Final Fantasy XIV Online - Page 3

Active Mode & Passive Mode – Active Mode is largely the “battle-ready” state, while Passive Mode is traveling and performing other tasks. These modes will not be 100% limited to only those situations, however. There may be times when you want to keep up Active Mode to quickly move from fight to fight, or even remain in Passive Mode during an encounter depending on your role.

Healing – Players will be able to heal (i.e. rest to recover HP) only when in Passive Mode. If you switch to Active Mode, perhaps to do battle, the effect of healing will end. It is possible to heal mid-battle, but only after switching back to Passive Mode first.

Preemptive Strike! – Both players and monsters will have Active Mode and Passive Mode. If a player gets into Active Mode and attacks a monster still in Passive Mode, they can score a Preemptive Strike. This will be an advantageous way to start a fight, though there were no details on what actual effects it might have. And be careful, because enemies can Preemptive Strike players as well.

Flexible Party System – Magazines earlier this month quoted the developers as saying a 6-8 man party would be average. However, in the complete version of the interview, they seem reluctant to pin down any number at all. While Final Fantasy XI ended up locking on 6 as the magic number for party size, Final Fantasy XIV aims to be much more lenient. You can start an adventure with 3 people, add on a fourth along the way, or even go forth with a band of 6 or more.

The Price of Flexibility – It may sound like the larger the party, the easier content will become, but the developers assure us that will not always be the case. Not to mention, there will be less treasure to go around if a giant group all go together. It is also mentioned that players who receive tons of help all the time will have a hard time growing as players. This does not appear to indicate any actual penalty, but rather the experience of the player behind the screen. They follow up saying they hope adventurers find excitement in the challenge, and thus bring appropriate groups for quests instead of overwhelming ones.

Going it Solo – Being able to solo will factor big into the world of Eorzea, and the developers reveal that they are working hard to make a game that does not impede the solo player. Naturally, since enemies can appear in parties, there will be difficult, or even insurmountable challenges out there. However, Iwao in particular finds a certain romantic image in the lone adventurer, and hopes to accommodate that playing style to the fullest.

Elezen – Noble folk with pointy ears. While they are nomadic at heart, the Elezen ruled Eorzea, the world of Final Fantasy XIV, at one time. However, constant warfare with the Hyur took away that claim.

Hyur – These human-like beings are all over Eorzea. In fact, they’re the most populous and diverse clan. The Hyur are also handy and sport technology the other clans don’t have.

Lalafell – In addition to being the token cute character, Lalafell are gifted with intelligence.

Miqo’te – These cat-human hybrids are hunters and stick with their own clan instead of mingling with the affairs of other races.

Roegadyn – Manly and muscular men with an abundance of facial hair.

When the Move comes out this September, it’ll be the games that drive rather people actually buy the peripheral or not. Square Enix is already looking toward that future, and plans to add support for titles like Heavy Rain, SOCOM IV and Final Fantasy XIV.

In a recent interview on the Playstation Blog, Hiromichi Tanaka discussed the possibility of adding Move support to the MMORPG. He admitted that they haven’t had a chance to try out the Move, and while there are currently no “official plans” to add Move support, they are interested in the new device. With both the MMO and the Move coming out this year, I think it’s safe to expect an official announcement in the near future.

Square-Enix is coming back strong into the MMO space this year with Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV), an updated sequel to its first foray into the genre. I got a chance to sit down with the game at this year's E3 show in Los Angeles and experience the new world, improved battle system, and streamlined controls.

What's got me most excited, you ask? The impressive tech demonstration using nVidia's 3D Vision created an immersive MMO world that's unlike anything I've experienced.

If there's one genre that doesn't need the extra boost in immersive environments, it would be the MMORPG space. Games like World of Warcraft and Everquest have proved that MMO developers are more akin to digitized drug dealers than simple entertainment engineers.

But when I took those first 3D steps into the world of Eorzea in FFXIV, I felt that 3D and MMOs were destined for each other far more than any racing or FPS game could ever hope to be. As I walked across a wooden bridge in one of the towns I was able to look down below hundreds feet into the rest of the city, giving the area a feeling of depth and tangibility that qualitatively enhanced my environmental experience.

And unlike a fast racing game or shooter, the pace of the MMO genre meant that I could move through the world slowly and deliberately, taking in every bit of architecture at my own pace.


