#ffxiv 1.0 arcanist

[before-calamity]

Gnath Using Cut Weapon Model

On my main while waiting for Dawntrail to come out, I've been going through and unlocking and working on old beast tribe quests.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that the Nameless One uses the cut arcanist weapon from 1.0!

It's kind of cool that they reused the model, honestly, it sort of works for the Gnath culture.

[sylvyspritii]

Update: 8 days later, and i just beat Realm Reborn Here is the journey:

In the beginning, i chose Arcanist, but i quickly realised that Fisher is actually the best job

I got invited to a strange secret area that had a lot of rich looking houses, so i did what was natural; i saw a giant lighthouse, and i had a desire to climb it, that's how i discovered this game had jumping puzzles just like Guild Wars 2 (nice), it took me a bit, and the controls are very different compared to GW2, but it was quite satisfying when i managed to reach the top after much practise, it's kind of like Dark Souls

There was also some guy named Gayus van Ballsack, and he was being a little mean with the amount of devastation he caused, but it was not his intention, so i'm glad we cleared that up, i also became a dark academia history nerd on the way somehow, and got a cute fairy and a bird

Now that that's over, back to the real game; fishing I'd like to give my shoutouts to my boy Rhitahtyn Arvina, we might have been enemies, but he fought with honour, a respectful opponent And i'd like to give my anti-shoutouts to the Companies of Heroes, i can go into a rant about them, but i think for veterans reading this, you will understand right away and no words are neccessary, and for the newcommers reading this; good luck

NO SPOILERS PLEASE, THANK YOU My overall review of Final Fantasy XIV Realm Reborn: 6.5/10

Some context; I have played many MMO's in my life; Runescape, Maplestory, Ragnarok Online, Trickster Online, Tera, and my favourite one; Guild Wars 2 I tried Final Fantasy XIV before, in 2011, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2023, but i always uninstalled the game, but every time, friends somehow convinced me to try again, telling me "it gets really good, the story will unironically resonate with you so much, there's so many themes that we know you will love, it's literally like one of those stories that you in particular would love so much" AND EVERY TIME, i'm like "nah, i gave it a chance before, it sucks" and then i try it in secret, but then give up anyways, usually before level 20

This time was different, this time, i was watching one of my furry friends stream the game, and she was very helpful in answering some of my questions, i decided to try again to see what happens, and some of my other friends helped me too this time While it is much better than Final Fantasy XIV 1.0, and it has received many great quality of life updates over the years (such as improved automatic tap targetting, more keybind and macro options, and more (incredibly good) HUD customisation options), i still find it difficult to reccomend this game over Guild Wars 2, which had a much better basegame already in 2012, alongside its already great expansion packs (i have yet to play the FFXIV expansions, but this is just my raw take on the basegame since i just finished it) A big standout is the music however, the composer, Masayoshi Soken, who also composed the soundtrack for FFXVI (which i liked a lot, well, except for Titan's theme being a bit repetitive), surprised me, some of the later songs in the boss battles are especially good, (such as Rhitahtyn Arvina's boss theme, which has a really fun difficulty spike that fits the music and the moment in the story very well, alongside just being a general badass) and the final boss theme, you know, the one after the unintended devestation I thought the story was boring and uninspiring, a lot of it felt like it was taking elements from other MMO stories (such as Guild Wars 2, i mean, the 3 factions, the "going to the tribal people" part of the game, the Eazorean Alliance being very similair to the Fort Trinity stuff, it really feels like the developers just kind of tried to scramble together stuff inspired by other MMO stories), but i have to admit, that the closer we got to the ending, the more the story and the writing started to improve (Coerthas was when it picked up a little bit, suddendly, the worldbuilding, lore, politics, and culture started to engage me a little bit more, and i started reading more of the dialogue around there again), and i really enjoyed the characterisation of the Imperial generals nearing the end, it was really cool to see some stuff that was foreshadowed before (which i was REALLY HOPING would mean something) actually have some real subtle impacts (i'm sorry, i'm talking about my boy Rhitahtyn again okay, he was a real one) I'd say that the story has /potential/, but overall, i think the story of the main quest of the FFXIV basegame (Realm Reborn) really was a 6/10, and i know some of the fans reading this might not like me being that harsh, but i'm sorry, it really doesn't give a good first impression for the people that came to this game because they heard it had such a good story (me, it was me, i am not impressed, but perhaps Heavensward will be slightly better?) Also, this is one of the few games that understands that fishing minigames should be like Pokemon, don't make things too complicated! Just make it nice and simple and satisfying, no annoying Big the Cat Fire Emblem fishing mechanics, i want to listen to my podcasts and watch Vinny streams on my second monitor, thank you

So, in case it is not clear; yes, i liked it, but i wasn't impressed, but i think there's some potential maybe

NO SPOILERS PLEASE, THANK YOU

Okay, i changed my mind, Final Fantasy XIV is good actually

[osakasshitpit]

I love Final Fantasy XIV

So I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV, and after playing for around 180 hours, I haven’t even finished A Realm Reborn. Normally, 180 hours is an insane time frame for a game to manage and hold my attention. Persona 5 Royal was 180 hours of game time, and that was slowly outstaying its welcome. FFXIV must be doing something right, because just recently I went to a convention and bought a Y’shtola Keychain in a heartbeat. I haven’t had time to play XIV a lot prior to this, since I was stupidly grinding Praetorium for days and got burned out. I haven’t played much in 2 months, and Y’shtola only really has a minor role during A Realm Reborn’s Storyline. Despite that, I started in Limsa and Y’shtola stuck with me since then. I just had to buy that keychain. My girlfriend asked me about it and despite me staying away from the game after being burned out, I explained to her in great enthusiasm why I loved Y’shtola and why I loved the game so much. I think that’s the first time I really realized how attached I was to this world, these characters, this game.

