[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Granyala]

Mods or addons? Because Yoshi P made it clear why mods were bad. There's tons of NSFW mods, and they're all uncensored. There's strict censorship laws in asian countries, and when people post uncensored screenshots of naked characters in FFXIV, the authorities go to SE and ask "Why is this in your game? This is illegal." and SE ultimately holds responsibility for making sure players don't use mods.

I know of no MMO that officially tolerates mods, as in client modifications. People do it anyway, as the risk of being banned is very minor to nonexistent unless you are dumb enough to use them to cheat in an obvious manner. Personally, I love my mods that remove the dumb as fuck glued on shoes from my Kitten. I like to be barefooted now and again, even if the Japanese consider that pornographic. :'D

Do keep in mind though, that the person you quoted did not refer to client modification but rather to addons such as recount etc.

[Advent]

All I know is if I didn't have cactbot, I'd never be able to do any of the game's mechanics. Period.

[Delever]

All I know is if I didn't have cactbot, I'd never be able to do any of the game's mechanics. Period.

thats literally just being kinda terrible though

[Ghost of Cow]

All I know is if I didn't have cactbot, I'd never be able to do any of the game's mechanics. Period.

Even the ones that are just, "Move out of the red"?

[Kittahsmash]

It's the same with crafting. There are people who really think that you need to pentameld the absolute optimal stuff - at absolutely insane costs - to be able to craft. When the reality is that you barely need to pentameld at all and you don't need to use all 10 rank materia to hit the thresholds needed to easily macro stuff.

One of the biggest perks of pentamelding your gear with "super expensive stuff" now (even though prices are dropping like a rock every day. Control X's were down to 20k on my server the other day) is that when the NEW gear comes out in 6-ish months, you can make it right out of the bat with the increased stats being required to make it it and not having to upgrade your current gear to do so because you've got higher stats than people who only use lower materia to hit the current thresholds.

It's been that way for multiple expansions now, and I don't see SE changing this anytime soon.

----

The overmelding with combat materia is definitely laughable and not at all required for the majority of people, because those people aren't going to be pushing the kinds of razor thin wires where the entire party each needs that extra 0.3% (2.4% for the whole group) damage to kill the boss before enrage. That kinda stuff is usually only required for Ultimates, not Savage stuff like now... But people do it to try to give them the most damage they can get, to try to make things as easy as possible. Gil is relatively easy to make in this game, and it's really easy to get combat materia if you hunt at all and catch any trains / S trains going on, so you don't need to spend 10s of millions to fully meld your stuff up.

- - - Updated - - -

I like to be barefooted now and again, even if the Japanese consider that pornographic. :'D

They don't consider that to be pornographic, don't be facetious.

All I know is if I didn't have cactbot, I'd never be able to do any of the game's mechanics. Period.

That's...incredibly sad. You really should play without it for a little bit and see if you're able to kick your brain out of the rut its dug itself into and be able to process the mechanics and jump to what you need to do for them, rather than reading on screen what to do and stop thinking entirely. Because if you don't, and one day SE does come along and break those kinds of addons by changing things, then you'll be left on the side of the road while sprouts get given your spot in whatever groups you'd normally be part of :\

[Advent]

That's...incredibly sad. You really should play without it for a little bit and see if you're able to kick your brain out of the rut its dug itself into and be able to process the mechanics and jump to what you need to do for them, rather than reading on screen what to do and stop thinking entirely. Because if you don't, and one day SE does come along and break those kinds of addons by changing things, then you'll be left on the side of the road while sprouts get given your spot in whatever groups you'd normally be part of :\

I have tried. For seven years. I cannot for the life of me pay attention to both the rigidity of the combat's "flow" and the disruption of encounter mechanics at the same time. My brain just doesn't work that way. The way combat and encounters are designed, I'm often lulled into tunnel vision (Staring at the UI elements to keep track of everything), and then mechanics happen that catch me completely unaware. No matter how many times I do an encounter, I can't break that cycle. The only thing that ever helped was having a voice that told me something was coming. It's not an issue of practice because I've had 7 years of it, it's a matter of design. I also cannot ever do EX/Savage, and many normal raid encounters as a result.

