[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Iamanerd]

So I'm looking to start playing this game, I had a ~35 or so before but I don't have access to the account anymore. So is right now a good time to start playing or am I too late for the new expansion? Also any tips would be welcome!

[Sorrior]

A journey where you're the only on it that is, and everyone else is at the destination because you hopped on late. A journey your going to be stuck on because everyone did Steps of Faith and etc months ago.

.....No I am sure plenty will be doing older stuff you REALLY underestimate this game i I think.

And you are still focusing on end game too much.

Truth is they have ways to get people into old stuff happens often. Such as story quests where they send you back briefly or random ques that award endgane currency and take you to old content at random.

In short you ASSUME you will be stuck hell they are even adding ways to go in with either fewer people and supposrdly make an npc party for low levels.

[blackpink]

Pretty much the only thing holding me back from jumping ship over here at this point; sure the expansion looks AWESOME but if it's going to take me months to even get there before I can even start HW's endgame progression treadmill. At least with WoD a new player can simply start at the new expansion, and in other MMOs you simply pass vanilla's endgame right on to the next expansion, but here you have to complete EVERYTHING up through 2.5, from the starting story quests all the way through Steps of Faith. That is a very, very tall order just to see the next expansion, let alone it's endgame content.

You only have to complete the story quests, hardly everything.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

You only have to complete the story quests, hardly everything.

So I can hit 50 on a fresh toon, do twenty minutes of quests and go straight into Ishgard?

[Aberrict]

They nerfed Steps of Faith pretty hard in the last patch.

[Sorrior]

So I can hit 50 on a fresh toon, do twenty minutes of quests and go straight into Ishgard?

Technically if you REALLY don?t care about story you can skip cutscenes

[Val the Moofia Boss]

No, apparently you cannot just hit 50 and go straight into the next expansion content.

"Players will have to do every A Realm Reborn Main Scenario quest (up to "Before the Dawn") before they will be permitted entry."

Well that done it.

[Kaelwryn]

No, apparently you cannot just hit 50 and go straight into the next expansion content.



Well that done it.

That's what almost every post in this thread about this topic said. Was that you had to have the Main Scenario completed up to 2.5's finale. There is probably on two parts of the Main Scenario that will potentially road block you. Chrysallis and Steps of Faith. Both of them are do-able tho and as someone mentioned before they are going to look into ways of easing the burden of going back to these older dungeons to ensure that people can go into ishgard without too much issue. It really isn't too much to ask IMO for ppl to know the story of WHY you are suddenly allowed into ishgard when all previous quests have said no, you can't go there.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

That's what almost every post in this thread about this topic said. Was that you had to have the Main Scenario completed up to 2.5's finale.

And that's what? 80+ hours? Having played FF, it'll probably be longer. The frustrating part about all this is that 1. It'll probably be very difficult to get the prerequisite group content done because most people have moved on (unless the old endgame content like Steps has something enticing for lvl 60 players who did months ago, no one is going to come back for it and thus long queues, if any), and 2. maybe I want to play as a Machinist (which being a job, starts at 30, so I can just switch to it when I ding 30, right?), but oh nope! I have to get to 50 and do what will probably amount to several dozen hours of vanilla endgame just to get into the next expansion, just so I can get the new job, and THEN I have to go back to vanilla content grind another 20 levels of FATEs to get back to the part where I last left off and continue leveling up again, ALL BEFORE I ever ever see the new HW endgame stuff.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

When the main complaint of WoD is that there is nothing to do, are you REALLY complaining that you actually have to play too much of this game?

That is absolutely not what I said.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Forgive me, but yea it pretty much is. You are assuming a LOT and your main complaint is that you cannot skip a shit ton of content.

The quote from THE GAME'S OWN WIKI says otherwise. My complaint is that, rather than being able to simply pick up the game and check out what this HW stuff is about, maybe jump ship from WoW and join you guys and enlist in a FC here, they'd have me do what will be a very long storyline to 50, stop leveling and start a progression treadmill so that I may be eligible for the required raids and dungeons up through 2.5 content, and then just start leveling again through even more long storyline. All this required just so I'd be able to start the questline to get a job that starts at level 30, which I was at when I started this whole charade. It's not inviting.

[Luko]

They nerfed Steps of Faith pretty hard in the last patch.

Yeah they nerfed the shit out of it. It wasnt hard before, just required people to perform very specific tasks, which for XIV's average queuing player is absolutely unreasonable.

Now it's doable with a couple people in the group AFK. So no worries to those who haven't done it. It'll likely be no sweat to get your guildies to help you later on.

[Aberrict]

And that's what? 80+ hours? Having played FF, it'll probably be longer.

