New FF14 Interview: What you hated in beta is here to stay

[Aveline]

http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?game=268&mid=128215658521544190&page=1

 

Key points:

 

*They will be implementing an Auction House, but not right away because they really want us to give Market Wards (the ones universally loathed by all beta testers) a chance.

 

Will we get any sort of mana regeneration abilities and/or items?

"We're still working on this so we will make some small updates and improvements in the future, but at the same time we think managing mana should be difficult and a challenge to the players." (Translation: mages are fucked)

 

*Regarding Guildleves:

But the 48 hours cooldown is going to stay?

"Yes that is the current plan."

[Kima wolf]

Well they did say they have some things planned to make grouping more viable. I hope so because I stand by the aether crystals all day asking to join leves or offering, and no one joins.

 

I am expecting them to bump up group rewards/gil bonus and perhaps have more group monsters roaming around so it will be worth it to "adventure" as a party vs solo. Although it does suck about 48hrs...

 

And damn that "Realistic" Bazzar experience is horrible atm, and it doesn't help with how much the UI lags.

[Mycroft]

I don't really understand the intention behind the 48 cooldown on guildleves except perhaps to promote more partying outside of them.

 

Since I'm not part of the Beta I can't really comment on Mana regen nor the Retainer bazaar system.. But I'd like to try both out, no matter how screwed up it is.

[Seraphine Felstar]

At the moment it's much easier for me to solo then join a group so the ability to party doesn't matter to me, but the 48 hour cooldown really sucks! I also don't like the mana regeneration thing so until it's fixed up a bit I'm going to be playing a melee class it seems.

 

What I'm really concerned with is the no auction house system and from what I'm hearing the lack of ways to get your gear repaired. It took them till about CoP for FFXI to start getting player friendly and (if you ask me) it didn't get fun until Abyssea. I expect a wait till FFXIV gets good and it will mostly be a struggle till then.

[Kima wolf]

Oh Crystal why must you crush my dreams by saying it will be "rough" for awhile? :cry: hehe

[Kylin]

Oh Crystal why must you crush my dreams by saying it will be "rough" for awhile? :cry: hehe

 

Don't go to any of the major fan sites right now >.>. They'll crush your hopes and dreams, eat 'em, spit 'em out, burn 'em, and feed 'em back to you. Seriously.

 

The game probably will be rough to start. But what MMORPG isn't? Remember that this is the bare bones of the game and improvements will be made over time. And then we can tell the future newbies how hard we had it in the old days.

[Asyria]

You know, I gave the whole 48 hours thing a thought and I figured.... if we could do them everyday, the game -would- become nothing but a very quick leve grind.. Slowing down leveling progress isn't -that- bad.

Besides, 48 hours doesn't mean you can't do them for 2 days. It means you can do them every other day. so one day levequests, one day storyline quests, add gathering and crafting to that and most players will have things to do. Add roleplaying on top of it and we're pretty much set.

 

As far as the whole mana regen goes... what's the big deal?

Go to the aetherite and you're full. Don't tell me you can manage to completely run out of MP's during a single levequests, I won't believe it. Most mages don't even have time to cast because the melee guys get the enemies down too quick.

 

Market Wards are cool, but they take way too much time to browse, yes. However, I personally love the idea. Auction Houses are terrible. They make things easy, but they also make it easy to send the whole economy to hell. Market Wards would balance that, if only they made it lag less.

[Kima wolf]

Heh yes I know, its only the beginning of the game's life so I expect it to be rough. I played EQ2 and Vanguard at launch so I know rough but i'm sure it wont be AS BAD as those two so i know i'll survive, I just hope they REALLY have more things to do like storyline quests etc. and if I could get a group, it wouldn't be nearly as bad. Hear that SE i WANT to group! give people more incentive to do so please!

 

And I think the wards are a good idea too in theory, but in practice, trying to find a piece of armor for instance, even with a sped up UI could take someone half an hour. they should at least put your retainer in a specific section based on what it's selling the most of, so I can go browse the armor and weapons section for instance. After all in a flea market or outdoor market, things are grouped, its not all super mixed. At least the ones where I live. You know you want food, go to the food section, you want art work, go to the artwork section and so on.

[Siben]

Will we get any sort of mana regeneration abilities and/or items?

"We're still working on this so we will make some small updates and improvements in the future, but at the same time we think managing mana should be difficult and a challenge to the players." (Translation: mages are fucked)

 

At the risk of sounding elitist, arrogant, and uninformed (having not gotten a chance to play the beta) this is the way Mages SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE BEEN, in every game, EVER. Unlike every other MMO where caster classes are cheap, overpowered, and nigh-unstoppable from a PVP standpoint, and just straight up ridiculous in PVE.

 

Anyone complaining about this has never played a cleric/wizard/sorcerer in a traditional PnP, read any non-dragonlance Fantasy literature or they played a Mage/Sorcerer in previous MMOs and have yet to recover from having their invulnerable rug pulled out from underneath them.

