Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn – PS4 Version Coming With a Wealth of Changes
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn was released in late August this year with favorable reviews from everywhere on the internet. This was a big contrast from the first offering and seemed to have somewhat saved the brand from complete humiliation. Enter the PS4 version which is penned in for April 2014. What will this offer gamers and how has the game changed since it's release? We look into the Square-Enix hit and unravel the game from the past few months to see how it is going.
The Playstation 4 version of
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn will launch sometime in April 2014 which was confirmed by Square-Enix yesterday. The MMORPG's launch will be preceded by a beta test which will be hitting users on the 22nd of February in North America and Japan which is the same day the PS4 actually launches in Japan, giving the Japanese folks the chance to jump straight into Eorza and try it out on day one. The good news is as well that players with characters on the PS3 version will be able to transfer their players over to the PS4 free of charge making the upgrade to the PS$ quite seamless for fans of the game. Let's just hope their isn't any server hiccups like the PC version had during the first week of play!
In November, Square-Enix boasted figures of 1.5 million active players to counter the criticism the game had during the opening week where a lot of players were left frustrated at the lack of game time due to server crashes and multiple people trying to cram into the areas of the game. Well things have settled down now and the game seems to have balanced out. The first monthers have come and gone and those in for the long haul have stayed put and are now getting the benefits of what is a decent game.
The game has and is going through a lot of changes. Those who hit the high levels early are reaping the rewards with four raids now being available to adventure through in Eorzea. Each raid also now has bosses and optional bosses that drop keys for treasure chests dotted around the zone which is cool. Also players now have access to four dungeons - one mid level and 3 end-game. Each dungeon is timed and contains bosses and speed runs now offer better rewards upon completion. The crafting system has also undergone a mass of changes as Sony received feedback about the system being unbalances. Levelling your desired skill is now a lot easier to level. The crafting timer has been removed and the crafting skills have been revamped to make crafting easy. Some skills actually automatically fill your progress bar to 30% and 20%. Some skills ensure success with your next three attempts. These skills, once obtained through level up, can be used with any other crafter which makes it easier and more accessible by players of different trades in the game.
Other smaller adjustments ave been made as well like rested XP being introduced just like in similar MMO
World of Warcraft. If you log out at an inn at one of the cities, you can accumulate rested exp. It takes a week to completely fill the rested exp bar and you gain 50% more exp. Player stats have also been changed so if you haven't logged in for a while, you'll notice a large boost in MP/HP. For a more in depth list of changes you can check out
this page to see what has changed since you logged in if you were a beta tester or if you only played the game for the first month.
Square-Enix really delivered with this MMO and the support they have been giving the game with constant updates and patches really shows it is committed to delivering the best experience to gamers. The game seems to be going from strength to strength and it will only be a matter of time before the PS4 version is released and hopefully strengthens the brand. We will have to wait until next year to see if the game takes off, but the way Square are dealing with the current game I'm sure the pS4 version will match its quality.
