Originally posted by Torvaldr

Hmm, I have really mixed feelings about this.

The Good

UI - I really like how polished the UI looks. That is important to me.  It looks a lot like the Aion UI which I really liked.

Quest Item Usage - I like how the player could use quest items from the UI.  It's a small but really nice quality of life feature.

Graphics - Probably not a shocker, but the game world is beautiful.  I would have to see more of how the npcs act and interact and how towns and outposts are constructed, but the quality of graphics even at this point is worth a 10 in my book.

Quest Rewards - It looked like the selection of rewards was decent with 3 types of rewards in the examples.

The Bad

Combat - This could be a gray area, but not for me.  The combat is static.  The player just stood there while giant boars hit her.  When I saw "Dodge" text flow up I thought, "But she didn't dodge.  She just stood there."  That is a huge negative for me now.  Combat doesn't have to be total action like TERA or RaiderZ, but at least a hybrid like GW2 - a mix of action bar skills, soft-lock targetting, and active dodging.  It just feels like they polished a really nice version of 5 - 7 year old combat.  It's a step backwards for me.

Quest Text - Even the player in the video didn't stop to read the text and what little I could glance seemed rote with the stand prosaic blah blah blah.

Quest Rewards - Yeah, this gets a good and bad.  This is another boring throwback - run quest, click through text, grab reward.  Boring.

 

Overall, this isn't what I was expecting to see out of a reboot.  I've been watching this game for a long time now (since version 1) and it just feels dated and done, even though the graphics look new and beautiful.  It doesn't look and feel like Final Fantasy to me either but that's just me stuck back in some old nostalgic console experience.  I could easily get past that if the game didn't look very bland.  I could replace that footage with rift, wow, eq2, etc.  The main difference from this video seems to be the graphics.  Are they going to sell it on the graphics alone?

I'll keep watching though.  It's only one video and it's early.  That was just my initial reaction.

I'm so damn sick of dodging with my thief in GW2!!! I'm glad I can relax a bit with this game ;)

edit:  Also the devs have said a lot of the animations wont be put in game until beta..

I think this looks awesome. The UI, the graphics, animations, and combat all look very polished. I love how the spell with cast bar pops up on your character along with the spell name and icon, how the damage and combat messeges are displayed and how they flow and fade on screen. I love the text that they use for the UI and combat messages, as well as the colors and how they stand out and kind of glow.

There's a lot of little nuances in what I'm seeing that look good to me. I also really love how this is starting to feel more like Final Fantasy -- the monsters, the sounds, the look. 

In terms of combat, it looks like any other game out there, but one thing about FF games is there's certainly more than meets the eye. Final Fantasy XI's combat was entirely auto-attacking, which built up TP that you then used to unleash weapon skills. You also had a handful of class skills that were usually on large cool-downs. But, despite long periods of auto-attacking, I've yet to play a game where the combat required more focus and attention to detail to be successful than XI.

It wasn't just about mashing buttons or running around and dodging like total spazz; it was about cadence, timing, conservation, and communication. Hopefully that still rings true in XIV.

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Originally posted by biggarfoot

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Originally posted by Kuraphimaru I'm personally cool with most of the video. However, one question did crop up for me. Is click-targeting the only way to target mobs or are there keyboard shortcuts?

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Macros should be available to sub target and target nearest, I think you can use the tab key to target nearest. You can also or should be able to macro swap gear and cast spells and create hot keys. Macroing was and is very much required and is encouraged, especially as you have multiple jobs eventually.

 

You can also play with a PS controller, Some players with pc's play using the controller rather than the KB + mouse.  All down to preference.

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Ah, ok gotcha. It just seemed odd to me and knowing how many silly decisions original FFXIV made, I was kinda worried there for a sec.

Originally posted by Sovereign1

I think this looks awesome. The UI, the graphics, animations, and combat all look very polished. I love how the spell with cast bar pops up on your character along with the spell name and icon, how the damage and combat messeges are displayed and how they flow and fade on screen. I love the text that they use for the UI and combat messages, as well as the colors and how they stand out and kind of glow.