Even the ones that are just, "Move out of the red"?

Those are often overt enough to snap me out of my lull, but that's only useful if they persist long enough for me to move out of them. In more recent encounters, those telegraphs are a split second long. Meaning I was supposed to watch for something at some point during an encounter (Usually a silent boss telegraph or animation), but I was too busy staring at cooldown and GCD timers to notice.

[Kittahsmash]

I have tried. For seven years. I cannot for the life of me pay attention to both the rigidity of the combat's "flow" and the disruption of encounter mechanics at the same time. My brain just doesn't work that way. The way combat and encounters are designed, I'm often lulled into tunnel vision (Staring at the UI elements to keep track of everything), and then mechanics happen that catch me completely unaware. No matter how many times I do an encounter, I can't break that cycle. The only thing that ever helped was having a voice that told me something was coming. It's not an issue of practice because I've had 7 years of it, it's a matter of design. I also cannot ever do EX/Savage, and many normal raid encounters as a result.

Those are often overt enough to snap me out of my lull, but that's only useful if they persist long enough for me to move out of them. In more recent encounters, those telegraphs are a split second long. Meaning I was supposed to watch for something at some point during an encounter (Usually a silent boss telegraph or animation), but I was too busy staring at cooldown and GCD timers to notice.

Can you stare at your GCD / cooldown timers less? Like focus less on your dps and more on mechanics? I play BLM and I just glance over at the job UI occasionally to see what's going on if I've mistimed something, but I use the noises the UI generates to tell me when certain things are up and just 8 years of playing the job as practice for having a feeling for when I need to cast Fire to refresh it. What job do you play?

I disagree that it's a matter of design, because if it *was* design then everybody would be having a problem with it, instead of just you (or, being generous, a handful of people... and you're literally the first person I've ever come across that's said they can't do many normal raids because they're too focused on their own UI/cooldowns/GCD timers.) Can you not spam '1' until you see your character do the attack that you've been doing for X years or hear the sound effect that it does, and then start spamming '2' or whatever other buttons after? Why do you have to stare at your buttons to know when to press the next one?

Try going up against a combat dummy without any of your UI showing, and see if you're able to complete your rotation! There are literally a ton of other clues to tell you what's going on besides just fixating on your fixed UI. If you're unwilling to do that, then I guess that's all that can be done about that. Just don't get too upset for the inevitable time comes when that addon stops being supported or SE breaks it or whatever else inevitably happens

It almost sounds like you might have some kind of visual processing disorder if it's a legitimate problem and you're not able to do it, have you been to a doctor to get that checked out? Not being insulting or trolling or anything, I'm genuinely concerned...

[Advent]

Can you stare at your GCD / cooldown timers less? Like focus less on your dps and more on mechanics? I play BLM and I just glance over at the job UI occasionally to see what's going on if I've mistimed something, but I use the noises the UI generates to tell me when certain things are up and just 8 years of playing the job as practice for having a feeling for when I need to cast Fire to refresh it. What job do you play?

A couple things. First,I've actually attempted that back in Shadowbringers. Basically I did nothing for the whole encounter, which didn't sit very well with the people I was matched with, so I had to go back to dying to mechanics basically.
Second, I don't play with game sounds anymore. I generally find them to be obnoxious and distracting.

I disagree that it's a matter of design, because if it *was* design then everybody would be having a problem with it, instead of just you (or, being generous, a handful of people... and you're literally the first person I've ever come across that's said they can't do many normal raids because they're too focused on their own UI/cooldowns/GCD timers.) Can you not spam '1' until you see your character do the attack that you've been doing for X years or hear the sound effect that it does, and then start spamming '2' or whatever other buttons after? Why do you have to stare at your buttons to know when to press the next one?

