Alpha Video #7 - Levequests and Party CombatFollow

For everyone who keeps complaining about the mob flinching here's a reminder on how it looked early on in final fantasy xi (during the Beta) on a malboro.

http://youtu.be/2s7WQCzPGEE



Vs How it looked later on (Same mob at around 4:15)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlmiBlQFf9M














Edited, Dec 20th 2012 2:47pm by Thelastremainingintime

Just my opinion (obviously) but it looks a bit silly with the larger enemies recoiling after every hit.

Eh, after rereading what I wrote, maybe my meaning isn't clear. There is a lot of discussion about quest-based leveling similar to WoW. If that's all there is, that sounds sh*tty to me. Leveling up via quests in WoW quests just felt like easy-mode. And extremely boring to be honest. Just my opinion, and admittedly, I prefer party xp over questing anyhow.

And, although questing in WoW led me through the world, I felt no connection to that world. In XI, xp parties at a variety of camps led me through the world. And I felt a connection to each and every one of those zones. I knew where all the best camps were, where all the NM's popped, outpost locations, dungeon entrances, shortcuts, and all kinds of additional lore (headstones for CN map says hi) that made those zones living and breathing places. Not someplace I passed through while collecting 10 wolf hides. Interestingly enough, I mentioned a quest in this response- a quest that I chose to do because it had meaning to me. I was a map collector. I wouldn't have done that quest for a pair of gloves and 1500xp, nor would I have enjoyed earning my map if it was the result of collecting 10 wolf hides. I don't inherently dislike questing, I just enjoyed its implementation much more in XI than I did when I played WoW (albeit briefly).

Some people will respond with "leveling up via xp parties is boring and easy mode too". I disagree. For one, there is the social aspect which IMO is so much more satisfying (to me) than just solo questing. When I quest, I talk to my linkshell/guild. And, don't get me wrong, I like them like them. But I already know everyone. When I xp in a party setting, I talk to my party members. And I meet new people. That's a nice thing. Not to mention I am exposed to new ways to use jobs and abilities (at least in a new game like ARR will be). These are big pros to me.

Secondly, (especially if you let me pull ) party xp has variable difficulty. It doesn't have to be easy mode. You can push yourself and your fellow party members if everyone is on board. And EVERYONE remembers what it was like to catch an invite to a truly awesome xp party. A well-oiled machine that mowed down gobbies like they were defenseless kittens. I know there were the inevitable "3 hrs lfg, go to godforsaken camp in middle of nowhere, wipe on 2nd mob, WHM force dc's" but that really was an exception that was paired pretty evenly in frequency with the uber xp party.

A quest has one difficulty. It provides no choice (unless you are selecting gloves vs. cloak). It offers no new social interactions unless you count NPC's. I really don't see the upside beyond requiring less time from people with busy lives. Admittedly, xp was a grind in XI. But that wasn't due to partying for xp, it was due to the insane disparity between xp rewarded per kill vs. xp needed to progress in level. Beyond that it seems superior in every way.



Yeah, those are all good points. Once you learned the mechanics of the fights and the potential tricky spots (Byakko's triple attack with shadows down...) they weren't hard fights. I think i just really have rose-colored glasses for sky (and FFXI honestly) because I felt like the pros far exceeded the cons and I learned early in life that nothing is perfect, and things are a lot more enjoyable if you focus on what is good rather than what is bad. I felt like the scales were tipping way farther towards the good, so I just rolled with it.



Classic, and so, so true...

Edited, Dec 20th 2012 3:37pm by ChaChaJaJa

If my ffxi example wasn't enough..

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/59205-Alpha-First-Look-Video-7-%E2%80%93-Levequests-and-Party-Combat/page14

Bottom post stating that this will be worked on by the time Beta hits.

Who?

I don't know, I keep looking at this video and thinking to myself.. "What is everyone talking about? This is the dumbed down version of the game and it looks boss."

There are not that many abilities or flexibility to be had with 3 classes at level 20, which is all we've been shown. Also not that i've played 14 (unfortunately due to the beyond terrible reviews and criticism) I heard that for ranged attack there was no auto attack whatsoever. Well from what i'm hearing and seeing (and no one's mentioned it in this thread) it has been added.

Awesome looking gameplay, music (which strikes me as something from fft or hitoshi sakimoto in general) and more to come and this isn't even the finished product, I don't see how anyone could not be hyped.

