Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

[Aeni]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

That would be the Duty Finder that Yoshida's been talking about for like the last 3 Live Letters.

I didn't think they were going to put it in for Phase 3 (thought it was only for Phase 4) and couple that with the fact that all you had were MRDs running around in La Noscea and you can see where there's going to be some serious problems with running dungeons there. Add to that a lot of first impressions across the web from various individual reviews painting the game in a very bad light and you'll see that SE is going to have to do more convincing. I'm not exactly sold on the whole combat system, party synergy, and home city restriction. They're going to need to give Arcanists the tools to heal or we're going to be in that same mess in FFXI (where in the beginning only WHMs *could* heal)

Edit:

In fact, with party sizes shrinking down from 6 to 4, it's really imperative that SE redesign the classes and jobs to ensure that there will be enough tanks and healers to go around with the abundance of DPS classes out there. I get that they want players to take up CNJ for some utility enhancements on their main class (and almost required if you're going to go the Paladin route), but it's pretty much a stupid idea if they put heals and protection at level 10 or below. No incentives for anyone to bother to take it up to at least 20, past the point where healing is really needed in those starting dungeons. And unlike in FFXI, there is no simple mechanic that "forces" players to level up their "subjob/class" which keeps a healthy level of a variety of classes available to draw from when forming parties. Either these dungeons are going to start to introduce new and novel ways of testing a party without adding a lot of damage against players or they'll end up with a huge PR mess once the bulk of the "casual" players start to be able to get into dungeons.

They're going to have to give healing utilities to ACN, THM and maybe even add them to MNKs (See Monks in WoW MOP) in a novel way. This will alleviate pressure for that role. Then, they're going to have to shore up tanking by giving MRDs and LNCs group-wide snap aggro tools. If they can achieve this with proper class balance, then the game should be in a much better place and open up all kinds of opportunities for end game and "raid encounters".

[Malacite]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

Huh? 6 to 4?

What are you talking about? 4 is just a light party, and a fair bit of content is designed around that but late game stuff is still going to be the standard 8-man full party. At least with SCH & SMN joining the fray, we don't have to have doubles of any 1 job now. In fact, I'm curious to see what will be optimal now in terms of mixing classes :O

[Aeni]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

Huh? 6 to 4?

What are you talking about? 4 is just a light party, and a fair bit of content is designed around that but late game stuff is still going to be the standard 8-man full party. At least with SCH & SMN joining the fray, we don't have to have doubles of any 1 job now. In fact, I'm curious to see what will be optimal now in terms of mixing classes :O

You're completely missing my point. You will still need the light party, the core of SE's revision of this game, in order to progress meaningfully. Unless you want to spend nights upon lonely nights grinding on monsters to fill-in gaps between quests and an empty leve allowance. Don't forget, leve allowances are a lot less than in 1.0, don't give any better experience rewards, and are not exactly the most optimal way to leveling up.

8-man, or "full parties" are akin to 10 man raiding in WoW. In fact, I believe that is what exactly Yoshi-P had in mind in the concept of designing end-game content. It doesn't seem that SE is very interested in large-scale instanced encounters at the moment and so for the foreseeable future, we can look forward to new content produced only for 4 man and 8 man groups. 4 man content is designed to gear up for 8 man content (that's the heart of the design and philosophy in any MMORPG) 4 man content is also targeted to casual players who do not have the time nor resources to participate in the much harder and lengthier 8 man contents. A lot of people were complaining about the difficulty of 4-man content and I laugh at them because they have yet to actually participate in any 8-man content (which has never been available in alpha or beta of ARR)

That means a standard 8-man group will consist of 2 tanks (1 main and 1 off), 2 healers (1 main and 1 supplemental for the off-tank) and 6 damage dealers. If the encounter is particularly tricky or incoming damage is too much for current gear level, then you push to 2 main healers and 1 supplemental and maybe 1 additional back-up (or debuffer/CCer) These aren't new or revolutionary end-game content systems that Yoshi-P is implementing. It isn't rocket science, either.

Mal, seriously, you need to play other MMORPGs to get experience outside of FFXI and FFXIV 1.0 You'll become more knowledgable about raiding and how to manage raid teams. You can develop effective encounter strategies and then coordinate your teams better to accomplish the goals of the encounters. What Yoshi-P is doing with end-game in ARR is something that all WoW players (and Rift, etc) already know ... he's said it before and often, he's not going to introduce something that players aren't already familiar with. He'll push the envelope, tweak things up a bit and introduce new mechanics and other things, but he's not going to get rid of the tried and true formulas that have worked for many other games.

[Etra]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

Need to remember Aeni, we only have classes so far. Classes are built for solo play in mind. Jobs are built for party. We don't yet know what skills the jobs bring, and with SCH summoning a fairy, we can only guess SCH will be healing based. (Especially considering the job it spawns from, Arcanist, has a healing specific pet stance.)

