[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Deleted]

THen pretend it's just a dungeon you want to beat. I know the feeling. We went through 3 dps and had 7 mins left on the Garuda dungeon timer when we finally found a strategy that worked for our group. While it was annoying, don't you think that finding ways of beating level appropriate content part of the game? Worse comes to worst, ask your FC for help (also, don't people's Trials Roulette give them level synced players who should know how to do this)

Levelling shouldn't be face roll. People get bored because content is too easy, but when faced with actual challenging content, they get frustrated.

Yes, I was annoyed when I had to slog through the blah to get to Ishgard, but I really don't see anyway of streamlining it. How would you do it? Even larger chunks of text and more and more text boxes when speaking with NPCS? Or do people want:

MSQ 1) Fight things til you get the attention of a Scion
MSQ 2) Meet the Scions
MSQ 3) Kill primal 1
MSQ 4) Kill primal 2 etc etc

How would the story get told? 30 min cutscenes in between?

It was the fact that I queued for nearly two hours without actually getting into the trial that was so disappointing and frustrating. I don't mind challenging content, I mind being locked out of the storyline because a queue never pops.

I don't want them to streamline it, that's why I said I hope they still make the full story available if they do decide to offer a streamlined version for those that want it, or a solution like Vidget's.

[Graeham]

It was the fact that I queued for nearly two hours without actually getting into the trial that was so disappointing and frustrating. I don't mind challenging content, I mind being locked out of the storyline because a queue never pops.

I don't want them to streamline it, that's why I said I hope they still make the full story available if they do decide to offer a streamlined version for those that want it, or a solution like Vidget's.

It's the problem with the smaller servers, unfortunately. Or rather the smaller data centers. I think it'll improve considerably once the EU data centers arrive though - then it's more likely people will play on the EU rather than NA servers.

[Deleted]

It's the problem with the smaller servers, unfortunately. Or rather the smaller data centers. I think it'll improve considerably once the EU data centers arrive though - then it's more likely people will play on the EU rather than NA servers.

I hope you're right I realise there will be good reasons for it but it does seem a shame that they didn't put EU and US in an instance pool together since they're physically together at the moment (even when they're not, tbh, since you queue by language anyway afaik). It was about an hour wait when I did it on my black mage too. It's frustrating!

[Graeham]

I hope you're right I realise there will be good reasons for it but it does seem a shame that they didn't put EU and US in an instance pool together since they're physically together at the moment (even when they're not, tbh, since you queue by language anyway afaik). It was about an hour wait when I did it on my black mage too. It's frustrating!

It's likely something to do with the game being held back by the PS3. It seems like that is what it comes down to these days - but hopefully they'll ditch support for the PS3 in favour of making the game even more impressive than it is now. We'd get a bunch of quality of life changes at that point too.

Usually it's only PvP that has a lengthy queue on Balmung. Everything else is almost instant for me as a tank or 5-10 minutes as a DPS.

[Daws001]

I don't mind having to do the msq, I just don't think the three jobs should be gated behind it (let us access them after we level another class to 30 or something sooner). I've just been blitzing through the quests now, skipping cut scenes and dialogue just to get it over with. I'm doing the 2.4 quests now. The astrologian is near. I can feel it.

Reading over the ast buffs and how people are loving the changes has lit a fire under me.

/antsy

[Tazila]

Yea, I'd say that's a smaller server problem for sure. I think the max wait time for a DPS for almost everything is 30 minutes where I am. The average is 10-15.

Edit: Imo AST was more fun when you actually had to try. While I understand some of us had to try a loooottt harder because it wasn't as strong, I enjoyed not faceroll healing. Now I feel like I'm a SCH again, with just one less fairy and a lot more cards. But for me, I enjoy the struggle and I enjoyed playing the class very well dispite the reputation/place it was in.

[Deleted]

It's likely something to do with the game being held back by the PS3. It seems like that is what it comes down to these days - but hopefully they'll ditch support for the PS3 in favour of making the game even more impressive than it is now. We'd get a bunch of quality of life changes at that point too.

It's interesting how many of the little annoying things (UI especially) seem to come down to being because of the PS3 support.

Usually it's only PvP that has a lengthy queue on Balmung. Everything else is almost instant for me as a tank or 5-10 minutes as a DPS.

Yea, I'd say that's a smaller server problem for sure. I think the max wait time for a DPS for almost everything is 30 minutes where I am. The average is 10-15.

