I do get a chuckle from the title. You do realize that absolutely all companies who have a product being released are working 16 hour days, 7 days a week for the last few weeks prior to release. Part of the nature of being a game developer.
So? sorry but your post is confusing. We know all companies work hard but we are talking about SE in particular here in regards with all the changes people have been asking for. Its FF board so ofcourse we will talk about SE here, not how every other company does this. Which is aparently quite obvious.
For someone who is not interested in this game you surely have lots of words to write about game and the company.
Just pointing out that Square Enix is not doing something particularly special for you. At least nothing more than every other company is doing.
Just responding to something that pops up on the front page. I actually post on a number of boards.
Working Saturdays is nothing new but yeah, it is a good mmo for the casuals. You can put in 2 hours every other day if you wish and still be on a equal level with everyone else.
from what was just read it appears these improvements will be "at release" not during OB?
no way to actually check it out before OB ends is not a good thing
This is how it is has been for every phase. Apparently SE has an army of internal testers because in OB the 2 entire cities were added amonsgt other sweeping changes and none of them introduced new bugs really. They likely have 150+ internal testers like they do for all their console games working on their internal build. Even in CB we were mostly used as stress testers and general system feedback.
that's good but
"I" need to check it out myself before launch and before purchase
There is no need to argue in this thread. It is an informational post translating the devs directly. There are plenty of threads made for arguing and swinging epeens.
Something WSIMike brought up that was interesting especially if you watch the video on ship building that I posted. Towards the end a ship rams another and clamps onto it. They also hinted at massive battles and PvP. This may be a pvp mini game in development.
from what was just read it appears these improvements will be "at release" not during OB?
no way to actually check it out before OB ends is not a good thing
This is how it is has been for every phase. Apparently SE has an army of internal testers because in OB the 2 entire cities were added amonsgt other sweeping changes and none of them introduced new bugs really. They likely have 150+ internal testers like they do for all their console games working on their internal build. Even in CB we were mostly used as stress testers and general system feedback.
that's good but
"I" need to check it out myself before launch and before purchase
doesn't look like that is gonna happen
Yeah, and probably every 2 weeks to a month they will likely put out updates like this.. at least that has been the CB-OB-Live kind of timeline. This is how SE builds upon their FF online titles. You can take others word for it or wait for a trial but a trial for XI didn't come for 5 years so it may be a while. Oh well maybe one day down the road. Remember OB is not a trial.
I do get a chuckle from the title. You do realize that absolutely all companies who have a product being released are working 16 hour days, 7 days a week for the last few weeks prior to release. Part of the nature of being a game developer.
So? sorry but your post is confusing. We know all companies work hard but we are talking about SE in particular here in regards with all the changes people have been asking for. Its FF board so ofcourse we will talk about SE here, not how every other company does this. Which is aparently quite obvious.
For someone who is not interested in this game you surely have lots of words to write about game and the company.
Just pointing out that Square Enix is not doing something particularly special for you. At least nothing more than every other company is doing.
Just responding to something that pops up on the front page. I actually post on a number of boards.
Which is again quite obvious. Yes all companies work hard and yes SE may or may not be doing anything special for us but they have a business to run so as long as they are working hard to save thier own ass which results in a finished quality product, its in their own benefit.
The main point here is that SE is working hard whether other company do it or not is irrelevant.
90% of haters are begging for love. 10% just want a little attention -- Paulo Coelho
Sounds promising. It's too bad that SE and Sony are tied hand-in-hand with deals and the like.. would rather have had this game developed for EITHER the console or the PC only. As it is it appears mostly to be built for the Playstation and the people who play it on the PC will experience better graphics for the cost of being extended, paying beta testers (much as Bandai Namco does when they release a game on the Xbox if you'd like an example of a Japanese company doing similar).
Negativity aside these changes sound good. Many of the major complaints have been addressed. Not all, but most. Enough to make me more interested and I'm still playing beta every 2-3 days (and then getting frustrated when dying to Stray Dodos at level 16 on a level 10 guildleve).
Probably end up ordering between the 22nd-30th if even most of these changes come true. Cheers, thanks for the news.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Sounds promising. It's too bad that SE and Sony are tied hand-in-hand with deals and the like.. would rather have had this game developed for EITHER the console or the PC only. As it is it appears mostly to be built for the Playstation and the people who play it on the PC will experience better graphics for the cost of being extended, paying beta testers (much as Bandai Namco does when they release a game on the Xbox if you'd like an example of a Japanese company doing similar).
