Changes between beta and release?

[Lucavi]

^ This is the real answer. Notice how the ferry ride is a separate CS and a zone? Notice how in FFXI, the airship was its own set of zones? If FFXI had flight paths, the SE team would have to put in so much more extra work (not their fault or even a bad thing) that the game would have shipped five times the size it currently did. Expansion packs would be slowed because they'd have to animate way too much more. All of those mountains you see in the background would have to be modeled from all sides, and if you think the game runs slow now? Jesus, with all those polys, it would slow to a crawl.

SE is bad enough at optimizing PC games - mostly because they aren't PC games; they're PC ports - don't force them to have to work 10 times harder.

[notorious bum]

I'm going to disagree here, since the engine support large view distance relatively well When my characters glitched and was walking in the air over Las Nosca, my framerate didn't change.

The real reason why there is no flight path is that the game isn't designed for you to go above the ground. The moment you go in the air, you will see ton of unfinished mountain and valley.

That's lame, I guess Airship travel will still be a detached event with pre-rendered crap flying by... was hoping to atleast have real environments rendered underneath this time. Wasn't even expecting real-time flight paths or anything, maybe they'll add sky krakens/teradactyls/etc. to make it less boring this time.

Otherwise, there's always Terepo-everyfuckinwhere once they fix the anima handicap.

Or maybe one of these guys:
http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l7...rgfho1_500.jpg

[miokomioko]

You'd need a WoW polycount to make that work. Oooh~

[fussel]

It was a 5 star, maybe there is just a massive gap of damage from 4 and 5 star, like really massive.

Yes. We trioed some 10~ leves yesterday, four stars = too easy, five stars = mobs hit so hard that we could only zerg one of them and die.

[fussel]

The real reason why there is no flight path is because the game isn't designed for you to go above the ground. The moment you go in the air, you will see ton of unfinished mountain and valley.

The real reason why there is no flight path is because Airships aren't implemented yet.

[Lucavi]

Yes. We trioed some 10~ leves yesterday, four stars = too easy, five stars = mobs hit so hard that we could only zerg one of them and die.

I've been explaining this to many, and its frustrated just about everyone I've talked about it with. SE's version of scaling and "balance" seems to be simply leaving HP values the same, but scaling attack power to the next few level "tiers" for stars. All this ends up doing is pushing the battles from a quick walk in the park to a "KILL THEM BEFORE THEY KILL US!" zerg-fest. The fight's aren't any more fun. You aren't locked in a dramatic, long series of battles. Hell, there isn't even any tactics involved outside of hitting them as hard as you can, and getting ready to get killed.

They should have raised the HP by large amounts for each star, left their attack power the same as if they were on 2-3 stars, and either slightly raised their defense or kept it the same. Players should be able to hit relatively accurately, and for decent numbers, but the mobs should have so much health that the fight takes awhile, and so that players are forced to use strategies as the battle becomes a war of attrition.

I'm sure they'll eventually patch it when they decide they're ready to put the time in to balance it, but as of right now, its annoying to know exactly how little effort they have put into (this current version's) scaling the difficulty of 4-5 star leves when all it is is massive attack power with just about the same health.

[Kurokikaze]

It seems that the monsters get a boost in their Rank. The way SE has it set up now, if you're too far below the mobs Rank you will get some serious damage. Crushing Blows like even. Theres a huge difference in the damage I take and the damage Soap takes (2 ranks higher) from the same mobs while having the same stats.

SE hasn't been taking that into consideration when scaling leves and thats why everyone gets facerolled. Don't try 30 leves on anything higher than 2 when you get em. You've been warned. ><

Edit: Stay away from "Escape Artist". It's bugged and you cannot win.

[Meko]

It seems to be kind of how WoW has it where you can be "uncrittable" etc. I know we fought some imps that were yellow con for a behest and while their regular attacks weren't too bad, their "TP move/ability" was.

[Lucavi]

So we're going to have a bunch of random glads running around insisting that they're def. capped, only to find out they aren't, and get facerolled because of it.

[Meko]

Lol. That'll be awesome! Time to start stacking all VIT!

[Exiled]

My other classes are going to love that ^

[Crymn]

dammit, wrong thread

[SquallTiofae]

Edit: Stay away from "Escape Artist". It's bugged and you cannot win.

Just fixed in today's version update, for those who didn't know.

[Priran]

I've been explaining this to many, and its frustrated just about everyone I've talked about it with. SE's version of scaling and "balance" seems to be simply leaving HP values the same, but scaling attack power to the next few level "tiers" for stars. All this ends up doing is pushing the battles from a quick walk in the park to a "KILL THEM BEFORE THEY KILL US!" zerg-fest. The fight's aren't any more fun. You aren't locked in a dramatic, long series of battles. Hell, there isn't even any tactics involved outside of hitting them as hard as you can, and getting ready to get killed.

They should have raised the HP by large amounts for each star, left their attack power the same as if they were on 2-3 stars, and either slightly raised their defense or kept it the same. Players should be able to hit relatively accurately, and for decent numbers, but the mobs should have so much health that the fight takes awhile, and so that players are forced to use strategies as the battle becomes a war of attrition.

I'm sure they'll eventually patch it when they decide they're ready to put the time in to balance it, but as of right now, its annoying to know exactly how little effort they have put into (this current version's) scaling the difficulty of 4-5 star leves when all it is is massive attack power with just about the same health.

SE mind reading power go: the reason more stars doesn't increase HP/defense is because that means longer fights, and longer fights mean more skillups

[Lucavi]

Longer fights also mean less unhappy players complaining that leves are boring, and less harsh reviews from companies echoing player sentiment.

It also allows for the "strategic" part of the "strategic battles" they've been shouting since the first initial information started coming in over a year ago.

[Riposte]

FFXIV is not a PC port. It is being ported to the PS3. It has only recently been playable on the PS3(if devs are to be believed, we haven't seen it.)

[Lucavi]

Ehh... that's not quite what I meant. The game is limited by the constraints of a PS3 because SE has shown that they are unwilling to have differences between the two versions. Its the same reason why AOC rescinded on their push to get the MMO onto the 360: the system would never be able to handle DX10, and many PC players raised a stink that future content would be watered down so as to keep the two versions identical.

If the game was designed strictly for PC, I doubt we'd be stuck on DX9, and I personally believe that quite a few of these "hitches" would be resolved. Admittedly, I have a bit of a bias for the PC platform (and its quasi-ulimited potential) and against consoles, which begin to depreciate the second their designs are finalized.

Regardless, SE has shown that they aren't very comfortable with working on the PC, as is evidenced by both official X-series games, and of their hilarious ports of FFVII and FFVIII.

[Kylewhataru]

Errr... why are you quoting me when obviously I agree with you?! I've hardly been defensive of my criticism of the game...

I was saying in general, not just to you.

[Deadgye]

you will see ton of unfinished mountain and valley.

Are you sure it's not just the fact that the clipping plane is really short?

[Kaylia]

Are you sure it's not just the fact that the clipping plane is really short?

Not quite the best picture since it look like I'm stuck underground, but what I mean is, the moment you reach an area that is out of sight, the world "end". They didn't bother designing anything you couldn't see (for obvious reason). An airship view over most area would be impossible because of this. If they do it, it will be like they did in ffxiv.

Spoiler: show

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/4968/kaylia4flying.png