I’m a Level 7 Tarutaru Red Mage now. Despite the fact that I generally don’t like mmorpgs, I’m really digging FFXI. Since I’m starting to actually get into it a bit, I’m more than happy to answer anybody’s questions about it, in case people aren’t sure if they’re gonna buy it.
How does the battle system work?
Originally posted by Green Mage
How does the battle system work?
Speaking of that, how does spell casting work?
Basically, you see an enemy on the battle field. You can target it (either by pressing X on the controller while facing it, and then using the d-pad to select the correct target, or just clicking on it with a mouse; as complicated as it sounds, it actually is easier with a controller), and then select Attack. Your character will then automatically attack the enemy. Most enemies don’t attack you until you attack then, so you’re generally safe until this step. However, once you attack it, it will happily hit you back.
No other PCs (player characters) can attack an enemy if you’ve already initiated combat with it, unless they are on your party. You can cast spells on yourself, other party members, the enemy, or other enemies your party has initiated battle with, or you can use job/weapon abilities, as long as your TP (limit break, essentially) gauge is high enough. Spells take a moment to charge, and then your character casts them. You are broken out of the cast if you move or are attacked during this charge time.
Attacking is all automatic. Once you initiate battle, your character continues to attack as soon as his stamina allows. You can switch target, disengage, or call for help, if you think you’re going to die. When you disengage, you can’t attack the enemy anymore (except with spells), so that you can run from it, or target another enemy. However, the enemy may still be engaged in battle with you. If this is the case, it could follow you across the entire map and continue to hit you. Enemies’ attack distance seems to be much much farther than characters’. If you call for help, the enemy suddenly becomes free range, and anyone can target it to save your ass. If someone else attacks it, the enemy is likely to target them instead, but not 100% guaranteed to.
All enemies are different. Even if you see two Tunnel Worms next to each other, they may be different. One may be classified as “tough” while the other is “easy prey.” They all have different HP and ATK and DEF stats, so you should “Check” each enemy before you initiate battle.
If you’re a spell caster, it’s also smart to cast a spell on the enemy from a distance. That’s the only “attack” you can do on an enemy without initiating a battle with it. Therefore, you could cast Paralyze and Thunder on a Rock Lizard, then someone else could kill it and take the experience because you hadn’t initiated battle with it.
When in a party, all characters receive experience. The people who do the actual work always receive more experience than those that don’t even initiate combat, but if you’re lv 1 and you’re getting 20% experience of an enemy that you shouldn’t be able to attack until you’re level 7, then you’re still gonna be doing pretty good.
Monsters give you variable exp depending on your level. If you’re lv. 1, Huge Hornets and Tunnel Worms give you 50 experience if you’re by yourself. At level 2, it might be 25 or 30 experience. It decreases with each level. I’m at level 7, and Huge Hornets no longer give me any experience.
Early monsters don’t drop gil. I haven’t been able to determine whether or not a monster drops gil by looking at it, but goblins and turtle creatures (I think they’re called Quadov’s or something) do. Many enemies will drop items at random though. Anything from insect wings and honey to fire crystals or pieces of copper. These can be used (for something, I’m sure, just don’t know what yet; the copper/crystals are for synthesis), or sold. Items generally sell for somewhere between 1 and 50 gil, so that’s the most reliable way to make money.
I think I elaborated a bit too much, but hopefully that gives you an idea of what the battle system’s like.
[edit]
Originally posted by Ren
Speaking of that, how does spell casting work?
I explained above how casting works. You can also target yourself or other PCs if you’re casting a white magic spell. There’s no pk-ing, so no casting Nuke on a PC. You get spells by either finding them on enemies or buying them in stores. It’s most similar to Final Fantasy V as in you find the Spell, and, if you’re the right job class/level to use it, you can use the Spell Scroll and learn the spell.
Is there a one player mode? If so, is it at all worth playing?
And does the game accualy have some kind of story?
is still waiting for FFX-2
Originally posted by GG Crono 4
[b]Is there a one player mode? If so, is it at all worth playing?And does the game accualy have some kind of story?
is still waiting for FFX-2 [/b]
No single player mode unless you consider ignoring everyone else and just doing quests and missions single player. There is a story, but it’s kinda hard to find, unless you spend all day doing missions and quests. And if you’re doing that, you’re missing out on half of the fun (playing with other people). So, in short, plot’s there, but it’s kinda thin. How important the plot is depends on how much you talk to the NPCs. Also, Square’s supposed to throw in random events that make the game interesting (ie, some madman tries to take over some kingdom, people try to stop him).