Edited, Dec 20th 2012 7:14pm by Thelastremainingintime

So ... with the risk of sounding really ignorant....
Is the video sped up? Those fights seemed to be moving awfully fast. Not that I have a problem with a faster fighting style than FFXI at all ( I mostly played as a Dragoon, you could take out the garbage between some swings ) but the video seemed really fast. Almost too fast to pay attention to all the things going on around you.

Even for male characters, odd for female characters!

I wouldn't even consider GW2 to be twitch fighting. For the better part, you spam your abilities when they're up for maximum damage, and on occasion you roll out of the way, which I understand is actually just a temporary invulnerability and not true dodging.

You are totally welcome to your opinion, I wasn't trying to imply you couldn't express yourself

To be fair, this alpha looks way better than 1.0's alpha.

You're speaking to a Guild Wars 2 player, and the novelty wears off very quickly for many players once they realize those skills are pretty much the sum of what they receive, outside of what traits do to change them. (Not to mention that game defines the term "Zerg!" in all content outside of TPvP and dungeons)

Not that I disagree with the concept of desirable skills, but Guild Wars 2 is in no way a messiah of MMOs. Their sense of progression is heavily muted as well as the sense of accomplishment. Also keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 is a buy to play model, there's no incentive for commitment here because they have their payment - they can provide the bulk of the flashy content all at once and just hope you'll occasionally buy off their micro-transactions shop for aesthetics and boosters.

Something also needs to be kept in mind here. This was not a display of the depth of combat. This was more or less a display on how the Party UI functions, which isn't half bad, to be honest, though it will take me some getting used to.

My main beef is that I'm not seeing clarity in combos here, from Melee or Magic classes. If they're to be used I'd like their indicators to be clearer.




Edited, Dec 20th 2012 10:18pm by Hyrist

You can actually adjust the level of the mobs in guildleves so the point about difficulty doesn't make sense. The whole reason for that is that you can team up to complete them so that kinda poops on the lack of social interaction point, unless you strictly mean forced interaction.



Right, now translate this idea to your thoughts on questing and you'll be able to come up with a few more benefits people might get from it even if you aren't included. Even though it may not affect you, if you objectively look at the situation then you could probably find more upside than downside.

I don't really consider guildleves to be quest based leveling. I was under the impression that they were moving towards the WoW model of quest based leveling, which has 0 in common with guildleves. I could be wrong about what's being implemented though, because I've only been loosely following it due to the fact that it was only in alpha. Of course, if guildleves are the main form of leveling, that won't be much better. When I did guildleves in XIV, I spent more time running back and forth than I did actually engaging a mob. But just to be clear, when I hear "quest-based leveling" I basically think WoW style fetch quests, not guildleves (which were almost as boring, but you are correct, at least you could set the mobs' level and take a friend...).

Also, I quit playing WoW after a few weeks because I really just didn't enjoy it. I don't bash it or anything, it's just not my flavor. And my original comments weren't to exclude quest-based leveling from ARR, they were just a plea to not have that eliminate the utility of party based leveling by making questing xp so insanely fast and easy (like WoW).

How does keeping the subscriber pool to a small band of hardcore players help anyone in any way?

The best thing FFXIV has going for it is that it's a Final Fantasy game, it's online, and there are Final Fantasy fans who would be happy to meet each other, play this game together, and pay a monthly fee to do so. There's no way this should be all about putting in 60 hours a week or GTFO. They should make it fun for those who put in 60 hours a week because they choose to do so, but while also making it appealing for those who just like to experience a online Final Fantasy world at a slow, casual pace so they can meet up with their online friends now and then. By doing so, you keep the population fresh and vibrant (not to mention larger and profitable), there's money to develop new things for the game, and everyone has a better experience all around. This is the way of the MMO in the 21st century.

Edited, Dec 21st 2012 2:51am by Xoie

Participating in any quest that rewards exp is considered quest based leveling in my opinion. You are tasked with something and rewarded upon completion. I guess maybe they're different in that not all quests in WoW are repeatable like leves are. The intent may be different if leves are supposed to supplement some other form of experience gain, but there's really no other difference other than the extra step of initiating the levequest once you get to the designated area.

Unless I'm missing something major, they're pretty much the same thing...

