Some interesting reading about A Realm Reborn

Final Fantasy XIV producer Naoki Yoshida shared new details on A Realm Reborn, the game’s upcoming 2.0 update, at Gamescom in Germany this week. Yoshida announced a PC and PlayStation 3 beta scheduled for “winter 2012″ (Gamescom attendees can actually register for e-mail updates on this at Square Enix’s booth), and revealed a new “Limit Break” system, “Gear Sets,” and more for the update.

• About the new Limit Break System
  • The new party battle system replacing the battle regimen. When the gauge shared by the party fills, any of the party members can invoke it. Afterwards, the gauge becomes empty.
  • The gauge is filled by hitting enemies with standard attacks, but will accumulate faster with “Fine Play,” well-timed healing or blocks, which is judged by the system.
  • The more you accumulate in your gauge, the Limit Breaks have several phases. If you remember back to the Limit Breaks of Final Fantasy VII.
  • The same Limit Breaks have different effects depending on the player’s job.
  • You will be able to use a Limit Break to some extent even if your character level is low. A high level Limit Break can not be invoked if your character’s level isn’t high. The feature will be linked to their growth.
• The battle concept was to have something that “ends with a speedy, uptempo sensation.” Since you start gaining TP when the battle starts, you can use weapon skills and abilities to fight right off the bat. It’s the sort of balance where you can defeat one monster in about 5 hits and the battle takes about 20 seconds to finish.
• Since we didn’t want the focus to be on defeating monsters to earn experience points, they don’t provide very many points. But if you clear a quest, you’ll be gain a lot more experience that way.
• A jump action has been added, but since it’s not an action game, there isn’t any topography that can’t be reached without jumping.
• The “Gear Sets” let you switch out equipment in an instant. You can increase your number of sets by clearing quests. We’re still checking what the maximum will be. Since the things in a Gear Set don’t count as holding items, they don’t take up space in the inventory. (Previously called Mannequins.)
• The small towns are being elaborated upon, too, and the NPCs will have unique actions.
• The tutorials have been completely and are moreover revised. Now it’s structured so you can understand a variety of things just by playing.
• You should be able to make a party and enter a dungeon at level 15, probably to give you time for understanding the system? Even without side-trips, it’ll take about 30 hours to get there.
• You won’t be able to begin until your Guildleve level is 10. At level 10, your title will be “Novice.” (“Not Beginner.”)
• Content is divided into party and solo types. There are also public contents that apply somewhere in the middle, but basically I think the ones intended for parties and the ones for solos appear on the Contents Finder.
• At the log-in and area change screens, there will be a recommendation displayed. The recommended list will be based on how crowded the contents nearby are, if you are party or solo oriented, etc. Since there are so many things you can do in an MMORPG, you have a lot of options especially around level 20, so I think that’d be a good time to use it. Furthermore, the list displays 10 items, it’ll take about 2 hours to play everything on it.