Also, there’s three nations in the game. They’re all allied, but they also all want to get bigger. Thus, they try to get the neutral areas. They claim these through Conquest. Each person can do conquest missions to give their home country more conquest points.
<a href=“http://s3.cgi.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.asp?board=27610&topic=9096989”>More about that</A>
Originally posted by GG Crono 4
[b]Is there a one player mode? If so, is it at all worth playing?And does the game accualy have some kind of story?
is still waiting for FFX-2 [/b]
Pfft! Pfft! PFFT!
Don’t buy FFX-2. It’s like Doa:XBV except with worse gameplay and worse graphics. Buy a fanservice game that’s done right. 
Anyway, how’s the community? Is it like HEAL PLZ HEAL PLZ HEAL PLZ or GIL PLZ?
And movement. I hope it’s smoother than PSO
No offense to FF luvers but I think this one makes it to the bottom of the pit. The system sucks. So most enemies are passive? You could simply walk in front of the monsters and they won’t even touch you? And won’t hit back if you target them with magic, even the damaging ones?
And the automatic attack thing was not good for my tastes too… A strong fighter will simply target an enemy, press a button and then wait 'till the thing is down. Not so fun after a time.
It’s not a game anymore, it’s more like a virtual pet with violent scenes.
Um…that’s the way all MMORPGs work. There are mostly passives and some aggresives. It’d really suck if you got mobbed by a bunch of monsters and kept losing exp because you can’t take on mobs. Enemies have to spawn quickly to accomidate the large number of players.
Although I don’t like the magic thing. Mages tend to be overpowered as is. Not being hit back takes away the mage’s main fear.
And all MMORPGs have the click to attack continuously thing. It’s no different from hold X (or O) to attack until they’re dead.
What are the rewards for conquest? Do you just get a nice fuzzy feeling for coming in 1st?
Originally posted by Dai ryuujin
Anyway, how’s the community? Is it like HEAL PLZ HEAL PLZ HEAL PLZ or GIL PLZ?
And movement. I hope it’s smoother than PSO
Movement’s nice. Much cleaner, if you’re using a good controller, and still pretty easy with keyboard/mouse.
The community is excellent. Because spells level up when you use them, and because there’s no pk-ing, people run around curing and casting protect on level 1 players all the time. The first time someone did it to me, I was all like “Wow, thanks! You saved me!” and they said “Really? I was just trying to level up my spell. Well, you’re welcome anyway.”
People are pretty nice on their about selling stuff (there’s several auction houses in the game, but most people just sit on the corner and say stuff like “who needs a scroll of Blind?” And people say “I’ll give you 100 gil for it” and then the person will trade them.
Originally posted by Ren
No offense to FF luvers but I think it sucks. So most enemies are passive? You could simply walk in front of the monsters and they won’t even touch you? And won’t hit back if you target them with magic, even the damaging ones?
Keep in mind that I didn’t like FFX that much, and that I’m more of a Dragon Quest fan. I think I either didn’t clarify enough, or you misinterpreted me. Most enemies I’ve seen so far are in fact passive (not all, though. Quadavs, Rock Lizards, and Goblins will kick your ass just for being near them). That’s because there are thousands of them out there, and only so many players. Plus, enemies continue to reappear out of thin air. You don’t get much HP, and the enemies take it off quickly. I’m level 7, and when I’m somewhere where I actually get exp, I tend to run out of HP or MP after 2 or 3 fights, 4 or 5 if I’m in a group. At that point, you either click in the left analog stick or hit Ctrl+H and you kneel down and heal. Your HP and MP slowly regenerate (10 pts of each every 25 or so seconds) and your TP slowly goes down (-10 pts every 25 or so seconds). If the enemies weren’t passive, you’d constantly be getting hit out of this, or if you were standing still because you were looking at your map, or typing, or getting a drink, you’d get hit, and have to go into battle.
And enemies DO hit back when you target them with magic, ANY magic. I cast Paralyze on any enemy I plan to fight. Paralyze only has a 1 in 4 chance of keeping the enemy from hitting me, so as soon as my spell animation starts, that enemy sprints at me full speed to get in an attack. I have to initiate battle quickly so that I’ll fight back when it gets near me.