I came to FFXIV after having played WoW from Vanilla through WotLK, after having barely ever touched a MMO since quitting WoW. Honestly, I was very skeptical of XIV but holy fucking shit did it ever win me over. They are completely different games, mind you, but that is a good thing in my opinion.

So here is the longest tumblr rant post I have written so far, I think.

To be fair, the first 20 levels or so were kinda slow. You get thrown into the deep end and get bombarded with lore and characters, terms and phrases that you don't understand. For fucks sake, the opening cutscene shows Louisoix fighting Bahamut front and center. Its this big, epic moment of sacrifice, but to someone who has not played 1.0 and who doesn't know anything about the lore, this just zips right past you. During the main story of ARR, they keep talking about Louisoix and how important he is, but you haven't even seen the guy because he died before the game even started. I only really realized this today, it took me 180 hours and a look at the wiki to connect the dots. It really is a slow burn, but that slow burn was okay because everything else was so fantastic.

While the world can arguably be more subdued than Azeroth in parts, there is still this distinctive style that I quickly fell in love with. It’s fantastical, but it still feels grounded. Part of that has to do with how the game introduces you to the world, and how the main story quests explain to you the lore bit by bit. I feel like much of the world design of WoW was down to “the rule of cool”. Now, I’m not saying XIV doesn’t have that, but I feel like XIV always goes the extra mile to explain why this cool shit is here. Everything you see out there in the world feels like it has a purpose, a reason to be there and an explanation on how it works. The factions make sense, the political conflicts you get entangled in are believable. I feel like I am kind of biased to be honest. What got me to play FFXIV in the first place was seeing that Viera are a playable race. I’m a sucker for Final Fantasy, not in short part to my memories of Playing Final Fantasy Tactics and XII. XII is still my favorite game in the series, and much of that has to do with the world, Ivalice. Viera were always my favorite race of the ones seen in Ivalice. Seeing as you can play a Viera in XIV, I just had to try. Thinking about it, XII and XIV have a lot in common when it comes to world building.

One of the weirdest things to acclimate for me was how FFXIV handles story. I was used to WoW, where story was basically non-existent and you did what you did to see numbers rise and to unlock now content you could do. You are basically never involved in the story of WoW, you are just kind of there for the ride. In FFXIV, you are the main character. You are involved in what happens at all times, and that is kinda strange coming from WoW. At first I thought I wouldn’t like it, but the game made it work in my opinion. I also didn’t expect there to be so much of story to begin with. Kind of ironically the moment I realized just how much there was to experience was when I went through Ul’dah and saw a blue quest. Now, blue quest markers mean there is some content you can unlock by doing this quest. A lot of these are kinda short, with a bit of dialogue and some bits of lore for you to enjoy and I thought this one would be no difference. After all, the hook is basically just to help this lady mourn for the death of a friend. What I got was a fabulous detective adventure that spanned over the entire continent, where in I had to help the worlds most manly detective uncover the secret behind a mysterious phantom thief. To say the least, this 21 quest long quest line brought be hours upon hours of joy and had me in stitches throughout. And it was completely optional. I don’t think I even remember a single moment from any quest in WoW that made me this excited for it, optional or otherwise.

Ultimately these are very different games that try very different things.

Dungeons and Raids were a different thing. I remember when I rolled a new character for WotLK and wanted to do karazhan because I used to like doing that raid with my guild back in TBC. I could not for the live of me find a group willing to do it, because everyone was way more focused on the new content, so they could get better gear. Regardless, it just wouldn’t have been the same experience anyways I fear, because the new gear from the new Dungeons outclassed the raid gear from TBC, so karazhan would be way easier and a much different experience. In FFXIV, every dungeon is level synced by default, meaning if a higher level character joins, they get basically downgraded to the level the dungeon was designed for. Couple that with the Duty Roulette feature and suddenly, there was always someone to do any given dungeon with. I remember when I had to do the crystal tower raids and thought “why would they tie main story progression to a raid, I will never find a group to do that properly” but low and behold, I found a group within 30 minutes or less and raided through the entire set of raids within a day. Dungeons and Raids are generally a very pick up and play thing in FFXIV. To be fair, dungeons got easier and more pick up and play in WoW too, but Raids were always the endgame thing where you had to gear up and learn to play. In FFXIV, much more lenient. No corpse walking required. I say this, but I have yet to do the Coils of Bahamut or any Savage Raids. I have only heard that there is plenty of hardcore raid content for those who want that.

