We Look at King Of Tokyo | On Board Processing

Tokyo never had it easy when a monster (aka Kaiju) attacks it's shores, it's a really bad day when up to 6 invade and battle between each other over the the land. That is the premise of King of Tokyo a board game for 2 to 6 players competing for victory points using dice and cards. Earning 20 victory points wins you the game, however if earning points is not to your liking then being the last monster standing also wins you the game.

The basic setup on the game is as follows each player takes one of the 6 monsters, choosing from classic monsters such as The King (a version of King Kong), Giga Zaur (Godzilla's cute version?) and the Kraken (whom does not need releasing), along side more different monster designs, Alienoid, Cyber Bunny and Meka Dragon. Once selected the players take their corresponding character card setting their Life to 10 and Victory Points to 0, and everyone places their monster outside the board. All other tokens for effects and power are set aside the board as well as shuffling the Special Cards and placing three next to the board in a sort of shop style.

The player's turn order is as follows

1. Rolling then re-rolling the dice

2. Resolving the dice result

3. Buying cards (which is optional)

4. Ending their turn

The game starts by rolling 6 dice, players then choose which if not all dice to re-roll, doing so twice more, after the third roll or if the player chooses to keep the dice on the other rolls scores whatever is on those dice, those players with the concept of the game Yatzee would find this familiar, although throughout the game cards can change the amount of dice and how many re-rolls can be made.

As the main source of influence in the game the dice are not your standard D6, instead these come with their own faces. The numbers 1, 2 and 3 represent the number of Victory Points earned, rolling three of the same number nets you those points, rolling extra will only net you an extra point, for example rolling four 2s will net you 3 points, however rolling five 1s will net you 3 points. The Energy symbol represented by a lighting bolt earns a player one green Energy Cube, these are normally used to spend on the cards, but have other uses too depending on certain cards, and in later expansion's powers.

If the player wishes to defeat opposing monsters by taking them out of the game the Attack face (represented by a paw) is a good choice, the way this works with each Attack scored a player outside Tokyo attacks the player or players in Tokyo, where as those in Tokyo attack everyone outside the board. Taking a player's monster down to 0 knocks that player out of the game, as stated the last monster standing wins. To counter damage the Heal face (represented by a heart) heals a monster by one Heal scored up to the maximum of 10, although cards can extend that.

The key objective of the game is to control Tokyo, the first player to score an Attack in their final roll (or choose to hold one over from other rolls) gets placed within Tokyo City, this automatically scores them one Victory Point just by moving there. The point of holding the city is that if the player is inside Tokyo at the start of their turn they gain 2 Victory Points, however the trade off is that they cannot heal by scoring on the dice, although healing by other means is allowed.

This sets up an interesting situation for the players to either play passively and score their own Victory Points via dice rolls or directly attack the player in Tokyo. By doing so gives the player in Tokyo the option to give up Tokyo to the attacking player scoring the attacker the Victory Point and quite possibly the game their next turn, or hold out in the hope they play well on their next turn and keep control of Tokyo. To further things in the game for 5 or 6 players Tokyo Bay opens up allowing a second player to enter Tokyo, under the same rules as normal, as stated before both players will be attacked at once within Tokyo, allowing the players outside to try and bait one player to drop from Tokyo and keeping the other vulnerable for a possible defeat on the next players turn. Once there are 4 players or less in the game only Tokyo City is used reverting to normal play.

What can turn the game from a losing situation to a monster on a roll is the Special Cards, these cards are the powers a monster may have during the game, ranging from Giant Brain which allows for an additional re-roll, to more cunning powers Fire Breathing which both players left and right of that player take damage, despite not being that players target. Most powers are permanent to the player until the die, but certain cards labelled Discard happen with immediate effect, such as Gas Refinery with awards 2 Victory Points and deals 2 damage to all other players, but these are normally a high cost to use compared the the general powers. To pay for all these powers the Energy cubes are used, a player can buy as much as he or she wanted during the end of their turn but there is also a second option of paying two cubes to clear the current selection and end on a new set of three, this is extremely useful in preventing a person hoarding Energy to buy a select power.