It's as long as it takes you to do. I've been playing maybe 2-3 hours a day. I'll be finishing 2.0 tomorrow or the day after. Enjoy the ride. You'll catch up. Don't stress

It'll probably be very difficult to get the prerequisite group content done because most people have moved on (unless the old endgame content like Steps has something enticing for lvl 60 players who did months ago, no one is going to come back for it and thus long queues, if any),

It is very doubtful this will be a problem. The Duty Finder's Roulette system offers a lot of incentive to rerun past dungeons/trials/guildheists for tomestones/gil/Grand Company seals/EXP. I got the very first dungeon yesterday and the other 3 were all level 50s synced down. You can always ask your guildmates to que with you if you don't want to pug it though.

and do what will probably amount to several dozen hours of vanilla endgame just to get into the next expansion,

Maybe I'm misunderstanding this part, but you certainly do not have to do Crystal Tower or Coil to access Heavensward.

THEN I have to go back to vanilla content grind another 20 levels of FATEs to get back to the part where I last left off and continue leveling up again,

The Armoury System does give you a 50% exp boost.

[Kaelwryn]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding this part, but you certainly do not have to do Crystal Tower or Coil to access Heavensward.

Well atm 2.4+ trial and main scenario dungeons require ilvl 80+ to enter. So a fresh lvl 50 may not be able to do them, without having to get some gear at least. Idk if they're going to adjust that or not or give some sorta gear in scenario quests instead of gold...

[deviantcultist]

Dark Knight is nice thematically (spell effects are really cool) but overall I've already played that before as a Death Knight from what it reads on paper.

The thing is...Dark Knight does not share a single common thing with Death Knight apart from the word "Knight". How can you even compare them?

[Sorrior]

The thing is...Dark Knight does not share a single common thing with Death Knight apart from the word "Knight". How can you even compare them?

Think he means skill descriptions which frankly sound NITHING like a death knight.

[Deleted]

Pretty much the only thing holding me back from jumping ship over here at this point; sure the expansion looks AWESOME but if it's going to take me months to even get there before I can even start HW's endgame progression treadmill. At least with WoD a new player can simply start at the new expansion, and in other MMOs you simply pass vanilla's endgame right on to the next expansion, but here you have to complete EVERYTHING up through 2.5, from the starting story quests all the way through Steps of Faith. That is a very, very tall order just to see the next expansion, let alone it's endgame content.

This game is not WoW and is not trying to be WoW. This game focuses a lot more on story and making all content relevant unlike WoW which pretends the rest of the world doesn't exist when an Expac launches. They want to make a world that is living and breathing not a barren wasteland and it's basic design is built completely on the feature that players can go back to level 1 and re level multiple classes so old content has to be relevant.

Also I don't think you are aware of story roulette which is like a daily that rewards max level players for queuing for it with relevant tomes for endgame items. Basically it wont matter even if absolutely no one is levelling the story when you do it (highly unlikely) because you will be queuing with max level players that did it ages ago and just want their roulette items.

[Remilia]

The thing is...Dark Knight does not share a single common thing with Death Knight apart from the word "Knight". How can you even compare them?

They can both use two hand swords?

It depends on how much someone wants to stretch it. Dark Knight is well... darkness themed. Death Knight is plague/blight and undead theme. You can like, say plague is darkish, and undead is dark, and therefore dark knight = death knight, but that's reallllyy stretching it.

[Malackai]

A journey where you're the only on it that is, and everyone else is at the destination because you hopped on late. A journey your going to be stuck on because everyone did Steps of Faith and etc months ago.

That's not really true tho, even now when I go in towns I see so many new people(you can recognize them because they have a little green sprout leaf next to the name) and the dungeon queues are doable even for low level stuff and storybinded stuff.

And I am quite sure there will be even a new influx of players when heavensward releases so the story mode definitely should not be a problem.(especially with the new classes so people will be leveling those as well from lv 30 and onwards and dungeons give loot and quite a bit of exp)

When I started again a couple of weeks ago I was fully expecting the same as you but I breezed trough it quite easily (And now I am still helping people doing theirs when I do my random dungeon everyday)

Well atm 2.4+ trial and main scenario dungeons require ilvl 80+ to enter. So a fresh lvl 50 may not be able to do them, without having to get some gear at least. Idk if they're going to adjust that or not or give some sorta gear in scenario quests instead of gold...

That was my initial roadblock as well( but I was simply unaware of the tome system and the catchup gear) But doing the daily roulettes and queuing for the leveling dungeons that reward the tomes and have a chance of dropping your gear its quite easily to overcome I already have 4-5 pieces of my gear replaced with the ilv 100 stuff went from ilv 49 to ilv 79 in a couple of days without even trying so that really should not be a problem.

But I have a feeling they might drop white ilv 90 gear on a vendor (seems that this is the bare minimum you need for the last story dungeon?) to help you get at least the story dungeons done. (just like one of your first quests where you need to buy some starter gear.)

[Ilir]

Please, there is nothing fantastic and fun about having to farm OUTDATED content to be able to finish OUTDATED story. That's not a journey, that's a chore.

I'm not asking them to get rid of the story but simply wish they'll make it easier for new player to get decent gear at 50 to go through the story without having to farm outdated content.