[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Remilia]

Eh, the trailers are just previews. PSO2 does the same thing. While it may not be the most visually appealing thing it is extremely informative for what it is.

[Aruhen]

So I was bored and saw the 3.5 trailer, I kinda wanted to return to the game and finish the leveling. So I thought seeing a trailer would get me amped

Am I the only one who thinks ffxiv trailers are really REALLY boring, I know the game itself is fantastic, but they seem very cheap to me

I like them quite a bit but they are more of a preview than a trailer like Rem said. The best trailers though for an MMO I've seen are from WoW the Wrath era and anything before that. I mean even 3.2 (again WoW) had a really epic trailer.

[Bullettime]

First day back to the game. Wiping til the timer ran out in Chrysalis and a 60 minute Antitower.

Good to be back.

[StrawberryZebra]

Already totally not stalking you! But if you add me I'll give you a nice shiny book! Got a 110 one left over from when I was considering levelling SMN you can have. HQ as well.

I need an adult! I NEED AN ADULT!!

Jokes aside, while I appreciate the offer, I've already got myself a 110 book from a story quest I wrapped up earlier today. It's probably best if you kept it, chances are it wouldn't get much use from me before it's replaced by something better.

[8bithamster]

WOO! finished my storyline up to the part where you free hostages from a douchey priest (Patch after Heavensward), and I can tell you, that timed quest at 143, was quite a challenge. I failed the first time because I had no idea where to go. Second time I reached the dude with 5/6 hostages while he was at 15-20 health.

Paladins are not DPS monsters or at least not when you haven't played in a year

[Granyala]

Paladins are not DPS monsters

Not really, no. If you want a DPS monster, go check WAR.

[OGXanos]

Paladins are not DPS monsters or at least not when you haven't played in a year

Indeed. You HAVE to stay on top of well, everything or RIP if your gear isn't 'optimal'. Get that weapon up ASAP.

[Wrecktangle]

Reinstalling tonight, just casual stuff atm. Buddy wanted to try it again, he got very annoyed during HW leveling at having to chase air puddles to unlock flying lol.

[Faroth]

No!



Street Fighter will let me Shoryuken Bison in the face without forcing me to sit through hours of diologue and cutscenes before hand though. While Street Fighter does have a story to it, the gameplay is never interrupted to tell me that story. I never have to stop mid way though a fight for an exposition dump. Beyond a few lines of opening diologue, the story is left up to the player to persuit at their own discresion. I can enjoy the game without ever having to interact with the story, and I like that in a game.

It's a very bad comparison though. Some FF games, like Tactics for example, have some great game play depth regardless of the story. They're worth playing simply because they're fun to play. FF 14 is much the same for me, it's fun to play. I've really enjoyed playing it so far. I just wish I could be left to play it without being forced to trudge through a story I have no interest in to get to more of content I want to play.

WHOOOSH... it's a pretty solid comparison.

The point they were trying to make is that Final Fantasy has always been a story driven RPG series. Final Fantasy XIV is a story driven JRPG that happens to be an MMO. It's a core design aspect of the game, it's central to the design and basically what heavily sets it apart from the competition.

Hence why they were saying it's akin to playing Street Fighter and not caring abotu the fights. The fights are the core design of Street Fighter.

Keep in mind, however, that you're not experiencing it the same way as when it was designed. All those quests were about 2 hours of story content every 3 months. It's just now it's all in one big bundle, so it's more daunting than it was originally.

- - - Updated - - -

They ARE boring. But they stroke the nostalgia of the people who so fondly remember the older Final Fantasy games, so it builds hype. I've personally never touched an FF game outside of 14. I. MAY look into 16 if they keep on the more modern combat system. No way would I ever be cool with going back to lame turn-based battles.

Slightly off topic of XIV, but...

Funny, the modern combat system makes combat a complete snooze fest. Nothing is challenging except for cheap one shot mechanics and those are utterly non-threateningly since you just pop a potion/phoenix down or see if your NPCs will get you up. Summons are RNG and basically guarantee victory when they do pop, magic isn't terribly useable since you can just throw it where the NPC used to be and is a friendly fire AoE result that lasts a while (so AI can stand in it or walk into it). There is absolutely no tactics used at all save "equip a different weapon for this mob."

30 minutes of spamming a button to kill what could have been an epic boss fight.... yaaaawn. T_T

I find myself much preferring a bit of tactics and party-based combat where I can control the whole party instead of solo hack n' slash with NPCs doing whatever they do (Usually they die. That's what they do!).