Originally posted by Ren
And the automatic attack thing was not good for my tastes too… A strong fighter will simply target an enemy, press a button and then wait 'till the thing is down. Not so fun after a time.
And they’ll get no experince from it. Unless you target something near your level, you get no experience. True, fighting weaker monsters is like that, for any job class. When an enemy matches your attack level, you constantly have to move around to dodge it, as well as using weapon and job abilities (with your TP gauge, it goes up every time you hit/get hit). Also, as I said above, you’ll need to neal down and heal pretty often anyway. It’s not quite as easy as you imply.
Originally posted by Dai ryuujin
What are the rewards for conquest? Do you just get a nice fuzzy feeling for coming in 1st?
Can’t say for certain. I haven’t really looked into it. I hear it’s something about stronger armies and less beastmen, but I don’t know what the hell beastmen are, so… I guess I’ll get back to ya when I find out. 
Originally posted by Mr. Saturn
band because there’s no pk-ing, people run around curing and casting protect on level 1 players all the time.(…)[/b]
Your elaboration enlightened me on every point, but this one takes everything down again.
I miss those good old times when all you could play was MUD or Diablo 1/2 via battlenet, where other players could be as much threatning to your hp as the monsters.
Originally posted by Ren
[b]Your elaboration enlightened me on every point, but this one takes everything down again.I miss those good old times when all you could play was MUD or Diablo 1/2 via battlenet, where other players could be as much threatning to your hp as the monsters. [/b]
And then it’d be just like Everquest or any other game with PK-ing, and every new character would be slaughtered before they could even gain a level. Sakaguchi played Everquest and Ultima Online before he made FF11. He wanted new players to be ENCOURAGED to play, not to be AFRAID to play.
When you sign on for the first time, and you’re level 1, and I’m level 40, you probably don’t want me to kill you and take all of your equipment.
First Question:
There’s no Pk-ing, but say two player wanted to fight each other for fun. Is there a way to do that?
Another Question:
Would someone like myself who isn’t a big fan of MMORPGS be able to get more enjoyment out of this game than other MMORPGs?
Originally posted by Vic_Viper
First Question:
There’s no Pk-ing, but say two player wanted to fight each other for fun. Is there a way to do that?
Nope. They’ve eliminated Pk-ing all together to prevent people from attacking newbies. Unfortunately, dualing is taken away as a casualty.
Originally posted by Vic_Viper
Another Question:
Would someone like myself who isn’t a big fan of MMORPGS be able to get more enjoyment out of this game than other MMORPGs?
That’s hard to say. I’ve never really gotten into any MMORPGs other than PSO (if you can even call it that). So far, I’m getting into FF11. Maybe just because its community isn’t so old that they instantly ridicule any newcomers.
God… I… Hate… You… So… Much! glows red like cartman in the episode where they taped him having a tea party
I wanted in the beta ;_;
Can you tell us a bit more about your character?
<img src=“http://www.rpgclassics.com/staff/tenchimaru/td.gif”> Heh, FFXI actually sounds a lot nicer than I thought it would. 't seems like they’ve really thought this out. I wonder how long it’ll be until stuff gets hacked, though 
And how does the Job System work? And what are the races and classes?
For the races…
CATGIRLS!!
For the Jobs…
RED MAGE!!!
Err… I thought Mithra were those feline female thingies… correct me.
tarutaru were those cute little doods…
Hume: Just like you and me.
Elvan: Your least/favourite pointy-eared fellas
And some other male-only creature thingy–
Of course. Sat. Blue Mages. Yes/No?
Actually, Sat, I heard a rumor a future expansion or version up might contain an arena for player dueling. But, that is just speculation.
As for the job system, from what I read, its probably the games most intresting feature. You are not stuck with one class, but you can change your job whenever you like. In fact, it may be helpful to experiment, because at level 18 you can take a quest to get a sub-job option, and have a secondary class support your first, though there are limits on the secondary.
And, when you get level thirty, you can participate on quests for advanced jobs…
All in all, it would best compare to a modified Final Fantasy V job system.
im getting FFXI exclusively so i can yaoi eden’s character.
and all that other stuff about swords…
has a blue mage sort of system ever been pulled off/ even tried in an mmorpg?