Negativity aside these changes sound good. Many of the major complaints have been addressed. Not all, but most. Enough to make me more interested and I'm still playing beta every 2-3 days (and then getting frustrated when dying to Stray Dodos at level 16 on a level 10 guildleve).
Probably end up ordering between the 22nd-30th if even most of these changes come true. Cheers, thanks for the news.
Actually SE has developed and had an engine for a while now that lets them make games for XBOX 360, PS3, and PC simultaneously. You can google Crystal Tools. They don't really have a bias, but I believe since almost all of their games are console games it probably works better for those and I guess being a Japanese dev in a country where gamepad gaming is more popular than mouse/keyboard has something to do with it to..
Why go open beta if they know all this stuff is wrong. God this company is so bad. I have lost so much respect for them with FF13 and 14.
Cause open beta is a beta test. It isn't release. So they fix everything intended for release and you are upset becaues they didn't fix it before beta? I am so confused...
Why go open beta if they know all this stuff is wrong. God this company is so bad. I have lost so much respect for them with FF13 and 14.
Open Beta is to provide feedback, which lots of players did. People cry when they do not fix stuff and people still cry when they promise to fix stuff? lol really!
90% of haters are begging for love. 10% just want a little attention -- Paulo Coelho
Actually SE has developed and had an engine for a while now that lets them make games for XBOX 360, PS3, and PC. You can google Crystal Tools. They don't really have a bias, but I believe since almost all of their games are console games it probably works better for those.
I don't doubt it and I know that they have their reasons for doing so. I just think that, had this been developed solely for the PC user, FFXIV would be one of the best MMO experiences out there for many. Simple but stupid example.. maps would be less copy/paste because they wouldn't have to dial down the meshes and use so many tiles simply to make the game work on a console. UI would be more intuitive, blah blah. Nothing game-breaking but many small things that make me internally sigh.
Edit* - Simply put.. it seems like this game would be more fun to play on the console than on the PC and that was how it was designed. I'm not going to play it on a console.. heck, I don't even play consoles any more, really. I'm just disheartened the slightest bit that the experience was.. downgraded in small ways. I know it's selfish.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Yeah I hear you. It would probably be more likely they would develop it for Console only, and I wouldn't have minded if it was a PS3 exclusive, but I am glad because I have plenty of PC friends who will be playing without a PS3 so it works out. If they have the tools to automatically make it work for PC even if its not a PC specific build it would be sillly not to.
I do wonder though how much cost vs. reward there would have been for a Pc tailored version. I think though that they want the exact even playing field and build for PC and PS3 and they said something a while back about doing that would jeapordize having them on simultaneous servers and that was out of the question.
I don't see anything in there about other quests in the game. If guild leves are the only content that changes nothing about the game in my opinion, and also doesn't fix the boring repetitive terrain.
There are monsters which have different body parts that can be damaged. Using a specific weapon skill while standing in a specified position can lead to cutting a monster's body part off. For example, you can cut Malboro's vines or a horn/tail if the enemy has one. In addition to changing the monster's appearance, those actions can have the following effects:
- Weakening the monster
- Preventing monsters from using specific skills
- Acquiring materials from cut/damaged body parts
Other: By combining a particular race's equipment etc with city-state it's unavoidable that a certain degree of being tied down will occur, so this time we are not thinking of doing that. [I'm a little unclear here but I think this means they want to avoid certain races being tied to certain city-states]
Scenario's are balanced, basically, completely soloable or depending on the situation doable with a small number of people. "For the most part, soloable"
City-states' Guilds: Not all guilds are in every city-state
By passing a certain condition, "class quests" will become available at guilds. Class quests are of course related directly to the class itself, but at the same time are a way to truly learn the details of each city-state. Please enjoy the story revealed in these quests, in addition to the quest rewards themselves.
When you complete a quest, you will receive Guild Tokens [marks?]. We are planning to add more and more things to exchange tokens for.
Balances to enmity in party battle: In beta, they made adjustments to enmity based on magic and abilities, but they have plans for more. These changes, however, will probably take a while to implement. They plan on adjusting the enmity according to contents, equipment, abilities, monsters, and so on. These changes will be made continuously after service begins based on how things are going.
Mana Regeneration: In FFXIV, management of your MP use is supposed to be an important part of strategy. They’d also like magic to have explosive power in fewer hits, and not just be used to spam enemies with light damage attacks. To promote this, they’d like to continue to balance the recovery methods used for MP, including the abilities and aetherite, as well as adding new methods later on.