I didn't intend for it to seem like I believe the design is flawed, just that the design is an issue for me. I don't have this problem with other games like wow or gw2, for example. The way ff14 designs combos and abilities to be pressed in very rigid order is the issue, because my mind works in a rather disorganized way. I'm the kind of person whose room would look unkempt but I know where everything is, if that makes sense. How that translates to FF14 is rigid rotations (ie: press 1 before 2, and 4 before 5) trip me up when it comes time to react to something else in an encounter. ADHD brain and all means I'm often thinking several steps ahead, but lose where I am in the moment, so often I have to refer back to my UI to remember where I was when mechanics interrupt the flow of combat.

Try going up against a combat dummy without any of your UI showing, and see if you're able to complete your rotation! There are literally a ton of other clues to tell you what's going on besides just fixating on your fixed UI. If you're unwilling to do that, then I guess that's all that can be done about that. Just don't get too upset for the inevitable time comes when that addon stops being supported or SE breaks it or whatever else inevitably happens

Training dummies are easy. I could probably do those blindfolded. At least with Reaper or Dragoon. But those aren't in very high demand, and that situation is highly irregular. There are no training dummy encounters, for example.

If the addon loses support or SR breaks it, then I continue on as I have but with a whole lot more deaths, and a lot more people who probably wish I wasn't matched with them. I'm used to being the odd one out, it's nothing new.

It almost sounds like you might have some kind of visual processing disorder if it's a legitimate problem and you're not able to do it, have you been to a doctor to get that checked out? Not being insulting or trolling or anything, I'm genuinely concerned...

It's not really a serious disorder because if it was it would have manifested in other ways. This particular design of the game just works against the way my mind operates is all. Cactbot gives me a kick in the pants when the game otherwise wouldn't. I can go without addons in wow for example and do fine partly because I've played it for years, and partly because the audio cues are more unique and pronounced on a per-boss basis. They're also less obnoxiously voiced with weird audio filters. I can actually understand the words being said without actively having to pay close attention amid the din of combat.

[Kittahsmash]

A couple things. First,I've actually attempted that back in Shadowbringers. Basically I did nothing for the whole encounter, which didn't sit very well with the people I was matched with, so I had to go back to dying to mechanics basically.
Second, I don't play with game sounds anymore. I generally find them to be obnoxious and distracting.

You can turn off other player sounds so you don't hear the sounds that could actually be obnoxious and distracting. It's right in the settings menu. You can also turn off spell effects for other players in your party so you only see your own, or the boss's, so that could help narrow down the obnoxiousness.

I didn't intend for it to seem like I believe the design is flawed, just that the design is an issue for me. I don't have this problem with other games like wow or gw2, for example. The way ff14 designs combos and abilities to be pressed in very rigid order is the issue, because my mind works in a rather disorganized way. I'm the kind of person whose room would look unkempt but I know where everything is, if that makes sense. How that translates to FF14 is rigid rotations (ie: press 1 before 2, and 4 before 5) trip me up when it comes time to react to something else in an encounter. ADHD brain and all means I'm often thinking several steps ahead, but lose where I am in the moment, so often I have to refer back to my UI to remember where I was when mechanics interrupt the flow of combat.

Ehhh... it's not really that they're rigid. Most combos are 1-2 or 1-2-3, except DRG which also has a 4-5-6 thing. Spell casters don't have that at all, so you could give one of them a try if pushing 1-2-3 is too much? You could also just not do that and do less damage, you'll still likely wind up doing more damage than most of the average people you'll find in DF.

Training dummies are easy. I could probably do those blindfolded. At least with Reaper or Dragoon. But those aren't in very high demand, and that situation is highly irregular. There are no training dummy encounters, for example.

