[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[dope_danny]

With their highest crafter/gatherer at 50, they wouldn't have access to collectibles nor Zhloe. But yeah, once those become available, put them to use (especially collectibles...kill multiple birds with one stone by leveling with those).

Not right now, but them moogle quests work faasssst. Especially if their leve allowance list is full.

[Kazgrel]

New expansion out, raid opened today - and I'm sitting here bored, lol.

Hopefully addition of weekly tomestones will help a bit, otherwise it's going to be long wait until patch 4.1.

I find that strange. Not right or wrong, mind you. I'm actually enjoying the fact I don't have to worry about a weekly capped tomestone for once. Game feels much more relaxed right now as a result. What's going to stink is the fact that I main a dps job, so having to sit in queue for expert roulette every day is going to be oh so much fun...

I've also been hammering out gathering and crafting for the majority of the past week. Went HAM on it yesterday (holiday here in the US) and got both main hand tool and chest piece from the newly-introduced yellow scrips. Gatherers have been 70 since the weekend, and crafters all at 66 as of yesterday. Goal I have now is to have all crafters at 70 by end of this weekend, so I have to stockpile a bunch of mats for leve turn ins (which should be at or around 10-11 leves per crafting job by that time).

Hell, I only did the first 2 bosses of Omega yesterday. Didn't feel like waiting 25-30 mins in queue for the third one, although I could've done that while doing crafts for GC turn ins.

[Ragnarocket]

I find that strange. Not right or wrong, mind you. I'm actually enjoying the fact I don't have to worry about a weekly capped tomestone for once. Game feels much more relaxed right now as a result. What's going to stink is the fact that I main a dps job, so having to sit in queue for expert roulette every day is going to be oh so much fun...

I've also been hammering out gathering and crafting for the majority of the past week. Went HAM on it yesterday (holiday here in the US) and got both main hand tool and chest piece from the newly-introduced yellow scrips. Gatherers have been 70 since the weekend, and crafters all at 66 as of yesterday. Goal I have now is to have all crafters at 70 by end of this weekend, so I have to stockpile a bunch of mats for leve turn ins (which should be at or around 10-11 leves per crafting job by that time).

Hell, I only did the first 2 bosses of Omega yesterday. Didn't feel like waiting 25-30 mins in queue for the third one, although I could've done that while doing crafts for GC turn ins.

The third one is ridiculously fun (at least in my opinion). I enjoyed running it with some clanmates. I think a few of them REALLY hate the fight though personally. I think the bigger problem was our healers though, whom were random party finder folks. They weren't...the sharpest healers we've ever met.

[Kazgrel]

Not right now, but them moogle quests work faasssst. Especially if their leve allowance list is full.

As someone who had just gotten all their crafts to 50 right when moogle quests were announced (I may have had them at 52-53 at most when 3.3 arrived)...yes, all the yes. Those moogle quests were nothing short of amazing for leveling crafts 50-60.

[Anzaman]

I find that strange. Not right or wrong, mind you. I'm actually enjoying the fact I don't have to worry about a weekly capped tomestone for once. Game feels much more relaxed right now as a result. What's going to stink is the fact that I main a dps job, so having to sit in queue for expert roulette every day is going to be oh so much fun...

Yeah, it's probably results of playing games with loads of daily Quests available every day, working as guidance. I simply get "stuck" when there's too much of freedom to choose.

Currently just going through alt jobs in random order, with plan to getting them all to new level cap, but so far can be done each day, especially as DPS when queue are quite horrible and FATEs are dead.

[Kazgrel]

The third one is ridiculously fun (at least in my opinion). I enjoyed running it with some clanmates. I think a few of them REALLY hate the fight though personally. I think the bigger problem was our healers though, whom were random party finder folks. They weren't...the sharpest healers we've ever met.