Why go open beta if they know all this stuff is wrong. God this company is so bad. I have lost so much respect for them with FF13 and 14.
Open Beta is to provide feedback, which lots of players did. People cry when they do not fix stuff and people still cry when they promise to fix stuff? lol really!
It is good that they are now finally listening. Although how long has it taken them? The exact same complaints have been made since closed beta, possibly even alpha. It is only now that the majorty have been able to be vocal, that they've realised they can't afford to be arrogant and ignore feedback.
These should have been addressed way earlier than open beta, and especially before only one week to head start. These are also only touching the surface of what's wrong with the game, so they have a long way to go. They are also bullsh*tting saying they see the improvements as a prioity, as they stated quite the opposite when it came to close beta 3, and talking about changes expected by the launch date. For example, they outright said the mouse issue was not a priority and would be fixed post launch, and not near it either. They have simply realised the error of their ways, and that the game wasn't (and still isn't likely) to do well beyond its first month.
They won't, but the best thing they could do is delay launch. Likely to March next year, when I believe the PS3 version is now due.
I think that financially they probably made the right choice. They would have far more PC players that they will with their current iteration if they had tailor-made the experience to the PC but without the PS3 sales and subscriptions they would suffer. Production costs would have likely been higher as well.. or similar, it depends on what it costs them to develop for the PS3. Considering the extra time until PS3 release it may actually cost them far more, but who can say.
Now.. it can also be argued that were the game released worldwide, especially in China and Korea, they would make way more money with a PC-only title. Japanese consumers are far more likely to play the game on the PS3 I think, just speculation. Europeans and North Americans will likely play it on the PC, I'd guess 70-30 as far as percentages, but once again, just a guess based on a few polls. Based on these SPECULATIVE results I'd say that they're just going with those that they know will be far more likely to play.. Japanese. Who knows how a PS3 or PC exclusive title would have worked out? I think either side would have been happier, but one side would have been left out. o.o
*Edit - Completely off topic above but on the topic of the thread, do you think that SE will be adding a significant amount of storyline quests to each city to prevent grinding or simply a few or leaving it the way it is? All of the starter area storylines simply seem to stop rather abruptly, though they haven't released that they plan to continue them or add more.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
I think that financially they probably made the right choice. They would have far more PC players that they will with their current iteration if they had tailor-made the experience to the PC but without the PS3 sales and subscriptions they would suffer. Production costs would have likely been higher as well.. or similar, it depends on what it costs them to develop for the PS3. Considering the extra time until PS3 release it may actually cost them far more, but who can say.
Now.. it can also be argued that were the game released worldwide, especially in China and Korea, they would make way more money with a PC-only title. Japanese consumers are far more likely to play the game on the PS3 I think, just speculation. Europeans and North Americans will likely play it on the PC, I'd guess 70-30 as far as percentages, but once again, just a guess based on a few polls. Based on these SPECULATIVE results I'd say that they're just going with those that they know will be far more likely to play.. Japanese. Who knows how a PS3 or PC exclusive title would have worked out? I think either side would have been happier, but one side would have been left out. o.o
Actually the PC market isn't their "bread and butter". For example most of their FF XI players are on consoles. Its what mostly the Asian regions uses, and where the vast majority of their market is.
The game like FF XI won't do well in the West, at least in its currently state and on a PC. Like FF XI is likely to see reasonable box sales, with a low retention. For a console its a good MMO, but the opposite for a PC based one.
Will they be planning to allow display setting changes on the release? As in to lower graphics, etc?
You can alter the game settings and controller settings using FFXIV Config in the Program Files directory. I do not believe this will ever be added to an in game menu because it is PC specific and does not apply to the PS3.
Soon, there will be NM's even in the world of FFXIV. These will look very different from most of the other normal monsters. We're planning to introduce NM's that are so huge they make a Malboro look small. The tranquil era is about to end! We're going to torment adventurers with these powered up, aesthetically varied NM's which we've prepared "episodes" for.
Also:
Guildleve availability/cooldown
Right now, there is a 2 day cooldown for guildleves. This is not enough for a single person, but the aim was that people would share guildleves to extend this time. This is why we have the leve-link and the bonus rewards for higher difficulty selection, to make it more rewarding and better exp/skill gains to play in a party. However, the time was just too long, and we heard many complaints of this nature, so we will shorten it. With that, we can see the problem with having to travel via teleport more frequently, so we are currently tweaking an anima regen increase.
