[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Faroth]

With G'raha Tia coming back for 5.0, the Cid raids playing a crucial role in the backstory, now Return to Ivalice coming back to the forefront of the story, and now a rolequest character entering the MSQ, and it's only a matter of time before Unukalhai comes back for the final showdown with Eldibus.

At this rate, the pirates from the Void Ark storyline have a good chance of showing up in the MSQ as well. Maybe they will get their hands on a spaceship and fly us to the moon, if we don't get to bring Eden with us to the Source.

It does feel like this is the culmination of everything. Really enjoying how Yoshida's managed to tie everything from ARR to Shadowbringers together and seems to still be on that path.

It's been pretty clear this is the final expansion of the story that was set upon with Yoshida's placement as Producer during 1.0 and it's paying off nicely so far.

I'm wondering what the heck they're going to come up with after Shadowbringers.

[Rogalicus]

It's a necessary evil IMO, and it doesn't feel so bad if it's happening organically as you play normally. Increasing character power IS rewarding, the problem is when it feels time gated like it can when you're coming back after a long break and hit the ilevel wall after casually running through the MSQ...it's jarring. On that front, I agree with you.

The problem is, the only way I can think to "fix" that jarring ilevel wall is to reward the appropriate ilevel gear through the MSQ so you can tackle the higher content as it comes, but that even further invalidates the gear treadmill because if you can just do the MSQ to get the gear you need, why run dungeons and get tomestones at all?

I think organic ilevel increase in FFXIV feels even less rewarding because it's hard to feel. You don't really spend much time in open world, most of the roulettes scale you anyway and the only combat related thing left is savage (since extreme is capped too) where gradual 10 ilvl increase is probably hard to notice without ACT or logs. There's also problem with class design, your rotation doesn't really depend on your secondary stats the same way it does in WoW, with haste seriously boosting speed of gameplay, crit affecting some proc rates and even mastery doing some interesting stuff depending on spec. As far as I remember, you don't enjoy RNG-based gameplay in WoW, but IMO FFXIV swings to another extreme too much by having astoundingly stale gameplay.

[Huehuecoyotl]

Can someone explain this game to me, please. Because I've just picked up the F2P version and leveled to 17 so far as an arcanist. I have 3 buttons to press, one of which is pointless (a cast dot that does so little damage it isn't worth it) and one of which is virtually worthless (an instant dot that also does very little damage). So I'm mainly using a single damage dealing ability for 17 levels now.

Combat involves face-tanking whatever you are fighting while you mash a single button and occasionally move out of the obvious bad stuff on the ground. I've never needed to use the heal I have, and the pet just auto-attacks. It's dull, utterly without any sense of threat and has given me zero sense of progression thus far.

Am I missing something? Did I accidentally set the difficulty level to "Baby's first training wheels" and not notice? Or is the training section of this game just REALLY long? I can't understand anyone ever playing this game if this is it, so surely I'm missing something?

[TacTican]

Can someone explain this game to me, please. Because I've just picked up the F2P version and leveled to 17 so far as an arcanist. I have 3 buttons to press, one of which is pointless (a cast dot that does so little damage it isn't worth it) and one of which is virtually worthless (an instant dot that also does very little damage). So I'm mainly using a single damage dealing ability for 17 levels now.

Combat involves face-tanking whatever you are fighting while you mash a single button and occasionally move out of the obvious bad stuff on the ground. I've never needed to use the heal I have, and the pet just auto-attacks. It's dull, utterly without any sense of threat and has given me zero sense of progression thus far.

Am I missing something? Did I accidentally set the difficulty level to "Baby's first training wheels" and not notice? Or is the training section of this game just REALLY long? I can't understand anyone ever playing this game if this is it, so surely I'm missing something?

DoT damage calculation is a bit arcane in this game, but works as follows: every three seconds, the DoT ticks for the amount of potency listed on the DoT. So Bio and Miasma deal the amount of potency damage listed on the tooltip every three seconds. Therefore Miasma maths out to 20 + (10 x 20) = 220 total potency and Bio out to (10 x 20) = 200 total potency, slightly more than the 180 potency you get for Ruin.

At level 18, you will get an ability named "Fester", which is a combo action with your DoTs. Fester is an off-global ability which costs an Aetherflow to use (also unlocked at level 18 with Energy Drain) and deals 100 potency of damage, but increases by 100 potency for each DoT on an enemy.

