The Final Fantasy series as a whole has been marked by a surfeit of crystals, and Final Fantasy XIV's Aetheryte is heir to the tradition. Floating just above the ground, these crystals serve as both a nexus of quests and a point of transportation. Both of these functions are getting a distinct boost with the pending November version update set for the 24th. Teleportation costs are being reduced for both the major cities and three player-selected "favorite" camps, allowing players to zap from place to place faster. Return costs are also being reduced to 1 anima, allowing players who are either lost or in a dangerous region a quick option to get to safety.
Meanwhile, levequest functionality at crystals is being improved, with players able to scale the difficulty of a given levequest downward once the quest has been started. This goes hand-in-hand with adjustments to the strength of enemies found in guildleves and improvements to the rewards of leve-linking, giving players more incentive to try to push themselves to the limits of what they can accomplish. The changes should be welcome boons to Final Fantasy XIV players, allowing easier movement and questing under all circumstances.
Reader Comments (9)
Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 12:04AM Monkey D Luffy said
"Teleportation costs are being reduced for both the major cities and three player-selected "favorite" camps, allowing players to zap from place to place faster."
This isn't some offline RPG, this is a MMO and should not have instant teleports to jump all over the world.
The game is way too small as it is, giving people teleports instead of a Warp to just go back to a home point (with cooldown and Chocobo mounts to get you around faster) was a terrible idea to begin with.
Making the game easier is driving more people away than getting them to join, Square Enix must be run by people that know nothing about making games.
This isn't some offline RPG, this is a MMO and should not have instant teleports to jump all over the world.
The game is way too small as it is, giving people teleports instead of a Warp to just go back to a home point (with cooldown and Chocobo mounts to get you around faster) was a terrible idea to begin with.
Making the game easier is driving more people away than getting them to join, Square Enix must be run by people that know nothing about making games.
Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 1:15AM gamebynight said
@Monkey D Luffy Totally disagree. Once you level up a bit and start taking leves from the different city states and at multiple camps, anima can get a bit strained. I'm not a proponent of excessive instant travel either, but this revision does more to alleviate an annoyance than unbalance the game.
And, if the wider public reception says anything, I don't think these changes will be driving more people away than their first attempt.
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And, if the wider public reception says anything, I don't think these changes will be driving more people away than their first attempt.
Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 2:02AM Addfwyn said
@Monkey D Luffy I have to disagree, making people play longer by making artificial time sinks of running around isn't that helpful. Too many times in FFXI I'd log in just to move my character from one place to another, and then log off after cause it took a few hours to do. Don't get me started on this in EVE, where 80% of the game is travel.
Focusing on content over travel as a time sink is a good idea in my opinion, assuming they do add more content. Fast travel systems are a good thing after you've travelled somewhere once, as they just expediate parts of the game that simply aren't that interesting.
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Focusing on content over travel as a time sink is a good idea in my opinion, assuming they do add more content. Fast travel systems are a good thing after you've travelled somewhere once, as they just expediate parts of the game that simply aren't that interesting.
Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 2:05AM Monkey D Luffy said
@gamebynight. They could easily replace those teleports with a little thought on there part.
Adding teleport scrolls as a reward for accepting a Leve, or adding teleport points like Mea, Dem, and Holla from FFXI.
Or even adding outpost to outpost teleporting like in FFXI.
The game is disgustingly small and has no really open areas so just adding fast Chocobo mounts and following the path leading from point A to point B is easy enough.
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Adding teleport scrolls as a reward for accepting a Leve, or adding teleport points like Mea, Dem, and Holla from FFXI.
Or even adding outpost to outpost teleporting like in FFXI.
The game is disgustingly small and has no really open areas so just adding fast Chocobo mounts and following the path leading from point A to point B is easy enough.
Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 11:11AM Celeras said
@Monkey D Luffy
Because Anima ports to the outposts are somehow different than outpost ports from XI? Newsflash: Anima is a resource that runs out, in XI you could port as much as you wanted whenever you wanted. Using that as an example, the 'fast travel' will actually be more sparse then it was in the previous game you're comparing it to.
And LL->Grid is longer than the run from any two non-expansion cities in XI. So your mental 'world scale' needs some retuning.
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Because Anima ports to the outposts are somehow different than outpost ports from XI? Newsflash: Anima is a resource that runs out, in XI you could port as much as you wanted whenever you wanted. Using that as an example, the 'fast travel' will actually be more sparse then it was in the previous game you're comparing it to.
And LL->Grid is longer than the run from any two non-expansion cities in XI. So your mental 'world scale' needs some retuning.
Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 5:48PM ImperialPanda said
@Monkey D Luffy
The problem is not instant travel. The root of the problem is that the game requires too much running around to play. Every 1.5 days: You have to run around to collect leves from different cities. You have to run to various camps to fight mobs for a set of leves that takes 30-40 min to complete total. You have to run to various guilds, markets, vendors to get materials and support. You have to run to camps in the middle of fkn nowhere to turn in every single local leve.
They said they wanted people to experience eorzea through travel but it got old after the second time you make the same 20 minute run. This design was just incredibly stupid. And now despite their intention of wanting you to "travel" now they have to keep reducing teleport costs time and time again.
Just flat-out poor design with little realistic insight into how things would actually work or turn out, similar to the whole market wards debacle. I don't understand how any game designer could've possibly thought hours and hours of pure running could possibly be a good idea.
Reply
The problem is not instant travel. The root of the problem is that the game requires too much running around to play. Every 1.5 days: You have to run around to collect leves from different cities. You have to run to various camps to fight mobs for a set of leves that takes 30-40 min to complete total. You have to run to various guilds, markets, vendors to get materials and support. You have to run to camps in the middle of fkn nowhere to turn in every single local leve.
They said they wanted people to experience eorzea through travel but it got old after the second time you make the same 20 minute run. This design was just incredibly stupid. And now despite their intention of wanting you to "travel" now they have to keep reducing teleport costs time and time again.
Just flat-out poor design with little realistic insight into how things would actually work or turn out, similar to the whole market wards debacle. I don't understand how any game designer could've possibly thought hours and hours of pure running could possibly be a good idea.
Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 9:47AM Arkanaloth said
not bad.. not bad... I'll look forward to trying out the changes when they go live.
Posted: Nov 23rd 2010 12:29PM Elranzer said
Wake me up when they implement an Auction House.










