[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Advent]

I play both so I'll probably invest more time into BFA until 4.4 and then split it.

Same here. But I'm an uber casual, and I never get too deep into any MMO. I even play Gw2 on occasion. No MMO has enough to keep me fully engaged long-term anymore. BDO had a shot a couple years ago, but its terrible mob AI, no instanced, challenging pve content and how the monetize the game with outfits turned me off completely.

[Graeham]

I managed to hit level 30 and finally unlocked the second aetheryte. That should make it less likely for me to miss out on NM's when I'm there, at least the ones in the immediate area. What level does the final aetheryte unlock?

[lawow74]

According to the Pagos map, 32.

[ryanmahaffe]

And I'm reminded why I enjoy FFXIV's community so much more.

I was reminded why I like ffxiv community more when I look at this thread. Apparently the new pagosthing is garbage yet I only see jokes, mild complaining, and constructive criticism. I look over at wow and see non-stop bitching whining and insulting over an expansion that is pretty decent so far over the most tiny things.
What a glorious community here. If I didn't find the gameplay so tedious I would happily continue my adventures in ff

[lawow74]

We're pretty critical of Pagos cos it feels like a giant step backwards from Anemos for lolmustgrindoutmoresubtimelol reasons. Made it to 30 finally, seeing some more NM's pop but still pretty few and far between.

[Granyala]

Well, what can we do?
SE isn't exactly known to cave in like Blizzard.

So we can either rage about it or we can try to take it with humor and suffer through it like professionals.

That being said: my group will probably go in tonight and I am not looking forward to it. I'd rather get my ass handed to me by God Kefka for 3 hours than do Pagos.

Managed to get to 25 before we all fell asleep.

[Wrecktangle]

And yet you keep posting in the forum about the game your every post indicates you despise, so here we are. (that's just snark to your satire, take it lightly)

XD

You know this already, but it's because I firmly believe this game is capable of being the best MMO on the market hands down, but it's almost like it doesn't want to be great. It's content with riding its source material coattails into mediocrity and that's why I'm so negative. I'm incredibly passionate about the game, and as time goes on they haven't improved. Hell I'm hesitant to even say they've stagnated because it genuinely feels they've actually gotten worse. You can see it here, and in reddit/OF. There's a lot more negativity than there used to be 2 years ago, and the feedback is generally pretty unanimous.

If FF14 had WoWs smoothness and creativity (for better/worse) I wouldn't even need to play WoW anymore. I'd posit there's a few people who would agree with me. Not only that, but it'd be easier for sure to bring friends into the game.

I agree with your BfA pros & cons except for dangerous world. Nothing has been a remote threat. Elites are easy to take down. Full groups are easy to take down. No difference than past expansions or any other MMO for years, though.

Great point. You play a Hunter right? As a melee, I've consistently had to play my face off to survive some of the big pulls or accidental pulls I've done. My brother who is playing a Warrior echoed my sentiment, but his friend who was Mage did not. Even pulling 2-3 mobs at a time is dangerous, not likely lethal, but if I'm careless it can, and has been, which IMO is great.

Their implementation of more cut scenes utilizing the player character feels like a development in response to XIV's competition and WoW is definitely better for it. I do wish they would have an MSQ guide option, though.

Oh i totally wanted to mention this. I agree, it definitely feels like they saw that feedback from FF14 in some fashion. It's frankly one of my favorite aspects of FF14 and seeing it in WoW is a nice touch. It felt great walking through the city with Jaina.

Upon returning pre-expansion, I was trying to round out the story in order from Legion. I wound up doing something the equivalent of Chapter 5, 1, 2, 4, 3 or the like. WoW gives you that "welcome back, go here to dive into new stuff" but I wish there was an option for "where did I leave off and what came next?" method to follow instead. Not a locked "thou must follow MSQ" like XIV, but a chapter guide of sorts.

Maybe they could implement a journal that led you through what you've done and what's come out, in the order in came out, since you were last on. I dunno.

Great feedback IMO.

My friend also was amused that your character in WoW is now the "champion" of the planet, who has a female voice, and her blood is basically crystal.

lol yeah - to be fair though the blood isn't actually crystallized immediately. It is liquid and you can see it in a lot of quests (standing in it gives a nice 1m buff too).

Was your healer AFK or something?
I did all three dungeons yesterday and .. well you could pretty much pull them like FF-XIVs dungeons.
Damn that was boring as a healer.

We all were a bit disappointed by the leveling dungeons experience. It's basically an "all you can AoE" fest.
No, no one of us had uber Legion raid gear, my healer wears quest greens.

The leveling dungeons were easy agreed, but have you tried mythics yet? I'm pleasantly impressed by them (there is a BIT too much trash) and they're a little more linear than I'd like. I'd say the curve is solid. Leveling are easier, heroics medium, and mythics challenging.

Not only did we need to bring back CC for some (maybe due to undergeared?) pulls, but regular mobs have dangerous abilities and bosses feel like they have a lot more mechanics than Legion dungeon bosses did.

