Here's a post I made on my LS forums with my weekend impressions.
Things feel a bit more polished from Phase 2. The battle system feels more fluid now with abilities (not weaponskills) being removed from the GCD.
I started in Ul'dah this weekend because I had to get the hell out of Gridania. While I was tempted to try Pugilist due to how much it was supposed to change, I opted to go with Thamaturge instead. I had a lot of fun playing THM and it was significantly different from 1.0.
You still have Thunder, Fire and Ice spells but they each have different utilities. Thunder is a low damage spell with a DoT. I was able to get to level 22 to test Thunder 2 and both DoT effects do indeed stack. Fire and Ice spells when cast both have a stacking buff that enhances the potency of the spell, but each have a difference. Astral Fire stacks and increases the damage of Fire but also increases its mana cost. Umbral Ice when stacked increases your mana regeneration. You also get an ability called Transpose which swaps your Fire and Ice stacks, so the way it seems you want to play is spam your Fire spells till your low on mana, Transpose, then let the Ice buff regen your MP.
As you get more spells your casting rotation changes for a bit. For example, by the time I was level 22 I had Fire, Fire 2 (affects multiple targets for lower damage), Blizzard (single target damage + heavy), Blizzard 2 (functions almost like 1.0 except it has a cast time. Damages all enemies around the caster + bind), Thunder and Thunder 2 (both have low front end damage but do DoT damage) and a non-elemental instant cast spell called Scathe. I have to admit I was a bit confused on how to best work Scathe into my rotation since even though it's instant cast, it still triggers the GCD.
Here's how my play style at this level worked. I would start with Thunder and Thunder 2, cast Fire, Fire 2 if there's more than one monster or keep spamming Fire on single target. Once my MP was too low to cast my Fire spells, Transpose, reapply Thunder/Thunder 2 DoTs on primary or other targets depending on HP, spam Scathe until the Ice buff wears off (if you swap back to fire it takes an extra cast to knock off the Ice Buff so I just let it wear off while casting Scathe) then go back into casting Fire and repeat. Also, I didn't find myself having threat issues due to the slow startup of starting with Thunder due to its low damage.
Anyway, that's THM in a nut shell, up to the level I was able to play it anyway.
As for other things in the beta:
- I'm LOVING the story. Has a good combination of new elements as well as the Echo is still in play and shows scenes from the 7th Umbral Era story. There's also some throwback on past FF titles sprinkled in.
- Messed around with Mining up to about level 10. My initial feeling is gathering isn't going to be quite as spread out as it was in 1.0, meaning Mining is going to be focused more on the Thanalan area opposed to having to go to 3-4 different regions to mine. I'm not positive if this is the case yet or not since I only have the first two gathering logs opened up on miner, so this is something I will look into next weekend, assuming our 1.0 chars are imported. I'm not sure how I feel about this change. It was interesting having to travel around to different areas to get different items, but I could see it being convenient knowing that the majority of mined up materials are going to be situated in Thanalan.
- Many more varieties of FATEs were introduced and it was nice to see so many people taking part in them. Also, Guildhests were pretty fun. They have a nice upfront xp bonus and are worth about 25% of that bonus when repeated. They were a nice introduction to mechanics that parties need to be familiar with and may encounter in future dungeons.
- The new dungeons were pretty fun. Even Tamtara saw some changes. Copperbell had some interesting gimmicks in a couple of their fights. Ifrit was pretty much the same as what was shown in at E3. Kill the fetter, stay out of eruptions, move out of the big circles that spawn. One shot this fight with Eden & Blue Dragon and Azran. :)
I was glad to see the general overall positive reaction from people in shouts about the game. People from FF11 as well as people that originally tried the 1.0 beta and promptly left were pleased with the changes in the direction of the game. What surprised me the most was the cooperation among players. One of the main story quests was bugged or something and if more than one person tried to click on the quest trigger at once it would be like how we used to spam Garuda to get in. People were actually cooperative enough to actually form a line like you were at the DMV and waited their turn to get the quest done. There were some asshats who broke line, but all in all if I had to take anything from this test phase, the positiveness from the people that were playing made me feel warm and fuzzy.
I can't prognosticate how many subscriptions or whatever this game will have, but I have a good feeling that this game will have the longevity that FF11 has enjoyed. With a great story, good game mechanics and a nice community, this game is definitely going places.
Edited by user Sunday, June 16, 2013 3:47:57 PM(UTC)
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