Currently there is one expansion and one collector pack for the game, the expansion, Power Up! adds not only a new monster to select Pandakai, but also personal monster powers called Evolutions, these either come in a permanent power or discard the card at any point to effect your current roll and/or another player in the game. These powers are drawn from the player's own personal deck on a score of 3 Heal dice, which also heal if not within Tokyo, which again give another opportunity for a comeback, Evolutions can also be gained within Tokyo making the Heal score useful within it.

The collector pack, Halloween, is more of a theme pack, adding Pumpkin Jack and Boogie Woogie to the game as monsters (each coming with Evolution cards to support Power Up!) and orange Halloween dice, although this could also be deemed a mild expansion with the inclusion of 12 Costume cards, these are themed Special cards which can be stolen during the game by rolling Attack dice. Both Power Up! And Halloween offer several rule variants to their own game additions customising play dependent on the group.

King of Toyko as a whole is not only a good introduction game for either families or people new to board games but still a great 'appetiser' game while waiting for others to start a night of gaming. The game is simple enough to understand the basics but offers enough complexity to offer a bit of a challenge for veteran gamers. The game and monster design is colourful and the image quality is a great family friendly design but not so much it detracts from adult players, all the tokens are well made and the cards are a normal size with slightly larger print then normal but those with vision problems may still have issues. The dice themselves are larger then a standard D6 but are barely noticeable, one suggestion I would make is have either the game box or a 'dice wall' for players to use as the dice can be rolled off a table and/or into the game area itself, something not included in the box but is more a personal thought then a major issue.

The rule 'book', more of a sheet really, is well laid with just enough balance between written and visual content is describe the game, with the terminology and notes breaking up sections as you read, examples are highlighted and an overview of some more complex Special cards are given at the end of the page.

With the additional content personally I would choose to buy Power Up! as soon as possible after a few games have been put under the group's belt as personal choices of monsters will add a new flair with the Evolutions and a mild meta-play will start to form. The Halloween pack is still optional, but it doesn't change the game as much as Power Up! did.

The game RRPs around £25 with both additional packs around £12-15

We look at Pandemic iOS | On Board Processing

Pandemic is a co-op based board game in which the group is tasked in treating and eliminating four diseases around the world before they become out of control. This seems simple enough until an Epidemic occurs filling the board with more disease tokens, and risking an outbreak spilling over to the point it looses the game for the players. This review although focuses on its iOS conversion, there are practically no differences in gameplay between board and app.

The game is built for 2-4 players (5 players with expansions) which starts with players picking roles between dispatcher, medic, scientist, researcher or operations expert, each with their own abilities to help the team progress through the game. The players then begin in Atlanta, the real life location of the Centers of Disease Control and are given cards from the Player deck depending on how many are playing (2 players get 4 cards, 3 players 3 cards, 4 players 2 cards).

The game then moves to the Infection setup where the Infection deck is then shuffled and 3 cards are flipped over placing 3 disease cubes on each of those cities, 3 more cards are flipped placing 2 cubes in them and finally 3 more have 1 placed to make a total of 18 diseases in play. Each block of cities on the map has a set disease type, London for example has blue and Sydney has red. Depending on the cards you could end up with one disease not present during setup which can change the tempo of the game early on to a more focused play style then each player tackling one disease each.

Finally the Epidemic cards are added to the Infection deck, depending on the difficulty set this will be 4, 5 or 6 cards. If drawn these cards heavily hinder the players by increasing the Infection Rate Track, which controls how many cards the players will draw to infect each city at the end of each of their turns but also automatically adds 3 disease tokens to the city drawn from the bottom of the deck and reshuffle the discarded Infection cards on top of the Infection deck which then two are drawn increasing the chance the same cities are drawn again in the next few turns.

Outbreaks happen when there are 3 diseases in a city already, disease then 'infects' the adjoining cities with one disease cube, if that city already has 3 cubes it then chains to its adjoining cities with a chain reaction. Each Outbreak that happens fills the Outbreak Track once filled, the game ends and the players lose, the game also ends if no more disease cubes of that type can be played or a player cannot draw two cards from the player deck at the end of their turn.

