[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Wrecktangle]

Hmm, perhaps the best way to explain it is *intensity*. I like high-level raiding [1]. But I can't really sustain that for more than two nights a week. So the rest of the time is spent on less intense activities. And sometimes you just want to do something that doesn't really take a lot of thought. MMOs have always had activities like that. In modern MMOs, it's things like fishing, or gathering, or farming reputation or items.

Eureka is basically a social multi-player version of fishing. And there's a time and place for that. I'd be unhappy if the entire game was Eureka, but I'd also be unhappy if the entire game was high-level raiding. Having a variety of intensity is good for MMOs.

[1] I raid in WoW, though, only Heroic because I'm tired of the effort fixed rosters takes Sadly, my WoW guild has decided to aim for Mythics in BfA. I think they do not really understand the logistics/administration involved, and I expect the attempt to go badly.

Fair enough. I am similar. It's very hard to get into a top 2 day mythic guild with how inflexible my schedule/class is, so I am also relegated to Heroic. I refuse to raid more than 2 days, and even in FF14, with how short it is, I can easily clear savage raiding 1 day a week, and have no desire to join 3 day a week statics, it's why I didn't do UWU. We were making good progress 1 day a week, but they wanted to go 3, and I just can't do it, no matter how bad I want a shiny curtana.

Mythic isn't easy to maintain. They will struggle unless they stay really far ahead of the curve in recruitment.

I guess my only major hangup is that Eureka is designed to not be intense at all. Like there's no option at all. I don't think that's good design. If I want to raid, I have options to sate my intensity. I think it all stems back to FF14s design philosophy someone else said once, A really shallow ocean, rather than a really deep sea. I'd rather have 5 different content forms that are really robust and deep and offer something for everyone, than 10 shallow content forms designed for one incredibly small niche.

I guess the point is that if the "chatting with people in discord" is the fun part, then it doesn't seem accurate to say that the gameplay is fun.

It's the difference between, "I love my job" and "I get to post on MMO-C at my job".

Haha, my job is ok, kinda boring, but it lets me post stuff in downtime which is nice. Now that my most recent project finally went live I have some breathing room. The benefits and pay and stuff though is too good to pass up.

Definitely not the case for me, I don't queue into it with friends or chat with the people in my party. I find eureka relaxing because it doesn't demand that much and running with a big group to kill monsters is fun. part of the reason i found champion trains in gw2s enjoyable. I also don't afk. I help kill mobs and raise people who end up dying so I'm not standing around, twiddling my thumbs. *shrug*

I just don't think relaxing and battle content should ever be in the same sentence. That to me is a silly premise.

I'm all for OTHER content forms being relaxing, but the concept of fighting/battling should never be relaxing IMO.

[Kaelwryn]

I just don't think relaxing and battle content should ever be in the same sentence. That to me is a silly premise.

I'm all for OTHER content forms being relaxing, but the concept of fighting/battling should never be relaxing IMO.

*shrug* sometime I just want to go pop things on the head without thinking much. That's what eureka is for me. Pretty much eureka is like fishing to me. People find it boring, but I find it nice to do when i just want to sit and chill, listening to music. Doesn't demand much thought process from me.

I don't see why combat content can't be relaxing. Some times, some people just want to be a mindless grunt murdering things. Nothing wrong with that.

[lawow74]

Looks like the first Pagos Relic upgrade takes 5 Speshul Crystals, the second one takes 10 Speshul Crystals plus 500 of the Pagos Crystals the NM's drop (oh, joy...) and not sure what step 3 takes beyond the Louhi Ice from the NM of the same name (Pagos' equivalent to Pazuzu). Some are saying 800 Pagos Crystals, but unconfirmed AFAIK. Also, it's not possible to mount until lvl 35. Fuck you and that no-mount bullshit, SE.

