Final Fantasy XIV looks like it has a several interesting tweaks within the game that set it apart from the standard MMO. First, there's the flexibility of the class system. A player can apparently switch their class by simply switching their equipment: thus, a player can switch at will between a spellcaster, a physical attacker and something boring, like a botanist. It also appears that, once you've reached a certain level of mastery, your character will be able to use one class' abilities while being actually equipped as a different class. (I.e. a physical attacker who is capable of casting a spell or two. Or whatever it is that botanists do.) Regardless, this seems to at least answer R51's confusion with that whole tailor-class business.
Quests are built towards specific classes, so that a player can select quests based on what pertains to their character. It also looks like the difficulty of enemies can vary quite a bit depending on location.
Aside from what we already know about weekly leveling limits, Square Enix has put in additional checks to prevent players from going level-crazy. According to this fellow over at IGN, there are several aspects of the game (such as a relatively limited number of solo quests) that encourage/force the player to enter into multiplayer pursuits or explore additional areas of the game.
The game also appears to be shooting towards a high level of realism, especially in the less battle-oriented classes. There is an economy of sorts within the game, and players can not only harvest natural resources of a wide variety but fashion them into, uh, stuff as well.
The reviewer at IGN speaks highly of the combat system in FFXIV. Powerful moves require TP (tech points?) while magic requires MP (duh). There is also a stamina bar, which gradually drains when executing standard attacks. Upon leveling up, the player is able to assign points to all the standard categories (attack power, magic power, defense, magic defense, etc.).
The game isn't without its flaws, of course. Apparently, there is a bit of redundancy involved in the non-combat classes (which is probably to be expected). This reviewer also is a bit frustrated with the teleporting system (teleporting requires a large number of Anima points, which also regenerate slowly), as well as having to manually reassign the character's abilities after switching classes.
The biggest problem that I saw, however, was the issue of hardware. Like R51 mentioned earlier, you're going to want to have a pretty decent machine if you want to be running FFXIV at the ideal level. It isn't exactly clear how much the game is compromised by a less-than-perfect PC (even when run at lower graphics settings), but it sounds like there'll be a fair bit of lagging involved.
That said, Square Enix still has a bit of time to try to clear up some of this stuff before the game is released at the end of the month. Personally, I think that most of these smaller issues can be forgiven so long as they try to do something with the game's playability on less-than-jacked PCs.
All the information in this news post is based off of the below-linked IGN article (I haven't been in Beta, and nor have the staff to the best of my knowledge). If you're someone who has played the Beta firsthand, though, why not chirp in with anything interesting you've found and/or your opinions?
Source: IGN
Posted in: Square-Enix News