Final Fantasy XIV Evercold To Radically Change Gear, Introduces Evolved Combat System – Full Details Here

One of the biggest announcements during the most recent Final Fantasy XIV Fanfest for a lot of players is the armoury and combat changes. We will break down the information that we know from the recent FanFest, but I’ll say first off that I’m incredibly excited for these changes as a controller player, especially the new combat system.

One Gear to Rule Them All

Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XI’s biggest difference from most MMOs is the fact you have the feature to be able to swap your jobs anytime you want, especially in XIV, in which you can change on the field (certain locations such as dungeons and raids will lock you to the job that you queued in for along with a couple other things), but in general the main focus of the game is the ability to swap. But the downside with the current system since it launched is that endgame gear is locked weekly.

This means if you want to run with the highest item level possible, you can only do it with certain jobs until much later in the expansion unless you swap jobs in the same role (Paladin to Warrior, for example). With the newest system that is launching with 8.x, your highest item-level gear will sync to every other job you have levelled up. You will still need to level your job, but if you get gear for your white mage at level 110 and then swap to black mage, it will have the same item level as your white mage.

I’ll admit I do have some worries about this system; for example, how this will affect crafting gear, and alliance gear was often designed as catch-up gear. Under this new system, you really do not need crafting gear. Also, savage raiders, once fully geared up for one job, have less reason to grind for other jobs, which could have the raid scene stop faster than it did before. Though one benefit for getting other gear is the fact materia does not scale with the level sync system, so if you want to min-max, you will need other gear for the materia to work.

Buttons, Who Needs Buttons?

As a controller player, this was probably one of my favourite announcements of this entire fanfest. I will say we only have a limited amount of information, and if I can get a chance to do an interview at the EU Fanfest, I will be asking questions. But we do know that there will be more details revealed during that event.

If you have ever played PvP, this was designed by Mr Prime, who helped design a lot of the current PvP environment. But why am I talking about PvP? Combos have been put into one button for a while, and PvP combat has felt more like the jobs than PvE has for some time. With the upcoming expansion Evercold, the development team will be adding two new modes; one is called ‘Reborn’ and the other is called ‘Evolved’.

The Reborn mode is how the current combat plays; there will be new buttons added during 100-110, probably as always, but the overall feel of the game will be like it is currently. This has been fine for the 13 years that the game has been around, but other titles have evolved and changed since the launch of Final Fantasy XIV.

Talking Evolved, this is the name of the new combat system, although only a limited amount of details are currently known. One thing we do know is that the team has moved the one-button combo system to the PvE side of the game. This isn’t just a simple change, though; some potencies will be increased, and some skills have been removed or merged with other skills. For example, Paladin can use Divine Justice, which either does the damage move Holy Spirit on the enemy or heals a teammate with Clemency. Both these skills existed before, but now Divine Justice merges them into one button.

It’s A Button, But Something Else

Something that I look forward to trying myself is the new action “Answering Strike”, in which you use “Sheltron”, something called “Defence” (names subject to change). After using this skill, you get the buff “Surcoat of Satisfaction” for four seconds. After four seconds you get the trait “Surcoat of Answers.” Depending on when you are attacked during these buffs, you will do a counter or a stronger counter if you time the “Sheltron” with the attack hitting the Paladin.

Another example of buttons that do change is Provoke, which, if you target the enemy, will do the normal Provoke effect, which will make the enemy target you. But if you use it on a team mate, then it will pass the enemy target effect to them. As some folk will provoke and then shirk teammates, the development team added two uses of Provoke before it recharges, in Reborn mode you have only a charge of Provoke, as Shirk is a separate skill.

One move we know that has gone is Bulwark; this was a defence move, and now in Evolved mode, this effect is gone. But this is where the potency changes come in; though we do now know the exact information at the time of writing, one other skill should be slightly increased or have the potency added.

I really can’t wait to try this new system; I do think Evolved mode is a good change for most jobs. One of the most important things that matter is this should be a solid step forward in terms of accessibility for players. I look forward to learning more information during EU Fan fest, and we’ll be sure to bring you all the latest details as they break.

You can read full details on the reveal of Final Fantasy XIV Evercold here.