As for difficulty, you are probably overleveled if you rolled on a Preferred World. FFXIV assumes no prior MMO experience and gently eases new players into the game, so think of 1-50 as an extended tutorial. The training wheels start coming off around levels 30-35, at level 50 your kit is somewhat complex, and it only gets more involved from there.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Can someone explain this game to me, please. Because I've just picked up the F2P version and leveled to 17 so far as an arcanist. I have 3 buttons to press, one of which is pointless (a cast dot that does so little damage it isn't worth it) and one of which is virtually worthless (an instant dot that also does very little damage). So I'm mainly using a single damage dealing ability for 17 levels now.

Combat involves face-tanking whatever you are fighting while you mash a single button and occasionally move out of the obvious bad stuff on the ground. I've never needed to use the heal I have, and the pet just auto-attacks. It's dull, utterly without any sense of threat and has given me zero sense of progression thus far.

Am I missing something? Did I accidentally set the difficulty level to "Baby's first training wheels" and not notice? Or is the training section of this game just REALLY long? I can't understand anyone ever playing this game if this is it, so surely I'm missing something?

As for difficulty, you are probably overleveled if you rolled on a Preferred World. FFXIV assumes no prior MMO experience and gently eases new players into the game, so think of 1-50 as an extended tutorial. The training wheels start coming off around levels 30-35, at level 50 your kit is somewhat complex, and it only gets more involved from there.

FFXIV leveling experience is just as boring as WoW's (though WoW is arguably worse because they are stretching 30 abilities across 120 levels over 100 hours of play per class, and backends the game changing effects with Azerite powers and essences).

In FFXIV, your rotation doesn't become fun until around level 60, when you finally get your core class mechanics like Beast Gauge/Dragoon Meter/Lilies, etc.

You shouldn't be stuck with a 3 button rotation for forty hours.

IMO, you should have your level 70 rotation (Dreadwyrm Stance and Summon Bahamut) by the time you hit level 25 or 30.

[Huehuecoyotl]

In FFXIV, your rotation doesn't become fun until around level 60, when you finally get your core class mechanics like Beast Gauge/Dragoon Meter/Lilies, etc.

FFXIV assumes no prior MMO experience and gently eases new players into the game, so think of 1-50 as an extended tutorial. The training wheels start coming off around levels 30-35, at level 50 your kit is somewhat complex, and it only gets more involved from there.

Well, at least I know before I waste any more time on it. Thanks guys.

Seriously, who do they expect to pull into this game if the entirety of the F2P experience is shitty boring gameplay and anything worthwhile and fun is gated behind the paywall? I'm happy to pay money for a good game, but this is their sales window. And it isn't a good one.

[TacTican]

To each their own, but I personally feel in the love with the game right when I started. It may have been because I went in with no expectations and no sense of urgency to reach endgame. I took the game at a leisurely pace and enjoyed the story.

If you haven't done so yet, I'd at least encourage you to do a few dungeons and explore the gathering/crafting side of the game before you decide to put it down permanently.

[Granyala]

I'm wondering what the heck they're going to come up with after Shadowbringers.

Are you sure we'll even get a new main story?
Or will they move away from the current format?

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I think organic ilevel increase in FFXIV feels even less rewarding because it's hard to feel. You don't really spend much time in open world, most of the roulettes scale you anyway and the only combat related thing left is savage (since extreme is capped too) where gradual 10 ilvl increase is probably hard to notice without ACT or logs.

Oh 10 ilvl is quite noticeable in savage. You get a lot more leeway, lots of errors can suddenly be made w/o it ending a wipe, you skip entire skills of the boss etc.
Even w/o ACT, gaining player strength feels great in savage.

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Combat involves face-tanking whatever you are fighting while you mash a single button and occasionally move out of the obvious bad stuff on the ground. I've never needed to use the heal I have, and the pet just auto-attacks. It's dull, utterly without any sense of threat and has given me zero sense of progression thus far.

Pretty much.
Classes are broken until lv 40+, they get tolerable after that but only at max level do you get the feeling of finally being able to get to work.
You'll have to suffer through it.

Truth be told: combat in the open world will never be exciting or skillful. Even normal mode dungeons and trials/raids can be facerolled.

Only way to really appreciate the combat system (and rage at the horrible responsiveness of the servers lol) is in savage/ultimate raids.
FF-XIV is very similar to WoW in that regard.

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Seriously, who do they expect to pull into this game if the entirety of the F2P experience is shitty boring gameplay and anything worthwhile and fun is gated behind the paywall? I'm happy to pay money for a good game, but this is their sales window. And it isn't a good one.

Uuuh WoW is not much different.
At least, it used to be (limited to lv20 etc).

Most MMOs work that way. Combat based gameplay starts at level cap, the rest is just a very long tutorial.

