Famitsu's Alpha Report

[Andromeda]

Well apparently Famitsu got their hands on the alpha version of FFXIV and has an article detailing some areas and being a little vaguer about other areas in their playing of the alpha. I'll link the translation of the article at the bottom and provide the highlight here for discussion.

The first thing I want to bring up and it is at the top of the article, is the character creation. What they said of the character creation system has me really interested in how deep it goes. Because they said you could spend hours, well they said a whole day but I'll go with hours, on making your avatar and tweaking it until you are satisfied. Which sounds like we will have a lot of stuff to play with. A couple of direct mentions is being able to put highlights and streaks in your hair, which should certainly help to make everyone unique. There are apparently different voice types as well, but I can't remember how extensive they said the voice acting in the game is going to be. In addition, you'll get to pick a birthday and guardian deity, the effects of that are unknown though currently.

I think this was mentioned before, but they are reporting seamless transitions into areas and the music will change as well. They did not say anything specific about if towns to field areas will be seamless as well or not. So we still are waiting on clarity on that. But there will be instanced areas as well, but it is specifically mentioned for cutscenes, so it is unclear if there will be other uses of instanced areas in the game.

It seems that everyone will have the ability to teleport and warp so long as they have been to a Aetheryte, which is available at the very start of the game. They say it is meant to allow people with limited time to get to locations quickly and do what they want without losing all of the time walking.

During combat you can make an action, but hold it to "charge" it up for an increased effect. What was reading sounded a little vague, but it was an interesting idea if all abilities would have this sort of feature. So you could increase the effectiveness of an attack if you wanted. I think that could make some that have a lower chance of bonus effects activating more useful like a low stun rate or something. The bonuses and effects are no clear, just that you can hold the action to increase its effect.

It looks like for character development there will be experience for the job/class you are playing as well as the physical character themselves. There are job/class levels and physical levels if the translation is accurate to what SE will later be calling it. Also you will be given full control over attribute allotments when you level up. So you can build a character anyway you want, but they have confirmed that they will allow you to re-adjust stats when you change jobs so that you can focus on magic rather than strength when you go from a physical to magical job/class.

Also relating to stats, accuracy and hidden stats in FFXI will be visible to the player now in FFXIV. Which will certainly take some of the length guess work and research out of the game that existed in FFXI. Also there are going to be layers of clothes that you can wear apparently with undershirts and undergarments available in addition to the normal body and pant slots. There are also pouch slots with each hand that I don't know the purpose of them, but the main hand gets a large pouch slot while the second hand gets a small pouch slot. So it could be an augment slot like with two-hand wraps that existed late in FFXI life cycle.

There has been a confirmed weakened state like FFXI that lasts for five minutes when you revive from death. Even in alpha they are saying that the maps are quite huge and gives the feeling that they go on forever. The new Galka and Tarutaru races height and size difference is quite significant. The discipline of magic does have non-MP expending magical attacks, which is going to be a good thing since MP can't be restore by resting, though they say HP restores during passive mode nothing was said about MP during passive mode. So MP could be even more of a premium. And magic can be cast while moving.

The Alpha Test - Hands On! :: Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) at ZAM

Enjoy! What are your thoughts?

[loaf]

Everything I've read so far just makes me want it to come out sooner or give me my beta key.

The main thing I am interested in, is how custom, you can make a character. If you go half and half with the gear on you. What if you have the armor of a thief but have the weapons of a Fighter.

[Andromeda]

Well you still have time for the beta to happen. So you never know.

Don't know how customize the equipment will be. I don't know if gear will be specific to a range of jobs like in FFXI or if anyone can equip anything. Though weapon will determine your class, that has been made pretty clear. Though it looks like secondary weapons or tools can provide benefits to what you're doing as well from some leaked information I read.

I do suspect that the "Fighter" job will probably have a wide equipment range if it is limited that way. They generally will have the largest list of equipable gear. So making a "fighter" wearing "thief" would probably be possible.

[loaf]

Because I am hoping if they allow that sort of customizing, at least let it be so EVERY type of class can play no matter what in a group.

An FFXI party was Tank/White Mage/Bard/Red Mage/2 DPS (preferably a Black Mage) and maybe a Thief for pulling. It's like, they made it pointless to go other classes if 75% of the party is usually the SAME classes every time.

[Andromeda]

Well there are only 8 combat jobs currently, though I believe you can fight as a crafter though it is probably not as useful. So at least at the start of the game, there is probably going to be less of the multiple jobs for one task sort of thing. There is going to be probably one job for each task.

Though if you look at FFXI there were a lot of damage dealers, but after that everyone have a specific role or two and you have to pick which advantages you wanted. Bard actually do more pulling than thieves if you have both in the party. Thieves probably stayed back fighting. But there was a fair amount of variety that is brought depending on how you swing things. Dancers are buffers and debuffers and healers, which makes for a really hectic job, but the best Dancers could replace the White Mage's task and make the entire party run twice as fast.

I can agree there was a fair amount of overlap in jobs doing the same thing, but think that there were a lot of jobs that were specialized in an area that you had to pick and choose what you wanted to gain or lose by taking one job over another. Sadly the Black Mage ended up becoming like the Dragoon with the release Treasures of Aht Urhgan because it was the prime exp place and the prime monsters to kill had reflect or high magic resistance making Black Mage unneeded, number one reason why my BLM is still 55. >.>

The games dynamics changed quite a bit though with the new jobs and system updates.

[darknesse]

As long as they dont (and i doubt they will) do what wow is doing and fold most classes together (party buffs, combining class buffs into a set that override each other ect). But when you look overall, SE look a lot smarter than blizzard on the scripting side of things.

I should also note that i have no played ffxi, though i plan to for a moth or two in between now and 14.

May i ask will it be worth it, for the short time?

However, back to the topic.
Thanks for the info, i was looking for some feedback on alpha, and couldnt find any. I hope i get into beta, even just so i can create my own unique look beforehand, rather than spending several hours tweaking my charactors look (and i really will) before the game actually starts.