That’s nothing to say about the actual gameplay. FFXIV is a tab-target MMO, like so many others, but it manages to keep this kind of gameplay fresh by introducing a lot of mechanics that make the game more active than the typical “I stand here and hit my rotation a lot”. For starters, most enemies have special abilities that you can actually dodge by moving out of the way. There will a area marker on the floor and everyone within that area will be hit. It starts out easy, but later dungeons really start kicking your ass with this mechanic. You really need to say on your toes. In addition, every class is extremely different. They all have special mechanics unique to them, special meters and resources they will have to manage during combat and so on. For example, a Red Mage (the class I’m playing currently), has two meters that fill up as you cast spells. They generally have two types of spells, white and black magic. Each type fills its respective bar. Once they are both full enough, you can go in and do a more powerful melee rotation. However, if one bar is fuller than the other, the other bar will fill up slower. Since you need to fill both, you want to balance that out. You get instant casts for spells after performing a damaging spell, and you have some spells with a short cast time and good damage output that you want to cast and then use the instant cast of to cast a more damaging spell that has a long cast time. But these short cast, good damage spells require a you get from casting a spell of the respective type. So, in essence, you want to balance your use of black and white magic, but you also want to use the proc you get from casting your white and black magic, which means you cast more of the type which inherently unbalances your gauges. It becomes this micromanagement game you play with your procs and instant casts, so you can go in and do the big, flashy sword combo. And that’s just the red mage at around 50. Every class has something like this, and it’s all unique to them. Learning a class is not just learning the rotation and spells you have anymore, it’s really learning how to effectively play your class. Also, positioning. Some abilities do more damage from certain positions, so you will have to dance around an enemy to hit all the sweet spots with classes like monks. These complexities get introduced slowly as you level up, so you have plenty of time to learn the mechanics. My favorite feature might be the class system itself, though. In FFXIV, you aren’t limited to one class for the entire duration of your characters career. You can, from a certain point forwards, choose any class you wish and level that up instead. You can freely switch between classes outside of combat, too. If you are dedicated enough, you can level them all up to max, even. This means if you don’t like a class or the direction a class is going in, you can switch. I for my part started as an arcanist, so I unlocked Summoner at 30. I played Summoner up to 50 but I was just not meshing as well with the direction the summorer went in. So, I switched to Red Mage and after some getting used to, Its now my new favorite. Arcanists are special, because you actually unlock two classes at 30, so I also unlocked Scholars. Scholars are healers and that became my main dungeon class, since queue times are way shorter for healers. This would be unthinkable in WoW, and love the fact this is a thing here.

If I had to describe it, WoW is an MMO with RPG Elements, while FFXIV is a JRPG with MMO elements. I didn’t know I needed that, but in retrospect, it makes sense. The thing that really killed my progress in WoW was that I didn’t have anyone to play with anymore. My friends all dropped from the game and while I generally like doing solo content from time to time, I’m pretty introverted, after all... MMORPGs are usually most fun with friends. Final Fantasy XIV is a JRPG first, an MMO second. There is so much to keep your attention as a solo player, its nuts. All my friends who play this game, play on a different data center, so I can’t even visit them. Despite that, I had a lot of fun in my time with the game.

My experience with the game was incredibly positive, and I don’t think it will get worse from here. Everyone keeps telling me how great Heavensward is. I just have to finish 16 more quests and I’ll be able to see for myself what the fuss is about.

Honestly, if I had to say anything negative, it would be how longwinded ARR is. I mean, its not bad by any means, but I can see how someone could be turned off by this huge storyblock. Worst of all is, after you hit 50 and reach the end of ARR’s story line, there are 80 quests before you can even start with Heavensward. Since everyone keeps going on about how great it is, it’s kind of annoying how long you have to work to even get to it. In retrospect, it kinda makes sense though. These quests are meant to be played over months and months throughout a update cycle and bridge the narrative gap between one storyblock and the next, but holy fucking shit why did it have to be THAT long. They even cut like 20 of the quests from this already insanely long quest line. What the fuck. This is supposed to be an epilogue to ARR and it feels like I played a whole fucking JRPG in between ARR and Heavensward. Oh well. Thankfully, they learned from this and made the post-story blocks shorter.

I will just say that I can recommend this game. You should give it a try. Just... try not to drop the game before it gets really, really good.

[nubblenubs-blog]

