[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Thestrawman]

Oh, I see. I've never actually done Coil, and I don't think that's come up elsewhere in the story.

Also while tempering is something primals can do, it's not something they must do. Ravana, Bismark, Shiva, Thordan, and Susano don't temper. I'm sure there are a few others I haven't mentioned.

[Skizzit]

I just decided to try out this game after I noticed it had a free trial. Combat got a bit better after level 18 and I'm not just casting a single spell over and over again. Story seems good but I'm rushing through it as I usually want to get to max level fast. Like how the quests don't involve excessive mob killing. Really want this game to be good as a substitute for WoW but a few things are sticking out to me.

I usually play healer in these games but I hear FF14 healing is more like the ESO style of healing in that you aren't pretty much just a DPS who casts an occasional heal.

Huh. That's actually one of the things I really like about FFXIV. I played a healer in WoW and got bored of just staring at health bars playing whack-a-mole the whole time. I like that healers in FFXIV play a more active role in the fights. Granted, I have only healed dungeons and 8-man trials and not raids so I don't know how it is at the top level.

One of the races you can play is apparently just a infant looking child who's just a smudge above looking like an literal baby. Kinda hard to take them seriously. Are they meant to be the meme race?

Yeah I think most people think the walking potatoes are a joke. I just did the quests for the post Heavensward stuff, patch 3.3 I believe, and there is this big epic and emotional cut scene that plays out and I was thinking how goofy it would look if my character was a potato. I really don't know how anyone could play that race unironically.

[Granyala]

I like that healers in FFXIV play a more active role in the fights.

Used to be active... well a bit more active.
Now it's basically "mash the Glare button" unless you have healing to do.

[StrawberryZebra]

Huh. That's actually one of the things I really like about FFXIV. I played a healer in WoW and got bored of just staring at health bars playing whack-a-mole the whole time. I like that healers in FFXIV play a more active role in the fights. Granted, I have only healed dungeons and 8-man trials and not raids so I don't know how it is at the top level.

Whenever I play as a Holy Paladin in WoW, I spend the vast majority of my time now in melee range doing the usual melee stuff. Actually having to stop what I'm doing to cast a healing spell is something that happens of course, but the bulk of what I do in combat is DPS. I will qualify that by saying that I do have a Glimmer of Light build, so I'm strongly incentivised to be at least using Crusader Strike by default.

It's not something that's exclusive to Paladins either. Monk and Druid healers will jump into melee and Priests and Shamans will cast spells when they're not healing too. Some of the timers on M+ keys can be quite tight where any DPS you can contribute counts, particularly as you move up to higher keys.

Used to be active... well a bit more active.
Now it's basically "mash the Glare button" unless you have healing to do.

To be honest, as a White Mage I find that I can heal through more or less everything in a 4 man dungeon or a regular Trial just using oGCDs now. Healers are in a strange spot where their healing power is less impactful than the DPS they bring. Which is fine for those who like that, but for the people who literally *just* want to press healing buttons, they're being underserved.

Even the lowest levels of content, you still want to heal the bare minimum required to beat the content to focus on as much DPS as you can.

[Ausr]

Whenever I play as a Holy Paladin in WoW, I spend the vast majority of my time now in melee range doing the usual melee stuff. Actually having to stop what I'm doing to cast a healing spell is something that happens of course, but the bulk of what I do in combat is DPS. I will qualify that by saying that I do have a Glimmer of Light build, so I'm strongly incentivised to be at least using Crusader Strike by default.

It's not something that's exclusive to Paladins either. Monk and Druid healers will jump into melee and Priests and Shamans will cast spells when they're not healing too. Some of the timers on M+ keys can be quite tight where any DPS you can contribute counts, particularly as you move up to higher keys.



To be honest, as a White Mage I find that I can heal through more or less everything in a 4 man dungeon or a regular Trial just using oGCDs now. Healers are in a strange spot where their healing power is less impactful than the DPS they bring. Which is fine for those who like that, but for the people who literally *just* want to press healing buttons, they're being underserved.

