[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Rogalicus]

Combos every 30 seconds?
........oookay. o.O

I mean, we knew it wasn't going to go to WoW's 2 button spam until something procs model, but I've never felt they've gone to the extremes of WoW's past button bloat either. A few things could be trimmed, sure, but 3 bars fit everything neatly with a little room to spare on all my jobs. I have another 4 extra hot bars shrunk smaller with random stuff nobody really needs (like some emotes) but it's a really compact set up.

Not combos, combo buttons themselves. Like DRG combo cycle is Impulse Drive -> Disembowel -> Chaos Thrust -> Wheeling Thrust -> Fang and Claw -> True Thrust -> Vorpal Thrust -> Full Thrust -> Fang and Claw -> Wheeling Thrust. That's 8 buttons, 6 of which are only pressed once every 30 seconds.

And I don't see how 3 bars is a good place for classes that have almost no out of combat buttons or niche utilities. Remember how much place in WoW's spellbook was taken by things like Unending Breath, Ritual of Summoning, Banish, Soulstone, Soulwell and so on.

[Faroth]

I mean, I guess if you want to eliminate situational use abilities just to prune things down to nothing, it's an option.

A lot of bloat comes from the role actions and those are being trimmed based on role, plus the trimmed abilities themselves, etc.

DRK could lose unmend/plunge and unleash, keeping just one of the three but the argument could also be made if you don't need them all, drop one off your bar. Some may prefer one or the other, but you don't need them all.

They're removing the enmity combos entirely on tanks, so that's potential to trim things down.

We don't really have enough real info on the full revamp yet.

[Rogalicus]

I mean, I guess if you want to eliminate situational use abilities just to prune things down to nothing, it's an option.

DRG already has only two: Elusive Jump (the only real mobility option) and Piercing Talon (obligatory melee pull ability). And what I'd actually like to see is reduction of buttons in rotation and more utility/crowd control options, because IMO the main reason something like M+ will never work in FFXIV is that party has no real options to tackle big groups other than starting AoE fest and hoping that tank will live through the damage.

[leviathonlx]

The removal of things like Heavy Thrust is great and I'm so glad Square went through with that.



My thoughts on the new races via the benchmark:

The floppy ears for viera look pretty pitiful and the lack of animation makes them look unnatural. Face wise 2 of the 4 faces look absolutely awful and you really only have 1 mouth option if you don't want to look like you got botox.

For hrothgar it's unfortunate that hairstyle is tied to their faces which really limits options there and it appears their claws are attached to their racial armor. Their slouch also causes a problem of making the model look like it has breasts when you have armor with bulked out chests like the new DRK class armor or the Lynxliege armor.

Overall if I go to either race it'd likely be the viera.

[GreenJesus]

The removal of things like Heavy Thrust is great and I'm so glad Square went through with that.



My thoughts on the new races via the benchmark:

The floppy ears for viera look pretty pitiful and the lack of animation makes them look unnatural. Face wise 2 of the 4 faces look absolutely awful and you really only have 1 mouth option if you don't want to look like you got botox.

For hrothgar it's unfortunate that hairstyle is tied to their faces which really limits options there and it appears their claws are attached to their racial armor. Their slouch also causes a problem of making the model look like it has breasts when you have armor with bulked out chests like the new DRK class armor or the Lynxliege armor.

Thank god.. it was so annoying to be in the middle of a combo and watch that stupid 10% damage buff fall off. Good riddance.

[Onikaroshi]

because IMO the main reason something like M+ will never work in FFXIV

And I hope it never does.... god M+ is such a cesspool and had a huge negative affect on raiding.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Spent a couple hours trying out different Hrothgar looks. They look great, and their movement feel weighty, goes hand in hand with the greatsword animations. That said, I'm too attached to my Lala, so I probably won't switch.

Loved the horn rendition of the cinematic theme that played during the two boss fights. Guess that's going to be the leitmotif of the expansion.

[Poppincaps]

They don't really look like throwbacks to me, though. They have a common motif/vibe to them, but that's across all the artifact sets for any given job.

