Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - Beta Phase 3 Impression: Phase 4 August

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Slogging through boring parts just because it might get better later on is just not my style. My Ranger is fun to play now, and from what little I know there is more fun to be had later too.

My ranger cat deals damage dependent on enemy HP, applies dots and selfbuffs, hops back when the going gets tough and even disables opponents if the fight is unwinnable. While moving. Which means evading enemy attacks does not affect damage throughput.

With THM, moving negates any dps whatsoever. The long cast times and decay of the alignment buff keeps you from doing any fancy maneuvers anyway. The buff doesn't stack or require any tactics. There is no real decision-making required, a group of four dippy birds and a trained marmot could play lowlevel THM combat provided they're synced up correctly. Which is kind of bad design, methinks.

(Granted, I left out the sleep spell and surecast, which are both utterly worthless in normal progression to Level 10 - unless you're prone to standing in red circles or habitually stand near hostile mobs. Would make sense if one of the attacks had an AoE effect, but it doesn't, so why not unlock it when it's needed for dungeons.)

Anyway.

Cat wins, no contest. I mean Ranger. Ranger wins. Marauder too, since they pretty much learn skills to the same effect in the first ten-odd levels). Rest, dunno, need to play more.

Which, admittedly, I kind of want to now.

You need to get scathe a lvl 15 THM spell (obtainable by doing the last THM class quest), Its pretty much an Instant cast DD spell that comes with some nice traits later on into the class. Remember what you see in the actions list for a class isn't all the spells/skills you're gonna get, since it seems class quests give out spells/skills too.

Surecast is indeed worthless though, i rarely get interrupted while tanking a mob solo and in groups.. well if I'm tanking a mob somethings gone very wrong.

Oh and Cat (Male you pervs) Master Race reporting in!
 
Quick question. If i buy the PS3 version would I have to rebuy the PS4 version?

Yes. So you will have to double dip.

Oh my god I didn't know this. Now it shoots even higher in the "must get" list :O

I've tested and played around with the 360 pad and it responds beautifully. I myself am a KB/M player so I haven't got to really put testing time with instances so someone else will have to give their impressions on that. However I have seen complaints from healers with a gamepad. Targeting being the issue.
 
Press Scroll Lock.



The game does not work with forced AA in Nvidia Control Panel or AMD Catalyst Control Center. Don't do it.

The lighting and shadowing engine in the game are state of the art because the ARR engine shares some code with Luminous Engine, the next generation engine used for FFXV and KH3. In fact the whole lighting and shadowing engine is basically the Luminous Engine technology and it does look fabulous. Because Luminous is a DX10+ class engine which uses deferred rendering, traditional MSAA cannot be used and so ARR uses FXAA.

Ah yeah, I'd guessed it was Luminous. Lookin good. And I learned I had to switch all the Catalyst Control Center stuff off the hard way with the game having a lensflare whenever subtitled text was up or a big white screen blocking most of all graphics. Shame, because the vegetation badly needs it and AA barely seems to be working on mine at times? Heres some cropped shots I took before obviously I now know Scroll Lock is the key:

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Had a blast playing on PC with mouse and keyboard, quick question though: how does playing with a controller stack up? I don't have a super powerful PC, so I played on the lowest setting. I'll settle for the PS3 version if the controls are just as good. If not, I'll seriously consider upgrading my PC. I want to play this game with gorgeous visuals.
 
Had a blast playing on PC with mouse and keyboard, quick question though: how does playing with a controller stack up? I don't have a super powerful PC, so I played on the lowest setting. I'll settle for the PS3 version if the controls are just as good. If not, I'll seriously consider upgrading my PC. I want to play this game with gorgeous visuals.

Will these screens temp you to uprade? ;D



 
Sastasha and Tam-Tara are both 4 player instances/dungeons. The story mode leads you to Sastasha after level 15.

There are guildleve party quests too.

Satasha and Tam Tara are two of the early dungeons. They require a group to enter and you unlock them by completing the main story scenario. After you've unlocked them, you can continue to run through if you want for more EXP and item rewards that are better than anything you'll get from questing.

Guildhests are a separate thing. They require a group but its a bit more focused on teaching you how group play works in an MMO. Lots of great lessons about pulling, dispelling, not standing in bad stuff, add control, ect. I love this feature and hope they add more of them. You get huge exp rewards the first time you do them and some gold. The challenges are a lot of fun, even for MMO vets.
Thanks guys.

I keep feeling like I'm missing something but I think it's just because I went FFXI style and started grinding EXP (which was actually pretty fun) for a while instead of just following the chains of quests.
 
This thread is the reason I'm so tempted! The pics you guys are posting look amazing.

For what it's worth, if you got say $800-1000 to spend on a PC you can build on your own, you can get yourself something that will last you for the next 5+ years of PC gaming. Plus next year we'll be getting DX11 support which will make this game look godly.
 
I really wish they would bring back the cinematic blurring of distant objects from 1.0. It made the game look so good and it would look mind-blowing in this game.

Another thing they need to bring back are old music themes for areas. Props to the new music, but they are throwing away good songs and the new ones are not so great that you can't say they don't fit. More music variety, the better. I suppose the opening theme to the starting carriage ride is suppose to be more of an nod to old fans.

EDIT: GAF keeps on going "naked" on me.
 
I disagree. The way the game starts you off is perfect for whichever class you start with. Those little quests people were bitching about before you go out and fight lead you around each city naturally in order for you to pick up, complete and activate the crystals around the place. Then it takes you out to fight. People are too thickheaded to see it.

It would be nonsense to be a Pugilist and start in Limsa. Would confuse the player and make it a pain to pick up class quests.

