[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Remilia]

It really depends for me. Premade characters (so to speak) I don't mind having a character voice. However if it's a self created character I'd vastly prefer no voice overs.

[Granyala]

I wish I could get the relic weapon, but Eureka is soooooooo boring.

Yep, still stuck in Pagos hell and that likely won't ever change.

[Dugna]

btw I wasn't hoping for for out character to be fully voiced all the time, just that it would have a moment that would surprise everybody in the story. Like that one point in the DRK storyline but voiced.

[Faroth]

Interestingly enough, I am the exact opposite and liked voiced protagonists more. I became invested in Geralt from Witcher 3, and Bayek from Assassin's Creed Origins. I live enough inside my own head that coming out of it to experience another perspective is refreshing.

But that's a different experience. The Witcher games are set up to be Geralt's story. Assassin's Creed Origins is Bayek's story. You're going into it playing the character that the team has designed in order to experience the story they want to tell for that character. I love the extra cinematic quality a well voiced game brings, but those are a different design.

A fully voice acted FF 1-13 and 15 would all be great because those are the characters in the play that you're watching unfold as you play. A fully voiced MMO protagonist would be..... different. You'd inherently lose some aspects that make the character your own and hand it over more to the developers making it their character.

When the game is meant to be about your character as you envision them and as you make them (Bioware with Dragon Age Origins in particular as your decisions affect aspects of the story), then it's jarring to suddenly be essentially Bioware's character and you just make a few very minor and less impactful decisions to make the character your own. There was just a different experience between "My Warden" vs "My Hawke" or even "My Inquisitor" when discussing how stories played out with others. Maybe a large part was the game design itself and the scope of it and how well the game was written for your decisions to seem more impactful than they are (because those games are always going to be limited on how much your decisions alter the story) compared to later entries, but I never felt the same ownership of the character post Origins.

And yeah, I live enough in my head, sure.....

But so does Faroth, Dindle, Feneril, Swift, Natsuki, Brisk, Bludigar, Gorndax, Elm, Rain, Telahndir, Lylandriel, Lelahndra, Evan.... I could replay Origins quite differently with a different "voice" for each of these characters. I could only do 2 or 3 of them in DA 2 or Inquisition because the voice actor can't encapsulate them.

[Poppincaps]

Personally in a 3rd person game like FF14, I find it extremely jarring when people talk to the WoL and he just nods all the time. It kinda breaks my immersion. In games like Skyrim it doesn't bother me because all the conversations are in first person so I kinda mentally say what I think. It also doesn't help that FF14 doesn't have a lot of dialog options at least where I'm at which is halfway through Heavensward.

That being said, I'm fine with no MC VA but I find it strange that some quests aren't VA'd when some are. They all should be tbh.

[Eleccybubb]

The weirdest one for me is Praetorium. Like at first there's no voice acting then suddenly there is.

Like come on if you can have it towards the end you can have it at the start. There's no excuse not to.

[Katchii]

Personally in a 3rd person game like FF14, I find it extremely jarring when people talk to the WoL and he just nods all the time. It kinda breaks my immersion. In games like Skyrim it doesn't bother me because all the conversations are in first person so I kinda mentally say what I think. It also doesn't help that FF14 doesn't have a lot of dialog options at least where I'm at which is halfway through Heavensward.

That being said, I'm fine with no MC VA but I find it strange that some quests aren't VA'd when some are. They all should be tbh.

Yeah, I really do wish our character did more than nod, fist pound or sidelong curious glances. Even when we just move our mouth and motion with our hands, I find that to be better than no "verbal" response at all.

The weirdest one for me is Praetorium. Like at first there's no voice acting then suddenly there is.

Like come on if you can have it towards the end you can have it at the start. There's no excuse not to.

Agreed. Really wish they'd be more consistent with what content they VA. I much prefer the quests that are VA'd, and honestly if SWTOR can do it, FFXIV can too, but if they can't VA all quests, at least when they decide to VA do the full quest/dungeon chain and not just part of it.

[Hannah25]

There is a distinct lack of a fork at the primary weapon for blue mage! I wanted to go around the world and eat frogs and monsters to get stronger. And mighty guard and white wind spam..... we may finally be able to play a final fantasy as its meant to be played.... without healers :P
gclub
I hope also with the TP/MP change they dont fuck paladins ability to heal the group and tank at the same time.

[Katchii]

There is a distinct lack of a fork at the primary weapon for blue mage! I wanted to go around the world and eat frogs and monsters to get stronger. And mighty guard and white wind spam..... we may finally be able to play a final fantasy as its meant to be played.... without healers :P

I hope also with the TP/MP change they dont fuck paladins ability to heal the group and tank at the same time.

1) Not sure what you mean by "meant to be played without healers" since White Mage is one of the most iconic Final Fantasy classes ever.
2) Blue Mage is unable to use the Duty Finder and is capped at level 50 right now.
3) Paladins can't really successfully heal groups right now, at least not for long. Their heal is potent but it eats up their mana in like 3 casts, which then takes a little while to build back up. They only really work in clutch situations or as planned uses, not consistently.

I highly doubt most classes will even really feel the TP/MP change with any meaningful impact since the use of TP is mostly transparent for many classes except in super heavy AoE situations. Paladin, I think, will be one of the classes that won't even notice since they're not TP starved at all in the vast majority of situations, and MP is their resource to manage.

