[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Granyala]

Am I the only person who finds having only 7-8 abilities that you use regularly actually refreshing?

No you are not. I feel exactly the same.

Finished Palace of the dead now.

With 4 people it's trivially easy and rather boring if you ask me.
Only good thing was getting closure about the story of Edda.

[Graeham]

To be fair they did say that the later floors will be 'harder' so I imagine the first 50 floors are intended to be an introduction to the mechanics involved. It's a great way to preview how a particular class or job 'feels' at later levels too.

I do find myself wondering how to get more potsherds though. Do you get one each time you complete the entire thing or is the reward for the final floor a one off? I saw one drop in a treasure chest on one of the later floors but it went to somebody else and...I'm not really keen on the idea of farming chests with a tiny chance to grant me something that I'll be competing with three other players for. I could go at it solo style, of course, but then that's just very time consuming.

[Kaelwryn]

To be fair they did say that the later floors will be 'harder' so I imagine the first 50 floors are intended to be an introduction to the mechanics involved. It's a great way to preview how a particular class or job 'feels' at later levels too.

I do find myself wondering how to get more potsherds though. Do you get one each time you complete the entire thing or is the reward for the final floor a one off? I saw one drop in a treasure chest on one of the later floors but it went to somebody else and...I'm not really keen on the idea of farming chests with a tiny chance to grant me something that I'll be competing with three other players for. I could go at it solo style, of course, but then that's just very time consuming.

I believe its a random chance from bronze chests and then an assured one for clearing floor 50.

[Berethos08]

What "rush"? I was Lv 1-20. I had 2-3 buttons I could press. Very hard not to fall asleep. UGH.

The same rush from games like FTL or Rogue Legacy, where a screw-up means the end of that run? It's a milder form of the rush that people get when playing Hardcore characters in games like Diablo (progress lost instead of the entire character).

Some of us enjoy that kind of experience.

Also, you were 1-20 with a group, which is a much different experience. I'd recommend taking that into account when responding to anything I say about any of PotD past level 6 solo.

Furthermore, your expectations of it are seriously way beyond anything they actually described - the first 50 floors were always described as something designed for new and old players to play together (basically, friends getting other friends into the game for the first time) and that later additions would increase the challenge, and that right now doing it solo would be the more challenging part. Your own expectations of it not lining up with how it was described are your own fault.

- - - Updated - - -

I believe its a random chance from bronze chests and then an assured one for clearing floor 50.

Confirmed random chance from the Bronze chests - pretty low drop rate, but can drop from one on any floor. Got one myself a couple nights ago on floor 14. Unless you have plenty of time on your hands to farm them, though, I'd definitely recommend just clearing floor 50 if there's anything you want to purchase with them.

Also confirmed that there's a low chance you can get an upgrade from a silver chest at early floors even when your aetherpool has increased in strength - gained a +1 on both floors 1 and floors 2 when my aetherpool arm was +15 at the start of said run.

- - - Updated - - -

How I see the 2 most popular MMOs is that americans (Blizzard) seem to dare to take huge leaps in trying out new things, some that are quite shocking for the crowd that got used to old school MMO staples.

Honestly, I'd say that really only applies to the sometimes sweeping class changes Blizzard likes to make from time to time.

Many of their "new" features were tried by someone else before they did it, and their core gameplay loop - level->dungeons->raid till expansion then repeat - has changed surprisingly little in the last decade. Sure, the pacing and importance of those steps has shifted, and the quality and complexity of the latter two in particular has improved...

But it's still essentially the same game it was in late 2004, just running at a different pace...outside of how the classes play.

- - - Updated - - -

To be fair they did say that the later floors will be 'harder' so I imagine the first 50 floors are intended to be an introduction to the mechanics involved. It's a great way to preview how a particular class or job 'feels' at later levels too.

Which is a boon to new players as well - a couple hours to essentially sample a class into the 30s or even 40s before committing to leveling it is certainly not a bad thing.

[Granyala]

The same rush from games like FTL or Rogue Legacy, where a screw-up means the end of that run? It's a milder form of the rush that people get when playing Hardcore characters in games like Diablo (progress lost instead of the entire character).
Some of us enjoy that kind of experience.

Also, you were 1-20 with a group, which is a much different experience. I'd recommend taking that into account when responding to anything I say about any of PotD past level 6 solo.

I think soloing in palaces later floors is subject to class and RNG. Not sure you can clear that place with all classes and all possible debuffs.
Esp the timer seems to be an issue, because if you have to pull carefully to survive, 60 minutes for 10 floors is not exactly a lot of time.

I DPS'd a few mobs solo in floors 40+ as WHM for testing purposes and they have A LOT of HP. (Not sure if their HP scales according to # of players)

As far as Diablo-HC chars are concerned: I prefer if a game doesn't waste my precious free time. I did play Diablo HC and typically you either died to some OP mob combo which instagibs you (Hello port + freeze) or some random serverlag. Quite rare to die due to actual player error.
Bleh. No thank you.