For better or worse, I'm going into these fights as blind as possible, which is part of the fun...although the whole gravity thing with the second boss (namely when you have both low level and high level AoE markers across the entire board) didn't make sense all the time. I'll go back and check some videos on it now, although I did realize how to handle that one situation I described (with aoe markers everywhere...the high level ones disappear first).

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, it's probably results of playing games with loads of daily Quests available every day, working as guidance. I simply get "stuck" when there's too much of freedom to choose.

Currently just going through alt jobs in random order, with plan to getting them all to new level cap, but so far can be done each day, especially as DPS when queue are quite horrible and FATEs are dead.

I went into SB with a couple of set goals in mind:

- Level up through MSQ as BLM and gear that out (minus a Susano EX weapon, I'm in good shape here)
- Level up and gear gatherers/crafters (work in progress still, 70 on gatherers, 66 on all crafters)
- Clear EX primals while current content (this is my next to-do as soon as I have gatherers/crafters situated)
- Clear Omega normal at least once a week (so that when we have the weekly tomestones, I will be able to buy the weapon from them asap since there's no relic/anima at this time)
- Level up and gear tank and/or healer job for role flexibility (WHM and DRK at 63 currently)

Some of this basically serves as a form of daily quests (the GC turn ins for crafting come to mind, since that's what I'm doing nowadays as soon as I log in). I've also been farming gathering scrips like a madman.

[Wrecktangle]

Debatable how intricately the villain was developed in FF7 (moreso due to questionable translation). People still think Sephiroth is some amazing villain. He's not. He's barely a villain at all. HE'S BARELY IN THE GAME AT ALL. I wouldn't say it's full of deep twists and compelling villain development. JENOVA is fairly straightforward. SHINRA has some unexpectedly multifaceted players within, though.

I think you're short selling Sephiroth quite a bit. I'm not saying he's perfect, hell I'm not even saying he's anything special, but the whole Mansion, the chase, the reality of who he is, what he is, and the impact he has on several different members of your party, and his descent into madness is quite profound over the entire adventure. That said, I wasn't keying into a specific villain per game as I feel FF is pretty good at having multiple villain arcs in a single game.

Try to remember the origin of this discussion. You stated "Square has never been about intricate or twists and turns. and that heroes aren't ever bad, only occasionally gray". To which I cited specific examples that IMO directly refute your statement. Don't move the goal post.

FF7 is a very intricate tale IMO. The villains in it are also very intricate. Look at Shinra as an entity. Look at Rufus, Look at Hojo, Look at the Turks, Look at the Weapons, and Sephiroth. I do agree that Jenova is probably the weakest of the villains in this entry. Then look at the Heroes. Yuffie, Barret, Cid, Vincent, & Cait Sith are all hugely gray at some point in the story and are assholes (bombing reactors that UNDOUBTEDLY have consequences to living people, Cid's abuse of Shera, Caith Sith and Yuffie's deception, etc.). That's over 50% of the playable cast.

FF9, the merry band of rogues not so sure and Kujo is often cited as one of the weakest villains in the series.

I quite like Kuja. He is mysterious and aloof, and subjugates an entire race of people (the BLMs) with fall promises of life. He's frail emotionally, but kind at the same time. He's as ruthless as he needs to be to accomplish his goals (Cleyra, Alexandria, etc.) He finally comes to terms with his purpose in life (which ends up being no purpose basically through Garland) which he then decides if he has no purpose, he will erase the world with him (basically same plotline as your fav villain Kefka). The game is also ripe with twists and turns.

I don't think 3/13 gives you a strong case that Final Fantasy games are deeply multi-faceted with unexpected twists and turns vs. more chivalric good vs evil themes. Even Kefka isn't exactly a deep character, though you can see his reasoning from a really twisted point of view. Even 4/13 isn't a majority of really complex villains, but I'll bump the number up since Golbez was pretty good with the twist he offered.