Personally, feel like SCH will be a combination of FFXIV's Bard, WHM, and SMN. Bard is DD with party buffs. SMN is pet oriented. WHM is healing oriented. Take all that, minus out the Bard's DD, and put it together and you get Scholar: A healing class that may enable buffs through its pets. Like Mal said, it will probably be HoT based in order to differentiate it from WHM.

However...

[Hayde]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

In regards to job abilities and such, some datamining has occurred over the weekend with jobs and Arcanist/Summoner. Keep in mind the miners noted that their translation is shoddy, and of course since it's datamined--things are subject to change:

Source: Arcanist/Summoner Skills :: Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV, FF14) :: ZAM

Some brave DAT miners wrote:
Just translating what was untranslated in the data-mined info. I did not find any of this stuff and my translations are subject to being terrible.

Level 01 - Ruin: Deals magic damage to target. Potency: 100

Level 02 - Bio: Deals magic DoT to target. Potency: 10 Duration: 30s

Level 04 - Ruby Carbuncle: Summons "Carbuncle Mage"

Level 06 - Miasma: Deals magic DoT to target. Potency: 5 Duration: 30s Additional Effect: Inflict 20% "Heavy" & an ailment that halves the amount recovered on heals. Duration: 30s This Heavy will not be cancelled if target takes an attack. (TN: This one was tricky for me, might've @#%^ed this one up)

Level 10 - Sustain: Consume 15% of your max HP to grant HoT to your pet. Potency: 5 Duration: 15s Cannot be used if current HP is less than 15% your max HP.

Level 14 - Wither: Deals cone-shaped magic damage towards target. Range: 120 degrees

Level 15 - Diamond Carbuncle (QUEST): Summons "Carbuncle Guardian".

Level 18 - Self-Sacrifice: Out of your current HP, consume 20% of your max HP to raise your own magic damage for a set time. Duration: 12s Cannot be used if current HP is less than 20% max.

Level 22 - Miasma II: Deals magic DoT to AoE. Potency: 5 Duration: 30s Additional Effect: Inflict 20% "Heavy" & an ailment that halves the amount recovered on heals. Duration: 30s This Heavy will not be cancelled if target takes an attack. (Again, not sure of the additional effect)

Level 26 - Fog: Decrease target's range of throwing, archery, and magic by 10 yalms. Duration: 30s

Level 30 - Barrier: Raise your physical defense by 10%. Duration: 15 min.

Level 30 - Bane (QUEST): Scatter a target's DoT & Status Ailment to surroundings. Duration: Based on DoT / Ailment. If you did not inflict the DoT / Ailment there is no effect. Additional Effect: 15% chance to reset the duration of the scattered DoT / Ailment. (TN: This was a doozy. Might be way off. Sounds like it spreads an enemy's DoT or debuff to surrounding enemies. Not sure if this is the actual quest ability you learn.)

Level 34 - Bio II: Inflict magic DoT to target. Potency: 20 Duration: 60s Additional Effect: Raises target's chance of taking critical damage 3%.

Level 38 - Autoimmunity Raise your own physical defense 10%. Duration: 12s Can only be used if HP is less than 20%.

Level 42 - Addle: Inflict target with 10% "Slow Cast". Duration: 12s

Level 46 - Serpent Tongue: Increase your "Fast Cast" 10% and decrease range your range of magic 10 yalms. Duration: 15s

Level 50 - Aura Burst: Deals magic damage to surrounding enemies. Additional Effect: Knocks back target 10 yalms. (TN: Not sure if it's the enemy you target or all hit by the spell. No potency was given in the doc I have)

Summoner Skills (These sound like Summoner abilities but I'm not sure how the levels will work out):

Level 04 - Proto Ramuh: Summon "Ramuh Spirit".

Level 15 - Proto Titan: Summon "Titan Spirit".

Level 30 - Proto Garuda: Summon "Garuda Spirit".

Level 35 - Fester: Deal damage based on the number of DoT / Ailments you have inflicted on target. "60 Potency" damage per DoT / Ailment. Only Arcanist/Summoner DoT / Ailments count toward damage. No effect if you did not inflict DoT / Ailment to target. (TN: Sorry if wording is strange. Might have messed this one up)

Level 40 - Proto Ifrit: Summon "Ifrit Spirit".

Level 45 - Harm's Way: Have your pet take damage for one other party member (excluding yourself). Duration: 12s

Level 50 - Enkindle: Execute a Fulfillment skill on currently summoned pet. Can only use when a Summoner pet is summoned. (TN: Not sure what this means without context, but maybe using stuff like "Diamond Dust" etc.?)

In regards to the rest, you can find some info over at Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) Database which opened up this weekend, they have datamined some skill abilities for the older jobs--not sure if the list is complete or not. Once again, datamined info are not always reliable but it is something to ponder until phase 2 of beta 3 and/or launch (for SMN/SCH/ACN).

