Friday Fantasy Beta! - Logs from Eorzea Entry XIV aka The Last Stand [Wicked]
Goodness do I wish I had some goggles like Ed does in Cowboy bebop. It would cause so much less stress on my eyes I think. @_@ 284 screenshots later. We have revamped UI's, revamped battle systems, crystal clear skies, everything is gorgeous! More so than in Alpha. Also we have for you a breakdown of everything new or redone in Beta. I will be handling the Battle/Leve aspect, while Sugar is handling everything craft related. Sit tight folks, we have a bit of a long one...
Alright, start things off with the beginning, Character Creation. The creation process in Alpha was horrible, semi-reminicient of FFXI but FAR FAR worse. In Beta 1.0 it really went beyond anything anyone expected prior to E3. Now I bring to you the video of creating a male Lalafell for per my brother's wishes.
Moving on, we have the redone UI, which can be navigated by the Home Key, Arrow keys, and the Enter key. You could also by some strange reasoning you use the mouse but we're not gonna go there. They have also redone the Equipment screen, and I myself fancy this version. Very sleek, and to the point, also while showing your Attributes window. On the right you will see a description and full detailed stats of the item you have the cursor over. *BONUS* in the Inventory Window, you can select the item and equip it straight from there. They didn't have that in Alpha for some reason, so I'm glad it's in Alpha and will be on Release. As soon as you open the Menu window, you get your XP tnl for PR(Physical Rank), and AR(ARM Rank) as well as details on your nameday/guardian. It's all really spiffy and I fucking love it.
The battle system of course has been redone as we saw in E3. It is MUCH faster. I actually took down a mob completely with CONJ melee attacks LOL. Mind you, it took a lot of attacks but I was able to dodge and reposition to avoid taking damage or at least a lot of damage. In XIV, the action bar is, again, much like IX in that you have a certain amount of Skills you can 'enable'. As you can see here...
you have 8/8 action points to spend to slot a skill into your action bar. Each spell for CONJ was 3 points, so I couldn't have much at that level but of course there would be more later. Traits haven't been explained yet, but I am willing to bet they will be like job abilities you cannot share across ARMs. For CONJ there is an ability called Tranquility which regens a percentage of MP once every 30 minutes, I see that as their 2 hour ability but being that FFXIV is faster at everything (except leveling) it comes back at 30 minutes for that last ditch effort to save your party. Point Allotment window, you have your typical stats on the left, and Elemental on the right, this was changed from Alpha-Beta and for the better. This feels much nicer in terms of asthetics, also they ofcourse took out the HP/MP/AGI/LUK stats from this window and removed AGI/LUK from the game entirely. Taking out HP/MP from becoming a modifyable stat is going to remove the possibility of Min/maxing those stats and further pushing for cookie cutter classes. Which none of us XI players want anymore, so many times have I wished someone would look past the cookie cutter crap and build their own parties, make it work as we all know it can.
The Inventory window gives you General Items/Crystals/Key Items/Bazaar tabs, again redone for Beta and gives you a bit more breathing room than Alpha did. In Alpha I felt as if I were thrown a wall of words and I had to just deal with it. Here we see much more organization, especially with grouping of like items together in their order.
The world/regional Maps have been SEVERELY upgraded with better color coding and depth(thank god) if it's underground you'll notice. In the maps of Limsa Lominsa it is especially noticeable with the shadowing of lower or higher levels, it helps tons for navigating. Also you can shift to whatever map you want to see at any point in time where ever you may be in the world of Eorzea, even if you've never been there it seems.
Game Options, and the Retainer list are both new additions from Alpha-Beta and welcomed too. Specifically the Chat Filters, which seem to be much more advanced than the XI ones. Seperated into General Chat and Battle, you can also rename each of those if you choose to. You know how the clothes sort of flutters in the wind and shakes when you stop running? Well maybe you don't but the point is you can disable that if you want, or need to rather because I can't imagine anyone disabling it for fun. Lol..For Retainers, it shows where they are positioned and their name, as well as their NPC level. There has been no new information on Retainers thus far so we don't know how they level at all, probably with general use.
Guildleves have a small but new addition. A leve you get at Camp Bearded Rock called “My Very First Adventure” at difficulty 2 and gives a 200point Guardian Favor(more on this later). It takes you through the basics of Guildleves and battle, step by step, encouragement included. You can do it!
During your Levequesting you will be given certain leves which give you “Faction Points” by doing levequests for certain Factions. As well as gain a temporary buff from the Aetheryte crystal and by requesting a blessing from your Guardian. What that does is still unknown at this point, and they haven't said anything on it either but I hope they do soon as I want to abuse it. Think of it as a mini signet specifically for you based off the Guardian you chose during Character Creation. :)
Once I figure out how to use this video editor I plan to release a Lalafell CONJ battle video, maybe a Lalafell LANC video as well. Until then, I have a slew of screenshots for you all, including Miqote shots as I know many of you want. Also included in this is shots of the intro slightly sequenced. If you would like all the images in a zip, feel free to shoot me an email at WickedAmu42@gmail.com
Once I figure out how to use this video editor I plan to release a Lalafell CONJ battle video, maybe a Lalafell LANC video as well. Until then, I have a slew of screenshots for you all, including Miqote shots as I know many of you want. Also included in this is shots of the intro slightly sequenced. If you would like all the images in a zip, feel free to shoot me an email at WickedAmu42@gmail.com
When XIV releases, you better believe I will be there, and I hope to enjoy this wonderful new world with all of you. Until then, this is the last insight you will get into the world of Eorzea that SE isn't providing for you. I've done my duty, and I've made so many more of you want the game more than you did before, and for that I am very pleased. As I said prior we will continue to do Journal entries concerning our beta time, but it won't be giving out information. If you have any questions, or want a BIT more further detail on anything, email me for my MSN messenger address, or add me on gtalk.
See you in the other World!
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