Upcoming guildleve introduction
We will be adding not just normal guildleves, but a wide variety of types of guildleves. First, there will be higher level guildleves. Among those, many will have more variance in the rules/goals as well as being able to fight with more varied monsters in many more target areas. In particular, we heard many comments of "I want to fight more and more NMs!" so we want to respond to that quickly. Also, the faction leves that were in the Open Beta are designed to be a somewhat "different taste" from regular leves, with hidden starting conditions or npcs. The rewards for these are fairly good, so please try them out! Finally, we are going to be steadily adding more and more leves that encourage coordination between all the classes including gathering/crafting/magic/war. Please look forward to it!
*Edit - Completely off topic above but on the topic of the thread, do you think that SE will be adding a significant amount of storyline quests to each city to prevent grinding or simply a few or leaving it the way it is? All of the starter area storylines simply seem to stop rather abruptly, though they haven't released that they plan to continue them or add more.
No they won't, at least not by release. They'll flesh it out with time. Its leves and the story arc, for now.
*Edit - Completely off topic above but on the topic of the thread, do you think that SE will be adding a significant amount of storyline quests to each city to prevent grinding or simply a few or leaving it the way it is? All of the starter area storylines simply seem to stop rather abruptly, though they haven't released that they plan to continue them or add more.
No they won't, at least not by release. They'll flesh it out with time. Its leves and the story arc, for now.
But the story arc ends where it does currently? It seems as if the story is just about to continue and then tada, have some gil and off on your way.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
*Edit - Completely off topic above but on the topic of the thread, do you think that SE will be adding a significant amount of storyline quests to each city to prevent grinding or simply a few or leaving it the way it is? All of the starter area storylines simply seem to stop rather abruptly, though they haven't released that they plan to continue them or add more.
No they won't, at least not by release. They'll flesh it out with time. Its leves and the story arc, for now.
But the story arc ends where it does currently? It seems as if the story is just about to continue and then tada, have some gil and off on your way.
No, only the beginning of the storty arc is in beta. The rest of it will be there at launch.
*Edit - Completely off topic above but on the topic of the thread, do you think that SE will be adding a significant amount of storyline quests to each city to prevent grinding or simply a few or leaving it the way it is? All of the starter area storylines simply seem to stop rather abruptly, though they haven't released that they plan to continue them or add more.
No they won't, at least not by release. They'll flesh it out with time. Its leves and the story arc, for now.
But the story arc ends where it does currently? It seems as if the story is just about to continue and then tada, have some gil and off on your way.
The story continues every 10 ranks. At rank 10 you can continue, 20 continue, etc. I am sure it will eventually lead to Ishgard and Aha Migo against the Garlean empire. Ishguard was sealed off in OB.
Comments
Just pointing out that Square Enix is not doing something particularly special for you. At least nothing more than every other company is doing.
Just responding to something that pops up on the front page. I actually post on a number of boards.
Working Saturdays is nothing new but yeah, it is a good mmo for the casuals. You can put in 2 hours every other day if you wish and still be on a equal level with everyone else.
that's good but
"I" need to check it out myself before launch and before purchase
doesn't look like that is gonna happen
There is no need to argue in this thread. It is an informational post translating the devs directly. There are plenty of threads made for arguing and swinging epeens.
Something WSIMike brought up that was interesting especially if you watch the video on ship building that I posted. Towards the end a ship rams another and clamps onto it. They also hinted at massive battles and PvP. This may be a pvp mini game in development.
Yeah, and probably every 2 weeks to a month they will likely put out updates like this.. at least that has been the CB-OB-Live kind of timeline. This is how SE builds upon their FF online titles. You can take others word for it or wait for a trial but a trial for XI didn't come for 5 years so it may be a while. Oh well maybe one day down the road. Remember OB is not a trial.
Which is again quite obvious. Yes all companies work hard and yes SE may or may not be doing anything special for us but they have a business to run so as long as they are working hard to save thier own ass which results in a finished quality product, its in their own benefit.
The main point here is that SE is working hard whether other company do it or not is irrelevant.
90% of haters are begging for love. 10% just want a little attention -- Paulo Coelho
Sounds promising. It's too bad that SE and Sony are tied hand-in-hand with deals and the like.. would rather have had this game developed for EITHER the console or the PC only. As it is it appears mostly to be built for the Playstation and the people who play it on the PC will experience better graphics for the cost of being extended, paying beta testers (much as Bandai Namco does when they release a game on the Xbox if you'd like an example of a Japanese company doing similar).
