Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn’s Beta 3 Closed Up

The third beta phase of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn has ended and every player is waiting on beta 4 to show up so they can jump back into the game. If you want to know more about Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn beta, you’ll want to keep reading because I have some inside information about a few of the new aspects of FFXIV: ARR.

Fans of FFXIV: ARR have only anticipation left in them as they wait for beta 4. Courtesy of Ryahl Smith from MMORPG.com: a little report on FFXIV: ARR beta 3. Smith says that the beta 3 has been one of his more pleasant betas he has experienced. The stability and game systems made for players are really well done.

He goes on to say that the amount put into the game is impressive for its span of two months starting from launch. As you progress through the game, the game systems become more complex.

Smith discusses about three interesting parts of FFXIV: ARR from beta 3. First is about:

Chocobos 

Final Fantasy chocobos are one of the biggest trademark franchise mascot. These helpful birds are a common form of transportation.

Functioning as travelling battle companions, players will find a chocobo via a Chobo Porter almost immediately in FFXIV: ARR. Chobo Porters provide cheap and quick travel between adventuring outposts and cities. Free riding is also possible by renting yourself a chocobo for a short duration.

However, their is minimum level for renting chocobos which is level 10. At level 20, you can have ownership of your very own chocobo.

Grand companies are the FFXIV:ARR equivalent of NPC factions. When you join a Grand company, players will get the opportunity to acquire a permanent chocobo license. With the license comes the chocobo, players won’t have to carry themselves around all day to get to their quest’s objective, that’s what chocobos are for. This will be a must when you play the game.

Further into the game, players can provide their chocobos with delicious treats to encourage them to join your party as a battle companion. Chocobo’s battle system uses various stances to fight with. The stances are quite simple. The Attack stance puts your chocobo into kill mobs mode, the Defensive stance makes the chocobo a tank with some enmity generation, the Heal stance obviously makes the chocobo your very own personal healer, and finally Free stance lets your chocobo decide on its own what actions are best.

As the AI needs some work. Ryahl Smith explains how your chocobo will attack with area of effect (AOE) attacks and luring in more hostiles into the fight. Also, the healing mode will make your chocobo stand right next to you to take extra damage from cone attacks. Hopefully,we will see some new chocobo functionality during beta-4 test. 

Duty Finder

A new tool called the Duty Finder (don’t laugh Peter Griffin) has made its appearance in beta 3. The Duty Finder queues you up for many different duties (currently primals, dungeons, and guildhests) and assigns you to a role based on the class you queue as.

The Duty Finder assembles you into a balanced team for the needs of the Duty itself. Usually in the beginning part of the game, you will get a team of four players which consist of one tank, one healer and two damage-dealers.

There is a big reason to use this tool to find yourself a party. Most of the content is gated by completing quests and each quest requires a party, but a party isn’t always available. The Duty Finder is very convenient and quick to find you a party. Even if it takes awhile to find you a party, you can change your class and work on getting other things done.

In Smith’s experience, he did find a few players that weren’t all that great, but he found that most players were cooperative and helped complete quests successfully.

In every part of FFXIV: ARR, the Duty Finder will be very beneficial to players, especially people who play in the off-times. Here is a video from the FFXIV: ARR developers themselves to help explain how the Duty Finder works.

Limit Break

Now you would think Limit Breaks are like FFVII‘s Limit Breaks, but these are a little different. The Limit Break is a party maneuver system where each player can activate their individual Limit Break to help the team in some specific way to gain the advantage against tough enemies. The party builds up there Limit Break points as they adventure together and fills up there limit break indicator.

When you are building up your limit break, you can have up to three bars of points accumulated. Depending on what your party is up against, dungeon bosses will have a maximum of two limit break bars in the early part of the game. Most other group content only allows you to have one bar of limit break. Smith says he hasn’t actually seen three bar content yet, but that will likely be end-game hard mode and raid content.

Also, depending on what class you are determines your type of limit break. If you are a tank, you trigger a protective Limit Break, healers trigger group heals, melee DPS triggers massive single target damage and thaumaturges trigger area of effect damage breaks.

Smith talks about how the system for limit breaks is quite simple which is great and all, but it is missing the complexity needed to make parties “elite”. Limit breaks are great early on, but have a much bigger use within 8-person hardmode dungeons and 24-person raids.

His other concern is exactly how does a limit break build up points? ‘Playing your role well,’ is all the in-game help gives you, so its not certain what fills up the bar. Limit breaks don’t seem so simple now, but more complex behind the scenes.

When will Beta 4 start? 

So beta 3 has ended and we’re all wondering when beta 4 will show up. Beta 4 should be even more of an open beta experience and bring in players by the thousands. It’s certainly possible that beta 4 might jump straight into an official launch. But at the same time, beta 4 could end up with a few problems, letting Square Enix more time to make the game as great as can be.

With some obvious downtime between systems and a new client installation, beta 4 won’t probably launch until some time this August. I would like to think FFXIV’s fourth beta will be a success. What will you be looking forward to in the next beta? Leave your thoughts below, until then you can watch this video of all the characters show themselves off to the fans.