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Combos every 30 seconds?
........oookay. o.O

I mean, we knew it wasn't going to go to WoW's 2 button spam until something procs model, but I've never felt they've gone to the extremes of WoW's past button bloat either. A few things could be trimmed, sure, but 3 bars fit everything neatly with a little room to spare on all my jobs. I have another 4 extra hot bars shrunk smaller with random stuff nobody really needs (like some emotes) but it's a really compact set up.

I mean... you might wanna look again, because a lot of them are almost indistinguishable. BRD DRG and MCH are the only sets where I feel like they look different from the level 50 (or 60 in the case of MCH) sets. That's enough to be a clear pattern.

[Rogalicus]

And I hope it never does.... god M+ is such a cesspool and had a huge negative affect on raiding.

That depends on implementation. M+ is brought down by third party rankings, overabundance of trash (especially coupled with skipping) and the whole titanforging bullshit, but by itself it's nice raiding alternative for those who prefer smaller scale content.

[Onikaroshi]

That depends on implementation. M+ is brought down by third party rankings, overabundance of trash (especially coupled with skipping) and the whole titanforging bullshit, but by itself it's nice raiding alternative for those who prefer smaller scale content.

I mean.... XIV raids are pretty small scale content

[Graeham II]

Hrothgar look pretty cool. I don't think I'd play one as anything other than an alt, though.

[Kuja]

If I queue to a random dungeon while leveling, and an item drops that is 20 levels lower than my level and I roll need on it, does it scale to my level?

[Remilia]

If I queue to a random dungeon while leveling, and an item drops that is 20 levels lower than my level and I roll need on it, does it scale to my level?

Item level are static.

[Sesshomaru]

If I queue to a random dungeon while leveling, and an item drops that is 20 levels lower than my level and I roll need on it, does it scale to my level?

Item level are static.

The only thing armor piece that (currently) isn't static is the pre-order Aetherlyte Earrings.
You can hypothetically say the treasure chests in The Diadem, but that is outdated as well as horrible content based on a general consensus.

[Faroth]

I mean... you might wanna look again, because a lot of them are almost indistinguishable. BRD DRG and MCH are the only sets where I feel like they look different from the level 50 (or 60 in the case of MCH) sets. That's enough to be a clear pattern.

Paladin's 50 had solid silver arms and legs with a white tunic. The blue motif wasn't introduced until later. The new one has a lot more blue and gold plus a cape it looked like. If anything, the new one looks more like what traditional FF paladins should look like more than any set so far.

Samurai's looks more like one of the tomestone pieces or Lord Hien's design of being only on half the body, or I'd say it looks like the new AF gear is more inspired by Auron than the original gear set. Just because it's red doesn't make it the same design, as it looks smoother and lighter than the original robe, no scarf, etc.

Black Mage doesn't really look like the original robe and pointed hat. It has a feather that looks more ARR bard inspired. I guess it has the eye covering, but....

White mage definitely has the traditional WHM influence, but a touch of Y'shtola's gear design as well.

Monk and scholar seems to be the most similar to me with summoner's green coat being the main similarity for it.



Every AF set has some influence of the classic look, though.

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Hrothgar look pretty cool. I don't think I'd play one as anything other than an alt, though.

I'll just leave this here.



Also for anyone interested, here's Nova Crystalis' recap of the Live Letter:

