Zyrusticae

They are raising the minimum specs, so they probably won't even be supporting 512MB graphic cards (which, by the way, are nearly as old as the PS3 itself at this point). They did note that people should be upgrading to 64-bit hardware, so that's an interesting point and probably indicative of where things are going. Speaking of video memory, bandwidth is proooobably more important and relevant for FFXIV than simply having a lot of it. There's not a whole lot of reason to have 2GB of memory if the bandwidth is too low to saturate it all. Personally, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to expect players to have hardware that's been released in the past five years (which is a bigger window than the release of the PS4). That's just me, tho. I don't know what the exact specs are going to be yet. Will be interesting to find out when they do release them.

I find even a priority system is too simplistic for me. All you have to do is keep an internal hierarchy of what needs to be up and make sure it's up. Any periods of downtime just mean I restart my rotation from the beginning. There's not much thinking involved. My biggest issue with FFXIV's combat is that, even in the harder extreme/savage modes, it's generally about memorizing a script and playing out that script to the letter, and making sure that there are no weak links in your chain (i.e. no party members not playing their role optimally, or missing an important beat, or positioning incorrectly, etc., etc.). Granted, that's a generic MMORPG issue that not even B&S is immune to, but the lack of reactive skills in this game make it way too obvious that that's how things are supposed to go. Feels like learning to play the Piano, really, except there are three or seven other players all trying to learn the same track and not mess it up for everyone else. It's... I mean, it's definitely skillful, but it's not the kind of thing that moves me, y'know? I like being able to improvise and, well, I also kind of like being able to carry my weaker party members to victory. I'm just egotistical that way. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention one thing B&S has going for it - free respecs all the way, along with skill variations that actually have meaningful differences. For example, one skill can be set up to be a damage shield that blocks 5 attacks in a row, or it can become a buff that only blocks 1 hit but boosts your damage output dramatically over its duration. Another skill can be set up to stun, or it can be set up to give you extra focus regen (their equivalent of MP/TP). Still another can be set up to put you into a different stance when you use it. So on and so forth. It encourages strategic thinking and adapting to different combat scenarios, something you literally *never see* in FFXIV. Everyone playing a specific class plays exactly the same way. You're either playing your class optimally, or you're not. There are no other options. You just do what your class is designed to do and that's all there is to it. (I imagine that this is part of the reason some folks rail against the game's item system, because they want those possibilities to exist in the game and see items as the way to make that happen.) Now, I have no idea how they could introduce something like that to the game in its current state, but it's something to think about, at least. I'm still not expecting much from Stormblood. Really, I'm just expecting more of the same. I'll be very pleasantly surprised if we get some major changes going forward.

Oh, just saw this post on the official forums. That last line is particularly disappointing, but also why, if we ever got a new race, I'd want one that occupies the niche in-between Miqo'te and Lalafell. Because, well, that's the closest thing we'd get to something I'd actually want to play that is also likely to be popular with the Japanese audience. Really annoys me that they're completely unwilling to consider anything that is aimed at non-Japanese audiences, but oh well, that's business for yas. That being said, I am still hoping they skip new races this time and, indeed, expand upon the character creation options for what we already have as well. Multiple tattoos, muscle slider for everybody, certain features no longer being tied to face (like Miqo facial markings and Au Ra horns), maybe some additional body sliders (like a generic weight slider, for example), more face types, so on and so forth. I have no idea how their system is set up and what would create a greater workload for them, so I'm just spitting stuff out there. There's a lot of potential for improvement. Hopefully they throw us a bone.