If they were to just increase everyone's mana pool and have abilities use mana instead of TP that would be a different story, but that's a pretty terrible idea and not likely to be what they're doing.

We'll have to wait and see, but I have faith they'll do just fine with the revamp. Their class design may not be inspired, innovative or all that exciting (as far as variance and differences from class to class), but it is cleanly executed, and works well. The TP/MP revamp will be executed in similar fashion.

[Eleccybubb]

There is a distinct lack of a fork at the primary weapon for blue mage! I wanted to go around the world and eat frogs and monsters to get stronger. And mighty guard and white wind spam..... we may finally be able to play a final fantasy as its meant to be played.... without healers :P

I hope also with the TP/MP change they dont fuck paladins ability to heal the group and tank at the same time.

Eh? Paladins can cast Clem like 3-4 times before ooming.

They are not for group healing. Their Clemency is for a clutch/save me heal.

[Wrecktangle]

Eh? Paladins can cast Clem like 3-4 times before ooming.

They are not for group healing. Their Clemency is for a clutch/save me heal.

To be fair, I've successfully healed nearly every single dungeon boss (pre 4.4) without a healer (to be fair I've solo'd them too) using Clemency. You don't need to ever spam it, only uses every once in a while so it's easy to treat like a resource (don't let it cap, but don't burn too quickly if you can avoid it).

It can't trash heal to save your life really, but bosses damage output is so trivial and sporadic that it handles that aspect pretty easily.

[Faroth]

To be fair, I've successfully healed nearly every single dungeon boss (pre 4.4) without a healer (to be fair I've solo'd them too) using Clemency. You don't need to ever spam it, only uses every once in a while so it's easy to treat like a resource (don't let it cap, but don't burn too quickly if you can avoid it).

It can't trash heal to save your life really, but bosses damage output is so trivial and sporadic that it handles that aspect pretty easily.

With the defensive cooldowns PLD has, you can easily spread the heals out and recover MP as well. The only boss fights that would get dicey are bosses where there's AoE attacks that do decent damage to the full party. The paladin can manage themselves and usually another just fine but expecting them to clemency the whole group and finish the fight with everyone, those would be the fights that would be rough, I think.

Our FC's main PLD has pulled plenty of 8 man fights out for a win whittling down the last however much percent after we died because we were being dumb or goofing on Discord more than playing.

More crazy is when I've pulled it off on SAM, but those are some stomach clenching "that shouldn't have worked" moments and nowhere near as much boss HP remaining as a PLD can manage.

Even more unrelated to the topic, my favorite was back in ARR when main tanks would semi-regularly have a chance at dying on King Behemoth and I got in the habit of being #2 on threat on Monk so I'd have the 30-45 seconds of main tanking while healers got the tank up and able to pick it back up while the other healers were frantically keeping my HP up in the spikiest HP dance of all time.

Tank's down
Monk is tanking, pops featherfoot, this is fine.
Featherfoot wears off, OMFGSPAMHEALSPIKEYHPBAR HEAL HEAL HEAL HEAL ARRRRGH
Ok, tank has it, we're good now.

[Granyala]

Clemency is awesome, our tank saved butts numerous times, although he usually grumbles at the DPS loss.

[grandgato]

Has there been any sort of eta on part 2 for 4.5?

[Poppincaps]

Has there been any sort of eta on part 2 for 4.5?

Tokyo Fan Fest is this Friday. Obviously new Shadowbringers info will be shown but maybe some stuff about the last patch.

[Graeham II]

Has there been any sort of eta on part 2 for 4.5?

Officially announced as 'Late March'. Major patches always drop on a Tuesday so unless there's a delay then it should be the 26th of this month. So exactly a week to go!

[Dugna]

4gamer showing pics of the next MSQ also announcing the date so its next week, which was obvious since the patch isn't today but nice to get confirm with some sneak peaks.


https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/patch/4_5/ and now the 4.5 special page is updated with the new info released.

[Katchii]

Excellent! Going through new MSQ content in FFXIV is one of my favorite experience in video games the last couple years and the patch right before the next expansion hits have always been good and hyped me up. Looking forward to seeing how this expansion officially ends,

[Poppincaps]

I picked like the perfect time to start the game lol. Right as I get to it, Stormblood's story will have wrapped up so I won't have to wait for any content patches.

Just finished the 50-60 Heavensward quest, and am cleaning up some side quests before beginning the level 60 Heavensward quests. Overall, the story is really engaging and I do think that Heavensward is a step up in terms of area design.

[Eleccybubb]

I picked like the perfect time to start the game lol. Right as I get to it, Stormblood's story will have wrapped up so I won't have to wait for any content patches.

Just finished the 50-60 Heavensward quest, and am cleaning up some side quests before beginning the level 60 Heavensward quests. Overall, the story is really engaging and I do think that Heavensward is a step up in terms of area design.

Aye the story and area design of Heavensward are a huge step up.

Cut a hella lot down on the breadcrumb BS that ARR had for those 100 quests.

Stormblood is pretty decent too. I think if you enjoyed the Heavensward story you will enjoy the Stormblood one imo. (Didn't mean to make that sound like I was speaking for you there hehe)