Gameplay Adjustments:
— FATEs will offer new rewards other than experience points. Additional requirements must be met to unlock certain rewards. Unique tokens will be implemented that can be exchanged for these rewards at specialty shops. The FATEs will be tied into the regional lore and will let you learn more about the areas in The First. It’s not tied to the main scenario but there will a progression system that will unlock more rewards. This style of FATE will only be available in Shadowbringers areas.
— Sidequests in new regions will be level synced. All of them can be undertaken at Level 70 and you can use them to level alt jobs. Enemies will be scaled to player level when accepting sidequests.
— Role Quests will retrace the journeys of the First’s fallen heroes and there will be four sets. Their roles are physical DPS, magical DPS, tank, and healer. One quest line must be completed to advance the main scenario. The team has put a lot of effort and cost into these quests.
— Regarding Job Quests, Gunbreaker and Dancer will have them from Level 60 to 70. Existing job quests will have a new quest at Level 80.
— Crafting and Gathering Quests will have five sets of quests in different disciplines. They involve stories centered on the Crystarium and a collective of artisans. DoH: The Facets of Forging, Crafting, and Nourishment. DoL will have the Facets of Gathering and Fishing. Hone your skills as you progress through the story of the Crystalline Mean and you’ll learn more about the world of the First. These quests are similar to the Custom Deliveries quests.
— User Interface adjustments will support themes, and a Light Skin will be added that has a brighter palette. To switch over, open your System Configuration menu. For the changes to apply, you need to re-log. They would like to expand options at a later time. All UI elements will be expanded.
— Cross-world linkshells will be expanded to eight channels.
— Target HP will now display a decimal point under 1%, e.g. “0.8%”.
— The party list information will be updated where, for example, the HP value will have more attributes.
— Housing furnishing placement preview to be added.

Battle System Changes:
— A new Charged Action System where actions gain charges for later use. Charges will build until reaching a maximum limit. Not all actions are charge-able. The charge level is displayed in the lower-right corner of the action icon. Charges may be consumed to use an action whenever you want. When used, the action will begin recharging and continue to charge in or out of battle. Certain jobs may not have charged actions.
— A new Casting Interruption System will tell you what enemy abilities can be interrupted. The enemy cast bar on their name plate will pulse in a visual animation and when it’s been interrupted, text will display over it. Tanks and ranged DPS will receive role actions for this purpose.
— Role Actions will be automatically be obtained by levelling up. The number of actions will be revised down.
— MP & TP Systems have been updated where TP has been removed entirely. MP will be capped at 10000. A lot of the actions that require MP are percentage-based, so they wanted to change it to a system that could communicate values better. The piety attribute will be adjusted in accordance with this change — but will remain an attribute that only affects healers. It’s MP regeneration. TP will be removed and affected actions will be revised so that they may be used more freely.
— Attributes for all accessories will be revised as part of a plan to address a problem gearing up, especially for tanks. Main attribute-increasing materia will no longer be meldable. Main attribute-increasing materia melded to existing equipment will be revised to have no beneficial effects. The accessories will be revised to account for this shift. Main attribute-raising materia will no longer be obtainable. Weekly token gear, as well as savage accessories and belts will have two materia slots.
— The Pet System will be heavily revised. Pets will no longer be affected by enemy attacks or PC actions. Pet actions will be removed from the pet hotbar and be recategorized as player actions. Actions for pets designed to function as tanks (Titan-egi, Topaz Carbuncle) will be revised. The unique actions for each pet will be consolidated.
— Battle system calculations will be adjusted and changed. If you see tooltips in embargoed media, they may have already been adjusted on the back end.
— Chain bonuses will be removed from dungeons in order to standardize EXP gain.
— The damage limit will be increased from 999,999 to 9,999,999 to account for future damage inflation. You might see this in an enrage situation. By the next expansion after Shadowbringers, they plan to revise damage and likely crunch them.
— The party bonus will be adjusted to account for the numbers of players filling a given role.
— The rate at which the limit gauge fills will be adjusted for Shadowbringers regions only. Pre-expansion regions will be unaffected.
— The HP of a barrier shielding a party member will be displayed in the party list.

Job Changes:
Rebalancing Player Roles
Regarding Job Synergy, in order to address rigid party composition and the perception that certain jobs are essential, the effectiveness of synergies between certain jobs will be reduced. Debuffs reducing slashing, blunt, and piercing resistances will be removed. Action values will be revised and some actions will be removed. The synergy of the new dancer job will be emphasized — they are more of a buffer. Some people may think Dancer will be necessary to bring along, but that’s not the case.

Tanks
For tanks, adjustments will be made to account for the main tank and off tank roles. All four tank jobs, including Gunbreaker, will be viable as a main tank or off tank. Tanks will possess defensive buffs that can be applied to all party members. Additional buffs designed for OTs to support MTs will be added. Tanks can also use buffs to enhance their defenses for a limited time. Job effectiveness will vary depending on player skill.