Was more an example of you getting used to your rotation so you could do it blind folded. You say in a bit that you can "go without addons in wow and do fine partly because I've played it for years"...but you've also played XIV "for years" and you're unable to do fine in that game, so... that just doesn't mesh up to me. If you get used to your rotation to where you can do it blind folded, then you wouldn't need to stare at you UI for GCDs and the like, right? Maybe I'm just too used to being a BLM and have been away from WoW for too long, but I can't see why it's such a problem to not look at your UI all the time

It's not really a serious disorder because if it was it would have manifested in other ways. This particular design of the game just works against the way my mind operates is all. Cactbot gives me a kick in the pants when the game otherwise wouldn't. I can go without addons in wow for example and do fine partly because I've played it for years, and partly because the audio cues are more unique and pronounced on a per-boss basis. They're also less obnoxiously voiced with weird audio filters. I can actually understand the words being said without actively having to pay close attention amid the din of combat.

To me it's a little that you say WoW has more unique audio cues because my own personal experiences show that to be exact opposite in my decade+ from playing that game. So many of the sounds there blend together, that the only thing that stands out are literally the bosses talking (which they ALSO do in XIV) and saying things for some of their attacks...but that's also the case for a lot of the encounters in XIV too.

Honestly to me it sounds like you're far too used to WoW and are either unwilling or unable to adapt to a different game's way of doing things. Which is fine, each player has their own way of playing things and they don't like change. But you're really cutting yourself off at the legs by not being able to transition between the two without exploring some of the options to try to reduce some of the "annoyances" imo :\ As you said, it's the way your brain operates. You can train your brain out of that, but you seem unwilling to do so for whatever reason, which is fine. Not everybody NEEDS to change themselves to play different games if they're not comfortable with it.

I wish you luck with your future adventures in Eorzea!

[Tojara]

The fundamentals in this game are just as true as pretty much any MMO. As long as you're keeping things on CD and keeping your GCD rolling, your damage won't be absolutely abysmal. Fundamental knowledge of your job even if you fuck it up from time to time with the above concepts being sound will mean that you're mostly going to do fine.

I've always been the type of player that always wants game sound on. I however don't really find that the majority of audio in this game really give you too much information, that it's 'needed' though. Sure it's nice when you get a polygot stack as a BLM and the audio for it's distinct, but it's not really 'needed'. It's better to have your frames setup in a way that you can get that information while maintaining vision on the encounter at hand. But that's MMO 101. In this game I can pretty much play my DRK while only glancing at my bars to witness upcoming CDs, but for the ~45 seconds between CD windows I can pretty much auto pilot it. Also the sound when your TBN gives you a proc is probably one of the more satisfying sounds in the entire game.

It might be the job you play too. Some of them (IMO) are designed rather poorly, and I feel like that generally goes for some of the older jobs in the game. RDM is probably my favorite job I've leveled thus far, syncs well with low level content and is rather simple to pick up and go.

I'll also second the previous poster too. This game is visually cancer, especially in Alliance or just in raids in general. I'm not sure how people play the game with spell effects from allies turned up to max. It's literally like a bomb on your eyes. Luckily there are so many things you can do to minimize clutter with the UI, even if it's a job in itself to navigate all the menus scattered around in the UI.

[StrawberryZebra]

The way combat and encounters are designed, I'm often lulled into tunnel vision (Staring at the UI elements to keep track of everything), and then mechanics happen that catch me completely unaware.

One suggestion I'd like to make, if you've not already done this, is move your UI closer to the center of your screen. Perhaps not all of it, but move the important parts like yuor gauge, oGCDs and cooldowns to a spot where you can comfortably see them without having to look down to your hotbars at the bottom. You can adjust the transparancy, shape and size of those hotbars so they're unobstructive but still visable.

Ideally the end result is that you can see what's going on around you and keep track of important Job abilities without needing to keep looking away from one or the other.

Turn down allied spell effect particles too if you've not already. It's rough trying to pick out important mechanics when 7-23 other people are blasting away on a boss.

I've also found that, in most encounters, you're better off looking at whats going on around you rather than directly at the boss. Quite often there will be things lining up at the edge of the arena or around the outside that signals a mechanic is happening. You don't need to see how much you're critting for, but you do probably want to be aware of those planets orbiting outside the boss arena.