Adventure Into – Eorzea - Final Fantasy XIV

Although I’m not a full, hardcore Final Fantasy lover and lore nerd I fully appreciate each of the games in the series (Especially Final Fantasy X, who doesn’t love the almighty Tidus laugh and Blitzball?!). The one game I have completely fallen head of heals for however, is Final Fantasy XIV. I’ve tried so many MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) games before but this one, somehow, just keeps pulling me back being somewhat of a staple in my steam library. History Today we’re going to be talking about Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn and the brief history of the series. The Final Fantasy series has been around since 1987 in Japan, where it stated as a turn-based RPG (Role Playing Game) it grew in popularity and a few years later, in 1990, the English version was released to the public where still it grew! The turn-based formula has been a solid staple for a lot of the series, the first deviation from the formula, (as well as genre of game) Square’s first of two Final Fantasy MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) created in 2002, Final Fantasy XI. Final Fantasy XI dropped the turn-based system for a more active system and allowed players from all over the world to connect and explore the world in parties and enjoy the story that the Final Fantasy series was known for. But this wasn’t going to be their first rodeo with an MMORPG, as in 2010 Final Fantasy XIV was released and was a vast graphical and performance improvement on its predecessor with all new systems and jobs, people loved it. This however was short lived and didn’t do too well, and the game took a drastic turn in terms of story line by literally plummeting a moon down on the world that, in story terms, destroyed a lot of the land whilst concluding the story of Final Fantasy XIV (Known as version 1.0) in November 2012. But this wasn’t the end of FFXIV at all! With so many stories to be told, a world to still be used and a dedicated team leader Naoki Yoshida we get fast forwarded 5 years in game time and the game was revived into Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn (Or version 2.0) in August of 2013, once again with more graphical and performance improvements and a huge story overhaul that was truly needed. The Game When you launch you’re greeted with a simple main menu and very Final Fantasy-esk music chiming in the background, (and will actually change depending on the expansions you have!) you will then be thrusted into the character creation, one of my favourite parts even if it isn’t as detailed as other MMOs. Once your character is suitably looking, you will have the choice of the standard base game classes 2 Tanks, 1 Healer and 6 DPS’ each based in their respective starting zones.

·         Limsa Lominsa, the city of pirates, beaches – Marauder, Arcanist

·         Ul’dah the rich and merchants, desert – Gladiator, Pugilist, Thaumaturge

·         Gridania very …down to earth people, forests – Conjurer, Archer, Lancer

Once you’re situated into a world one of the MANY cutscenes this game has to offer will start giving you the general gist of the current situation and once completed, you’ll arrive in your starting town ready to get going! Now that we’re finally into the game itself we get the choice to play with either a controller or keyboard and mouse, this is because the game is also on PS4 and has extremely good controller support for an MMO, however, for this I will be using the standard KB+M. Since this is the tutorial I will rush through and allow you yourself, to learn and I will jump past this section. Once tutorial is over you’ll then be put into the world with other people and can properly start your adventure, getting quests, items, fightin’ critters and following the story of The Warrior of Light. The main part of the gameplay is simple and easy to pick up especially as you level up, getting more intricate as you reach the higher levels of 60-70. However, Final Fantasy XIV is still slower than other MMOs with a global cooldown of 2.5 seconds on standard skills and longer for other skills, which can feel particularly sluggish if you’ve come from WoW with a lot of procs (programmed random occurrence) and movement. Aside from the global cooldown though, the skills are all pretty unique with some beautiful animations that fit your level. I also absolutely love running boss fights, from the hard modes to the extreme and savage, it’s a great challenge with friends and randos! But it’s not only that, there are so many other activities you can do in this game that aren’t all about fighting and defeating creatures; you can actually take up a more tame job such as a crafter or gatherer, race Chocobos, play cards, buy and decorate a house, transmogrify your outfit into something adorable or even take a break during your big adventure to play an RTS (Real Time Strategy) instead! There is so much more this game offers you than just questing and fighting and it’s all so well incorporated into the world and lore that you can get absolutely lost in it and experience/enjoy it all! The Ups and Downs The biggest downside of the game is the monthly subscription system. Although personally I feel like I get my money’s worth every month with the amount of playtime I put in and will continue to put in, I know that’s not the case for everyone and can be a huge put off. Other than the price when it originally re-launched on the PS3 there were many limitations though recently they’ve started streamlining it a lot more (Since they had also stopped support of the PS3 in 2017) whilst keeping phenomenal console support which is very impressive. To give the subscription credit, it is cheaper than a fair few subscription games and comes with a couple of options, one being cheaper than the other, 1 character per world or 8 characters per world. The newest expansions are also bundled in the previous ones, so you don’t need to pay for them individually which is pretty awesome. But before even getting the game and the expansion you can play a free trial that allows you to level up all the way to 35 with every vanilla class giving you a small insight into it each one as well as saving you money since it’s an unlimited time trial, however some features are taken out so bots cannot make use of it such as creating parties, trading and mailing. But the biggest thing for me personally is that it’s not pay to win at all, there is pay for convenience but it’s purely optional other, than that it’s just lots of very cute and aesthetic looking things! The Mog Station (as the shop is called) has lots of cosmetic only items such as clothes, mounts, housing so if you want that cute mount ‘just cuz’? You get it! You want that boost because you don’t like that class at early levels? You get it! All in all Final Fantasy XIV has been an amazing experience and probably my favourite MMO out there. It’s is a staple in my library, and I will hopefully be playing it long into the future with the way it’s ever evolving! Thanks to the amazing team behind Final Fantasy XIV and of course, the players that make the experience as special as it is!

[maximumpenetration]

Looking Back at the 2.0 Planning Doc

Since around the beginning of the year, I’ve been coming back to this old planning document (link) posted at the time of FFXIV Version 2.0′s announcement. I’ve intended to go through it and take a close examination at each item, seeing what hasn’t made it through, or what was planned for 2.0 and made it in late. I’ve kept putting it off, partially out of laziness and partially because I wanted to see if Stormblood would plug up any holes. I’ve waited long enough, and while we’re not exactly at the four year anniversary of ARR’s launch, we’re close enough that I think it’s a good time to take a look.