I'm hoping FFVII Remake can find an in between of ATB turn base and FFXV. I was hoping they'd use XIV's motion capture animation style and still have turn base where you can watch all the attacks if you want or start entering the next attack command for the second character.

The new combat 100% isn't going to work with VII exactly as is. Magic was damn near useless compared to how big the materia system was.

If they can make magic work similar to how items work in XV, allow you to swap through the party to control different party members on the fly, and blend XV combat a bit towards the tactic/strategy capabilities of Dragon Age: Origins, I'd be pretty happy with that as a middle ground for future Final Fantasy titles.

[8bithamster]

Quick Q, anyone has a linkshell for a rerolling player? haven't played in a year and want a new char

[StrawberryZebra]

The point they were trying to make is that Final Fantasy has always been a story driven RPG series.

Yet despite that, it has never been the only way to play them. The games mechanics allow you to make them as easy, or as difficult, as you choose for yourself. You can complete FF V without leveling any jobs, X without ever activating your sphere grid, XII without leveling up nor using the license board etc etc. They're even usually quite happy to let you wander off to places you shouldn't be yet if you can figure out how to get there. That's generally how I've played them, as a mechanics challenge, not as a narative driven game. I would have expected that an MMO of all things would have scaled back more on the story in favour of more mechanics, especially given how poorly MMO's as a whole handle story telling.

The worst part is that Square-Enix's story telling is just totally predictable. I'm currently doing a quest chain involving chasing down a Spy, and I knew even before getting into the meat of it that the Marshal NPC, who I've never seen before, who mysteriously appeared next to Raubahn is going to be our Spy. Calling it, right now. She's also been getting help from my new buddy in blue Ilberd, who will at some point stab me in the back. Teledji whats-his-face is going to kill the Sultana and frame either Raubahn or myself for it and we're probably all going to escape in a Deus Ex Machina Cid's airship.

Am I close? I doubt I'm far off, anyway. Thats not telling a story, that's just throwing a bunch of drama together for the sake of it.

[Wrecktangle]

WHOOOSH... it's a pretty solid comparison.

The point they were trying to make is that Final Fantasy has always been a story driven RPG series. Final Fantasy XIV is a story driven JRPG that happens to be an MMO. It's a core design aspect of the game, it's central to the design and basically what heavily sets it apart from the competition.

Hence why they were saying it's akin to playing Street Fighter and not caring abotu the fights. The fights are the core design of Street Fighter.

Keep in mind, however, that you're not experiencing it the same way as when it was designed. All those quests were about 2 hours of story content every 3 months. It's just now it's all in one big bundle, so it's more daunting than it was originally.

- - - Updated - - -



Slightly off topic of XIV, but...

Funny, the modern combat system makes combat a complete snooze fest. Nothing is challenging except for cheap one shot mechanics and those are utterly non-threateningly since you just pop a potion/phoenix down or see if your NPCs will get you up. Summons are RNG and basically guarantee victory when they do pop, magic isn't terribly useable since you can just throw it where the NPC used to be and is a friendly fire AoE result that lasts a while (so AI can stand in it or walk into it). There is absolutely no tactics used at all save "equip a different weapon for this mob."

30 minutes of spamming a button to kill what could have been an epic boss fight.... yaaaawn. T_T

I find myself much preferring a bit of tactics and party-based combat where I can control the whole party instead of solo hack n' slash with NPCs doing whatever they do (Usually they die. That's what they do!).

I'm hoping FFVII Remake can find an in between of ATB turn base and FFXV. I was hoping they'd use XIV's motion capture animation style and still have turn base where you can watch all the attacks if you want or start entering the next attack command for the second character.

The new combat 100% isn't going to work with VII exactly as is. Magic was damn near useless compared to how big the materia system was.

If they can make magic work similar to how items work in XV, allow you to swap through the party to control different party members on the fly, and blend XV combat a bit towards the tactic/strategy capabilities of Dragon Age: Origins, I'd be pretty happy with that as a middle ground for future Final Fantasy titles.

While we're on the topic of turn based combat, I stumbled across a really niche jrpg back in the early 2000's called Mana Khemia (and its sequel 2).

This game completely revolutionized turn based combat for me. You had 3 members in the front row, and 3 in the back. Members could jump in to attack, or defend (whether it was your turn or theirs). You could use items, skills, etc.

But what was crazy about it was that as you grew in power so did your abilities in combat. Your basic attack was no longer just a swing of a sword/hammer. It was a flashy 2 hit combo. Then it was a flashier 3 hit, etc up till like 7. Your overall damage didn't change much, but it made it so you generated more bonus gauge (think like Limit break) because it was more hits and more hits means more chances to crit.