Players have 4 actions during their turn which can either be a type of movement, such moving to the adjoining city, discarding a city card to fly to that point or moving between research labs. Other actions are treating one infection of the city they are in by removing one cube, building a research lab by discarding the current city card that player is in, trading the current city card with another player in the same city, or finally after obtaining 5 cities of the same colour and trade them in at a research lab to cure the disease of the same colour. At the end of their turn two player cards are drawn and cards from the infection deck are drawn dependent on the Infection Rate Track adding one disease per city drawn, and hoping not to draw an Epidemic.

Between the Outbreaks and Epidemics it does seem the deck is literally stacked against the players, Pandemic is a hard game to win. The way the players win is working as a team and using player cards effectively at times of need, like Airlift, which moves a player to any city or 'One Quiet Night' which skips the next Infection step, at critical times this is a powerful card. The player's role also can be a great help during the game, for example the Medic removes all disease cubes from a city instead of one at a time, and the Scientist who only needs 4 cards of the same disease type to discover its cure, not the normal 5, this makes team composition at the start very important.

As stated the iOS app is basically a 1:1 conversion of the board game in terms of gameplay, the interface itself works extremely well displaying all information required such as remaining disease counts and both tracks at the top of the screen while having actions and player hands at the bottom. Tucked away in a pop out menu on the right our the players and cards they hold and on the left will show information of the role in play and both discard piles for both decks.

The rule book is complete and informative, plus during the game pop ups will appear explaining what is going on. Another useful feature by pressing on any location or play will automatically highlight itself on the map which can be dragged and zoomed to show as much as the map as you need. The animation quality with card flips and events as well as the music boost a pretty fine product overall.

The core product on the app is great however it lacks a few features, there is no online multiplayer aspect to the game limiting you to either solo play or pass and play, not that isn't a real negative it's just a preference, however this game doesn't have an AI to it so solo play is strictly that. The game only has the first expansion, On the Brink, as an in app purchase however I would not recommend it as it lacks the core reason to buy, the Bio Terrorist and the Mutation card are missing from the pack.

Pandemic itself is a great, if not hard, co-op experience, as an app it's not that bad as an 'on the go' portable version or if you just wish to try it out with friends before committing to the actual tabletop version, I would still recommend the board game as a whole. You can find the app for £4.99 on the iOS store and the board game retailing at £29.99 at any stockist.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Review - Part Two

Welcome to Part 2 of this Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Review in Part 1 I covered how the game was reformed from the ashes of it's first version, the first impressions going into the game, as well as the complex if not rewarding world, craft and class systems. Now for the second and final part of this leviathan review..

Live free with company

Free Companies make up of the guilds of A Realm Reborn and unlike a certain release 2 years ago they are filled with a ton of features. Outside the standard guild features such as banks, guild ranking and detailed members info, the Free Company has it's own level system, each level unlocks new content and bonuses. Credits earned by doing normal activities can be used to spend on 24 hour buffs between EXP boosts in different professions, stat boosts and even teleport cost reduction leading to incentive in doing set activities together to benefit from these bonuses.

One of the major benefits in the Free Company is housing, currently only accessible this way. The Company picks which Grand Company it wishes to be part of, much like the player does, and their house will be located in the corresponding area. All three of these areas are stunning to be in and each housing lot comes in three sizes, however there is a downside, the cost of just the house itself is insane. When the system was first introduced the prices were set on a server per server basis due to the amount of money and players in the server, for example the smallest house for one server was 8 million Gil. This however dropped in price every 6 hours to attempt to even out the market after 90 days that 8 million cost drops to 3,698,000 Gil which isn't that bad.

The pay off is a wonderful house for your Free Company, the crafting classes are used to create the items for the house and despite using items from all levels these require some high level skills to pull off giving crafting a bit more of a purpose during the later stages of content. Recently with the latest major patch Gardening was introduced providing cooking items for those willing to put the time in tending the gardens, I have yet to experience it myself but players seem to think it's worth while doing.