Offensive stances will be removed, and players will instead toggle tank stances on or off. Tank stances will be adjusted. Damage dealt and received reductions and max HP increase effects will be removed. Only enmity generation will be increased and all attacks will increase enmity. Adjustments will be made to emphasize the reduced damage received aspect of tanks.

Enmity generating combos will be removed. Skill rotations will not change when alternating between MT and OT. A Tank Mastery Trait will be added where all damage received will be reduced by 20%. Bonuses to maximum HP and damage dealt based on certain attributes will be granted.

— Paladin‘s Sword Oath is gone but the feel of play will not change. Riot Sword will allow for no casting time. Sheltron was momentary in use but will become more of a lasting ability. Rage of Halone isn’t totally moved, but swapped out with something powerful.
— Warrior‘s Destroyer has been removed but the feel of play won’t change. There’s a new buff when you use a certain action and the potency will be more powerful than Fell Cleave.
— Dark Knight‘s Dark Arts is gone. You have your defensive buffs but you draw out your “inner soul.”
— Gunbreaker uses a gunblade — when you slash and pull the trigger and it enhances an attack. You use different cartridges to enhance actions. They have a rush move called Rough Divide. The combo route changes very quickly depending on the actions used and it feels different from the other tanks. There’s a regenerative healing action called Aurora.

Healers
Healers will be thoroughly rebalanced to emphasize a pure healing role. Protect has been removed from the game. New actions will be added to address gaps in each healer’s repertoire. Offensive actions will be reviewed for healers.

— White Mage‘s receive an instant heal to mitigate the cast times of other abilities. Lilies will automatically accumulate during combat. Previously you had to use actions to accumulate them, but no longer. While it has powerful healing spells, it required a lot of casting time and therefore became less mobile. With the increased mobility you can better prepare for your next action — an area they thought the job lacked. If you meet the conditions, a black lily will appear which lets you cast a powerful offensive ability.
— Scholar‘s pet actions will be revised, while direct heals and barrier magicks will be adjusted. For the most part Scholar hasn’t changed much, but there will be more healing involved. Selene and Eos are essentially the same now — you can pick whichever one you like the look of better. You can summon the Seraph fairy which can help you cast more powerful healing spells.
— Astrologian‘s stances and card effects will be adjusted. This job has changed where the card effects will all have damage buffs, but the element of dealing these cards to a member of your party hasn’t changed. You may run into situations where you still need to redraw a card. They’ve also separated the recast timer to draw and play cards. At a higher level, you will get an action that will let you access the other stance (Diurnal or Nocturnal) from your current stance.

DPS
Design concepts will be more traditional and mechanics will be revised accordingly. They felt DPS went in two directions — ones that had a simple evolution like Monk, Dragoon, Ninja, Samurai, Black Mage, and Red Mage…

— Monk‘s Greased Lightning can be stacked four times via an action. Initially, they were concerned about adding four stacks and it would cause a disparity between players who are more experienced with Monk and players newer to the job. Based on feedback, they wanted to respond the requests from the Stormblood expansion and add the fourth stack. An action will allow you to maintain that charge without losing the stack. Post Shadowbringers they expect people to get more familiarized.
— Dragoon‘s jumps have become very quick.
— Samurai‘s initial concept was easy accessibility and it hasn’t changed too much, but the expansion will have a simple evolution of the job. Hagakure has been revised where you can activate Midare Setsugekka more easily.
— Ninja‘s enemy enmity actions have been removed in accordance with the changes to the tank role.
— Black Mage can use a stacked action to maintain Umbral Ice so that DPS output can be more evenly preserved. Other changes include the next tier of powerful magic — Fire V and Blizzard V. There are more instant-cast spells. Black Mage evolved to cast more magic and if you are at 0 MP you can use Blizzard III to instantly restore MP. Flare only effects one enemy.
— Red Mage has also had a simple evolution. While you’re moving the gauge depletes but there are more actions to do while moving. You will continue to accumulate white and black mana and then you can use Displacement. Each individual job will allow you to build an AOE into your rotation.