 

That being said, I'm sure that the possibility to be an absolutely amazing caster is present in the game. Whether or not "class veterans" have the skill and determination to bring out the potential is up to them.

 

On the other hand; if no one wants to play a caster/healer, it'll make me all the happier because I fully intend to and the less of us there are the more valuable we become ;P

[Asyria]

they should at least put your retainer in a specific section based on what it's selling the most of' date=' so I can go browse the armor and weapons section for instance.[/quote']

 

Quoted for great justice, as they say!

 

Someone who can do so really should suggest that on the Beta Feedback forums.

[Aveline]

That being said, I'm sure that the possibility to be an absolutely amazing caster is present in the game. Whether or not "class veterans" have the skill and determination to bring out the potential is up to them.

 

On the other hand; if no one wants to play a caster/healer, it'll make me all the happier because I fully intend to and the less of us there are the more valuable we become ;P

 

When I read that part of the interview, the first thing that came to mind was: Guess it's time to roll a caster. The second thing that came to mind was: Or just level cooking and make a fortune on juices!

 

To me, it seems that they have made the game unbalanced in the other direction. I've only played casters in the beta solo, never in groups, so I can't say what it would be like in a party, but solo I only ran out of mana a couple of times and those were mainly due to me not paying attention. I honestly don't think the mana situation is as bad as they make it out to be.

 

However, mana is much less important for non-casters. Even if my gladiator runs out of mana and can't perform Red Lotus, I still have a few other weapon skills that would work just as well. If a group is tethered to a mage's ability to regain MP, I can see this as being an issue in the long run for the fact that it is going to put a lot of pressure on the mages in the group.

 

A healer will always be welcome, and I'm sure even moreso than in XI, they will be worshipped. But what about damage dealing mages? If a party finds them to be too inconvenient due to the mana loss, they will most likely opt for a melee job for the group slot instead.

 

All of this is of course based on the premise that XIV players are going to be as douchey as the majority of the playerbase in XI, but I think it's still a valid concern. I'm curious to hear from people who have played caster classes in group settings in XIV for a good length of time, their opinions on this subject.

[Kashemia]

I'm a bit surprised that they're keeping the 48 hour cooldown, but Asyria has a really good point. I'm not sure it will be that much of a problem to me. Right now, I haven't done any quests at all, which is why I run out of guildleves pretty fast I guess, but at launch, it's not like it will be the only thing to do.

 

All in all, I'm pretty optimistic about the game. Just running around right now make me feel.. Well, sort of at home. Of course there will be a rough start, but yeah, as it has been said, which game isn't? It's just part of our culture that we need instant gratification and expect everything to run as if the game was 5 years old, with the technology and graphics of a game that came out next year

 

And I'm not visitting any other fansite than this, for exactly the reason Castiel stated. People are whiners, always will be <.<

 

 

About the mana regen: I agree that it should be a challenge, that you shouldn't have a huge mana pool to draw from for hours and hours. One of the things that makes me not feel like playing WoW at the moment is because it really has become quite easy in many ways. It sounds like they're gonna do a lot to change that in Cataclysm, but right now, you're just too powerful. I enjoyed the days where you actually had to wait for the tank to get aggro, where you had to pull carefully because you were screwed if you pulled too many mobs, where you actually had to think while healing to make sure you didn't run out of mana half way through the fight. I'm not saying WoW is a bad game, just that I don't think it's a bad thing when it gets more challenging to play.

[Kima wolf]

Wait so there will be some other quests other than the main storyline quests and Guildleves to do? I thought it was only main storyline and guildleves? Well in any event i'm glad to be wrong on that front, that is a big relief.

 

And as for the mage issue, I think they did go too far in the other direction without giving them some way to balance it out. I'm sure in the huge HNM fights mana will be very important, heck some of the more "elite" groups may not even want to bring mages at all for the reason of them basically running out of juice half way through a epic fight. I do see why SE did that though, to make you think more strategic and conservative with your spells, to not just spam "meteor" every 20 seconds. I think now i'm going to roll a mage to give it a try right now.

[Kashemia]

Wait so there will be some other quests other than the main storyline quests and Guildleves to do? I thought it was only main storyline and guildleves? Well in any event i'm glad to be wrong on that front, that is a big relief.

 

 

I think so? I'm not completely sure, so don't take my word for it, but I don't see much point with having an entire tab for "Quests", if you only really have one quest line

[ArmachiA]

The mage thing is good in theory, but it really is hella annoying tethering yourself to an aetherite because you CAN INDEED run out of mana after one fight. Fight, run back, fight, run back. It's extremely time consuming. It needs tweaked, but I'm sure it will be come release

 

Edit: Ugh, This, however, is almost unacceptable:

"Concerning the mouse function. There is an obviously lag currently even with the improvements towards the mouse; in particular it seems that the software mouse speed is tied to the FPS on your computer -- so if you have less FPS, then the mouse is laggier. Can we expect an implementation of hardware mouse prior to release?