Even the lowest levels of content, you still want to heal the bare minimum required to beat the content to focus on as much DPS as you can.

I was going to say, that person must be a bad healer/player if that is all they're doing. Hell, you don't even need to do that in LFR.

[Granyala]

To be honest, as a White Mage I find that I can heal through more or less everything in a 4 man dungeon or a regular Trial just using oGCDs now.

Dungeons yes. If you get a raidgeared tank, a simple HoT will be enough to forget about him most of the time.
Regular trials: depends on the group. In my oneshot run of the new MSQ endboss trial I had to heal & rez enough to put savage raids to shame.

[Merie]

Truth. As a RDM, I walked away with 6 comms I had raised so many people over the course fighting Elidibus. XD

[Val the Moofia Boss]

5.3 MSQ spoilers

holy shit

Spoiler: 

@4:59:00, when Y'shtola is talking to Runar... is this possibly the sound? THE Sound?

I went back to watch the 5.2 cutscene, where Urianger lost concentration and fell into the water, and you hear a very similar sound when Urianger walked on water! Moments later, Thancred has a dizzy spell, but you don't hear a sound, so that had to do with the weakening link between his body and soul. I think this must be deliberate; Urianger didn't lose concentration because the link between his body and soul was weakening, but because he heard the Sound! @59:20

Alisae hears the Sound too in 5.3. @40:40

In 4.5, Master Matoya's magic broomsticks just randomly stopped working. Remember, Hythlodaeus said that anything that was in range of the sound began to warp, and that the magic of the Ancient's stopped working. Makes sense; the Ancients were far stronger magicians, so their magics would have been more resistant. With broomstick magics being casted by far weaker beings, the magics could have been disrupted before people could even begin hearing the sound.

EDIT: I'm guessing that Zenos and/or Fandaniel are tied to the source of the Sound. Setting aside how already wonky Zenos seems to be, he has been described as a beast twice this patch: once by Elidibus in the solo duty (Elidibus not being able to comprehend Zenos' true nature, much like how it seems the Ancients don't really know what the Source of the Sound is all about), and again by G'raha Tia in the 5.3 ending narration. The monsters spawned by the Terminus event during the Final Days were repeatedly described as beasts as well.

Also, you have Fandaniel. His pink soul crystal records his dialogue during Zodiark's summoning, and it appears that something went very wrong. Considering how the Source of the Sound warped creation magics, I'm guessing that during the summoning of Zodiark, something went wrong and Fandaniel got screwed up somehow.

[Granyala]

Haha, someone is surely thinking out of the box.

[StrawberryZebra]

Regular trials: depends on the group. In my oneshot run of the new MSQ endboss trial I had to heal & rez enough to put savage raids to shame.

I think a lot of that is due to unclear telegraphs the first time you do it. I got caught out by the Fire and Ice icons more times than I'd be willing to admit.

Though it's not even close to being as bad as Puppets Bunker. Even if you're paying attention some of the telegraphing there seem to be intentionally confusing and asking you to eye up which way things are facing under all the particle effect at a long-ish distance is a losing prospect.

Moving on though, I finally got around to unlocking Samurai today and I can't help but feel a little disapointed. I was hoping it would play like a Kurosawa Samurai Movie, with slow and deliberate movements and actions. Turns out it's pretty much just another melee Job. I get that it has to fit within the established game, but it was yet another clear opportunity to do something different and take a chance that's slipped Squenix by.

[Granyala]

Though it's not even close to being as bad as Puppets Bunker. Even if you're paying attention some of the telegraphing there seem to be intentionally confusing and asking you to eye up which way things are facing under all the particle effect at a long-ish distance is a losing prospect.

Oh I got hit by the "innate" ice attack once. The rest were.. well I have done exdeath too often to struggle with those.