Negativity aside these changes sound good. Many of the major complaints have been addressed. Not all, but most. Enough to make me more interested and I'm still playing beta every 2-3 days (and then getting frustrated when dying to Stray Dodos at level 16 on a level 10 guildleve).
Probably end up ordering between the 22nd-30th if even most of these changes come true. Cheers, thanks for the news.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Why go open beta if they know all this stuff is wrong. God this company is so bad. I have lost so much respect for them with FF13 and 14.
Actually SE has developed and had an engine for a while now that lets them make games for XBOX 360, PS3, and PC simultaneously. You can google Crystal Tools. They don't really have a bias, but I believe since almost all of their games are console games it probably works better for those and I guess being a Japanese dev in a country where gamepad gaming is more popular than mouse/keyboard has something to do with it to..
Cause open beta is a beta test. It isn't release. So they fix everything intended for release and you are upset becaues they didn't fix it before beta? I am so confused...
Open Beta is to provide feedback, which lots of players did. People cry when they do not fix stuff and people still cry when they promise to fix stuff? lol really!
90% of haters are begging for love. 10% just want a little attention -- Paulo Coelho
I don't doubt it and I know that they have their reasons for doing so. I just think that, had this been developed solely for the PC user, FFXIV would be one of the best MMO experiences out there for many. Simple but stupid example.. maps would be less copy/paste because they wouldn't have to dial down the meshes and use so many tiles simply to make the game work on a console. UI would be more intuitive, blah blah. Nothing game-breaking but many small things that make me internally sigh.
Edit* - Simply put.. it seems like this game would be more fun to play on the console than on the PC and that was how it was designed. I'm not going to play it on a console.. heck, I don't even play consoles any more, really. I'm just disheartened the slightest bit that the experience was.. downgraded in small ways. I know it's selfish.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Yeah I hear you. It would probably be more likely they would develop it for Console only, and I wouldn't have minded if it was a PS3 exclusive, but I am glad because I have plenty of PC friends who will be playing without a PS3 so it works out. If they have the tools to automatically make it work for PC even if its not a PC specific build it would be sillly not to.
I do wonder though how much cost vs. reward there would have been for a Pc tailored version. I think though that they want the exact even playing field and build for PC and PS3 and they said something a while back about doing that would jeapordize having them on simultaneous servers and that was out of the question.
I don't see anything in there about other quests in the game. If guild leves are the only content that changes nothing about the game in my opinion, and also doesn't fix the boring repetitive terrain.
UPDATE:
Damaging monster body parts:
There are monsters which have different body parts that can be damaged. Using a specific weapon skill while standing in a specified position can lead to cutting a monster's body part off. For example, you can cut Malboro's vines or a horn/tail if the enemy has one. In addition to changing the monster's appearance, those actions can have the following effects:
- Weakening the monster
- Preventing monsters from using specific skills
- Acquiring materials from cut/damaged body parts
Other: By combining a particular race's equipment etc with city-state it's unavoidable that a certain degree of being tied down will occur, so this time we are not thinking of doing that. [I'm a little unclear here but I think this means they want to avoid certain races being tied to certain city-states]
Scenario's are balanced, basically, completely soloable or depending on the situation doable with a small number of people. "For the most part, soloable"
City-states' Guilds: Not all guilds are in every city-state
By passing a certain condition, "class quests" will become available at guilds. Class quests are of course related directly to the class itself, but at the same time are a way to truly learn the details of each city-state. Please enjoy the story revealed in these quests, in addition to the quest rewards themselves.
When you complete a quest, you will receive Guild Tokens [marks?]. We are planning to add more and more things to exchange tokens for.
Balances to enmity in party battle: In beta, they made adjustments to enmity based on magic and abilities, but they have plans for more. These changes, however, will probably take a while to implement. They plan on adjusting the enmity according to contents, equipment, abilities, monsters, and so on. These changes will be made continuously after service begins based on how things are going.
Mana Regeneration: In FFXIV, management of your MP use is supposed to be an important part of strategy. They’d also like magic to have explosive power in fewer hits, and not just be used to spam enemies with light damage attacks. To promote this, they’d like to continue to balance the recovery methods used for MP, including the abilities and aetherite, as well as adding new methods later on.
