Final Fantasy XIV

[Cyndair]

Originally Posted by BigJonno

One thing I'm not sure about is how easily you can switch your stat points about. If there are restrictions, I can't see one character levelling melee and magic classes being viable.

More importantly, a lot of people like variety and don't necessarily want to be a swordsman and an archer and a mage on the same character. It's like a recent conversation about Oblivion we were having on another thread; you can do everything in that game on one character, but many people like to have different characters with different abilities.

As of right now it has a cooldown associated with it. If you select 'reassign', it will only let you re-allocate a portion of your points. Then you have to wait some undetermined amount of time before you can reassign again and do another portion of the points until eventually, after several cooldowns, you have everything where you want it. I'm not a fan of this at all. I want to be able to switch my class to whatever my guild/friends need at that moment and be effective. I'm really hoping that they change this.

[Cyndair]

Originally Posted by J Arcane

I picked up a little Conjurer the other day when I was bored, and I like having my fire spell around for the range when I'm on my Pugilist, but the damage can be not so hot, I'm wondering what stats to take to buff up magic a little.

Unfortunately, Eorzeapedia's down, so I'm not sure what the mental stats do exactly.

Here is what I understand about the stats if you are wondering about points:

- Strength(STR) increases physical damage done
- Vitality(VIT) increases physical defense and HP
- Dexterity(DEX) increases physical accuracy
- Mind(MND) increases healing effects from healing spells and magical defense. Also increases MP
- Intelligence(INT) increases damage of offensive spells
- Piety(PTY) increases magical accuracy

[Gorvi]

Originally Posted by Cyndair

Here is what I understand about the stats if you are wondering about points:

- Strength(STR) increases physical damage done
- Vitality(VIT) increases physical defense and HP
- Dexterity(DEX) increases physical accuracy
- Mind(MND) increases healing effects from healing spells and magical defense. Also increases MP
- Intelligence(INT) increases damage of offensive spells
- Piety(PTY) increases magical accuracy

That looks to mirror XI for the most part, though it seems weird that there's no AGI (ranged accuracy and evasion in XI) equivalent. It is nice to see a PTY, though, so you can actually work to improve magic accuracy.

[Cyndair]

Evasion and accuracy are actual visible stats now as well, which is really nice. It seems dependent on both gear and class. Here is a shot of the gear/attributes screen in the menu. Rank 7 pugilist in the picture:



Rank 1 Thaumaturge in this one:



Looks like the mages will have a better chance to dodge those attacks. I'm surprised it isn't higher on the pugilist since it is being billed as an evasion tank type class.

[Gorvi]

Ah, that's right, now I can remember reading that a long while ago. And PUG is being billed as an evasion tank type? So something of a MNK (with the H2H and countering), THF, and NIN (w/o shadows) hybrid?

[Deadend]

Originally Posted by Stoke

Yeah, but I understand why they did it. I mean, extra character are so costly! In fact, I heard EQ only made like $20 a month for Sony even when they had about 500,000 active subs. Big mistake letting people have 8 (eight!) characters on an account. Companies were stupid back in 1999.

That was sarcasm, right? As EQ1 was bringing in cash and character data is maybe 10-20 MB per (estimating high, very high.)

With the elemental/stat system in XIV it seems that while you can freely change class, you still need to stat yourself entirely around a role, which makes me think that the system doesn't have that much REAL flexibility as if you don't have enough magic stuff, you will be a bad healer. Now if you could have multiple stat allocations saved and able to switch between the two... that would be just dandy.

I like the solution Champions had where you could do as many toons as you wanted, but you had a universal handle, I think Guild Wars had a unique Last-Name system, and EVE may have something showing which characters are the same account. As I do agree that being "known" is important, as WoW has no system for it and also no real community in the game.

I also wish that everybody could do out of combat revivals, as I have seen people die and there was nothing I could do about it, it makes me sad, just seeing the body laying there.

I also did the FXIV version of a public quest.. Kinda shitty and it should have some sort of autogrouping type menu. Like WAR had. Instead it just feels very tacked on. People who were on the same PQ were unable to fight the same monster as me as it still solo-locks everything, even the extra mobs that aggrod on me. It's also much harder than every other MMO I've played to stay aware of my surroundings and tell what things are hitting me.

[Cyndair]

Originally Posted by Gorvi

Ah, that's right, now I can remember reading that a long while ago. And PUG is being billed as an evasion tank type? So something of a MNK (with the H2H and countering), THF, and NIN (w/o shadows) hybrid?

That's what I'm getting looking through the list of different abilities for the class. You get a self heal at level 6, a taunt at level 10, some abilities to up your evasion a little bit later, as well as attacks that specifically generate enmity. There is also a sneak attack type ability when you hit the enemy from the rear with damage dependent upon your DEX.

http://www.eorzeapedia.com/wiki/en/Pugilist

The PUG is probably my favorite of the classes that I've tried so far though admittedly I have yet to play with the lancer or archer.

[Gorvi]

Originally Posted by Cyndair

That's what I'm getting looking through the list of different abilities for the class. You get a self heal at level 6, a taunt at level 10, some abilities to up your evasion a little bit later, as well as attacks that specifically generate enmity. There is also a sneak attack type ability when you hit the enemy from the rear with damage dependent upon your DEX.

http://www.eorzeapedia.com/wiki/en/Pugilist

The PUG is probably my favorite of the classes that I've tried so far though admittedly I have yet to play with the lancer or archer.

Nice. How does GLD feel? From the little bit of looking it seems like a WAR/PLD mix w/o the healing. I'm still really looking forward to Conjurer, as it looks like they just took Scholar and dropped it into XIV as a starting class. More or less, anyway.