You're moving the goal post here. Remember what you said. I am merely refuting that statement. That these games are largely about twists and tuns and that the pieces in the tale are usually quite intricate (cited with examples). If you want to argue the quantity of the discussion, I can safely say that 6, 7, 9, 10, Tactics, and 12 qualify.

I haven't played 1-5 or 8 in any kind of recent time frame to remember them enough. That's 6/13, 7 including your example from IV. That's over 50%. In what world is a company not about something if 50% of a singular franchise (not counting other franchises I cited) includes said aspect?

I haven't played Xenogears. I didn't play Xenoblade on Wii or Wii U because I want to play that one first (despite it being totally unnecessary). I have picked it up though..... the 200+ backlog shouldn't take long, right? ....right. o.o;

Now look, I understand you and I are taking a break at the moment (lol), but seriously. If you value story and characters this game has it in spades. I wrote my college entrance essay on how this game changed me and got accepted (to the dismay of my English teacher). It's so deep and riddled with detail/intrigue.

Hell my third playthrough I learned something new. I had never realized that the world map is designed specifically from an event that happened. It isn't explicitly told to you, but the reference is obvious if you look. Detail like that.

Fair, but at the same time, we know they can pull out some crazy ass shit, too (hello, Thordan EX and Sephirot EX). I think for starting off early on, a lower difficulty curve makes sense, vs. having players get brickwalled by something to the effect of, say, A3S (which I personally have not done; basing that off of the months of tears that thing produced).

A3S had 2 major problems.

1) DPS check was so ridiculously tight that not a single person could basically die or you'd be short. You needed all 8 players to play at 95%+ efficiency and skill to surpass it.

2) Every single mechanic was insta-wipe. The fight was a 12+ minute fight. You needed to have not a single person get hit by a telegraph. Not a single person miss a debuff swap, not a single person miss killing an add. Not a single person get knocked into the electricity, miss the positioning of the hands. Not a single tether get missed, not a single positive/negative get missed.

I'll leave it to our tank gurus here...but I figured the whole purpose of 270 str accessories was mainly to pump out more damage, since even running without any vit on right side gear, (good) tanks aren't having much trouble staying alive with good cd use. I don't even know if I've run into a tank doing that as of yet..

I dont have it, but I wish I did. It's a 17% damage increase over fending accessories. Yeah the HP is mostly superflous.

You'd be surprised to see how everyday tanks (as in, queueing in solo) belitte the DPS by straight up DPSing instead of doing their enmity combo at least twice.
I've managed to get killed by bosses far more by generating too much enmity (despite the fact I always use Diversion at pull) because their enmity goes low throughout the fight and my damage as a RDM is through the roof, so much as I go through the roof and drop dead due to pulling enmity of the tank.

If the tank knows how to play (tanking, that is), then they'll do whatever they can do hold the enmity to allow the DPS to deal their full potential.
If the tank doesn't know how to play, then you'll never fully be able to damage the boss unless you want to be resource starved by popping Lucid Dreaming a few seconds into the start and to heal the tank because the damage spells generate way too much enmity (by the tank not using their enmity/hate combo).

I can count the number of times I have used Rage of Halone since SB dropped on 2 hands and I've MT'd every single dungeon, EX Primal, and Omega fight. You almost never need to use your aggro combo if you're a good tank.

Technically speaking, this is the utmost truth. However, you get gimped HP-wise by equipping STR right side where tank busters indeed matters, and otherwise large pulls in dungeons. They have also buffed the enmity generated by the enmity combos in this patch that launched today (4.01), probably to make the STR accessories less required.

You don't need 50k HP if no ability in the game hits for over 25k. It's merely a buffer for poor play.

Cleared the raid. Aside from catastrophe being based on one pretty lame mechanic the first was passable for the next oppressor but the last two were excellent fights. Lotta fun and i can't wait to try them in savage

Lol don't tell jokes. You don't do Savage.

