Toggle Background Color

Chapter III: Way of the Gladiator

Music: A New Hope

Momodi of the Adventurers' Guild had Crash tour some locations in Ul'dah that he'd find useful as a fledgling adventurer. We're almost done with the introduction to the game, but now it's time to do a little bit of combat before Ul'dah's story can begin proper.



The next quest with Momodi won't be available until Crash is level 4. Fortunately, gaining levels is actually incredibly easy and fast. We won't even need to do any real arduous questing. First though, let's have Crash actually register with the Gladiators' Guild over at the Coliseum.



Yes.



Crash must introduce himself to the guildmaster upon registering. She's just behind him, overseeing some gladiators who are perpetually fighting each other to death for training.







Bear that in mind before you answer me, Crash, for I do not ask this question lightly: have you the strength to live by the sword and - if it be your fate - die by it?

That's a fairly heavy question at this time in the morning.



The choice is fairly arbitrary. Select yes and you officially join the guild. Select no and we have to view the cutscene again in order to join. The alternative response isn't too interesting, so I'll say yes. Crash nods when I do.



Just outside the gates of Ul'dah, you'll find plenty of marmots, hornets, and shrews. Slay three of each and return here when finished. A simple task, but essential to your training nonetheless. Now, go.



Straight off the bat, Mylla sends Crash off on a quest to slay just over half a dozen innocent creatures to prove himself. It's going to be one of those MMO quests, but I'll make it quick and painless. For you. Not for the MMO critters. This is a good excuse to show off how the combat works, and will basically be the only quest like this that we'll really spend any time with in the LP.



Just across from The Coliseum is the Gate of the Sultana. This gate leads to the western section of Thanalan, which is home to some of Aldenard's coast. Because there's so many names, I'll quickly remind you that Ul'dah presides over Thanalan.


Music: A New Hope





It's a little bit confusing, but 1.0 consisted of large maps for each region. A Realm Reborn breaks Thanalan down into western, eastern, central, south, and north maps. Each of these contain a few different areas, and Crash is in Hammerlea of western Thanalan. Specifically, he's on the Eighty Sins of Sasamo, which is the name of the steps leading up from Hammerlea into Ul'dah. This is where he'll find one of the targets: the Star Marmot.


New Music: The Land Burns



It's hard to see, but there's two damage numbers on the Star Marmot. The unlabeled one is Crash's auto-attack. This will strike depending on the delay stat of the weapon. Crash's Weathered Shortsword hits every 2 seconds. It's easy to miss an auto-attack tick if you're moving around a lot - especially on controller, so make sure to always face the enemy or lock-on. His auto-attack will hit so long as he's within range of his target, so it's a lot harder to miss these than before.



The labeled damage was Crash's weaponskill damage. At level 1 he only has one ability: Fast Blade. Fast Blade is a very average amount of damage. You'll notice that the damage is described as potency instead of just a damage number. This is actually kind of nice, because potency is basically a percentage of damage. If you think of 100 potency as 100% of your weapon damage, 150 potency provides 50% more damage.



The weapon stats actually complicate it a little bit. You see, auto-attack damage is worth 100 potency every 3 seconds (which is when a server tick occurs). Since the Weathered Shortsword actually hits every 2 seconds, it's only doing ~66 potency of damage per strike. That explains the numbers, but it's also something nobody needs to care about since total damage will ultimately be unaffected by the weapon delay.



Now, about the cooldown timer. Almost every action in the game is on a global cooldown of 2.5 seconds. There are stats and abilities that can change it, but this is the default value. Spells will require Crash to wait until the end of the cooldown for the effect to actually occur, but weaponskills are instant and require a wait for the next action instead. In the sense of a Final Fantasy game, I guess the global cooldown can be considered "a turn".

It's worth noting that enemies generally rely on auto-attack, but will have their own weaponskills too. These can have a range of effects, but open world enemies tend to just have increased damage on their weaponskills.



There's also an accuracy stat, so it's possible to miss. Accuracy's value changes depending on the enemy, as some bosses require more than others to achieve that delicious 100% accuracy rating. You won't need to care about this for a long time, and I mean a long time. As of the Stormblood expansion's release, the Accuracy stat has been removed. Instead, hit rate is dependent on the level difference between Crash and his enemy.