…and there are jobs where there have revisions to mechanics.

— Machinist is currently undergoing significant changes where it’s basically a new job. They wanted to address the confusing mechanics involved and even when you understand them it didn’t feel very rewarding. Now, it’s a positive thing to build your Machinist job gauge. When the battery gauge is charged you can summon a robot to fight alongside you. They wanted to revisit the idea of the machinist using machines over shooting — they’ll pull out different weapons like like a drill and so on. Gauss Barrel is no more.
— Bard‘s overall feel hasn’t changed, but they wanted to address various issues. The songs used to raise the critical hit rate of the party but they have been removed to fit with the rebalanced party synergy. At higher levels you will unlock a Soul Voice gauge which will unlock more powerful actions.
— Summoner mechanics will be partially reworked. Ruin IV will be available when your pet performs a certain action and it’ll be easier to use. The Egi summons are now instant and you can call forth an Egi depending on the situation. Once you summon Bahamut you’d then be able to summon Phoenix, etc. You won’t have to worry about building Aetherflow stacks before entering combat anymore either.
— Dancer is a character that uses dances to buff. The dance has steps and you have a “partner” in your party. You can buff that party member and they can execute an action that increases your job gauge. There are two different steps: the Standard Step and the Technical Step. Standard has two steps involved and Technical has four. Once you go into your step, the next action must be your next step. Once the step is complete it applies the buff. The buff you apply to yourself also applies to your dance partner. There are two types of attacks the Dancer can do — single target and AOE from a distance. As you do more steps, it’ll get quicker paced. Whenever your partner lands a successful weaponskill action, the Dancer gets a buff to your job gauge. If it accumulates to 50 you can unlock more powerful steps.

[Wrecktangle]

I watched the entire live letter. I'm pleasantly surprised by the changes to be honest. It hit a lot of my pain points with the game.

• PLD gets basically all new Holy Knight looking abilities and that Confiteor!! Looks a lot like Orlandu's Divine Ruination and then we get Holiest of Holy?! I also suspect the leaks may actually be true now and if so, we got a lot of abilities shifted to lower in the gameplay to make early game less of a headache. Confirmed we Sword Saints now boys. We got a gap closer too, I'm cool with it.
• Tank Stance gameplay revised. At first I was like ugh blah, but then I really came around. While it's not as organic/dynamic as I would have liked I actually do see the value in their decision because the one area my proposal always lacked in was that tank stance is useful to show who has a desire to MT.
• Tank accessories FINALLY acknowledged and fixed. Thank god. My wallet thanks you.
• Charging system. Welcome addition.
• Interrupts on Bosses again? and it's my job? Thank you baby jesus. Tanking was getting a little too boring.
• TP Gone. Nuff said
• Synergies reduced between jobs? Thank god again. I'm so tired of being upset I didn't have an AST in the group. Hopefully DNC isn't too egregious, but even though they said oh hey it won't be like that with DNC, we all know that it genuinely might be.
• Curious about the Healer comment. There's no way to truly stop good healers from DPSing, but I wasn't sure if it was a translation thing not about encounter design forcing more healing, but rather redesigning jobs to heal and not be Healer 1 and Healer 2 (aka backup full time DPS).

And I hope it never does.... god M+ is such a cesspool and had a huge negative affect on raiding.

M+ is hands down the best feature to grace MMO's since Flex raiding to be honest. It's not perfect, but it's an extraordinarily well designed scaling challenge for small parties. Sure it blends into raiding a bit and diminishes it, but I didn't interpret that as a bad thing (former top 20 US raider).

I mean, I guess if you want to eliminate situational use abilities just to prune things down to nothing, it's an option.

Eh, as a PLD the button bloat and opportunities for pruning are abundant. There's easy ones and harder ones though for sure. Some easy fixes are Flash, Tempered Will, & Sword Oath gone. Savage Blade if we're to believe that as well. Shield Swipe isn't bad, but if not reworked, remove it. Intervention and Cover are somewhat redundant. I'd argue drop Intervention and retool Cover as a shorter CD, less powerful version of it.