It feels far more physical in a way that's hard to describe. It's more like... the cool things you see people doing in cutscenes (especially the Stormblood trailer recently released)? You get to do that. The way the game puts an emphasis on manual blocking, dodging, and parrying, on high-speed movement, on heavy crowd-control effects, the incredible animation work... it all comes together to create a feeling of personal power that you just don't usually get in these types of games. It's the sort of thing usually reserved for dedicated character action games like Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Rising, Bayonetta et al. Granted, it's not as deep as those games, but that's also to its credit - the learning curve isn't anywhere nearly as steep, and it works better in the context of a game where you're supposed to be helping your party members. In FFXIV, the combat has a strong tendency to feel disconnected, like I'm just going through the motions (the rotation), and that nothing I'm doing really has any connection with the physical world that my character is supposed to inhabit. Everything feels floaty, detached, with nothing but numbers to inform me of my performance. In Blade & Soul I can knock down the boss and literally choke-hold them so my party members can beat them up without retaliation. I can send my enemies flying away, then close the distance instantly, move to their back just as fast, stun them, knock them into the air, and then follow up with an air combo. I can parry their attacks, causing them to be momentarily stunned, then retaliate with crushing force. In FFXIV the only mechanics have to do with where you're standing, who you're targeting, how well you handle your class role (tank, DPS, heal), and *very occasionally* how you time your stuns (the only CC effect that is relevant in FFXIV). The lack of active participation in the combat has bored me to tears and is the primary reason I completely burned out on Heavensward so fast (after playing the game almost religiously in ARR, mind you). Of course, I also recognize that I'm a particular kind of player who tends towards games with high skill caps (one of my most-played games is Starcraft, after all), and I do understand that the slower-paced, more simplistic style of combat works for a lot of folks. B&S (and PSO2, and Dragon's Dogma Online, etc., etc.) is just the type of game I gravitate more towards these days, and I'd just be pleased as Punch if FFXIV could join the roster.

Well, I mean, at 256MB system and video you're practically guaranteed to go over-budget unless you take drastic measures to prevent that scenario (and, y'know, this is a modern MMORPG, so I'd bet the PS3 did so on a regular basis). Those measures are (thankfully) no longer necessary. Even integrated graphics these days have a much, much better memory budget even as they pull from system memory to do so. Operating on the assumption of gigabytes being available as opposed to a few hundred megabytes is obviously going to give them some more room to breathe. You would expect that, at least. At any rate, I refuse to be less optimistic about this scenario. I'm freakin' happy they dropped support for that ancient hardware and absolutely no one can convince that that isn't a very good thing for the game.

I'm not expecting much. Some ability pruning, some fixes to the cross-class system (now "roles", I suppose), maybe a new mechanic or two... but nothing that fundamentally changes the combat (or fixes the issues I have with it right now, for that matter). I'm still sitting here wishing every game played like Blade & Soul. Heh. Wishful thinking, indeed. It's 'kay, I've made my peace with it already.

Stuff like the ridiculous limitations on character creation are directly attributable to having to support the PS3 and its pathetic 512MB of RAM (technically 256MB system + 256MB video). Nowadays they can reasonably expect even low-end machines to have 4GB of RAM (plus whatever video memory's on the discrete cards). That alone makes a huge difference in what they can put into the game compared to when they had to support what is now ten-year-old hardware. I'm not expecting them to suddenly throw in encounters against a hundred enemies at once or anything, just to fix some of the glaring issues that only existed because of having to support ancient hardware. Maybe one day we'll even get the cities consolidated into a single zone. Wouldn't that be nice?

She was obviously a monk, and I'm kind of annoyed by everyone who insists that she's a dancer just because she has some vaguely dance-like motions in her kata. If dancer played anything like monk, it'd be a completely redundant and pointless class addition. That all sad, I enjoyed how over-the-top fantastical that little sparring session was. That's my kinda jam right there! Too bad the combat itself doesn't express that kind of physicality. Ah, perchance to dream...

I'd want them to add new character creation options in lieu of another race as well, but considering the chances of them adding any body variety options this late in the game are pretty much nil, I'm not really that enthused over the idea. Still, now that they're dropping PS3 support they have no excuse for not separating horns from face types, and they really should give every race a muscle slider (yes, including Lalafell, for laughs). And, y'know what? I'd love a skin specularity/shininess slider like we have in Blade & Soul. I don't care if it doesn't make sense, having glowing skin just looks freakin' badass. I'm very, very curious what changes will actually happen as a result of them dropping PS3 support. Waiting with bated breath.

Yessss. So much better. Now every 5 shots is guaranteed to be a proc. Beautiful. This is how it should have been in the first place.

Me, I got: INTJ (possibly INFJ, INTP, or INFP due to how close the latter two are) Introvert(56%) iNtuitive(50%) Thinking(3%) Judging(6%) As it turns out, unsurprisingly I waffle a lot on the thinking vs feeling part. I have a definite preference for thinking and rational solutions to problems, but in practice I am a very emotional individual and tend to let that part get the better of me. Likewise with judging vs. perceiving, where I tend to be organized in my own mind but still, in practice, perform a lot of tasks with spontaneity. Introversion vs extraversion is a bit weird for me because I am two completely different persons depending on how familiar I am with someone and whether or not I am speaking through text or face-to-face. With friends and people I trust, I can be a regular chatterbug. With everyone else, my fear of judgment becomes crippling and I find it difficult to say even the most basic things. Online, it only matters whether or not I expect to see someone IRL. If no, then I'm just chatty as hell and possibly a nuisance because of it (the same that applies to most people when they interact with others they don't have a face to match with). Generally, however, the introversion side wins out, as I spend a lot of time thinking and imagining rather than looking at and responding to the outside world. As for the type description, these parts in particular spoke to me:

I'm playing on the Japanese servers, which are far, FAR ahead of the SEA servers and don't have any IP block shenanigans to deal with (ironically, given how it funnels English-speaking players to the JP server). You can just go to Arks Layer for everything you need to play it. Note that the English patch is incomplete and probably always will be, but it's enough to play the game and most of the story content bar the very latest chapter. Ship 2 is absolutely chock-full of English players, to the point where you can sometimes forget that you're playing on a Japanese server. If you have a smartphone, you can even download PSO2es and buy Arks Cash through there, as it uses Google Wallet for transactions (you can't use foreign credit cards to buy AC on the PC, unfortunately). But that's only in the odd case you find yourself playing the game enough to warrant a purchase. The freemium model is fairly generous, so you might not even feel the need to subscribe for premium time. You can also check out bumped.org for updates and tons of guides, including one for signing up for the one time password smartphone program, which doubles your available free storage. In truth, even if an official non-SEA English version were approved, the JP servers would likely remain the best place to play the game. Getting access to everything - including the crossover scratch sets and all - as soon as it's released is a pretty big boon. FFXIV doesn't have this problem because of SE's stellar international collaboration. If only SEGA were so productive...

Do I play any other MMOs? Silly question. MMOs are about the only games I put substantial time into these days. Well, okay, not really. I also play stuff like Dark Souls, Dragon Ball Xenoverse, and XCOM (XCOM 2 HYYYYPE!). But those just don't get nearly the same number of hours as the MMORPGs. I'm currently taking a break from FFXIV and waiting for Dragon's Dogma Online, the latter of which has basically become my most-hyped game of all time, pushing off Blade & Soul from the top of the list (yes, really). In the mean time, I've been spending time with Phantasy Star Online 2, which at this point has a, quite frankly, overwhelming amount of content and I'm pretty sure I won't have exhausted it by the time DDON's release actually rolls around this time next week. I was going to play B&S on the NA release, but at this point I'm not so sure, simply because DDON is coming and it's going to destroy everything else I play. And yes, that is a fact, because I played in the CBT2 phase and that taste was enough to render the month-long wait for release unbearable. I've been waiting for B&S for years, and you know what? It's been too fucking long, and I'm ready for DDON. I'm freakin' ready for it, man!

Hopefully they extend it to all emotes, period. Gender- and race-locking is so horribly stifling for character expression and differentiation. When PSO2 is doing better than you in this area, you know you done wrong!

So I'm the only one massively into MMORPGs to the exclusion of most other genres, eh? Hah, just kidding, I'm not THAT into them. More of a coincidence than anything. My list includes: XCOM 2 - Self-explanatory. This game looks aces. SOOOO GOOOOD. Can't wait to customize my own battalion of freedom fighters. Dark Souls 3 - Unlike so many others, I have put in well over 400 hours into Dark Souls 2 and enjoyed... not all of it, but most of it, and I especially enjoyed the DLC which are a true return to form for the series. I have a feeling that the third entry is going to easily be the best yet. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - It's cyberpunk, it's a shooter-RPG hybrid, it's Deus Ex. What more do you need? On top of all the emphasis on actual player choice and consequences, the game just looks positively gorgeous to behold. I'm going to be staring at these cyberpunk environments a whole helluva lot, I feel. Blade & Soul - Been waiting for this game for nigh-on a decade now. Couldn't wait, then just cracked and started playing the Chinese and then subsequently the Japanese version of the game. Despite the horrible foreigner latency, due in large part to some really wonky netcode, I am absolutely in love with the game and just want to spend more time in that crazy over-the-top wuxia-inspired fantasy universe. Dragon's Dogma Online - Yes, there is no English version announced. I don't care. I'm actually currently playing the game in the closed beta test and it is GLORIOUS. It is, in fact, easily the best online gaming I have ever - EVER - experienced in my whole bloody life. It is well worth the trouble of dealing with the language barriers and minor foreigner latency (which is only present in multiplayer sessions and nonexistent when playing solo). Just between these five games, pretty much all of my free time for the next year and a half is accounted for. Anything else that releases in-between that manages to capture my interest is just gravy. Have some random screenies from DDO: