Yoshi P and the gang did a live steam information session dubbed the Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary: FINAL FANTASY XIV Special Talk Session, giving players a chance to learn a little more about the upcoming Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. The hour-long clip is on Youtube already - and will be shown at the bottom of the article - but for the time poor, some of the major points will be summarised here for you!
Lead Battle Designer Akihiko Matsui wanted to remind everyone that A Realm Reborn was being rebuilt from the ground up - including the battle system. "It's completely different from the current system," he said. The changes in battle will mostly relate to TP and timers, however. In the current version of FFXIV, TP builds up by hitting things with the standard attack. But in A Realm Reborn, TP will function more like MP - characters will have a full bar at the start of a fight with it being depleted as the battle wears on. Abilities will still have similar timers to the current system, but spells (which use MP) and weaponskills (which use TP) will have their timers almost completely removed. So, when you use a weaponskill, you won't have to wait 45 seconds before you can use it again.
Dungeons will have max level requirements, but level sync returns, allowing characters who have levelled past the requirements will automatically sync to the maximum allowed without needing to change equipment. Assistant Director Kazuya Nino said this was to keep dungeons challenging and enjoyable. "I remember my friends helped me with the normal Ifrit and Ifrit was already dead by the time I finished watching the cutscene," he said. "I was so bummed."
Nino also said the team was looking at improving the ease of quests as well as increasing the number of quests available, with the aim to "create conditions so there is always something to do when you log in." Current FFXIV players should also look forward to a whole range of new content and raid dungeons once A Realm Reborn goes live.
Technical Director for A Realm Reborn Yoshihisa Hashimoto, who is also the man behind the Agni's Philosophytech demo and its Luminous Engine, said the visuals were receiving an impressive upgrade. "The First thing we wanted to improve on was the visuals. So we decided to do a complete revamp of the rendering system," he said. This new system allows for the inclusion of more light sources in the game, which will beautify areas at both daytime and night, as well as improve dungeons. He also noted that the graphics on the PS3 version of A Realm Reborn wouldn't be downgraded, which is great news for those looking to pick up a PS3 version.
Event host Jun Mochizuki said he was already impressed with the updated graphics. "I was controlling the demo for gamescom and it really felt smooth. It was so smooth that I got excited too much by jumping all over the place and I ended up getting yelled at for it," he said. It's a good sign when Square Enix employees are showing this level of genuine excitement!
Hashimoto said the rate at which the team were able to completely reinvent the game was unprecedented. It has taken only a couple months over the year one mark for the replacement team to create A Realm Reborn, with Alpha Testing scheduled to start soon.
Even with the passion of the team, Matsui said it hasn't been easy. "At one point we scrapped something that we spent a month to implement, so we really owe it to our programmers for hanging in there," he said.
Check out the full discussion, rife with information and a few lame jokes, below:
09-08-2012, 04:42 PM
Raistlin
Hah, I was just going to sit down and watch this today.
The biggest technical change I see discussed her is combat and the TP system. Removing timers is a good thing, as 45 seconds is a long time in MMO combat. It sounds like they're trying to make the fighting for fast-paced and exciting.