WQ only work due to the AP grind. And that is the LAST thing I want to see in FF-XIV. I was SOO happy that I quit raiding before Legion launched, that mandatory grind would have burned me out to a crisp.... a burned out crisp... you know like one, if you cough near it, it will disperse into super tiny ash particles.

AP was never a mandatory grind for ANYONE who wasn't a top 100 world raider. I never once grinded AP. I casually played the entire expansion and I was always within 1-2 traits of someone who grinded? a ton (our GM). 1-2 traits didn't prevent me from getting 95%+ logs at all in the content I participated in.

Yeah my entire free company has jumped to BFA. But Pagos was really the straw that broke the camels back for many of them. None of them hate Stormblood but don't like it compared to ARR or Heavensward. The common sentiment being that trying to do doma and ala mhigo at once was a mistake, compounded by spreading themselves too thin trying to appeal to do many people while giving little to each to log in for. Basically the whole expansion is like Golden Saucer. Theres a lot of things to do but most people do like 10% of it.
Personally i've been subbed since day one of ARR but lately i have thought about letting it lapse purely because i'm logging in less an less. I have my jobs levelled. I 100% am not doing eureka i just hate it and would rather play FFXI for a much better version of the same idea and the story just isnt really moving fast enough.
I just think about how much more MSQ or dungeons we could have got instead of all the minigames and timesinks and it just feels like FFXIV is having its cataclysm expansion. On paper its great but its all spread so thin every niche has very little engaging stuff to do. I'm not going to call it a bad game now but this definitely feels like a low point where the game is lacking a coherent direction.

First time you've said something I agree with entirely. For me it was Anemos, but Pagos just reinforced my feelings.

I'm not too worried. A lot of people stray to other MMO's when they have a new expansion/major patch. Many of them end up returning to FFXIV...and even if they don't, the game's busy enough that even 'hated' content such as Pagos is busy at all hours of the day and will very likely remain that way for quite some time.

I do have some concerns about FFXIV, particularly when it comes to side content...but I enjoy the game enough that I can overlook it. Plus there's a lot of games to play on the side that are coming out in the coming months that'll help keep me distracted during dry periods such as Dragon Quest XI, Soul Calibur 6 and the remake of Resident Evil 2.

4.4 is in roughly a month, too...and 5.0 information will be trickling in as of the Fan Fest in November. I do hope that 5.0 is a little bolder and less predictable, though.

Legit Q - do you believe Pagos would be "busy at all hours" if Relics weren't in it?

Also shout out to SC6 and RE2 Remake. Hyped as well.

I was reminded why I like ffxiv community more when I look at this thread. Apparently the new pagosthing is garbage yet I only see jokes, mild complaining, and constructive criticism. I look over at wow and see non-stop bitching whining and insulting over an expansion that is pretty decent so far over the most tiny things.
What a glorious community here. If I didn't find the gameplay so tedious I would happily continue my adventures in ff

Check OF - it's gotten really negative over there lately. We're just marginally more level headed here.

[Graeham]

Legit Q - do you believe Pagos would be "busy at all hours" if Relics weren't in it?

No, unless there was some other carrot on the stick to replace it. One that took a similar amount of time to acquire. If not for that, I imagine it would have died as quickly as Rival Wings and Diadem did.

[lawow74]

Makes me wonder what adjustments we'll get with the hotfix. Probably nothing that actually helps resolve the fact Pagos is an ungodly anti-social slog to obtain even ONE Relic, much less more.

[Graeham]

I don't expect any major adjustments. At least not anytime soon. The maintenance is at a weird time...so I suppose there's a chance that major changes are coming. I wouldn't hold my breath, though. With that said Pagos has been pretty negatively received across the board so it'll be interesting to see how the developers respond to that.

[lawow74]

That's what happens when you set a level of expectation for content difficulty and then go 'Nope!' before cranking the motherfucker up.


So, the hotfix patch claims XP from Pagos NM's has been buffed and the number of mobs needed to spawn them has been nerfed. The chain is dead, long live the train? We'll have to wait and see, but holy fucking boogerballs I hope so.

[Graeham]

They beefed up the amount of experience rewarded by quite a bit. I just received 330K from the eye NM.

[Aruhen]

Sorry I didn't reply to that original debate a while ago. Medical stuff happenend and with BFA coming out I just wanted to play that.

I sorta want to chime in the BFA conversation going on here since I'm currently playing that a crap ton of. Alliance point of view.

First thing that really stood out for me and this is probably just a personal thing but Kul'Tiras feels incredibly immersive. From the gorgeous visuals to probably my favorite soundtrack the game has ever had it all just melds together to form this beautiful world that feels alive. Legion had some pretty areas but non of them were memorable at all in my eyes. My only real issues is Zuldazar can be a pain in the ass at times to navigate so I feel bad for the Horde players.

Story and quests. I like it a lot but not all of it. The leveling stuff (again Alliance) is pretty good. A lot of people rag on the Alliance quests for being full of side quests. Personally I've done the Horde side on Beta and I'm just not a huge fan of linear questing. Alliance side easily has more options with were you want to go were Horde is follow the linear story with a few side quests along the way. The quality of what's there is an issue though I feel like. The Horde side is getting a lot of cool juicy stuff relating to the overall Warcraft Universe were as the Alliance side feels more self contained.