[Hyral]

Am I missing something? Did I accidentally set the difficulty level to "Baby's first training wheels" and not notice?

the entirety of the F2P experience is shitty boring gameplay and anything worthwhile and fun is gated behind the paywall?

"Why don't they give the best stuff for free?!" Come on, now. It's just not made for you, no need to put it down.

But really, to your first post: Yes. You picked arcanist. Your dots are not worth casting except for grabbing a mob for your pet to aoe down. You don't mention your pet aoe ability so I assume you haven't done your job quests. Which I don't blame you, who would bother with that if their first class is arcanist. The problem with the class you picked is it splits between two jobs at 30, one dps and one healer. So early on they had to balance the class so it would fit two roles and only recently in this expansion are they trying to split them and they don't seem to have figured out just how yet. I'm not defending this as it is a glaring design issue, only explaining why it is that way.

Most other jobs by 17 won't feel so completely bare bones. Archer is the best example of the opposite as it has a regular damage skill, a dot, a proc, an ogcd, a dps cooldown, a root and a slow by level 12. With disengage at 15 and an aoe at 18. You could sit there and kill one thing at a time with one button but with all those tools it lets you handle more mobs and play more risky, especially once you unlock your chocobo companion that works like a wow pet but has it's own AI.

Overall this game seems to appeal to people new to MMOs, those who like FF, and who like FF style RPGs. There's a ton of people in the game who this is their first MMO because they only played RPGs before.

I would still recommend trying another class for a little bit (archer may be the best), at the very least because arcanist is probably the worst first experience anyone, whether newbie or veteran to MMOs, could ever have with this game. Oh and lancer. That's another class that didn't come out of the skill revamp feeling very well but once you unlock dragoon it's a whole different story. Most classes become a lot more robust once you unlock their jobs at 30 anyway.

[Merie]

Good news, everyone. I made a meme with my friends.

[Yoshingo]

Was there a date for 5.2 that I missed somewhere or not yet?

[Graeham]

Was there a date for 5.2 that I missed somewhere or not yet?

18th Feb is the launch date.

[Yoshingo]

18th Feb is the launch date.

Thanks!

[Gizen]

It does feel like this is the culmination of everything. Really enjoying how Yoshida's managed to tie everything from ARR to Shadowbringers together and seems to still be on that path.

It's been pretty clear this is the final expansion of the story that was set upon with Yoshida's placement as Producer during 1.0 and it's paying off nicely so far.

I'm wondering what the heck they're going to come up with after Shadowbringers.

More like the second last expansion. Yoshida's said that Shadowbringers marks roughly 80% of the way through the Hydaelyn/Zodiark story arc. If we assume that story arc began when Yoshida took over the game with 2.0, then that makes each expansion 20% of the story, so the expansion after Shadowbringers would be the conclusion of the story.

[Granyala]

Good news, everyone. I made a meme with my friends.

I don't get it.

[Faroth]

More like the second last expansion. Yoshida's said that Shadowbringers marks roughly 80% of the way through the Hydaelyn/Zodiark story arc. If we assume that story arc began when Yoshida took over the game with 2.0, then that makes each expansion 20% of the story, so the expansion after Shadowbringers would be the conclusion of the story.

Interesting, interesting. Though the story arc began in 1.0 with Yoshida's appointment. He started working laying the groundwork with the storyline there, but the Hydaelyn/Zodiark story did start with 2.0, you're right about that.

Didn't realize he had made a statement indicating one more to go. We'll learn what it is come November!

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I don't get it.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/woman-yelling-at-a-cat

[Wrecktangle]

Yes, you are burnt out of what the game currently offers, which is why you wish for sth. else.
You still like the game universe/world as such and wish to spend time in it, I can understand that.

Fair enough - I was looking at it a different way, but I understand your POV now and agree. I was speaking more broadly, whereas you were speaking specifically.

FFXIV does have a lot of content. I re-subbed in April and have played almost every day and I'm still not done. The fact that they gave every class their own stories along with the MSQ and zone storylines has kept me busy for the last 9 months. If you are someone who just wants to rush to max and raid, then I feel you are missing the best parts of the game. There is so much more to FF than raiding or PVP. I feel like there is a patch with some content every 3 weeks or so being added. It may be an hour long holiday storyline, or a crossover event, or Alliance raid, trial, or server wide crafting event, but there is always something out to do. I've been very happy with it.