Then you had your support abilities what may have started out as a simple damage swap (by having that support character jump in to take a hit for a low hp player) now that character might auto block the hit completely. They might counter attack, they might heal the player who got swapped. Maybe the characters ability provided a shield for the entire group, etc.

The combat was fun and fast paced and sometimes kill or be killed. You had things called time cards. basically there were 20 cards at the top of the screen that showed the turn order. Casting say Thunder would put 3 more cards up there that would periodically damage enemies (or periodically heal allies if it was a heal spell). These effects could be removed, multiplied, sped up, slowed down (enemies could do it to you too). I'd kill for a FF game using that kind of turn based combat. (Grandia gets a nod to probably second best turn based).

However, I personally have no preference one way or the other these days. I actually really enjoyed the combat in FF15. It wasn't perfect, but it was fun. FF7 combat on the other hand wasn't terribly fun, but everything else about it was. I think the two styles will actually mesh well if they can really execute the intricacies (materia, magic, limit breaks, etc.) in a fun and balanced way.

[Faroth]

Yet despite that, it has never been the only way to play them. The games mechanics allow you to make them as easy, or as difficult, as you choose for yourself. You can complete FF V without leveling any jobs, X without ever activating your sphere grid, XII without leveling up nor using the license board etc etc. They're even usually quite happy to let you wander off to places you shouldn't be yet if you can figure out how to get there. That's generally how I've played them, as a mechanics challenge, not as a narative driven game. I would have expected that an MMO of all things would have scaled back more on the story in favour of more mechanics, especially given how poorly MMO's as a whole handle story telling.

How did not leveling the jobs skip the story to beat the game in V?
How did never activating the sphere grid skip the story in to beat the game in X?
How did not leveling up (Are you honestly serious that XII, grindiest of grindy, can be beaten without leveling up?) or License board skip the story to beat the game?

You're saying there are different ways to approach the game mechanics to make them harder or interesting, but none of these sidestep that the story is always the central focus of a Final Fantasy game. Nothing you're proposing disregards that.

Wander off places you shouldn't be? You'll 9 times out of 10 find mobs that will one shot your party because you're not supposed to be there.

Because 1 individual decides to ignore an entire core aspect of a genre to niche their own design out of a game doesn't suggest the entire series should buck the genre as well.

Like you said, most MMOs poorly handle story. By still making the story part of the game, XIV DOES make itself a different MMO rather than just another WoW clone (and it clones a lot of things already). Not sure why you think Square would want to scale back what's one of their most defining features to become just more of the same.

- - - Updated - - -

Snip

Sounds interesting. Since I've been targeting RPGs in my game collecting, I'll get my hands on these eventually!

[Graeham]

The story is always going to be a major part of FFXIV. It's by design. Even if they add 'jump potions' as has been implied future content is still going to have a heavy focus on telling a good story. Which, of course, can be skipped but then people are just shooting themselves in the foot by denying themselves access to a significant portion of the game.

As for the storytelling itself? It's definitely better than what most MMO's offer in terms of consistency, immersion and world building. Predictable at times, perhaps, but there's a lot of interesting stuff and the developers have been making visible efforts to improve stuff. 3.0 is a massive improvement over 2.0 in terms of story and I suspect that 4.0 will a major improvement over 3.0 in that regard.

[Granyala]

magic isn't terribly useable since you can just throw it where the NPC used to be and is a friendly fire AoE result that lasts a while (so AI can stand in it or walk into it).

Are you talking about FF-XV?
Magic is pretty much OP in that game.

[StrawberryZebra]

How did not leveling up (Are you honestly serious that XII, grindiest of grindy, can be beaten without leveling up?) or License board skip the story to beat the game?

You were never forced to complete every single step of the story to reach those challenging areas though. FFVII you could get a Gold Chocobo when you reached Rocket Town that would allow you to go wherever you pleased, save underwater. FFVIII opened up about half way through the story when it turned out that your school was actually a ship. XII, by far the most MMO like single player FF game, lets you go pretty much wherever you please after you've done the Tomb of Raithwall. That's great for letting you get stuff you shouldn't have yet (Read: Zodiac Spear) and for completing some of the Hunt quests.

Also, here is a rather long video of someone beating Yiazmat in a low level, no License board run. There are also ones for Omega Weapon, Zodiark and even complete Let's Plays floating around Youtube too. You can find all kinds of XII challenges on the internet - The game is just that flexible in how you approach it. The Zodiac Edition released later this year is even going to introduce a Weak Mode, where you can complete the game as normal without your characters ever gaining any XP. It also allows you to start Trial Mode, a 100 stage Mega-Man boss rush type experience, with any save game.