One nice thing of note is that when you examine a player you can also check their Free Company details this gives you a incite into it plus can be used as a recruitment tool if you are interested in finding out more about them.

If Free Companies aren't for you or you just want to create your own community Link Shells exist, these are group chat lists you can treat like normal chat rooms, you can join multiple shells but can only be active within one at a time. Link Shells are great little tools to keep in contact with like minded people even if they are in different Free Companies to you.

A final important feature to mention is the Auto Translate system, this allows you to use pre-generated text that will come up to another player in their client's set language making chat between different communities straight forward and easy, the system is deep enough for example for me to dungeon with Japanese players most of the time, much like I did back when playing FFXI.

Beyond the End

Once the credits have rolled on the main story arc, yes this game actually has credits, will mark the end of players wanting a classic single player experience, which this game's main arc can be easily treated as, rewarding you with not only the epic Magitek Armour mount but also opens up the game fully as a true MMORPG.

It's hard to class things as 'end game' content as the game still uses a lot of the lower levelled areas and content as part of the end game experience. This is done in the way of Synchronising, when entering FATEs for example if you are over levelled for the content the game locks you from interacting with it unless you click the sync button this will scale you to the recommended level until the end of the FATE, however completing the FATE will still reward you with your correct level of rewards.

Syncing also locks out skills if your class is scaled down below it's unlocked level, this helps the game keep it's challenge and allows content to be experience as intended so things like Dungeoning and instanced content when playing with friends cannot be powered through for speed levelling.

Dungeons aren't just scaled content as the game gives you Hard Mode versions of four existing dungeons and six new dungeons as of patch 2.2. The six normal level 50 dungeons are linked to the continued story arc some accessed directly others requiring an item level to access, they offer their own story arcs, gear and offer somewhat of a challenge. The Hard Mode dungeons are not just a scaled up version of the existing dungeon but offer a different tactics for bosses and mobs if not throw in some completely new ones, making the experience feel different but familiar at the same time.

Primal battles also offer a Hard Mode at level cap, like Hard Mode dungeons they offer their own twists to the normal versions making the already hard battles more complex by adding not just more skills to deal with but more complex versions of current attacks requiring a real focus on what is happening during the fight. Turning up the dial further Extreme Mode was added to the Primals making them a real challenge to beat.

Finally the Duty finder unlocks four types of Duty Roulette systems each offering their own rewards based on the difficulty of each. Low Level Roulette selects a random story level dungeon or Primal battle, Main Scenario selects from the main story event bosses and Guildhests Roulette does exactly what it says. High level Roulette picks from the content you have unlocked post-cap.

These coupled with the Sync system really helps the game as a whole as it allows high level players to be placed in lower story content allowing players trying to progress in the story even if there isn't as many low levels vs capped players.

Raiding at this current moment in time comes in two forms the Crystal Tower which is a 24 man raid remade from FFIII's dungeon, and this is the entry level and the alternate item path from doing the Hard Mode primal battles to access The Binding Coil of Bahamut. The Binding Coil of Bahamut is a multi-tier dungeon consisting of the highest level gear of the game the real hardcore raider will find most of their time spent there.

Item level based on your current gear with the endgame that is basically your progression within the end game content you are required to do certain Primal battles and Dungeons in order, so you cannot skip content to get 'the best gear'. As explained above the Crystal Tower asks as a different item path to the Hard Mode Primal battles, however the Primal battles still require to be beaten once to unlock The Binding Coil of Bahamut.

Much like the story progression locked out content via levelling, I can see this frustrating players wanting to play with their friends if they only want to be 'hardcore' about raiding, I personally don't mind this as it keeps content relevant, but thankfully the developers have said despite all content being a requirement to be cleared as the game progresses with content drop rates in dungeons will change to help players progress faster. This may annoy more hardcore players but overall I think it's a better solution then leave old content in the dust.

