Yoshi-P has made another entry in his series of Developer’s Commentary videos for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, and this one is devoted to explaining Full Active Time Events (or FATEs). We already knew the basics of the FATE system through earlier announcements, but this video highlights the depth of the system, and how awesome the battles can be.
First, there are different kinds of FATEs. Some appear at regular intervals, some are triggered by player conduct, and some appear randomly. On your map, you can see where there are currently active FATEs as well as the recommended levels for them.
You can join a FATE simply be stepping into the area where one is on-going, and the objectives for it will appear on your duty list. Then you only need to start fighting; there’s no need to create or join a party with the other players. The game automatically keeps track of how much each player contributes to the battle, and individually rewards each player based on that.
Even if you’re basically by yourself, you shouldn’t panic. Individual FATEs can vary with each instance of it, as the number of NPC allies, the enemies’ HP, as well as overall difficulty will vary depending how many people are present. Similarly, a ton of participants won’t automatically make a FATE too easy.
FATEs vary dramatically in type and scale. Of course, there are the ones where big scary monsters appear in the woods. But there’s also major events where bandits attack an area, or rather silly ones where a town drunk gets into a fight (and then hilariously almost killed Yoshi-P himself). There are even large-scale FATEs that are part of other FATEs, such as one where enemies attack an area and start abducting the NPCs. If players successfully defend the NPCs, that triggers other enemy attacks; if the players fail, a different FATE is triggered where players must rescue the captives.
Attachment 43903
Yoshi-P gets beat up by a drunk, but luckily a rescuer arrives.
Does this Good Samaritan realize he just saved FFXIV?
Each FATE also has a recommended level, and those that are too high of a level will not receive any reward for participating in the event. However, high-leveled players need not worry, as there is a level sync system, where a click of a button will temporarily adjust your character’s level, stats, and access to skills for the FATE. Players can thus freely join in any low-level FATE they stumble across. It seems like higher-level players are not required to level sync, though, so there still may be an issue of upper-leveled trolls destroying low-level FATEs for fun, but that sort of thing is a risk for all MMOs.
Yoshi-P promises that the dev team is placing FATEs at “every nook and cranny” on the map, with a total of 300 planned for the initial release of FFXIV. They will definitely make exploring the world of A Realm Reborn more interesting.
I was a bit skeptical when FATEs were first announced, and I figured that they would simply be monsters-jumping-out-at-you events that would become boring once the novelty wore off. But Yoshi-P and the dev team has turned the concept into a complex system with a variety of exciting events that helps foster player interaction. FATEs are another cool new feature to look forward to in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.
06-14-2013, 06:59 AM
Loony BoB
While an L50 can an L1 FATE, my understanding is that you get zero reward for doing any FATEs that are 10 levels apart from your own level, so those L50 trolls will only succeed in stopping others from getting as much opportunity to get involved. They won't get anything out of it beyond that, though.
06-14-2013, 03:05 PM
Raistlin
Oh no, they wouldn't get any reward if they didn't level sync. My point only was that they could still disrupt low-level FATEs with crappy rewards and not level sync, just to be a troll. Hopefully that won't be an issue at all, but it did spring to mind when I read that part.
06-14-2013, 03:41 PM
Loony BoB
It would be tricky to do so with a lot of the L1 FATEs as they involve dozens upon dozens of enemies, most of which die from L1-10 characters very quickly anyway - at least, based on my experience. Basically I wouldn't really see it becoming an issue, and if it did happen then it would probably be a rare thing. I never came across much if any notable trolling in FFXIV 1.x or in Alpha/Beta of FFXIV ARR.
