Ever since Square Enix officially announced FFXIV at the E3 conference last June, I have been eating up any information I can find related to the topic. With sites like Eorzeapedia, FFXIVCore and FFXIVBlog available at my fingertips, it hasn’t been to difficult. From the information I’ve read in miscellaneous articles posted so far, these appear to be the premier sites for FFXIV development coverage and information. I could go on to to tell you what has already been written, but you should just visit those sites…. So instead I’m going to tell you what the information means coming from the mind of a veteran player of FFXI.
I want to start off by talking about the job system; there isn’t one. The development team decided to try something new for FFXIV so that players can increase skill in areas of their choice. Rather than choosing a certain roll to play in a party and being limited to only those job abilities, like we see in FFXI. (Such as choosing Paladin to be a designated tank, choosing Thief for spike damage and Whitemage for cures.) SE went with an approach that will allow players to collect ‘Guildleves’ that unlock new abilities that the player will be able to use. This is SE’s solution to giving the player the option to solo. In FFXI, soloing can be very difficult and slow. Most often the only subjob choice is /ninja for shadows and dual wielding weapons. However, realistically most of FFXI’s content is not solo-able or is not designed to be soloed. FFXI and it’s players rely mostly on it’s community. That community is slowly dying and it is starting to effect progress. (Hopefully FFXIV won’t require gathering massive groups of people just to take down one monster and have the battle last 3 hours, but we can only hope) Tanaka has stressed that Guildleves are the back bone to development in FFXIV. They are basically cards that the player collects and keeps in their pocket. Obtaining new Guildleves will be done by completing various forms of tasks. This seems somewhat similar to Assault in FFXI. Depending on the amount of content, some leves can take anywhere from 30 minutes to multiple days to complete. SE really seems to be going after both casual and core players this time. I, for one, am looking forward to experimenting with this.
Next I want to talk about the Experience Points system; there isn’t one. Along with the elimination of specific job classes, SE has also removed exp completely. It sounds kind of nuts when you first think about it, but after about 10 minutes I almost filled an overwhelming sense of relief. Does this mean level grinding is something of the past? No more repetitive pulling and killing of the same mob over and over for decent exp? Instead players will gain experience in the weapon they choose. Certain abilities and attacks will be available depending on what weapon is equipped. I’m very curious to see how this will work.
Next on my list is the battle system; it’s… still a work in progress. Tanaka has shown that one of the major differences in XIV will be the battle system. There is no more auto-attack. In FFXI players would engage a target and the character would perform auto attacks based on the delay of the weapon. This makes for inactive game play, it actually feels very robotic. I often times find myself multi-tasking in exp parties simply because I easily get bored after a few minutes of doing the same thing. Don’t get me wrong, I love FFXI for what it is. It allows for a very chilled out play experience which is something I hardly ever find in games these days. I usually surf the web and do homework while playing. In fact I’m playing right now while writing this post and eating a snack. This doesn’t mean playing FFXI is easy, because it’s not. It’s actually very frustrating at times and requires a lot of patience, but the rewards make it all worth it for me. However, it would be nice to have a little more say in how my character will perform by having battles based on timing, skill and strategy rather than relying on stat bonuses from all the equipment that I have to carry around… and constantly switch out.
From what I’ve gathered from the Gamescom convention, Targeting seemed a little buggy and fighting looked painfully slow. Instead of attacking based on weapon delay (like in FFXI), it looks like the player must wait for their action gauge to fill, once the bar is full the character will perform an action that was selected before hand. There are 2 bars, one for each hand. This is where player strategy and a custom play style comes in. It seems like players will be selecting actions ahead of time instead of waiting until the bar is full. I have high hopes that SE will make playing a little more interactive.
The last thing I would like to mention for this article is the graphics. If you didn’t already know, SE has decided to use Crystal Tools as the graphics engine for XIV. It should be noted that this is the same engine that SE built from scratch for FFXIII. Even though what we saw at Gamescom was undoubtedly impressive, it was obvious that the game was in the alpha testing stage. Tanaka made a note that the graphics were simplified at the gamescom display. When Tanaka said that the graphics for XIV are further developed than anything else in the game so far, I had no trouble believing him when he said that the detail in XIV will be absolutely beautiful and players will be able to see every tree from clear across the map. As if I wasn’t already excited to play the game, now I just can’t wait to explore every area and stare in awe at the artwork SE has spent the last 4 years creating.
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