FFXIV Random Speculation/Question thread III: Where's my beta invite?

[BlackheartX]

I'd like to add some critical analysis...

LOLLANCER

[Lucavi]

Drg nerf even before the game launched, lol. Not going through another 5 years of lance-based bullshit, lol.

Ramsey they didn't take it out, but the range is shortened, and mobs LOVE to move away from you as SOON as you press the imput, long before the animation actually starts. You'll miss constantly, and I'd be surprised if you were ever fighting mobs that were going to be so packed together that you could actually hit. It's pretty bad at the moment.

[Ramsey]

Drg nerf even before the game launched, lol. Not going through another 5 years of lance-based bullshit, lol.

Ramsey they didn't take it out, but the range is shortened, and mobs LOVE to move away from you as SOON as you press the imput, long before the animation actually starts. You'll miss constantly, and I'd be surprised if you were ever fighting mobs that were going to be so packed together that you could actually hit. It's pretty bad at the moment.

Yeah all of these problems were in the alpha, but if you were fighting 2-3 mobs, let them idle out and then immediately strafe in one direction and hit the button I found it pretty much always worked and hit all 3 consistently. It was an excellent move once I got used to it, though any sort of lag would make it next to impossible to use, it probably needs to be slightly improved.

[BlackheartX]

Speaking of things that need to be fixed. Why is puncture animation a half circle sweep and not a thrusting motion. Also WS and attack animations are lame atm, however it's beta so they should fix it retail.

(A Beta excuse has been used 7 remaining)

[Lucavi]

These rats weren't outright RUNNING away every time i pushed skewer in Alpha, I can say that for sure. If they want to just say it's "good AI", then I'll call bullshit because there isn't anything you can do about it but pray your heavy thrust lands to bind them before skewer, but shit, you'll whiff the skewer anyway.

Nothing but light thrust for me till' moonrise. I thought skewer was supposed to add slow as well, or was that another weapon skill? Has that been nerfed again?

Edit: They're gonna use all their beta excuses by the end of July, I swear.

[Falcon]

What? I...had no problems with Lancer. Granted I only got him up to 5. But the range didn't ever seem to be an issue, nor did hitting.

Then again, I did have a few more stat points for my level from leveling pugalist beforehand, so maybe my points in dex helped?

[Meresgi]

I just don't get the gross inaccuracy at the beginning of a game.
Yoli: I'm just saying that every MMO on the planet involves grinding. Just because you level up faster in one than in another doesn't mean you aren't grinding. You grind in EQ, EQ2, Asheron's Call 1 and 2, Vanguard, Age of Conan, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Darkfall Online, Mortal Online, FFXI, FFXIV, Star Trek Online, and every other MMO on the planet. .

How could you forget Aion or Lineage II's grind? ;P

Also like people have said, I would assume the reason you miss so much with skewer is due to it being a multiple hit ability. They wouldn't want it to hit all the time because then you could AoE down some things pretty easily. It is annoying though with the low accuracy at early levels in SE games though.

[Falcon]

These rats weren't outright RUNNING away every time i pushed skewer in Alpha, I can say that for sure. If they want to just say it's "good AI", then I'll call bullshit because there isn't anything you can do about it but pray your heavy thrust lands to bind them before skewer, but shit, you'll whiff the skewer anyway.

Nothing but light thrust for me till' moonrise. I thought skewer was supposed to add slow as well, or was that another weapon skill? Has that been nerfed again?

Edit: They're gonna use all their beta excuses by the end of July, I swear.

Uh, yeah. He runs to your end range. But, Lucavi? Every time they ran, I still hit. They just went to the end of the animation and revved up their Weapon Skill (Nutkick, I think).

[BlackheartX]

These rats weren't outright RUNNING away every time i pushed skewer in Alpha, I can say that for sure. If they want to just say it's "good AI", then I'll call bullshit because there isn't anything you can do about it but pray your heavy thrust lands to bind them before skewer, but shit, you'll whiff the skewer anyway.

Nothing but light thrust for me till' moonrise. I thought skewer was supposed to add slow as well, or was that another weapon skill? Has that been nerfed again?