PS i did both: 1-6 Solo as PLD and then 1-50 in a random group. The former could be hard to impossible (see concerns above) the latter is even easier than expert dungeons.

[Berethos08]

PS i did both: 1-6 Solo as PLD and then 1-50 in a random group. The former could be hard to impossible (see concerns above) the latter is even easier than expert dungeons.

You barely scratched the surface of it solo, so no you didn't "do both." That'd be like me saying I play a healer but I've only played it to level 10.

As for the Diablo-HC stuff...you asked "What rush?" and I brought up games that are generally understood to bring that same kind of "one chance and you start over" kind of tension. I couldn't care less what you actually prefer.

[Granyala]

You barely scratched the surface of it solo, so no you didn't "do both." That'd be like me saying I play a healer but I've only played it to level 10.

I saw the place in it's entirety and, as I said, I did perform strategic tests away from my group.
Bosses excepted ofc, I can very well assess how it would be to solo it, since 99% of what you are doing in there is fighting trashmobs with very few mechanics of their own.

Not really that hard to do as a MMO veteran. It's not rocket science after all.

[Berethos08]

I saw the place in it's entirety and, as I said, I did perform strategic tests away from my group.
Bosses excepted ofc, I can very well assess how it would be to solo it, since 99% of what you are doing in there is fighting trashmobs with very few mechanics of their own.

Not really that hard to do as a MMO veteran. It's not rocket science after all.

Strategic tests being testing how much health they had?

It's more than that - it's about figuring out the best times to use various pomanders (sight and safety become much more crucial when solo), where to move so you're less likely to trigger a trap when you're saving the sight and safety for later floors, watching patrols and respawns and all that the entire time you're in there because if you overwhelmed then you're done, knowing which enemies to engage, which to save cooldowns for, which to avoid entirely if you can help it...

Knowing how to farm levels and chests effectively (for pomanders) to make the most of the 60 minutes you do have to give you an edge on later floors.

Like I've said before, it's a different experience running it as a group than running it solo, and unlike you I've done an appreciable amount of both.

[Granyala]

Strategic tests being testing how much health they had?

And observing abilities, how they are grouped up, whether they are linked, what aggro ranges they have, what kind of traps there are what potential pottery could help in what situation, mob respawns, mob patrols etc.

I didn't just mindlessly run with the group (even though I could have because nothing that happened was in any way dangerous or threatening).
I explicitly kept my eyes open in order to assess soloability, because that was my original intent with this content.

What I've seen was that there is WAY more RNG to everything than I am willing to put up with, the timer being problematic for non DPS classes (since you can't just pull an entire room as a tank to make up for lower DPS like in WoW) and an absurdly punishing save system.

[Berethos08]

Very little RNG that can't be surmounted with a bit of thought and effort, from my experience.

But hey, what do I know, having actually tried it?

[Granyala]

Very little RNG that can't be surmounted with a bit of thought and effort, from my experience.

What bothers me most is being on a timer and the fact that it doesn't save after each floor.

As long as that remains, I know enough to determine that this is not content that will ever be fun to do for me.

Which is really all I need to know.

You somehow seem under the impression that I am trying to objectively judge the soloing difficulty, which is not the case at all. I do know that I don't have enough data for that. Though I have enough data to know that it is difficult, which is what I stated initially.
I'm not exactly sure why you are harping on and on about you having tried it and me "not" even though I've seen pretty much everything there is in terms of traps and mob abilities even if I was in a group.

[Saradain]

So how is the Palace of the Dead in terms of speed, for levelling up alt jobs? Haven't played FFXIV since pre-patch hit WoW, and I suppose one day soon I need to step back to farm that Youkai-whatever FATE stuff for all the rewards and to sigh at my beautiful house

[threads]

So how is the Palace of the Dead in terms of speed, for levelling up alt jobs? Haven't played FFXIV since pre-patch hit WoW, and I suppose one day soon I need to step back to farm that Youkai-whatever FATE stuff for all the rewards and to sigh at my beautiful house

i leveled up my paladin to 30 by just doing 1-10 and resetting. each run was around 10 min and it was pretty quick. less annoying than regular dungeons.

[Berethos08]

You somehow seem under the impression that I am trying to objectively judge the soloing difficulty, which is not the case at all.

I'm under the impression that you're acting like you know what it's like to solo the place, despite not having actually tried to do so...

So I'll just keep pointing out the ridiculousness of such a claim. I've watched guides on how to do Nidhogg Extreme and A8 Savage, but I wouldn't claim that I know what it's like to do those fights.

Knowing what kinds of traps and mobs exist, and having practice and experience at actually dealing with them in a successful solo run, are simply two different experiences, and you've only had one of those experiences.

- - - Updated - - -

So how is the Palace of the Dead in terms of speed, for levelling up alt jobs? Haven't played FFXIV since pre-patch hit WoW, and I suppose one day soon I need to step back to farm that Youkai-whatever FATE stuff for all the rewards and to sigh at my beautiful house

As threadz mentioned, it's quick if you speed through the first 10 floors and reset.

