Parathyroid wrote:
Killua125 wrote:
I only played the game a little bit with my friend. So, I'm still not sure about a lot of things, but I did test out the combat on a decent level character.
It's sleep inducing. You don't have to micromanage at all (at least, on Lancer) - you just press the same 2 buttons over and over, and wait for the GCD timer to mash more. You don't have to think at all.
I noticed that the few skills which required you to pay attention (such as Feint, or the Pugilist skill when you used the skill after evading) have been changed to be more casual, and you can just spam it now. You don't have to pay attention anymore for those.
The game gives you full TP now for every monster, so you don't have to worry about that either.
So I can't comment on other things, but the combat will have to go through some major changes if I'm going to play it. I would like to know if the combat was any different at the E3 booth, if anybody knows anything.
1. Is the above true about the combat system?
2. How is the group play element?
3. Is the game mostly spent soloing or working in groups?
4. Is it really easy to level up? I hope not, I like when you have to work for your max level.
5. Rate the following out of 10, Battle System; "Casual-friendly" (10 being most casual); Overall enjoyment
1. For Lancer? Sure, if you want to play really poorly.
For all the negative slights against the 'combat system' most of it suffers from a major issue that had nothing to do about class design at all - the monsters were just plain too easy.
They were the same placeholder monsters from Alpha, therefore they really had no depth to their actions, they simply spammned an attack on occasion. The only ones that had an assemblance of AI to them were the bosses, and only one you could blindly attack, and that was due to how low her damage scaling was (also a placeholder.)
As far as terms of playing lancer correctly? Absolutely not true. If you want to play Lancer right, you had to be sure you were flanking the enemy's hind point constantly. Your primary damage enhancing debuff would not fire unless you first set it up as part of a combo, and the combo could only fire if you engaged the attack from behind the monster. This debuff was signifigant, as it reduced the enemy's resitance to the base damage which effected all Piercing skills - meaning both Lancer and Archer got benefits in damage from the debuff.
You pair this with the fact that most engagements in dungeons involved more than once monster, and you found yourself moving into position multiple times in fights, just to place the debuff on.
The only gripe I had on lancer is that there wasn't a similar restriction on your first 3 - attack combo, which you can just use sequentially to max out damage. (Though you'll want to use Life Surge before hitting the third attack for max damage and life restore.) But it made a sizeable impact on your DPS if you used that combo before putting the debuff on, more so on certain monsters than others.
As far as TP goes. For short fights, you won't run out. But that did not matter for lancer because the danger from the engagement isn't tiring out, it's getting outright mauled. Solo, in Leves, there were situations in which you solo would be engaged by up to three monsters at once, a situation that was most likely fatal unless you juggeled your abilities just right. Elsewise, you would have to flee, return back and pick them off one by one at the risk of being attacked by the remaining ones.
Longer fights, TP management becomes a concern. A Dragoon will tire out if you're consistently using skills. Much faster if you don't use your skills properly. We gain Invigorate to help stem this issue but you can still run out even afterwards if you're mismanaging your skills.
But this was hard to understand if all you did was fight trash mobs or not advance up in the levels, the introduction to skills was a shallow curve, meaning there was lots of handholding in making things very easy for beginning players. Too easy in my opinion. Monsters either flat out died or flat out killed you in short order either way, which was what really made things seem shallow for players. Seeming monsters have gone under extensive revisions I doubt this will remain the case, but I'll wait and see anyways.
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2. How is the group play element?
Typical MMO far. Tank Tanks the mob, DPS deal damage, Healers try to heal. Each class has their own debuffs to inflict that help make the fight easier, some more effective than others depending on the situation. (Some flatly not effective due to short duration on skills or quickly growing resistences.) Beyond that, the party functions work, nothing special aside from what we've not yet seen first hand (Limit Breaks) But not poorly implemented either. Each of the four playable classes felt like they had a role to play.
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4. Is it really easy to level up? I hope not, I like when you have to work for your max level.
Not sure, EXP was pretty skewed for the Beta Test, with options to flatly skip some level spans. And not all quests were available even in the area you were playing them, mainly do to a number of quests requring you to leave the region which wasn't possible during the test.
However I'd say EXP is fairly easy to come by if you know what you are doing. Primarily people will do questing for easier exp first, then move on to parties in Dungeons is the best method, but take a bit of repeating the runs to advance on. Not that you'll mind the dungeons. They're fun, and they drop the best loot for the level, not including Meteria melding or HQ crafts, as we've seen neither of them yet.
Overall, however, I'd say it's not hard to get to cap, but there will be plenty to keep you occupied on the journey up. Aside from dungeon runs, there's little in the way of grinding unless you don't like the lore in the quest.
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5. Rate the following out of 10, Battle System; "Casual-friendly" (10 being most casual); Overall enjoyment
I'd rate the Battle system in Phases 1-2 a maximum of 7. They got good things there, it needed a lot of tuning to get it feeling good and to encourage players to play better than they were. But I found myself enjoying the combat when I realized I could be doing better and pushed myself to do so in spite of the monsters being too easy.
Causal friendly? Right now that's a nine. It's very casual friendly, having the more hardcore stuff reserved for endgame by their own lips. But they tote over and over again on the forums that Crystal Tower and Bahamut's Laberynth are going to be incredibly hard, and there's plenty of moments that crush you if you're not aware of your surroundings. (Level 45 monsters close to a beginning area, for instance.)
Overall enjoyment? Eight and a half. It's good. The amount of effort they throw into the game shows. But it's a diamond in the rough as of phases 1 and 2. People are not going to like how the combat pans out no matter what, and that's just personal preferences speaking. I've seen those debates go on as long as MMOs have existed. However, there's depth there to be had (Hopefully more and more prevalent in phase 3) and the enviroment feels rich, vibrant, and most importantly,
fun. We'll see if it continues to improve for Phase 3. I don't expect we keep everyone who tires it, and those who don't like it will likely be very vocal (They always are.) But so far I'm happy with most of what I played.
