[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Cosmic Janitor]

I had never even seen anyone with the pyros relic before this month now its everywhere.

At the time you could see them more often. Though overall I've found that most people default back to Zeta, Lux and the pre-Lux stage of their relic weapons. They are definitely the most popular relic around and for good reason. I think most people immediately glamour of most of the Blade's weapons, with a few exceptions maybe (GNB/DNC and WHM mostly).

Some tend to become more popular when current sets match the style. Right now I often see the white glowing/burning ultima weapons.

[Tenjen]

Ah man the relics. I have some painful glam plans ahead of me.

the anima weapons for my war, AST and SMN. the ARR relics for my DRG NIN. Eureka for MNK. Bozja for my RMG, SAM and DNC.

I already have my chosen weapon (non relic) glams for DRK, SCH, GNB and MCH. Not decided yet on the rest since i havent locked in their glam outfits.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I mean, the devs could say, "Every single penny from the MogStation goes to the players." and it not technically be a lie but not really mean what you think it means. These phrases actually mean very little in business if they're not binding in some way.

Yes, people like Yoshi and Square, but you gotta get over not thinking of them as a business. They absolutely are. They're here to make money, specifically money from you.

Yes, they're a business, but again this is overly cynical. I realize a lot of people are new to FFXIV, but Yoshi P and the rest of the team have worked up a relationship of trust through thorough and open communication with their player base. They listen to feedback and openly post and respond on the forums.

They didn't say the money was going to the players though, they said it was going towards the development of the game. The one thing in particular that they named was more servers, but obviously there's enough money that it wouldn't be the only thing. If they used that money to buy a super ultra break room for their employees, I think that's cool too. These people often work 16 hour days to push content out the door. The eastern work culture is just different. So if they get better accommodations, I'd be happy for that.

Money going into the pockets of executives, into stocks and dividends, that's not game development. That's just pure greed. And again, I realize people are extremely new around here, but money from mog station going into FFXIV isn't something they'd just casually lie about.

I mean, back in the "good old days" you also spent $60 on a cartridge for a game that might barely even work, or was 15 minutes long.

People bitch and moan about gaming being a rip off today and how you "got a whole game" back then, but it's kinda BS.

Maybe in the Atari days. Even some early NES games. But I have played games from the NES generation and on. I played the original FF at that. Never once ran into a cartridge that didn't work, or a 15 minute game. But I also wasn't buying random titles with no coverage from magazines or word of mouth. So nah, it's not BS.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah sure man, I'll just take them at face value that the store goes 100% back into the game and isn't used to make more money in addition to that stated goal. I'm sure all of the stores in many games have some of the money going back into developing the game, just as some of it's used to uh make the business money. Claiming that one is righteous while others are downright evil is so silly.

Oh look at Billy over there on his store mount and bought emotes from Mogstation! Make sure you use your bow emote when he walks by as a token of our gratitude, thanking him for his service. Without him the servers would run really badly and we might not get new content!

Cash shops in MMOs, especially ones with subscriptions are still awful, but also the age we live in. Buying into one while condemning others is sort of delusional. Whether you want to believe them or not is entirely up to you, but those statements are just a way for people to be more at ease spending even more money because it helps the very thing they enjoy.

This happens with charity IRL as well for those of you who ever studied where your money goes when donating to charities. There are plenty of charities out there that aren't too bad to donate your money to, but if you actually dig into where your money goes you would realize that a large portion of them are pretty wasteful overall. Bogged down in banking fees, salaries, maintenance, advertising and then the cause that you're donating to.

To answer the above question I'm pretty sure the stores in every game go into both development, servers and lining the pockets of executives, etc (including SE).

I still don't hate SE for it though, it's just more of the same.

Man people really are cynical just because they remember 3 or 4 news broadcasts where they find charities have been wasteful. Go look up the number of charities that do that kind of thing, and then go look up the overall number of charities there are. Just because you've brought up the worst of the bunch in your head does not mean the rest follow. Charities are often audited and not found to be wasteful or scooping money off the side, and those never make it onto the news.

Again, I realize you guys are either trying to play devil's advocate or at worst just shit on the game for no reason. As someone pointed out, box sales and sub fees go towards SE executives and whatnot. Mog station sales go towards game development. Bringing up charities is a dumb red herring that's 100% unrelated. They've built up a reputation of transparency and trust among their players. And again, I realize many of you have only been here a month or two, but for those of us playing since early ARR it's really easy to see why we'd be far less skeptical about this claim.

- - - Updated - - -

That will probably be changing as Yoshi P recently said in an interview that "Square Enix will spare no expense in the development of Final Fantasy 14."

I also highly doubt that it even works like that currently. I'm sure the Mog Station makes a decent bit, but I doubt it's enough to fund a AAA MMO with a 3-4 month content release cycle.

I'm sure FFXIV gets its own budget directly from SE in relation to their box and sub sales as well. It's not just the mog station. But that's another good point, mog station sales can't prop up an MMO with FF's update cycle. So all these dubious claims that mog station proceeds don't go towards development are just sour grapes and farts in the wind.

