FFXIVstuff, aka monster hunter XIV Options

[Alisha]

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/04/final-fa...new-job-system/

The latest edition of Famitsu Wave recently hit newsstands in Japan, bringing with it a DVD which contains an 8-minute exposé on Square Enix's second stab at the MMO genre, Final Fantasy XIV. The whole video is posted after the break. Fret not -- it sports convenient English subtitles.

Here's some of the more titillating excerpts: The game features a reinvented character progression system which does not include experience points or leveling up. The job system from XI will make an appearance, but in a heavily altered form -- an interview with the game's director, Nobuaki Komoto, revealed that the game will place a focus on the weapons players use, explaining that your armaments will determine "the way you play" and "the way you grow." Sounds reminiscent of Final Fantasy IX. (That's a very good thing.)

In addition, FFXIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka explained that the game takes place in a new region with a more "modern" feel to it -- the mysterious Eorzea which was mentioned in the trailer. The new world features familiar races (albeit with new names), and plays host to a "deep story," which is told through cut-scenes and quests. For more FFXIV info than you can possibly handle, check the video after the jump.


sounds similar to monster hunter no?

Race Scans

Someone translated the text on BG Forums regarding the characters:

"When you make your character, aside from choosing the race, you will also be able to customize their appearance. Head, skin color, hair type etc, there will be multiple factors. Just how exact we will be able to customize their appearance is still unknown, but we mean it in a good way when we say that it seems like it will become a worry to many players."

[Scan_Man]

Compared to a controller, using good keybindings with a keyboard and mouse allows you to multitask with greater efficiency (I'm speaking strictly about MMORPGs). Scrolling to find abilities and then activating them takes longer than pressing a specific key you have memorized. Yes muscle memory does help, in both setups. But, keyboard and mouse with keybindings will always come out ahead because you also don't lose functionality such as moving your character, controlling the camera, targeting, when activating an ability. In some cases, a controller user has to lose one function in the control scheme in order to scroll through and use an ability, same goes for other types of tasks. On the other hand, a keyboard and mouse user can do all those tasks simultaneously.

Targeting suffers the most on the controller because you have to cycle through targets, while with a mouse you can point and click the person or enemy. There seems to be a lot of abilities in this game, and things could get messy when you have them all at your disposal. Not to mention you are going to need macros on your bar too for times when you need to share vital information with your party.

They are unfortunate because they likely do not have a PC able to play this game: which I hear the game looks gorgeous on a powerful rig. Nor think, or unable, to maybe use some kind of keyboard and controller setup. Unlike FFXI, FFXIV is being designed and tested with the PC version as a priority. So certain things in the user interface and control scheme may not translate well on a console. The context sensitive action bar helps though. It grays out what you can't use but lights up what you can use at the given moment based on some context. Basically narrowing down your options to a few abilities, so you can find the one you need faster. It reduces the disparity between the two control schemes, keyboard/mouse or controller. The slow combat reduces the disparity too. Sadly, these are just some of the design choices they have to make in order to successfully make the game work for both platforms, which will likely being playing together. Without these design choices the PC users would have a very large advantage over PS3 users. Square seems to be trying their best to find a middle ground, ie speeding up combat through the attack gauge, and adding the context sensitive action bar.

I don't think there will be many of these unfortunate people outside of Japan though. But I think it is great Square is actually trying to polish the user interface in order to be most viable for both versions. FFXI on PC suffered greatly for being a port of a PS2 game.

But it has to be said: Playing a MMORPG with a controller is doing it wrong. This is partly why you don't see many MMORPGs on consoles.

This post has been edited by Scan_Man: Jun 18 2010, 12:08 AM

[tanshin]

tl;dr

While testing the alpha for FFXIV, I've been experimenting with both the keyboard and the controller. I don't feel like reading your wall of text, but there is virtually no difference between the two at all other than I find it much more relaxing to sit back and relax with a controller in my hand. You can use the D-pad to scroll back and forth between all the choices on the action menu, and given the fact that you can't do two moves at the same time, it doesn't matter how much faster you can tap "5" on a keyboard than the 1 second it might take to scroll over to it with the d-pad. Crush and I also used controllers in ffxi, and we were great players, and I don't think we were "doing it wrong".

Rest assured, Alisha, your way of using the controller in the game is still intact.