plentiful as they are in WoW - you can fight a large group of decently-powerful mobs as a party without the need for much rest and downtime, as opposed to FFXI's 1-and-done - and if mobs actually dropped semi-useful things to make you want to kill random mobs along the way, sneak and inviz issue wouldn't have been that much of a problem.

FFXIV sounds like there's going to be a lot more goodies dropping from mobs, and as we already know things are going to be more fast-paced and chaotic, I don't see sneak/inviz being as big of a necessity as it was in FFXI. You're not going to want to skip everything en route to the boss or the NM or the zone, because everything that's between you and said boss or NM or zone is going to not be completely worthless.

[Tonka]

There are almost zero bosses in WoW that you can mount up and run to. I can't think of one in specific but I'm sure someone might be able to.