[Stoke]

Originally Posted by Deadend

That was sarcasm, right? As EQ1 was bringing in cash and character data is maybe 10-20 MB per (estimating high, very high.

No. I honestly believe Sony was only making $20 a month on the Everquest experiment.

Yes. It was. That was too.

[Shjinta]

I've created a Linkshell on Linblum if anyone wants to join it. Just hit me up Kykiro Suki ^_^

[x Returner x]

After playing an Archer to rank 5 and my P level to 5 I will not be playing this game past the 30 days. If I weren't a collector I would cancel my pre-order. The combat is too slow for my taste, the mob spawns as well as the respawn rate are a joke. The quest are short boring and unoriginal. It’s hard for me to say if the leveling is slow with such bad mob layout.

I will be checking this out in retail oh and the mouse lag is amazingly bad I read that FFXIV is better with a controller going to try that tonight the mouse lag is killing me. I loved FFXI but this so far feels like a huge step backwards. But I have weird taste in mmos I hate wow but love lineage II go figure.

[J Arcane]

I was wondering when someone would, I just didn't know how to do it myself.

Might spend some time on an alt tonight, depends on the mood I'm in.

[Goronmon]

Originally Posted by x Returner x

I will be checking this out in retail oh and the mouse lag is amazingly bad I read that FFXIV is better with a controller going to try that tonight the mouse lag is killing me.

The mouse lags because it's a software mouse, thus limited by the performance of the game itself. If your framerate is low and the game is chugging, so will your mouse. It's actually a good sign that you might want to turn down the graphics options a bit. Once I did that the mouse was much more tolerable.

Here's to hoping they implement the hardware mouse at some point so it's less of an issue.

[Cyndair]

Originally Posted by Goronmon

The mouse lags because it's a software mouse, thus limited by the performance of the game itself. If your framerate is low and the game is chugging, so will your mouse. It's actually a good sign that you might want to turn down the graphics options a bit. Once I did that the mouse was much more tolerable.

Here's to hoping they implement the hardware mouse at some point so it's less of an issue.

What really annoys me is that the mouse still feels laggy even when I'm pulling around 40fps. If it still feels off at that framerate, I have no hope for it. I don't mind playing with a controller since I spent hundreds of hours doing it in XI but I do prefer the mouse/keyboard setup. It's a shame how many people they are going to alienate from their game over such a silly thing.

[evilgoodwin]

The controller works like a damn DREAM. But I still use the keyboard in combat, since it's faster to select abilities on the fly.

One thing I wish they had, a "TARGET WHOEVER IS HITTING ME" button for when shit comes from behind, or those damn moles decide to pop up behind me, forcing me to turn the camera as well as my character.

[J Arcane]

I generally prefer the gamepad for everything save activating attacks. It feels slow having to d-pad around, especially if the ability I want is more than 3 away from the one I'm already on.

So sometimes I'll play with arms rested on the desk, and switch my left hand over to the number keys during combat.

[J Arcane]

Originally Posted by evilgoodwin

The controller works like a damn DREAM. But I still use the keyboard in combat, since it's faster to select abilities on the fly.

One thing I wish they had, a "TARGET WHOEVER IS HITTING ME" button for when shit comes from behind, or those damn moles decide to pop up behind me, forcing me to turn the camera as well as my character.

Yes. Very yes.

Finding the target when you've got aggro can be a real bitch.

[Cyndair]

Originally Posted by J Arcane

I generally prefer the gamepad for everything save activating attacks. It feels slow having to d-pad around, especially if the ability I want is more than 3 away from the one I'm already on.

So sometimes I'll play with arms rested on the desk, and switch my left hand over to the number keys during combat.

Yeah, that's generally my practice as well. Especially on pugilist when you have to be ready to nail haymaker when you evade an attack.

As far as targeting links or unexpected agro, yeah, it's a pain. Depending on the situation, I'll spam circle (my cancel button) until the targeting reticule disappears then quickly move my character so that it's closest to the mob attacking and press X (my select button). The game auto-selects the closest target when you do this. Either that or I'll spin the camera around so that my intended target is immediately to my right and just click right on the d-pad. The trick is to stay calm and think about what you are pressing. This is admittedly hard to do when you are being blitzed and your health is dropping rapidly.

I have years of practice from playing XI with a controller so I'm pretty quick at it. At least in XIV your character doesn't put his/her weapon away after defeating a mob. Nothing more frustrating than standing there with your sword sheathed staring at a goblin as it kicks the crap out of you.

[Uatu]

Originally Posted by J Arcane

Lamesauce.


I picked up a little Conjurer the other day when I was bored, and I like having my fire spell around for the range when I'm on my Pugilist, but the damage can be not so hot, I'm wondering what stats to take to buff up magic a little.

Unfortunately, Eorzeapedia's down, so I'm not sure what the mental stats do exactly.

If you want the spell to do more damage throw some points into your INT stat and your Fire element stat.

[Goronmon]

Well, finally put some time into the beta. At first I was nervous because the game seemed to be really rough going. Then I decided to tone down some of the graphics options, which helped quite a bit with the mouse lag. It's not great but definitely playable. The animations and visuals are pretty outstanding I have to say. I actually feel like my character knows how to shoot a bow rather than just having one sticking out of his body like in most games.

Getting into the groove now and I can definitely see myself playing this for a while. The little things like being able to teleport around help make things much smoother. The environments are detailed and gorgeous to look at. I actually feel like I'm running around a world instead of some textured surfaces.