Few notes:

1) There is not a patch with actual content every 3 weeks.
2) FF14 does have a lot of content, but a lot of it is either dead, boring, or we've done it 1000x already and don't ever want to see it again. Genuinely interesting or well developed content is few and far between (stuff like MSQ, raids, etc.).
3) Each class has their own stories up until the current expansion, in which it turns to roles only.

I'd be curious how much you've been playing because 9 months is a very long time for anyone to play in an invested fashion, but if you were just casually playing 4 hours a week I would agree with you.

Ofcourse, due to the realities of development, new content updates can only come so often, and the devs certainly cannot create content faster than players consume it. Thus, leading to player frustration when they've consumed everything and they still want that experience ("there is nothing to do!").

This is why I often criticize FF14. They constantly develop content where their goal is a big one time content form for a specific subset of players. This is bad design IMO. They're building a really wide shallow lake. They should be building for depth.

There are ways to mitigate/sustain this. Scaling difficulties, good procedural generation (not PotD/HoH), user created content, etc. There are systems that are good in modern MMOs (Housing, Mythic+, good PVP, etc.) that provide hours of enjoyable content for people. This is the type of content MMO's need to invest in.

I really can't wait for MMO's to embrace user generated content. I'll give you an example I've given countless times before. Chocobo Racing is an abomination in this game. Literally all they had to do was copy Mario Kart/CTR with FF universe flair (boxes with Materia, summons, magic, etc.) and it'd be the greatest thing ever. Shit I'd buy it as a standalone game. Give us single player time trials (think CTR relics), single player campaign (yes with story!), and PVP. Then give us a map editor mode. Make it strict on what you can do, but allow people to create PVP tracks, time trial tracks, hell if you can find a way to let us create story driven adventures do it too (think old UMS from Starcraft). Then let us gamble against fellow FC/LS mates, etc. Let us SPECTATE other peoples races, etc. Then I would have hid the entire chocobo dying system, and tons of subsets of chocobo gear behind this.

This allows people OF ALL TYPES to enjoy the content and progress and if they get bored of the premade stuff, they can PVP or build their own content, AS WELL as content other people built.

Character power in a vacuum means absolutely nothing.
Getting stronger is only rewarding if that strength makes defeating meaner stuff possible.

If the content is already faceroll on I330, why should I care that I can faceroll it a few seconds faster in I350? (Hint: I don't.)

Very well said.

I think organic ilevel increase in FFXIV feels even less rewarding because it's hard to feel. You don't really spend much time in open world, most of the roulettes scale you anyway and the only combat related thing left is savage (since extreme is capped too) where gradual 10 ilvl increase is probably hard to notice without ACT or logs. There's also problem with class design, your rotation doesn't really depend on your secondary stats the same way it does in WoW, with haste seriously boosting speed of gameplay, crit affecting some proc rates and even mastery doing some interesting stuff depending on spec. As far as I remember, you don't enjoy RNG-based gameplay in WoW, but IMO FFXIV swings to another extreme too much by having astoundingly stale gameplay.

Agreed. Without ACT it's very hard to notice ilvl gains, but with it, ilvl does scale quite nicely. I think of all things that FF14's combat engine lacks, my biggest gripe is it's lack of synergy. 99% of my abilities or stats don't impact any other facets of my character.

Can someone explain this game to me, please. Because I've just picked up the F2P version and leveled to 17 so far as an arcanist. I have 3 buttons to press, one of which is pointless (a cast dot that does so little damage it isn't worth it) and one of which is virtually worthless (an instant dot that also does very little damage). So I'm mainly using a single damage dealing ability for 17 levels now.

Combat involves face-tanking whatever you are fighting while you mash a single button and occasionally move out of the obvious bad stuff on the ground. I've never needed to use the heal I have, and the pet just auto-attacks. It's dull, utterly without any sense of threat and has given me zero sense of progression thus far.

Am I missing something? Did I accidentally set the difficulty level to "Baby's first training wheels" and not notice? Or is the training section of this game just REALLY long? I can't understand anyone ever playing this game if this is it, so surely I'm missing something?

Nope this is the early game. I've frequently cited that FF14 is a good game, even a great game, but MINDBOGGLINGLY it puts it's absolute WORST foot forward which makes absolutely no sense from a business standpoint.

Treat the leveling experience as a nice movie if you can. The gameplay does get better and so does the story, but you have to invest the time and not let the gameplay drag you down.

FFXIV leveling experience is just as boring as WoW's (though WoW is arguably worse because they are stretching 30 abilities across 120 levels over 100 hours of play per class, and backends the game changing effects with Azerite powers and essences).

In FFXIV, your rotation doesn't become fun until around level 60, when you finally get your core class mechanics like Beast Gauge/Dragoon Meter/Lilies, etc.