FATEs such requiring large amounts of players happen every so often one being a battle with Odin having high levelled characters is a must and even if you do have them attacks can kill the whole group outright, the rewards from these kind of fights offer unique items for players wishing to just show off more then anything.

Parts of end game content I have yet to experience are the Beast Tribe quests in which you take quests via the monster tribes of the game to earn reputation and rewards based around the tribe and Treasure Hunting, a high level gathering class feature in which you find a treasure map and attempt to locate it somewhere in the game, and finally as of 2.2 Retainers, your personal bank holder and player market vendor, can be sent on their own quests to try and find items useful in crafting. This content I've missed for the simple reason of myself not yet finding the NPC required to unlock the content.

One Realm many Platforms

One of A Realm Reborn's strongest assets is it's cross platform play, the question is which platform is best for you, being a mainly PC player when is comes to MMORPGs I avoided the PS3 version for some time, however when I did I found it more accessible then I thought.

The Cross Hotbar system gives players quick access to their skills and menus via a combination of the L2/R2 buttons and any of the directional and face buttons, this system allows for almost as many actions as a PC player which is always a good thing as console gamers when semi-competing in the same play space.

What I did find an issue was the targeting system I found it clunky and not as direct as using a mouse and keyboard, although many I have spoken to have found little issue with this in all aspects of the game. Mouse and keyboard is supported however it is many for text chat and UI/menu use, targeting can be done via the mouse however that is not recommended in many situations.

Overall the PS3 version is very much on par with it's PC counterpart, still very much playable with the controls, and on the technical side unless you hold up both versions next to each other the PS3 can still hold it's own both graphically and with a steady frame rate. However given an option between the two I would still recommend the PC version the PS3 simply because of the ease of controls but only for personal preference.

The PS4 version is improved in this area by basically using the same interface as the PC, both versions have a UI toggle which allows you to switch between the Cross Hot Bar system and the common MMORPG PC UI, so for instance you owned the PC version and wanted to play over the network streaming to your. Mouse and keyboard work as expected, as well as Bluetooth keyboards and mice support, and the DS4 touch pad can be used for mouse control.

The PS4 version also extends into remote play onto the Vita with minimal disruption to gameplay with all the normal expectations of the current remote play systems between Vita and PS4. The only real addition the Vita extension gives is mouse movement via the touch screen, however the normal PS4 controls still work as expected and the PS4's Bluetooth range extends as much as the direct remote play streaming so it can still be played like a small pc screen about the house.

There is a personal issue I have across the systems as a whole, despite the frame rates holding well on all versions there is yet an option to tone down player casting effects so in large fights such as FATEs it leads to a rather messy if not pretty situation where all I could see was the spells being cast not the enemy and just barely it's attacks.

Supporting the Realm

In nine months the game has seen two major releases in patches, where as most games would release a new dungeon or feature in these updates leaving much bigger updates for expansions, the developers of A Realm Reborn take this a set further by doing both. For example 2.1 titled a Realm Awoken added the Crystal Tower raid, Beast Tribe quests, Duty Roulette, one new high level dungeon, two hard mode dungeons, the Extreme Mode fights for the original three Primals, two new boss encounters, the PVP arena, Treasure Hunting and Free Company Housing, this is not including the season events brought over from the original version and the cross over events with Dragon Quest X, Final Fantasy XI and XIII. The level of content given is impressive and continued on with 2.2 with quality of life patches in between them balancing classes and adding needed features like a sort button have been welcome.

The level of detail offered in the patch notes is impressive as well while the developers also hold live streams featuring their new content pre-patch often and working on a three to four month patch cycle they also love to tease upcoming armour designs and possible features such as Chocobo Racing and Breeding as part of the Golden Saucer a kin to Final Fantasy VII's version hopefully coming before the end of the year. Content delivered this openly and at this level is a core reason I have kept interested in the game.