Don't take this last point as absolute - You will still need to be looking at the boss too for their tells. Just don't feel you always need to look at the boss to see your DPS going off

[Katchii]

One suggestion I'd like to make, if you've not already done this, is move your UI closer to the center of your screen. Perhaps not all of it, but move the important parts like yuor gauge, oGCDs and cooldowns to a spot where you can comfortably see them without having to look down to your hotbars at the bottom. You can adjust the transparancy, shape and size of those hotbars so they're unobstructive but still visable.

Ideally the end result is that you can see what's going on around you and keep track of important Job abilities without needing to keep looking away from one or the other.

Seconding this recommendation.

Having at least one highly used ability be near the center of the screen/closer to the action as opposed to the edges works wonders for situational awareness.

Turn down allied spell effect particles too if you've not already. It's rough trying to pick out important mechanics when 7-23 other people are blasting away on a boss.

I have mine completely turned off and it's worked wonders. The spell effects previously were so intense they were literally overshadowing the enemy telegraphs so I was having difficulty dodging stuff.

It still keeps ground targeted AoE effects like Asylum, and DRK Salted Earth.

I've also found that, in most encounters, you're better off looking at whats going on around you rather than directly at the boss. Quite often there will be things lining up at the edge of the arena or around the outside that signals a mechanic is happening. You don't need to see how much you're critting for, but you do probably want to be aware of those planets orbiting outside the boss arena.

^This.

Don't take this last point as absolute - You will still need to be looking at the boss too for their tells. Just don't feel you always need to look at the boss to see your DPS going off

It's one of those, if the boss isn't doing something overt, check to make sure the arena itself isn't doing something either and vice versa.

[ippollite]

A couple of solutions. But first a possible diagnosis, just needs a few more questions?
1. Are you a clicker? I ask because i have literally one button without a hotkey (duty action), and all on its own it made the second lakshmi duty really tough. as you run around the mouse drifts off the spot and youre constantly having to track back whilst also getting on top of the balls for it. If it was hotkeyed, itd have been a doddle. I mention that because in a normal encounter youre gonna be running around a lot, then looking down to find buttons, then pushing it, then dodging the next mechanic etc etc. Obviously then, it helps to hotkey. Its just the nature of the beast. Get ye to a training dummy and practice your core rotation until its decently in your muscle memory.
Assuming you are hotkeying though...
2. Did you boost? Again, this isnt a bad thing in and of itself, but the game has a very nice progression curve as you level through the dungeons and trials. It not only introduces abilities cautiously (for some, overcautiously), but also introduces mechanics carefully to not overwhelm the player. If you jumped this step, you will need a bit more time to adjust in normal level dungeons and trials (if only to get used to your rotation and what the displays mean).

However, there are a couple of other solutions.
1. Tanks and heals have some pressure attached to them, but its very light. I chose whm precisely because the idea of 20 button rotations baffled me. From 1-30 healing is incredibly simple. From 30-49 its a bit more intense. From 50-70 its again incredibly easy. And from there on in, you can just use the trust system. But honestly, the most difficult aspect of healing is really just dodging mechanics (which deeps have to do as well). Healing itself is low pressure, most of the time im a glare mage. Id put it around 60% deeps (glare, dots, cds), 20% fire+forget healing, and 20% dodging mechanics. Occasionally i might have to do an actual healing check... very occasionally. So if rotations are a pain in the rump, check out healing or tanking. Not sure the big issues with tanking, but it probably involves a lot more paying attention to the cast bar/actual animations of the boss and positioning (along with routefinding and dropping appropriate mitigation). But again, no real 'rotation' per se
2. Check out some of the 'easier to play' dps. Particularly summoner and reaper since theyve got a more streamlined combat rotation. But also the support classes like red mage and dancer. Not sure if bard is also 'easy'? Honestly, i stick with whm, but im just going on community perception. But as someone who is a mess under pressure, redmage took me like 20 minutes of playing with a target dummy to understand at a basic level.

Keep at it. Take it slowly and you'll get the gist of it.