Edit: They're gonna use all their beta excuses by the end of July, I swear.

I am tempted to say latency but I've seen some strange mob pathing. On a side note lancer has stupid range not sure why your having so many problems.

[mastamind]

Did they take the "hits all targets in a row" out of skewer? Because I always felt like when playing on my friend's character or watching him play, that the reason you'd use that move was to skewer multiple enemies in a row, and it was great for that. It doesn't seem like an ability meant for 1 on 1.

Skewer
Action Cost: 3
Polearm: Optimal Rank: 2
Requires: Disciples of War and Magic
TP Cost: 1000

Run your enemies trough, dealing piercing damage to the target and all enemies between. Increases attack power in proportion to the number of enemies affected.

Skewer still hits multiple targets, but the problem is fighting multiple targets at that level (at least moles) would get you killed.

[Lucavi]

Hmm, is that what it was with the rats? Shit, every time they ran, my shit missed. Goddamn WS, lol.

Edit: I miss my slow.

[Yoli]

Can you have a gladiator tank two mole or w/e, and a lancer repeatedly skewer both? Or is a gladiator not really able to tank that much yet? What if you throw in a conjurer to heal?

[Falcon]

Hmm, is that what it was with the rats? Shit, every time they ran, my shit missed. Goddamn WS, lol.

Edit: I miss my slow.

Its more an issue with all skills using a lance. Or, any skill. They would scurry back a tad with Pugalist and concussive blow, and scurry all the way to the edge when using Concussive blow with a lance.

[Lucavi]

You could do all of that, provided you line the moles up perfectly. Skewer isn't an arc - its a straight line, and I think the line is thinner now than it was before.

I see, Falcon, thanks. Why do they have the rats scurrying during the WSes anyway? What's the point other than frustrating the player? Ah well.

[mastamind]

Glad could probably tank 2 when it gets its shield, but i'm not sure how hate management would work.

Lancer got a weight effect (game called it heavy) with trammel and heavy thrust had a chance to bind, but did the same damage as light thrust with a higher stamina cost

[Destinye]

Idk, I'd run the fuck away if someone was beating my ass and I stood no chance.

[Alderaan]

Guildleves seem to be sorta like daily quests, to me anyways. Putting them on a 2 day CD is a big mistake and i can't possibly see this as intended. Well, it is SE, but i mean come on!

Also as someone that never ever ever ever locked on target during battle in XI because of the horrible sidestep bullshit, i hope they fix that shit.

I'll say this again until SE learns; Combat should be fluid and engaging without a pause or stop between engaging and disengaging. I'm sure it's been posted to death on the beta forums, but if not i may hurt someone.

[BlackheartX]

The mobs run away, didn't realize people didn't know this.

[Destinye]

Guildleves seem to be sorta like daily quests, to me anyways. Putting them on a 2 day CD is a big mistake and i can't possibly see this as intended. Well, it is SE, but i mean come on!

Also as someone that never ever ever ever locked on target during battle in XI because of the horrible sidestep bullshit, i hope they fix that shit.

I'll say this again until SE learns; Combat should be fluid and engaging without a pause or stop between engaging and disengaging. I'm sure it's been posted to death on the beta forums, but if not i may hurt someone.

Keep this in mind:

You're in Beta Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday. The CD doesn't matter much because you're only playing every few days as is and also keep in mind you're still supposed to be testing things..leves clearly work so it looks (hint: LOOKS) like a way to get people to do other things while playing also.

[Kachi]

Sorry, nutha long'n.

Oh god, i'm screaming inside while i read this.

You should not have to stop movement to pull out or put away your weapon.

Someone please scream this over and over on the beta forums, i beg you.

Many people are saying to just remove the active/passive modes, myself included. To me it's a waste of an action and a button that could be used for something much more fun.