War story is the part were I have a lot of issues. Not only is the story just not interesting but its incredibly short. It was meant to be similar to Suramar as that story you followed at max level but it doesn't even come close to the level of Suramar. Nothing really else to say about it. On the other hand the other "faction" stuff like the Jaina story in Kul'Tiras is my favorite quest line in the entire game. I'd be lying if I didn't come close to shedding a few tears while doing the quest line and seeing Kul'Tiras rejoin the Alliance. I hope we get more of this level of quality and not the war story.

Dungeons. Some of the best in my opinion. Trash is actually interesting with proper abilities on a lot of them. There is a lot of trash though but it's pretty easy to avoid them once you get used to the specific dungeon. Bosses are a bit of a mixed bag. Some dungeons like Siege of Boralus feel lacking in mechanics and just hit hard while places like Kings Rest and Shrine of the Storm have some really fun stuff there. Again gorgeous visuals and music. Kings Rest is probably my favorite dungeon in the entire game. Motherload!!! is the only negative I have as I genuinely hate and don't have fun tanking that dungeon. I won't be doing it once I get everything I want from it.

Island Expeditions which is the new big feature. Hate them. Rofl. I find them boring and tedious and just not my cup of tea. I'll give it another go when the PVP version is out as I love PVP but until then I wont even bother finishing the weekly quest.

Speaking of PVP. Warmode. One of the best things that Blizzard has introduced into WoW. I was always a PVP fan but in Wrath I switched to Proudmoore US as that's were the guild I joined at the time was. It was a PVE server. Me and my friends have been going around playing the ever valiant Alliance heroes killing all the bounties that pop up and helping people leveling up. You can get some really great rewards from the bounty bags which is nice. The first few days I got a 325 piece and yesterday I got a bag full of blue gems and a purple gem. The only real issue is it seems like the sharding still needs some work as I've been on both sides of the extremes when it comes to faction balance.

As for the new "Azerite' system. This could just be down to what choices you have for your spec but I personally find it enjoyable as a Protection Paladin. Should I stack Inner Light for more block and damage or should I get the increased proc rate on Avengers shield and another trait that gives me a shield on every Avengers shield that I do? It's not the biggest choices but I feel like its just enough to be enjoyable. My only real issue is that because of the way the system works is that there needs to be an overabundance of Azerite gear. It feels like all I get from WQs and dungeons is Azerite pieces.

Heh it looks like I went on for too long babbling again. Either way I'm in love with BFA and from what I played so far its in my top three alongside Wrath and Mists. I have to admit though that I haven't really played FF14 in a few months now as I half the time I'm sitting there trying to figure out what I want to do. These new systems they're trying I'm just not a fan of and I wish they would just go back to focusing more on story content which is why people love the game or so I'd like to believe. BFA on the other hand has reminded me why MMORPGs are my favorite genre in video games. Big world with people in it doing things together and killing some Horde scum. The only issues I have is when it comes to quality of some stuff between the factions such as the rep mount rewards. Why aren't the new hippos at least one of the faction rewards!?!?!?!

Little bit sad I was lazy to get my Monk to 120 to do a Mythic dungeon tour on it before reset but whatever.

[lawow74]

They beefed up the amount of experience rewarded by quite a bit. I just received 330K from the eye NM.

Confirmed, I'm 32 and got 338k XP from Louhi on gold. FUCK THE CHAIN! LONG LIVE THE TRAIN! :3

Further details, Snow Queen gave me like 176k and I got 506k from Brothers. So yeah. Seriously beefed XP.

[Eleccybubb]

They beefed up the amount of experience rewarded by quite a bit. I just received 330K from the eye NM.

Still ain't getting me in Eureka.

Only way you getting me in there is if @lawow74 drags me kicking and screaming while tied up by a horde of angry lalas.

[lawow74]

Yeah, NM XP has been roughly tripled. Still no buffs to light/crystal gain that I've seen, but I'm not too worried about that. Faster NM's will handle the Pagos Crystals and Ice, and the Frosty Flakes will come with grind or more train-riding. At least SE listened for once. You know it's bad when JP players are complaining about the grind.

Also, Reddit is hilarious. All the 'buuuuh cazulz in muh contentz buuuuh' crybabies are making a saltwater river of tears over people not having to grind their faces off to get a relic.

[Granyala]

The leveling dungeons were easy agreed, but have you tried mythics yet? I'm pleasantly impressed by them (there is a BIT too much trash) and they're a little more linear.

No can do, Dreanei is only 116.

- - - Updated - - -

Only way you getting me in there is if @lawow74 drags me kicking and screaming while tied up by a horde of angry lalas.

I'm sure that can be arranged. I'll be taking the screenshots. ;D

[Eleccybubb]

No can do, Dreanei is only 116.

- - - Updated - - -


I'm sure that can be arranged. I'll be taking the screenshots. ;D

They have to be lalas tho. Because.... reasons.

[Granyala]

They have to be lalas tho. Because.... reasons.

I've seen it happen.

[Gibblewink]

*gasp* I know those lalas!