[Aeni]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

Heh, so much for ACN healing ... unless we see the pet's abilities, we won't know for sure, but ACN itself doesn't seem to provide healing pre-level 20 (only heals pets)

[Malacite]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

SCH is how it heals, not through ACN skills - this was already revealed last week.

And wow some of those enfeebles are kinda... weak. RDM it ain't.

[Aeni]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

SCH is how it heals, not through ACN skills - this was already revealed last week.

And wow some of those enfeebles are kinda... weak. RDM it ain't.

And it doesn't do anything for healing when you come right down to it. I hate to think going into end game content includes bringing along stacks of healing potion and ignoring the stat/damage boosting ones.

[Malacite]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

What are you talking about? SCH's skills aren't even listed there. Yoshida himself said it would employ healing over time spells alongside the Faerie (which attacks).

[Aeni]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

What are you talking about? SCH's skills aren't even listed there. Yoshida himself said it would employ healing over time spells alongside the Faerie (which attacks).

OMG are you just in denial that there is a problem here? Let's review: There is only one healing class in the game, Conjurer. Leveling this up and completing the necessary quest line leads to White Mage.

There is only one other "theoretical" class that can heal, Scholar. The way you described this class makes it seem as if it's a back-up healer to the Conjurer/White Mage. What we're talking about in the last few posts is with regards to a SECOND main healing class/job set. Or even a THIRD while we're at it. Again, I go back to FFXI as an example of HOW NOT TO DO THINGS, at least not sweep the problems under the rug and pray that they get it right by the 3rd expansion ...

There currently is only one viable tanking set: Gladiator/Paladin. SE needs to expand this by providing better aggro management and damage mitigation tools to additional classes and I've yet to see anything in this regards. If anything, you're forced to level up a Gladiator in order to make use of some of the tanking tools on other classes. I've no doubt that Marauders currently are able to tank at the low level dungeons but how would they fare as dungeons get progressively more difficult the higher you go is the million dollar question here. At least back in 1.0, the game promised that MRDs, LNCs and to some extent, PGLs could tank, although the jobs muddled that option quite a fair bit.

[Etra]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

WARs are AoE tanks and PLD are single target tanks in this game. Been that way and staying that way, as said by Yoshi P. Lancers and Pugilists were never meant to be tanks in the slightest, as shown by the end of 1.23.

[Aeni]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

WARs are AoE tanks and PLD are single target tanks in this game. Been that way and staying that way, as said by Yoshi P. Lancers and Pugilists were never meant to be tanks in the slightest, as shown by the end of 1.23.

That's fine for level 50+, but I'm talking about pre-50 here. There are no indications of expanding the number of classes that can take multiple roles in dungeons. Right now, so far as I've seen from what's out there, people aren't going to change their mind as to what constitutes a tank (Gladiator) or a healer (Conjurer) and SE isn't making it any better.

I'm glad that SE has seen some of the suggestions I and others have offered and taken it (for example, giving Conjurers an instant cast DOT or in other words, changing Aero to fit that) but they can do more. The low level play isn't exactly fleshed out very well and that's bad for new players and players that, gasp!, never played an MMORPG game before (or never grouped with other players to accomplish something before)

And looking at Patch 5.4 for MOP in WoW, Blizzard is going to introduce a new system, basically having this instanced "mini-dungeon" where players can enter by themselves, and get grouped up with 4 NPC players. They will enter as one of three roles: healer, tank or damage dealer (DD). The neat thing about this is that they will learn to tank or heal or DPS properly and there'll be tutorial cues to guide players and there'll be advanced versions of these so players can improve themselves. There'll be a scoring system in the most advanced sections so expert players can go into that area. But primarily the main thing is to be able to "teach" both long time players as well as new players alike on how to fill their roles. And right now SE isn't exactly going in that direction with the lack of focus for every class in this game.

[Malacite]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

Again, not true. The class quests are all designed to teach the player about what role their class plays and how to do it. Granted, we're all experienced from 1.23 but I still feel as though the WAR quests did a pretty good job of emphasizing that MRD is meant to tank/DD. To clarify, your concerns are totally legit but it looks like (at least so far) Yoshida's got a handle on things. But, that's why we're in beta and if you feel that strongly you should go and leave feedback on the official forums.

[Hayde]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

Again, not true. The class quests are all designed to teach the player about what role their class plays and how to do it. Granted, we're all experienced from 1.23 but I still feel as though the WAR quests did a pretty good job of emphasizing that MRD is meant to tank/DD. To clarify, your concerns are totally legit but it looks like (at least so far) Yoshida's got a handle on things. But, that's why we're in beta and if you feel that strongly you should go and leave feedback on the official forums.

Funny thing about that...I tried to comment something in regards to questing today and I found out you can only post in the feedback forums on the weekends (or at least, they turned it off today). That's incredibly annoying considering how slow the forums are on the weekends and how often it crashed.

[Mezlo]

Re: Limsa Lominsa Main Quest Line

MRD's are tanks too. Whenever we did Ifrit, Moogle, or the ogre dungeon, MRD's tanked 50% of the time.