Of course, since this is an RPG, you can expect critical hits as well. A Critical Hit stat determines the magnitude of the crit modifier as well as the success rate. Since Accuracy was removed, Direct Hit was also added. It's like a mini-crit, with less damage but a higher frequency. The Direct Hit Rate stat further increases the frequency of direct hits.



It's also possible to stack direct hits and critical hits, which is displayed with double exclamation marks. They hit pretty hard (though currently not as hard as the image: it's stock). Crash can also parry, mitigating 20% of incoming damage from a physical attack. There's no parry stat anymore, so there's a flat rate instead.



Crash levels up after he kills three docile Star Marmots. You'll also notice nearby that there were some large ladybugs. Going by what's in the next area, Thanalan is probably the Australia of Eorzea.



Gladiators learn Fight or Flight at level 2, increasing Crash's damage output by a whole 25% for 25s every 60s. It can have an up-time of ~40%. I'll be able to show off the neat sword-twirling animation in the next update, when Crash actually got it. Rampart was learned at level 2 before Stormblood, when this was recorded.



Crash's remaining two targets are over in central Thanalan. The easiest way to reach it right now is through Emerald Avenue in Ul'dah. The gate Crash entered in the opening is actually the entrance to central Thanalan.



Unlike their Japanese counterparts, Thanalan's Huge Hornets aren't that dangerous and are easily dispatched. This will regularly be the case in the early part of the game. MMO's aren't that huge in Japan, and a lot of this game's leveling progression also feels like a tutorial to players fresh to the genre. There isn't a lot of danger right now.



This weird fella is the Snapping Shrew, and Crash's final target. Three of these and he's done. There isn't much need to pay attention to Crash's TP gauge either. He recovers 60 TP roughly every 3 seconds, which is in line with an Eorzean minute and matches that server tick I mentioned earlier. Keep in mind that Fast Blade costs 60 TP but can be used every 2.5 seconds. There's still a loss, but it's small and the battles are short enough that it doesn't matter when Crash starts a fight with 1000 TP.



Enemies can also drop items. Normally, these items are really only useful to crafters so they don't really matter right now. I also want to highlight the +75% bonus to the experience Crash gained. Part of that is the Sanctuary bonus, which I'll talk about later. The other part is the chain bonus. Killing monsters in quick succession can result in additional bonuses to experience.

Killing the final Snapping Shrew completes the quest objectives. Crash now has to return to Mylla and report his success.


Music: A New Hope



Turning in the quest will unlock the hunting log. Rather than having to do many of the tedious, optional side quests like you'd expect from an MMO, leveling is a lot easier in this game. The hunting log provides a new avenue for experience.



Simply put, it's a list of enemies and the number of them that Crash will have to kill. Completing that objective rewards him with a large sum of experience, and the log itself will basically carry him to about level 15 alongside the main scenario quests. It's pretty useful. While it sounds like you have to go out of your way for, it usually just contains enemies nearby when you're doing the story quests. There's not really any grind here.



With his quest done, Crash drops by the markets at the Sapphire Avenue Exchange to lighten the new load on his coinpurse. Gladiators are meant to wield both a sword and a shield, which means that the sword isn't actually as good as any other class' weapon. The stat values are worth about 2/3rd of a regular weapon, with the shield making up the last third. Buying a shield this early is completely unnecessary, but it was a chance to talk about part of a Gladiator's toolkit too.

Shields have two unique stats: Block Strength and Block Rate. The strength determines the percentage of damage mitigated on a successful block, while the rate determines the chance of a block occurring. There are different shield types, but that doesn't really matter too much. It's more important to have a level appropriate shield than one with the right strength or rate, since it should mitigate about the same on average. That's until you can control it, at least. Since the stat values of equipment is so low at level 1, the shield actually offers nothing more than the ability to block. It's a passive ability, much like parry, that does not use player input. It just requires that you face the target.


New Music: The Land Burns



In order to pick up some extra free equipment and reach level four, Crash also does some of the side quests that are lying around. Side quests are the more grindy tasks that you don't really need to do, since equipment is pretty cheap to purchase from vendors and the hunting log really covers you for leveling up. They'll usually have some sort of story, but it's really just flavour for killing x number of monsters or picking up gil from the floor for someone you've bumped into. It's nothing exciting. I only do it here so I can quickly chat about one last combat mechanic for now.