Account management is handled by Mog Station, Square Enix's name for their updated interface of their account management system. It's fair to say it does it's job in keeping the process simple and offers options of credit and debt card and game time card payment options, as well as Square Enix's Crysta, a payment system that was planned for use in multiple software back with the first version. The game time card system is a bit of an oddball in the fact that you can only add game time if your time left is below 120 days (4 months) so the account can only ever have 6 months subscribed to it, if this is a system limitation it's understandable but not an issue either way.

Seeing as this is a multiplatform game Square Enix allow you to add each platform to the account, a purchase of a copy of that platform required but this still adds a months game time to the account as you would if bought for the first time. This allows you to play between a Playstation 3 and PC or Playstation 4 without need to start again, however not all data is transferred over as interface and armour sets are stored locally seeing as the armour sets do change and are quite important in class switching I do hope this changes.

To reward long term subscription to the game Veteran Rewards are offered such as Mounts, Pets and new outfits for your Chocobo, this only builds up for each month you pay to subscribe so you cannot skip months between payments and still get the rewards since you last played. Square Enix are also offering until the end of the year a free upgrade from the Playstation 3 version to Playstation 4, this consumes your PS3 version and will have to be repurchased to play on your system again, however if you own a PS4 with the free upgrade it's unlikely for you to go back.

A Realm Worth Playing?

Coming from the original game A Realm Reborn is a complete turn around, and nine months in the game is very much still worth playing. For those jaded by the decline of the Final Fantasy brand in the last years this game even if played like a standard single player title, you may find yourself adding more game time to continue playing even if you finish the main story arc as it's pretty much the redeeming game to rebirth the IP.

The amount of support Naoki Yoshida and his team give towards the game is a great standard for this current generation of MMORPGs, it's clear Yoshida really cares about this game for example he broke down during the live launch event because he believed he failed the European player base as we had server problems. This is the kind of developer I really can stand behind and trust not to take the game into a direction that is just trying to increase their income, and if the last two major patches mirror the upcoming patches I really can't wait for them.

Of course A Realm Reborn still has issues, like I said the story locked content is an issue however you get used to it, I'm hoping armour sets do get saved server side so cross platforms isn't that much of a hassle and I really really hope Personal Housing doesn't cost maddening amounts of Gil to buy.

Despite issues I would instantly recommend this game to Final Fantasy fans and MMORPG players a like, A Realm Reborn being in it's first year holds it's own between the titans of MMORPG gaming and the current swarm of free to play titles on PC. For both Playstation platforms it's basically a must as it's the best MMORPGs on either platform.

Final Fantasy has been reborn in this game.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Part One

Well there is no doubt about it, Final Fantasy XIV was a mess both technically and in design. It was heavily panned across the board and started the damaging slide of the brand, so much in fact Square Enix had to shut the game down and relaunch. Under the new name Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn the game relaunched and now crossing it's third platform on the Playstation 4, nine months in since it's Playstation 3 and PC launch, it's time to see how this game still stands.

Your first days in Eorzea

A Realm Reborn picks up five years after the closing events of the original game, which you will see as the opening sequence of the game, the Heroes of Light (AKA the former players) have gone missing and you heed the call of the Crystal on your way to finding your adventure in a new home.

As with all Final Fantasy titles this game drowns in storytelling, if you are one to pick up a quest and set out killing straight way, this game will most likely frustrate you as the game loves to have characters chatter away at you. A good example of this is the opening section it takes a good 5-10 minutes before you even step into something that looks like a MMORPG interface, and that is excluding character creation itself. Once you enter Eorzea you are treated to a wonderful world to explore, except you are not....

This highlights one of what some people would consider the weakest element of the game, the game locks almost all content behind a story. As mentioned above this will certainly frustrate a lot of players, until level 10 of your selected class you cannot join another class guild in the same city and until level 15 to gain an Airship Pass to gain access to other parts of the world, making first impressions of the levelling experience painfully slow. Same is said with dungeons which must be completed once before any other progression in content is made.

Thankfully once you push past level 15-20 you have access to all classes which you can freely switch to as you feel with the same character. This is the strongest element of the game as you are not forced to restart the game again, if for example you don't like the class you simply walk into a class guild and join keeping all progress in your other classes while you level and experience the new class. This system allows the storytelling 'wall' to be forgiven slightly as you only ever need to progress past the story once.