Note: At the very top of the document, it’s stated that “Details may change between now [October 14, 2011] and the time of release.” These were not promises made by the developers, simply plans they had for the game at the time.

Characters

Complete redesign of character creation screens and process.

Addition of Miqo'te males, Highland Hyur and Roegadyn females for version 2.0.

Creation of more character customization options (e.g. , hairstyle).

Ability to walk and view character in game environments and use emotes as part of creation process. 

For the most part, the character creation process made it into the game as planned. You can compare the current version of character creation to the old one here, where you can see how few options there were compared to today, as well as how... text heavy(?) the character creation process was. If there was one sticking point I had to make, it’s that while the current character creator lets you view your character in different environments and use emotes, you aren’t able to run around in those fields.

Expansion of Armoury, focused on classes and jobs, prior to version 2.0.

Jobs to progress by clearing quests rather than gaining EXP.

Job-related quests, abilities, and job-specific gear planned for patch 1.21. 

There’s not much to go into here. I’m not entirely sure what “expansion of armoury” means, but it might relate to the Armoury Chest - in the old version of the game, all your gear was stored in the same inventory as your general items (although you had 200 item slots to help ease the burden). Jobs were added towards the tail end of 1.0′s lifespan, and worked similarly to how they did at ARR launch, requiring a main class at level 30 and a sub class at level 15 to unlock.

User Interface

Complete redesign of user interface for version 2.0 currently underway.

Customization of both gamepad/keyboard and mouse/keyboard configurations.

Global standard for MMO UI when using mouse/keyboard to navigate in-game windows. Will not require a manual for explanation.

Drag and drop functionality, item name/icon display toggle to be added to gear interface. 

It’s funny, and a little bit sad, to think about how these items made it into the planning document. The user interface for the original version of the game was notoriously awful, being cumbersome to navigate with a mouse and keyboard, and requiring server confirmation to operate. 

Release of a "mannequin" system for one-touch changing of gear sets.

Gear equipped to mannequins will not take up inventory space.

Mannequins available can be increased via certain quests and battle content. 

This is the first bit of content that isn’t in the game, and also a complete justification for my laziness. Had I made this post near the beginning of the year like I planned, I wouldn’t have been able to mention this question at the dev’s PAX East panel, where we learned that we will definitely see mannequins added to the game at some point in the 4.X series of patches. At the moment, we do know that the function exists in some fashion, as there are mannequins that are used to display gear in early Disciple of Hand quests, but it’ll be interesting to see if they stick to the “increased via certain content” bit.

Markets

Improvement of search function, release of auction house features, measures to stimulate in-game economy after patch 1.20.

Complete redesign of markets into a system incorporating retainers and auction house elements. Planned for version 2.0. 

Not much to say here, either. The old Market Ward system, which required a player to physically go to a certain ward and examine retainers for the item they were looking for, was slowly improved over 1.0′s lifespan, and eventually replaced with the current Market Board system.

Enemies

Enemy leader and group systems to be removed before version 2.0.

Enemy "call for help" system released in patch 1.19, causing nearby enemies to link when called.

Release of a system to calculate enemy strength based on party size and member levels. Enemy "call for help" system to be adjusted in patch 1.20 so only appropriate enemy types link. 

You’ve probably seen the current “call for help” system if you’ve ever gone stomping into a low level area on a max level job, or running around in a small party of friends - suddenly, you’re getting swarmed by five or six mobs after you give one a little love tap! This system probably mattered more when the overworld was more dangerous, but right now it’s just a mild inconvenience to higher leveled players.

New summoning ability available to certain jobs and classes after version 2.0.

New taming ability available to certain jobs and classes after version 2.0.

Release timing of the above abilities is to coincide with addition of new jobs and classes.

Summoned and tamed pets will not count as party members, and will develop over time. Release of a "companion" system for these pet NPCs to fight alongside PCs. 

Obviously, we’ve had our hands on Arcanist, Summoner, and Scholar for a few years now, but it’s interesting to see that they were also considering a tamer-type class/job at some point early in ARR’s development. This is also the first time in the doc I noticed the “after version 2.0″ wording, which seems to imply that it was content planned to be implemented after the main 2.0 game released. Who knows what kind of development happenings shuffled Arcanist to the forefront while leaving the tamer behind, but hopefully we’ll see that tamer job return in some point in the future... as long as they fix a lot of the big issues with Pet AI first. It looks like they also walked back the idea of summons developing over time, settling on them learning new skills as the player character leveled up.

Incapacitation of body parts for boss fights, encouraging party members to focus on single targets for more engaging battles. 

I never played too much of the original 1.0, but I do remember watching a friend play it and him talking a little bit about the incapacitation system in the game; using certain skills on certain enemies from certain directions would break parts of their body, changing skill usage, lowering damage dealt, and increasing certain drops. For example, striking a sheep-type enemy from the front with blunt attacks might break their horns. This always sounded like a cool system to me, but thinking about it it was probably very cumbersome to pull off. To my understanding, you were able to break Ifrit’s horns when they introduced his fight in the later 1.X patches, but aside from certain boss mechanics (Graffias’ tail in Toto-Rak, Amikiri’s legs in Shisui), this isn’t present in the current game, and may have just been reshaped into the boss phases we see in the game today.