Upon reaching level four, Crash unlocked a new weaponskill: Savage Blade. On its own, it's worth less damage than Fast Blade, but there's three two key details here. Savage Blade costs less TP than Fast Blade, it has an additional effect, and it has a combo action. I'm not going to talk about the additional effect right now, since I'll discuss that on the next Gladiators' Guild quest.

Instead, I'm drawing attention to that combo action. Some weaponskills are able to combo with other weaponskills. In this case, Savage Blade more than doubles its damage to 200 210 potency when it follows Fast Blade.



You can actually tell when you can follow up with a combo by looking at the hotbar. A dotted line will surround an action that receives a combo bonus. Using another weaponskill will interrupt the bonus, but spells and buffs like Rampart can be used without concern. Leave it alone for more than five seconds, though, and you'll also lose the combo action. It's pretty straight forward really, and Gladiators at this level will want to use Fast Blade -> Savage Blade to deal more damage.



Lastly, it's worth popping by the repair NPCs whenever you return to the city. Each piece of equipment has a durability which reduces as it's used, whether you take damage or not. It's not very expensive to repair it, and the cost scales to the condition, so there's no real reason not to do it when the NPC is available. Averitt in the Sapphire Avenue Exchange will repair your stuff, but so will an NPC in the Quicksand. They'll usually have a title to inform you that they can repair your gear.

And that's us for now. We'll continue to learn a bit more about Crash's choice class in the next update before we start the main scenario.





I really enjoy the view over western Thanalan from the Gate of the Sultana, and wanted to share it. It's really nice, and you can even see Vylbrand's silhouette in the distance.



All Cutscenes and Dialogue



You may have noticed that Fast Blade had a 70 TP cost in the screenshot, despite the fact that I said it had a 60 TP cost. This wasn't an error, and Fast Blade's cost was changed post-Heavensward. Another change introduced in a later Heavensward update affected auto-attack. Prior to this update, players would have to face the enemy for auto-attack to land. If you happened to look away when an auto-attack tick was meant to occur, then you wouldn't get it.



The level 2 ability for Gladiators was also changed. For a start, it's no longer Rampart but Flight or Fight instead. Since open world enemies are designed to be beaten even by fragile spellcasters, it was pretty useless at this level.



All tanks now unlock access to Rampart at level 8. It now comes complete with the Gladiator Level 14 trait Enhanced Rampart, which boosted its mitigation to 20%.



Auto-attack and actions worked differently in 1.0. Until A Realm Reborn Director and Producer, Naoki Yoshida, took over 1.0, there was no auto-attack at all. Instead, players would use Light Slash and Pierce as 0 TP cost actions to generate TP and do damage. However, using actions would deplete Stamina, restricting your combo. Stamina was stripped when Yoshida took charge, and auto-attack was used to generate TP instead.

Auto-attack is no longer associated with TP.



In the last update, we were introduced to the Lalafell race. I figured now would be a good time to discuss them.

Lalafell can trace their origins to the southern islands, far away from Eorzea. They were an agricultural race, and didn't actually emigrate to Eorzea until sea trade routes had opened up. Lalafell culture places a lot of importance on blood relations, which is why you'll normally see Kings and Sultanates in the cities where they're predominant.



Regarding their clans, the Plainsfolk are often clever and energetic. You'll regularly find them on the island of Vylbrand, west of Thanalan's shores. Dunesfolk are often introverts, and place a lot of significance on scholarly pursuits. Their eyes are also luminous and wear gems on their heads, which is a defining trait. Dunesfolk populate Ul'dah.

For their attributes, both Lalafell clans tend to have the lowest strength. Dunesfolk have the lowest strength in the game. The Plainsfolk will have higher dexterity, while the Dunesfolk will be slightly better at healing magic and have more MP. There actually used to be a very specific meta for Black Mages, which would take advantage of the little bit extra MP Dunesfolk would have over the other races. Wait, what was that about Black Mages being in the game? I'll get to that later.