To be fair, I've been really lucky with queues on both characters until Garuda so I shouldn't really be complaining, I'm just a bit apprehensive that these massive queues are going to be the norm from now on for the higher level pre-HW content.

I haven't tried PvP in FFXIV yet but it's something I've always loved, I need to gather up my courage and give it a go. I absolutely love the idea of 3 teams fighting each other.

[Graeham]

PvP is quite fun, though it's more a side activity than something fully supported. That tends to be the case in most MMO's though - and 'balance' goes out the window fairly easily especially since people generally just zerg objectives.

[DeadmanWalking]

PVP in ffxi was a game where you had to pass a stone around and throw it at a rock at close range, it kinda sucked in that it was an activity that didn't make much sense in terms of having tactics and it was more just a way for us to finally 'kill' one another.

That being said there was nothing more frustrating than running into a bard with ninja shadows who would put you to sleep, dance with your sleeping body and then run away laughing. I had a good time doing it.

[SodiumChloride]

Hate to say this, but WoW's influence on this game is slowly beginning to kill it for me.

I believe in FFXI there was a mastery system where you gain points of something at Lv cap - i.e. it's a long term progression that isn't gated.

Such systems don't exist in WoW (thus by extension FFXIV) because it would make it difficult for new players to "catch up", new players must be able to catch up because raiders love to min-max everything to death and won't accept anyone if they aren't "optimal".

Result? Non-raiders like me have nothing to look forward to. I'm not even sure why I bother to log in to do hunts - I blow almost all the seals on Aetheryte tickets anyway; got over a hundred now and it's beginning to be a burden on bag space.

This only came to light when I on a whim decide to play a F2P MMO that does have such a system - it also doesn't have raids, so ...

[Deleted]

PVP in ffxi was a game where you had to pass a stone around and throw it at a rock at close range, it kinda sucked in that it was an activity that didn't make much sense in terms of having tactics and it was more just a way for us to finally 'kill' one another.

That being said there was nothing more frustrating than running into a bard with ninja shadows who would put you to sleep, dance with your sleeping body and then run away laughing. I had a good time doing it.

You might have been trying to be critical, but as a born again bard I am now utterly sold; there are few things more shamefully entertaining than knowing that the person on the other side of the monitor is now looking at their crumpled corpse and muttering, 'you... bastard.'

[Graeham]

I'm usually on 'protect the healer' duty in PvP. I might even go DRK for it since they have a lot of utility. PLD does too, of course, but mostly in regards to soaking up damage whilst DRK seems to be able to dish out a decent amount.

[Deleted]

I'm usually on 'protect the healer' duty in PvP. I might even go DRK for it since they have a lot of utility. PLD does too, of course, but mostly in regards to soaking up damage whilst DRK seems to be able to dish out a decent amount.

I stopped PvE healing after Wrath but I've always loved it in PvP, it's awesome. I've seen some healers I've grouped with in FFXIV dungeons doing a lot of cancel-casting, I guess the GCD must make it pretty challenging when there's a lot of damage and making mistakes on mechanics can really hurt.

[Graeham]

I stopped PvE healing after Wrath but I've always loved it in PvP, it's awesome. I've seen some healers I've grouped with in FFXIV dungeons doing a lot of cancel-casting, I guess the GCD must make it pretty challenging when there's a lot of damage and making mistakes on mechanics can really hurt.

Yeah, there's a few fights in particular where timing is everything. I like that everyone in a group has to pay attention to mechanics and that you can't just spam healing spells to survive everything. There's more room for error once people start out gearing stuff, of course, but due to the level sync a lot of content ends up still being fairly challenging.

[Tazila]

Hate to say this, but WoW's influence on this game is slowly beginning to kill it for me.

I believe in FFXI there was a mastery system where you gain points of something at Lv cap - i.e. it's a long term progression that isn't gated.

Such systems don't exist in WoW (thus by extension FFXIV) because it would make it difficult for new players to "catch up", new players must be able to catch up because raiders love to min-max everything to death and won't accept anyone if they aren't "optimal".

Result? Non-raiders like me have nothing to look forward to. I'm not even sure why I bother to log in to do hunts - I blow almost all the seals on Aetheryte tickets anyway; got over a hundred now and it's beginning to be a burden on bag space.

This only came to light when I on a whim decide to play a F2P MMO that does have such a system - it also doesn't have raids, so ...