 

We're aware of it and hardware mouse is something we're still looking into currently. At the moment we dont have any plans for the hardware mouse but will continue to improve the situation before the game is out and also after. "

 

*Facepalm*

[Gavin]

The auction house and 48 hr coo ldown on leves really annoys me.

 

I hate that they are trying to force the people to play a specific way. If the Bazaars are good, they will stand on their own merit. But if they are garbage (as it sounds to be) then put in an AH so there can be some kind of economy.

 

I really like the old AH, I don't know why they would abandon it.

 

As far as the leves you got to be kidding. 48 hours? That sort of stuff really makes me afeared about this game. Why do something so annoying to your customer base? To FORCE group play? Why not just incentive group play by allowing better missions with better rewards and XP?

[Shamadconde]

They forced group play in FFXI and it's still going. The 48 hour cooldown would make sense if the rewards are incredible. I mean 10x the xp you get from grinding incredible.

[Asyria]

How do you run out of mana after one fight? I tried Conjurer and would fry enemies in two spells at most. Usually one spell and one dart attack thingy.

 

The real problem with guildleve grouping however... is that while it's great for Experience/Level, it's really bad for Skill/Rank. I -think- that everyone shares the XP for for Skill Pts, you need to ACT. In groups, you don't get to act much, because the enemies go down much much faster.

That's why grouping isn't good, right now.

SE needs to realize this.

And I can't tell them because I don't have Feedback Forum access, even though I'm in beta (go figure).

[Siben]

The mage thing is good in theory, but it really is hella annoying tethering yourself to an aetherite because you CAN INDEED run out of mana after one fight. Fight, run back, fight, run back. It's extremely time consuming. It needs tweaked, but I'm sure it will be come release

 

Armi, did they level-cap the beta? Because I honestly haven't been paying attention. For all the community knows casters can get more mana effecient at higher job levels? Does one of the character stats effect your base mana pool? Does higher level caster gear give you more mana or an Auto-Refresh kinda ability?

 

I'm still not clear about how job skills work in game but why not stuff a bow in your backpack along with your mage-stick so you can plink-plink mobs when you don't have to drop a heal/buff/nuke?

 

Or even better than a bow...pistols/muskets. Can you say

 

Aw damn...I think I finally finished Siben's character. O_O

[Asyria]

The Beta cap is 30 for both Level and Rank.

Intelligence is magic attack and piety is magic accuracy.

I don't think either of them boosts your mana, but they certainly both boost your efficiency­. Stronger castings means less castings means less mana wasted.

[Rikitiki]

... you've gotta be kidding.

 

Non-caster classes can go wherever they want whenever they want. Casters are on a leash. What are we supposed to do in a dungeon? Are there going to be aetheryte crystals sitting around in the kobold version of Castle Oztroja?

 

I can see the logic in not granting MP regen in passive mode... but at least give us some kind of option for regaining MP in the field that does not involve a 30-minute timer. ::grumble::

[Aveline]

I'm still not clear about how job skills work in game but why not stuff a bow in your backpack along with your mage-stick so you can plink-plink mobs when you don't have to drop a heal/buff/nuke?

 

You can't really do it like how I think you're describing. You can't change jobs during combat, for one, and even when you do change jobs you have to reset all your abilities to be able to use them each time. I think macros are supposed to be able to help with that, but even still it isn't something you could easily use during a party.

[Asyria]

Well you only really have to reset those abilities that aren't compatible with your new job, but yes.

Also, switching between War and Magic is a tough job because they use entirely different Attributes and we can't seem to be able to respec Attributes as easily as we can change Class.

 

I did just try out soloing the tutorial and battlecraft levequests with a Conjurer, on Band(**) difficulty no less, and I -never- ran out of mana. Even during that one levequest where you have to kill mobs until you grab 10 items, and I did use only spells (no dart attack) for that. I ended up with 77/197 mana at the end.

 

Considering you'll usually port back to camp after a levequest (to start the next one) I don't believe running out of mana could ever be a problem except for long grinding periods.

 

A few tips

- Be sure to boost your INT and PIE, as they are your Magic Attack and Magic Accuracy. If your spells are strong and strike true, you won't need to cast them as often.

- If you're a Conjurer, be sure to pick one or two Elements and boost those, and use their related spell. Thunder is awesome when it rains, too. Seriously it -does- seem to have an impact. My Thunder was hitting significantly harder than my Stone under the rain. They did it for Final Fantasy Tactics so I'm not surprised. I bet Fire sucks when it rains, too.

- When your target is low on HP, or just weak, use your Dart attack. No point in wasting mana when your Cane or Wand will do the job.

- In groups, you should probably use your Cane or Wand most of the time, unless the enemy is real tough, or you need to use healing magic. That way, you kill enemies slower meaning more SP for everyone, and less Mana spent.

- I noticed some gear give HP, I'm sure there's gear that gives MP, too. Look for those. Admittedly hard right now, but that's a good tip for the future.

[Gavin]

- Be sure to boost your INT and PIE

 

There is a PIE stat???

 

:cheer:

[Shamadconde]

Yep and it's a lie!