I don't think I need Rampart, Sentinel, Bulwark, Sheltron, & Hallowed Ground as defensive CDs. Speaking personally I would have preferred that they better utilized the charge system here and then added some synergy/depth/thematics via toolkits. Proposed example would be something like, kill Rampart and Sentinel. Bulwark is the PLD default Defensive CD. Give it 2 or 3 charges, have it increase block chance, reduce damage by x%, and while active blocks reduce CD of XYZ or generate Oath, etc. This way it's a deep use CD with synergy.

If we're to follow this, we're gaining 4 new actions in ShB, dropping all of role actions (except Provoke, really the others are inconsequential) and we'd then drop 8 additional buttons.

I'd be ok with that.

They don't really look like throwbacks to me, though. They have a common motif/vibe to them, but that's across all the artifact sets for any given job.

Eh - I was confused at first. I was like where's the PLD AF4? I don't think AF1 or 2 or 3 look anything alike each other. But 4 looks damn near identical to 3. Hopefully it's designed better than AF3 where the sword it came with doesn't clip the fucking cape.

[Granyala]

Rebalancing to make sure healers have to heal more and therefore DPS less? I welcome that. I did always say I like to actually heal when I'm a healer, rather than spend most of the time DPSing. I've got DPS jobs for that.

Yeah, spending most of your time DPSing and still be last in ACT certainly wasn't a fun feeling.

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[*]Curious about the Healer comment. There's no way to truly stop good healers from DPSing, but I wasn't sure if it was a translation thing not about encounter design forcing more healing, but rather redesigning jobs to heal and not be Healer 1 and Healer 2 (aka backup full time DPS).[/LIST]

Yeah, I hope I get to heal more in EVERY content. Doing a 3 button DPS "rotation" ... really just one button.... was boring as f*** if I am honest.

[Super Kami Dende]

Yeah, spending most of your time DPSing and still be last in ACT certainly wasn't a fun feeling.

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Yeah, I hope I get to heal more in EVERY content. Doing a 3 button DPS "rotation" ... really just one button.... was boring as f*** if I am honest.

I'm kind of hoping that Healers that can still Heal and DPS are the ones that show they have some skill in the game. In like every game that I play a Healer in I always try to also maximise my DPS just to make runs go faster and smoother. In games like WoW/Swtor/WH:O etc, I always found that someone able to play their healer well and still maintain a 50% dps efficiency was a good healer.

[unholytestament]

I'll just leave this here.

Here I thought it looked more like he wanted to talk to me about Liberty Medical and diabeetus.

[Katchii]

Anxious to see how that healer comment pans out, regarding making them "healers" again with less DPS.

The hallmark of any good player really boils down to using your full kit appropriately while minimizing (or completely eliminating, depending on the class design) down time. I don't care which spells a healer is using so long as the party doesn't die and they're smartly and consistently casting something (ie not just spamming their lowest level cure to be casting something, even if it's a wasted heal).

I just hope they didn't rework it to make heals less powerful so now healers HAVE to cast multiple heals to make up for the decreased potency. I didn't see anything in the letter regarding a rework or redesign of encounters to accommodate the healer change.

I'm really curious how smoothly the Dancer ends up fitting into a normal 4 man Duty Finder party. They look interesting, and their skill set intrigues me. I enjoy AST because it has more to manage than the other healers (at least it did, nto sure how things will pan out in ShB) and Dancer looks to be a bit more involved as far as paying attention and managing multiple things is concerned. I'll definitely be checking it out.

My system scored Extremely High on the Benchmark so I'm happy with that, and the Viera look really nice, Hrothgar look pretty badass too. The only thing that I haven't really been able to see well is the Viera running animation, as seen from behind the character. Since that's the animation you see the vast majority of the time, it's really important to me that it look smooth and natural and "cool" so to speak. There are races in every game I play that I simply will never use because their run animation looks terrible IMO. That's one of the reasons I like the Female Miqo'te so much, their running animation just looks so natural. If that animation is solid, I'll definitely be changing from a cat girl to a bunny girl. I love my cat, but the clipping issues with the tail on some armors is ridiculous.