So far I've done Snow Queen, Taxim, Ash the Magic Dragon, Glavidos, the Brothers and King Igloo. All of them (except maybe Brothers) spawn adds to deal with. Ash is a trolltastic version of Fafnir with an instant frontal petrify that means you have to hug his buttflank all the time. The Brothers use gazes, nothing too difficult to deal with. King Igloo is an AoE trollfest, especially with all the other mobs in the area doing the same. Expect to see lots of dead people on the ground.

The Brothers are also a giant PITA to get to.

[Granyala]

Expect to see lots of dead people on the ground.

*chuckles* it's Eureka, so it's not as if I expected anything else.

[Kazgrel]

The new edition of Eureka is ass, imo. Unless things change, I’ll level up there purely through challenge logs. Chewing through 660k+ of xp all of roughly 1-1.5k at a time is just...ugh. The MHW crossover convinced me to pick that game up, so I’ll probably be there instead of in Pagos.

[Advent]

Buttons galore with this game! Shame that I was misled to believe that black mages were the kings of aoe back during the end of A Realm Reborn. I might have gone for a summoner alt instead. Caster spells are really grandiose. But man, the gameplay could be SO much faster/responsive.

[lawow74]

The new edition of Eureka is ass, imo. Unless things change, I’ll level up there purely through challenge logs. Chewing through 660k+ of xp all of roughly 1-1.5k at a time is just...ugh. The MHW crossover convinced me to pick that game up, so I’ll probably be there instead of in Pagos.

We can hope that after a week or two the NM train will get underway and we can laze our way through, but I get the feeling SE saw how that was being done and has taken steps to make spawning the NM's much more obnoxious to 'encourage' chaingrindhell. Kinda like how the US government 'encourages' states to conform to the national speed limit by axing any federal assistance with their transportation budget if they want to go against the trend.

[StrawberryZebra]

FI just don't think relaxing and battle content should ever be in the same sentence. That to me is a silly premise.

I'm all for OTHER content forms being relaxing, but the concept of fighting/battling should never be relaxing IMO.

I think combat can be relaxing, in many ways mass murdering everything in sight can be quite cathartic. The issue with FF14 is that, at times, fails to engage the player at all. Partly it's because of how rote and dry some jobs can feel, particularly at lower levels, and partly because the general speed of the combat is very slow.

I would argue that outside of the most challenging of content, combat in FF14 is relatively stress free. I've never really felt pushed or threatened outside of a 24 man raid or an Extreme Trial. And even that was a bit of a stretch at times. I admit I've done very little raiding or endgame content in FF14, in part due to not having enough time to dedicate to it in order to actually get to the point I can be competative and stay there, but mostly due to what I outlined above - Combat for the most part fails to engage me enough to continue doing it.

It's a serious problem I have with the game, since combat is the players primary means of interaction with the game world and the developers don't really seem to know how to change it up to make it more interesting outside of just giving things bigger and bigger numbers.

[Eleccybubb]

Buttons galore with this game! Shame that I was misled to believe that black mages were the kings of aoe back during the end of A Realm Reborn. I might have gone for a summoner alt instead. Caster spells are really grandiose. But man, the gameplay could be SO much faster/responsive.

But BLM was never the best AoE in ARR. Nor has it ever been. It's been one of the strongest for sure but SMN has always beaten it in that regard. Due to it being able to spread dots, Shadow Flare, Painflare, Deathflare and whatever Bahamut has.

And even in ARR alone it would have still been the strongest from Bane alone. Being able to spread your dots onto multiple targets just has so much worth. And Shadow Flare.

- - - Updated - - -

We can hope that after a week or two the NM train will get underway and we can laze our way through, but I get the feeling SE saw how that was being done and has taken steps to make spawning the NM's much more obnoxious to 'encourage' chaingrindhell. Kinda like how the US government 'encourages' states to conform to the national speed limit by axing any federal assistance with their transportation budget if they want to go against the trend.

I just wish the bunny fate wasn't so unrewarding.

To be honest I'll just go in when 4.4 drops. I'll be playing BFA a lot next week anyway and FF14 less. That way can just join lowbie fate trains and chill through it.