Personally, I'm not a fan, its too punishing to people that want to play with friends. Those tutorial quests are in every city so I don't see how that would matter. I do agree that with the way class quests are structured that its too late to give people that kind of freedom.
 
I've been playing the beta on a 5770 at 1080p with most stuff set to high as you can see, albeit at 30fps because the stops and starts were getting to me a bit, and I don't think 60fps was bringing much to this particular bang wallop levelahp experience.
 
Personally, I'm not a fan, its too punishing to people that want to play with friends. Those tutorial quests are in every city so I don't see how that would matter. I do agree that with the way class quests are structured that its too late to give people that kind of freedom.

If this way is "too punishing" then... I got nothing. That's like calling WoW punishing because you want to be a Tauren while your friend wants to be Undead. Really? Come on now.
 
designated starting city is fine imo
not that hard to get to other city anyway (except limsa?)
wats not good is locking job change behind a lvl 10 quest that's not only leveled capped, but also must be soloed
 
designated starting city is fine imo
not that hard to get to other city anyway (except limsa?)
wats not good is locking job change behind a lvl 10 quest that's not only leveled capped, but also must be soloed

...you say that like the level 10 class quests are, like, difficult or something, but they're not. The level 15 ones, maybe; PGL one for instance took me a couple tries to win, but it was hardly prohibitively difficult.
 
I'm just imagining the stuffs someone completely new has to go through just to open something basic like trying out other jobs
esp if he/she chose the wrong starter
the ease of change in XI and 1.0 was so much better, imo
 
I'm just imagining the stuffs someone completely new has to go through just to open something basic like trying out other jobs
esp if he/she chose the wrong starter
the ease of change in XI and 1.0 was so much better, imo

Someone completely new is going to have so much stuff already to be overwhelmed by; the fewer system concepts to confuse them with up-front the better. They are not going to need to change jobs within the first 10 levels, seriously; this isn't XI where you need to level WHM for cure and poisona before you can do anything else. If someone really feels like they picked the wrong city, just re-start your character. It will take less than 5 minutes if they saved their appearance configuration.
 
iirc
quest chain starts in gridania -> limsa -> shastasha -> limsa -> gridania -> tamtara -> gridania -> uldha -> copper

what i really hate about this is how the last mobs left on my hunting log are those in the copper mines. i've finished everything else on it long ago. that's why i got totally confused and thought i did things in the wrong order. i'm sure they will let me backtrack again for log number 3.
 
Can you provide me with more info ..so your next main quest was in gridania , but was that your starting city ?

iirc
quest chain starts in gridania -> limsa -> shastasha -> limsa -> gridania -> tamtara -> gridania -> uldha -> copper

Story quests up to level 14 are city-specific and different.

Around 14, you get an airship pass and are sent as an envoy to the other two cities besides the one you started in. You speak with their GC leaders.

At this point, the 3 branching starter main story lines from the cities converge and then you go back to Limsa (regardless of where you started) for the quest "It's Probably Pirates" which takes you to the three starter dungeons outside the three main cities; Sastasha outside of Limsa, Tam-tara outside of Gridania, and then Copperbell Mines outside of Ul'dah, as jiggle mentioned. After that, the next big thing is Ifrit fight around 20, after which you join a Grand Company of your choice, regardless of your starting city.

All the discussion about the Lvl.15 Class quest difficulty has me wondering how reactions would be if they brought this guy back:

That would be so glorious. The tears would flow and it would be wonderful.
 
All the discussion about the Lvl.15 Class quest difficulty has me wondering how reactions would be if they brought this guy back:

Maat.jpg

lol am sure folks would fall to the ground and curl up into a little ball shivering from the trauma dished out by that old fucker.
 
Someone completely new is going to have so much stuff already to be overwhelmed by; the fewer system concepts to confuse them with up-front the better. They are not going to need to change jobs within the first 10 levels, seriously; this isn't XI where you need to level WHM for cure and poisona before you can do anything else. If someone really feels like they picked the wrong city, just re-start your character. It will take less than 5 minutes if they saved their appearance configuration.
what is there to overwhelm if its just an option that's not built into quest chains?
in XI, there was no need to touch other jobs until 18
but it was fun, as a new player, to try them before settling on one
why make ppl create new toons just to do something that's fundamental to this (mmo)series
 
Someone completely new is going to have so much stuff already to be overwhelmed by; the fewer system concepts to confuse them with up-front the better. They are not going to need to change jobs within the first 10 levels, seriously; this isn't XI where you need to level WHM for cure and poisona before you can do anything else. If someone really feels like they picked the wrong city, just re-start your character. It will take less than 5 minutes if they saved their appearance configuration.

Especially when they finish getting their Grand Company. You have so much you can do at that point.

-Questing
-Gathering
-Work on a tradeskill
-FATEs (seals farming)
-Leves
-Guildhests
-Grand Company-hests
-Instances (seals farming)
-Chill and have a beer with GAF


I mean hell, wait till we get housing to play around with.
 
Will these screens temp you to uprade? ;D

This is just cruel. My PC was created back in March of 2010, so it is starting to struggle when playing games on high setting. I have been waiting for the next-gen to come out, and upgrade two years into that span. I would like to think the technology would have adapted better by that point, plus AMD might actually be a legit good company!

But those pics are so bloody tempting.
 
Eventually I'm sure. Wouldn't surprise me if it comes off the MRD job choice. GLD should get Dark Knight.

Why would GLD get Dark Knight? Dark Knights don't use swords and sheilds, as it stands right now no class in the game is fitting to become a dark knight.

And why would MRD be a samurai they don't use two handed axes, the only class that could potentially become sam at the moment is Lancer, but even then that's still weird as people think of katana's when they think sam's not lances
 
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