ETA: A third recommendation: If you want to practice, the game has various levels of personal responsibility. Discluding the lowbie dungeons of course, you may want to think of it in wow pvp terms: AV is so much more fun for someone to practice your class than arena. Similarly, the game has modes available where your death is barely a blip in the success or failure of the group. Obviously this is found in 24 man plus content (alliance raids, pvp, eureka, bozja, and er praetorium and castrum meridium). Queue for those and just focus on getting your head around everything. If you die, you'll be ressed in a heartbeat. If you keep dying, no one really cares. They'll just keep ressing you as and when they can. They wont remember a thing about you. Its almost a consequence free space to practice mechanics whilst also using your rotation. Then its 8 man 'hard' trials (normal stops existing post arr), and finally dungeon running. Then you go to proper end game stuff once youre confident... which seems to have its own difficulty curve, but im an msq andy and i dont want to pretend i know what im talking about.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Just did the All Saint's Wake event. The instance was probably one of the more enjoyable events, up there with the easter riddle and the broken painting puzzle. Added a couple of pumpkins to my apartment.

The population of the Black Shroud must have an overall low IQ, given that a clown went around inviting random people to his house for a banquet and told them not to tell anyone else, and apparently hundreds of suckers actually turned up. Or maybe crime is just abnormally low in Eorzea so they don't have stranger danger fear.

[Granyala]

They don't consider that to be pornographic, don't be facetious.

The emote at the end of the sentence should have been the indicator that my statement was not to be taken too seriously.

Though I do wonder why so many Asian MMOs I played all had fixed heels as part of their underwear you could not get rid off. Aion, XIV, I think Tera as well.

- - - Updated - - -

In more recent encounters, those telegraphs are a split second long.

Yep, you are supposed to remember them, they often don't have proper ques.

I get the "tunnel vision" problem, especially when you play an unfamiliar class or your group fucks up and you try to save butts. It happens.

[dlld]

Why can you only do 12 beast tribe quests a day, takes ages to do all the old ones as someone who didn't play when they were current. If it's cause they give some minor rewards to prevent people from feeling they need to do all dailies everyday? Just remove them after 12 is done except rep gain, or only if you do dailies with tribes you are already maxed out with does the allowance get taken up.

[Onikaroshi]

Why can you only do 12 beast tribe quests a day, takes ages to do all the old ones as someone who didn't play when they were current. If it's cause they give some minor rewards to prevent people from feeling they need to do all dailies everyday? Just remove them after 12 is done except rep gain, or only if you do dailies with tribes you are already maxed out with does the allowance get taken up.

Probably some even worse reason than that "we can't change it, spaghetti code"

[Cosmic Janitor]

I finally got my crafting jobs up to 80 and I gotta say I already miss the stormblood model for crafting quests. As a passionate alchmist in other games it also kinda pisses me off that they lumped alchemy and culinarian into one quest and after finally reaching endwalker the quests for ALC/CUL once again only revolve around food. Such a shame after the great SB ALC questline. The only thing they have in common is that you may be able to imbibe some of the alchemy products..

Edit: Also, at least from the introduction in EW, it feels like both the smithing and the artisan quests may as well have been pure goldsmith quests thematically. The artisan part would previoulsy have quite literally been a master GSM craft in the 1-60 quests, where the budget issue was solved by me having to farm the damned rare materials myself and some proprietor selling it for fat cash. Again, I already miss the SB design, it at least made sense.

[Merie]

Yeah I agree. We went from using alchemy to bring back the dead to using alchemy to add some flavor to rations that are no longer needed. Kinda a waste of time and talent.

[Aucald]

My only real complaint about FF14 thus far is some of the names - I cannot for the life of me pronounce a goodly number of them, and every time I hear them spoken in dialogue I'm taken aback by how far I was from the correct pronunciation. Examples include:

Haurchefant
Louisoix
Fortemps
Alphinaud
Chlodebaimt
Baurendouin

Haurchefant is probably my favorite, I can't believe how far off I was from the right way to say it. Maybe it's because I don't have much fluency in French, I don't know.