Square-Enix was coy about officially announcing 3D functionality in FFXIV, claiming that the tech demo at E3 was available merely to gauge interest in the possibility. The numerous 3D stations set up with three landscape monitors, however, suggested that they were taking this demo quite seriously.

The release of FFXIV on the PS3, a strong proponent of 3D tech, further reinforces that we'll be traversing through Eorzea later this year in full 3D glory. You'll still need glasses and a powerful system (you can benchmark your system for FFXIV on the Final Fantasy Website), but if you get the chance to check this out in 3D for yourself, I'm sure you wouldn't want to play the game any other way.

So, where do I begin? Number one is the new stamina bar system. This is like the ultimate evolution of the Active Time Battle gauge that has slowly been growing in Final Fantasy games for over 10 years. The ATB gauge in Final Fantasy games up to 12 have acted as a "turn" system: when the bar fills up, your character can take one of any kind of action. In FFXIII, characters have 3-5 ATB gauge "blocks" that slowly fill up, allowing your character to take one or more actions that fill up those blocks. EG: 4 blocks means 4 1-block skills, 2 2-block skills, 1 3-block and 1 1-block, etc.

But Final Fantasy XIV has gotten rid of arbitrary action sized and now presents an ATB Gauge where actions of any size can use up a "chunk" of stamina. The video only shows two skills so far, and while it's possible that the designers are intentionally limiting their skills to certain fixed sizes of stamina bar usage, there's no strict reason why they'd have to. They could make skills that use any amount of stamina in that bar, meaning that skill timers are visibly represented by the usage bar size rather than a set of numbers. Effects like haste and slow can now work in two ways: by causing the bar to fill up faster or slower (like traditional haste/slow effects in prior FF games) but can now be applied to specific skills (FFXI's merit points anyone?) by causing the block of used stamina to grow or shrink. I think this is simply fantastic. No more of that garbage global cooldown from WoW!

Of further interest is the new action bar system. 10-button action bars have become a stable in MMOs (well, 12 button bars these days...) and FFXIV have incorporated them in full force, along with multiple bars you can switch through. This isn't too different from the shortcut bars in FFXI, but instead of only showing up when you hold a key and only showing small text descriptions, they're now fully visible, with icons, and important information like re-use timers (see the 20 second timer when she uses provoke?) and TP and MP costs.

The TP costs are of particular interest. In FFXI TP built up whenever you attacked and you could only use it in 100, 200, and 300 blocks, emptying the gauge entirely. Now, different skills use TP like mana. Note that when she uses TP to cast Red Lotus, the remaining TP is saved for the next skill. Also, "basic" attacks that don't cost TP are all live, so instead of simply auto-attacking, you'll actively chose the attack to use. While this might mean a lot of hitting the same button over and over, hopefully you'll have enough basic attacks with meaningful differences to keep combat exciting and interesting. Note in the video she switches between stab and slash to build up TP.

A few more things I noticed: HP and MP do not regenerate during the fight, which means these points will work much like they did in Final Fantasy XI: presumably you have to rest after fights to refill the bars. Enemy health bar shows up as you might expect, but new are little icons underneath the bar to show status effects (such as provoked). All in all, I'm hugely excited about combat in Final Fantasy XIV. This could finally be the MMORPG that revolutionized the "tab-and-autoattack" combat mechanic that has been sucking the excitement out of combat since Everquest.

Once eight hours of unlimited grinding is over, XP gains will be artificially slowed

Square Enix has revealed that it will be implementing new measures in upcoming MMO Square Enix that are designed to narrow the gap between hardcore players of the genre and more casual players.

Kotaku reports that the game will allow players eight hours of unrestricted play. Once that barrier is passed, however, there will be an incremental decline in the amount of experience points players can earn over the next seven hours.

Once that time's up, the chance to gain experience is removed. This is then reset after one week. The restriction only applies to one class, however, so players will be free to switch to another character class and level that up instead.

The game's director Nobuaki Komoto says that the model is deigned to prevent those with less time to dedicate to the game from suffering such a notable disadvantage when compared to gamers with plenty of time to plough into the game.

It's a curious decision from Square Enix, and one that Komoto admits could be tweaked prior to release.