Items

Examination of a system to introduce legacy FINAL FANTASY items.

Legacy items will have unique graphics and stats. Obtainable only by players fulfilling certain attribute requirements after first "applying" for them.

Requirements for obtaining classic items, as well as their graphics, to be altered in future updates. Appearance of items arlready obtained will change.

Planned for after version 2.0. Further details to be announced at a future date. 

There’s this whole section on “Legacy Final Fantasy Items”, and an apparently complex set of steps they had planned for you to obtain them. This was eventually reshaped into the current Veteran Subscription bonuses, as well as the new continuous subscription campaigns they’re rolling out.

In-game Areas

Redesign of all non-instanced areas for version 2.0.

Everyone’s seen the map of The Black Shroud. I don’t need to tell you why they did this.

Planning to convert all dungeons into instanced raids. Release of content finder (see below) to help players find groups quickly and easily.

Two new dungeons to be added in patch 1.21. More dungeons to follow after version 2.0. 

The conversion of dungeons mostly relates to the open-world dungeons that were in the game at the time - Shposhae, Copperbell, Tam-Tara, among others. The two 1.21 dungeons listed in the doc were Aurum Vale and Cutter’s Cry, two dungeons present in ARR that I know for a fact everyone loves to this day!

Release of treasure maps to be discoverable by Disciples of the Land. Planned for after version 2.0.

Maps to reveal location of chests and dungeons. Dungeons to be new content designed for a combination of classes from all Disciplines. Planned for after version 2.0.

Here’s some post-2.0 content that was actually implemented a bit down the line. Treasure Hunt was introduced in patch 2.1, but it wouldn’t be until well into Heavensward, in patch 3.3, that we’d see the planned dungeons to be added. While you can’t exactly contribute to Aquapolis as a Miner or Goldsmith (unless you count the crafting items as contribution?), the fact that they kept this content in mind for so long can ignite a bit of hope that other missing pieces will see their way into the game eventually.

Main Storyline

Release of a feature to replay cutscenes.

Planned for after version 2.0 due to cutscenes requiring retouching as part of overhauls to all in-game maps.

In-game voice in all four languages (Japanese, English, French, and German) after version 2.0.

Seventh Umbral Era storyline to give way to new storyline after version 2.0, and will not be replayable. 

This section is mostly made of concessions for then-current players of the game, especially those who dig the lore. It’s a bit of a shame they never got around to redoing the old 1.X cutscenes in the current game, but given how tight their development schedule was, they probably just didn’t have enough time. It’s also probably difficult to justify today, as the number of players who might’ve completed the original story can only go down, and it’d be developing content that only a relative handful of players would be able to enjoy. It is a shame that a lot of these cutscenes, and the lore they carry, are relegated to Youtube uploads of varying quality, but hopefully projects like the 1.X private server can pick up the slack for those who’d like to go through these on their own.

Battle System

Enemy claiming system done away with, and new system released that gives loot rights to first attacking party only.

Above system and new battle algorithms in-game as of patch 1.19. Future algorithm balancing to continue for version 2.0. 

Prior to this change, if someone claimed a monster, only they and their party could attack it, and could not receive any outside help. 

Balance and release of crowd control system with firm control of status timers (e.g., sleep, paralysis, blind) after stabilization of battle algorithms. 

If crowd control in 1.0 was anything like it was in FFXI, the duration and potency of effects was semi-random, based on your skill level and other factors like individual monster resistance. In the current system, crowd control has set durations and monsters can build resistance that reduces it’s effect time on multiple casts... in early game, anyway. By the time you get to any content that matters, you might as well take crowd control off your hotbar.

Two PvP venues, Coliseum and Frontlines, to be released after version 2.0. Unique zones to be created so as not to affect non-participating players.

Release of PvP-specific abilities, gear, and ranking. Support for multi-party alliances for large-scale content to be released together with the above. 

PvP is an experiment that continues to be worked on in the current game. PvP ranking didn’t really take off until the introduction of The Feast in patch 3.21, and attempts at battle balance eventually led us to the current system of an entirely separate PvP hotbar from the main game. I’d like to note the wording of “ Unique zones to be created so as not to affect non-participating players”, which I interpret as meaning the PvP zones were initially planned to be perpetual areas in the overworld, and not instances as they currently are.

Synthesis

Basis of new recipes released in patch 1.19. New additions to continue to be made prior to version 2.0.

New high-end recipes to have high levels of difficulty, not only in terms of recipe complexity, but also crafting location requirements (e.g., facilities within a kobold stronghold). 

I don’t believe that second bullet point was ever added to the game in any fashion. It’s neat to think about, but the developers probably realized that the sense of danger would evaporate as soon as players realized they could just raid the stronghold as a battle class, then switch to their crafting class once they were in the right place. Not something I’d expect to see in the game, although if you want to stretch the definition a bit the Ixal quests sending you to different crafting stations might qualify.

Materia released in patch 1.19, with future plans including release of additional materia slot items, materia to mitigate requirements to equip gear, further system expansions, and additional items. 

Nothing to mention here. Hey, did you know if you failed an overmeld in 1.X you lost the entire item? I thought that was interesting.