You can get more experience points at the end of a run on later floors, but soloing those tends to take more preparation (using as much of the hour to level on the inside and gain as many pomanders as you can, for example) and carry the greater risk with more powerful mobs...and the floors then are slower in general solo as well.

The amount you get from any one set of 10 does scale, and I believe that end amount is boosted by things like the Friendship Circlet or the Brand-new Ring (I'll have to double check those to be sure)...doing it with a level 1 got me 1000 experience when I finished floor 10, versus 180k with a level 53 class.

[Granyala]

I'm under the impression that you're acting like you know what it's like to solo the place, despite not having actually tried to do so...

I've soloed enough in other MMOs to extrapolate from what I see and formulate a judgment that is accurate enough to be used as a basis of whether I personally will like the content or not.

Ofc I wouldn't presume to join discussions about actual strategies. For that I'd have to gather experience myself.

doing it with a level 1 got me 1000 experience when I finished floor 10, versus 180k with a level 53 class.

So, essentially a spammable Lv50 random roulette as far as XP is concerned.

- - - Updated - - -

Knowing what kinds of traps and mobs exist, and having practice and experience at actually dealing with them in a successful solo run

Out of pure, morbid curiosity:
How do you deal with a trap that lets 5 mobs spawn around you, which all immediately aggro? I had that happen in my group on floor 36 and, while we were able to defeat them no problemo, I wondered how a solo player is supposed to handle that, given the fact that there seems no way to reset a mob and that running away from most mobs doesn't work very well in FF (not to mention the possibility of triggering yet another trap). Pot of chicken would be one idea but that doesn't seem to last for more than a minute. A PLD would not be able to kill a lot during that time frame.

Manticore pot, as an obvious solution, is excluded ofc.

Another one: Explosive traps seem to nuke away 80-90% of a players HP. How do you deal with that if you are dodging a mob AE, are at ~50% HP and trigger it?

[Anzaman]

During these moments I wish that they'd just give you an gear-token after clearing Weeping City and you could buy the equipment piece.

First boss can drop the item I need, and farming it over and over. And then waiting for "leaver penalty" to end, just to repeat process is quite annoying.

[Granyala]

Never really understood why people run these 24mans until they are sick of it to get specific items. Loot and competition by other players is way too random in order to "farm" that gear in any controlled manner.

[Soluna]

Never really understood why people run these 24mans until they are sick of it to get specific items. Loot and competition by other players is way too random in order to "farm" that gear in any controlled manner.

Unless you are a tank that is ;P xD

[Anzaman]

Never really understood why people run these 24mans until they are sick of it to get specific items. Loot and competition by other players is way too random in order to "farm" that gear in any controlled manner.

It's another raid-night today, so was hoping for gloves since it'd be i215 -> i230 upgrade, and it's accuracy upgrade.

But gave up after two leaver penalties and just grabbed hat and melded accuracy on it. I'll just buy Lore-gloves next week.

[Remilia]

Out of pure, morbid curiosity:
How do you deal with a trap that lets 5 mobs spawn around you, which all immediately aggro? I had that happen in my group on floor 36 and, while we were able to defeat them no problemo, I wondered how a solo player is supposed to handle that, given the fact that there seems no way to reset a mob and that running away from most mobs doesn't work very well in FF (not to mention the possibility of triggering yet another trap). Pot of chicken would be one idea but that doesn't seem to last for more than a minute. A PLD would not be able to kill a lot during that time frame.

Manticore pot, as an obvious solution, is excluded ofc.

Another one: Explosive traps seem to nuke away 80-90% of a players HP. How do you deal with that if you are dodging a mob AE, are at ~50% HP and trigger it?

Okay, so I play on JP client, so I'll have absolutely no idea what the english names for some of the items, but the one issue is it heavily favors class/jobs that are able to solo things better, of course. SCHs and SMNs in particular are easier to go through it than say a DRG or MNK. Tanks fare better due to self healing potentials. There's also running as a class for a better selection of cross skills than running as a job.

Depends entirely on luck, but alternate use of remove trap and reveal map/traps tend to be a good use. Wall hugging, as boring as it may sound reduces a huge amount of traps you may run into it. Remove status effect does remove the floor effect you may get but again, it's luck. It entirely depends on how careful you traverse and how much items you conserve from previous floors. Remember you can use potions inside and food buffs. That includes potions that remove status effect too like silence. Countering situations are entirely dependent on your current status though, so it's a lot of improvising and not something you can straight up say do _____. There are some recommendation but you have to figure that out on a case to case basis, and sometimes that's impossible.
JP names are extremely boring fyi, but it tells you straight out what it is, lol.

And that's the thing about rogue like, especially a very traditional Japanese dungeon crawler one. You do and most likely will get screwed over just by RNG. That's also why it appeals and doesn't appeal to certain people. This is actually very not punishing in comparison to other ones.