Yeah i've noticed a weird rise in "explaining mechanics is a spoiler so you should be kicked" behaviour. A lot of it strangely seems to come from the "pot babbys" that used a paid skip potion that clearly dont care about the story but dont want boss mechanics "spoiled"?

How exactly are you determining who is a pot baby at 70? Mind sharing that with the rest of us? Or are you just talking out your ass again :-\

Considering this exact behavior existed in ARR and HW before "pot babys" existed I know for a fact your assessment is incorrect, but I'd love to hear your explanation.

Since I can't play till tomorrow night, how was omega? Ezpz?

I 1 shot every single boss up until the last with a 7/8 blind PF group. We had 1 DF person for each fight who may or may not have been blind, I don't know if they were blind or not. The 4th boss requires a little more effort from a tank, but is still easy.

[Anzaman]

I went into SB with a couple of set goals in mind:

- Level up through MSQ as BLM and gear that out (minus a Susano EX weapon, I'm in good shape here)
- Level up and gear gatherers/crafters (work in progress still, 70 on gatherers, 66 on all crafters)
- Clear EX primals while current content (this is my next to-do as soon as I have gatherers/crafters situated)
- Clear Omega normal at least once a week (so that when we have the weekly tomestones, I will be able to buy the weapon from them asap since there's no relic/anima at this time)
- Level up and gear tank and/or healer job for role flexibility (WHM and DRK at 63 currently)

- MSQ done and AST is full tomestone geared.
- BSM and MIN 70, waiting for leve-allowances to stack up for next crafter.
- Both Ex primals killed, will start mount farming once static is ready to start.
- Well, Omega is a weekly thing.
- PLD and AST at 70, SAM soon 64.

Mostly probably just comes to the point that static group isn't ready and raid is still locked away for two weeks.

[Ragnarocket]

I 1 shot every single boss up until the last with a 7/8 blind PF group. We had 1 DF person for each fight who may or may not have been blind, I don't know if they were blind or not. The 4th boss requires a little more effort from a tank, but is still easy.

After being the only tank for the first 3 fights I remember getting hit with Lightning III and looking at the debuff and going "Oh...wow a tank swap. I forgot we might have one of those. Wonder how long I can hold it for?" After getting 95% of my health blasted away at 2 stacks and Shirking over to the other tank I had my answer.

I wonder if the Savage mode versions will have more reasons for two tanks on the other three bosses...

[Kazgrel]

- MSQ done and AST is full tomestone geared.
- BSM and MIN 70, waiting for leve-allowances to stack up for next crafter.
- Both Ex primals killed, will start mount farming once static is ready to start.
- Well, Omega is a weekly thing.
- PLD and AST at 70, SAM soon 64.

Mostly probably just comes to the point that static group isn't ready and raid is still locked away for two weeks.

Going to agree in regards to the static group. I'm still waiting for most all of my friends and FC folks to get to 70, which they are doing ever so slowly (compared to me, at least, Mr. Took-the-week-of-launch-off). Not helping matters is that the two tank friends I have on the most are the ones who...well, they've been on the least so far, due to RL stuff. Only one of our healer mains is at 70 currently, and queueing for expert (or anything, really) with a fellow FC dps turns into an exercise of who will die of old age first.

- - - Updated - - -

If (you) people are bored by all repeatable combat; PvP/dungeoneering/fate farming, I highly recommend you to try crafting and gathering.
If it's up your alley, you've practically accepted a freelancing job.

A freelancing job that basically lets you print gil, for what that may (or may not) be worth to people.

Between selling HQ mats I've obtained along with mats obtained by desynth (another oft-overlooked part of the crafting system), I've more than recouped the cash I dropped on my house along with my part toward the FC house. While some of my money making methods on Balmung haven't worked out well on Zalera, I've also found the inverse to be true, as well as new markets/methods outright.