There's a lot of little nuances in what I'm seeing that look good to me. I also really love how this is starting to feel more like Final Fantasy -- the monsters, the sounds, the look. 

In terms of combat, it looks like any other game out there, but one thing about FF games is there's certainly more than meets the eye. Final Fantasy XI's combat was entirely auto-attacking, which built up TP that you then used to unleash weapon skills. You also had a handful of class skills that were usually on large cool-downs. But, despite long periods of auto-attacking, I've yet to play a game where the combat required more focus and attention to detail to be successful than XI.

It wasn't just about mashing buttons or running around and dodging like total spazz; it was about cadence, timing, conservation, and communication. Hopefully that still rings true in XIV.

I agree about the principles that made FFXI successful, and I see shades of them here; I have reservations until I see some group content, but this seems promising.  Compared to the alternatives in the same vein--WOW, Rift, Aion, to name a few--I would rather play this game based on this video, all other things being equal.

Having played GW2 and Tera, I'll gladly concede that active dodging has its appeal.  It's fun, unique, and innovative, but as others have said, I don't think it needs to represent the only possible avenue for future development of the genre.  FFXI and EQ1 had rewarding combat in large part because it moved more slowly and was, for most players, less twitchy.  That meant players had time to hold conversations, unlike in GW2 where one's hands are always occupied with abilities, movement, and positioning, even between fights (I can't even call them pulls anymore, and that's a tragedy all its own).

I think animations for such things as dodging are appropriate and needful regardless of whether the dodging is active or statistic-based, just because we have the technology to support that, but I also feel it's disingenuous to suggest that active dodging is somehow more realistic than a dodge-by-dice system.  In an actual fight, you can't just jump and roll out of the way of everything coming at you, especially if your opponent has a meaningful weapon.  And if there's a fire, you can't just roll around and avoid all damage--it might put you out if you're on fire yourself, but try rolling back and forth in a burning building and you're going to die.  I don't say that to criticize any and all active dodging systems, but only to suggest that both systems have things about them that are accurate and things that aren't.  If anything, positioning-as-avoidance should have a place in MMO's going forward, but it should never completely overtake all alternatives.  Action-oriented combat is in vogue right now, but there are still plenty of us who think Lancer was the best thing about Tera because it meant that often you could just stand still and hold up your shield.

My one criticism with this video is that the quest exp is disproportionately high when compared to mob exp.  This concerns me because it seems like, at least at a glance, this would make solo questing a more efficient way to level than grouping in the open world, which was what made Zilart-era FFXI so appealing from a community-building standpoint.  That's an easy numbers fix though, and I think those of us who favor that play style have a moral duty to lobby to see this fixed.  I don't want soloing to be the easiest way to level for every class.  It should be efficient for one--maybe two--classes, but everybody else should get a better gain from grouping up, because damnit, it's Final Fantasy.  If players don't have to cooperate to succeed, then all the polish and Westernization in the world won't give those of us who hold XI in high esteem what we're looking for.

Originally posted by azzamasin

Originally posted by drivendawn

Originally posted by ZigZags

Originally posted by drivendawn

Originally posted by azzamasin
WOW, not to sound a complete idiot but who in there right mind could endure such pathetic combat.  I thought Vanguard was slow when I tried it a few months ago but this takes the frikken cake.  Sure the scenery and gfx look amazing and the UI 'isn't half bad, but that combat is lets jsut say........the worse thing I have ever seen in an MMO.  It may as well go complete turn base liek the old FF games.

WOW, blah blah blah i like action combat. Ok we get it you want action combat and thats your opinion, but some of us like the tactic style combat so we are nutty not your game move on. lol 

Well sad for you because this is not tactic combat because it is still in real time and not turn based. It looks turn based because of how slow and in place it is. But in reality, its not.