Regarding the Bunker: definitely. They sucker you in with a clear telegraph and then they gib you with a slight modification. Bastards.
Well the SAM does have casts as a melee. Problem is: encounters are too melee-caster unfriendly to make it viable if all skills had cast times.

[StrawberryZebra]

Well the SAM does have casts as a melee. Problem is: encounters are too melee-caster unfriendly to make it viable if all skills had cast times.

Very true. What the Samurai is works completely fine. They've drawn inspiration for it more from Iaido and anime which is a perfectly valid source, but it's just not what I hoped it would be. It's not the only job that's in the same situation for me either. I had hoped the dancer was a melee Job that did damage whilst gracefully moving around in combat and that the Monk would be more Hadoukens and juggle combos.

What Squenix have gone with isn't wrong - It's just not my first choice.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Very true. What the Samurai is works completely fine. They've drawn inspiration for it more from Iaido and anime which is a perfectly valid source, but it's just not what I hoped it would be. It's not the only job that's in the same situation for me either. I had hoped the dancer was a melee Job that did damage whilst gracefully moving around in combat and that the Monk would be more Hadoukens and juggle combos.

What Squenix have gone with isn't wrong - It's just not my first choice.

Yeah, stylistically the jobs in FFXIV are rather lacking. Dragoons jump three times in the first five seconds, and then they pretty much only jump again once every 30 seconds. And since it happens so fast, and since the dragoon spends half of the jump animation offscreen, and since your camera is usually zoomed so far out, you never really get to soak what should otherwise be a super cool attack. Similarly, Samurai attacks have cool animations and effects, but you're so far zoomed out and they happen so fast, and the special effects are buried by the two dozen other effects going off, again you really don't get to soak in the feel.

That being said, Samurai is a mechanically fun class to play at 80. It's what I raid with my static right now. There is a lot of room for flexibility; if you screw up and do one of the combos in the wrong order, no worries! You can just change up which other combo you are going to do and you'll be right on track, minimal or no DPS loss at all. Do you have all three runes, but your Tsubame doesn't come off CD for another six seconds? No worries! Just start one of your combos, and then before you finish it, you can cast your Iajutsu and then Tsubame. It has a 60 second rotation, but you can do a lot of the stuff out of order, as long as everything is done and you're ready for when Tsubame comes off of CD.

[KrayZ33]

First time I heard that FFXIV are lacking when it comes to stylistic presentation.
Their spells and animations are so over the top and highly stylized throughout all of the classes.
I can tell which skills players use from the animation alone. (at least the melee ones, never paid attention to the others with little exception - such as the AST bubble or dancer group hype-bar thingy).

Funnily enough, I actually play part of my rotation (whenever I'm not sure if the server accepted my input) by looking at my character and I prefer having some room to look at it.
in E7S for example, when people stack, I already step a bit outside to have a better look.
So I can agree that spell effects overlap each other - but at the same time, I can't agree because the animations are clear cut and fit the classes and it's easy to see who plays what even if they were not using a different weapon or gear in general.

I mean, Dancers have the Samba stuff and really twirly spell animations that glide through the air and the character moves in jubilant fashion, stepping away while wielding their .... chakrams?
That's completely different to a Dragoon's skills (even you remove all the spell effects)

[Wrecktangle]

Yeah, stylistically the jobs in FFXIV are rather lacking. Dragoons jump three times in the first five seconds, and then they pretty much only jump again once every 30 seconds. And since it happens so fast, and since the dragoon spends half of the jump animation offscreen, and since your camera is usually zoomed so far out, you never really get to soak what should otherwise be a super cool attack. Similarly, Samurai attacks have cool animations and effects, but you're so far zoomed out and they happen so fast, and the special effects are buried by the two dozen other effects going off, again you really don't get to soak in the feel.