[threads]

Some people were afk in there, basically getting xp for doing nothing. I mean I didn't care because it's just a game, and the new code and monotony makes pvp boring as hell, but other people made a big fuss. I got their undies in a twist, so here we are. FFXIV social reform begins, welcome.

yea i know. it's just dumb because real players are punished and people are STILL just afking anyway. now it just takes longer overall.

[Ragnarocket]

yea i know. it's just dumb because real players are punished and people are STILL just afking anyway. now it just takes longer overall.

Real players were being punished with teammates that just AFK'd because they didn't care because "LolXP". It's a bit hard to win at those games with imbalanced teams.

The real fix is to find a way to get those players who would AFK out of the queue with some form of punishment. If they get reported enough I'd like to see their roulette bonuses taken away or just the XP in general for PvP. If you don't want to actually PLAY what you queue up for then you shouldn't get a reward.

[Faroth]

Now look, I understand you and I are taking a break at the moment (lol), but seriously. If you value story and characters this game has it in spades. I wrote my college entrance essay on how this game changed me and got accepted (to the dismay of my English teacher). It's so deep and riddled with detail/intrigue.

Why was your English teacher dismayed? Dismissing a video game as a valid topic of dissection for analysis?

[Aruhen]

It would be nice if they kicked you if you didn't participate after a certain while. For example either healing other players or dealing damage. Yeah people will cheese it by doing something every so often but I'd imagine some will just say fuck it and not bother as the zones are rather large. Combine that with some sort of report system and I'd be happy.

edit: https://www.twitch.tv/squareenix so why is Square-Enix streaming a bunch of bunnies in their pen...

[Onikaroshi]

Why was your English teacher dismayed? Dismissing a video game as a valid topic of dissection for analysis?

Dem moving pictures games will never get you anywhere in life! Ignoring the fact that my GF got a job based off being a GM of a raiding guild in wow amongst other things.

[xerus]

It would be nice if they kicked you if you didn't participate after a certain while. For example either healing other players or dealing damage. Yeah people will cheese it by doing something every so often but I'd imagine some will just say fuck it and not bother as the zones are rather large. Combine that with some sort of report system and I'd be happy.

edit: https://www.twitch.tv/squareenix so why is Square-Enix streaming a bunch of bunnies in their pen...

If they are in your party, vote kick them. If they are in another party, encourage the group to kick them. People are more inclined to boot people now that it actually affects them.

[leviathonlx]

I find that strange. Not right or wrong, mind you. I'm actually enjoying the fact I don't have to worry about a weekly capped tomestone for once. Game feels much more relaxed right now as a result. What's going to stink is the fact that I main a dps job, so having to sit in queue for expert roulette every day is going to be oh so much fun...

I've also been hammering out gathering and crafting for the majority of the past week. Went HAM on it yesterday (holiday here in the US) and got both main hand tool and chest piece from the newly-introduced yellow scrips. Gatherers have been 70 since the weekend, and crafters all at 66 as of yesterday. Goal I have now is to have all crafters at 70 by end of this weekend, so I have to stockpile a bunch of mats for leve turn ins (which should be at or around 10-11 leves per crafting job by that time).

Hell, I only did the first 2 bosses of Omega yesterday. Didn't feel like waiting 25-30 mins in queue for the third one, although I could've done that while doing crafts for GC turn ins.

The weekly capped tomestone is in 2 weeks

[Arlee]

edit: https://www.twitch.tv/squareenix so why is Square-Enix streaming a bunch of bunnies in their pen...

It's part of their FFXII remaster publicity. They've been tweeting pics of the bunnies with FFXII stuff all day

[Aruhen]

It's part of their FFXII remaster publicity. They've been tweeting pics of the bunnies with FFXII stuff all day

That's what I figured. Cutest advertisement ever.

[Super Kami Dende]

It's part of their FFXII remaster publicity. They've been tweeting pics of the bunnies with FFXII stuff all day

I need me some Hi-res Fran pics to join those Bunnies.