Final Fantasy XIV news

[mikewl]

Some new making of videos:

http://www.youtube.com/user/FINALFAN...15/ZxBol-NJFuA

http://www.youtube.com/user/FINALFAN...11/DEybd106bBU

http://www.youtube.com/user/FINALFAN.../7/wc0ilSksWBQ

http://www.youtube.com/user/FINALFAN.../3/qIO2gS5ZeLI

[talizker]

Do any of the Beta testers know if any further phases are planned with new applicants (PC)? I must admit to being slightly frustrated at not getting an opportunity yet given two applications plus using the FFXIII code! Still only a month from release so i'm hoping performance will be acceptable on my PC.

[C']

I would doubt it now with only a month to go until release. Perhaps if they want to stress test their servers or something they may open it for the last couple of weeks but nothing has been mentioned yet.

[Irons]

SE said at Gamescon that there will be an open Beta starting at the start of September, I assume all regions will get it and it will have all 3 cities to start in and a lot more of the content available.

What are people's opinions on this 'surplus' mechanic they are introducing for release? the internet sites are up in flames about it and for once I'm not sure I disagree. My main love in MMOs is healing and I was planning on doing that class exclusively except leveling other jobs to pick up the odd ability here and there, but in the main I planned on being a healer 80% of the time. It seems SE doesn't want me to do that though

It seems the fatigue affects combat classes, gathering classes, crafting classes and even your physical level. It also looks like just logging for a while doesn't decrease it, you have to actively level another class to drain the surplus.

I'm simply baffled by it

[abigsmurf]

I understand the goal of the surplus mechanic but it's entirely the wrong way to go about it.

If I want to be a healer, why force me to to be a tank or melee DPS?

If you want to encourage people to diversify, do it by giving you a bonus to other classes xp and if you have to include a penalty (to prevent power levelling) make it far less than 90% XP loss.

[Irons]

I have to admit this has thrown a huge spanner in the works for me personally, like I mentioned earlier I have a couple of weeks holidays to take and I was thinking of taking them to coincide with release.

Is there any point though if you can't play more when you're off without getting kicked in the teeth? I only really have an interest in magic classes, there are only 2 at launch and it seems levelling 2 classes might not be enough to prevent fatigue

I was quite looking forward to getting a little ahead of the general population just to avoid the mad rush for mobs that happens at MMO launches.

I can imagine the headlines the reviewers will use for this game if this system goes live and is as bad as it's reported to be. Even then people are guessing why can't SE release a post on the beta forums to explain the mechanic if it isn't so bad or will be toned down for release?

[talizker]

Open Beta info from the official FFXIV Twitter.

"The FINAL FANTASY XIV Beta Test Phase 3 will end on August 25, then move to the Open Beta Test in early September. Get ready!"

[mikewl]

I wonder if they will keep the Open Beta to just Limsa Lominsa, I kind of hope they do as I don't wanna get stuck having to download 10+ gig on the crappy updater.

[Adam]

Apparently: "Overseas sites are full of falsehoods. They just put words together and fabricate statements. Japanese sites then mistranslate these. The fatigue system isn?t in and was just something they made up." from Hiromichi Tanaka's Twitter, even though this was first reported news from some hugely popular japanese sites. He was also interviewed by Famitsu with production director Nobuaki Komoto where they both freely admitted the existence of the ?fatigue? system for penalising heavy players. Gotta love Square Enix.

[mikewl]

From what I gather at the start of your week you get an XP Bonus which starts at 100% and lasts for 8 hours, then the next 7 hours it will gradually go down to zero, once that is up you will only get regular XP, so its sort of like a XP Band , for casual players they benefit from having a bonus going the majority of the time they play, hardcore players will probably use up the bonus fairly early in the week.

I'm fine with this as it slows down those that race to max level like there is nothing else to do in the game.

[Adam]

They have addressed this on the Japanese beta site, it's something like the first 8 hours you get 100% exp from whatever you do, and after those 8 hours are up the exp rate goes down gradually to 0% (no exp at all) which takes 7 hours to go that low. To reset your exp from 0% rate to 100% rate takes 1 week. Will post more if/when they have an official translation on the beta site

[mikewl]

They have addressed this on the Japanese beta site, it's something like the first 8 hours you get 100% exp from whatever you do, and after those 8 hours are up the exp rate goes down gradually to 0% (no exp at all) which takes 7 hours to go that low. To reset your exp from 0% rate to 100% rate takes 1 week. Will post more if/when they have an official translation on the beta site

I don't think it means it goes to 0% XP just 0% Bonus XP, so you would still get XP at a base rate.

