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How's the combat?
mattic65
Member UncommonPosts: 191
I was wondering if someone who's played the most current iteration of the game could tell me about the combat. I never really liked FFXII's combat style, and was a big reason for why I could never get into that game. So if it resembles that in any way, I can count myself out now. I don't really mind if it isn't action styled combat ala TERA or GW2, I just want it to be paced faster than a snail's crawl.
Comments
Any graphical, audio, or gameplay restrictions not seen in other mmos but found in FFXIV can be blamed on one thing.
PS3
Disclaimer: I have a Legacy account, and bought a CE. Will do my best to give an unbiased as possible opinion though.
First off like most themeparks it feels slow and smashy at low levels on your first job. Where it gets better is working on your second job when you can start using abilities from your first to get past the lack of skills at low levels(get 1 slot for additional skills per 5 levels for 10 at 50). Or at higher levels when you unlock your jobs and start unlocking class changing traits.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/446/view/forums/thread/388292/A-Black-Mage-Uses-15-Skills.html
If you read through that it starts sounding at 50 BLM is pretty spammy, but then start digging into the skills and traits you start to realize that there is a lot going on. Stacking thunders dots, using free thunder 3 procs, state changing to regen mana, keep up astral/umbral buffs and more.
What makes it feel a bit off at the moment for a lot of people is a slower GCD (2.5secs) which will can be lowered later with gear or if playing Pug/Mnk. Also there is currently no skill queue which means that you need to wait for the end of the current GCD to start your next skill. I am hoping they working on 1 skill queue to make it flow a bit better.
Unlike FFXI there is no build up of TP either you start with full TP then have to ration it as it regens slowly. At low levels again where there isn't a lot of abilities and mobs arent particularly tough you don't have to worry about TP. Once you start doing the dungeons at around 15, and certain FATE's that have a single boss type mob you will notice that you can burn through it really quickly and be stuck auto attacking while it is still alive.
MP works much the same as TP.
TLDR: It is slower then most theme parks though satisfying once you get past the initial ho-hum of the tutorial levels of 1-15.
Bards (and maybe summoner might get some kind of TP buff) will be necessary in your party to solve TP issues on longer fights.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
After playing this past weekend i have to say. I really like FFXIV. IT doesnt bring anything new to the genre, but what is there is very well done.
As for the combat. I play Mage (Thaumaturge) and in my very opinion the combat is the weakest part of the game (at least with magic users). Its both too static and too slow. They need to find a way to fix that because i want to play my mage in this game when it finally relaunches but i had more fun looking around the gorgeous maps rather than actually fighting.
You should actually get an opportunity in a few weeks. The open beta should kick up early August.
I don't have a high level monk to say for sure but it is possible one of their combo's restores some TP but yes most likely having a Bard will be necessary to truly go all out.
SuperPata I was looking on XIVDB and there doesn't seem to be any Mnk skills that regen TP but there was one in Lancer at lvl 20 that you could use plus the afore mentioned Brd song Armies Paeon.
Greased Lightning is the Mnk skill that increases speed by 5% per stack(also 7% extra damage) and up to 3 stacks at later lvls. So even at max of 3 stacks you are only getting 2.125 sec GCD without other buffs not sure that will cause you to really burn much more in the way of TP except in those really long fights where it is going to matter anyways.
You should definitely try better. Don't take anyone's word for it. I personally had to experience it myself. Also, there is gear that will make combat even faster.
Perhaps you are too used to action MMORPGs, but I wouldn't call the combat "slow." It's not super fast, but I think "slow" is a definitely a wrong description of it. The combat is very spammy right now. It would be even more spammy without global cd.
GCD changes though based on stats and abilities. A high level monk can reduce the GCD to under 2 seconds.
The game has a lot of end game potential and the possibility is there for fully capped characters to be grossly OP. So they are stuck between leaving that possibility in place or make lower level characters with a few classes feeling shallow.
They can either balance bottom up or top down and the latter will get the shitty end of the stick. because of the massive gap between a Level 1 Glad and a 7 x 50 class, 7 x 50 Job character, I don't know what they are going to do.
I understand people have varied ideas on combat,mine is of the snail's crawl because it adds more game play than a quick 1-2-3 and dead.So yes i loved FFXI's combat much more.This game is a lot closer to mainstream tradition combat with a few twists.The twists imo are not done the way i would like as in TP,done better in FFXI and combos.
Yoshi came from playing games like Wow and Rift and you can really see that influence in this game.He also played DCUO and UO but i see no reference to those games yet.
As for the pace of the fights,they feel a bit faster than FFXI,but with far less options in combat,i can see why.That is why i liked FFXI much better,more options,more thinking.Abilities in this game come slower and are fewer.I would compare combined clases in this game as equal to just one class in FFXI.
Example i think i was level 15-20,don't remember anymore but all i was using was protect,stone and some wind dot.As a 15 RDM in FFXi i would have probably 15 spells already.LOL i checked actually RDM in FFXI at 15 has 22 spells,that is a huge difference.Now there is no question,everyone knows this game was rushed out,so now we just have to sit back and see if this Yoshi guy who has no prior FF knowledge at all,he didn't even play the games,will try to add more quality to each class at all levels.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Thats just silly and irrational *looks around*
Since there isn't a RDM in FFXIV to compare to, I'll compare the BLM and THM:
Spells/Abilities BLM has in FFXI 1-20: Stone, Poison, Blind, Water, Bind, Aero, Bio, Blaze Spikes, Drain, Fire, Stonega, Shock, Blizzard, Warp, Rasp, Waterga, Choke, Ice Spikes, Manafont, Elemental Seal
Spells/Abilities THM has in FFXIV 1-20: Banish, Blood Rite, Sacrifice, Poison, Slow, Gravity, Punishing Barbs, Damnation, Dia, Bio, Dark Seal, Stygian Spikes, Absorb ACC, Absorb ATK, Absorb DEF, Absorb EVA, Siphon MP, Silhouette.
How exactly is this a huge difference? Seems to me like they have the same number of spells/abilities to work with. And yes, FFXIV 1.0 was rushed out, but not 2.0.
The real question is what, if anything, did they do to make combat interesting? They've stated that they didn't go the action combat route. Well-done action combat is one way to make combat interesting, but not the only way.
So did they do something else to make combat interesting? Or does it fall into the trap of, pull mobs, wait for the battle to end, pull mobs, wait for the battle to end, and it matters little enough what you do while waiting for the battle to end that you spam 1,2,3,1,2,3 in every single battle without paying attention?