Knowing your role

From character creation you select from the eight the Combat classes in the game, as you progress through the guild's story you start to unlock more skills, however to begin with your chosen class may not be as fun as you expect due to the fact most skills run off a 2.5 second cooldown system. This makes the combat at first feel quite slow, this is by design to keep all players on an even footing in combat across platforms and regions, thankfully the game does use this fact to it's best giving all skills a sense weight and power when used.

Once you cap out your class you will barely notice the timers as combat is very active and chaining your skills becomes important as many skills will become more powerful as a follow up to another skill then using it alone. When you start playing a second class you unlock the cross-class skill system allowing you to access skills from other classes to allow a fair bit of customisation with your class, however some skills are just the same skill renamed, so a little reading up is required.

When you take a Combat class to level 30 you gain the ability to convert that class into a Job, these are specialised roles more suited to end game content. These require a second class to be at least levelled to 15 and also changes which cross-class skills you are allowed to use within that Job.

The class system like most of the content hides it's better features away from you unless you are either told and just stumble into it, as classes and Jobs are weaker if used without them. That said once properly utilised it's a very good system and strong enough to encourage levelling multiple classes at once.

Finally an armoury system helps you sort through your items by placing them in their own 'bag' as the inventory system doesn't expand past it's starting amount, which is quite large to begin with, combined with gear set system to help quickly swap classes from the hot bar.

Freedom! What to do?

While levelling your class you are given a hunting log, these are optional kill quests marked above monsters with a target marker above them, much like quest mobs are highlighted. Unlike normal quests however you don't go to a NPC you just kill a set number to be rewarded with experience and Gil, competing the tier of the log will reward you with a greater amount before unlocking the next tier, providing you are at the correct level to do so. This is a good way to boost your levelling and most class quests do actually lead you into those areas with your hunt target mobs are.

When out in the world you also get to experience the Full Active Time Event or FATE system. FATEs are live events happening in your location where a group objective much be met for rewards of Gil, Experience and sometimes loot, grouping is not required as long as you involve yourself in the task. FATEs do scale with the amount of players within them even add NPCs to help deal with the numbers at some points, however the FATEs can be outnumbered by players making them far too easy at points, but there are high ends FATES requiring a lot of players, but I'll get to them later.

To help with your levelling experience outside of world content, or if you get bored of general questing the alternative is Levemates (or Leves for short). These are shorter personal quests on a timer, which have certain objectives which yield greater rewards. Quest mobs and objectives spawn in the world as normal however only you and people linking the same Levequest in your group can interact and attack things within the Levequest, this is good as it not only adds a bit more of a challenge given the time limit but also less stressful trying to find everything in time as everything belongs to you.

Given that Leves are repeatable and fast the experience gain is greater then general questing these are limited, you gain 3 Leve 'points' per 12 hours with a maximum 100, Leves are not limited to Combat classes but Craft and Gathering classes too, I personally found Leves a great method to level those class types.

Not far into the game you join a Grand Company, the large NPC faction guilds introduced in the main arc in which you must choose one of the three (although are able to change later on) introduce you to most of the side quests and optional dungeons within in the game. Also after joining you are given your Chocobo, this serves as both your first mount and from level 30 your battle pet. Your Chocobo gains experience like you do and each time it levels you are given points to spend in three stances you can select, tanking, healing, and DPS. There is an issue I'm experiencing with this system is that the Chocobo's exp gains don't really scale with your gains making levelling it quite slow at times. The Chocobo is an apt combat companion, but they do class as a player when it comes to grouping so not everyone will be able to use theirs all the time, but they cannot be taken into instanced content.

Learning your Craft

Crafting and Gathering classes act like their own Combat classes in a way, each guild has it's own story to tell and you still progress as you would do with Combat classes with armour and 'weapons' of the class.