[Daragon]

I've not been following the game that much, but when was the decision made to stick exp and levels back into it?

I can only hope that Level syncing is going to be available, especially if I'm going to be 6 months late to the party

[mikewl]

Hmm its been that way since the first alpha test, you have a Physical Level and a Job Rank level.

[Irons]

We?d like to thank all the beta testers out there for their hard work and support! We?re applying all those ideas you?ve sent us to make for the best possible Open Beta test and official release.

Now we?d like to take a moment to answer the many questions we?ve received about character balance in the current B3 phase.

First off, the main concept behind FFXIV is allowing those players with little time on their hands to play effectively, and game balance is based off of that. Furthermore, it is being designed to not give those with more time on their hands to play an unfair advantage. Because of that, systems such as Guardian?s Favor (a bonus to Guildleves) have been implemented to make leveling in the short-term easier than leveling in the long-term.

To achieve this balance, the amount of possible skill/experience points earned after a certain period of time has a threshold. Think of it as real-life ?fatigue? from working at improving your skills via battle *(aka. No one could train ad nauseam in the real world with no ill effects).

Within the first eight hours of play, you can earn 100% experience. The seven hour period following will see your possible experience gradually approach zero.

This system is on a weekly timer. After a week has passed since you began skilling that particular weapon, the timer will reset. It will start anew when you skill up again.

Any experience earned past that point is saved as ?surplus.? There is surplus for each class, and if you begin to see it please consider playing another class and adjust accordingly.

However, experience points are not specific to any class and therefore the decrease in experience points is not affected by changing classes.

That?s how the system stands as of right now.

Also, this system wasn?t implemented just in B3 but was set in motion from the very start of beta. Despite this, we have received many opinions regarding it in B3. There are a few reasons why:

-B3 allowed for longer sessions in single sittings.
-In order to promote party play, skill/experience points earned were greatly increased.
-The skill/experience earned from weak enemies was lowered, but had failed to pop up on initial bug reports (and was later fixed via maintenance).

According to the last bug report skill/experience able to be earned was above what had been planned, therefore people hit the limit much more quickly than hoped for. That is the biggest cause. Yet another problem was that we were unable to adjust guildleve experience and the experience-earned limit at the same time.

Our lack of explanation regarding all of this was a mistake, and we heartily apologize.

This all is still currently under development, and we have plans to make the limit more palatable in answer to all the tester feedback we received concerning this. In particular we would like to address the speed with which experience begins to drop off and are already looking into it.
Also, since experience points fatigue carries over despite changing weapons, we plan to make it not so harsh.

At the very least, we promise to not have people hitting these limits in a short period of time, such as during the start of B3.

We would also like to make an announcement regarding something else.

The decrease in earnings when gathering is based on your actions taken with that class and is unrelated to the aforementioned limits. This is also currently under review and is planned for adjustment in accordance with many testers? opinions.

Surplus experience is currently not being used. However, we have received many comments suggesting some sort of reward be put into effect regarding it, and we think that?s a pretty interesting idea. We don?t want to get ahead of ourselves, though, and we?re currently investigating the possibilities.

Open Beta will not just see changes to the issues stated above but will also see adjustments made to encourage party play even more (such as an increase to skill points), which the team is currently hard at work on adjusting. We hope you?ll all test it out when the time comes.

Finally, we would like to apologize for the lateness of any developer comments due to my attendance of Gamecom this past week. In my absence much fuss was raised over speculation, old information and some mistranslations on overseas fansites *(what?! /panic. Though I wonder what that?s in reference to in particular). I hope to avoid this from happening again by delivering developer comments as promptly as possible. Thank you all for your understanding.

And thanks in advance for your hard work to come in Open Beta!

Final Fantasy XIV director
Nobuaki Komoto

Terrible system that will literally cost them 10s of thousands of players.

According to people in Beta you will be able to get xp down to zero effectively earned. People have got to the stage where you simply can't get skill ups in crafting no matter what you try.