[Tojara]

I didn't have much issue with old games during the NES era. The short ones typically had decent replay value (for an NES game) or were just incredibly fucking hard for my 5-8 year old brain, especially when you're talking about games like Battletoads. The games I got were just virtue of what was laying around or my parents got (and never played), and they seemed to have good taste as most of the games weren't utter trash. I suppose if you dipped into the third party developers you might get duped, but kind of hard to tell what was good in the early nineties with media the way it was and little coverage on games as a whole.

Still the same though. I don't really trust the people I buy vehicles from that I'm 100% getting the best deal, simply because they're smiling at me and assuring me this is the best rate possible. Just like I'd never be convinced, regardless of trust built up that the store just funds the game and doesn't go into making Square more money. People need to get paid at the end of the day, and last I checked, SE is in the business of making money.

It ultimately doesn't matter though. Stores on any subscription based games are still bad IMO. I don't view people running around on store mounts or having bought emotes as the ultimate Warriors of Light simply because they're helping fund the game. Paying the box price and paying a subscription should also be funding the game . Were other MMOs that didn't have stores years ago just not funding the game because of a lack of a store? No, and I'm going to guess the subscriptions in addition to the box price is what fueled the development.

Again, I don't mind it, it's just odd bit of hypocrisy that it's okay when person does it, but it's awful if somebody else does it. I haven't bought anything off any stores in subscription based MMOs and somebody assuring me that it's okay in FF14 wouldn't necessarily made me feel better about it if I did.

Why do you think I get wasteful charities from news broadcasts? You don't have to dig that far to find out where the money goes for individual charities in the world, only to find that a lot of them are pretty wasteful in expenditures.

The above is slightly off topic, but you're stating that box sales and subscriptions are going to SE and executives, while the store goes to developing the game? How is that different from other MMOs having subscriptions and box sales going towards the game, and potentially the store going to line the pockets of executives? MMOs in the past didn't have expansive stores, so how in the hell did they line the pockets of executives with only subscriptions and box sales?

Nobody is saying that the store in FF14 doesn't go into developing the game, it's just that it ultimately doesn't matter. If the executives and SE weren't making enough money, they would just dip into other regions of the game to get their cut. Not sure how it's hard to grasp that subscriptions, stores and box sales all go towards lining the pockets of executives in addition to making/developing the game. To be quite honest it's sort of ass backwards if the store is the only thing funding the game as it relies totally on Timmy and Jimmy buying store mounts to keep the game going.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I didn't have much issue with old games during the NES era. The short ones typically had decent replay value (for an NES game) or were just incredibly fucking hard for my 5-8 year old brain, especially when you're talking about games like Battletoads. The games I got were just virtue of what was laying around or my parents got (and never played), and they seemed to have good taste as most of the games weren't utter trash. I suppose if you dipped into the third party developers you might get duped, but kind of hard to tell what was good in the early nineties with media the way it was and little coverage on games as a whole.

Still the same though. I don't really trust the people I buy vehicles from that I'm 100% getting the best deal, simply because they're smiling at me and assuring me this is the best rate possible. Just like I'd never be convinced, regardless of trust built up that the store just funds the game and doesn't go into making Square more money. People need to get paid at the end of the day, and last I checked, SE is in the business of making money.

It ultimately doesn't matter though. Stores on any subscription based games are still bad IMO. I don't view people running around on store mounts or having bought emotes as the ultimate Warriors of Light simply because they're helping fund the game. Paying the box price and paying a subscription should also be funding the game . Were other MMOs that didn't have stores years ago just not funding the game because of a lack of a store? No, and I'm going to guess the subscriptions in addition to the box price is what fueled the development.

Again, I don't mind it, it's just odd bit of hypocrisy that it's okay when person does it, but it's awful if somebody else does it. I haven't bought anything off any stores in subscription based MMOs and somebody assuring me that it's okay in FF14 wouldn't necessarily made me feel better about it if I did.

It's only hypocrisy if you remove the nuance from it. When one cash shop goes to line the pockets of executives and dividends of shareholders, and the other is invested into the game... that's not hypocrisy for being ok with the latter. While you're hyper focused on the "what" of it, I'm considering both what it is and why it's there. And as I mentioned (and as many content creators have mentioned) it's a lot easier to ignore a cash shop when you're delivered a complete, bug free experience, rather than half assed, incomplete garbage with more DLC on day 1 than the base game.

Companies release half finished games and expansions in beta, and many players gobble it up. Others get angry and rant about it, but ultimately there's still a huge audience of players willing to accept absolute shit when it comes to games and expansions. For nostalgia. For their friends. Etc. I was one of those players actually, willing to make excuses for Mass Effect. Fallout. Willing to make excuses for the WoD progression quest #2 (garrison quest) not working for 3 days. I made excuses for a lot of games saying "That's just how it is these days".

It's FFXIV that's really reminded me what it's like to get a complete and bug free experience in an MMO. And for as much shit as the games get, I actually appreciate assassin's creed for being a consistently complete gaming experience every time. And the DLC they release feels completely optional. It's also not day 1 DLC, often being what feel like mini expansions several months later.