Gathering classes open up nodes dependent on it's type when switched to, however seeing as you are in an active world not in combat armour you will in later areas be sneaking around in stealth trying to avoid combat at all costs, thankfully are nodes are personal to you so by time you do reach one it isn't taken from you by another player. Once you reach a node you are then presented with a window sightly confusing with numbers, what these numbers tell you are the changes of gaining the item in question and the chances of getting a high quality version of said item.

At first none of these items will be shown to you directly and you still have to harvest the unknown item at a low chance, thankfully your skills at hand increase your rates of gathering and chances of a high quality item. This is also extended by the fact you have only four attempts at a node before you have to move on to start with however if you choose your skills when gathering said node correctly you will be to extend the attempts or even double the yield.

Fishing works a little differently as it's nodes and contents are not directly displayed to you however most locations with water can be fished at, requiring it's own type of bait for optimal fishing. I've yet to experience this but also time is a factor as certain fish have different yield rates during different times of the day in game.

All of this is tracked within their own logs detailing the level and zone location each item you have harvested is at. Fishing takes this one step further by adding each location's data you have fished at plus it's own lore and maximum size per fish you caught.

Crafting itself seems a complex system however it's fairly straight forward when broken down, the main objective is to fill a progress bar in a set amount of turns. Progression is a combination of what skill you used plus your current armour and weapon skill numbers, added to that your skill has a chance to fail wasting one of your turns. Running the turn count down to zero before the progress bar is filled fails the creation of the item wasting all the items required to do so.

Crafting also uses the cross-class skill system and correct use of the skills can extend the turns remaining and improve progression per turn, also using High Quality items within the crafting will increase the chances of the item being created becoming itself high quality, this can also be improved via skills but take up turns to do so.

Crafting an item can end up using all crafting and gathering classes at many points making the system quite deep and requires you going back and two between classes and utilising mostly all basic crafts long part the level they were first used in. This makes it one of my favourite crafting systems in this current gen of MMORPGs and not the 'fire and forget' side system many games leave it as.

Items in the game can be broken down into Materia, this in FFXIV is the gem system for socketed items. This is only happens when an item is Spiritbonded to you, this basically means you have to use the item a while before it can be converted into Materia, I like this system as it prevents the market from being flooded from players just grabbing everything off the market just to convert them. Finally once your character gains more levels in crafting classes they will be able to self repair their items instead of going to a repair NPC, but this costs a certain item to do so.

D&P – Dungeons and Primals

Dungeoning as mentioned is a requirement while levelling to progress in the content and main story, this runs pretty much like the standard MMO fair with four other players. Once located all instance content can be accessed via a window called the Duty Finder this is the standard instance queue window however instead of selecting your preferred role you queue with what archtype your current class is deemed to be by the game.

This can be a bit confusing for new players as until you actually try and queue for a dungeon what you assume is one type of class could be different to what you expect – Marauder and Arcanist are good examples of this Marauder doesn't seem a tank type to start with and Arcanist with it's heals isn't a healer type but is now classed as a DPS type due to resent patch changes. Guildhests work along side dungeons by teaching the basics of group play, these are micro dungeons with objectives these also go deeper into the combat system the higher the Guildhest level is.

Finally and most importantly in the instance experience are the Primal battles, these are the single boss fights with the iconic summons from the Final Fantasy series. These can be pretty difficult fights which is not done correctly can lead to the party failing quite quickly. More so with your first Primal fight being at Level 20 in the form of Ifrit, which like Dungeons have to be completed once to progress with content.

The Primals and the Dungeons do highlight a minor issue with difficulty spikes during the story content as certain dungeons do have complex bosses with a high failure rate if done incorrectly and each Primal if going in blind will kill you straight away if you aren't expecting an attack. This can lead to one or two frustrating moments but none I have seen so far has been deemed 'unfair' by the player base, despite a few latency issues that have lead to attacks hitting despite players avoiding the attack on screen, but these have been continued to be ironed out as the game goes on.

Return to the realm in part 2 where I will cover the social aspects of the game via Free Companies,  later stages of the game and how Square Enix intend to support it with content updates and finally how the cross platform systems work as well as my final thoughts.