I actually find the job styles and themes to be by and far the best part of the game, one that I hold in high esteem when compared to WoW. I have issues for sure with some of them and some are better than others, but most of my complaints are with the actual gameplay mechanics rather than the presentation of them.

You even touch base on this in your example above with DRGs. It's not the styles, it's the gameplay decisions/mechanics that feel awkward.

[MrTharne]

You even touch base on this in your example above with DRGs. It's not the styles, it's the gameplay decisions/mechanics that feel awkward.

The problem with giving Dragoons more jumps or making them available more often, is the fact that it locks you in place and you can't avoid AoE during that/move to reposition.

So you will either delay a lot of jumps because of mechanics, which will make them not very enjoyable to play during some fights I'm sure,
OR
you make them immune to damage during a jump and well...that's just broken I think. (I'd like that though, it's kinda thematic of the Drg to avoid damage when using Jump in some Final Fantasy).

[Wrecktangle]

The problem with giving Dragoons more jumps or making them available more often, is the fact that it locks you in place and you can't avoid AoE during that/move to reposition.

So you will either delay a lot of jumps because of mechanics, which will make them not very enjoyable to play during some fights I'm sure,
OR
you make them immune to damage during a jump and well...that's just broken I think. (I'd like that though, it's kinda thematic of the Drg to avoid damage when using Jump in some Final Fantasy).

Speaking strictly personally - I don't think Spineshatter or DFD need to exist. I think Super Jump is all that's needed. Keep its 30s CD, give it charges and build in a mechanic that shortens the CD or allows it to be used sporadically based on some extra condition. Couple this with how you get into LotD and it creates a more dynamic flow while also allowing to pool some resources if necessary without losing too much. Jumps and mechanics aren't that ridiculous these days. Especially if you give it charges so you don't lose time waiting for a solid moment.

[StrawberryZebra]

Yeah, stylistically the jobs in FFXIV are rather lacking.
-snip-
That being said, Samurai is a mechanically fun class to play at 80.

I don't think the style they've gone with for Jobs are bad as such. They do a solid job of expressing what the Job is all about and help establish them within the game world. They're just not all my style, if that makes sense? Like with the Samurai. Black and White movies probably don't appeal to the target demographic of FF as a franchise, where Anime and over the top Iaido most likely does.

I do agree that, in some cases, that there are some things which look wonky but I don't think it's game breaking. I've railed, in detail, about how I'm not at all keen on the combo system but that's to be expected from a melee job at this point. It needs a complete overhaul in my opinion.

So far, I've not really thought much of the Samurai. It's functional as melee jobs go, but there's not anything that really wows me. That may well change though, currently only level 53. Slowly working my way to getting all the jobs to 80 in between rounds of Street Figher so it may be a while before I get it to max level.

First time I heard that FFXIV are lacking when it comes to stylistic presentation.
Their spells and animations are so over the top and highly stylized throughout all of the classes.

I'd argue that in many cases they go overboard with it. The Ninja is a good example here - Almost all of their melee attacks have them spinning and flipping on the spot. I'd much prefer just a solid, meaty, stabbing animation with a satisfying "squelch" sound effect. It's simple, utilitarian even, but it perfectly conveys what the characters attack is doing, without having to oversell it or slather everything in particle effects. Exactly the kind of thing thats good as a filler attack to really highlight just how awesome the Ninjutsu specials are.

[Granyala]

I'd argue that in many cases they go overboard with it. The Ninja is a good example here -

Considering that Ninjas are supposed to be STEALTHY... yeah I always found their particle effects and animations quite hilarious.

[The Casualty]

Speaking strictly personally - I don't think Spineshatter or DFD need to exist. I think Super Jump is all that's needed. Keep its 30s CD, give it charges and build in a mechanic that shortens the CD or allows it to be used sporadically based on some extra condition.

Oh my god, yes. I have been stating this exact thing for years. You could even have it proc a refresh randomly based on something like ticks of chaos thrust. Give some randomness to static rotations.