I asked them to bring back the Effect Gauge with some tweaks. Essentially what I'd like to see is having three different settings for each ability that you can toggle between. For example, Light Stab can be set to 1 for a low power, high accuracy attack, or 3 for a high power, low accuracy attack, or 2 for a middle of the road attack. You wouldn't HAVE to select an option each time-- if you don't it just defaults to whatever it was last time, but I like the principle of giving us more control over our abilities and having the option to use each one three different ways. I'd like to see that come back in some form.

not really cool, that was one of the bigger turn offs for me in XI. Really hope they end up putting an in-game recipe list in somewhere down the road.

Hell even just for more of the basic stuff even, they can still be like, "But this list isn't near completion! there are still many yet undiscovered powerful items that have yet to be created!".

They plan to put up a list on the tester site for now, but everyone who has posted crafting feedback has insisted on a recipe book, so I would be amazed if this isn't taken care of.

Also I fail to see Thaumaturge as this big "powerhouse" SE described on their website.... I've looked around and it seems most of their abilities are mixed of enfeebling/enhancing.... I am sure I am missing a lot on this class (mostly because I can hardly find any infos about the job) but if someone could clarify or add some info on it, it'd be great.

I've been playing as Thaumaturge and I really don't see it either. I would interpret what they said as their intention. Remember, we're all still lowbies, so while classes may not fit their descriptions now, the way they're envisioned tells us much more about where they're going in higher levels.

I'm pretty sure the first type you select is the skin/texture. for the face this can generate some different looking faces even with the same geometry. not sure what all the details on some were, may have been stuff blocked by other things. the rest is pretty straight foward i think, definately need more hairs on some classes, like highlander, and could use more options overall for the big things like hiar and face types

I didn't notice this, but it could be. I think the first four are just basic templates to jump off of. I'll go back and see if there are any differences, but it's hard to tell a difference with the skin since they're all colored differently.

Yeah several of the Characteristics weren't too noticable.

For example, Elezen Female characteristic 1 --- no idea what that one does.

The differences in some of the character creation options such as eye shape and iris size are too subtle to notice. Kind of a waste of options really.

A lot of the differences are awfully subtle. Especially the option that's just labeled "Features." Features is the chin. Took me a long time to figure that out. I wasn't even sure if face types were an actual setting or just a leapoff point at first. For example, Duskwight male faces 1 and 2 didn't look all that different at first. After I played with them, I realized that all of their individual facial features differed, and the Characteristics you could use (facial hair, scars, tats) were different depending on your face selection.

It's easy for some changes to go unnoticed without a careful look-- changing one little feature on its own seems to do nothing, but it's when you change several features that your face develops a more unique look.

Certain Characteristics are small moles or marks that are concealed with a certain hair or by other Characteristics.

However, because the initial reaction is important I think some changes should be made for low level leves. Possibly rank 1-10 leves changing every 2h, rank 11-20 leves every 4h, and from there on every 2 days.

I said roughly the same thing on the tester site. Especially if Gridania is going to be as popular as it looks, there won't be nearly enough mobs to go around in the field. People will quit within the first week when they can't find anything to fight once their leves are up.

im guessing the rewards wont ever scale up retardedly high, you might get an extra 200 gil for a 2k lev, thats a 10% bonus, also you used to be able to turn in old levs for boosts, dunno if that will be in this one. yeah seeing abonus of one gil sucked but then again the entiere leve was like 96 gil so what does one really expect, i dunno.

The thing is, 10% is not nearly enough incentive to get someone to party up or push themselves by selecting higher difficulty levels. Conservatively I'd say that you'd need at least a 30% bonus to mobilize most people to do those things, probably closer to 50% or even upwards of 100%.

And really, skill? What other game forces you to stop while putting a weapon away so you can get your speed back up? Oh, right, FFXI did. So lets just use the same engine there. (For you, Hyan-chan~!)

Monster Hunter! And honestly I think that may be where SE got the idea from. In Monster Hunter you manually sheathe and unsheathe your weapon. Unsheathed you run much faster and can do gathering activities and use items. Skilled players even sheathe and unsheathe mid battle to approach and retreat tactically from the monsters. It's a really fun game, and I think may have inspired FFXIV slightly, but it just doesn't work well here. I think all that it DOES offer can easily be replaced with sheathe/unsheathe emotes, and a Retreat action for when you want to run away.