To me, FF games play more like Legend of Zelda. If I can find a way to get there I can do that content if I'm good enough, with no artifical barriers placed in my way. It's not as if it's an uncommon theme in FF games to allow you to do the story at your own pace while letting you focus on side dungeons and other game content. I don't think it's unrealistic to expect that also to be the case in an MMO version of FF, since it's been a well established trend in most of the single player games.

[Faroth]

Are you talking about FF-XV?
Magic is pretty much OP in that game.

It tends to be a 1 use per fight attack since the cool down tends to be up when the fight's just about over.
And your brilliant friends walk into it afterwards and try to cook themselves. -_-

I'd much prefer more variety of spells with different effects that can be targeted at enemies and a resource like MP rather than an infinite "warp strike for 100% insta-replinish" mechanic in future systems.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't think it's unrealistic to expect that also to be the case in an MMO version of FF, since it's been a well established trend in most of the single player games.

Eh...I guess if you think it should be designed around the most microscopic percent of approaches, but it just feels like "Why isn't XIV exactly like WoW? It should be exactly like WoW" to me. I have seen former WoW-players lamenting the story isn't 100% detached from leveling and raids, though, so maybe that's why I'm making the cognitive link to it.

You're close enough to finish of 2.x, then if you want to take a break til Stormblood at least you can skip Heavensward with a jump potion, though. (I know they aren't confirmed, but I'm positive they'll be implemented)

The MSQ in patches isn't nearly so daunting when it's patch by patch. They feel a lot faster than when it's all lumped together in one long run at least, so a jump potion to Stormblood and then playing the MSQ won't be quite as bad for you as 2.x and 3.x all at once anyway.

[Katchii]

You were never forced to complete every single step of the story to reach those challenging areas though. FFVII you could get a Gold Chocobo when you reached Rocket Town that would allow you to go wherever you pleased, save underwater. FFVIII opened up about half way through the story when it turned out that your school was actually a ship. XII, by far the most MMO like single player FF game, lets you go pretty much wherever you please after you've done the Tomb of Raithwall. That's great for letting you get stuff you shouldn't have yet (Read: Zodiac Spear) and for completing some of the Hunt quests.

Also, here is a rather long video of someone beating Yiazmat in a low level, no License board run. There are also ones for Omega Weapon, Zodiark and even complete Let's Plays floating around Youtube too. You can find all kinds of XII challenges on the internet - The game is just that flexible in how you approach it. The Zodiac Edition released later this year is even going to introduce a Weak Mode, where you can complete the game as normal without your characters ever gaining any XP. It also allows you to start Trial Mode, a 100 stage Mega-Man boss rush type experience, with any save game.

To me, FF games play more like Legend of Zelda. If I can find a way to get there I can do that content if I'm good enough, with no artifical barriers placed in my way. It's not as if it's an uncommon theme in FF games to allow you to do the story at your own pace while letting you focus on side dungeons and other game content. I don't think it's unrealistic to expect that also to be the case in an MMO version of FF, since it's been a well established trend in most of the single player games.

Just because you found a way to get there and do that doesn't mean the game was designed with that approach in mind, the design just allows for that approach and they didn't do anything to prevent it. Not stating that as a fact, just a perspective to think about. Because I personally have never found that approach as a "theme" in FF games, it's just a byproduct of how the mechanics open up at that point in the story and some people take advantage of that.

I personally enjoy the current FFXIV design and story driven focus, it's why I primarily fell in love with the game. Everything in the game makes sense from a story perspective, it's all connected and cohesive. Whether you personally like or enjoy the story is obviously subjective, and I can understand how this story driven focus would be cumbersome if you don't like the story or just have no interest in the story, but the fact remains that the game is designed as a story driven game. I don't see that changing, and I personally wouldn't want it to change. If you don't like this aspect of THIS game, there are others that might better fit your ideal, but please don't ask to change the game just because it doesn't fit your niche like playstyle preference. FFXIV feels special because of how it's designed, because it's a little different than other games in this genre.

[StrawberryZebra]

Eh...I guess if you think it should be designed around the most microscopic percent of approaches, but it just feels like "Why isn't XIV exactly like WoW? It should be exactly like WoW" to me. I have seen former WoW-players lamenting the story isn't 100% detached from leveling and raids, though, so maybe that's why I'm making the cognitive link to it.

-snip-

The MSQ in patches isn't nearly so daunting when it's patch by patch. They feel a lot faster than when it's all lumped together in one long run at least, so a jump potion to Stormblood and then playing the MSQ won't be quite as bad for you as 2.x and 3.x all at once anyway.