[Advent]

But BLM was never the best AoE in ARR. Nor has it ever been. It's been one of the strongest for sure but SMN has always beaten it in that regard. Due to it being able to spread dots, Shadow Flare, Painflare, Deathflare and whatever Bahamut has.

And even in ARR alone it would have still been the strongest from Bane alone. Being able to spread your dots onto multiple targets just has so much worth. And Shadow Flare.

Yeah...that's kind of why I lamented being misled. That, and I don't like to use dps meters, so I never knew better until very recently. To be fair, all I do is level new jobs, gear them out in something that looks cool, then quit for a year. Not having any social home base in any mmo means that I hop around more than most. No strings on me, I guess

[lawow74]

Map has been made detailing Pagos mobs and NM's as well as quest locations.

[Granyala]

Neat, thanks!

[lawow74]

Good post here about why Pagos is such complete and utter ass. Put simply, it's casual content that's very punishing and unrewarding at the same time. We get it, some people hated the idea of 'leechers' on the NM train, but the flipside is (as several here have posted) the way it promoted the social aspect. Now? You're punished if you do anything but spam buttons constantly in the hopes of appeasing the Chain Gods for a pittance of XP. Cos NM's spawn really slow, infrequently and it is making the area anti-social as a result.

And how quickly values drop. Today I sold a Pagos Shirt for 240k.

[Granyala]

Okay, Pagos is definitely way less fun than Anemos.

Bleh.... Lv 22.5. >.<

[Gibblewink]

Just a small PSA: You still get xp in Anemos past 20 and it is not that bad a place to do the weekly challenge log in so far as you can find 20+ mobs of the apropriate types. Gratned the xp per kill is pretty shit but it does come with the bonus of not harming your sanity as much.

Here's hoping for some of the hotfixes being aimed at making Pagos less obnoxious.

[Graeham]

I'm just taking Pagos a bit at a time. I'm currently level 24 there.

[lawow74]

Yeah, the only way I can stand it is to heal. Trying to DPS for that long gets really old. At least as a healer I can slouch a little and focus on making sure the tank doesn't die. 24 myself, midway to 25.

[Granyala]

I heal too. Problem is, our tank is 27 (no lifer >: ) So I don't get to slouch.

Ugh... someone in the forums called it a "Carpaltunnel syndrome simulator". Esp as a healer-DPS that mainly mashes one friggin button, this is so true.

[lawow74]

I heal too. Problem is, our tank is 27 (no lifer >: ) So I don't get to slouch.

Ugh... someone in the forums called it a "Carpaltunnel syndrome simulator". Esp as a healer-DPS that mainly mashes one friggin button, this is so true.

Hit 25 today, got my lollerkettle. Yeah, it can be that way. I usually have a co-healer, so not as much pressure on me. I hate the way they did that damn Blubber Eye NM. Can only get gold if you have the stupid drop from them in your inventory. Seriously, go fuck yourself, Yoshi or whatever swollen fucking sphincter decided to add that insult on top of NM's taking fucking forever to spawn.

[Kazgrel]

We can hope that after a week or two the NM train will get underway and we can laze our way through, but I get the feeling SE saw how that was being done and has taken steps to make spawning the NM's much more obnoxious to 'encourage' chaingrindhell. Kinda like how the US government 'encourages' states to conform to the national speed limit by axing any federal assistance with their transportation budget if they want to go against the trend.

I can safely say now that I’ve spent time there that the only time there will be a NM train going, it’ll consist of level 35s farming them for crystals. I made it to the Angra Mainyu NM as a level 23 and got a whopping 29k xp as a reward for gold. Even as a level 13-15 at Pazuzu in Anemos it still gave xp on par with NMs closer to my level. Couple that with the map design itself and it’s oodles of choke points, piles of mobs in said choke points, the sleepy dragons requiring you to walk by...its blatantly obvious SE set out to destroy the NM train method people used to level in Anemos.

As the meme goes in Pagos, “the train is dead! Long live the chain!”