With FF, there really isn't gear switching or min/maxing in that aspect. There is simply different tiers of types of gear you can get, there is no swapping them around to minmax. I think the most minmaxing I've seen are people saying "DPS should spend their eso's on weapons first for the biggest boost!" but over all it's very easy to catch up in FF if you want to put the time in to do so. The most you should ever hit a problem with is ilevel, but FF has groups dedicated to teaching fights, because of that I could never say with a straight face that the raiding community is like WoWs. People are willing to teach others that openly admit they don't know anything past maybe watching a video. That's awesome.

At the same time, if you're not raiding, why do you even need to bother "catching up"?

imo just sounds like bad experiences but out of curiosity...

In MMO's if you don't raid what do you do? In WoW, all I did was raid, I did nothing else because none of it interested me... BUT, that didn't mean there wasn't content, it just meant there wasn't content that I personally enjoyed.

[Deleted]

With FF, there really isn't gear switching or min/maxing in that aspect. There is simply different tiers of types of gear you can get, there is no swapping them around to minmax. I think the most minmaxing I've seen are people saying "DPS should spend their eso's on weapons first for the biggest boost!" but over all it's very easy to catch up in FF if you want to put the time in to do so. The most you should ever hit a problem with is ilevel, but FF has groups dedicated to teaching fights, because of that I could never say with a straight face that the raiding community is like WoWs. People are willing to teach others that openly admit they don't know anything past maybe watching a video. That's awesome.

At the same time, if you're not raiding, why do you even need to bother "catching up"?

imo just sounds like bad experiences but out of curiosity...

In MMO's if you don't raid what do you do? In WoW, all I did was raid, I did nothing else because none of it interested me... BUT, that didn't mean there wasn't content, it just meant there wasn't content that I personally enjoyed.

Eh tbh this isn't entirely true. If you re raiding savage there is a lot of min/maxing going around due to how tightly dps tuned the fights are.
Freaking tanks have to get the 150ilvl slaying accessories and fully meld them in STR IV materia -_-
Tbh this is one of the few things that annoy me a lot right now.

[DeadmanWalking]

You might have been trying to be critical, but as a born again bard I am now utterly sold; there are few things more shamefully entertaining than knowing that the person on the other side of the monitor is now looking at their crumpled corpse and muttering, 'you... bastard.'

No critical here, I was doing this for many hours They don't lay down, but they do stand there and rock back and forth with their head down with zzz's coming out of their heads, and the shouts they were emitting about 'GD BARD!!!' were tastey tears. If they focused on me then my team went unhindered, if they didn't I ran rings around them until they were fit to be tied.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, there's a few fights in particular where timing is everything. I like that everyone in a group has to pay attention to mechanics and that you can't just spam healing spells to survive everything. There's more room for error once people start out gearing stuff, of course, but due to the level sync a lot of content ends up still being fairly challenging.

I did the steps of faith tonight and we had to do it 3 times because everyone refused to be the one to go up and use the dragon killer, I ended up doing it and missing the first set on the second try, the third one we rolled it.

[Deleted]

No critical here, I was doing this for many hours They don't lay down, but they do stand there and rock back and forth with their head down with zzz's coming out of their heads, and the shouts they were emitting about 'GD BARD!!!' were tastey tears. If they focused on me then my team went unhindered, if they didn't I ran rings around them until they were fit to be tied.

Ha, sounds hilarious tbh! It hadn't occurred to me about there being no language barrier between the sides, that must be a lot of fun at times

[Tazila]

Eh tbh this isn't entirely true. If you re raiding savage there is a lot of min/maxing going around due to how tightly dps tuned the fights are.
Freaking tanks have to get the 150ilvl slaying accessories and fully meld them in STR IV materia -_-
Tbh this is one of the few things that annoy me a lot right now.

I was more so assuming that he wasn't going to ever touch savage because he doesn't want to do normal. For savage I'd expect minmaxing, from myself and others in the raid as I expected it during heroic and then mythic prog in wow. But doing normal tends to be a free for all.

So I mean, if you're trying to get into a progression run or group, then yeah you'll hit some minmaxing as people are still progging through it, you -need- those stats. If you just want to see the raiding content, you're fine.

For me, personally, if I was ever behind, I'd consider catch up being up to normal raid. Anything going into the progression scene isn't catch up, it's wanting to be a full raider which means a lot more work and a lot less catch up.

You -should- be able to be new and coming back into a game and be able to do their normal content, which is VERY easy to do at the moment.
You should not be able to be new or coming back into the game and just walk into the hardest content, it should take a bit of work on everyones part.

[Graeham]

How far along with the story are you now, Snow?