I don't expect Squeenix to cater just to my personal tastes, I had merely hoped that they, essentially, did what they always do.

I don't suppose having a couple of extra MSQ quests, (and a new Trial?) per patch would be so bad. Just having to do what feels like a hundred fetch quests in a row while the story is slowly being drip-fed to you is agonising. It completely kills off the pacing the story had pre-50 and it just feels like a chore to be forced to do it in order to move on. I sincerely hope that it's something on their radar, cutting out a whole bunch of the filler quests and just leaving you with the key ones would preserve the story line without subjecting players to purgatory.

Whether you personally like or enjoy the story is obviously subjective, and I can understand how this story driven focus would be cumbersome if you don't like the story or just have no interest in the story, but the fact remains that the game is designed as a story driven game.

Which is exactly where the problem arises for me. I think the gameplay is great, the classes I've tried out all play extremely well and all feel very defined in both their playstyle and niche. The Dungeons are awesome and the Trials are absolutely fantastic. The open world content is fun and even crafting, something I usually hate in all it's forms, is interesting.

But rather than enjoying the game I'm stuck with having to put up with a story I couldn't care less about containing characters I absolutely loathe. I love everything about the game except the story. I'm not asking them to completely alter the game to fit suit me, I'm asking why they gated such a great game behind a story, which as you say yourself, is subjective. The Story is preventing me from enjoying the game I enjoy playing!

How do you go about resolving a conflict between game mechanics and game story? Most games, MMO and otherwise, have an out by allowing you to skip through, or even completely ignore, the story and carry on unimpeded. It's a tried and tested solution that works for the vast majority of players due to it's optional nature. It's how I would solve it too, story should always be secondary to gameplay as far as I'm concerned. I'd be interested in hearing what other people think about it though.

[Faroth]

I don't expect Squeenix to cater just to my personal tastes, I had merely hoped that they, essentially, did what they always do.

I don't suppose having a couple of extra MSQ quests, (and a new Trial?) per patch would be so bad. Just having to do what feels like a hundred fetch quests in a row while the story is slowly being drip-fed to you is agonising. It completely kills off the pacing the story had pre-50 and it just feels like a chore to be forced to do it in order to move on. I sincerely hope that it's something on their radar, cutting out a whole bunch of the filler quests and just leaving you with the key ones would preserve the story line without subjecting players to purgatory.

.

If you keep playing in Heavensward (rather than waiting to snag a jump potion), you'll probably notice a difference. Yoshida commented on the fetch quests not being fun and how overly heavy they became. I felt Heavensward was noticeably different based on feedback regarding such.

It's a tried and tested solution that works for the vast majority of players due to it's optional nature. It's how I would solve it too, story should always be secondary to gameplay as far as I'm concerned. I'd be interested in hearing what other people think about it though.

Like I said earlier, that reminds me of the "I'm sick of WoW, I'll play FFXIV, but why isn't FFXIV designed exactly like WoW" situation.

Part of the problem, you're coming in late. You're not experiencing any hooks, no cliffhangers, no "Wait, THAT guy?" moments where a character from level 20 suddenly shows up again. None of the pacing is there at all. Back when it was new, hell I'd even say for 6 or more months, if someone was new in the MSQ dungeons, a good portion of the playerbase waited for them to see all the cut scenes. It's just been over 2 years now and people aren't waiting anymore.

Encouraging people to skip all story, skip all cut scenes, gut them out of relevancy except for a minority who are interested rather than pursuing their epeen breeds exactly what WoW has for its community.

Now, I'm not saying that's your mentality to it. I'm saying removing anything that prevents the epeen mentality from rushing to the end and focusing on nothing but? It attracts a certain type. The Call of Duty mentality player that flocked to WoW when it became less EQ improvement and more cultural phenomenon. And I probably sound like a snooty EQ fogey saying that. I'll accept it, along with my rocker and cane.

That's not the type of game they've crafted and it's not really the community they've tried to foster. We can disagree, and there are others on this board who will strongly disagree with me on it, but I honestly think the story focus and requirement of experiencing it is one of the reasons FFXIV flourished and was frequently complimented for having such a welcoming community to new players.

This isn't rush to the end and get your phat lewt MMO. It's a different beast. Living in Eorzea is as much the focus as the gear treadmill. Ignoring the bulk of Eorzea for that treadmill was never the intent.

Hell, even my friend who has played through EQ and WoW and only ever cared about character power and tackling content said he found himself actually invested in the story this round. But again, he was taking it in episodic chunks patch by patch.

I definitely agree when Heavensward came out, they should have had some MSQ trimming for the 2.x series, not just the xp boost and gear streamlining.