Release of an item notebook after version 2.0 to log all recipes and crafted items for consolidated, easy viewing.

Release of a "signature" feature for version 2.0 enabling players to put their names on items they craft. 

Again, that “after version 2.0″ wording makes it seem like they weren’t planning on adding the Crafting Log until after the main game came out. Can you imagine? 1.X players didn’t have to imagine - there was no easy resource in-game for viewing recipes, so you either scrounged what you could from NPCs or kept a resource open on your browser at all times.

Gathering

Disciple of the Land Stealth ability released in patch 1.19, enabling gatherers to remain concealed from enemies in the field.

Release of an item notebook after version 2.0 to log gathering level and item information for consolidated, easy viewing 

Another game system we take for granted of today, maybe not entirely expected this early in development? Yikes.

Release of treasure chests that may appear randomly at any gathering node.

Chests to yield treasure maps that may only be viewed by Disciples of the Land. 

You can see the beginnings of the current treasure map system beginning to form here. Since originally, gathering didn’t operate on selecting nodes like it does today, you wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint where the map is and try to gather it, so maps would be obtained from a randomly spawning chest at a node.

As a side note, if you want to know what gathering was like in 1.X, there’s a couple of minigames in the Gold Saucer that replicate the experience.

Company System

Release of in-game player communities known as Free Companies.

Planned for version 2.0. Free Companies can be formed by as few as 4 players by submitting an application to a Grand Company

 Free Company-specific content to earn points used to improve company rank, gain access to personal estates, perform cooperative synthesis. Planned for four-phase release after version 2.0. 

Again, more bits of content that were planned yet went unreleased until long after this document was revealed. Company workshops weren’t added to the game until 3.0!

Mounts

Chocobo mounts released in patch 1.19.

Future plans include chocobo gear, rearing, battle, mounted content, and shared chocobos, to be released sequentially after version 2.0.

Plans to release other forms of transportation. 

Everything seems to be in order here. “Mounted content” may mean some missing mounted combat... or just content like Chocobo Racing.

Communication

Release of a delivery system and mail system for version 2.0.

Delivery system to enable sending of items to safehouses and other players.

Items can be sent to other players regardless of their online status.

Mail system to enable sending of short in-game messages to other players.

Messages can be sent to other players regardless of their online status.

PC search function to be completely overhauled, and a search UI added with various functions (e.g., Free Company searches). 

Yet again, basic MMO features like sending and receiving messages was missing from the original game. I personally think the in-game player search function is wack even today, but the Lodestone search helps to pick up the slack if you really gotta stalk someone.

Release of a content finder system after version 2.0.

Content finder to allow input of information such as class, job, and level, to find other players across all worlds for groups for dungeons, instanced raids, primal battles, etc.

Further details to be released as they become available. 

The Duty Finder wasn’t planned to be in at release? I recall in one of the early beta phases, it was missing, and you were forced to gather outside of dungeon entrances and shout for party members, which wasn’t fun at all. I ended up healing most of the dungeons as Thaumaturge!

Achievements and Trophies

Achievement system to recognize and reward accomplishments in battle, synthesis, gathering, etc.

Release of additional achievements in future patches.

Various types of achievement rewards, such as titles and items.

Planned release of initial achievement system in patch 1.20, with over 300 achievements.

The only category I can say was added completely as planned.

New Content

New primal battles.

Summoning system that awards the ability to summon primals to Free Companies that defeat them. 

Aside from maybe mannequins and UI addons, this is the one feature request I see come up again and again. With how encounter gameplay is balanced, and how the lore explains the ramifications of primal summoning, I highly doubt this will ever be implemented in the game, but it’s fun to imagine summoning your bro Susano to fight at your side.

Campaign of battles against the dragon horde in the defense of Ishgard, with participation possible as any of the four Disciplines 

This seems to be similar to Hamlet Defense, which would crop up soon after this document hit in April 2012 (you can catch a quick overview of the content in this video). Hamlet Defense is a bit of content I’d like to see make a comeback in the current game, as a way for all classes to contribute towards a common goal. I’d secretly been hoping it’d sneak into some sort of FATE content for Stormblood, but alas...

Another side note - in some interview buried far away during early 2.0 promotion, Yoshida mentioned that both Ishard and Ala Mhigo would be accessible from the start of 2.0. They certainly had big plans for the game back then, even if they had to scale back to keep things realistic.

Two forms of PvP, the Coliseum and the Frontlines, to be released sequentially.

Large-scale instanced raids of the Crystal Tower and a vast labyrinth. Further expansions planned for future patches. 

So much for a “vast” labyrinth, huh? We might see this make a bit of a comeback in Eureka, but it remains to be seen if the development team learned from their mistakes in Diadem.

Wandering Odin primal, who grows in strength and drops greater treasures with each defeat. 

In early 2.0 beta datamining, there were placeholders for Odin fates in each zone in the game. They must’ve cut back on their plans at some point, as he only spawns in The Black Shroud now, and the concept of him growing stronger and dropping cool stuff was walked back in favor of the superFATE/token system we have now. 

And that’s it! I think it’s interesting to look back as some of the early plans for A Realm Reborn and compare them to what’s playable today, since we rarely get a look at planning documents like this for games in development. But the devs had to make sure they kept current players interested and future players excited for things to come, and even if not everything made it in or had to be changed during development, they stuck pretty closely to this document in the end.