 

This game will be as unpopular as its failed predecessor.

 

Yes it is just because its not turn baced doesn't mean its not tactical.

If you think that style of combat is tactical I feel for you.  I would take tera's combat over that anyday of the week and twice on Sunday and Its safe to say I am not a fan of Tera's combat.

I'll have to remeber to cry later . If you played 14 in parties and did the dungeons you would know it was very tactical not just boss mechanics although those were good as well. They had a combo system that was baced on where your positioning was to the mob and many other tacical mechanics that will be in ARR. If you want action baced combat then this isn't your game.

Originally posted by Siveria
I wouldn't count om the group content, in normal ff14 it was piss easy to hit cap as a combat job, The monsters are just way to easy to kill and its going to be even worse now that you start with full tp bar every single fight, square has just made the game pointless pretty much, I was all for ff14 reborn, but now I am unsure, especally since I heard they  bascally copy and pasted wow into ff14.

Don't kid yourself, you have seen a little bit of single player combat and you make assumptions based on 5 mins gameplay.

What bothered me about the video was how simple it looked to level. The guy was doing simple quests half his level and getting nearly 1/5 (quest xp + mob xp) a level's worth of xp.

I hate GW2 (or CO/DCUO) combat for a MMO. I definitely prefer the gear/stats numbers game, with perhaps the occasional "get out of the way of that falling meteor." People should be taking the damage, not being able to avoid any and all of it; their class/gear/talents/aa's should be what helpes mitigate it, else there's no need for teammates and anyone could solo anything.

This is just the questing system, they really did not take any chances with it, I would like to see how important it is to do these really though. I would prefer that they make your main source of leveling similar to ffxi which is grouping, maybe just give a few more things to do as a group than travel to a place and pull the same monster over and over.

As for the combat, It is very close to what I expected it to be and what I would want in my FF game, there are plenty of "action" titles out there to play the combat is a more traditional rpg style pretty much turn based, I enjoy this kind of combat at least the way it was done in ffxi I did. Those looking for an action game are not going to find it here with this combat, but the combat (at least in ffxi) was alot deeper than just standing there as it appears to be on these monsters.

Originally posted by Metza

This is just the questing system, they really did not take any chances with it, I would like to see how important it is to do these really though. I would prefer that they make your main source of leveling similar to ffxi which is grouping, maybe just give a few more things to do as a group than travel to a place and pull the same monster over and over.

As for the combat, It is very close to what I expected it to be and what I would want in my FF game, there are plenty of "action" titles out there to play the combat is a more traditional rpg style pretty much turn based, I enjoy this kind of combat at least the way it was done in ffxi I did. Those looking for an action game are not going to find it here with this combat, but the combat (at least in ffxi) was alot deeper than just standing there as it appears to be on these monsters.

It is deeper the video just shows one player beating on lower level mobs.

Originally posted by ZigZags

Originally posted by drivendawn

Originally posted by azzamasin
WOW, not to sound a complete idiot but who in there right mind could endure such pathetic combat.  I thought Vanguard was slow when I tried it a few months ago but this takes the frikken cake.  Sure the scenery and gfx look amazing and the UI 'isn't half bad, but that combat is lets jsut say........the worse thing I have ever seen in an MMO.  It may as well go complete turn base liek the old FF games.

WOW, blah blah blah i like action combat. Ok we get it you want action combat and thats your opinion, but some of us like the tactic style combat so we are nutty not your game move on. lol 

Well sad for you because this is not tactic combat because it is still in real time and not turn based. It looks turn based because of how slow and in place it is. But in reality, its not.

 

This game will be as unpopular as its failed predecessor.

 

lol so for you tactical combat is only turn based? the only one who fail here is you.

Originally posted by Vannor
What are you going on about? If you stopped attacking the enemy would keep attacking.. it isn't going to wait for you to have your go! It is not turn based.

No one said it was turn based.