[MrPaladinGuy]

I've barely done anything in Shadowbringer yet except get to Kholusia for a BLU powerlevel, kek. I'm too busy cleaning up some Stormblood content and farming Irregular tomes.

[dope_danny]

Well i finished my Eureka RDM relic and its so busy that multiple 144/144 player instances are full and the two discords for Baldesion Arsenal are asking people to leave as they can't get a full raid team in one instance. I guess i know whats the popular downtime activity this week

- - - Updated - - -

Completed and upgraded all my armour and relic and checked a list of items and bar some white weapons i don't really want the only thing outside of Baldesion Arsenal i'm missing are Skolls claw from Pyros and a Silver Bunny chest drop from Hydatos to finish unlocking everything. Overall it was a fun break from working on my nth Shadowbringers relic grinding Syrcus Tower and Delubrum Reginae and would recommend it right now.

[Onikaroshi]

Well i finished my Eureka RDM relic and its so busy that multiple 144/144 player instances are full and the two discords for Baldesion Arsenal are asking people to leave as they can't get a full raid team in one instance. I guess i know whats the popular downtime activity this week

- - - Updated - - -

Completed and upgraded all my armour and relic and checked a list of items and bar some white weapons i don't really want the only thing outside of Baldesion Arsenal i'm missing are Skolls claw from Pyros and a Silver Bunny chest drop from Hydatos to finish unlocking everything. Overall it was a fun break from working on my nth Shadowbringers relic grinding Syrcus Tower and Delubrum Reginae and would recommend it right now.

I doubt I'll ever do eureka weapons lol, I'm not a fan of grinding mobs. Probably the same for whatever the ShB one is called. I really hope they don't do another one of those for EW

[Tojara]

I doubt I'll ever do eureka weapons lol, I'm not a fan of grinding mobs. Probably the same for whatever the ShB one is called. I really hope they don't do another one of those for EW

I actually didn't mind the ShB one as I just did the engagements and ignored just mindlessly grinding mobs, still got my relic weapon in a decent amount of time. Basically only pulled mobs when no engagements were up.

The zone itself was pretty bland, but the CE were pretty fun to learn and watch people fail on lol.

[Tenjen]

I doubt I'll ever do eureka weapons lol, I'm not a fan of grinding mobs. Probably the same for whatever the ShB one is called. I really hope they don't do another one of those for EW

they improve on each relic zone with every expansion. Bozja is faster and less grindy than Eureka with multiple sources to complete steps, while for the next one, Yoshi P mentioned they are seeing how to include simultaneous multi-weapon completion and some other methods.

[Thestrawman]

I doubt I'll ever do eureka weapons lol, I'm not a fan of grinding mobs. Probably the same for whatever the ShB one is called. I really hope they don't do another one of those for EW

Why do you care what they do for EW you quit. Remember?

[Onikaroshi]

Why do you care what they do for EW you quit. Remember?

I'll likely rebuy it on sale, it's only a show of displeasure to the 2 week notice.

[Thestrawman]

I'll likely rebuy it on sale, it's only a show of displeasure to the 2 week notice.

Uh huh. I don't think they do sales on early access release but who knows. Stranger things have happened I guess.

[Onikaroshi]

Uh huh. I don't think they do sales on early access release but who knows. Stranger things have happened I guess.

The do it like 6 months afterish, that's when I'll likely pick it back up. Halo infinite comes out on the 8th anyway.

[Swnem]

I actually didn't mind the ShB one as I just did the engagements and ignored just mindlessly grinding mobs, still got my relic weapon in a decent amount of time. Basically only pulled mobs when no engagements were up.

The zone itself was pretty bland, but the CE were pretty fun to learn and watch people fail on lol.

I don't think you get anything but clusters from farming mobs in Bozja/zednos. Unless you are farming a specific cosmetic, there is no gain in doing that.

[Jazzhands]

I don't think you get anything but clusters from farming mobs in Bozja/zednos. Unless you are farming a specific cosmetic, there is no gain in doing that.

Farming certain mobs can start certain CEs. If you're going for a specific duel or something it is 100% worthwhile to farm the specific mobs instead of just hoping it pops cause that can take a long time.

[Thestrawman]

I don't think you get anything but clusters from farming mobs in Bozja/zednos. Unless you are farming a specific cosmetic, there is no gain in doing that.

You get the colored memories. Joining a group that is farming clusters will be way faster then doing the skirmishes and CEs.

[ippollite]

Im starting to see the appeal of new world. Botany is kinda relaxing.

[Tenjen]

I dunno. New World really terribly sucks as a Final Fantasy game though. No story relation or character relation, different style, completely different devs and company from FF.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

If you want a relaxing JRPG with crafting and gathering, then Atelier is your series. The Arland and Dusk trilogies are regarded as the best in the series. You play as a young girl (or, in the case of Escha & Logy, can play as a guy) who runs an alchemist shop in her town, getting jobs to make stuff that requires her to go out into the monster infested countryside, harvest ingredients, kill monsters with a party in turn based battles, return to her shop and make stuff like bombs so she can go kill more monsters and complete the request. The Arland games have time limits to complete the mandatory plot jobs.