Ok Filthy, I thought about this a bit more on my drive to work. I can see why you are using guildleves as an example of quest-based leveling. Your points fit the bill. So I'll concede that point to you. But it doesn't really address the original concern I posed:

Good point. And I hope that turns out to be the case for ARR. I am not opposed to solo content at all, I just don't want it to render grouping obsolete.

It may be a change of trend in how people play games to be honest.

I hate keep bringing up guild wars 2, but their entire structure tries to encourage the concept of playing together, but the result usually ends up zerging content rather than working with one another. And when you provide alternatives for the solo player to advance, guess what, people tend to solo.

It involves less stress and time to simply solo.

My only standing thought on how to do so perhaps is to provide relevant loot drops for those who chose to group for XP. Say, those who do dungeon quests and parties for XP do not have to spend time re-gearing like solo adventurers do. This could be a way to encourage group leveling without hindering the pacing of leveling directly for the solo camp.

I can't agree more. I'm trying to avoid saying "it's just alpha," but we will see a lot more content in the beta along with all the classes/jobs. Think about it, how intense is the battle system really going to be if there is no tank class. We really weren't meant to tank on lancer.




I'm going to jump out on a limb here and say once you've finished all the quests they have available at launch, this will probably be the main route people will go to leveling up. Yoshi has said that the quests will only give a brand new character enough exp to level from 1-50 on 1 class. People will then go to leve quests, dungeon crawling, and exp parties to level up after that. I'm guessing that people are going to want all that gear from the dungeons that they'll end up leveling up in those dungeons while repeating them for all the gear. Also, yoshi has said that they were going to do away with the speed runs for dungeons, so there wont be any reason to hurry through them unless you have no interest in leveling up at all.

I agree, part combat should be stressed. A basic idea that could be fleshed out significantly, would be to establish a system similar to Signet and Conquest Points in FFXI. However, you can only accumulate these points when fighting with fellow adventurers (and perhaps, get larger multipliers with larger groups). As such, those that favour group play will always be rewarded with large CP hordes (and quicker XP). As such, by offering competitive gear and faster XP, grouping will provide a much more efficient manner of leveling (even despite the timesink associated with peacing together a party).

Lastly, to really accentuate party play, the zone creation is really critical. If there's an area like crawlers nest, where the entrance is good for lvl 35, then the deeper you go the higher the levels required is. This really drives the party play atmosphere. In such a zone, a pair of lvl 40's could start duo'ing, then as more people enter the party (to accumualte more rewards) the party moves deeper and deeper.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. And I hope you don't have to enter an instance to make it happen. I really loved how "busy" those zones felt with people leveling, completing quests, skilling up, NM hunting etc all at the same time! Instanced zones feel so empty to me.

Yes, absolutely - there were a lot of factors as to what drived character progression in FFXIV. I just mentioned FFXIV to attempt to bring some connection to the topic here, but was more or less addressing all modern MMORPG titles.

To me the sweet spot is right around 3x XP for an average group. That is, you make significantly more XP in a group, but it is completely viable to solo. Mind you, this is just a matter of framing. Other important factors are the length to next level, length to next ability, and the ease of creating a functioning party. If those things are done well, there can be less of a disparity between solo and party. It is to a large degree a function of how great a pain in the ass leveling is already. If it's not a pain in the ass, it doesn't really matter if solo/group is better.

e.g., Grouping was far more efficient for leveling in GW2 than soloing, but I played 99% of the game solo anyway. I didn't see much value in grouping. I couldn't really talk to people and with even 2 people the monsters died so fast there was barely any challenge at all.

Really, the biggest thing lacking from party play in MMOs is the lack of actual party elements. Things like skillchains and magic bursts were overly simplistic perhaps, but they were an example of a gameplay element that was designed for party play. When party play actually allows you to enjoy features of the game that you can't experience solo, it helps.

Maybe I'm just behind the times on this issue, but it has always seemed to me that solo players don't mind progressing at a slower rater than party players. FFXI took it to an unwelcome extreme because party play was ALREADY slow, and soloing seemed relatively impossible when it took 5 minutes to earn 200 XP.

Players may gripe about XP inequity but as long as they're able to progress at a reasonable rate it rarely has any actual affect on their enjoyment. Players understand that solo and party XP rates are and should be apples to oranges. Compare partying as DRG to RDM, for example, and players feel differently. Apples to apples, they want to be able to progress at a similar rate. Most people in XI weren't bothered at all that soloing wasn't as efficient as partying... they just wanted it to be viable.