It is good that they are now finally listening. Although how long has it taken them? The exact same complaints have been made since closed beta, possibly even alpha. It is only now that the majorty have been able to be vocal, that they've realised they can't afford to be arrogant and ignore feedback.
These should have been addressed way earlier than open beta, and especially before only one week to head start. These are also only touching the surface of what's wrong with the game, so they have a long way to go. They are also bullsh*tting saying they see the improvements as a prioity, as they stated quite the opposite when it came to close beta 3, and talking about changes expected by the launch date. For example, they outright said the mouse issue was not a priority and would be fixed post launch, and not near it either. They have simply realised the error of their ways, and that the game wasn't (and still isn't likely) to do well beyond its first month.
They won't, but the best thing they could do is delay launch. Likely to March next year, when I believe the PS3 version is now due.
I think that financially they probably made the right choice. They would have far more PC players that they will with their current iteration if they had tailor-made the experience to the PC but without the PS3 sales and subscriptions they would suffer. Production costs would have likely been higher as well.. or similar, it depends on what it costs them to develop for the PS3. Considering the extra time until PS3 release it may actually cost them far more, but who can say.
Now.. it can also be argued that were the game released worldwide, especially in China and Korea, they would make way more money with a PC-only title. Japanese consumers are far more likely to play the game on the PS3 I think, just speculation. Europeans and North Americans will likely play it on the PC, I'd guess 70-30 as far as percentages, but once again, just a guess based on a few polls. Based on these SPECULATIVE results I'd say that they're just going with those that they know will be far more likely to play.. Japanese. Who knows how a PS3 or PC exclusive title would have worked out? I think either side would have been happier, but one side would have been left out. o.o
*Edit - Completely off topic above but on the topic of the thread, do you think that SE will be adding a significant amount of storyline quests to each city to prevent grinding or simply a few or leaving it the way it is? All of the starter area storylines simply seem to stop rather abruptly, though they haven't released that they plan to continue them or add more.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Will they be planning to allow display setting changes on the release? As in to lower graphics, etc?
Actually the PC market isn't their "bread and butter". For example most of their FF XI players are on consoles. Its what mostly the Asian regions uses, and where the vast majority of their market is.
The game like FF XI won't do well in the West, at least in its currently state and on a PC. Like FF XI is likely to see reasonable box sales, with a low retention. For a console its a good MMO, but the opposite for a PC based one.
You can alter the game settings and controller settings using FFXIV Config in the Program Files directory. I do not believe this will ever be added to an in game menu because it is PC specific and does not apply to the PS3.
UPDATE:
Notorious Monster
Soon, there will be NM's even in the world of FFXIV. These will look very different from most of the other normal monsters. We're planning to introduce NM's that are so huge they make a Malboro look small. The tranquil era is about to end! We're going to torment adventurers with these powered up, aesthetically varied NM's which we've prepared "episodes" for.
Also:
Guildleve availability/cooldown
Right now, there is a 2 day cooldown for guildleves. This is not enough for a single person, but the aim was that people would share guildleves to extend this time. This is why we have the leve-link and the bonus rewards for higher difficulty selection, to make it more rewarding and better exp/skill gains to play in a party. However, the time was just too long, and we heard many complaints of this nature, so we will shorten it. With that, we can see the problem with having to travel via teleport more frequently, so we are currently tweaking an anima regen increase.
Upcoming guildleve introduction
We will be adding not just normal guildleves, but a wide variety of types of guildleves. First, there will be higher level guildleves. Among those, many will have more variance in the rules/goals as well as being able to fight with more varied monsters in many more target areas. In particular, we heard many comments of "I want to fight more and more NMs!" so we want to respond to that quickly. Also, the faction leves that were in the Open Beta are designed to be a somewhat "different taste" from regular leves, with hidden starting conditions or npcs. The rewards for these are fairly good, so please try them out! Finally, we are going to be steadily adding more and more leves that encourage coordination between all the classes including gathering/crafting/magic/war. Please look forward to it!
No they won't, at least not by release. They'll flesh it out with time. Its leves and the story arc, for now.
But the story arc ends where it does currently? It seems as if the story is just about to continue and then tada, have some gil and off on your way.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
No, only the beginning of the storty arc is in beta. The rest of it will be there at launch.
The story continues every 10 ranks. At rank 10 you can continue, 20 continue, etc. I am sure it will eventually lead to Ishgard and Aha Migo against the Garlean empire. Ishguard was sealed off in OB.