Do you have any thoughts on this doc? Anything you think I got wrong? Feel free to let me know - feedback is always appreciated for long posts like this!

[before-calamity]

Lost Arcanist Abilities

Arcanists in 1.0 could appear to create staffs, animate them and then can launch missile attacks. These missile attacks seem to be inline with the spirit dart or phantom dart we've seen earlier (albiet with a more generic name, making it even more possible Magic Missile is something completely different as there are a lot of cut abilities called Magic Missile, but I'm including it here just cause.)

[before-calamity]

Lost Skills Part 2

Oh yeah, we have a lot of these.

These are different for multiple purposes. Notice the . infront of the name as well as the odd-harp-like icon (maybe a cut BRD skill?). Mass Fear II gets learned at level 78 as well! XIV 1.0 only went up to 50. Also there's an item in the corner of .Mass Fear II's icon. What is that? I'm thinking it might be the original design of the job stones myself, similar to how the final job stones appear in the corner of released skills (see some of the other skill overviews to see an example).

Now time for the skill itself - it simply just makes enemies flee. That's pretty powerful, and probably wouldn't work on bosses.

But...why? This leads me have a lot of question, because this seemed like a very different mechanic battle mechanics than what we have. Plus kind of a waste of a skill? .Mass Fear II apparantly does the same thing (it could be a cut description and it defaulted to I's description, or it could just be purely lost), but maybe it has more of a chance of doing it.

Read on for more cool cut actions...including a remnant of the cut gathering Shepard class...

Okay. So the data is filled with "Magic Missile" and most of them are...unfinished, with no description, and they do nothing. One does, and it's for the Arcanist class! This magic missile attack basically launches a ranged attack.

But wait, there's more!

Ranged magic attacks for both of the casters! These fall in the line of the fact that originally 1.0 had no auto attack. So for casters to do a basic attack...you'd have to do press a button. The auto attacks for casters, as far as I know, have been changed to melee attacks like they were in ARR. However, these skills are kind of sorta in XIV? Spirit Dart is now a variant action and are Logos/Lost actions in Eureka and Bozja, and Phantom Dart made it to ARR but was cut later on, and it was like a ogcd Scathe. I wanna disclaim - these two might've been released in the original 1.0 release, before they changed it to use auto-attacks. But I'm comparing everything to client 1.23b, so these would count as cut/removed content.

And now...remnants of the Shepard gathering class. You have these two actions - Herd and Herd 2. Both were cut out really early - look at Mass Fear II to see how numerals were handed later on, and they lack a hotbar icon (they don't even appear as the red X, like some other cut actions - they just don't appear at all).

Herd 2's action is pretty suspicious too. "Open negotiations" does fit an action related to the Parley minigame - so I'm wondering if the description for Herd 2 was rewritten by the one for Parley.

Next, we'll be looking at basically some basic attack skills, featuring a bunch of cut classes!

[before-calamity]

Lost Jobs & Classes

This is going to be a doozy for some of you. Here is some data that has essentially a list of data (from some point in development) that represents a list of jobs and classes that 1.0 recognizes. This first picture is basically a list of guilds. We can ignore the Adventurer's Guild (right? ....right?), but there are some interesting things in here. - A few classes that never saw the light of day: Fencers, Enforcers, Sentinels, Samurai, Stavesman, Assassins, Mystics and Flayers.

Bard is both a job and a class.

There are two empty data for crafters and gatherers (possibly for symmetry or perhaps to be filled into the future.

We already know about the Musketeer, Arcanist and Shepherd classes, but they're in this list anyways. (Even more fun: I might have pictures of the Sentinel, Stavesman and Mystic weapons, as well as muskets and other pics.)

Okay, this list is long, but what it comprises is information regarding skills of each class and job, including abbreviations for those job. Some things to note here: Adventurer is listed as an unarmed, which is something you can't have in FFXIV...ever, whether in 1.0 or not. I'm thinking this is not an actual class, but more of a catch-all in case you get in a situation where you don't have a weapon. Some of these classes and the skills they use are obvious - a fencer fences, duh. It's interesting that gladiators, who in FFXIV are sword and board, are just listed as "sword" and sentinels are listed as "shield". Enforcers would've used a club. Samurai uses great katanas. Assassins use "dark arts", whatever that can be. The "Bard" class would use Musical skills, and was considered a magic class.

It's an interesting topic, especially how you look at ARR. Take Fencer, RDM is a fencing class, so how much of 1.0 Fencer became RDM? Assassin used "Dark" powers, so was original DRK inspired by Assassin? Was Assassin a mix between DRK and NIN? And somethings don't have equivalent. There isn't a class that just uses clubs (although other jobs in ARR have club-like weapons), or shields, or staves, or whatever mysticism entails.

More on these lost jobs to come.

[before-calamity]

Arcanist Weapon

Arcanist was a class cut from FFXIV 1.0. However, you can see their weapons in Limsa Lominsa, at the Arcanist Guild. This is a mechanical-looking two handed staff. This would've been fairly unique, considering THM and CNJ used one-handed wands or staves.