You shouldn't be stuck with a 3 button rotation for forty hours.

IMO, you should have your level 70 rotation (Dreadwyrm Stance and Summon Bahamut) by the time you hit level 25 or 30.

I think both games get it wrong, but I disagree that WoW is worse. WoW does frontload your experience which is definitely better IMO, and it does have a lot of customization elements later on. FF14 drags you along slowly, almost criminally through what is the worst part of the game to get to the good part. The ONLY redeeming piece of this experience is that you really do feel your character get stronger, but the curve is still garbage.

We're definitely in agreement that there's a middle ground here somewhere that makes sense, but both games miss it for sure.

I would still recommend trying another class for a little bit (archer may be the best), at the very least because arcanist is probably the worst first experience anyone, whether newbie or veteran to MMOs, could ever have with this game. Oh and lancer. That's another class that didn't come out of the skill revamp feeling very well but once you unlock dragoon it's a whole different story. Most classes become a lot more robust once you unlock their jobs at 30 anyway.

Nah dude, Gladiator/Paladin is the worst. BY far. Lancer/Arc tho are definitely contenders for #2.

[Graeham]

FFXIV does start off slow, but a large part of that is due to being designed to account for players who are completely new to MMO's. The base content has also been out for years by this point and has been gradually been affected by various changes that make it much easier than it was at launch. The 2.0 - 2.55 quest experience is also due to be pruned and adjusted in 5.3, in order to make it less of a slog.

ARR isn't terrible and sets up some important plot points/introduces the game world - but it does have a lot of filler quests. Everything as of HW is much more streamlined and enjoyable to play through.

To be fair, though, WoW suffers from similar issues - again, having been changed over the years to gradually be easier and not much of a challenge. It's just the nature of modern gaming being tweaked to appeal to as many people as possible.

[Katchii]

Character power in a vacuum means absolutely nothing.
Getting stronger is only rewarding if that strength makes defeating meaner stuff possible.

If the content is already faceroll on I330, why should I care that I can faceroll it a few seconds faster in I350? (Hint: I don't.)

I'm the same way. But as the story goes forward and new things are introduced with new dungeons and enemies etc... getting more powerful to take on those new threats feels good and rewarding IMO.

Yeah, once you finished the last story dungeon and all you have is grinding to try and get BiS to take on the higher versions of what you've already done it's boring.

I think organic ilevel increase in FFXIV feels even less rewarding because it's hard to feel.

I disagree with this. I find it easy to see or experience, in the same way you can easily see and feel when you out level a zone

You don't really spend much time in open world, most of the roulettes scale you anyway and the only combat related thing left is savage (since extreme is capped too) where gradual 10 ilvl increase is probably hard to notice without ACT or logs.

I'm not just talking about the relatively static state of the game once you hit max, I'm talking about the journey as you're leveling and getting higher level gear as you go. And as @Granyala already stated, that 10 ilevel difference IS noticeable.

There's also problem with class design, your rotation doesn't really depend on your secondary stats the same way it does in WoW, with haste seriously boosting speed of gameplay, crit affecting some proc rates and even mastery doing some interesting stuff depending on spec. As far as I remember, you don't enjoy RNG-based gameplay in WoW, but IMO FFXIV swings to another extreme too much by having astoundingly stale gameplay.

Class game play is not affected by gear in FFXIV, and I honestly can't say I dislike that.

I wouldn't call the gameplay in FFXIV "stale" as a result, it's just not nearly as dynamic as other games like WoW.

For me the issue with FFXIV isn't the gameplay, it's that I've consumed all the content I want to and have very little reason to experience the gameplay. But that's the same issue I eventually get to with every game.

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Am I missing something? Did I accidentally set the difficulty level to "Baby's first training wheels" and not notice? Or is the training section of this game just REALLY long? I can't understand anyone ever playing this game if this is it, so surely I'm missing something?

You picked one of the worst classes to start with, as others have said, as far as gameplay goes.

No class is all that great until at least ~ level 30, but Pugilist is decent at low levels because it does get more moves and has a little more going on.

It gets better, but not in the range of the free trial, you need to get 30+ and honestly into the 50's before the actual gameplay starts to really shine.

[Hyral]

Nah dude, Gladiator/Paladin is the worst. BY far. Lancer/Arc tho are definitely contenders for #2.

It's bad but at least glad has an aoe and a stun along with a two button combo at that level. Lancer literally only has the two button combo and a dps cd that only affects the next attack used and technically never gets an aoe! It's marginally better than arcanist! What a mess lol